Racism Is Easy To Solve (Wait, What!?) Part One

This is Becoming Inclusive from The Kaleidoscope Group, where we’re thinking differently about diversity, equity, and inclusion. For more empowered people at work. We’re committed to real change and that begins with real conversations. Welcome in.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Reggie Ponder  

Welcome to another edition of becoming inclusive. I have the pleasure of co-hosting, as usual, with Katherine banks of the kaleidoscope group. And then today to kick off our discussion is Brian Johnson. Now Brian has an interesting background, all that stuff. And we’ll get into that in a minute. Today’s title, the thing that we’re talking about is, racism is easy to fix. It’s easy, you guys. And that’s why we have Brian Johnson here, Brian, when we talk about this topic, saying racism is easy to fix. I know people are probably like scratching their heads and saying, like, come on that there’s a problem that goes over 400 years. Are you talking about racism being easy to fix? What are we talking about? Brian?

Brian Johnson  

Yeah, no, it’s a great point. It is easy to fix, right? People of color, black folks did not earn racism, right. It wasn’t earned. When, when this 400 years ago, when this system was first put in place. Black folks do not continue to earn it today. That’s not why racism still exists. It’s not an earned issue. The issue is that there’s a system that’s being built that has been built, that continues to be perpetuated, and the system allows for white males like myself, to benefit, the benefit of the doubt in many different things. And it doesn’t allow everyone to have the same opportunity, or they have the same privilege that I do. So it’s easy to fix. The question is do you want to fix it.

Reggie Ponder  

Alright, so now that we have the premise, I want to kind of back up just a bit. And one of the things that Kat says to me is that Brian has this really interesting background is that let’s back up let’s talk about it.

Katherine Potts  

What I say is Brian is very aware, and I need to know how Brian became so aware. Okay, no, no, that’s it. Exactly. Brian, I mean, the way you’re speaking about it, it’s so natural, so organic, but it feels like you have a level of awareness that maybe may not be as common.

Brian Johnson  

I appreciate that. And it’s you know, this has been my life’s work really, when I grew up in Oakland, California, to those people who may not know, outside of Manhattan is probably the most diverse population on the planet, a whole bunch of different Asian folks, a whole bunch of different black folks, a whole bunch of different white folks. And across the bay in San Francisco, the largest LGBTQ plus population in the world in one setting in San Francisco. So growing up in my household, you know, again, a white male, 100% white male, but we never talked about race. We never talked about politics. We never talked about any of those important topics, but boom, I step outside, and I’m 53 years old, I’m all dude. So, you know, racism and discrimination in the workplace were legal up until the Civil Rights movement up until 1969. And then it takes about 10 years for that to come into play. And so really, by the 1980s, where we really see the effects of the Civil Rights Movement and the effects of women being able to vote, black folks being able to vote, and therefore, in addition, to have rights in the workplace, so my life might where I grew up was right in the perfect place in time. There’s no more interesting city, I think than Oakland, California than the Bay Area. The region itself is very interesting, with a lot of different folks there. So I grew up that way. But more specifically to your question. Black, Oakland is a black city, a predominantly black city. I live in Detroit. Now that’s a really black city. So Detroit is not, or Oakland was not as black as Detroit, but they’re very similar there. A lot of times people say Oakland is the little brother or little sister of Detroit, or whatever. So my experience, I was an athlete, I played major league baseball for 12 years. I was in baseball again for a number of years after that in the front office. So when I grew up, athletics was like my thing. And so the best areas to play baseball was in places that were black neighborhoods but was I supposed to play football and basketball and black neighborhood. So I was there. And I grew relationships with and great friendships with my teammates. Most of them were black. Sometimes I’d be in stadiums where I’d be the only white person there or on teams where I was the only white person there, which is a fantastic experience as a white person to be able to go through that. 

Reggie Ponder  

Oh, stop, stop, Brian

Brian Johnson  

I’m talking about myself.

Reggie Ponder  

I am glad to have you here. Because you made a statement that as you’re talking about yourself I would want to understand why would you say that’s a fantastic experience? Black folks talk about this all the time and people of color, who are the minority, so to speak, being the only one in the room is not a great experience. So the fact that you would just say that it’s a great experience, I really want you to touch on that just a little bit.

Katherine Potts  

So how comfortable you seem to have been with that, I just want to put that in there. There are some people that in those spaces to Reggie’s point would automatically feel uncomfortable, but you seem to have embraced it.

