ASM229 White Homework with Tori Williams Douglass

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[Music] welcome to another episode of ask science mike this is a weekly podcast where we believe that every sincere question deserves an honest and non-judgmental response i'm mike mccarg your host the science mike of the title and i'm a science educator who likes to take an emotionally focused approach to evidence-based information because i think too often when we learn about what science can mean in our lives in our daily living in our spiritual journeys in all the parts of our lives we tend to be a little too cerebrally focused and we ignore our feelings and science actually tells us that our feelings are some of the most powerful parts of our brain body system and that they can influence our actions dramatically whether or not we pay attention to them so the goal of this show is to destigmatize curiosity to push back on taboos and to have honest non-judgmental supportive conversations about anything that we're curious about it is something that i have enjoyed tremendously over the years and i'm so glad that you have joined us this week speaking of this week we are facing some really challenging times in the world here we are still in the middle of a global pandemic we've been facing the economic fallout of trying to cope with that pandemic the mental health fallout and it's there's been a lot of challenges i know from reading your cards and letters and the questions that you send into the program that many of you have felt anxious and overwhelmed and tired and i have felt all of those things too and so it almost feels impossible to cope with the death of george floyd and the ongoing impacts of police brutality on communities of color especially black and native communities in america in the middle of a pandemic but what i've noticed is that despite all the challenging times that we're facing and all the the difficulty in our feelings coping with these situations that i have been so surprised by the number of people especially white people who are taking the problem of white supremacy in america seriously perhaps for the first time i saw an image taken in my home city of tallahassee and sent to me by a friend where a truck that for years drove up and down a capital circle which is a major road in tallahassee with a confederate flag hanging in the bed in more recent years had been replaced by a trump flag and then surprisingly enough yesterday which was saturday as i record this intro on sunday a black lives matter flag was hanging from that same truck and so it seems to me that suddenly many white people are taking seriously the claims of the experiences of black americans and i'm thrilled about that and also concerned because when we as white people first begin to confront white supremacy when we first become truly aware of the magnitude of racism in the united states and frankly abroad you know my friends in canada and the uk and australia and france and germany and the netherlands and all those countries i get your letter saying oh wow i'm glad we aren't racist like the u.s friends being less racist than the united states is no prize at all so all of all of the countries with histories of colonialism have serious work to do on confronting white supremacy and when we first start to do so we don't know very much yet by we i mean white people and so i thought it would be helpful and useful this week to go back to a conversation i had recently on episode 210 of ask science mike with my dear friend tori williams douglas torrey is an educator an advocate a science professional and has a series of work that she does called white homework that helps white people start to understand and meaningfully engage with the problems of white supremacy and i thought at this moment in history when we are mobilizing and marching and demonstrating and organizing even in the middle of a pandemic i and greg and caitlyn and the entire team behind science mike thought it would be a great time to revisit this conversation so without further ado here is my conversation with my dear friend tori williams douglas [Music] holy cow dear podcast friends um i am kind of freaking out right now i'm just gonna be honest i have like little bits of uh little tingly feelings in my fingers and in my arms and i feel almost a little light-headed and i feel that way because i'm so excited about the recording we're going to do right now and i'm always excited to talk with all of you but i'm especially excited that this week on ask science mike we are talking with tori williams douglas who you may know on twitter as at tory glass who is uh an anti-racist educator radical feminist single mama student and by her own admission a prolific tweeter uh tori is the creator of a curriculum program known as white homework which is one of the most terrific anti-racism resources that i'm aware of available online or anywhere else uh just a guiding force in my life and someone that i also consider a friend so it is my great great and genuine pleasure to welcome to ask science mike this week tori hi everybody hi mike i'm so happy to be here how are you um i am i'm doing pretty well i'm doing pretty well honestly i'm i'm kind of excited about this year i feel like life is good and like i'm i'm hoping that you know we can we can make a difference together so yeah i'm pretty good mm-hmm how are you i am good i uh i started this year with a week of intensive group therapy like you do wow okay uh i've had some some uh really deep trauma to process and something that frequent listeners or people who've read some of my writing might know is that i have a pretty ongoing uh struggle with suicidality and um well managed by the way but still there and starting this year off with kind of that really really really deep work um it's really helped and has changed my outlook so i feel you know less withdrawn socially than i can recall feeling in my life and you know it's been gosh uh i think almost a full month since i've had a single suicidal ideation which is probably a record for me um so it's it's this interesting thing where there's this macro view of the world where i have pretty deep and pressing concerns about climate and about the movements towards white nationalism especially in the west not just america by the way um yeah and yet i feel this profound hopefulness because of the growth i've experienced and the things that i've learned from friends like you you know i sometimes think if and this is a very oversimplified and prosaic view of the world but if like you had an hour on primetime tv every night and andre henry did as well like most of our problems would just go away which is totally wrong but it also underscores that despite concerning macro headwinds i see things in my personal life and experience and the work of people i know that are actually pushing back on this collective darkness this collective difficulty this fear and anxiety that we feel about the world and a world that we're making together um and that's kind of the juxtaposition that i'm in i'm i'm feeling better personally and that is making more hopeful which is ideally making me a more effective actor in in the world of of justice work and anti-racism and feminism and lgbtq equality and all these things that i care so deeply about that's awesome i was just enjoying hearing that you are are doing well despite everything because i feel like that comes up i'm sure people ask you this all the time but people people always ask me they're like um okay so how do you how do you stay hopeful when it looks like the world is going to hell yeah and it really does like as a former evangelical to hell doesn't feel like that big an exaggeration right that's the thing scary stuff out there yeah absolutely but i also i'll tell you and this might be um this might be a predictor of somewhere places that our conversation goes but as i've gotten like more personally involved in anti-racist work some of the patterns of you know white guilt and white anxiety that i was in have lessened pretty considerably um and i've found as a pretty consistent pattern in my life when