Last week, we brought you part one of a two-part series about the myths around abuse and coercive control.

We had originally planned to release the second part of that series this week, however, we decided that given the events of the past few weeks, in particular, how things really escalated this week around the issues of racial injustice, we decided instead to release this interview with Lucretia Berry.

Lucretia is the creator of Brownicity, an anti-race/ism curriculum specialist, a writer for in(Courage).me, the author of What LIES Between Us Journal & Guide: Fostering First Steps Toward Racial Healing, a TED Talker, and a Senior Consultant for The American Dream Game. She received her Ph.D. in Education (Curriculum & Instruction) from Iowa State University.

In this episode, Lucretia shares why she created Brownicity and how it helps those at the beginning of their anti-racism journey, how the protests are about more than the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, how racism and racial injustice extends beyond police brutality, her response to those feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what to say or how to show up for others right now, why you can just jump on the bandwagon and follow along with things you see happening on social media, how she is discussing racism and anti-racism in her own multi-ethnic family, and more.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Brownicity Website
• Lucretia Berry’s Book | What LIES Between Us Journal & Guide: Fostering First Steps Toward Racial Healing
• Lucretia Berry’s Tedx Talk | Children will light up the world if we don’t keep them in the dark
• Brownicity Online Learning Membership
• What Lies Between Us Virtual 5-Week Anti-racism Education Course
• Brownicity Resource Library

 

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Transcript

Hey there!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Last week, we were set to kick off a series on understanding power structures.  And we began that series with a conversation that is actually a two-part conversation about the myths around abuse and coercive control.  So, we offered seven myths, and then we have seven more to share.  But we decided that given the events of the past few weeks – in particular, how things really escalated this week around the issues of racial injustice, social injustice, and the rioting and everything – we decided that we were going to go ahead.  

We had this interview with Lucretia planned, and rather than pushing it to where we were going to put it in the series, we decided to pull it right up to the front.  So, the rest of those myths will be posted next week as our next episode.

And today, I have with me Lucretia Berry from Brownicity.  Lucretia, well, she’s going to tell you a little bit more about herself and how she started this organization and what she does with it, but I love their tagline and I want to share it with you; “Many Hues, One Humanity.”  In researching for this interview with Lucretia, one of the things that I ran across was her example of just how everybody is just a different shade of brown.  It’s not like we’re, you know, white and brown and black, but we’re really all a different shade of brown and we are one humanity.

So, how can we, as voices of influence, have some sort of impact in this conversation?  What should we be doing?  What should I be doing with myself?  What should I be saying online or with others?  How do we have this conversation in a way that it’s really productive and not hurtful?  I know a lot of times we get frustrated because we’re wanting to contribute to a conversation like this, and we try but then we find out, “Oh, shoot, I said the wrong thing.”  And then we feel stupid, and we go hide back under our shell.

Well, I want to encourage you that Lucretia is going to have some words for you today that will be very helpful.  And the main thrust of this conversation is that it’s not just about jumping on a bandwagon right now.  It’s not just about declaring that we’re not racist.  It’s about going on a journey of deprogramming the inherent racism that we grew up with, the way that the world works, and understanding how we got to where we are now.  Instead of writing it off, taking it in, listening, admitting that maybe, I don’t know everything.  Maybe my perspective is limited and it’s important for me to listen.

So, I’m really, really honored to provide you with this conversation with Lucretia Berry.

Andrea:  All right.  So, Lucretia Berry is the creator of brownicity.com, a contributor for incourage.me, and a TED and Q Ideas speaker at TED Charlotte.  As a wife, mom of three and former college professor, her passion for racial healing led her to author What LIES Between Us:  Fostering First Steps Toward Racial Healing.

Lucretia, I’m really, really grateful that we had this conversation scheduled and that we’re here today.  I’m honored to have you, and would you tell us a little bit more about what you do with your organization, Brownicity?

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  Well, thank you for having me in.  Oh, my goodness, what timing this is because we scheduled this a while ago, a long time ago.

