Transcriber: Charlotte Rose Smith Reviewer: Denise RQ
I grew up white in South Carolina,
but I was born white in the Midwest,
so this really helps explain
why I love hot boiled peanuts, but not so much grits.
I'm the oldest of three,
and we grew up in an awesome town, with an awesome family.
My parents taught us about love,
hard work, and service.
We spent quite a bit of time outside
in the beautiful foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains,
swinging on muscadines,
and I also picked up a couple of other lessons along the way.
My class has always been full of over achievers,
so, in the fifth grade we started our first ever school newspaper.
That's me in all my 80s' glory, with the yellow arrow.
I had my own column for this paper called 'Talk to Trisha',
hence the Twitter handle.
It was brilliant.
If you could imagine the problems
that elementary school students would write in about,
there are a few here for you to think about.
"Dear Trisha,
my friend is real nice,
but she sometimes snaps at me when I talk to her.
What can I do?"
Signed, "Worried".
Probably a third grader.
"Dear Worried,
if your friend is like what you tell me,
maybe you don't need that kind of friend.
I've had those times too.
Just learn to put up with it."
"Signed, "Trisha".
I promise you that my helping skills have evolved since the fifth grade.
But this is where I learned
how much I really enjoy listening and hearing other perspectives,
and really being part of people's journey.
In the seventh grade,
Immigration and Naturalization Services came to our very, very small town,
specifically to raid the Piedmont Quilting Corporation.
They removed over 100 undocumented workers,
and sent them home to Mexico and Peru.
Now, I remember that it was in the paper,
and I'm pretty sure adults in my life
had side-whisper conversations about the happening,
but it really wasn't a big deal.
It kind of happened over the weekend,
and I went back to girl scouts and hanging out with my family,
and practicing the violin, much to my mother's chagrin.
In the ninth grade,
despite my gigantically permed hair,
and increasingly bigger, teased bangs,
I got asked out by a senior.
I was so excited.
He was an African American guy at our school, I had no idea who he was,
but he asked me out and it felt amazing.
That same afternoon, I went to our World History class,
and we had to do presentations on a country that we were studying,
so, our teacher put a nice huge camcorder up in the middle of the class,
and we each came to our mark,
stood in front of it and had to bravely recite our presentation.
But something happened when I got ready.
The teacher pushed the record button
and one of my white male classmates walked forward into my space.
He looked at me briefly,
he looked right into the camera
and he said,
"Once you go black, you never come back."
In front of my entire class.
It hurt.
I was so confused as to why this was a big deal.
Why would you humiliate me in front of everyone?
I hadn't even said yes yet.
But I knew right then I wasn't going to.
About ten years later, my awesome sister
gave birth to my amazing niece, Jasmine.
She was, and still is,
the most beautiful bundle of joy on the entire planet.
Jasmine's mom is white, and her dad is black.
She identifies as biracial.
At four, my sister took her to a swimming pool
to celebrate the end of summer, and get one last good swim in
before everybody had to go back to the routine.
They swam for hours,
as all excited four-year-olds do at the pool,
and as all good mother's do, she made Jasmine take a break,
step out to the side,
reapply sunscreen, and get a snack.
When she got back in the pool,
the little girl she had been playing with came up to her and said,
"I'm sorry, I can't play with you anymore.
My mom said I can't play with brown kids."
At four.
This happened to me at 16,
and even then, it wasn't about me it was about someone else.
But it happened to my niece at four.
I had a 12-year comfort zone
that she will never experience.
This made me pretty angry, I'm not going to lie.
Another decade passed, thinking about this and stewing over this,
and trying to figure out what in the world I'm supposed to do,
and every time the conversation would come up,
I had lots of thoughts running through my head.
I had lots of fear, doubt, and regret.
I had sweaty palms,
I felt it in the pit of my stomach.
And I think this is pretty normal.
This white noise.
It interrupts white folks from being able to talk about race.
Dr Robin DiAngelo calls this 'white fragility'.
It is, in essence, this idea the conversation around race in America
is built to keep white feelings safe.
To help us feel better and not feel guilt.
The other part of this is that it also lowers
our tolerance to racial stress--
that comfort zone that I talked about.
I don't have to deal with it., I've never had to exercise that muscle,
so when it happens, when I'm like,
"Oh, there's a conversation, and I need to be in it,"
I start having these physical reactions,
and I'm also having mental reactions as well, this narrative.
I know there are some of you in here thinking, "Yes, that's me too.
But what in the world am I supposed to do about it?"
I have some suggestions,
and I suggest that we start by shopping.
And I want to challenge you on this,
because most of the time when you go shopping,
you're probably going for a purpose.
You're like, "I need a top that's going to rock my TED talk."
That's what you're thinking.
But a lot of times, we go shopping just thinking,
"Well, I could use some jeans,"
and you go to 12 stores and look at jeans.
But what store are you going to?
Who are you bringing with you?
What district in your shopping areas have you never visited?
And why?
This is a concept called 'noticing'.
It's about naming an observation,
but not casting judgment on that thing you've observed.
Noticing is not a problem in and of itself,
it's what we do when we notice, right?
So, you're probably noticing some funky colored socks,
and maybe if you notice that, then you'll ask yourself,
"Why am I noticing they're different? What does that say about me?"
The next thing I'd ask you to do is head to the dressing room.
You might have picked out a couple of pieces
along your shopping journey
that you really have to put on to see how they feel.
Some of them are going to be a little snug,
some a little baggy, and you'll need hemming,
and some, you're going to be like,
"This is not for me. This is just not my look."
And that's OK.
I'd offer that the same is true in conversations around race.
You just have to try it on.
I'll give you an example from my professional life.
I worked with an amazing, talented African American guy,
we're still good friends,
and I was in the middle of a meeting with him one day, working on a project,
and I'm like, "This guy's amazing! I can't let him go, so, uh, what do I do?"
And I pulled him aside and said,
"Donald, come here, come here. I have to ask you a question."
And he's like, "OK, what?"
I said, "Um... well... you know, you're black, and... uh... I'm white,
and I hear, sometimes, that black and African American folk
might have a difficult time finding a home or connection here,
but you are so amazing, and I want you to stay here,
and I want you to thrive, so I just want to know, are you connected?
Is there anything I can do to support you better?"
He totally laughed in my face and said,
"I'm fine... totally fine. Why are you doing that?"
But I can tell you, all those emotions were happening for me,
but had I not gone into the dressing room and tried it on,
I'd never have known what would have come out of my mouth.
And sometimes, I have done it really wrong.
I can't say that was a great example of doing it right,
but you've got to try it on to find the right fit.
As you're trying it on,
the last piece here is to stand in front of the mirror
and really think about
who you are, and why you are,
rather than thinking about who they are, and why they are.
What's in it for you?
And sometimes you're not going to like what you see,
so you go and you try again,
and you keep coming back.
And sometimes,
people are going to give you feedback that you didn't ask for,
but just think about that as a time when they're holding a mirror for you--
the times when you didn't slow down long enough.
It may feel like a hailstorm,
but it could be gold falling from the sky.
So, once you get this pattern down: you're noticing, you're trying it on,
and you're reflecting,
you'll notice something begin to happen.
If you really commit, you'll notice that the noise begins to disappear.
You'll make room for new voices
and new answers.
You will get it wrong,
but you'll begin to experience failure
with a gratitude for learning.
And you'll experience hurt,
but you'll become more familiar with solidarity.
And if you really, really commit over and over again,
you will realize that you've got to be a part of this conversation,
and that will bring you great hope.
Thank you so much.
(Applause)