Policies and antiracist behavior. You are either with us and with the black community or you are against. There is no way you can straddle this. Allies in action. A bay area conversation. Thank you so very much for joining us for this special edition of abc7 news. Im dan ashley. Over the past several weeks, the issue of Race Relations shas exploded into the headlines, into the streets and into the national consciousness. It has. Instead of our 4 00 p. M. Newscast, well spent an hour engaging experts and you in an abc7 listens virtual town hall on allies and racism. This has been on the backs of our friends of color and it is time to step up. Well have a very frank conversation including questions from you. This is a very important onehour virtual town hall airing on tv. You might be watching it right now on youtube and facebook. Were glad youre here. If alliship is a new term for you, it is someone who cannot fully understand what oppression fels like but can tea that struggle as their own. To stand up in solidarity and support. Allies are vital in the fight for social justice, equity and equality. Theyre not new but the term has taken on new meaningful heres eporter in the weekceeo fyd,e seen sneikth. Seets demanding an end to brutality. These ladies organized this one that shut down the golden gate bridge. There were more white people out there than black people. More of every culture than black pople. It was crazy to see how many people supported it. Reporter beyond protests and posts on social media, what does it mean to be an ally in. It requires a common cause and a common theme. Reporter the history professor points to one. United states earliest exams. John brown, a white abolitionist who was hanged after an effort to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. It really underscores what true sacrifice looks like. Reporter from cofounding the naacp to fighting in the Civil Rights Movement, white people have been allies throughout american history. But dr. Brown pelham argues, it hand gone far enough. If a person is responsible for having built the system of oppression, those persons should also be responsible for dismantling that system. Reporter thats where carlo wallace comes in. Those of houston are white, when we say what can we do, what can we . Thwork we have to do is move other white people. She found showing up for Racial Justice or surge. A National Group of individuals organizing white people for Racial Justice. I think some white people get stuck in the idea, if we just israel go develop a good heart, good intentions, thats enough. While thats a critical part of the journaly as our own journey of change, if we are not pushing against structural and institutional racism, then were just better hearted people and things will not change for people of color in this community. The east oakland activist john jones iii gives people this advice. Start with organizing in your own community, in your own neighborhood. Organize your family members, your coworkers. Use your privilege. They have a level of assets that we as black people and people of color do not have. She trains people how to be allies and says the key come possibly is action. We have to figure out what were going to do. What were going to incorporate in our lives. What were going to change. In particular, we need people who are not part of oppressed groups. We need people who are white. Who historically held power. What folks really want to see realize, they as individuals have a role to play. Taking action in defining what allyship means for you. Abc7 news. Our thanks to kumasi for that. Action, the operative word. Heres another example. A waitress did not hesitate when a tech company ceo targeted other guests in an angry ran at a restaurant in carmel. Watchful. [ bleep ]. You need to leave. You do not talk about guests like that. You need to leave. [ bleep ]. Get out of here get out you are not allowed here. I already do not talk to our guests like that. They are valued guests. The waitress you heard kicking the man out of the restaurant told abc7 news in an exclusive interview, she had no other choice. Did i what needed to be done. I think i did what anybody else should or would do in that situation. I felt very protective of them. You know . You dont come in here and say those things to people. If you see something, do something. Stand up against racism, hatred any time you can. With all of that as a back drop, there is a lot to discuss. So much that we have put together two great panels for you today. The first panel will discuss what it means to be an ally. Our second group will look at solutions. We have a Diverse Group of Community Leaders focused on everything with it and allyship. So lets get right to it. Well introduce you to them. We have theo miller, jessica murphy, also joining us live, we have dr. Shelly, author of witnessing whiteness, and timothy wise, an antiracist writer, educator. Lets begin with theo miller. Lets tart with this could not semiof allyship. Why are allies so vitally important in this struggle . So its a tremendous queflt nowadays, were so focused on these visible acts of racism. The horror of george floyd. The example you showed us in the restaurant. What i want to talk about, the disparities we see in income here in San Francisco. The wealth gap. The way in which covid19 is raf communities of color. So allyship is critical not just as a form of compassion and sympathy but also, what has been called racial empathy. It requires allies to look deeply. To selfsacrifice. To have generosity and try to put themselves in a position for people of color that are literally facing a war in this country. As we start to explore these issues, can you talk about the terminology . Thats critical here. Especially the term, antiracism. What does it mean to be antiracist as opposed to saying im not racist . Sure. It means youre actively working against the system of racism, which is embedded in our everyday culture. It is not enough to say im not racist. Youre not really doing anything to ends racism. You are inherently benefitting from being white or light skinned or whatever it might be. You may feel im not a racist person. If youre not doing