sic) (upbeat music) - Good evening everybody and welcome to a "Black Nouveau" special webinar.

I'm Earl Arms and we're so glad you've joined us this evening.

In a few moments, Kima and Dasha Kelly Hamilton will guide us through understanding implicit bias but we want your participation as well.

Now some of you have already been selected to talk with us during the presentation.

We also invite your questions and comments on the materials being presented.

We'll get to some of those in the program as well and we have two polls we want you to take during our time together.

So without further ado let's get started.

Kima, Dasha, good evening.

Good to see you both.

- It's great to see you too, thanks for having us.

- Good evening Earl, thanks for having us.

Welcome to XM.

An explicit conversation on implicit bias.

I'm Kima Hamilton.

- And I'm Dasha Kelly Hamilton.

We are both facilitators, curators and passionate fans of human beings.

So whenever we have a chance to deliver these sessions we look at it as an opportunity to get right and get real.

- When we facilitate these sessions in person we encourage our participants to engage the conversation.

Just like a conversation.

Not necessarily like a classroom and tonight will be no different, even though it will be a little different.

- Just a little bit different.

So we still wanna be engaging and engaged with you.

So we're gonna ask that you get something to write with and something to write on.

So through the course of our time together we hope that you'll scribble down those curious thoughts or ideas and especially your questions.

We'll stop a few times along the way to have you share your questions and ideas, add them to the conversation and more importantly, we want you to hold on to those conversations and take them back into your peer group, into your personal network because the whole point of this time is to enrich the conversations we have and moving forward.

- The sign said, - [Both] Whites only.

- Stark letters boasting a covenant of handshakes.

- All the way down to the rough knuckles that hung the sign.

- An equity of fixed to Commonwealth bricks and consciousness, one fixture at a time.

- One work order at a time.

- One department meeting.

- One bullet point.

- [Both] One more contradiction we feel with silence.

- They're not gonna sell me a house on that block.

- Referred me instead to the neighborhoods that, - [Both] might be - trending diversity.

- Not relevant, not ready.

- [Both] We have a very conservative board.

- Servants be obedient to them who are your masters with fear and trembling.

- Ephesians 6:5.

- It's right there in the Bible.

- Let the women learn in silence and all subjugation.

- 1st Timothy, second chapter, 11 to the 14th verse.

- This elevator has been broken for months - [Both] but they're building a new arena outside my window.

- Those Birkenstocks and Bublr Bikes will trample roses sprouting from concrete.

- When does development cross the street - [Both] and become displacement?

- Coffee shops become canaries in the mind.

- I don't have the money for that.

- Developers drain tenants like subsidy budgets.

- I don't have the money for that.

- Progress was not designed for all.

- My high school counselor, my high school guidance counselor never told me I needed that class.

- [Both] He decided that chair outside his office was as far as I would go.

- We have always been on the back of the bus.

- They're not required to build a ramp.

- They don't want us there?

♪ For the Bible tells me so.

♪ - My wife won't let me.

- My husband won't let me go.

- [Both] This cost too much.

- I waited too late.

- Trying to govern our lives with impression clicks.

- Chasing the Joneses with pitchforks and lines of credits - [Both] Wherever they go, however they vote, whatever they buy, wherever they lie.

Lay.

Both?

- What if we fail?

- Some of these can'ts are real.

- This could take a lifetime.

- The sign said, - Said.

- whites only.

(smacks lap) So when we facilitate these conversations in person, we like to begin with the five C's introduction because we are here to understand implicit bias a little better we'll start from the beginning which is typically how we introduce ourselves.

When we're in our natural rhythm, I'm gonna introduce myself with my name, perhaps my job title, where I'm from, my marital status and what we find is we have so many aspects of ourselves in this five C's exercise where introduction gives us the opportunity to get to know each other dimensionally.

As we mentioned earlier in the broadcast we do have volunteers that will bring up and share their five C's introduction.

We encourage all of you to move down these five components to jot down on your pieces of paper a more varied introduction or an expanded introduction for yourself.

For an example, (Dasha mumbles) I'll do the five C's.

Color.

I'm black.

That's my color.

My character.

I've had a mentor tell me that integrity is being the exact same person regardless of the space you find yourself in and along those lines, I'd like to think I'm kind, I'm considerate, I'm critical and hopeful, right?

So my character are those things.

My class is, I have a working class, I've working class ways and an entrepreneurial spirit.

My context is an African-American in the diasporic sense like I am a human who descended from Africa who exists in North America, right?

There are humans from Africa and Central America and South America.

So I just kinda identify with the African-American context diasporically and I'm a middle child which is an important part of my context and culture.

I am, I was reared in the golden era of hip hop.

So hip hop has influenced a lot of who and how I am and I have a lot of Southwest Georgia red dirt road values.

There.

- You're a middle child?

- I'm a middle child.

I'm a middle child.

(Dasha laughs) - (mumbles) my five C's a lot of information.

Dasha, my color is black.

I'm gonna stick with that one.

Yes I'll respond to African American, people of color but I've decided that I'm gonna, black is where I'm gonna hold it down.

I'd prefer to identify in terms of that language of color.

Character, I want my character to perceive me as being passionate.

I want my character to be defined as someone who's gonna pour the best of myself into things that I am excited about and I'm gonna get the best of myself when I'm there.

So my passion makes me be authentic when I show up places.

My class, I have to laugh at this one because class is typically defined by your income bracket, right?

And so I had a friend of mine once he was talking about his daughter carrying on about what she deserved and what she wanted and he went, "Whoa, this is my lifestyle.

"I'm letting you borrow my lifestyle.

"You're gonna get your own lifestyle one day."

And as grown as I was when I heard I had to laugh 'cause I know for a long time I held mentally onto my parents' lifestyle that I grew up in even though my bank account wasn't anywhere in that stratosphere, right?

So if we're going by income, I mentally am solidly middle-class regardless of what the bank says.

My context is I am an army brat.

So that is one of the first things I tell people about myself.

So my context as a military brat, I'm just used to things always changing.

The neighbors next door will be different, the language I have to learn will be different, the meals at the, that are served at the school on birthdays will be different and you just learn to appreciate that that is a richness of how the world goes and it also builds in a different, not as a tolerance but a patience for how people can and will be and lastly my culture would say is of the creative class, a creative culture.

I've been able to curate this network of friends and chosen family every, by and large they're all creatives.

Not say that they're all artists but they all appreciate newness and innovation and in a varied way of being.

So that's how I would describe my culture.

So I would love to, this is definitely a lot more information you might ever get in a (chuckles) meeting somebody at a coffee shop but like you said, it's dimensional.

So I'd love to have one of our volunteers come up and give, have them give a shot at their five C's.

- That sounds great.

Let's bring up our first volunteer of the evening.

- [Michael] Oh, (mumbles) Hello relatives.

My name is Mike.

My full legal name is Michael Patrick Wambogi Cadesca O'Connor.

Wambogi Cadesca in the Dakota language translates to spotted Eagle.

I am coming from you from Sioux City, Iowa, which is right across the river from our homelands of South Dakota.

I would say probably with those five C's, the color now historically indigenous people have been referred to as red.

Myself I just refer to myself as universal.

