A history of integration: how we address self-segregation | Byron Burkhalter | TEDxSeattleSalon
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0:10 - 0:14Phil Klein: Hello, and welcome to
TEDxSeattle Community Conversations. -
0:14 - 0:15I'm your host, Phil Klein,
-
0:15 - 0:18and I'm here today with Byron Burkhalter,
-
0:18 - 0:21a sociologist and co-founder
of "Out of Privilege," -
0:21 - 0:25an organization that helps people
in individual and corporate settings -
0:25 - 0:29do the hard work to recognize
the privileges afforded them -
0:29 - 0:34by the racism and white supremacy
systemic in our everyday lives. -
0:35 - 0:38Byron, welcome and thank you
for joining us today. -
0:38 - 0:40Byron Burkhalter :
Oh, thanks for having me, Phil. -
0:40 - 0:43PK: Thank you so much.
Yes, great to see you. -
0:43 - 0:45So, where would you like to start
-
0:45 - 0:49in terms of thinking about
either the history or the background -
0:49 - 0:53of white supremacy and privilege
-
0:53 - 0:58as we experience in everyday lives,
in the US or more broadly? -
0:58 - 1:04BB: So I think the place I would start
is right after World War II -
1:05 - 1:10and the generation
of soldiers coming back, -
1:11 - 1:13also coming into a time of the red scare,
-
1:13 - 1:19and the way that the United States
was attempting to integrate their society -
1:19 - 1:21and live up to their values.
-
1:21 - 1:27And I just want to mention
sort of two different ways of integrating. -
1:28 - 1:33One of them is what I would call
a sociological model -
1:33 - 1:38because the impact was the individual
in the world that they lived in. -
1:38 - 1:45So I would say that the suburbanization
that brought in Jewish Americans -
1:45 - 1:50and in the '60s, mid-'60s,
brought in Asian Americans -
1:50 - 1:54was evidence of sort of
this sociological model. -
1:54 - 1:55And then secondly,
-
1:55 - 1:58I would bring in a psychological model,
-
1:58 - 2:02which is based on "Brown
versus the Board of Education," -
2:02 - 2:04which I think has been
the overwhelming model -
2:04 - 2:11for integrating Black and brown people,
you know, originally into schools, -
2:11 - 2:12but now I think
-
2:12 - 2:17this is the basis of the DEI models
that you find in corporate America. -
2:18 - 2:22And what I want to say, I think,
mostly is I think that that model, -
2:23 - 2:25now some 70 years old,
-
2:25 - 2:29was a misstep, was the wrong way to go
-
2:29 - 2:31and has repercussions
-
2:31 - 2:36that has hurt the ability
to actually integrate our work spaces. -
2:37 - 2:39PK: Can you unpack that
a little bit for us? -
2:39 - 2:43How do you see that model playing out?
-
2:44 - 2:45BB: So I want to say first off,
-
2:45 - 2:49that the model was a translation
-
2:49 - 2:52of what the plaintiffs
of Brown actually wanted. -
2:52 - 2:54They wanted the sociological model,
-
2:54 - 2:59the ability to choose which environments
their kids went to school in -
2:59 - 3:03without regard to skin color.
-
3:03 - 3:08But the court translated that
into a psychological model -
3:08 - 3:10and said, "Separate's not equal,
-
3:10 - 3:16because you are impairing
the minds of these Black children." -
3:16 - 3:19And so the model
that comes out of Brown is -
3:20 - 3:24taking individual Black kids -
-
3:25 - 3:27you know, in the visual
that you get of it, -
3:27 - 3:29it's always sort of
that black and white photo -
3:29 - 3:31with the crowds yelling,
-
3:31 - 3:34and the one kid going in
surrounded by police officers - -
3:34 - 3:36and you take them into a space,
-
3:36 - 3:40and once you get them to that space,
you've effectively integrated. -
3:40 - 3:42Now, the thing about that is
-
3:42 - 3:45the space itself has not really changed.
-
3:45 - 3:50Nobody has asked the white students
in the school to do anything different. -
3:50 - 3:52The administrators
aren't doing anything different. -
3:52 - 3:54The curriculum is not changed.
