Eps 78: Jasen Frelot and I get real about race and racism

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Joyful courage, parenting. Podcast Episode 78

Hey podcast listeners, welcome back to the show. I'm so glad that you're here. This is Casey. Your host, positive discipline trainer, parent coach, podcast hostess, with the mostest. I'm super excited for the show today. My guest is Jason frilo, and he is local to the Seattle area. He is an activist. He's an amazing human doing really important work for parents and families in our area and beyond. I was had a total public radio moment where I was driving home and the story came on about this guy who was teaching classes to white parents about how to talk about race and racism with their children. And I was floored. I was so excited by the things he was saying that I sat in my driveway until the segment was over, and then I got online and I found his name and I totally stalked him online until I found some contact information for him, because I think this is a really, really important conversation for us to be having. I am a middle class white woman, and I know that many of you that are listening are white moms, and I think that the more that we can talk about how we can do better around raising our kids, in treating others with equal dignity and respect, the better our future society, world, community, neighborhoods, cities, states will be. And I know there's a lot of really hot debate right now alive in our country, if we're talking about the United States, I know that I'm not assuming that every person that is listening to this show shares all the same lenses that I share when I look at the world. I know that you're here for parenting help. I acknowledge that, and I don't feel like I can pretend that the state of the world as it is in this moment isn't happening. So I'm not going to do that. You will hear references to the current political climate, and it's important because it's real. It's alive for so many of us, and at the very basic level, the messaging of this podcast is around being in relationship with the other humans in our life. It's about treating people with dignity and respect because, simply because they're humans. And I don't know any other topic that hits that as hard as what you're going to be listening to Jason and I talk about today, so I'm just going to invite you into the messiness of it, and you might notice emotions show up for you as you listen to us talk. I definitely had a variety of emotions show up in our conversation. There are some really interesting there's some really powerful self reflection that we can all do about the way that we're showing up in our world and how we're contributing to the current climate that can push us into action if we let it, if we can wade through how uncomfortable it feels to recognize that we are a part of the problem. If we can move through that discomfort and step away from excuses and blame and really move into action for making things better, we are a force that can be reckoned with, right or can't be reckoned with. I don't really know how to use that word, but anyway, I it is my great, great pleasure to invite you into this conversation and to have all the feels that you feels, that you feels, and to at the end, let me know what you're taking away. Let me know what you're taking away, because this is conversation that we all need to be having. So I'm super excited to introduce you to my guest, Jason frilo,

hey there, Jason, welcome to the joyful courage parenting podcast.

Jason Frelot 4:36
Thanks, Casey, it's good to be here.

Casey O'Roarty 4:38
I'm so glad that you are please share with the listeners about your journey of doing what you do.

Jason Frelot 4:46
So about two years ago, I was having a drink with a friend, another mother, and she told me a story about her her son, her little boy, maybe five or six years old. They were on a. City bus, and there's a lot of black and brown brown people on the bus. He's a little white boy, and he said, Mama, we're on the scary bus. And she was horrified. She asked him what she what he meant by that. And you know, sure enough, he meant that he was on the black and brown people buzz and, you know, she's a, you know, I know her. She's a good, progressive, loving mother. Always marches on Martin Luther King Day even has books full of black and brown people. She really has made an effort to teach her son that everyone is valuable, that everyone should be treated the same, that everyone should be treated equally. And yet, and still, he had this belief that being on this on the bus with black and brown people, made that bus the scary bus. And she didn't know where that came from. And quite honestly, I didn't know either. I had an idea. So we kind of went on this journey together to find out. We researched and we looked and we looked and we looked for research on racial identity development in young children. And the fact of the matter is, is that there. There wasn't a lot of it, but we knew that, you know, we weren't the only ones that with this question. So we started talking to kids about race workshop. And when we first started, there was a lot of cross racial adoptees, white band white parents with children of color that were coming to the events. But, you know, as the world changed, as the program advanced, it became larger and larger and larger, and we we caught our stride, and it's become this thing, which it is today, where we focus upon the stories that we don't know that we're telling our children. So we've gathered a fine, fine group of speakers and educators that deliver content both for the children and for the adults at the same time. And you know, we talk about racial identity development, we talk about the problems with color blindness, and we talk about narratives and counter narratives, the stories that we don't know that we're telling our children, that are essentially teaching our children, our white children to be racist, and our black and brown children that they're not valuable. And of course, we know that none of us, none of us. I have never met a parent, white, brown or otherwise, that wanted to teach their children to be racist. But the fact that the matter is, is that if we don't interrupt these stories that we're telling our children, then that's just what's going to happen.

Casey O'Roarty 7:59
Yeah. So I love that you started with that story, Jason, because we live out we live in Monroe, which not, probably not terribly far from you, but it's definitely out farther in the country, and, you know, very lacking in diversity. And I remember we have a story like that, where my husband was at the hardware store in one of the small towns in our valley, with my son and two black men walked in, and Ian, you know, the the bluntness of children, he says, Well, what are they doing here? And I think it was just this contrast, right? Because of where we live and what he does and doesn't see, it was startling. Well, I don't know if startling is the right word, but he was really like, what are they doing here and then? But I think what shows up then is this incredible discomfort on the part of her parent, right? Because it's like, well, and I'm sure my husband handled it beautifully. Told he's like, Well, they're probably here to get a tool, you know? And on one hand, it's like, everybody gets tools. On the other hand, it's like, how am I supposed to have this big conversation with my child about race? And that wasn't a very nice thing to say and but it was innocent. And I mean, it's just the spin out that can happen in the mind is so uncomfortable for the parent that i I wonder how many of us just kind of avoid or glaze over because we want to get it right, and we don't know how. Yeah,

