As protests against police brutality have popped up all over the United States in the wake of the pandemic, members of the Shout Your Cause focus group wanted to dive deep into getting educated about the history of our nation as pertains to racial equality (or the lack thereof). We had a discussion online, live on Facebook and YouTube for anyone and everyone to hear. It takes courage to not be afraid to talk about these issues, as they can bring up sensitivities that are not always apparent.

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Facebook Live:

Transcript:

Sally Hendrick (00:00:01):

News stories were coming in about this strange virus in Wuhan China. It was weeks before we saw the first cases in the US as the numbers went up each day. My curiosity got the best of me, and I started plotting the curves here's stories from real people all over the world and how they've responded. I'm Sally Hendrick, founder of Shout Your Cause, and this is COVID-19 the world responds.

Sally Hendrick (00:00:39):

Hey, everybody we're live. My name is Sally. I've got some special guests with me today, and we're going to talk about the 13th documentary today is Juneteenth. And I'm really excited. I didn't even realize that when I scheduled this, that that's what it was. But Elaine pointed that out to me the other day. This is a group, we're a new group, and we just got together this past week for the first time to discuss the documentary I had put out, you know, who wants to watch this and have a meaningful discussion. And let's see if we can actually you know, take this conversation forward. We've got things happening on the streets, but we're a lot more happening online. And then of course, there's a lot of people who are prepared to actually take these things forward into legislation and politics and all these different things. But we've got an education issue going on I believe. And I think that this is going to be helpful. So welcome ladies. Thank you for coming.

Sally Hendrick (00:01:44):

Absolutely. So let's not make this too formal or serious. There's no reason we had a good discussion the other night. We were all kind of laid back and I think that we can do that here as well. So let's not worry about the fact that people might be commenting below where you're just going to take care of our conversation here and we can always go back and respond to people later on, on the, on the posts, on YouTube and on Facebook. Cause we're live on both at this point.

Michelle (00:02:17):

We got people in backstage that want to get in.

Sally Hendrick (00:02:24):

Oh, I see one. So I've got a Lori already. I don't see anybody else. Okay, Lori. Hi Lori. Hi. All right, we've got room for one more. We may have one more pop in at this point. I'm in a few minutes. So let's go ahead and just get started. One of the, we talked about a lot of different things that came from this documentary and I wanted to kind of point out each one of those as much as we can. We want to keep this within an hour and then be, and then be able to wrap it, wrap it up. We can always continue the conversation later. So mental health is one of the things. When you think about what's going on with our society today, and we've got PTSD issues when we're dealing with, you know, some people will look at

Sally Hendrick (00:03:16):

Police officers in uniforms and they will immediately like clench up. And because they're scared of, you know, something that they, that may happen or something that they've heard about in the past. And they want to make sure that you know, that nothing happens with them. And then you've got police officers who have the same thing. You know, they also experience the PTSD and, and they've got a lot of pressure on them, not knowing what kind of situation they're walking into. So I'd love to hear a little bit more from you guys from, you know, when we talked about this the other night, what do you have to say about some of that

Krystal (00:04:02):

Well, the first thing that came to mind for me regarding mental health and PTSD is that cops are really not trying to be all things for all people. And when you encounter someone who has any kind of mental health issue or has or is dealing with PTSD, you can't apply the, the normal methods for a deescalation. Even if deescalation is even a tool in your toolbox police police forces have the escalation as a tool that they use, but training for police officers or even if some of the budget that was used for like military style weapons were used instead, or mental health training, how to deal with someone who was experienced PTSD that could go so far as in helping to save people's lives because instead of situations getting ramped up, you now would have someone who's trained to deal with a person who may be experiencing a panic attack or, or severe trauma.

Sally Hendrick (00:05:14):

Right. And I, and I've thought about this a lot myself. And it's like, do you call in and have like a really great triage system? You know, when you called nine one one, or if you know, it's a mental health thing, maybe you call a different 1 1, you know, like 411 was information and 611 is a cell phone call in service for Verizon. So what's the other number, you know, that you might be able to call into first or to have the 911 operator know how to triage that situation from a life or death situation into a mental health deescalation problem. Somebody fell in their bathtub. I couldn't tell you how many times you have an older person fall. My mom had police officers picking her up out of the bathtub and it was, it was horrifically, you know, embarrassing for her as opposed to like a nurse or somebody coming for that type of situation. Now you've worked in mental health, Lori, so, and you had some things to say the other night, so what, what have you got

Lori (00:06:26):

So well, first on the, on the falling, right? People should know, like the police department shouldn't be going, you, you, you send the EMT's for that because then they're trained in a completely different way. So I know like for my father-in-law, when he was sick, you call the fire department, not the police department for those kinds of things, because then you would have trained EMTs who have been trained in they're a little bit more delicate if you will. Like, they're not, it's not cops dealing with it. It's it's people who are dealing with people who are sick all the time. So they're, they're kindler gentler group. So that's the first thing right off the top is never call the police for a fall call the fire department, because then your AMT's, the police might show up, but they're not going to be the ones that go in and do the heavy lifting. It's going to be the EMT that do that. And they have the gear. The fire department actually has the gear for that. They can bring in a Hoyer lift if it's needed. There's all sorts of stuff that they have that the police department doesn't. So that just off the top. And I only know that because I dealt with that with my father-in-law. Yeah.

Sally Hendrick (00:07:37):

Say that in a small town, sometimes there's only one place to call, so you don't really know what it's going to happen there. So it does seem like there needs to be training and situational plans made for wherever you are

Lori (00:07:53):

Necessarily want your police officer doing that. You want, you want someone in the medical field, especially because you don't know if they were injured in the fall.

Sally Hendrick (00:08:00):

Right.

Elaine (00:08:01):

What were you saying? I was just going to piggyback off of that too, as far as, you know, having the different departments, but also the education to the community. Because sometimes I would imagine that people year, they know 911, they don't know. And so there needs to be a spreading out of the information if there's changes to, because you know, the population that you're serving, sometimes they, they won't know, but yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Michelle (00:08:30):

And I think they're starting to have these teams of people here anyway. So if somebody has a mental health issue, maybe suicidal a drug overdose, they have these teams, these recovery teams now that are coming into the ER and, and handling some of that because invariably people with a substance use disorder are just being released with no medical treatment at all. And you're finding how, how poor that is, how poor that treatment is. And Lori made such a good point the other day when she said, or, or maybe it was in the movie. But for some reason I thought it was Lori because although all these the opioid crisis now is infiltrated into the white community. So now it's getting more attention. Whereas it's been in the African American community forever, and nobody ever really paid it any as much attention as they are now. So sad.

