Talking to Racist Relatives

Hi. It's Nick Rinehart's work director of Social Justice and

Young Adult Ministries at Manchester, UMC here.

This video is the third in our Black History Month

videos. Siri's During this month of February.

We are revisiting those topics that we talked about during

our M.

L K Day on activities.

So all of the presentations that are being shared on

this Facebook page here on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout February,

our presentations that were prepared, um, for that MLK Day

event. But we've we've made video version.

So in case you weren't able to be with us

on MLK Day or if you want to kind of

revisit some of that information that was covered, that's why

we're here.

Today's video is on the issue of talking to racist

relatives. The content for this video comes from shared streets.

S T.

L R.

Young adult community in South City ST Louis.

This community is a little unconventional in terms of religious

groups. Are group is about one third religious, one third

political and one third social or fellowship oriented.

A lot of our young adults are a part of

black lives.

Matter protests here in ST Louis and other social justice

organizations so many of our young adults really struggle with.

How can I connect with family members who are on

the opposite side of the aisle when it comes to

some of these racial and social justice issues?

How do I lovingly share with my family what I

believe? Why?

So that I might open their minds as well.

So I got a little graphic that I love to

share with this training, right?

And you can tell it's the girl sitting there saying,

Don't talk about politics, Don't talk about politics.

Don't talk about politics, right?

And I think that's the experience that we've heard from

a lot of our young adults, which is why we

put this, you know, training together.

What do I do when Grandma says something that's racist?

She didn't mean to be racist, but she's older, and

she has thes kind of outdated views.

What do I do?

Uh, and for many of us, sitting and being quiet

isn't an option, right?

In order Thio be fully ourselves with our family.

We have to be able to engage on these things

that are really important to us.

So we wanna use this training to kind of flip

the script on this.

So instead of feeling, you know, don't talk about family.

Don't talk about politics with my family.

We can say, How do I talk about politics with

my family in a way that's helpful and constructive?

Because the bottom line right here is our job to

encourage our family and friends to do better?

I tell some of our sassy young adults.

If you can't even handle how racist your Aunt Karen

is, how do you think the black nurse who takes

care of her at the hospital field?

How do you think the people of color who interact

with your racist grandparent's feel when were unwilling to stand

up and speak truth to those who we love?

We're asking other people to do that work for us

right now.

Don't get me wrong.

There are some family situations in which you know we

can't have these conversations.

Sometimes there are toxic patterns that we need to be

really careful of, and we'll talk about those later.

But the important part is if we love our family,

then we want to invite them on this journey towards

justice that were on.

We want them to be a part of the solution

with us.

So how can we start these conversations in a way

that doesn't lead to fights that won't hurt our relationship

but allows us to feel like we're moving forward?

The first thing I want to talk about as we're

considering talking to racist relatives, is this term racist or

racism? Now I want to do a little exercise.

I want you to close your eyes for a second

and imagine a racist in your head.

What does that look like?

That A KKK member burning across?

Is it an employer refusing to hire a black person?

Is it an individual you know who uses the N

word comfortably or when you think of the word racist?

Do you think of systems, right?

Do you not think of ah person but think of

rather an institution.

The reality is the word.

Racism. The term racism has become a buzz word that's

used all over the place and not often used to

describe the same thing.

So I'm gonna talk a little bit about racism.

We are all each and every one of us influenced

by systems of oppression, our culture, our history, our science.

All of this stuff mixes together to give us a

particular world view and that culture around us, this thesis

worldview we have is kind of like fish being in

water, right?

You ask a fish, How is the water and their

responses? What water?

It's just how it is.

That's how systems of oppression are for all of us,

right? I am an anti racist advocate.

I've been doing this work for a really long time,

but I was still raised in this culture in which

the news and television shows often had black men as

villains. So I automatically have some connections in my brain

between criminality and race, even if I don't want to.

Even if I'm trying to deal with that, that's still

part of the cultural soup that we all live in

and that we're working to change.

So if we all are influenced by these systems of

oppression, I think there's three different ways we can think

about these things, right?

So the first one is we all interact with systems

of oppression internally in our own brains, right?

And this is called bias bias is usually unconscious, but

I have.

Sometimes we can be conscious of those.

Bias is an example of biases.

I'm driving down the street.

I see a black man walking next to my car,

and I just really quickly and suddenly hit that lock

button without thinking about it.

Right. That impulse comes from the lizard part of my

brain. That's my fight or flight response, trying to keep

me safe.

