February 4, 2021 • 50 mins
For the premier of The Laverne Cox Show, Laverne talks with one of her biggest influences, researcher, speaker, author and storyteller Dr. Brené Brown. They talk candidly and vulnerably (of course) about the state of the country and what we must do and *stop* doing to heal our current division. Spoiler alert: We are all humans.
Dr. Brené Brown is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of five books including Dare to Lead, Braving the Wilderness and The Gifts of Imperfection.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with my Heart Radio. Welcome to the
Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. I am an actress, producer, storyteller,
seecret of truth, justice, love and empathy. Now I wanted
to have a podcast. You have conversations similar to the
(00:25):
ones I'm having in private and I'm not seeing happen publicly.
We are talking everything from dating while trans dating while
a black woman, dating while forty, a lot of dating,
but also trauma, resilience, beauty standards and social capital, Beyonce,
you name it. Now, I want this podcast to amplify
(00:46):
certain subjects, topics and folks who are doing work that
makes me think, challenges or inspires me. Being involved in
engaged dialogue with another thinking human being has raised my consciousness,
lifted my spirits, and shifted my molecules. Years ago, a
therapist of mine said to me in our very first
therapy session that the only thing that we can control
(01:08):
as individuals is our own perception and our own behavior.
That's it. That's all we can control, our perception and
our behavior. It is my hope that the Laverne Cock
Show is a place, a space that foster's perspective that
might inspire new behavior in each of us that gets
us closer to becoming the very best version of ourselves.
(01:32):
Dehumanization is the birthplace of every genocide recorded through history.
If you take a group of people that are different
than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities
from them, it gives humans a capacity for violence towards them,
which actually we're not neurobiologically wired two maim, rape, hurt,
and kill other humans. So in order to do that,
(01:55):
we have to go through a system of de humanization.
And then once you strip people of your humanity, you're
able to do all kinds of things to folks. On
this episode, we are talking about how we can move
away from us versus them, the pervasive division that plagues
our country right now. It has been so painful for
(02:16):
me watching not only how divided we are, but how
we demonize and dehumanize folks who might disagree with us
around some political issue. And so my guest today talks
about rehumanization. She's someone whose work has shaped so much
of my thinking and giving me so many tools to
(02:39):
live a more wholehearted life. Of course, I'm talking about
the incomparable Dr Burne Brown. Burnde A. Brown has described
herself as a researcher, storyteller. She studies courage, vulnerability, shame,
and empathy. She's authored five number one New York Times bestsellers.
She has a Netflix special. She is a shame research
(03:00):
here with a Netflix special. Honey, Yes, she is so badass.
And she is also the host of two different podcast
Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. When I thought about
having a conversation about how divided we are as a
nation and moving beyond that division, I knew I wanted
to have that conversation with Renee. By the way, just
for context, we recorded this after the election in November.
(03:24):
Please enjoy my conversation with Dr Bryne Brown. Hello, Dr
Brine Brown, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. How
are you doing today? I am you know, I got
to see you twice this week, so it is just
the best week of my life. I'm doing great. Uh.
I'm excited to be with you and interested to see
(03:46):
where our conversation goes. I am as well. I have
a ton of notes and you know me, I do
we have this We have this mutual friend her talk
and he's like, I've never seen you anxious about a
podcast you do. And I'm like, she knows my work
(04:09):
better than I do. This is this is interesting. So
I wanted to start with where you start in your book,
dare to lead with the Marcus Aurelius quote, which what
stands in the way becomes the way. And the reason
I want to start there is because um, in my
in the ways in which I armor up the things
(04:31):
that keep me in the way of vulnerability, which is
a key component of your work. You define vulnerability as risk, uncertainty,
and emotional exposure. And oh my god, the deep levels
of which I use perfectionism as armor. It's so deep.
So I'm trying to actually let go of perfectionism as
(04:52):
I have this conversation. I'm trying to take the armor away.
But I want to start by asking you what is
getting in the way right now for you around vulnerability
and courage that needs to become the way. So note
to self. She is not going to throw any softball questions. Okay,
we're just starting. We're we're just starting right there. I mean, yeah,
(05:14):
I'm sorry, Yes, it's us, it's us. Right. So, Um,
what I noticed is that you're in the the arena
like hardcore right now, you have two podcast unlocking us
dare to Lead. You are in the arena in a
way where you're having really uncomfortable conversations around race as
a white person, which I think is so crucially important.
(05:38):
And I just imagine that that has to be so
thorny and so constantly vulnerable and constantly like getting your
ass handed to you right that, Like, you're in the
arena in a way that I don't even feel like
I can even muster being in right now. I look
and I'm just like, oh my god, how she doing this?
(05:59):
So I guess there's the question of how you in
the arena the way you are right now? And then
like how are you doing with all of this, Like
with all the challenges everything that you have going on.
You've taken on so much in the work and the
research and building your business and this leadership place. What girl,
what's going on? I think something feels weird for me
(06:22):
right now. I don't know. I don't know what's going on.
I I talk so much about taking the armor off
and saying what you believe, even when your voice shakes.
I love that quote, and I'm doing it and there
are consequences. There's for sure, I have experienced consequences for
doing it. But and I always get flagged when I
(06:45):
start thinking things like, well, I don't give a ship
when anyone thinks because you know we're neurobiologically, why or
to care what people think? Right? I guess I feel
like I'm at a point in my life where if
you need to leave or unfollowed or do your thing,
(07:05):
because we're at a fork in the road and I'm
taking one path and you're taking another, and you need
something else from me, go with God, like I wish
you a lot of luck. I mean, I think you know,
there are a lot of white women who follow me
who have unfollowed me. We've had a lot of that,
you know. When I interviewed Biden for the podcast, when
(07:27):
I put my support behind the Biden Harris ticket, when
I talked about the pervasive dehumanization from the Trump administration
and how regardless of politics, I can't abide by it.
The fact that I have kind of walked into very
hard conversations about race and and also really specific conversations
about the ongoing betrayal of Black women by white women.
(07:52):
I think it's if I can't have an opinion because
you want me to just shut up and keep writing
books that help you, then you don't have a deep
understanding of my work. Like and I've never been here before, Laverne,
I've never been here. I've been tentative. But I think
(08:14):
there's a hundred possibility that we can both have been
shaped and moved by my research and have very different
political opinions. There is zero percent possibility that you could
understand my work and think I'm going to shut up
because I'm making you uncomfortable. Absolutely, I just floored by
(08:36):
hearing you say that you've had so many white women
on follow you and feel betrayed on a certain level.
And I'm just thinking it has to be that has
to be hard. I mean, it has to be insanely difficult.
But there's a few things that you said. I mean,
I think the ongoing betrayal that black women feel from
white women, can I just can we just can we
(08:57):
go there right a little bit? Because I think that
piece we saw that you know, so many white women
again voted for you know, forty five and a lot
of black women have had a lot to say about
that Black folks in general. We've talked to a lot
of black women publicly. It's been really beautiful. Where are
you with all that? Right now? So I think both
questions are they're related. I really I don't know how
(09:20):
I got here. I really don't. I don't. I need
to probably understand it better. I can't betray me first anymore.
I have to rank order belonging to myself before making
you pleased with me. And they're not. You know, they're
not all white women. Of course I'm a white woman,
(09:41):
like they're not all white women. But but that's the
majority of folks who have not followed me. That's the
majority of folks who have sent me pictures burning my books,
you know. And yeah, and it's I think it pisces
me off because I think the language I hear a
lot is you disappointed me. You're such a disappointment. You
(10:02):
really let me down. Why do they say, is it
clear why they're disappointed? Because you know, because you change
my life, or you got me through my divorce, or
you help my my kid in rehab. And now you
have to go blab in your mouth about politics. And
so I think that idea that you've disappointed me and
what that had the potential to do to me in
(10:25):
my life for decades. You know, my response to it
maybe a year ago was fuck you, And my response
to it now is I don't care m that I
disappointed you, because I'm not here to please you. And
so the fact that you think I'm here to please
(10:47):
you is exactly the white woman problem. Oh speak speak.
There's a very deep complexity to the way many of
us as white women, are raised, which is you will
never ever, you will never sees real power over your body,
(11:09):
over your future, over your mind. You'll never seize it.
So the best thing that you can do is catch
the drippings of the men who have it and learn
how to be the right kind of woman to access
the power from them. And your first call to duty
(11:30):
is to protect them at all costs, because if that
power is not dripping off them, where do you think
you're going to catch it? And we're really raised that way,
I mean, and it's not sometimes it's subtle, but sometimes
it's really not subtle. It's you know, stay than be smart,
but not smarter than you know. I remember, just if
you'll indulge me a story from growing up. I remember,
(11:53):
you know, I grew up in a tough family, tough
Texas family. I grew up hunting and fishing and throwing
a football. And I remember this awkward year where I
kind of started developing and I could throw the football
far and I could spit far, and I was and
I still am, an amazing shot, and I can fish
(12:14):
like your life depended on it. And I remember all
of a sudden this disease where I could do that
better than some of the boys my age. And then
all of a sudden, I was sent in the house
to get supper ready because you know, in the words
of my father and his father and his father, now sis,
(12:36):
don't get sideways here, you know, let these boys throw
that ball. And so I remember saying, oh, now the
focus is how to set the table and make sure
your chicken salad has all white meat in it, and
you chopped the carrots a certain way or the salary
a certain way. And that's our upbringing. And so I
(12:56):
think what you see at the polls is is you
know how they say, like racist white people in the
United States will sign their own death certificates, They will
vote for policies that crush them no safety nets, no
health care before they organize and fight for things that
(13:19):
they deserve because they feel too much like entitlements. And
those are folks of color, right, women have that same
upbringing I think around protect the men with the power.
