[Descriptive Transcript: Video opens with a title cover slide with text and images. Text: “2022 Collaborative Experience Conference November 3,4, & 5. For parents and professionals serving students who are deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing. The MN gov logo is on bottom left An image with a magnifying glass resting on the chalkboard tray next to a pile of colored pencils. Text on bottom right: “Supporting the whole child reboot”.]
[Video transitions to a zoom style set up with Anne Sittner Anderson on the left side, and Valerie SHirley on the right side. An interpreter is visible in a small window bottom right. Name and title text slide on each person’s video: “Anne Sittner Anderson, Communications Director, MN Commission” and “Valerie Shirley, Executive Director MDMC Minnesota Deaf Muslim Community”. Text disappears after a few seconds. Anne signs while the interpreter voices.]
>> Anne: Good morning. Hello everyone, my name is Anne Sittner Anderson and I am the communications director at the Minnesota Commission of the Deaf, DeafBlind and Hard of Hearing. We are here today with a workshop provided by Valerie Shirley and the workshop is called, “So Now You're Woke, What's Next. Val is the executive director of the Minnesota Deaf Muslim Community and a long-time advocate. Val is also a mother of an adult's deaf adult son and if you have any questions please type those in the chat. We will have time at the end of the presentation to answer some of your questions. Without further ado, I'm going to pass it on Valerie.
[Anne’s window is replaced by a slideshow. Slide: “So Now You’re Woke? What’s Next?” Three BIPOC face illustrations line in a row next to the MDMC logo on the left side. Text inside the middle person’s face: “Black lives matter”. Text underneath logo: “From Ally to Accomplice”. Valerie speaks while the interpreter signs.]
>> Val: Thank you so much. Good morning. Welcome to So Now You're Woke, What's Next. The goal of this presentation is to start support or propel each of us on our very intentional journey of eliminating bias and dismantling systems of oppression. I say ‘start’ because some of us are really clueless you know. You see the title is So Now You're Woke, and some of us think we're woke, but we are not. We are very clueless about what being on an anti-racist journey means and it shows in our actions and our interactions. I say support because some of us woke up and decided being on that journey was too hard and went back to sleep. I really want you to know the journey's not that hard and I wanna present today to support those of us who woke up and went back to sleep. I say propel because some of us are on that journey, we're moving right along, we want to dismantle, we want to stop systems of oppression, we notice racism happening all around us, and we want to get rid of it and I hope this workshop will be a little lift to move those of us who are already on that journey to the next level.
[New slide: “introduction” Text on left side: “Valerie Shirley; Executive Director/Founder, Minnesota Deaf Muslim Community (MDMC).” Graphic of a radio with eyes on the right side.]
>> Val: So as you already know my name is Valerie Shirley. I am a DHH teacher by trade. I'm a teacher the deaf and hard of hearing. I've been teaching for 25 years; 15 of those years have been in deaf hard of hearing. I'm also a working interpreter and I've been interpreting for about 12 years now and I am also the executive director and founder of MDMC, that's the Minnesota Deaf Muslim Community. MDMC is a deaf advocacy organization. However, we provide so much more like anti-racism workshops that I'm presenting today. Why this, why am I here? My why is because after the murder of George Floyd, I knew I could no longer code switch politely and assimilate to keep others comfortable. I've been doing that all my life because that's how I was conditioned and after that horrific situation, I knew I could no longer pretend to be someone else just to keep other people comfortable. So I hope that we can all learn from each other and we can all commit to dismantling the problems of racism and white supremacy in our community and in the greater community. Something that I've learned, I'm on my own anti-racist journey. Everyone needs to be. I want to make that a point, something that I've learned is that there is such a thing as a black white supremacist. Maybe some of you know who Dave Chappelle is, the comedian, and you saw a little skit he did about the black white supremacists. He made real light of that situation, and I thought it was hilarious, but on my anti-racist journey, there really is such a thing and there are also red white supremacists and yellow white supremacists and white supremacists come in all colors, and that's something I learned on my anti-racist journey because we're all conditioned for a change to truly happen. We need to learn from BIPOC mentors, authors, teachers, artists, activists, and friends who are ready to teach us. This is really a revolution to make the world a better place and that revolution starts within us.
[New slide: “Who are YOU?” Graphic of a city street with clusters of shadow people on the street.]
>> Va;: So I don't know if I can actually see the chat but I wanted to take a second to figure out who's in the room. I wanted to know who's here, who are you, where are you from, city and state, where are you chiming in from, since we can't be in person, and what's your field. Are you a teacher? A mentor? A parent? An interpreter? What, what are you and what is and also what is your intention for attending this workshop? I’ll just take about 15 seconds to be quiet and let everybody drop that info in the chat box. Okay as a presenter, I cannot see the chat box but if there was a way for Anne to be on screen, she could relay the chat responses? I can only see myself and the Interpreter right now.
