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

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  

I’m Reggie ponder, and I am back with Becoming Inclusive. And we have again, Brian Johnson and Katherine Potts. It is really a continuation of our discussion – racism is easy to fix. I have a problem. And my problem is that I don’t believe that. I don’t believe it for one second. I don’t believe it for one minute, but Brian is going to help us navigate through how easy it is to fix this thing. Okay, Brian, go just go for it. Man.

Katherine Potts  

I know that I’m more optimistic about it than Reggie.

Brian Johnson 

Right, Reggie, we need to work on you a little bit.

Reggie Ponder  

That’s why we got you on because I do need some help here, then it’s easy to fix. Oh, yeah, I want to hit this.

Brian Johnson  

Okay, so here we go. The so a lot of different ways we can go with this. So number one, I like to look at things in simple terms, right? So number one, eliminating anything 100% is not possible. Okay. But can we knock this down to 80%? I think we can. Because I mean, look what we did with AIDS, right? Aids was a death sentence. And through money through time and effort, a want, and a will to get rid of this a death sentence for folks that contract HIV. Boom. And we’ve done that, right? It’s now a long-term problem. Number one, we have to have the will to do it. Okay. And that leads me and that means us, that means white folks, right? Black folks, the white folks, Latino folks, the will is there. Women, the will is there, right? But we’re talking about racism specifically, white against black, it has to be the will of the oppressor. Right? It has to be the will of me, my folks, white folks, we have the privilege, we have the power to change things. Being you know, in most of America, look at all the prisons right? Outside of Barack Obama, everybody else has been what, white males, right? Look at Congress, look at the power positions, they make laws. So that’s the power positions, that doesn’t mean we’re better, it just means that’s where we’re at. If the will of the world is to make this change, change this, we go through and change the laws where people go to jail, right? We change that, that’s a piece of it. So we can change a lot of these different pieces. There’s a political will to change things and make them more inclusive. It’s an easy fix, right? We look at our technology today, technology changes every year, right? And what does it do? It gets better and better and better. And we love technology. We love the new iPhone. Look how many people line up to go get the new iPhone, right? So why can’t we do that with how we function as this Democratic machine, that is the United States? Our democracy is very different from everywhere else. So I’m a policymaker. So I like to go off into politics from time to time, but it’s easy to fix if the will is there. And again, it has to be the wheel from white folks, we have been the ones that have gotten in the way. When anytime you talk about race when you see a conversation on TV, it’s always people of color, right? What does it feel like to be oppressed? What is your opinion on this, which is perfectly valid, but we need to have the white folks in that conversation as well? And we need to be a part of it, it’s our problem, right? We’re the ones that have benefited from, right? We’re the ones that it wasn’t when it took us forever. As we talked about in the previous segment Reggie, we talked about people in wheelchairs, right? It took forever. I mean, when I grew up, Reggie, when you grew up, I don’t know about you, Kat, because you’re a youngster. When I grew up, all the curbs were the exact same. There were no ramps for wheelchairs to get on there. It took forever and it wasn’t because of people in wheelchairs or people with physical challenges, it was because they didn’t say anything. It wasn’t because of their mood, it wasn’t because they liked not being able to get up on the sidewalk. It wasn’t because they chose to have a more difficult way to get around or to get into your house or anything. It wasn’t because they chose it, it was because of the will of the people the will of people charge white males who were in charge. They said, Oh, okay, now we find that it’s time to fix this. And now we’ll fix it. That’s how it gets done.

Katherine Potts  

But Brian, I’ve heard why people say, at my youngster age, that it’s not my fault what my ancestors did. That’s, that’s not my fault what they did back then. Why am I responsible for them? And that’s where they get, you know, slightly offended.

