Ep #149: Racism: How to Become an Agent for Change

Hey rebels. Well, it’s official. Andy and I got married. We had to change all of our plans thanks to COVID, but our teeny tiny ceremony in Princeton, New Jersey was beautiful and all of our guests were able to join us via Zoom, which was super fun.

So our honeymoon became a staycation. We have lots of outdoorsy day trips planned for the weeks. Some canoeing, hiking to the top of Mount Tammany, a day at the beach among many others, and of course, running. Because we are taking the week off however, I chose not to record a full episode for you this week.

Instead, I decided to share a recent Facebook Live that I did regarding the Black Lives Matter movement and how the white community can start to understand their privilege and become agents for change. Now, I have been speaking out a lot on this topic lately because I believe very deeply in the Black Lives Matter movement.

I believe that racism is really a problem for white people to fix because we are the ones who created it. And also, I have a lot of eyes and ears on my stuff, which means I can help educate people on how to become anti-racist. So the Not Your Average Runner Podcast is about running and it will always remain that way, but really, it’s about how to be a runner in a world that thinks you have to be fast and thin to be a runner.

And it’s about how to manage your own thinking so you’re able to feel confident and proud and badass. It is a podcast about how to manage your thinking about being different than the norm, about not always being included in a space that you want to be in, and about sometimes being rejected because you don’t fit in with what others think you should be.

Now, I am not in any way saying that being a fat runner in a thin world is equivalent to being black in a racist world. Not at all. But I am saying that this is a podcast where I teach tools to help you manage your thinking about feeling other, about feeling different and excluded and rejected, and reclaiming your power.

And also, about dealing with feeling ashamed and guilty and embarrassed. The tools I teach in the show are not just for running. They apply to everything. So over the coming weeks and months, I’m going to bring you some additional tools and education on how to examine racism in your own community, in your life, in your mind, and how to change so you can become anti-racist.

Because the majority of my listeners are white women. I know this for a fact. And I’m working to change that for sure. I want this to be a very inclusive podcast. But as a white woman myself, I know that some of my current listeners might be feeling really uncomfortable with what’s happening in the world.

Not just from the perspective of grief and compassion for everyone impacted, but also feeling shame or guilt or maybe even flat out resistance about your own privilege or about your own lack of action in the past. And I for one have for sure been working through those same emotions. But those feelings can keep you from listening to other people, from hearing their experience, from understanding, from compassion, and from action.

So we’re going to be working through some of that stuff here on the show in the future. Not on every episode. But it is going to be part of the curriculum going forward because it’s necessary and because we are – I like to think of the Not Your Average Runner Podcast listeners as a sisterhood. And when some of our sisters are hurting, we rally and we help.

So today’s education is simply education from my perspective. As a white person, I have been educating myself and working really hard to learn what I don’t know and to learn how I can be helpful and how I can be an agent for change. So again, today’s episode is simply a baseline education. I would love for you to listen, be open to the ideas.

There will be links to books and podcasts and other resources in the show notes for today’s episode. I urge you to check them out and keep learning yourself. That is it, my friends. On to the show, and then next week, we’re going to be back with an episode about run-walk intervals and how they’re not for beginners. But today, I’m sharing this Facebook Live with you. I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives, and now I want to help you.

Hello my friends. How you guys doing? Facebook has changed some things about Facebook Lives and I’m like, what? There’s a whole new control panel and all that good stuff. But anyway, here’s what I want to talk about today, and it’s for sure a topic that’s been on the – you have to be living under a rock right now in the world to not be aware of what’s going on.

And I’ve addressed it a lot in the official Not Your Average Runner podcast community, which is a Facebook group that I have. Most of you are probably in it. And I’ve addressed it in there. I’ve made it very, very clear what my personal position, what the position of the Not Your Average Runner team is with regard to Black Lives Matter, with regard to racism.

And we’re going to be talking about it on the podcast, but I also wanted to just kind of address it in a Facebook Live today, and I got some things to say. So I’m going to talk for a while and then I’m going to open it up for questions. But I do really encourage you to express your opinion and I got to tell you, I’m probably going to fuck some stuff up. Not probably. I’m definitely going to fuck some stuff up today and going forward.

I’m doing my best to educate myself and not just educate myself for the sake of education, but educate myself so that I can take action and become part of the movement for change and hopefully, create – be part of creating some change in this world.

