Season 2, Episode 4: Book Club – “How to Be An Anti-Racist” by Ibram X. Kendi

Rosanna 0:14
Hello, and welcome to season two, Episode Four of the relentless pursuit podcast. This is our book club episode,

Jordan 0:20
very first book club episode. Very excited.

Rosanna 0:23
Yeah, back in July, when we were kind of mapping out this second set of 12 episodes, you had the idea of reading the same book and discussing it and kind of sharing just our thoughts and our perspectives. And we took some time to maybe think of something that was a little bit more meaningful and a little bit more appropriate for the climate and what’s really been going on in the world besides COVID, these last seven months.

Jordan 0:49
Yeah. And I am really excited about talking about this, we’ve read how to be an anti racist by ibram x Kendi. And I think, you know, when we were first, like sorting through some options, this kind of rose to the top for us, because we’re both very intentional with how we think and how we engage with the world. And part of that intentionality is, I would say, like exposing ourselves to ideas and to people and to perspectives that we wouldn’t normally run across in maybe just a typical day, inside of the unhappy bubble that we live in. So I was excited to get into this with you. And you and I don’t always read the same books.

Rosanna 1:30
No, we have very different interests and tastes, from fiction to nonfiction. I think it’s gotta be at least like 15 years since we’ve read the same book. Okay.

Jordan 1:41
So that’s a while. So this is a great excuse to again, come together over this and see if we wouldn’t had to, to reveal to us.

Rosanna 1:49
Okay, yeah, we didn’t choose something from Oprah’s book club or Reese’s book club, you know, a lot of hype on untamed and other books that, you know, people are reading. But this one is a little bit more directed at engaging in our current worlds in the current climate of what’s been going on.

Jordan 2:08
And I think that’s what makes I mean, I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit nervous about even just having an episode that talks about race and racism. I feel like it’s, it’s a topic that easily ignites our passions, you know, for better or worse, and you kind of go out on a limb by putting your perspectives out there. And I think our tendency is to, I wouldn’t say recoil, but it but it’s to kind of keep our thoughts to ourselves, in a sense, and still be the best people that we can be. But I think it’s important to have this dialogue for for a few reasons. One is that I think it’s just important for you and I to talk about, because we, we believe that we are good and intentional people who have the power to enact, you know, some wellness into the world. And I think we have to talk about race at some point. And, and we do. So this is one of many intentional conversations we’ve had about the topic. But I also am nervous, but it kind of excited about doing it on our podcast, because I hope that this shows other people who are listening that these are the types of conversations that can be difficult, but we encourage people to be having, especially with the ones that they love, so that they can explore any challenging topic in a way that is safe, and a way that is meaningful, and hopefully increases our understanding and our ability to kind of be the the people who we want to be in society.

Rosanna 3:45
Well, one of the things that I really like about you, I like a lot of things about you, but you will no matter what the topic is, if you’re trying to figure it out, or you’re trying to figure out where you stand or what you believe you will read literature on both sides of a topic to really understand people’s perspectives, and where they’re coming from, or like what Where are the gaps? Where the holes like? What are the questions you have, and you seek that out. And you let those kind of help you determine kind of like where you want to be. So that’s one of the ways in which I look up to you is that like, you’re always kind of like searching for the answer, or always trying to get yourself closer to the answer. And so you’ll read things that are maybe even on the side that you’re maybe on and you’ll read, you know, the opposition just to get a better, better balanced understanding of whatever the topic is. And I think engaging in this novel, in this book in this way is really important because this isn’t something I probably would have read or picked up. Mostly because it’s I don’t want to say that it’s scary, but it’s just, you know, put it up I am. I am a white upper middle class woman who is educated and lives in a very safe and secure little bubble and Like, sometimes it’s easier to not deal with it by not engaging with it and not even deciding where I stand on it. Right? So this is kind of like forced me to just, you know, open up my eyes a little bit, kind of whet my palate and determine like, Am I going to move closer to this? Am I going to engage with it? Or am I going to just sit quietly and pretend that it’s not out there?

