0:04

Welcome to Kelly Corrigan Wonders. I'm Kelly

0:07

Corrigan and today I am wondering

0:09

if it is actually true that

0:11

between any two people on Earth,

0:13

there are things we share. I'm

0:16

pretty sure there is, even if it's

0:19

as simple as back pain or bad

0:21

hair days. But I wanted

0:23

to run the idea past a very

0:25

bright woman who I am lucky to

0:27

call a friend. Her name is Wanda

0:29

Holland Green. She is a long time

0:31

educator and thinker who cares deeply about

0:33

the development of our softer sides. This

0:36

was one of the first episodes we

0:38

ever recorded on this show. I sat

0:40

down with Wanda in October of 2020

0:43

and interestingly, everything

0:45

is still relevant now. So

0:48

join us for Kelly Corrigan Wonders

0:50

in a conversation about finding our

0:52

shared humanity with Wanda Holland Green.

0:59

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2:17

Hey, I'm Kelly Corrigan, welcome back. So

2:19

today I'm with Wanda Holling-Green.

2:22

Wanda runs a Bay Area institution

2:25

called the Hamlin School. She's

2:27

also on the board of Columbia. She's an East

2:29

Coast girl on West Coast soil. She

2:31

can sing like an angel and she

2:34

is deeply wise. And the reason I

2:36

turned to Wanda to talk about whether

2:38

we can really find common ground

2:41

with anyone is

2:43

because she has worked with so many different

2:45

kinds of people over the years. And

2:48

I know that she has dug into this in

2:50

her own life. She's

2:52

also one of those people, ask anyone

2:54

who knows her, who

2:56

is so widely read that she could

2:58

just as easily pull a reference

3:00

from Harry Potter as Nietzsche

3:03

as Aristotle. And

3:05

it's that kind of broad thinking that

3:08

I think sometimes reveals the biggest

3:10

answers to the questions that

3:12

I'm forever asking. Why

3:14

I'm asking this question again in

3:17

2022, after

3:19

asking it the first time in 2020, needs

3:23

no explanation. So

3:25

let's sit down with Wanda and

3:27

talk about finding common ground with

3:29

anyone else on earth. Hi.

3:35

Hi, how are you? I'm great.

3:38

I was the graduation speaker a lot of

3:40

years ago, Hamlin in San Francisco, and

3:43

we fell in love hard. This is

3:45

true. True. And we

3:47

knew, did you not know that day that

3:49

there was a future for us? I did. Yeah.

3:52

I did. I think there's a place for us.

3:55

Exactly. But I was, I'm

3:57

wherever. Playing around. Peace

4:00

and quiet. And then we started this morning and

4:03

we were in literally the exact same outfit. Hey,

4:06

you know, something's immense. 2020

4:08

writ large is a time where

4:11

I personally feel desperate to believe in

4:13

common ground and maybe

4:15

need a refresher course that it really

4:17

could be true that say the

4:20

politicians, that's the obvious that I

4:22

most disagree with in terms

4:24

of policy and that I most

4:27

like dislike in terms

4:29

of like personality, that if I were in the

4:31

room with them and I asked the right questions, we

4:33

would find common ground. And

4:35

then you layer that on top of

4:37

the pandemic and you think about

4:40

the different responses to it, even just

4:42

in my tiny little town, there's a whole

4:44

array of responses where there are people having

4:46

parties and then there are people wearing masks

4:48

alone in the car just so they won't

4:50

touch their face. And

4:52

I want to figure out, do all

4:54

of us still have something in

4:57

common or many things in common and

4:59

how significant are the things that we have

5:01

in common? So I think there's at least

5:04

five beats to this conversation. So

5:06

Wanda, this is squarely in your strike zone. Tell us the

5:09

first thing you think all people have in common. All

5:12

people are fiercely devoted to

5:14

their children. Now how that

5:16

translates in the world can be very different. If

5:19

you bring a child into the world, you can't

5:21

tell me that you would not lie

5:23

across train tracks for that child because

5:26

this is your extension. This

5:28

is your heart. This is your soul.

5:31

And you want this being to

5:33

thrive and you want them to

5:35

live forward and beyond you. And

5:38

I see every single day when

5:40

I look at parents, whether they are

5:43

standing on a line waiting for food,

5:45

whether they are asking about why their

5:47

child didn't get into the top math

5:49

section. You know that underneath

5:51

the fear, underneath what

5:54

looks like belligerence is

5:56

deep love, deep love. Another

5:58

way of saying it is is that it

6:01

awakens the most animal part of us.

