Ep 63: Proximity Alone is NOT Antiracism

April and Tracie dig into and challenge the oft-repeated notion that proximity across a line of difference immunizes against bigotry or racism. In other words, the assertion “I can’t be racist, my (fill-in-the-blank) is Black." We discuss how the good/bad binary plays into this misconception about proximity and clarify the fact that power and privilege remain intact even in proximate relationships. Ultimately, we offer listeners thoughts on how to counter these normal impulses and ultimately move toward greater liberatory consciousness.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-63 

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/

Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog: https://www.bmoreincremental.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Cherokee woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch Bryan Stevenson’s talk about the power of proximity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RyAwZIHo4Y

Find our definition of “Jews of the Global Majority” here: https://joyousjustice.com/global-majority-jews

Get on our waitlist for Racial Justice Launch Pad: https://joyous-justice.mykajabi.com/rjlp-waitlist

Learn more about the Intercultural Development Inventory: https://idiinventory.com/

Transcript

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- [Tracie] In today's conversation, we take a look at the ways in which proximity can be conflated with justice. Spoiler alert? They're not the same.- [April] This is "Jews Talk Racial Justice" with April and Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- [Tracie] Whole-hearted relationships can keep us accountable.- Tracie, you shared a wonderful idea for a podcast episode, and as you said, I think that we've touched upon this topic, but we haven't gone in deep around it. So I'm very excited about this, and since you had the idea, I'd love for you to introduce it to our friends.- Thanks, April. Yeah, so I was thinking about the kind of false idea that sometimes is expressed, that proximity across difference creates anti-racism or anti-oppression. Like the idea that well, I can't be racist, because my uncle is Black. This is a white person speaking, obviously, or I can't be racist because my grandson or because my spouse, even.- I've been an administrator in Chicago Public Schools for three decades.- Right, right, right. Exactly, exactly.- Can we list some more? Can we just list some more for a moment?- More of them? Yeah.- Yeah. I am married to a Black partner. We have adopted transracially, let's see what else we have here.- The schools is a big one.- I have led a racial justice committee at X organization for X number of years.- Right, or the classic. Some of my best friends are Black.- Yes, some of my-- It's an oldie but a goodie.- Some of my friends are Black, Asian, Latino, South Asian. Who am I leaving out?- I think the administrator of public schools is a good one, like that's actually a type, any service profession, I hear that, you know.- Right, yes.- Like, I'm a social worker, I'm an administrator, I'm a teacher, I'm a, whatever the serving, the service profession is, counselor.- Physician in the inner city. Yeah.- Yeah, yeah.- And so, I'm excited to get into this, because this is one of those areas of racial justice that is nuanced, where there's a nuance here, and once you get into it, it's not so nuanced, but on its surface, it seems like contradictory messages. I love the wisdom and insight that Bryan Stevenson, and as well as many others, share about the power of proximity and how important it is to get proximate to people. And I believe in that, and I believe that my intercultural competence has been deeply strengthened by this, but one, I wanna turn it back over to you, but one thing that I just wanna name at the outset is the degree of that proximity, not so much physically, but internally, is how much is a person who's entering a space across a line of difference, especially a person with a non-target identity, so someone who's a member of an oppressor group, when you are proximate to people, what narrative is dominant in your analysis of that experience? Not in your own mind or of your own life, but how much are you really integrating that? Because a number of folks were talking, because there are people, some of the best advocates I know who have those identities we just named, or have those different experiences or have those different positions, but the way in which they encounter other folks across lines of racial difference, and the way they let it percolate and filter through their living is fundamentally different than the folks with the patterns we are referring to right now. Some of the folks who can say some of the most racist or inappropriate things and use some of their proximity as a justification, but one thing I wanna say before we move, before I pass back to you, Tracie,'cause I see you have a lot to say, is lots of people are proximate in a number of racist contexts in different neighborhoods all across America. In the Deep South, people were proximate in the context of slavery. Proximity in and of itself is not sufficient.- Not enough.- Is not enough, is not enough, so please, Tracie, back to you. Ooh, this is so good.- Yeah, so regular listeners know that I like to try and find like a parallel to help me understand, understanding that the parallel is not identical-- But helpful.