It's your only access to it. And and let me
let me tell you this part. And you've mastered the
(13:39):
art of getting that power from men. M The interesting
thing about it that women can use the capital of beauty, right,
that these things have a shelf life. That's so often
the things that we as women are told to rely
upon to hook a man into. You know, we get
older and gain weight or we just get older. And
and what's so that is if that is what we've
(14:02):
based our existence on as women of all races, that
when the rug is sort of pulled out from under us,
it's not always, but it often is. Right, we found
out our husband is cheating, We find out like we
don't have that same capital anymore because we've capitulated to
patriarchy basically and white supremacy, and they're very much connected.
(14:23):
But so brilliant about what you said is that relationship
between white supremacy and patriarchy and capitalism isn't there too.
Oh yeah, I mean I don't think you can extract
I mean, let's as you would say, go bell hooks
on this. I don't think you can extract capitalism because
I think part of the contract is, you know, and
I'm talking about very traditional relationships. I'm talking about traditional patriarchal,
(14:47):
sexist there's a financial contract. I stay young and fit,
and you make the money. And what ends up happening
is that contract. Man, It's a Faustian bargain. It is
a deal with the devil himself, you know. But I
think that's what you see with white female support. Um.
(15:08):
And I want to separate people of color from conversations
about being black in America because I think there is
so much anti blackness within communities of color outside speak
speak And so I do think that white women are
(15:29):
I want to I wanna be really careful with my
words here. If if white men are the banking system
for white supremacy, white women are the culture police of
white supremacy, Explain, Explain, it's the performative cry and quiver
when confronted with a black man. It's the mammification of
(15:53):
black women. Oh can you can I crawl in your lap?
And you can, you know, stroke my hair and braid
it and save me. They're real cultural police around maintaining
a system. It's killing them, killing us. Oh yeah, So
what I would love to do, because the empathetic piece
(16:13):
right around these white women, what would be our generous
take on what is going on there? First of all,
what is what is so beautiful about what the uncertain
place that you seem to feel like you're in now
is that it feels like the embodiment of being the wilderness.
For those who know Braving the Wilderness and give examples
(16:35):
in that book, and you talk about having the courage
of your values, it feels like you're right in the
middle of what it means to be the wilderness, to
be in that place where you have rejected. If you're
not with us, you're against us, and you are really
in the space of belonging to yourself and the price
is high that the reward is great. You know, my
(16:57):
angelaric moment that that you quote in Raving the Wilderness.
I guess I just want to sort of affirm that
from my perspective, that that's what it feels like. And
I guess shivers about it because this is the difficult
work that we must do. But then going to that
generous place, to that empathetic place for white women. Let's
(17:17):
just keep talking about white women for now, I guess.
But is it the thing of trying to fit in
this sort of poe belonging, because you know, we can
talk about the theoretical aligning with power, and you know
black folks do it too, right, Black folks will align
with white supremacies, will align with certain power structures. It's
sort of a way to armor up into self protect
what what's at the core? Because I think that if
(17:40):
we were not going to be able to move past
us versus them, how divide it we are if we
can't sort of begin to parse out the psychology of
what is going on at the core of all this.
And I've thought it's maybe it's fear, But what do
you think is at the heart of this? So first
let me just say that I I don't know what's
going on with me right now, and so you're analysis
(18:02):
of it. I've always told you, how what have I
told you that it would be the best role you
could ever play in a million years? What would you
be playing? Do you remember what I told you? I
don't remember. What did you say? What did you say?
You should play a therapist? Very good. Let you get
that in the universe. Now. I remember. So I felt
therapized by you a little bit, because I do think
(18:23):
there's some truth and I've been trying to figure out
where I am right now. I think what's happened Lavern is.
I think I've made peace with the wilderness. And I
think that there have been times in my life that
I would brave the wilderness and then I'd come back
to my bunk or belonging. And now I've just set
up camp here. This is actually going to be my life.
And you know what, it's great. It's like Coachella out here.
(18:46):
All all the weirdos are out here. When we talk
about the white women who support Trump, or we talked
about that, and Trump is not the problem to me
at all. Trump is the manifestation of a problem, right, Yeah.
And I have to tell you, to be honest with you,
if people knew my politics, really knew them, I'm much
more moderate than most people think, and the far left
(19:07):
take me on as much as the far right, to
be honest, So what I would say is, when we
talk about those white women. It is ultimately, to me
about two things. It is about belonging, the veracity at
which the like I don't even know how to use
the words like, the force at which people will come
(19:32):
at you in this cohort if you do not tow
the line. It's not just that they will come after
you and push you out. They will come after your husband,
your wife, your kids. They will come for you because
you are tipping something sacred. And so it is about
(19:52):
belonging versus fitting in. And it is about a d
socialization that on purpose does not involve the interrogation of power,
because you have to foster some sort of critique of
the status quo, and some people just aren't built for that.
(20:18):
Let's take a short break. When we come back, let's
talk about expectations and how they keep us from living authentically.
Welcome back. Burnet Brown says that stories are data with
the soul. So here's a little bit of data from
(20:38):
my personal life with a lot of soul. I'm spending
a conversation with a man that I've known for twelve
years now, and we dated like twelve years ago, and
we were sitting here in my apartment like a month
or so ago and talking about some very difficult stuff actually,
and he's been dating trans women since like twenty seven
years of dating trans women. If some people in his life, no,
(21:01):
but most people don't know. And we were talking about
like how his dad was a cop, and you know,
he's like, I can't let people know that I like
trans women because I was the firstborn son and there
were all these expectations around masculinity, were all these things
where I was just like, but you have known trans
women for twenty seven years. So many of us for
decades have had the courage to be ourselves. We've lost
(21:23):
our families, lost friends, and he's seen this. But then
he's so afraid of losing the approval of his father,
having people judge him. I just didn't even get it.
But then I was thinking, he just has never questioned
the status quo. He's never been in a space I
think because he is white and male. But the deep
(21:46):
sad part of it is that at this point in
his life, there were all these expectations around who he
was supposed to be and it has not worked out.
He doesn't have the money that he wanted to have,
and he's you know, saying, hasn't a kids, and so
what was so sad to me is that he kind
of his toe this line and not really fully belonged
(22:08):
to himself. And I think, and sometimes those people who
are willing to question the system and question the expectations,
I guess about who they're supposed to be. Maybe those
people are more able to brave the wilderness. Thinking about
like where you are right now, and I'm just thinking
about people burning your books. I can't even imagine how
that must feel. And then I think about how I've
(22:30):
been in the wilderness, like my whole life in a way,
because I've made choices, right, I've made choices that have
I've always been an outsider and that's just been my life.
But a lot of people aren't willing to do that.
It's scary to be in the wilderness, and it's it's
scary to go alone. It's scary to question authority. Yes,
(22:50):
because look, here's the thing, Like, is it sad when
someone sends me a picture of you know, the gifts
of imperfection and flames? It did take my breath away
a little bit, But after I thought about it, I'm like, now,
I can you know, join the list of great band
booked writers. You know, that's great, But think about the
privilege of choosing the wilderness versus being shoved in it
(23:17):
because of your gender identity, or your race or a
million other reasons. So why interrogate power if what's at
risk is your privilege? Absolutely right. So if I'm going
to interrogate power to better understand my experience on the margins,
(23:40):
that's one thing. But you're going to ask me to
walk into the wilderness and interrogate power, and I got
nothing but shipped to lose unless I believe existentially in
a better world, our justice. I think you have to
believe in those things. I mean, why else would someone
do it? Right? Absolutely? You know. I have a group
(24:02):
of girlfriends called the COTS, the Council of Trans Sistors,
And we were hanging out and one of my girlfriends,
she's a white trans woman and was raised very privileged.
She was assigned mail at birth and was told that
she could conquer the world and rule the world. And
she was talking about sort of feeling a loss of
that sort of care free, you know, assumed male sort
(24:25):
of privilege that she had. And it was me and
two other black trans women, three of us black trans
women I hadn't. We were like, do you do you
have a sense of We had no. There was absolutely
no point of reference because I never felt and this
is the thing, every every trans experience isn't the same,
but like how race can change these things. I was like,
I never felt I never felt male, I never felt
(24:47):
perceived as mail, and I certainly didn't feel privileged right
like that. No one was like saying the world is
your oyster because you're like this gender non conforming, like
poor kid from Alabama like that. That was not like,
that was not a part of my upbringing, and so
I didn't feel like I had anything to lose when
I transitioned. And I think about the men who date
trans women as well, and like, I've just been so
(25:08):
aware over the years how so many of them don't
stand by our sides, particularly ones who do have privileges,
because it's hard, you know. I think there's a lot
of assumptions that people make about men who date trans women,
and most of them, I found, are not willing to
face those those assumptions that people make about them. Right
because people disavow the womanhood of trans women, they assume
(25:31):
the men that we date must be gay because they
don't acknowledge our womanhood. And a lot of the men
that I've I've dated met over the years are not comfortable.