So again, I’m going to fuck stuff up. But I want you to know that I’m doing my best and I’m always open to feedback and suggestions and everything from all of you on how I can do better, how I can lead my team better, how I can lead the community better. Please, if you feel so moved, I would love to hear your feedback.

So here we go. First of all, to the black Not Your Average Runner community members, to those of you that are in our Facebook group, those of you that are actually my clients, those of you that listen to the podcast or read my books or follow this page, I want you to know that first of all, that the Facebook group, the official Not Your Average Runner podcast community is a safe space for you.

We have got you. I have got you. I’m going to fiercely protect that space so that nobody feels like they cannot share their truth and share what they are going through. I’m not kidding about this. I will fiercely protect that space. I actually did remove some members over the weekend because I put up a post in the group and said basically this is where I stand, this is where the Not Your Average Runner team stands and this is what you can expect from me going forward.

And there were some people that weren’t super happy about that. They are no longer in the group. So I’m also going to be honest and say that that group, and also my client programs are not as diverse of a space as I think they should be and as I would like them to be. That is on me.

So again, I said earlier, I’m taking classes on how to promote diversity among my communities and among my teams. I’m working to make sure that everything that I create is welcoming to all people of color, all gender, gender identities, religions, whatever. But in particular right now, I’m focusing on the black community and definitely black women.

Because the population of people I work with identifies as women and that’s sort of my zone of genius. Those are the people that I want to help empower and so that’s kind of where my focus is, but I just want you to know if you are a black woman and you have maybe been following the page before and thought, “I don’t know, it seems like a pretty white Facebook group, I don’t know if it’s the place for me,” I want you to know that you’re very welcome with us.

If you don’t feel that way, again, please reach out to me and let me know. If you feel comfortable doing that privately or publicly, however. Call me out. I am very, very open to feedback. I want to hear your suggestions should you feel inclined to share them. But for those of you that are currently members, I want to thank you for being in this space, for trusting the members of the community to be a friend to you, to be an ally to you, for showing up as runners.

And I am deeply sorry for whatever you’re feeling and going through right now. I cannot express that enough. And I apologize if in the past, my own white privilege has not allowed me to see what other runners, people in my community, people in the world have been going through. And I’m sorry for that.

Is it what Oprah says? When you know better, you do better. Okay, so that being said, I’m pretty much speaking directly to the white folks now. This is your part. I’ve got some things to say. Let’s first start with I want you to think about the very first time you started running.

You were so excited. You couldn’t imagine a day when running would feel like work, when you wouldn’t be super excited and motivated to just get up, get your shoes on and go out and run. You’re like, I’m going to be a runner forever, this is the best thing.

But then one day, maybe it felt hard or it just wasn’t as fun or you were tired, and then you’re like, “Oh god, I don’t know if I want to do this, it’s inconvenient.” And you have to have a hard conversation about it with yourself. You had to say, hey, I’m in this in for the long haul. I’m not a runner for two weeks, I want to be a runner for life.

And there are going to be days where it will be hard and uncomfortable, and it will not be the thing that I want to do, but I’m a runner and runners run. You had to learn how to motivate yourself to keep going. I taught you all of that on the podcast. I talk about it all the time.

So my friends, here’s my analogy. Now you are fired up. But those of you – I’ve seen all of your posts and all of your Black Lives Matter posts and all of the awesome stuff and support that you’re posting on Facebook. This is amazing. This is awesome. You’re angry at the racist systems in this country. You are wanting to stand and fight with the black community and I get it, I am right there by your side.

But just like when you became a runner, as soon as it gets difficult or as soon as the next big thing comes along, our excitement, it sort of fades out. Remember how upset we were about COVID just a week ago? We were so all angsty about it, and rightfully so. COVID’s a big fucking deal.

But now, so now we’ve got a new thing to be angry and righteous about, and COVID is way down on the list. Humans, they like new, they like different. That is how we are built. But again, we are in this for the long haul. This is not a once and done thing. Things are not going to back to normal.

We, as a country, and I’m just really mostly speaking to the US listeners right now. If you are in another country where you have racist systems, and I think most of them do at some level, listen in. But I’m mostly speaking to my US listeners. We are in a hard evolution right now and it does not feel good.

