10/27/2020 The Primacy of Discourse in Laboring for Racial Justice with Dr. Cherie Bridges PatrickRead Now
Lindsay Lyons:
Hello everyone. And welcome to this incredibly exciting conversation that I am about to have with Dr. Cherie Bridges Patrick. She and I graduated from the same Leadership and Change Ph.D. program. And I am so excited for you to hear what she has to say today. So, Cherie, do you want to just give a few words about who you are and what you do so our listeners know what you're all about. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Yes. Thank you so much, Lindsay. Yes, we had that honor. I had the honor and pleasure of going through the Ph.D. process with this amazing woman. She was moving so fast. There's still the smoke that I see from, from her, her work. Anyway, I'm a clinical social worker by training and I focus a lot on trauma. I'm also a racial justice, leadership consultant, leadership coach. And, as I said, as a psychotherapist, I work with counseling professionals and educators and organizational leaders around issues of this big concept of racial justice. I have a consulting practice called Paradox Cross-Cultural Consulting, Training and Empowerment, and that consulting practice uses the research that I did while I was in the Antioch leadership program. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you, Cherie. I am so curious. A lot of our listeners really like to think big and work towards truly a transformative change. And I know in our work we've talked a lot about, you know, the need to truly transform and not just make small changes to systems that are really designed to be racist and uphold white supremacy in how they enact practices. School is one of those examples. Of course, there are many across our society, but I'm curious, we both, I know have talked about Bettina Love's amazing book. And in it, she really talks about the idea of freedom dreaming, which she describes as "dreams grounded in the critique of injustice". And so I'm curious what your big dream is for the field of education or helping professions more broadly Cherie Bridges Patrick: Part of my dream. I'm engaging in because I think my, my personal dream connects to my larger professional dream. And so my personal dream is to just live into this liberation where I can, you know just be free from the constraints of oppression of all types, right. And to really live into who I, who I can be. Right. So thinking big there and not being restricted by who people tell me I should be or who even, I think I can be, but really, you know have this space to just really imagine and live into that. So from a personal standpoint, that's, that's what I imagined, but then I take that into this, the educational leadership and leadership and then the helping professions. So social workers, counselors, educators, and to really help, those professions transform themselves by being able to get into the hard inner work of racial justice. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And there is so much that is entailed with that. So to, to work closely with leaders, to guide them through processes so that they can then have the skills to have generative conversations about race, to make a change, to see how white supremacy operates, and, and then to truly make a change to transform systems, to transform the educational system into one that really is about education and learning and liberatory learning, right? So that we, so that students of all ages of all ethnicities of all races, genders, everything can live to their fullest potential. Lindsay Lyons: That is an amazing dream. I love exactly how you described that. And I love as well that you're getting into some mindset shifts here too, about what is really required for us to one examine the system, really diagnose the system. And then also really dream big about what is possible with this system that might not come to mind for people who are just in it every day. And this is the way we do things. So I'm curious about the mindset shifts and what you would say is kind of a requirement for doing this work. Something that maybe doesn't come naturally to our minds when we're just in it every day, what do we need to step back and understand? Cherie Bridges Patrick: Wow, there's, there's so much there. Well, one, one of the things that I guess I would start with, with the imagination, right? To, to shift from a mindset of scarcity and complacency and fear to one of unlimited imagination, right? So when we can, when we can open ourselves up to, you know, to accept what we see as beyond possible, right. So to really open ourselves up to the imagination. So that would be one thing. And, and so I've been writing this article, on white supremacy and social work, and I was looking at vulnerability, you know, this, this concept of vulnerability, which, is defined as "open to attack". And so I used Brene Brown's work. And what she says is that vulnerability is like this doorway to the imagination, right? And so that's, that's a huge step into, shifting minds is just having the ability to be vulnerable, which means to be seen, to be seen fully right, completely and to stop hiding behind shame and all this other stuff that keeps us from, from change. Cherie Bridges Patrick: You know, when we talk about adaptive leadership, one of the biggest reasons that leadership...of leadership failure is that we try to meet adaptive change with technical fixes, right? And so technical fixes are, are those that come naturally that have plans and policies around them. For example, a heart surgeon, right? There's a technical process that, that a heart surgeon takes when they're operating, right? It is difficult. I could never be a heart surgeon, but there are procedures. There are processes, you know, from start to finish that guide that, that surgeon through the process. On the other hand, when we're talking about racial justice, we have to obviously look at racial injustice and what all that brings. And so underneath the umbrella of racial injustice is white. Supremacy is whiteness is racism, is, is, you know, all these, all these things that cause all this confusion. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And yet we keep trying to navigate racial justice issues of racial justice with a technical fix. And so we have to begin then to look at the mind shifts that are required. So that, that, that mind shift in terms of technical versus adaptive is okay, so let's, let's not look at this as something that we know, we don't know what we're doing, because if we did, you know, we perhaps would be a little bit further along with this process. So that's one argument there. And so it just requires a complete mind shift. It requires leaders to be able to interrogate their beliefs, right. To critically examine the disconnects between what we say we value and what we actually value, what we live out in our practices and our policies and our assessments. The other, the other mind-shift... Cherie Bridges Patrick: So there are lots of them, right? So, sorry, you shouldn't ask me this. That is, is the illusion of the broken system. I told you, I was, I was doing this article on white supremacy and, you know, it was like, we keep, we keep approaching dismantling white supremacy, we keep approaching that system as being broken. It's not broken, it's functioning as it was set up to function. And it stays in operation because there are, there are people powerful enough with enough leverage to keep it going. So, changing our minds about how we see systems, systems operate the way they were designed to operate, they operate the way they do, because people are making, you know, people, the decisions that we make on a day to day basis are actually contributing to their continuation. Lindsay Lyons: Amazing. There are so many things here that are just, this is such a complex problem, right? I've heard you say that so many times, there's so much complexity here. And so we have to do so many of those things interrogating our own beliefs to really tackle this challenge. And so one of the things that really resonated as you were talking for me was in the education world, how we, a lot of times just jump to PD, or like, you know, workshops, professional development sessions, where that's going to fix the problems. And we just have this one-off PD about racial justice, and now we're good and we're an anti-racist school, and the problem is fixed. And it's obviously not fixed when we do that. And so I think you're speaking to this longer work or, I've heard you call it labor, right? Laboring for racial justice. That is much more than sitting in a PD for two hours one day. Lindsay Lyons: And so I'm interested in kind of the work that you have been doing, the research that you've been doing that speaks to the way in which educators can build capacity to engage in that generative discourse that you mentioned. And so, is it, is it possible for you to just say a little bit about kind of one, the importance of discourse in this work and why that's really a place that we can go to, to take action, but then also what are the capacities that individuals need to have to engage generatively in dialogue about race and racism? Cherie Bridges Patrick: So I, I love it when you ask about discourse because the more I explore discourse, the more powerful it becomes. And the more, I mean, I just, I get these deeper insights about how it operates and how it's so common. So ubiquitous, so natural for us. So discourse—text, talk, images, writing—you know, so books, a social network, the news pictures, all these things are, are, are forms of discourse. And so discourse then has a symbiotic relationship, this close relationship to the thing, to the object that, that it is, is in alignment with. So, so then when we talk about race, race shapes, people, race, race creates people, race, you know, renders people invaluable race makes people superior, right? So it discourse does all these things. And so is this universal practice, right? It's a universal practice and without discourse, then we wouldn't be able to function. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Right. And so that is the power of discourse or that's that the presence of discourse, then, then as a universal, social practice, it simultaneously contributes to the development and maintenance of challenges, right? It serves as a tool to examine those challenges and it can also become the intervention to solve those problems. Right. So discourse does all this. So discourse can create good stuff too. But so in, in the context of racial justice, we're talking about the system of white supremacy, it's all about discourse, right? There are all these other things, but discourse is a huge part of it. And so since it's been created with discourse, we can use discourse, we can use the words we can use, the way the words are used. We can look underneath the words to really begin to understand how it's operating to continue racial injustice. And I kinda like, forgot your question. I got off, I got excited about talking about discourse. Lindsay Lyons: That was great. My next piece was just, what are the capacities for individuals to kind of have that discourse in a way that's generative? Cherie Bridges Patrick: Okay. So, in my, in my research, the title is "Navigating the silences: Discourse between social workers," I looked at how racism has been denied primarily. And I, in doing that, I had a focus group, and in that focus group of six people, including myself, we talked against racism and, and how, how social workers talk about race and racism between one another with one another. So in that focus group, um, what was surprising was the data from the focus group presented these four discourse capacities because what I ended up looking at was this, the ability of this group to come together to cohere together, to have a generative dialogue about race. And so from that focus group, rather than, you know, finding this, this other stuff I was looking for these capacities emerged. So there are four capacities, there's this positive, liberating dialogic environment. Cherie Bridges Patrick: There is adaptability there's vulnerability, and then there is, and of course, I'm not gonna remember the other one right now, but I'll kind of, I'll get back to that. So I'll start with the generative, the generative, dialogic environment. What, what this means is that a dialogic environment is any space and, you know, we can, we can really play with it. That space can be my mind, my thoughts, right. But if we're talking about, you know, dialogue between people that space then becomes the coffee shop, that space becomes a classroom. That space becomes the day to day, conversations like at the water cooler. We're not having water cooler conversation anymore, many of us, but we are still having these conversations. So informal conversations then, are, are the dialogic spaces. So, that means that we, we have to, have the capacity to, to, allow for conversations to happen. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And, and we know already that having, conversations about race is like people are grappling with that. People, you know, just a thought in my research, the thought of race, the word, when the, when the word race was introduced, it engendered all kinds of emotional responses, particularly with, with white participants. And so we know the power and we know the energy and we know the negativity. And we know that if we can see that race is conflated with violence. And so in, when people talk about race, we just automatically jump to violence. So all these things are happening when, when we talk about talking about race, so that dialogic environment then is this space where generative conversations can happen. And, and it takes, you know, if, if for instance, it's a classroom that classroom, that facilitator, that teacher, that instructor needs to have some foundation, some grounding, some understanding of how race really operates, right. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And the ability to negotiate conversations, to negotiate the challenges, the emotional, the emotions that come up, the responses that come up so that people can, can, you know, have these conversations. I think one of the biggest things about the dialogic environment is that this notion of dignity, which is, um, this inherent value, right? It's, it's an inherent value. It comes naturally. It is mine. When I'm born, I don't get it from you. It is, it is just something that I am born with. And that the challenge with, with centering dignity is that when, when we talk about race, when we talk about any system here in the US we're talking about hierarchy, right? And so how do you, how do you value people inherently when we placed their value on what they do? Cherie Bridges Patrick: Right. So it's, it's really seeing the humanity of, of individuals, and honoring that you don't even have to like the person, but we still have to honor the fact that they are worthy of, you know, being, being treated with dignity. So that's a big piece there. So then, in essence, the dialogic spaces, that space that allows for people to make mistakes, for, for people to, you know, to encounter white fragility as, you know, what was presented in my research, but also to grapple with it, right? Not for anybody to be saved from that, but for space where people can grapple with these feelings and, and notice the emotions, noticing sensations, notice what's happening in one's body, when they're talking about it. And every time you can have a successful conversation, success doesn't mean that there's no, you know, emotion or no cursing or whatever it means that you get through. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And at the end of that conversation, people leave that conversation with their dignity intact. And there's been some progress. You've had a, you know, a joining of people together to talk about this, this crazy thing. Adaptability is, is grounded in the research of adaptive leadership. Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky. And it's really about having this flexibility. I already talked about, you know, the technical versus adaptive approach. And so it just, it takes that frame into context. It's really about understanding the structures of racism and how they, how supremacy is, you know, it's just integrated into the system. And so, having a process that allows for people, to see that. And then there's vulnerability. I talked about that earlier, and vulnerability is open to attack, as I said. So being in a space where one can be seen where everyone can be seen. Cherie Bridges Patrick: So that means that when I talk about the experience that I had, and, and someone, you know, wants to take offense, or they feel something rising up within them, one, I can say that, right, because I'm saying it, you know, in the context of trying to heal, I'm trying to change systems that people understand that they have a responsibility to themselves and to the group to check their own selves first, to check their bodies. Right? So, so that vulnerability is, is a building up of muscle to allow himself to move beyond the shame and to let themselves be seen. And, and then, finally read readiness and willingness. And actually, that's like one of the biggest ones and readiness and willingness in is really a process, an ongoing process, that, that has these two components. Willingness is like, I want to do this work. Cherie Bridges Patrick: I know that it's going to be really hard. This is going to kick my butt. I'm going to want to run. I'm going to want to, you know, scream, I'm going to want to quit. So willingness, this speaks to that "I'm in this," right? And in, within willingness is the necessity within willingness and readiness, is this necessity to formulate a way to understand why am I doing this? Because a lot of times, you know, folks want to look good, you know, and they want to present this image of goodness and, and racial equality and racial understanding, but deep down that, you know, that doesn't always, that, that it doesn't always get seen. And, and we don't typically carry it through that way. And so, understanding that why that, why is the anchor that will ground the individual, which stuff gets bad, right. Cherie Bridges Patrick: So it has to be anchored in something. It's not because, you know, it's my job. It's because I have this commitment to myself to live into my, you know, to my liberation. Right. And so then when it's connected to that, when I get, when I get frustrated, when I get tired, I can, I can grab onto that anchor, that anchor holds me in the game. I can step away and take a break, but I always know that I'm going to come back to it. So that's a willingness and the why underneath it, the readiness is this constant state of, of, you know, it's lifelong learning, right. So it's, it's reading, it's engaging. It's, it's the labor of, you know, taking books and resources and, and then, you know, working with other people, working with a coach or a group that, holds you accountable to what you're attempting to do. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Racial justice is no joke. I mean, as you can see, you know, if you look at the social context, it's very difficult work. And so that readiness is a constant preparedness, a constant, a process of learning. And so then in that learning, one is learning about themselves, their identity. One of the big pieces that I'm exploring is really getting to parts that need healing. Resmaa Menakem talks about racialized trauma and how that impacts just our conversations. And what we're, what we're learning about trauma is that it's not only cognitive. It is somatic. I mean it's in the body. So when we're talking about racialized trauma, well, we have to understand is that we've all been impacted by racialized trauma. So it's not just Black, Brown and Indigenous bodies, you know, that, that have been harmed. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Yes, of course, we have been harmed. However, you know, trauma is what trauma does. And so, you know, white bodies too have been impacted. And so what we're doing when we come together like that, with that trauma is responding to each other. And so when we can start to heal, when we can recognize those, those wordless stories that come up in our bodies, right, we can, again, build that capacity to sit through the discomfort, right? To know that this too shall pass. And if you, and at each time you, you, you can sit through the discomfort long enough for it to pass, right. Then you're building capacity. And so that is, that trauma is a huge part of the reading readiness and willingness. And I, and I know that I mentioned accountability, but I want to reiterate, the importance of having accountability. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And it's not accountability from a friend or somebody who's, you know, gonna let you slide it's accountability. Who's who, from someone who is committed, just as much as you are to your own growth. And so that means that person is going to challenge you, that person's going to ask questions that person's going to help you explore, and to bring insight, they're going to hold up a mirror to what you're doing so that, you can, you can see what's going on, right. Race, oftentimes because of the way it operates, because the way it operates in the discourse, there's a lot of stuff we don't see because it's so natural. And so that, that accountability person would be able to really, you know, hold up that mirror and to say, stop. Here are some things you need to look at and then help guide you through the process of knowing where to go, to get the resources that are needed. Lindsay Lyons: There is so much that I know you could talk for days about, and I, people who are listening to check out Cherie's research and her dissertation are publicly available. You can, you can read more about that, but there are so many things, as I was reading through your research and your thesis, just of quotes that came up in the focus groups where you really highlight these things in action, that I immediately was like, yep. I have seen that. I have been there. I have, I have felt that you know, whatever it was, it feels so tangible. And, and just for anyone listening, who is interested in just like powerful writing, Cherie is a brilliant writer. And it is so, like, you wouldn't think that reading a dissertation would be fun and I truly enjoyed reading it. I am not lying. So I do recommend people check that out. Lindsay Lyons: There are also four blog posts that Cherie has contributed to the Time for Teachership blog that goes in, in a little bit more depth. And I also, I wanted to speak to one thing that Cherie that you speak about that I have never heard anyone else say this is, I think something that is just really unique in helping me to understand a little bit more about me as a white woman, engaging in the labor for racial justice. And that is, you started to say it a little bit, that, that idea of two sides of the coin, that idea that I think you've said before, right? "You can't do this work for me" kind of concept like it absolutely harms white folx as well. And that's not something that we hear a lot. I just didn't know if you wanted to say anything else about that. I've heard you refer to it as "soul harm," which I, I find just amazing, um, amazingly powerful and it's an opportunity for us to shift our minds and get our minds kind of wrapped around this thing that is so complex. And so I just want to give you an opportunity to share a little more if you want. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Thank you for bringing that up, because like that is part of the foundation of understanding. And I think it is a place where white people can enter into this, the story of race, in which we are all engaged, whether we want to admit it or not. We're all complicit. Lilla Watson, an Indigenous activist, and scholar, has— she makes a statement. "If you've come here to help me, you're wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." And to me, that captures what, what, you know, you're, you're bringing up. Lindsay is that race doesn't—racism does not happen by itself, right? It's a system that is generated by policies, but those policies are generated by people who create the discourse, who have to, you know, to keep racism going. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And so, when we, when we situate people who are not white as the only ones who have a race, then we miss out on the harm that is done to white bodies. Because when, you know, if you look at the relationship of racism and, you know, if we get down into the traumatic part of racism, you know, to inflict pain on another body is trauma, right? So that the oppressor is traumatized, and this is not to, to let white folx off the hook. It was to recognize that we all need to heal. Right. And, and we're all in this. And so it is really important that white folx begin to look at how, how turning away from—right, I've had, you know, some white people say after, after, you know, the George Floyd incident, which was proceeded by, you know, hundreds and hundreds of other stories, you know, like, "I didn't know it was this bad." Cherie Bridges Patrick: Well, okay. You need to ask yourself a question, right. You know, how, how, how is it that you have remained innocent, remained unknowing about these experiences? And so that, that looking away from that willful avoidance, that denial of racism has cost white people a lot. And I see it and I'm, you know, starting to explore it. I see it as this moral injury, this soul harm that allows white bodies that moves white bodies into silence. For example, in a meeting in the face of—they're watching