i spend a period of grief and lament and learning um with the people are actually impacted by oppressive systems but then start to act and take real action as doing the work has shown me to do um that there are pretty profound personal and relational benefits that go along with that um that's just i don't know i guess that's i guess that's 20 20. yeah i love it that's so great i asked twitter if twitter had questions for you and twitter definitely had questions for you would you be okay if we just went in and explored some of the questions people in the public had for you yes absolutely sounds great for those of you who don't follow tori on twitter one how dare you and two tori is so loved on twitter which twitter is not a place i usually think of love and positive experience but i'm struck every time that i i read what tori is up to every time i mention tori uh just how overwhelming and positive and wonderful the response is and i don't think these questions are any exception and i'm not very creative so i'm not gonna curate these well i'm just gonna like chronologically scroll and ask the ones that look interesting um so blake said uh question for the moment what are your current podcast recommendations okay so um a couple a couple weeks ago i think it might it may have been last month but somebody one of the like popular so a lot of people on twitter will like pose questions to all their followers or anyone who happens to see the tweet and like sometimes these questions end up going extremely viral um but one of the questions i feel like that came up recently was something about like what is something that you do that like no one would expect based on your personality and i can never come up with answers to these things but i realized that it was like i listened to i listened to a lot of podcasts by white dudes talking about like socialism and and marxism like this is very off-brand for me um but yeah so there's this podcast um that's called uh red menace and um oh my god that is a great name no no no mike is so good um so i don't know actually i don't know that much about like political theory right and like it gets really i i know a lot more about like conservative or like classical liberal political theory than than like socialism or or marxism or whatever um and so this kind of even though it's a little bit above like my level i guess i can keep up with it um and so they talk about all these like marxist texts and they do like these super like deep dives into like chapter by chapter like kind of dig into them like tear them apart and um i actually don't know who hosts this but it sounds like two white guys to me um so [Laughter] yeah but it's like it's so incredible so they've been they've been discussing um the book the wretched of the earth by like the last several months actually by um franz fanon i don't know actually how you pronounce his last name anyway so there's a couple of red menace podcasts so just so you know it is it's the like pro marxist podcast oh i am 100 gonna check that out oh my gosh yeah you should it's it's pretty heady and and but if you're like a politics nerd and also the fact that i i like the fact that they are not um they're not just reading like other white dudes who have written about like marxist leninist thought or whatever um so that that's really i like that a lot um and i've been like marathoning so i find you usually find a podcast and like just go through and listen to every single episode um so right the podcast i'm marathoning right now is um behind the bastards and especially the the what really stuck out to me is that um the host robert evans he wrote a book um called the war on everybody that's about uh the rise of of fascism and in the west and kind of the history um like going back to going back to world war ii essentially um it's again super accessible but i've i've really been i've really been appreciating that and he's the audiobook is actually on online too but i like going forward i feel like especially this year understanding how like fascism works and like and and the ways that it contradicts itself and like that's been really empowering for me because now when i see these like little traits online of of like people using quote-unquote sarcasm to talk about like their hatred of of jewish people or people of color you know trans people whatever the case may be um that is that for me is like super empowering because i'm like okay i see what you're doing i know what this is um so yeah that's a really good great question i have so i'm like i listen to podcasts all day long every day um and i i should i should yeah um i'm so ridiculous mike but yeah i love i love like i love podcasts like make fun of the bible so i'm so sorry because i'm sure some of the people that listen to your show are christians yeah there are many serious bible readers so um yeah like sunday school dropouts and how-to heretic are like i die every single week it makes it brings me so much joy i'm so sorry i'm hurt i enjoy how to heretic a great deal that's a good job yeah but sunday school dropouts also they go through like the entire bible just like book by book and they're like this is so stupid anyway my sincerest apologies to all the christians listening but it is so funny i never realized like i have like these random coughing fits i feel like a little lady right now um but yeah no i got a cold last like right before christmas and then i still i'm just like just randomly erupt and like coughing but um yeah no i was i was just gonna say like i never realized how the narrative in the bible makes no sense in english like the stories are just so confusing it's like what is the point here yeah um i i mean i joked about this um after i saw um the rise of skywalker but i was like i actually i don't have an expectation of any story to to have like a a plot or like an overarching narrative so to me like this makes perfect sense because i grew up reading the bible and you you can't really ask questions because god's ways are higher than our ways and i was like oh no this this works for me you don't have to be going anywhere of the story i'm used to just sitting here and listening for hours i'm thinking about how cleanly you are slicing and dicing the listeners of this program uh with your podcast pics [Laughter] i'm so sorry they're like no it's it's fine that the people listen to show one thing i really love about them is like with really different belief systems they kind of coexist in this media space but i'm imagining like some of our currently identifying conservative evangelicals um being like yeah i'll check out red menace and how to heretic it's it's an interesting thought for me i mean yeah i'm i'm here for like people that i don't necessarily agree with i mean there's a lot there's so many there's so many good good podcasts i i can't even break dances with wolves and had like good answers so good so good um i also have been lately i've been loving um um hood rats head wraps i love oh my gosh those come the conversations that they have on that uh erica and ebony that they have on that show are so amazing um so yeah i have i have a ton but for some reason i just like geek out over it's like hey it's white guys who are talking about socialism well i have a question for you that's not a twitter question okay like how do you do this because every time someone asks me for a podcast that i'm listening to or a podcast i like i can't remember a podcast that exists i immediately go completely blank and you're like just bam bam bam is you just have like a working brain i guess is that i mean like i said i i really i listen to podcasts like all day long like last night i couldn't sleep and so i turned on um i just hit play on like some episode of behind the bastards and just listen to that for four hours in bed um so yeah i think that that i am a prolific podcast listener as of this moment but check in next year things could change okay i will i had a flight from uh atlanta to lax which is pretty decent flight and i listened to podcasts for the whole flight and guess what i don't remember what podcast i listen to i don't have a clue i literally