Episode 117: The Transformative Possibilities of Privilege

In this episode, Dr. Almitra Berry sits down with Jason Browne, a masterful storyteller and seasoned speaker. Jason has a book coming out along with a new podcast, and he recently captivated audiences with a TEDx talk offering a surprising perspective on the topic of both his book and podcast: The Transformative Possibilities of Privilege.

Guest Bio:
Jason Browne is a multifaceted individual with a diverse range of interests and talents. From kayaking to music-making, he has explored various creative avenues. After a 15-year career in the IT industry, Jason found his true calling in public speaking, radio, and video game streaming. He is now preparing to share his insights on the transformative possibilities of privilege through his upcoming book and podcast, drawing from his knowledge and experiences.

You can connect with Jason Browne on the following platforms:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejasonbrowne
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thejasonbrowne
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejasonbrowne
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejasonbrowne/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thejasonbrowne

Transcript

Dr Almitra Berry: 0:00

Jason, welcome back equity warriors. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode, where I have a guest by the name of Jason Brown. Jason is a masterful storyteller and seasoned speaker. He has a book coming out along with a new podcast that I can't wait to hear. He recently captivated audiences with a TEDx talk, offering a surprising perspective on the topic of both his book and his podcast, the transformative possibilities of privilege. So you already know why he's joining me today. Thanks for coming on, Jason. Welcome to the 3e podcast.

Unknown: 0:37

Thank you so very much for having me on your podcast, I'm looking so much forward to dig into all these wonderful topics.

Dr Almitra Berry: 0:45

Yes, the topic of privilege. But before that, you know, one of the things I say, I I hate to read people's whole bios. I would rather have you tell us about you, because you have a very interesting I almost want to call you a renaissance man, right? So tell us about Jason.

Unknown: 1:02

Well, I'll tell you some random things. First, I love kayaking, that is, that's something I enjoy doing. I do not like washing dishes. That's a thing that I'm not like. If I had to choose between the chores, that's not one of them. And I'm really good at making music. So that's some three random things, but a few things about me, I have. I did it for 15 years after graduating college, and I felt like I was put into this box. And, I mean, I'm in it, I'm supposed to be, you know, behind a computer, doing nerd stuff. And I really felt like there was, there was more to what I was meant to do. So after I left my IT job, I really started digging into in many different areas, trying to be creative. And I found and I gravitated towards public speaking. So I've been public speaking around the globe for largely for a group called Rotary International. I got into radio for seven years, won a couple awards there, and I just been, I've dabbled into video game streaming during the pandemic, made a few bucks at doing that, and so I've been just doing a number of different things in different spaces, really trying to hone in creativity and bridging the gap between that and conveying messages that really, truly resonate with people. Wow,

Dr Almitra Berry: 2:17

video game streaming, well, you have a radio voice.

Unknown: 2:21

Thank you. So you've all props to my dad about that.

Dr Almitra Berry: 2:25

Okay, and for those people who are only listening, he doesn't have a radio face, what I would call a radio face. So I would well, thank

Unknown: 2:34

you. I think thank you on that regard, thank

Dr Almitra Berry: 2:37

you. That is a compliment. You know, we say some people have a face made for radio. No, not Jason. So hopefully folks who are listening to this will also check out some of the video for today. But let's talk about privilege. There are so many different types of privilege, right? And I think the one that comes to most people's mind is racial privilege, because that's the one that's so prevalent in the United States. So let's start there. How would you define racial privilege?

Unknown: 3:06

Racial privilege, I would say that is the advantage given to the probability of advantage granted to a particular race in a particular country at a particular time. So largely in the United States, a lot of people think of white privilege. You say privilege out of context, they think white privilege, and then they immediately think of, what are you going to blame me for? Right? What are you going to make me feel guilty for? And and that's, that's one that's very contextual to the United States, like that racial dynamic between white privilege and that being the privilege that appears to often have the most amount of access and ability. That's United States. I mean, you could also argue like places like South Africa and other and Australia and places around the world too. But if you were to go to India, the situation might be different. If you were go to Japan, this situation, what racial privilege would look like, is going to be different. And so if you go to Rwanda, that's going to be different. So it racial privilege really depends on a number of factors, including time and location and the probability of whether it exists in the in the first place