Lori (00:09:34):

They did pay attention to it, but they paid attention to it in a criminal way, not into it, but they didn't pay attention. I mean, if you research it enough, they also brought the drugs into the inner city that wasn't American, that was an American government, the CIA kind of, I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, but that's sort of been proven that they brought that into the like, which is another thing, right? That sort of thing. They're feeding that pipeline from high school to prison, right. They sort of set that up. Then they, they brought in the drugs, they said, we'll have a war on drugs. And then they just sorta, they, they sort of created the whole, the whole line. It affected white America. It was. And I'm quoting, when I say that white America, it was like, wait a minute, we made a mine. We maybe do something different pumps, the brakes,

Michelle (00:10:38):

But it is that kind of thing is still happening. Cause I see it every day in my group where people who have a mental health disorder, substance use disorder, maybe it's a bipolar or something, you know, it's a dual diagnosis type of thing. And they're locked up forever for a really, really long period of time where it's not really, they're not criminals per se. They, they probably, the drugs caused them to steal something or do something that was a felony. But my point is that the mental health is not being uttered.

Sally Hendrick (00:11:11):

Yeah. And I'm not addressing that systemically over and over and over again. You're just creating this pile up that just snowballs and look at how many people we now have in our prison systems. Only you go back to the Nixon era and you talk about the fact that for know what that is, Nixon put forth these laws that were very much taking the drugs situation into criminality. And when when it was, you know, the drug abuse was criminalized at that point, that's when you're filling up these prisons, you're in resting a lot more people. Then you've got Reagan and his drug policies to also be harder and tougher. And then you had Clinton to come in and the three strikes you're out and the truth in sentencing and all of that. And that extended it even more. You've got people who are still in prison now who had drug offenses back then, if you imagine, I mean, that's just so wrong. And then as far as like the white community and the black community, the story is that you've got a cocaine problem out in the suburbs and the white community, and that's been kind of this recreational situation, but then you've got crack cocaine in the inner city. And that was the drugs that was, that were brought into the inner city and the sentencing differences between the white drug and the black drug was a vast difference. There was a much larger punishment for the crack cocaine, inner city arrests.

Michelle (00:12:56):

Yeah. And, and I see that even, you know, in my community, if people can afford the treatments there and an attorney, they get like one specific care versus somebody who can't afford it needs a public defender. I mean, it's a whole different sentence. It just,

Lori (00:13:19):

It perpetuates itself. Right? So they, they arrest the black dad. He goes to jail. Now, there isn't somebody in the family to help the kid. The kid gets in trouble. There isn't somebody. So they end up with a crappy public defender instead of like the mom and dad together. And this happens in white communities too, but it's planned for the black community that way. We're going to arrest the fathers. We're going to get them out of the picture. And then we're going to blame them for having you know, single moms raising the kids. And they've, they've literally created a system where they've, where they've arrested and incarcerated all the fathers, they extend, they blamed them for raising their kids, you know, blaming the women for raising their kids improperly and you're in trouble. Right. So you can see like, it becomes this, like the more you read about it, the more you see, it's like, Oh my God, they created the issue.

Lori (00:14:14):

Then they blame, you know, it's like fire on something and then go on. Why don't you have a job? You know, like this, that's what they're doing to the black community. And what happens is they keep what I keep seeing over and over again. And I'm sorry, if I'm all over the place is they keep moving the goalposts all the time. If they do it for jobs, no matter what, right? Like, Oh, if you just work 40 hours a week, you'll be fine. Now it's like, you can't just have a minimum wage job. You have to have two jobs. You have to do more too. Right. It used to be, if you worked 40 and I was, that was good. Now it's like, no, you have to have two jobs. No. And I have to have three jobs. So they do the same exact thing in the black community with everything, right? Like they, they make the situation possible and then they change the goalpost over and over and over and over again. It's, it's, it's it's exacerbating.

Sally Hendrick (00:15:07):

Well, when you put things on top of it too, you know, the plea deals that come into play, you've got 90% of black males are having to take plea deals, whether they did something or not, they're waiting and waiting and waiting in jail

Elaine (00:15:27):

Well to get their trial. And then what about when they take a plea deal and they're not fully explained to them what the consequences of that plea deal is. Right. So they're doing it because they're only told half the story. Right.

Sally Hendrick (00:15:40):

And then I can't vote. Right. And they get out and they have been damaged psychologically because of PTSD because of their, then they, yeah.

Elaine (00:15:54):

And this circles right back to the 13th, 13th amendment. And then the whole fact of like how before people of color were considered three fifths of a human. And so now that you're a felon, you're pretty much not as much of a human right. They've enslaved you again. Yeah.

Sally Hendrick (00:16:11):

Well, and the 13th amendment was written that way so that you came out of slavery, but then you've got the 13th amendment that says you're free. But then it says that if you commit whatever crimes, then you're basically, you know, extreme.

Elaine (00:16:32):

Okay, great. Well, and then what was it in the very beginning of the documentary where they talking about how they would set up the different laws as they were like, if you were a criminalized, then they had just, this minuscule things would make you a credible. So it wasn't even like, like standing, standing outside vagrancy. That was one of the, one of the, yeah.

Sally Hendrick (00:16:54):

Yeah. To standing place here to go to jail, we're going to haul you away. I mean, imagine living like that and having those stories told to you, having your parents, see your parents, do that, having your brother, your uncle, your friend, your cousin, your, you know, whoever having that happen over and over and over again and all the stories. And then of course, the horrific stories that we have been all kinds of sharing and talking about other anec, you know, anecdotal stories that we hear. And so you just don't even have a chance to create a life. And you had like, think about it coming out of coming out of slavery. When you go through the Jim Crow era, everything that you worked for, everything that you've did, you literally handed to someone else and you never were able to build a foundation underneath.

