Healing Racism from Within: An Interview with J.D. Mass

Show Transcript

White Man's Guide to Healing Racism

[00:00:00] Hey guys, thanks for checking in on our podcast, where we focus on key social issues facing our country today, with just a little lean to the left. Now, our topic today is racism, that scourge on our society that continues despite progress that's been made. Why is that the case? Why is that happening? Stay with us.

[00:00:23] Our guest today is J. D. Mass, author of a new book called Race for What? A White Man's Guide to Healing Racism from Within. His book focuses on understanding and addressing racial injustice. J D's, an activist and entrepreneur who's been influenced by his experiences within the black community and firsthand encounters with racism. 

[00:00:51] Raised in a diverse community in St. Louis, JD witnessed the effects of discrimination and cultural differences. Igniting a profound curiosity about the root causes of bigotry. and racism. With a doctorate in organizational psychology, JD became involved in white anti racism groups in Los Angeles, and then in St. Louis. 

[00:01:17] He was inspired by a black man involved in the movement for justice, who challenged him to identify the steps to healing racism. That led J. D. to write the transformative book. Race for what? Which includes lessons from his journey and seven steps to healing the harms of racism in our world.

[00:01:39] JD, hey, thanks, buddy, for joining us on the Lean to the Left podcast. 

[00:01:43] Thank you very much, Bob, for having me. 

[00:01:47] Oh, I'm thrilled to have you. I appreciate it. Now, first tell us a little bit about your journey and why you decided to do this work focusing on racism in America.

[00:02:00] Okay my journey, and I'll try to synopsize this best I can, started from birth. My parents I'm the oldest of three children. My parents desired to raise their children in and around black community. They wanted us to have an experience that they did not have growing up here in St. Louis. And so I was born in Philly.

[00:02:24] They moved here when I was four, and we moved next door to who became my best friend and their family, and it was grandmother, mother, aunts and uncles living in the house and and my friend and his brothers, and I became a part of that family every single day would, be next door at their place, or they were over at my place, And so from that, I developed friendships with many black friends and to experience what was life like and how I was treated when I was with them, how I was treated when I was not with them.

[00:03:01] And started developing a curiosity. Why would racism even have started and exist? 

[00:03:08] I find that remarkable that your parents deliberately did that. They must have been just incredible people, really. 

[00:03:19] I like to think 

[00:03:19] I don't know too many people that would deliberately move into a neighborhood like that specifically to give their kids that experience.

[00:03:30] That just, to me, that just is a remarkable thing. And, 

[00:03:33] and it's interesting because I've even asked my dad why, and he, Couldn't explain the why as much as he could explain that he felt like standing up when he went, to his Ivy League University, stood up for equality there. He, his father, although I struggled with his father in many ways his father did fight for black construction workers to get equal pay to white construction workers here.

[00:04:02] On my mother's side. She had a great relationship. She came from a level of wealth where they had a gardener and a housekeeper and she had great relationships with them and saw when her twin brother was killed in a car accident at 15, her father transformed because he had the black employees coming in the back door, how hurt they were and closer they were to his son, and he never wanted to have them come in the back door again because they felt the loss of his child more than the friends and co workers coming in the front.

[00:04:38] And that had a profound effect on her watching that happen. 

[00:04:42] That's amazing. Really is. Now, how did all of this affect your life's work, 

[00:04:49] So one, I got to notice how I would go 15 minutes in one direction and be in a very different culture. And because of that, I started to think, almost like I had a purpose that was given to me because I was doing something so rare and had opportunities to experience both.

[00:05:12] But the impact of racism, the. The discrimination, I should say the, I didn't even understand racism yet, but the impact of discrimination and bigotry and seeing it, right? I would see people not be able to take something back to the mall, meet me in the parking lot, I would go back to the same person with that same item and no problem be able to exchange it.

[00:05:36] And so just witnessing that and experiencing that Where some of those that have been isolated from other cultures would deny, easily deny, Oh, it's not that bad. Oh, race, it ended long ago. Slavery ended. Jim Crow ended. What do you, what else do you want? You didn't, they didn't have that experience.

[00:05:56] And so that just made me think this has to be my life work. 