Brian Johnson  

Yeah,  another good question. So I’ll try to answer both. So number one, the experience of being the only white kid in the area in the room? Well, let me stop real quick. So part of my childhood experience again, and we’re talking 9,10,11,12 years old, I would spend the night at my black friend’s house, several of them, but they were there was a consistent theme at every one of the black houses, not that every black house was the same. Not saying that, I’m saying in the ones that I experienced, it was the same where I wasn’t treated as the white kid in the room, I was treated as part of the family. So, therefore, there was an affection there, there was a love there that I was given that I was treated with, to where I was part, I was hearing the stories of discrimination in real-time from the sister, brother, father, mother, I was hearing about those real-time and, and I was hearing about how white folks were treating black folks in real-time there as a young kid. And my first reaction was like, Damn, that’s terrible. And as a kid, you know, I got angry, and I pushed away from my whiteness. I was like, I don’t want to be a part of this. You know, I’m not I don’t do this. I don’t want to be part of this. But then as I got a little older, I did smart researching. And so I read, you know, Taylor Branch’s book that even know was a gazillion pages long, I read parts of it. And I watched things and I asked questions that had conversations like this. And I realized that there were a lot of white folks that helped out in the civil rights movement that white folks, some very few, unfortunately, insanely few people, insanely few white people were a part of helping people get away from slavery. So white, the white role in defeating racism has always been there. And so I recommitted myself so I want to be like those folks. I want to be like the guys that died. The white guy, bloody white guys, baldhead, that stepped off the bus wherever they were being brutalized in. I can’t remember where it was, but iconic, civil rights movement picture. I wanted to be like those guys. And so that’s kind of was my thing. But to answer your other questions. So to you both, the feeling for me was I was embraced. I was embraced as being the only white kid around and I was embraced because I could play. I could kick your ass on the field any day, no matter what color you are. Right. So that’s how I would I was embraced because I was good.

Reggie Ponder  

I love that distinction. Because the distinction is that the reason I think a lot of people of color, have a problem with being the only one in the room is because they are not embraced, they don’t feel like they have an audience, that they don’t feel that their voice is being heard. And you man, you said two things that just really made me feel so good that you embraced. But in addition to that, you said you felt like one of the family, so you were also loved and that’s, man, that’s powerful. Brian,

Brian Johnson  

Thank you so much for leading me into that. Yeah, it’s a great point. Because so yeah, it was way before I was ever good at sports, right? I was embraced and loved by black families. And that that had a big impact on my boy, it was because, you know, getting really deep into this. You know, my parents never, really they weren’t, you know, they were great. I had a great childhood, love my parents, but they weren’t really good at showing their love and expressing their love to their children. That wasn’t really something that they were really good at. And so, so I’m here I’m in you know, a different family where the black vibe of the black family is embracing and I was treated well being a minority in Oakland in an athletic situation in whatever I was treated well also because black folks know what it’s like to be the only one there so they reach out in a brace as long as I’m you know, as long as I’m, as long as I’m cool. I’m not an idiot. You know, if I’m an idiot, I’m gonna be pushed aside. If I think that I deserve certain things because I’m the white guy, or I’m sure that I’m above whoever’s around here. I don’t deserve to be here. I need to be with my own people. Okay, they’re not getting pushed aside, but I embrace the culture. I love the music. I love black folks. Early on, because black folks showed me how to love, so this is a deep deep thing for me. So, think about my 10-year-old self as a white kid to be able to have this education, have it done. I mean, the lens that I looked at life and people and situations and politics and, and history from that point on as a 12-year-old for the rest of my life. So I’m 53 now has been hugely impactful because race impacts us every single day of our lives. Wow. 

Reggie Ponder  

That was such a good way to give us a little bit about you, and how you came to where you are because I just couldn’t even think in my mind that that could be a good situation. And you really outlined that that’s so well. So we said the topic is racism is easy to fix. Let’s, before we talk about the fixing of it, and I know people get really tired of hearing what the problem is. You talked about the problem from a systematic perspective. And I like that a lot, Brian, because what I find is that people, people feel personal when you start talking and saying, racism is systemic, it’s your racist. So all of a sudden, that stuff is personal, you are talking about me, and either I check out or I fight back. Those are the two that I see. And you might see some other ones, but either check out be like, I’m not listening to that nonsense, that that that’s just a lot of noise. Or I fight back and say, I’m not, and let me show you how I’m not. And I did this and I did that. And I’m not racist. But the fact that you would talk about it from a systematic perspective, I think is really important. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Katherine Potts  

I think there’s also a group of people that are kind of in between, they don’t know what to do or how to do that. Do they fight back? Do they kind of sit back? You know, they feel a little bit of tension. So I do think there’s that third group of people that want to do something, but I don’t know what to do. I think sometimes they get lumped in with those “not doing anything” group, even though they do care. 