I don't, obviously I don't look red but my favorite color is black because in the four directions of the medicine wheel, blacks stands for life and so I love to live and so the next (mumbles) the next thing on that C list would be character.

May he rest in peace.

A mentor of mine, Dr. Frank Lameer.

He always said, "Nothing changes "until people are made to feel uncomfortable.

"Nothing changes until we make ourselves uncomfortable."

And so I'm sticking to that one.

I'd love to go on and on about that one too.

I'd love to talk about that.

Class, I come from a working class, poverty stricken background but I've worked in a lot of jobs where a lot of people wouldn't wanna work back breaking labor but I've also worked behind the desk as I progress and I appreciate that either or.

Context.

I'm indigenous person, indigenous male.

Man that has relatives all around.

I love these lands we originated from these lands and so in context, that's what, that's who I identify with as my grandmas and grandpas and our ancestors as well.

Culturally, I come from the Oceti éakowiK.

That's the people of The Seven Council Fires.

Historically referred to as the great Sioux Nation but the Sioux in relative terms is not something that we like to be referred to and I can't go into that but it is.

I would just identify myself with that and thank everybody for being here as well and watching.

- [Kima] Michael thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Michael what was that experience, - [Judy] Okay.

- You know, digging, exploring those different facets of yourself?

- [Judy] My name is Judy.

- Okay hey Judy.

We got volunteer number two.

Hey Judy.

- [Judy] Hi.

Go okay.

It's, my name is Judy.

(Dasha laughs) - [Kima] (mumbles) yeah.

- (mumbles) could hear I'm getting cues and I apparently need them so that's all right.

(Judy laughs) My name is Judy Kuhn.

I am white and I come from working class background.

I've been an adjunct university instructor in music which means I was poor (Judy laughs) and I've also been a lawyer, which means I was middle class and so my character is (Dasha mumbles) somebody who's retire, I'm currently retired and somebody who's using retirement to learn to not have to be right and to be more vulnerable which I think often happens to people as they age and things start not working as well as they might have before but I think it's a value of mine to be vulnerable and since I was a lawyer and since I was a teacher I spent a lot of time being right and being in charge sort of in a way and I, I'm done with that in a sense and so my context is being a recovering lawyer who loves music.

That's what I taught, when I taught at the university.

The music that I grew up with was classical music, chamber music.

(table thuds) I played the, played the cello.

This is my cat that you may or may not need to see.

(Kima exclaims) (both laugh) And so, she'll probably be back and forth.

I (table thuds) still play chamber music with friends but I don't perform.

I just enjoy it.

It's almost as much of a social thing as a musical thing, it's both, it's great and my culture is, I suppose a retiree middle-class retiree culture.

I have a little house, which I got when I retired and I garden in it and I love having a house and I play chamber music and I read a lot and I walk a lot and I don't do nearly as much as I probably should but that's what I do so that's where I am.

- Thank you Judy.

- That was excellent.

Thank you for sharing that.

If we can have both Michael and Judy on the screen, that will be fantastic.

We wanna get your feedback on what that experience was like giving this more, what did you call it?

Dimensional introduction of yourself.

- [Michael] Okay, what was your question I'm sorry.

- [Judy] How did you- - [Kima] Well just what was the experience of introducing yourself with all of those different dimensions?

- [Michael] Well I'll tell you what, it feels like it's natural.

It feels like it's comes from creation, it's feels like it's been needing to be expressed since I was a child having been suppressed in oppressed.

I feel like it's getting to know myself on a whole 'nother level which allows me to connect, not with just people but I think get to know myself in all of creation, invite real truth and honesty and vulnerability and courage.

However you wanna say, whatever you can add to that list into my life and allow that to flow sort of through me and work towards the people.

Work toward and get to work.

(Michael laughs) - [Kima] Man, thank you.

Thank you, thank you Michael and I appreciate your tilt of the color conversation.

Red has been a color assigned to you and I just appreciate that audacity.

You had to even redefine what the ask was and I will share my favorite color, which is also data and important information when getting to know someone beyond what we see it upon sight.

- And I especially appreciate how you describe this approach to an introduction as liberating in sort of a way.

This freedom of finally being able to share so many other different parts of yourself now and again a casual introduction, that's a lot of information to give somebody on a quick hello but how it made you feel also says a lot about what's possible when we just give us permission to think about what else, how much broader we exist.

If I could ask Judy to come back up she had the opposite experience.

Thank you Michael.

- Thank you Michael.

- Where- - Hopefully we'll have some time to bring you back up later in the broadcast for a recap.

Yeah.

- I think the interesting thing about this introduction in comparison to Michael is that I don't identify with my ethnicity particularly or my my race or color which I suppose is something that you will wanna get into why that's true of me as opposed to Michael but and that it's hard to define, I have a harder time defining myself and that's suppose that's all right you know but it, you know, I'm not that clearly defined in my mind as Michael is.

So it's really interesting.

- Well this exercise, this exercise helps and I hope, you know not only for Judy but everyone listening in the virtual world and in the virtual spaces, you took some time to jot down and jot through what your five C's could look like.

- [Dasha] Because it definitely gives a whole lot more information, a lot more spirit beyond your name and where you work.

- So what is implicit bias?

Let's get into- - What are we doing here?

- [Kima] Yeah, what are we doing here?

Let's get into understanding implicit bias, right?

Implicit bias also known as unconscious or hidden bias and implicit biases are negative associations that people unknowingly hold.

They are expressed automatically without conscious awareness.

That sentence, "They are expressed automatically "without conscious awareness" is evidence of how dope, right?

Like how incredible our bodies are, right?

Our brains and our brains are making associations in an attempt to be efficient, right?

It's so it's, so it's constantly doing this and the more association that it can make the more efficient it could be, right?

Like defragging your computer or something along those lines.

So if I say peanut butter.

- I'll probably say jelly.

- If I stay Batman.

- Robin.

- Penn.

- Teller.

- That works.

- Okay.

(Kima laughs) Now that happens automatically.

I think where it becomes problematic is when we, when those associations aren't necessarily accurate.

See we've all been socialized in the same, in some of the same waters and because of that similar socialization we all hold implicit biases towards each other.

If I saw me walking in my direction I would have a heightened awareness that I saw me coming and I know how kind my heart is.

- And when these associations become norms that's when they become extra problematic because that means all of us have unwittingly bought into these associations becoming accepted, expected and normal.

You know, just the way things are.

For example, if I say police you may say, - Brutality.

- If I say millennial you may say, - Entitled.

- If I say pit bulls you might say, - Dangerous.

- Implicit biases.

They shape our priorities, our politics, our policies, our practices and they even go as far as putting obstacles in the way of some people just simply living life with dignity.

- Let's take a poll.

Let's take a quick poll.

Where have you experienced implicit bias, right?

Where have assumptions been made about you based off of your gender, your skin color, your age, your dominant hand, your income bracket, marital status, right?

Like where have assumptions been made about you that weren't necessarily accurate based off of one facet of who and how you are.

Some of the options are employment, medical care, educational spaces, recreational spaces.

- [Dasha] Interpersonal relationships, housing, travel, criminal justice and just society in general.

- [Kima] So if you would take a moment and fill out the poll we should have the results in another minute or so.

Where have you experienced implicit bias?

- [Dasha] I didn't see all of the above buttons (Kima laughs) necessarily but you know, in this moment, what come to me is a place to remind us what that it is everywhere is recreation.

