In this episode of the Inclusive Minds Podcast, Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross is joined by two remarkable authors, Dr. Janie Victoria Ward and Dr. Becky Thompson. They’ve co-authored a poignant chapter in the book “Anti-Blackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies: Lived Experiences in the Fight Against Institutionalized Racism,” which Dr. Ross proudly co-edited.
Janie and Becky delve into their unique, decades-long cross-racial friendship and professional collaboration. They share the profound insights gained from co-teaching a groundbreaking course at Simmons University, where their openness about racial experiences became the most impactful lesson for their students.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- The Origins of a Deep Friendship: Discover how a moment of shared vulnerability during a campus incident became the catalyst for Janie and Becky’s profound connection, transforming a professional acquaintance into a deep bond.
- The “Cost” of True Allyship: Becky sheds light on the often-unseen sacrifices and challenges White allies may face when truly committing to anti-racism work, and why choosing this path ultimately leads to a richer life.
- Understanding Trust and Accountability: Learn what it genuinely means to “have each other’s backs” in an interracial friendship, and how identifying and confronting difficult truths—like homophobia or racism—strengthens the bond.
- Dr. Janie Victoria Ward: Professor Emerita at Simmons University, author, and expert in identity and moral development in African American youth.
- Dr. Becky Thompson: Poet, scholar, yogi, social justice activist, and author.
Guest Links:
Website: https://beckythompsonyoga.com/
Dr Carolyn’s Links
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-coker-ross-md-mph-ceds-c-7b81176/
TEDxPleasantGrove talk: https://youtu.be/ljdFLCc3RtM
To buy “Antiblackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies” – bit.ly/3ZuSp1T
Hi, this is Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross, bringing you the Inclusive Minds Podcast. This podcast was inspired by the book of which I’m a co-editor entitled Anti-Blackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies. Lived experiences in the fight against institutionalized racism. If you’re a psychologist, a social worker, an addiction professional, or a healthcare provider, or anyone who wants to broaden your horizons, then this podcast is for you.
The goal of the podcast is to help you understand some of the more complex issues facing our culture today. My guest. Are experts in their fields, and we’ll be talking about a wide array of topics including cross-cultural issues, the intersection of race and trauma, social justice and health inequities.
They will be sharing both their lived experiences and their expert opinions. The goal is to give you a felt experience and to let you know that you are not alone in being confused by these complex. Issues. We want to provide nuanced information with context that will enable you to make your own decisions about these important topics.
Hi everybody. This is Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross, and we’re here today talking with two authors who wrote a chapter in our book. Anti-blackness and the stories of authentic allies. So I have Janie Victoria Ward and Becky Thompson with me today, and their chapter is called Between Us a Black and White Woman’s Conversation About Friendship.
Janie Victoria Ward is a. Professor Emerita at Simmons University in Boston where she chaired the Departments of Education and Africana studies. She earned a master’s in counseling and co consulting psychology and a doctorate in human development from Harvard. She also co-edited the book, mapping the Moral Domain, published in 1988 and Souls looking back in 1999 and the skin we’re in in 2000, focusing on racial socialization.
I. Her latest book, sisters Resistors, mentoring Black Women on Campus and explores mentoring strategies for black women for over three decades. Her research has centered on identity and moral development in African American youth. Thompson is a poet, scholar, yogi, and the social justice activists. Our notable works include to speak in salt, which is a poetry book.
Making mirrors, writing by and for refugees and teaching with tenderness, a contemplative feminist pedagogy. And then finally, survivors on the yoga mat meditations for healing from trauma. She has received numerous honors, including fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the NEH, and has held academic positions at institutions such as Princeton and Duke.
Currently she teaches at Simmons University and leads yoga and activism workshops internationally, and she has held appointments at China Women’s University, Princeton, duke, the University of Colorado, and currently Simmons University. So welcome to you both. It’s a pleasure to meet you and to have read your wonderful chapter.
