Friday Sep 09, 2022
What My Eyes Have Seen - Reflections on Justice, Identity, & Reparations
“Whether you grew up in a predominately Black space, or a predominately white space, you're probably going to have a racialized moment at some point in America. And you have to figure out what you're going to do with that racialized moment. Is that going to derail you or is going to put you on a new path to think about race in a slightly different way?” asks Dr. Kris Marsh, Professor at the University of Maryland. In today’s episode host D-Rich sits down with guests Dr. Kris Marsh and Kiara Williams, Esq., Co-Founder of the Auditory Museum and radio host, for part two of a two-part series titled, “What My Eyes Have Seen” which focuses on generational stories.
Both Dr. Marsh and Kiara grew up in predominantly white environments. Kiara shares that she did not have a Black teacher prior to fifth grade and until that moment, she had formed the assumption that white people were naturally smarter. When children grow up without connections to their race in the people around them, they lose touch with a large part of their identity and have to unlearn preconceived biases made based on their environments. Dr. Marsh shares that anti-blackness is woven into basically all social institutions in America and although the racism is slightly less overt now, it is no less traumatizing to experience. In order for real and impactful change to occur, reparations must be performed on a federal level.
Whether you grow up in a predominantly white area or a predominantly Black one, you will inevitably encounter radicalized racism at some point. Unfortunately, the undercurrent of racism runs deep throughout America and has created lasting trauma that all Black people must learn to analyze and face. Join Dr. Kris Marsh, Kiara Williams, Esq., and host D-Rich on this week’s episode of Southern Soul Live Stream - Podshow to learn more about racism in academia, mental health disparities within the Black community, and why Black Americans deserve reparations.
Quotes
• “If you were to take away every title, mother, father, teacher, engineer, lawyer, radio host, you were to take away all of those titles, who are you at your core?” (15:46-15:56 | Kiara)
• “I have a lot of Black friends who have never had the experience of having a Black teacher. Many of them have spent their lives thinking they hated science, or they were bad at math, when really they just had a hard time connecting with their teachers.” (23:05-23:15 | Kiara)
• “Whether you grew up in a predominately Black space, or a predominately white space, you're probably going to have a racialized moment at some point in America. And you have to figure out what you're going to do with that racialized moment. Is that going to derail you or is going to put you on a new path and think about race in a slightly different way?” (35:50-36:06 | Dr. Kris)
• “What happens with racism now is we can't always name it and claim it because you didn't explicitly call me the N word. And so it's harder for us to kind of tease it out and think through it. And it can be traumatizing for black folks having to always think about that.” (39:01-39:15 | Dr. Kris)
• “Anti-Blackness happens in any social institution in America. Why? Because we know race is the linchpin that holds America together and race is the linchpin that built America.” (50:55-51:06 | Dr. Kris)
• “For every dollar of wealth held by a white person, a Black person holds 10 cents of wealth, relative to that dollar.” (1:05:28-1:05:37 | Dr. Kris)
• “To really be impactful, the federal government owes Black Americans reparations, it should not be at the individual level, it should be a federal law.” (1:06:14-1:06:24 | Dr. Kris)
Links
Kiara Imani Williams
- https://www.kiaraimani.com/about
Therapy Isn’t Just for White People Book
- https://www.amazon.com/Therapy-Isnt-Just-White-People/dp/1735145874/
Kiara Imani Williams, Esq., is a co-founder of The Auditory Museum - a company specializing in communication and corporate storytelling. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, and received her bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia in 2011 with a major in political science, specifically focusing on politics in the media. In the past, she has worked for the FCC, PBS, MTV Networks, Fox News Networks, Modern Viewpoint Magazine, Disney ABC Television Networks, and the Student Press Law Center. Kiara is author of Therapy Isn’t Just For White People.
Dr. Kris Marsh
Dr. Kris Marsh received her PhD from the University of Southern California in 2005. She was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland where she has been tenured since 2014. Currently, Professor Marsh is writing a book (The Love Jones Cohort: A New Face of the Black Middle Class) for Cambridge University Press on the wealth, health, residential choices and dating practices of an emerging Black middle class that is single and living alone.
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