[Slideshow disappears and is replaced by Anne’s window popping back up. She signs while the interpreter voices.]
>>Anne: Hi, yes this is Anne. We have heard from Gene from Faribault who is a parent and has a deaf child. We've got some folks from Minneapolis. We've got, oh my goodness, I can't even begin to tell you, there's so many responses. We've got Minneapolis deaf and hard of hearing teachers. I'm telling you the feed is just going so fast, I can barely even read it. Yeah, deaf teachers, deaf and hard of hearing teachers, VRS VR counselors. We've got Candace, we've got Laura, oh my gosh, there's so many responses.
[Val signs her responses to Anne.]
>> Val: This is Val. That's great, thank you. Wonderful, wonderful, thank you so much.
[She switches to voicing. Anne’s window closes and the slideshow reappears.]
>> Val: That's good to see, I feel better now, knowing that there's someone here. I feel like I'm presenting to an empty room. I can't see anyone so thank you for that because that helps since we cannot be in person. Hopefully, in a couple of years, we will be able to be in person and I hope that many of you, your intention for attending this workshop, is to learn and continue this work.
[New slide: “I’m woke!” Image of two women hugging each other on the left. Teal box with white text on bottom right: “I’m woke!”.]
>> Val: All right, let's define woke. What does that mean, what does it mean to be woke. Okay my my definition of woke, and many others who are anti-racist workers, define woke as an alert to injustice in society, especially racism, but it's understanding systems of oppression and being able to identify bias, especially within ourselves so we can wake up and we can actually go back to sleep as well. That can happen. We can intentionally go back to sleep or we can unintentionally go back to sleep by consuming the wrong information. So being woke and staying woke is really ongoing work for us all and sometimes, you know, we think “ah, it's too hard talking about this stuff and doing this kind of work every day” you know but everybody has a lane to be in. We don't have to be the bodies at the protest holding the signs. We can actually correct a family member at a gathering that we heard say something that was inappropriate or say something racist or something oppressive. You know that is anti-racism work, teaching others how to eliminate bias from within themselves is anti-racist work. What I want everybody to understand, I hope to point more at policies and procedures rather than people that word racism and being called a racist makes people very uncomfortable, and I want us to get real comfortable with that word, and you know, say “I'm racist, I'm racist, I know I am, I got some work to do,” that's what people really need to say, instead of “oh my God, I'm not racist” and try to prove why you're not. Like I said, I told you there's a such thing as a black white supremacist. That's no joke. White supremacy is a disease and I like to compare it to like acid rain or Agent Orange that impacted soldiers when they were out at wars like Vietnam and other places. You know, we were all outside when the acid rain came down. Some of us got impacted a little bit and we ran in and hid undercover, some of us couldn't find shelter and were out in it longer, and some of us danced and played and stayed out in it, and the more you were conditioned, the harder you're impacted by this disease of white supremacy, you know. Think of it as like swimming in a sea of anesthetic. What would your body be like? You'd be numb. You would feel nothing. You would have no pain but then you emerged from that sea and you started to feel the pain and the trauma and the reality of what's going on around you. You might want to just jump back in, right, and stay sedated. So what happens, white supremacy is a disease that takes away our humanity. It really, it numbs us and it makes us not care about humanity and it makes us dehumanize those who are oppressed by this system. So in this workshop, I am inviting all of you to radically reconnect with your humanity by learning how white supremacy has stolen that from us.
[New slide: White text inside a blue box: “White supremacy wasn't created in a day. It won’t be solved in a day. Question the rules.”]
>> Val: So this is just a quote that I like to see, and it's real. You know, white supremacy was not created in a day so there is no quick takedown, no quick solution to this, we're all in one way or another, and we have all been, including myself, we have all been maintainers of white supremacy, and now we have to correct that and dismantle it. What's the biggest tool of white supremacy is following the rules, believe it or not. That may sound pretty ridiculous to some of us because, as teachers, what are we, what do we do best? We follow the rules and we teach others how to follow the rules, have to follow the rules. You'll learn what I mean by that more as we go on.
[New slide: Blue bars on left side with numbers showing the agenda with black text next to the bar. From top to bottom:
01: First Blacks in America
02: Black or Brown What’s the difference?
03: Racism as White Violence
04: Characteristics of Ally/Accomplice
05: Next Steps
06: Resources.]
>> Val: So this is what we're talking about today. You can go ahead and read this slide for yourself. I'm going to touch on each one of those little categories. I'll just give you a few seconds to read that, and like Anne said when she introduced me, I'm a mom of a deaf adult and that deaf adult is shuffling around in the background so forgive me if you can hear that. I'm not wearing headphones today.
[New slide: “Nikole Hannah-Jones” Cut of profile of Nikole with book covers behind her, “The 1619 Project” and “Born on the Walk”. Quote on the right side: “A much-needed book that stakes a solid place in a battlefield of ideas over America’s past and present”. Kirkus Review.]