Jason Frelot 9:25
yeah, yeah. I mean, like, really, the glazing over is the most common response, but it's the worst possible one. Like, we can't glaze over it. It's, you know, white people are very uncomfortable talking about race and, and it's because it's the one area in in life where white people don't, aren't, aren't in charge, where, like there's this, there's this knowledge that, like that, there's something wrong here, like that there, that there's something that isn't right here. And, and. Don't white people don't quite understand what it is, but they know that there's something that isn't right, and because of that, there's this desire, there's this desire that we have as parents and as humans, really, to keep ourselves as comfortable as possible. So when this, when this thing comes up, that we've been told in our lives over and over and over again that we don't talk about it. We can't say anything about it. This is, you know, we're never supposed to say, Oh, that's a black person or Oh, those are white people. We shush our kids, we avoid it, we glaze over it, we make jokes. And what that tells our kids is that, oh, you know, race isn't something that we talk about and and when we do that, what we're doing is we're unintentionally telling them that things are okay as they are, that we don't need to change anything that, that the that the social order of things, and this is what this is what your son was observing. This is what my friend's son was observing, that there is a social order to things. Kids see that very early. And what we're telling them, especially when we tell our little white kids, this is that this social order is just the way that it is. We don't talk about that social order. We don't try to correct this social order. We don't bring up the social order. It is essentially a caste system that we have, that we have allowed to exist by not pointing it out and talking about it.

Casey O'Roarty 11:30
Yeah, so in that, in in your friend's son's situation or in my son's situation, what is a counter? What is a response? What's a different what's a better response is that a big question to get there?

Jason Frelot 11:48
Yeah, it is a big question. It and it's, it's the response is to produce a world and a place and a society where your kids don't ask that type of question, yeah, yeah. Where? Where you surround your children? Where we surround our children with different stories and different ways of looking at the world, so that those stories, so that that type of thing doesn't come up now that that's a lot more difficult than just giving a you know, this is what you say to your child in that situation, totally like that. That's that what I'm suggesting is much more difficult and takes much more work, but it like that's, that's the right answer that like that. It'll so when, when I get that question, typically, what the goal is is to bring us back to a place of comfort, right? Like so, so the so the kid is asking this question, we don't like what this question reveals about the world. We don't like what this question reveals about our parenting. We don't like what this question reveals about our children. So we're like, let's just get back to a place where everything is okay again, and that's not what we're going for here. What we're going for here is real change. What we're going for here is a real conversation that is messy and with what means is diving deeper into that discomfort, diving deeper into thinking about, wait, so I know that it's not, it's not your voice fault that he asked that question like he was deserving something about the world that has always been there. It's not your fault that your son is asking that question, but you certainly have a role to play in it. You have a role in correcting it. It's not the store's fault that your son asked that question, but they certainly have a role in the problem, and they have a role in correcting it. Everyone has a role to play in correcting this problem, and what the BS parents have to do is figure out what our role is in correcting that problem and do our small part to correcting it.

Casey O'Roarty 13:54
Yeah, and you mentioned equality earlier. So, and I'm so we talked a little bit about this before I hit record, but I would love for you to tease out the two words equality versus equity for the people that are listening. Because you know, if we're going to have a vision, if we're going to have a vision of dignity and respect for all humans, equality and equity are actually two different things,

Jason Frelot 14:21
yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know if any of your listeners have ever seen it, but there's this, this really pithy little picture, and it's a fence, and it's got three people standing on the fence, and some people have got, like, a booster so that they can see over the fence, and then others have a slightly smaller booster, and another one has no booster at all. So equality is saying that everyone is being treated the same by having the exact same thing. And the reality is, is that, like everyone, doesn't we? None of us have started with the exact same thing, right? So. So like it works, all men are treated created equal, that everyone is treated the same, that if we just treat everyone equally, then we'll have equal results. That that denies the two 200 years of oppression, that that that doesn't acknowledge the history and the stories of this country about the way that people of color are treated. And so it's kind of like putting blinders on. It's putting our hands over our ears and screaming that that everyone is treated the same, that that everything is okay. It's saying that things don't need to be different. And the good thing about what's happening now is that people are slowly starting to recognize that that the way things are are not acceptable, that the way things are that things really do need to change. When we talk about equality, what we're saying is a convenient way to to pass the buck, to pass the responsibility from me as a white people person, or me as white society, onto people of color. For, you know, unequal outcomes and oppression is to say, like for to take the example of the black people walking into the store. So if we believe that, you know that, like, I I'm not racist, I see I don't even see color. I'm colorblind. So when those black people walk into the store and you see them, you go, Oh, what are they doing here? But if you believe that you're colorblind, you think you're not going to acknowledge that it's because they're black that you're feeling that that discomfort. You're going to say, oh, you know what? It's because they were wearing the wrong clothes.

