In light of the events in Washington, DC on January 6, 2021, we decided to change up Lucretia’s interview topic and bump this episode to the soonest possible drop date. We’re discussing what happened at the Capitol last week and race/ism today on Flip Your Lid. Join us!
ABOUT LUCRETIA
Dr. Lucretia Carter Berry is the founder and President of Brownicity, an agency committed to making important, scholarly-informed, antiracism education accessible.
A former college professor, Lucretia designed the popular ‘beginners’ course and authored its study guide, What LIES Between Us: Fostering First Steps Toward Racial Healing. She is the director of Brownicity’s Learning Community, an online membership platform that currently hosts over 10k enrollments. Lucretia is the Anti-race/ism Curriculum Specialist for Community School of Davidson (NC), a contributor for (In)courage.me, and a TEDx and Q Ideas speaker. She is married to Nathan; they have three daughters.
Lucretia earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and MA in English from Iowa State University, and her BA from South Carolina State University.
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Lucretia shares that she felt like was being called into the deep back in 2015 or 2016 and now believes that a social veil has been pulled back to reveal what’s been happening in the hearts and minds of the men and women of this nation. There is a wound in our country that has created a racial hierarchy. She can see that what we witnessed in the capitol last week revealed that we still have work to do to work toward racial healing and deconstructing white supremacy.
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” -Jimmy Hendrix
Lucretia’s great pleasure is pressing into the learning journey with those who are eager to want to grow in understanding of the history of race/ism in our country.
Kim asked what’s the difference between white supremacy and white privilege.
WHITE SUPREMACY is an idealogy, belief, and practice that descendants of NW Europeans are a “master race”. This warped thinking is used to justify colonization by dehumanizing those who are not part of this “master race”.
WHITE PRIVILEGE in its origin was never meant to be a weapon against white people. It began with Peggy McIntosh noticing privilege in her own life. It’s a lens for observation of the fact that laws, policies, practices, and behaviors intentionally benefit those who are white-skinned or light-skinned and intentionally disadvantage people of color. This concept does not negate the work of white people to build a successful life, it simply notes that they did not have the same barriers in front of them that people of color, particularly African-Americans, would have come against on an identical journey.
People like to try to dismantle systemic racism based on laws and policies that have changed or been amended over time, but you can’t legislate behavior or the financial and psychological impacts compounded over time.
Kim and Lucretia discuss the history of African-American names being different, the separation of “ethnic” hair products in retail stores, and all band-aids being made for white skin tones. All of these observations are examples of white privilege— most importantly, the way people are treated based on the color of their skin.
Lucretia shares that she is of the first generation of fully integrated people of color and had become so used to being treated differently because of her skin color, that she developed coping mechanisms. She didn’t even realize the depth of trauma and walls she’d built until she began her healing journal. She shares a few examples of how she has experienced the world as a woman of color that readers should listen to on the podcast to hear her words, tone, and full experience. These can be heard around the 25-minute mark.
Kim notes that Lucretia doesn’t even seem all that surprised about what happened in DC last week. Lucretia shares points from American history that do normalize what happened for those who have been paying attention. She does share that even during the civil war, the confederate flag didn’t make it into the Capitol, so to see that happen on Thursday was extremely painful for people of color.
Lucretia also reflects on the police response, symbols represented in defense of the racial hierarchy or the white American way, the way the movement for belonging and justice has been labeled a resistance and unpatriotic, and the conflicting ideas represented by the people present at the Capitol breach. People are being fueled by fear, a lack of understanding and care, and a false sense of desperation.
One historic example of a policy that is advantageous for white people is the court system that is set up to meet their needs. We’ve also had a problem of widespread, documented voter suppression from emancipation up until today. Yet, a group of majority white people feels threatened by a false narrative of violation by fraudulent votes, leading to what we saw in DC.
Kim asks Lucretia to reflect on the tradition of voter suppression in southern states through policies and practices that are legal and acceptable. The outcome prevents black voters from casting their ballots by removing voting sites, requiring certain forms of ID, etc. She notes that Stacy Abrams did a lot of work to overturn these practices in Georgia by encouraging all p[eople to use our collective power to be active in government.
Kim then asks Lucretia to define what it means to be racist. She explains how race-based our country is. We have all been impacted by culture, education, and life in this country. We have to be intentional to counteract the racial lies we’ve been conditioned to believe. If we don’t consciously challenge the lies, we are going along with them.
There is so much more to this episode than can’t be captured in these notes. Be sure to watch or listen to the full episode this time. You won’t want to miss a moment. Thanks for joining us!
CONNECT WITH DR. BERRY
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Brownicity - Many Hues, One Humanity
IG, FB, TW - @Brownicity
Lucretia Carter Berry
IG - lucretiaberry
FB - lucretiaoberry
SPEAKING & WRITING
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