have no idea now i if someone asks me something that was covered in those podcasts i will immediately be able to answer the question and they'd be like where'd you learn that i'd be like no no i have no idea where i got this information from but it's true it's yeah well no i i have a pretty good uh internal was this credible marker yes anyway kevin garcia my dear friend and i believe yours as well as the question that always gets put on the end of a conversation like this and so i'm glad it's gonna happen towards the beginning kevin's question is what are your new projects like so what are you working on um so i decided 2020 is my year to write a book um that is what i'm working on right now um to be perfectly honest i'm i'm actually simultaneously writing two books which is a terrible idea don't do it um but so i'm writing um a book for white homework um and um just kind of with a little bit of background my life talking about you know talking about reparations and and kind of how i like ended up coming to this work um and then i am at the same time as i said again do not do this it's a terrible idea i'm writing a book about decolonization so um and like imagining what that could look like and and ways for people to to get involved in that work um so yeah those are those are my two big projects i'm also planning um some white homework events for this year which i'm super super super excited about um so uh it looks like the first one's probably gonna be in minneapolis um and i'm so stoked about that um other projects turning uh making the podcast part of white homework um more regular this year is something that i'm working on so i have been working with um a co-host and producer to like make that happen so i'm i'm excited about that um [Music] let's see uh they're wise um yeah my like my littlest my little list is gonna be starting kindergarten this year which is like my heart oh wow he's so cute and i'm just i can't oh my gosh my old my oldest is in second grade so he'll be in third grade and but yeah my little list is starting kinder and i'm just like and it's you know what's crazy is like living in such a if we live in in a society that is so um let me see i don't want to use an ableist world word it's it's like living in the upside down right like the fact that like i drop off i i'm not a person of faith but i drop off my kid at school and i see all of these little kindergartners with their little backpacks that are bigger than they are and just like oh my god like i just i actively have to stop myself from thinking about school shootings and i just yeah it's it's brutal it's like you you gotta you have to like you have to hug your babies every single day and and just be completely obsessed with them and tell them that no matter what you love them because it's like you we have so little control um we just you don't you don't know what's gonna happen um and it's just like me seeing like all of these tiny humans which i just oh my gosh i love kids but yeah it's it's so much but yeah so that's that's my other big project setting my baby off to school that isn't a big project too it is it is no it's like putting your k especially for me i feel like because i wasn't allowed to attend school um because it's like evil and public school and whatever um but it's like such a big deal for me because i didn't i didn't go to school so like putting my kids into that space and like oh i have no idea what you're doing all day and that's totally normal and okay i also just want to call out and thank you for naming momming as a project that's important and significant because it seems like usually in a media environment men and women who discuss parenting as part of their life work it's treated as an interesting human interest aside to the main work so to speak and that is really nasty patriarchy gross um yeah totally no i mean i see parenting as something that's like i don't know it's just it's such an honor and i know that there you know there are many people who would love to be able to be parents and and that hasn't happened for them for whatever reason so i'm i'm extremely like thankful grateful hashtag blessed um but yeah it is it's like it's it's a big it's a huge part of my life and i i mean it's coaching a little person like through the world so they can grow up and be like a functional adult is such a big deal and it's also like so fun so yeah that's it's one of my projects all right this is uh this is a great question that's a little dated but very important and something i think about constantly from timothy okay what are your thoughts on the musical hamilton does it downplay slavery or does it empower people of color um both i think that's cool um right like i mean i guess someone somebody might make a musical about slavery and how shitty that was um but it's not it's not like a super fun topic to write or talk about or to see in entertainment um but yeah i think that it does it does downplay it it you know it touches on it but not in like not not in super meaningful ways excuse me it's more like as a zinger like oh you're bad people because you're slavers um but it also has given so many opportunities to people of color um to help like launch their careers so i and i'm just i'm obsessed with it personally so yeah i am also obsessed with it i think it's incredible artistry um and if you were i mean i i kind of empathize with lin manuel and like if you were to accurately portray the founding fathers [Music] not a fun musical like ever no i mean it was a hard time it's like survival horror and they're the monsters uh-huh yeah it was a hard time for everybody they made it like unspeakably hard for a smaller like subset of the population um but yeah no so i think that i i appreciate it for what it is and i'm thankful that it was you know it was a very intentional choice to to cast the roles the way that they were cast and representation you know it means it means a lot to me and um but yeah i think yeah once you start getting into like the the realities of who the founding fathers were like that's a little tough it for me it was like the first time i saw it i there's like this american mythology that's pretty fake but it was like if america tried to become what it pretends to be it would look more like this it's kind of my relationship like this is what an actual exceptional america would look like um yeah absolutely and so i thought that that like inspiring the imagination for people watching and normalizing kind of as you said just uh people of color playing these roles yeah it's really important especially when you have so many nerd freak outs because like oh my god fictional character blank has just been played by a person of color and they're supposed to be white or or blue for god's sake uh or but then yeah it's no big deal to do like a period piece where white people play other ethnicities uh hamilton hamilton was a major like kind of strike back against all of that horseshit yeah yeah absolutely absolutely no i i appreciate it another tweet is jamie who said with a humble heart i ask it can be difficult for us white folk to join in anti-racism convos especially since we are indeed the problem and it's not tory at all interesting use of at all job to answer our questions but how can we ask questions where to best get educated or remain observers until when blessed by you guys and then the little prayer emoji or hands emoji i don't know what you call that um i mean honestly that's kind of why i that's kind of why i created the white homework patreon page just because i know that people have questions and that's really allowed me to um like get into the weeds with a lot more people because yeah like i know that there's a lot of people excuse me who have like questions like individual questions that they want to be able to have answered and like you might be going to like um a lecture at you know a university or a talk or or a book reading or something like that but you can't really like have those super one-on-one conversations um so yeah that was a big part of why i created like the white homework patreon pages just so that people would have a little bit