Speaking and Communicating Podcast

If you are to have a genuinely informed opinion, you need to expose yourself to quality content that challenges your view.

That doesn't mean that you'll change your view necessarily, but it means that you are seeing a fully formed, humanized version of the view that you differ with.

Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating Podcast.

I am your host, Roberta Ndela.

If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

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Now let's welcome back my friend Seth from Long Long Ago.

We did part one on how racism dehumanizes us all.

And today he's here to provide solutions and a way forward on what each one of us can do individually in order to curb this problem.

And before I go any further, please help me welcome him back to the show.

Hey, Seth.

Hi, Roberta.

Nice to see you again.

Nice seeing you again as well.

Glad to have you back.

Please tell our listeners what it is last time that you were talking about on the show.

So I think the main focus was just for me sharing some of my realizations in terms of how even as a person who tried to be very aware of racism and try to counter racism in the ways that I could, how I still slipped into some of the inherited mindsets as a white South african that perpetuated dehumanization of people of other races, of people in other economic positions, and just me trying to wake up to the layers of dehumanization within our respective cultures, whether it be South african culture or American culture as I live in the States now.

So just trying to create more of an awareness of how we dehumanize one another and hopefully what we can do about that.

Right.

And what we are going to discuss today is what we can do about that.

Why is this so important to you?

It's important to me because I am a humanist.

I believe in the power and sanctity of humanity, of the human spirit.

And so I think that any time that we dehumanize any group of people, we are weakening and we're losing ourselves.

We're losing ourselves as a species, really, because our humanity is what makes us separate from the animals.

If we don't choose to be deliberate in the way that we respond to our environment, if we don't choose to put a gap between stimulus and response, then we're great apes.

And so for me, it's central to my question, to my identity as a human, is how do I treat other humans?

And if I can't answer that question with a sense of integrity that is true to my value system, then I have nothing.

So that's how I see it.

Right.

And why should anyone who feels, I already treat other people in a decent manner, why should they listen to you?

What is it that's different that you're going to talk about today?

So I think I have, I wouldn't say a unique perspective.

I suppose all of our perspectives are unique, but really what's primed me for this conversation is experiences that I've had in my personal life over the last six or so years, where my family has been confronting a history of abuse, and I've been trying to confront a culture of abuse within our family system, and have started to see the similarities between that culture of abuse in a microcosm, and how that has actually played out in a macro way, in terms of the interactions between in South africa, Europeans, and africans over the last few hundred years.

And I see similar dynamics here in the United States.

We often hear conversations where people will reference things like slavery, and the knee-jerk response from most white people that are here is one that seeks to minimize the impact.

It's one that says, well, come on, you know, it was 400 years ago, like, when are we going to let it go?

In South africa, there's a similar sentiment.

People will reference apartheid.

The knee-jerk white responses, well, apartheid is over.

So like, when are we going to stop talking about apartheid?

And within the context of abuse in a family system, people who are the survivors of abuse are permanently altered by that experience.

Abuse as a child alters a person's brain structure.

And we see when people study abuse and generational cycles of abuse, the effects of abuse last for generations.

And this isn't just a sort of idea that people have come up with, this has been studied.

It can be demonstrated scientifically, that abuse is something that carries on from generation to generation, until that cycle is broken.

And when you look at societal abuse, when you look at a group of people that were bought and sold, and killed and flogged for hundreds of years, to think that the generational impact of that kind of centuries old abuse is going to evaporate, just because a few of the most oppressive laws have been repealed, is naive.

At best, it's naive.

At worst, it's downright malicious, and a deliberate attempt to silence the victim.

You know, I shouldn't use the word victim, but the point is that inside our culture today, there is a backlash against people speaking out about the realities of abuse, whether it be familial abuse or societal abuse.

And the backlash is, well, you're developing a victim mentality.

You're refusing to let this go.

When in actual fact, the people who are wanting to talk about the problem, are the ones who are actually trying to process it.

They're the ones who are trying to let it go.

And those who insist that A, it never happened, or B, that you're making a big deal out of nothing.

