Hello everyone. This is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Expert. And I am almost speechless. This is a rarity for me. I am almost speechless here. And you heard me those of you who listened to my interview with Robert Spalding, the retired Brigadier General. It’s not often that I get kind of fan girl and giddy and a little bit nervous about being on this show, but I have the enormous honor of introducing you all to a woman who had a profound impact on my existence. I’m going to actually tear up here, I think. And she didn’t even know it, I don’t think. And so that’s what’s so beautiful. And I used her work in my original, my honors college thesis, as well as my master’s level thesis, all around issues of race and the initial one with how to be a white ally. And the second one was on how to teach issues of race to white students. And that was a really deep study I was in the middle of for a very long time and have continued into just about every arena.
And Dr. Janet Helms work is just remarkable. In fact, I stumbled upon her. It was the cutest little book that was called A Race is A Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being White or Understanding the White People in Your Life. And I was like, “What? What is this thing?” And that was weird back then, and it’s even now, it’s who would think that way? Who talks that way? And so I was looking at this book and what she presents in that and her body of work in the racial identity development arena, it just spoke to my heart in a way that so much did not. And I was able to lean into it and understand the psychology of what I was experiencing and what my unraveling of my world was doing to me. And then she was able to do it in a frame up that didn’t make me feel even worse about myself than I was already feeling in the process.
And so she just has a really beautiful way about her and she’s dedicated her existence to this body of work. And I don’t know that we could ever, ever appreciate her enough for that because she and so many others are what make these experiences that we have in life together understandable. And so we don’t have to keep fighting. We don’t have to keep battling. We don’t have to keep feeling badly about ourselves. We don’t have to keep heaping abuse on each other. We do have choice in this, but we only get choice when we can see it. When we can understand it. And so these individuals who dedicate their time behind the scenes to this are so incredibly crucial to that.
It is my incredible honor to introduce all of you to Dr. Janet Helms. I could go through her bio, but folks, it is so incredibly impressive. We’ll, put points on there and we’ll tell you where you can go to find out more about her. Truly, truly a blessing and an honor to have you here with us today. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Helms.
Well, thank you for inviting me.
Well, it is again, my distinct honor and pleasure. We’re going to dive into your work and make sure that everyone can get a sense of this brilliance that you bring into the racial identity conversations. And we’re going to talk today about navigating race responsibly. But before we do that, we’re also going to play with our superpowers. We’re going to ask, what are your superpowers?
Well, my superpowers are my curiosity. I always want to know the answers to questions. I particularly want to know the answers to questions that people are not asking. And so I’m always, oh, is a request for that kind of information.
See, I knew we’d get along. That’s perfect.
A problem solver. If I see an issue that I think needs addressing, I try to use my skills to in some way affect that issue in a way that solves the problem, at least for a little while, for all of the people who are involved in the situation. I’m a problem solver.
Beautiful. I think I would add on to that courage. I just cannot imagine what it took for you to step into that space. Yeah, I know you weren’t the only one, but you were such a powerful voice in it. And your work didn’t start in the white racial identity sphere. There was a precursor to that and you navigated into that. Share with our audience kind of where you started in this study of work and then what was that transition into that conversation like for you?
Well, you actually led me to my third strength, which was going to be.
Oh, I interrupted you. Well good. Perfect.
I have a lot of them. In fact, I think one of my superpowers is that I can see things from alternative perspectives. And so you are right. I originally started out to do research on people of color, particularly black people. But when I submitted that work for publication, reviewers would always say, “Well, how do you know the experiences of black people are any different from white people? You ought to study white people.” I thought the answer was obvious, but since I kept getting that question.
You’re like, uhhh.
I started studying white people or at least I studied them more formally than one does if one at least lives in an environment. And so my white racial identity work actually came out of people demanding that I do it. And after I began doing it, they started saying, “Don’t do it, don’t do it.”
Yeah, of course.
Because in effect at that time, people were not really talking about whiteness. And so other than the KKK and neo-Nazis and people who had a negative image of whiteness, people just did not understand the meaning of whiteness and what it meant for people who were actually categorized in that way.
I’m just sitting here in awe. I just, I wish I’d been a fly on the wall, just watch this whole thing go down, but I think I can visualize it.
Oh, there were some combative instances when I presented my work and actually in the beginning and I had to self publish with my sister because no public, no publisher would take the book. They thought.
Wow.
We couldn’t even advertise it ourselves in newspapers. They sent back our checks. It was quite an interesting journey to get to the point where we could be considered a legitimate form of work.
And when was that? When did you initially begin the work?
1998 maybe. The first edition of, well, actually 1984 was when I first published the theory on white racial identity.