Dr Almitra Berry: 4:16

for the individual, right? So if we, I do have an international audience, but like 90% of my listeners are in the US, so I'm going to skew that way, especially since we're talk about education. And one of the things that that I see in my work is that racial privilege, white racial privilege, is prevalent. It's predominant, and it's filtering down in many different ways. But there is also a privilege that comes with education, right? You're an educated person. You have a master's degree, MBA, right? I do, yes, it is Penn State, both of Penn State, yeah. Okay, so I won't hold. Out against you, Penn State? No, fair enough. Okay, I'm a California girl that No, no, nothing against Pennsylvania. It's just, you know, I'm an Aggie Cal Aggie to that effect, because there are Aggies everywhere. But there is privilege that comes with higher education, and even once you're in higher ed, that that extra that comes with getting a master's or with getting a doctorate, a PhD, whatever doctorate you get. And so as black folks, as people of color, even within our own communities of color, you and I have this little bit of extra privilege that comes because we are educated individuals, right? So when you talk to folks about the transformative possibilities of privilege, what is it that that makes what is it that is that transformation? Where does that come from?

Unknown: 5:57

So the transformation comes from this a place of opportunity. So while you and I as educated black folks have more have more opportunity and more access and more ability because of our degree, we there's a certain responsibility that comes with that. There's a certain expectation that that should come with that, because we have more privilege than others, that you might argue that we, you and I, just based on our education, are considerably more privileged than than a great deal of white folks or a great deal of Asian folks in the United States, right, just based upon the educational aspect, if you were just a hyper focus on that. But again, my definition is based upon location, probability and individuality for that particular for whoever is being in question. So the possibilities that exist this, this opportunity that exists for for us, is saying, in the spaces in which folks, black folks, white folks, can get an education, have that education. What are better ways for us to activate the privileges that exist in that space, to maybe even provide more opportunities and more educational access for those that don't have it? It is instead of focusing on the fact that many black folks don't have that level of education or don't have access to the ability to get there, it's saying with the few that do, what can we do with that, and how do we pull those resources together to make some sort of difference?

Dr Almitra Berry: 7:36

Okay, so what you're talking about going to sort of break it down for listeners. Is that sure, as I see or as I'm hearing it is that that community right within your community, your broader community, your community of color, if you are LGBTQ, individual within your community, so whatever community you're in, when you have privilege within that community, as you said, Time and Place space, that we have a responsibility. So I, as a black woman with an education, I have a responsibility within the black community to do good things and help other people, because I have been afforded that privilege that comes with education.

Unknown: 8:22

Yes, that's completely true. You've been afforded education, and now you and that is a privilege that you have now you can, you can detail what those privileges are as a result of it, but whatever they are for you, you my I'm suggesting that you should be able to use that to help yourself and other people along the way, whatever that means to you. I hope that it's like, you know, get more people that look like us into into colleges, to get past certain barriers in public education, to so that they can be successful in ways that generally, generally generationally, they have not been successful. And that is that what we have the ability to do. But this is it's a lot easier said than done, and it's not a lot easier said than done, and it's and it's one of those things that education, just this broad topic of getting a degree. There are so many facets of privilege that you could take this in a million different directions, and it's still my mind would be okay,

Dr Almitra Berry: 9:24

yeah, so I'm going to ask you a personal question, how do you use your approach?

Unknown: 9:31

So this is something that I work on on a regular basis, so one I have to catalog and understand what privileges that I have. Now, this is a process that's very self reflective, it's very vulnerable. It's you have to challenge some of the notions that one might have real quick, if I may interject, one of the aspects of this topic is this, this concept of earned versus unearned privilege. And so I. Don't different. Differentiate between the two. I think that while there is some benefit to understanding that, for the sake of this conversation, I don't care if you earned it or you didn't earn it, you have privilege, and then you do something with it so you have it so, so when I think about my life, and like you mentioned, I'll let you just go from what you mentioned, from the the onset of this conversation, Jason, you have a great radio voice. Okay, I have the privilege of having a voice that people don't mind listening to, right? Even me saying that out loud seems very like, Oh, you're patting yourself on the back. No, what I'm doing is recognizing a privilege that I do have, and now I'm saying to myself, what can I do with it to benefit others, and that I was born with it like I said, my pop gave it to me, right? Like that wasn't something that I earned, although I do craft my ability to speak, but that is a privilege that I now take and I'm used to. I think it's, hopefully, it's fullest and so when I think about that, and when I think about a talent. When I think about ability, I use that when I think about the fact of I use also my privileges as way of reminders. So I'm looking at my Brita filter across the room. It's halfway full. It's a full gallon of Brita. It's a, you know, clean water I could drink, and I probably could drink out the tap, but I have a Brita filter, so I'm super privileged in the fact that I can walk six feet and grab a glass of water. Yeah, the reminder of that makes me appreciate the the simplicity of that action, and I value my time much more, because I've learned about folks who travel two hours a day to go grab a bucket full of water for folks now,