Those who try to minimize the reality of that abuse, are the ones committed to holding on to it.

And you see in psychology, people who are incapable of confronting past trauma, for instance, are really the ones that then pass it on to the next generation.

So they're holding on to it, and they're passing it on.

And so, for me, my perspective now has become honed by the fact that I see these really terrifying similarities on a societal level, to what I have experienced on a familial level.

And I feel like I have a responsibility to speak out about it and speak about what I see.

And when it comes to those similarities as well, have you found that the ones who say, I didn't create this, I did not participate in creating this issue, why should I be expected to do anything?

So let me describe a phenomenon that I've experienced personally and then seen play out in so many other people that I am close to who have experienced similar dynamics, is you will have this kind of cycle of recurring.

Let's move away from the word abuse.

Let's call it dysfunction.

So you have a dysfunctional family unit.

And in all of these cases, there is what I call the big lie.

So in my family, the big lie was that we were the perfect religious Christian home.

And to the outside, that's what we've always known.

And from the outside, we absolutely looked like that, because we knew how to portray a public.

You know, as kids, we knew how we needed to behave in public.

We knew how we needed to behave around our parents.

The big lie was that behind closed doors, there was a lot of abuse going on.

What you'll see in families is that people moved to a point where the abuse, the act of abuse has stopped.

So the kids aren't being hit anymore.

The sexual assault survivor is not being sexually assaulted anymore.

It is now 20 years later or whatever the case may be.

And now the survivor of the abuse, because it tends to happen many years later, that you start to confront the trauma because it eventually erupts in a way that can't be repressed anymore.

And so, for me, it reached a point where I had enough mental health crises that I was finally diagnosed with complex PTSD.

And it was a case of, okay, I can't ignore this anymore.

I can't ignore this anymore.

If I am to go on, if I am to function, if I am to hold down a job, if I am to be a father and a husband in a meaningful way, I have to face this past.

And so the conversations start happening around.

So you can't just let it go as we are told.

Just let it go.

We would love to.

We would love to.

The victims of abuse have wanted to let it go more than anyone else.

We're the ones who have suppressed it in our subconscious mind and try to pretend, you know, to anyone who asked me, I would have said I had the perfect family.

I love my parents.

And I genuinely believed it.

I genuinely believed it because I had stuffed it so far down that I believed my own propaganda that I had a perfect upbringing.

And so when it gets to the point that I actually cannot function anymore, and I have to choose to confront and heal this trauma in order to be a functional human being, then the conversations start happening around what really happened, what the Randall family really was like behind closed doors.

And immediately, you get a backlash from two sources.

The first source is the perpetrators of the abuse, who will generally respond with aggression or denialism.

But then, the even in some ways even more devastating response is the response of those around them who say, I can't quite believe this.

This doesn't fit with my experience of the Randalls.

I interacted with you guys over the course of 20 years.

Can you imagine how shocked I was?

Yes.

Absolutely.

And it doesn't fit with my experience.

And at that point, that bystander, and so now I'm finally getting back to your point, the bystander, the white person in America today or the white South african who says, okay, well, I didn't cause the abuse.

At that point, I have a choice.

I either take the survivor's story at face value and say, oh, wow, I did not know that.

It doesn't fit with what I experienced personally, but now I'm going to renegotiate my perception based on your testimony.

Instead of that happening.

So it takes listening to the person who's the survivor of the abuse, and you being open to the fact that your experiences at the moment, just put them aside and actually take a listen to that person.

Because a lot of the time when the conversation is shut down, it's a matter of this is what I know.

This is what I know about the Randalls.

Seth, there's no way what you're telling me is true.

So it's the same with racism.

This is what I know.

You guys have all the rights now.

What more do you want?

Because, personally, you haven't experienced it.

And so it takes actually sitting down, putting aside what you thought you knew, and listening to that person.

Exactly.

And what you'll see happening is people will hear about the abuse, and they will be kind of startled by it.

It doesn't fit with their perception.

And so what do they do?

And here you'll see a big contrast.

Some people, they're faced with like this contradiction between what they thought something was and what they're now hearing it was.