- But it does help me kind of get in the space, and the one that just feels obvious to me here is sexism, right? How many men who have wives and daughters (chuckles) continue to perpetuate sexism? Which is not to say they don't love their wives and daughters.- No.- Right? They do. I genuinely believe that they do, but that doesn't mean that they don't also believe that being male, they are, in some ways, superior, and they may not think it that way consciously. Like if I said a man who I see perpetuating sexism, who has a wife and daughter, do you think that your wife is inferior to you? He would probably say no, of course not. She's the boss, right? (chuckles) But that doesn't mean that the patterns aren't there.- When we start digging a little deeper around certain assumptions, around roles different people should play, who has the final say around different things, when the wife has the say, is that because she decided that or because he gave permission? It's all in the details.- Right, right. And one of the things that actually made me wanna tackle this directly is I don't know why, but I was reminded of this story recently. It's been several months that I was, I met someone who, in a white Jewish anti-racist space, and this person was actually a former administrator in, this was a white Jewish person who was a former administrator in a predominantly Black school, and they were telling me about the importance of the inner work, and what a game changer it was for actually making change in the culture of their school. Right, so they were saying, like, all of their efforts to change the measurable outcomes for their Black students totally failed until they started to do the work to really understand how they had internalized racism, and then things turned around. And I feel like-- They the administrator?- This was an administrator.- This person was talking about themselves, not they the students, they themselves.- Right, this person was talking about themselves.- Okay, great.- Exactly.- Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.- So when this principal started doing the inner work to dismantle the racism within this white principal's heart and mind and worldview-- Yes.- Then they were able to actually see a change in outcomes, and not until then.- Yep.- And I just, this feels important to me, because we talk about-- Can I say a quick thing-- The binary-- Hold the thought for a second, and also, I saw this when I was serving as a vice president at the URJ in a variety of ways that I often was looking for systems change and when I started to do my own work, when I got deeper. I was already doing it, but when I got into deeper levels of my own work, I started noticing the nuances of my internal work that then radiated out for me and shifted things fundamentally. So what you're saying really resonates. Sorry, so were just about to say something about the good/bad binary. Continue with your brilliant thoughts.- Which we have talked about a lot. We have talked about the good/bad binary many times on this podcast.- It's work repeating.- And how damaging it really is. So nutshell, this is the either/or thinking that a lot of, all of us have been sort of served over the past several hundred years that either we are racist and bad or not racist and good, and so, there's this, and everybody wants to be good. Right, nobody wants to be bad, and so there's this, what happens is a denial and a bypassing so that folks think yeah, yeah, racism is a problem in white society, in white Jewish spaces. Those ones, right? Like I hear non-Orthodox Jews really kind of focus on problems in Orthodox spaces, or I hear someone hear a story about a church or a synagogue where a member of color got hassled by the security guard, and they think, well, you should come to mine. You should come to my place of worship, because that doesn't happen here, right?- That's not gonna happen here.- And so, it is the-- It does happen, spoiler alert.- Yeah, yeah, it happens. It happens and the desire to be good creates a knee-jerk reaction to bypass one's own responsibility.- I love where you're going with this, by the way, just wanna interject, like this is so good. This is so good. Oof.- I felt like it was really important when we had this conversation that I talk about this as the white partner on this team, in part because I think some of that bypassing, like one could look at a white anti-racist, and say, well, she's a good one, so if I can be more like her, then I'll be a good one, too. Which I'm not saying I don't wanna be a role model, I'm saying I also foul it up sometimes, not because I'm a bad person. And not because I'm not proximate, right, or because I don't care. I have actually made a lot of effort to be proximate and to build real accountable relationships across lines of difference, and that is essential to the work that I do. But it's not enough and I still foul it up sometimes, because I am an American, and I've been socialized as an American, which is fundamentally white supremacist, or white superior, and one of the specific things that I think helps people sometimes hear this, I have a friend who is very involved in study abroad, and we were talking one time, and this is a white Jew, and he said, yeah, you know, we always send Americans to the Dominican Republic for service work. We never talk about sending Dominicans to America for service work. Like we don't, and that's a fundamental, structural superiority built into the nature of study abroad. And that was one of those things that as soon as he said it, I was like, oh yeah, you're right. But I didn't think about it, because it's one of those just structural things that I had accepted and internalized. I know you have a lot that you wanna share about this topic, April.