Dr Almitra Berry: 11:42

I immediately thought of the kids in Flint, Michigan who don't have clean water to drink, even though they're in the United States, in a metropolitan area, right? And these aren't things that we typically think about. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I just that's good. Yeah, yeah. That is such a connective piece of tissue, so to speak, especially for people who work in schools where there are schools that that I've been into, where they have to give the kids bottled water, because the tap water in the school in America, in a city is not safe for children to drink,

Unknown: 12:19

absolutely. And now once you, once you once, that realization is made, right? So it's think about this way. So I'm gonna paint a picture. One students in school have to drink bottled water. Okay, that's not that you're like, Okay, finally, have to drink bottled water. Students in school cannot drink the water that is coming out of the faucet. And so then, then school has to go out of their way to provide bottled water to the students, which also adds additional logistics to the school, students and the school, okay, I have the convenience of going over to the sink, but those students don't now, what does that impact for them as a result of it? Me understanding the privilege of being having easy access to water gives me more insight to the conditions and the impact for the students that do not have that privilege. It not only allows, it doesn't always mean my suggestion and my approach to this doesn't always result in direct action, but it will result in a an amplification of empathy and understanding to the conditions of other people, so that you can say, oh, no, those students, those students are going through at least a layer greater than the rest of the students in the rest of the United States. Now, other students are going through other greater levels of privilege, but those students have that layer that they have to work through, and it impacts them, and that's not something that I should be taking for granted at all.

Dr Almitra Berry: 13:43

Yeah, you said. And it's something that, when we sit back and reflect on it, you have a great radio voice. You know, when you when you accept that, or you catalog your privileges, some of it may sound like you're patting yourself on the back. I had an amazing, I hate to call her a boss. She was my I reported to her in the corporate world. She never acted like a boss. She was, you know, I had, I had two females that I reported to at some point in time. Were just amazing people. But one of the things she said to me, her name was Phoebe. She said, I and I was, I can't, I didn't feel good talking about myself. And she said, Mitra, if you don't toot your own horn, somebody else will use it as a spittoon.

Unknown: 14:30

Oh. Oh, okay,

Dr Almitra Berry: 14:34

yeah, that was pretty when she said that, I thought about it, and I said, Yeah, I guess if I'm not the one if I can't be my own best promoter, best advocate. Recognize my talents, abilities, privileges, as we talk about that, and use that for me. Use that to do some good. Somebody else will just stomp on me, right? Because there's somebody else who has less, less ability, less. Talentless education, whatever, who will elevate themselves because they don't really give a rat spit about me, and their focus and goal is different. So, you know, I say that to say to every listener who has, you know, any talent, any privilege that they can now, as you sit back and reflect, think about and say, You know what? Yeah, I can use this, or my child has this. I can encourage them to build upon that, use, that gift, that privilege, that talent, and advocate for themselves,

Unknown: 15:33

right? One other thing, one thing I want to note to this is, not only will they, they have the potential of stomping on you because you're not recognizing them or taking advantage of those privileges that you've been granted. But people, other people, may activate them and use them for themselves and leave and not allow you to manifest and use them for yourself. So the like, how, how? What is the just the idea of someone to be able to take, since we're on the topic of my voice, take my voice and use it for their agenda, their motives, their blankety blank when, if I don't understand that, and if I'm not recognizing that privilege that I have, and how I can use it for the values that I think that are important, and I only allow external things to unpack that then, then the potential for what I like I truly believe in, in the greater good that I see is not really being manifested. It's not really being realized. And so not only can you be stomped on, but you can be used in ways that you might not even realize. Well,

Dr Almitra Berry: 16:34

I'm using you right now, right?

