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[Theme]

HARVINDER WADHWA: People are curious, and that's great.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: But there are some questions you just shouldn't ask or at least not like that.

HARVINDER WADHWA: I'm Harvinder Wadhwa.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I'm Elena Hudgins Lyle.

HARVINDER WADHWA: And this is Inappropriate Questions.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Let's get inappropriate.

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HARVINDER WADHWA: So Elena when I see the question “How can I do better?” I need a little more context here.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So as we’re recording this, it's been just over a year since the murder of George Floyd and the start of last year's protests against racist police violence and the rise in conversations about anti-Black racism that came out of that. I remember at that time seeing so many resources online about how to be anti-racist, how to have hard conversations about anti-Blackness with your loved ones. And there was a lot of advice about what actions to take. One piece of advice in particular that stuck with me, was seeing folks say, don't ask the Black people in your life, “how can I do better?”

HARVINDER WADHWA: Elena, I am unclear as to why this question is inappropriate. If someone is trying to be less racist or anti-racist or whatever the case may be, that should be encouraged. My situation is different, I'm not a Black person. But if someone asks how they could be less racist towards me, I would welcome it and see this as a sign of things changing. So I am not understanding how this question can be harmful.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah, I get where you're coming from with this question and I think a lot of people would have the same thoughts, which is what made me interested in breaking this down on the show in the first place. Hopefully this voice note from Amari can help contextualize it a little bit. Take a listen.

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AMARI GAITER: Hi, my name's Amari and I'm currently living in New York. Throwback to my first year at Columbia. I already knew that I was going to encounter challenges, especially going into a predominantly white institution. And I knew that my Blackness would be something that is going to define my experience at this university and whether in the classroom or whether with people I was potentially trying to make friends with or even were friends with. In my first year, I kept encountering conversations or just like points that were being brought up in those settings that were just absolutely wrong and invalidating to literally just my existence. For example, in the classroom, one of the courses we’re required to take as like a Columbia University, specifically Columbia College student is called Contemporary Civilizations. And in that class, we read a lot of old texts that are like the “key” names such as like Plato and Aristotle, you know, like the names that get thrown around a lot like that. And in a lot of those texts, for example, they justify slavery. So I remember, like being in the classroom and trying to articulate that. It felt like a constant battle that ultimately, like the world kind of decided for me how I would have to address these things, because I don't want to be complicit in oppression. I don't want to you know, and for the sake of my community, it's like I felt like or I was positioned in such a way where I felt like I had to be a teaching tool. I had to do that emotional labour. And in trying to explain why those things were harmful. I was so upset and just angry. And I, again, just kind of got to a point where I was just like, I cannot do this, I can't handle this. And I felt kind of alone in it. We already face, as Black people, we already face so much marginalization and varying degrees that depending on things such as socioeconomic status and your skin colour and your skin tone more specifically. And so on top of that, being expected to teach those people who are benefiting from the systems that are oppressing us is honestly quite insulting, because ultimately, while I probably because of who I am and like the spaces I occupy as someone who enjoys education and facilitation, I will probably steer you in a direction towards certain tools. That's just me. In general, like Black people do not owe you as in a general person of privilege and power, anything, honestly. Whoever you're asking that question to, you're assuming that they are your teacher, that you are entitled to their answer and their work because asking a person “How can I do better?” like, that's something people unpack in therapy for years. Like let's be real. Like, I don't know why you're assuming that this Black person that you're asking is your therapist or your teacher. I think “how can I do better?” is a great question, but I think it's a great question to ask yourself. And in that case, it's essential to continuously ask yourself, how can I be better and how can I do better.

HARVINDER WADHWA: OK Elena again, I changed my mind. Prior to this, I did not think how this question could be inappropriate, but after listening to Amari, I can very much see why this question can be troublesome. But I'd like to dig a little bit deeper.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah! Well perfect, because we’re going to talk to someone who has written a whole book on this! Frederick Joseph is a writer, activist and marketing professional in New York City. He's the author of the best selling book, The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person. Thanks so much for joining us, Frederick.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: I’m happy to be here. Thank you.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So “How can I do better?” Why is that problematic?

