White Men on Race, Fatherhood + Opting-In

Seth: So I currently hold two full time jobs. I’m the managing director of the Sixers Innovation Lab, which is a business incubator and I’m also the Head Boys Basketball Coach of the Westtown School which is a full time commitment. And I’ve been the head coach there for 12 years, I was an assistant for two. And I’ve been the managing director of the Sixers lab for three years. I grew up in New York City a city kid – Brooklyn and Manhattan. I went to University Pennsylvania undergrad worked in politics for a couple of years and then I came back to Wharton, got a grad degree got out at 25, started a company named And1. It was an amazing twelve years. Sold the company in 2005 at which point my kids at the time were 6, 3 and 1 and I wanted to do two things in my life, one was have fun. The second was to make a difference. So I had the opportunity to focus on both. One you know be a father full time father full time husband and second was make a difference which I choose to do through among other things mostly basketball, high school basketball.

Kelly: Would you consider basketball your first love?

Seth: My wife is my first love, basketball is a very strong mistress…More than a side chick, a full on mistress.

So that’s about me. My wife and I have three kids of our own and we have guardianship of five boys from overseas. And those boys range between 15 to 27 years old and also their mother from Nigeria currently lives with us – has been here for about a year and a half now and is here on a religious visa. So we’ve got a big, broad family with lots and lots of boys.

Kelly: I mean selfishly I just want to know like your spread at the deli counter and like how many pounds of turkey and ham and cheese like I just cannot even imagine. I have two young boys and I just –

Seth: My wife – I was just talking to her on the way here. She’s going back to the grocery store. She was there two days ago. When everyone is home it doesn’t really matter how much food we buy or cook it will all be gone. There are boys, so it’s all meat. Like we don’t need a whole bunch of vegetables.

[Real Thursday]

Aurora: You gave us a wonderful pathway between your role as a father and the difference that you have intentionally chosen to live your path by. So talk to us about what’s it like being a father?

Seth:I think I always felt like I was ready to be a father even when I was young. I probably wasn’t. I think some guys – until they become fathers their life really hasn’t started. And I’m definitely one of those guys. You know I love being a father. I love the challenges of fatherhood. I love my kids, obviously all of them. There are two things in the world that I want to be best at, it’s obviously to be a father be a husband. And I had a great role model. My dad was a great dad. My parents were actually separated for three years when I was very young between six and nine and then got back together, but never in those years that I ever doubt my father’s love for me. And then interestingly at a certain point that shifted because he and my mother struggled with my choice of a wife.

Aurora: Oh

Seth: You know my parents marched on Washington with Dr. King. My mother worked in civil rights for Kenneth Clarke. My parents were you know raised me and it’s as diverse an environment as you would expect in New York City. And yet when I chose to marry a woman of color who was not Jewish they temporarily lost their minds and it was very difficult for me at that point was my father was my role model and then they didn’t come to our wedding and then we weren’t part of the family for a long period of time and it was 15 years before they ended up deciding to you know, “Maybe we made a mistake here and we actually should should welcome this woman and these kids into our family.” So you know I’ve seen how powerful a great father can be and also quite frankly you know times it you know if you’re not a great father you can actually hurt your kids.

Aurora: As you stated your parents by all account were white liberal, social justice, socially inclined, equitable human beings – white people. And yet when it got a little too close to home something snapped.

Seth: Yeah

Aurora: How did you unpack that? How did you deal with it as a white male and obviously the conflict that that created between your father and your family and your mom. And how did your wife also deal with it?