It's because they were speaking loudly. It's because of this, it's because of that, and there's never an acknowledgement of racism, right? And racism is America's original sin, like that, like it isn't as American as anything else is racism, but it's the one thing that we we have not really spoken about in a, in a in a real way. We leave it to Martin Luther King to talk to us about it. We leave it to Malcolm X for us to talk about it and and we talk about it as if it was something that occurred in the past. We talked about it as something that is occurs separate from us individually, but we don't ever talk about it in like in a real and present way, as as in racism affects and impacts the way that I live my life. Every single day. It affects and impacts the way that my child's world is if your child it only grows up around white people. That wasn't by accident, that took years and years and years of very specific social engineering to keep black and brown people out of that community so your kid never sees black people. Yeah, like, none of this stuff happened by accident. And when we when we deny, when we say that we want to talk about colorblindness and equality, what we're saying is we're denying that history. We're hiding it and and the scariest thing for white parents is that when, when our kids point out to us that they see that, like when, when, when our kids say, Oh, we're on the scary bus. Oh, what are those black people doing here? They're pointing out to us that they see it, and we've been told our whole lives, no, pretend like it doesn't exist, right? But our kids, our kids see it and they know it,

Casey O'Roarty 18:50
yeah, yeah. And, you know, I had a friend, yeah. Gosh, thank you. I'm so glad that you're here, Jason, I have a friend who recently talked about equality and equity as equality being everybody getting a pair of the same pair of pants, and equity being everybody getting a pair of pants that fits them. Oh,

Jason Frelot 19:11
that's much better. Casey, that's much better. Yeah, everybody landed.

Casey O'Roarty 19:15
It really landed for me, you

Jason Frelot 19:17
know, yeah, and I'm much better. That's fantastic

Casey O'Roarty 19:20
for some work that I do with with teachers. I'm reading a book, what's it called culturally responsive classrooms and the brain. And

Jason Frelot 19:29
do you know that one No, no, that's on your

Casey O'Roarty 19:33
list? It is. And she talks about, even in our languaging around achievement gap, that really what's happening is not an achievement gap, because there's an assumption there that there's a less than ability to achieve mostly, you know, and it shows up with our children of color. I mean poverty, all these other things come into play too, but that, you know, when we look at the stats, that's what we see. And she says, actually, this is an opportunity gap. What? Right, right, you know. And that was it. I had not heard it that way, and that may, you know. And again, it was just one of those places where my perspective got, was able to broaden. And, you know, I'm a middle class white woman, right? And I have had, you know, the experiences that I've had and the relationships that I've had, and my lens over the last 43 years has been developed, you know, just like the things you were saying because of the experiences that I've had and so and I'm a mom, and I want to take a stand for all people, and being willing to to say to my friends, my friends who are people of color, my friends who are black and brown and Hispanic and Muslim, and to just say, like, I know there's I have so much blindness to my blindness in perhaps some of my language, or the way I show up in a room, or even in the way that I show up in conversation. And so I've asked them to please point it out when they see it,

Jason Frelot 21:02
yeah, yeah. That's a really hard thing to do, isn't it? Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 21:06
it is. Because as soon as this happened just the other night, and as soon as I said it, I wanted to also say and be nice,

Jason Frelot 21:13
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The be nice part is, is something that I think that all of us could do a little bit better job.

Casey O'Roarty 21:22
I mean, I think that whole blind or blindness piece shows up in all human experience, right?

Jason Frelot 21:29
That. I mean, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a male, and my wife is constantly telling me about my maleness, so I like stomp around the house, leaving my messy maleness everywhere, like, I like, I don't even know. I don't even notice it. I mean, I grew up with my household was pretty traditional. Like, my mom never, or dad never asked me to do the dishes. I mean, I did male, quote, unquote man chores, like taking out the garbage and taking care of the yard. But, like, as far as household stuff, I never, I never touched any of that. So it was a rude awakening when I got married. It had this powerful, wonderful woman that I have who expected me to clean. I had no idea that I wasn't, that I was I was like, I am cleaning. Like, I'm just now recognizing that I'm not. And it's, it's constant unveiling of privilege, right? Like, and we all have it. We all have our blind spots and being willing to laugh a little bit about them. Like, the worst thing that's happened to this is like everyone is being, you know, Donald Trump doesn't even want to be called a racist. Donald Trump doesn't want to be called a racist, right? And like, where he clearly is, everyone can see it, yeah. And like, this fear, this fear that we have, that white people have, of being called racist, is really, really hurting the conversation. Like being racist, all it means is that you've been, you were born into a society where white supremacy is the norm, and that is okay. I mean, it's not okay, like there's something significantly wrong with it, but it doesn't mean that you're a bad person. It just means that you're a human being that has been that has been born into an imperfect world. Yeah, now we have responsibility to correct it and to address it, but if we can't even acknowledge it, right, and if we don't even have a willingness to deal with it, then, I mean, then you're part of the problem, quite frankly, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 23:35
yeah. Well, and you know, I want to acknowledge too, that the vast majority of my listeners are white parents, and you know, they listen to this podcast because at the very most fundamental place, what I talk about with guests is relationship and skill building, and, you know, treating each other with dignity and respect. And so with that context in mind, I know listeners, if some of what Jason's talking about is making you feel uncomfortable, what a great place to check in, right? What a great place to get curious and to lean into that a little bit, because you're absolutely right. It is our responsibility. And, God, I saw a meme that said something about, oh, I can't resay it because I can't remember it quite well. But, you know, yes, white privilege is, it's a thing, and even if you aren't, you know, and it's really easy to say, what white privilege? I don't own a fancy car and a fancy house and, you know, I don't have a lot of money. That's not what right. White Privilege is right. So can you, can we talk a little bit about, like, what? Can we unpack white privilege a little bit for listeners in a way that doesn't make us all feel super defensive, a small order, too? Yeah,

