0:00

And you're just, you know, you're just worried about feeding your family and

0:03

paying your bills and all that other stuff. But then you get to a place where you're financially secure and you're like,

0:09

oh, my God, where did that weed come from?

0:13

I see that weed on my. Oh, my God. I've got it. Like you start really concentrating

0:17

on your grass. You start really concentrating.

0:22

You're like, I was so broke. And then I found some weed.

0:26

I didn't completely understand. No. Oh, you're thinking weed weed.

0:30

Well. I meant like weeds in my garden or weeds on my.

0:34

Yes. I got with you eventually. Okay. I did it.

0:38

Music.

1:00

I know politics bore you, but I feel like a hypocrite talking to you and your racist friend.

1:10

And now it's time for my racist friend. A time for reflection.

1:17

A time for joy.

1:21

For laughter. For tears. I'm Don Griffin.

1:26

And I'm Amy McKeese. And we're talking about the messy parts of relationships

1:32

that help us grow together. There, we did it all. So sit back and relax.

1:38

I think you need a second career as like an NPR guy. Oh, you think so?

1:44

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You just have to stop in the middle of sentences.

1:54

Don Griffin was a realtor.

1:58

Oh, my God. I always feel so much smarter after listening to NPR.

2:04

Do you? Yeah, I really do. Maybe I should try doing that.

2:08

It's been a long time. It's relaxing, especially on a Saturday and a Sunday.

2:14

And it's funny. Some of it's funny. Some of it's, what's the one?

2:18

Wait, wait, don't tell me. Wait, wait, don't tell me. I think that's hilarious.

2:23

And then Hidden Brain. I do like the Hidden Brain.

2:27

I listen to the podcast. We always hear someone from high school at the end that heard- What?

2:32

Yes, it's Jennifer Munson is the technical person or something for the hidden brain.

2:40

Isn't that cool? Yeah. First time I heard it, I was like, Jennifer Munson.

2:45

Is that like Bloomington Jennifer Munson?

2:49

And so I like sent her a message. I was like, hey, that's pretty cool.

2:53

And she's like, thank you. So anyway. You know, it seems like things come up a lot at once.

3:01

But it seems like one that I keep hearing is boundaries.

3:07

Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. In what respect? In the respect of creating

3:11

boundaries for the space?

3:14

See, I'd only thought of boundaries in one way until we had that first conversation.

3:19

About boundaries how did you think of them before

3:22

that hey don you don't

3:25

have many but you don't have enough boundaries you don't have you know

3:29

you either overstep your boundaries or let too many people mostly let too many

3:34

people in that shouldn't be in your space yeah so boundaries in that respect

3:40

and now and but this new version of boundaries that i'm hearing in boundaries

3:45

is It is creating boundaries, creating a space where people can actually be comfortable in speaking truth and that kind of thing.

3:57

So the term boundaries is a positive now for me.

4:02

Yeah, I think it can be positive. Yeah. We're talking about coming into work

4:06

and being happy to see people. If you can say, oh, this is something that I need, or scoot over,

4:14

or whatever it is that you need to say to be comfortable, then you can actually

4:19

enjoy being around other people.

4:22

You pick out three cards. It's like a tarot card reading. Yeah.

4:29

Okay. Now you have to put them out so we can see them.

4:33

Okay, so what am I doing here? The one in the middle is the problem,

4:37

and the two around it are information about that.

4:41

Is that really how that works? I just made it up. I thought I understood these

4:44

cards, and now it's a game. When you play with tarot cards and stuff, you can do stuff like that.

4:51

Yeah, see, I've never done that. Relational movement. I don't think that's anything we've ever talked about.

4:59

You know, we've talked about the one true thing, right? Right.

5:02

And when I think of the one true thing, I think of being able to say something

5:05

that's true for you and that allows for movement in the relationship.

5:11

Right. So it doesn't like box the other person into a corner by saying that

5:16

stupid and relational movement.

5:20

I think of as being able to move within the relationship or the relationship itself moving.

5:28

Is this advanced this whole this concept you think this is advanced you gotta

5:32

get the other step down before we can talk about this. When we've been doing our RCT in practice stuff, we've started,

5:40

we've sort of based everything that we do in the central relational paradox,

5:46

which is the idea that you really need relationships.