Jordan 5:20
Yeah. All right. So let’s talk about the book and and everyone listening, we want you to understand, like, there’s, there’s a lot to this topic. And so we’re consider our conversation and some of the ideas that are in the book. And I think it’s easy to, you know, cast, people who don’t share exactly the same opinion as racist or as you’re judgmental, or as you know, insert the pejorative

Rosanna 5:49
liberal conservative, right. Atheists, Christian, yeah, rising. And so

Jordan 5:54
yeah, and so we’re gonna share our honest responses to being exposed to a new idea. And so I hope that’s really the takeaway is not Oh, this is where Jordan and Rosina stand on things. This is where they expected me to stand on things so much as we encourage everyone to adopt a similar approach of not just kind of saying, shoot from the hip, here’s my immediate response. And I’m going to stick to it no matter what, mentality so much as you know, there’s a lot of ideas and perspectives out there, when it try to expose myself to as many of them as I can, and then absorb them, synthesize them and decide for myself, where I really stand and what good I can enact. Because of that.

Rosanna 6:38
Okay, so do we want to talk a little bit about the book? Yeah. Um, so this book is not this is not an easy read. This is not like a light read, like, it’s heavy in the fact that it’s a combination of ethics, history, law, science, and then his personal narrative is like, woven into that. So that’s kind of like, he talks about himself from the time he’s a child until he’s out of college until up

Jordan 7:04
until, like, present day.

Rosanna 7:05
Yeah. And so you get to see kind of his transformation, and his perceptions and understanding of who he is through the lens of, like, who he’s told he is and who society believes him to be, and then who he understands himself to be. But there is a lot of like history, you know, just history of like black culture, and that transformation through time and things that have happened. So there’s like a lot to unpack and digest as you read. But then, with the aim of trying to contribute to the formation of like, adjust and more equitable society. Yeah.

Jordan 7:43
And on top of that, too, I would call it a book of definitions. And like every chapter, the chapters are, it is one word titles, and it just focuses on, for example, like culture, gender, color, and, you know, so on, like, looking at race and race history and race relations through those lenses. But it every chapter begins with a definition. In fact, the book itself begins with a definition of what is anti racism. And I’ve heard the term before I’ve heard some of the other terms before, but this, this book is very preoccupied with trying to, like clearly spell out what a lot of these terms, whether they’re new, or whether they’re familiar, really, really mean and how we can use them to operate based on that understanding to try to explore race and understand that a little bit better. Okay,

Rosanna 8:39
so where do you want to go from here?

Jordan 8:40
Well, let’s talk about I say the the opening definition because he, he shares race, or the definition of what it means to be a racist and what it means to be an anti racist. So do you remember how the how he framed those?

Rosanna 8:58
Yes, but I think you could probably describe it better than I.

Jordan 9:02
I’ll try. Um, so at the very outset, he creates what I would call a relatively like, binary depiction of the two, essentially saying, like, either you are racist, or you are anti racist. And really, what it gets at is that there’s, there’s no one in the middle, and I think a lot of people might consider themselves or they might describe themselves to be not racist. So the way he depicts this as like, if you’re not racist, you are still complicit in the racist ideologies and systems and institutions that are existent. And so either you’re anti racist, which means someone who is proactively working against the elements of racism, or your racist. And so this, what it does is it really takes people who might consider themselves to be disengaged or you know, in the middle And can recast them as potentially as being racist. And it’s the way that he depicts this, I think is in, at first, like, largely agreeable, it’s like, Okay, I get it, like if I want to not be racist that I need to be proactive against the forces of racism that are existent. And but what I found is that, you know, there’s I think people who would call themselves not racist, are or like kind of in the middle are you know, they’re not activists, they’re they’re not necessarily like researching politics and participating in protests. I think that that is, you know, I would say, like maybe an oversimplification of a very complex issue. And it, if anything, it kind of puts more people on the defensive, or more potential allies in a sense on the defensive, to say like, Well, wait, I’m not I’m not racist, but I’m also not, you know, as necessarily engaged as I could be, or someone might want me to be. And it’s, it can create, I hope not, but like more of an atmosphere where it’s easier to call someone racist if they’re not as engaged as you would imagine them to be. So I didn’t