I was going to say, I had you going back to 94 even in the work that I used.
Yeah. You may have, well, you can’t be that old.
Oh, I am.
There was actually an article in 1984. And then I think I wrote a book on using racial identity theory. And that was probably, you’re asking me to remember ancient history, but that was a few years later. And then there of course have been several editions of A Race is a Nice Thing to Have since then.
Yeah. I had the cute, the little black and white version, but I had a house fire and so it burned up in the house. And so you’ve really taken me on a trip down memory lane with this, but alas, last this isn’t just for me folks, I’m willing to share her with you as well. We’re going to cut to break because I know once we get diving into these topics, it’s going to be deep and you’re going to get enthralled and I don’t want to interrupt it. But let’s, before we do that, let’s tell people where they can go to find the book and find out more about you and what you’re up to.
Well, they can find the book at a Cognella Press. And their address is cognella.com.
Perfect. And we’ll be sure to link that folks for you on the episode page. Is there another place you’d like to send people?
Yes. I am the director of the Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race and Culture, ISPRC. Every year we have a conference that’s devoted to issues of race and culture in our society. This year, it’s October 23rd and 24th and it’s a virtual conference.
Beautiful.
If people go to my website, [email protected], they can find out information about the upcoming conference.
Brilliant. Oh, that’s wonderful. So many of our listeners will be interested in that. Thank you for sharing that. Folks, I know you’re going to want to stick around. I don’t even have to convince you to stay, but stay with us. We’re talking today with Dr. Janet Helms, we’re talking about navigating race responsibly. And when we come back, we’re going to dive deeply into this amazing woman’s work and the courage that she had bringing it forward. Stay with us folks. You’re not going to want to miss this.
Awesome. We’re back. Well, thank you folks for joining us again. You’re listening to Disrupt Reality. This is Tonya Dawn Recla and I have the extreme honor of talking today with Dr. Janet Helms. And we spoke before the break about this concept of navigating race responsibly. And obviously we’re seeing many, many examples perhaps of us navigating race, not so responsibly on multiple sides of things and multiple conversations. And yet there is a way to do this well. We can be decent human beings and we can be considerate with each other. And while most people are, the challenge comes when we start interacting with other people. We’re good if we’re all alone, but now we have to kind of have this friction that comes, this energetic friction that happens when other people are in our spheres.
And so without understanding kind of how we work, how they work, and sometimes it means we get to overgeneralize things to understand them and peel them apart and put them together. But it’s okay when we’re trying to understand. We have to have shared vernacular. We have to have shared things. And I love listening to you because actually my curiosity got the best of me and I listed your 1984 work, Toward a Theoretical Explanation of the Effects of Race on Counseling: A Black and White Model, your 1990 work, Toward a Model of White Racial Identity Development, your 1992 work, that was the book, A Race is a Nice Thing to Have. And then the update in 95 of your White and People of Color Racial Identity Models. When I say I was knee deep in your work, I was in your work.
And I used all of that because I loved the expansiveness of it. You were in it. You kept living it. You kept bringing it forward. You kept working it. And we have to be willing to do that. It’s great to do study and to publish it. And then it’s good. But the living, breathing kind of evolving kind is so incredibly valuable and rich. And so before the break, Janet was sharing a little bit of the courage that it took to step into these spaces. My question to you is why? And the reason I’m going to preface it a little bit, because I think my listeners have heard me share that at one point in time in my studies, I had a female African American professor in my grad program who pulled me aside and asked me why I was doing this? And what was the point?
And I had come from corporate. I did a stint at corporate America and then before coming back to grad school. And she’s like, “You know what’s out there. You know the money you could make in the world. You know. Why are you bothering with this?” And it was such an interesting question to me and I wasn’t real sure how to answer it other than I didn’t feel like I had a choice. Even though I knew consciously I was in choice, I felt compelled. There was this movement pulling me into this space. And so I was curious, with all the obstacles and obviously the resistance, why persevere?
I think probably it was my destiny. It was an issue that was out there in the context in which I function. I assume you know that I’m a professor. And so I am the person who often works with students of color who are in predominantly white environments. And so I needed a way to not only help the white people in those environments understand how their actions affected the students of color, but I needed the students of color to also have a framework for understanding who the white people were that they could consult and who the white people were that they cannot consult. In a sense, it was my effort to help people develop survival skills, as well as self-improvement skills. I actually believe that people have a moral center and so my white identity work is all about helping people find their moral center again.