>> Val: All right, who has heard of the author Nicole Hannah Jones? Who's heard about the 1619 project? If I could see the chat or see your hands, I would say go ahead and put in the chat, yes, no, you've heard about it, so I'm just going to have to guess.
[Slideshow closes and Anne’s window reappears.]
>> Val: Oh, we got Anne. Yeah, I don't have to guess. Who's heard about the 1619 project? Yes or no in the chat and Anne you can give me like majority yes, majority no, you can tell me what people are saying.
[A pause. Anne looks at a screen off-screen.]
>> Anne: I'm seeing many hands, people are raising their hands. Yeah, I'm seeing hands raised. Awesome. Yeah, I'm seeing some nos too. I'm seeing “great book, yeah, yeses, yes, yes, no, no, no, yes, not yet. Wonderful, indeed. Yeah, great book, yeah, I haven't heard of it. Okay, okay, so we have some people that have heard of it, some people have not.
[Val nods at each response and smiles. Anne’s window closes and the slideshow returns.]
>> Val: Okay thank you. So what I want to say about this book is it is a must read for people who do not know what the 1619 Project is. In 2020, the author that you see, Nicole Hannah Jones, along with the New York Times magazine, launched the 1619 Project. August 2019 marked the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery, so this project's goal was to really write true history of the U.S. The project outlines the consequences and the impact that slavery has had on our country and on black Americans and it places the contribution for the first time of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative rather than a race in our history so it's really, really a must read. You know the things that we were taught in school growing up about black history, and mind you, black history is American history, but we were not taught the truth, so this is a must read.
[New slide: “Before 1619 there was 1526”. Image of outstretched hands and arms extending from bottom with bulleted text on right side:
Spanish settlers with 100 Africans landed in South Carolina
Africans revolted, escaped, settled and intermarried with Native Americans
Africans and Native Americans united to rid North America of slavery.]
>> Val: Something that I learned on my journey is that there was attempts at slavery before 1619. In my research, I found that Spanish settlers with a hundred stolen Africans landed in South Carolina and as soon as they hit shore, the Africans revolted. They were not, they did not allow themselves to be enslaved. They revolted. They ran away and over time they intermingled with the indigenous people that were already there. They married into them, into the tribes and became whole new nations and they fought alongside the indigenous people to rid North America of slavery and that was in 1526. So that's a nice little tidbit of history and I'll add some people think that this might have been where the Seminole tribe is from, who were known as black Indians back then.
[New slide: “Cast your vote!” Four red and blue ballot boxes in a row with hands dropping ballots in the slots.]
>> Val: Okay I have a poll for you. Well, I was going to have a very cool poll for you but because I did not get my content to the organizers in time, we don't actually have, we don't actually have the poll because it's a very long link and Anne would have to type it in by hand. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you, I'll ask you on your smartphones to go to slido.com if you have your phones right next to you. It's s-l-i-d-o.com and when you get there, you can put in this number. I'll just give you about 10 seconds to get there and then I'll give you the code to put in. Okay if you are at slido.com, you'll see it asks for a code as a participant. So the code that you need to put in is 2776. Again if you're at slido.com already, that code is 2776. One three five. Now on my end, I can see people joining but I don't see people joining. There's three questions. If you have any trouble getting in there, looks like there might be a hashtag in front of the number, so I'll give you the code one more time. You join at slido.com s-l-i-d-o Dot c-o-m and hashtag 2776 135. So the three questions are, and please answer truthfully. Don't give the answer that you think is the most politically correct. This is not the time for that. This is the time for us to speak our truths. What's your opinion? We need to move past slavery. Discussing it is traumatizing and holds us back from real progress. That's the first choice. Second choice is, we need to focus more on slavery without discussing it. Progress is difficult. And the third choice is, slavery is not the real problem. We need to be focusing on other things. All together, go ahead and cast your vote. All right, I can see forty votes. Okay, it looks like most of you are done voting and what I want to say is that the answer that would be the most correct is the second one.
[New slide: “What is your opinion about the transatlantic slave trade?”]
>> Val: And most the majority of the room answered there we need to focus more on slavery without discussing it. Progress is difficult because that's a huge, huge part of how our country was built. You know how our country was founded so we really need to get to the nitty-gritty about slavery. So slavery was one of the huge problems so thank you for participating in that one. So if we don't look at the true history, what happens is we're destined to repeat it, so we gotta dig into that.
[New slide: “The Differences Between Black and Brown”. Image of a woman on bottom with half of face brown, the other half black. Text above image: “I wish I was light skinned”. Bulleted text on right side:
African American vs Black
Black Indigenous People of Color
From Blackness to Whiteness, from Nappy to Straight, the Spectrum
Paper Bag Test.]