5:51

And so in order to stay in the relationships, because you've been hurt,

5:55

because of things you've learned along the way, you hide parts of yourself that

5:59

you've decided are too risky to share.

6:03

And then the paradox is you don't get the relationship. because you're hiding parts of yourself.

6:07

We've used that as a starting place. And then all of these other things sort

6:12

of come out of that pretty naturally.

6:14

I've also heard people teach relational cultural theory by starting with the

6:19

context where it emerged, you know, that it was,

6:24

a group of women talking about their experience

6:27

as therapists in a world

6:30

where they were trained mostly by men who were pathologizing things that were

6:39

you know traditionally thought of as things women do like tending to relationships

6:44

or caring too much you know stuff like that so.

6:50

I've heard it that way and when you start there then a lot of these other ideas

6:54

sort of emerge differently but i i don't know that i guess what i'm saying is

6:59

i don't know that there's advanced.

7:01

I think there's some that are a little bit heady.

7:04

Since we've been talking about this, should I read it? Do you want to read it? Yeah.

7:08

Okay. Relational movement. Relationships are dynamic processes. They are always in movement toward either

7:16

better connection or increasing disconnection.

7:20

That shows that it can go either way. Yes. Which is nice.

7:24

It's, hey, things, if we do this, things are going to get better because sometimes they can't.

7:28

Right. Then you feel bad because you thought, I did the thing.

7:31

Why didn't it get better? Why didn't it get better? Okay. So this is good.

7:34

With a flow of mutual empathy, participants in a relationship move toward more

7:39

connection, changing the relationship to make room for expansion.

7:44

Yeah. So the mutual empathy is the big piece there. But this is what I wrote

7:48

about empathy. We're talking about mutual empathy in the relational movement.

7:52

Empathy is a paradox, a sense of sameness and a sense of the particulars of others.

8:00

Although you are joining, you are aware that you are being affected by the other.

8:05

It involves emotion and cognition.

8:09

It isn't just having the same experience.

8:12

It's about sharing your experience of empathy. And at that moment, no one feels alone.

8:19

And then underneath that, I wrote, isolation is one of the primary causes of human suffering.

8:25

Anyway, I really liked that because there's lots of talk now about empathy and

8:29

like, what does empathy mean? Like the difference between empathy and sympathy and the difference between

8:34

empathy and compassion. And how do you have empathy for someone without being so swept away by their

8:42

experience that you're not helpful? And I liked that because because what she was saying there is that you are joining

8:49

and you are experiencing what that person is experiencing while simultaneously

8:54

being aware of your own experience and who you are.

8:58

I like that the whole there needs to be shared empathy.

9:02

Uh-huh. For relational movement. For relational movement.

9:06

If we're talking, you know, if we're talking about being a good ally.

9:10

Okay. Good ally, no matter what. But that group is not asking you to be a hero.

9:17

Right. Right? Yes, just to listen.

9:21

Just to listen, but also the relationship grows when we have mutual empathy.

9:28

Mm-hmm. When we're all in it. Does that make sense? Yeah, when we're in it together.

9:32

When we're in it together. And mutuality is one of my favorite words,

9:36

because the idea that we're both being moved by each other and experiencing

9:42

moving the other person. Mm-hmm.

9:46

Because whether or not we know it, just because it's not happening to me and

9:54

it's happening to you, we're both suffering because as a community,

9:59

we're not moving together. The only way we can get there, utopia, if that ever exists, but the only way

10:06

we can actually get there is if we get together, we have to get there together.

10:11

Part of what makes us have these rigid boundaries and not have relational movement

10:18

is a fear of experiencing that suffering.

10:23

Like, you don't want to open yourself up. You don't want to look at that person

10:28

that's trying to talk to you when you're walking down the street because it's uncomfortable at best.

10:36

But also, it's a reminder that kind of suffering is right there,

10:41

right in front of you as a part of your community.

10:46

So then you get sort of rigid. I hate where this is going. I'm going to tell you why. Why?