Jason Frelot 24:57
yeah. I don't know about the. Offensive thing, but I'll do the best that I can. I talk about it in regards to power. So everyone has power. I think about it in regards to three types of power, situational power, structural power and individual power. Now situational power would be the power that I have as a black man on your podcast right now, I have a good amount of power, because my voice is being projected to all of your millions and millions of listeners, right? Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 25:31
we'll keep that. We'll put that out there millions, millions of

Jason Frelot 25:35
listeners. Structural power is the power that you have Casey as a white woman, right? Like you have structural power that has been given to you as a middle class white woman, I don't know. You might be a homeowner, you might live in a, you know, relatively nice and safe neighborhood, you might have a good rapport with the police. And now structural Power is power that is given to you whether or not you acknowledge it, and it's based upon simple things about how you look, where you live, how people perceive you when you're walking down the street and and then we have individuals power and like this is, this is these different stories that we have. Now you might be a white person, dear listener, that comes from an abusive home, and that is a real story, and that is a real thing, but that's separate, different and separate from the privilege that you have as a white person. So we're talking about white privilege. We're talking about the privilege that you have as a white person simply for being white and nothing else. And that doesn't take away from, you know, an individual story that you might have, or individual suffering that you have that's very valid and important to your story and to who you are as a person. But it, but it does it. But what it does say is that, yes, is it acknowledging to say yes, I have privilege as a white person, and I talked a little bit about my privilege as a male. I have structural privilege as a male, and the worst thing that I can do as a male is to deny that, because when I deny that, is when I am most prone to misuse that privilege. So if we so, in the white person's example, if a white person denies their white privilege, a white person who denies their white privilege, who doesn't see it, those are the white people that are most prone to do things that are racist, to do things that are harmful to people of color. So if you don't want to be racist, the best way, the fastest way to not be racist, is just to acknowledge your white privilege, acknowledge your racism and go from there, right?

Casey O'Roarty 27:57
All right. So can I share something with you, and I'd love to get your feedback on it. Yes, I was having a conversation with my son, he's 11, about white privilege and about the white male. I think there was a there was an amazing video that was going around social media of this. I think it was a middle school student, and he was doing a spoken word about his privilege. And so I was talking to Ian about it, and I said, you know, it's like, imagine, you know, there's you and another, you know, there's three babies, and one of them is white, and one of them is black, maybe one of them's Hispanic. You know, there's all the different I just kind of, I think I probably went with black and Hispanic. And I said, So, and you're all and over your lifetime, you want to get to the top of the ladder. And because you are, because the this baby is white, I said, because you were born white, you get to start on the sixth rung of the ladder. Yeah, yeah. Well, everybody else starts at the bottom. Yeah, yeah. And I felt like that, really. I felt like, you know, I mean, of course, everybody, listeners, please. Let me land this. This is not one conversation that we have, right? We have conversations continuously with our kids, just like when you talk about sex, when you talk about drugs, which you should be talking about with your kids, yeah. Please do this. Same conversation is not just an isolated Okay, great. We've talked about it, moving on, right, right, but that was a, really that visual for me. I felt pretty good about myself.

Jason Frelot 29:30
Yeah, go ahead, pat yourself on the back. That's but so you're so good at being less convoluted than me. Like, yeah, the rungs of the ladder. I'm sitting here talking about three types of power. You're talking about rungs of a ladder.

Casey O'Roarty 29:44
It's all good. And you, you shared that you've been up all night with a baby. So, oh

Jason Frelot 29:49
yeah, yes,

Casey O'Roarty 29:50
yes. So what about talk a little bit about so you provide these workshops for parents, and you're, you're, you're helping them. Right? You're helping white parents in regards to having these conversations. And I really love that when I said, Well, what should I have said in that situation? That you were like, I can't tell you, because I often will have parents that say, whether it's like a tantrum or defiance in the grocery store or whatever, they'll say, Well, what's the right thing to say? And it's not so much about what we say, as much as it is how we

Jason Frelot 30:24
be, right, yeah, how we live, how we are. Couldn't agree more, yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 30:27
So, so how do you support parents in the work that you do around their way of being like, what are, what are some of the, what are some of the conversations that are happening in your workshops? So

Jason Frelot 30:38
the thing that we focus on most, besides the simple acknowledgement of white privilege. I can't say enough how much this is. This is starting with work in the parent,

Casey O'Roarty 30:49
yep. Like, yeah, I talked about that too. Yep, yeah. The parent

Jason Frelot 30:53
has to start with the work in and of in themselves, because when, when you're in a situation and your child, you know, God forbid, says something racist to a black person's face, which has happened to me plenty of times from, you know, an innocent white kid comes up and says something to me, like the it's too late, like You've seen the results of what you're doing so like starting from starting from the bottom, like Drake says, starting from the bottom and working, working your way up, educating yourself, reading, taking some time to really learn the history Tada and Ashi Coates, he writes For the Atlantic. He wrote a great article on reparations for descendants of slaves. And in that article, he does a really fantastic job of explaining, going through the history of America and explaining all the different creative, creative, amazingly creative ways that white people have thought of to oppress people of color, and like reading that and understanding it and seeing it and saying, saying that I have a role in this. Because when, when, when we look at these things like we can get this sense of the problem is so big that I can't do anything about it, and we just want to go lie in the bed with our where the you know, stand on the bed. But when we do that, what we're saying is that I don't have any responsibility for the problem and I don't have any responsibility to change it. And that's not true. We all have a responsibility in the problem, and we all have a responsibility to change it, especially white people, especially white people. So part A, recognize your role in the problem and your responsibility to fix it. Everyone can do something right. Part B, look at the stories that you're telling your children. I The easiest way to do this is looking at the media that where that your kids are consuming. I talk a lot about media in the workshop, is the easiest way to see white privilege and in in society is just to look at your media.