>> Val: Thank you for participating in that wonderful, yep looks like about 78 in the room picked number two. About 14 of the room picked number one, which is we need to move past slavery. Discussing it is traumatizing. Discussing it can be traumatizing, it can be, but we have to really discuss it and slavery is not the real problem. Slavery is not the only problem but it's one of them. Thank you for your participation in that. Let’s talk a little bit about the differences between black and brown. I know many of the educators in the room were used to like the Beyond Diversity trainings and where we talked about black and brown babies and how we can teach better to improve outcomes for black and brown babies. So there is a spectrum when it comes to race. My definition of African-American is African-Americans who were born and raised here and are the descendants of the Africans who were brought here enslaved. That's what African-American means to me. African Americans are a special group of individuals who may not know where their ancestors are from. I had to do my ancestry through ancestry.com to figure out where my ancestors come from so that's who I consider African-American. Black can mean any of the dark-skinned ethnicities. You can be from any country and be black. We all know that BIPOC stands for Black Indigenous People of Color and people use that term to acknowledge that not all people of color face equal levels of injustice and we say Black and Indigenous and because that puts those two groups at the forefront and that's to recognize that Black and Indigenous people are severely impacted by systemic racial injustice, and I want to repeat, severely. Almost all people of color are impacted by racial inequity, however, depending upon where you are on the spectrum, some are more privileged than others, and may never really feel the harshness of that experience. So, you know, as you see on the slide, you know you go from the darkest of complexions to the lightest of skin complexions. Go from the coarsest of hair from people that you'll see around the world, and especially in Africa, to the straightest of hair, and on that spectrum, the people with the darkest of skin and the coarsest of hair are mistreated the most. On the other end of the spectrum, the lightest of skins and the straightest of hair, may not experience discrimination and racism at all or know what it even is. If anybody's ever heard of The Paper Bag Test, this is something that used to be real. You know a brown paper bag is a tan colored, close to a caramel tan, maybe a little lighter and in slave, in times of slavery, people were actually, their skin color was literally compared to the color of the paper bag, and if they were the color of that paper bag or lighter, they got the privilege of working in the house and being house help. If they were darker than that paper bag, they had to work in the fields and have 16 to 18 hours days in the sun working, producing, and harvesting whatever commodity was grown on the plantation that they were enslaved upon. So that is where a division was started right away between African peoples, making the lighter-skinned people that were lighter than that paper bag, that paper bag are lighter. You're privileged, you're better, you get to work inside. The people who are darker than this paper bag, you go outside and do that work out there. Of course, I'm saying it lightly. It was a lot more. They went through a lot more than just working in the fields. We know that, and if we don't know that, you have to study that history, starting with reading the 1619 project.
[New slide: blank slide.]
>> Val: I don't know what that slide is.
[New side: Meme of an old white woman with eyeglasses. Text above and below in meme style: “Would white America like to be treated how Black America is treated in this society?” ]
>> Val: Okay, short video for you here.
[The video plays, the woman speaks after a quick clip of a statue of President Lincoln’s head.]
>> Woman in video: I want every white person in this room who would be happy to be treated as this. Society, in general, treats our citizens, our Black citizens. If you, as a white person, would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society, please stand. You didn't understand the directions. If you white folks want to be treated the way Blacks are in this society, stand. Nobody's standing here.
[Quick cuts to pictures of the audience, none standing.]
>> Woman: That says very plainly that you know what's happening. You know you don't want it for you. I want to know why you're so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.
[Quick cut to a news report with a white female anchor speaking with a photo of a Black woman next to her with text “Brief but spectacular” ]
>> News anchor: over the photo. Questions of race and power are obviously not limited to the movies in tonight's brief but spectacular. We hear from cultural theorists author and Professor Brittany Cooper, she calls on us to look at the past during this Black History Month and recognize change should not always be gradual. Cooper recently came out with a new book, “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower.”
[Video cuts to Brittney, a Black woman wearing a purple tank top.]
>> Brittney: I'm a Black Feminist, capital B, capital F. I'm unapologetically Black and I'm unapologetically a Feminist and look, depending on what circles you're in, it's hard to be both those things at the same time, but I think that being both those things is the thing that will save us.
[Photo of Brittany smiling with text underneath: “Brief but Spectacular, Brittney Cooper, PhD. Author & Professor.” Video returns to Brittney.]
>> Brittney If Tom had a race, it would be white. White people feel like they own time and control history and there's a way that, even if you go back to the early Western philosophers, that everybody loves.
[Video shows a painting of white male from colonial times.]
>> Brittney: My least favorite is George Hagel, who said you know Africa is no historic part of the world
[Video returns to Brittney.]
>> Brittney: so in the 1700s and 1800s, various groups of white European men got together and just decided that Africa didn't matter in the span of world history. I mean, talk about having some cojones. Time has a history and so do Black people.
[Video shows a black and white photograph of Solomon Cates Fuller, Pioneer in Psychiatry. Solomon is looking through a microscope.]