Unknown: 16:38

Yeah, right, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. But at the same time that I'm also choosing this exchange is also an exchange of like, I I recognize the work that you're doing. And I was like, this is a place where I want to share my voice. You saw me, and like, Oh, this is an individual who I want to bring into the fold to also communicate and amplify the voices and the topics that I'm talking about. So there is a mutual understanding and a connection point that exists here. If I chose to not want to use my voice, and if you chose not to use your abilities to create and craft these messages, then we would never be talking this. This conversation may impact one human being, one person somewhere, and because of that connection, that realization and our understanding of our privileges, we are now at least impacting that one person that's sitting there being like, oh, that's this is good. This resonates with me, and now I can do something greater with my own privilege. Yeah? So, yeah, it's funny, but it's also true, yeah, hey,

Dr Almitra Berry: 17:37

um, as long as there is a mutual respect, I would say, and a mutual understanding. Go ahead, I say to people all the time, use me. However. I can be useful for good, right? I don't mind being used just, you know, don't use me up. But it has to be for the good, and it has to be for something that I feel good about doing as well, which for me, is to do good things for children and the communities that serve them. Yeah, I had a question. Ask me one or tell us something else. Just tell us something else.

Unknown: 18:12

So one of the things that I this whole book about privilege comes from, and this concept of this conversation of privilege is something that has been like lingering in the back of my mind growing up. So I had the speaking of education. I had the privilege. I actually haven't told this to many folks. I had the privilege of going to what's called a magnet school, a school that, you know, people who are deemed to be smart get to go to now, I went to

Dr Almitra Berry: 18:43

this pin in that for just second so my listeners don't think because there are a lot of misconceptions about magnet schools and charter schools. Oh, so they look different from place to place. In some places, the magnet schools are schools that have a focus on the basic education, reading, writing, arithmetic, the 3r magnet schools. There are arts magnets, there are music magnets, there are language magnets. So kids who want to be immersed in a in a language other than English, from kindergarten on right, they can go to a Spanish magnet, a Chinese magnet, or whatever. So I just want people to understand that a magnets are public schools. They are free, they are open to everyone, but different districts use them different ways. So okay,

Unknown: 19:29

oh, I actually had no idea that was the case. So thank you for informing me and letting me know this. So in my particular case, it was I from what I remember about Philadelphia. I grew up in Philly. There were few magnet schools, and the magnet school that I went to was focused on academic excellence in some sort of way. The way that I got into the school was a, was a, was was something that is something that I still growing up in school. It's still like it's. Scratched my brain. So my dad knew he worked at the community college that was right next door, and knew a bunch of the people that were on the acceptance committee for the school, and when I he, he, I applied, and whatever, I didn't really care. My parents did all the application stuff, but my dad was in the room with these people that were making these decisions. And so it was my father's effort and communication style and the work that he put up into that point that maybe I would have gotten in anyway, but maybe not. His voice was the the confirmation, the nail and the cough, I guess that's usually used in a bad way, the like, the the thing that pushed it over the edge, it was the tipping point. The tip the tipping point. That's a better, better, better analogy, the tipping point that got me into this magnet school in fifth grade. And even then, I was like, that feels weird that my father was able to change the trajectory of my life based upon a conversation. What is that? I didn't really think about it for a while and but it always hovered in my brain of being like, there's something that needs to be explored in this space. Fast Forward, when I I'm in after I graduate college, and I've already gotten my master's and right, I've already gotten my career started and figured out education is important. I'm in the middle. I traveled to India because I went there because I was giving a speech, and I decided to explore India as a result of this. And I was like, You know what? I'm gonna remove all of the privileges that I have and just go explore. You know what I can do this. I am not tied to the privileges that I have. I'm not tied to all this and over the next. In over two weeks, I bounced around to different places using my privilege to buy plane tickets and whatnot. And I may, I got exposed to India by myself in a way that transformed and made me realize all the way back then, when I was gotten to that school of what was really going on, these small, seemingly small, things that exist, these timings that exist, the privileges that exist, change the trajectory of people's lives. And we often say, especially as I'm standing in the middle of Varanasi and I'm along the Ganges River, and all of these things are happening around me. I'm completely overwhelmed. Culturally, I'm realizing that every single privilege that I have that it's like a it's like, you know, like your life flashes before your eyes, like every privilege that I have, like flashes before my eyes. And the list is enormous. It's huge. It's so grand. And my day to day, I recognize a handful of them, and I often default to this idea of like I don't have these other things. In reality, my list is extremely long, and I need to do a better job of amplifying those things for myself. I need to learn about them. I need to amplify them for myself. And I need to amplify these, these, these privileges for other people. And that's where the possibilities of privilege came from. Was this like, ever since that day that my first day in fifth grade, where I'm standing there in this public school, and like I have, how did I get here, to me standing in the middle of India saying, How did I get here, maybe just realize that these privileges that we are often afforded, the privileges that we have, are enormous, and we need to do a better job of taking advantage of them and using them for something, hopefully good.