And I I just wanna start out asking you. I know at the beginning of your chapter you write about co-teaching a new course at Simmons, and you, you said that your course became very. Well rated the evaluations were off the chart, but more than the intellectual component of the course, the students had the biggest aha moments from being in the presence of you, Janie, a black woman, and you, Becky, a white woman, willing to talk openly about their racial experiences.
Can you say a little bit more about how that, what, was that a surprise? Did you expect it to be such a groundbreaking? Of course, tell us more.
Janie Ward: Sure. Uh, I’ll start. So I was actually on the, um, search committee that brought Becky to Simmons College many, many, many, many, many years ago, back in the 1990s. Right.
And she was in a different department. So I would see her at faculty meetings, but you know, I didn’t have the day-to-day contact with Becky that I have with my colleagues in my department. However, it was pretty quickly Becky established herself to be the truth teller on campus. So I would hear from other people what Becky was up to, or you know, in a meeting.
Becky was the only one who. Stood up to the dean kind of thing. And you know, when I would listen and go on about my business, I’d think to myself, thank God somebody spoke up. But then I’d go on about my business. As you may know, and maybe as your listeners may know, traditionally there has been, you know, some tension between black women and white women.
And which is not to say that, you know, we’re at each other’s throats or anything, but sometimes there. Is, you know, a little bit of reticence to come together. Uh, sometimes black women feel like white women don’t really understand black women’s issues. They don’t understand the impact of gendered sexism on black women, and it.
Sometimes appears that, you know, white women are more interested in drawing attention to their own issues than to, uh, looking at women’s issues inclusively. And I have to admit that sometimes I fell into that bucket as well. However, as, as we all remember, there was the George Floyd moment, and with the murder of George Floyd, as well as the murder of.
Several other African American men and women, the nation started to come together and say, what the hell is going on? And it was an extraordinary moment. Little did we know what was coming down the pike. Um, that we’re living with now, but back then, right before the pandemic, you, you know, there, there was kind of a flourishing of marches, of protests of, of white folks seeming as though they were really interested in what was going on in Black Lives.
A proliferation of books about racism, books about white supremacy. You know, it just seemed like. There was a really energetically charged moment, and that’s exactly what led to us kind of paying closer attention to each other. Okay. Becky, what do you think?
Becky Thompson: Well, I would also say that there was a particular incident because there was a active, what appeared to be an active shooter on campus.
Mm-hmm. Uh, one day and, and, uh, Janie and I ended up being in the same. Location that was, um, blocked off, but not at all safe. And during that time, I got scared and I went into a kind of crouched position underneath a table with other people, mind you. And I felt quite embarrassed about my reaction to that because I was supposed to be a professor.
You know, holding it all together. But anyway, then afterwards there was a meeting of faculty and a, a administrator and I ended up, uh, speaking up to that administrator about. Aspects of privilege in the way he went about handling himself. And Janie was shocked that someone who she just saw cowering in, in a closed room could also be someone who could, you know, bring out my tongue when I needed to.
And I think that incident helped Janie to see. Uh, that both of those parts exist in me, but also I was carrying around this worry that I had just done white frag, uh, just performed white fragility big time. Mm-hmm. And Janie said, no, it wasn’t about white fragility. You were having a reaction to being in a closed container.
This makes sense. So she recognized me as a trauma survivor. And those that sharing then became a nucleus for really what were three courses, a learning community that we did together that allowed us to spend months really celebrating each other’s work, but also celebrating the work of many other people.
I. That have been trying to reckon with why black, black and white women have such a hard time talking with each other. And then what the students saw was times when we really engaged with, with each other and, and in a synergistic kind of way and times when we disagreed with each other. And also they saw us as intellectuals who knew our stuff and were willing to get vulnerable at the same time.