They turn to the survivor, and they say, tell me more.

I'm so sorry.

Please tell me what happened.

How can I support you?

Most people instead turn to the perpetrator and say, did this really happen?

Now you can imagine what answer are they gonna get.

On a societal level, this is what happens.

White people will hear the narratives of, you know, a white South african will hear a black South african talk about apartheid, and they will say, you know, eyes rolling, are we still on this?

Instead of engaging with the survivor of apartheid, and they don't even have to have lived during apartheid.

They are the survivors of the legacy of apartheid.

Instead of listening and then renegotiating their perception with this new information that they have, which is, hey, my life is still the same.

I still live in Alex.

I'm still suffering all of the economic problems that my ancestors suffered under apartheid.

Instead, they turn to their white compatriots, and they say, guys, seriously, can you get over these people?

Why are we still talking about apartheid?

It's the societal equivalent of going to the perpetrator and saying, how many more?

Oh, well, he's blowing it out of proportion.

I mean, what he says, you know, you're going to get a response that defends the abuse or the injustice.

Because you're going to the wrong thoughts in the first place.

You're looking for reassurance about your......that you already believe rather than being...

Exactly.

You're not looking for truth.

You're looking for reassurance.

And so you see this playing out all the time, where people are disquieted by a narrative.

And instead of leaning into that narrative and saying, what can I learn from this narrative?

They shut the narrative down and they return to the narrative that reinforces what they thought before, and reinforces the fact that that narrative is one I actually don't need to listen to.

It's not valid.

It's exaggerated.

It's born of victim mentality.

It's all of these things.

And so I don't need to engage with it.

And so I shut it down and I turn on whatever echo chamber I was in previously that says, it's not real.

It's not really happening.

First thing is to renegotiate your perspective.

Like you said, what is the next thing?

Be willing to.

Yeah, being willing to.

And I think we need to do this in all aspects of our lives.

It's not only when it comes to racism.

We need to be willing to question things.

Willing to question what we've inherited in terms of our understanding of something, our thinking on an issue, to question whether our experience is representative of the truth.

What's another strategy for actively doing your part in curbing the problem?

Listen, we're not talking about marches to parliament or whatever, but individually in your own circle of influence.

I think we need to be deliberate about the people that we elect on a local, on a regional, on a national level.

We need to be deliberate about choosing people of influence, who we will be influenced by, who we're going to listen to on the radio.

Are we choosing to hear the voices of people that challenge our narrative?

Are we choosing to bear down on our narrative, on the one that's comfortable for us?

Reassure what we already believe, and so we even listen or watch anything that solidifies that, basically.

Absolutely.

We live in a world where social media automatically skews us towards like-minded people, like-minded content, and we actually have to be deliberate and proactive about countering that.

So if I have a political leaning one way or another, my social feed is going to feed me more content along those lines.

And so it's going to be very easy for me to believe that my way of thinking is really the only valid way of thinking.

And this applies across the political spectrum.

So I'm not aiming this at one side or another.

You need to realize that if you are to have a genuinely informed opinion, you need to expose yourself to quality content that challenges your view.

That doesn't mean that you'll change your view necessarily, but it means that you are seeing a fully formed, humanized version of the view that you differ with.

I often want to start a conversation with someone by saying, okay, in this conversation, if you were me and I was you, why don't you argue my point and I'll argue your point?

I want to see how well you understand my point of view.

I'm not saying you have to agree with the argument.

You can say things that you think are balderdash, but argue it as if it was your own point.

And if they can flesh out the argument and be convincing and touch on the main points, then I say, okay, this is an open-minded person.

They're aware of what they disagree with.

But so often people are unaware of what they're disagreeing with.

They've heard soundbites on the Internet.

They've seen one-liners and takedowns where people are dissing each other on the Internet.

And they are responding to the emotional content of those short little soundbites.

What they haven't done is even understood the legitimate claims that they're rejecting.

You know, we can start there.

We can say, okay, even if someone disagrees with the position, for instance, you have creative solutions to racism that people have come up with, and yet you have a very strong political response to some of those suggestions.

