We all have implicit bias.

We've all been conditionedr media schools and the famis we were brought up in to he specific views of people wo are different from my guess today are experts interrupg things like implicit bias whites privacy and racism.

Joining me today on courags conversations are Camilla Bluescreen.

She's an equity facilitato, consultant and an educator.

And Phyllis Alexander, shea consultant and educator and equity facilitator as well.

I'm Pastor Phil Davis, your host.

And welcome back to Courags Conversation.

Camilla, I'd like to welcoe you and I'd like to welcome Phyllis on the show this morning.

We're so excited to have yu both on the show.

You know, we're going to tk about white supremacy and s and things that are going o make people uncomfortable.

But it's a healthy and a nd conversation.

I was reading a New York Ts article over the summer ant said top law enforcement officials say the biggest domestic terror that threas America comes from white supremacists.

And I think so many peopler so long have denied that reality.

I'd like to ask you just ae get started, what is white supremacy and, you know, ws it so prevalent in America right now?

So white supremacy is a sym based on the belief that pe in white skin identity are superior in every way to pe who are not in white skin identity.

And there are systems and policies and practices thae put in place to marginalize those that are not in white skin identity.

It's interesting because, u know, because it has been around for so long, it has become normalized in some s and even hidden in the sha.

But it seems to be more pronounced more recently w, you know, what's happeningn politics and things of that nature.

I want to ask Phyllis Phyl, what is the impact of White supremacy on on white folkd black folks and people in r country.

Thank you.

The first thought that camo mind is that white people e their humanity.

And while trying to do ther best to strip the humanitym people of black African heritage, they lose their humanity in the process in order to maintain the belif that whiteness is the stan, the norm that all resourcee and that people have whiten identity should have acceso all the resources that they want and to receive as mucf those resources as they wat and to deny resources to pe like African heritage, peo, white skin, identity had to some horrific things in orr resources.

And in the process of doing that, there is a loss of humanity.

There is a loss of connectn to their nationality, their ethnicity, their heritage.

There is a loss of connectn to others who are different from them.

And then I think one of the biggest impacts is the livg with fear, fear that they e living on a house of cards, fear that they are going to lose what they have taken,r of people who they have led to believe are beasts and o are here to hurt them.

And so there is all of this fear that people have white skin identity, live with we also losing their humanityr for the purpose of having access to the resources and resources include land, pe, employment, wealth, etc.

Well, and so Kamila, I ask, what does it do to the African-American or minoriy community?

Because it's not just realy about African-Americans, is about the minority communi.

I'm talking specifically he in the United States.

But how does it impact peoe of who don't identify as w?

Well, it's hard for us to accept and embrace our full humanity.

We're constantly trying to reach a standard that is nt part of who we are, not paf our DNA.

We're trying to accommodat, assimilate all of those ths which take us farther awaym who we are in our hearts an our souls.

So it's sort of requires uo go back to before we were enslaved, go back to our indigenous roots and underd who day is that we are.

So much of that has been hd from us, though.

When you think about the American education system,u know, so Africa is spoken n negative terms, living in s and but they never talk abt the advancements, the hieroglyphic, the astronom, the mathematics that we'rel developed in mother Africa.

What do you think is the pushback for individuals ie educational field to not th that to our community?

Many of them don't know thr history.

Wow.

Because they have not been taught.

I was part of the First Wod Alliance in Harlem where Jn Henry Clark, Sahelian, Mela Easton de Adelaide, Sanfor, they intentionally taught s what we had as Africans bee colonization.

And so how the Greek philosophers studied in Afa prior to putting out their philosophy.

And so I don't take thingst face value.

Maleficent, a son, wrote to sets of notes for the black student like you have to go through the white system, t you have to have your set f notes where you know actuay what the real narrative isd it's something.

And so Fellus, there's a ph back from what they would l critical race to your theoy being taught in schools.

What do you think that pusk is all about?

And it is it an attempt to continue down a path that e have continued on all thise with a whitewashing of education?

Yes, yes and yes and yes.

I think of racism and white supremacy as a virus.

And it is an epidemic.

It is a virus.

It is in the air.

We are breathing it in and people Weissport and identy are severely affected by id the virus mutates over andr and over again.

And the current mutation ie of the forms is this panicr critical race theory.

And my belief is that peope race identity.

I don't even think they rey can put their finger on itt truth.

You know, they know they dt want the truth about their behavior and they know they don't want the truth aboutr brilliance.