>> Brittney: In part of the reason that we have, for instance, Black History Month
[Video shows a brown and white photograph of Matthew Henson, Arctic Explorer. Several other photographs follow: Inge Hardison, Artist; George Caruthers, Inventor & Physicist; Mae Jemison, Astronaut; Sojourner Truth, Abolitionist; Jesse L. Brown, Navy Pilot; Madam C. J. Walker, Entrepreneur.]
>> Brittney: in this country is because we literally have to make the argument that Black people have actually done things that are significant to the creation of the nation and state, and it turns out, that if we didn't have things like Black History Month, apparently, people would not believe that Black people were actually significant historical actors.
[Video returns to Brittney.]
>> Brittney: We keep on reiterating basically, the 1860s in this country.
[Video cuts to a protest picture showing a white man wearing a shirt “Radical Agendas”. Images of candlelight holding people follow, then images of confrontations between people and the police.]
>> Brittney: We have racial animus, the likes of which we have not seen in my lifetime. A resurgence of law enforcement engaging Black folks in ways that are often deadly and often with impunity.
[Video returns to Brittney.]
>> Brittney: Why people dictate the pace of social inclusion and they do so by saying, “we'll get there, why are you trying to push us so fast.” That kind of pushing back the clock, which is a phrase that we use all the time, is a way in which those in power like to say to those of us who don't have power, “we're going to determine not only what you get, but when you get it” and that is the critical difference between young activists -
[Video shows snapshots of activists standing up to the police followed by groups of people standing together in solidarity holding up posters. Old illustrations of historical confrontations follow, then illustrations of slave markets, slaves working in the field.]
>> Brittney: who are in the street saying “change it now, change it today, we don't want your gradualism.” They remind me of the debates over slavery in this country, and ending slavery in the 1800s, there were gradualists who said, “We want to end slavery, but we want to do it in steps, so we'll free you, but you know, can you work 10 years? Can we sort of gradually phase you out of slavery?”
[Video returns to Brittney.]
>> Brittney: And there were others who said, “We're going to pass this amendment and at that moment you will be free and for those of us who continue to struggle with a white supremacist capitalist patriarchal power structure, -
[Black and white photographs of historical protests and activism before returning to Brittney.]
>> Brittney: immediate freedom is what we want. Gradualism does not serve us.” There is a truth telling that happens at that Nexus of Blackness and Feminism at that space of having to work twice as hard to get half as far, which is a Black proverb and at that space of knowing that, so often you can be the dopest chick in the room and they'll give it to the mediocre white man in the room. Putting those things together gives you a clarity and a vision about where we can go if we stop oppressing Black folks and women and gender, not conforming folk, and so Black Feminism taught me that and I think it can teach you that too. I am Brittany Cooper and this is my brief but spectacular take on my eloquent rage and you can watch additional brief but spectacular episodes on our website. pbs.org NewsHour slash brief.
[Video shows a screenshot of the website before cutting to Val.]
>> Val: Okay. So just want to check in and see how people are feeling. I didn't want those two videos to play together but they did. So just tell me how you feel and sometimes stuff like this can be heavy content for people. If you can go ahead and put in the chat box just a couple words about how you're feeling. You know, when I first saw this video I was like wow. I was, I was pretty impressed with Jane Elliott because I had never heard a white person speak that plainly about racism and it was it was empowering for me honestly, because like I said, I was a code switcher, so I was taught to make people who don't want to hear about discrimination or racism or oppression comf-, you know, keep them comfortable. Don't, you know, ruffle anybody's feathers. Do we have any feelings in the chat box, Anne?
[Video is replaced by a slideshow briefly before Anne’s window opens up. She looks to the side at a screen off-screen and reads it off.]
>> Anne: This is Anne and we do have someone saying “I feel a little bit stunned.” Someone's saying “I've seen that first video before and I loved it.” Someone else is saying “Impactful.” Another person is saying, “Angry.” Someone's saying, “powerful and clear message from Jane. Visually clear admission of the issues.” Another person is saying, “It's a good reminder that change is uncomfortable and needs to be.” You've got someone saying that, “just because the content is heavy, does not mean that we should turn our backs. Truths are sometimes hard to hear. That's all the more reason we need to hear them together.” Another person is saying, “there's no closed captioning on the video on my side, did I miss something?” Another person saying, “Feeling sad and angry.” Someone else saying, “Love Jane Elliott.” Someone says, “Sick to my stomach. Yeah, someone's saying, “More aware.” Another comment, “Very empowering” and someone's saying, “It's hard to hear but so necessary, also exciting that real change can happen.” Another person is saying, “Courageous conversations are so important. We must feel discomfort for change to happen.” Another person is saying, “The first video hits me each time I see it. So powerful. The second video is bringing up ideas for me to take action.”
[Val shows a double thumbs-up. Anne’s window closes and the slideshow returns: “The Right to be Considered White”. Image of a group of people playing Twister but with white and black squares instead. Bulleted text on right side:
What is White?
United States v. Baghat Singh Thind
Ozawa v. United States.]