They're straight identified men. They are straight. There are men
who are tried to women. They're not comfortable with people
thinking they're gay. Um, but the thing of giving up
privilege is is a huge part of it. But the
divided nature of of where we are right now and
(25:53):
the ways in which you alluded to, how dehumanizing our
current president, for I don't like to say his name,
how do humanizing his rhetoric has been in in policies?
I would also like to say, And in Braving the
Wilderness you talk about rehumanization and I had never seen
anyone sort of talk about that and allude to that,
(26:15):
And I thought that was so beautiful and so crucial
for us getting back to each other, getting moving past
us versus them, and becoming less divided. How do we
really fully live in a space that we don't demonize
into humanize people who disagree with us across the political spectrum?
And that is like really really hard work, and I
(26:37):
and I certainly do it imperfectly. What are your thoughts?
I think the word that we're not saying right now
is walking into the wilderness interrogating power and the structures
and the systems that are working just how they were designed. Shame, Oh, shame,
speak right. I think there's a very short line between
(27:01):
acknowledging privilege, interrogating power, and feeling shame and and being
shamed by other people for interrogating it because you're messing
with the system that they're propping up. And so maybe
what I'm experiencing in the wilderness with all my weirdo
friends have decided to set up camp out here with me,
(27:22):
is that there's a lot of shame resilience in the wilderness. Um.
But I think in terms of dehumanizing, I will tell
you this and this is this has been tough for
me as the election results came in over those you know,
the days and days I banned as many people on
the left is on the right from my social media accounts,
(27:45):
because when this administration calls immigrants, we uses the investation.
Let's just back up a little bit and do like
some like some thinking and teaching about this. So dehumanization
is the birthplace of every gin side recorded through history.
If you take a group of people that are different
than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities
(28:07):
from them, it gives humans the capacity for violence towards them,
which actually we're not neurobiologically wired to maim, rape, hurt,
and kill other humans. So in order to do that,
we have to go through a system of de humanization.
So the most classic understanding of that, or or evidence
of that, would be a very very powerful marketing campaign
(28:31):
by the Nazis and Nazi Germany late thirties around Jewish people,
you know, using the words infestation, using you know, animals,
rodents to describe. And then once you strip people of
your humanity, you're able to do all kinds of things
to folks. And so we thought with slavery in the
United States as well. Yeah, of course, and we still
see that, we still see the de humanization. Right. But
(28:54):
if you call forty five, as you'll say, a pig,
I'm banning you. And here's why. I'll tell you a
story that a lot of people don't know about me,
because you know, I'm a cusser. I'm a great cusser.
I got I got every permeation of the F word
that you it's something you've never even heard of. But
I haven't said the word b I T c H
since nineteen four. So, however many years at six twenty
(29:18):
six years, and I'll tell you why. I had a professor,
Karen Stout when I was in getting my graduate degree
in social work, who studied femicide, the killing of women
by intimate partners. And part of the project we did
with her was analyzing court transcripts of not only mostly
men who were of them were men who killed female partners,
(29:40):
but also sexual assault, and in over these cases, the
last word the woman heard was b I T H,
which is a dehumanizing term, right It means dog. Yeah,
And so I am an equal opportunity blocker for dehumanizing.
(30:01):
So one way I think we come back to each
other is that is not okay if the left becomes
the dehumanizing their own version of the maga hat people,
I'm not interested in that world. We see it already.
I mean there's I mean, I don't think there's an
equivalent to maga on the left, but I think there's
a lot of folks who I see it constantly, people
(30:22):
who identify as politically progressive or leftist. When they say
they're disgusting, they're horrible, They're awful like these are. This
is language that I see constantly from people on the left.
Now it feels to humanizing to me. It's dehumanizing now
personally in terms of empathy and embracing the other side
for me. Too soon, I'll be honest with you now,
(30:44):
I'm just gonna be asked with you, why is it
too soon? Let's say you and I. Let's say you're
one of my relatives, but you are a conservative, conservative Republican.
I am a I'm a moderate. Actually, I'm probably a
moderate independent, to be honest with you. And if you
and I want to go at it around social security,
(31:05):
lack boxing, medical policy, immigration policy, that's great. But when
you're politics by definition stripped me of my humanity, it's
too soon for an empathic embrace. It's probably not safe.
It's not safe, right, It's not safe. And so that's hard.
(31:29):
And there was a real underbelly of white supremacy, white nationalism,
violence that came along with this administration. Has nothing to
do with conservative politics. It has nothing to do with
constitutional conservatism. It has to do with a lack of
(31:51):
respect for democracy and people. And I can't embrace that
right now. I don't trust you. Yeah, I feel that
I understand that. What I wonder what's interesting to me
right now is thinking about sort of the history of
the conservative politics so much of both Democratic and Republican politics.
(32:13):
Race is just a huge, huge part of it. What Nixon,
specifically in the Republican Party did at the time was
used race as a way to galvanize white men at
the time, and white men who sort of avoid majority
and we know a lot of white women came along
for the ride. And so we can say that conservative
politics around, you know, fiscal conservatism and all, that's not
(32:35):
really about race, but it is that party since sixty
eight has always used race as a way to get
folks to vote against their own economic interest, as a
way to scapegoat and fearmonger, and that is something that
the Republican Party has consistently done. Now, I would say
I would say I'm an independent. I wouldn't say I'm
(32:55):
I'm moderate in any way, but I'm definitely independent. But
I think the Democratic Party, at least more recently has
sort of given lip service to being anti racist. And
because our politicians are sort of bought and paid for
by special interests, they're not really doing anything for poor
and working people, right, so that like the most marginalized
(33:16):
people are still not really being helped by either party.
And trying not to be cynical, but this year I've
been very cynical thinking about where we are. The will
of the people isn't really being done by the folks
in power, and and so much of what the US
versus Them is about is about people in power using
the divide and conquer strategy, and folks are just buying
(33:38):
into it. It feels like there's a couple of things, right.
There's the interpersonal piece of what can we do to
not dehumanize, to rehumanize, to have empathy and compassion and
generocity towards each other on an interpersonal level. But then
if we start thinking about its structurally, there's all this
power and all of this money involved in keeping us
(33:59):
divided it. You know, I think to me it comes
down to the use of power by leadership. The Republican
Party is the power over party, and the Democratic Party
is the power with empower to empower within party. I
don't know that that's the case. You know, power over
works from this belief that power is finite, where power
(34:22):
with empower to work from a position that collaboration is
important because power is infinite when shared power over uses
fear and blame. Just keep people afraid and tell them
who's fault it is that you're afraid. So there's two
things that I think are key to real power, and
no one's going to like them, which are representation and reparations.
(34:46):
So I believe in those two things absolutely. I believe
in representation until we have a government that looks like
the people it serves in terms of not just race, ethnicity,
and gender, but class amen And then what are those
reparations looks like? Are we talking racial reparations? Are we talking? Oh?
I think we start with racial reparations, and I think
(35:08):
the reparations should come in the form of funded healing
of trauma and the dismantling of systems that perpetuate the trauma.
I think we have to have some trauma work. Yeah. Absolutely,
it's time for a quick break. When we come back,
(35:29):
Brian and I talked more about what our society needs
to heal. Welcome back to my conversation with Dr Burne Brown.
Let's just pick up where we left off. I've been
doing a lot of trauma work on my own and
(35:52):
when I was doing a deep dive back into your
work and looking at the ways in which we armor
up around vulnerability. Um, victim of viking lens, right, My
understanding of it is the victim biking lens. It's about
not allowing ourselves to be victims. So the victim biking
lens is a binary kind of way of looking at things.
And it really is like, I have to be a
fighter at all cost, so it has incredible judgment towards vulnerability,
(36:16):
and so I must be armored up or I'm gonna die.
It keeps us in a constant fight flighter freeze. It's
a lens that keeps us always in this high zone,
that keeps us always away from anything that might seem vulnerable.
You're saying your work, it's really often a lens that
trauma survivors use, and that that way of arming ourselves
(36:38):
is a trauma response, but then also sort of keeps
us in in the US versus them. It keeps us
in that like fight flight of freeze. It keeps us
in this place of not real resilience, and it it's
almost a re traumatizing ourselves. What what Yeah, I think,
I think everything you said, is true. I mean, do
(36:59):
you know what it does to our body? You do?
But does everyone know what it does to our body
to stay in survival mode? Like that's a gear in
our neurobiology that's meant to be used a couple of
times in our lives. It's not a gear you're supposed
to live in. Yeah, what was deep for me with
(37:22):
all thinking about all the trauma work that I've been
doing that I'm deeply aware of the ways in which
I've used stress hormones like my whole life, because I've
constantly been in this victim Viking lens because of my
historic trauma, that trauma piece, that survival, fight flight or
freeze kind of response that feels like it's also tied
(37:43):
to belonging. You say in your work love and belonging
or immutable needs of human beings, and that in the
absence of that there's always suffering. But then also there's shame.