6:04

I'm sort of coming at the world

6:06

these days, and I'm open to change all the time,

6:08

is part of what this podcast is about, trying to learn

6:10

what I don't know. But there

6:13

is this kind of fancy

6:15

animal way of looking at human beings, and

6:18

anybody who's had their kids threatened,

6:20

watched their kid be treated unfairly,

6:22

it awakens the bear within. Yes,

6:24

I'm an African American woman, and

6:27

Kelly, I live in constant fear that my children

6:29

will not come home. My oldest son David is

6:31

about 16, and

6:33

he is this athletic,

6:35

smart, independent young

6:38

gentleman who goes to Oakland every

6:41

day for school, and I

6:43

know that he looks like a man,

6:45

and the research shows us that African

6:48

American children are routinely

6:50

thought of as older than they really

6:52

are. I live in fear every day

6:54

that someone is going to think that

6:57

he is a threat. My need

6:59

to protect him is this

7:02

ongoing drumbeat in my life. If

7:05

somebody were to diagram your mind share, how

7:08

much of your thinking has to get pushed through

7:10

the filter of I'm a mama bear, and I

7:12

gotta take care of these people? Hmm,

7:15

oh, good. I mean, is there anything that doesn't

7:17

go through that filter, I guess is another way

7:19

of asking the question. I don't think so. And

7:21

isn't that an interesting thing to just pause for

7:24

a moment, right? There is no other way to

7:26

see it. That desire to protect your kids makes

7:29

people crazy. They love twisting you into

7:31

a new form in

7:33

a very problematic way. Your desire

7:36

to make sure that they

7:38

get things twists you into really

7:40

bad shape. So then you get tiger moms

7:42

and you get snow palm moms. Or as

7:44

my husband would say, curlers, they're smoothing the

7:47

ice. And you know, here it is. Khalil

7:49

Gibran, whom I love, he's trying to tell us

7:51

something about the fact that we are separate from

7:54

these beings, and we should not live through them.

7:56

And where you're like, that is me. I

7:58

did not get the part. make the

8:00

team, it's a false coupling. It's one

8:02

thing we should not do because it

8:05

drives us into over-protectiveness. I love one

8:07

of the teachers that Hamlin often says,

8:09

we are developing the girls' disappointment muscles.

8:12

Imagine people across the table from each other just

8:14

steaming mad like cartoon smoke coming out of their

8:17

ears. And I think

8:19

that if you can constantly remember they're

8:21

trying to protect their children at some

8:23

level. And I know that feeling. I

8:25

am the same person. It plays out differently. There's

8:28

different things I want to protect my kids from.

8:30

But nonetheless this root

8:33

feeling that is innate, as

8:35

innate as anything that we

8:37

do as fancy animals is

8:39

driving the passion and the

8:41

judgment and the fear and the insecurity.

8:43

It all goes back to, oh my

8:45

God, I hope I'm doing right by these people.

8:48

Yeah. And don't you wish that as your child

8:50

arrived, the child came with one of those really

8:52

thick manuals in 17 languages? If

8:55

there were an IKEA one pager

8:57

to describe how to raise your

8:59

kids, probably the image

9:02

would be the man sort of turning

9:05

away from the child and letting the

9:07

child discover the world and play things

9:09

out and experience natural consequences.

9:12

It would say, let this thing

9:14

put itself together. Yes, yes,

9:16

you're so right. Here's

9:19

the thing that I wanted to talk about that I think that

9:21

we all have in common, which is

9:23

that we're all kind of come into our childhood

9:25

and our first teachers are our

9:27

parents for better or worse. And

9:29

their worldview and their cultural biases

9:32

are defining for us.

9:34

And remember after the 2016 election,

9:37

there was an op-ed in the Times and it

9:40

was this guy, Derek Black. He

9:42

is David Duke's godson

9:44

and his father started Stormfront,

9:46

which is this huge white nationalist

9:48

website. And he was actually

9:50

considered the future of the movement. And he

9:52

went door to door talking about

9:55

how immigration was ruining American

9:57

culture and how black

9:59

neighborhoods were just infested

10:01

with crime and that PC culture

10:04

was crushing our ability to talk

10:06

about reality as he saw

10:08

it. And he was getting a lot

10:10

of national media attention and getting

10:12

congratulated a lot by people inside

10:14

his first circle. And

10:17

then he went to college. He was exposed to a

10:19

diversity of viewpoints. And he

10:21

began to realize that he had done this

10:23

terrible damage. And he's been trying

10:25

to make up for it ever since.

10:27

And he said that that kind of

10:30

reorientation has to happen in

10:32

person-to-person interactions. And it

10:34

requires tons of honest listening on both

10:36

sides. If you

10:38

believe that all people are

10:41

born into a story

10:43

of the world that they

10:45

then have to mature out of one way or

10:47

another, either they have to fluff it off and

10:49

say, God, that's terribly wrong, or just, I don't

10:51

think I'm Catholic. I think maybe

10:53

I'm Methodist. Or I don't think

10:55

that sports are that important. I don't think I'm

10:57

going to spend all day on Saturday watching NFL

10:59

games. A step into adulthood

11:02

is to work your way

11:04

out of the beliefs you

11:06

were born into and to decide for

11:08

yourself what to keep and what to toss. So

11:11

true. And it feels like an

11:13

act of courage to be able

11:16

to interrogate those ideas, to challenge

11:18

what you think you know already.