Sally Hendrick (00:17:49):

Whereas all these other people are able to consistently create these layers of protection to stand upon. And you're literally scraping the ground every single time. And that creates a huge, tremendous gap in the wealth. Now that happened also to a lot of white people. We've got the sharecropper piece of that along in the Jim Crow timeframe, which was about, and I've been writing, I'm writing a book. So I've been doing lots of research on this. 75% of the people in Tennessee were either were, they did not own any slaves. 25% of the people in Tennessee did back in, you know, in the slave slave times. And then of the community after that, I think it was one in four people in the entire state were slaves. So 25% of Tennessee, were slaves. So you've got, you know, Krystal and I are from Tennessee and Elaine, you live here, but I can't remember where are you from here?

Elaine (00:18:59):

No, I'm originally from Oklahoma Tulsa, Oklahoma. Fun fact, that's in the news now. Yeah.

Sally Hendrick (00:19:05):

So you're in Orlando now, right? Right. Yeah. So without taking over, you know, that whole part of the conversation I wanted to see Krystal, you had mentioned something that happened this week at a protest. Could you explain what happened?

Krystal (00:19:23):

So my daughter organized a peaceful protest with social distancing. She really wanted to make a point that you can support a cause in a way that is civil and peaceful. And the one point that she really drove home was that sometimes things are so bad and the rage is so fierce that you just can't even scream anymore. It's just silent. So she had this silent protest put in place,

Michelle (00:19:57):

Tell us how old she is. That's really important. Tell us how

Krystal (00:20:03):

Yeah. And she graduated this year and she's going to going to go to college in the fall. Very excited about that. To pursue a college career in international studies and political science. So she's very motivated. Everything was going really well. We had over 60 people there to join our to join the event, a couple of strangers joined in with permission. And then one lady, an older lady came through and stood in the middle of our protest and just started yelling obscenities, all this communist, all kinds of names. I happened to have on a shirt, had the fist in the air on it and she berated that. And just every bad thing she could say to us. And when the kids try, I say, it's what they're teenagers, seniors, and juniors. When they tried to engage with her and explain what the police mean and what black lives matters means it doesn't mean other lives don't matter.

Krystal (00:21:10):

She would have none of it. And I, when I noticed, you know, the conversation was just not going anywhere. I really wanted to escort her out of the middle of the crowd so that people were getting angry. At the thing she was saying, walk to the side and just started having a one on one conversation. I let her know my husband is a law enforcement officer. Well, then that turned into, well, if you do care about the blue lives, obviously, and I don't want his paycheck to go away. And we were able to talk as just two people, as opposed to me representing something in her mind that she was just really uneducated about. So I invited her tonight to just hear more about the 13th documentary she asked, where can she go to, to find truthful information? And it, it was just really exhilarating because someone who was parading us go from that to just really I'm hurting in so many ways. Where can I find the truth about what's going on?

Michelle (00:22:20):

Good for you. Well done.

Krystal (00:22:22):

Wow. It was a really, really good thing.

Sally Hendrick (00:22:27):

I wasn't so eloquent today, but you know, I have my moments,

Michelle (00:22:34):

What did you do? This one person?

Sally Hendrick (00:22:38):

And I've seen very, very one sided. I've seen a lot of her posts and I honestly don't even know how we became friends and I've never even talked with her. So I don't even know. It just, this happens when you have a business online, you have a lot of people that you become friends with and you don't really realize what's going on before. You know, it, you've got more friends that you don't know, then you do know. And she had just still been in on my list somehow. And I had posted about the alligator bait video that was so awful. I had posted that and said, this was a followup. It was a discussion about a man talking about somebody had told him about it. And he didn't understand that all these artifacts that he had, he didn't realize that those were depictions of the actual alligator bait story.

Sally Hendrick (00:23:32):

And he still it's how I posted that video. Cause I thought it was so important. I don't think that she watched it or had any heart for any of that. She just said, you know, you need to stop talking all this stuff basically that, you know, nobody needs to bring all this up again. We know slavery happened, that kind of a thing. And it's like, Oh my gosh, don't you understand that? We, we gotta get into the hearts of people and have them understand what really happened and how these stories and songs and continuation of all of these things have kept going even into today. And I know this and I'm like, I'm like, you know, I'm from the South and there's a different culture here that that's happened. And there's a lot of things that are much, much deeper than what a lot of other people or places have seen.

Sally Hendrick (00:24:24):

You've got people who've gone to other places. And I understand that. I said, but are you from the South? You know, cause that's, I'm not really talking to you specifically. I'm more talking to you, my friends and my community. And I'm here on behalf of people that I know are still hurting today. And she just was not having any of that. And I was like, I can't even look at her responses anymore. And somebody else came in and, and was educated, you know, like giving really good eloquent answers as well. And I was just like, I'm just done with this conversation. And but it was on my post. So of course I keep getting all the notices and and I walked away and I actually was driving. So of course I couldn't post. But I kinda, you know, walked away from the situation.

Sally Hendrick (00:25:12):

And then I was like, you know, I'm just going to unfriend her because I've already seen her page. I already know her thoughts and I'm not going to be changing her mind in any way. And she's was very combative. So I unfriended her and I swear within five minutes she followed me. And when you do that, you get a notification that she followed me. So then I was like, I'm just gonna block her. So then I blocked her well in between me unfriending, her and the unfollow and the blocking, she managed to get a message into my messenger. And it was in that extra folder that, you know, in the background, because I'd already unfriended her and we had never messaged each other before. And so I was like, you know what, whenever you look at someone's message, they see that you see it right. And then look at it. Did you? I deleted it. I just I'm like, if you want to follow me, you can come follow my public page and you can read my book one day. So, you know, I, I'm not here for your energy. You don't need exactly.

Lori (00:26:25):

I think they have to, like, you have to make a decision, right? Like I I'm, I'm reading wait for agility. And it talks about how, you know, you always want to try and have the conversation, but I I've had this conversation as well with my racial justice committee. And how tolerant is tolerance? Like how long do you have to stick around? Trying to, to, to get a point across when somebody's just so nasty and so racist and such a big bigot, like along every line, like how long? So it's really like, I think, you know, it's, it's really important, especially on Facebook. Like these things, they might be people like I've unfriended a ton of people on Facebook, but none of them were actually my friends. They were people just like you said, Sally, then wait, like I have a business too. It's like tons of.

Lori (00:27:23):

And I'm like, I have no idea who you are, but I know that you're not the kind of person I want posting on my Facebook page. I don't want sponsors on there. I just don't want it because like I have other friends that are now, like I, as they're responding to them because they're getting so worked up and really like, you know, not my friend. I'm just going to like, you, you don't get to be, you know, you want to post that crap on your page. Go ahead. And I do my very best not to respond on anybody else's page because I, because I don't want them doing that to me. And I don't want to see their posts, see this. So if they're posting racist stuff, now, I'm just like, yeah, you know, I'm just going to try, I'm going to unfriend you because I don't witness it.