Shame is the intensely painful belief we have a boy
ourselves that were unworthy of connection and belonging, and so
the shame response when we've been shunned and we don't
have a sense of belonging our bodies responded to being
(38:06):
shamed in the same way they response to trauma, so
that we still have that same release of cortisol, of
of stress hormones and we come out fighting right, And
so then the way in which we're like at each
other's throats is really like, are we all just in
a perpetual fight flight or freeze? I mean the psychological piece. Obviously,
I think it's important to understand that power wants us
(38:27):
to be doing this to each other. But it's not
sustainable to be constantly a fight flight or freeze. It's
not sustainable to constantly beat each other's throats, and it's
not wholehearted living. It's not like we can't be happy.
I mean, the research shows that we're more sorted now
than we've ever been before. We're also more lonely. Yeah,
isn't that incredible finding that as we sort ourselves into
(38:49):
these ideological bunkers where I'm just around people like me.
I go to church, I worship, I go to the
grocery store. I don't talk to anyone that doesn't agree
with me. And you think that would few connection. But
the only thing that tracks in terms of social psychosocial characteristics,
what tracks exactly with sorting is loneliness. Yeah, and so
(39:15):
I don't think that we're collectively in a place of
joy or love or empathy right now. I don't think
how we are is sustainable. I have to say that
the biggest casualty of the last four years is how
divisiveness was used to maintain and create power, and that
(39:39):
we fell in line like we didn't transcend it. And
some of the worst, most violent perpetrators of the divisiveness
were not only given cover, but they were armed by
this administration literally and figuratively. Yeah. And so if you
(40:03):
think about what we're up against as a culture systems
or systems, right, and so if you think about it
as a family system, the very first thing that we
know that I know is a social worker that would
have to happen in a family system where there are
deep fault lines and betrayals and rage and fear is
(40:26):
the creation of physical and emotional safety. Mm. So that's
the very first thing that has to happen. In physical
and emotional safety. That means you have to address all
kinds of violence, racial, economic violence, gender violence. Yeah. So
the very first thing I would do is there would
(40:49):
be definitely a Pandemic Task Force in place, and we've
already seen Biden do that. Biden Harris has done that,
because we have to be physically safe. The second thing
I would do is if you incided terror in a
single person with a goal of scaring everyone that belonged
to that group, you would be classified as a domestic
terrorist and you would be held accountable accordingly. So if
(41:14):
you burn across at a black church, that's an act
of terrorism. If you taught hurt go after a trans
woman on the street, that's an act of terrorism. And
it's never if you think about terrorism as an international term,
and I looked this up a lot when I was
doing this research and talk to experts on terrorism, and
(41:34):
you know, terrorism is never about the single act of violence.
It's about the fear that instills in people. And normally
successful acts of terrorism are simple acts of violence that
over time create divisions and communities in terms of how
to respond to that terrorism. And so the terrorists work
is very simple, just to do enough that's random against
(41:56):
a citizen so that people then get at each other's
throats around how to solve for it. And that's what
we're seeing today. And I think what's useful about that
is understanding that we can begin to think about domestic
terrorism and a relationship to black folks in the police right,
that like, black people have been experiencing terrorism from the
police since the police have existed in the United States.
(42:19):
And I think for people who don't know your work
really well and they're like, oh, this magasan extreme, But
I think what you're talking about is what does accountability
begin to look like? We have completely there's no accountability,
and so we can't brave, we can't really be in
our full integrity without accountability, there's just new have been
no consequences. And so it sounds like what you're talking
(42:42):
about with this classifying people's terrorists is what does accountability
begin to look like in the United States of America?
And then how do we own that history? How do
we own the story? I think it was one of
the most powerful things I've heard this year. You're a
famous quote. When we deny our stories, those stories define us.
And when we own our stories, we can write a
brave new end. And we have not owned the story
the legacy of racism and white supremacy in the United States,
(43:04):
and that owning that story requires some accountability that we
haven't done. And so that's what i'm that's what I'm
hearing from what you said. Yeah, I am, And so
I think, you know, simple acts of accountability. Help me understand,
Somebody walk me through why there is no national database
of police officers who have used excessive force. And I
(43:27):
think if you dig deep enough, it's police unions protection
of bad you know. But does that serve good cops? No? No, no,
it doesn't serve anybody. Everything. When you look at the
history of policing, which I think a lot of us
have been doing, they have been commissions and ultimately the
police protect themselves. Historically, that's what every commission comes down to,
(43:47):
police protecting themselves and sort of assuaging or mitigating accountability
around their behavior. That is the history of policing in
the United States. But I would like to remind you
of I think you was your second Ted talk when
you talked about people sort of attacking your appearance and
how that like started this crazy shame storm for you.
(44:08):
It feels like you have really done a lot of
work to build a lot of shame resilience. We know
from your research that appearance, embody image is a number
one shame trigger for women still And do you feel
that or have you come to a new place with that? Oh,
I'm at a new place with it. I think it's
you know, there's this line in the Big Book that
says one of the promises of recovery is the gift
(44:31):
of neutrality, where you're neither running away from something as
fast as you can, nor are you running toward it.
And the condition for neutrality is to be in fit
spiritual condition. And so I think my goal is I
can't do this work without being in fit spiritual condition.
(44:53):
You know, I'll have twenty five years so next year. Um,
And for me, the neutrality is the booze was easy,
this ust was harder. And the bread basket is a
mother trucker. You know, I've been in the bread basket.
I've been in the you know sugar or the little
Debbie snack cakes. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, as
long as I stay in fit spiritual condition, I have
(45:16):
developed a neutrality where I'm not running toward investigating who
said that and what can I find out about them?
And what's my great comeback. I'm not shutting down social
that I need to be on for work. I just
feel a neutrality, but maintaining fit spiritual condition in this
world is har hard for me. It's sleep, it's eating well,
(45:39):
it's praying, it's resting well. It's being connected with the
people I love and valuing them over the strangers um
whose opinions I can take too seriously sometimes. So I'm
a work in progress leaver and as you know, as
m I can, I tell you I made a gratitude
list for the first time in a really long time today,
and it's something I used to do everything single morning
(46:00):
when I wait, be the first thing I do, like
at least list five things I'm grateful for or five
things I'm manifesting, and I haven't been doing it. And
I notice a difference the way I've armored up this
year around perfectionism, chronic numbing, all the all the ways
we armor up. It's been deep and like, just leaning
into gratitude this morning shifted so much and acknowledging that
(46:23):
I'm still struggling with vulnerability and that that is really
at the heart of so much of this. And everyone
who does a deep diving your work, your leadership work,
every single aspect of your work, it always comes back
to vulnerability. Always, and it's and it's does it just does.
So on the podcast for every episode, I wanted to
(46:47):
have this question what else is true? What else is true?
Comes out of both and it's really about what we
focus on. If I'm in pain and I focus on
that pain, that's all I'm going to feel. But if
I focus on something that is light and joyful and hopeful,
that can become a resource. And it's not that the
(47:07):
pain goes away, it's that this other thing can help
mitigate that pain. What else is true? It's all about
the resilient part of us. So that is what this
question and this segment is about. It is about cultivating
resilience within ourselves and remembering that what we focus on
(47:29):
becomes the thing. So we can change what we focus
on and change our energy, change how we feel. We
have the power to change. So burne bround for you today,
what else is True? I make a lot of mistakes.
I'm often afraid. But one thing that I do believe
(47:51):
is true is I am proud of my willingness to
always try to do the next right thing. I think
that's true of me. I think I am trying to
do the next right thing. Yeah, And that is a
resilient place. That's a that's a beautiful place. Thank you
so much, Burnee. You can find Burnee Brown in so
(48:13):
many places. She's a New York Times bestselling author. There's
many books you can read. She has the podcast Unlocking Us,
the podcast Dare to Lead. I Love. One of my
favorite moments of yours is the Power of Vulnerability audio book.
I literally, I think for about a year I listened
to it every day. This is why I know your work.
So for about a year I listened to it every day,
(48:34):
and I was touring and I needed it. The Power
Vulnerability is something I've shared with a lot of my
friends and they've just it's changed their lives. Yeah, Power Vulnerability.
Check out Bernie Brown. Thank you so much. This has
been Thank you, Laverne. This has been everything. Wow, Bernie
give us so much to think about, as always, what
(48:56):
it means to rehumanize each other feels key. Berne has
this great acronym that I find so helpful. It's big
B I G. And it basically stands for what boundaries
be need to be in place for me to maintain
my integrity. I and make the most generous G assumption
(49:18):
about you and braving the Wilderness. Berne not only invites
us to brave the wilderness, but to become the wilderness.
The price is high, the reward is great. Thank you
(49:42):
for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. If this episode
resonated with you, please leave a review, rate, subscribe, and
share it with your friends. Next week, we'll be talking
to Demona Hoffman about dating over forty yes and forty
eight years old and proud. We'll see an next week.