I have a friend of mine who's working on a project that's doing, that's exploring the statistics of black backpackers (lighthearted music) and for us to even have to have that conversation of where people of color do and don't exist in different recreation spaces took us to a whole 'nother conversation about implicit bias.

What about you?

- [Kima] Yeah I think I would be the all of the above button myself at some point.

I think for me where it becomes, where it has, has had the potential to affect me the most has been in the educational spaces.

Just to have the longest effect I think for me was and it moves in both directions.

I've gone to school in inner city urban settings and I've gone to school in Southwest Georgia and so you know, being able as an adult now to look back at the time that I'd walked into a classroom and I've formed opinions on if this teacher was able to teach me and I might imagine that was a feeling in both directions, right?

- [Dasha] Teacher may have made the same assumption about you.

- [Kima] Absolutely and so, you know, don't, not quite sure how to take a tally but I could just know that it affected me in those spaces.

- [Dasha] Interesting.

(lighthearted music continues) - [Kima] We are very excited to try out this virtual approach like Dasha mentioned earlier in our face-to-face sessions, right?

And we would use this as an opportunity to create breakouts and start discussions and the, and we're looking for these poll results to do a similar thing.

So the polls are in.

- [Dasha] Really excited.

Interested to see this, the spread of information.

Employment, medical care, education and recreation were the top ones but there was nothing with a zero, right?

There was nothing where this hasn't been an impact.

- [Kima] That's- - [Dasha] And of course that... Oh, thank you, thank you, so they're numbers.

So that's how many numbers of you but there's nothing that didn't get anything logged into it at all and it's not surprising because the answer absolutely is in all of our categories because implicit bias is going to happen wherever there are human beings.

- [Kima] Thank you.

We will have another poll later in the broadcast hopefully to keep you involved and to keep you engaged.

- So like we said, those numbers from this small sampling of those of us who are gathered here today and not, have no idea if it's representative of the entire nation but we all are in this conversation together and again, implicit bias is just part of how humans are constructed and how we're wired.

(mouse clicks) We don't talk enough about how peanut butter naturally becomes jelly and naturally because we don't spend, we don't pay attention or give conversation to these natural wirings of our brain and when bias is implicit that means it's operating in the background.

It's like that program app that's draining you cellphone battery or taking up too much storage space on your computer.

If we don't optimize against implicit bias we don't often don't go there because it feels too much like being called a racist.

I know and no one wants to go through that.

So because we conflate the two, we don't have this baseline conversation about this elemental part of our brain.

Now explicit bias is usually what we think of when we talk about racism.

So racist acts are, racism are acting out our implicit biases.

So there is a little thin film in between but how often are those well current news cycles not withstanding?

How often are those really explicit transgressions?

How often do they really happen?

- [Kima] Exactly.

As if blatant bias are the only acts of racism that should be discussed.

In my, I believe impact implicit bias has the ability to create a lot more damage than explicit bias and the reason I feel this way is because it is unconscious in a lot of ways and even though the bias is unconscious, you're still in a position of affecting another human's life, right?

And so it doesn't always necessarily have to be an authority position, it doesn't have to be in a position that has the ability to give someone freedom or take their freedom or but just in subtle ways how that implicit bias has the ability to affect outcomes as it relates to another human's life and with it sitting so dormant, it, to me has the potential to be that much more dangerous because you can't necessarily wield it or yield it, you're almost at the mercy of it (mumbles) - And it's been with us for a long time because it's just part of how our brains work.

Listen, our brains, incredible pieces of machinery and it's just refined itself in a lot of ways and some, most of it is also very ancient.

So our brains do an incredible job of filtering out information.

At this moment, your brain is hard at work helping you filter out the sound of the overhead lights, the heating vents, your brain is setting aside the to-do list for groceries or the family event that's coming up next month and it's also regulating your body temperature to keep it blinking your eyes, keeping you awake, your brain is busy.

Your brain is really busy and it's created these shortcuts for us to be efficient so that we don't have to process all of this data all the time it works again in the background so we can be present and stay alive.

So a lot of these shortcuts are shortcuts that kept us in survival mode.

They're shortcuts so we didn't have to process over and again whether or not these berries were dangerous, weather or what's going to happen when that smell is in the air, we know the rain is going to come.

It also helped us know to which animals were going, that we needed to run from, which clans coming across the hill were our friends and which ones were our foes.

Our brains continue to do our processing, so the processing is not what the issue is, we want that.

That's what got us all to be sitting here with computers and stuff but the processing into that shortcut called other is probably a processing that doesn't serve us the way that it needed to way, way back when we were living with big wilder animals that were trying to consume us on a regular basis.

That idea of other is something that naturally our brains are gonna continue to do but if we don't pay attention to that as a baseline biological elemental reality but then start having conversations about our human nature and our modern culture if, we were not gonna change the trajectory that we're on.

So we have to talk about moving away from reaction which is biology, taking a pause, so we can reform how we engage with each other and we need to start at an elemental level.

- The biology part is one of my favorite aspect of this conversation.

This is where we have the opportunity to disengage from the indictment of this, what happens when you have been accused of being biased or accused of being racist.

It's typically a, an indictment of just your character and what epigenetics has shown us is that there's a lot more to the conversation than you know, our personal feelings.

As a matter of fact like some of this is written into our DNA.

There was a study done with male mice who were, who had the smell of cherry blossoms associated with a small buzz on their, you know, a shock to their foot.

They took these male mice two weeks later and mated them with female mice and their offspring and the female mice had not experienced the same effect of the cherry blossoms and associated with this shock.

So you had the male mice, you had the female mice and they had an offspring and the offsprings when they were introduced to the smell of cherry blossoms they became nervous and anxious and they hadn't been shocked.

They had children and their children became nervous and anxious at the smell of cherry blossoms and what the researchers were able to determine is the awareness of cherry blossoms had been written into their DNA code.

They had never been shocked by cherry blossom (mumbles) they'd never been, they had never experienced the shock on their foot that their father and grandfather did, if you will but the awareness that there's something about these cherry blossoms that you have to be mindful of was written in their DNA code and so to Dasha's point, the the awareness of the other is a survival instinct, right?

And some of what we are responding to is written into our DNA code and the most exciting part about this journey that we have the opportunity to be on as we understand implicit biases, we get to now assess and yes there's a reason we have the heightened awareness of the smell of cherry blossoms but is it shocking us?

And in the same way that it shocked our dad and our granddad and our great-granddad and that's, it may be, I don't know.

It's a, it may be and but it may not be shocking as either, right?

And just having the intention around that conversation, giving yourself the courage to explore that and not just rubber stamp and double down on, you know how it's always been because on some level that's where we have the opportunity to grow and evolve as a species as not to pass down unnecessary fears and anxieties in our DNA.

- There was a research project that was done some years ago with survivors of Holocaust, children of Holocaust survivors and they found that as these children grew to be adults they had adopted some of those same anxieties that their parents had nightmares about without having actual themselves being Holocaust survivors and they're looking to mirror that same study with people that are afflicted with structural racism and returning from reentry project.

So there's a biology to this heightened - [Both] awareness - of cherry blossoms but the good news is because we're still talking about the brain, the brain also still holds cues and opportunities for us to continue to shift.