[00:06:01] Okay. I'm curious to know you said that the black kid that lived next to you, Was your best friend? Still is. Was he in the same school, the same grade as you? 

[00:06:16] Yes. Yes. So the school district, our community was literally 50% white, 50% black, and maybe there was a, one to 2% Asian, but the black and white was about even.

[00:06:28] My school district was 85 percent black. And as you got into middle and high school, it was over 90 percent black. And I had a great experience there, but he, him and his older brother were, Even when I wasn't around my protectors as well, right?

[00:06:45] One I'm five, three. So beyond being the white kid, he's six, three, my best friend. And so when the movie twins came out with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito we initially grabbed ahold of that concept. And that was us. 

[00:07:02] JD, you're my guy. You're my guy, man. 5'3 I'm 5'5 All right. And, I know what it's like to be picked on at school.

[00:07:10] Yeah. And I never had a, I never had a protector though. I went to high school in France. My dad was in the military. And it was an army sponsored school for army brats. My roomie, my roommate, a kid named Gary Mace, Gary was my size, exactly.

[00:07:34] So the two midgets had this room in the dorm, right? And down the hallway was this very popular, football star type and his buddies. And they would come into our room. at night and say, we're going to kick your ass. We're going to do this. We're going to do that, trying to scare us and everything.

[00:07:59] But Gary and I stood together and protected each other. I don't know why I told you that, but I don't know. 

[00:08:07] Interestingly enough when I went to Ohio state, I call it my first freshman year of college. It was in a mixed dorm, but it was also the athletic dorm. So And our floor in the suite next to us was a football lineman for the Ohio State, right?

[00:08:23] He was a freshman red shirt at the time, and we were freshmen. And I had some, I was still the smallest kid in my suite of eight students. And yet he and I got into it just in a playful banter, and we took it out in the hallway and we boxed. And here I am, this five foot three and a half, I'd love to round up to five four guy, and he's six foot five, three hundred pounds, and every time he hits me, I get knocked back two steps and everybody's watching me go at him, and I earned the respect of the floor that way, just from That's 

[00:08:56] cool.

[00:08:57] That reminds me, you said you're five foot three and a half, and you rounded up to five four. My mom was, Four foot, 11 and three quarters, and she rounded it up to five feet. Of 

[00:09:07] course, that's a big difference. 

[00:09:09] Big difference. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Hey, I read we're probably going to jump around a little bit here, but I read where you were influenced early in life by Martin Luther King.

[00:09:21] Can you tell us about that? 

[00:09:23] In the third grade, when we learned about Dr. Martin Luther King, I didn't understand why he was famous. 

[00:09:29] Okay. 

[00:09:30] It didn't register to me wasn't everybody taught this? That was our dining room table conversation. What are we, why is he famous for something so obvious?

[00:09:42] And that's what also opened my eyes to, oh no, everybody does not believe this. Oh no, this is more of a problem. Okay. He was famous because there was a much greater struggle for people and because I had such a welcoming into black community into black households it really made me go why does he have to stand up for this can't we all see that there's such a level of love and peace and desire for community that we're not, we're missing out on. And that was part of what really influenced me. 

[00:10:16] How old were you at that point in your life? 

[00:10:19] From the third grade was when I started to open my eyes to that and through, through middle school, high school and whatnot is when I started to feel like, because I knew this, I have to do something with it.

[00:10:31] That's amazing that you did that. You were a little kid, really. Wow. Wow. When I was your age, I was thinking more about where was I going to find night crawlers to go fishing?

[00:10:45] I definitely was thinking about which G. I. Joe character I wanted and what not as well. But it definitely just, it made me open my eyes because I thought it was so simple and we honored his talent.

[00:10:58] Such greatness. Yeah. This didn't make sense. 

[00:11:02] Yeah. That's amazing. I had an opportunity to I was a journalist in New Jersey and Martin Luther King came to came to Trenton where I was where I worked and for United Press International. And I got to go with him in a march. I walked right next to him in the front of this crowd of people.

