Helping White Women to Uproot Systemic Racism | Episode 37

Over 20 years ago an offensive racial identity discussion at Harvard pushed Misasha Suzuki Graham and Sara Blanchard to simultaneously walk out of the room and kick off their decades-long friendship. As biracial women and parents of multiracial children, they have been uniquely aware of the impact that our nation’s legacy of racism has on all racialized people.

In their book and podcast, “Dear White Women,” Suzuki Graham and Blanchard answer the litany of questions that seemingly well-intentioned White folks have been asking people of color throughout this second wave of the civil rights movement.

I don’t know about you but I’m tired of explaining that racism wasn’t solved during Obama’s presidency. I’m thrilled to have a resource to share/chuck at the next person that pretends they desperately want to be part of the solution but only if it requires less effort than a Google search. 🙄🙄🙄🙄

If you've ever asked or been asked "What can I do to help combat racism?" then Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism is a priceless tool you’ll want to add to your personal library.

This episode we discuss

* Claiming your wholeness as a multiracial person in monoracial spaces

* Balancing protecting your energy and giving grace to problematic “friends”

* The legacy of anti-Asian sentiment in the US

* The compound stress of racism and sexism

* Harnessing the power of privilege to uproot systemic racism

Episode Resources

www.dearwhitewomen.com/

Buy Your Copy of Dear White Women

www.daliakinsey.com

Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation

Episode edited and produced by Unapologetic Amplified

Body Liberation for All Theme

They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like it

It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence.  This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.

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Dalia Kinsey: Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Misasha Suzuki: We're so excited to be here.

Sara Blanchard: Thanks for having us. Yes, thank you.

Dalia Kinsey: I've been cyberstalking, both of you in addition to fawning over the book and looking at my favorite sections. Again, even though I'm not the target person for the book, it feels like a really good resource for me to share with other people who want me to explain to them how to not be problematic.

And just knowing that I have a resource for that feels like a relief because so many people act like they want to know what to do and will suck you dry energy wise, but if you tell them, you could probably find another resource for that. They'll come up with more ways to keep pulling on your energy, and I love that now I can just be like, no seriously read this, and if you're not willing to do that, you don't really wanna know. So that's very helpful. Can you tell us about why you felt like now was the time for your book?

Misasha Suzuki: It's a great question and I think we've had, so we've had the podcast by the same name, Dear White Women for close to three years now. It's hard to, hard to imagine, that when we started back in April of 2019, that anyone save like the five family members that we could have strong to listening to it.

Dalia Kinsey: You were able to get family to listen? It's literally impossible to get friends and family to listen.

Misasha Suzuki: As it was coming outta my mouth I thought well not immediate family. Ok. Sometimes my mom will listen. And then she'll be like, why did you say that? And I'm like, oh, ok, you listened to that episode I think we recognize that not all people are podcast listeners and I'm staring at one, on the screen right now (points at Sara)

Sara Blanchard: Sort of bad, I know

Misasha Suzuki: I'll still send her like episodes every once in a while and feel like 50 50 shot that she'll listen.

But we thought that also the message and the platform that we have was really important to get out to a larger audience. Besides just the podcast, right? In different mediums. And people learn different ways in different ways and people reflect in different ways. And so we sort of came to the realization around the fall of 2020 that, we wanted to do this book.

And of course, you know, there was just a few things happening in 2020. So, you know, Sarah asked me at that time cause we were homeschooling our kids and, you know, trying to handle everything else. If like why, why we should write the book. And I said in that moment, and it was my most honest truth in that moment that I think we should write it because I'm trying to save my kids' lives. And you know, it's one of those sort of responses when you're do the speed round of like questions. And it is, it is the thing that comes to your mind first. But that is, My truth. Right? And I, I feel to this day that if one person reads this book and that person has the ability in some way to make a decision as to whether my sons live or die, right? Or anyone else who looks like my sons live or die like that, and they make a different decision than they would have, that is enough, right? That is more than enough. And I think that about the podcast too. But the book is something that's so tangible and is similar yet different to the podcast that I feel like that's the goal.

That's a singular goal. And so that's why, yeah.

Dalia Kinsey: Yeah. That's a huge motivation. I know there are a lot of people who, when they get into activism, they. Motivators that are not stable or consistent. So like maybe they are empathizing with someone they're friends with, but if that friendship goes sour, they may also lose interest in the movement.

So it's certainly a different thing when it's blood relatives who you're worried about or whether it's just intrinsic to you to be concerned about everyone's safety, which is also another motivating force for a lot of people. And those things are stable, whereas just because someone you have befriended is suffering.

You know, I don't know that that's a motivation that would really last. And I've seen like fair weather activists, especially in 2020 that couldn't even hang in there for a year. And like you mentioned, you started the podcast long before this second wave of the civil rights movement.

Sara Blanchard: Ooh. I like that you called it the second wave of the civil rights movement.

The it, it

Dalia Kinsey: feels like, yeah, like no one WA was framing it that way. It was so interesting to me how many people acted like B L M was brand new when these are precisely the same issues that we've had since reconstruction, like the US loves to do. They say they're going in to. People that are suffering when it's really a play for money or resources, like they do that overseas over all the time.

That's also what it looks like. Maybe I'm biased because I was told it was a war of Northern aggression, which, you know, that's a whole nother thing. But like the perspective is, well they came down here for resources and for power, not for humanitarian reasons, which vibes with how the US generally is, and then left too soon as they always do.

Like before any area stabilized and people just started murdering black folks left and right. Any time they had two red scents to rub together and decided that maybe they should be treated like equals, it was always a problem. And the police have been part of enforcing systemic racism. In my part of the country, at least since reconstruction.

And so for anyone to think it was a new problem was just so bizarre to me when it's the same thing we've been dealing with since the beginning of this country being formed.

Misasha Suzuki: I I love, I love that you said that, and Sarah knows, like, I, I will continually like hammer this point home on the podcast because I, I think that people completely think this just came out of nowhere, right?

Or this is like, we were doing just fine cuz we had this civil rights movement in the sixties and like, we fixed it, you know, and, and once the Civil War was over, we also fixed that, right? And so there's periods that we've fixed. And so why is there such an issue now? And I think that shows up in, in, you know, a lot of different ways.

You're absolutely right in that it was sort of, it has been baked into the founding of our country. And that reconstruction in particular was sort of designed to be this fix, but it never, it didn't go down that way. And in fact, people were still trying to sort of create the world that, that existed before reconstruction, right?

Just without using the word slavery. And so I think that that is so important to understand that history because those are the cycles that keep repeating. And if we don't understand that, we're continually looking at it like it's this new issue. And that