Talk.

And so there is this panicd anxiety over teaching the h and then they slap this tem critical race theory over h teaching and critical race theory has nothing to do wh teaching our history.

I mean, they just are panid and kind of lost in mine.

So, yes, the panic over critical race theory is anr backlash, another example, another white large block, large call it what you wan, but as the truth continue o try to rise to the surfacee again, there is pushback ad there pushback is almost Im not going to say it's on oe side of the aisle, if you , Camilla, but there is definitely an agenda that s to you.

You take one step forward d now you have to take two ss back to try to justify whys important to teach an accue history right.

In America.

And it's not teaching or forging lies, but it's reay exposing what has been hidn for so long.

Then I think you said someg really interesting.

Many people just don't kno.

So those who have gone befe us have had to deal with te reality of, you know, mis education, not just in the African-American communityt in the white community as .

We did a show on the whitewashing of education d we took some some books and textbooks from our local sl district.

And it was atrocious how ty dealt with slavery and howy dealt with Jim Crow and how they dealt with all of the atrocities.

And many of them just never made it into it.

What do you think is up wih that?

I mean, why what is the motivation behind this whoe whitewashing of education,s whole miseducation of peop?

Well, it's to maintain the supremacy of white people d it is to make us feel as ie have nothing to claim, notg that is indigenous to our brilliance, nothing that ls lifts up our genius.

And the only way we can bee brilliant or seen as intelligent is if we adopt white ways of being.

And so we have to constanty figure out how much, you k, we talk about these centerg whiteness.

It's not dismantling white.

It's not eradicating white.

It's the centering whiteneo that we can bring in a more inclusive way of being in e world.

I think with so many of my white friends, I think that many times there is this uncomfortable right.

It's uncomfortable that he says, you know, when we hae this discussion, it's goino make me uncomfortable.

How important is it to have conversation and to allow people to be uncomfortable?

I think you can only be uncomfortable in white skin identity to the degree youe done your own work on yourn liberation.

My White accomplices and Iy that intentionally becausen accomplice is different thn ally and they describe themselves.

They will always be racist, anti-racist because even al the work that they've done through the years, a racist thought will come up or a racist behavior or practicd they'll say, where did that come from?

So it's a constant vigilant seeking your own liberation your white skin identity.

And we seek our full humany in our dark skinned identiy and we try to come together because we're going to fora world that none of us haver lived in that's powerful aI think when you talk about forging a world, when you k about forging, there's and pressure, right.

There's some uncomfortable gletty.

There's some resistance, bt really opens a wonderful dr to dialog and hopefully allowing people to do the k that they need to do.

Phyllis, you all did some k with Project Equity here ie Lehigh Valley.

Can you talk a little bit t what that was about?

And what you were hoping to accomplish while doing tha?

Yes, absolutely.

And I have this thinking iy head that I hope I have a chance to get out, which io further illuminate what Caa talked about in terms of we folks being racist.

But at any rate, forging ey project equity.

The narrative that I have,e understanding that I have during the pandemic, what t laid bare are the disparits that are baked into our sy.

They are simply baked intor system that people, whitesd identity have more resourcs than everyone else.

For all the reasons that we have discussed.

And nonprofits make a best effort to mitigate those disparities by making an et to keep people from being homeless and starving and unclothed and cetera, not necessarily thriving, but t least not making us uncomfortable by being on e streets begging, etc So non-profits do the best thy can to keep, you know, what would appear a civilized society in appearance.

But then the pandemic happd and we realized that these disparities really are onle paycheck away from being revealed so people couldn't work, people had to work wo were on the front line.

People couldn't work.

I mean, everything was askw and so the nonprofit in Allentown, the Lehigh Vally United Way and the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation noticeboard, the disparitis that were baked in and nowa parent came together and sd we don't want to go back to normal.

This pandemic will end.

Nonprofits will go back toe business of what they've bn doing.

But we don't want to go bao normal.

How do we send our equity s Kamila Reverend Sharpton centering whiteness and sintering equity?

How do we do that so that e can go forth within this nonprofit industrial compln a way that is not simply putting a Band-Aid on the problem, but really tryingo get to the underlying issus through an equity lens.

So that was project equity.

37 people came together.

Tyronn Russell and Kevin Ge were principal leaders in imagining what the work wod be.

We had they brought togethr people, white skin, identiy and people of black African heritage and Latino identi.

These are leaders, non-pro.