[00:11:23] And to this day, it's one of the proudest. Oh, yeah. I can only imagine that. Yeah. It was an incredible thing. And I remember the news conference was held in a hotel room. They were, it was all packed with people. People smoking and everything else. Which we don't experience today. Because people don't do that anymore.

[00:11:45] But anyway, it was an amazing, it was an amazing experience. And, yeah. It wasn't long. I think it was like two weeks before he was shot when that. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. At any rate, enough of my stories. We're here to talk to you. What are some of the lessons that you've learned throughout this journey that you've been on?

[00:12:07] So one when I was with Nelly, who's my close childhood friend and on the cover of my book. And I worked with him in the music industry. I really got to see some of the cultural practices at a high impact of power level and decisions and how they were made with people's lives that kind of opened and jarred me.

[00:12:34] And then I started to learn when I went to work with a an African Hebrew Israelite community in Israel of African Americans that left the United States and went and set up a village of peace there. And it was named the village of peace by the Israeli people. It was an all vegan diet.

[00:12:54] It was all about peace and health and wellbeing and getting back to our connection to the earth. I learned that there was so much more, even though I was anti racist in my mind, there was so much more to an unintentional community and culture that had to be, that had to go into it where I came in Oh, I want to be a part of this.

[00:13:17] This is great. Never experienced this before. Here's what I want to do. Here's how I can help. And they went, slow down, kid. You just got here. You don't, you haven't done anything yet. Let me, let us teach you how to intentionally build this. And because of that was what led to me having some steps of change, which the first one is.

[00:13:40] Don't take a step. You don't have to come in and fix the problem. I know we feel sometimes like it's our burden to carry. Our burden is to get out of the way of leadership and learn a new way of living that we can, how to interact and share and serve and support one another systemically. 

[00:14:01] Okay, and we're going to get into your seven steps in just a minute.

[00:14:05] I want to first ask you, though, if you believe that racism has worsened in this country in recent years and If so, why is that? 

[00:14:16] I think so. One, I would define racism somewhat differently than how it's used, right? Dr Claude Anderson defined it as the race to control resources. And it started off as the European race to control resources as colonization took place.

[00:14:37] But if you look at it from a control resources standpoint, then bigotry and discrimination and prejudice all become parts of it. But it's really about how do we share from those resources? Yes, I feel like it's gotten worse only in the sense that if you don't heal something, an injury, say, say you really tear up your knee ligaments and whatnot, if you do not go through the proper intentional Practices of healing that knee that you continuing to walk on it is going to make it worse, right?

[00:15:14] continuing to Try to overcompensate for it on one other and your other leg starts to get unbalanced your back starts to get unbalanced Things start to continue to get worse if we don't focus and intentionally heal the harm of it And that's what I think we are where we are today and we're tired of it, but we haven't dealt with the healing You 

[00:15:35] Yeah, for sure.

[00:15:38] Okay, so let's talk about those seven steps that are in your book Steps to Healing Racism. 

[00:15:45] Step one is don't move. Seek understanding. And it goes back to my, hey, I got it, and I've seen this in working in white anti racism spaces. People saw the George Floyd tragedy or the, before that it was Michael Brown or whatever it was.

[00:16:07] And, or they spoke to someone they worked with who was very scared when the police pulled them over and they don't have those fears. And all of a sudden it triggered an aha moment and now you feel responsible. And it's okay. I need to go fix this. If you just figured it out that it exists, how do you even know what to fix?

[00:16:28] So let's start to untangle some of the why would racism have even started hundreds of years ago? Let's talk about that kind of what is racism and whatnot. So learning the why and how it was done is step one. Acknowledging the harm of the culture and beyond just the anti blackness of racism.

[00:16:52] Some of the practices that we've developed in our, there's there's an approach to it that's harmful at times, right? Indigenous cultures and Aboriginal cultures Become one with things. So as they go into new environments, they scope out the environment and the approaches, how do I fit in?

[00:17:11] Our approach from a Eurocentric standpoint is very individualistic. How do I make this environment work for me? And so you start to manipulate things. I use Oppenheimer as an example. We're the only culture that wanted to take the atom, the essence of life. And say, how do I separate this? How do I play God in this scenario and make these weapons to choose who can live and who can die?