>> Val: Thank you for your comments. It's wonderful to hear so many people. We should, we should be angry about it, you know. We really should. Not too angry where we can't make change because we want to work to make this world a better place. So we don't want to do any more damage but we should feel angry and it should move us to do some things. We should feel disgusted and I'm so happy so many of you have actually seen this before and I'm, Brittany Cooper was new for me and she is powerful and I loved her message as well and I was going to talk to her about her a little bit later but just to talk about the right to be considered white. First colonizers were white people. White were generally from England, the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, and like Scandinavian countries. Not everybody was considered white but those were the people who created the rules, okay. They created the rules about who had the right to be white. So, you know when we think about it, who created the rules that we follow today? We so politely abide by. Many of the rules, and when I say rules, I'm talking laws and policies and stuff too, you know. Human traffickers created the rules that we live and abide by. You know many people lovingly speak of the Founding Fathers as the establishers of this country and the reality is they were human traffickers. They literally brought human cargo and forced them to work for free. They were beaten, they were raped, they were murdered, their children were stolen and sold, and you know so let's keep it real. You know, that's what our country was founded on so white immigrants weren't always considered white so like Italians, Greeks, Hungarians and a few others had to assimilate to have white identity in order to overcome prejudice. So they had to follow the rules. They had to actively help in maintaining a society, you know, that was racist and committed atrocities against people of color in order to prove that they deserve to be considered white. So there are many people of color that fought to assimilate to have white identity. They did this through the courts. There were some Indigenous people, Japanese people, Arabs, that's just a few that never really challenged racial restrictions. What they did is they petitioned to be classified as free white people. So the Naturalization Act of 1906 allowed free white persons, persons of African Nativity, or persons of African descent to naturalize, and that meant you had to assimilate and follow the rules, no matter how atrocious or who those rules harmed so remember, you know, we've been conditioned when you follow the rules, you get the privilege. What this following rules mean you might have to commit some atrocities. You might have to maintain systems of oppression, but you will get to keep that privilege.
[New slide: “Founding Fathers” Quote inside blue box: “How do we know who to discriminate against? Create race and use it as a hierarchy!”]
>> Val: Oops my clicker, there we go. So I poke fun at an atrocious practice with this slide. You know, however, know that I realized it is no joke, you know, as a Black woman. Poking fun at traumatic situations has been a means to cope, you know. Not all people do this. It's just my practice, you know. Some people might be highly offended, so I hope I'm not offending any People of Color in the room, or anybody in the room. Honestly, I just want us to all learn. My mother used to always say to me, “You gotta laugh to keep from crying,” and for a long time I didn't know what that meant, but to be a Black woman or to be a Black man, and know the atrocities and the barriers that you have to face every day, you know. Like what Brittany Cooper said, you know, “work twice as hard, to get half as far.” That is so real, you know. It's insanity. You go insane if you don't find a means to cope, so poke and fun at it, it's my means to cope. But that's what happened, you know. Race was created and used as a hierarchy to give people a way to know who to discriminate against.
[New slide: Then and Now: US Census”. It shows two columns, with 1790s showing three race options and 2020 showing over 20 race options.]
>> Val: What you see here is U.S census, as it was in 1790, and as it was in 2020. I don't know how well you can see this slide but the concept of race was created as a classification of human beings, you know, with the purpose, the main purpose of giving, you know, power to white people and to legitimize the dominance of white people over non-white people, you know. More rules. More rules being set up here. So from 1790 to 1950, census takers determine the race of the Americans they counted, sometimes taking into account how individuals were perceived in their community, or using the rules based on their share of Black blood. I wonder how many of us have heard of the one drop rule. I won't be talking about that today, but if you have not heard of the one drop rule, Google that. That's interesting history. Might get more disgusted but it's more laws and rules that were set up to ensure some could be oppressed and some could have privilege. So Americans who were of multi-racial ancestry were either counted in a single race or classified in the categories that mainly consisted of gradations of Black and white, such as like mulattos who were like tabbed in the non-white population. So beginning in 1960, Americans could start to choose their own race. Excuse me. So, since 2000, they've had the option to identify with more than one race. Okay, so racial categories reinforced laws and scientific views that were all asserting white superiority. So keep paying close attention as we go through this. How the rules that we lived by were developed, and why they were developed. So we have to eliminate bias and eliminate racism. We have to really start to analyze the rules we follow and question them because we can be change makers. We can be change makers.
[New slide: “This is America” Text on left: “55% of white women voted for Trump, compared to 53% in 2016.” Image of a person waving the American flag in the middle. Text on right: 90% of black women voted for Biden”.]