more of an opportunity to like reach out and ask those kinds of questions in an environment that is created specifically for education for learning anti-racism so you can join the white home or patreon if you want to you can just go to whitehomework.com you should join the white homework patreon that's what that's what i say you should join it you could join it you should join it it's going to skip a lot of work so as a white person i get it at first you hear all these terms and they're really confusing and they make you feel some weird guilty burning shame defensiveness and you're like what do i do i want to be a good person racism is bad so i need to learn to be a good person so this person who's just by what they've posted made me feel this burning emotion i don't like i'm going to ask them for more specificity so i can get rid of this feeling as fast as possible it's kind of the like cycle i see people in i don't want to feel like this i want to be a good person and then when they like ask uh someone they've never met on twitter who retweeted a really really poignant and in many places offensive question they get even more upset when they get shut down or corrected so start at white homework that is that is literally the easiest thing if you literally can't even get there yet like google is there y'all and like literally follow some people who talk about these things on social media and at first don't just start commenting just wait just read for a while sit with your feelings but then you'll start to your brain being a brain will start connecting words together and then you can almost any term if you google it is going to be confusing and overwhelming and mixed with good and bad information but if you do the same word and then the words reading list suddenly your signal-to-noise ratio really really improves in my experience so if i if i google uh patriarchy i'm going to get some good resources and i'm going to get right wing conspiracy theories about feminist poisoning people but if i do the same thing and then reading list suddenly i get some really quality resources that help me identify who to pay attention to and then someone's like already cataloged all this stuff and now it's just my job to read um and i you know that's important work uh and i can tell you gosh i so wish white homework would have existed when i first started realizing how enmeshed in a system of white supremacy i was because what an amazing and life-changing resource that is sorry i'm not just like trying to plug your stuff tory i just uh really it's all good thank you no that means i'm glad that it's helpful for people like that you know sometimes you don't get a ton of positive feedback that way so i'm glad to know that it actually is like a helpful resource for people yeah it's uh i think it tilts all the way from uh helpful to life changing but you also know i i think you're amazing [Music] ask science mike would not be possible without the support of my amazing sponsors and they are amazing the sponsors on this program are hand selected and i turn down far more sponsorship opportunities than i accept i only advertise products that i personally use and enjoy and recommend on this program and one of my most long-standing sponsors is kiwi co kiwi co provides hands-on learning and experience based play for people of all ages from you know very very small children uh all the 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therapy [Music] you answered these on twitter but i i just feel like both of these questions are going to resonate with a huge swath like 80 plus swath of the listeners so these are from jessica the first question is can we hone in on your enneagram number [Laughter] i've been trying so hard jessica i've been trying so hard i don't know um okay so when i first tested i took like one of the freebie tests online and um it said enneagram two and i didn't know anything about the enneagram so i was like okay cool um i started reading about enneagram too and i was like yeah like i definitely i've always felt very passionate about helping people i think that that probably comes through in a lot of my work on online and and with my homework um and so it's like okay that makes sense and then i over time began realizing um that i i disintegrate to eight right i really had to like triangulate this or excuse me i i disintegrate to five which is something that eights do um and i thought part of it was because my mom i think is an eight and so you can't really have like two female eights like in the same space um like that's just a very kind of uh bowl in china shop sort of scenario um so i was like okay well i i definitely disintegrate to five like i definitely go very like inward and and and shut down and get really quiet um and so a couple of people suggested to me um um jamie lee finch and and mason menega were both like i think that you might actually be an eight um and not a two so i've you know i was kind of sat with that for a while and i was like okay this makes sense like i definitely have like a very strong personality like i'm very passionate about like standing up for or standing up against like injustice and like speaking truth to power i'm like this makes so much sense and so then i went and i took the ready test um and that pegged me as a seven and so now i'm just like i'm lost i don't know i'm lost in the enneagram woods so if somebody wants to help me can somebody just like can somebody just tell me what my type is because i don't know [Laughter] people they are that i i don't know i've come to understand being a quote enneagram 9 mainly as the intersection of my codependency and cptsd um and those are more helpful ways for me to interrogate those patterns of behavior than kind of the enneagram model um but gosh after all these years that is still people love to and it's like spreading i'm noticing that i get as i get further and further from christian or even spiritually inclined spaces enneagram starting to show up in like work meetings and in the you know media and people like that pick a number sort of self-typing and self-identifying but i think the kind of nuance you're describing here is like well none of these really i mean i guess if i could take a little of that and a little of that and a little of that now we're getting somewhere um i don't know that's something i think about a lot and i'm just i have such enneagram fatigue do you ever get any gram fatigue um i mean i haven't i've just i've used it as something that i enjoy and like as a model that you know when it works for me i it's i take it and if it isn't working for me i leave it so i haven't i haven't so much but i can definitely see like being in a different space um like socially like how that could be become overwhelming or kind of like the because it's it's so fun to have conversations especially with people you don't know if you don't if you go and you like have because i've done this before um like meeting people on twitter like i met a couple of like twitter friends for dinner one night because they happened to be in town and we spent like most of the night talking about enneagram and it was kind of great because it's like you know where people are coming from like you have a way to orient yourself in in terms of like how they perceive things and how they respond um but excuse me i can definitely see how um how it could be sort of an overwhelming thing in another space in another context or i could just learn some emotional maturity i just heard you describe emotional maturity and taking ownership of your own feelings that seems like maybe a thing i should invest some energy in uh this next question also from jessica i think is the blockbuster of the whole set and something that i'm fascinated by not only in general but with you in particular so here's the question how did you come to have such a positive perspective on your body was that a difficult process um i mean i definitely grew up in like the finspiration tumbler world like that was where where women like and femmes are just functionally starving themselves and then posting pictures of it on tumblr um as like fitness inspiration