Rosanna 11:19
feel like that, because Okay, so in the books intro, he starts with saying that pretending to be colorblind, like, Oh, I’m colorblind, I don’t see color I accept everybody is actually a mask to hide racism, because that just dismisses and denies race altogether. And so I think his point is like that you can’t dismiss or deny race, like so to say, like, Oh, yeah, doesn’t matter what you know, nationality or skin color, you are, like I, you know, I accept everybody like, but the whole point is, we shouldn’t be like erasing people’s skin colour initially, like, we should be embracing who they are because of those things. And so I saw a little bit of that. But he says the heartbeat of racism is denial. So I was wondering if you agreed or disagreed with that statement? Because when I read like, so you’re either an anti racist, meaning actively standing against racism, or you’re a racist, I actually thought to myself, like, I probably won’t be one of those people that claims that they’re in the middle, like, I would never say that I hate someone based on the color of their skin. But simultaneously, I’m not doing anything to like, stop, actively stop or engage with the racism that’s going on. And then I thought, whoa, I need to pick a side. Yeah. And so I didn’t feel like that at all. I thought he was, I think, maybe his perspective is to motivate people who, like if you think you’re not racist, like so then what are you doing to ensure that racism doesn’t continue? And if you’re doing nothing? What does that say? Like you’re either hot or cold? like saying you’re in the middle?

Jordan 12:44
Yeah, right. You’re complicit in

Rosanna 12:46
allowing these things. And if you’re allowing those things to happen, then technically you’re racist, you’re passively a racist.

Jordan 12:51
See, but I would question that too, because i and this is where we get more into, like the the heart of what the chapters are getting at. Because I, I feel like there’s different levels of engagement. And one of those like, I would consider to be like the way we parent for example, like I would argue, I would contest that we parent in an anti racist way. Like we are proactively teaching our children the value of every human life that they come in contact with. I would even say like the the way that we we attempt to live out our life, like attempts to demonstrate that value. But that’s on a very individual basis, right. At the same time, we can retreat back into our household and, and deliver happy life without ever really engaging heavily with it. So I wonder he doesn’t talk about he doesn’t talk about family, and parenting a whole lot. So I just wondered To what extent does that qualify? Does it meet his threshold of anti racist environment,

Rosanna 13:50
and I didn’t read his bio enough to know if he has children.

Jordan 13:54
He has one like young daughter, okay, and a wife.

Rosanna 13:58
Okay. Well, and I think that’s, you know, the way that we choose to parent or the way that like, we actively look at what it means to be American even explain that to our kids, because they have friends who are different races and nationalities and we talk about like that they are American, they are born here, and they are American and what that means and it’s not based on the color of your skin that you’re American. And then we talk even further about like, what does it mean to be human, we talk about all the ways in which we are similar, although food and customs and expressions of identity are different like that. We talk with our kids about how similar everybody is down to the core and not everybody parents that way not all generations parents in that way either. Instead of getting raised to like divide and like determine difference with our kids like we’re looking more at commonality

Jordan 14:44
and i think that’s that’s a lot of what I think this book comes down to too, which I like is like he gets to the point where it’s like just like love the individuals for as beautifully different as they are. And what I really liked about this was that he expected to be more defensive As I read through this, but I wasn’t and gratefully so because this is not the kind of book that comes out and is like, just overtly like, you know, white supremacists, and you know, white power and privilege and this and that. But it’s more so like he, he internalizes a lot of these things. And a lot of this is like, almost like this coming of age story for himself, where he progressively starts in like third grade, I think, like recognizes some aspects of race, that he then like, learns and then improves his perspective. And then he has other experiences or other mentors in his life that helped them like progressively, I think, enlarge and improve his perspective. And I think that’s kind of what we adapt to where a lot of it comes down to not action so much as mindsets like how are we viewing the people in our lives? And to what extent, this is where he gets a little bit vaguer. But to what extent do the itis about policies a lot? Are the the policies and the institutions that give shape to our lives? To what extent are those improving or not improving the lives with equity across the spectrum?