Brian Johnson  

Right? Well, the second piece is…so a will is the first one right? The second piece to this is humility. Right? We have to have humility at play and that is not all about us. Right? If we are only voting for, and again, gets into politics, politics can be hugely important and affect everything. But at the same time, politics can not be important at all, and not affect anything. My relationship with Kat, my relationship with Reggie, is not really affected by politics so it doesn’t come into play here. However, again, humility is key here, right? Because it can’t be just about me, it can’t just be about what I want. Because I guarantee the same person, Kat, that says, well, my ancestors didn’t do it, it’s not my problem. Well, I guarantee you the first time that a white person gets discriminated against because of her gender, or his gender, or because of his race, because hey, remember, the numbers gonna switch here, white folks will be in the minority here in the next decade or two. So it’s going to switch. So when you say minority, we’re going to be talking about white folks pretty soon. So where everybody’s cool, everybody abstains from getting involved until it involves them until it evolves, you’re not getting the job, your daughter, the one that’s being treated differently as a patient in the hospital, in the healthcare system, then it is then a white kid, right? Or then another kid. So again, in healthcare, my wife’s a physician, right? My parent, my father was a physician, my mother was a nurse. Health care historically has been abhorrent, the way that it has treated people of color and black people specifically across the board. And there’s plenty of data out there if you want to look at so. So it does affect you. And the key is Kat, to your point. Yes, well, if it was put up by people other than me, okay, that’s fine. But it affects people that you love. If that person loves you, Kat, they should care that it affects you and your mother and your son and your cousin. And that should hurt her inside or him inside, that it hurts somebody else. That’s something I’m benefiting from, hurts somebody else. That’s the problem. And that’s where we really need to look at each other internally and have some humility. Hey, we may have benefited from this, but we want to make this fairer for the future for everyone.

Reggie Ponder  

Right. And so I like a couple of things you said here. 

Brian Johnson  

First, I want to hear that stuff you don’t like.

Reggie Ponder  

The reason I’m gonna say I like a couple of things you said here is that you stopped me from pushing back. And I’m really glad that you did that. Because you gave me the framework by which you were looking at this. You’re saying it’s easy to fix if we have the will. And so let me not get to the will part yet. Let me get to okay if we have the will. I think you’re right. I like your premise. I like your premise that, if and I think it’s important for me to say this because your like, oh, you want to hear the negative? Nah, no, I was gonna come negative and I didn’t. Brian, you did a good job, man. I like this. So if there’s the will for it, it’s, it is easy to fix. Because I really like all the examples that you gave here, the one about wheelchairs. For years, you saw people having to push their chair, the front of their chair, just to try to get over the curb and it was never easy. Some of these curbs were so so big, that they needed somebody actually to help them get over the curb. So over time, it happened because somebody had the will, and the will had to have happened beyond the people who were complaining or needed it. I think that is such a good example, here. Now, here’s my pushback. And my pushback is that I think that when you talk about two things, you talk about having a will and having this whole thing about humility, humility. And I wish, I think, maybe that has to come first, even before the will, is that to have the humility to be able to look at other people and say, look, those people need help. Look, we talked about privilege before, that I have privilege, and they don’t. I think that type of humility is so important because I think that it actually is a factor in terms of having the will, is that I have the humility. When I look at this whole issue…

Katherine Potts  

Humility and empathy. I gotta throw empathy in there. Okay, no, that’s all I’m gonna say. 

Brian Johnson  

What would empathy add that humility doesn’t, Kat?

Katherine Potts  

I think so. I do appreciate humility in itself. But I think when it comes to empathy, actually taking a moment to try to understand truly at its core, what that experience of the person is. You know, for you, Brian, in our previous episode, you had talked about you were in the house, you could see you around them you really saw, you know, so that level of empathy may have been a little bit natural for you. But I think it does take both to really put yourself What would it feel like? If that happened to me? How would I feel? And you had spoken about that in this episode, that’s why I just think that combination would really be kind of like that killer combo.

Becoming Inclusive is presented by The Kaleidoscope group, your full-service, diversity, equity, and inclusion partner serving clients worldwide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization. Turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Start with a visit to
kgdiversity.com.

