Challenging the Stories That Divide Us: Irvin Weathersby Jr. on Confronting Systemic Injustice and Prioritizing Empathy

Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What stories do we tell ourselves about the past? How do they inform our present, and our future? Where did we learn them and what if they’re wrong? In today’s episode of Hello Monday, Jessi Hempel sits down with Irvin Weathersby Jr. to explore how we challenge existing systems, and the beliefs and ideas that prop them up. Irvin is a Brooklyn-based writer and professor, originally from New Orleans. His new book is In Open Contempt: Confronting White Supremacy in Art and Public Space. In it, he explores the myths about America and its people that are woven throughout our art, our monuments, and our public spaces. And how we can go about unravelling them. Together, Irvin and Jessi discuss: Centering curiosity and understanding to combat white supremacy Building empathy through storytelling The consequences of DEI rollbacks Communication across difference Continue the conversation with us at Hello Monday Office Hours! RSVP here to join us on the LinkedIn News page this Wednesday at 3 PM EST.

Transcript

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0:00.0	LinkedIn News
0:02.1	From the news
0:09.1	I'm Jesse Hempel and this is Hello Monday,
0:12.3	a show about work on our own terms.
0:16.9	A decade ago, a white supremacist walked into a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and he killed nine black parishioners.
0:27.3	Now, in the aftermath of this horrible event, photos of the murderer circulated with Confederate flags and symbols.
0:35.6	And we hit this moment where we as a culture and as a country were finally willing to
0:40.3	consider the impact of our public symbols.
0:43.3	Our monuments, our statues, the artistic representations of our history, and the way that
0:49.6	they sanctioned violent, racist behavior.
0:53.5	In South Carolina, they finally took the Confederate flag down from the State House.
0:58.7	Across the country, officials began removing statues and monuments linked to racist ideologies.
1:04.7	And this was a really big deal.
1:07.7	As a culture, we finally began waking up to this idea that our art is not just our art.
1:12.9	It's a snapshot of our history.
1:15.2	And when we reevaluate it, we reckon with that history.
1:19.4	And that, well, that is how we create a more just future.
1:24.2	But this process has been tense.
1:27.1	It is emboldened white supremacists. It's led all of us to grapple with our own backgrounds. And our guest today, he went on his own journey to confront America's past through its monuments. As you listen, no matter who you are, I hope you will keep in mind the questions that I am going to be asking myself.
1:47.0	What stories do I tell myself about the past?
1:50.3	Where have I learned them?
1:52.1	What if there's more to those stories?
	...

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