>> Val: Sometimes people tell me, you know, “oh things are getting better, you know, we really celebrate it when Biden won, you know.” And one thing that I want to point out, you know. I celebrate it when he won. I did not want Trump to be president again, I just have to be honest right there. What I want to point out is that 50, more than 55, of white people voted for Trump, and then in 2020 now, after everybody saw how horrible things went, we had 58 of white people that still voted for Trump in 2020. So let's just be clear, you know, when we say it's getting better, I believe it is. One thing, you know, I've suffered a lot of discrimination in my life. I've struggled with racial trauma for many years, even before I knew what racial trauma was, and there were times when I was ostracized and discriminated against and targeted, and everybody in the room knew it was happening. People of Color, white people, like the majority in the room, white people, and not one person would stand up to support me. Today I was impacted, in 2018 severely impacted, by racial trauma and targeted and this time many white people stood up and supported me and wanted to help me out of the situation they saw what was happening, and they wanted to stand up against it. So when I see that happening, that makes me proud and that makes me happy and I'm just so happy to see that kind of change happening, but let's be clear, you know. If we can trust those poll numbers, it shows that white people have continued to vote according to their racial mandate, maintain power for white men.
[New slide: “Racism as White Violence”. Title inside blue box.]
>> Val: We are more than halfway through so I'm gonna start to breeze through. I don't know if we have any questions that are pressing in the chat box and please feel free to pop in, if there were some questions that we have, because I'm just going to start flying through stuff. We have a lot of content. I have a lot of content, and it is in no way going to be finished in an hour, but I'm going to try to touch on the most important points. Okay, just checking in, you know. Depending on where you are in your anti-racist journey, you might have learned that you don't really ask Black people to teach you about racism or how to be anti-racist, and that's true because it can be re-traumatizing. I'm going to give you the option to ask me. Yes, I do this work. So a person that is an anti-racist worker and invites you to ask them questions.
[Anne’s window pops up while the slideshow closes.]
>> Val: Feel free to ask me any question. There is no question that's too dumb, too insensitive, or too racist for me to answer. I may not be able to answer them all but I will answer them to the best of my ability, thank you.
>> Anne: Hi Val, this is Anne and we do have one question. That would like to know with the Supreme Court ruling regarding considering affirmative action. So the Supreme Court is now considering the removal of affirmative action. Is affirmative action considered reparation for the Black community and how do people that are woke feel about the removal of affirmative action?
>> Val: Thanks for that question, that's an excellent question. So I can speak for myself, so not sure how the Black community feels, because I haven't been in a lot of circles where that's a hot topic. Personally, I would feel that the removal of affirmative action would be damaging because it's one of the things that required people to have to hire People of Color when they were passing up People of Color all the time, for basically no reason, other than maintaining white power and white supremacy. So if affirmative action is removed, then people don't have to hire People of Color. They can just pass them over, regardless of how qualified they are and how much they may deserve the positions that they are going for, so I think that would be damaging. People who are woke may see it as the same. I'm waking up every day now. I'm still not claiming that I'm fully awake because I'm telling you this journey is a lifelong journey, and I am learning so much so quickly. Now that I'm on this trajectory to do this work.
[Anne’s window closes and the slideshow returns.]
>> Val: So I would think that that would be a blow to what my ancestors worked for and those who died and fought for equity so hopefully that answers that question. So when you have questions, make sure you are coming from a place of curiosity and willingness to learn.
[New slide: “4 Levels of Racism”. Four circles with text on the outline and inside the circles in a row. From left to right:
Personal (blue): Private beliefs, prejudices, ideas that individuals have.
Interpersonal (purple): The expression of racism between individuals.
Institutional (green): Discriminatory treatment, policies and practices, within organizations and institutions.
Structural (orange): System in which public policies, institutional practices and other norms perpetuate racial group inequality.]
>> Val: In the past, not today, that was an excellent question. In the past, I have had individuals ask me questions to kind of debunk or diminish the value of what I'm trying to teach, so come from a place of curiosity and willingness to know, willingness to learn. All right, so really quickly, the working assumption is that all people are racist. Let's go with that. Okay, all people are racist, you know. Never say, “I'm not racist.” What you say is, “Oh I might have some racist tendencies, how do I get rid of them?” And it doesn't matter what color you are. Like I said, I want us to start pointing to policies and laws and procedures because we've all been conditioned to follow the rules, you know and I have to let you know, those of us that are those staunch followers of the rules, you know. “I gotta follow the rules, I can't bend the rules,” and you get anxious if you have to deviate from the rules even a little bit, and you want to force others to follow the rules when you see them not doing it because you feel it's not fair, so you go to someone superior over them to make sure they follow the rules, you know. That can be you. Know if you're an educator, that can be you. Go into one of your colleagues’ bosses, you go into Administration on them, to complain about them because they're not following the rules, you know. You're out in public, you're calling the police, somebody’s not following the rules, so you know. What I'm asking people to do is analyze the rules. Are these rules harming some and why do I feel the need to follow it? So for those of us who are the staunchest followers of rules might have a lot of work to do to get on that anti-racist journey. So these are the four structures, four levels of racism. Personal, interpersonal, institutional and structural, and I hope you had the opportunity to read those because when I say, “we're all racist,” I don't really mean we're all racist because racism is an institution of power and privileged right. When you have the ability to hire and fire or withhold resources or give resources, then you can be racist because you can actually use your power and privilege to oppress others and hold others back and eliminate others. If you're broke and you don't have any resources, you don't have any power and privilege, then you're just bigoted, you're just biased. So that's my take on, you know, racism and bias, you know. So we all have bias. When does bias become racism? When you have the power and privilege to oppress others.
