How To Fight Racism in Your Town
How To! with Mike Pesca
Peach Fish Projects
4.3 • 2K Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chris has always considered himself "on the right side of things," but as Black Lives Matter protests sweep across the country, he's starting to realize he needs to do a lot more. As a white man living in Austin, Texas, he says he has a responsibility to educate himself and make real change—but where to start? On this episode of How To!, we bring in Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk About Race, to walk Chris through some tangible steps he can take to harness this moment. Start by opening your eyes to the systems of injustice at the local level, in your neighborhood or your school, that affect people of color. Then, Ijeoma says, add your voice to those organizations that have already thought long and hard about how to make them more fair and equitable. Chris has more power than he realizes, but it's crucial that he amplify Black-led efforts already in place in his community.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If someone's house is on fire, you don't say, I'm going to first sit down and look at the nature of fire, right? |
| 0:09.0 | You're going to say what you need me to do to help put out this fire? |
| 0:13.0 | That's where we are right now. |
| 0:15.0 | It is an emergency and I really need |
| 0:18.0 | white America to treat it as such because it's killing us. |
| 0:23.0 | Welcome to how to. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm Charles Dewey. |
| 0:30.0 | As the US continues to grapple with the killing of George Floyd and other incidents of police violence with lives taking for no good reason, |
| 0:37.0 | many of us are wondering how to fight the systemic racism that's been a part of this country for so long. |
| 0:42.0 | One of those people is Chris from Austin, Texas. been a part of this country for so long. |
| 0:42.7 | One of those people is Chris from Austin, Texas. |
| 0:45.8 | This is something that I've, you know, I've cared about all of my life |
| 0:49.6 | since I realized there was a problem. |
| 0:51.4 | Even in recent weeks, I've been getting you know a |
| 0:54.9 | deeper, deeper education. I've always considered myself to be quote on the |
| 0:59.0 | right side of things but a lot more of us white people are waking up finally and maybe willing to look inside and take some responsibility and if it's not going to happen now, when's it going to happen? |
| 1:12.0 | Chris is a musician who works If it's not going to happen now, when's it going to happen? |
| 1:13.8 | Chris is a musician who works in the hospitality industry. |
| 1:16.7 | He is the dad of two boys who are 16 and 12 years old. |
| 1:20.5 | And he wants to know how to fight racism in his hometown, in his own neighborhood. |
| 1:25.0 | You know, I live in a really white part of town, which as we moved to this part of town, |
| 1:32.0 | it's a little bit more conservative conservative and a friend of mine said, |
... |
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