How to resolve racially stressful situations | Howard C. Stevenson

62,566 views ・ 2018-03-14

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00:12
There's an African proverb that goes,
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"The lion's story will never be known
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as long as the hunter is the one to tell it."
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More than a racial conversation, we need a racial literacy
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to decode the politics of racial threat in America.
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Key to this literacy is a forgotten truth,
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that the more we understand
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that our cultural differences represent the power
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to heal the centuries
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of racial discrimination,
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dehumanization and illness.
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Both of my parents were African-American.
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My father was born in Southern Delaware,
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my mother, North Philadelphia,
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and these two places are as different from each other as east is from west,
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as New York City is from Montgomery, Alabama.
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My father's way of dealing with racial conflict
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was to have my brother Bryan, my sister Christy and I in church
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what seemed like 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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(Laughter)
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If anybody bothered us because of the color of our skin,
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he believed that you should pray for them,
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knowing that God would get them back in the end.
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(Laughter)
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You could say that his racial-coping approach was spiritual --
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for later on, one day,
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like Martin Luther King.
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My mother's coping approach was a little different.
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She was, uh, you could say, more relational --
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right now, like, in your face,
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right now.
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More like Malcolm X.
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(Laughter)
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She was raised from neighborhoods
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in which there was racial violence and segregation,
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where she was chased out of neighborhoods,
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and she exacted violence to chase others out of hers.
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When she came to Southern Delaware,
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she thought she had come to a foreign country.
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She didn't understand anybody,
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particularly the few black and brown folks
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who were physically deferential and verbally deferential
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in the presence of whites.
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Not my mother.
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When she wanted to go somewhere, she walked.
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She didn't care what you thought.
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And she pissed a lot of people off with her cultural style.
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Before we get into the supermarket,
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she would give us the talk:
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"Don't ask for nothin',
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don't touch nothin'.
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Do you understand what I'm saying to you?
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I don't care if all the other children are climbing the walls.
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They're not my children.
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Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"
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In three-part harmony:
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"Yes, Mom."
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Before we'd get into the supermarket,
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that talk was all we needed.
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Now, how many of you ever got that talk?
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How many of you ever give that talk?
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(Laughter)
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How many of you ever give that talk today?
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My mother didn't give us the talk because she was worried about money
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or reputation
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or us misbehaving.
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We never misbehaved.
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We were too scared.
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We were in church 24 hours a day,
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seven days a week.
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(Laughter)
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She gave us that talk to remind us
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that some people in the world would interpret us as misbehaving
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just by being black.
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Not every parent has to worry about their children being misjudged
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because of the color of their skin,
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just by breathing.
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So we get into the supermarket,
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and people look at us --
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stare at us as if we just stole something.
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Every now and then, a salesperson would do something or say something
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because they were pissed with our cultural style,
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and it would usually happen at the conveyor belt.
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And the worst thing they could do was to throw our food into the bag.
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And when that happened, it was on.
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(Laughter)
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My mother began to tell them who they were,
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who their family was,
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where to go,
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how fast to get there.
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(Laughter)
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If you haven't been cursed out by my mother, you haven't lived.
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(Laughter)
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The person would be on the floor,
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writhing in utter decay and decomposition,
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whimpering in a pool of racial shame.
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(Laughter)
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Now, both my parents were Christians.
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The difference is my father prayed before a racial conflict
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and my mother prayed after.
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(Laughter)
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There is a time, if you use both of their strategies,
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if you use them in the right time and the right way.
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But it's never a time --
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there's a time for conciliation,
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there's a time for confrontation,
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but it's never a time to freeze up like a deer in the headlights,
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and it's never a time to lash out in heedless, thoughtless anger.
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The lesson in this is
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that when it comes to race relations,
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sometimes, we've got to know how to pray,
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think through, process, prepare.
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And other times, we've got to know how to push,
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how to do something.
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And I'm afraid that neither of these two skills --
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preparing,
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pushing --
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are prevalent in our society today.
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If you look at the neuroscience research
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which says that when we are racially threatened,
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our brains go on lockdown,
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and we dehumanize black and brown people.
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Our brains imagine that children and adults are older than they really are,
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larger than they really are
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and closer than they really are.
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When we're at our worst, we convince ourselves
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that they don't deserve affection or protection.
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At the Racial Empowerment Collaborative,
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we know that some of the scariest moments are racial encounters,
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some of the scariest moments that people will ever face.
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If you look at the police encounters that have led to some wrongful deaths
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of mostly Native Americans and African-Americans in this country,
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they've lasted about two minutes.
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Within 60 seconds,
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our brains go on lockdown.
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And when we're unprepared,
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we overreact.