Seth: Yeah. This is going to sound simplistic, but my godfather took me to lunch. This is probably three or four months before my wife and I got married. He said, “Hey you know if you get married to this woman too they’re gonna kick you out of the family.” I said to him, “Listen man if you told me I gotta move to France and learn to speak French to spend the rest of my life with this woman that’s what I’m gonna do. So if that’s their choice – you know I’ve already made my choice.” But I think boys turn into men when they can tell their father that they’re going to do something that they disagree with. You know some boys their dad dies young or their dad leaves and they have no choice but for those of us that have grown up with their father in our life at a certain point your dad’s gonna say I want you to do go this path and your saying – It could be real simple like, “Hey, I’m gonna play football on a Jewish holiday.” Yes I play football on Jewish holiday. You know so and so I think for me it was a really easy choice. The most difficult thing for me was the belief that these people had in themselves. And the belief that I had in their integrity – I had to question all that. We were getting married at an age where mixed couples had a really hard time and all parents want to protect their kids. And so it took me a while to actually forgive my parents and understand what I thought the motivation truly was. My grandfather was clear. He was like he literally said, “You’re gonna have mongrel children. No one’s going to accept your children. Your life is gonna be miserable.” And he was terrified for us. And so I think my parents at that time were really scared for what our life was gonna be like and they couldn’t get themselves to support it. And obviously my wife’s an incredible saint for her to accept my parents back into our lives after what was 15 years. It’s just you know an amazing model of forgiveness and love.

Aurora: Gosh, cause I do think that you know as someone who is the product of a mixed marriage and someone whose chosen to be in a mixed marriage and have children. Because I think there is enough challenges that you have to traverse as a mixed couple in society that having that challenge as you guys overcame in your personal life – Phew!

Seth: I will say though we do have a number of white girls now. So we got eight boys. One of us got married he got married to a white girl from Louisville and we’re like OK fellas now just say you know what is that off the board.

Kelly: Quota’s up.

Seth: So it will be interesting to see because we have 8 boys. Hopefully they are going to get married and have kids – we’ll see. But I imagine our family’s gonna look even more like a rainbow.

Aurora: What has that been like Seth as a white father having brown and Black sons in 2019?

Seth: If you’d asked me 10 years ago. I would have said and I’m getting choked up – I would have said it would’ve been much better than it is today and I would be much less fearful than I am today. First of all for my wife and I to get together I had to have some level of awareness of what privileges being white has afforded me and what shortcomings or difficulties being a woman of color created for her or we couldn’t have been together you know there would’ve been just too big too big a gap. And she also had to be aware quite frankly. I certainly see the world through my kid’s eyes and it wasn’t till I had kids that I’ve felt like, “Oh wow I knew this was out there, but I didn’t know all this was out there.” I was hopeful that things were gonna get better. So we were – I remember we came back from vacation we were in the airport in Philly at the baggage claim and there were three white guys and they were steady staring and I made sure that I will watch them leave knew where they were going before we took our bags to the car. Like you know when if you’re mixed family you walk in, first, OK. Are there anything any of the mixed families here? Are there any people of color here? Like those first two checks that you got to do, right. Are we the only only? Right. And we were the only only. If you’d ask me back then I said by 2019 I would not be afraid that when my kids go driving at night – my first fear is that they’re going to have a car accident as every parent does. But that my second fear is that they’re gonna be pulled over by a cop and something really bad is gonna happen. When they travel when they travel on a highway. My son he had a girlfriend in upstate New York. He’s a sophomore college – now he would drive back and forth to see his girlfriend. And my biggest fear was that he was going to get stopped by a state trooper who was white, doing nothing wrong maybe speeding five miles an hour over the speed limit and end up dead.

So the long winded answer is I think President Trump – I hate to say President Trump but he is our president – has given racism and racists the freedom to freely express their open hatred. So as a parent of kids of color in 2019. I sure hope that in. Twenty twenty three. I feel like we will have taken a huge step forward but I feel like we have taken a huge step back. How do you feel?

Aurora: So it’s interesting said as a kid who grew up in the South, so I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. I never saw my mother rest I did not. I never watched my mother go to bed before my father was safely back home. And so for me, I don’t think anything has changed. I think that the worry that I saw my mother have for my father and my uncles and my cousins is just as pervasive, just as omni present today as it was back then and not dissimilar than the fear that I have for my son because I know that as a kid of color, a Black kid. It won’t matter.

Seth: This was this probably five or six years ago. This was an amazing experience that I had. There was a white woman who was doing a workshop mostly for white folks on how to talk to kids about race. So at the end they’re asking you know comments questions and I said that I thought one of the best things that the phone has done and technology has done is technology eliminate illuminates truth. You can no longer hide – like before you could be like, “OK this police violence stuff this is not really happening. What are you talking about?” Well now actually you can’t hide so much of this. So I said I think technology illuminates truth and and you can’t hide much of this. And she said – and she’s running the workshop – “When did all this stuff start happening?” And I was like, “Wait what?! You’re actually working in this industry trying to help people be aware bias and you actually think this stuff hasn’t you always been happening?” This white woman is as well meaning as can be is trying to make a positive difference and she is still so unaware that she is shocked by the – you know what it’s like to be a parent of a Black child a young black man in America. She had no idea. How could you have no idea?