a colleague, you know, being discriminated against, or, or talked down to, right, or excluded from a conversation you're watching people that you claim to care for, but you can turn away from that consistently. Right? And so we have to ask: What happens to one's soul when one can turn away from the big things and the everyday little things? Cherie Bridges Patrick: And I say this particularly to those who are, you know, who claim to want to fight for racial justice, right. That means you have to look at the complicity. Right. And at whose expense does your gain come from? Right. And I, you know, it leads us to, you know, maybe talk about privilege. I see it as an advantage, right? It's this, it's this illegitimate advantage. That's just given by the color of one's skin. Right? And so it's illegitimate, it's cheating. It's like, so, to, to gain that advantage, to be given that advantage at whose expense and at what cost, you know, we have to start interrogating, you know, what is the impact on me when I claim to be one who cares for this? Right? So I'm not talking about those people who aren't, you know, who, who wouldn't, who are not engaged in this, who are not making these claims. Cherie Bridges Patrick: I'm talking to social workers who have this commitment, to educators—and I don't know what your ethical commitment is, but social workers have an ethical commitment to fighting all forms of injustice. So it's, it's really important to know that nobody escapes the harm. We are just differentially impacted. The harm to Black and Brown and Indigenous and other bodies is very clear, right? It's obvious. And then there's the invisible wounding. But there's, there's harm—the psychic harm—to white folks that just, you know, continues to contribute to the cycling through of racism. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you so much for elaborating on that Cherie. I just think that's something that is so unique to how you see things and what you can bring to the conversation when we're engaging in this work and maybe going to a lot of different places. And this is just something that I think is, is transformative and it's potential to internalize. And again, like you were saying to have that deep, why so that deep, why is rooted, you know, for me as a white woman in living out my values right. And not, and not really, not contributing to the problem, but also not going against in those tiny moments, right. That may seem easy to turn away what I'm purporting to value. And so I appreciate that you explained it in that way and gave those examples that I think a lot of listeners can relate to as being in that situation on, on one end or another. Lindsay Lyons: I want to talk a little bit about the aspect of denial that you brought up too when you were talking about that. And I know that's a big piece of your writing and the things that you, um, are exploring right now in your scholarship. And so of course, you brought up earlier, Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky and talking about, you know, that requirement to tackle an adaptive challenge, requiring the changes in people's priorities, beliefs, habits, their loyalties, and this is, of course, challenging for people. And I'm interested in kind of those related ideas of denial in the discourse, and also the related notion, I think of seeing resistance as a loss. And so these ideas of denial and resistance as loss are, I know things you've been writing on. Do you mind saying a little bit about those concepts, and why it's important for us to understand these concepts if we're going to be doing this work? Cherie Bridges Patrick: Oh, wow. Okay. So this, this notion of denial, you know, Ibram Kendi talks about, you know, denial is at the heart of racism. And I talk about, discourse is at the heart of racism. So you've got these two things that are working together. And so that denial really is the ways in which we have just turned away from this reality of race and racism. But also it gets really convoluted because when, when we understand, um, this, this construction of race, right, Menakem talks about it being a construct, a social with teeth, right? It's a fabrication. I still, all this stuff around race is being, is being done is being lived out. It is a real experience based on a false notion, just baffling. All right. So then in terms of denial, there are just hundreds of ways in which we deny racism, don’t go against racism. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And my research spoke specifically to how we deny access to conversations of race, or we actually just deny that racism is a problem in a variety of ways. And so there were three denial discourses that came out of my research, you know, one was this notion of comfort and discomfort for white people. Another was fear and danger, and then the other was to silence. Right. And so, you know, the silence operates, you know, in meetings and team meetings, when, you know, when you have a client, we don't even talk about race right. In our, in our team meetings, for example, or if we do, we keep it at this demographic safe level, right. So then we would come colorblind to the impact of race and racism. So, um, you know, just, just negating bringing it up at all or staying in that safe zone of demographically, you know, describing it. Cherie Bridges Patrick: So that was one example of the discourse of silence, which is a form of denial. Right? So then there are these, these other discourses that emerged this notion of comfort white comfort, right. And it's grounded in silence is grounded in safety. It's grounded in the image, right? So white people do not like to be called racist. That's like the worst, one of the worst things, you know, that, that a white person would be called. Except I think that you know, we, again, conflated race with violence. And so then when you talk about being a racist, you know, one seems you see that as being called this violent, you know, white nationalists or a member of the KKK. And that's not the case. My research looked at how racism is continued as reproduced is, is maintained without intent, right. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And that's the power of discourse. So the notion of remaining and comfort was, was huge, and it was yet another way to deny conversations about race. I had a supervisor say that you know, I don't bring up race in group sessions because it's more comfortable for me to, you know, talk about race one-on-one with people, right? So the white supervisor determining that for, for him, it was more convenient, more comfortable. He said, for, for me to talk about race one-on-one. So then what happens to all the clients? What happens to all the other employees that need to, the other team members who need to hear that story of, you know, that, that issue around race. So there's a lot of things that happen. So at that moment, the opportunity access to have a conversation was denied, and then there's this fear and this, this discourse of fear and danger. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And I, and I, you know, just talked about how race is conflated with violence. And that's really what that was about. You had white folx who were not able to, or did not provide evidence of the harm that they feared, right? So it was this perception of fear because of the ways that, you know, race and racism operate. So these, these, this fear unsubstantiated, where Black and biracial participants talked about the harm that actually comes to them. Right. And so, and it comes to them, the fear is that if I say something, you know, the whole team is going to discount me, you know, as a, as a good member of the team, because I make them uncomfortable. Right. So imagine that if I, if I bring up race, I'm going to be discounted. I'm going to be, you know, excluded from, from, groups or conversations. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And so that, that fear is grounded for, for Black and biracial social workers were grounded in the agency, right. Being able to, you know, to hold a job, hold a profession and maintain, you know, some, some integrity and some, some, professional standing on the job. Right. So you have these two different stories, one that's perceived, you know, as a threat. And then there's this real threat, and they collide, right? So, that's, that's denial. I also did a deeper exploration of denial and how it, operates socio-cognitively. And, so I looked at discourse structures of three social workers and, one of them, and I won't go into it too much, but it's, it's, it's fascinating because it was this conversation, with a social worker who was a leader in her organization and white, a young leader, who, you know, just talked about how she had, she had, had become aware of how racism operated and she had been taught to be colorblind. Cherie Bridges Patrick: So she was really struggling because this is part of, a part of the harm that happens to white people. It was this, you know, this, this realization of, "Oh my goodness, things are really bad. And where have I been? I've been taught this way." So she was struggling with the fact that she'd been taught, colorblindness, and taught. Everybody, loves everybody and everybody's equal, but now it's becoming very obvious that that's not true. So she's grappling with her own identity and her own issues of how she's been raised and how her, she's been socialized to think a certain way about race and about herself. And she's also recognizing and making statements about how she's seeing racism operate in her organization. She uses an example of, Hey, um, you know, I was, I was this young person that came in and I worked in an office of predominantly, it was a predominantly African-American office, right. Cherie Bridges Patrick: So I came in as a leader and I watched myself be promoted over, over these Black colleagues. And "I knew they were more qualified than me" is what she said. I knew they were more qualified than me and I got promoted anyway. And she took the job anyway. Right. And so she's grappling with that guilt in that, like, I don't, what's happening here. So it's like, this is really confronting her. So in the conversation, you know, she's telling me all this, and then she recognizes she's "Oh, wow. You know, it just occurs to me that as I'm telling you this, I'm calling my company racist." Right. And she's like, "No, they're not racist," after she just explained that all this racism was going on in her life. They're not racist. No, they're ignorant. Cherie Bridges Patrick: They just don't know what to do. They're trying, you know, all these different excuses. And it was like, you know, I had to read it several times to really understand how deeply the wounds of racism go and how it shapes us to, you know, to just want to turn away from what's really happening. And so she was like, no, they are not racist. Right. It was, it was everything else except, and I never called, I never said they were racist. It was her recognition. And so I said, well, you know, that you have to recognize that we're, you know, we're in the system that, you know, we can't escape. It, it seems like, Nope, they're not. I saw I had to end, I had in that conversation and or at that part of the interview to go onto something else, but that denial and that, in that sense was just so fascinating to watch because here's this admittance of I'm watching it happen. Cherie Bridges Patrick: I'm watching racism happen in my organization. I am participating in this. And then it was this shift too, no, we can't be. And so these are the things that, that are part of the inner work of, of racial justice, right. And these are the things that people have to grapple with, and it ain't fun. Right. It is very painful. As you can tell in her name, I identified her as Dawn, you know, Dawn, was she just throughout the interview, just grappled with this, you know, this, this difference in who she thought she was and who she really was. So that's it, that's it for denial and this, the notion of resistance as a loss. As I said, Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky, talk about that. And you know, it hit me. And as I was reading through like all the resistance that we see when we bring up race, you know, if we conceptualize it and I'm not saying this is the only thing, but if we can conceptualize it as loss, it can be of identity. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Right. I no longer have a superior identity. Right. And so that's a big one, you know, that's something that has, you know, has built up over, you know, hundreds of years. And so this identity of superiority that is attached to white skin, people have to grapple with it. So we introduce, you know, you know, talking about transformation around, you know, around, changing systems, to be racially just, that's a big thing to have to grapple with. And so it's a loss it's like, who am I going to be if I don't have that identity is one. Power, position...It just...Loss creates all these things that we have to grapple with. And so when people, when people are confronted with that, they often resist, right. And so rather than seeing it as resistance, if we reframe it, if we just turn the page just a little bit, and see it as loss, then as leaders, we're responsible to help people navigate through that loss, it's still, you know, it still is resistance, right. But to help them grapple with it so that they can pass through that resistance and that loss, so that, change and transformation can really occur. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you so much for explaining all of that to us. There are so many things that we have covered in this podcast episode. I just want to kind of recap some of the things that I heard and then Cherie, feel free to jump in and clarify, or let me know if I got any of them wrong, and then we'll move to kind of, you know, what can people do moving forward. And so here are the things that, that I think are important for listeners to kind of remember a little highlight reel here. One, the importance of just opening up our imaginations and that vulnerability is, as you said, a doorway to that imagination, right? Pulling from the work of Brene Brown, their right to be seen fully and enable us to really think big. Another piece, right? Adaptive versus technical challenges, technical fixes, those PDs, those one-time workshops are not going to cut it when we're talking about a longstanding entrenched problem. Lindsay Lyons: And so it really needs to be adaptive work. We need to interrogate those beliefs. We need to recognize the disconnects between our values and actions and our in terms of school leadership, our policies, right in our practices of pedagogy. We also need to see the system as operating the way it was designed. It is not a broken system. We need to recognize and call out the ways in which it is operating in a racist way so that we can dismantle it. The primacy of discourse, I think, is one of the hallmarks of your work, Cherie. And I think that's a huge piece, right? Discourse, as you said, contributes to the problem, it's a tool for examining the problem. And it's also a way that we do the work or the labor we name and dismantle through the discourse that we have with colleagues, with students. Lindsay Lyons: And so in educational spaces, this is a huge tool. A lot of times we talk about, you know, do we have a critical dialogue with students and, and things like this, and this, this really feeds into the work that schools might be doing around discourse in classrooms but really highlighting that. This is also a way to talk about identify and go against racism at work in those systems. I think that's a unique perspective, you know, in terms of looking at schools and schooling and how we talk about talking with students. Another piece of that too, when we look at those four capacities, we've got the liberating dialogic environment where the facilitator. So if we're thinking about a group of, students and a teacher facilitating a class, I'm envisioning, that teacher being the facilitator and really having to build up their own capacity and understanding of how race operates, but also really knowing how to center dignity. Lindsay Lyons: And so Cherie and I have actually put together a free resource that I will link to this episode where it summarizes the 10 elements of dignity from Donna Hicks's book. And then it also gives a poster for teachers who want to use it either it's a digital poster. So in a virtual space or a physical classroom space, if you want to print it out, but, but that helps educators really feel out how they might do that or how they might position those elements of dignity as maybe class agreements, and, and put it out for conversation among students. The other capacities for the discourse of readiness and willingness, of course, connecting that, as you said, to have deep why, and you're really adherence to lifelong learning your commitment to be a learner and learning with accountability as a really important caveat there and to be vulnerable and, that adaptability capacity as well, is really critical. Lindsay Lyons: Another key feature I think of your work is that we are all harmed by white supremacy and racism. There's that soul harm, right? What does it do to the souls of the folx who turn away? I think that's a powerful way to look at this and I encourage listeners to really think about that and, what that means for our engagement in this labor and finally the denial. So I think for, for listeners listening, probably recognizing where that denial comes up in themselves and others, how it manifests as silence, how it is a manifestation of comfort or discomfort or fear. And then also for leaders reframing, as you said, resistance as real loss, the loss of identities, superiority, power position. There are so many things here that you said that is so brilliant, and I just want to make sure everybody captured them as they were listening. I know sometimes people listen to podcasts and multitask, so I want to make sure that they got all those things. I want to first ask, is there anything you would add or clarify to that? And then the second kind of question, what is one thing from that long list of things to remember and take away that someone, a listener who's listening right now could just do tomorrow, somewhere they could really begin and get started. Cherie Bridges Patrick: So, so Lindsay, I had to take a deep breath as you were re recapping all this stuff like, Oh, snap, that's a whole lot. And, and I, I think you've done an excellent job of summarizing them, so thank you for that. I, so, you know, when people ask, like, what do they do? What can we do? I'm like, Oh my goodness, you should never ask me that question because I am going to challenge listeners to, to just take three minutes a day, try it for a week, three minutes a day to, to give intentional focus, to observe themselves from a distance as a third party, observe their discourse, observe their interactions, observe their body language. It can be by themselves, their thoughts, or it can be like, in workspaces or, you know, in work environments, we're doing a lot of zoom work. Cherie Bridges Patrick: So tend to notice what is happening, you know, as you, as you go through your day to day, the practice of just living, right? And so to take three minutes and give intense focus, notice all those things, and don't judge them, just notice them because those things will begin to tell you more about yourself. Then you might be wanting to learn. I've been doing this practice myself and I am I'm, you know, I have to admit, have been a couple of times appalled at like some of my thoughts, like, "Oh my gosh, I really thought that ugly thought." Right? And so it's to really, to, to examine what is happening in our minds and our bodies, right? And it doesn't matter if it's about race, it could be about anything, but just to learn about ourselves so that we can, you know, begin to address race. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Now, for those of you that are really brave, make it about race, focus on, on what's happening. You know, when you, when you are watching a TV program and you see that Black body, that white body comes across a screen or whatever, just pay attention and notice what's going on. I promise you, if you do this, you will see some things that then will allow you to begin to become more vulnerable, right? To, to give the things to yourself that you might not be getting right. Vulnerability is also about being true to oneself, right. And to be able to honor oneself. And so just exploring those things that happened to us on a day-to-day basis for three minutes, that's how much it will cost you as three minutes. Right? So you don't have to go out and get a book. You can buy a book if you want to. But this year, you don't even have to wait till tomorrow. You can do it right now. Lindsay Lyons: I love that Cherie. Thank you so much for sharing that. And as we move to close, I'm just thinking about you, you're working on so many things all the time. I'm wondering if there's something you didn't mention that you're, you're working on currently, or, um, you know, you could even be a book you're reading or something that has been on your mind lately, um, that you wanted to share with folx, anything that's been at front of mind for you. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Okay. There's some, my, my brain is, like you said, I'm doing a lot of different things. So my brain is scattered all over the place. But in terms of, you know, what's on my mind, obviously I talked about this article for white supremacy or not for white supremacy, but white supremacy and social work and dismantling it. There is a book and I think you mentioned it the other day that I cannot seem to find. Lindsay Lyons: Is it Caste by Isabelle Wilkerson? Cherie Bridges Patrick: Yes. I have heard from multiple resources that that is a powerful, powerful book. I have not yet begun to engage in it. But I would highly recommend as I will do myself, that people, read that Resmaa Menakem's work on racialized trauma is a must. And because there are some offerings of resources in there that can help people navigate through these somatic responses that we have. Ibram Kendi's work, um, adaptive leadership, James Baldwin, I could go on forever, and ever there are tons of podcasts. And there's, there are tons of resources available. What I would say I would add a caveat to that is that not all racial justice-related resources are equal. If we understand the sinister, nature of white supremacy is that it operates to reproduce itself. Right? And so, this is why I find discourse so fascinating, so useful is that you know, because white supremacy, operates to reproduce itself, we'll find it in, in, you know, resources that are meant, you know, started to, you know, to be inclusive, to, to create inclusive environments or to, you know, to focus on diversity, and equity issue, issues. Cherie Bridges Patrick: And so, perhaps talking to people who are really knowledgeable about race and racism, you know, reading a book is good. But I tell you, after, after studying this for several years, I still know very little about how race and racism operate. It is so sinister. White supremacy is so sinister. And so t0, you know, to know that there are, there are programs out there that are designed right to reproduce, right? Not necessarily intentionally, perhaps they are intentional, but at the end of the day, if we keep doing what we always did, we're always gonna give, always got it's time to change. It's time to really jump out there and be creative and imaginative. And you know, and, and it takes some risk. It's really, it's really risky, but it's, it's, I promise it's worth it. Lindsay Lyons: Thank you so much, Cherie, before we finally close, I'm wondering if you want to share where listeners can learn more about you or connect with you, either a website, social media platforms, wherever you would like to direct people to go to engage further. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Thank you for saying that Lindsay, you can go to my website, www.socialchangecoaching.com. And that has a lot of information on the kind of work that I do. There's a link to my research there, so you can see that and you can connect from there. And there are also a few blogs that I've written that are available on that site. So thanks Lindsay for that reminder, Lindsay Lyons: Of course. Excellent. And I will also link in the show notes to all those great books that you recommended as well, just so people can easily find those and don't have to rewind the podcast and, and listen to what we were saying as we were talking. So thank you so much, Cherie, you have shared so much with us today and I totally appreciate your time and your genius and your brilliance. And, and thank you so much. Cherie Bridges Patrick: Thank you for this opportunity, Lindsay. It is awesome to be with you. It's awesome to work with you.
Lindsay Lyons:
Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of educational visionaries until next time leaders continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.
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Time for Teachership is now a proud member of the...AuthorLindsay Lyons (she/her) is an educational justice coach who works with teachers and school leaders to inspire educational innovation for racial and gender justice, design curricula grounded in student voice, and build capacity for shared leadership. Lindsay taught in NYC public schools, holds a PhD in Leadership and Change, and is the founder of the educational blog and podcast, Time for Teachership. Archives
August 2024
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