11:21

I care deeply

11:23

about learning. That

11:25

should be obvious as an educator, but I'm going

11:27

to say it because you'd be surprised how much goes

11:29

on in schools that's not really about learning. When

11:32

you are committed to learning

11:34

for life, you have to be courageous.

11:37

And as you said, the first people

11:39

who teach you anything are your parents.

11:42

And it feels defiant to

11:45

say to James David Holland, my amazing

11:47

dad, who was a minister at night

11:49

in a welder by day, that

11:53

I don't agree that gay people are going straight

11:56

to hell. I Grew

11:58

up in a funny place. The

12:00

minimalist pentecostal household. Adam.

12:04

And Eve not Adam and Steve. Easier

12:06

These things across the pulpit in front

12:08

of bleed. Jarring When you're learning different

12:11

kinds of things in school or seeding

12:13

different things in the world. I learned

12:15

that women should not wear pants. I

12:18

didn't wear a pair of pants. And

12:20

can you insidious? Maybe When I was

12:22

twenty nine years old, I pieced my

12:25

is the day after my death that.

12:28

You're. Sitting Not kidding be kind of funny. I

12:30

was lot of your says either to describe

12:32

our house near he would have put them

12:34

themselves. and of course you know ear lobes

12:36

are so sexy Tell you that he said

12:38

not decorate them and as a minute I

12:40

got my ears pierced there is like a

12:42

line around the block assists they they were

12:44

like hey you Zola an hour of I'm

12:46

from Brooklyn as. It

12:49

was like you do grew up with these. No

12:51

sense of where a woman should stand in the

12:53

chance you know, what can a woman do in

12:55

the world is really not an accent that I'm

12:57

ahead of a girl. School. And

12:59

that I went to Columbia three years

13:01

after the admitted women in the eighties.

13:04

It is incredibly important to ask yourself

13:06

when you come to a is. Is.

13:09

This true? Is this right? And.

13:11

Is this makes me that I grew up

13:14

with? As going back to the Derek like

13:16

story once he said his piece once you put

13:18

the south and that was said, he was persona

13:20

non grata within a family and good riddance isn't

13:22

really. I think it was his opinion. It's very

13:24

fundamental. Concept of our own personal

13:26

security to him. To feel that

13:29

the people who are raising us know

13:31

what they're doing. And.

13:33

That we can defer to

13:35

their values. It's. Sort of

13:37

unsettling to think that you might

13:39

not be able to write speeds

13:41

into the idea of letting go

13:43

of their values. Into. Which you

13:46

were born in. The story of America or

13:48

the world that you were born into is.

13:51

Recognizing. That your parents are

13:53

people. Which. is not like the world's

13:55

greatest moment it's sort of unsettling i think

13:57

that the people who raised you enter cleaning

14:00

in a certain direction don't really know what

14:02

they're doing or could be dangerously

14:04

wrong about any

14:06

number of things. And that's

14:09

why Kelly School is so important.

14:13

One of the most powerful conversations I heard at Hamlin

14:15

was between three sixth grade

14:18

girls who were debating about whether you

14:20

would call the police if

14:22

your cat was stuck in a tree. And

14:25

they were looking at this really old book and they

14:28

were like, well, I'd call the police of course and

14:30

the poor firefighter and they come and one person was

14:32

like, in my neighborhood, I wouldn't call the police at

14:34

all because they're not friendly. And it was just so

14:36

interesting to watch three girls who are very close friends,

14:39

three different zip codes in the same

14:41

class, around the same age, exposing

14:43

themselves to different thoughts. And so I think

14:45

diversity of thoughts, one of the most important

14:47

reasons why we assemble to come

14:49

together to be challenged, to be pushed. That

14:52

is where the ideas that I started

14:54

to question really started

14:57

to take shape. And I was able to

14:59

form my own opinion and then come back

15:01

home and be a little brat around the

15:03

dinner table with my parents. But school is

15:06

the primary place where we begin to challenge

15:08

what we think we know. I don't know

15:10

if everyone believes what you just said. I

15:13

don't know if everyone believes that a diversity

15:15

of thought and opinion is a positive.

15:18

It is kind of a pain in the ass, right?

15:20

When you're like, hey, let's have a parade for Fourth

15:22

of July. And then the kid says, I don't want

15:24

to celebrate Fourth of July. I want to celebrate Juneteenth.

15:26

I want to celebrate gay pride. And it's, oh my

15:28

God, I want to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. My family

15:30

came over from Ireland. And I got to do

15:32

Cinco de Mayo. And can you fall in

15:34

line, please? Yes. Homogeneity seems

15:37

so easy. And it's so

15:39

boring. And it's so boring. And

15:41

you learn so much less over the

15:43

course of a lifetime. And I think it's

15:45

easy to choose what is simple and perhaps

15:48

even elegant to have a single

15:50

solution. But what we know for

15:52

sure, if we look at Scott Page,

15:54

he has a book called The Difference.