10:52

Because it makes me look inside myself in a different way, the way we're talking.

10:58

Like, Daryl Davis, the whole idea of him befriending racists and KKK members

11:07

and Grand Dragons, it always bugged me.

11:11

I have a dislike for that concept.

11:15

You know what I mean? I just have a dislike for liking anybody that is about hate.

11:22

So this conversation that we're talking about, if we're really digging into it, he's kind of right.

11:29

What you're talking about, the person that's suffering on the sidelines that

11:35

I'm trying to ignore, it's the racist.

11:39

Somehow their hatred for others,

11:43

there is something deep inside of that person that That is hurting,

11:48

that needs them to find other people to be subpar for them to keep living,

11:56

for them not to see the darkness that's in their head.

12:01

They need to believe these things.

12:05

I follow you. I hate to follow it that way, but if we are.

12:09

I follow you. And I think that RCT has something useful to add to that particular conversation,

12:15

which is that relational cultural theory looks at power in a relationship as well.

12:24

And so when you're talking about the KKK specifically,

12:31

you're talking about a group of white people who had power and who were terrified

12:38

of losing power and abused their power to take the terror out of them and put

12:47

it on other people. Sure. So RCT is not saying empathize with their use of power.

12:56

RCT is saying you can empathize with fear. You can be like, wow,

13:01

that person's really scared.

13:04

And you can insist. And that's where that's where boundaries come in. Right.

13:12

Because me saying, sure, go ahead and have a racist barbecue in my front yard.

13:21

That's OK with me.

13:24

I want to be friendly. Apparently, yes.

13:30

Right. I don't have to do that. You don't have to do that. You can say,

13:34

I understand that you're scared.

13:36

Here's some resources. And I'm not going to engage in a conversation that is this hurtful.

13:44

And then and then you can move. But but that still involves seeing the person.

13:49

Okay. And for the record, I was talking about seeing unhoused people.

13:54

I know you were. Okay. I know exactly what you were saying.

13:57

But then when you were talking about someone that's hurting and us and trying to ignore it. Yeah.

14:03

It's a different type of hurt, but it's.

14:07

They're scary and they're scared. They're both. They're a little bit of both. Yeah.

14:11

But the con game is that whatever has been going badly for them. Mm-hmm.

14:18

It's all about foreigners. It's all about black people. It's all about Jewish

14:21

people. It's all about women. It's all about trans.

14:25

It's all about. It's not about them. Someone is convincing them, not just Trump, but other people are convincing

14:31

them that the people who are actually making their lives worse have convinced them that it's about us.

14:38

And it's not that we're taking the jobs that we're taking. And so then when

14:44

there's that much fear, then there's not relational movement.

14:49

It gives us the opportunity to reach out to create this movement that we can

14:55

either connect or it doesn't work and we can then disconnect.

15:00

Connect you can look through the building and find some lovely

15:03

circles that kevin has drawn about

15:07

the cycle of connecting disconnecting reconnecting and that it is normal in

15:13

most relationships you can go back you could to disconnect yes so it's not a

15:17

complete like you don't write anyone you're not you don't have you don't have

15:21

to you can say what you're doing hurts me.

15:27

I'm not going to engage with it. I care about you.

15:31

And I'm open to discussing this down the line when you can meet my needs for

15:38

safety in this conversation. You know what? I just now have a great idea.

15:44

You could take this, put it on some t-shirts, the whole image,

15:49

and sell these right before Thanksgiving so that people can wear them when And they go home.

15:57

Many other people are going to be wearing their, I drink 28 mil water a day. Ask me how.

16:05

I'm just saying this will let people go into the holidays thinking, okay, I can do this.

16:11

I'm going to reach back out to my uncle or my granddad or whatever. Right.

16:18

And if it doesn't work out, I can go let it go. So maybe come back 12 months.

16:24

Maybe it's going to be 24 months. But I don't know. A lot of people can actually use this advice.

16:31

Yes. Yes, I think so. I think like the opposite of movement is stuck, right?

16:37

And stuck is not a place anyone wants to be.

16:42

Yet if you write too many people off.

16:45

Isolation is the glue that holds oppression in place.