But that fight or flight response is responding to a

pattern that I've been taught through media and context, right?

If I respond differently when it's a white man walking

past than a black man walking past, that's my internal

bias is acting out.

Harvard University has been studying implicit bias for a really

long time.

They've got this thing called the implicit bias test.

You can google it and take it.

This psychological test asks you to push buttons really quick

to identify white and dark faces.

Then it asks you identify good and bad words, and

then it mixes it all up so fast and only

gives you a second to answer each question to try

to find those those underlying connections that you don't know

about in your brain.

The Harvard implicit bias test has found that almost everyone,

including people of color, have a bias towards white men,

right, because in our society, white men have been at

the top of the hierarchy for a long time.

So whether or not we need Thio, we all kind

of have this little leaning bias towards what our society

has for such a long time described as the kind

of standard We deal with our internal biases by starting

to realize them by listening to others by learning new

information by interrupting those patterns.

And that's important.

We need to do something about the biases we need

toe learn what we don't yet know in order to

prevent those internal things from affecting my social interaction right,

Because once it comes to the interpersonal level, I have

prejudice in my head.

It's biased.

But when I allow that bias to change how I'm

acting in intentional ways, that's prejudice.

So an example might be a store clerk follows a

black person all around the store because think that person

is likely to steal.

I had the unconscious bias of black people might be

criminals more likely than people.

But then white people, and then I changed how I

acted with another person Gonna be really clear here.

Prejudice goes all ways.

White people can be prejudiced against people of color.

People of color can be prejudiced against white people or

other people of color.

You've spent some time with Asian immigrant communities.

You can see this prejudice amongst these different populations.

So sometimes people ask about, Like what about reverse racism,

right when black people are racist towards white people, we're

going to talk about why black people can't be racist

towards white people in a minute.

But black people can be prejudiced against white people, right?

Because our prejudices are informed by by the messages around

us and our life experience.

So if I'm a person of color who lives in

a community that's almost exclusively people of color, and the

Onley interaction I have with white individuals are authority figures

like police or principles that can lead to some prejudice

of, I assume white people are like this and I'm

going to act according all of us act with prejudice.

And when we're talking about the words of another, we're

often referring to prejudice because racism is something really different.

So racism, anytime we have is, um, that means we're

talking about the systemic or the structural level, right?

So So for me, racism is something that's in our

in our world, in our system, and it's something that

seeped into us.

It affects how we act, but it's related to those

systems. Things like economics, things like politics, things like education.

So ah, company being more likely to hire Jason than

Jamal just true is an example of racism.

Right when we combine money and power with an action,

that's when we move it from prejudice to racism.

So, for example, me as someone who works here at

Manchester who works at a church, my individual actions can

kind of act on all these three levels.

I might have an internal bias that I'm not aware

of and that can act meteo, cause me to act

with prejudice, right?

So maybe I had a bias that black people are

in a smart as white people.

So then, when I'm interviewing interns, I have a prejudice

towards black folks, so I hire the white folks, but

because I am using them, my power at the church

and deciding who we hire.

That's where it's getting into racism.

I'm I'm functioning as an individual, but I'm also functioning

as part of an institution.

So I've got that power behind me and how I

am acting right.

So that's how we get those different things.

And what does it mean to be racism if versus

the system versus saying the n word?

All these things you got these three different levels I'd

really push you to think about how other systems of

oppression How does our idea of gender work on these

three levels?

How does our ideas of sexuality kind of work on

these three levels?

Alright, so I wanna kind of go into now some

tips and tricks on how to disagree without ruining the

relationship. Now that we have the kind of framework, what

are we actually gonna dio?

And I am?

I am stealing my own information in this.

So so the stuff are about to cover comes from

the Holding Up your Corner with Resource, which I wrote

for Abington Press.

This is a guide for middle schoolers and high schoolers

to talk about because their youth group around um, issues

related to race.

So I got four words that I wanted to remember

when it comes to interacting with others on the other

side of the aisle.

So the first point is empathy.

No one is a villain.

And we're all trying to do the best we can

with e information, knowledge and experience that we have, right?

We are all the main character in our own story.

We're all beloved Children of God.

However, you wanna wanna think about it.

Our faith demands that we see people in their humanity

and not to reduce them.

Thio caricatures.

This could be really hard with public figures, but is

really important when it comes to our family.

If I just think my Aunt Susan is so racist

and terrible, I'm maybe not the best person to have

a conversation with her.