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Yeah. So I think that at this point, right, it's akin to a person punching another person in the arm every single day for an entire school year. And every time and every time they punch that person in the arm, you know, the person tells them, “hey, I prefer you not punch me in the arm” and then, you know, every single day. So I punch you in the arm. You tell me you prefer me not to punch you in your arm. And then the very last day of school, when I go next to you, I say, “hey, what would you like me to do?” right? When meanwhile the other every other single day of the year, I've told you exactly what not to do. And better yet, every other student in class has also said, hey, you should have punched him in the arm. This is what you can do.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: So there is so much context and literal content out that at this point, if you're still asking that question, I mean, I've seen anti-racism on Sesame Street, right? Like if you're still asking the question of what can I do, then that means that you've just been completely you know, it's just because you have it, you haven't cared, frankly. Right, I wrote an entire book on racism and we have an anti-racist movement. What left does there need to be right? So so that that would be the response. It's like before before there was an Ibraham X Kendi or Frederick Joseph or or any of these current kind of voices in this space,there was already an Angela Davis or James Baldwin, there was already a Malcolm X, there was a Martin Luther King Jr..

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: So I'm not necessarily saying, oh, the work doesn't need to be done. What I'm saying is the work has been done. So people will be like, if I'm like, hey, you know, there's plenty of content and context out where you can go to understand better without having to pour from the cups of people constantly. Right, there's enough already done. And if you keep on trying to draw from the same well, in which you've already drunk the water, it's not a matter of you not quenching your thirst. You just are being gluttonous at that point.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: When you said pour from the cup, I'm getting a very excuse me, I'm getting a very tarot card imagery. Like in tarot cups mean emotions. So what does what do you mean when folks are pouring from their cups to answer this question?

FREDERICK JOSEPH: So inherently you have to take something from yourself in order to give something to another person, whether that's explaining something, whether it's love, whether it's hatred, whatever it may be, you have to you have to pull from yourself in order to give it to someone else. And when you pull from yourself, unless you or someone else is putting something back into you, you have less than what you started with, right? But in using the example of, like my book, I said to someone recently, like, hey, this is actually my first and last book on race specifically. I never wanted to write about race. I never I never had an interest in writing about race whatsoever. But I saw that there was something missing that I felt like I can add. And so I did it and now I'm done and people are like, “oh my God, what do you mean we need more blah, blah, blah.” I'm like, “yes, but it's deeply traumatic to have to go to those places and try to pull from that place in order to teach you. So I would much rather have given you what I gave you. I'm moving on and I'm going to write things now that help pour into me that I find cathartic and healing.”

HARVINDER WADHWA: I want to share a small experience I had.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

HARVINDER WADHWA: When I came to Canada, when I used to travel via bus, the seat next to me would be empty until the whole bus would be filled. By the way, just to clarify, I wear a turban and I'm now talking about 98. So yeah, initially it felt very bad. But then eventually I realized, you know what, I get two seats. So I looked at it that way. But if anybody had asked me when I was, nobody would sit next to me, how could that person do better? I would have welcomed that any day than just being avoided.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Right.

HARVINDER WADHWA: I chose to come to this country, and I am not expecting people to know a whole lot about me, so I am willing to put that extra effort. Yes, it would drain me a little bit, but that would eventually make life my life and life of people around me and people who will be coming after me. There would be a little bit more sensitivity towards my culture.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Yeah, I think that, you know, Black Americans and Native Americans, both indigenous to the United States and to Canada, are very specific in experience, because let's use yourself as an example Harv. You decided to come from whatever country you came from and so when you made that decision, you said, I'm going to go to a place where I am going to be an outlier or I'm going to be the exception as opposed to the rule versus, let's say, a Black American, not only is our culture and our existence interwoven into every facet of this country, but we also technically built the country like literally built the country blood, sweat and tears, right? I'm not an immigrant to this country. I actually have been here as long as white people.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Right.

FREDERIK JOSEPH: So well, a lot of us are saying is we've been fighting the same fight. And it's not necessarily about we don't want people to understand us. It's like, well, after 400 years, why don't you understand us, right? Like how much again, like I mentioned, Native Americans here in the United States, you know, that frustration, I think, will ultimately be a little bit different generationally because it's not a matter of like, hey, I want you to know me better. I'm new here. It's Hey, why don't you know who I am? You're sitting on my front porch

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah. When you were talking about doing the work. And to your point earlier about if folks are looking for, to learn, you know, before the Ibram X Kendi’s and the yous, there Angela Davis and stuff. What's your point to someone who maybe finds themself being someone who keeps asking this question? Is the next step just on ourselves, too? I don't know. Google go to the library. Is that where you think the work should start?