Brownicity – our tagline is “Many Hues, One Humanity”.  And as you said, I think because I am a former college professor – my doctorate is in education, curriculum, and instruction – I think I was literally designed to be a teacher, even though I didn’t want to become a teacher because of… we don’t really pay teachers or appreciate teachers.  I think after COVID, we do now.  But we didn’t before so I didn’t have aspirations to be a teacher, but just naturally, you know, I do love to teach.

So, Brownicity is more heavily focused on equipping and liberating people through making quality education around anti-racism literacy accessible.  So, for example, currently, you know, you can probably take a college course if you’re a college student.  If there are organizations in your community where you can do a workshop or something like that, those are available.  But what I was finding with lots of my friends, especially parents, moms, and regular everyday people are not policymakers or working at a corporation where they would get some type of diversity training… they didn’t have a touch point or access to some structured education.

And for the most part, it’s left up to people to educate themselves.  So, the good thing about that right now is that there are a lot of books now.  I would say like five years ago or so, not really.  Not a lot of like, you know, read it yourself and you can maybe figure this out yourself.  So, I put in… you know, like scaffolded education in place, and I started teaching… or I should say we, because it’s a group of us – so we just started teaching like in our communities.  Our first official “we’re doing this” type of… it was a woman who lived in a neighborhood who said, “I have a big house, I have lots of neighbors, and I’m going to invite them into my house.  Can you please come and teach my neighborhood?”  “Yes!”

Andrea:  Right.

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  So, we go into churches.  Ultimately, I was asked to come into a school.  So, I packaged this curriculum or this kind of foundational course; it’s called What LIES Between Us, Journal & Guide: Fostering First Step Toward Racial Healing.  Because in my experience of doing this work, and attending workshops and meetings and kind of community-organized efforts is that people who are new to the conversation and even the idea of, you know, anti-racism… there weren’t a lot of resources for people who are new.  And so much of the good content, I believe, is for people who are already kind of on the journey.

So, there’s already this understanding that what race and racism actually are, like, they’re constructs, they’re not biological.  Well, the beginner, you know, doesn’t really know that and hasn’t been immersed in that understanding.  So, I wanted to create something, or I did create something that kind of takes the beginner and gives them a foundational understanding – here are definitions, here are terms, here’s how race was created as a construct and it’s not biological.  And then this is how the narratives been shaped and formed and fit into policies or policies shaped narratives.  This is how we’ve cultivated this over the years, and then this is the lens you have to have to be able to analyze these structures and institutions, and then here’s the lens you have to have to analyze yourself.

So, when people start there, then they’re able to move forward with more clarity and more urgency and wherever they decide to take their, you know, fundamental anti-racism education.  So, I am African-American.  My husband is white American.  We actually met doing this type of work together in a church, and we became great friends and then ultimately got married.  So, we’ve always been kind of immersed in awareness and consciousness, and have been active and intentional and hungry to learn more, to be a part of disrupting and dismantling kind of the systems, policies, behaviors, and beliefs that are in place that continue to move us…  They continue to keep us in the flow collectively, in the flow of racism.

So, we’ve been intentional and active about how to disrupt that flow or how to create an anti-racism flow, and therefore we’ve just been very vocal with our children.  And even before we had children, we talked about, “What is our framework for talking about racial dynamics in this country with our multi-ethnic children,” because it’s going to be a different education or different conversation than what my husband had growing up in Iowa in a white family.  And it’s going to be different than what I had growing up in the south in North Carolina in a black family.  So, again, we’ve had to do the work and figure some things out.  And yeah, I just told you all those things.

Andrea:  Thank you!

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  And here we are.

Andrea:  That’s perfect!  I think that lays a really solid foundation for the rest of our conversation because everybody has a better idea of where you’re coming from.  And I really appreciate the fact that Brownicity focuses, at least, gives the beginner the opportunity to understand this perspective and to understand the dynamics that are at play right now – not just right now, but all the time.  And because I think that, you know, we are having this conversation… usually, you know, it takes us a couple of weeks, at least or sometimes a couple of months after we have an interview before we release it.  And we’re having this conversation a couple of days before we release it because of everything that’s been going on lately.

I mean, the response to the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, have certainly spotlighted injustice and triggered a national or international conversation about systemic injustice that people of color experience.  So, I want to ask you, from your point of view, what is the message that we all should be hearing right now?