-
3:54 - 3:58It's simply getting
one individual into the space -
3:58 - 4:01that counts as integration.
-
4:02 - 4:04That I think is problematic.
-
4:04 - 4:08And it's problematic for us today
as you try to retain - -
4:08 - 4:10or recruit and retain,
-
4:10 - 4:15African Americans and Latinx people
into your organizations -
4:15 - 4:19without actually going
through any change yourself. -
4:19 - 4:23So part of what our organization
"Out of Privilege" does -
4:23 - 4:27is it tries to bring
in that sociological model, -
4:27 - 4:30where the people that are already there
-
4:30 - 4:32have to change,
-
4:32 - 4:36have to do the work to understand
themselves in a larger context. -
4:38 - 4:39PK: So to understand that,
-
4:39 - 4:44in Board of Education versus Brown,
-
4:44 - 4:51you had Black people
brought into the white schools, right? -
4:52 - 4:57And that was considered
a complete remedy as implemented, -
4:58 - 5:00whereas what I think I hear you saying
-
5:00 - 5:03is that true integration
-
5:03 - 5:09entails creating a space
where each participant - -
5:09 - 5:13Black, brown, Latin American, etc. -
-
5:14 - 5:16is a full participant
-
5:16 - 5:18and is recognized as a full participant
-
5:18 - 5:20rather than being assimilated
-
5:20 - 5:26or integrated in a superficial sense
into a white space. -
5:26 - 5:30And it keeps attention
off of details like, -
5:30 - 5:34Oh, there was an entire
police force and federal agents -
5:34 - 5:38that were involved
in the way that was implemented -
5:38 - 5:42to address the impairment of Black kids
-
5:42 - 5:46in their lack of access
to white resources. -
5:46 - 5:48BB: Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
-
5:48 - 5:52And more importantly,
for our understandings of whiteness, -
5:52 - 5:54that idea of the privilege
-
5:54 - 5:58that you get from being part
of the political group of white people -
5:58 - 6:03is that we didn't understand
that those with the privilege -
6:03 - 6:07were active participants
in maintaining the privilege -
6:07 - 6:10and that until their actions changed,
-
6:10 - 6:12until they did things differently,
-
6:12 - 6:15that privilege, that difference,
that segregation -
6:15 - 6:17was never going to go away.
-
6:17 - 6:18We made it
-
6:18 - 6:23where as long as we nominally had
enough Black and brown bodies around us, -
6:24 - 6:26we were doing the work.
-
6:27 - 6:31PK: And there's this kind
of whiteful blindness -
6:31 - 6:36around the not only "invisible man,"
you know, in Ralph Ellison's terms -
6:36 - 6:40is the way a Black man was experienced,
-
6:40 - 6:43there's the invisible white power
-
6:43 - 6:48that is surrounding things
that white people choose not to see, -
6:48 - 6:51because it's pervasive for them.
-
6:52 - 6:53BB: That's exactly right.
-
6:53 - 6:55Now, and notice as we talk about this
-
6:55 - 6:59how different it was
in the armed services, right? -
6:59 - 7:03through an executive order,
from Eisenhower, I believe. -
7:03 - 7:05Within 10 years,
-
7:05 - 7:07you had made incredible progress
-
7:07 - 7:11by having people live with each other,
-
7:11 - 7:12train with each other,
-
7:12 - 7:14fight with each other,
-
7:14 - 7:18trust in each other with their very lives.
-
7:19 - 7:22But instead, in the way
that we've taken the psychological model, -
7:22 - 7:25instead of seeing this
as a social operation, -
7:25 - 7:27it's been an individual model.
-
7:27 - 7:29And even to this day,
-
7:29 - 7:33you get people going
through anti-bias training -
7:33 - 7:38as though it were the individual's mind
that had to be altered, -
7:38 - 7:40and that there were
these slight behavioral changes -
7:40 - 7:43that an individual could make
-
7:43 - 7:50that would create a neutral atmosphere.