[New slide shows original position for the Brittney video before skipping over to new slide.]
>> Val: So this is actually where the video was supposed to be for Brittany, but I'm going to skip right over that because we already saw it.
[New slide: “Racism has Many Names” Bulleted list below, image of a smiling boy on right side.
Weapons of Whiteness
White silence
White fragility
White tears
White Guilt
White collusion (Karen 2.0)
White saviorism
Racism evolves
Abuse (Power/control; gaslighting)
Microaggressions.]
>> Val: Just really quickly, just talking about racism has many names and you can see here. Those are many other things. I'm just gonna go through them super quick. So, white silence. That's when you see something happening, you stay silent about it. White fragility is maybe you've been caught saying something inappropriate, doing something inappropriate, and you just break and you can't take it. You can't accept it, you won't believe it, you refuse to even hear about it. You know white tears come when something happens that shouldn't have and you know, you cry, and that places the blame on the person that's trying to stop your racial assault. And then we have, you know, white guilt. We get stuck in this place of disgust where we can't act and do anything. We don't want to be stuck there, you know. Maybe your ancestors did some atrocious things. Yes, it doesn't have to be you. Now you change it. Don't get stuck there, work to change it. White collusion. Those are people who know and they're the active maintainers of the system and they want things to stay the way they are. They are happy with others being harmed as long as they stay on top. White saviorism is that clueless group that thinks they're woke, and they don't know, and they just want to save black people from everything that's going on, and they often center themselves. So we want to stay away from those kinds of things and see racism as abuse, you know. There, it has many parallels to domestic violence, you know, with the power and the control and the gaslighting, you know, and it's harmful. So we want to see it for what it is. Here we go.
[Slideshow closes and Anne’s window pops back up.]
>> Anne: All right, well thank you so much, Val. We do need to close, we have three minutes left, and we do have two comments from the chat. One person is saying, “Thank you so much for your presentation. It has been so valuable and thank you so much for being open and honest,” and that one was from Christine. And another person is saying, “Thank you, so helpful Val,” and so also we have a question that maybe we're hoping you can answer quickly. Wondering, give me one second, “If you are considered white, does that mean that everyone else is BIPOC?” “If a person is considered white, does that mean that everyone else is BIPOC?”
>> Val: So, I'm not sure how to answer that question because that's, you know, that's part of the rules again, right? You know, you'll hear people argue, “How come white people are not considered People of Color, you know? I know some white people that are pretty pink, sometimes they're pretty tan, sometimes they're a little bit, you know, yellow, you know. You see some people that are a little bit sick, they could be blue or green, so I'm not sure what that question means, but BIPOC, that phrase, I can speak to is, like I said earlier, it's used to put Black and Indigenous people at the forefront, who are the ones who suffered the most severe racial trauma and genocide in this society, and that other People of Color also suffer from inequity and racial injustice. But white people, you know that was many say, just saying, you know, if someone's considered a white person, it was a way to kind of erase white people's history too, and lump them all in one group of people, you know. You don't get to get to the richness of your roots, like you know, “I'm Scandinavian,” you know. “I'm from Greece and my grandparents are from this and that,” so hopefully that might answer a little bit.
>> Anne: thank you so much for your answer, Valerie, as well as your presentation and then also please be ready for the QR code and the CEU evaluation form that when you submit that you are going to see the when you submit the evaluation form, then you will see that the link to the CEU form. If you could please go ahead and pull up that QR code for the evaluation form.
[Anne’s window shifts to the right side while the slide with the QR code pops up. Text next to the code: “So Now You’re Woke? Evaluation link (link under). Presenters: Valerie Shirley”.]
>> Anne: Great. Now when you enter the evaluation form from your phone, you can type this URL, or you can type the URL from your screen and we are going to also be posting that in the chat right now. That should work hopefully and thank you again so much Valerie
[Slideshow closes and Anne’s window shifts to the left while Val’s window pops back up.]
>> Anne: thank you so much for everyone for your time with us this morning I did learn quite a bit myself as well. So I hope that you enjoyed your time with us and we're seeing many comments saying what an excellent presentation it was and lots of hand waving and thank you and many positive responses about your workshop, Valerie, thank you.
>> Val: Thank you so much for having me today.
]All video windows close.. Title slide pops up: “We’re taking a quick break; the next session will begin shortly”. The MN.gov logo is on top right with text next to it: “2022 Collaborative Experience Conference”. A blurred photo of a desk with a cup of pencils and a stack of books is below.]
[Video ends.]
