Welcome to Buddhist solutions for life's problems. I'm Geejali and on this show we talk about how to apply SGI and Buddhism to the challenges of daily life.

Today we're talking about racism.

This episode was slated for later in the year, but we've moved it up to July because many listeners have requested it since America's deep racial inequities and reliance on violence as a way to solve human problems

has been exposed like never before in the era of COVID-19.

I spoke to a lot of people in the course of writing this one and you'll hear from seven of them today.

The episode is a little longer than usual because today's problem is big.

At its root, it's probably the biggest human problem of all.

You might be listening to this because you're curious about Buddhism.

A friend shared it with you or you already practice and you're wondering how

Buddhist philosophy can be applied to racism. So before we begin I'll tell you up

front what I think this podcast can be helpful for, and also a little about my background, which inevitably

affects how I hear and share everyone's story.

At its root, racism is born of a very human tendency that exists in all of us to discriminate against

others often out of fear.

Combined with power, this discrimination based on skin color becomes institutionalized and we see it in virtually every social system in America

economic health education policing and so on

Today we're going to discuss the human aspect of all of this. Maybe, for example, you do

carry fear of others based on the color of their skin and its counterpart, judgment, but you don't know how to address it in your heart and you're

embarrassed to admit this.

Or maybe you don't feel fear, but you also don't stand up against racism, interpersonal or systemic, and you wish you did.

Or maybe this is all too intellectual and removed for you because your experience is limited to

a homogenous community and you're learning about racism in America

...