Brian Johnson  

So let me jump in. If you don’t mind. Let me jump in here. Because I think that’s a great point. And I respect that and also to your point of view, right? They weren’t necessarily consecutive, I think you’re right, humility and empathy do have to come first. And that can generate the will. But I want to speak to your point Kat as far as being able – So what you’re talking about Kat in empathy, right? What does that mean? It means being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. In order to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, what do you have to do with your own shoes, you have to take them off, you can’t wear two pairs of shoes, you have to take yours off. So you really have to absorb someone else’s reality. You have to put yourself there and absorb what it would actually be like. And I think that’s where the threshold comes to me. For us white folks. With us why folks, and I’ll be honest with you, as we’re raised, we come up, we’re expected to be Republican. And we’re expected to be Christian because they tie it into each other. And we expected to go with the flow because we’ve benefited from this system that has been put in place. So it’s not necessarily ever said, but it’s implied. Right? And so the key here for me is that when it comes – so one of the things I’ve taught our kids, right, I’m married to a black woman, so we have biracial kids, right? So this becomes even more of an issue for me, even though it started for me when I was like 9 or 10. Race and Racism in America. So I again, I see it and feel it and observe it every day. Because I, I treat myself like it and I look at the world as if I’m black. Because there are people that I love, not just my kids, and not my mom, that’s not just my two kids, my wife, but all the black people that I’ve known in my life, I love them. And I want to protect them, I want to not see them suffer. So I want to vote for a system that is improved and different and better. But for, again, for just to give you a window into us as white folks, what I’ve taught my kids is that, hey, as they’re growing up, we’ve been talking about race with our kids, since they were in the womb, practically. It was like, hey, be careful. My son and my daughter, be careful with white folks when you become friends with them. Because when it comes to race, we as white folks, we’re only willing to go to the river’s edge, we’re not willing to cross that river for black folks and go to the other side, I don’t wanna say across the board, but very, very few. And that’s where the threshold becomes now you got to fight your family. Now you got to fight grandpa over here. I was dating a black woman in high school and my mother didn’t want me to send a picture to my grandfather in Iowa. Because what would grandpa say? You know, what would uncle so and so say? So there is an expectation that we don’t get involved in this racial piece. We’re cool and we love black people up to a certain point. And then we don’t cross that certain point. So for me, yes, it’s will, or yes, it’s empathy. Yes, it’s humility. Yes, it’s a will. But it’s also, we have to break through that barrier, right? And this happened with both my kids at different points for them, my son and my daughter, different points for them. There was a delineation to where they thought they were really good friends with somebody, but for some reason, that person pulled away and it all had to do with race, and no need to go into details. But those things happen. And it’s not because I made it up or from some great theory. I have this from what I’ve seen. And I know for my people, and I know it’s there, that it’s there. It happened to me in regards to race, right? I was always looked at as a kid. And as a kid, I was looked at as a trader, right? A trader is being treated differently than the enemy, a trader is worse than the enemy in the eyes of someone who’s like that. So I was always treated as if I was a trader of my own race. And I’ve been treated that way since I was 10. So it’s just really…

Katherine Potts  

I just want to hop in here. From my experience, being a black woman and being around predominantly white people. I got the opposite of being looked at as a trader for African American peers. And so I just want to throw in that in, that is real,  I’ve experienced the opposite of that.

Brian Johnson  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. In it in, you know, anyway, I respect that. 

Reggie Ponder  

Yeah. You bring up so much stuff, and we can’t even talk about it all. So you messed me up, right? I want to go and talk about the discussion you had with your kids about white people. But that’s not this. That’s not this discussion, but that’s where I want to go. 

Brian Johnson 

So we have to make a segment three.

So I’ll just bring it back to this whole thing about racism as easy to fix and what I’m getting at. And it’s because I want to make sure that it’s clear to as to what you’re saying. What I’m understanding, or what I’m hearing, you say, is racism is easy to fix. Because white people are the ones to fix it. You’re not saying or I don’t think you’re saying that black people can’t be part of that coalition. Let LatinX people can’t be part of that LGBTQ that women? You? I don’t think you’re saying that they can’t be part of that. But I think what you’re saying is that the leaders, the people that need to be the flag bearers, to kill or to eradicate to move racism, to that 80% that you were talking about? Are white people? Is that what you’re saying?

