Bonus Episode 10
# Bonus Episode 10
Welcome to bonus episode #10 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [ @NerdJourney]! We’re John White ( @vJourneyman) and Nick Korte ( @NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss how to support colleagues of color during these turbulent times.
Original Recording Date: 06-06-2020
Topics – How To Support Colleagues of Color Allyship
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We’re experiencing a time of social upheaval and protest in the aftermath of the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor among others. So what can we do to support our colleagues of color who might feel especially burdened?
# 5:19 Do’s and Don’ts
General guidance: Invest in your relationships ahead of time
John gives the example of he and Nick being able to support each other through losing parents because they had invested in their relationships ahead of time.
Don’ts
Don’t add to their burdens
Don’t ask your colleagues to explain the why’s of the situation to you
Don’t ask them to support you emotionally
Don’t wait to be an ally
Speak out against racial and gender bias immediately
It’s the other person who made it awkward;
Nick references Crucial Conversation’s notion of safety in conversations Crucial Conversations
Be able to receive a critique as well if the person being called out is you. This is a very difficult thing to do, but important for growth.
Do
Offer Support
Maybe let them know your offer of support doesn’t require a response as you offer it
Offer Allyship
Perhaps join an employee resource group as an ally
Is this kind of conversation more loaded if there’s a manager-report relationship?
For peers, there’s no explicit power dynamic
It’s important for managers to have created a safe space to discuss a variety of issues (race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age, mental health, parental status)
Managers should have more training to be a source of support for difficult topics
If managers have only positioned themselves only as a point of accountability, then they’ve made a mistake.
Nick is reminded of Fierce Conversations guidance to interrogate reality Fierce Conversations
# 21:29 Context on the State of Race Relations
Context on the Context
John’s goal is to provide context that you might not have, not sound preachy or accusatory
We’re also linking to additional resources
23:24 The murder of George Floydis outrageous, but not an isolated/new occurrence George Floyd Black Lives Matter Protests
African-Americans live with the reality that they could be killed by the police all the time
The murder of Philando Castile happened in the suburbs of St. Paul Minnesota in 2016. Philando Castile
The murder of Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson, MO Michael Brown
Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting African Americans COVID-19
27:50 The Prison system disproportionately affects the African American community
30:37 The hypocrisy of identifying violence and looting as the problem: America opposes non-violent protest
FBI COINTELPRO illegal surveillance and disruption of the Civil Rights movement COINTELPRO
The Civil Rights Movement was a movement was met with violence and mass incarceration Civil Rights Movement
The modern US National Anthem protests were met with National Anthem Protests
Drew Brees opposed non-violent protest in 2016; Drew Brees’s opposition to kneeling as non-violent protest was unchanged in 2020 until it wasn’t. Drew Brees
Nick wonders if people are quicker to be offended with what we think people mean instead of asking.
John finds that difficult to believe; It feels as if it’s intentionally misunderstanding the protest, perhaps as a defense against facing the difficult issue of police brutality. Or maybe it’s just racism. Or maybe people can’t just back off their statements.
39:14 Video Montage of Police Brutality at Protests Against Police Brutality Police Brutality
Entire episode of Some More News Some More News
Violence at protests seems mostly done by police, not protesters
Scary statements from our political leaders
41:55 The problem with the President of the United States saying, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
The President threatens military action against the American civilian population
Tom Cotton’s “ No quarter” statement
De Blasio Defends NYPD Officers Who Drove Into Demonstrators Bill De Blasio
Joe Biden’s history authoring the war on drugs including the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 Joe BIden
100:1 sentencing ratio of crack to powder cocaine
Had the effect of treating black offenders more harshly than white offenders
# 48:59 Revisionist History Presents: The Limits of Power
Listen At
The British Army sought to bring order to the streets of Northern Ireland by making the cost of protest (that’s a euphemism for police violence and mass incarceration) so high that people would logically not protest. But it had the opposite effect.
Donald Trump’s quote admiring the Chinese government’s Tiananmen Square crackdown.: “When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength."
The exploration of use of force against one’s citizens removed from the American context, African-American racial context was very helpful to understand the downsides.
54:15 Behind the Bastards: The Man Who Teaches Our Cops To Kill
“Host Robert Evans is joined by Jack O’Brien to discuss David Grossman, director of the Killology Research Group. More than a hundred police departments, and thousands of police officers, have taken Grossman’s courses over more than twenty years.” Behind the Bastards
Bulletproof Warrior
Teaches more fear and faster killing reflexes
Police can use deadly force if they merely perceive a threat
The officer who shot and killed Philando Castile in Minnesota in 2016 had just taken the course.
Minneapolis banned the training in 2019, but the police union decided to offer the training to its members.
# 1:00:53 Brief Explanation of “Defund the Police”
Misconception is that it’s calling for completely disbanding the police
Many poor African-American neighborhoods have such poor response times and experience with the police that they are effectively unpoliced
Main policy goal is to disaggregate the many functions served by the police department and fund them in separate organizations
Mental health intervention by specially trained teams
Homeless services to transition and serve that population
Community safety
etc
We’ve had most of two centuries to reform the police force
The vast majority of police department calls have nothing to do with a major uniform crime (from context, UCR Part 1 crimes: Aggravated assault, forcible rape, murder, robbery, arson, burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft)
Mostly auto accidents, noise complaints, substance abuse issues, and mental health issues
NPR Throughline: American Police
“…Tension between African American communities and the police has existed for centuries. This week, the origins of American policing and how those origins put violent control of Black Americans at the heart of the system.”
“This book attempts to spark public discussion by revealing the tainted origins of modern policing as a tool of social control. It shows how the expansion of police authority is inconsistent with community empowerment, social justice—even public safety. Drawing on groundbreaking research from across the world, and covering virtually every area in the increasingly broad range of police work, Alex Vitale demonstrates how law enforcement has come to exacerbate the very problems it is supposed to solve.”
“Police unions are a bit different from other unions. Normally, unions exist to empower workers through collective action. Police already have a kind of power other workers don’t. Today, we look at the data on police unions how their very existence might lead to more people being killed by police. Also, why other unions are distancing themselves from police unions.”
After officers gain access to collective bargaining rights, there was a “substantial increase” in killing of civilians, almost all of whom are non-white.
# 1:04:23 Wrapping Up
The conversation was difficult to record
Hopefully this helps you understand some of the context
We don’t all have to agree on every point, hopefully just understand each other a bit better
It’s also difficult to offer support when we might be close to our own emotional limits
We hope this was easier to listen to than it was to record!
We hope you’re all in a good place and getting the support you need