-
7:50 - 7:54In the meantime, so many of us
have lived in segregated neighborhoods, -
7:54 - 7:57so many of us have gone
to segregated schools, -
7:57 - 7:59segregated colleges and universities,
-
7:59 - 8:03so many of us go to meetings every day
that are segregated -
8:03 - 8:06that we haven't had the time
of actually living together, -
8:06 - 8:09which was the armed services model,
-
8:09 - 8:12and so we don't know
how to connect with each other. -
8:12 - 8:15We simply haven't had
the hours doing that; -
8:15 - 8:19in fact, we've had the hours
disconnecting from each other, -
8:19 - 8:23looking for safer schools,
safer neighborhoods, -
8:23 - 8:25and whatever other coded language we need
-
8:25 - 8:31in order to justify having no experience
with Black and brown people in our lives. -
8:32 - 8:34Without that change,
-
8:34 - 8:39your anti-bias training
doesn't teach you how to live with anyone. -
8:40 - 8:44PK: So, just to kind of capture this
because it's so vital. -
8:44 - 8:46You're saying, I think -
-
8:47 - 8:49keep me honest here -
-
8:49 - 8:50that in our military,
-
8:50 - 8:53really, the instrument
for our patriotism as a nation -
8:54 - 8:59focused on an evolution of development,
-
8:59 - 9:01systematically,
-
9:01 - 9:04of a multi-racial national force
-
9:05 - 9:07in its very architecture
-
9:07 - 9:09whereas in education,
-
9:09 - 9:11the system in segregation,
-
9:12 - 9:16and even in some aspects
of systematic desegregation, -
9:16 - 9:19was reinforcing of a psychological model
-
9:19 - 9:22rather than embracing
the kind of sociological model. -
9:22 - 9:23BB: That's right.
-
9:23 - 9:26And the psychological model to me
-
9:26 - 9:31is naturally more useful
to maintaining white supremacy, -
9:31 - 9:32just like you said -
-
9:32 - 9:36and I think what you brought up
is brilliant, right? -
9:36 - 9:37This is how we protect our democracy.
-
9:37 - 9:40If you go back
and read the executive order, -
9:41 - 9:43it says almost exactly that, Phil -
-
9:43 - 9:47that this is to protect our democracy.
-
9:47 - 9:51Now, when we looked
at Brown versus the Board of Education, -
9:51 - 9:57this was to stop the damage
to Black and brown minds. -
9:57 - 10:00It wasn't for all of us
that we were integrating the schools; -
10:00 - 10:01it was for them.
-
10:01 - 10:04This was our largesse, our altruism.
-
10:04 - 10:09But with the armed forces,
this was our very country, -
10:09 - 10:11this experiment was on the line,
-
10:11 - 10:15and so by order, you will live together,
-
10:16 - 10:19and that had its effect, right?
-
10:19 - 10:22But when we look at it
from the psychological model, -
10:22 - 10:25the idea is that we're helping them
-
10:25 - 10:31with no sense of that white people,
people within that political party, -
10:32 - 10:33needed that for themselves.
-
10:33 - 10:36Even now as we come together
as organizations, -
10:36 - 10:39why is this organization diversifying?
-
10:39 - 10:42Do they see it
as part of their bottom line? -
10:42 - 10:44Do they see it as part of who they are?
-
10:44 - 10:47Or is this just their largesse?
-
10:48 - 10:50BB: Can you speak a little more
-
10:50 - 10:54to what you see as how companies
-
10:54 - 10:59can and are or could or should
apply this thinking -
10:59 - 11:05in the way they start to look
at diversity and inclusion and equity? -
11:06 - 11:10So what I would say
is at the beginning of this, -
11:11 - 11:15each person would have
to understand themselves -
11:15 - 11:20in this racial context.
-
11:20 - 11:23Each of us would have
to understand ourselves, -
11:23 - 11:25not in terms of our attitudes
or our feelings -
11:25 - 11:29or, you know, "I never think about race"
or "it's not intended" -
11:29 - 11:31or any of these psychological terms,
-
11:31 - 11:33but where do you live?