You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne
(50:04):
Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until
next time, stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show
is the production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
(50:25):
to your favorite shows.
Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with my Heart Radio. Welcome to the
Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. I am an actress, producer, storyteller,
seecret of truth, justice, love and empathy. Now I wanted
to have a podcast. You have conversations similar to the
(00:25):
ones I'm having in private and I'm not seeing happen publicly.
We are talking everything from dating while trans dating while
a black woman, dating while forty, a lot of dating,
but also trauma, resilience, beauty standards and social capital, Beyonce,
you name it. Now, I want this podcast to amplify
(00:46):
certain subjects, topics and folks who are doing work that
makes me think, challenges or inspires me. Being involved in
engaged dialogue with another thinking human being has raised my consciousness,
lifted my spirits, and shifted my molecules. Years ago, a
therapist of mine said to me in our very first
therapy session that the only thing that we can control
(01:08):
as individuals is our own perception and our own behavior.
That's it. That's all we can control, our perception and
our behavior. It is my hope that the Laverne Cock
Show is a place, a space that foster's perspective that
might inspire new behavior in each of us that gets
us closer to becoming the very best version of ourselves.
(01:32):
Dehumanization is the birthplace of every genocide recorded through history.
If you take a group of people that are different
than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities
from them, it gives humans a capacity for violence towards them,
which actually we're not neurobiologically wired two maim, rape, hurt,
and kill other humans. So in order to do that,
(01:55):
we have to go through a system of de humanization.
And then once you strip people of your humanity, you're
able to do all kinds of things to folks. On
this episode, we are talking about how we can move
away from us versus them, the pervasive division that plagues
our country right now. It has been so painful for
(02:16):
me watching not only how divided we are, but how
we demonize and dehumanize folks who might disagree with us
around some political issue. And so my guest today talks
about rehumanization. She's someone whose work has shaped so much
of my thinking and giving me so many tools to
(02:39):
live a more wholehearted life. Of course, I'm talking about
the incomparable Dr Burne Brown. Burnde A. Brown has described
herself as a researcher, storyteller. She studies courage, vulnerability, shame,
and empathy. She's authored five number one New York Times bestsellers.
She has a Netflix special. She is a shame research
(03:00):
here with a Netflix special. Honey, Yes, she is so badass.
And she is also the host of two different podcast
Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. When I thought about
having a conversation about how divided we are as a
nation and moving beyond that division, I knew I wanted
to have that conversation with Renee. By the way, just
for context, we recorded this after the election in November.
(03:24):
Please enjoy my conversation with Dr Bryne Brown. Hello, Dr
Brine Brown, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. How
are you doing today? I am you know, I got
to see you twice this week, so it is just
the best week of my life. I'm doing great. Uh.
I'm excited to be with you and interested to see
(03:46):
where our conversation goes. I am as well. I have
a ton of notes and you know me, I do
we have this We have this mutual friend her talk
and he's like, I've never seen you anxious about a
podcast you do. And I'm like, she knows my work
(04:09):
better than I do. This is this is interesting. So
I wanted to start with where you start in your book,
dare to lead with the Marcus Aurelius quote, which what
stands in the way becomes the way. And the reason
I want to start there is because um, in my
in the ways in which I armor up the things
(04:31):
that keep me in the way of vulnerability, which is
a key component of your work. You define vulnerability as risk, uncertainty,
and emotional exposure. And oh my god, the deep levels
of which I use perfectionism as armor. It's so deep.
So I'm trying to actually let go of perfectionism as
(04:52):
I have this conversation. I'm trying to take the armor away.
But I want to start by asking you what is
getting in the way right now for you around vulnerability
and courage that needs to become the way. So note
to self. She is not going to throw any softball questions. Okay,
we're just starting. We're we're just starting right there. I mean, yeah,
(05:14):
I'm sorry, Yes, it's us, it's us. Right. So, Um,
what I noticed is that you're in the the arena
like hardcore right now, you have two podcast unlocking us
dare to Lead. You are in the arena in a
way where you're having really uncomfortable conversations around race as
a white person, which I think is so crucially important.
(05:38):
And I just imagine that that has to be so
thorny and so constantly vulnerable and constantly like getting your
ass handed to you right that, Like, you're in the
arena in a way that I don't even feel like
I can even muster being in right now. I look
and I'm just like, oh my god, how she doing this?
(05:59):
So I guess there's the question of how you in
the arena the way you are right now? And then
like how are you doing with all of this, Like
with all the challenges everything that you have going on.
You've taken on so much in the work and the
research and building your business and this leadership place. What girl,
what's going on? I think something feels weird for me
(06:22):
right now. I don't know. I don't know what's going on.
I I talk so much about taking the armor off
and saying what you believe, even when your voice shakes.
I love that quote, and I'm doing it and there
are consequences. There's for sure, I have experienced consequences for
doing it. But and I always get flagged when I
(06:45):
start thinking things like, well, I don't give a ship
when anyone thinks because you know we're neurobiologically, why or
to care what people think? Right? I guess I feel
like I'm at a point in my life where if
you need to leave or unfollowed or do your thing,
(07:05):
because we're at a fork in the road and I'm
taking one path and you're taking another, and you need
something else from me, go with God, like I wish
you a lot of luck. I mean, I think you know,
there are a lot of white women who follow me
who have unfollowed me. We've had a lot of that,
you know. When I interviewed Biden for the podcast, when
(07:27):
I put my support behind the Biden Harris ticket, when
I talked about the pervasive dehumanization from the Trump administration
and how regardless of politics, I can't abide by it.
The fact that I have kind of walked into very
hard conversations about race and and also really specific conversations
about the ongoing betrayal of Black women by white women.
(07:52):
I think it's if I can't have an opinion because
you want me to just shut up and keep writing
books that help you, then you don't have a deep
understanding of my work. Like and I've never been here before, Laverne,
I've never been here. I've been tentative. But I think
(08:14):
there's a hundred possibility that we can both have been
shaped and moved by my research and have very different
political opinions. There is zero percent possibility that you could
understand my work and think I'm going to shut up
because I'm making you uncomfortable. Absolutely, I just floored by
(08:36):
hearing you say that you've had so many white women
on follow you and feel betrayed on a certain level.
And I'm just thinking it has to be that has
to be hard. I mean, it has to be insanely difficult.
But there's a few things that you said. I mean,
I think the ongoing betrayal that black women feel from
white women, can I just can we just can we
(08:57):
go there right a little bit? Because I think that
piece we saw that you know, so many white women
again voted for you know, forty five and a lot
of black women have had a lot to say about
that Black folks in general. We've talked to a lot
of black women publicly. It's been really beautiful. Where are
you with all that? Right now? So I think both
questions are they're related. I really I don't know how
(09:20):
I got here. I really don't. I don't. I need
to probably understand it better. I can't betray me first anymore.
I have to rank order belonging to myself before making
you pleased with me. And they're not. You know, they're
not all white women. Of course I'm a white woman,
(09:41):
like they're not all white women. But but that's the
majority of folks who have not followed me. That's the
majority of folks who have sent me pictures burning my books,
you know. And yeah, and it's I think it pisces
me off because I think the language I hear a
lot is you disappointed me. You're such a disappointment. You
(10:02):
really let me down. Why do they say, is it
clear why they're disappointed? Because you know, because you change
my life, or you got me through my divorce, or
you help my my kid in rehab. And now you
have to go blab in your mouth about politics. And
so I think that idea that you've disappointed me and
what that had the potential to do to me in
(10:25):
my life for decades. You know, my response to it
maybe a year ago was fuck you, And my response
to it now is I don't care m that I
disappointed you, because I'm not here to please you. And
so the fact that you think I'm here to please
(10:47):
you is exactly the white woman problem. Oh speak speak.
There's a very deep complexity to the way many of
us as white women, are raised, which is you will
never ever, you will never sees real power over your body,
(11:09):
over your future, over your mind. You'll never seize it.
So the best thing that you can do is catch
the drippings of the men who have it and learn
how to be the right kind of woman to access
the power from them. And your first call to duty
(11:30):
is to protect them at all costs, because if that
power is not dripping off them, where do you think
you're going to catch it? And we're really raised that way,
I mean, and it's not sometimes it's subtle, but sometimes
it's really not subtle. It's you know, stay than be smart,
but not smarter than you know. I remember, just if
you'll indulge me a story from growing up. I remember,
(11:53):
you know, I grew up in a tough family, tough
Texas family. I grew up hunting and fishing and throwing
a football. And I remember this awkward year where I
kind of started developing and I could throw the football
far and I could spit far, and I was and
I still am, an amazing shot, and I can fish
(12:14):
like your life depended on it. And I remember all
of a sudden this disease where I could do that
better than some of the boys my age. And then
all of a sudden, I was sent in the house
to get supper ready because you know, in the words
of my father and his father and his father, now sis,
(12:36):
don't get sideways here, you know, let these boys throw
that ball. And so I remember saying, oh, now the
focus is how to set the table and make sure
your chicken salad has all white meat in it, and
you chopped the carrots a certain way or the salary
a certain way. And that's our upbringing. And so I
(12:56):
think what you see at the polls is is you
know how they say, like racist white people in the
United States will sign their own death certificates, They will
vote for policies that crush them no safety nets, no
health care before they organize and fight for things that
(13:19):
they deserve because they feel too much like entitlements. And
those are folks of color, right, women have that same
upbringing I think around protect the men with the power.