- I do. I feel like it's going to be fun with our podcast, in general, as we go on, because there's so much to say about this, and so many deep dives we could do, and we don't need to do all of that. I think just opening this up, and I love that you named the good/bad binary, because that is a part of it, and I want your help to help translate, and it might not need it, but it might need it, what I'm saying so it's more digestible for some folks, is I find with the folks we lovingly identified, some of the patterns we see with certain folks who say, I have X job, or I have X relationship, and X context, and therefore, I am, is that I find that often, people who say that and have those sorts of actions, they tend to speak and think in ways explicitly or more subtly that really others that group. It says, oh, well, I've been teaching in this public school system for a long time, in an urban area, and these kids' parents just don't care about education. Really?- Right.- Really? Right? And what I've found and what I've found among, particularly other Jews of the global majority, Jews of color, often whom, who are also multi-racial, that something that we say from our deep, intimate, non-judgemental proximity to different facets of our community having been and communities and facets of our family is that one of our takeaways is profound compassion, and that everyone is doing their best, and that each different group and set of people are navigating a lot of complexity. And some complexity is easier, and some complexity is much harder, but every single group or individual, in different facets of our lives, who embody very different identities, when you get close to them, you see a number of universal elements and you also see the specificity of their experience that leads to the quirks or specific characteristics that they have that either annoy us, or often, that we love most about them, about their upbringing, about the challenges they're facing and the adaptive, courageous, and/or practical actions or skills they've developed in order to survive in this world. As opposed, and that, and there's a softness about it, and there's also a desire to change the world to help shift systems, or to help some of these folks through things, but it's with a profound and fundamental unwavering understanding of each person's and each community's agency and humanity and courage in the context of what they are navigating. As opposed to patterns that I see play out in this dynamic that we want to name, again, as Tracie has said, or helped to set up, the understanding that with everyone we're talking about in all these scenarios, poor behavior, amazing, exemplary behavior, all of these folks' goodness is established and inherent and that is not what's at question here. What's at question or up for discussion and reflection and setting aspiration goals to improve is noticing certain patterns that impede individual and collective or communal organizational efforts to work effectively across lines of difference, and one of the things that gets in the way is people in certain key positions, whether they are a volunteer or a leader in a space, not intentionally, but essentially lacking some humility and incorrectly assessing their ability to work across lines of difference. And so, what we're trying to saying here, I'm going meta for a second, is pointing out some of the attributes of this to help us, to help you, perhaps, see some of these patterns in yourself or in some of the folks around you. Not from a place of judgment, but from a place of greater sociological and what's the word I'm looking, and social psych analysis around what are the dynamics that are playing out here so I can more effectively navigate this and not from a place of judgment, because that's not helpful, and each person needs to take ownership of their own path, but we can be supportive of folks and have a better understanding of what they're navigating. So there's more I can say here, but I think I'll stop, unless there was a thought I didn't fully finish, but I think I've, I had other thoughts, but I think I've finished it enough, so I'll pass it back to you, Tracie. (chuckles)- Thanks, April. Yeah, I think, so you spoke to the kind of organizational, in the way that the good/bad binary and the sort of conflation of proximity with justice, so I wanna address specifically white women and women plus. I wanna include all of my siblings who identify this way, and I wanna speak to you specifically about this particular phenomenon, and specifically say that because of the way we have been socialized as women, it's really important that we be good. I mean, I see it in my daughter, I know for myself, being a good girl is something that was kind of ingrained in us from the moment we were born, and-- Maybe even before.- And this is dangerous. Maybe even before, yeah.- Because you were born-- And it does, it feels-- Through a body of a woman, who, most of us, who was navigating all of that, and having all those chemicals-- All of that, as well.- While the fetus was being formed.