15:56

He proves mathematically that diversity of any

15:58

kind is better than homogeneity. I

16:00

think that what happens within

16:03

us is that we become

16:05

very wed to our ideas. I'm all

16:07

for the bring your whole self to

16:10

school, tell me about your atheism, tell

16:12

me about your Catholicism, review with me

16:14

your Torah portion. I love doing that

16:16

with the girls as they prepare for

16:18

their butthole. Bring it all.

16:21

We are better. We are

16:23

better off when we have diversity

16:25

of thought. The other thing

16:27

that's interesting about these sort of childhood beliefs

16:29

that we can get trapped in and then

16:31

that are revealed to us to just be

16:34

beliefs rather than reality. That's

16:36

the big aha. Oh, they don't know

16:38

that's true. They just think that's true.

16:40

Which means other things could be true. But

16:42

the other piece of that is that we

16:45

are all coming into our lives

16:47

through a family that tells us

16:50

certain things about ourselves. So

16:52

within the context of your family, you may not

16:55

be the athletic one. But that

16:57

may not mean that you are not athletic. Did

17:00

you have a role in your childhood

17:02

that you had to actively say, yeah,

17:04

I don't know if that's so true

17:06

about me after all. It's interesting. I

17:08

was always assigned this role of

17:10

being the rebel, the recalcitrant

17:13

one, the one who went

17:16

to independent school instead of public school.

17:18

And so I think this

17:20

idea that I needed to be waving

17:22

a flag and walking in the other

17:24

direction was a part of how

17:27

the entire family saw me.

17:29

And I'm actually not. There are many

17:31

things about me that are rabble-rousing.

17:35

I think education is one of

17:37

the most important forms of activism.

17:39

I am a card-carrying feminist. And

17:42

yet I love being a part of community.

17:45

When I do something

17:47

kind in my family or when

17:49

I am generous of spirit, I

17:51

think sometimes people are genuinely surprised.

17:54

It hurts a little bit. I have to say.

17:56

That's like when I can hit a forehand. My

17:58

brothers are like, dad, I'm like... Kelly Blue

18:00

fight but they don't don't want someone to

18:02

be surprised because I'm going with the flow.

18:04

And I think when you grow up. Feeling

18:07

like you are always the one who

18:09

was going against the grain and my

18:11

two sisters is still very much tied

18:14

to their respective churches and I don't

18:16

tell. With. So here's the thing

18:18

that what's happening in the context of your school

18:20

other time where the kids are teaching the teachers.

18:23

How we talk now isn't

18:25

and. As we taught our

18:27

parents mm my dad to say oriental know,

18:29

it's like that, that's a rug And then

18:32

recently my older brother, Booker. Last.

18:34

Sixty pounds. Everyone's like Booker. You can credibly

18:36

like I'm a man. or exit. Eau

18:39

Claire, My seventeen year old.

18:41

Sort. Of pulled me aside after a day

18:43

or two of this over Thanksgiving and says.

18:46

Funny. And I said

18:48

asks clara, guess you're right We didn't know

18:50

that my mom would look at me and

18:52

say if you keep it in this chips

18:54

no man's gonna marry a girl. Good

18:57

old offer a mouse here to say the

18:59

say again it's daughter. But those were

19:01

the norms I always felt. this is my dad,

19:03

my dad in return to lose seventy years old

19:05

and by the time he retired the woman who

19:08

was his boss with fresh out of Harvard business

19:10

school on asking him to sell out spreadsheets and

19:12

go to Xl and whatever. and the day he

19:14

retired. He rode on the list

19:16

on his computer screen. Again in

19:19

the Keep ever turned the damn thing

19:21

on and I thought that that woman

19:23

must have been driven mad by him

19:25

that he didn't treat. I.

19:27

Don't think that's much of a stretch of

19:29

a metaphor for. The. Things that each

19:32

generation needs to be taught by the

19:34

generation below them. Powerful,

19:36

Do you think we have enough tolerance

19:39

for the lifelong? Learning that is required.

19:42

Says that I think. That. People do

19:44

the best they can. I. Love my

19:46

answer though he knows. He says when you know better,

19:48

you do better. And I think that

19:50

we put some of really said see. To

19:52

the people. And.

19:55

I've. never seen a

19:57

thriving learning environment where

20:01

the air is filled with judgment.