It's your only access to it. And and let me
let me tell you this part. And you've mastered the
(13:39):
art of getting that power from men. M The interesting
thing about it that women can use the capital of beauty, right,
that these things have a shelf life. That's so often
the things that we as women are told to rely
upon to hook a man into. You know, we get
older and gain weight or we just get older. And
and what's so that is if that is what we've
(14:02):
based our existence on as women of all races, that
when the rug is sort of pulled out from under us,
it's not always, but it often is. Right, we found
out our husband is cheating, We find out like we
don't have that same capital anymore because we've capitulated to
patriarchy basically and white supremacy, and they're very much connected.
(14:23):
But so brilliant about what you said is that relationship
between white supremacy and patriarchy and capitalism isn't there too.
Oh yeah, I mean I don't think you can extract
I mean, let's as you would say, go bell hooks
on this. I don't think you can extract capitalism because
I think part of the contract is, you know, and
I'm talking about very traditional relationships. I'm talking about traditional patriarchal,
(14:47):
sexist there's a financial contract. I stay young and fit,
and you make the money. And what ends up happening
is that contract. Man, It's a Faustian bargain. It is
a deal with the devil himself, you know. But I
think that's what you see with white female support. Um.
(15:08):
And I want to separate people of color from conversations
about being black in America because I think there is
so much anti blackness within communities of color outside speak
speak And so I do think that white women are
(15:29):
I want to I wanna be really careful with my
words here. If if white men are the banking system
for white supremacy, white women are the culture police of
white supremacy, Explain, Explain, it's the performative cry and quiver
when confronted with a black man. It's the mammification of
(15:53):
black women. Oh can you can I crawl in your lap?
And you can, you know, stroke my hair and braid
it and save me. They're real cultural police around maintaining
a system. It's killing them, killing us. Oh yeah, So
what I would love to do, because the empathetic piece
(16:13):
right around these white women, what would be our generous
take on what is going on there? First of all,
what is what is so beautiful about what the uncertain
place that you seem to feel like you're in now
is that it feels like the embodiment of being the wilderness.
For those who know Braving the Wilderness and give examples
(16:35):
in that book, and you talk about having the courage
of your values, it feels like you're right in the
middle of what it means to be the wilderness, to
be in that place where you have rejected. If you're
not with us, you're against us, and you are really
in the space of belonging to yourself and the price
is high that the reward is great. You know, my
(16:57):
angelaric moment that that you quote in Raving the Wilderness.
I guess I just want to sort of affirm that
from my perspective, that that's what it feels like. And
I guess shivers about it because this is the difficult
work that we must do. But then going to that
generous place, to that empathetic place for white women. Let's
(17:17):
just keep talking about white women for now, I guess.
But is it the thing of trying to fit in
this sort of poe belonging, because you know, we can
talk about the theoretical aligning with power, and you know
black folks do it too, right, Black folks will align
with white supremacies, will align with certain power structures. It's
sort of a way to armor up into self protect
what what's at the core? Because I think that if
(17:40):
we were not going to be able to move past
us versus them, how divide it we are if we
can't sort of begin to parse out the psychology of
what is going on at the core of all this.
And I've thought it's maybe it's fear, But what do
you think is at the heart of this? So first
let me just say that I I don't know what's
going on with me right now, and so you're analysis
(18:02):
of it. I've always told you, how what have I
told you that it would be the best role you
could ever play in a million years? What would you
be playing? Do you remember what I told you? I
don't remember. What did you say? What did you say?
You should play a therapist? Very good. Let you get
that in the universe. Now. I remember. So I felt
therapized by you a little bit, because I do think
(18:23):
there's some truth and I've been trying to figure out
where I am right now. I think what's happened Lavern is.
I think I've made peace with the wilderness. And I
think that there have been times in my life that
I would brave the wilderness and then I'd come back
to my bunk or belonging. And now I've just set
up camp here. This is actually going to be my life.
And you know what, it's great. It's like Coachella out here.
(18:46):
All all the weirdos are out here. When we talk
about the white women who support Trump, or we talked
about that, and Trump is not the problem to me
at all. Trump is the manifestation of a problem, right, Yeah.
And I have to tell you, to be honest with you,
if people knew my politics, really knew them, I'm much
more moderate than most people think, and the far left
(19:07):
take me on as much as the far right, to
be honest, So what I would say is, when we
talk about those white women. It is ultimately, to me
about two things. It is about belonging, the veracity at
which the like I don't even know how to use
the words like, the force at which people will come
(19:32):
at you in this cohort if you do not tow
the line. It's not just that they will come after
you and push you out. They will come after your husband,
your wife, your kids. They will come for you because
you are tipping something sacred. And so it is about
(19:52):
belonging versus fitting in. And it is about a d
socialization that on purpose does not involve the interrogation of power,
because you have to foster some sort of critique of
the status quo, and some people just aren't built for that.
(20:18):
Let's take a short break. When we come back, let's
talk about expectations and how they keep us from living authentically.
Welcome back. Burnet Brown says that stories are data with
the soul. So here's a little bit of data from
(20:38):
my personal life with a lot of soul. I'm spending
a conversation with a man that I've known for twelve
years now, and we dated like twelve years ago, and
we were sitting here in my apartment like a month
or so ago and talking about some very difficult stuff actually,
and he's been dating trans women since like twenty seven
years of dating trans women. If some people in his life, no,
(21:01):
but most people don't know. And we were talking about
like how his dad was a cop, and you know,
he's like, I can't let people know that I like
trans women because I was the firstborn son and there
were all these expectations around masculinity, were all these things
where I was just like, but you have known trans
women for twenty seven years. So many of us for
decades have had the courage to be ourselves. We've lost
(21:23):
our families, lost friends, and he's seen this. But then
he's so afraid of losing the approval of his father,
having people judge him. I just didn't even get it.
But then I was thinking, he just has never questioned
the status quo. He's never been in a space I
think because he is white and male. But the deep
(21:46):
sad part of it is that at this point in
his life, there were all these expectations around who he
was supposed to be and it has not worked out.
He doesn't have the money that he wanted to have,
and he's you know, saying, hasn't a kids, and so
what was so sad to me is that he kind
of his toe this line and not really fully belonged
(22:08):
to himself. And I think, and sometimes those people who
are willing to question the system and question the expectations,
I guess about who they're supposed to be. Maybe those
people are more able to brave the wilderness. Thinking about
like where you are right now, and I'm just thinking
about people burning your books. I can't even imagine how
that must feel. And then I think about how I've
(22:30):
been in the wilderness, like my whole life in a way,
because I've made choices, right, I've made choices that have
I've always been an outsider and that's just been my life.
But a lot of people aren't willing to do that.
It's scary to be in the wilderness, and it's it's
scary to go alone. It's scary to question authority. Yes,
(22:50):
because look, here's the thing, Like, is it sad when
someone sends me a picture of you know, the gifts
of imperfection and flames? It did take my breath away
a little bit, But after I thought about it, I'm like, now,
I can you know, join the list of great band
booked writers. You know, that's great, But think about the
privilege of choosing the wilderness versus being shoved in it
(23:17):
because of your gender identity, or your race or a
million other reasons. So why interrogate power if what's at
risk is your privilege? Absolutely right. So if I'm going
to interrogate power to better understand my experience on the margins,
(23:40):
that's one thing. But you're going to ask me to
walk into the wilderness and interrogate power, and I got
nothing but shipped to lose unless I believe existentially in
a better world, our justice. I think you have to
believe in those things. I mean, why else would someone
do it? Right? Absolutely? You know. I have a group
(24:02):
of girlfriends called the COTS, the Council of Trans Sistors,
And we were hanging out and one of my girlfriends,
she's a white trans woman and was raised very privileged.
She was assigned mail at birth and was told that
she could conquer the world and rule the world. And
she was talking about sort of feeling a loss of
that sort of care free, you know, assumed male sort
(24:25):
of privilege that she had. And it was me and
two other black trans women, three of us black trans
women I hadn't. We were like, do you do you
have a sense of We had no. There was absolutely
no point of reference because I never felt and this
is the thing, every every trans experience isn't the same,
but like how race can change these things. I was like,
I never felt I never felt male, I never felt
(24:47):
perceived as mail, and I certainly didn't feel privileged right
like that. No one was like saying the world is
your oyster because you're like this gender non conforming, like
poor kid from Alabama like that. That was not like,
that was not a part of my upbringing, and so
I didn't feel like I had anything to lose when
I transitioned. And I think about the men who date
trans women as well, and like, I've just been so
(25:08):
aware over the years how so many of them don't
stand by our sides, particularly ones who do have privileges,
because it's hard, you know. I think there's a lot
of assumptions that people make about men who date trans women,
and most of them, I found, are not willing to
face those those assumptions that people make about them. Right
because people disavow the womanhood of trans women, they assume
(25:31):
the men that we date must be gay because they
don't acknowledge our womanhood. And a lot of the men
that I've I've dated met over the years are not comfortable.