Aurora: Well I think that’s a great question and I so I think there’s two things that that I
D like to unpack. So one question was this notion of technology has illuminated I think what has been happening for forever. I also think if there’s one thing that I I have very I have very limited things that I am grateful to Trump for, I do have to say that as a person of color I am grateful. I am thankful that what he has done is illuminated the reality and the undercurrent that has always been there.

Seth: I completely agree.

Aurora: We’re really getting to see people’s true behaviors. And I think that that’s calling on all of us to engage in a different dialogue, to dig deeper, to understand fundamentally who we are and who we choose to be.

Seth: I think there are like two groups of white folks who don’t want things to change. First is people who are racists, are proud to be racists, know they’re racists claim they’re racists. Ihave no interest in trying to help those people.

Aurora: Ditto.

Seth: The second group right is really interesting. So for a white person to actually acknowledge the benefits that society has provided him or her for being white or to his or her children now then you’d have to say, “Wait a second. Maybe I actually don’t deserve to have the salary that I do the job that I do have gotten into school that I do. Maybe that means I’m not special. Wait a second, maybe that means my kids aren’t special.” It’s really hard to to accept that I don’t you know like I don’t want to accept that I’m not as good as I thought I was about anything. I certainly don’t accept that my kids aren’t.

Kelly: And that’s what – I was just had this conversation with Aurora before you came. And I would add a group on that side of white women who when faced with that privilege, they have to look in the mirror and say, “How did I get here and – but also who is my partner? What would I actually have to say to my father? What have I been teaching these white boy kids I have?” I mean there’s so many other questions and reflections looking back at you. And on so many levels and so many things it just comes back to being a better human and and and what kind of person do you want to be.

Seth: And that’s really hard. We’ve clearly taken a huge step back. We’re either going way forward or this country is about to go – literally like he says, “Make America Great Again.” He doesn’t mean that he means make America white again.

Aurora: Absolutely.

Seth: And that’s what he wants and we’re either going to get there or America will actually become great.

Kelly: My dad did basketball for five years.

Seth: Yes he did and he did it very well.

Kelly: But it always was interesting for me to look at it like, “Wow it’s all owned by white guys. And then all the guys that play for the most part are Black.” Clearly a microcosm. These kids play as kids and then go on to either play college basketball and then eventually NBA basketball and you explain them as a startup in and of themselves in that they didn’t make any money for a period of time because this is when all the – you have to follow the rules or the suggestions or guidelines of getting into the NCAA to then be able to play for the NBA without violating any of them. Can you just talk a little bit more – kind of explain how it’s hard to protect those kids and how you try to?

Seth: The NCAA is a business, right. And so just like any other business until the government says you have to pay your workers fairly, you’ll pay your workers unfairly as you can. It’s not about Black or white, it’s about green right.

And if you look at the numbers, the percentage of kids that will go play division one basketball and get a scholarship – that’s worth a quarter million dollars, Right. It’s tiny. You know one out of 100 are gonna go do that. Most of the kids are gonna go play basketball go play high school basketball maybe play your college basketball a division two or three school and then go work. There’s like three classes of kids in my opinion in terms of basketball and not all by the way Black, some are white. There’s one group that has never has any chance to be a pro and you can usually tell those kids out by the time they’re like 8 or 9 years old. There a sweet kid running up and down like, “You ain’t never gonna be a professional athlete in any way. God bless you. Enjoy playing basketball right.” Then there’s a group in the middle that is like, “Huh? That kid’s got a chance to be pretty good. Has the size talent athleticism. I’m curious to see how that could develop.” And then there’s like a very few can’t miss, wow. Like Cameron Reddish from Philly was gonna be a pro from the time he was sixth grade.

Aurora: Wow.