20:03

I have only seen people learning

20:05

conditions where they are supported

20:07

in taking risks where there's high

20:09

expectations and high support. So

20:12

the second generation can come to the

20:14

elders, if you will, with new expectations

20:16

for language, for behavior, for what should

20:18

or should not be done. And

20:21

it also has to come with high support,

20:23

saying things like, I can

20:26

imagine why you think that's still true. I'm

20:30

curious about where you learned that. Can

20:34

I show you something that I learned in

20:36

school today? Those are

20:38

questions about curiosity and growth, as opposed

20:40

to, I just can't believe you idiots

20:42

still believe that. Do you know what

20:44

I mean? It just doesn't inspire anyone

20:46

to move out of the space that

20:48

they're in. I think there's just

20:50

a lot of judgment. And look, I'm a black

20:52

woman in America. There are so many things that

20:55

we need to reckon with, right? I am not

20:57

saying, let's just move on from the past and

20:59

let's not think about the legacy of slavery that

21:01

hovers over this country. But

21:04

I think if we don't have moments of truth

21:06

and reconciliation, right, then we are going

21:08

to stay in the same place. And

21:11

if we're about growth as a nation, if we

21:13

really seek this common ground that we're talking about

21:16

today, then let's do it. Let's

21:19

listen and hurt and ooze

21:22

and tell people that they need to grow

21:24

or show people how they can grow and

21:28

let's forgive. So this is

21:30

so interesting. A really good friend of mine, her

21:32

name's Arielle, and there was an incident in

21:34

our school where some

21:36

kid put some anti-Semitic comment on

21:38

his Instagram feed. And

21:41

she's a therapist and she's Jewish and

21:44

passionately Jewish, and they expelled

21:46

them. And I said, what did

21:48

you think of that? And she said, I thought it

21:50

was terrible. I thought it was such a missed opportunity.

21:52

I thought it would have been incredible to

21:55

act instead of judgment to slide all the

21:57

way down the other end of the spectrum to

21:59

curiosity. And to say to him, what

22:01

do you think those words mean? What did

22:03

you mean when you said them? Who were

22:05

you thinking about? She said, God, it's such

22:07

a sin that the righteous move seemed

22:10

to be banishment. Because

22:14

if the righteous move could have been seen to

22:16

be conversation, exploration,

22:20

curiosity, and

22:22

some discovery of common ground, the

22:25

whole environment would have improved. One

22:28

of the things that I know

22:30

to be true is that there

22:33

is a place where you can

22:35

live that is beyond the pain, beyond

22:38

the hurt. There is a space. And I

22:40

think when you get to be a certain

22:42

age, you do learn

22:44

that you can wake

22:46

up in the morning and not be

22:48

bitterly angry at someone or shocked by

22:51

their behavior. And as you

22:53

think about children and the young person

22:55

you just described, this

22:57

idea of bringing students together, people

22:59

together, sitting together, you have two

23:01

human beings who are out of

23:04

repair. Someone said to me

23:06

the other day that this idea of repair,

23:08

and I thought it was so powerful, is

23:11

repairing. Two things

23:13

that should have been together are

23:15

separate, and your job is to repair

23:17

them. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, that's great.

23:19

So you, in a restorative

23:21

justice mode, are bringing

23:25

people who are supposed to

23:27

be connected, heart to heart, soul to soul,

23:29

mind to mind, not agreeing on everything, of

23:31

course, but connected as humans, that you are

23:33

bringing them to a place where they are

23:35

paired again. I think that's powerful.

23:37

Yeah. Thanks for being here. We'll be right

23:39

back with Ronda Holland Greening. Hey,

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slash Kelly. That's

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conditions apply. Hey,

26:45

this is Kelly Corrigan. Welcome back to

26:47

my conversation with Wanda Holland-Green about

26:49

whether it's really possible to

26:52

discover common ground with absolutely

26:54

anyone else on the planet.

27:00

So another thing that I believe we always have

27:02

in common is that we're sort of functions of our machines. And

27:05

I'm super interested in neuroscience and how the brain

27:07

works and all the mistaken

27:09

thinking that people have identified all

27:11

or nothing thinking and cognitive bias

27:13

and motivated reasoning. And how

27:15

do you think about the way that

27:18

the human mind is

27:21

driving all of us? I am

27:23

fascinated by the brain as you are

27:27

and also fascinated by

27:29

what we can do to override those

27:31

instincts. So do

27:34

we have to live in the service of our

27:36

brain, which is trying to protect us.

27:38

Let's just say that it is

27:40

categorizing so that this is food,

27:42

this is not food, that's a bear. Run. It's

27:45

a very handy tool. It's a handy tool. But

27:47

I'm fascinated by this idea of overriding it

27:49

by saying the reboot, sometimes when your

27:51

computer starts acting crazy and you just

27:54

have to kind of do one of

27:56

those hard restarts, you can actually control

27:58

your computer. You need to. The

28:00

and you can control your

28:02

brain, bikes and learning things

28:04

that. Automatically drive you to

28:06

believe that someone is dangerous. Something

28:08

of a book called blind Spot

28:10

and he's amazing Professors out of

28:12

Harvard, Anthony Greenwald and or Missouri

28:14

in a van as he and

28:17

they write about how's your brain

28:19

will take you to biased. So.

28:21

Fast, even people who think they're

28:23

not. So as you get online,

28:25

That sense of their implicit bias test

28:27

is click click click to watching images

28:29

anyway they will so you that even

28:32

the most quote unquote Woke people have

28:34

bases but they also teach you how

28:36

to override. That. Idea if.

28:40

There would says ten seconds of. Pause.

28:42

Before someone assumes that my son

28:44

is doing something inappropriate, And.