They're straight identified men. They are straight. There are men
who are tried to women. They're not comfortable with people
thinking they're gay. Um, but the thing of giving up
privilege is is a huge part of it. But the
divided nature of of where we are right now and
(25:53):
the ways in which you alluded to, how dehumanizing our
current president, for I don't like to say his name,
how do humanizing his rhetoric has been in in policies?
I would also like to say, And in Braving the
Wilderness you talk about rehumanization and I had never seen
anyone sort of talk about that and allude to that,
(26:15):
And I thought that was so beautiful and so crucial
for us getting back to each other, getting moving past
us versus them, and becoming less divided. How do we
really fully live in a space that we don't demonize
into humanize people who disagree with us across the political spectrum?
And that is like really really hard work, and I
(26:37):
and I certainly do it imperfectly. What are your thoughts?
I think the word that we're not saying right now
is walking into the wilderness interrogating power and the structures
and the systems that are working just how they were designed. Shame, Oh, shame,
speak right. I think there's a very short line between
(27:01):
acknowledging privilege, interrogating power, and feeling shame and and being
shamed by other people for interrogating it because you're messing
with the system that they're propping up. And so maybe
what I'm experiencing in the wilderness with all my weirdo
friends have decided to set up camp out here with me,
(27:22):
is that there's a lot of shame resilience in the wilderness. Um.
But I think in terms of dehumanizing, I will tell
you this and this is this has been tough for
me as the election results came in over those you know,
the days and days I banned as many people on
the left is on the right from my social media accounts,
(27:45):
because when this administration calls immigrants, we uses the investation.
Let's just back up a little bit and do like
some like some thinking and teaching about this. So dehumanization
is the birthplace of every gin side recorded through history.
If you take a group of people that are different
than you, that you fear, and you remove human qualities
(28:07):
from them, it gives humans the capacity for violence towards them,
which actually we're not neurobiologically wired to maim, rape, hurt,
and kill other humans. So in order to do that,
we have to go through a system of de humanization.
So the most classic understanding of that, or or evidence
of that, would be a very very powerful marketing campaign
(28:31):
by the Nazis and Nazi Germany late thirties around Jewish people,
you know, using the words infestation, using you know, animals,
rodents to describe. And then once you strip people of
your humanity, you're able to do all kinds of things
to folks. And so we thought with slavery in the
United States as well. Yeah, of course, and we still
see that, we still see the de humanization. Right. But
(28:54):
if you call forty five, as you'll say, a pig,
I'm banning you. And here's why. I'll tell you a
story that a lot of people don't know about me,
because you know, I'm a cusser. I'm a great cusser.
I got I got every permeation of the F word
that you it's something you've never even heard of. But
I haven't said the word b I T c H
since nineteen four. So, however many years at six twenty
(29:18):
six years, and I'll tell you why. I had a professor,
Karen Stout when I was in getting my graduate degree
in social work, who studied femicide, the killing of women
by intimate partners. And part of the project we did
with her was analyzing court transcripts of not only mostly
men who were of them were men who killed female partners,
(29:40):
but also sexual assault, and in over these cases, the
last word the woman heard was b I T H,
which is a dehumanizing term, right It means dog. Yeah,
And so I am an equal opportunity blocker for dehumanizing.
(30:01):
So one way I think we come back to each
other is that is not okay if the left becomes
the dehumanizing their own version of the maga hat people,
I'm not interested in that world. We see it already.
I mean there's I mean, I don't think there's an
equivalent to maga on the left, but I think there's
a lot of folks who I see it constantly, people
(30:22):
who identify as politically progressive or leftist. When they say
they're disgusting, they're horrible, They're awful like these are. This
is language that I see constantly from people on the left.
Now it feels to humanizing to me. It's dehumanizing now
personally in terms of empathy and embracing the other side
for me. Too soon, I'll be honest with you now,
(30:44):
I'm just gonna be asked with you, why is it
too soon? Let's say you and I. Let's say you're
one of my relatives, but you are a conservative, conservative Republican.
I am a I'm a moderate. Actually, I'm probably a
moderate independent, to be honest with you. And if you
and I want to go at it around social security,
(31:05):
lack boxing, medical policy, immigration policy, that's great. But when
you're politics by definition stripped me of my humanity, it's
too soon for an empathic embrace. It's probably not safe.
It's not safe, right, It's not safe. And so that's hard.
(31:29):
And there was a real underbelly of white supremacy, white nationalism,
violence that came along with this administration. Has nothing to
do with conservative politics. It has nothing to do with
constitutional conservatism. It has to do with a lack of
(31:51):
respect for democracy and people. And I can't embrace that
right now. I don't trust you. Yeah, I feel that
I understand that. What I wonder what's interesting to me
right now is thinking about sort of the history of
the conservative politics so much of both Democratic and Republican politics.
(32:13):
Race is just a huge, huge part of it. What Nixon,
specifically in the Republican Party did at the time was
used race as a way to galvanize white men at
the time, and white men who sort of avoid majority
and we know a lot of white women came along
for the ride. And so we can say that conservative
politics around, you know, fiscal conservatism and all, that's not
(32:35):
really about race, but it is that party since sixty
eight has always used race as a way to get
folks to vote against their own economic interest, as a
way to scapegoat and fearmonger, and that is something that
the Republican Party has consistently done. Now, I would say
I would say I'm an independent. I wouldn't say I'm
(32:55):
I'm moderate in any way, but I'm definitely independent. But
I think the Democratic Party, at least more recently has
sort of given lip service to being anti racist. And
because our politicians are sort of bought and paid for
by special interests, they're not really doing anything for poor
and working people, right, so that like the most marginalized
(33:16):
people are still not really being helped by either party.
And trying not to be cynical, but this year I've
been very cynical thinking about where we are. The will
of the people isn't really being done by the folks
in power, and and so much of what the US
versus Them is about is about people in power using
the divide and conquer strategy, and folks are just buying
(33:38):
into it. It feels like there's a couple of things, right.
There's the interpersonal piece of what can we do to
not dehumanize, to rehumanize, to have empathy and compassion and
generocity towards each other on an interpersonal level. But then
if we start thinking about its structurally, there's all this
power and all of this money involved in keeping us
(33:59):
divided it. You know, I think to me it comes
down to the use of power by leadership. The Republican
Party is the power over party, and the Democratic Party
is the power with empower to empower within party. I
don't know that that's the case. You know, power over
works from this belief that power is finite, where power
(34:22):
with empower to work from a position that collaboration is
important because power is infinite when shared power over uses
fear and blame. Just keep people afraid and tell them
who's fault it is that you're afraid. So there's two
things that I think are key to real power, and
no one's going to like them, which are representation and reparations.
(34:46):
So I believe in those two things absolutely. I believe
in representation until we have a government that looks like
the people it serves in terms of not just race, ethnicity,
and gender, but class amen And then what are those
reparations looks like? Are we talking racial reparations? Are we talking? Oh?
I think we start with racial reparations, and I think
(35:08):
the reparations should come in the form of funded healing
of trauma and the dismantling of systems that perpetuate the trauma.
I think we have to have some trauma work. Yeah. Absolutely,
it's time for a quick break. When we come back,
(35:29):
Brian and I talked more about what our society needs
to heal. Welcome back to my conversation with Dr Burne Brown.
Let's just pick up where we left off. I've been
doing a lot of trauma work on my own and
(35:52):
when I was doing a deep dive back into your
work and looking at the ways in which we armor
up around vulnerability. Um, victim of viking lens, right, My
understanding of it is the victim biking lens. It's about
not allowing ourselves to be victims. So the victim biking
lens is a binary kind of way of looking at things.
And it really is like, I have to be a
fighter at all cost, so it has incredible judgment towards vulnerability,
(36:16):
and so I must be armored up or I'm gonna die.
It keeps us in a constant fight flighter freeze. It's
a lens that keeps us always in this high zone,
that keeps us always away from anything that might seem vulnerable.
You're saying your work, it's really often a lens that
trauma survivors use, and that that way of arming ourselves
(36:38):
is a trauma response, but then also sort of keeps
us in in the US versus them. It keeps us
in that like fight flight of freeze. It keeps us
in this place of not real resilience, and it it's
almost a re traumatizing ourselves. What what Yeah, I think,
I think everything you said, is true. I mean, do
(36:59):
you know what it does to our body? You do?
But does everyone know what it does to our body
to stay in survival mode? Like that's a gear in
our neurobiology that's meant to be used a couple of
times in our lives. It's not a gear you're supposed
to live in. Yeah, what was deep for me with
(37:22):
all thinking about all the trauma work that I've been
doing that I'm deeply aware of the ways in which
I've used stress hormones like my whole life, because I've
constantly been in this victim Viking lens because of my
historic trauma, that trauma piece, that survival, fight flight or
freeze kind of response that feels like it's also tied
(37:43):
to belonging. You say in your work love and belonging
or immutable needs of human beings, and that in the
absence of that there's always suffering. But then also there's shame.