Seth: He chose whether he’s gonna be football or basketball but when you watch Cam Reddish play basketball it’s like, “OK he’s gonna be in the NBA.” Like he’s that gifted. His parents are that grounded. He works that hard, right. So those are the kids that I think you have to pay real careful attention to to make sure that they’re protected that they’re protected from injury that they don’t play too many games that they’re not being used by guys who run events so they can make money off them. But ultimately like – I heard this great quote, “You’re the outcome of your life. Is defined by two things: luck and the quality of your decisions” So much of it unfortunately is luck. So you ask me like, “How can we protect these kids?” There’s so much that you can’t. If a kid is born into a family and a family sees the kid as a paycheck that kid is screwed. That kid recognizes really early on, “Oh wow. I’m just a paycheck.”

Kelly: And I just I keep going back in my mind to what you said about your parenting with your son –

Seth: Anytime a kid is actually underperforming who shouldn’t be if there’s a really talented kid when I work with them the first thing I try to figure out is: who do they think they are disappointing the most? So I sit with a kid and be like let’s talk about this. And most of my high level kids I bring to a sports psychologist. So but this part is really easy: “All right. Like when you play badly who are you most worried about upsetting?” And they’ll start with, “Oh my teammates. My team really my coaches.” Got it. “OK. So you think your teammates and coaches aren’t gonna like you if you miss shots?” “U-huh.” Eventually they kind of figure out – You know, “OK you miss a shot, close your eyes. Who’s the first person you see?” “My dad. I see my dad.” “Do you think your dad’s disappointed?” “Yeah.” “Do you think your dad will love you less because you missed a shot?” “Yeah, I think my dad’s gonna love me less.” Wow. “How do you think your dad will feel knowing that you do you think he will love you less?” “I don’t know.” I’m like, “Well this conversation you probably have to have with your dad.” So with T.J. – T.J. is my son who is now 17. He’s a rising senior. He’s committed to Penn for basketball. He had 15 Division One offers. He’s a very good basketball player. At multiple times when I’ve been coaching teacher I had to say you know, “Hey, I’m going to love you the same whether you miss a shot or make a shot.” And this year in the middle of the year was really struggling could make a shot could make a shot in practice. And T.J. – like if you see a picture in the dictionary of what a jump shot looks like you would see T.J. Like this kid has worked thousands and thousands and thousands of hours on his shot. And he and his mom had a nice jump shot too so he probably gets it from her. So after practice one day he’s crying and I’m like, “Bro like we’ve got to deal with this.” He’s like, “I’m good.” I’m like, “Nah man like you still think I’m gonna love you less because you got the double pressure of me being your parent and your coach. I’m going to love you the same. You can go get 30 you can get zero.” And so this year for the last 10 games I actually told T.J. before every single game go upstairs and as he become an in layup lines I would go, “Yo bro.” And he’d be like, “What?” “I’m going to love you the same whether we win or lose this game.” And we actually lost the state final in overtime this year. I told you before the game, “I’m going to love you the same and after.”

Kelly: Well we all have our own sense of unworthiness right. It all goes back to some level of, “I won’t be loved if -”

Seth: Right. You know there’s this great quote that I just heard which is, “No one can make you feel insecure unworthy without your permission.”

Aurora: Eleanor Roosevelt.

Seth: Is that who was? It’s funny I said to my wife and she is like, “Yeah.” She said, “Of course. Imagine being a black woman in America. Like everyday someone’s trying to make you feel less worthy. And I would not give them permission.”

Aurora: That was the daily mantra and still is I mean for decades.

Seth: And think about that like for – as a white person I just heard that. I’m a parent of Black kids. I just heard that, right. And I was like, “Wow. You’re right. No one ever can make me feel unworthy.” But actually how many people actually tried to. I’m a white guy. They’re not supposed to. They’d be like, “Oh you’re the white guy.” So the story with Cole goes back to your very first question in terms of 2019 being a parent of Black kids. So Cole is between sophomore and junior at Lafayette College. He is a dean’s list student. First team all conference all academic Patriot League, second team all conference golfer – by all standards, he’s crushing life, right. He’s just incredibly hard worker academically. He’s a great friend to his buddies. He’s a great brother, he’s a great son. So when Cole went off to college I said, “ Cole your mother doesn’t need to know that you get high. Please do it on the weekends. Don’t let in interfere with your studies. Just keep it under control.” “I got you, dad.” So he comes home over Christmas break and one night – it’s January 4th I know this because on New Year’s Eve I told him if he needed to pick me up if he needed me to pick him up so he was not riding higher drunk. He was like,”No dad I would never do that.” So I’m sorry to out you Cole if anyone hears this.