anything to work against the racist structures around, to take it a step further, if youre not unpacking it and taking time to have selfawareness about ways you have internalized racism, implicit bias against people in the community, then youre not living up to what you feel in your heart anyway. So i think being antiracist is much more effective. I want to turn the discuss to dr. Shelly. You said in an interview, par of unpacking this is knowing all the nukes and crannies that it has gotten into us, so we can stop and it name it on the spot. I imagine thats what you talk about in your book witnessingssg whiteness. How do people unpack these things . The idea of witnessing whiteness goes back to a sense justice. If we think about someone who has been victimized. Theres a perpetrator and way too often, bystanders. For white people, what i am trying myself to do, and trying to support other white people to do, to become witnesses who can take a stand and call for justices. I know what it is. I understand what it is. Thats not easy for a group of people who was told not to see myself being a race being. Someone conditioned by my whiteness. That was completely foreign to me when i got challenged to see myself differently. To see our world differently. It did take a complete and utter shifting of my world view. And it took a number of steps and aspects of learning. I had to learn a bunch of new knowledge. I needed to learn a lot of new skills. I needed to develop the emotional capacity to do things differently, to hold myself together when i became frustrated or defensive. And then quite frankly, i needed a community. And i think thats an extremely important aspect of continuing allyship. To work with people in an organized fashion to make sure that we stay on the path toward deepening our skills and making use of them. Let me go back to you. White people seem to have the luxury of not having to think about their race very much. They dont. We dont, i dont. Were not confront with it on a daily basis the way people of colorful are but we have been confronted with it in reason weeks because of these terrible incidents captured on cell phone video. George floyd, others around the country. The incident we showed at the karlel restaurant. I often think, thank goodness for cell phone video. It has pushed something to the public consciousness that a lot of people either denied or didnt really think was happening. But people of color have said it has happened for generations. Your thoughts. Thats right. It is the daily experience for people. We cant forget class status that matters. There is a loss of community here. A lot of humanity. Truth and reconciliation commission. I would pause it here. We have an opportunity with george floyd and Breonna Taylor and others, not to focus on truth and reconciliation but truth and restitution. It is the truth, the neil that has beenpe longstandi, multigenerational, to so many. Police brutality. Sit in that truthful before you move to reconciliation, there must be restitution. Allies that come in with only sympathy and compassion, but not willing to look at the material disparities that are at work, george floyd, and what society do we live in in which a Police Officer can have his knee on the back of a black man for eight and a half minutes, thats not an individual act. But thats about a system that allows this thing to keep going. So we move from truthful we sit in this discomfort. Then we move to restitution before we can get on to reconciliation and liberation. A great point. Define for us restitution so people understand what you mean. Sure. So restitution, and this is my lawyer background, to say that we acknowledge a harm that has been called. And shelly mentioned this earlier, as well as my colleague jessica. There are material benefits afforded white people. We see it through red lining, through mortgages, through credit. We have this in the city of sfrap. Loss of businesses, potential the people of color. What restitution would say, we look at the systemic benefits afforded white folks. And black people say i dont want to participate in a system in which i get unjust benefits. In which i get the privilege just for being white. So restitution would say, let me acknowledge the disparity. Let me acknowledge the burden put on black, indigenous community, people of color. And then let me have a systematic redress. Housing, education. So this moment of revolution, rebellion, is powerful. For those of us doing this works we wonder, it will be more than a sound bite . More than a few people getting a few implicit bias, will it result in a redress. In a systemic look at segregated communities. The way our families in Pacific Heights have benefited from the system. Will we redress it . Will we have real restitution . I want to you jump in here. You talk a lot about motivation which theo mentioned as well. You say, is it from shame . Gilt about my institutional oppression . You say it is. Chair. It is solidarity work. Can you explain that a little bi . Well, i think the thing that white folks need to ask ourselves in this moment, it is fantastic to see such a broad base of White Americans. Not only in the streets but asking these questions of what do we do, what do we do, even though those of us who have been in the work do that. Theres that tendency to say, where have you been . Better late to the party than never to the party. So its fine and Everybody Needs to be part of the work. I do worry that if the motivation is i feel such shame over not having known about this. Or i feel such shame over the przybilla. I dont think shame is a very good motivator for human action and i dont think it is sustainable of now guilt over a system of oppression is a decent vacation destination but i wouldnt bull a house on that sand. Moral revulsion. Even that is hard to sustain. I dont expect white folks to remain optimistic in our fight for justice. What i think is for to us understand, racial inequity, even though were not the targets of it, we are the Collateral Damage of it. Think about the war on drugs. For years, the vast majority of White Americans said very little about the fact black and brown bodies were being sent to prison