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Yeah. I mean, all the tools and the resources that could ever be needed to be anti anything oppressive. Right. Like if I'm saying like, “hey, how can I be better about Black trans women in New York City?” I can literally type that into Google right now and probably get like five think pieces and next steps on how to do just that, right. And that's, I think, the beauty of the, not just the moment we are in, but the beauty of access to information is it's greater than we've ever seen before. If we were having conversations about what to do next, how it could be better, what I can learn back in 1995 or 1972 or 1961, then it would make sense to me. But from my cell phone all the information is there. It has always been there. And now it is it has been curated, especially since George Floyds murder has been curated so thoughtfully by so many that they're kind of just isn't an excuse anymore for anybody.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So, Frederick, I want to give you a pathetic example, deliberately giving that pathetic example. OK, I know I should be flossing every day.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: OK?

HARVINDER WADHWA: And I don't.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: This is relatable.

HARVINDER WADHWA: And the point I am trying to make here is that we know a lot of things we should be doing, but we don't. And again, another example. I go to my work, I meet people who are around me, whoever they may be. It doesn't matter what culture they are, which country they come from.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: OK.

HARVINDER WADHWA: We sometimes go out and have dinner or drinks or whatever the case is. We come home. I'll take that. I have never felt the need to Google and learn more about the cultures of the people I have met.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Right.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Maybe I'm just a bad person, but I can tell you the majority of the people would not do that. So the point I'm trying to make is, are we discouraging conversation that would eventually make society better?

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Well, with that being said, let's let's use your flossing example. Right. Let's say that somebody curated a bunch of books and films and television shows and online essays and podcasts and things like that about flossing. And let's say you still decided that you're not going to floss. Somebody put in your face every day the pictures of people's teeth and things like that, what it looks like if you don't floss and then let's say there was and let's say there was a movement that said, like flossing matters and you still decided, I'm not going to floss. And you just did all these things. And then at some point, I think that it would be kind of like sensible for somebody say that person just really doesn't care about flossing, right? So I totally, I totally agree 100 per cent. And I think that the conversation is never really about, oh, we don't want you to be better or we just this and that, to be quite frank, I need people to be better about racism and anti-Blackness because I intend on having children and I don't want my children to deal with the things that I dealt with, because it's not that it's not important for other people to learn, it’s that the learning is so easily accessible. It's like it's deep entitlement, like the example even of you flossing one thing that's different there is that you are paying your dentist your distance. Your dentist wants you to come back. Right, because your dentist is your dentist is actively being paid. It's so there's so many ways in which the only person who has anything to gain potentially would be the person making the mistakes in their entitlement. And near complete, like utter lack of care is essentially why they keep on doing the same thing. They think they can keep on coming back and drawing from that.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: What questions, if any, do you wish non-Black folks would ask you?

FREDERICK JOSEPH: How I'm doing? That's a good question. People learning more about black experiences for the intention not to commodifying capitalize on them, like as an example. OK, so Black Lives Matter. And next thing you get like a McDonald's commercial that's like comes from McDonald's and get a Black burger. Right. Like, there's not literally but figuratively.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I was like “wait, what was that?!”

FREDERICK JOSEPH: No, no, no. Not literally. But what I do literally have is like a bunch of emails from people saying Black Lives Matter, watch this on Hulu or Black Lives Matter, you know, buy some food from Uber Eats and things like that. I would love a moment. I would love questions that are just rooted in, hey, like how are you, what are you doing, what's up, what do you enjoy, right? Like as an example, it's not, we're not just in a moment of of stop racism against Black people and things of that nature. We're like a moment of like stop oppression against everybody. Like this, the same reckoning that we're going through is the same reckoning that the Asian community is going through right now. It's a reckoning that the transgender community is going through and so on and so forth. And we check on each other. Right. Like I have Asian friends who before some of the things of this year were happening right when Michael Brown was murdered, when Trayvon Martin was murdered. So it's over there just like, hey, are you OK? Right. And that's pouring into my well, they're like, hey, I learned a lot from this guy. He's also a friend. Are you OK? Do you need anything like where is your head? Hey, I just saw the show. You might want to watch. Get your mind off of things a little bit. Right. And in return, I'm doing the same thing. So it's not always necessarily about monetary gain. That's just one example of how the dentist is being paid in that example that Harv gave. Unless Harv is paying, Harv might be paying in affirmations. Harv is like just going to the dentist every day is, hey, like I heard, you're great. You're you're wonderful. I appreciate you.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: You’re the best dentist.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Yeah, you are the best dentist in the world.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I love this analogy. It is transcending, it is continuing.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So how can I do better? Is that an inappropriate question?