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  Okay, so what we should be hearing is we have a deficit and we have been complicit with our deficit in loving, caring about, and offering opportunity to all of our citizens equally or in a way that treats everyone with the humanity in which they deserve to be treated.  So, you know, it’s unfortunate that it takes these types of tragedies to see the kind of the perpetual, ongoing, rampant systems that have been set in place, right, and secured and sustained for a long time because these are just like some outcomes and it’s just a few outcomes.  But, you know, we have people dying every day.

And I don’t mean dying, like, at the hands of police brutality.  I’m saying like, you know, African-Americans get less significant healthcare, or ghettoized – pushed into ghetto housing or displaced.  And, so, I think what we should be hearing now is there is a problem and it’s not going to go away until we actually address it, until we actually fix it and correct it.  And I hope people are hearing that it’s time to really understand the problem because it’s real.  So, it’s not made up.  This isn’t like an anecdotal, you know, every now and then this happens.  We have just been flowing in this stream and so fish have been dying.  And, so, I hope people are understanding, “Okay, now it’s time to look at the water and not simply look at the fish.  Let’s take a look at this water, let’s sample this water, and then let’s begin to detox this water.”

And many of us have been taught that the water is fine, you know, and our frameworks for even perceiving the water… it’s like you have a framework that allows you to perceive that the water is fine.  So, again, we need to look at the water and we also need to look at our lenses, through which we are offered this reality because our lenses have been skewed and our water is toxic, so as a result, you know, we see…

And now, in this day and age, we can film all of these things versus a few years ago, when something would happen that was overt like this… because again, racism unfolds and it impacts every single day in institutional ways, and in representation and exclusion, and all those things.  These are just cases that we are seeing that are so overt and flagrant that it grabs you and makes you see what has been happening for hundreds of years, or the seeds we’ve sown for hundreds of years.

Andrea:  And the protests have certainly grabbed.  I mean, it makes sense to me that it has taken even these voices rising up, even though, you know, nobody wants to see destruction.  At the same time, there’s been this awakening too, “Oh my gosh they’re really serious.  What’s going on?”  I think that there are people that are saying, “Okay, so what are we supposed to do here?”  And there’s this post kind of being copied and pasted and going around Facebook about, you know, “What am I supposed to do?  Like, if I’m silent, this happens; if I speak up, this happens; if I am trying to spread positivity, this happens,” and so on.

And I know the other day, the Blackout Tuesday, you know, there was a lot of concern about the hashtag.  If we use the #BlackLivesMatter with that particular picture then all of the other things that are being talked about with BlackLivesMatter gets pushed down in the newsfeeds and whatnot.  And I think that people are confused and frustrated thinking, “Wait a second, I’m trying to help.  Oh no, I screwed it up again.”

So, when people are wanting to help, they want to be good fellow humans, but they’re feeling caught off-guard and not really sure what to say or do.  What do you want to say to us?

Dr. Lucretia Berry:   I think, of course, people feel the pain or they are feeling the pain.  Like maybe they haven’t before to this degree, but I am realizing that people are feeling the pain of this time right now to a greater degree and saying you know, “What can I do?”  So, what happens is we want to react and, of course, social media is created for that, right?  It’s inherent in, you know, its design to say, “This is what I’m doing right now, and this is what we should be doing right now.”  So, what I would suggest – and have been suggesting for like five years – is that we don’t have these reactions that haven’t been thought-out, but instead that we become or we start or we maintain a journey that is anti-racism or anti-racist.  So, we make it a way of life and you begin by learning.

So, if I could have my way, I would say, “Okay, the rest of 2020 is canceled,” right?  And can everybody just make some time, take some time – maybe it’s not all day every day, but maybe it’s an hour a day, or thirty minutes a day, or fifteen minutes a day, an hour a week – to build your anti-racism literacy, to build your muscles and get immersed in anti-racism and anti-racism literacy.  Like, become a part of the movement because things are going to happen.  But that way, you already have things in your toolkit, you know, you already know how to flow.