Kelly: Hopefully you’re listening.

Seth: Hopefully are listening and this could do some good for other kids of color. So Cole walks in the door like 11:45 at night and he’s high as fuck. And I’m like, “Yo dude have you lost your fucking mind? Your mom’s upstairs and you’re walking – as soon as you walk in I can smell you.” And then his best friend also a mix kid walks in high as fuck – like eyes half shut. And then I kind of look outside to be like, “Well who was driving?” Well his best friend was driving. So I tell Cole you’re going upstairs immediately tell your mother because this is how now your mom is gonna find out that you get high. Now here’s the real conversation, “Are you fucking crazy? You are two freshman in college, young Black males driving high in an area where in five years my wife was stopped 10 times and given nine tickets and I was stopped 10 times and given one and you’re going to jeopardize your entire future so you could get high drive and then run into the one cop that wants to ruin your fuckin life. Because let’s be clear you would not be going to Lafayette.” They’d be like, “Oh hell no you’re not on a golf team.” “And you definitely won’t get an internship at a finance company because they don’t give second chances to too many young Black men who got caught riding high – not dealing drugs.” Think about this if you’re a white parent of white kids. Your reaction is probably, “What the heck?” The white family of white kids never has to think, “You could have just ruined your life. Everything that you’ve worked for, everything that we’ve worked for. All the hours in the classroom, all the hours on a golf course goes away because of one bad decision.”

You can’t afford to have you can’t afford to say something wrong at work.

Aurora:Nope.

Seth: You can’t afford to use language that is unprofessional. No you probably can have a beard or a mustache while you’re interviewing. You can have your hair in twists or curls. None of that stuff. If you’re a white kid, you know, if you show up with a beard and mustache it’s stylish. It’s cool

Aurora: You’re hip.

Seth: You’re hip. right. So the reality that these kids – the choice that they made was one that could have been so severe. But there’s so many choices that kids of color have to make every day that white kids don’t have to make every day and I certainly wasn’t aware of any of those until I had kids. I was aware of some of the differences that we had as white folks and black folks living in this country. Once you have kids you see the world through your kids eyes and it’s like, “Oh wow.” It’s like I said, “Cole,” when he took this finance job this summer, it’s like, “Homeboy, you cut your hair. Number one.. Number one beard. Gone. Say goodbye to the beard. We gonna practice speak white all week before you go to work.” And he did and he does.

Aurora: This the dichotomy right, Seth. Because on one side there’s this whole sort of movement of be your authentic self, transparency and showing up being who you are. But that only really works for white folks.

Seth: Right.

Auror: And I was sort of looking at sort of the typical titles now business books and it is overwhelming how many of them have the word “authenticity” or “authentic” in the title or within the first two-three chapters. There’s a part of me that says when you give that guidance – that quite frankly is no different than the guidance I would give to the many Black and brown men and females that I mentor and guide as well as my own children. Am I continuing to foster the continuation of that bias? Because there is a conformity.

Seth: Right.

Aurora: We had this conversation earlier. I struggled with that with myself like I pressed and straightened my hair for twenty five years in corporate America.

Seth: right.

Aurora: And I lost parts of myself in that in that process.

Seth: I hope that in 25 years, you know, as I’m 76 and my kids are in their 30s and 40s that they are in environments where they can be their authentic selves. But what it probably means is they will not work in corporate America it they’re gonna do that because corporate America will not change that quickly. And the rules won’t change that quickly so that means they will have to take risks as entrepreneurs or quite frankly choose to make less money because they would rather be who they are during the day than put on a mask and fake it and have to have your work self and then your actual self.