Lori (00:28:11):

And I don't feel like I can do that without saying something. So, but I think, I think that's it's a challenge, because if I want to be an anti racist, I have to like step up and be able to deal with that. So it is a fine line of like, where do I want to do it? And a lot of the times it's like, well, I don't mind doing it with somebody. I know. Yeah. Mind doing it with a total stranger who happens to be my friend on Facebook and they to be doing it just to get a rise out of you. Right. So I think it's a different, like, I think, you know, you have to, you have to figure it out, right? Like if it's someone you actually know, that's a very different relationship than, happened to, you know, you happen to happens to be on your page because it's a public page because you are in business.

Sally Hendrick (00:29:05):

Right. So then I do want to clarify that I don't necessarily think that she's particularly racist. I think she just doesn't understand what is happening right now in people's minds and hearts and her life. Like she, I think she's just oblivious to some of those things. And her method is just to kind of be like the white washing that every year or whatever.

Lori (00:29:34):

So that's racist. So if you read it paid white fragility, basically most white, we have it because we carry all unaware biases. Right? One of the big challenges, like, and I hope you guys read the book or watch the video that I talked to you about the other day, that white fragility, it talks about the problem with race, calling somebody, a racist as we've made racism bad, and they consider it non binary, right? Like we, we see that there's racists out there that like use the N word and, you know, use the Confederate flag and do all that. And like, it's really obvious where they stand. But for the average, I don't want to say average for the people who, I will call us the progressive liberals who say, I'm not a racist. The problem is we have, we carry tons of biases.

Lori (00:30:34):

So we carry that racism within us. We don't like to acknowledge it, but we carry it. And so if we do away with shaming, someone for racism and say, you know what? We all, almost every white person has it in. Sadly, the way that the system has worked, a lot of black people have racism against their own. So, and that's the problem with systemic racism. But to say that we're not a racist, doesn't, it's not true. And, and that's like the hardest thing in the world as a white person that I like, I think, you know, I'm not a racist, but the, the, you know, like, like I swear to God, I touch a person by who they are right in front of them. Like, you'll hear me, you know? And now I like after reading the book and doing some of the work and I still have so much more work to do, and I don't want to pretend they don't have being able to say like, yeah, you know what, on my best days I'll do my best. But on my worst days, I'm a racist.

Michelle (00:31:37):

Well, I think I lived in a bubble for me, you know, looking before I watched this movie, I was in a bubble. So I, and what, since I've watched that movie, I can't tell you how many people, you know, there'll be complaining about what's going on in the world. And I said, you need to watch that movie. And then maybe you'll understand. And so it's from that, you know, we have that white mentality from our perspective. Well, I never even looked at the color of the skin. What are they all upset about? No, it's so much more than that.

Lori (00:32:14):

And not looking means you're ignoring their entire Cobra. So like, everyone goes, Oh, I'm color blind. It's like, well, no, that's not. That's like,

Sally Hendrick (00:32:23):

Oh, so you don't bring that up. The colorblind situation. Cause I see a lot of people, I know I'm posting this color blind, you know, description. And I'm like, you know what? That's the white

Sally Hendrick (00:32:40):

That's being done is the colorblind comment because you're not you're not acknowledging the difference in the culture. The difference in the, every day in the shoes of the person, you don't really understand it. And there's a different, the whole different thing.

Elaine (00:33:00):

Diversity is beautiful. You know, the diversity, not just the crappy shit that people have gone through, but just that's, that's, what's been woven into the fabric of who makes that person who they are and embracing all of it. How can you really say that you love someone if you don't know them and how are you going to, you can't know them, if you haven't learned them and you can't learn them, if you haven't listened to them, you know, whoever the them is. Right.

Lori (00:33:26):

I think a big thing too, is like that whole term of colorblind is such a white privilege thing. Like what, we're not a color, what are we translucent? We are white. And we, you know, and owning that, right? Like, cause I w I just did a facilitate a group on this. And it was like, when did you know the question I asked to and everybody was white. When did you realize you were white? You know? And it's like, well, wait a minute, because I'm not a race, they're a race, right. I'm not a race.

Krystal (00:34:04):

my, my youngest 14 she's 14. And when she was turning three, we have a blended family. We're an interracial family.

Krystal (00:34:13):

And so she's white. And it was the end of summer turning fall. And she was losing her tan. Her dad had lost his tan and he was giving her a bath and she goes, well, when's mommy Krystal gonna lose her tan. So not necessarily not recognizing that she's white. It was, I don't recognize that she something other than me. So when it can get to go away, I think it's taught later on to make those distinctions of well, she's different or he's different. I serve at church in the toddler room and I've had more than one white two year old, licked my skin to see if I taste like chocolate,

Krystal (00:35:03):

I'm chocolate color. So let's see if she, you know, maybe she does taste like chocolate. That'd be kinda cool. I love the littles. Cause they just don't care.

Sally Hendrick (00:35:22):

They were like, mommy, why do people say black? I mean, she's kind of caramel, you know, she's kinda like light Brown or she's medium Brown. I don't understand the black, you know, like, okay, whatever. Good. I'm glad you don't understand that yet. No of that. If you don't mind Krystal, you had posted something on my, my page where you commented after I had mentioned, I guess it was about the country club parties in Humboldt. And then know that that was a particularly painful thing because it was happening to teenager and their hometown. So do you mind mentioning what that was like for you?

Krystal (00:36:07):

Yeah, it was very very heartbreaking because a lot of my friends were white and I w we were in the same classes. I, I was the only black cheerleader. So it's winter time and everybody's going shopping for winter formal dresses and I'm like, okay, maybe I should be looking, you know, go shopping. And so I asked my friends, I'm like, you know, how do you get to go to this? Cause I haven't heard any of the information. And I was told, well, you know, you have to be a member or invited, well, there are no. Or at the time black people were not allowed to become members of the country club. You were not allowed to golf. I'm talking about, this is 1990, 1991, 1992. This was not back in the day.

