White Homework

What does it look like when we start dismantling systems of oppression that benefit a small number of people at the expense of everyone else? Black and Indigenous folks are regularly accused of reverse racism for things that are merely offenses, not systematic harm. But to your nervous system, the opposite of systemic racism is probably going to feel bad. In fact, it's probably going to feel like...

If you've ever wondered what to say to someone whose response to another cop committing murder is "shoulda complied", I got you covered. Turns out our bodies are programmed to protect us from danger. Weird, right? And even more shocking: that self-protection programming your nervous system is running? Yeah that's not under voluntary control. In this episode we'll explore the actual reasons people...

Why do people protest things that are objectively good for themselves and their neighbors? Let's look at protests through the lens of evolutionary biology, nervous system responses, politics, nd power dynamics. History has shown us that protests are a predictable result of burning through all the official channels to create change and getting nowhere. When people don't have any meaningful mechanis...

Today we're talking about rest, sleep, and play, and how they are all integral to self-regulation. Humans don't come fully loaded with equal amounts of self-regulation that some people just choose to use and others don't. Making good decisions isn't the default that some nonwhite people just happened to miss out on. The environment you were raised in has a huge impact on how difficult or easy it i...

Welcome back to White Homework! I want to break down some of the common racist myths that exist in western culture. This week: DRUGS! Let's use address one of the most common racist tropes in US culture: conflating problematic drug use with Black people. Data shows racial groups largely use recreational drugs at the same levels but you certainly wouldn't know that by turning on the news or watchin...

If you've listened to the last two episodes with Andre, you know I've been wrestling with what it looks like to respect all people while also acknowledging that power disparities have an impact on how we engage with harm. I say it all the time, but I want safety and security for all people, even if they disagree with my politics. Like most of you, I've had Palestine and Israel on my mind for the l...

When we see injustice in the world and want to fix it, how do you keep from becoming the thing you hate? I can't stop thinking about this so I invited Andre Henry back to discuss how we create a better world without, as Audre Lord puts it, the master's tools.  I can't stop thinking about the issue of moral responses to violence. Where, to ask the correctly panned question, is the line? How fa...

There are a lot of ways to protest and trying to figure out what the appropriate violence is feels overwhelmingly difficult. When the state is inherently violent, how are people committed to non-violence supposed to respond? Capitalism, the law, personal property are all values in American culture all have more value than nonwhite Americans. As Dr. King said, we have a moral responsibility to brea...

Thanks all for your generosity and patience as I'm getting stuff situated over here!! I had a conversation with Corey Leak about how we left white Jesus and moved into a space that is committed to material equity. We need creative imagination to create a world where no one is a commodity, no one is a product, no one is just the labor they produce. Oppressive systems need to be completely reimagine...

This week, I had a conversation with Dr. Bradley Onishi. Brad is a professor of religious studies at Skidmore College, and the host of the podcast Straight White American Jesus. I think it would be safe to say - and I've told Brad this several times - that I am a little bit of a fangirl. As someone who grew up in white evangelical spaces, I'm kind of obsessed with their origin story and their devo...

Hey y'all! Had a great conversation with Blake Chastain several months ago about the slow merging of evangelicalism and nationalism. We're currently watching evangelicalism in the US move from being a religious or spiritual identifier to a political identifier. For those of us who grew up in white evangelical spaces this isn't surprising. After the election of Barack Obama, white evangelical churc...

Taking a little break from our "racism doesn't exist" series to talk to Jo Luehmann about justice, joy, liberation, and accountability. I reached out to her originally because I am obsessed with her work around decolonizing theology. As a nonbeliever, we have nothing (to my knowledge) on the matters of joy and liberation for all people. But these are some of our shared values so I knew I had to ch...

Alice joins me to talk about the abundance data proving the rampant discrimination in hiring and employment. "There are way too many Black men named Steve." I yell out into the universe while lecturing people about... name shaming? Apologies I'm still working on this. Workplace Discrimination Is Illegal  (But Still Happening) Discrimination Hasn't Gone Down in Two Decades Black people get few...