- And that need to be good, and when it is challenged, it does, it feels like danger. It feels dangerous to have that goodness challenged, and so I just wanna name that pattern, especially for us women, that makes it all the more important for us to take a deep breath, remember that the either/or, good/bad binary is a false choice, and try and get curious about whatever it is the person,'cause that, I can't be racist because my, and then insert relationship, is often said in response to suggestions that someone has done or said something racist. And so, I just wanna really, lovingly name that that is a moment that can feel dangerous, but is not, in fact, dangerous. And so, we can choose to get curious about it, we can choose a different path, and we can recognize that our upset and tears have caused real damage, real injury to our siblings of color. And I think that's a really important, I'm not saying don't cry. I'm just saying like let's be hyper-- Mindful?- Self-aware, that's what I'm saying.- Mindful.- Mindful. That's a great word. Thank you.- And that those actions, behaviors may hurt folks and your fundamental goodness and value is still not in question. That's unconditional.- Right.- That doesn't shift that. Oof, thank you for sharing that. I think, in light of that, since you're really repping the awareness around white womanhood and sisterdom plus, white womanhood plus, I think this is something that I am thoughtful about and that I am very mindful of, as a leader of color, is that when I meet someone, there's certain criteria in different ways that I look for, and one of them is that generally speaking, even if someone is pretty confident, someone who has been deeply proximate with depth and meaning and effective working across lines of difference, tends to be more humble. And they may be ranging from self-deprecating, which is not ideal, to not self-deprecating, but mindfully and thoughtfully hedging different things they say, to leave room for how it may be received, for different interpretations, but that's a sign that I look for, because even, I can't remember if we've talked about it on this podcast or not, but when our mutual friend, Noah, first told me about Tracie, and said some of her activities, those things, in and of themselves did not imply to me that Tracie was someone who was going to be someone who would be a stress-free collaborator from my experience. It wasn't clear to me if Tracie was going to be someone who was involved in all of these things, so clearly has good intentions, and is making meaningful contributions, but that may have patterns around racism that she may direct my way that would be an extra layer of work that I would need to navigate in my then professional collaboration with Noah. And so, at the time, I was reluctant, in light of other dynamics I was already fielding and navigating, as a Jewish woman leader of color, and so, I was quite pleased when I met Tracie, because I find with folks who have done the work of being proximate and have also done necessary inner work and/or have self-awareness about this that there was nuance in what she said. There wasn't an effort to prove. I love what you named, Tracie, because that's so true about that good/bad binary, being at the root of some of this, and someone who's in a better place with that work, they're not trying to negotiate, subtly negotiate their goodness. They're centering the issue at hand, not their qualifications around it, because if someone is truly qualified, and they're in a good place, that speaks for itself. Not that she's the end-all, be-all model, but my mom is a pretty phenomenal model around this, and when she enters spaces, she has tons of, is it bonafides or bonafidis? Whatever, however one chooses to say it, and she mentions almost none of them. She enters a space earnestly, and has a sense of where help is needed, and also listens in, listens in to what people are saying, and shows up and shows up at events where other folks in the community want to be allies. In my mom's mind, it's pretty simple when various Black and Muslim and people of other identities say they need support, my mom goes. (laughs)- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- Right, she centers in her collaborations with other people, she centers their perspective and their needs, and she still has her own, she still uses her own internal compass around what feels right, but often, though, much of the time, what feels right is figuring out where she can best apply her skills and abilities in a specific context, as opposed to someone saying, I've done all these things, and then often taking up a lot of space, often taking up verbally more space than the people of color in the room, who have been more directly impacted by systems of racism, regardless of their class background. So this is so juicy and it's very important to notice these nuances and I think one thing that I will mention, add a little, both plug, and say factually, is that there are various, very concrete, specific tools that can help folks assess where they are on a continuum of their ability to work across lines of difference. And one of those tools, which, as a nerd in this field, as someone who's spent years diving into this,(laughs) one of my favorite tools is the Intercultural Development Inventory. When I found this tool, it was a time that I was navigating a lot of professional pressure to be in high production mode, and seeing what this organization produced just affirmed for me the fundamental belief I had that the best work around these enduring challenges is both to engage with as many people as we can, but also to reserve lots of time to develop deep, effective structures and solutions that can withstand challenge. And so, I was just