Well-Meaning White Folks
Truth Be Told: Time to Thrive
American Public Media
4.3 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2019
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Allies are necessary to our collective pursuit of racial equity and antiracism, but sometimes talking across and through differences can be messy, hurtful, and downright exhausting. As people of color we ALL have had our fair share of those “unintentionally” painful encounters.
In this episode of Truth be Told, Tonya and Code Switch host Gene Demby tackle two questions from people struggling with how to deal with well-meaning white folks, at home and at work.
Why the The Tower Tarot Card?
The Tower card is rarely a welcome sight because it signifies chaos, destruction and turmoil. However, the Tower can also signify transformation and the building of new systems and modes of being. The Tower card represents this episode of Truth Be Told because it speaks to both the systemic pain “well-meaning” white folks can inflict on people of color as well as our power to overcome the limiting structures that make that possible.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | from K-QED. |
| 0:06.4 | My name is Minister Marvin K White, |
| 0:09.2 | and on behalf of Ben and B. |
| 0:10.8 | Amawoke, I welcome you all to the celebration of life of Garvey, Woke, Amawoke. |
| 0:18.5 | It is a source of great comfort to the parents of Woke that you decided to stay and keep Woke on your mind as we recall his cut too short life. |
| 0:27.0 | Woke was born in 1942 in Chicago and attended La Montezori, a prestigious all-Black Montessori school. |
| 0:36.6 | Woke loved activism, collecting vinyl, reading Angela Davis and quoting Michelle Alexander. |
| 0:43.0 | Woke was a viral sensation but never learned to monetize his wokeness, |
| 0:48.0 | but he loved him some Erica Badu. |
| 0:50.0 | True story. |
| 0:51.0 | I remember woke telling me over Kambacha. I'm so woke that I once convinced the manager at Office Depot that Manila folders and colored paper are racist descriptions and that instead he should use folders of color and |
| 1:04.8 | paper of color. Next he asked why number two pencils had to be black lead. I think the |
| 1:11.1 | best my conscious black ass could do was choose brown sugar over white sugar for my oatmeal |
| 1:16.5 | For me it was all about the low-hanging fruit coasts and staying kind of like woke |
| 1:23.4 | scripture says and staying kind of like woke. Scripture says, you see, Adam had ribs. |
| 1:27.0 | You see, then God gave Adam the Itis. |
| 1:30.0 | Then Eve from out of nowhere took one of Adam's ribs off his plate. |
| 1:34.0 | And then Eve helped herself to the apples that God set aside for God's pie. |
| 1:39.0 | And then Eve asked God for salt for the first time. |
| 1:42.0 | You see Eve had a recipe come to mind. Mind |
| 1:46.1 | been coming to men for a while but Eve come to mind. Got right up in mind's face. |
| 1:52.3 | Yes, Eve had a taste for something different. No shame in her game |
... |
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