Casey O'Roarty 33:14
And not even just white privilege, but white wealthy, skinny, good looking privilege.

Jason Frelot 33:20
Oh, my God, yes. I mean, I I need to go back in your archives. I hope you have a podcast about where we could just, like, dismantle Disney.

Casey O'Roarty 33:29
I'll have to have you back on for that one. Yeah, yeah.

Jason Frelot 33:32
I would love to talk just about media. Because, like, media is a the media that we're allowing our kids to consume is sending them very, very clear messages about who's important, who's valuable, whose story is worth telling. And if we only feed our children Disney or Star Wars, then that's sending them a really, really clear message, really clear messages. And so taking a look at our media, I have my daughter watching Sesame Street. I think Sesame Street is a great example of showing black and brown people as whole people. Yeah, is this? This is about humanity. Is about showing picking stories for our children to see that shows black and brown people as whole. I mean, like frozen and Star Wars, they have a diversity in in the in the sense that there's a snowman, like they have a talking snowman, but they can't put any black people in there, right? I mean, like Star Wars has got tons of aliens, at least the old Star Wars movies, they got tons of aliens, but they don't have any black people. Like, so, like, there's all of these great, great analogies about race. Like, Zootopia is a great analogy about race, but, like, but there's nothing where they actually are showing racism and race. Is in media, because there's this rule, there's this rule in our media that you just don't talk about race. So, I mean, like, I could go on and on, like the X Men, that's, that's a great example of an allegory about race, but it doesn't directly talk about it. So, you know, in the know, white people can show that to their kids and go, Well, you see, we're talking to our kids about accepting everyone, right? But they're going to understand what that what that's talking about there. They're going to get us like, yes, we should upset accept mutants, people with powers in our society, right? And watching Zootopia, they'll be like, yes, a buddy can be a police officer, they're not going to see that and and go, Yeah, we need to treat black people with respect. The only way that they're going to learn learn that is by seeing images of black people being treated with respect and seeing their parents actually treating people with of color with respect. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 35:58
well, and I've heard you talk about this because I stalked you after you were on my local public radio station. I heard you talking, and I literally sat in my driveway until your segment was over, because I was like, What's this guy's name? I gotta get his name. But I heard you talking about that. There's, you know, the stories that we tell, and then like, just like you're saying, and then there's the stories that we live and the example you gave in the interview that I heard was your daughter, and living in a in a predominantly white neighborhood, she's probably going to go to a predominantly white school. Right? Am I on the right track here? And what just without even mention, without even having big conversations, there's a story. There's a story unfolding for her, just in her experience of living, yeah, who, who, who are in the roles of professionals, who are in the roles of of helpers and of servers and, you know, and being ever more aware, and I'm talking to listeners too, just that even, you know, in our, you know, the whole conversation around well, at our house, you know, we have this books and we have conversations about these shows. And, yes, great. And where is your child's opportunity to go out and see all different kinds of people doing all different kinds of things

Jason Frelot 37:21
a man of that, yeah, yeah. Because I don't know the answer

Casey O'Roarty 37:24
to that. I don't know where that magical place is, but I want to go there and this flip. But you know what I mean? Like, I would love to have a pediatrician who was a person of color.

I I don't, yeah. I don't know where they where one is, yeah,

Jason Frelot 37:47
yeah. Well, they exist. I mean, just take some it just takes some effort to find it. I mean, I'm opening a preschool so that I can raise my daughter in that magical place, to create a space where, where people of color, and all people truly are treated with respect and and truly are presented as whole people. I mean, like all, every, every preschool that you, that you see, is going to have this in their in their mission statement, all we treat all people with respect, we we value everybody. But when you look, when you really look at who's in charge there, and you really look who's in positions of authority, who the lead teachers are, and who isn't, and who is, you know, doing the dishes like it doesn't, it doesn't really it matters a lot less what we say to our Children then it does what our children are seeing. Absolutely. Our children see these things and they're coming to conclusions and and, you know, I can't say enough like that we are coming to conclusions as well. It's not just our children that are coming to conclusions about these things. We're seeing these stories too. To say that these that these stories only have an impact upon our children and not on us, is a lie, too. We like these stories are having impacts upon us too. It's, it's, it's. Not only is it harmful to the Black and Brown and and Asian American soul is it's, it's, it's a malady on the white soul as well. Like we really need to create a society where everyone is valued and and everyone isn't right now, and if we can't even acknowledge that, then we're never going to solve the problem, right?

Casey O'Roarty 39:35
And I have a quote that I would love to read and play with a little bit from, from Dr King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail.

Jason Frelot 39:45
Everyone's

Casey O'Roarty 39:47
everybody's read it. Thank you for letting me bring an MLK quote on Jason. I appreciate it, but it's and it's just a segment of it, but I think it's really powerful, especially can. Considering where we're at, right here, right now, in the course of history, and it goes, we who engage in non violent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open where it can be seen and dealt with like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up, but must be opened, with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light injustice, must be exposed with all the tension that exposure creates to the light of human conscious and the air of National Opinion before it can be cured. So, yeah, does that, I mean, that totally speaks to what's happening right now.

Jason Frelot 40:45
Yeah, Donald Trump is one big ugly boy, isn't he?