so in love when I found this resource that had clearly been cultivated over a range of years and refined, and developed into this powerful tool. And so, the IDI assessment is this resource where you, where an individual takes an assessment, or a team, a group of individuals can take an assessment and it is highly regarded and has received many awards internationally and domestically. It's translated into 32 different languages. It's been cross-culturally tested for bias multiple times. It's just a phenomenal resource, and this isn't the only thing, but it's someone, as a practitioner, an expert in this field, that I adore, and I think it's very useful because it takes something like working effectively across lines of difference that seems hard to measure and also, working to strengthen that feels pretty non-linear, and makes it both pretty measurable, and also, the process forward to continue to cultivate greater inner cultural competence, a much more linear, doable process. And so, a little plug for that-- One of the things I love about, yeah. One of the things that I love about it is it talks about the intercultural competency on a developmental continuum.- Yeah.- And so, I think that's really important to remember, that you know-- This is a process, it's not a destination.- It's a process, and it's a learning curve in the same way that any new skill is a learning curve, and if you didn't come out of the box that way, of course you didn't, because-- Yeah, most of us didn't.- It's normal. It's totally normal.- In societies that conditioned us not to be. (laughs)- Yeah, yeah, and so, I think that's one of the things that I really love about the IDI, is the way that it sort of normalizes wherever you are on the continuum. It's a developmental-- Exactly.- Process.- And judgment is not helpful.- Right, right.- The knowledge is helpful, the negative messaging around it is not, but doing analysis through guided prompts and resources that this tool provides around reflecting about our upbringing and having greater understanding of our journey and what are the influences that helped us reach this point and having greater self-understanding, that is worthwhile and that can also position us for building more capacity and power over time. So my plug is also just to name here, ooh, that our wait list for Racial Justice Launchpad is now live. There will be much more than we will be saying. We will soon be inviting folks to join us for a master class to give you a taste of some of what this program includes and also give you some professional development. But the reason why I mention all of this is to remind you, we mentioned it a couple weeks ago, but now, if you go to joyousjustice.com/learn and click on Racial Justice Launchpad, you can learn more about the program and sign up for our wait list, and we will let you know when the webinar is live and available for you to join at a time that works for you. And so the piece that I keep trying to say is that for those who sign up in a timely manner, for Racial Justice Launchpad, you will get to experience directly the Intercultural Development Inventory experience, which is phenomenal. You'll get a chance to take the assessment and get a personalized debrief, which is a highly valuable trajectory shifting experience and for folks who sign up for the program, you will get to do, have that opportunity to receive a bonus of doing a debrief with Tracie Guy-Decker herself. So a live-- That's me.- 30 minute call, so that's super exciting, and so, there's many, many more things we have to say about this forthcoming program, but I wanted to make sure to say in this episode that the wait list is now live, and I will also add, in case you are not currently at a Jewish organization or you are not necessarily at the point of leadership, that as a reminder, too, our Awareness Accelerator is open on a rolling basis now, and we have monthly live calls, and so, that's another great resource and a good first step that is both at a lower price point, and is a lower, smaller time investment of just you can complete it in as quickly as six weeks, and greatly strengthen your fundamental knowledge about racial justice and your capacity to make and lead change.- Yeah, so thanks for agreeing to talk about this today, April. I think-- You're so welcome.- Just in closing, I just wanna say, again, proximity and care across lines of difference are amazing and good and useful, and they are not the same-- Well, no, and-- As-- Well, not all proximity is made equal.- Right.- With that proximity, internally, and across the lines of difference makes a big difference.- Right, right, power and privilege matter. They still matter in proximity, power and privilege still matter in proximity, even with care. And so-- And if a person isn't working to reconcile those in the context of their proximity.- Or at least be aware of it. I mean, I think, coming back to our framework from Dr. Barbara Love, of a liberatory consciousness, awareness, analysis, like-- Accountability.- Analysis. Proximity without analysis and accountability, it's just proximity. It's not actually racial justice or any kind of justice.- Yeah. Thanks for tuning in. Our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram @ElliotHammer. If this episode resonated with you, please share it and subscribe. To join the conversation, visit jewstalkracialjustice.com, where you can send us a question or a suggestion, access our show notes, and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.