-
11:33 - 11:38Do you know a Black couple
where both partners are Black? -
11:38 - 11:45How many hours have you spent
talking to Black people in the last year? -
11:45 - 11:51How much experience do you have
with Latinx people in a peer environment, -
11:51 - 11:54you know, at dinner
or in a meeting, right? -
11:54 - 11:58So it's understanding yourself in context,
-
11:58 - 12:00and then it's starting to see
-
12:00 - 12:04the small ways in which we cover
for the racism around us, -
12:04 - 12:06things like
-
12:06 - 12:09"Well, I haven't been presented
with a candidate to hire," -
12:09 - 12:11where you get that sort of passive tense,
-
12:11 - 12:13where there's no notion
-
12:13 - 12:15that you would have to be
active and proactive -
12:15 - 12:19and do the anti-racist action
of going to find. -
12:19 - 12:23Or we say, "Well yeah, I did hear that,
but I don't think that was intentional," -
12:23 - 12:26or "I think that that person's
just not educated; -
12:26 - 12:27they're just ignorant,"
-
12:27 - 12:31as though it were just an issue
of not having these things available. -
12:31 - 12:34So looking for these little practices,
-
12:34 - 12:37where within whiteness,
you maintain the privilege, -
12:37 - 12:38you maintain the veneer
-
12:38 - 12:43that there's nothing
untoward going on here. -
12:43 - 12:46Now, from that, you come into ...
-
12:47 - 12:52a place where you can understand
other people's perspectives. -
12:52 - 12:54Let me say a little bit more about that.
-
12:54 - 13:00Right now, the way
that DEI is done in organizations -
13:01 - 13:05doesn't require those in power,
-
13:05 - 13:07those with the jobs,
-
13:07 - 13:10those already enculturated,
-
13:10 - 13:13to understand the perspective
of other people, -
13:13 - 13:18but those one or two or four
Black and brown people -
13:18 - 13:22have to understand the perspectives
of the people around them. -
13:22 - 13:24They have to constantly be reading
those perspectives. -
13:24 - 13:28They have to recognize
that those people don't have any practice, -
13:28 - 13:29don't have the hours in,
-
13:29 - 13:32and they have to modulate themselves
-
13:32 - 13:37to keep the comfort
of the fragility of that environment, -
13:37 - 13:38that white environment.
-
13:39 - 13:41So all of the work,
all of the weight of this, -
13:41 - 13:44is on those people
that you're bringing in. -
13:44 - 13:46If you want to retain them,
-
13:46 - 13:50if you want an integrated,
diverse, inclusive space, -
13:50 - 13:55you are going to have to be able
to take your white perspective, -
13:55 - 13:57that segregated perspective,
-
13:57 - 13:59and move it over to the side
-
14:00 - 14:01and get some time
-
14:01 - 14:05understanding perspectives that
you have segregated yourself away from -
14:05 - 14:07all of these years
-
14:07 - 14:11so that you can begin to carry the weight
of understanding other people. -
14:12 - 14:14Once you get to that point,
-
14:14 - 14:20that's how you begin
to establish trust, mutuality -
14:20 - 14:23so that then you can have
real conversations with each other, -
14:23 - 14:26so that you can really
come to understand each other. -
14:26 - 14:31This happened for most people
within whiteness in the suburbs. -
14:31 - 14:35This happened for Asian American families
coming in in the '60s, -
14:35 - 14:37straight into the suburbs
-
14:37 - 14:40with Jewish Americans and Irish Americans
and Italian Americans, -
14:40 - 14:43all coming to learn
how to live with each other. -
14:43 - 14:45And they all had to change,
-
14:45 - 14:48and in fact, each of those generations
that came into the suburbs -
14:48 - 14:53is going to have more trouble connecting
with their parents and grandparents -
14:53 - 14:55that lived in ethnic communities
-
14:55 - 14:58than they have with each other.
-
14:58 - 15:01That culture, that coming together,
-
15:01 - 15:05that's what we're trying to create
in a corporate environment, -
15:05 - 15:06and that means
-
15:07 - 15:10that it's not just a set of policies,
-
15:10 - 15:13it's not just a set of anti-bias training.