FREDERICK JOSEPH: No. So again, I don't think that wanting to know how you could do better is an inappropriate question. Inherently, I think that you're a good person for wanting to do good things. I think that people just have to be made aware that, you know, there's finite resources in emotions and just so the soul, right.? You know, so, you know, even like something as simple as if I have this conversation the second I get off of here, I'm going to go eat something. And I have to have a conversation with HBO tonight about slave revolts, right?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh damn!

FREDERICK JOSEPH: Right. No, I mean, they're good conversations and they’re needed conversations. And I, I enjoy the meeting of minds, but also by the end of the day, I'm exhausted. I just might want to watch, you know, some anime. Right. Just to get my mind off of this then. So at that point, if somebody is like, hey, why can't you jump in this conversation to talk about lynchings? I'm like, I don't have it, you know? So there are more tentacles of oppression for a Black American experience, right?

HARVINDER WADHWA: Absolutely.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: So, like, look, there's a lot more things that I think that's why a lot of Black people have said, “hey, we are tired.” :ike the second I'm not talking about Black women's hair and microaggressions, I'm going to have to talk about the George Floyd trial, which inherently means I have to talk about the judicial system, which inherently means I have to talk about the wealth gap, right? So on and so on. It's all these different things at the same time.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Fair, fair. Absolutely.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Tentacles of oppression, that’s very evocative. I've got, like, you know, the dentist office on one side of my brain and then like an octopus on the other side. It's like all sorts of stuff going on.

FREDERICK JOSEPH: So it's like, it's like Harv’s in the dentist chair, I'm riding an octopus. We're just doing a lot, you know.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I really love talking to Frederick. Definitely a surprising takeaway for me was that I badly overdue at the dentist.

HARVINDER WADHWA: You are not anti-denti, right?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: What? Anti-denti?

HARVINDER WADHWA: It's a Seinfeld reference.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: OK, yeah. Classic dad stuff up here. Dentistry aside and Seinfeld aside, is there anything that Fredrick said that surprised you or made you think about this differently?

HARVINDER WADHWA: Definitely, definitely Elena. I have said that before, I always have welcomed that question. Not anybody has asked me that question, but I would welcome it. But now, looking at Fredrick’s response and the concept of overflowing cup, I can definitely see the other side as well.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah, I think in different ways, like, it's a very understandable concept that you really can't give of yourself when you're not being filled. It could definitely be really draining and that expectation that you be available to educate these people on a moment's notice is quite a lot.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Absolutely. So, yes, as you're speaking Elena, the image of me filling the cup for rinsing my mouth at the dentist comes to mind. If I press it too hard. It overflows.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh, of course.

HARVINDER WADHWA: You need the right amount of water there.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: All the metaphors are rooted in the dentist. Now, this is going to be hard. New thing. I love it.

HARVINDER WADHWA: This podcast is sponsored by my dentist.

[Music]

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Even with good intent behind it, there are dynamics going on behind this question that make the idea of “doing better” more complicated. I’m speaking to a professor who has some thoughts on anti-Blackness in Canada, why things like anti-racism training might not solve things, and how accountability can start in small ways.

ANDREA DAVIS: I am Andrea Davis. I am an associate professor in the Department of Humanities at York University, where I am also the special advisor on the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, Anti-Black Racism Strategy. I think that if someone says to me, “how can I do better?”, it suggests a disconnect, right? That they already know that they're not doing well enough. I think that a better response would be to be thoughtful and self reflective about what you see in the world around you, how you move and have moved through that world where you think you aren't doing enough and what you can do better. I think it has to begin from that place rather than asking me to identify in you, because I can only guess at those things.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: I can only offer some ideas. But the person who is asking that question also has a responsibility to think about how have I fallen short? We both live in the same world. I don't have magical answers that you don't have.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right. I feel like I've often felt that I might lack some of the context or information about racism because I don't have that personal experience. Could people be asking this question to Black folks because they aren't really sure how to self assess?