And it’s easy to put up a Facebook post or an Instagram post. It’s easy to say yes, I stand for Black Lives Matter and yes, I am committed to educating myself about being an anti-racist. But new things are going to come along, new things are going to catch your attention, and you’re going to – or it’s going to get difficult. It’s easy to read a book, easy to put a black square on Instagram.

But when it comes to taking action and putting money where your mouth is, it may feel a little bit difficult. So again, we’re in this hard evolution right now. It doesn’t feel great and you know what, it is not supposed to feel good. Growth hurts, change isn’t always easy. But this change is so important you guys. So crucial.

So we have to stay focused and we have to keep moving forward and we have to remember that two weeks from now, when there’s a new thing in front of us on social media, do not forget what you’re learning right now. I kind of feel like this is the new normal. We’re in it right now.

We got there real fast. And we have got to change who we are and change how the fuck we show up in this world now. The evolution has started and I don’t think it’s going to get easier. I think it’s going to get harder and I think that’s right and I think we need to be there for it.

So if you are somebody like me who’s beginning to educate themselves on how we are all racist, even though we might not believe it, and I can see there’s some of you that are like, “But I’m not racist, I don’t do racist things.” Look, I’m going to talk about that in a minute. But I want you to commit that you will not just read a book, check it off your list, and be like, I educated myself, I know, I know what racism is, I know that I’m an anti-racist.

Read a book, this is a great start. Take a class. This is a great start. And by the way, Mirna Valerio has an awesome class right now. If you go to her Facebook page, there’s a link. Take it. If that class is full, she’s going to be offering more. I had a long conversation with her yesterday about this and she’s like, oh yeah, I got some things to say and I’m going to help.

She’s actually – I was going to talk about this later on but please don’t ask your black friends to educate you on how to be better. Do not ask them to do it. If you do ask them to do it, make sure you are paying them for their time, for their emotional labor, for all that they are investing into helping to change the system.

Because this problem that we have of racism, it was not created by the black folks. It was created by white folks. It is our problem to fix. Let me be real clear about that. So if you are asking a black person to help you fix it, make sure you fucking pay them for it, alright? Give them money to show your gratitude and the worthiness of their time.

A little bit off track there. But seriously, read a book, take a class, yes, I’m all in for this. Read lots of books. But then, and maybe while you’re in the middle of reading the first book, start taking action. Ask yourself what you can do. Again, please don’t ask black people to educate you right now on your privilege. I’m going to educate you on your privilege.

But there are really so many resources out there right now. You can do the work on your own. You really, really can. You can Google it. Just Google books on racism like, there’s going to be a million of them. I am for sure going to be compiling a long list for you. I have been all week. I’m going to be posting it tomorrow so that you have – and I’m going to post some free resources and some paid resources, because I know not everybody has a chunk of change right now to pay somebody else to help them understand. But there are so many free resources out there for you.

So look for podcasts on this subject for Pete’s sake, as most of y’all are podcast listeners. So here’s the other thing that I want to say to you today. I want you to know we are all racists. And I’m going to share an analogy that Kara Loewentheil, who’s a friend of mine and by the way, if you don’t listen to the podcast, it’s called Unfuck Your Brain.

Go check it out. She’s teaching some really important stuff over there. She’s done some Facebook Lives on her own personal page. Her name is Kara Loewentheil and I can never properly spell her name, so I’m not going to spell it for you, but just look for Unfuck Your Brain. You’ll find it.

I’m going to share an analogy that she taught last week that I was like, just the lights went off in my head. She said, most women have no problem admitting – and I’m paraphrasing. I’m not quoting, by the way. But she said most women have no problem admitting that they’ve absorbed a lot of stereotypes about body image, women’s beauty, and all of that kind of stuff.

Like, how women are supposed to be beautiful to attract men, all that patriarchal bullshit. But we’ve absorbed it. Most women have no problem admitting that like yeah, I’ve been getting that messaging my whole life from the media, from my family, from everything. From the time we are young, we are bombarded with messaging about how we should be thin and pretty and young and all kinds of stuff like that.

I know every single one of you watching this Facebook Live can agree with that. Now, some of you may have rejected that messaging at some point in your life. I know I did. But many of you will have absorbed it to varying degrees. And again, I know I did. It’s everywhere. It’s subtle and it’s not so subtle.