Brian Johnson  

I hear ya and great points to both. It can be complicated for my folks right. My people, speaking about myself as a white person when you’re talking about race. The initial thing is it’s the best perspective to look at race and it can get complicated for white folks because we have benefited from this system right? White males in power have benefited from the system as ways have been set up. How have we benefited directly because the less participation, less competition, right? And having a sports background, the competition you know, if you look at well, Babe Ruth was one of the best players ever. Well, okay, but no black folks were playing baseball back then. No Latino folks were allowed to play baseball back then. So all a Babe Ruth was the best white player and some people say he was black or whatever. Babe Ruth is the best white player. Joe DiMaggio was the best white player because that was that. Asian people weren’t able to play in the major leagues at that point, so if you look at it from a systemic standpoint, I didn’t put the system together. I wasn’t around 400 years ago, I wasn’t the one that brought in Jim Crow laws afterward after slavery was rescinded. I wasn’t the one that did all this stuff. So you know, I have benefited from it. But it doesn’t hurt me to say that I’ve benefited from a big time. And it really comes into privilege, right? We’ve talked about privilege quite a bit in our work, right. But privilege is such a fantastic topic. I wish people more people will be able to understand it. Because it really comes down to if you understand privilege, then racism as your title speaks to becomes a really easy problem. So and how so? Because if I understand that I have physical privilege, right? I made a living with my body. I was able to make money by being an athlete. That’s a privilege. I have a next-door neighbor here that’s in a wheelchair. He was in an accident in the first Gulf War, a car accident in the Gulf War. And so he’s been in a wheelchair for the last 25 years. I have the fiscal privilege and I noticed that every time I’m around here, does that make me feel guilty? No, it makes me look at my neighbor’s like hey, how can I help him? Hey, I wonder if there’s a way I can help him out. Is there one I wonder if there’s something I could do here?

Reggie Ponder  

I love that Brian. And I want to jump in – is that when we talk about privilege, and you dimensionalize it in that way, is so powerful to me. I worked at, an advertising agency, where a friend of mine, was in a wheelchair, and, and he, I never thought of himself as the guy in the wheelchair, because he could do everything by himself or whatever until I invited him to my house. He could not come to my house. Yeah, because of the stairs, I had, I got 52 stairs. And there was no way that he could get up there unless we carried him into the house. And it just dawned on me how privileged I was just to be able to bounce up the stairs every day and run up and down with no problem then like, Oh, my God, the guy was really like, I mean, we cool.

Brian Johnson  

Let me ask you this Reggie, for the rest of your life, do you look at how to get into your house differently than you did before that experience?

Reggie Ponder  

I look at how to get in every place different than now. There we go. Is that what I look at? What if I came over to your house? I mean, like they don’t have a place for Glenn to get in.

Brian Johnson  

That’s right. Well, and that’s the beauty. That’s the beauty of privilege. The goal of prayer is just to be able to recognize when you have it. And when you don’t. It’s very simple. That’s it. If I’m going to work at Amazon tomorrow, I have zero privilege because I don’t know what the bathroom is. I don’t know anybody there. I don’t know how they do things. But if I am working here, the climate school group, I’ve been with clatters Coast group off and on for 25 years, I walk into that I have a lot of privilege because I know where the bathroom is. I know how these things function. I know how conversations go. I know how the organization works, boom, I have privilege. So what do I do with this privilege? So it’s one thing to recognize baseball, what do you do with it? For me privilege is an opportunity, you have an opportunity to take to put your arm around somebody else to say, Hey, I’m gonna take care of pay, I’m gonna look out for you. I wish we would all treat each other just like we would our kids. Right? Because Reggie, you know, you have family members, Kat, you have family members. So we all treat family members nice, and we all protect them, right? We’re looking to make sure they’re okay. Make it look sure everything’s there. We want our kids to have every opportunity to succeed. Why can’t we look at each other as adults? Whether you have kids or not? Why can’t we look at each other and look at that in a protective, protective way? And what do I mean by that? Lastly, I’ll stop with this point is that we can’t continue to vote for a system that continues to make this monster, this racism monster, it keeps feeding this racism often. If we keep voting for the same thing, it’s going to continue to be the same way. So that’s why I hope for my white folks, that yes, it is important to be nice. Yes, it’s important to be respectful, it’s important to be inclusive in the workplace. But if you continue to vote, and not vote for this system to be changed, upgraded and updated, and fixed to where it’s inclusive of everybody, your buddy Glenn, black folks, white folks, women, Asian folks, internationally, other folks, if we don’t fix this system, it’s not going to get done. So it’s a very simple fix voted for change to the system.