ANDREA DAVIS: I think there's a little bit of laziness there. All of us, we have a responsibility to seek to know. So as a post 1960s immigrant from Jamaica, I encountered and met Indigenous peoples that I didn't know before. Now it's my responsibility if I live in this country, if I walk on this land and participate in this so-called democracy, to get to know the history of that place, to know who the people were, who were here before me, what their concerns are, and I may not understand everything, but I have to begin from that place of seeking to know. And it can't just be going to an Indigenous friend and saying, well, what should I know? Like, give me a one hour base, Indigenous Studies 101, it doesn't happen like that, right? It takes time and thinking and thoughtfulness.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: And when I do that work for myself, there's a way in which it sits with me or I have to sit with it and think about it and process it. That is different from just having someone tell me this is how you should think, this is how you should feel and this is how you should act. And then if I have precise questions, I might go to someone and say, I don't understand this specific thing, but just saying, “how can I do better?” it's not fair to the person who is being asked as well. And so all of us have to be prepared to be continually doing that work on learning the things that I now know are not valuable and learning and be learning the things that I need to know.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right. And you mentioned also how this question puts a responsibility on you. I've often heard emotional labour discussed when it comes to this question. What is emotional labour and how does that relate to this question?

ANDREA DAVIS: Well, emotional labour is the kind of labour that racialized and, you know, marginalized people, people who are not consider that part of the, you know, the cultural norm feel in a room when they are called upon to teach the dominant culture about themselves. So to become the reference to stand in for the whole.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: So you're in a classroom and you're the only Black student and it's Black History Month. And somehow you are expected to teach the whole class you know, but you are just ten.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: So, it's that weight, that pressure. And sometimes we do, right? We step into that moment and we make those interventions because we must because we don't want that slippage to last. But it's having to do it over and over and over again. That becomes laborious.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: As a professor, do you encounter this weight, even though teaching is your job, do you encounter this kind of weight of having to teach the dominant culture a lot in your work?

ANDREA DAVIS: Yes and no. I mean, I don't think of myself as teaching to the dominant culture. I think of myself as using Black thought, Black ideas, Black cultures and exposing them, exposing that thought so that that thought, those ideas, those cultures become centered in the room.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: I don't do. What I'm saying is I don't do anti-Black racism. I don't set out to do that consciously. I'm not interested in that because that is really a project for white people, right? Precisely, this project of “how can I do better.”

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: So I think of myself as a center in Blackness, as part of the human. And I think it's in those moments where we're not actually consciously saying, “how can I do better?” that that aha moment, you know, often happens where, you know, it's not just about trying to end black oppression. It's not just trying to bring Black people into Canadian multicultural democracy is actually accepting that they already belong there. Right. If you accept that they can and and should already be there, then you're not thinking about them from a place of deficits.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Interesting. You're actually making me think when you mentioned kind of your approach versus this question's approach. Like, I always hear people talking about how, you know, Black trauma is centred over Black joy or Black experience in general.

ANDREA DAVIS: Yes, yes. If we're only centreing Black trauma, how do we expect them to live with that? Then we're asking them to bear that every single day. And Blackness remains forever at a deficit. So, again, when you say when someone says, “how should I do better?” they're posing that question from a place of privilege that says I am the privileged one and you have no privilege. But I you know, in my largesse, in my kindness and generosity, I want to do better. But what if you met together and you put both of your thoughts and ideas on the same plane, you know, and just thought if two equal people were in a room, we wouldn't say, how can I do better? We would just get to know each other and develop and build a relationship.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: So always when you ask that question, you're asking it from a place of power.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: In Canada, I think we're often guilty of thinking way more about the US context instead of our own. Is anti-Blackness very different here or would you say somewhat similar?

ANDREA DAVIS: I don't really think it's different. I think Canadians like to think so. I think that if the effects are the same and in some ways I would say the difference is that it's harder to talk about, about race and about anti-Blackness here because people just don't think it's a problem. If people don't see excruciating Black pain, if they don't witness Black death, if they don't hear someone once saying the N-word over and over again, then they don't recognize racism. So they don't see the way it manifests in microaggressions, in their own microaggressions in the workplace, right? In the slight comments about a Black woman's hair or body. So they don't understand that as racism, but Black people do. And they experience that unrelentingly every single day. So that's part of the problem, that the expectation is about violence, it’s about death. And that is the only thing that will evoke my sympathy, my empathy and my care. There's something profoundly wrong with that.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: I've heard a lot, especially in the last year, about how, you know, a lot of people's statements and attempts at allyship and stuff can be performative and not actually helpful. What does that mean to be performative?