28:47

They don't draw their gun, even if

28:49

their first thought is that might be

28:51

a dangerous kiss. If they we did,

28:53

may be peace would prevail. Maybe people

28:55

would stay alive so I think we

28:57

can override the brain. That is sort

29:00

of herculean. And it's

29:02

a very conscious commitment. To. Say,

29:04

the default mode is to

29:06

try bob. To. Other

29:09

eyes to protect. And.

29:11

Then there's. More.

29:13

Evolved position. Is. To

29:15

take ten seconds? To

29:17

not trust your instincts.

29:21

Counterintuitive. Super counter. Intuitive,

29:23

synonymous, hopeful things that I know.

29:26

That. You can override your instincts that

29:28

we are more than fancy animals.

29:30

Another thing that's interesting to me

29:32

as or defaults to Zishan. Is.

29:35

Were right. So. When

29:37

Mitch Mcconnell and Chuck Schumer sit

29:39

down together, they are both certain.

29:42

That. They are correct and that the

29:44

work they're doing and that conversation. Is.

29:47

To impart that wisdom. To.

29:50

The other person he could see the

29:52

marriage I can see with my two

29:54

daughters when they're arguing. There's no question

29:56

that the brain love conviction. And

29:58

that it's scrambling to get. to that

30:01

position of conviction as

30:04

fast as possible. I agree, but

30:06

here's the thing. I

30:08

think sometimes we strive

30:11

for agreement and

30:13

that's not actually common

30:16

ground, right? They're not really

30:18

synonymous. So we can

30:20

be diametrically opposed about a particular

30:22

issue. Pick anyone, immigration, abortion, police

30:25

reform. The common ground might be

30:27

that something needs to be done.

30:29

The common ground might be that too

30:32

many people are dying. There might be common ground that

30:34

there are too many people in the prisons.

30:36

So I don't know that the goal is

30:38

always to bring the Mitch's and the Chuck's

30:40

to the same side of the table. I

30:42

think the goal is to keep them at

30:45

the table talking about issues that matter. And

30:47

that's where the nuances are. But I wonder

30:49

sometimes, Kelly, if agreement is

30:51

the goal and that this

30:53

idea that we have to keep convincing

30:55

someone of something they're not going

30:58

to believe. Like I will tell you, I'm probably

31:00

the parent who is the least swayed

31:02

by, please, please, please, mom, let me do

31:04

that, everyone else is doing it. I really don't mind

31:06

if my child is mad at me. I don't need

31:09

to spend hours trying to be convinced

31:11

to agree with my teenager. Right,

31:13

let's agree on the end game.

31:16

I think it would be an amazing process

31:18

for adversaries, either

31:20

parent and child or Chuck and Mitch

31:22

or any number of adversaries in between,

31:25

to say I'm sitting down to understand you

31:28

and I won't stand up until I can

31:30

state your position from the

31:32

eye. Yep. Isn't it

31:34

true that Scalia and our BFF

31:37

RBG, they were very close friends.

31:40

I mean, isn't that the perfect example of

31:42

people who do not agree, but

31:45

who have the common ground of

31:47

seeking justice? Their intimacy as friends

31:49

was very powerful and almost strange.

31:53

But what an example of what

31:55

we can achieve if they spent time

31:57

trying to convince each other

31:59

believe what the other one did, I think it would have

32:02

been a fruitless endeavor. But

32:04

they found a way to be friends,

32:06

connected, close, trusting friends. RBD. And

32:10

that's super curiosity-based. I really

32:12

want to understand. I mean, I felt that way when

32:14

I was listening to Derek Black. I was

32:16

like, I really want to know how you

32:18

got this in your head. It is riveting

32:21

to me, and it seems essential to me

32:23

that if we are to get where we both want to

32:25

go, I'm going to need to know how

32:27

you got here. Because if you

32:29

can deconstruct it for me, then maybe

32:32

we can deconstruct it for other people.

32:34

Absolutely. And, you know, my favorite James

32:36

Baldwin quote is, people who love each

32:38

other can disagree as long as our

32:40

disagreement is not rooted in my oppression.

32:43

You don't want to hurt me. You just

32:45

don't believe that the way to the

32:47

goal should be on my path. I'm good with that. I

32:49

am so good with that. In fact,

32:52

I would say that it's intellectually lazy for

32:54

me not to understand your point of view. I

32:57

should actually understand your point of view, even if I

32:59

don't agree with it. Yeah. The

33:01

fourth thing I wanted to talk about that

33:04

we all have in common is

33:06

that we live in these physical

33:08

bodies. We all have human minds

33:10

that have system limitations that we're

33:12

working to override because we've totally

33:14

surpassed all the evolutionary requirements of

33:16

our mind. And I have witnessed my

33:18

husband talk to this person at a party

33:20

he thought he disliked. And then it turned

33:22

out that they both had bad back almost

33:24

in the exact same way. And

33:26

then that led to this conversation about how

33:28

they both had acne when they

33:30

were in college and how brutal it

33:32

was. And then that led to the fact

33:34

that they both liked this band called Dela Soul. And

33:37

it was like, oh, the path in

33:40

for you was remembering

33:42

your physical nature. I

33:45

remember vividly watching The Sopranos.