Dr Almitra Berry: 23:32

Yeah, I remember as a little girl, and I think I'm not sure if I shared with you, I have shared with listeners a few times. I saw my father shot to death when I was seven. He was I was a daddy's girl. He was my favorite parent. My mother still knows Daddy was my favorite parent, but he had taught me many things. It just in those years, those those few years, and one of the things that he had instilled in me, even by the age of seven, was that I had a responsibility to give back to my community, that I had responsibility to other black folk. I did not, I could not possibly comprehend. I don't think, at seven years old, that I was smart. I remember being going through all this IQ testing and then being put in a gifted track, still not recognizing I was smart, right? To me, I was normal. You know, this was my my normal was that I was always faster at learning, that learning was easier for me. I couldn't understand why everybody else couldn't do it. Right when we're young, right? You know, what do you mean? You don't understand what she's talking about. Why are you still on the the whatever color it was, we you're you may be too young to remember. There may be some old folks listening, but there are these things called the SRA reading labs, these boxes that sat in the back of the classroom, and they had little story cards. And you'd pull a story card out, you'd read the story. You to answer the questions. You self graded, and if you passed, you got to go to the next card. So there was always this race to the back of the box, so the highest color card or section of cards, yeah, yeah. You don't remember. I

Unknown: 25:14

vaguely remember variations of this as a kid, but yeah, specific No, but I do remember that competition feel so maybe, yeah,

Dr Almitra Berry: 25:23

so I was, I would say I'm a boomer. I'm not gonna say I'm old. I am a baby boomer, though. And so at that time, this whole race to space and the competition with the Soviet Union, what the US government was doing to kids in school, was trying to identify who the government could use later on based on intellect. So there were all of these, these special programs going on. I remember having to look in. It's called a Kista scope. Don't ask me to spell it, because I can't ever quite remember the spelling. And you would, you'd put your head in this thing, and they would read. You'd have passages lit up. What they were trying to do was teach us how to speed read, but it was all independent. In any event, I always had my own SRA box because nobody else was on the same level of the reading lab as I was, but I did so there was no competition for me because there was no one to compete against. I just couldn't understand why everybody else wasn't up there with me. Why was I the only person who got to go to the back of the back of the room and play in the box, and everybody else was still sitting in, you know, at a small table with the teacher or with an aide or something. We don't and I don't know if it's some of it is us as as black folk, as a people, because of what has happened to us generationally in this country, I don't know that we can recognize what privileges that we have early enough or accept the idea that we can own that, that there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, I'm really good at this. What can I do with it? And then, like for me, what can I do to help other people, as opposed to oppressing others because, which is, you know, I almost hate to use that term, but oppressing other people, because I do have a gift, a talent, a privilege, but as kids, we're just in this, you know, anything about kids? We're in this space. And so when I think about kids, I automatically have to think about teachers and educators that are working with them every day. And so for educators, I think what I would I would take from what you've said so far is, how do you talk to the children in your classrooms, parents, caregivers that might be listening. How do you talk to your children and help them develop that awareness of what they have, and recognize it and then build on it, use it. What do you do with it?

Unknown: 27:52

So there's a couple things. There's a lot of things you just said that are resonating with me, and I'm probably going to scratch the surface of all of them. One of the things that you brought up was this idea of generationally generational barriers that prevent us from recognizing some of our privileges. And that is a really fascinating aspect of this conversation, especially as it relates, relates to teachers. So teachers have the ability to, hopefully open a child's eyes, maybe even open their eyes as a because they're in that position, they can see they had, they have the role of literally create opening doors, mental doors, educational doors, for for a child. So the my the way, where my brain went immediately, was less about recognizing the individual talents per se of a child, because I think that that's inherent with what most educators would do. My mom was a music teacher in the public school system for 35 years, so she talked about education, at least to some degree. I think there's a so I'm going to for a moment, assume that every teacher wants to recognize the best out of kids and hopefully help them excel. From an academic point of view, that's an assumption. That's

Dr Almitra Berry: 29:17

an ideal, yeah, it's an ideal, right?