Rosanna 16:11
Well, let’s go back to that. That was one of the questions I had is like, when does he first become aware of his racial identity? And it’s his parents taking him to like a school that they’re like registering for. So I don’t remember if it was like, public or private, I think it was private, right? And they’re like taking a tour. And the lady is like, leading him through the school, and they’re answering questions. And like, his big question, all of a sudden is like, are there? Where are the black key teachers? Yeah. And she’s like, well, we have one, he’s like, well, where are the rest of them? And it was kind of like this good question. Like, are there no more like, there’s

Jordan 16:42
there’s just the one, but even his parents that are like, they explained to the lady that like he’s been, he’s noticed his race very much at this early age. Yeah.

Rosanna 16:51
So I thought that was just a good question for us to and even thinking about our kids, like, when did you become aware of your racial identity? And like, Where did you learn about it from? Like, for white? Like, at what point? Do you realize that At what point do you know that? And at what point, does that start to make sense? And what point do you realize that other people are not the same as you?

Jordan 17:15
That’s one thing that I think is very, I think it’s very difficult for me to answer that question. Because I am white, I’ve been raised in a largely white community. And there are very few times in my life that I could point to, at a gathering of any kind and say, like I was in the minority. And I think that that’s the opposite for so many of other, so many other minorities, they kind of live in the white world are more aware of that distinction. Whereas I’d never really had to think about that, except in a few instances where that was what distinguishes me from others.

Rosanna 17:56
And I think I grew up in the same kind of, you know, white suburbia. And I remember that there were like three or four kids in the school that did not have the same color, same, like, skin color as everybody else. And it was just, I don’t know that I recognize it at the time. But I remember like being a little bit older, maybe fifth or sixth grade where other kids were starting to point out differences, where it was like, oh, they’re not like everybody else. Except they were because they’ve been growing up with us in preschool and have been doing all of the same things. But it was like, all of a sudden, it was like, Oh, yeah, they they’re different.

Jordan 18:29
Right? Whereas right, and that’s the beauty of kids. Like they just don’t even know that I don’t even care. Right.

Rosanna 18:35
Right. Right. And I mean, we’ve had that same instance happen with our kids to where it’s they, the community around us now is a little bit more diverse, not a lot more diverse, but a little bit more diverse. But like having that conversation be like, Oh, well, this person is Indian, or this person is Asian, and they’re like, oh, like that, it never dawned on them. Right. But even him as like a third grader was very much aware of like, who he was, and who he wasn’t. And like, where the people like him were, and we’re not. So but I can’t imagine growing up in a world like that, because that is not like the area in which we live. Right. I

Jordan 19:09
think that’s the important thing of reading it. And there are some passages that I thought like, just depicted to me like so well, like some to some aspects of his experience. But that’s, that’s why I like reading this because, I mean, here we are, like just kind of talking about our background. And he is, you know, he’s black. And he has studied this topic of, of blackness and of race relations in the history for years in multiple degrees, and now published like multiple books on the toffees dwelled on this for a lifetime. So I feel a little bit out of my element to say like, okay, like we’re going to absorb this and, you know, try to synthesize this with our experiences because we really are coming from two different sets of experiences in many ways. But I think all the more important to read and to expose ourselves to something that might be In our normal course of life, we really wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience

Rosanna 20:04
or we would be too afraid to engage in. And I think that some of it, he says, He recommends that we approach anti racist work with vulnerability. So my question was, why is it difficult to acknowledge our own beliefs or perspectives as being racist? How can recognizing our own beliefs create an opportunity for self education? And how can you help others in their own reflection in learning? I know, I’ve got a question as a question, three questions on top of each other. But I think this topic does lend itself to vulnerability, like who wants to say like, I am in the, like, white majority. And I’m going to talk about this topic that like, might offend somebody or step on their toes or ruffle their feathers like not because I’m ignorant, but because I’m trying to learn more, and I’m trying to figure out, like, what I think about it, and how I want to engage with it moving forward. So it’s just like, are we brave enough to say, like, Hey, this is the book that we’re reading. Because like, when we posted, it was like, okay, like, what will people’s response be? for good or bad? Like, Will people join us in reading this and engaging in this topic? Or will people be like, Nope, not for me, you know, unfollow, which I could care less, because it doesn’t matter to me, but like, you know, are we going to push each other to kind of grow in areas in which we don’t know enough about or are not currently engaged in?

Jordan 21:27
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I feel like talking about and like, to his point about vulnerability, and talking about race, and being potentially in a position where you would realize some of your own racism definitely makes you feel defensive. I mean, it changes the narrative of how we see ourselves, like, no one that I can imagine would overtly state. Yes, I’m racist. Right? Correct. And I mean, maybe you could go back, like, you know, generations in American history. And people would be more overt with that, or that was more of like a public perspective that people held, and it was more socially accepted. I think there’s been a lot of improvements in society. And one of those is that now to be deemed a racist is a very negative term. And so to apply it to ourselves, is very uncomfortable. Because it’s like, No, I’m not, I care about everybody. And I try to afford everyone the same respect. And, and we can have this idea of who we are. So it requires vulnerability, because you have to let go of that a little bit and acknowledge that maybe, even in your complicity, you have permitted certain disparities to continue,

Rosanna 22:45
but you have to own who you are good or bad. And so I just, I don’t like that notion that that people are unwilling to, to own who they are. But here’s the thing. So he is a black man. And multiple times in this book, he talks about how he works to be an anti racist, yet multiple times in his life, he has been racist, right? racist against white people, racist against other black people, racist against women, women racist against, you know, but right, just this, this notion of sexist against women or against people who are gay or lesbian, like, so he talks about how he has really put up his guard and has pushed other people out for being different for a variety of reasons. And he says, like, Yeah, I was racist against my own people, or like, black people like this, or black people like that, or white people like, like, so I think that was almost comforting in the fact that like, we all have prejudice, of things that we’re afraid of, and push people away or keep people away, or say or do things that are not kind and loving. But how do you continue to like, move past some of those things and grow?

Jordan 23:56
Yeah, it was comforting because he doesn’t come out with this, this finger pointing it’s much more of this this confessional almost like this modeling of how he recognizes some inadequacies with his own perspectives towards people and works to fix those. And I feel like he kind of has two elements like one is that individual elements where he kind of argues like you need to continually refine and work on the way that you view others because there’s a lot of implicit biases that we we tend to hold and are not even aware of how they’re operating in, like within our interactions and within our thoughts. And that’s one of the things that struck me too, is that like, there’s almost like this tendency for us as humans to I would say, like to have thoughts and to cast people, certain people as like the other and to attach like negative attributes to that. So it seems like almost like this innate thing and it takes away work to recognize and to counteract that. And so one thing I found, like that book is kind of inspiring and helping you feel like alright, he This is his journey, he’s provided something of a model for that. And he, like he admits he’s not perfect, but this is the work that he’s trying to work on with himself. I can do that, too.

Rosanna 25:17
Yeah. Well, you know, we talked about how this was like a combination of ethics, history, law, science, like all of that, those parts were harder for me to read, what was easier for me to read was his story. And this, like, understanding of himself in the world, and the way the world operates, and even how his perspective of people has changed over time, being racist, moving towards anti racism, like him and I are probably couldn’t be more opposite in a variety of ways. But I felt very connected to him. And I felt very connected to his story. He’s just like, constantly trying to rethink like, Who am I who do I want to be, and even making mistakes along the way, in that journey, like, you know, putting other people aside or casting them aside, because they were different than him. And, but then like, moving through that, and working through that, and I just, I could really connect with that.