So that modeling, I now have one of the students from the class. Who is in sixth time taking a class with me because of the work that Janie and I did with her. Yeah.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross: What were some of the, you talk in your chapter about some of the misconceptions and Janie, you just mentioned a couple of misconceptions that.
Black women have about white women and white women have about black women that you ran up against when you started, uh, working together.
Janie Ward: Yeah. Well, so I, you know, I think that one of the interesting things about teaching period, and especially teaching people who are younger than you, is you really sort of get.
A sense of the developmental journey that students, uh, are on. And so here I was an adult African American woman who, uh, you know, was considerably older than the students having gone through. And I grew up in predominantly white schools and have some very, very, very dear friends who are white. So. I feel like I know what a strong, authentic, cross-racial friendship feels like.
Yet I also know as a grown woman what inauthentic relationships can feel like. And so I am very keen and, uh, on hearing from younger black women as they talk about, I don’t quite understand why. This white girl in my class can be, you know, uh, open and friendly in class, but if I ever see her on campus, she won’t make contact with me.
You know, she acts as though I’m invisible or there are things that happen. On campus that feel like a microaggression that may even have been witnessed by one of my white friends, I thought was a friend. But when it comes time to talk about it, she becomes silent. Right? So there are those moments in our lives in which we feel as though, I’m not sure I can trust this woman.
And sometimes it feels as though she. The white woman is more concerned with protecting her privileges, her power, her way of being in the world, than reaching out and accepting that I may have a different perspective and a different way of being in the world that is equally acceptable.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
So how, but how do you explain that to your students?
Like how do you contextualize these experiences? Maybe Becky can chime in here without saying, oh, well your friend is just disingenuous or inauthentic, or what? What is the frame for that?
Becky Thompson: Part of what happened in the class is that we open it up for students to be able to talk about. When they have had successful cross race relationships, what that felt like, what that looked like, what that, what made that possible, and when they haven’t, and then everybody could witness those stories.
And you know, there’s a kind of a grimacing that can happen because as you hear the story start your, oh God, it’s gonna happen again. But that became a way for people to know in the class. Kind of what to and not to do because they could hear from their friends when things, you know, really were messed up.
But also we were looking at a lot of history. Even if you have individual, you know, black and white friendship, it’s still in the context that’s all about splitting people apart and about devaluing black women. So that meant that the class had to have a real strong history of black women’s, uh, attempts to rely on white women.
And all the times when white women didn’t come through, to be quite honest about, I mean, we’re watching it now, you know, white women actually voted agent orange into power for the second time. This is the truth of it, that white women as a group, particularly straight white women. A go the way of patriarchy and racism at the great expense of.
Gender and equity and solidarity, right? So we are working against the stream when we have conversations that are honest and that also frees people up to say, well, this isn’t just me. It’s part of a larger piece, and I can start to ask for real help. I mean, some of the beauty of this book that Janie won’t count, but I Will, is that it argues that white women really need to get our act together about mentoring black students.
Because there aren’t enough black faculty to go around, right? I mean, we need to see ourselves as being willing and capable of mentoring black students, developing those relationships, which requires that we develop relationships with peers. So my thing is, who do you call in the middle of the night? Who do you call in an emergency?
Who do you really text? And for white women, if it’s all white women all the time, you know, Anne Braden, the, the long term anti-racist white activists said, and, and Naomi Jaffe, another anti-racist, uh, white woman said, there’s only two reasons that. All white people should be together in a room. The one reason is if there’s a funeral and they’re coming to say goodbye to their kin, and the other is an anti-racism training.
And other than that, white people should not be left to their own devices because we just screw up. So this is the thing. We have to always be in relationship and accountable across race to try to do things differently. So I think in our class we were trying to say, you know, who are your people? Who are your people?
Who you go into a bunker with.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross: So in your chapter, you uh, state that some of these misconceptions about cross-racial friendships, and you say, on the one hand there’s a common reductionist assumption that if you have cross race friendships, that in and of itself is enough to make social change. On the other hand, there is an assumption that it is possible to be an ally.