So the good news is our brains are malleable.

The human brain can generate new thoughts and new pathways and it restructures itself all the time.

So that's the good news.

Hashtag old dogs do learn new tricks, (Kima chuckles) right?

And in fact there was a study that showed (mumbles) there were students who performed better once they were given information, once they learned that their brains were capable of changing different from students who were given different information.

They just thought, "Oh my brain is where my brain is "and so my brain is always gonna be."

So I'm letting you know, your brain can change.

- Let's do a check-in right now.

I wanna make sure not a lot of talking at you and it's feels like we're talking and we're in this together.

Can we bring up our third volunteer just for a check-in?

- [Steve] Good evening everybody can you hear me okay?

- [Dasha] Yes.

- [Kima] Yes we can.

- Okay.

- [Kima] How are you doing?

Thanks for joining us.

- Oh, yeah, yeah thank you.

I thank you for the opportunity and should I go ahead and give my C's now?

You know the various C's?

- [Dasha] We want you to hold onto the C's.

- Okay.

- [Dasha] We wanna just kind of check in and see how you're doing.

What, so what's something that's standing out with you right now.

Just, we just wanna kinda make, just what are you thinking?

- I got you, okay.

- [Dasha] How you feeling?

Where you (mumbles) feedback.

- Well, first of all my name is forgive me for being rude, my name is Steve Burks, okay and with regard to the remarks that you two are just sharing, I'm really excited because one particular thing that sort of crossed my mind as you were just speaking is that what you're talking about now is counter intuitive actually.

There's, I often thought of the kinds of things that you're speaking of in neurological terms as being conscious choices prior to my, you know, becoming aware of the concept of implicit bias.

It never would have occurred to me that not everything is a conscious choice.

So I'm really glad to be hearing this.

This is fascinating because as a person of color I know that I have had the tendency at various times to, well frankly be judgmental.

Let's say, you know White Americans who exhibited and there's a spectrum, right?

So prejudice or bias or even outright racism.

If that's sort of state of mind is a spectrum of sorts.

I tended to be rather judgmental and rubber stampish and dismissive of those who had any sort of negative bias toward me or people who look like me.

So the information that you're sharing now is really helpful.

Not just for, you know perhaps White Americans who have to interrogate themselves now, you know post previous administration or post 2020 but even for myself, you know, as a black man so that I'm not so knee jerk about attributing things to folks' character when from what you're telling me, this is a hard wiring issue.

So it's kind of like a matrix experience for me.

It's like, (Dasha laughs) whoa okay.

- Yes, well take the blue pill, take the blue pill.

You're absolutely right.

- For real.

- I so appreciate you.

(Dasha laughs) (mumbles) - Yeah.

- Judy mentioned being vulnerable and it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable.

So thank you for sharing that truth out loud.

I'll meet you there and say, - Yeah.

- I had to get to a space and acknowledge that I have this knee jerk assumption if I see somebody wearing a camouflage hat and don't have the glasses with the wrap around I've just written your whole life story and we've had the chance to work with folks and know that we're absolutely wrong.

So even though all of us intellectually we know better and still we are wired to respond in a way, like what did you say Kima?

You would cross the street seeing you because of how we've been shaped to consider 6'3 black man but here's the other thing Steve, it's even more than just recognizing or how we treat each other based on skin color.

You know you've dismissed that young folk, that young person with a great idea because they were the young cousin or it's impossible that this person would all the tattoos could be a CEO or a chemist.

So it shows up in so many, so many different ways.

- I tell you what, Steve would you mind sharing maybe one or two of your C's?

- [Steve] Sure yeah, I'd be happy to do that and I jotted a few of them down.

So I mean color, the color with which I identify is black.

Just plain and simple.

With regard to character, my aim is to be, my aim, which is to say I'm sure I'm not successful at all times, is to be empathetic and principled.

So those are a couple of things that I would name if I gotta talk about my character aims those two things.

As far as class, the contrarian in me wants to reject the concept well I don't subscribe to the notion you know what I'm saying but but for our purposes, probably middle.

You know, socioeconomically speaking, you know middle.

Although in terms of working class, like, you know, the brother spoke to earlier, the native brother spoke to earlier, early on I definitely would identify there as well, you know because you know, I do not come from means at all and I'll skip context because semantically I'd have to think about that a bit.

I'm not sure what my context is or maybe context and culture overlap but I will speak to culture in my case and say that I identify as a black American artist.

So music, so that's R&B soul, you know and again also a product of the golden age of hip hop so I see you, sir.

(Kima laughs) Right, right and then lastly, a writer as well.

So in terms of culture, I definitely identify as an artist.

An artistic Black American man.

So those are mine.

Yeah.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you and thank you for your honesty.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And we're gonna, since we're on a pause, we, let's see what you have going on.

Do you have any questions that are coming in from the viewing audience out there in internet land in the ether.

- Glad you asked Kima and Dasha because we do have a question from our audience one of them being, "Can somebody experience someone else's "implicit biases and if so, give an example."

- I don't know that you can experience someone else's implicit bias but you certainly can be observant of it and being aware of what you're seeing and not necessarily writing it off you can certainly play a hand in what direction it goes.

- I would say it's possible to transfer it maybe not experienced it.

An example that that come to mind is we work in school settings like schools, residential treatment centers doing these facilitations, youth literary work and we could come into a school and there's a, you know, we might get feedback on a student and our experience with that student throughout the day could be 180 degrees different than what was shared with us and if I didn't have it, the opportunity to learn for myself who this human was and how this human was I would have gone through the day with an outlook of them that wasn't completely whole or accurate.

- And one thing that's, I'm thinking of in this question, implicit bias again, we all have it.

It's a leaning.

We don't always know where it comes from but it's in there and a racist act is acting out up without taking the time to question this leaning.

So I'm thinking about a scenario where you would wonder about if you can experience someone else's implicit bias that may have been observing an outright act of racism or sexism or ageism or another ism that was an issue.

So the bias you observe and the racist action is something that you would be a victim of?

So not exactly is the short answer.

(Earl laughs) - Well I guess to that point then when does that implicit bias become explicit?

That's another question from our viewers.

- [Kima] When it's activated.

(Dasha mumbles) Yeah when it's activated.

There's a, so I had a, a couple of years ago I had an incident where I was, you know, removed from a plane for, you know, for using the restroom is why, is what I would say and then Delta, you know, Delta had a different deposition.

(Kima laughs) They had different language in their deposition, right?

And when it comes and this is actually one of the things that have happened in my life that shoved me into understanding this conversation more in depth, right?

Like so implicit bias is, you know, you see a six foot three black man coming down the aisle, right?

And the only way that I can understand what she was experiencing is to understand this conversation, right?

And so for me to be honest about how I would feel coming towards me, now that doesn't make it right is where I think, hopefully I'm answering your question, right?

So yes, yes I would feel a way if a six foot three black man is walking in my direction and I have to check that in me that feels that way, right?

Like what has this human given me to feel that way other than just existing in their skin?

And it's, it becomes explicit when we address it.

There was a, it becomes explicit when we act on it and we act on it in a way that never questions how we got there in the first place.

So we may do things and feel justified in doing them because this person deserved that because this person is a part of a certain class, a part of a certain lot in life and it becomes, yeah.