Brian Johnson  

That’s what I’m saying and that’s a great way to put it. What I would add to that description that you just made is that we need to lead it. And we need to be partners with other people, right? Be partners with it, but not just partners, we need to lead it. Again, this is our issue. This is our problem. It’s something we’ve benefited from. It wasn’t waiting for a president that was in a wheelchair in order to get the curb sloped on the sidewalk, right? That doesn’t need to happen. We need to lead this right now and maybe 50 years from now black folks will be leading this country and they will be the majority. And we have a bunch of black folks in the presidency and in the levers of power, the conversations will be different then. So that the conversation is not that whether black people are good or bad. It’s not. I’ve had, I’ve had idiots that are black in my life. I’ve had idiots that were Latino and Latina in my life, gay folks that were idiots in my life. And I’ve had plenty of white folks in my life that have been idiots too, right? But when it comes to race, there’s not a whole lot of people I can turn to that have been white. There’s been some and they’ve been fantastic. But my white friends and people that have affected me in my life have been white when it comes to race, we don’t do really well there. And why don’t we do really well, when it comes to race? It’s because we’re unwilling, to be honest with ourselves. We’re unwilling to look at it. When it comes to race, historically the United States for white people, men and women, we’ve chosen to look the other way. We chose to look the other way. Someone got killed by a police officer. No, it’s not, it’s not excess police force is because we look the other way now. We can’t possibly admit that kneeling on the football field by person, calmly and respectfully, we can’t possibly take it that on its face value, nope, we have to turn it into something else. So we have been very good systemically, and as a people to turn things around, because we have the power to turn things around to make it what we want it to do. Because we’re on it. We run the media companies, we run everything else, we’ve had that power historically. So I would say, not only Reggie, to your point, that we are in partnership with Latino folks, with women, with black folks, with Asian folks with every other different folk that there are, but we have to lead, it has to be our issue to solve.

Reggie Ponder  

That’s great, that’s a great place to first get into this last piece. And that’s the last piece that when we’re talking to businesses all the time. We are in there trying to change the culture. We’re trying to change policies, practices, and procedures. And what we found sometimes is that the policies, practices procedures, don’t test the heart. They don’t get to those issues that you talked about – humility and empathy. They don’t get there. So I’m a CEO, Brian. You do work with CEOs all the time. I’m Thomas, a CEO, a white male, running a company. You talk about how it’s systemic, right? What are some things that you would suggest? And as you’re out there talking to CEOs what would suggest that they do to start to chip away at this problem? I hate to say chip away, because I don’t want to wait, man, I want it to be done. Right? But the reality is that it’s been around for a long time. So it’s gonna probably take some time for it to be eradicated. So what would you say?

Brian Johnson  

To your point, Reggie, it’s not gonna take a while to eradicate it, not because, not because it’s not hard. It has zero to do with this being a hard concept to swallow. Right? Because we all want things to be fair for ourselves. The question is, do the power levers want to be fair anyway, to your question? So yes, I work with CEOs and CFOs all the time. And I love the financial piece, right? Financial folks they love, they want to have things. They want to have a list of things that need to get done in order for things to change. And so it’s understandable. That’s their language. That’s how they have succeeded in their life. That’s great. The number one thing I find with the C-suite, is that a lot of times folks don’t see what their role is, right? So you read, you as a white executive, Kat, as a white executive, for our example here, what you are not seeing is that you feel like this is for white folks, diversity, equity, inclusion policies, and practices and new stuff, that’s kind of for the staff. And that’s kind of the same for people of color is for gay folks. It’s so we don’t, you know, you all don’t see what your role is in this, right? That it doesn’t benefit you. And in reality, it’s exactly the opposite. It completely benefits you. Because as a leader of an organization, you cascade the information, the expectations around to everybody else, you’re cascading this information and expectations for everyone else, is hugely important. So that’s number one. Number two, it benefits you because it’s going to improve your culture. Because if people feel valued for who they are, they will love to stay there. They’re going to want to stay there. This is a fantastic place to work come to work here. So, therefore, you will be able to keep the talent that you spent so much time on, right? no one wants to run an inefficient organization. So if you take all this time and effort to onboard people to get the greatest talent to pay people, now people get paid more. To make it, if these impactful people you bring on, it’s so inefficient to then six months or a year later, to have them leave your organization. If you’re like, ah, and then you kind of rationalize, well, they didn’t really fit here. They didn’t really get along – No, no, no, no. You need to build a space where your talent wants to stay, and they feel valued. They feel welcome. So again, you all as CEOs, CFOs, etc. Anyone in the C-suite, you have a role to play, as this affects you directly. It’s easy for you to do, to just treat everybody, just act as if everyone in your organization is part of your family. Well, if you look at your organization, as part of your family, as your sons and daughters are brothers and sisters, you can do everything you can to make sure the oldest brother’s treated with just as much equity as compared to the youngest brother, right? Personality-wise Reggie, I’m gonna treat you differently from Kat because Kat you’re a little different than Reggie’s personality. Kat, you and I like to connect on sports. Reggie, you and I like to connect on politics and history. And so it’s a different conversation. Kat, you’re from, say, from the East Coast. Reggie, you’re from the west coast. It’s a different dynamic to our conversation. I may be from the south. So the dynamics of our conversation are a little bit different. So treating Kat exactly the same as Reggie, that’s not what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about is, hey, meet people where they are, give them what they need, and be able to customize your organization to fit and be able to allow for everybody.