Sally Hendrick (00:37:02):

My hometown. Yeah, very much. No, I don't know what their official rules on the books were, but you had to be approved to be a member. Yeah. And I know that the rules were definitely that you could not be black yet at some point when in the eighties, when I was in middle school, when these things started, these parties started.

Krystal (00:37:26):

Yeah. But the rules changed. I want to say in the last decade, maybe a little bit longer ago than that. As far as black people being able to play, I don't know the membership rules to be quite honest. I, I feel like they have changed as well that they do allow black members, but for the first time in my life, I was back home a couple of weeks ago to help take care of my mom. And I had my two nieces in the car with me and we were taking the scenic route to just take some time. And so I drove on the street beside the country club. I've never been back there in my life cause I didn't really have a reason to. But when you, if you knew the size of our town to know that I had not been back there, it would be kind of just a little bit mind blowing. Cause our town's so small driving back there and seeing the beautiful homes on the Lake, I'm just like, I should have my husband apply for membership just to see what would happen if I showed up at the pool, like that's what was going on.

Sally Hendrick (00:38:30):

Oh my gosh. Oh, could you imagine? It'd be like, yes, I'm a member. So, and so's wife.

Krystal (00:38:38):

Yeah. But, and then I finally posted the post the next day and I was like, Oh my goodness. This was just running through my mind yesterday. Yeah.

Sally Hendrick (00:38:49):

Yeah. And that right there just made me realize immediately that the feelings that I had at the time were valid, that this was unfair and that this was not cool. And now later on, I think in high school, things were a little better for us. At least my, my class, I don't know. But the winter formal thing at the country club, it was just a different thing. It wasn't a school function. It was literally put on by various, you know, white families that to put it on as a private party. And everybody had to pay something, you know, to put their money in or at least the hosts had to pay something to put the party on. So that's how we actually got connected. Even though we were already friends on Facebook. I can't remember how that happened

Krystal (00:39:43):

In Facebook friends. I probably thought something with shout your cause. And it's like, I need to know her even though,

Sally Hendrick (00:39:51):

But I think he went to school with my brother. I did. Yeah.

Michelle (00:39:56):

Questioned about the book. I had to look up white fragility because I haven't purchased it or downloaded it or anything. But one of the things I, I, I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and went to high school, a private high school, but we had African American girls in the same school. I never, never really thought about it. But what I did

Michelle (00:40:19):

All of this makes me want to talk to women of color, or I already see I'm so sensitive now. I don't want to offend anybody, but I want to learn how to act, how to behave, how, and, and it does that book, white fragility. Does it get into that part of it? Because I have a lot of African American women friends, like I belong in this, mom's called to more membership. It's like this online community. And I just love these women, but I am the only white person in the group. And not, I, I didn't, I didn't even notice that until the first day I had a meeting. I didn't care about it. I just loved their passion and their whole purpose for what they do, but I don't want to offend anybody. So I'm always looking for

Lori (00:41:13):

Connect. I'm think you should read the book or listen to it. You know what, here's the thing we're going to offend somebody at some point, you know, we can claim ignorance, right. And you know, you know, the, my Angelou line, right, when you know, better, you do better. So when you make a mistake, what you do is you who you be transparent and say, I'm going to do my best, not to screw up. But if I do, I would love it. If you talk to me about it. And the challenge is not to get defensive, to own something that you said was offensive. And instead of going, but I didn't mean it that way.

Lori (00:41:55):

I'm sorry that ended you. Can you tell me about it so that I don't do it again. Right, right. And that way, not because this idea that we're going to be perfect, what we're not nobody is. But if you are honest, when you, when you, you, when you make a mistake and you are truly, you truly want to learn from it, that's all anybody wants. That's, that's, that's not a color thing. That's not a race thing that is, if I do something, if I'm talking to you right now, and I'd say something that's offensive, and you say, that's, that really upset me. And I, and I go, Oh, but I didn't mean to, but I never actually find out what it was exactly. That I did anything. Right. So the goal is always just to be open to, if you make the mistakes, share with the people, listen, if I screw up and say something that's offensive, racist wise, please point it out to me so that I don't do it again. Cause I mentioned is not to hurt you. Do. I love that. And I want to learn from it, not, you know, my minister did a great service a couple of months ago saying intent doesn't matter. It's the impact that matters. And so, even though our intention is not to hurt somebody, if we did, that's, what's, that's, what's important. And that's what we have to focus on. Not, well, I didn't mean to,

Sally Hendrick (00:43:34):

Okay. Yes. Now I don't want to miss these last couple of points. So if you don't mind, I've got a couple more things from the documentary. I want to make sure we talk about there was Angela Davis and the situation, and then the Alec situation, Alec thing, they, Oh my gosh. What, what are the, what's the word? It's a little American legislation, something, they're basically the, this lobbying group that these corporations pay into to influence politicians, to contribute to politicians and everything that they're about is making money on prison, labor, where prisoners are making a buck, a buck, 75 an hour or something like that. And then the government is literally turning around and selling this labor to these corporations, just like getting cheap labor, labor overseas. And that's taking away jobs from American people who need to be in those manufacturing situations, or at least in, you know, some kind of trade here, but it's being taken away. He was shoving people into the jails to take care of this cheap labor situation here on the US

Lori (00:44:52):

Let's call it what it is. It's slave labor. Yeah. It is like labor. It is not cheap labor it's slave labor. Yeah.

Sally Hendrick (00:45:02):

There's more about the Angela Davis situation. Cause I'll be honest with you. I didn't get my notes on that part of it. Who can talk about that a little bit before we go into the Alec stuff?

Michelle (00:45:17):

No, she's just such a hero. I was just amazed that that's my takeaway.

Krystal (00:45:23):

One of the things that stuck with me from the movie about her was that she was arrested and labeled a terrorist. And in her they never really expected her to what I would call come correct. Come with facts to her trial. And she, and it was one of the reasons that she was released, but the way that she described her neighborhood growing up as a war zone with the bombing, she lived either across the street or next door with one of the little girls that was the

Krystal (00:46:03):

Yeah. In, in Birmingham, Alabama. And I thought who in America has lived in a war zone before. I mean, really, to be able to describe your upbringing, it was literally a war zone. So that, that really stood out to me and it demonstrated how someone just seeing her with the big gap fro and the, you know, and the symbols would probably just label her label her as an angry black woman. But once you know her story and where she's coming from, where she's been, it's a totally different, totally different story. And it just kind of emphasizes how important it is to get to know people in order to empathize with where they've been and where they're going.