-
15:13 - 15:14You need time.
-
15:14 - 15:15You need practice.
-
15:15 - 15:19It's time to understand
someone other than yourself. -
15:20 - 15:25PK: That's a powerful invitation and idea.
-
15:26 - 15:27What I'm hearing
-
15:27 - 15:33is that as an organization, perhaps,
that was predominantly white, -
15:33 - 15:36let's say, six months ago
-
15:36 - 15:38and has begun the process
-
15:38 - 15:44of increasing the number of non-whites
who are in a variety of roles - -
15:44 - 15:46you know, I mean, for many companies,
-
15:46 - 15:49this may have been going on
for five, ten years, longer - -
15:50 - 15:54there may subconsciously be
a sense of the company -
15:54 - 15:58as a "we're a white company
who have some minority members." -
15:58 - 16:01But as you point out,
-
16:01 - 16:07acculturation is a dynamic
that is continually in operation; -
16:07 - 16:09and you're suggesting
-
16:09 - 16:12that in order to become conscious,
-
16:12 - 16:14that acculturation process,
-
16:14 - 16:20it needs to entail seeing oneself
in one's racial context, -
16:20 - 16:23one's self-segregating context,
-
16:23 - 16:27or, you know, a combination
of self-selecting segregation -
16:27 - 16:31and situationally selective segregation,
-
16:31 - 16:35and taking that structure
and putting it aside -
16:35 - 16:40to invite the culture of other groups.
-
16:40 - 16:43So there's this transition from otherness
-
16:43 - 16:50to connectedness
and multiracial integration. -
16:50 - 16:53Is that a way to see
-
16:53 - 16:57if going from "We think we're not white,
but we really kind of are, -
16:57 - 17:01and we're insisting
on white culture unknowingly" -
17:01 - 17:06to a negotiation of
-
17:07 - 17:10"Hey, we're no longer
needing to be that way. -
17:10 - 17:14That is not necessarily
in the best interest of our organization -
17:14 - 17:16in the same way
it wasn't for the military"? -
17:16 - 17:21To really achieve,
we really need the full voices. -
17:21 - 17:22
And to do that, -
17:22 - 17:26we need to really listen and really learn
-
17:27 - 17:33and invite the potential and power
that is in each and every person -
17:33 - 17:36across their ethnic, racial,
-
17:38 - 17:42cultural, gender, etc. backgrounds
-
17:42 - 17:48in order to generate a better future
for our companies and organizations? -
17:48 - 17:51BB: Yeah, I actually think
I can tie it to the bottom line. -
17:51 - 17:54Let me start off by tightening
something up a little bit. -
17:56 - 17:58By "white,"
-
17:59 - 18:01I'm talking about a political group.
-
18:02 - 18:05That political group
has certain privileges. -
18:05 - 18:08I have some of those privileges.
-
18:08 - 18:11So I'm not at all talking
about some biological category -
18:11 - 18:15because I don't think
white was ever a biological category, -
18:15 - 18:22and I don't think Italians, Irish,
Catholics, Jews, Asian Americans -
18:22 - 18:25are all in that biological category,
-
18:25 - 18:26certainly,
-
18:26 - 18:30but some of them
have this whiteness conditionally. -
18:30 - 18:31I think if you're a Jewish American,
-
18:31 - 18:35I think you'd recognize
that as the tenor of the politics goes, -
18:36 - 18:40so may go your sort of inclusion
within the group. -
18:40 - 18:41I think for Asian Americans,
-
18:41 - 18:46you get almost a contradictory
whiteness sometimes, -
18:46 - 18:48where at any point -
-
18:48 - 18:51and again, today's politics
would take you there - -
18:51 - 18:53you can be seen as the enemy,
-
18:53 - 18:55you can require more protection
-
18:55 - 18:58because of what's being said
by the political structure, -
18:58 - 19:00and at the same time, you know,
-
19:00 - 19:01it's not that you necessarily grew up
-
19:01 - 19:03in an ethnic enclave
or anything like that. -
19:03 - 19:09You may be perfectly comfortable
at the largest companies in the country, -
19:09 - 19:14and you know, you're going to see others
that look like you while you're there. -
19:14 - 19:16So I do want to understand
-
19:16 - 19:20that when whiteness
is a political coalition -
19:20 - 19:25and that not every member
has the same standing -
19:25 - 19:27within that coalition,
-
19:28 - 19:31and then for the cultural part of it,
-
19:31 - 19:36I think, you know, whiteness is sort of -
-
19:36 - 19:38Well, one of the costs of that privilege
-
19:38 - 19:40is to give up your actual culture,
-
19:40 - 19:42to not be taught your actual history,
-
19:42 - 19:44to not be taught of the connections
-
19:44 - 19:48that you have to others
that are outside those groups, -
19:48 - 19:50and so I think that coming
out of privilege -
19:50 - 19:53is coming into your actual culture.