Without having done the work of making and sustaining relationship. So I think that is, that’s why do you consider that really important? Because it seems to me a very profound couple of statements there.
Becky Thompson: Thank you for that. Well, the accountability piece is, is crucial. Because you can talk shit with anybody for a long period of time and enjoy getting your nails done and how to make jello right.
But right now we’re talking about trying to save a country that never has been democratic anyway, but is walking itself right into a dictatorship. So if we don’t have cross race relationships now, we are actually sunk. It’s not like, let’s just make a better academy. It’s like, we gotta save ourselves from this insanity.
Mm-hmm. Now I feel like a, it is crucial at this point to be able to count and understand coalition politics as multiracial, and those don’t happen unless you already have preexisting relationships.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Yeah. So it’s not just about accountability, but it’s really about strength in numbers too.
Janie Ward: It is, and, and it’s, it’s also true that many people of color and uh, especially black folks, find that as they.
Leave high school and go into college. Unless they go to a historically black college, they are going to be surrounded by white students. Mm-hmm. And depending on the college that they choose, they may really be a numerical minority. And in order to get through four years of college, you can’t do it all by yourself.
You’ve gotta have friends. And it’s also, you know, I don’t wanna think of this transactionally. I. But having a white friend can be very beneficial. It can be beneficial psychologically. It can be beneficial socially in, in the school context. But then as you graduate and navigate your way through the workplace or whatever you meet.
To have networks and very often it’s those white women that you went to school with who you can pick up the phone and say, look, I, you know, I’m looking for this kind of a job, or we have a job at our, our law firm, and we’re looking for somebody who’s really. Hotshot in such and such, who do you know? You know?
So these relationships can be extraordinarily important across the lifecycle, not just for social justice work, but for the work of becoming a productive, um, human being in, uh, this culture.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Okay, good. Thank you. Um, I, I wanna read another section from your chapter, if you don’t mind. This one’s a little bit longer, but you, you guys say the missing communication between you, Janie, and you.
Becky was fed by two forms of alienation, resentment. Lack of accountability. Janie acknowledged the resentment she had carried. Why should I care about the Becky’s of the world? She struggled with an underlying anger and suspicion that Becky as a white woman was gonna bail at any moment. When Janie was in grad school at Harvard, there were white women who knew how to talk about anti-racism, and were happy to do so until they got married and moved to the suburbs with their white husbands and their increased class privilege.
And I, I think this is a common experience for black women and it, it obviously can limit cross-racial relationships. And you go on to state that. This is all about trust and really being able to put yourself kind of in the other person’s shoes, and that’s how you guys overcame that barrier. What did you learn over the course of the relationship between you two about this type of issue?
Becky Thompson: One of the things that I learned is how important it is for us to have each other’s backs
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
and what that mean to you.
Becky Thompson: So a a, an example of that is that there was a, a long period of time when there were rumors about me at the university mm-hmm. That I didn’t know exactly. Or even unex. Exactly. I didn’t know, but I could feel people shying away.
I could feel hostility. I could feel avoidance. Yeah. And, but it didn’t dawn on me that what was really going on was deep seated homophobia. Mm-hmm. And so Janie as an ally around sexuality and in support of LGBT people. Was able to see how homophobia was orchestrating their hostility that I couldn’t even see.
Yeah, that’s what I mean about Janie back.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross: That feels like you had your, she had your back. Okay. ’cause she revealed to you that this was going right.
Right. And that it hadn’t even occurred to me, told me that it was so painful that I wouldn’t even let myself go there. It’s not a transactional thing at all.
But if, if I am holding myself accountable. To what black women experience. I need to know enough of the history, the history of the institution, but also the country and of the world to be able to anticipate some of what I see happening and to be able to name it. So a a, an example was just this week I was.