16:49

There you go. that means we're not talking to each other and nothing gets changed,

16:56

because no new ideas are coming forward.

16:59

Hmm. See, Kevin, we got there. We actually started to, we actually talked about something. We did.

17:07

What were the other cards? Okay. Let's see what else we got.

17:11

The relational movement is our center when I'm putting it right there.

17:14

We have calm and we have guilt.

17:18

Oh, interesting. Dang. Yeah, I know. I like guilt. Do you?

17:24

Yeah, I do. I'm weird that way, but I like guilt because I think it can help you do better.

17:31

At least the way it makes sense to me is to separate it out from shame.

17:36

Guilt being, wow, I did a shitty thing.

17:40

I'm going to try not to do that again, or I'm going to try to make it right.

17:44

I'm going to learn from this experience. But shame is more, I'm ashamed of the basic essence of who I am and think that I'm unlovable.

17:54

Okay yeah i see how you have separated the

17:57

guilt from the the shame that's okay you

18:01

want me to read this whole thing you can if you kind of just said everything

18:04

did i say everything that's not there yeah i mean you wrote this so right predictable

18:08

yes okay guilt is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense or

18:15

wrong whether real or imagined is often associated associated with discrete

18:19

acts of transgression or violations of standards.

18:24

By contrast, shame is a sense of being inherently unworthy of connection and can be immobilizing.

18:31

So I can feel guilty when I learn that a phrase I've been saying turns out to hurt people.

18:42

Like lots of phrases that you and I have, I'm sure, said over the years,

18:47

and then come to a place where we're like, oh, we don't use that.

18:51

Term anymore. And I can feel guilty about it.

18:55

And then I can do better. Or I can realize that assumptions that I was holding

19:02

are steeped in like our own history of racism that I couldn't even see until

19:08

I started really looking at it. I think it's entirely reasonable to feel

19:13

guilty about that and then to push myself

19:17

to learn more and to do better and that's that's

19:20

to me great yeah but if

19:24

i someone who thinks i could

19:27

never be racist i could

19:30

never be any bad things things

19:33

and then you say hey Amy

19:37

that phrase it's derived

19:40

from this racist thing and I

19:43

can't quite line that up in my head

19:46

with my idea that I can never be racist and then

19:49

I fall into this like spiral of shame where I'm

19:52

like oh my god I'm I'm unworthy of being in community because I can't even do

19:59

this right or you're like that isn't racist you're a jerk for calling me a racist

20:06

and then you protect yourself from that spiral of shame by being really rigid.

20:11

So guilt is pretty big being able to accept guilt but not shame yes is really

20:20

big in growth I think so. Yeah.

20:51

One to hurt the other person or hurt anybody that's listening.

20:55

When we learn about it, we're going to try to make it right.

20:57

Be like, hey, we screwed up. Mm hmm. To do that, we have you have to be open to criticism, open to hearing.

21:06

Yeah. That which is hard. Damn, I'm wrong.

21:10

Yeah. And that's really hard. Like, and I would say, like, in in therapy,

21:15

it's both like essential for therapy to go well, is that like the client has

21:21

to be able to say, oh, you got that wrong or I can't learn and then do better.

21:27

But also i have to be open to whoa

21:32

when i said that i really like i

21:35

said something and i saw that person's face change

21:38

and it's clear that what i said hurt

21:41

and i don't even exactly know why but

21:44

i am i am here and i am ready to learn instead

21:48

of being like oh you misinterpreted me that's not what i

21:50

meant be like wow that hurt let's work

21:54

on repair see see you're

21:58

a genius that is not that was not the conclusion i was gonna read anus yeah

22:04

so how how does guilt connect to relational movement it allows for movement

22:10

whereas shame gets you rigid and down yeah you're able to move Yeah.

22:15

Oh, yeah. I mean, to paraphrase the author of this card, which is by contrast,

22:22

shame is a sense of being inherently unworthy of connection and can be immobilizing.

22:28

Yeah. Who wrote that? I don't know.

22:31

All right. So the other card was calm.

22:35

Do you want to tell us what calm? I can because Calm is a part of like a set

22:40

of cards that goes, they all go with the book Wired to Connect by Amy Banks.

