Season 1, Episode 33: A Conversation with Bobby Martin and Kyle Petricek on Whiteness

Still social distancing.

Kyle and Bobby are Classmates of Danielle’s from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. All three were in the Counseling program together.

Danielle met Bobby and Kyle in a Spirit and Trauma Class and shared a research project together.

Checking in with Bobby about how he’s doing and how COVID is affecting his life:

Bobby says truthfully, “We don’t actually know how COVID-19 is effecting us and we probably won’t know for a long time.”

What he’s noticed in his counseling internship is that the gap between the haves and have-nots has is becoming increasingly larger.

As a therapist, Bobby find himself entering sessions with a different mindset – “there’s a lot more case management” happening rather than actual therapy. It’s become more difficult right now to engage past trauma, while living in a current trauma. He finds his sessions are less about trauma and more about just surviving.

With 9 people in his household, Bobby is watching how each kid is navigating the lack of community, social support and social interaction. And when you magnify that with the population of people you work with, there is a diverse reaction to what’s happening.

Bobby says he’s not sure he can do anything more than just sit with people and listen to how their day/week/month has been and not really give much input. It allows them space to share what’s happening in their daily routine, what is lacking. 

Danielle noted that the longer COVID goes on, the larger the gap. 

Bobby had hopes that there would be a hiatus on crime during this season. In the past weeks there’s been an uptick in violence. The media is showing there’s not just more violence on a whole but also more violence being inflicted by law enforcement. 

Bobby is trying to work and everyone should also work on taking a collective deep breathe and try to figure out what the next move is. He’s had a young person that he’s close to that was killed three weeks ago and there is no place for lament or gathering together. 

The gap is widening from economic and racial. The luxury he is given: the ability to lament and give space to lament. For many people that space is decreasing when it should be increasing. Bobby says, when you don’t allow yourself space to lament, it bottles up and manifest in someway other way, shape or form.

Maggie acknowledges that the collective tension is so tight. She empathizes with not getting more space and wishes she has space to lament, not just for herself but also for her kids who hate school online and miss their friends. She says in this COVID environment our friends have become threats and that is not the way she wants her kids to live. 

Bobby says we need to remember that the tension we feel will manifest itself in some way and law enforcement is not immune to that. 

Kyle mentions a book they read for class [My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem] that deals with racialized trauma in our country and addressed police bodies. Kyle watched a recent interaction with an African American man who was intoxicated at a Walgrens. Kyle found himself watching to make sure the man was treated fairly by law enforcement all the while his therapy training running in his head, is he a risk to himself? Is he a risk to others? Then adding to that Menakem’s work he began to wonder, “How is the officer working to deescalate this guy? And if the officer is stressed he’s not going to have that to give.” Kyle thinks Menakem’s work needs to be apart of the conversation on how we take care of the police so that they can practice law. The police is working with new stress, just like the rest of us. 

Danielle mentions that Shaun King, an Activist, has been showing video clips of African American men getting tazzed and tackled by Police just standing there, not practicing social distancing, brutally arrested and charged with police assault. Contrasted to images of white people in a park in New York, not social distancing, and cops were rolling throw handing out masks. The contrast is so stark. Individual police are responsible for their actions. But who is above them telling them to carry out an agenda and a policy like that?

A friend made masks for Danielle’s family and the one for her husband didn’t fit. Instead he wore a bandana. But it was as they were going on with him wearing the bandana on his face that she thought, “Oh you better not wear that… to other people you are looking really dangerous” as a Mexican man. So he went into the store without a mask and people gave him dirty looks. It’s like a bind, “What do you want him to do? Where is he going to fit?” It’s like not having the space to exist. 

Danielle says that communities need more opportunities to lament, space to lament. And white spaces are still crowding that space.

Bobby was reminded of something that happened at the Seattle School during a practicum: It was a heated conversation about race shortly after Trump was elected and there were white folks saying there were no race issues, especially in Seattle. The facilitator decided it was needed for the class to take a break. Bobby, who’s wife Samoan, finds he’s more aware of racial tension situations and he asks himself, “What’s my role right now?” Tension comes up in their family dynamic and within the community he and his lives in, but in that moment at the Seattle School he went, for the first time up to the chapel room. Outside the room there is a chalkboard wall where someone had written, “there will be peace in the valley for me.” For a second, he took solace in that. And then he asked himself why he feels that and it is because he is a white heterosexual man. That’s why he could feel that there would be peace in the valley, he will be protected and he doesn’t live with the racial tension and oppression. He walked away thinking that he doesn’t want that peace because of white privilege. He doesn’t know how to handle the fact that he could walk away from this situation and have peace for himself but he would still know that others could not have that peace.

“What’s my role as a white person combating the structures that exist and uphold that feeling of peace for me but creates a feeling of conflict and violence for so many people in my life that I love and care about. “

Even though the event at school happened over three years ago, he thinks about it a lot. 

Kyle wonders what makes it hard for white men to hear this and have conversations around these topics. What are the barriers? 

Bobby thinks that it is exposing: The conversation around race creates vulnerability, not a threat, but a place for white people to admit that the only reason they have their place or standing is because of white privilege. Not their brain, heart, work ethic… but everything to do with the color or their skin. Bobby says, “It’s unnerving.” Bobby recognizes and sees his white privilege more clearly now. 

Bobby quotes Portland Seminary Professor Randy Woodley, “If there is one person without shalom, then no one has shalom.” This is the work of white people: we must claim peace no only for themselves but for all people. Everyone should experience God’s fullness. 