Sally Hendrick (00:46:50):

I had imagined her PTSD. Right. And so, you know a cop coming up to her is in a certain situation, she's going to have a much different reaction from the trauma that she had as a little girl in that situation. You just never know. Yeah.

Lori (00:47:08):

Yeah. And I wanted to touch back on that a little bit, the trauma piece, because not, you know, I know Krystal, you, you were very eloquent the other day when you talked about that. And I've been thinking about it a lot, but so what I realized is, you know, we carry the trauma of our ancestors, right? So like I do a lot of energy work. So we, we, we, we carry the trauma of our ancestors. And if you think of the, both the white and the black community, you cannot think that the white people who are destroying the black people's lives that are killing and maiming and lynching and doing all the things that they've done over the centuries, if you don't think there's just as much trauma on the white side as the black side, and now you have two races that are completely traumatized and nobody knows how to deal with it. And the way people's trauma is just to keep retraumatizing black people. But in an essence, and I don't think that white people's trauma trumps the black people's trauma at all. Okay. I think we have to figure something out, but I think both sides are coming from complete trauma. And that's why it's so hard to heal because it's pretty easy. Like black people will tell you that they, they, they know that trauma, right. They know what it's from, but white people like I'm not traumatized.

Lori (00:48:38):

Like, you know, we are, we, we have. And so it's, it's a powerful, it's just an interesting play. And I, I think the white America has to figure out how to heal their trauma so that we can help heal the, we we're going to have a tough time healing the black trauma if we can't handle or handle our own trauma. So

Sally Hendrick (00:49:04):

I also was thinking the other day,

Lori (00:49:06):

I don't really have much to do with the movie, but it just, it just spoke to me when you were talking about it the other day, and I'm not excusing black people. I mean, white people for, for doing any of the evil things. But I'm saying that we carry so much trauma with us and we see it, right. We see the white rage for no freaking reason. Right. And I'm like, it's the DNA, right? It's that whole, we, we it's this conscientious, you know, I mean, consciousness, you know, we've downloaded it. So we're, we really have to do a lot of work.

Sally Hendrick (00:49:43):

There's a lot of work. And a lot, a lot of people have different levels of work. And the thing is, is you can't keep, band-aiding all the little sores that are popping up around the place. You really have to dig to the specific, deep, deep poison that's underneath. And that has to be pulled out. And once that's pulled out and cleaned out, then you move into, you know, it's like all the other stuff just kind of will dissipate.

Lori (00:50:11):

I think like, I do think like 80% of the issue is acknowledging it. Yeah. If we could just get, you know, like when people are just still fighting about taking down Confederate soldier, statues, I mean, for the love of, and no other era and no other time in our country or any other country, do we have the losers statues up anywhere? Like we don't have King George snatches floating around.

Sally Hendrick (00:50:39):

We weren't told that we were the losers that pointed out something to me the other day. And I don't know who it was, but it was in a post. And they said something like, you know, a lot of these statues are actually over the graves of some of these soldiers and what have you. And I'm like, you know, that's fair. That's a fair point because you've got certain places where maybe that's the case, but that has nothing to do with the bust, the bronze bust that's sitting in the Capitol of the state of Tennessee that doesn't have any acknowledgement of what that person means. You know, it would be much better to move. I don't know if anybody's ever been, but in Hungary they have revolutionary park. It's also called memento park where they took all of the communist statues from around the country and put them all into this park in Budapest. And when you walk around, it's like, there's the happy worker. And there's like a huge head of Stalin and you've got linen and you have all this stuff. And it's kind of neat to see all of that because it's all there in one place. And you can read all about the history and, and all of that. And but to imagine that over the city of Prague and Czechoslovakia or Czech Republic, now there used to be this massive, massive head that looked over the whole city. Could you imagine that still being,

Lori (00:52:17):

No, it could be because they made it a museum is what they did. They didn't, didn't say let's just keep all of these armed everybody out like this. There's only one reason that those statues are there. We all know what that reason is, right? It is. There's only one reason and they can, they can come up with a billion, real excuses of why, but we know what it is. It's complete intimidation factor. It's to remind people of color that, that, you know, we're going to keep our, sorry, our, our knees on your neck, we're going to hold you back and that's not okay. And, and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm done being like, Oh, well they don't know better. No, they know exactly what they're doing. And if they don't know it, then that's not my problem anymore. Again, I get mad.

Sally Hendrick (00:53:15):

All right. So we talked a little bit about Angela. Was there something that to do with her, with solitary confinement though? Or was that just us talking about the Khalif Browder story, which is topic we could talk about another day? Well, somebody who was it that was in there for three years in solitary confinement, and then he got out, no, that was Kalief Browder. Well, he was in prison for three years, but it was about half of that, that he was in solitary. I misunderstood. Okay. Completely innocent. He couldn't make bail. He was just in jail because he couldn't make bail 30 times, 30 times, nine different judges and that insane. But anyway, that's another day, that's it. That's a completely different story that we definitely should talk about because that when you talk about the prison culture and how a lot of people were put in prison you know, to fund basically this prison, labor initiative, if you will then to look at the conditions that people are in for these crimes compared to like white collar crimes, and then how, how convenient to call it white color.

Sally Hendrick (00:54:36):

So you've got this Alex situation, which needs to be completely obliterated. That is ridiculous. People are making so much money off of this situation, and there's a list that I've posted online. I posted it in our group as well, which I definitely want to share. You know, I can probably share in the comments here, but somebody else it's not me has compiled this list of 90 plus companies. All of the brands involved, all of the resource links are in the file. So anybody can go and look at it and see which companies are involved. And I wanted to bring this up because there's a lot of Goodwill type things going on around the country. So you've got Target who said, Hey, I'm a billionaire. They can loot my store. It's okay. We'll be fine. And then you've got target that said, let's put $15 minimum wage on every employee. And everybody's like, yeah. Woo. That's awesome. And then you turn around and they're on that list. And it's like, okay. So if you're on this list over here, does that mean you're also going to pay them $15 an hour because they're getting a dollar, a dollar 75 an hour. They don't have legal funds. They can't defend themselves. They don't have a net.