Unknown: 29:20

But I think that the additional layer from this conversation is teachers also have the ability to help children understand that even if you are the kid that's not at the the front facing box where you were, there are many things that every child in this room has that is indeed a privilege. There are all of you can. Yes, all of you live in Flint, Michigan, and you have to have these bottled waters because we don't have access to it, but you do have clean water accessible to you, right, like there's and that I wasn't taught those things as a i. Kid, I didn't realize those things as a child. And I think if we teach ourselves and coach ourselves to even begin to pick up on some of these privileges that may seem obvious or standard for our our immediate environment, but really put ourselves in perspective of the global perspective, even a national perspective, if you don't want to hop all the way to a global perspective. I think that is a healthy exercise, so that one is easy, one can more easily recognize their own talents, recognize the talents and abilities and skills and privileges of others, and be able to then be able to figure out how to use them in community. But first you have to train yourself to be able to recognize them in the first place, and I feel like that's where educators have a wonderful opportunity for children.

Dr Almitra Berry: 30:50

Yeah, it made me think of something when you said that, and that is, I think, one of the and I had not thought of it as, I don't have thought about it as a privilege, recognize it, respect it, elevate it. Yes, and that is multilingualism that comes in so many different forms, but that is not recognized, validated, affirmed in our public school system, right? We have kids who come to school and so many people think, oh, multilingual, like the kids who come to school who speak Spanish, or who come to school because their home language is Spanish or French or whatever their home language might be, they come to school and they can operate in two languages, which is huge from a cognitive perspective in terms of learning right there. The neuroplasticity of the brain when you can operate in two languages is a huge privilege when it comes to learning. We don't think about it as a privilege. And what do we do in this country? We say, oh, no, you're not going to speak that language anymore. We want you to speak only this language. What a lot of folks that don't understand is that even I'll say, you and I are multilingual because we can speak African American English, which in different places, spaces and context, is of tremendous value, right? But when we walk into a certain space, we then turn on the business American English in schools. I call it school English. That is the acceptable language to speak there. So even that we don't think of as a privilege, and yet it is. There are so many things. Now you've got me going so many different things.

Unknown: 32:35

Let's go,

Dr Almitra Berry: 32:39

each one, teach one. You got me, you got me. And so, you know, I've got, I've got another, another lens to view this through that right now, I can't remember if I shared that's my current book project. Is a book on sociocultural languages like African American, English, Chicano, English, Jamaican Patois. All those, those that here in the United States occur routinely, are prevalent, and yet are demonized. Yeah, they're demonized. So one of my big messages has been, whatever language you come to school with is an asset, because you will be able to speak in more than one language when you leave school, as long as we're providing a quality education, go,

Unknown: 33:26

No, I think, I think that is a really strong point language. I love the way that you're approaching this concept of language is and maybe this even deepens my perspective of how privilege, how? How we recognize privilege is that there is a the things that we want to normalize in society and minimize, those things should also be, could also be considered privileges, and how? And the big question then becomes, if someone is has the linguist has the ability to speak in some of these variations that you just mentioned, what can be done with that? Now I'm like, how is that? How could you leverage that for benefiting oneself as the person being able to speak it or benefiting the community that's around. And the first thing that pops into my mind is probably just scratching the surface of what the answer is. But it's like, just like many other folks who know multiple languages, you can straddle environments and communities and bridge gaps. Okay? So I can hop in this community and speak some. I can hop in this community and speak some. All right, cool. Speak some. All right, cool. These two might not be two different countries. It might be down the block. It might be like two stores, whatever, two banks, but I now have the ability to do something that other people cannot, and there's a privilege in that, and minimizing that and erasing it from the school system seems very. Be icky, but amplifying that and using it just for some sort of good feels very good in my