22:46

Okay. I highly recommend this book. I like it because it's accessible.

22:52

And takes some mental health ideas and operationalizes them so that you can feel better, really.

23:01

So she has the, like, pathways of the brain that lead to feeling better,

23:05

and it's called the CARE system, and the C stands for calm, the A stands for accepted,

23:13

the R stands for resonance, and the E stands for energy.

23:16

So this is the CALM card, which is the C in CARE.

23:20

And the calm part is being able to experience a sense of calm that you can get

23:28

from the people who are growth fostering relationships in your life.

23:33

So the story that I think of in her book is of someone going to a Christmas

23:39

party and they didn't want to go.

23:42

It's like a work party and they're like, oh, I don't want to go. I don't like anybody.

23:46

It's a new job. I feel like I don't fit in yet. and they're at the party and

23:50

they're looking around and everyone they see, they're like, see,

23:53

Don's looking at me funny and nobody wants to talk to me. And this is so uncomfortable.

23:58

And then they see the one person at work that they've really made a strong connection with.

24:03

You see someone that you know likes you, that you know you like,

24:07

that has this calming influence on you.

24:10

And suddenly the rest of the people don't look as scary or mean.

24:15

It doesn't look like they're They're talking about you. It looks like they're just people, too.

24:19

And then it's easier to it's easier for relational movement.

24:26

What if you start to notice that other people, they're not connecting?

24:30

They haven't connected yet. And you become that person. Yeah.

24:34

That makes that start to make those connections with those people that are feeling alone.

24:39

Mm hmm. And we actually did an interview with, at the time, he was a sixth grader,

24:47

I think, or a seventh grader on like, we were doing the SIFTs,

24:51

where you like try to get at the implicit skills that people have that they

24:55

can't really describe because they do them so well, but it just is sort of natural.

25:00

And his skill was

25:03

basically what you just described and the

25:07

example that he gave was if i

25:10

were on the school playground and a new

25:13

kid came up that looked like he didn't know anyone what would

25:16

i do i'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it

25:19

was so dear yeah so yeah you could

25:22

become that person is my point yeah actually

25:26

i love that all right do you want me to read this or no i mean you you kind

25:31

of said everything i mean i'll read it anyway so that i can at least have a

25:37

part i need a part to play if i if not i'm just here making i'm just here for eye candy.

25:48

Okay. As used in the care system, calm is a feeling present when your brain senses you're safe.

25:55

When we are able to experience safety, we have fuller access to healing.

26:01

That's pretty deep. Well, it is. And it makes me think about having the conversations

26:06

about racism and what can make those conversations feel, how we could create

26:11

safety in those conversations,

26:14

because those are risky, inherently risky conversations.

26:18

So how do we create a sense of safety? Yeah, if you don't feel safe,

26:23

you're not going to put yourself out there. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

26:27

When we are able to experience safety, we have fuller access to healing.

26:32

Mm-hmm. I'm sorry. It's just, it's good.

26:36

It's a good sentence. Well, and it's so important. Like during our last summit,

26:41

when Amy, like every single like little breakout session we had,

26:45

someone would bring in like a case study and be like, so Amy,

26:48

this thing happened and this, and this was really hard.

26:51

And her answer was almost always, okay, wait, walk it back.

26:55

How do we create a safe place for this person?

26:59

What does this person need to feel safe?

27:03

Music.

27:12

This episode of My Racist Friend is a production of the Bloomington Center for

27:15

Connection, an organization using relational cultural theory to promote social

27:19

change through connection. This conversation between Don Griffin Jr. and Amy McKeese, LCSW,

27:25

took place on March 11, 2024 in Bloomington, Indiana, and was edited for this

27:30

podcast by Kevin McKeese. Theme music lovingly sampled from Your Racist Friend by They Might Be Giants.

27:36

Follow Bloomington Center for Connection on Facebook and other social media platforms.

28:06

Asteroids huh with more lakes and even prettier like breathtakingly beautiful

28:12

and every store is full of like doors it's got a lot of door stores,

28:22

door county is that what you were doing yes i was my god.