And it wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I really began to see it clearly and actively start rejecting the ideas about body image that I learned when I was a child. Things that my mom taught me, things that I learned from TV and books and friends and family. It’s fucking everywhere. I know you can relate to this.

So imagine, you absorb all of this – and again, some of it is subtle, some of it is not so subtle, but you’ve just been bombarded with it. It’s like you’ve been in this soup of body image messaging your whole life, and you know it’s impacted how you show up for yourself. Racism is exactly the same. We live in a white patriarchal society, which means that white men hold the majority of the power, and much of the messaging that we receive has originated from that viewpoint.

Maybe not as much in recent years, although with the current administration, I think it’s debatable. But for sure when you’re younger, before we got to the point that we’re at today, there’s so much subtle and not so racist messaging because we live in a white patriarchal society where white men hold the vast majority of power.

So your whole life you’ve been bombarded with that messaging. You have absorbed it, just like you absorbed messaging about what your body should look like, about what you should do with your hair, about all of that beauty stuff, you have absorbed the racist stuff as well.

So I urge you to really accept that as a fact. Just say, yeah, that happened, and it’s been happening, and it’s still happening, rather than resisting it. Because when you’re resisting it – and I know a lot of you, myself included, would never have said, “Oh, I’m racist.” Because I have black friends, I have black family members. I have a black husband. We would say I’m not racist because look at all these things, look at all this evidence.

So what I really think we need to do is broaden our definition of racism from simply doing racist things, just a tiny little slice of it, to benefiting from a racist society. Because if you are white, you have benefited. You’re not targeted, you’re not watched, you’re not harmed, you’re not murdered simply because of the color of your skin.

Hear me. If you are white, you have benefited from living in a racist society, and this makes you on some level racist. Because the society has stacked the deck for you. You have an enormous advantage in life over a significant portion of the population just because of your family of birth.

So I think it’s just so important for white people to acknowledge this and own it. And it doesn’t make you a bad person. And I know there’s a lot of you that are like, I’m so ashamed of myself, I’m so embarrassed, I don’t want to do the wrong thing, I don’t want to make things worse. The best thing you can do right now over anything else right now is just say, yeah, you know what, my life is easier because I’m white.

So here’s another analogy. You guys know I love my analogies. Imagine if life were a half marathon and there’s a starting line and you showed up and someone was like, oh, you know what, your starting line is over there. And you go to your starting line and it’s actually three miles closer to the finish line, but you’re starting at the same time as everyone else.

You’re going to have a huge advantage. You’ve only got to go 10 miles to get to the finish and everybody else has to go 13 miles. That is what it’s like to benefit from the color of your skin. I know that’s an imperfect analogy, but you can see what I mean. You can understand what I mean, that just literally because of how you were born, you’re getting that three-mile advantage on a half marathon.

So please you guys, I want you to own this. I want you to own it and it’s going to be uncomfortable and that’s okay because you can do uncomfortable things. You have the model. CTFAR. Circumstance, thoughts, right now you’re having thoughts like, “Oh, but I’m not racist.”

When you think that thought, you feel what? Resistant. When you feel resistant, how do you show up for other people or yourself? You’re like, no, that’s not me, and then you shut down. You do not listen and the problems continue.

So I urge you to just be like, you know what, I’ve benefited from a racist society. Therefore, I’m racist. And maybe I don’t do racist things and that’s of course, debatable because just the way it’s baked into our society, but I want you to just own that you’ve benefited from it and like, let’s please start there.

And there are some great books out there. One of them that I’m reading right now is called White Fragility. It’s by Robin DiAngelo. I think I totally butchered the name. And it kind of explains a lot of what I’ve talked to you about today. But in much more detail, with much better examples, and with a lot of unwhitewashed history to go along with it.

I’m going to check and see if we have any questions. Mirna, I was just talking about you. I just saw Mirna’s comment. I love you too girl. Alright, oh my god, girl, so Mirna, if you scroll through the comments, she has posted a link to her current class. Please make sure that you just go and just fucking sign up.

And I know, it’s – I want you guys to understand. I mean, I had a conversation with Mirna yesterday about this. She’s putting a lot, a lot of time and effort and she’s putting a lot of emotional labor into creating this class for us white folks. It’s not her job to do that for us, but she is. So I want you to sign up for that. I want you to understand that this is our problem to fix and we’ve got some folks that are being gracious about to say, hey, here, let me help you, let me make it a little easier for you.