Dr Almitra Berry: 35:06

I like your word icky. Yeah, it's

Unknown: 35:10

icky. Yeah,

Dr Almitra Berry: 35:11

I call it wrong. It's just, it's wrong. It's It's wrong. It's harmful to children. It is harmful to children. You know, our children have to to operate speaking to educators. Our children have to operate in spaces that many times educators won't ever set foot in. And when we you think about that, right? I think about during, during covid, there were, you know, everybody's homeschooled. You got to be at home to go to school now, which meant you had to have a device of some form. And the inequities just inherent in every child needs to be able to get on a computer and, you know, dial in or, you know, stream in their their classroom. So many districts, first solution is, okay, let's get tablets or or laptops in some form to every single child that's out there. But it's like, wait a minute, some kids don't have internet. Okay, so now we have to get hot spots or Internet access to every child that's out there. And there was, there was this, oh, these kids don't have electricity. These children are living in tents on the street. These children are living in cars, right? So we just and as educators, we are not for the most part, I know that there are some places where housing costs are extremely high, and there are some educators who may be unhoused, but we are not living in our vehicles. We are not living without electricity, and so not being willing or understanding what it is that each and every child is going through. The kids who live in neighborhoods where there's high crime, where they're infested by gangs, and their ability to simply survive in that space very often is reliant, or relies on their ability to communicate, which means to speak the socio cultural language of that space, and when we try to erase it or devalue it or minimize their ability to do so, we are impacting their very Survival when they set foot outside of our classroom.

Unknown: 37:24

So question, like a question back to you then is, is there, aside from teachers, and it's probably a very easy answer, but aside from teachers in a school who is responsible for understanding some of these, the privileges, or lack of privileges, that these students have when they're coming into school, now that we are not at home and we are asking kids, and then kids are back into a facility, who's, who's, is there anyone actually in a school system that's surveying that or keeping a pulse on that

Dr Almitra Berry: 38:00

Good question, and I think it would depend on the system itself. Some do. Others completely ignore it. There's, there's so much going on with with declining enrollment, with the, the now international shortage of teachers, right? So we don't have enough teachers to be in classrooms with kids. And sometimes the choices that that systems are making are either to close close campuses and increase class sizes, you know, to fit the number of teachers they have, or to put people in classrooms who do not have a regular teaching credential. You know, they're a warm body. They show up. They don't have any felonies. Let's put them in a classroom. Not to minimize, I would say, not to minimize teachers who take an alternative certification route. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes districts are just putting whoever they can in a classroom. Others are using what they have to make sure that children are properly served, that there is outreach, that we are looking at kids who live in areas that don't have access to these things that we think are normal, like electricity that everybody has. So it just it depends on where you are, and I hate to say it, but the political climate around where you are, because there are some places that just, you know, just, just don't care. That's pretty much where we are with that.

Unknown: 39:31

So one of the reason, what I'm hearing from you is that in places in which there, there are limited resources from a financial point of view, from a teacher or teacher point of view, those areas are less likely to be able to understand these, these the privileges of these students, because they don't have the resources to do so they're focused on getting the kids in and focusing on, can I have, can I teach them one thing today, and hopefully move the conversation and move them to some sort of better place in life, like. Them ideally. And so there's a the places with the most amount of housing and financial privilege are likely to be able to manage that a little bit more effectively, maybe a lot more effectively. And so it's and that's something to recognize, that if your child, or if you are a teacher, or if you're an educator, or if you're in the space where there is someone even considering these sort of questions for their students, you're in a privileged space. And because of it, is there something that you can do to help those that are not as privileged as you are, like it's, it's it's unfortunate. And yes, there are politics involved, and there's all these other things involved, and but at a individual level, we can't always change that in short order, but what we can do is recognize that there is a privilege that exists in this space and then find some way of, I don't know the I don't know how you would do do, how you would use that, that privilege, to do something good. But I have to believe that there is something pulling of resources together, pulling of communities together, having in these additional conversations the differences between this one community in the suburbs and this one inner city community, this one community full of Latin folks in this one black community versus this white community, something of recognizing these differences and having a conversation and being able to build upon that with the intention of improving the situation for others. There has to be, in my heart of hearts, there has to be some sort of opportunity there, and I hope it

Dr Almitra Berry: 41:45

is. And you call it privilege, right? It is a privilege to have a voice, right? And we all have a voice. So are you using your voice? If you're an educator, you have a degree, you have already proven right that you have, you can benefit from education. You can think use your voice. And I always say, if you if you are silent, you're complicit. So if you don't speak up, that's why I call my listeners equity warriors, right? These are the people who are either doing or listening to try to learn how to do use that voice to speak up and advocate for the children in those spaces.

Unknown: 42:25

Absolutely, absolutely, there's a lot of as a as growing and going all the way back to that that that day, fifth grade, me walking into the public school. Yep, I had so even in the public school system in Philadelphia, that moment, I had so much privilege. And I did. I knew that there was this, this weight around me I didn't know what to do with it, and hopefully this conversation is giving some perspective to those that might also have that weight floating around them as well.