Casey O'Roarty 40:51
Well, yes, yeah, and, and so, so it's like, yes, yes. So how do we tend and it's like, um, you know, I have a really good friend that facilitates really powerful, transformational workshops. And she says often, when there is a wound, we focus on the wound instead of the opening. Hmm, right? And I think that we there's like, yes, yes. And I had actually another friend who was in Washington, DC for the Well, she didn't go to the inauguration. She was there for the March, but she was there on the day of the inauguration. And one and her Uber driver, a black man, said, You know what? This is good, because when you're sick, you want the symptoms to be obvious so that treatment can be created to get you healthy, right? Yeah, right. And so now we've got we're sick and the symptoms, I mean, as they're at the surface, yeah, you know? And so, yes, great. So now it's the work of treatment, yeah, back to a place of health, yeah? Or to get to a place. I mean, it's not even a coming back to right?

Jason Frelot 42:01
Yeah, yeah, because it's always been a problem, right? Is always been a problem, and we've we. I mean, part of the problem with the lionization is, like Martin Luther King and and Barack Obama, is that it gives White people and American occasion to pat themselves on the back for, like, supporting these, these lions, these See, these exceptional figures in this civil rights of, you know, in American history and civil rights. So they'll go, Oh, if we like Martin Luther King and Barack Obama, then, like, this is proof that we're not racist and that we don't have anything to deal with. So like, clearly,

Casey O'Roarty 42:35
the last three or four months have shown us a different Yeah, it's

Jason Frelot 42:39
shown us. It's shown us a different story, and and like, and I can't emphasize enough how we all have a role to play in this, how we all as parents, especially as parents, especially that you have a role, you have a role to play. You have a role in the problem and you have a role in the solution. So like, both things need to be acknowledged. We need to acknowledge our role in the problem, and we need to acknowledge our role in the solution. Now, like, what's going to happen is go there. People are going to go, Well, I don't know. I don't understand my role in the solution. Well, think about your role in the problem. That could be a good start. Where is your child going to school? Are you? Are you being a squeaky wheel about diversity in your in your elementary school? Like, I think one of the one of the sad things about my program, for example, and I'm not saying this as a commercial at all, that I've done a lot of programs in in churches and for parents, but I haven't done a lot in elementary schools. So our teachers are I love teachers. My mom is a teacher. My like I come from a family of educators, so please do not take this as me criticizing teachers, but our teachers don't have the tools to be able to have conversations about about critical race theory and race and the impact that is having on children of color and parents are especially white. Parents, especially white mothers, are fantastic people to be squeaky wheels to getting our to our teachers educated about how to talk to our children about race within the context of the school. That's just just one example of things that that a mother can do. You know, making sure that you go out of your way to to impact your children's media is an example something that you're that you can do, making sure you know it's just little things like when you when you become woke, as we say, when you become awake to the problems of racism in our society, or woke then when you see the problems of racist societies, like it's going to be, you don't have to bite. Every battle, but pick your battles. You know, maybe when you're at a restaurant and you just don't happen to notice that all of the servers are white and all of the cooks are black, maybe point that out, just going, Hey, I you know what I noticed? I noticed that all the cooks are people of color in the back, and all your servers are white and like it's going to it's going to, it's going to be hella uncomfortable. It's going to be super uncomfortable, like you're going to feel uncomfortable, the server is going to feel uncomfortable. Everybody's going to be uncomfortable. But it's revealing that boil, yeah, that Dr King is talking about. And if it is never revealed, there's this, there's this thing that they say, silence is violence. When we don't speak up, when we don't say anything. What we're telling society and what we're telling our children is that things are okay the way that they are, and they're not. They're not so like we have to. Everyone has to do their part. Everyone has to speak up. Everyone has to become woke, or awake to the problems of racial inequity and racial injustice, and, and, and, you know, start by speaking up. Yeah. Start by supporting, supporting programs like mine, kids of race like start. There's a place to start. I I'm really encouraged by the amount of people that have come to me like you Casey and other people that have come to me and said that they want to be a part of what we're doing, yeah, but my program is not the only one that's out there, but there's lots of programs that are out there. There's lots of ways to be a part of it. But like, you know, reaching out, I mean, like, there's, there's so much work to be done on this, and I, trust me, I'm exhausted. It's an exhausting thing to do, to be a part of. I have a team of people that are working with me, a wonderful team of people, but it's, you know, even with that team, it's exhausting. And there's always, there's always something that could be done. So like saying that I don't know what to do, saying that I don't know where to start. It's a cop out, like, don't, don't allow yourself to get into that place of not, not saying that I don't know what to do, because there is something that you can do. There's something that everyone

Casey O'Roarty 47:14
can do. Yeah, and you know, even in this conversation that I had the other night with two lovely ladies, and you know, they, one of them, got pretty fired up, telling me about, like, well, if you're going to be an ally, you know, don't do this. Do this. And I said, Thank you. Yes, give me more information. Because, again, blind to my blindness. So listeners, my advice to you is ask, like, just be really authentic and vulnerable and and, you know, go to people in your life and saying, this is on my mind. This has been on my mind for a few years now. Jason, well, a long, lot longer than that, but especially with my kids, and really uncomfortable with how white our world, my particular personal world, is. And just like, How can I, how can I shift things so that my, you know, so that we're all growing into a world that where people value each other, right? And it has nothing to do with the color of our skin or our sexual orientation or our income. It's simply we are all human beings, and we're all deserving of equal dignity and respect and and there's a lot of shit that we need to fix and get right. And I'm I'm on board. I'm on board. Yay, yay. So I always, I always end with the same question, and I would love to hear, I'm so excited to ask you be, especially in the context of this kids and race conversation. And my last question to you is, you know that my business is called joyful courage, or maybe you don't, but it is so. What does joyful courage mean to you?