I was at an elite university. There was a speaker, famous speaker. She was holding a small workshop and they sent in a photographer, and that photographer was allowed to stay and take photographs. Of all the students for an hour and a half in their faces. Right. And to me, that was, and they’re mostly all students of color, queer students of color who are being exposed that way.
Not even there. So, but the, the black faculty member I was working with, because she’s been in that institution for a very long time. Didn’t know, wasn’t able to even see in that moment how inva, how violent that was. Mm-hmm. Right. It takes an, this is what George Zimmel teaches us. This is what Pat Hill Collins teaches us, that the outsider within.
Right. So as the outsider there, I could say what is going, this is totally unacceptable. This is how that particular elite university is buying the, the pictures of the students of color for their. Publicity at the expense of them ever being able to get vulnerable or honest during that workshop at the expense of the person who came to campus to make that space happen.
Yeah. Right. So that’s what I, that’s what I’m saying about really being able to see the dynamics of homophobia and the dynamics of racism so that we can say together, okay, now what the fuck are we gonna do about this?
Janie Ward:
Yeah. It’s not just seeing it. Because I, I think that especially in a university setting, very often we are around very smart people who see a lot of things and, you know, um, have something to say about those things.
But it’s often. In the ladies room or behind closed doors, it’s not part of a conversation and it’s certainly not a conversation with the people who need to have the conversation the most. Right. So in this case, you know, it, it’s, it’s true that I did hold a lot of resentment that, you know. You know, I’ve had it up to here with white women’s issues.
Um, when are they ever gonna get to black women’s issues? And that, that did create, I mean, to some degree I think that it became a protection for me as one of the few black women in the institution. Uh, it, it was a cloak that I was a, that I put on so that I wasn’t impacted by a lot of the craziness that was happening.
But when Becky and I. Engaged in this conversation. Part of having her back was to have that difficult conversation to, to say, we’re not gonna shy away from this. We are gonna break it down, comment by comment, and figure out together, this is what I see. This is what you are seeing. Where might the truth lie?
Yeah. And one of the things I got out of that. Is that I learned very much that white allies, right, and institutions that have institutionalized racism and institutionalized sexism. It is not easy for them’s gonna be a loss of comfort. There’s gonna be a loss of status because now. That social justice warrior has a, you know, is marked.
Yeah. Right. She’s the one. Right. There are many losses that are associated with it that before I wasn’t opening myself up to really take in.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Yeah, that’s really a great point. And um, so they’re giving white allies are actually giving up some of their privilege in a way in order to be truly be allies. You know, I do a lot of work or I used to do a lot of work and do recently on uh, DEI trainings and my essential.
Question was always how do you learn how to feel, what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes? And it’s really hard to do. You know, in healthcare we have, uh, people who come in and, and are told, you know, if they’re going for a transplant or something, oh, you can’t get a transplant ’cause you don’t have transportation, or you can’t, you know, go here because you have this limitation.
And most of the. People in healthcare in the universities who are white aren’t necessarily cognizant of what black people are dealing with, what they bring to the table. Mm-hmm. So was, was there something unique about your experience together that enabled you to really open that door a little more widely and have more of a felt sense of the other person?
Janie Ward:
I imagine that there was, you know, I, I think that one of the things that Becky and I resist vehemently is to fall into the trap of only looking at problems and deficits. Mm-hmm. Right? And instead, we think it’s really important. To identify strengths. That doesn’t mean that you ignore the problems that people are having, but I think that, as Becky said, the breakthrough came when she had a moment.
True vulnerability. And then she was like, okay girl, I, I just heard something I that has to be addressed. And she pulled it together. That is incredible strength. And I wanted her to remember that she has that strength and let’s build on it.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
You did address the bad part with her? Yes. In terms of people who were saying negative things about her.
That’s right. And so, but if that moment of vulnerability had have not happened, do you think your relationship would’ve evolved as it has? And I’d like for you both to answer. Maybe Becky, you can start.