disproportionately, even though the use and sale were virtually identical. We didnt do anything. We were locking people away, mostly black and broum. Here we are, and we have an Opioid Crisis for White America for which there is not enough rehab and treatment. We have all these white folks would understandering, where is the rehab . Wheres the compassion . Thats a great question. The reason we dont have that is because we criminalized drug use when we thought it was those people. Now it has come back to bite us. So everything with it, not allowing that, was in our interests. Think about covid. We know that black folks, for instance, are dying at a rate, two, two and a half times the rate of white folks. We have millions who are indeed at risk. And im wondering what they see when they see some other white folks who maybe they have voted like. Maybe theyre in their own family. Lets reopen everything. Im not wearing a mask. Screw that. I dont want to wear a mask at the costco because thats tyranny which is another whole situation about, what white people think teernly is. But you have millions of white people looking at other whites thinking we just rolled the dice on their grandma. On their immuno compromised child. On their recoveing spouse who had cancer. Millions of white folks who might have thought they were on that team. Now theyve got people in their own family and community willing to gamble. Not just black life, poor life, disabled life, preexisting conditions life, elderly life. Thats a lot of us, too. We all benefit from a different mentality. When you allow a mentality of hurm disposability, and hierarchy, which is what White Supremacy did. We think it will only get them. We learn that they dont love us either. The folks who benefit most dont love most of us. So maybe if we understood the commoniality of interests. Derek bell used to talk about it from a legal perspective. If we understood that, we would see this is our fight. I love these examples. This is racial empathy. What covid19 has shown, the air we breathe, our own health, is inextricably linked to each other. We can play a foolish game and take our country down if we believe that allyship is not critical to our own future. So we do want to remind everyone. This is an interactive conversation. Everyone watching at hole. On tv right now, facebook, we are monitoring those comments. So please leave one there and we will ask it of our panelists. We want you to be part of this conversation. We have a baseline understanding of what it means to be an wanf also y make som distinction between what we all. Break it do you mean. Whats the difference in. Sure. So basically, ally for me is a great entry point. Weve been using the word ally and allyship for decades now. In a lot of ways, it has become watered down for the communities that im working and the communities that were working to dismantle. Accomplice for me shifts the narrative into something much more action oriented. An ally is someone who would notice their privilege, be aware of it but maybe not take those steps to work actively against it. And so we talk about bringing in the word accomplice. Looking at what it is supposed to be. Making the phone calls. Or london breed, if you are able to, go in and shut down the 580 or the bay bridge. If youre not able to do that, having the Difficult Conversations within your family, within your community, educating yourself. Its not so much of a transactional experience as sometimes allyship can be. I do consulting. We often do ally training. You would think with all the ally trainings that ive double in last final years,ering would be great. The issue that we undocumented students. Or i did the lgbtq training so im good with that. Or the black lives matter training. Whatever it might be. Its not a check box. There is no end point to the destination. A lifelong process and accomplice helps to identify that more than ally does. And it is more action oriented direction toward it. I love this. Go ahead. You want to jump in . I was saying the idea of a coconspirator. Your own skin is in the game. Your own lie bill is in the game. I keep emphasizing, protesting is credible. We have real material disparities here. The Opioid Crisis. The covid19 crisis. The question for me is what extent will you be an accomplice . Will you actually step in and maybe lose some material benefi benefits. It is 400 years. You cannot be 92 ral it has been there 400 years so neutrality is not an option. Youre complicit or dismanning it. It seems like the locomotive has been gathering some steam the last few weeks and there is perhaps a renewed determination to effect some real change. Let me go quickly to the author of witnessing whiteness. As we bounce off about you talk about selfinvestigati selfinvestigation. There are people watching, maybe theyve been sympathetic. How do they begin with selfreflection . What should they be asking themselves . Well, i think a couple of pieces are important. What you started talking about were barriers. What are the barriers to entry . One major barrier for people just coming to this conversation is just a sense of overwhelming confusion. So one thing i think is really helpful is to understand that there are four Different Levels of how racism or bias take place. There is the interimized work. Thats how my own psyche has been condition in the ways i didnt invite. I might not even cognitively understand how my entire interpretation of my world experiences are shaped by race. So thats an important part to explore. That can be done on that sort of healing journey. You can read a lot. Watch a lot. There are things that you can do. It moves to interpersonal. How is it that i inact in the world in a way that causes harm. Thats its own exploration. Then we have the institutional work and this is where we move into the systemic. We could walk through corporations, institutions, thinking if my intentions are positive, there is no racism playing out here. In fact, as dr. Miller was naming, it is the policies, the institutions practices that end up creating harm. So part of it is understanding the analysis. We need to understand there are multiple pathways to entry. The best thing you can do at t