So, here’s an example.  I woke up on Tuesday, and I kept seeing all these black squares, and I’m like, “Uh, what is happening?”  So, I go and figure this out, research this out, like, “What is this?”  And sure enough, of course, I have teachers, so I went to a person that I follow and then she explained why we shouldn’t be doing that because, yes, it was the hashtag interfering with the actual information that the BlackLivesMatter hashtag needed to be communicated.  So, I’m like, “Okay.”  So, immediately then I go and tell people that I knew, and I’m like, “Okay, you can do the blackout, but don’t use the hashtag.”

But you see that’s because I’m more, you know, immersed and on this flow, so I’m like, “Okay, careful, you know, carefully tread.”  Especially if it’s something that’s new like that.

Andrea:  Instead of jumping on with the bandwagon, whatever it might be, do a little research make sure you’re doing it right.

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  Right, you want to do that, but yeah, when you say jump on the bandwagon, so again, that’s not really anti-racist work, right?  That’s just, you know, reacting.  And yes, we can react, but I would like people to put more time into like the deeper work.  I saw that as well with the safety pin, and someone said, “Oh, should I wear this safety pin to show, you know, my allyship?”  And I’m like, “No, that’s performative.”  To me, it feels like you wanting to put on that safety pin is more about you being, like, seen as safe, but it really doesn’t do anything for black and brown bodies.  It really doesn’t do anything to then counter the flow – I’m going to keep going back to that analogy – it doesn’t do anything to counter the flow that we’re in.

And I want to do things or put my time and effort into what will actually disrupt this flow.  And that’s how I’ve led or that’s how I’ve moved in what I do, like, “Well, I don’t want to, you know, just do this.  Yes, I can do some things that show my support.”  So, as an educator, I’m like, “Okay, wherever I can possibly go to educate and to get people to turn their brains on and to be activated.”  That’s my activism is to activate these brains.  

So, we’re not just mindlessly participating and going in the flow.

Andrea:  So, what I’m hearing you say is that it’s not so much about this very moment… it is about this moment in that, you know, if we can be more sensitive to what’s going on and try to join the conversation in a very thoughtful and you know, somewhat researched way.  That’s a good thing, to share your heart and that sort of thing, maybe.  But the bigger issue here is that we should all be really going on this journey in committing to going on a journey of anti-racism in our own kind of reflecting, I would assume.

I mean, it seems to me like a lot of the work is on our own awareness and self-reflection on how this all has really been integrated into our own lives without us even realizing it.  Because I think part of what’s going on and what I’m hearing and certainly what I felt at times is, “Well, I’m not racist.  I don’t want anybody to think that I’m racist.”  And so we put up our black square, which I think that’s good and I did too.

But I can see, though, that it is so important…  This is how I’ve been in imagining it, and I want you to tell me if I’m right or wrong here.  But it seems that if I’m going to post something, I should also or if I’m going to say, “Wow, that was really thoughtful.”  I mean, I posted something from a friend, reposted her reflections on white privilege, and she’s also an interracial marriage but she’s white.  And it was just so powerful, and it really helped me to understand a new level of white privilege.

So, instead of just reposting and saying, “Wow, this is really powerful,” the real things I should be sharing or the thing that’s more powerful is if I share why it was so powerful to me.  What is changing in me when I read this?  Because if I’m vulnerably saying, “I didn’t understand this part,” then that’s allowing other people to be able to say, “Oh, wait a second, maybe I don’t understand it either.”

Okay, talk to me.  Tell me, Lucretia, am I anywhere close on this?

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  That is so good, because when white people are showing vulnerability in terms of this transformation, like if something moved you, transformed you, you didn’t know or it’s like, “I thought I knew, and then I learned.  I thought I knew and then I learned, please come learn with me.”  Being, “I’m not racist,” isn’t good enough.  I’m not racist either, you see, what I’m saying?  I’m not racist either, but there are still racist systems in place.

So, we have to do this work of dismantling these systems, the outward systems and the systems inside.  We still have racist wiring in our brains.  And the whole, “I’m not racist,” it needs to be thrown out, like throw that out.  And what people need to say, “I’m becoming anti-racist,” or “I am on a journey,” or “I am on an anti racism journey,” because that means there’s a constant, like, peeling back the layers and questioning everything.