They work together for the purpose of trying to reimagining how the Lehigh Valley Center equity, the equity within the nonprofit world.

Camilla and I had the prive of working with them.

It's a process and it is sl happening.

Yeah, I could imagine thatn we begin having these conversations and people ae doing their own work, it ce uncomfortable for them but hopefully challenge them to move from where they are ta more acceptable place.

How has that been in regaro the folks of white identitd the folks of brown identit?

Has there been growth and t was some of the pushback tt you received from both gro?

So there has been growth at is very affirming because e have a thread of emails ane begin to vet our challenge, our struggles with each otr and we get the perspectivem multiple people.

I think folks in White skin identity have learned to te the leadership of people in dark skin identity or Latin heritage so that they knowy don't have all the pieces o the puzzle in and of themselves.

That there's some things tt they need to reach across o their brothers and sisterso may not share their white n identity.

I can imagine that once the coming together of the twol provide different perspecte because so many times we vw the world through our own , our own experience and mant times it's skewed based onw we were raised and what families we were raised.

Let me ask you a question.

Do you feel that the govert has been complicit in the continuance of White priman our nation?

I feel that it has becauseu only the only way you curry get to the top is by being accommodating and not beina problem.

And so you begin to reallyl your soul to the white supremacy ideal ideology.

And you sell your own peope short or you find excuses r why they're not able to pem according to a white stand.

It's amazing because when e think about the history of America and what white supremacy and racism has ct America, I read a number there's a book out there hw folks got so rich and it ts about the 24 trillion dolls of free labor that African-Americans gave in e cotton fields.

And you know, in America, s amazing when you think abot that level of bias and rac.

So I want to ask a questio, Phyllis.

Why people hate so deeply?

What is the origins of this level of vitriol, this levf viewing individuals as less than human beings?

And I'm saying this in the context of not all people right?

Not not all white people.

Not all brown people, but e is a group out there that o against right.

Minorities, African-Americ, that next folks, you know, making it in America wheree hate come from.

What is the essence of tha?

I'm caught between wantingo answer the previous questin and you can answer both ifI have the quiet man I can fw your direction.

But I just this be like a little something out.

Absolutely.

The government is intrinsiy complicit, involved in the proponent in promoting whie supremacy.

Absolutely.

You're familiar with redli?

Yeah.

You have the government was involved with that.

So you're familiar with how veteran benefits were denio better themselves Luzerne e people, white veterans.

But not so much black vetes Birdsboro.

That's why the middle class started.

Yeah, I'm still waiting ony 40 acres and a mule.

Phyllis standards that whyo people hate, you know, arey reasons I don't profess to really have the answer.

This is what comes to mind.

We live in a country where individuals is a value thau get what you get on your merits.

You know, you pull yourself through.

And of course, the realitys very different.

Ancestors were not my ances were given land.

I mean, you know, it's not true.

But there is this myth of individual wisdom.

Then there is the belief tt there's not enough to go around.

So I'm supposed to get mind there's not enough to go around.

I'm going to need an edge.

Yeah.

And then they use race.

They use whiteness as the e to get that which they this in Ltds supply and they sad so they they skew the systm and they create a system we they are not competing agat the brightest and the best.

Right.

And they no longer even hao be themselves the brightesd the best I don't think is o long.

I don't think white suprem.

I don't think they thoughts through.

I don't understand how this country is going to be ablo sustain itself when peoplee in our identity are tryingo be their best because theye competing against Ben Crum.

And so you get this mediocy that gets baked into the system.

You have beer, you have whe groups of people who are nt being educated.

Well, I mean, it doesn't sm like a long term plan thats going to be well for every.

But anyway, so people get people because they're afr, because they think there'st enough to go around, becaue they feel like they've goto skew the system.

They are taught to hate the other.

You are taught to hate the other.

And to believe that we are deserving of being hated because we are not really e human.

They really don't think ths this level of justification that comes.

I think when you deal withe type of victory, the type f hate, the type of rhetorict we hear around the African-American and the African-American experienc, that we're lazy, that we're shiftless, that the men are irresponsible, that we're violent.

And I think about even what happened in Tulsa right ban the 1920s and how that whoe thing is now being reveale.

It's almost like what's don the dark is coming to light now.

And I was talking to someoe who actually lives in Tulsa right now and they're going through a whole process of finding the graves, all bee a young lady said that shes assaulted by an African-American male on on elevator, which then for tm justified what they call te first act of terrorism in America because they droppd bombs on Tulsa.