Dr Almitra Berry: 42:49

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think I, I shared with you my sign off and my my sort of tribute to admiration of Dr Angela Davis and the work that she's done for not just the black community, but for women in this country as well. And what she says, or my paraphrase, is not to worry about the things you cannot change. Change the things you can no longer accept, paraphrase of her words. And so I always like to ask my guests, what is that thing that you cannot accept

Unknown: 43:26

the one thing that I cannot accept like in the world, or for like, you know, as we're sitting in a restaurant, and I'm like, You know what? I cannot accept this in this moment, which, which, which one are you talking about?

Dr Almitra Berry: 43:35

Because don't worry about poor service. You know, customer services, not what it used to be. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about the spam email. But you know, as we're talking about privilege and where we are in a society with, with in this, in this topic area,

Unknown: 43:53

what can I not

Dr Almitra Berry: 43:56

what can you not accept?

Unknown: 43:58

What can I not accept? I can't. I can't accept I can't accept that. And I think you touched on it, and I immediately had this like visceral reaction to it. I can't accept that in the face of all of these really big challenges that exist in the world, these structures, these the politics, the governments, the the the these, the impact of generational racism or gerrymandering, or all of these things that these conflicts, these the violence, that these big things happening in the world that seem as though they they feel like they squash the impact of the individual and when, and I feel this every day when I turn on the news. I feel this every day when I'm talking. Talking to folks in these spaces really trying to make a difference for folks. They the we gravitate to all these heavy things. The thing that I cannot accept is that that we as individuals, we as people who have this infinite list of privileges, even though it doesn't look like we look like it, I can't accept that we can't do something with the privileges that we have. I can't accept the fact that I can't accept the idea that these, all of these problems, are greater than the potential that we have as individuals and or groups. If we activate our privileges that we do have correctly, it's necessary, it's it's a it's a place of hope, it's a place of action. It's a place of not compromising and giving up to these really difficult aspects of the world around us. We can do something greater, and it comes back down to our privilege. We just have to be willing and vulnerable enough to take that step in that direction. So that's what I can't accept. Love

Dr Almitra Berry: 46:12

it. Love it. Before we wrap, I wanted you to tell listeners about your book and your podcast. Okay,

Unknown: 46:18

well, all right, I don't like to promote podcasts and other podcasts. But I will say that. I will I will talk about the book. I will talk about the book, and I will talk briefly my one request, my one call to action. So the book that I'm working on is some variation of the possibilities of privilege. We're going out in a submission in September. I don't know if I'm supposed to say that whatever, what is going on submission in September, and hopefully it'll be a book shared with folks around the world. I really do believe in the stories. I believe in some of the aspects that are inside of this book, some of these concepts that I'm playing with. I don't know if any other, I don't know others that are playing with some of the concepts that are in this book. I'm super excited about it, but the one call to action is this book is based upon a TEDx talk of after I found that my voice was needed, and figured out that I needed to be able to share some ideas. My TEDx talk is called the possibilities of privilege. My one call to action is, please take a listen to it and leave a comment or share it with somebody else. I firmly believe that that is a place of opening up conversation and dialog about this topic, and if there's anything else after, if you don't look up. Jason Brown, after this, aside from that one, TEDx talk, I will be completely and wonderfully ecstatic. Check it out. Let me know your thoughts. Continue the conversation. Okay.

Dr Almitra Berry: 47:32

So one, I'm going to make sure that we have the link to the TEDx talk, put it in the show notes. We're going to make it easy for people to just click and go watch it. We'll do that. And then two, when the book comes out, come back on the show and talk about

Unknown: 47:46

it. I'd love to do it. All right, it's a joy to chat. All right,

Dr Almitra Berry: 47:50

it is a joy to chat with you, ladies and privilege, actually,

Unknown: 47:53

it's a privilege,

Dr Almitra Berry: 47:54

excuse me, that's true. It has been a privilege to have on my show my guest, the incredible Jason Brown. I'm so glad that we were able to begin this conversation today, because it is not over. Equity warriors, you know, you have an assignment. And next week we continue our work, dissecting project 2025, this time we're focusing on the Maga Republicans, diabolical plan to destroy Title One and special education as we know it. So join me, and if you've got a question, text me, just click on that link down in the notes. And as always, don't worry about the things you cannot change. Be informed. Get informed, vote and change the things you cannot and will not accept the.