What I've noticed is that people aren't responding to the content of the suggestion to say, you know what?

Great idea, but I think you've done it wrong in this way.

What they're doing is they're shutting down the discussion.

They're saying this is an invalid discussion.

The objective has been driven, and so whatever is deeply implanted in them, they don't want to challenge that, as we mentioned earlier.

So if you come to me and you say, here's my solution.

I've come up with this idea of critical race theory that I think we should educate people with.

A constructive response says, okay, let's go through that, and let me tell you where I'm concerned.

I'm concerned about this because I think it gives that impression, which I disagree with.

Let's engage with it or say to me, okay, you know what?

I think that is not constructive, but I've come up with another idea, and this is my submission to the conversation.

This is what I think would be a better response.

Instead, the response is, this is garbage.

This is woke nonsense.

Pulling the race card.

It's long ago.

Yes, shut it down.

Yes.

Shut it down.

When it comes to, because we usually make this joke of, get yourself a white friend, the last for the manager on your behalf.

Because just generally in society, white people's voices tend to be more heard than if I had the same complaint.

I think they even bring the waiter, not even the manager.

Shout out to waiters.

Yeah.

But like, for instance, in a family setting, if they're having Thanksgiving dinner, do I need to challenge my family if they say something about black people, especially if I haven't experienced any interaction with them, or is it even my problem?

I sigh because it's something that I struggle with, where you're in a setting where you are a guest, for instance.

You're visiting someone else's home, and maybe another guest of theirs says something racist.

Now you feel like, is it my position to oppose what they're saying and create this awkward scenario when I'm a guest in this person's home?

I would like to see us getting back to a point where we can disagree agreeably.

We don't have to have a screaming match, but we can say, I actually feel very differently about that view.

We can tell about it if you want.

We don't have to talk about it here, but if you could please not use that phrase or whatever it is, just kind of put up a flag to say, I disagree.

This is wrong.

We don't have to fight about this here.

I'm just registering a complaint.

And I think there's different degrees.

If I hear someone using the n-word, I'm going to say something.

I'm just not going to let it pass.

I'm sorry.

If I hear someone saying a politically loaded statement, I think it is...

Or a racial stereotype.

This group does that.

This group, they tend to do that.

The shortcuts in our brains, that's usually what we do.

And I only say, here's the reason I asked this question about even challenging it in friend circle, family, whatever.

I had a friend, she's in a different state, who had a huge...

The first time I visited her, huge colossal complaints about the Hispanic race, right?

Hispanics this, Hispanics that, Hispanics that.

And every single time she made this, I'll ask her the question, why do you say that?

It was my first visit in America, I think around 2013.

I said, why would you say that?

About a whole group of people, how many of them do you know?

She said, it's not about knowing them, it's about the-

and a lot of the stuff she was regurgitating was stuff that in the news, politically is said about Hispanics, right?

They're taking this away from me, they're taking that away from me, they take-

and I kept saying to her, why do you say that she did not have a valid answer other than repeating what the news says.

Never had interaction with barely any Hispanic person whatsoever.

And I remember each time, not only was I so uncomfortable, and I would ask her the question, and she wouldn't give me a straight answer.

I always at the back of my mind knew that one day black people are going to have a turn with her.

Because this is a behavior.

It's not about the group.

This is a behavior.

Hispanic people are this, Hispanic people are taking this away from me, taking that away from me.

And I remember saying to myself, I'm not comfortable as a black person in her presence, because my turn is coming.

And boy, did it come when she posted something on Facebook.

I said, there we go.

It's her behavior.

She just has this thing of me being white, everything else is an other.

And even if it's not your group that is being attacked, just know that the behavior is the problem.

I wasn't stupid enough to think, oh, because she's not talking about black people.

I'm saying, no, no, no, the behavior.

And I was having a problem with the fact that you are stereotyping another group and you have no valid answers.

She posted something about black people.

There it is.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think it's this human selfishness where we say, okay, as long as the gun isn't pointed at me, I'll let the gun be out in public.

What we need to say is, why are you brandishing a gun at dinner?

You know what I mean?