When President Obama was elected I was in shock. I didn’t believe it’s gonna happen. I was like, “There’s no way enough white folks are going to vote for a Black man to be in charge. No shot.” And when that happened I said, “Oh wow. Maybe this is the beginning of a real change.” I am hopeful that we did take two or three steps forward and we’ve taken a big step back and we’ll take two or three more forward so that our kids can go to work with twists their hair with a beard and say, “me and him are going to the mall” without being thought of as stupid. Right. And not have to worry about that that people get evaluated for who they are as opposed to what preconceived notions you have.

Aurora: Amen to that. I so hope that that would be the case. I want to sort of riff off for the notion of the fact that corporate America in the next 25 years is likely not going to change at the rate in the clip we would all would love to see it change nd I do think that the root of entrepreneurship as one that many people of color are opting for because of the fact that I get to be my authentic self. But I also start looking at the numbers right. A disproportionate amount of African-American women black women as well as Latina women are over indexing and the number of startups and entrepreneurship that’s been taking place since 2008 to 2018. But despite the droves of us going into entrepreneurship our access to the funding into the venture capital that’s out there. Is bleak at best.

Kelly: Dismal.

Aurora: So when I look at those numbers and as a person who is a Black woman who is straddling and has had the vantage of both of those windows, I’m looking around and saying a) what do I do? How can I help change this? But also what is the conversation that I can engage with my white peers to say OK how this – We’re perpetuating something that has already been perpetuated by corporate America. Any thoughts on that, Seth?

Seth: Yeah.

Aurora: …I think as someone who sat you know waiting at the epicenter.

Seth: Right.

Aurora: Why don’t you share with us what the Sixers –

Seth: he Sixers Lab is a business incubator that will invest up to a million dollars in companies when in their early and seed stages. We also provide office space and the most important thing I think we’re not depending on their view is the mentorship that we provide.

I do believe that the venture capitalists fall into that group of people who are biased not racist because they’re so smart now that that mean smart people can’t be racist because they can, but those folks just want to make money.

Kelly: And there just swimming in the same pool of people like them I would assume.

Seth: That’s right.

Kelly: Like they’re just surrounded by whiteness and –

Seth: You two are an anomaly, right. Like you’re really good friends. White women. Women of color. Most white women hang out white women. Most women of color hang out with women of color. That’s just how America is. So I’m not surprised that VCs like most white guys. When someone who’s not a white guy walks in the door there’s a whole bunch of barriers that go up whether they know it or not. The first barrier by the way unfortunately hundred percent sure, the assumption is: you are not as smart as me. That’s the automatic assumption. If you were a woman or person of color.

Aurora: They think I’m smarter than you. And then…they think what else? Because that’s what I want to unpack that says how do we unlock the opportunity? Because the green is gonna play out over a period of time. The numbers are so small as far as how many Black or l atino led startups have actually received – gotten funding. The number is .0006% of the 424 billion dollars…

Seth: Wow.
Aurora: …that was given away by.

Seth: I am shocked that that number is that low. And I just think it is people can’t see opportunity because they can’t get out of what they’ve already experienced.

Aurora: And I still got to remain hopeful.

Seth: Yeah. If we’re not hopeful then we just get to war. And part of me sometimes thinks truthfully that I’m not interested in trying to make a difference. I’m interested in protecting the people I care about and advancing their agenda and fuck everybody else. I have to stop myself right because that is just the same evil that is – And I have to stop myself. The number one most educated foreign group in America is Nigerians. The .0006 – think about how many Nigerian businesses have not been funded because they’re Nigerian. Yeah, I’m floored that that number is that low. It’s depressing. I think unfortunately what indicates is that will only change when people of color who have made it and some white folks a very small percentage are willing to think – the people of color don’t have to think differently – the white folks might have to think a little bit differently. Until that happens. Yeah that’s depressing. Thanks for the good news.

Aurora: I know. Well And so – but here’s the thing. And again this is – I am going to couch this with the fact that I’m an eternal optimist. I’ve had to be, right. L ike there was no other choice for me other than to believe in hope and to believe that things can and will be different. What I also know is that people of color are extraordinary. And you know I have come very late in life to really understanding my own magic very late.

Seth: Very late? You’re very young. How do you say “very late?”