When you think about that e of history, Carmilla, how o you instruct or encourage s with white skin identity to really understand that hisy and not to reject it?

So there is a program out called Before We Were Whitd one of my white colleaguess become very active.

His name is John Paul Moron that program.

And it gave me the idea whe people were indigenous ande time in their history they didn't just come to Americd become white supremacy.

Right.

And what happens when you o back to when your ancestors were indigenous?

His ancestors were in Hungy and they were farmers and y were struggling.

And by going back and reclaiming that heritage ad drawing a through line to w he wants to be today, he doesn't want to be a white supremacist.

He wants to be the oppositf a white supremacy.

But it takes going back and understand who you are.

Now, I do have a white frid who tells me that doesn't k for her.

OK, OK, OK. She doesn't connect with or French ancestry or her Itan ancestry.

But for her it's doing herk in present time.

So whatever it takes, you'e got to undo the damage thas been done.

You first you have to recoe what has been done.

Sure.

And then re reprogram your.

You have to unlearn and ren some behaviors and practic.

Well, thank you.

I think that's so importann that whole idea of unlearng and learning means that you have to come to a place in yourself where you understd that this is an issue and s a problem.

Phyllis, I want to ask yous question.

What do how do you respondo people?

Because this happens to me because of the space that m in and I have many white friends, black friends that next friends, Asian friend, when people come and say, I don't see color, that seemo be the staple for folks bee that, you know, essentiall, you know, gives them an opportunity to say, I see u as a person.

But to not see my color isa bit offensive.

Can you kind of talk about that?

Is that it?

You know, I mean, if someoe comes to me and says theree workshops that I do and bee it aggravates me so I tellm right up the right up frono not tell me that you do noe my color.

I don't want to hear it is going to annoy and irritat.

Yeah.

So let us not go down thatd no good.

And doggone well you see my color.

Yeah.

You know you do know what you're trying to tell me is that you are not racist you know because they are complaining seeing my colos being racist but only one y the word black is like youn call me black African herie African.

I mean it is not racist to, you know, that black womano had on that orange it is O.

That's not right.

That's right.

Not hiring me because of my color is racist.

Right.

You know, not allowing me o buy a house because of my r is racist.

But seeing who I am and hag some knowledge of my histo, that's not racist.

So you can't short circuitr short good being anti-raciy simply not seeing my color.

It doesn't work that well.

You can work to do.

Thank you.

You said it much better thI have to my friends.

So hopefully they're watchg and that will be response.

Carmilla, as we close to a close, what do you think is important for people to kns it relates to white peopled black people to know as tow as it relates to white supremacy?

What is important for folko take away from this conversation?

Because surely some folks e already uncomfortable, liky are they having this conversation?

But what do you think is important for folks to be e to take away from?

Well, Pastor Greg often sas we're either in hospice or we're in the birthing roomd there are some days when Im extremely hopeful that we e in the birthing room and tt we're going to create a whe new equitable, inclusive society where everyone is affirmed and everyone's humanity is uplifted and supported and that none ofs have ever lived in that situation.

And it's going to take a hk of a lot of work.

And my fear is that it's nt it's very painful when whie people for firmly understad that they are not so sure t the world does not evolve around them because they've lived their whole lives believing.

And it's very hurtful for o step into our awful humaniy because we have been used o being the victim.

And what does it mean to be brilliant, to be a genius,o perceive yourself as so its constant work.

And that's what my fear ist we won't put the work and s going to be necessary to ce a new reality.

Thank you so much.

I think about just all of e information that the both f you have shared today.

And it causes me to realize that platforms like this ae important because we don'td it very often.

We can talk openly about is that are plaguing our commy with the hopes of bringinge level of unity, some levelf connectedness and some levf resolve to how we as a peoe and as a community can get stronger and find places tt we can coexist.

And so I am extremely gratl for you taking time to com, Phyllis.

Of course, to you as well.

I'm always grateful.

I always feel like I'm in s when I spend time with theh of you and it has caused mo stretch in my faith and aln my view of self.

I want to thank each and ey one of you for taking timeo come back.

We're back for another sea, so this is a great way to k the season off.

I want to thank each and ey one of you for taking the e to tune in today.

And we hope that as we go through the rest of the se, you will come with us on ts journey.

We hope to educate and inse and to bring unity to our community.

So on behalf of everyone he at PB's, I would like to tk you.

God bless you.

On behalf of everyone here, God, listen, we'll talk tou soon.