[00:17:35] How do I do these things? And he said it, we maybe we shouldn't have learned science. No, we should have learned science. We just shouldn't have been wanting to control science rather than come in and be a part of it. And so acknowledging our harmful ways and how we treat each other, acknowledging the amount of competition that we see.

[00:17:56] Coming from a area of scarcity in the north compared to where there's an abundance, how people treat each other differently, acknowledging those harmful things because, we're so divided and that's partially because of this level of competition we feel throughout everything that we do, right?

[00:18:15] Our economic system says there's a scarcity on the planet. Therefore, we should, we're all in competition for resources. Thanks. 

[00:18:22] Right. 

[00:18:23] In a village to raise a child mentality, there's more than enough. We have enough to share. We don't need to compete for resources. Everybody come get what you need. And that's a different approach that I feel is important to acknowledge.

[00:18:36] Step three would be to let go of our ways of this competition, let go of the privileges that we seek out or the positioning, let go of the power that we seek to control, because if you and I felt like this water bottle, and I'm holding one up for those that are just listening, the last of the water that we have, Then Bob, as much as this has been a great friendly conversation, we're probably not going to be as friendly if this is all the water we think is left, right?

[00:19:08] And so letting go of some of those things allows us to open up to newer and different cultures. And let's acknowledge we don't learn about other cultures in our education system, in our media. We just learn we're the greatest country in the world. And. And we don't have to learn about anybody else.

[00:19:30] So we don't even know how great we are because we refuse to even compare ourselves analytically to other cultures. So if we let go, as step three, then step four, we can appreciate other cultures and the value that they bring. We can appreciate that black folks, through all of the different types of, Of atrocities from slavery to Jim Crow to the FHA and being excluded from opportunities that grew wealth have never tried to retaliate in mass ways. They just want peace and to be allowed the same opportunities and us to get out of their way of blocking them from having the opportunity to develop their culture and live their lives peacefully. Okay. That's something we can appreciate. And if you appreciate the value of others, then the healing, the repairing that harm, step five, comes at a greater value to us because we can be, we can see our own humanity and learning our own humanity as a valuable step.

[00:20:36] Step six and seven are together. Step six is once we've gone through that, now we can learn a new mind and a new way of intentionally building a culture that is going to be much more enjoyable for us all because we're sharing and we're serving one another and we're supporting one another.

[00:20:53] There's a much better party at the end of that culture, and that would be manifesting humanity. And that's step seven. 

[00:21:02] You experienced that yourself, didn't you? Yeah. And growing up, yes, in that neighborhood with the kid next door that became your best friend. Yes. You experienced that very thing, right?

[00:21:13] Very thing. Yes, exactly. And that's why I feel like I should share that so that others can want that experience. 

[00:21:24] Now, what's your take on the political situation today and the role that racism plays in it? 

[00:21:30] My take is that You have one because of this level of competition because of this zero sum game of scarcity approach We only have two parties as if there's two thoughts that prevail on us all and there's so many thoughts so we're limited in that standpoint.

[00:21:52] I feel like both of them have a level of anti blackness in its root. One has this replacement theory kind of thing, we're better off, we're superior, right? And there's so much confusion in our, and rhetoric used and one liners used in both of our, in our politics structure. And that stems back to saying that, hey, less melanin in my skin made me superior to you.

[00:22:19] And if we had to develop. And that's a lie, Bob. So if we had to develop a system that supports that, then our system has to be lies. And there's just so much to uncover. That we have to, it's so much to untangle if we try and go through the web of lies that we have been taught to live that both parties have a ways to go, which is why, to me, letting go is so important to see the value in others as a way to push.

[00:22:48] Now, I definitely think that That the left has a much greater opportunity for that because of a level of diversity. We haven't reached the level of healing that I would like to see. And so we still feel like this Americanism is still so great without putting it to the test of what other cultural experiences would look like.

[00:23:13] Now, do you, I don't know if this is a fair question or not, if it even makes any sense, but it occurred to me, so I thought I'd ask you. Please. And that is, do you think racism is involved in the controversy over whether President Biden should remain as the Democratic candidate? 