for other people um and so it's been really interesting to see like the big like shift the big dynamic change because i i mean i remember like i you know i was doing all the things and like working out and really restricting my eating and i like i i got down to like a size zero and you know i was like why do i still think i'm fat um yeah i realized pretty quickly that that was not like that wasn't sustainable in in terms of like you're just chasing an arbitrary number on a pair of pants like that doesn't make any sense um but for me it started as like a practice of appreciating other people's bodies like after i had kids and then you know like wasn't just automatically a size two anymore um which is this is this is who i was right that i was like i'm size two and i'm like i really need to be a size zero or maybe a double zero um so i got after i had kids i was like okay well this isn't this isn't working obviously and like i need to be kind to myself i don't really know how to do that because i've i've never done that i've always beat myself up and so um i was on vacation um i you know i i just had my second baby like 10 10 months before or so so it's about 10 11 months postpartum i'm still breastfeeding and like sitting on the beach in kauai and i was like okay every woman who walks past me because i'm so programmed to be judgmental of other people's bodies of my body i'm going to choose to find something about that person that i feel is beautiful and i'm just in my own head i'm going to appreciate that about them and you know like it was it wasn't like a super busy day but i was like sitting on the beach like playing with my kids and like every time a woman would walk past or somebody who who presented as more feminine um i would find something that i was like she has an amazing smile or i love her hair or like just just something right so that i was so i was finding beauty instead of going like oh her boobs are weird like oh her hips like oh her thighs her ankles um like training my brain to say beauty in all kinds of bodies instead of and like undoing that that that programming of judgment and condemnation in other people like i had to really start with other people because i couldn't do it with myself and eventually like i turned that into a into a practice into a habit and eventually was able to start doing it with with myself with my own body um but yeah i was because i was so deep in that it was really difficult for me to um for me to to change that automatically like it it really it really required like a commitment like mentally to appreciate the people the human beings that i was around and appreciate their bodies right um not just like oh you're a human you have value whatever but it's like no like find beauty in every body um and so i think that that was that was really like the key for me personally to kind of undo that toxic narrative like internal narrative about about like this body perfection garbage that we still have like rampant in our society um that really i've never heard someone else describe that process i had a mystical experience a few years ago and after i had that experience suddenly everybody was beautiful to me every person i saw just was astoundingly physically beautiful to me like everyone just looked like they couldn't look any better than they looked and that has stuck with me since that experience but it took so long for that acceptance of other bodies to come back to acceptance of my own body it was somehow easier to something as powerful as a mystical experience to change my framing of how i saw other people but my brain really really really clung to a shame about me and for i had a progression where i started it accepting my body shape my body appearance uh but then it still took several years for me to overcome shame over my facial expressions and mannerisms often when i see video clips of myself i would see things that um look stereotypically neurodivergent and i would feel shame about it and it's only been very recently that i've started to be able to look in the mirror or look in look at a video of myself and think i like that person i like what they're doing i like the way they move and i just was i don't know i guess i was reflecting i haven't heard that kind of outside in approach verbalized outside of my own experience before that was really encouraging and helpful for me to know that for someone like you who i associate with profound body positivity for for yourself and for other people that you had in in you know a similar journey yours being uh more intentional [Laughter] which yeah i think has a particular beauty to it but um that's a really helpful framing for me i hope that a lot of people listening um also find that framing helpful that is that's really insightful i'm a weird interviewer i was just listening it's like you say something and then my response is invariably some verbose version of wow that's great i think that makes you i guess well i do the thing uh the people i interview on my program are people i love and respect so i don't have like a uh where were you on may 5th 2018. sort of questions ready to go because i just like get people i really admire that i want people who listen to my show to encounter that's just something i noticed uh if you want a really positive interview experience at science mike is your show okay mitchell asked two not one but two phenomenal questions first question is what if any structures can be reformed in america american culture and what are too rooted in white supremacy to have any hope damn the damn is my commentary not part of the original question um man that's that's tough because there's just so i mean there's so much um it's like yeah which structures uh god i don't know and it's it's was hard for me because what i've been thinking about lately is the fact that um so many people on the right first and and i've been writing about this too actually but for so many people on the right their belief is that um american-ness and whiteness are inextricable and so the idea that in not that much time we are going to have a majority not white nation to them is a bad thing um and you know i think of one example that i've been thinking of a lot lately is is um like britain and france like britain and germany and how they like hated each other and and you know even before they were like nation states they were like these collective groups of kingdoms and they all hated each other and they all fought one another all the time and like hundreds of thousands and millions of people died over like a millennium or something and now they're all like bffs and they all get along so well and um like imagining even for me as someone in my mid-30s like imagining like france and germany at war is just crazy like it's i like i get it conceptually like i understand the concept of like oh yeah that was a thing that happened like world war ii and then like before that it was like world war one and then before that it was like all these skirmishes and before that it was like all these wars um but i i you know and they see one another as as western europe i mean at least the white people do um but like there was there was all this conflict and you know now in terms of like the geopolitical situation there there's not anymore but um there's been like this kind of complete embrace of now it's now it's all falling apart because brexit and and like you said the rise of white nationalism and everything but um yeah there's like bit for a while there there was like this embrace of like we're all kind of in this together we have very similar shared values and i just don't see white america getting to that point i mean i i know that it's possible again like i can conceptualize it it's like this is a thing that could happen but i i don't i don't see it like i see the data and and and you know white conservatives are willing to admit to two pollsters like to gallop into pew like yeah no i see this is a bad thing i see america having more black and brown people as being bad for the country and america is less american with more brown people in it um so yeah it's hard it's hard because it's like we