Becky Thompson: I think another vulnerable moment would’ve come up. I mean, I think that Janie and I were slated to work together.
And it’s too bad that we waited a while to do it, but you know, we had work to do in the world, and I think the, the universe helped to make that possible. If it hadn’t been an active shooter, it might’ve been something else.
Janie Ward: It might’ve been something else. On the other hand, one of the readings that we had our students do and um, the course that we taught on black and white women’s friendship came from a book.
That was written, uh, co-written by a, a black woman and a white woman. And they had what they thought was a fabulous friendship for many, many, many, many years. And then they had that incident, right, that William Cross encounter incident where, uh, suddenly race. Jumps up and they had to talk about it and what happened, the relationship started to fall apart.
So I think that was a very instructive, uh, reading for our students to do it. It’s contemporary. It is two women who are a little bit older than they are now. So we’re not talking about history, we’re talking about. What can happen when black women and white women come together, think they’re having a relationship.
Mm-hmm. And then run into that R word and see everything just dissolve in front of them.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
If they talk in that book about, ’cause I, I think that essentially white women and black women may have different definitions. Relationship as well without thinking about it. In other words, for, you know, I’ve had an experience similar to what you’re talking about, and for me, trust is a huge important factor in my relationships across the board.
And yet. When I had this breach from a friend that I, a white woman who I thought was my best friend, BFF for life, you know, all of that. Mm-hmm. Long, long story, but we were very, very close. And when she violated my trust, that was not something I could come back from. And I don’t think she, and it was very clear to me that she did not see.
The issue in the same way that I saw it at all. So where does that come from? You know, and I think you talked a little bit about that in your chapter,
Becky Thompson: Carolyn. I, I’m sorry that that happened to you. ’cause it’s very painful.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Yeah, it was for sure. Yeah. And I appreciate you laughing now, but I, I definitely spent a lot of time crying and going to therapy over it.
Becky Thompson: But yeah, I’m really sorry.
Janie Ward:
Yeah, if I remember correctly. That’s what the two authors of the book ended up doing. They went to couples therapy.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Oh, lovely. That’s a great idea. Which was kind of an interesting way to address, address. I’m just wondering if you, we talked about misconceptions, but do you think that the essential nature of what we’re looking for in friendships may be culturally.
Uh, different as well. What are your thoughts on that?
Janie Ward:
You know, there probably are cultural differences. I certainly, so my experience both as a black woman and as a professor watching black women come into a predominantly white setting, black women know how to create community. Mm-hmm. They may not have met.
This girl before, it doesn’t matter. Mm-hmm. If she’s black girl, get in here, we, we gotta talk about something. Right? There’s the assumption that if I bring up an incident that happened in class and I saw it one way and the other students said, no, no, that’s not what it, I can come to you. You may not necessarily agree with me, but at least you’ll listen.
You know, and you’ll understand the perspective that I’m sharing, even if you don’t necessarily agree with it, you know? Yes. Yeah. So I, I think that we know how to, especially in conditions of oppression, we know how to come together and support each other. I can’t speak for white women. I have not always seen that happen.
In the predominantly white college, the, uh, white women’s college that I taught in. But I did see it year after year with black women.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Any thoughts, Becky?
Becky Thompson: Well, when I, uh, when eventually there was a white anti-racist group among faculty and staff and administrators that formed and stayed together, you know, regularly to talk about what it means to be an ally, one of the things that came out is.
The other white women were shocked that it is costly for me when I speak up. They were like, well, you look so confident you, you take it on as if it’s not a big deal. And I needed to say, well, I have to take it on that way. But then I go, you know, back and I throw up or I go back and I have to get in a hot tub before I can even.
So I think there’s misconceptions across the board about what it takes to try to take on. To take on power and at the same time, there’s huge benefits. Mm-hmm. I mean, there’s no way I would have finished my PhD or gotten any of the appointments that I’ve gotten or the books that I’ve published without the support of particular black women.