33:47

And I was the person who had panic attacks

33:50

in my early 30s. I

33:52

was trying to start this company to help kids learn Shakespeare.

33:54

And I was trying to beat Cliff Notes. And I

33:56

was in debt. And then I started to have

33:58

these panic attacks. And then I watched it. The

34:00

Sopranos and in the first episode. Tony.

34:03

Soprano. The. Head of

34:05

this man's family has panic

34:07

attacks. And I remember thinking

34:09

that is the most brilliant way

34:12

for this show to establish some

34:14

kind of connection with him. Because.

34:16

It's coming in on this reality

34:18

of his. Bodily. Experience.

34:21

Vs. This totally unbelievable behavior that

34:24

he does at night and and

34:26

back alleys and and strip clubs

34:28

and he's both I is is

34:30

formidable and as vulnerable. Yes,

34:32

And you watch his. Private

34:35

sessions with the therapists great is you

34:37

know he's or this road to self

34:40

improvement even as he's terrified to set

34:42

free money. but it's a major things

34:44

on say are absolutely so. I feel

34:46

like people who are really at odds with each other, sit

34:48

around the table and just says is only her. Physical.

34:52

Ailment. Have you had a knee replacement of people?

34:54

Of the replacement to talk to each

34:56

other forever Absolutely Three. Breast cancer me

34:59

to you know did was realize your

35:01

hairline moving backwards. Moving back. Now. You.

35:03

See women do it a lot. It will

35:06

be like thing though. Or go says

35:08

to you have a bad

35:10

leslie yeah. I

35:13

think that when he a place

35:15

as be live in this covered

35:17

nineteen world every one. Was.

35:20

Just me and seduce to their bodies. And

35:22

it sounds. Perhaps bizarre. Like aren't we

35:24

already walking around in our bodies? bus?

35:27

From. Hand was saying. To.

35:29

Mask wearing. To

35:31

how close you sitting to see

35:33

someone. Every one is.

35:36

Painfully. Aware. Of

35:39

the proximity of bodies, The

35:41

cleanliness of bodies. And

35:44

I don't think it's a bad thing, frankly, because

35:46

as far as I know, this is the one

35:48

body we've got. And

35:50

maybe this is a thing that oh, remind

35:52

us that we're all connected, is fully human.

35:54

If you thought we were all living in

35:56

isolation, says look at some of the tree

35:59

thing for this. disease. And so I

36:01

think this is a moment of great humility when it

36:03

comes to the body. This is the first time

36:05

in centuries that we've all had something in

36:08

common that we're so poignantly aware globally of this

36:10

thing that we have in common. I remember when

36:12

my father was dying he was in hospice he

36:14

went in on a Sunday and he

36:16

died on a Tuesday night and I

36:19

had this total epiphany where

36:21

everyone I looked at the seven-year-old who was

36:23

in to visit his grandfather, the 32 year

36:25

old nurse who I think

36:28

was flirting with my brother, the older

36:30

woman who worked behind the counter who was always painting

36:32

her nails, all of them will die. And

36:35

I remember my dad saying, I feel

36:38

so bad lovey look at all the work I'm creating for

36:40

all these people. And I said they're

36:42

all gonna be cared for like this. Absolutely.

36:44

It's gonna happen to every single one of

36:46

them they can't escape this. Yeah

36:48

this is one you can't override this body

36:50

will fail. And it's scary. I think

36:53

it's really scary. I don't know how you felt when you turned

36:56

50 but there was that moment when I

36:58

thought statistically I'm

37:02

past the halfway point. Mm-hmm.

37:05

This body just by

37:07

design will not do what it's been doing

37:09

for 50 more years. And I had to

37:12

cast aside that fear so I could continue to get

37:14

out of bed and do my work in the world

37:16

but it's a

37:18

very humbling feeling when things

37:21

are not moving as quickly.

37:23

I wish I had done more

37:26

Kelly. Hmm well that's interesting because that sort

37:28

of takes me into the fifth and last arena

37:30

of common ground which is that

37:32

we are all very experienced with

37:34

a common set of emotions. Absolutely.

37:36

Like regret. Yep. Like looking back

37:38

and saying like I should have climbed more mountains. Yep.