Reggie Ponder  

It’s really interesting because when you say vote, I don’t. That’s from a political perspective. But that’s also voting from what you do personally. And I know that because you and I have had this kind of discussion, is that what your voice is your vote, your actions are your vote, your vote, your real vote is your vote. But what I think sometimes people don’t understand is that, that you can do these things. Like you say, embrace somebody, but be like, Okay, let me embrace this person. Let me let me understand that I have privilege here. And this, this person doesn’t. Doug, our CEO talks about privilege in that in an interesting way. He gives the story about how his kids learned how to drive, as well as other kids learned how to drive. So everybody earned their driver’s license. So so it’s not like because you have privilege, you didn’t earn your driver’s license, but his kid had five cars in the driveway to use my family. We never owned a car in our lives. So we either had to go to the driver’s ed place, or we had to ask somebody, could they please take us out to drive it was harder for us because we didn’t have the privilege of those vehicles. And I just thought that that was good because there’s that earned privilege. And then there’s unearned privilege. In this case. They earned everybody earned what they need, what they that driver’s license, so we’re not trying to take that away from

Katherine Potts  

People get really sensitive around what the subject of what’s been earned. Because if you’re put in a position where earning something may be a little bit easier for you than somebody else, you know, someone’s perspective is did you really earn that? Or were you given the opportunity? And that’s where I think things get a little bit messy or convoluted because people are sensitive about that. Did you really earn that? How are you measuring that you earn that because, you know, my uncle took me out in one of his five cars taught me how to drive took me the time gave me the book bought me the book, where I almost would have had to try to fail, versus someone who’s in a position where gaining that level of access to any of those things, are difficult. So, I mean, I think that might be part of where people have come contention with this earned honor. And privilege dynamic.

Brian Johnson  

Yeah, I would say that’s kind of a secondary conversation of whether it’s turned on or and I think the primary conversation, right, I think the primary conversation is whether you have it or whether you, right, yeah, whether I have it or whether I don’t, that’s a simpler way to look at it. It’s easy to be identified once you understand the dynamics of privilege, right, physical privilege, mental privilege, I used to have, I didn’t have glasses, right till I was 44. Then I got glasses. So I didn’t I had the privilege of not needing glasses. Now I need something to help me out. So

Reggie Ponder  

It’s just a privilege right now to have four glasses.

Brian Johnson  

There we go. Oh, my goodness. And we can talk about the glasses industry a whole bunch. It’s a it’s a it’s a, they’re stealing money from it. But anyway. Yeah. But if you just understand the simple part of it, when I do have it, when I’m a new employee, or when I don’t have I’ve been an employee for 10 years, I know where everything is, I know how this works. Whether you literally put your arm around somebody or figuratively keep those people in mind as you’re creating rules for the organization, as you’re having meetings doesn’t matter if a black person is in the room, speak up for black person or a person in a wheelchair or speak up for a gay person or a woman. If it’s all men, it doesn’t you don’t need these. So let me back up a little bit. Racism specifically taught me racism here. This is our problem. This is a white problem, right? Black folks didn’t earn this, right? chauvinism was not because women earned to be treated less than men. That disparity in in revenue, right disparity, women making just as much money as men for the exact same job. We’ve improved over the last two decades in that, but women didn’t earn that they didn’t get less money, because they’re not as good as the men in their job. It’s just the way the system was built up. So if we’re able to recognize that and acknowledge that that’s the system we live in, right? We acknowledge that we can’t do anything about the weather, but that doesn’t mean w ignore the fact that weather exists, right? So racism, same way, this is a system that’s been put in place, we need to update it, reform it, make sure it’s more inclusive for everybody, then we can really knock down the horrors and problems of racism. So it’s easy to do. It’s not necessarily, it’s not necessarily overnight fix, but it’s very easy to do. The concept is right there. There’s nothing too much for us to handle.

Reggie Ponder  

So I like where are you going, Brian? And it’s so interesting, because I didn’t know that we were really going to get into this to this discussion of privilege. But I welcome the privilege to be able to talk to you and Kat about it. What we’re going to do in our next segment, is that we’re going to talk real specific about how do we fix this this issue. And you say that it’s easy to fix. And I think it’s much, much harder than you put out there that it’s easy to fix. So we’re gonna come back in just a second we’re going to talk about a little bit about how do we fix this problem. Sounds good.

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