Michelle (00:55:56):

I don't know that Target is saying they wouldn't pay them. That who is saying,

Sally Hendrick (00:56:00):

Oh, I don't know what they wouldn't say it or not, but the target is part of the Alec list of companies or, or at least the lobbying list of companies that is buying prison, labor from the government. Our US government is literally selling this labor, these corporations. And that's just screwed up. See, fundamentally, I don't care. I don't care about the ins and outs and the details that is just screwed up.

Lori (00:56:32):

Well, yeah, because they do slave labor. I mean, that's what we're making money on. And I'm, I'm wondering like, what is government actually making off this?

Sally Hendrick (00:56:41):

I feel like the guys might, can make an, a dollar 75, but the government's making money to then shave off some of the prison costs, which are because, but that's our tax money. That's our money going to pay to do this and to keep these people in this constant situation. When I was at the when I was at Auschwitz three years ago in Poland, you know, they literally would, these women would get off these trains and they would cut all their hair off and they would use it as fiber to make things for the war effort. They were stripping these women of their hair and using it as fiber to make coats. I mean, come on. So it's a similar thing. You've got people who were being absolutely beaten all the way down and put in a situation where their bodies, their minds are being put forth for the money effort.

Krystal (00:57:56):

Okay. And that information, what ended the war was other countries coming in and basically defeating the Nazis. We don't want that in America. So how do we change the cycle of oppression from within that? That's, what's on my mind right now. What can I do to change it from within, because I don't want a war. I know,

Lori (00:58:29):

I don't know if we need a war, but it doesn't hurt to have other countries saying we're not going to support the government. They don't make changes. So stop selling tear gas to America. They saw what was happening and said, that is a violent regime and we're not going to sell tear gas

Sally Hendrick (00:58:50):

And the, the police shields and the cats and the UN.

Lori (00:58:56):

So we don't necessarily need them to come and start a war, but we certainly, it's certainly not a bad thing to have them stand up for the people, just like we claim to do when Egypt what was the Egypt, the spring thing. So the people to protest and do that. Right. And like send stuff and be a little bit, maybe under the, you know, under the radar and keep that protest go going and did, did it, did it. And now it's like, now what's happening here. And all the other countries are like, yeah, let's keep that going. Right. So they don't necessarily need to come in and have a war with us, but it's not a bad thing to have them supporting the people here. Yeah. So if there's a way that I don't think they'll come in and have a war here, but I think they will do what you're starting to see.

Lori (00:59:53):

You're starting to see the UN get involved a bit more. You're starting to see other countries say, we're not going to sell you this anymore. You're seeing other countries say we backed the protesters. You're seeing all the black lives matter, protest all around the world. Right. Then it's letting their governments know that what's happening with our government. Isn't okay. And so they might, they're not going to come in and attack, but they're going to do it through policy and that's. Is there anything that hits us in the pocket book, especially with the moron. We have an office right now, anything that has us in the pocket book is gonna is gonna make policies happen, making, if he's coming to play. And that's really the goal policies, policies changing has gotta be the first step.

Sally Hendrick (01:00:42):

I agree.

Lori (01:00:45):

Not bad.

Michelle (01:00:46):

Are there any big organization or causes that are opposed to all of this that are like exposing this on a more simplistic way so that people can see what's happening? I, I, I watched this YouTube woman, Catherine, I can't remember her last name drawn a like, and she would go into the prisons in California. I think it was California, Nevada. And she would teach entrepreneurial skills too. And she would, she would talk about how many blacks were in there that were just in there for the types of reasons that we're in this 13th this movie she was working on teaching them how to own their own business, entrepreneurial skills. And then she brought corporations into to be a part of this. It was this huge program. And I loved it. I wanted to go train out there because I thought, well, why aren't we doing all this kind of stuff? Right. And then I don't think she's even doing it anymore. So does anybody know, like, is there any one specific cause that is fighting type of thing right now?

Lori (01:01:56):

I think you'll find that there's like, like, I believe you, you, the Unitarian church. And I know that, like, they have a huge prison reform reforms group, and they were very involved with getting some of the prison, the sentencing laws here in Massachusetts changed and prison reform here in mass changed. So if you, you don't have to be a member. If you go on they'll ha they'll show you site, they'll show you information like where you can go, like our church. We have people that do Toastmasters in prisons and they work with work with all. It doesn't matter what color obviously, but they work with you to learn how to learn, how to speak and really like hone your skills so that when you do get out, you're you feel a little bit more confident, not really getting to the what's happening, where the government is selling. So I'm not sure about that, but I know like sometimes you have to do the grassroots things first, right. People know that you actually give a damn about the small steps you have to get in there and you have to be seen and you have to let them know that you think of them as more than just a prisoner, right. That they're a person that's incarcerated. Where did I see that was that

Sally Hendrick (01:03:16):

The writer writing my wrongs, that that was when Michelle Summers, she was with us Monday night. Michelle talked about that. Yeah. I want, I want to, I want to read that book and I want to watch, she did a podcast with him. She was, he was her guest as well in the group. And I need to add, I've gotten some more things from people that I want to add to that document. So and we'll, we'll get that going. So where we need to really wrap up and I wanted to, because we are, you know, a group here do we want to do white fragility maxed in and actually talk through that? As our next thing, before we try to jump into the Yale course,

Lori (01:04:02):

I like that idea. Okay. Now I'm in the process of reading it so I can facilitate a group on it in the fall. So how long of a book is it? I have like 12 or 13 chapters. It's like, I don't know. Yeah. It's not, I don't even think it's done. And it's an easy, it's an easy read except that you'll read it and go, Oh shit. And then you'll go back and you'll review it and go, Oh my God. And then you'll put it that, you know, it's not a, like, it's a time it's it's. And it's not like scholarly texts, like research bourbon and look her up. She's got all sorts of conversations on it. She teaches it. So she works in predominantly white businesses with teaching, teaching people about white fragility and watching them deal with the struggles of it and, and being you know, I didn't mean it like that, you know, that whole thing like that intentional impact and like, it's, it's, I mean, I can only tell you, like, I read it and it, sometimes I have to like sit with the chapter for a week and then be like, okay, now we can move on to the next one.

Lori (01:05:27):

And how how's that affecting me? And where have I done that? Like, how, how am I, how am I doing that behavior? Right? Like, where's, where's that showing up for me and realizing how much it does. And that's why I like like saying, Oh, I'm not racist. Well, of course I am. I use my privilege on a daily basis. And I, I live in a predominantly white community. I've obviously chosen that I didn't do it. You know, I might not have done it consciously, but I certainly am in a predominantly white neighborhood. I could just as easily have been in the city, but I moved to the suburbs. Right. So all of those things, like, you start to be like, Oh, but you needed to go to a good school. Which really means, Oh, you needed to go to a white school. I don't have kids. It didn't matter where I lived.