OMG WE HAVE A NEW FORMAT!! I'm really excited. I mean, it's possible that we COMPLETELY bombed it but at some point we'll get it under control and it'll be a good thing. Get ready to talk about housing discrimination (and javalinas and Black pioneers in Oregon and a million swears) with Alice and me. My notes are from the following sources. Smithsonian Magazine report on the destruction of Vanport...

Happy Black History Month! This week we're starting a new series! We're calling this one "Racism Doesn't Exist" since so many white Americans believe that racism ended with MLK. So we're diving into the data and examining the disparities that exist between white people and Black people in every area of society. This week we're talking about the treatment of nonwhite patients in the medical field....

Contrary to popular belief, Black Americans are more socially conservative on average, than their white peers. We are more likely to believe in God, attend church regularly, and most of us believe that hard work is it takes to succeed. Shocker, huh? Alice Hamilton joins Tori to discuss the difference between Black conservatism and Black conservatives. Find more at www.whitehomework.com and www.tor...

Alice and Tori talk about how we are learning how respect sex workers and protect them from both dangerous people and dangerous policies.  Executive Producers Jeffrey Martin Nate Frazier Producer Jillian Cohan Martin Audio Producer and Editor Nash Propst Artwork by Slade Sundar www.sladesundar.com Music by K.Solis

Alice Hamilton and I sat down to discuss the attempted takeover of the Capitol in DC. A note of caution: language is terribly important . Alice and I use the term "coup" as a catchall throughout this episode to refer to the events that occurred in Washington DC on January 6th, 2021. With that said, I don't know how precise it is to refer to this event as a coup. For starters most (operative word!!...

Alice and I decided to tackle something that's become a huge part of the national narrative: why have cops at all? We have pretty clear data that policing does not work. Policing is a net negative for communities, but it's also bad for the officers themselves.  "Slavery didn't work either. It costs money. It costs lives. We have all this information and all this data, and we don't use it." "W...

Tori is joined by Alice Hamilton to discuss the reclamation of Black humanity in a country founded on white supremacist values. They discuss the ways that whiteness collides with Black bodies through assumptions, dehumanization, infantilization, lionizing, othering, and more. 

Tori is joined by Alice Hamilton and Hailee Evelyn Greene to discuss the ways that purity culture plays out for Black girls in predominantly white spaces. Executive Producers Jeffrey Martin Nate Frazier Producer Jillian Cohan Martin Audio Producer and Editor Nash Propst Artwork by Slade Sundar www.sladesundar.com Music by K.Solis

Tori and Alice discuss Trump's executive orders targeting Black women's work. Executive Producers Jeffrey Martin Nate Frazier Producer Jillian Cohan Martin Audio Producer and Editor Nash Propst Artwork by Slade Sundar www.sladesundar.com Music by K.Solis

Tori and Alice dig into American history and the fact that the United States was never intended to be a democracy and can't operate as a functional democracy because of that.  The article discussed in the episode Executive Producers Jeffrey Martin Nate Frazier Producer Jillian Cohan Martin Audio Producer and Editor Nash Propst Artwork by Slade Sundar www.sladesundar.com Music by K.Solis

Alice joins Tori to talk about the ways the pro-life movement has been fueled by racism. Last week at the RNC, Abby Johnson spoke. She released a video a few months ago where she claimed that police would justified racially profiling her son because, she claimed, Black people commit more violent crimes. This made me realize all the ways in which the pro-life movement have used their single issue a...

Tori is joined by Alice Hamilton to talk about what the heck white privilege really means and how privilege interacts with cancel culture. Executive Producers Jeffrey Martin Nate Frazier Producer Jillian Cohan Martin Audio Producer and Editor Nash Propst Artwork Slade Sundar www.sladesundar.com Music by K.Solis