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At best, we shut down.
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At worst, we shoot first and ask no questions.
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Imagine if we could reduce the intensity of threat
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within those 60 seconds
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and keep our brains from going on lockdown.
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Imagine how many children would get to come home from school
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or 7-Eleven
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without getting expelled or shot.
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Imagine how many mothers and fathers wouldn't have to cry.
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Racial socialization can help young people negotiate 60-second encounters,
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but it's going to take more than a chat.
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It requires a racial literacy.
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Now, how do parents have these conversations,
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and what is a racial literacy?
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Thank you for asking.
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(Laughter)
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A racial literacy involves the ability to read,
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recast and resolve a racially stressful encounter.
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Reading involves recognizing when a racial moment happens
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and noticing our stress reactions to it.
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Recasting involves
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taking mindfulness and reducing my tsunami interpretation of this moment
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and reducing it to a mountain-climbing experience,
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one that is --
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from impossible situation to one that is much more doable
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and challenging.
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Resolving a racially stressful encounter involves
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being able to make a healthy decision
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that is not an underreaction, where I pretend, "That didn't bother me,"
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or an overreaction, where I exaggerate the moment.
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Now, we can teach parents and children how to read, recast and resolve
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using a mindfulness strategy we call: "Calculate, locate, communicate,
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breathe and exhale."
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Stay with me.
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"Calculate" asks,
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"What feeling am I having right now,
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and how intense is it on a scale of one to 10?"
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"Locate" asks, "Where in my body do I feel it?"
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And be specific,
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like the Native American girl at a Chicago fifth-grade school said to me,
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"I feel angry at a nine because I'm the only Native American.
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And I can feel it in my stomach,
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like a bunch of butterflies are fighting with each other,
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so much so that they fly up into my throat and choke me."
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The more detailed you can be,
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the easier it is to reduce that spot.
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"Communicate" asks,
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"What self-talk and what images are coming in my mind?"
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And if you really want help, try breathing in
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and exhaling slowly.
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With the help of my many colleagues at the Racial Empowerment Collaborative,
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we use in-the-moment stress-reduction
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in several research and therapy projects.
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One project is where we use basketball to help youth manage their emotions
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during 60-second eruptions on the court.
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Another project, with the help of my colleagues Loretta and John Jemmott,
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we leverage the cultural style of African-American barbershops,
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where we train black barbers to be health educators in two areas:
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one, to safely reduce the sexual risk in their partner relationships;
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and the other,
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to stop retaliation violence.
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The cool part is the barbers use their cultural style
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to deliver this health education to 18- to 24-year-old men
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while they're cutting their hair.
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Another project is where we teach teachers
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how to read, recast and resolve stressful moments in the classroom.
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And a final project, in which we teach parents and their children separately
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to understand their racial traumas
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before we bring them together to problem-solve daily microaggressions.
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Now, racially literate conversations with our children can be healing,
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but it takes practice.
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And I know some of you are saying, "Practice?
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Practice?
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We're talking about practice?"
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Yes, we are talking about practice.
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I have two sons.
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My oldest, Bryan, is 26,
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and my youngest, Julian, is 12.
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And we do not have time to talk about how that happened.
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(Laughter)
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But,
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when I think of them,
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they are still babies to me,
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and I worry every day that the world will misjudge them.
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In August of 2013,
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Julian, who was eight at the time, and I were folding laundry,
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which in and of itself is such a rare occurrence,
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I should have known something strange was going to happen.
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On the TV were Trayvon Martin's parents,
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and they were crying
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because of the acquittal of George Zimmerman.
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And Julian was glued to the TV.
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He had a thousand questions, and I was not prepared.
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He wanted to know why:
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Why would a grown man stalk and hunt down and kill
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an unarmed 17-year-old boy?
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And I did not know what to say.
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The best thing that could come out of my mouth was,
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"Julian, sometimes in this world, there are people
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who look down on black and brown people
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and do not treat them -- and children, too --
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do not treat them as human."
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He interpreted the whole situation as sad.
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(Voice-over) Julian Stevenson: That's sad.
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"We don't care. You're not our kind."
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HS: Yes.
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JS: It's like, "We're better than you."
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HS: Yes.
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JS: "And there's nothing you can do about that.
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And if you scare me, or something like that,
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I will shoot you because I'm scared of you."
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HS: Exactly.
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But if somebody's stalking you --
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JS: It's not the same for everyone else.
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HS: It's not always the same, no. You've got to be careful.
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JS: Yeah, because people can disrespect you.
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HS: Exactly.
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JS: And think that you're,
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"You don't look -- you don't look like you're ..."
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It's like they're saying that "You don't look right,
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so I guess I have the right to disrespect you."