And that’s what I end up wanting to say to the white students is that, that you might think you’re losing some privileges right now and you will be with some of your family, for example, and some of your friends. But on the other side of that is a way of being in the world that is so much richer. That’s the, that’s the piece that.
One of the highs for me of being at Simmons as long as I have been is the time that I got to work with Janie. And so thank God that something then brought us together and that then makes me think about I. Well, what other people do I need to have face-to-face, eye to eye conversation with? Mm-hmm. So they see, you know, the struggles I have so that we, those vulnerable moments, in other words, so that we can make that happen.
And so, and that is about what white anti-racist culture looks like.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
So I guess my question though, was. Do you feel that there’s an essential difference in what white women expect or are willing to take the cost for when they go into a personal relationship with a black woman? I.
Becky Thompson: Well, I guess, I think it’s so complicated.
I mean, because if we’re talking about lesbians, you know, if we’re talking about white lesbians who’ve been in long-term relationships, lover relationships with women of color, there’s a, that that’s different than if it’s,
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
let’s just speak from your own. Let’s speak from your own lived experience then. My own lived experience.
Yeah. Take the complexity out of it.
When you went into the relationship with Janie, right. Did you realize there would be a cost? I mean we, we’ve heard all about the benefit and that’s great, but was there a cost for you in being in relationship with her at that level, at that depth, or was there a different expectation that you brought to the relationship than maybe what she brought?
Becky Thompson:
I can’t think of one cost. ’cause what I got was. Intimacy and intellectual stimulation and comradery and of course that I’m proud of. And articles we’ve written since, and I, I only, my life is only richer because of that. Yeah. Janie, did you see a, well, so, you know,
Janie Ward:
this is, this is really interesting ’cause I think that for me, when I was younger, there were definitely moments in which I was.
Chastised for having. A close white friend mm-hmm. That my black peers wondered what was wrong with me, you know, and thought that I was selling out, questioned my racial identity, those kinds of things. And again, you know, I’m a developmental psychologist. I watch things change over time. I think that that is a sort of earlier stage of, uh, an example of early stage thinking around, uh, interracial friendships that, you know, there’s a little bit, there’s that distrust, and so why are you being friends with her and what’s the matter with you?
And if you hang in there. And if it is a real, a deep and authentic relationship, you get to the point where you can resist those ideas that there’s something wrong with the relationship just because it is across races, right? And you also start to appreciate. What you are getting out of that relationship, right?
And that there’s a duality. There should be a duality in, um, what people are getting. I’m getting something outta my relationship with my white girlfriends. They’re getting something out of the relationship with me. Um, and if you can’t say that, that both parties are benefiting, then there’s something going on there that that needs to be looked at.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
But you’re addressing the fact that there was some early cost with people making those comments and so on. I think for many white women, there is some cost as well that may keep some women from really embedding themselves in the relationship.
Becky Thompson: But I, I guess it depends so much on, I know you’ll say maybe this is complexity, but you know.
My son is 6 3 270 pounds from Trinidad. My chosen daughter is African American and Native American. My closest friend in the world is African American, right? My life is mostly people of color, so I long ago walked away from a certain kind of whiteness. That is not, I don’t, I don’t that, that’s not where I feel comfortable.
That’s not where I get. My support, I left it. Mm-hmm. That doesn’t mean I don’t still get some privileges, but.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
I think you’re kind of unique in that way. Becky, wouldn’t you say Janie, you maybe.
Janie Ward:
Well, yeah, yeah, but you know, but I know Becky knows that, that she is unique in that way. But one of the things I really appreciate is that she doesn’t wear it as a badge, you know?
Exactly. Yeah. You know, I am the exemplar. Everybody look at me kind of thing. And I think it was really important for our students, younger women, to see that you can walk a different path. And you don’t have to bring a lot of attention to yourself. Hey y’all, I’m walking a different path and my path is righteous.