Explicit is when you act on it, especially with no regard for how you got to that conclusion.

- I was thinking about, there was a, I'm sorry I can't remember the comic's name but he made a reference that all of us have this thought process where you're driving past the park and you're going about your business and you go, (exclaims) "They play soccer?"

And you keep driving.

So it's a flash of a moment that happens in your mind.

You can attribute it to representation, what you have or haven't seen and it doesn't make you a wicked person.

So that's the implicit bias of why are you surprised that XY fill in the blank and when you operate that that's a fact or don't acknowledge that that thought happened and it wasn't, it didn't belong to you or heaven forbid you're in charge of policy or making decisions or treating these folks you come in contact with, assuming that young people aren't smart, assuming, assuming, assuming that's when it becomes racism when you're acting on impulses that you haven't made sure belong to you.

- Certainly appreciate that answer.

Hopefully that viewer appreciated that answer as well and we have another question and it comes from a person who says, "As a person who identifies as white "the grouping people of color annoys me."

This is them talking.

So they're wondering your thoughts.

They're wondering how people feel about that label persons of color or people of color.

- I'll speak for me.

I agree with you.

I had this whole conversation about this maybe a month ago and I heard someone say that "people of color" is lazy (Dasha chuckles) because if you think about it it captures African-American largely and Latin cultures.

I don't know that Asian and South Pacific Islanders and other indigenous groups identify that way.

So it's a way to clump all of us, everyone together and still feel righteous where why not identify and name folks the way they, all of them, right?

The way they choose to be identified.

So I, it's become convenient and we take out the, it is convenient because it's in the media it's 'cause the convenient way to write about it and to say it in the news and then we adopt that in our regular language.

BIPOC is another one.

It's a little bit closer, black indigenous people of color but you still have the POC at the end.

What about you?

- I think there's a, this, that question kind of speaks to how we got into this conversation and, you know, the spoiler alert this country has had a conversation around the other and the other has the conversation has been framed around race since the beginning and that's what we're untangling, right?

That's the, those are the cherry blossom smells that all of us are working out of our DNA and there's been language that has come with that.

So when I hear the question, I think this that's where we are in the continuum of language, right?

I think every generation, every era has made an attempt to try to right some wrongs, to try to filter out some things and lean into the next best version of what we're capable of as citizens, as humans and so when I hear the language I just hear a college try.

I don't quite know if it has nailed it, I don't quite know if it captures the spirit of all of the different communities and all of the different cultures, right?

It just kind of lump them in like Dasha said in this sameness and it works against what we're trying to do because we wanna parse out, you know, the point of the five C's exercise in the introduction is to unclump us in a lot of ways.

So I think that, you know, this is where we are in the continuum of language and it feels like we wanna keep on trying to nail it.

- And it's a little bit more work but it's worth it.

- Yes.

- A bit more work but it's worth it.

I wanted to really quickly, so you made a comment of history and I think it may be helpful as we continue in this dialogue especially since the question came was framed as someone who identifies as white.

This discussion settles on class and race.

So the another thing that we brought with us and we've been building on as a nation are the assumptions about levels of income and class.

We came and built a nation on poor laws.

So we had, make assumptions of that.

Someone who has, someone based on their like economic level we assume their work ethic and there's no correlation to your point if we don't talk about all of the things put in place from that person to not have a different tax bracket.

So there, it shows up in so many different ways.

- [Earl] All right and this follows up.

- Is there another one Earl?

- [Earl] Yeah.

There's one more question that we have and it kind of follows up the last question that we had and this comes from another viewer who says, "As a person who is 68, "we used to use the term minorities "but I feel for some reason it is no longer acceptable.

"Thoughts?"

- Well, in the conversation in understanding implicit bias, I have to say that the part in there that might feel unacceptable is the association minorities have with so many different adjectives, okay?

And so when we wonder if it's okay to use that term I think mathematically it might be inaccurate and then I think the hardest part to navigate is like, what are those associations?

And I won't even say them out loud, right?

I just know that we all have been socialized in some of the same waters.

So you hear minority and then there's this about five bullet points that dropped down.

- Peanut butter, jelly.

- Yeah and those bullet points is why I imagine it could be a question of like, is it okay to keep using that?

And the answer is, sure use the term minority but as you use that term make sure that we are dispelling the five bullet points that naturally hop up, right?

'Cause it- - I was gonna say in that same category would be schools at risk, neighborhoods at risk, children at risk, aren't all children at risk?

It's so it's, it suggests a whole different conversation and that would put those two together.

So I don't know that it's inappropriate but it definitely is leading into an archived conversation I think.

- I think that question Earl and thank, I wanna thank that the viewer for the question.

That question almost brings us into our next point because I think there's a opportunity in there, right?

Like that in the, that in them that felt like maybe I shouldn't use it or maybe I should, that's an intention.

Right in that space, right?

It's just not a, "Hey I'm gonna use this word because "everyone's been using it I don't-" but just the time that it took to question that is how are we gonna start unpacking this you know.

- Because it moves away from, (Dasha chuckles) you're making sure that we all have an updated list of accepted words and making sure that we have, it's, what do we, we've gone from cultural awareness, we've gone from diversity training, we've gone from these tests of doing it right and if we instead just be together authentically, kind of like when I tell you if you don't make a habit of lying you don't have to keep track of your lies.

If we don't work with, say with each other in authentically we don't have to keep track of which words used and I will let you slide, "slide" on minority if I know your intentions are to have a different conversation.

- Neuroplasticity.

Right?

This is the opportunity.

Like our brains are absolutely capable of forming new pathways and those pathways, those associations that we have just been operating and functioning with again, our evidence that our bodies are dope, right?

And it's even doper when we expand what it knows.

It's even, it's stimulating even right?

When you give yourself the opportunity to build on and to challenge current pathways and I wanna go back to that question, right?

We hear minority and there's about five bullet points that pop up in our spirit.

- [Dasha] Disadvantage or work ethic (mumbles) just all kinda things.

- Yes, yes and I have found that the power of and write this in your notes please, the power of a proper noun, the power of a proper noun.

Giving yourself permission to challenge every one of these bullet points through a lived experience, right?

The associations that pop up in our spirit initially are a part of all of our socialization and we all have at least one example of a lived experience with a proper noun that could dispel that, right?

And so whenever you feel yourself associating minority with something that isn't quite absolute, accurate especially in an absolute context, right?

And so you start getting into different cultures and customs, I think there are pros and cons across the board and it's that intention of challenging those habits, right?

Like habit thinks challenge that and that that's the intention that gives your brain the opportunity to grow and expand.

- And it's going to grow and expand even if you don't want it to.

That's what the brain does.

That's how we all got here.

The brain is constantly reorganizing itself.

If you imagine it as these files, every time it sees something new, every time you go someplace else, every time you do the same thing every day, there's something new there and your brain reorganizes that.

So it also is incredible because it keeps a little folder, a little file, a little manila folder of all the new information that you don't like, right?

The fact that you are actually a different size your brain knows what size you should be buying but it's not gonna say anything when you buy that other size because it makes you feel better.

So the brain is going to, it cannot unhear facts, it cannot unsee things, it cannot untake, it cannot unabsorb information.

It can however, like, you know, it can however rearrange itself in ways.