37:40

Well I could. And you

37:42

know there's also the pandemic related regrets of

37:44

like I really should have gone

37:47

to see my mom in February. Mmm. I didn't

37:49

know that I was gonna be locked up and

37:51

off planes for this long and I often

37:54

feel like if people could be

37:56

reminded who feel very opposed to

37:58

one another that that all of us

38:01

know what it feels like to miss

38:03

someone. All of us knows what it

38:05

feels like to regret something

38:07

deeply. People know what

38:09

unfairness feels like at all levels. You get

38:12

diagnosed with cancer at 36 and

38:15

you're sitting in the infusion center and then you think,

38:17

hmm, this doesn't seem right, does it? Like

38:19

I have a one and two year old at home or

38:22

your husband cheats on you or you

38:24

get passed over or people

38:26

understand at some

38:29

basic level what

38:31

a bunch of emotions feel like. I

38:33

think it's so funny to think

38:35

back on those moments where your common

38:37

ground is suddenly revealed to you like

38:39

in an airport when the flight gets

38:41

announced that it's delayed or that it's

38:43

canceled. And then all of a sudden,

38:45

everybody who's been irritating you all around you, eating

38:48

the smelly food or biting their fingernails and

38:50

spitting them on the floor. Talking to you,

38:52

no. Yeah, exactly. And then the poor person

38:54

who has to announce that the flight's canceled.

38:56

Now all of a sudden, you're all like

38:58

comrades and suffering. This

39:00

idea of regret, collective regret,

39:02

resonates with me at this time. I

39:04

am a trustee at Columbia and President

39:07

Bolinger. Very fancy. It is fancy. I

39:09

had no idea you were a Brooklyn

39:11

girl, you know. Right on, girl. President

39:14

Bolinger is using a term

39:16

recently, the New Civil Rights

39:19

Movement. This idea that

39:22

perhaps in this moment there is collective

39:24

regret for not having faced the things

39:26

in our country is

39:28

also very powerful. I

39:31

have never seen more people galvanized

39:33

for justice. And

39:35

it's inspiring. And it's not

39:37

as if class hasn't been going on,

39:39

but it's okay if you've come three hours late

39:42

for class. If you're now

39:44

sitting down in the class of justice

39:46

and equity, then let's go. Let's have a

39:48

bigger class. And I think what I

39:51

hear and see voices that were

39:53

basically silent before, the people who were just used

39:55

to watching things go by

39:57

and being satisfied by being. not

40:00

that, not sexist, not racist,

40:02

not homophobic. Now they're

40:05

anti. I'm going to stand

40:07

up and do something about it. I think the

40:09

collective indignation that we're seeing, whether

40:12

it happened to your son or someone

40:14

else's son, that we

40:16

have this thread that connects

40:18

us, that

40:21

human sinew, if you will, that this

40:23

is the muscle that unites people and

40:25

allows us to activate the best in

40:27

us. What's so interesting, the way you

40:29

just said that was, whether

40:32

it's your son or someone else's son, and that

40:34

takes us all the way back to where we

40:36

started, which is in those final minutes of George

40:38

Floyd, he brought up his mother. And

40:42

I think anybody who watched that was

40:45

triggered to recognize the

40:47

common ground there, which is every one

40:50

of us would do anything to protect

40:52

our kids. Amen to that.

40:55

Love you, Wanda. Love you too, girl. As

41:00

ever, when Wanda's involved, I came away

41:03

from our conversation with pages of notes

41:06

and loads of things to think about

41:08

over the ensuing days. This

41:10

conversation and the coming conversations

41:12

with Wanda were enormously comforting

41:15

to me and left me hopeful and optimistic, and I

41:17

hope the same is true for you. I

41:20

did want to give you nine

41:22

takeaways from the conversation, and as usual,

41:24

I will post them on Medium. That's

41:27

my production partner for this

41:29

series, so it's medium.com/at Kelly.

41:32

Okay, nine takeaways from

41:34

talking to Wanda. One, all

41:37

people are fiercely protective of their

41:40

children, which means belligerents

41:43

often fueled by a deep and panicked mob.

41:46

Two, to be an African-American

41:49

mother is to live in

41:51

constant fear that your children might

41:54

not come home. Three,

41:57

if there were an IKEA one pager to describe how

41:59

to raise their children, As a kid, it would say,

42:02

let this thing put itself together. Four,

42:06

each of us comes into the world

42:08

assuming our parents' values. It

42:11

is a necessary act of courage to

42:14

interrogate those values when we become an adult.

42:19

Wanda Hollingreen did not wear a pair of pants until

42:21

she was 29 years old. The

42:26

most important reason we assemble is

42:28

to be challenged, to be pushed

42:31

by a diversity of viewpoints. Learning

42:35

and judgment do not mix. If

42:37

you wanna teach, drop the condescension.

42:41

Eight, when it comes to

42:43

converting races, conversation,

42:45

curiosity, and discover, beat

42:48

banishment almost every time. Nine,

42:53

we must learn to override

42:55

the evolutionary instinct that

42:58

translates other as danger.

43:02

Thank you so much for being here.

43:04

Thanks to Wanda Hollingreen. Big, huge thanks

43:07

to Medium for production support and

43:09

everyone at PRX. Kelly

43:11

Corrigan Wonders is produced by Susan George.

43:13

Our sound engineer is Dean Kateri. Thank

43:17

you so much for being here. Until next

43:19

week, let's meet up online at medium.com slash

43:22

at Kelly. See you next week. Thank

43:26

you. Hey,

43:41

I have a quick favorite to ask. We

43:43

are conducting a survey to get to know

43:46

you, our audience, better.