could we could change like some of those some of the systems right like there are a lot of systems that we could change i mean i think of like um policing and incarceration obviously are the two really big ones that come to mind but also just like the racist way that we fund like public education like that's something that could be reformed right there's there's one um i have one thing that could be reformed um but um yeah like having equitable school like equitable school funding would make a massive difference in so many lives um but yeah it's hard for me at this point to imagine us getting to getting to the point where white conservatives see black people and and you know latinx and and and um indigenous people as just as american as they are um and i think that that for me i don't know why but for me right now that feels like kind of the bigger issue is it's like if if we can't get the people who would like to exclude us to see us as just as much part of america as as they are then i i don't know i don't really know how to answer the question of institutions when we can't when i can't answer the question of individuals right so yeah it's time to your point it's not not just that white conservatives um and i'm always careful saying white conservatives because uh white progressives will then tune themselves out and pat themselves in the back which is almost always not correct or true uh but what i've noticed since the 2016 election is not only that white people will admit to pollsters that a more black and brown america is a problem they'll admit it to other people the the number of people i've had conversations with both people i know and strangers in airports who will speak openly of the worsening of america based on its blackening and browning is like a shocking increase um so there's something for me is kind of like a a white washed mlk white kid right i was growing up in a period where they told us the white children the civil rights movement changed america and they got rid of all that nasty racism and that was like a narrative that i accepted um even have done done a significant amount of self work and and research and learning on race and racism the prevalence of how many people and how many communities will just if they see no pigment around on faces the the code switching that comes out is it is scary and um as i was like thinking about this question and how i was relieved i wasn't answering it i just sort of like hypothetically started trying to think of like well what's the easy system that i could name and i immediately thought what about healthcare and i was like no like that you would need a lot of reform in healthcare not only access but trained medical doctors and medical professionals minimizing reports of pain and discomfort among black black patients especially black women in a way that significantly impacts treatment and morbid morbidity rates um like there's not a ah this one wouldn't be too hard system in our culture it is right that's why a lot i think our end of the year goal for white homework should be like 15 million sign ups um yep sounds great i love it mitchell's second question was ha and this one is for a big part of this audience a big one how is atheism important informative for you um okay i'm sorry how is atheism what now important important and formative for you oh okay um i mean honestly i feel like there's a fair amount of overlap in like this answer with the last one even though i don't have like i don't have like a faith belief necessarily i mean i i have spiritual practices um in terms of meditation and stillness and and writing um and uh hiking is like a spiritual practice for me um so yeah but i think that like i don't i don't really id in as atheists necessarily like unless i know that i'm with someone who is anti-racist or who is like aspiring to be anti-racist because again it is a space where most people not everybody but like most people are willing to admit out loud just like you said that they think that america getting browner and blacker is worse um yeah so um yeah like the terminology is is uh pretty loaded i guess um but i think you know i'm pretty sure i said this last time we talked but for me your shared values are more important than shared beliefs so you know if i can work with people who are um who are actively participating in in their local church congregation you know if we if we share values like that that is fine for me and we can still have conversations about faith and non-belief and spirituality um because because we have the same values um and so i mean i do i really like people but like i really like meeting people who um aren't spiritual uh i enjoy like having conversations with people where that's not like the expectation or like the underlying assumption um but i also really enjoy you know and especially in communities of in communities of color like spirituality is a very important part of life for um you know black and latinx and indigenous communities especially more so than white neighborhoods and communities um if you look at the data so um you know i enjoy i enjoy like working alongside people of faith in the same way that i you know i enjoy working alongside um people that don't have any belief or just kind of searching or are into you know some unnamed mystical practice that they just find meaning in um i think that yeah i think i think the term atheist is just it's so loaded that it's like hard for me um and even like the even like the group that i go to here in portland like the black non-believers group it's like they don't even use the word atheism it's it's just black non-believers because it's like well you know you kind of know where you're wanted and where you're not um so my atheist friends get very upset when i describe atheism as a movement that is about as white as white evangelicalism and they don't like it when i say that but [Laughter] yeah i think the demographics and who shows up at free thought events so-called free thought events kind of speaks for itself um yeah to that point i mean that that's you know really early in my work when i realized like i was at the intersection of kind of post evangelicalism and atheism i was like whoa this is white like this is i have somehow identified an even wider area of conversation than the evangelical church i left and that you know realizing that started to change the way that i approached my work and what i was doing and what was important for me to be doing um because it it that is a um there's a group that speaks of having really inclusive values uh that also is really comfortable putting together events where the token identity is a white woman um right yup i mean it's wild and not in a good way i mean there's good wild and there's bad wild and that's the bad wild and i'm just right now taking the deep breath imagining the cards and letters i will get after that um no i'm sorry i would say my my beloved no that from what i said not from you said for my beloved atheist listeners i would say um don't argue me that i'm wrong show me that i'm wrong with the lineup of participants on on stage and in the audience at one of your events or gatherings uh because that's where i'm at these days no rhetoric just show me just show me send me a picture just send me a picture then i'll go okay um last question from twitter i think this is a great question although you say you you you on twitter said no one's going to like your answer preemptively so now i'm even more fascinating what are the top three books that you would recommend to listeners about any topic fiction or nonfiction and this is a reading audience so if there's any question they're gonna hold in on it's gonna be this one wait i thought that that was i thought my response to that was i thought i was responding to a different question oh no oh the first one we'll do both fine we'll do both then we'll that then i definitely want to hear it if that's the one i was so excited like who recommends books people don't like is that even a thing okay then the other question i misread that uh then the first question in that series is who does tori like in the democratic primaries