Jason Frelot 48:51
Well, talking to your kids about race in a joyful way, with a smile on your face, there's a lot of negativity and rage, rightly so around this conversation. And I in my workshops, really try to have people leave with a smile on their face, like, this is, this is, like, it's never fun to, you know, learn that we're unintentionally teaching our kids to be racist. Like, no one wants to hear that like that's not fun. But you know, what is fun is having a role in solving a big problem, like feeling, feeling like you have, that you have power. That's fun, that's that's good news. And there's a lot of joy in that. And it takes courage to acknowledge that there's that we have a blind spot, that there's that there's something that I can do better, and to know boldly go where, you know very few white people have gone before, is it takes courage. Yeah, so, and it takes joyful courage. I can't say enough how important it is to be joyful in what what it is that we're doing. Right? So go forth joyfully, like be happy about it. Have some fun, smile, laugh, because it this is a long haul, and if we're always miserable about it, then we're never going to get where we need to be. And now, now, like, one more thing I want to say is that not all black people are going to be excited about white people jumping on board and and solving this problem. And they they've got a good argument. They're going to say, they say that when white people come along, they tend to want to take charge and control things and everything. And when, when, when white people hear this, when, you know when they're first going into it, and they get some pushback from somebody on Facebook saying, like, No, you're white, you you're not allowed to do this. Don't let that stop you. Listen to the listen to the critique. Listen to the criticism. You're getting a little bit of what it's like to be a person of color in this world. Just a little. You're just getting a small taste of it. So, like, you know, use that as an access point to empathy and keep going. Know that that one black person that's criticizing your effort is not a monolith, that one black person isn't isn't speaking for all black people, your efforts are a small step in solving a larger problem. So yeah, just keep going.

Casey O'Roarty 51:17
Thank you for that invitation. Now I'm sure that there's people listening that want to know more about you, maybe want to get in touch and follow your work. How can people find you and follow you? Jason,

Jason Frelot 51:27
well, first, I want to talk about Columbia City preschool of arts and culture. We are enrolling now. It's a brand new social justice based program, and we're now enrolling for this spring and the upcoming school year. For more information, go to Columbia City preschool.org and then we also have the kids and race event. We do a lot of these kids and race changing the narrative. Our next one is March 11 here in Seattle, at epiphany parish. And you can get your tickets on brown paper tickets. And for more information, if you would like me to come and speak or do anything like that, you can email kids and [email protected] Also, I want to give a shout out to the well team, the email salary and there is a great organization that brings large speakers and focus on focuses on contemplative action and social justice. So check out the well clean in.org and there's also a little button on there that says, kids and race. You can click on that. And I've got some writings on power and on and on, talking your to your kids about race, where I lay out what I will do, what I would do if I were talking to my child about race, is frequently the last thing that I like to tell people, because I really like people to come up with their own solutions. But there are some resources, resources on that website as well, and there's a lot of great things there,

Casey O'Roarty 53:01
and listeners that aren't in the Pacific Northwest just know that today is gorgeous, and it's like 70 degrees in the sun, and Jason's outside in his backyard, which is why we just got to hear the airplane that flew by. But we have to celebrate the warm weather

Jason Frelot 53:15
I know we'll be getting. Yeah, oh, Casey, I really want to take this program out of Washington State. So so if you're not, if you're not in Washington State and you're interested in the program, shoot me an email. Let's figure something out. Is the goal of mine to get the program out of the state by the end of the year. I don't know if it can happen, but dreams do come true.

Casey O'Roarty 53:37
Dreams come true. And my listeners are all over the world, so there you go. Hope your family's ready for you to do some traveling. Thank you so so much for taking time to come on.

Jason Frelot 53:49
Thank you. Thank you. This was a lot of fun.