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HS: Yeah, and that's what we call,
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we call that racism.
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And we call that racism, Julian,
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and yes, some people -- other people -- can wear a hoodie,
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and nothing happens to them.
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But you and Trayvon might,
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and that's why Daddy wants you to be safe.
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(Voice-over) HS: And that's why --
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JS: So you mean like, when you said "other people,"
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you mean, like if Trayvon was a white,
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um, that he wouldn't be disrespected like that?
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HS: Yes, Julian, Daddy meant white people
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when I said, "other people," all right?
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So there was a way in which I was so awkward in the beginning,
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but once I started getting my rhythm and my groove,
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I started talking about stereotypes and issues of discrimination,
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and just when I was getting my groove on,
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Julian interrupted me.
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(Voice-over) HS: ... dangerous, or you're a criminal because you're black,
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and you're a child or a boy --
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That is wrong, it doesn't matter who does it.
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JS: Dad, I need to stop you there.
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HS: What?
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JS: Remember when we were ...
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HS: So he interrupts me to tell me a story
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about when he was racially threatened at a swimming pool with a friend
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by two grown white men,
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which his mother confirmed.
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And I felt happy that he was able to talk about it;
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it felt like he was getting it.
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We moved from the sadness of Trayvon's parents
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and started talking about George Zimmerman's parents,
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which, I read in a magazine,
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condoned the stalking of Trayvon.
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And Julian's reaction to me was priceless.
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It made me feel like he was getting it.
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(Voice-over) JS: What did they say about him?
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HS: Well, I think they basically felt that he was justified
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to follow and stalk --
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JS: What the -- ?
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HS: Yeah, I think that's wrong.
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JS: That's -- one minute.
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So they're saying he has the right to follow a black kid,
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get in a fight with him and shoot him?
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HS: As Julian was getting it,
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I started to lose it.
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Because in my mind's eye, I was thinking:
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What if my Julian or Bryan was Trayvon?
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I calculated my anger at a 10.
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I found, located, my right leg was shaking uncontrollably
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like I was running.
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And in my mind's eye, I could see somebody chasing Julian,
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and I was chasing them.
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And the only thing that could come out of my mouth
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was if anybody tries to bother my child ...
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(Voice-over) HS: If anybody tries to bother my child ...
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mmm, mmm, mmm.
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JS: What will happen?
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HS: Well, they better run.
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JS: Because what? HS: I'm gonna get 'em.
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JS: See? (Laughs)
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HS: I'm gonna get 'em. JS: Really?
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HS: Oh, yeah.
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JS: Then they're gonna get you because they might have weapons.
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HS: Well, you know what, I'm gonna call police, too, like I should.
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But I feel like I wanna get 'em.
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But you can't; you're right, you can't just go chasing people.
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JS: They can be armed.
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HS: Yeah, you right. Yeah, you right.
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I feel like I wanna chase 'em.
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JS: Plus they could be an army or something.
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HS: I know -- I feel like I wanna go get 'em, messing with my son.
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I don't like that.
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JS: Um ...
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HS: But you right. You gotta be careful.
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And um, you gotta be careful.
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You never know what some crazy people will think about you.
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Just as long as you believe you're beautiful
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like Daddy believes you're beautiful and handsome,
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and Mommy believes you're beautiful and handsome and smart.
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And you deserve to be on this planet,
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just as happy and beautiful and smart as you want to be.
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You can do anything you want, baby.
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HS: Racial socialization is not just what parents teach their children.
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It's also how children respond to what their parents teach.
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Is my child prepared?
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Can they recognize when a racial elephant shows up in a room?
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Can they reduce their tsunami interpretation
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down to a mountain-climbing adventure
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that they can engage and not run away?
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Can they make a healthy and just decision in 60 seconds?
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Can I?
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Can you?
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Yes, we can.
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We can build healthier relationships around race
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if we learn to calculate, locate communicate, breathe and exhale
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in the middle of our most threatening moments,
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when we come face-to-face with our lesser selves.
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If you take the centuries of racial rage
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that boils up in all of our bodies, minds and souls --
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and anything that affects our bodies, minds and souls affects our health --
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we could probably use gun control for our hearts.
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I just want what all parents want for their children
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when we're not around:
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affection and protection.
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When police and teachers see my children,
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I want them to imagine their own,
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because I believe if you see our children as your children,
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you won't shoot them.
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With racial literacy, and yes, practice,
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we can decode the racial trauma from our stories,
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and our healing will come in the telling.
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But we must never forget
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that our cultural differences are full of affection and protection,
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and remember always that the lion's story will never be known
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as long as the hunter is the one to tell it.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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About this website

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