that's the one where i was like people are not gonna like my answer um oh gosh well no one likes anyone else's political opinions as far as i can tell fair very fair um okay so my my take um since since the field is growing wider and more um more male gosh isn't it okay so here's my thought right is we really really really need to be playing the long game and when it comes down to um i think that the thing that especially um white liberals don't don't pay as much attention to like white liberals are very into like the the the voting for president right and they're into the big personalities and they're into the people with the big ideas and i totally understand that and that is fun but like in terms of where you can have the biggest impact and and and literally potentially be like saving lives is when you are voting for like da's and and judges and sheriffs yeah like um those are the things that like that i'm concerned about when i leave the house right like i know that we have these overarching issues um in terms of of climate change and and um bodily autonomy for people with uteruses and um being able to access healthcare like and i i do get that i'm not trying to dismiss those things at all but in terms of like like really big impact that you can make in your community like please pay attention to the bottom of the ballot because that is where yeah that's where policies are made that affect policing and incarceration um and and education um and and people getting access to to local resources in terms of like food health care um um other mental health support um yeah i think that there's way too much like okay so oregon i live in oregon we vote in the democratic primary on like june 13th or something so the conversation is pretty much over i haven't even been paying attention to who who's leading right now because my vote isn't really going to count um usually by the time oregon gets to vote in the primary like the nominee has already been decided and we don't there's you know the population of the state is about 4 million so it's not like we're going to push something over the edge one way or the other um so you know i'm i have people that i like more and i have people that i like less and i have people that i will like hold my nose and vote for because i do obviously like trump is a major problem um but you know i don't want to be dismissive of that and and you know especially like the crisis on the border like it it really is like that is also a matter of life or death i'm not trying to i'm not you know and like all this geopolitical garbage that he's running around like behind closed doors like i'm not here for any of that um but like please even if trump doesn't even if trump gets reelected like please pay attention to the bottom of the ballot like that is really if you don't know how to vote like honestly there are um they're local voters guides that you can pick up at community centers um there are depending where you live there's probably like lots of progressive local radio shows that are discussing um things that are going on in your community in your county in your state um so yeah i mean like i said i i don't you know no presidential candidate is going to be perfect but you know i will obviously i'm gonna end voting for president um you know voting voting against trump really is like the baseline for me but um yeah like that's a lot of a lot of people have a lot of power and and it's like these these smaller these smaller um areas districts like you know the sheriff's like that are being chosen for the county like that makes a really big like they those individuals can make a really big sometimes life or death impact on a day-to-day basis for people of color um and and poor white people um so yeah that's what i would say to that i have never been more disappointed in my life and fair i expected a really a really controversial answer with that prep and instead you just had the truth you just said the truth that's all you just said oh my gosh we get so obsessed with the damn potus and that is not what impacts people's everyday lives in a significant way it's just not holy [ \_\_ ] yes the only reason i like the potus election is people actually show up to vote because they think it's important but then they don't even look up the down ballot stuff and if you like if you're a person who says that you care about justice in my mind the most important vote i cast in the midterms was for la county sheriff that was the most important vote i had and i did a lot of research and i had i had trouble with both candidates but i wrote them both letters and i asked them questions and because it's a local election guess what they wrote me back they brought you back yep because like your vote in a local election is a hit you're like my vote doesn't matter your vote is huge in a local election i'm sorry i'm literally mansplaining right now but it's because i'm so friggin excited yes because you're so right god yeah yeah yeah i mean and and you know um like the school board like stuff like that that's like the difference between whether or not a kid gets breakfast in the morning sometimes like please like please consider your privilege when you are choosing to ignore like all the little stuff at the bottom of the palette that you doesn't you know you don't recognize the names right you're gonna have to go and do a bunch of research you're gonna have to write letters or have conversations on the phone like but like is that worth it to you like for kids to get breakfast in the morning come on this is a this is a tirade this is off topic and we're we're way over time i'm still gonna do it damn it where i live the little community i live in in la county they were wanting to build affordable housing units on what is currently an abandoned golf course and the neighborhood started pushing back and there was a there was a meeting with the zoning board and i went to the meeting and everybody didn't want this housing development to happen they wanted to keep an abandoned golf course abandoned more than they wanted to give people access to affordable housing and i i stood up and i pushed back and i got booed and i lost um but then a few people came up after me and they said i i thought it was important too but i was too afraid to stand up and boy next time that comes up i'm gonna do some organizing before the meeting i'm going to walk in with a plan and that stuff 250 affordable housing units in los angeles county i'm sorry that's a big deal that is a life-changing huge for a lot of people yeah yep i mean that's being able to get to school consistently that's right so i'm all about local local local local local local local politics like hyper local yeah absolutely uh especially because y'all if you're white and you're affluent you've got some nimby nimby neighbors like the thing that drives me the the most insane about california progressives is they want every service available they'll vote for tax increases and they absolutely will not allow it to be built in their neighborhood and so there's literally funds of money in california to provide solutions to homelessness and to provide affordable housing and do all these things that we say are important but every time they actually try to build it somewhere then the neighborhoods say no and so if we actually say these are things we care about we have to start organizing together and allow them to get done even with an eye shot of our front door sorry that was cathartic it's okay last question 70 minutes in i am so sorry i just adore you and i'd just like to hear you talk uh we'll go back to the top three books that you would recommend on any topic fiction or non-fiction and we'll end there top three books oh man this is like so the book that i read all the time for my adhd this is gonna be a funny this is super funny um so there is a book called the willpower instinct by kelly mcgonagall and i listen to that book at least once a month probably more um it is full of like measurable ways to stay on focus um to stay on task to like commit to bigger goals and be able to like mark your progress um as someone who is like self-diagnosed