We actually don’t have a lot of questions here. That’s awesome. I do want to share one more thing with you guys and it’s because I keep seeing it all over the internet and I’m sure most of you have heard what I’m about to say. But if there’s somebody that hasn’t, please listen.

The Black Lives Matter, the hashtag, the movement and everything, and we see a lot of people that are like, Black Lives Matter but all lives matter too. Nobody is saying that all lives don’t matter. But right now, black lives matter a little bit more. Maybe a lot more. And I’ve seen this analogy a few times and I’m probably going to fuck it up but I’m going to try and describe it.

But it’s a cartoon that’s basically a guy saying – it’s these two guys standing in front of their houses. And one guy’s house is on fire. And the other guy has a hose and he’s spraying it on his own house that’s not on fire. And the first guy is like, hey – I’m totally going to fuck this up. Damn it. I’m going to have to post a link to the cartoon.

But the bottom line is he’s like, all houses matter and so he’s spraying water on his own house, instead of the house that’s on fire. And the guy is like, for sure all houses matter, but this one is on fire, can we please put some attention and water on the house that’s burning down? Because your house is fine.

And so I want you to really think about that. When you are saying all lives matter, what you’re really saying is it’s not fair that we’re paying more attention to one person over another. And you know what, we got to pay some attention right now. We got to pay a lot of attention because we got to fix this shit.

And I just really want you to understand that nobody is saying that you haven’t had a hard life. But you’ve benefited. Your life has not been made more difficult because of the color of your skin, and I think that is the whole premise of the Black Lives Matter movement. Not the whole premise. I’m missing huge parts of it as well, but that is the point that I want to take home right now.

Maybe that’s more speaking to white privilege is nobody is saying that you’ve had an easy life. Nobody is saying that your life has been all fucking rainbows and daisies and yes, you’ve struggled with probably – there’s plenty of white people that struggle with poverty and sickness and just mental illness and all kinds of shit.

Yes, white people have plenty of problems. But no white person’s life has been made more difficult because of the color of their skin and that is really the crux of it. So you guys that have been following the podcast for a while, following this page for a while, I want you to go out and please spread this message.

Learn, educate yourselves, and then go on a mission. Be warriors about this. Say something. When you see shit going down, step in. When you go to dinner and your racist uncle is saying some shit, you got to shut him down. And that’s going to be uncomfortable, especially if you’re like me and you’re a people pleaser and you’re like, I don’t want this person to not like me, they’re my family.

I don’t care. I want you to speak up to your racist relatives and your racist friends and your racist coworker, and even your racist boss. White people, it is our job to fix this. We got to get this. Alright, I’m going to check one more time for comments and then I have to close this down.

Jenny Dorsey says the Virginia governor just announced the removal of the collection of confederate statues, many of which have stood for way longer years. I love this. South Carolina governor, if you’re listening, I know you’ve got some shit in your capitol. Please take that shit down. I know it’s all over the country. South Carolina comes to mind.

Oh, Cynthia says the same is written in Luke 15:3 verses three through six, using the analogy of taking care to rest your lost sheep versus taking care of the herd that is already safe. Yes, that’s a beautiful, beautiful analogy. So good. [Inaudible name] says it’s always the racist uncle or grandma. Right, it’s always like, everybody’s polite at the dinner table except for the racist uncle or whatever.

And usually I think what we say is like, oh, they’re old, they’re from a different generation. Please stop. Speak the fuck up. And you know what, your family might get mad at you and that’s okay. That’s okay.

Alright my friends, I have to close this down for today. I’m actually going to take this episode and put it on a podcast. It’ll come out next week. And also, there’s a podcast of me and Mirna having a wonderful chat about her life. And all the fun stuff that’s going on in her life right now. That’s going to be coming out next week, so I think you’re going to get two podcasts.

And we’re going to be talking about this more here, in the Facebook group, and we’re going to talk about running all day, all the time, but I’ve got a pretty big following and I’ve got a good community of people that are listening. And I like to talk, so buckle up, bitches. Alright my friends, I’m getting married tomorrow so you have an amazing weekend and I will talk you all later. Bye.

Oh, and one last thing. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have to check out the Rebel Runner Roadmap. It’s a 30-day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you’ve always wanted to be. Head on over to rebelrunnerroadmap.com to join. I’d love to be a part of your journey.