Jordan 26:08
One of the statements that he makes towards the end, that I really wanted to have him explore a little bit more, and he didn’t, though he references a few things about it. This is like the root cause of racism is self interest. And that that kind of reverberated with me a little bit, because in a sense, like, when you think about, like, what you want for yourself and for your survival, and for your children, and they’re, you know, trying to provide them with the, you know, everything you could possibly provide them with, that does seem to come at, you know, the opportunity cost of what, you know, others may be able to provide for them selves or for their children. And I wanted him to explore that a little bit more, what he gets much more heavily into is the, the idea of policy. And this is where I would like the history like there’s so much like interesting details about the history. But when he talked about like institutions and policies, like I felt like, that was much more in theory on like, the professor side of him really coming out, like it would be great to like, re examine certain policies, and take out racist policies and really replace them with anti racist policies. But I feel like looking at policy in like, this strictly like racial, like binary kind of way is an oversimplification of, you know, so many of the existing policies that are out there, like we can agree that there are historically and even today, like flat out racist policies that are detrimental to certain people of color. But I think there’s also even some well intended policies that have elements of them that have the potential for good, but also elements of them that have the potential for negative as well. And I feel like there’s there’s a lot of complexity that gets, like I’ve said, oversimplified by looking at it strictly through a racial lens.

Rosanna 28:17
I don’t think I can add anything to that. Because a lot of that, I mean, I’ll be honest, a lot of that stuff is over my head, things that probably were a little bit more interesting to me, we’re even talking about things like as he’s getting ready to apply for colleges. And looking at like the education system, and like looking at like taking an LSAT prep class. And the kinds of people that are taking an LSAT prep class and the kinds of people that aren’t the people that have like the tutors that are tutoring them how to take the test. And, you know, he was looking at that in terms of like race. But then he was also talking about that in terms of like, classes, yeah, terms of like, those who are affluent, versus like his parents, right could afford those tutors and prep and tests for him. So what I like about this book, too, is that it draws in like class, and equity along like poverty lines, and things like that, where, you know, people on people from a variety of backgrounds kind of get lost in the shuffle of those things where like, even in education, although it’s set up to be fair and equal, it is not fair and equal. And so there’s that disparity there. Yeah,

Jordan 29:21
I think it talks about like the access, like these things exist, and anyone is welcome to take advantage of it except, like, who has the access to truly do that? And that’s where, like economics and income really plays a role as well. So I was really fascinated to read about that. And he talks about in terms of economics, he talks about his chapter on capitalism as well. And that was one where I felt I would I, I was harder to convince during that chapter. Other chapters. I was like, Yeah, like I totally see this. That was one of the chapters where I felt like there was there’s more to it. So I almost want to read this book again a year from now because There’s so much to unpack from it in terms of the history and the definitions that I kind of want to live out like some of these things or continue to look at the the ideas and perspectives that are here and weigh them a little bit more, see them in action in different arenas a little bit more, and then come back to this text. And then I think, a second reading, for now will help me like more. Just Just understand and digest it.

Rosanna 30:27
Yeah, I agree. I don’t think this is like a one and done. You know, we read it for the purpose of talking about it here. And now. But like, if I had even more time to kind of like, go through this a little bit more slowly, and like, even just read one chapter at a time, and like, really kind of sit with it, and examine like some more perspectives, or like when he mentioned something, even be able to research it like a little bit further, I think this is one of those books that you can use as like a way to kind of study a topic and not just kind of read and put it aside, right. But I think, really what he’s getting to, through all of this is that being anti racist isn’t like a destination. It’s not like if you say or do or agree with one thing, like you’re there. But it’s like this journey that’s very deliberate and consistent. And I think that’s what he points out along his journey where he’s like, multiple times in my life, I’ve been racist. So but you have to work to not be racist, and to be anti racists. And the work of that is through like self awareness, self reflection, and then like, some kind of action.