Aurora: Well it’s taken me a while, Seth. Like damn. Like I always say to Kelly like, “I love therapy thank God for therapy. Thank God for you know great family and great friends.” But there is a part of me that says there is this such an unlocked energy in such an unlocked ability. And if we could just coalesce it together. It’s not about me doing it alone. Yeah it’s gonna take. Open and enlightened and anywhere white people.

Seth: Yeah. You’re right that people of color cannot make this change without white folks. We’re also wanting to make change. And hopefully what has happened with our country moving a step back is that if enough white people are saying, “Wait a minute whether I’m married to a Black woman or not. I don’t want this country going back. I want us going forward.”

I really think that racism is insecurity masked.

Aurora: And you know and I’ll go a little esoteric here because one of the things that we talk about and I think you hit on something so poignant which is it goes back to the self and it goes back to this disconnection that we have with ourselves whether it be shame whether it be unworthiness unworthiness whether it’s judgment and you know I we talk a lot with people that says you know racism has created trauma for me as a person of color. And for you as a person who is white my trauma has just shown up a lot more physical and a lot more visible. But your trauma is an internal trauma of separation. Because in reality when you understand that I am you and you are me it is that separation that is creating that disconnect that that disconnect within yourself.

Seth: And I think that. The times when someone has wronged me. The sooner that I give up the anger the happier I’ve been the longer I hold onto the anger the more damaging is to me. So the number of angry white people who don’t realize that what they’re what they’re doing is making themselves miserable every single day. It’s it’s amazing to your to your point like you’re you’re damaging yourself. Love is such a better place to be than hate. It’s such a better place to live such a happier place to be. And you know though those are the people that. We would like to help people are.

Kelly: Like what’s I’m healed. And yeah.

Seth: Yeah. You know and and not to get again too political, but think about the number of lower poor and lower class white people that have been taught that the peace that people of color are their enemy versus the people that are running the tax code in this country and they’re believing it and they’re angry. And it’s ultimately that to your point they’re harming themselves instead of saying actually, “I am one with this guy. I one with this woman. We have the same struggle”. They’re saying, “Oh no no. I hate you. You’re worse than me.” You know they’ve just been fooled.

Aurora: It’s the hoodwink that’s been going on for millennia. So one of the questions we always ask our guests is if you could ask the audience in your case whether that’s white women or men of white men to opt in to do better –

Seth: ou know I think the thing that. Every white person should do is go be a minority in a place where you can’t change that for an extended period of time. And so I don’t mean you know if you’re living in New York City go to a pizza shop that is owned by an Hispanic and stay there for 30 minutes. I mean really changed your life for an extended period of time so you can be comfortable with being uncomfortable and then actually get to the other side of that and be like, “Oh wait a second. What was I so uncomfortable about?”

Kelly: Yeah I just think most of the time they don’t know their own whiteness. I say white in front of white people and they literally like you see them twinge. I mean they’re just – So what ends up happening is when they’re around a person of color I find and I found this with my own self and my own learning is that when my whiteness is showing it’s something I haven’t seen before. So it’s almost like a – I don’t know what to do with this. It goes away when I’m with my friends in my white suburban neighborhood or in my white school or whatever.

Seth: There are two really interesting uses of language where I see come out all the time and it’s not in any way malicious. One is when you’re talking to someone and if you’re talking to someone white and they will say they’ll describe the scene to be like this 28 year old guy this 35 year old woman this 18 year old black kid. And the assumption is white white and I have to define black or Hispanic or Asian everyone else just automatically assumed to be white. The other thing that’s really interesting in terms of language is if you listen to a sports broadcast. What you will hear often is they will call the black players by the first name and they will call the white players by the last name. So you haven’t heard Peyton Manning call Peyton a lot.

Aurora: Thanks for pointing that out.

Seth: You know the Knicks have a kid named Ignas Brazdeikis. He’s from Lithuania. I coached against him. He’s playing in some really I coached against when he was in high school he played a year at Michigan and he was playing last night and RJ Barrett was playing who had played for Duke but also playing for Nicks summer league team. They were calling RJ RJ and. She was calling Ignas Ignas. And I was like Oh. That’s the first time I’ve heard someone like start out calling him by his first name. That’s progress. Start calling the white guy by the first name. OK. Good. That’s great. Take it.