So, I’m just going to view it just simple.  You know, so when you really understand that there are systems and forces and influences in place and it’s not just, “Well, I’m a product of my heart or whatever, you know, or my morals.”  I know there are things that that are in place – forces and narratives and stories – that have shaped how we see ourselves in relation to how we see people who are not, maybe, in our same racial category and social economic class, all of that.

But when you understand that, then you can be an active part of changing the narrative or speaking up.  Like, for example, I know right now the focus is on the violence committed by police officers.  But I, as an educator, would dare to say that, you know, of course, the violence starts early on.  How much violence do we teach in American history that is approved violence against native peoples, you know?  Even violence against the British because, you know, Americans or the United States or the colonies wanted to be free.  Now, that is kind of an approved violence; they wanted liberation.

So, you know, we have to look at what we’ve been taught and what the stories are depositing, you know, in us and how these stories are shaping us.  We needed racial categories so that we can be okay with the violence against enslaved Africans.  Oh, but again, you know, we have holes in history.  So a part of that, you know, doing this work is committing to this journey so you begin to, like on a daily basis, you are challenging what you thought, what you know, you know, this whole neutrality of everything and you know, racial inequality is just normal.  And, you know, that’s not the case.  It’s all been very intentional.

Andrea:  So, Lucretia, you’re really an expert, especially with talking about race and anti-racism, this journey with children, and I’m looking forward to looking at your materials on that.  But how are you talking about the current issues in your own family right now?

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  Right.  So, again, the beauty of already being on the journey… and I just want to encourage everyone like, you know, racism is going to spew things at you.  You can pretend that that’s not the case, but I need people to see anti-racism literacy or anti-racism education is like parenting preparation.  Just like something else you would put in your toolkit, just like a parent would prepare themselves to be able to talk to their children about sex and things like that.

And anti-racism education and literacy is not an accusation that you’re racist or something like that.  It means that you understand where we are and the opportunities that we have to equip our children and ourselves to do better.  So, I say all that to say, in our family that is a multi-ethnic family, we went about addressing… first giving our children, of course, permission and normalizing conversations about skin tone because children see color, right?  I know people say children see race, but really because they don’t know the racial categories when they’re babies or when they’re little, they see that people are different colors or skin tones.

So, that’s how we talked about it in our family because talking about people specifically, or only I should say, only in racial categories would feel like our family was two parts or three parts of a whole and that’s not the case.  We are one whole; you know, our children have mom and a dad like everybody else, and so that’s how we chose to frame our conversation.  And actually, it was my daughter at four years old who said it.  She was like, “Mommy, you’re dark brown.  I’m medium brown. Daddy is light brown.”  And she is correct and we talked to her about melanin, and why Daddy’s ancestors had less melanin, why Mommy’s ancestors had more melanin.  Yeah, so we give them language, and we give them permission.

And so talking about what people look like is already normal.  So, there’s no discomfort there.  And then maybe about five or six, as they’re about to, you know, head out to kindergarten and to be out in the world more than they’re with me.  Then we explained race, how racial categories were constructed, and you know, people will put in this hierarchy and why historically.  And I know some people, you know, especially white people, think that that’s going to destroy their child or it’s taking away their innocence.  It is actually equipping your child, and you shouldn’t deprive them of the reality that we live in.  That’s what my TED Talk is about, actually.  So, if people want to listen to the TED Talk, you just google Lucretia Berry TED Talk, and I talk about that, how our Children Will Light Up the World If We Don’t Keep in the Dark.

Andrea:  Love that.

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  Thank you.  So, once they already understood race and the history of race, and yes, like they got upset, but that just means that they’re healthy because they should.  It means that they’re hardwired for love, so injustice pained them and it should.  I would be concerned if I told them that and they go, “Oh, okay,” and walk away.  Like, “Oh my gosh, we need to call somebody,” right?  But that’s okay, that is totally healthy.  And then as things come up on the news… and we don’t turn off our television, you know.  They know everything that is happening, and they watch me and my husband, you know, me and their dad talk about it.  Like we literally talk about it at the dinner table, we show our sorrow, they see that.  Like, it’s okay to be upset.