"Okay, we're gonna keep this file over here "because you just won't accept the fact that you're not "that size anymore."

So that my friends is the area of willful ignorance and that's when you have all the information you've been exposed, you have access to data that contradicts how you feel or maybe how you've been socialized or what you want to believe because of all the reasons we may want to believe things that are not bearing out to be true, that is a decision that we're making at that point 'cause that is not how the brain works.

- Now how do we create neuropath pathways, right?

Like how can we keep our brain generating and stimulate it?

There's a, I'll spare you the ramble.

(Kima chuckles) Driving a new route to work, right?

Like driving a varied route to all of your routine places, to work, to church, when you leave your driveway instead of driving left go right, right?

And see what happens.

Traveling anywhere.

- [Dasha] Even to the other side of town.

(Kima laughs) - [Kima] Gives you an opportunity to experience life outside of your habits, right?

Exercising your non-dominant hand and it won't be pretty (Dasha laughs) but it will stimulate neuro-pathways.

- [Dasha] On the other side of your brain.

Choosing a different coffee mug.

I would use a different color mug every day just because reading fiction, expanding your vocabulary, doing creative projects, they don't have to be great or have to show them at any one but again it activates different parts of your brain (mouse clicks) and being able to activate and work on how to make the willingness to be flexible, you doing exercises really to make your brain pathway more flexible.

So moving from that science of it and thinking about acting out these things we know to be true.

One of those examples was reading fiction and there's a writer that shares a story Chimamanda Adichie and she talks about as a writer who is from Nigeria, she's lives, she has taught and studied in the United States and she has a Ted talk about the danger of the single story and she tells a story of when she came to college initially how her roommate was so disappointed to learn that this Nigerian international student had Mariah Carey and not tribal music in her CD, that she knew all the modern appliances, that she spoke English perfectly well.

- She also told a story of a Fiday and Fiday's family worked for her family as domestics and she was sharing that it was surprising to her almost at a point where it was embarrassing to learn, to be shocked that Fiday family were not only were they poor, they were creative, they were talented and she had formed, like told the single story of poor people and poor people are poor and they're, you know, domestic, they don't necessarily have any talents or aspirations outside of that.

- And both of those were examples of single stories and she probably didn't have that as a thought process about Fiday or his family but she hadn't thought of anything outside of the fact that this family was poor and that's how it happens when we take these complex and all of us are complex beings and we get reduced to one single trait it, as she said it robs people of their humanity.

- And it kind of relegates one to a single story, to a single aspect of who and how they are and that's, that could be dangerous, right?

It reinforces a, it takes that one aspect and makes that history.

If you look at and she mentioned this in her Ted talk of, you know, you tell the story of how the United States would settled if you start with the tip of the bow, - Yeah.

- from the Native America arrows, if you start with the tip of the arrows from the Native Americans and not with people coming to shore you having an entirely different story.

- Completely different narrative and that's looking back how that impacts history and now we all know how history impacts are right now and it's continuing work that needs to be done.

We've talked about vulnerability earlier.

What I also appreciate in this story is she's giving a Ted talk.

So she's talking about this discovery and this work that she's done and continues to do.

She ended it talking about taking a vacation in Mexico and was again a little embarrassed and shocked at herself that she crossed with these narratives pulled from the news cycles, pulled from an American news story about Mexicans and the border and she had to remember that this is ongoing work that we do to challenge what we, "Is this what I really think "or is this something that was this, "is this something that I absorbed as a single story, "is this how or is this how things are?"

(mouse clicks) We have coming up, a couple of questions inspired from her Ted talk and again when we have everyone together in our usual sessions, we're spending sometimes a half day, often a half day, sometimes a full day together and a huge part of these of our XM sessions are giving people the opportunity to react with one another because it's not just you, it's not just the two of us, if you look at these questions all of us have been single storied, all of us have single storied someone else again when you were shocked and surprised that your daughter's best friend who's an amazing athlete is also a straight A student.

Why?

When we give ourselves permission to be uncomfortable and then ask ourselves, where does that discomfort come from?

And then sit with that and the answers to all of those questions get us to better answers.

So answering some of these questions will get us all to better conversations.

We want you to take these down and ask of yourself, ask them of your, again, your personal network and your peers coming to these solutions and having these honest moments will get us to a more authentic place.

- [Kima] Let's bring up our fourth volunteer.

Let's bring the volunteers to sort through this question.

- [Maria] Hi, good evening everyone my name is Maria Flores.

- Who do we have with us?

- Hi, my name is Maria Flores, how are you?

- [Dasha] Wonderful.

- [Kima] Hello Maria.

Please how are you doing?

Thank you for joining us this evening.

- Great to be here.

- [Kima] So Maria, when have you found yourself single storying someone just taking one aspect of who they are and creating an entire narrative for their whole life?

- Do you mean like I played myself into a stereotype is that what you mean?

- [Dasha] No, where you have taken one aspect of a person could be a coworker or a family member and you realize that you'd single story them into one narrow thing.

You know, again, the example that I was able to share on sight we had a gentleman who was in one of our discussion groups and because he showed up literally just because he had a camouflage hat on I already single story who he was and who he was about and I wasn't a thousand percent wrong.

So it was an easy, small thing that I know that's an example for me that I continue to pay attention to.

- And if it helps Maria the, one of the variations from this single story conversation and implicit bias and the conversation around implicit biases, single stories that one thing could be true, right?

It's just incomplete becomes the problematic part of that.

So it isn't that that one thing isn't true, it's that it's just an incomplete story of who this human is.

- Sure.

I have a colleague who is of Asian descent and I just assumed that her being Asian that she would speak her language and she does not and I found out about her background, about her parents fleeing China during the cultural revolution and you know how they were, you know, attacking and incarcerating the intellectuals or you know the highly educated professional people.

So her family, Chinese, fled.

They ended up bopping around I think Europe and finally her family settled down in Puerto Rico where my Chinese colleague grew up and in fact her native language is Spanish and she speaks with an accent and so I now at this point, I do not consider her, maybe she wouldn't want me to say this, I don't think of her as Chinese I think of her as a comadre, as a fellow Latina because she's so immersed into Latino culture and speaks Spanish so fluently way better than I do.

So if you were to look at her you wouldn't know that whole entire story.

- That's- - That's a great- (Dasha laughs) - [Dasha] We're both agreeing.

That's such a great example.

I'm thinking right now about Sean.

A brother we work with and presents as white and I had known him for years until I found out that he identifies as Puerto Rican.

(Dasha exclaims) So the assumptions that we make based on the cues that we think we have in place I really appreciate, I'm excited about the example too.

- Maria would you like to share some of your five C's?

- Sure, I'll share some of my five C's.

There's nothing I love better than to have the platform to talk.

All right.

(Kima mumbles) Color, I would say I am a tasty caramel color.

So I've kinda faded in life but my color is probably more a medium brown.

I am Latina.

My father is, was a very dark skinned indigenous looking man with broad nose, very dark skin but my mother is extremely white.

Everyone thinks she's white, so my color's tan the middle but I do consider myself Mistheesa of indigenous decent.

Did one of those ancestor DNA things, I'm like 72% indegenous and they were spot on.

They were able to actually pick out where my indigenous roots are in central Mexico and so my indigenous roots go back to about at least the 1700s that we're able to figure out.