Jordan 31:33
And I think he goes further to say, like, that’s the that the the individual element. And I think there’s this more like public element to, because at some point or another, if you’re going to reshape society to be more equitable, like it does require a requires more than one person or even more than individuals working on their own. And so he kind of casts this vision. And I think it’s a bold and inspiring vision of a society that gets over its racism. And there really is equal opportunity and equity for all people. But he talks about kind of like founding the the reset of the anti racism, anti racism Research Center. And so I think that’s the other half of it to where you have individuals who are working on themselves. But then also, there’s like that teamwork and that collaboration, and that study, and he even talks about, like trying things, and when we try to implement something, we follow it closely to see how it turns out. And if it works, that’s great. If it doesn’t work, not getting frustrated, but then like, learning from that and finding the next thing that we believe can work. Yeah.

Rosanna 32:44
So do you have any other kind of thoughts? or just anything you want to kind of use to kind of close this out?

Jordan 32:53
Yeah, I mean, my, I guess, like my take away from reading this, and I would consider this conversation now. Like just scratching the surface, oh, two of us.

Rosanna 33:01
100% 100%.

Jordan 33:03
But it is that the kind of thing that like he says, like it does require requires work and kind of this ongoing self examination. So that is, that’s one of my biggest takeaways. And, you know, I’m very willing to, like follow his lead to examine my own experiences and perspectives and thoughts and try to make sure that it matches what i what i say they are kind of going back to like the stories that we tell ourselves, like I do, try to picture myself as a good person who is going to use the resources at my disposal to make the world a better place. And so, you know, at times the way I might envision, you know, the world is a better place and or what it takes to get there may not match exactly someone else’s. And I think that’s okay. But at least engaging in the dialogue, engaging in the personal work, engaging in the world around us, is what’s necessary. And that’s what I’m interested in, reading other works, and just continuing to, like, follow through that process with you to try to, you know, make something good happen in the world. Yeah,

Rosanna 34:11
I agree. I mean, this isn’t an easy topic to talk about. It’s not an easy topic to even read about. Because even as you’re reading, you’re like, you know, you’re taking it in and you’re, you’re questioning yourself and your own attitudes, your own beliefs, your own actions, ones in the past one, you know, what’s what you’re currently in the present. And then, you know, asking yourself, where do you want to be in the future, that we are constantly moving forward before we’re left behind?

Jordan 34:34
Yeah. Yeah. So we do recommend to each of you that if you have the opportunity that you read this and just like you heard Roseanne and I dialogue through it, it doesn’t mean that you read it and, and agree wholeheartedly and nod your head with every sentence, but that there’s an open opportunity to think through what someone else is presenting to us and synthesize that with our Other things that we’re continuing to learn engage with,

Rosanna 35:02
he is doing a talk right more locally

Jordan 35:05
doing a local talk for us. We’re signed up on November 9, to attend he is going to join the schomburg library, as well as the several a few neighbors libraries,

Rosanna 35:15
yeah,

Jordan 35:16
opened up the opportunity to do that. So I’m looking forward to hearing from him himself. And maybe we can invite him to be on the show with us too.

Rosanna 35:22
So maybe we can link that because people will be listening to this. And then the talk happens really right after that. So we can link that on our show notes so people can get to it. Yeah.

Jordan 35:33
Well, thanks for joining with us today. And like I said, there’s certain things that we’ve said that you may agree with, or you may disagree with. And I think that’s great. It’s all about having honest dialogue and doing the best job that we all can to try to turn the world into what we envisioned it to be. Yeah,

Rosanna 35:51
thank you for joining us. For those of you had read it. We would love to hear maybe some of your thoughts maybe what some of your takeaways were. So feel free to reach out via social media, or even on our website and email. So we will see you soon. Thanks, everybody. Hi.

Jordan 36:05
Thanks so much for listening to today’s show. We hope you will use this conversation as a starting point for your own. We hope you’re encouraged to think and act more intentionally.

Rosanna 36:15
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Jordan 36:27
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Rosanna 36:30
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Jordan 36:38
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Rosanna 36:43
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