Maybe my sister might be closer with Aunt Susan and

feels deeply for Aunt Susan.

Maybe that's a better place for her, but we have

to approach our conversations with empathy and assume that people

don't know more than they know and and we want

to help them along.

So some trip.

Some words and phrases that can help us do.

This is when we're engaging in these conversations, making sure

that we're listening to understand first and not listening to

respond. So one way we can do this is by

restating what we hear.

So what I'm hearing you say is sometimes we might

we might get people's, you know, thoughts right off the

top of their head.

They might not say it eloquently.

They might say it in a way that's problematic.

So sometimes we can rephrase, Right?

So what I'm hearing you say is yes, kind of

a follow up to that one is it seems like

you're really worried about what?

So, for example, if we're like you know, all these

Mexicans are coming and stealing our jobs, it seems like

you're really worried about jobs and employment.

So let's talk about that before we talk about the

immigrant populations coming and taking the jobs.

What jobs are you talking about, that kind of kind

of stuff, right?

Or someone might be talking about those thugs who are

out at the racial justice protest, and why don't they

get jobs?

What I'm hearing you say, is you're concerned about about

folks kind of causing destruction in their in their communities.

They're trying to bring awareness to what's going going on,

right? It seems like like we might not be worried

about something about their race.

But something about our communities also always ask clarifying questions.

What do you mean by blank?

Sometimes folks will say something that they realize the problematic

after it comes out of their mouth, right?

And and we can just ask that clearly.

What do you mean by this?

They might say, Well, that's not what I meant.

That's not how I meant, say, especially when folks use

language like the word thug.

For example, What do you mean by thug?

Is this just a word that we've heard?

And we're repeating, or are we really thinking about the

people behind this?

So making sure that we understand what's the thing behind

the thing?

Right? If we have our kind of statement of this

is what I'm I'm thinking, what's the feeling that might

be underneath that we have to have empathy and we

have to listen if we're gonna find that out right

listening to understand, I understand why people what feelings are

activated in these political beliefs, all right.

The next word vulnerability lead by example with courageous and

authentic interaction.

Many of you know this kind of law of attraction

that we get the energy that we give off.

So I go into a conversation defensive and ready to

argue. That's the energy I'm going to and for some

folks that maybe you were right.

I've got I've got one particular conservative friend.

We have a great time kind of yelling back and

forth at each other.

But for many of us, that's not the dynamic that

we have in our family.

So if we want these conversations to be serious, authentic

and purpose towards something, we have to be willing to

kind of come in from underneath, right?

I think of my cats when they fight on my

one cat always comes up from underneath.

I'm not.

I'm not attacking you.

I'm I'm letting you come and see my belly right.

We sometimes need to show that part of ourselves off,

so one way we can do this is by talking

about an area where we have grown or changed.

For example, I used to be confused about the term

privilege to, but then I heard this story.

But then I read this book, but then I made

this friend and it showed me something different.

If we could start by showing moments we've transformed for

inviting other people into that project of transformation, we're also

showing that we're not coming into this conversation as a,

um I'm better than you.

I'm coming to tell you what to do, right?

It's I've moved on this topic.

I've learned I've grown on.

I want to share that with you next up already

kind of said this, but described the moments that have

shifted your perspective.

What has changed?

How you think So, for example, I will talk about

education and race with some of my family members.

And I include the stories of when I started working

in low income classrooms.

Let me tell you about my students, right?

I used to think that there was a problem with

black parents not being involved with their kids until I

was in a situation where I met black parents and

poverty who are struggling and working so hard to fight

for their kid.

I've met These people have changed me.

Want to share that next word accountability.

Hold yourselves accountable to the things that you believe.

You don't say something.

No one might say anything.

So this doesn't mean that we have to address every

single statement that happens at our gatherings, Right?

For some of us, we might be the Onley, justice

oriented person in our family, and it's impossible to like

comment on every single thing you hear.

My tip for this is to plan ahead.

What are one or two topics that you know we're

going to come up that you could be ready to

comment on or intervene in.

So I kind of gave the example of of low

income and education for people of color in ST Louis.

That's something that I know.

My my family's going to say something about the black

family or those schools, and that's somewhere where I can

pop in and have something to say.

That's where I know I can prepare something, or there

might be a particular issue that happened.

For example, a lot of us are looking at what

happened on January 6, right?

So maybe even just being ready with some information about

how Internet conspiracy theories relate to what happened right can

be one way that we're prepared to start to engage

in that conversation, honest about your goals for the conversation.