Danielle notices that there is a fatigue among white leaders right now as they are working a marathon against the virus. The work of deconstructing whiteness and recognizing privilege, can’t be solved by just reading Robin DiAngelo’s book [White Fragility]. It is a long grueling process, and that’s okay! It’s okay to battle with it everyday… It’s almost a blessing because it won’t equal what others have been through and do go through. There needs to be a sense of suffering the ways we have been raised that shaped our mindset that has caused harm to others. We need to battle with ourselves and we need the endurance to do it. 

Kyle remembers looking at some case studies so school and many were done by white male therapists. It didn’t bother him and he almost didn’t notice it. He was numb to it. When it was brought up he found himself defensive, like this is the way it is in this field, as if it was an excuse. Kyle was able, with the help of his classmates, do his own work to recognize this micro-aggression that he never has to think about and others do. He said it’s a part of his brain he doesn’t’ have to use because of the privilege he’s had his whole life. “It’s growing that muscle and having patience with myself as I do. Yeah I can start to see these things and advocate for them.” 

“It’s a mental slog … to do the work to wake up.” 

Kyle said it’s not easy work to look in the mirror after reading Robin DiAngelo’s book when the whole system as worked for you for a long time. But the work of acknowledging white privilege is worth our energy and time. White people need to overcome laziness and the unwillingness to put the work in. 

Bobby says we need to consider what we’re tied to: Individualistic White American perspective. We can navigate COVID-19 like any other social issue on our own or we can choose to navigate in community. Movements in racial equity, social issues, oppression, Medicare, etc…. From a communal perspective it takes longer, but that’s the way we’re supposed to move: Collectively. It’s not about individuals at all, it’s about doing it together. 

Bobby was working with young African American men moving things out of a truck and a police came and started questioning them, even to the point of getting violent. But as soon as he [Bobby] came around from the front of the truck to talk to the police officer, that’s when he backs down.

Bobby things people tend to not believe things until they’ve seen it with their own eyes. He also saw the post that Shawn King made contrasting police interaction with whites vs. African Americans… He thought, “is it really that bad?” 

Kyle said it is a programmed first thought to think they aren’t really doing that.  It’s like a veil of ignorance that we have to shut that part of our brain off: the part that connects with someone else’s suffering. We say, “Well it’s not real, it’s just on instagram” when the reality is “that is actually someone’s body being tortured.”

Maggie asks, “How do we collectively engage what we are experiencing?” She said she believes the violence against African Americans is happening. Maggie says that the closer the violence is to our actual location, the more we feel it in our bodies physically. Feeling in our bodies moves us to action. When we are not feeling it than it’s very easy to detach and remain disengaged. How do we find shalom collectively? 

Bobby said the veil of ignorance is to seek shalom individually. Movement towards peace is not individual, it’s communal. 

Danielle was writing about greed used 1 Timothy 6:9 in the French going after a debt on Cinco de Mayo. She says, “we’ve been lulled into sleep…We’re plunged into our desire for greed. And greed leads to harm and destruction for us. This is not a free pass.” Shalom for majority culture that does not trickle down to others, is not Shalom at all. How do we engage these idols of greed and power in our society, as dominate culture and do more than talk? It has to have some tangible action. Theoretical process doesn’t do anything.

Kyle mentions desegregation and drastic action that seemed to help. But we’ve undone that with redlining and we end up isolating ourselves from each other. Kyle asks what we need is radical policies? Radical actions? 

Kyle used to be a 4th grade teacher and when he taught about Martin Luther King, Jr. he  started with America being founded on slavery. He wanted to widen the students perceptive because there is this false belief that racial issues were resolved in the 60s with MLK.  He admits he was under that veil. But it doesn’t feel like it serves our kids to perpetuate this false reality that racial issues have been resolved—what he believes we really need is to teach a different history. The systems disrupt truth! He wants to know: How do we have real radical action?

Bobby compared his own life with a friend of his of the same age but a different race. He friend has been in and out of the system and Bobby said he would really fit in at the Seattle School with the way his mind works and his knowledge and experiences. But his great grandfather wasn’t able to get a home loan, and Bobby’s great grandfather was. Bobby was able to buy his home by buying against the equity of his great grandfather… His friend was never able to do that. 

Bobby mentions reparations – The question he asks is where is the gap? It is a knowledge gap? The equity gap can be traced back to the GI bill and redlining. And how do we right those wrongs?

Danielle says individuals need to take action. Systems are made up of people. ON our own we’re insignificant. But together we can do more. 

Her friend had a stimulus check and used it to pick up chrome books for Danielle’s kids and another family so they could have tablets to work on for school at home. That’s someone creating equity in a system!

A really practical thing for listeners to do is to donate their stimulus check to someone who doesn’t have access to technology or internet. And to not superimpose with restrictions, a gift free and clear.

---

Kyle is reading: Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Kyle is listening to: Hilary McBride’s Other People’s Problems

Kyle is inspired by: This conversation. 

 

Bobby is reading: Love in a Fearful Land by Henri Nouwen

Bobby is listening to: Randy Woodley, Mark Charles, any people who talking about Community

Bobby is inspired by: Stories of resilience

 

Resource to process whiteness: PLEASE READ IN COMMUNITY 

My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem

Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah

Mirror to the Church: Resurrecting Faith After Genocide in Rwanda by Emmanuel Katongole and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.