-
19:53 - 19:56Talking about it from
an organizational perspective, -
19:57 - 19:58what I would say is this:
-
19:58 - 19:59A lot of the work I do
-
19:59 - 20:05is bringing up to speed
people of a certain age - -
20:05 - 20:07if I could use that term of art -
-
20:09 - 20:13people who perhaps were comfortable
with their understanding of racism -
20:13 - 20:17five years ago, or 10 years ago, you know,
-
20:17 - 20:22or during the LA rebellion
or during the '80s or whenever, -
20:22 - 20:26where, you know, you could just understand
yourself as not racist -
20:26 - 20:28and say, "I don't have these thoughts,"
-
20:28 - 20:30and, you know,
"These things are terrible," -
20:31 - 20:34and say those out loud as though
you were actually doing something. -
20:34 - 20:38There's a generation or two down there -
-
20:38 - 20:40and I struggle to see
exactly where they're at, -
20:40 - 20:42I just know I'm not among them -
-
20:43 - 20:46and they are not having your neutrality,
-
20:46 - 20:50they are not having your claims about
a lack of intent or lack of education. -
20:50 - 20:52They are actively asking
-
20:52 - 20:56why they've been given
whitewashed education, -
20:56 - 20:59why they haven't been told
their actual history. -
20:59 - 21:01And what I would say to corporate America
-
21:01 - 21:04is that's the upcoming demographic
-
21:04 - 21:07that's going to be buying
some of your products, -
21:08 - 21:11and they are going to look
at your statements of neutrality -
21:11 - 21:15and your claims of being
behind "Black Lives Matters," -
21:15 - 21:17and they're going to check out
your board rooms, -
21:17 - 21:20they're going to look
at your leadership teams, -
21:20 - 21:22and if all of your hiring
is down at the lower level, -
21:22 - 21:24they're going to notice.
-
21:24 - 21:27In case you haven't been able to see,
-
21:27 - 21:30they are taking this quite seriously,
-
21:30 - 21:33and so I think that there are
good bottom line reasons -
21:33 - 21:35for some corporations
-
21:35 - 21:40to start to think about
how they are going to adjust their vision -
21:41 - 21:46for a multi-racial United States
that may already be here -
21:46 - 21:48but is certainly on its way.
- Title:
- A history of integration: how we address self-segregation | Byron Burkhalter | TEDxSeattleSalon
- Description:
-
Look at two models of integration and see how they continue to play out today. As tendencies to self-segregate persist, how will we as people and organizations come together? This talk explores how we can better understand our context, and work to improve our multi-racial United States. This video is part 1 of a 2 part interview hosted by Phil Klein and held on July 25, 2020. Byron Burkhalter earned his doctorate in Sociology from UCLA and focuses on issues of race, biracial identity, whiteness and multiracial political coalitions in US history, as he has for more than 30 years. He has taught at universities, spoken at large public rallies and published numerous pieces on these issues. His writings examine racial and sexual discrimination in the workplace, and explore the relevance of race in interracial relationships and racial and ethnic identities in online communities. He also helps groups of people do the hard work to recognize the privileges afforded them by the racism and white supremacy systemic in their everyday lives.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 21:52