You're aiming it at someone, and I shouldn't use the gun example in America because that's alerted.

Pun intended.

But you're absolutely right.

You know, if we look at Nazi Germany, it's kind of the attitude that, well, I'm not Jewish, so I'll let it happen.

Well, what happens then when they invade your country as a neighbor?

Oh, well, now I'm concerned.

But the country next door?

Well, it's not happening to us, so we'll let it happen.

Well, next is your country.

We can't allow evil to flourish unchecked.

And yet at the same time, I have learned firsthand how futile it is to argue with someone who is not interested in truth.

They're interested in winning an argument.

Anything in that example I quoted with the person who used to be my friend is, nothing she said was valid.

We all know you spread propaganda.

They don't care about the truth.

So nothing she said was valid.

It's not even her looking for the truth in what's wrong with Hispanic people.

She just was regurgitating whatever she had, perspective, feelings, and thinking.

Whatever the news tell us she's threatened by, none of it made any sense.

When people argue, it doesn't need to make sense to them.

They just want to take whatever standpoint they have.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And so you can tell very early on in a discussion with someone, whether they're pausing and listening, or whether they're just holding their tongue, waiting for you to stop talking so they can insert their next argument.

The flip side of that is that we need to make sure that we're people who listen to a viewpoint.

Even if we find it offensive, have we at least heard it out?

But we don't have to keep exposing ourselves to things that are hateful.

For me, the difficult thing that I want as an abuse survivor myself, I have to remind myself that it's okay for me to be angry.

It's okay for me to grieve.

It's okay for me to have community in that anger and grief.

And when I want to change the world, and I lead with anger, very little is going to change.

It's unfair that injustice, when pointed out, is met with more injustice, and that the survivor of that injustice has to be the big one to say, I'm not going to respond to personal attacks with more personal attacks.

I'm not going to respond to vitriol with more vitriol.

It's not fair.

It's not fair, but I feel like...

You already did the injured party, and everyone tells you, be the bigger person.

Absolutely.

And sometimes, we're not capable of that, and we can have grace for that.

And when we're wanting to make an impact, sometimes we need to just express ourselves.

Sometimes we need, like I said, we need community in our lived experience, an unfiltered community.

But I always feel that when we are wanting to present a message to the world, let that message be rooted in truth.

The minute we dehumanize in response to dehumanization, we are all falling down together.

And so I try, I'm not saying I get it right all the time, but I try to let my message be rooted in truth and be rooted in vulnerability as much as possible.

And for me to not fight fire with fire, when people make unfounded, personal, cruel, or dehumanizing attacks, for me to rather disengage and seek refuge with people that are like minded.

And when I'm ready to speak to the world, to speak again from a position of power and truth, as opposed to a position of vitriol.

So let's just recap on these three.

First, you said, let's renegotiate our perspective and be open to listening to the one who's the survivor, who's the injured party.

And then secondly, seek media that has an opposing view, but critically thinking, obviously not anything, opposing view to what you have, and see if there's a way that you can argue their point, to see if you understand where they're coming from at least.

You don't have to agree with everything people say.

And then be an advocate in your own circle of influence.

Anything else that I might have left out?

I think that's great.

We can choose to be part of the solution.

And I suppose my call to other white Americans, white South africans is let's choose to be part of healing what our ancestors were part of hurting.

Let's take that responsibility seriously.

I inherit the benefits that were one at the expense of other people.

And with that, I believe I inherit the responsibility to be part of the solution.

And when I pretend that there's no problem, I can't be part of this solution.

As nations, as societies, we cannot flourish when we are dehumanizing part of our society.

It is against natural law.

We cannot deny the humanity of others and expect to flourish as humans.

It just doesn't work that way.

Let's choose to be part of the solution.

Certainly.

Words of wisdom from Seth Myles Randall, my friend of I don't know how many decades, a South african living in Arizona.

Thank you so much for being here again and for providing us with solutions.

It's a pleasure.

Thanks so much for having me, Roberta.

My absolute pleasure as well.

Thank you for joining us on the Speaking on Communicating Podcast once again.

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