Shame is the intensely painful belief we have a boy
ourselves that were unworthy of connection and belonging, and so
the shame response when we've been shunned and we don't
have a sense of belonging our bodies responded to being
(38:06):
shamed in the same way they response to trauma, so
that we still have that same release of cortisol, of
of stress hormones and we come out fighting right, And
so then the way in which we're like at each
other's throats is really like, are we all just in
a perpetual fight flight or freeze? I mean the psychological piece. Obviously,
I think it's important to understand that power wants us
(38:27):
to be doing this to each other. But it's not
sustainable to be constantly a fight flight or freeze. It's
not sustainable to constantly beat each other's throats, and it's
not wholehearted living. It's not like we can't be happy.
I mean, the research shows that we're more sorted now
than we've ever been before. We're also more lonely. Yeah,
isn't that incredible finding that as we sort ourselves into
(38:49):
these ideological bunkers where I'm just around people like me.
I go to church, I worship, I go to the
grocery store. I don't talk to anyone that doesn't agree
with me. And you think that would few connection. But
the only thing that tracks in terms of social psychosocial characteristics,
what tracks exactly with sorting is loneliness. Yeah, and so
(39:15):
I don't think that we're collectively in a place of
joy or love or empathy right now. I don't think
how we are is sustainable. I have to say that
the biggest casualty of the last four years is how
divisiveness was used to maintain and create power, and that
(39:39):
we fell in line like we didn't transcend it. And
some of the worst, most violent perpetrators of the divisiveness
were not only given cover, but they were armed by
this administration literally and figuratively. Yeah. And so if you
(40:03):
think about what we're up against as a culture systems
or systems, right, and so if you think about it
as a family system, the very first thing that we
know that I know is a social worker that would
have to happen in a family system where there are
deep fault lines and betrayals and rage and fear is
(40:26):
the creation of physical and emotional safety. Mm. So that's
the very first thing that has to happen. In physical
and emotional safety. That means you have to address all
kinds of violence, racial, economic violence, gender violence. Yeah. So
the very first thing I would do is there would
(40:49):
be definitely a Pandemic Task Force in place, and we've
already seen Biden do that. Biden Harris has done that,
because we have to be physically safe. The second thing
I would do is if you incided terror in a
single person with a goal of scaring everyone that belonged
to that group, you would be classified as a domestic
terrorist and you would be held accountable accordingly. So if
(41:14):
you burn across at a black church, that's an act
of terrorism. If you taught hurt go after a trans
woman on the street, that's an act of terrorism. And
it's never if you think about terrorism as an international term,
and I looked this up a lot when I was
doing this research and talk to experts on terrorism, and
(41:34):
you know, terrorism is never about the single act of violence.
It's about the fear that instills in people. And normally
successful acts of terrorism are simple acts of violence that
over time create divisions and communities in terms of how
to respond to that terrorism. And so the terrorists work
is very simple, just to do enough that's random against
(41:56):
a citizen so that people then get at each other's
throats around how to solve for it. And that's what
we're seeing today. And I think what's useful about that
is understanding that we can begin to think about domestic
terrorism and a relationship to black folks in the police right,
that like, black people have been experiencing terrorism from the
police since the police have existed in the United States.
(42:19):
And I think for people who don't know your work
really well and they're like, oh, this magasan extreme, But
I think what you're talking about is what does accountability
begin to look like? We have completely there's no accountability,
and so we can't brave, we can't really be in
our full integrity without accountability, there's just new have been
no consequences. And so it sounds like what you're talking
(42:42):
about with this classifying people's terrorists is what does accountability
begin to look like in the United States of America?
And then how do we own that history? How do
we own the story? I think it was one of
the most powerful things I've heard this year. You're a
famous quote. When we deny our stories, those stories define us.
And when we own our stories, we can write a
brave new end. And we have not owned the story
the legacy of racism and white supremacy in the United States,
(43:04):
and that owning that story requires some accountability that we
haven't done. And so that's what i'm that's what I'm
hearing from what you said. Yeah, I am, And so
I think, you know, simple acts of accountability. Help me understand,
Somebody walk me through why there is no national database
of police officers who have used excessive force. And I
(43:27):
think if you dig deep enough, it's police unions protection
of bad you know. But does that serve good cops? No? No, no,
it doesn't serve anybody. Everything. When you look at the
history of policing, which I think a lot of us
have been doing, they have been commissions and ultimately the
police protect themselves. Historically, that's what every commission comes down to,
(43:47):
police protecting themselves and sort of assuaging or mitigating accountability
around their behavior. That is the history of policing in
the United States. But I would like to remind you
of I think you was your second Ted talk when
you talked about people sort of attacking your appearance and
how that like started this crazy shame storm for you.
(44:08):
It feels like you have really done a lot of
work to build a lot of shame resilience. We know
from your research that appearance, embody image is a number
one shame trigger for women still And do you feel
that or have you come to a new place with that? Oh,
I'm at a new place with it. I think it's
you know, there's this line in the Big Book that
says one of the promises of recovery is the gift
(44:31):
of neutrality, where you're neither running away from something as
fast as you can, nor are you running toward it.
And the condition for neutrality is to be in fit
spiritual condition. And so I think my goal is I
can't do this work without being in fit spiritual condition.
(44:53):
You know, I'll have twenty five years so next year. Um,
And for me, the neutrality is the booze was easy,
this ust was harder. And the bread basket is a
mother trucker. You know, I've been in the bread basket.
I've been in the you know sugar or the little
Debbie snack cakes. Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, as
long as I stay in fit spiritual condition, I have
(45:16):
developed a neutrality where I'm not running toward investigating who
said that and what can I find out about them?
And what's my great comeback. I'm not shutting down social
that I need to be on for work. I just
feel a neutrality, but maintaining fit spiritual condition in this
world is har hard for me. It's sleep, it's eating well,
(45:39):
it's praying, it's resting well. It's being connected with the
people I love and valuing them over the strangers um
whose opinions I can take too seriously sometimes. So I'm
a work in progress leaver and as you know, as
m I can, I tell you I made a gratitude
list for the first time in a really long time today,
and it's something I used to do everything single morning
(46:00):
when I wait, be the first thing I do, like
at least list five things I'm grateful for or five
things I'm manifesting, and I haven't been doing it. And
I notice a difference the way I've armored up this
year around perfectionism, chronic numbing, all the all the ways
we armor up. It's been deep and like, just leaning
into gratitude this morning shifted so much and acknowledging that
(46:23):
I'm still struggling with vulnerability and that that is really
at the heart of so much of this. And everyone
who does a deep diving your work, your leadership work,
every single aspect of your work, it always comes back
to vulnerability. Always, and it's and it's does it just does.
So on the podcast for every episode, I wanted to
(46:47):
have this question what else is true? What else is true?
Comes out of both and it's really about what we
focus on. If I'm in pain and I focus on
that pain, that's all I'm going to feel. But if
I focus on something that is light and joyful and hopeful,
that can become a resource. And it's not that the
(47:07):
pain goes away, it's that this other thing can help
mitigate that pain. What else is true? It's all about
the resilient part of us. So that is what this
question and this segment is about. It is about cultivating
resilience within ourselves and remembering that what we focus on
(47:29):
becomes the thing. So we can change what we focus
on and change our energy, change how we feel. We
have the power to change. So burne bround for you today,
what else is True? I make a lot of mistakes.
I'm often afraid. But one thing that I do believe
(47:51):
is true is I am proud of my willingness to
always try to do the next right thing. I think
that's true of me. I think I am trying to
do the next right thing. Yeah, And that is a
resilient place. That's a that's a beautiful place. Thank you
so much, Burnee. You can find Burnee Brown in so
(48:13):
many places. She's a New York Times bestselling author. There's
many books you can read. She has the podcast Unlocking Us,
the podcast Dare to Lead. I Love. One of my
favorite moments of yours is the Power of Vulnerability audio book.
I literally, I think for about a year I listened
to it every day. This is why I know your work.
So for about a year I listened to it every day,
(48:34):
and I was touring and I needed it. The Power
Vulnerability is something I've shared with a lot of my
friends and they've just it's changed their lives. Yeah, Power Vulnerability.
Check out Bernie Brown. Thank you so much. This has
been Thank you, Laverne. This has been everything. Wow, Bernie
give us so much to think about, as always, what
(48:56):
it means to rehumanize each other feels key. Berne has
this great acronym that I find so helpful. It's big
B I G. And it basically stands for what boundaries
be need to be in place for me to maintain
my integrity. I and make the most generous G assumption
(49:18):
about you and braving the Wilderness. Berne not only invites
us to brave the wilderness, but to become the wilderness.
The price is high, the reward is great. Thank you
(49:42):
for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. If this episode
resonated with you, please leave a review, rate, subscribe, and
share it with your friends. Next week, we'll be talking
to Demona Hoffman about dating over forty yes and forty
eight years old and proud. We'll see an next week.
You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne
(50:04):
Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until
next time, stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show
is the production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen
(50:25):
to your favorite shows.
Host
Laverne Cox
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