Casey O'Roarty 53:59
So wow, right? What a incredible, honest, real conversation that was with my friend Jason. I'm so grateful that he came on and talked to me and that this podcast exists to share conversations like that with so many people. When I think about the power and the impact that this show has, I get really excited. I get really excited because my vision, my vision for the world is for it to be a place where people feel seen and heard, for the world to be a place of connection and love, where everyone is able to. Live out their highest possibility. And this vehicle, this podcast, is a vehicle, really, to support that vision. And many of you know that last month, there were some goals set around downloads, and this month, February, I have a new goal for downloads. And when I see the downloads of the shows of any particular show climbing and increasing, I get so excited because I see all the children that are impacted by the parents who listen in and have the show resonate right, resonate to them and say, Wow, this is the space that I want to create for my kids. This is the parent that I want to be, and these are the tools I'm going to use to get me there. So when I talk about increasing the downloads of the podcast, I just want to say what an honor it is to know that the reach is getting ever greater because I'm in it for the kids. Right impact 1 million kids, not because I want to be able to say I did, but because a million kids, right? This world is a tough world, and the more that we can be focused on creating loving, caring spaces in our homes where children know what it feels like to be treated with dignity and respect, and then move out into their worlds and treat people that way, the better our world becomes, and. And if this podcast can make any, any kind of movement towards that kind of world awesome, I'm stoked about that. So again, as usual, if you've listened in and, and, and you've thought to yourself, Wow, this is a really powerful conversation. This is a conversation you know that this person or that person or this group of people should hear. Then please share it like put it out there. Start real conversations with people about what Jason and I were talking about, about privilege, about race, about how to increase diversity in our life and increase understanding and meeting people where they're at. Let the podcast be a vehicle for that. That's just so exciting to me, so exciting to me. I would love it if you could be a part of of making that impact on the world, because you can, we all have the power to make an impact. So what are you going to do to make an impact today? All right, and here's another thing you can do. So I have a goal of inspiring and empowering people to feed 3000 hungry people by the end of March. Locally, here in Monroe, I have partnered with grow with me boutique, if you are anywhere near Monroe and you don't know about grow with me boutique, it's a sweet little mom and kids consignment store run by my friend Janae Hoskins, and it's an awesome place, and she's really committed to making less of an impact on the environment and supporting families and supporting moms, and she was an a huge yes when I asked her if she wanted to partner around Feeding 3000 so if you're local to this area, just know that Janae has got a box at grow with me boutique that is there to collect donations. We're putting together bags of snacks. So a couple weeks ago, Rowan and I, or about a week ago, we went to Costco, spent 50 bucks, got juice boxes and trail mix and little individual beef jerky packs and fruit snacks and something else. I can't remember what it was, but any little individually packed snack items, right? There's a plethora of that at Costco, and we put together 25 bags and are taking it down to our local organization that works with families and people in transition to share with hungry people. And my guess is you wherever you are, whatever town you're in, many of you are in the states, some of you are in other parts of the world, wherever you live, my guess is there's an organization in your community that is in support of the people in your community that are living on the edge, that do have hunger pains, that do feel the cold when the sun goes down and they don't have anywhere to sleep. And so my invitation to you. Do is to rally your troops, right? Rally your troops. Invite your other parent friends over, have them bring their kids. Have every person bring one thing, right, like, you know, one snack item, and put together some bags and share it with your community. Take it to those community centers where they can pass it out and make a difference in the lives of others. And then, because goals need to be measurable. If you do do this, when you do do this, go over to the feed 3000 event page and share it with us so that we know where it's happening. We can be inspired by you. You could inspire someone else to say, oh, yeah, you know, I heard about that, and now I'm seeing other people do it, so I'm going to do it too. I invite you into that again. I invite you into making an impact on the world, making a positive impact on the world. And I've said this before. I can't tell you how many parents come to me talking about how how frustrating it is when they feel like their kids don't show gratitude or show signs of being entitled. Well, the best way to to nurture gratitude, to kind of move beyond entitlement and into gratitude, is to give your kids opportunities to be in service to other human beings. And this is a great this is a great way to do it. So I invite you into feed 3000 I invite you into helping me make an impact with the podcast. I invite you into community, if you're a listener, and maybe this is your first show and you don't know about live and love with joyful courage. Facebook group that's a place that's a really safe and supportive community, online space that parents are showing up and sharing and asking for support and getting really positive feedback and helpful feedback. And I would love to invite all of you that are listening, if you're not already a part of that community, to jump in and jump in. Yeah, and the finally, see, I'm saving my monolog for the end. So those of you that are still listening, you are my diehards, and I love you. The last thing I want to tell you about I'm super excited next week is Valentine's Day, right? So my show on Tuesday is with my amazing friend Mary, Jo, and we are talking about ringing back the romance. I'm really excited for you to share my show that I recorded with her with all of you for Valentine's Day, but then the three days following Valentine's Day, I'm actually offering a mini mindfulness Summit. So I have three returning guests, Giovan Javon, Carrasco

and Sarah Harvey Yao and Molly Knight Ford. They're each going to have their own little mini episode. They're going to come on. We're going to talk about meditation, developing a meditation practice. What meditation is, what it isn't, kind of the step by step pieces of meditation, and then each day they will guide, guide us through a meditation, like a 10 minute meditation. So that is because so often we what I'm noticing in my work with parents is we talk about mindfulness, we talk about meditation, and many of us are just kind of winging it. So I thought, hey, you know what? I've got this great way to reach people, and it's called the podcast, so they're going to come on and do a mini mindfulness summit for us. But here is the catch, you can only listen to the mini summit if you are a subscriber to the show, so the only place that those episodes are going to show up is in the if you're a subscriber. So that means if you listen on your phone and you have a little podcast app, and the shows automatically show up. You are a subscriber. If you are currently listening to podcasts through a link on the website that takes you to my website, you are not necessarily a subscriber. And all you gotta do to become a subscriber is to go into iTunes and search for the joyful courage podcast, you'll see the little icon. You click on the Show icon, you'll see it, it'll say, joyful courage parenting podcast, and they'll be me, and then you just hit the purple subscribe button. So if you have any questions, please ask in the community, or chime in in the link or in the comments under wherever you found this show, and I'm happy to support you, because you're not going to want to miss that. It's going to be really fun, and they're going to be short, like, 20 minutes each, right? Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Will be the mini mindfulness summit for subscribers, and I just really hope that you tune in for that. Because it's gonna be really powerful. All right, so for all of you that reached out and said, I love your monolog, don't worry about it being so long, this 11 plus minute monolog post show. This is for you and everybody else who said, you know you could shorten it up at the beginning. This is also for you, because I saved it till the end, and if you are still with me at the end, God bless ya. I really appreciate you. Big, huge love to all of you. I hope that the sun is shining wherever you are, and I can't wait to be with you again next week. Have a beautiful day.

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