Hi, everyone.
Welcome once again to our show.
It has been a very intense week in our country.
We had some very important conversations on the show
yesterday.
As I said, I will continue to say as a white person,
I'm going to keep learning.
I'm going to keep using my platform
to help educate my audience.
One thing I want to talk about is our staff.
We have a fantastic staff who I miss very much.
I will say it, they're the best.
Really, we have an incredible group of people.
And we have young people on the staff.
We have a lot of young people, mostly young people.
We have some old people too.
I won't say who.
But one of them broke the hip playing ping pong with me.
But a lot of young people.
And some are so young that they weren't alive in 1992
during the Rodney King beating.
They were on a Zoom meeting with our producers talking this week
about everything going on.
And when you listen to these young black men and women
talk about racism and the racism that they
face every single day, it's so clear
that we have not made nearly enough progress.
We have a very long way to go.
And one of the best things that white people can do
is listen and learn right now.
You can find a place to donate, sign petitions, protests,
but really listen so we can learn.
That's the most important thing.
Here's one immediate thing you can do to be a better ally.
If you haven't watched Ava DuVernay's documentary,
13th, yet, watch it.
Watch that.
We have to learn from the past in order to move forward.
That is a powerful lesson.
And tWitch who I want to listen and learn
from, what would you recommend to someone
who wants to be a better ally?
What should people do?
Well I mean you're in the right path of knowing, getting
as much knowledge as possible.
13th is fantastic.
On yesterday's show, a couple of the books that Van was
talking about, White Fragility.
Also, there's a book named How to be Antiracist.
And also, there is a workbook called The Racial Healing
Handbook.
And that's really special because it gives you
like little practical exercises that you--
it's not long.
It's not super lengthy or very heavy.
It's actually very easy to apply.
But again, it's just raising that awareness.
And another documentary is King in the Wilderness.
It's actually-- it focuses on Martin Luther King's last 18
months before he was assassinated.
It's on HBO.
It's called King in the Wilderness.
And I love that because during this time
with a lot of this stuff going on in the streets,
I think a lot of people confuse Dr. King's approach
as the non-violent approach as being passive.
And it was not passive.
He was still very much disruptive in the actions
that he was taking.
He just didn't use violence with it.
So I think people also really need to get a hold of that too.
I've had a lot of people tell me I
need to revisit Dr. King's speeches
and watch the movie Selma as if I don't know that.
And non-violence doesn't mean--
you can still be disruptive and non-violent.
I think-- sorry.
I just also want to say that I think it's really important--
and I have learned this actually in the last few days,
to show that as someone who thinks they know,
I really didn't know-- is that I have talked to my kids
since they could speak about racism.
But what I didn't do is stress enough how to be anti-racist.
It's not enough to just say, I'm not racist.
You actually have to do work.
Exactly.
You as a white person, meaning me, Ellen, everybody
who is privileged and has that white privilege,
we have an obligation to actually be
active in our not being racist.
It is not a passive thing to not be racist.
Yes.
By the way, I was just going to say
that we'll put the names of the books and the documentaries
on our website to remind people of because I really
think this show has to-- we all need to be educated.
We all need to learn.
And if people really don't understand
the pain that has been inflicted for years and years,
then they just won't have empathy.
They won't really-- they won't have the compassion.
And I think people need to understand what kind of pain
has been inflicted on the black community for--
since--
There's no more status quo.
If we're not actively moving away from racism,
we're moving towards it.
And also-- and that's not to say that that work is not
going to be uncomfortable.
You know what I mean?
And I think that that really needs to be said.
And that is not an understatement.
That work is not going to-- it's not
going to be comfortable work.
But it's something that is incredibly necessary
just for us to move forward just as a human race through love.
So you don't have to be a racist to benefit
from the system of racism.
And just finding out those tiny subtle ways
that you might be holding up the system.
And that takes work, but it's necessary.