This one's really important, so it requires that vulnerability piece.

But can I tell you about why it bothers me

when you say something like that?

Can I tell you why racial justice is so important?

Me? Can I tell you why I can't get behind

that statement?

Right? Ah, lot of the times in our society we

are we are encouraged, were forced to fight about issues

from the perspective of the talking heads and not from

the perspective of us and who we are and who

our relationship are.

If we're honest about why we're having a conversation with

our family members, hopefully they will be available.

So listen, if not for the point of justice than

for us, because they love us because they're close to

us because they're related to us.

And then the last word to remember is empowerment.

Always be ready to suggest a tangible step or a

way to get involved.

A great way to do this is to be resource

ready. What's a book you've read or a movie you've

watched that has helped you learn and grow.

I've bought many members of my family copies of Michelle

Alexander's The New Jim Crow.

They might not read them, but their kids see it

on the shelf.

Or, if you know that you're talking to someone who's

really into movies.

Hey, can I recommend this really awesome drama that made

me think a little bit?

We've seen Wind River.

It's about how we treat native women.

It's so interesting.

Have you watched Adam ruins everything.

It's a great show where they take a social issue

and explain all of the history behind it.

This is how you could continue this conversation and this

effort, if you so desired, feel free to use infographics

videos or testimonials to others.

Those air always great things to use.

Feel free.

Um, if you have stories that you want to bring

in that you've seen or learn to bring them in.

But be sure that you're respecting the privacy of the

people around you.

So don't use names unless you have permission to do

that and be prepared to give people a way to

be involved, just in case, because you never know when

the conversation is going to turn into Oh, my gosh.

I didn't know that I have more questions, right?

So we wanna always assume that these conversations can go

productively and will lead to movement and change.

So we want to know what we're kind of gonna

dio if that's the case.

So So sometimes I recommend, you know, like, hey, have

you thought about signing up to be a tutor in

a low income school?

Have you thought about volunteering in these contests?

Have you thought about, um, coming along with me to

one of my church mission projects Show people a way

to get involved.

All right, I want to pause right here and state

that this this goal for our conversation is based on

an ideal that is not always the case, right.

There's been some shifts in our social and political lives

that are affecting how these conversations go.

So I'm gonna bring in a little bit of political

science theory to help us understand when we can have

these conversations and maybe when it's not state right, because

unfortunately, we're now in a political climate where things aren't

always so.

There's this concept from political science that's called the Overton

window and the Overton window is the box of of

appropriate, logical, understandable political dialogue.

Right, So you can see tthe e illustration right here

next to me.

So we have this kind of huge list in our

political spectrum.

We think of Democrats and Republican in the United States,

but in reality, we kind of have this really expanded

political window, which which goes from anarchism to fascism or

freedom to less freedom, more control to less control and

any given government.

Any given society has a box of what is the

kind of acceptable dialogue In a perfect world, we have

kind of the far people who like Okay, that's acceptable.

But you're kind of out from the middle or we

need to compromise in.

So we got the sensible opinions, and then maybe the

more popular opinions from left and right and then in

the middle is where we find our policy because our

two sides debate and negotiate.

Unfortunately, that's no longer the case.

In the past 8 to 16 years are Overton Window

has split apart because of polarizing of our party and

ah, largely due to kind of our mainstream media.

And what happens when we come modify the news.

So now that are Overton Window is split.

We've moved up to that radical and unthinkable perspective for

many of us.

We have two circles of conversation that aren't touching one

another at all.

If that's the case, if I'm trying to talk to

my relatives from our separate Overton windows, we might not

even connect.

We might not even agree on what the news is

or what backs are and all of these things.

And the thing is, we can't have conversations where when

we're in different boxes.

That's why this this authenticity and vulnerability is so important

because we're asking people to step back from the political

definitions off how we talk about these things to get

away from those identifying characteristics, to get to one of

the values underneath One of the things we can agree

on, we can agree on community safety.

How do we make our communities more?

This might seem really challenging, but it's actually really transformative.

You can see, especially in our gun conversations we've been

having here at Manchester, how we've overcome the broken Overton

window instead of fighting about gun control or freedom for

guns we talk about.

How can we make our communities safe?

How can we make sure that those who feel safe

with a weapon in their home can feel safe?

All those who live in the city where illegal weapons

on the streets can be safe to Where is that

middle place?