Katherine Potts  

And Brian, it really goes back to one of your main points in this episode and the previous around will. Will and desire and taking action versus taking a backseat? 

Brian Johnson  

Yeah, and there’s a lot you know, and obviously, we make the business point all the time that DE&I is great for business, right? Getting rid of racism is great for business. And it’s to your point Kat, is that yeah, now it really becomes, what kind of leader are you are, you know, we say, hey, in our mission statement, we’re willing to do whatever it takes to be the best, you know, and how we do things and how we portray ourselves as leaders in organizations. We’ll do whatever it takes, okay, we wait hold on a second. It doesn’t take anything but will, but humility, but empathy in order to make it inclusive for everybody. Are you willing to do that? Because in order to do that, you have to admit that it’s not perfect, to begin with? That’s something that it’s hard for people to get their arms around. Wow. But it’s very, but it’s very important.

Reggie Ponder  

Well, I’ll say this, we weren’t perfect. We weren’t perfect here, either. But man, Brian, you got us into so much stuff, that Kat, you know, on some of the shows they do this thing called after the show. Maybe after the show, just stay on? Talk a little bit more and forget the audience.

Katherine Potts  

And after-hours episode.

Reggie Ponder  

No, I absolutely wouldn’t do that. Brian, I really want to thank you for for coming on and talking with us about this. This is a ongoing discussion. And again, you brought up so many little nuggets that I’d love to delve into and talk about a little bit more. So we’ll do that. But I do want to recap…

Brian Johnson  

Let me say this real quick before you recap. If there’s one thing I want to make sure that gets across is that people understand that working within the space of DE&I and making things more inclusive and talking about race…Look here…It’s a fascinating conversation. I’m white, you all are black. It’s a fascinating conversation. It’s fun. We learn about each other. We changed. It’s not a heavy subject and it doesn’t have to be because we’re not rehashing everything that’s gone on in the past, we’re looking at from this day forward, boom, let’s have this conversation. Boom, let’s go through that. We’re not gonna, we can’t. We’re not going to put everybody on trial and find out what you’ve done or what you haven’t done. Being a nice person or not nice person, both from this day forward. Let’s make this world a better place. 

Reggie Ponder  

You just did. You have been listening to Becoming Inclusive, with co-host, Katherine Potts, and then we had our guest this week. And last week and maybe next week. Brian Johnson from The Kaleidoscope Group. We’d like to welcome you to another episode. So check this one out, and stay tuned for the next one. I’m Reginald Ponder and I’ll see you all later.

Thanks for joining us, and a special thanks to our subscribers. Consider becoming one today. Becoming inclusive is presented by The Kaleidoscope Group, your full-service Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion partner serving clients worldwide. Learn more and continue the conversation at
kgdiversity.com