Zach has the honor of welcoming Howard Bryant back to the podcast on this special Saturday episode. He and Howard touch on several elements of our current civil rights protest, and Howard graciously explains why he disagrees with the sentiment that white folks are just now really understanding and seeing the evils of racism. Check the links in the show notes for ways to pledge your support!

*This episode features occasional explicit language.*

Connect with Howard on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and don't forget to check out his website.

Learn more about Howard's latest book, Full Dissidence, by clicking here.

Interested in finding out more about Howard's other books? Click here to be redirected to his Amazon page.

Donate to Black Lives Matter by clicking here.

Split a donation between 70+ community bail funds, mutual aid funds, and racial justice organizers by clicking here.

You can pledge your support to a variety of institutions by clicking the following links: Know Your Rights Camp, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Campaign Zero.

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TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach with Living Corporate, and I have my daughter Emory in my lap. Say something, Emory. You gonna say something? No? Okay. And, you know, this is not the norm, right? Like, typically you're gonna listen to See It to Be It with Amy C. Waninger or The Link Up with Latesha with Latesha Byrd. However, as we look at the world around us and the chaos that continues around us--like, we're not teetering towards chaos, we are in a chaotic time. And we see the state by way of their police force abusing everybody. It's a unique time, and so we wanted to make sure today--not Tuesday, but today--that we actually had a really in-depth and frank conversation with someone who understands the concept of dissidence, and that's Howard Bryant. Howard Bryant is a senior contributor and writer for both ESPN and NPR, and he wrote a book titled Full Dissidence, and it tackled the reality of protest, and he really analyzed and assessed Colin Kaepernick's protest and really broke down white power structures that maintain the status quo in spite of dissidence. And, you know, we also talked a little bit about--and you're gonna hear this--the responses of many of these corporations and how authentic they were in actually addressing the problem. And so, you know, one point of feedback, and you'll notice this, is that organizations are going to--and they're doing it now, and they're going to continue [to do it]--to treat racism as this abstract concept, and so it's up to those who are in positions of authority and have courage to speak to tie those words and concepts into tangible actions, right? So it's not enough to say, you know, "We have to do better and be better and treat people better and open our hearts and minds." That's not actually what changes. What changes is actually structures and policies to actually make a difference, right? Enacting pillars or means of accountability and repercussions for bad behavior. That's how you change, and so to all the organizations who are seeking to make these statements, understand, like, we're in a different place, and folks are looking to hold folks accountable in a different way. [laughs] I just saw a Google Sheet that's been going around that actually really starts getting tangible about how authentic some of these folks are when it comes to anti-racism, and, you know, it doesn't just stop out there. It continues within organizations, right? Like, your company does not have this magic barrier that stops racism, and so that's important, and so we talk about that, and I wanted to make sure--because we didn't have a lot of time with Howard Bryant so I didn't have time to do a bunch of intro stuff, we just got right into the questions, so I wanted to make sure to give a little bit of context. I pray that everyone who's hearing this is staying safe. Definitely support everybody protesting. You're seeing on Living Corporate, we are trying to amplify as much as we can. You're gonna see some links to donate to different protestors and bail funds and things of that nature. You're gonna see that in there. My hope and my desire is if you're an aspiring ally and you listen to Living Corporate regularly that you would check those links and donate. You don't have to donate to Living Corporate, just donate. Just click the links. Just please donate to those links. Shout-out to all my people. Love y'all. 'Til next time. Peace.




Zach: Howard, welcome back to the show. How are you doing? 




Howard: I'm good. How are you?




Zach: Man... you know. [chuckles]




Howard: [chuckles] Staying sane during all of this?




Zach: Trying to, trying to, trying to. Look, you know, we had you on not too long ago, and you've seen a lot, I know, in your life in terms of civil struggle. I think I was a kid when the Rodney King riots happened. In your estimation, is this the largest civil rights protest that you've seen in your lifetime?




Howard: I don't know. That's a good question, that's a really good question, considering a few things, right? I was, what... Rodney King, I was 22, and that was nowhere near close to this. I mean, that was--that was disbelief followed by sort of [retrenchment?] followed by rage, because let's not forget that Rodney King happened over a year. Because first it was the beating, then there was the trial, you know, and then there was the uprising, and that happened in '92, but Rodney King actually got beaten down in '91. And so there was that, but this is also--then there's also Ferguson, and so what was happening in Ferguson and Baltimore, all of these things were sort of separate. So I think yes, actually when you really think about it in terms of one sort of linear scale moment, yes, this is the biggest reaction, this is the greatest singular reaction that I've ever seen, and I think that it's been a long time coming. I think that there's so many different avenues that you can take when assessing something like this. Obviously if you're Black you're sort of wondering "What took so long?" I think even if you're just an observer you look at it and say, "Okay, why now? Why Minneapolis? Why was this one the one that linked everybody?" All kinds of great questions there, and then I think the other question that you have here too when you look at it is "What is going to come of it?" And happening during a pandemic. I mean, I swear, man, I believe--I woke up the other day wondering if I had, like, fallen down the stairs and been in intensive care and nobody told me. I mean, I woke up--I woke up and had all these messages from all these people, all my white friends. "If there's anything I can do." I'm like, "What happened?" Then I get another one going, "Oh, I'm so worried about you right now." I'm like, "What happened?" I'm checking my phone, I'm checking the news. I'm like, "What happened? Why is everybody texting me making sure I'm okay?" Then I check my email. "Just really worried, you know, about you and yours, and anything I can do," I'm like... "What happened?" And now you're recognizing that "Oh, they're getting it now. This one got to them." And I'm not even trying to be funny. I literally had no idea why I was getting all these messages, because for us this is normal. This was like, "Okay, this is one of many."




Zach: Exactly, right? And I saw you tweeted about this, and I've actually talked to my colleagues about this too, but there seems to be, like, this large sentiment that white folks are just now really understanding and seeing the evils of racism, and, like, what do you make of that? What do you make of this phenomenon?




Howard: Yeah, I don't make any--I don't believe that for a minute. I think it's something totally different, and I think that we're in the middle of... I don't know if you're an Alfred Hitchcock fan or not, but Hitchcock mastered the art form of the MacGuffin, and the MacGuffin was essentially the red herring. It was the thing that made you think the plot was, but it wasn't. Like, if you're watching--like, if you watch Psycho it's like, "Okay, it wasn't about the $40,000 he stole after all, was it? It wasn't that. It was this." I don't believe that I'm actually gonna say this, but I'm gonna say this, and I was talking to Roland Martin about this the other day. I really believe that racism in some ways is a bit of misdirection, [that?] racism is not the issue. The issue is policing. The issue I think white people are tired. I think the country's tired. I think after three and a half years of this administration and this buildup, I think that people are recognizing there's no way out, and I think that if you combine that with a pandemic where everybody's been in the house for three months, I think things are starting to--I think it's sort of, like, a perfect storm in a lot of ways, and I think that the visceral nature of that killing... I think Eric Garner was one thing, and I think Eric Garner was every bit the same type of killing that this one was, but I think Eric Garner happened in such a flurry that I don't think that people paid as close attention because Eric Garner and Ferguson were right next to each other, and I think that there was still enough misdirection--and I also think there was something else, and I think that there was a feeling too that there was going to be some form of accountability because you had Barack Obama in the White House and he was talking about accountability and talking about [?], and so there was this feeling that maybe the system was actually going to maybe kind of do something down the line, but here with this administration, I think they've made it very, very clear that this is the norm, and watching that murder and having it be a physical murder--it wasn't that he got shot or anything, you literally put your knee on the neck of somebody while he was held down, you know, apprehended by three ot