You know, you don’t have to do that. You can just sort of walk that path, deal with some of the complexities of it, deal, get through the conflicts, but really embrace. What you get from it. And you know, every little bit of success becomes part of that strengthening of the self. And I hope that that’s what our students saw when they would hear the two of us talking about some of the stuff we’ve been through, some of the people that we thought were gonna do X, Y, Z, who let us down, but then coming out on the other side.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Yeah. And I think that transformation is super important and you really can read it in this chapter, that there has been a shift for both of you that allowed you to become very close. I wanna just ask one final question, um, ’cause we’re coming to the end of our time, and that is what inspired each of you to contribute to this anthology and what.
Actionable insight do you hope readers take away from your chapter?
Becky, you wanna start us off?
Becky Thompson: Well, one of, one of the things I, just to add to what we were talking about before is I think some of the reason it’s important to talk about costs is that I watch white students go back to their houses, their families.
Right. And they run the risk of losing their families if they do what they’re doing right. But I want them to know. It might feel really, really scary right now, but you jump off that cliff and there’s all of these hang gliders that are gonna catch you that you can’t even see yet. That’s what I’m talking about.
I’ve been living a life with a hang glider. It’s not about, and I’m an exemplar, it’s that I wanna fly with people. Really?
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I’ve seen that in my work and doing, uh, DEI trainings where a lot of the. White people in the trainings have had that experience where they talk about or defend somebody who’s doing anti-racism work and their families turn against ’em.
So there is a cost. That’s what I was trying to just get at. Whether you, whether you paid the cost or not is another story, but there are is a cost for a lot of white, uh, women who may want to have more in-depth relationships but are afraid.
Yeah. And what do you, what do you hope people,
Janie Ward:
so one of the things that Becky and I were grappling with was, you know, what is it that.
We want the next generation to know and to do. How do we address the cycles of misinformation and distrust that’s out there? I think that what we’ve been talking about over the last hour is, is what I call resistance. Right? It’s really. Pushing back against those forces out there that are urging us to behave in ways that are unkind, that are injust, that are inauthentic, right?
We need to resist. And our acts of resistance is what allows us to stay resilient, right? We talk a lot in our culture about, that was a good one, wasn’t it? You gotta bounce back. If you’re, you know, knocked down, you gotta bou. Well, I think that’s very true, but sometimes the way that you bounce back is because you have.
Pull the punch, you know, and every time we resist, uh, there’s a little bit of us that gets drained out, but it can be replenished and it gets replenished through self-care. I. So we talk to our students a lot about resisting, staying resilient, getting back in there for the fight, but also taking care of yourself and taking care of the others who are fighting along with you.
When we did this work of writing, we were at a place in this country where there was the Black Lives Movement. There were books and materials coming out about blackness and anti, you know, anti-blackness and all that stuff. Now with the decisions that are being made in Washington, DC every day it feels like there’s a new body blow, and the body blows are coming fast and furious.
Right? And we don’t really know where to turn. So I think that we constantly have to be. Asking ourselves who we are, who do we wanna be? Who do we wanna have around us in our relationships? How do we nurture those relationships? How do we find the strengths in one another? We’re gonna see the vulnerabilities.
Right. The more we get slapped around, it’s gonna hurt and the more it hurts, we’re gonna feel vulnerable.
Dr Carolyn Coker Ross:
But let’s, but it’s really all about relationships, is what you’re saying. Absolutely.
Janie Ward:
And, and you’ll, you’ll figure that out when you are really, truly in a relationship, not just standing. On the sidelines watching or watching TV and listening to somebody else tell you what those people are thinking, but really being in relationship with other people, the good and the bad, right?
The good times and the bad times. Thank you. Thank you both. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe to the Inclusive Minds Podcast so we can let you know when the next great guest comes on. The link to subscribe is in the caption below.