In terms of my character, one of the benefits of being older pushing 60 is you know who you are and I consider myself a very centered person.

I also consider myself to have a strong, moral fiber, to be very empathetic, to be very generous because I have been extremely blessed in my life and there's no sense in being blessed if you don't share that with others and I do try to maintain to be passionate and curious about things.

Otherwise those brain cells are just gonna die off, you need to put them to use and when it comes to class, I would say I'm solidly middle-class but it's uncomfortable because I grew up with a father who grew up during the depression and both of my parents grew up during Jim Crow law time so we have contests in our house as to who's the cheapest person.

So you know, I'm just not gonna buy something at Walgreens unless I got a dang coupon for it.

It terms of context, I would say a single.

I am a child free, not childless, that doesn't mean that I'm lacking in anything.

Straight.

I come from a family of civil servants, educators, very strong in civil rights and though I wasn't an army brat, every two years from the day I was born until a sophomore in high school moving every two years as my father was chasing tenure.

Very difficult uncomfortable growing up in these middle-class white suburbs where there's one Hispanic, one Indian, one Black and one Asian.

That was your group of minorities (Dasha mumbles) but what I really feel in terms of a C would be culture, which is very, very important to me because I grew up in that area of assimilation.

You know, you put all the cans of paint together and you just end up with this gray glob and so at that point it was more important to suppress who you were and so over the years I've been able to reclaim my language and my heritage.

So I identify strongly as Chicana because I know my history, I know my genealogy, I've traveled throughout Mexico for heaven's sake, I got a degree in Spanish.

(Maria laughs) So you know, that's very important to me.

Second generation.

That means I'm not far from the immigrant experience and with friends and family immigrant experiences always a part of my life.

So I'm bilingual, bi-cultural and that means it's unfortunately, a lot of code switching.

Not just code switching in terms of language and making sure that I'm speaking it right and thank you to all the people who say I speak English so well, that is my default native language but you know as a Latina, you often as a woman of color have to change your presentation to fit wherever the things are to be and maybe I didn't grow up with hip hop but I would say for that background, we're talking Madonna and Culture Club and the like and I just wanna say the 80s just happened.

I don't care that there's a retro 80s station the 80s just happened.

(all laughs) - I was there too, yes they did.

(all laugh) That was incredible.

Thank you for sharing so much.

Every response was rich and every response speaks to owning who you are and it is a journey.

I don't think it's fair for anyone to feel like you're gonna come out of the gate and have all this down pat.

(mumbles) Being able to receive other people, other experiences, a huge part of that is having a relationship with your own journey, with your story and all the bumps, all the mistakes, all the parts that you still are figuring out, so if you don't have that self reflection it's gonna be that much more difficult to be opening, to be open to other people's experiences, I think.

- Thank you very much Maria.

That was a and if you have room in your life for another BFF I think Dasha's interested.

- [Maria] More power to ya.

- Excellent, excellent, excellent.

So hopefully we'll have a chance to bring everybody back to when we're towards the end.

- All right.

Let's see if we have any questions from our audience.

- We actually do.

I just feel kind of lonely over here.

We're talking to a lot of 80s babies over here and I'm a 90s kid so way to make me feel young but anyway, now we do have a question from one of our viewers and it's, "Do you believe people that identify as white "truly don't see the damage that white supremacy "has done to black people as a result "of deep social conditioning or "are these blind spots more likely a case of "willful ignorance held in place by the perceived benefits "of our national status quo?"

(Kima exclaims) - The slow golf clap.

Slow golf clap on that question.

(Kima mumbles) (Dasha sighs) You first.

Yeah, you please, yes.

- And this is, this answer is, will release someone of indictment 'cause this is what I feel.

Self preservation is, will release most humans from the indictment of willful ignorance, right?

I think self-preservation is instinct.

Is how I will respond to that question.

Self-preservation is instinct.

So what that means is I, you may, it may not grab you at the first pass.

It may not grab your spirit the second time the conversation comes up.

At this particular point, I think there's a, there is a willful ignorance, right?

I think there's just too many proper nouns among us.

We have too many friends, kins, families, associates, coworkers, classmates, kids' classmates, neighbors, right?

We have so many Venn diagrams.

So many intersections with other humans that I think it'd be, that is a willful ignorance at this point to disregard the impact.

I think, you know, with self-preservation being instinct, I totally understand why it wouldn't be natural to you to instinctively seek out these conversations or seek out the data associated with dispelling some of the mistruths but yeah, at this particular point, especially at the year we've just had, where so many things were brought to the table that now that it is on the table it's on us to look at those things.

- And I believe too, that it's, it may be a degree of scale.

So people being surprised, (Dasha gasps) racism happens, (Dasha gasps) classism happens, we're gonna sit them over here and hurt those people.

(Dasha laughs) We're not gonna hurt anybody but those folks have to be a minority.

So if anything is denying the scale to which it happens and that's the part that, of course it happens, we were watching a program and they were like, "What do you, no, people that's illegal to be discriminated "against when you interview for a job."

Yeah and it happens.

So I'm gonna put a parallel here for a minute.

I've had a chance, you know, for the last couple of years I've done, I've been doing some work with and around men's groups.

So I've had this parallel experience of becoming an ally, who knew that men needed allies?

What, right?

They're fine.

They run the world.

They get paid more than, all of that.

All the things we know about how this culture is shaped to support men and to get them all of that, all of that.

I'm keeping my feminist card, all of that and at the same time because I'm a woman and I'm not in the conversation and I, so I don't pay any attention to what it would feel like for a man to constantly be told that you have to be able to pay for your bills, my bills and other bills, to be for men to go through the world not being allowed to cry, to be vulnerable.

So cultural things that we talk about and we know exist but being in these conversations and doing this and working side by side with these guys and in some cases doing council work to see how intimately and how dramatically these realities that we know exist but I don't have an experience of what the impact is and then when you have the power of proper nouns to go, "I'm sorry, they did what?

"They said what about your kids?

"What did your ex-wife do?

"What'd they say at the job?

"How was that paperwork formed?

"What do they expect you to show up and do?"

'Cause now I have those questions in my spirit because I have the proximity of the weight.

So I feel we have more of our neighbors who are not just acknowledging intellectually that racism exists in the nether someplace but the concrete impact that's happening every day to everyone around them.

So I think it's the weight and the breadth that they're awakening to.

Another quick story.

We did a session and the woman came at the end of it and she was in her 70s, ish, June and tears literally in her eyes because she didn't know any of the things we shared and I was able to say, "June for what it's worth "all of this was designed for you "not to, all of this was designed so "that the Junes of our nation can be comfortable "in their cul-de-sacs and have."

Think about how our algorithms on social media are different.

So we're having different realities and so now we're all hopefully are getting on the same page.

We can start doing some of the same work.

- Yes sir and that same page is to do the work, right?

Like that same page is to recognize that we all have work to do and it is our collective work.

It is our collective work to filter out the negative associations of the smell of cherry blossoms, right?

We have, you know, how many of you have been in a meeting?

And I'm sure we've all been in at least one meeting where we, you, where someone, maybe not you, but someone will put forward a great idea, right?

A thorough proposal and crickets will happen, right?

(Dasha chuckles) Crickets.