ANDREA DAVIS: Well, it means that you behave at least publicly in ways that will mark your card, right? Mark you as, you know, being on the right side of history, you want to be on the right side of history and you don't want to be shamed, or sometimes it's for personal or economic or other benefit.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: But but it's really learning how how to perform good race behaviour. And this is one of the reasons why I'm very conflicted about, you know, anti-racism training, because I think a lot of people take this training and then they can say, well, I've done this. You know, I ticked the box and done this. I got training. And so now I know everything there is to know. And you can't say that I don't. What it actually does is it gives them the language to perform anti-racism. So that you don't get into “trouble” in public without necessarily changing your behaviour in private.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: And again, this is part of that question, right? “How can I do better?”, this idea that there's a manual that I can hand to you or a list of things that I can give you to check off. And once you've done those things, then there's no more learning left for you to do. And it doesn't work like that. Right, we're talking about systems that have been embedded for thousands of years and it's going to take time and work and hard work, right? For us to undo.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: So what's the way to shift away from this performativity? Is it, kind of like you were alluding to, just more sustained action?

ANDREA DAVIS: It's first of all, if I look at the world right now, if George Floyd’s death happened maybe I had never, ever really believed that things were so broken. I heard people say all along that Black people died at a much higher rate than other people at the hands of the authorities. But I never believed it. And now I see it. Then you have to think about why was it that I was led to believe this? Was it my family? Was it my friends? Was it the educational system? And then I have to begin to systematically refuse that belief that I had carried so it’s a process of both learning and unlearning. And it also means that the accountability can begin in small ways. It can mean that when my friends say things that I now know are untrue, then I can't let that pass. And I have to say no, right? That, you know that is not true. I no longer believe that. Or when I'm at home for Thanksgiving dinner.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Yeah.

ANDREA DAVIS: Are you going to intervene in that conversation or are you going to just sit there in silence? That you can sit there in silence and then come and ask me what can you how can you be better?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: You know, we all we often want to think of these big moments of change when it's sometimes the everyday small things that we're not doing.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: Rather than think about it as something to be learned, like a training I can take. What if you thought about it as practice?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

ANDREA DAVIS: Anti-racism as a discipline, right? So that constantly throughout the day you might for a while you might have to be reevaluating yourself, like, why do I feel uncomfortable in this moment? Why did I almost cross the street? So if you make it a kind of discipline and practice that really begins with you and not with me.

[Music]

HARVINDER WADHWA: You know Elena, that reminds me of an adage. It says, every problem has a simple solution, which is wrong. And this falls right into that category. The stuff which was discussed is so nuanced that unless somebody thinks deep, there is no way the person can come to those conclusions. And yes, why should be the onus on a Black person to explain how can a white person, or the other people, so it's not only white people. Let's be very clear on that.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Right.

HARVINDER WADHWA: How can other people do better?

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Going off of that, I really loved hearing Andrea say that there's really no manual here and that no one person can tell you where you can improve to be anti-racist. It's a learning that you have to do yourself. And that kind of changed my idea of I guess part of me has always thought that there's like one way that you have to find, but there isn't really, there's no script.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So I will give our listeners a manual.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: Oh, OK. OK, cool.

HARVINDER WADHWA: So if you ever feel the need to ask this question, pause for a second. Pretend you need to go to washroom, go to the washroom, Google and then learn and come back!

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: OK, I haven't been at work in a hot sec, but the wifi in our bathrooms is bad.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Use data.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: OK. Yeah. Yeah. Do whatever you need to do to learn on the toilet is what we’re saying with this podcast.

[Theme]

HARVINDER WADHWA: This is Harvinder Wadhwa.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: And I'm Elena Hudgins Lyle.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Thanks for getting inappropriate for us.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: A huge thanks to our guests Frederick Joseph and Andrea Davis. (You also heard a voicenote from Amari Gaither.

HARVINDER WADHWA: Every episode has an accompanying webcomic and this week it was illustrated by C. A. P. Ward. You can find it on Instagram @IQ_podcast. Also, make sure to visit cbc.ca/iqpodcast for a full transcript of this episode.

ELENA HUDGINS LYLE: The trusty trio behind this podcast are Sabrina Bertsch, Cindy Long and myself. The show is mixed by Andrew Norton. Our chase producer is Sarah Melton and our digital producer is Judy Ziyi Gu. Our senior producer is Geoff Turner and our executive producer is Arif Noorani.

[Theme out]

HARVINDER WADHWA: An inappropriate question is like expecting a positive response from your dentist on the health of your teeth when your last floss was done by that dentist during your last visit.

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Transcript: Inappropriate Questions Season 3, Episode 7

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