Special Message: Other Voices to Listen To
Ian: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. This is Yondercast. My name is Ian Lake.
Patrick: [00:00:03] My name is Patrick Leitch.
Josh: [00:00:04] My name is Josh Baltzell.
Ian: [00:00:06] We just launched this podcast last week and have planned on releasing a new episode every Tuesday morning, which would make this the day to begin our regularly scheduled content. However, we're choosing to do something different today. As I'm sure you are aware, there has been an incredible surge of activity in the fight against police violence and for equality for black people. This fight has been happening for centuries, but there has been a profound public awakening and mobilization in the last few weeks following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, which was proceeded by the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless other innocent black Americans over the centuries since this country was founded.
If you are white and you have not yet engaged with this movement, whether you feel that you have too much on your plate already, or are paralyzed by guilt or are overwhelmed by information, you must engage in this. All the phrases you are hearing like "silence is violence" and "if you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem", they are all true.
Every white person has benefited from the fundamental racism and white supremacy woven into the fabric of our society and everyday lives. Police violence is real and has been for many years and is deeply problematic for many reasons, particularly because it affects people of color vastly more than white people and serves to protect and perpetuate white privilege and white supremacy.
Every white person has a responsibility to combat their own privilege, fight for equality, and work to end the generations of oppression that we have so far failed to stop. I know it might seem like a lot to ask. I know it might feel like something huge just came out of nowhere, even though it's actually been there for centuries, but oftentimes the truth is not convenient.
No one is saying that every person needs to quit their job and neglect their family and sacrifice their own health to become a full time activist, but everyone does need to be committed and engaged in this for real progress to be made. This isn't just something nice to do if you have the time. This is a civic duty.
There is no such thing as being passively " not racist" as we so often want to believe. It's just not that easy. You can either be actively anti-racist or passively accept a racist world order and therefore, unfortunately, be a racist. At first brush this might seem extreme and I get that. It might be a new idea and it's a hard truth to swallow. But if you feel defensive when you hear this statement, I urge you to read, listen, and reflect on why you feel that way.
Now at this time when most white people, ourselves included are still near the beginning of understanding the extent of our privilege and the systemic racism in which we were born and raised, we need to be listening and taking guided action more than we are talking right now. Not to say we shouldn't speak. In fact, silence is absolutely not the answer. But we each need to make sure that we primarily use our platform, however small, to amplify and spread the perspectives and messages of the black community rather than our own interpretations.
The three of us have so many thoughts we would like to share, so many points we would like to make, and so many issues that we would like to bring to light and discuss. However, we are three white men, and for everything we want to say, there is someone else who has been saying it for much longer, someone who has studied it for much longer, someone who has lived it for their entire lives and seen their ancestors live it. We believe that it is our responsibility at this time to not provide our own commentary, but to direct you to the voices that you need to be listening to right now. And those are not ours.
Josh: [00:03:41] We ask that you spend whatever time you would have spent listening to our podcast and spend it exploring some new voices and perspectives. In a moment, Patrick is going to list some of the voices that we have been listening to during this time.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. We do hope that this list gives you a starting point or possibly a few sources that you hadn't yet heard about. Before we start listing names, we want to emphasize the importance of continued listening. When you find these voices, subscribe to them, follow them, sign up for alerts from them, give them your email, make sure you get notified when they have something to say. And if you have the means, it is crucial that you support them financially. Find their Patreon page or whatever method they use to manage donations and donate. Commit to donating regularly on a monthly basis if you can . Pay for the gift of education that they are giving you and fund them to ensure that they continue to have the means to express their voice. While social media is a wonderful tool that we've been using extensively, we aren't going to provide a list of social media handles just because we feel like that might be overwhelming. Also most special guests and people that you hear on podcasts will have social media that you can follow, which will lead you to other people that you can follow and so on.
Patrick: [00:04:59] No matter what medium of information you prefer, there are voices expressing themselves that you can pay attention to.
The following are list of podcasts that you can find descriptions to in the show notes if you need a little bit more information.
1619
About Race
Code Switch
Pod for the Cause
Pod Save the People
Scene on Radio
and podcastsincolor.com.
The following are a few books that we have identified would be excellent to read. They are White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. So You want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo, How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi, Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Jennifer Harvey.
The next three are more educators specific, but also very good.
We Want to do More Than Survive by Dr. Bettina Love, For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood by Christopher Emdin, Multiplication is for White People by Lisa Delpit.
And I'm going to list some organizations to follow and donate to both in the Portland area and more national organizations. For some Portland area organizations, there are PDX Protest Bail Fund, Black Lives Matter PDX, The Black Resilience Fund, Don't Shoot PDX, Black United Fund of Oregon, and the Portland NAACP.
Some National Organizations include National Bail Out, Legal Defense Fund, Black Lives Matter , Equal Justice Initiative, and the NAACP
Even though we just started the podcast, we're going to take a break and not put out any episodes for a little while.
There are two reasons for this. First, we want to encourage our listeners to devote their time to reflecting, learning, doing this work, and taking part in this movement, rather than listening to us second, we are going to personally take the time that we would have taken to research record and produce new episodes and continue the work we have begun and that we were asking you to do. We need time ourselves to determine how we're going to continually educate ourselves, continually be active in this cause, and what that looks like in our own classrooms.
Ian: [00:07:14] This podcast episode has been partially a call to action and partly an effort to educate. But for the three of us, it also serves as a recorded statement, a commitment by us. To continue to learn, donate, act, and seek ways to ally with the black community. As educators, we will use our classrooms to amplify black voices and confront racism and privilege both our own and that, of those around us. To our students, we are listening and we are here for you. We will fight with you and we will fight for you. And we love you. Thank you all for taking the time to listen to this message.