[00:23:30] I think race, I think president Biden has a deeper level of racism than the left would like to give him credit for because he was so heavily involved in the imprisoning of black population and creating laws that were towards that.

[00:23:46] And I get it to this point now, but I do think there's a level of him. And I think Hillary did this as well, where they use. The idea that we care about you more than they do. When Hillary ran against Bernie in the first primary in 2016, the Flint, Michigan debacle had and all of the water crisis had just been unturned.

[00:24:11] And she was so passionate about what she would do to imprison these people and to fix Flint. And when she beat Bernie, she stopped talking about that. Cause she didn't need the black vote to beat Trump in her mind. And so it's this usury thing, right? Biden made so many promises and he's look, he's done some great work in diversifying his cabinet and things of that nature that have to be acknowledged.

[00:24:36] Which would not have happened under Trump. But he never even apologized for his participation and to see a person in his position apologize would give a lot of more of us permission and a feel of ease that we could also be apologetic for our harmful past. Instead, he went from promising black folks, this will be done for you to promising America, this will be done for you.

[00:25:01] And black folks will benefit. In a certain way, but until we intentionally heal that injury, it's still there. And I think that goes unnoticed because. Oftentimes, and Trump said this in a very racist, dumb way, but this idea that we're giving black jobs to immigrants, I have found when I lived in Los Angeles, we love to talk about our diversity, but it's easier to go be nicer to someone who you haven't harmed because you don't have the responsibility to them.

[00:25:37] So we can be nice to them. be great and welcoming to other cultures of color, but we don't have the same history and now we look good because we're diverse, but we haven't dealt with the anti blackness racism that's caused so much harm and brought healing and invested intentionally into that healing.

[00:25:56] Do you think Kamala Harris will ever make it to the White House as president? 

[00:26:02] So right now, I think the vote is for or against Trump, honestly. I think, I don't know that, one, it's very late in the game. I think that she could win against Trump because I think. What the Republicans have done in, in how they've used the court system has been criminal in the anti abortion.

[00:26:27] I think that there's things that need to be just stated from a level of stating this is why Biden partially for me is frustrating to get out of the way. Even if you are the better candidate, we need to push a certain agenda of healing that you're in the way of, because you're still looking like this old ass white man, excuse my language.

[00:26:51] That won't let go of control and recognizing, okay, so you've done a great job past the torch so that can be in. Because it's still, for a younger generation, looks like, what are these two old white guys gonna tell me about my future? 

[00:27:08] Exactly right. Exactly right. It really is time that we need to turn the page and have younger people in charge.

[00:27:16] I really believe that. And you know what? Joe Biden is exactly the same age as me. Yeah. And I could not fathom Having to do what he has been doing. And doing it Pretty well. Huh. But now he's come to the point in his life where I just don't know that he can do it anymore. And as time goes on, it's going to get worse.

[00:27:45] And I hate to say it, but if he's suffering from any form of dementia, it's not going to be long. He's not going to even know where the bathroom is. And 

[00:27:55] even if he's not just the fact that there's enough of an image of that, 

[00:27:59] yeah, 

[00:28:00] let's us know it's time for him to not make this about him.

[00:28:05] Really, absolutely. 

[00:28:07] If he cares about this country really, as he says he does then he needs to make that decision in my opinion. Yeah. All right. Donald Trump loves to say that he did more for people of color when he was president than any other president in history. What do you think about that?

[00:28:26] I think if you use the lowest, I used to, Get mad. I'm not as bad as such and such as would be our argument. That's such the argument often. Yeah, as bad as this. What does that mean? You're really how bad you still are in process, right? And so you're like, it doesn't mean. He still doesn't have enough to stand on to say that he is actually pro repairing the harm of our culture and actually into liberating black culture into having their own ability to build their own and control their own destinies.

[00:29:05] Yeah. Okay. What needs to happen to reduce these deep political divisions that we all face these days. 

[00:29:14] I think at some level the younger generation needs to, there needs to be a balance of mentorship of older generation, young generations, ideas, their understanding of where they want to go with the world.

[00:29:31] I think we need to experience a greater level of intentional healing. I think it would do us all a great to experience humanity on a different level. We are so caught up in a system that greed has taken over, where it's so hard to even have food. You can't afford food in certain areas. Can't afford rent.