It's not about the garden, about the safety of the

community, about how I feel when I walk out my

door, which is a really different conversation.

Tohave. We cannot ask people to jump so far that

they break their legs and stop walking with.

I am not going to turn my aunts or uncles

into antifa or black lives matter protesters.

That's not what I'm trying to do in this conversation.

What I'm trying to do is to show them what

I've learned to open their hearts a little bit and

maybe just turn their head just a niche right?

If I'm looking this way, if this is my world

view and I don't know about racism because I've never

experienced it, you can't flip my head all the way

back at once.

I'll break my neck and I'll die.

We have to do a slow turning a slow awakening,

right? That's why it's important.

Pick that one thing.

What's one thing that we can just stretch a little

bit on now?

Some of us have mountaintop wake up moments that call

us to justice.

Many of us have lots of little whisper.

So how can we be part of that whisper that

effort to just barely turn someone's head and start to

learn a little more.

But sometimes people don't want that right.

Sometimes there there is a complete and utter resistance to

other perspectives and information.

This is something that we're seeing, especially with the brainwashing

of some of the The Internet.

Conspiracy theory is happening on the far right.

So you're trying to have this conversation and any of

the following happens time to stop.

If you realize you were yelling or the other person

is yelling, This is not a productive dialogue.

We've fallen into debate.

We're trying to win.

We're not trying to learn and ground.

If someone is drunk, stop having these conversations.

It's not a safe for productive way.

Do not use or allow others.

She's personal attacks.

If we've got into the personal, it's timeto walk away.

This is especially important for L G B T Q

siblings, who whose families may not be entirely supportive if

you are feeling personally attacked or unsafe, and the conversation

if it's clear that things have gotten productive, that we're

doing it back and forth, that we're not actually dialoguing,

that it's time to let the conversation stop doesn't have

to stop forever.

But nothing is gonna come from it right now.

Then it's not the best time for it.

Things to watch out for signs of escalation and others

change in tone, suddenly getting loud, suddenly getting quiet, change

in eye contact suddenly not making it or suddenly making

too much shifts in body language.

The rooster stance.

That's what I already did there, right when someone puffs

up their chest and pulls back their arms.

That's our natural movement, as as we head towards a

fight and then other disruptive behavior so so folks can

get just defiant as they're getting more and more aggressive.

So if someone is constantly interrupting and is not listening

when you ask toe for them to let you finish,

then it's not a productive conversation, and it's time to

get out of it.

How do we deescalate?

How do we get out of this conversation?

The first one is, Stay calm.

Take a deep breath, take a step back and lower

your voice in volume just a little bit.

Resist the urge to lash out.

We don't want to answer anything at the point when

we're deescalating.

We're just trying to two commonly show empathy for the

other person.

Right people get, get defensive and then it's You think

I'm a terrible person.

You think that's about me?

So, like, Hey, I know that you are a good

person. I know that you're well meaning you're my cousin

and I love you, but seems like this conversation.

Scott got off track and I'm feeling a little uncomfortable.

So can you just leave this for now?

Munich, It how you feel and try to end the

conversation? Take care of you.

This is really important.

And I really emphasize this for our younger adults, right?

There's something a little bit different in confronting my cousin

or my brother about these issues than it is confronting

my parents or my grandparent's important that we have good

boundaries, that we're taking care of ourselves and for some

of us being a part of our family are having

these conversations is just not an option anymore because it

hurts us and it's unsafe.

You are more important than that.

So if you need to take space from your family

or your family is an unsafe space, that's okay, right?

It's okay that we take care of ourselves first.

That doesn't mean that we get to kind of just

let everything go right.

You have to take care of ourselves while also inviting

others. Along with now, I've gotten to be kind of

at our time limit for this video, and I've gotten

a request for me to expand this training and include

a little bit more information about kind of the far

right And what's going on with these weird conspiracy theories?

And how do I talk Thio my aunt if she

thinks that all Democrats are pedophiles who are drinking blood?

Um, so we're gonna we're gonna change up our schedule

a little bit.

Thursday's video this week.

So Thursday at one o'clock we'll be posting a video.

We talk a little bit more about the far right

and how we can can talk to our relatives on

Dhe. Talk a little bit more about brainwashing and how

it works.

That's all we have for today.

I encourage you to continuing following our page for more

information about racial justice as well as a variety of

other social justice initiative.

I will be praying for each and every one of

you. Stay safe in the snow.

Bye.

Talking to Racist Relatives

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