Lori (01:06:17):

Had no. Right. So, but even if you have kids, why do you have to go to a you know, so it's sort of, it gives you all the code words that w that white people use that really put us in a different frame of mind. And when you start to read it all, you just sort of start to go, Oh, shit. Here I am

Elaine (01:06:41):

Is what makes me want to just mention just this little aside thing, you know, with the things that have gone on my husband African-American black man we've been together for gosh, 26 years, I think 26 anyway, long time. And I was realizing what, the things that have gone on in the recent months. He is a runner and he's really concerned about the past couple months. He's been scared. You know, he never really verbalized it much until most recently to run by himself. And he started to take pepper spray with him. And these were things that he I've been with him for all these years, and never seen that. And, and I recognize when you're talking about things that you recognize that you do, and you use your privilege type of thing, we were having just some candid conversation or walk. Cause I had been telling him when I walked through the neighborhood, I was like, Hey honey, why don't you walk with me? And then as we were talking about these things, I said, it was my subconscious way of using my privilege to extend as some sort of a protection. Wow. I'll walk with you.

Lori (01:07:55):

Yeah. You'll be safe. As long as you're walking with me.

Elaine (01:07:59):

And or even if people see that he's affiliated with me and they see that thing and it, cause I was telling him, I says, I can't protect you. I can't. But at least it was some, and I recognized, I was like, the house objective is that, but where you try to use

Elaine (01:08:16):

You know, and it's, it shouldn't be like that. But I've known that that's what it is.

Sally Hendrick (01:08:22):

Or what about you Krystal? What? The woman married to a cop. Yeah. I guess my, I use my husband's white privilege. It is. I'm starting away on me because I never really thought about it. I beyond, Oh yeah, he's got it. I'm going to use it. And I didn't really think about it so much until I'm in another group. And one of the ladies was concerned just like you about her husband. Who's African American going for a run and how every time he leaves the house, now she's like, okay, you can't wear hoodie anymore. Don't wear hoodie. If you're going for a run, like just, I got him iceberg and it was settled. Cause I hadn't really thought about it, thought about it. There's these little thin rope lights that you can get. Now it's like 30, $40, but they light up in different colors, this, this little rubber thing. And I thought that's something to put that on the message you're wearing that. And then he wears a little headlamp when it's an umbrella as if they can go way that they can say that you're doing, you're lit up like a fucking Christmas tree, you know? So not to interrupt. I'm sorry. But you just said,

Lori (01:09:36):

But that's like, so that's heartbreaking. Right? We want to acknowledge that, that that's heartbreaking that first, that you live with that fear as his wife and second that you, and that you live with that Krystal, but that he lives that every single day, like this in this other way. Right. But that's his reality. That's his reality every way. And so when, when Krystal, when you made the comment about Angela Davis being, didn't want to be thought of as an angry black woman or as another angry black woman. My, my thought processes, you should fucking be angry and what's the matter with us, but we think that that's a problem.

Krystal (01:10:26):

Oh my goodness. The first letter that I ever wrote for work, I'm just hired, well, not I'd been working for a couple of years, but I'm writing an official letter and my boss just tears it up. Red lines it to pieces. It's too angry. And I'm like, okay, you know, I'm the only black person, but it's too angry. Okay, cool. No, how you want me to tell these people that they can't do this? What they're trying to do without saying you can't do that right.

Lori (01:10:58):

Well, so women, I always, I always think it's awful for black women because I know how frustrating it is as a woman in general, that we're supposed to be appropriate as it is. And so then you, you throw to that, that as a black woman, you can't even be as angry as a regular way of woman because that's not acceptable.

Sally Hendrick (01:11:21):

They don't want to see the emotion and the reasons and the discussion much.

Lori (01:11:27):

So it's okay. Like for me, like it's like friggin be angry. Like of course people are angry. Like how can, how can the black community not be angry? I mean, how can they not be angry? And there shouldn't be forgetting about the murders. This is what I always say. Forget about the murders. Think of the day to day paper cuts every single day, all the time, the paper cuts. And then, you know, it is a literally dealt by a thousand paper cuts, forget about the, you know, that they finally take the gun and shoot you or put their knee on your neck. They've already wounded you so many times, it sort of reminds me of like a bull fight. Like, you know how they put all the spheres in the bowl before they ever go out to the battle. That's sorta how I feel about the black community. They wounded to do so many times. And then they go, listen, we don't want you to complain about it. It's really not that bad. You must imagining it. Cause loss of being happened. I can't remember who said, people should be glad we only want reparations and not revenge

Sally Hendrick (01:12:42):

That woman. Yes. The one that rented the space. Oh gosh, I put it in the article that I wrote because a man I did that video in, I cannot remember her name, but her husband is David Jones, I think. And he has David Jones media, and he's a film producer type of guy. And they were going around the city wherever they are. And they were getting interviews with people about what was happening throughout that protest that evening and and of course, after hearing all these people's stories throughout that day she was just full of emotion. And she goes in to talk about her view on everything and how she had had pushed training, which I don't know if you know, push, but I, I did a push training back in college where I it's empathy training and the empathy training. I did it for a handicapped person.

Sally Hendrick (01:13:36):

Like I had to be blind and I was in a wheelchair and I had to trust someone else to take me around and do whatever. And so it was just kind of an exercise, but that particular organization would also do this training for explaining with the monopoly game. Analogy about 400 rounds of monopoly and 50 rounds of monopoly. And yeah, at the very end, she was like, you just better be glad that black people don't they want equality, equality, not revenge. Yeah. Yup. It was pretty amazing. Wow. Passion. Well, thanks ladies. Can't wait to do this again with you. So let's, let's wait, let's read white fragility and maybe we'll have some more people come join us for the discussion and, and all of that. And I don't think we necessarily have to do, I mean, we'll just have to decide if we do a separate discussion or if we just come online, but I do want to be able to share what we're saying with people out there in the world so that they will they will get the benefit of what we're talking about. We're not perfect. We're just doing it. Yeah. Thank you.

Sally Hendrick (01:14:54):

Goodnight everybody.