[00:29:55] These things have gotten out of control to where this is what the earth provides us, not what our system should be providing us. Yeah. 

[00:30:05] It's occurred to me and I don't know, I've talked to this about a couple of my with a couple of my guests and I think they think I'm crazy, there's so much concern these days about the inflation and the increasing cost of food and cars and just everything that we buy.

[00:30:23] But then you see that the corporations are making more money than they ever did. And so there's a, to me, there's just a sense of greed that's going on. And I just wonder if, Some of the higher prices aren't being done deliberately in order to give Democrats a hard time.

[00:30:50] What do you think? 

[00:30:50] I would say absolutely. I would also just say that this, we are so lost in our monetary systems that we don't even, Like it started off as a medium for exchange and that was that exchange was energy either energy in the source of goods, energy in the source of our services, but it was just for exchange and so it to take that out and start to control it on a level that's not in the flow of exchange our energy.

[00:31:28] As a level of. Of greed and evil to it that has never been addressed because we have this idea that you can just go and it's competition is good for us all. And no collaboration is also good for us all. Cooperation is good for us all sharing is good for us all .Competition is great in card games.

[00:31:52] It's fun as can be. Competition's great on the basketball court and the tennis court. It's really fun. It doesn't need to be in whether or not you can get a mango at a grocery store or whether or not you can afford a roof over your head that doesn't leak. There's just some reshuffling to our approaches that need to happen.

[00:32:16] Okay, so do you have anything more you want to talk about your book? Because I want to ask you about your podcast. 

[00:32:22] No, please, go for it. 

[00:32:23] Yeah, tell me about your podcast and how it fits into everything that you're doing. 

[00:32:28] So the podcast I accidentally met a gentleman on LinkedIn on my phone. His head popped up in a very small circle, bald head.

[00:32:40] He spells his name, K O R Y, Kory May. And I was working with a Koty May and had lost touch with him over the course of a couple of years. Very busy during COVID. And I see that Kory May has an accomplishment. And I went, Hey, Koty May. Yeah. K May, congratulations. And he went, Hey, thanks.

[00:33:01] I'd like to get to know you more. And I thought, what? And so I looked up and this wasn't Corey May for me, this is Corey May from Iowa city, Iowa. So we Talk. And I said, Hey, I would like to do a podcast. Just don't know what it's about yet on the angle. And that night I went to bed and I thought, man, if he's a black man that grew up in Iowa city, Iowa, he probably grew up about a bunch of white folks.

[00:33:29] I grew up around a bunch of black folks. What if we just got to know each other on the podcast as the audience gets to know us? And experience and talk about our experience being that minority. Talk about the different power dynamics of one being from the power. 

[00:33:47] And 

[00:33:49] then how does that shape our views of the world?

[00:33:52] And that's what we formed. It's called same difference podcasts. 

[00:33:56] What a great idea. 

[00:33:58] Yeah. 

[00:33:58] I have to check it out. And you guys listen to this thing, check it out. It sounds like it really, Good idea, especially if you care about all this kind of stuff that we're talking about these days. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

[00:34:11] Where can people find your book and how can they contact you if they want to reach out? 

[00:34:18] There's a lot of contact information through social media, the phone number an email or on my website, race for what. com it's F O R what. com. So race for what. com. The podcast is samedifference. life. is the website. And again, you can reach us through the social media links on that. And then there's, you can go to any of the online places to buy the book, or even your local bookstores typically have a way of ordering it through our printer and it can get to you within, a week or so.

[00:34:55] Okay. So once again, the name of the book is 

[00:34:57] race for what it's a white man's journey and guide to healing racism from within. 

[00:35:05] Thanks very much, JD, for being with us. I appreciate it. And I immensely enjoyed talking with you. 

[00:35:10] Thank you for having me. Likewise. It was a lot of fun. Yes. And 

[00:35:14] Yeah. And from one short guy to another.

[00:35:17] Yeah, absolutely. We have to stay united. 

[00:35:20] Yeah, we got to stay united. We got to keep on keeping on. 

[00:35:24] Yes. 

[00:35:25]