i have an appointment coming up here in a couple weeks um like yeah it's really habit formation is really hard when you have adhd and so being able to like go back and listen to this book over and over and over again and go and like hear all of these different ideas that she puts forward um for um just being like being able to like stay focused and and she's got all of these it's full of really accessible things right like none of it is like oh like go and like buy this course or you know go on this diet or or filter your water this way like it's all like okay you should start every day by like meditating for 10 or 15 minutes like that really helps improve like focus and concentration um or like this is the first time in my life just as an example that i have like exercised regularly and it's really it's really great like i do it for my mental health i you know haven't lost a pound um and but but for me like it makes it make such a huge impact on like my baseline right like my baseline for my mental health is so much higher when i do it and now i'm just like oh this is what a habit is like like this is like i'm i just am in this process during the course of my week where i expect that i'm going to go to the gym and then i go to the gym and i leave and every time i'm like wow i'm so glad that i did that um but it took me until i was 35 years old to get to the point where i could make that a habit even though i've had gym memberships before um so having that resource has been like really really invaluable to me um let me see here um how to be an anti-racist by um dr ibram x kendy is um i would say probably one of the most important books that's come out in like human history come out that's come out um so yeah that's i'm like so obsessed with that book um i learned so much and it really like challenged even like some of my ideas about like what racism is and like the ways that it plays out um and um i'm really big into audiobooks because again like adhd and being able to like clean and listen at the same time is is really um really nice i think as opposed to having to like sit down and listen like being active and listening is good for me um and like he like narrates the audiobook himself and i really like it man i the book that i'm reading right now i just finished um saying unburied saying by jesmyn ward which just gutted me oh my god oh it's like it's so good and powerful and like just soul-crushing um and yeah i mean right now i'm right now i'm reading um i read anything that ta-nehisi coates writes so i'm reading the watered answer right now so that's for i can count um yeah and i'm sure that i'm gonna have a whole bunch of i'm gonna have a whole bunch of books on on the white homework page too for black history month so yeah if you need more then if you need more than the four that i just recommended keep your eye out because those will be coming shortly i've been trying to build the space to read tadahasi's new book but i always have to like build in weeks of depression and shame after i read one of his books because i'm a writer and he's so good that i just experience when i give up oh my god i just want to give up as a writer like i'll never do this i'll never i'll never write a sentence that good in my life not a book not a paragraph i'll read some sentence and i'll just be like that is the maximum expression of that idea possible yeah and it just like it just like sits in your soul and like simmers and like doesn't go anywhere for months so yes i relate to that on a spiritual level so i give up i give up i just i'm not going to write i'm done i quit i quit writing i quit writing i'm just going to read just read tonahasi and cry [Laughter] yeah absolutely not even not even because something has been said that sad sometimes just something beautiful or just clear just clear just got the brevity and the clarity and the emotionally evocative imagery who does he think he is that's the question if i could interview todd ozzie coates that would be my question who do you think you are writing like that when there's other writers in the world sorry this that's real inside baseball but my gosh what a talent the other one this one bothers me because we're friends but whenever i read austin channing i'm just like what what and then this is the other thing that that frustrates me is like what if austin channing brown or todd hazy coats could devote all their energy to just writing without having to address white supremacy like just imagine that whoa like the destruction to art and beauty alone that white supremacy creates is in and of itself a profound indignity yeah i've been practicing something tori and that is that when people speak i just listen to them and then i don't plan a response while they're talking i just sit and listen and then when they're done talking i sit and wait until i have a sincere response and then i offer it and it feels good i'm just not sure it's great radio no that's yeah that's fair that's legit i hear you just say here's my thoughts on writing who the the nine writers who are listening are like yes exactly and then a bunch of people are like what are you what are you talking about oh my gosh oh my gosh sorry mike we have to we have to plan an event together i'm in like so we can do like a long look this is so ridiculous it's like nearly 80 minutes later for twitter questions 80 minutes of twitter questions yeah i would love to do an event with you that would be really exciting um yep i bet if we called kurt croon we could make that happen it'd be a real easy easy go um yup that's my dear friend at cascade church pdx who is very open to having off-the-wall combos of any variety and making a physical space for that to occur and but yeah i would love that i i think i think it'd be really exciting i just i yes i'm sure people will listen to this and yes i'm sure people get things out of it as for me and my selfish ass i just like talking to you [Laughter] and like tweeting you is wonderful and i like tweeting with you and i like texting with you but i love talking with you you uh are uncommonly brilliant and insightful but also just a joy to converse with i so value you taking the time today to speak with me it has i i look forward to this conversation with anticipation all day and i feel so happy that i set my expectations too low on what it would be like to speak with you um you're a wonderful wonderful human being tori and i am profoundly glad to know you oh thank you so much mike that means so much to me you're gonna like make me cry over here i'm actually crying i am literally crying as i reflect wow how glad i will cry together next time it'll be great we can just make people come watch us cry coming soon soft tears with tory douglas and science [Laughter] i'm dead i'm dead i'm dead now goodbye i'm dead all right not quite done tori when people want to connect with you they want to connect with white homework where do they go yeah um so i'm usually to be found on twitter um at tori glass uh tori with an eye um let's see website is toryglass.com also on instagram at sorry glass um if you want uh white homework patreon you can go to whitehomework.com or patreon.com tori glass we'll also get you there um yeah that's that's most of the places um i really you know i appreciate mike that you being a patron because that gives me the ability to you know sit down and actually be able to write a book this year so that's very meaningful to me um but yeah i think that's i think that's basically it if you go to my website too um there's a bunch of white homework resources many of which are available for free so if that's something that you're interested in in terms of anti-racism like yeah definitely check that out and if you're driving or you're on the treadmill or you're like oh my gosh what do i do i can't remember all those urls don't fear you just tap on this very podcast episode in the very podcast player you're using right now we'll have links you can tap in the show notes that will take you directly to tori and the tremendous work that she has available online thanks for listening my friends and i'll talk to you again next week [Music]