The cricket thing that happens in the conference room and then someone else a few minutes later may give a similar idea or in some cases the same idea verbatim and they're met with a lot of enthusiasm and attaboys and cheers.

Subconsciously we have a way that we listen to each other, right?

So subconsciously it was probably implicit bias that would have heard you hearing the newer professional right?

And it's like, "Oh okay, cute idea."

And then when the seasoned professional, when the humans who we expect to lead lead, then we naturally just buy into them and if it's a human that we haven't necessarily because of our bias seen in a leadership way, right?

And that could be age for, you know, age, physical aesthetic, right?

Someone wills into a room and we have to fight through the fact that that has nothing to do with their ability to be the smartest person in the room, right?

But that's and that's the work that we have to do.

That is the work that's necessary for us to move into the next version of what we're capable of and I think this implicit, I know this implicit bias conversation is at the intersection of the next best collective of humans (mumbles) - Of all of us, yes, being together and I love it and even though the word work, we said that word a lot of times in this session, typically the idea of work is something that we want to avoid.

So maybe we need to find another word and not call it work but it is an opportunity and it's a reality that we, that is here.

It's always been here and not having these conversations and not guarding ourselves or girding ourselves to be better and (mumbles) next versions of ourselves, we're gonna stay right here and possibly even slide backwards and so moving forward, what we're asking everyone to do these pauses we're asking, you know, people to consider is because the person that you love, your neighbors, your coworkers, your inner circle they all deserve for you to do this work.

Period.

Every (mumbles) human deserves this consideration, the baseline of acknowledging your biology and your nature.

So after a while that effort of being considerate and not just a nicety, not just polite, considerate, considering lifestyles, considering context, considering paths and challenges, considering alliances, considering these, making these considerations with other people after a while when you do that for all people it becomes a muscle and then it's not about trying to stay out of the human resources office, then it's not about trying not to get drug across the internet as a meme, it doesn't become an effort of staying out of trouble it becomes an effort of leaning into how we can be better with one another.

So it's not just about reacting by race or sexual preference or who's rich, it's another human and every human deserves that consideration.

I mean, don't you?

- Looking at the time I think we'll have time for one more quick poll.

We're gonna do one more quick poll with the viewers this evening and again, thank each and every one of you for spending time with us this evening, I'm sure you had so many other things that you could be doing with your time.

The question, the next poll question is where will this conversation be most immediately useful for you?

- [Dasha] And of course the answer is all of the above (Dasha laughs) (Kima mumbles) but it'll be helpful to get an idea just most immediately where it'd be helpful for you.

How about you?

(lighthearted music) - [Kima] (mumbles) Let me see.

I think personal interactions.

Yeah all of them.

- [Dasha] Okay.

- [Kima] Yeah.

Processing current events, final answer.

- [Dasha] That was gonna be mine too.

That was gonna be mine too.

Remembering this helps me not stay so angry and appreciate the journey it took to get here and the work that's in front of us.

- Yes.

- So I would say the same thing.

We have one more volunteer who's made themselves available.

So we'd love to check in with them while we're waiting for a poll to come in.

- Please.

- Yeap.

James Sokolowski, educator (mumbles) - [Kima] James.

- Hi everybody.

Thanks for having me glad to be here.

- Oh, James thanks for hanging out with us this evening, brother.

It was good to see your face.

- Great to see yours.

- Yeah.

(Kima mumbles) - So and my whole heart is warm right now.

So I and I wish this could be a whole hour just having this conversation, just having a chance to know your your work and your walk.

So just how has this conversation sat with you?

What are some takeaways that's, that have been really resonating with you right now?

- I think, well one is an excellent conversation.

I really liked the five C's as an educator that really works towards trying to get individuals to really see their implicit biases.

I think it's a really good place to start to see what we call like social location, the different places that you occupy in your life and I think just every, all these perspectives have been so valuable and the last thing that you said about the journey, right?

Where people are starting on this journey to really start to think about their implicit biases is really important.

It's an important for us that had been immersed in the work and been doing the work to really understand that there's a lot of people that they've never even thought about the work.

So there was a, two, you guys were talking about stories you mentioned the army hat, right?

The camouflage hat and I remember this last summer for my birthday or last year, no last summer, I went skydiving for my birthday.

One of my implicit biases was I'm gonna get there and it's gonna be all these weird like hunter, camouflage hat wearing people and I'm not gonna relate at all and the instructor that I ended up having was a black man named Godwin from New Zealand and it just like blew all those implicit biases apart, right?

And there's several other stories like that that I could tell but I think that those kinds of things are really important in understanding that we all have them, we all have to address them and be willing to like let people around us that are close to us, that sphere of influence know that this is the fight that we're in 'cause when we're, you know, racism was kind of glossed over, right?

But it's the reason we're having this conversation, right?

'Cause this is like the easy way to get in the door.

If we're dealing with that, we have to understand it's part of the social fabric and it's there all around us and if we're not willing to address that reality then we're losing.

Whoever you are, the first place that you can start doing that is by addressing your implicit bias and so I really appreciate this conversation.

- Exactly right.

- That was excellent.

- Thank you.

- Well said James.

Well said and thank you again for your participation this evening brother.

It was great to see you.

I think we have an answer to the poll question?

Do we have a response?

- Just get an idea where we're going to start off with this works tomorrow.

So, oh in our professional environments, personal interactions, processing current events and making leadership decisions.

(lighthearted music) So we're gonna definitely add it tomorrow.

So this is again more than just an intellectual academic conversation and we hope that this was a way that we shaped it where it also wasn't about placing blame.

Unfortunately that's where a lot of times this conversation can quickly devolve to.

So there's way more at stake than our feelings or political correctness.

- You know individuals create systems, individuals create programs which impact others lives and these systems and programs can be influenced by implicit and unconscious biases from individuals as you know like all of us are capable of it, right?

So you, you know we are humans, we are humans that put together system, these systems affect other humans, so it's on us to make sure that we aren't necessarily creating systems and creating programs with biases.

- And a bigger than that our great grandchildren are gonna inherit the versions of the systems that we inherited from our great grandparents.

So navigating the impact of this conversation is about the future of our nation.

- And we can't just simply say that we don't wanna be biased anymore.

That's not how it's gonna work, right?

We have to be intentional and consistent.

- So we wanna thank you for spending this time with us.

Thank you for making time for this conversation and we're gonna think of what else to call it other than work but definitely an opportunity for us to consider an imagined forward.

- Yeah.

- We have our volunteers on the screen.

Michael, Judy, Steve, Maria and James.

(all clapping) Thank you, thank you, thank you.

- Thank you guys.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

You know and again we would, you know, would have loved to spend two or three days with all of you.

Typically this is about four hours, eight hours.

So we tried to shove it all into an hour and a half virtually and you know, just look forward to you continuing this conversation in whatever spaces you're in.

- So stay in the conversation and stay together and Earl we'll turn it back to you.

- Appreciate it.

90 minutes goes by quickly.

I guess it's a, it goes by quickly when you're having fun.

So for that, we thank Kima and Dasha Kelly Hamilton for their expertise and their words of wisdom.

Thank you so much and also we thank you for your interest and your viewership.

So on behalf of "Black Nouveau" and Milwaukee PBS, I'm Earl Arms.

(lighthearted music)