When they’re upset about certain things that happen at school, you know… they go to a school that is predominantly white and yeah, they know that their peers, their white peers, their parents aren’t having these conversations with them.  And they are not obligated to parent their peers, but they at least are way ahead in terms of understanding racial dynamics and in our world.

So, when they say something like… like one of my children, she was upset that there was only one brown boy in her class.  And she said, “That’s not fair.  There should be more brown boys in the class.”  And she’s our little outspoken one, and so I think she would probably go to school and stage a revolt.  But because it’s a normal conversation, I just explained to her about redlining and housing historically, and how people, schools, where they’re situated and depending on your neighborhood, and that’s who attends your school.  I said, “We can move someplace else in our city where the neighborhood or the community have more African-Americans or people of color or brown people,” I said, “then there’ll be lots have brown boys in the class.:  But she just said, “Oh, okay.”

She just needed that understanding, and then she was fine and went on about her day.  You see, children are not simply sponges, they are negotiating and meaning-making on a daily basis about everything.  And by seven years old, they have already observed how racial hierarchies work in the United States.  You might not hear them talking about it at your home, but that’s because you haven’t been talking about it at your home, and you haven’t given them language.  Oh, but when they go to school, they do.

Andrea:  Then they’ll get the language.

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  Well, they talk about it, and they don’t talk about it in healthy ways.

Andrea:  Right.

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  So I have loved the school where my kids go to.  They have hired me as a consultant for the teachers.  And I get to go in and give the kids language, and then it’s amazing how the kids who have the language and understanding have healthier conversations.  And then I also teach a high school course on anti-racism literacy, it’s an elective.  And again, people have conversations with my students and they are blown away how they can articulate what has happened, what is happening, and how to create something better.

Andrea:  Lucretia, how can people connect with you in your work and actually, you know, have that be a part of their own journey in this process for themselves and their own families?

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  So, I have created… well, first of all, I would love to come everywhere and teach and talk to people.  But I’m a mom, I have smaller kids and so I’m staying put for now.  So until then, I created a… Brownicity has an online learning community.  And we just launched it in the fall, so it currently now has, I want to say, six or so courses in there.  We do the courses live so if you can attend live, you do.  If you can’t, it’s recorded, and then it’s just in there for when you can get to it.  It’s a membership, so currently, it’s $10 a month or you can pay $110 for the whole year.  But it’s for people who need ongoing support and who need the education.  We have… like, I teach there, we have guest teachers and authors.  It’s a great space for people who want to be on the journey.

And, so again, you enroll and it’s there for you.  Currently, we have a class – one of our starter classes – called What LIES Between Us.  So, we’re going to do that virtually live on Tuesday, June 16th through July 14th.  So, they can go on the website and all that information is there.  But you know, when people want resources from me, I put everything there.  The resource library is free; you don’t have to be a member to access the resource library.  If you want to do What LIES Between US study on your own, you can buy the guide book from Amazon.  And that resource library is free, but other than that, everything is in the online membership.  We have schools use it for professional development.  I just have created a space because I care about people’s learning journey, because I know it can be traumatizing.

Andrea:  It can be tough, for sure.

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  Yeah, it’s traumatizing.

Andrea:  Anytime you look at what’s underneath of whatever we are and whoever we are and the way that we interact in the world… I mean, anytime you look underneath that it can be a little difficult.  So, thank you for providing that space, Lucretia for your voice of influence in the world, and for being here and helping us know as Voice of Influence listeners how to really respond in this moment of the world.  And we appreciate your voice of influence here today.

Dr. Lucretia Berry:  I am so honored to be here.  Thank you so much for inviting me.  Thank you for making this space available, and thank you for amplifying my voice and Brownicity’s voice

Andrea:   Hmm, absolutely.  And just so everybody knows, everything will be in the show notes.  So, any links or things that Lucretia mentioned, we’ll definitely have those there all in one spot if you would like to be checking that out.

So, thank you so much, Lucretia!

Dr. Lucretia Berry: Thank you!