I said something very similar the other day. It’s this idea of, if you’re not in touch with that, if you don’t know what that is or where to find it, folks, life is really challenging. How do you know what to go back to? For some of us it’s couched in spiritualism. For some of us it’s couched in religiosity and for some it’s secular. But to not know what your guiding light is, what your center is, what your non negotiables are in terms of how you treat yourself and how you treat other people, makes it really difficult in every situation to know where to turn. And I think we’re seeing the results of that. When you’ve never thought about what’s okay to do to somebody else in terms of the taint that it puts on your own soul and your own heart and the backlash, of course, the consequences in the reality, then in the moment in excitedness and emotion, in fear, you certainly won’t think about it.
Through our work in the counterintel world and everything else. That was one of the things that we train. And you do not know how you’re going to respond in stressful situation. And when we don’t train ourselves to be able to kind of navigate those emotional reactions, then we wreak havoc on things. And so what an amazing way to encapsulate the need for that. And folks, I know you heard me say that, we’re talking about the nineties. And that was when everything flared up at ASU, it was 95. Again, this wasn’t the sixties, this wasn’t the twenties. This was, and so as we see these cycles happen, well, actually one of my questions, Janet, is how do you not get discouraged?
Because I see little steps. I see people like you, for instance, who are trying to change things. And so my model is, I probably will not change the world, but if I can change one person, that one person will change someone else and someone else and someone else. And eventually we will have a world that’s changed in a way that’s more consistent with treating people so we are all human people, rather than some of us are.
Beautiful, beautiful. Well, certainly it has had an impact. I could talk to you all day long. I could ask you questions all day long, but let’s get the audience what they really are asking for right now. And so what do we say to people, first of all, about how, if all of these conversations that are happening are just confusing and they don’t know what to do and it’s just wanting them to circle the wagons. I know some of you are being incredibly courageous right now and are reading books and are looking for resources and you’re wanting to understand and I applaud your efforts. And I know some of you would have no idea where to turn, certainly start with Dr. Helm’s book, but what can we share with them right now? My favorite question is, what’s at risk if they don’t like pursue this? If they don’t choose to understand or learn a little bit about it, what do you think is at risk for the individual in those situations?
Maybe I should do it from the direction of what is at risk. And then I’ll do it from what’s at risk.
Perfect.
Whenever, if you are a white person in society, because the rules of society are built to favor whiteness, if you start breaking the rules, you risk losing people, resources in your life that are accustomed to you being essentially untrue to yourself. That’s the risk. And you’ll always have to ask yourself, “Am I willing to give up my privilege in order to make society, my context better places?” I think if the benefit is that white privilege, white racism makes white people, if I may use a totally unpsychological term, crazy.
You may.
When you are afraid of people without ever engaging with people at all, that’s a symptom of mental illness. When you have delusions about how people are and you’re not engaged with any of those people, that’s a symptom of mental illness. When you assume that you are better without ever engaging with any of the people, that’s a symptom of mental illness. At the very least, what white people have to gain by beginning to question the ways in which we think about whiteness and conceptualize it, is they get to be psychologically healthy. If they are psychologically healthy, then they raise psychologically healthy children, they recognize events in society that are not healthy and they seek to change them. They, if they are healthy, they begin to recognize that they can see who they are themselves and like themselves for who they are, as opposed to liking themselves for external factors that people say, or what constitutes whiteness. Did that make sense?
It made perfect sense. And it speaks to a concept that I know a lot of people are talking about is, what would motivate somebody to give up privilege? And I believe that to your point unless we recognize that there’s an inherent imprisonment to it, then we won’t because the seeming benefits of it appear to outweigh the detriment of it. Especially when we can view the people that we’re imposing or accepting that privilege from, if you will, in an outgroup type of way. And so I love that you’re referring to this as an illness. That’s a symptom of not being well and wellness is not living in fear. And there’s no way to, there’s truly no way to exercise privilege in that fashion without also acknowledging that you’re operating from fear.
Exactly.
And there is a price folks, to pay there. Now be very clear about it. There are all kinds of different privilege. Again, Peggy McIntosh, I don’t know if anybody’s expanded. I’m sure people have expanded on it, but she was really one of the forerunners, at least in the limited experience that I had with the content in terms of the white privilege. And one of the more well known ones of unpacking that white quote unquote, white knapsack. But what you offered up in your work was some characteristics that I think are worthy of looking at, because sometimes it’s challenging to say, “Okay, but what are some of the aspects that we share?” And so first let’s look at privilege in the sense that there’s a pervasiveness to that privilege that almost requires or almost prohibits us from seeing it.
This is really important to understand is that it doesn’t get talked about a lot because it is the gauge upon that everything else is, the metric that everything is measured against. And it’s very difficult to see. And so if we don’t start saying, “Okay, well, what are some of those shared characteristics?” And I know the second we start doing that, a lot of people go, “Well, that’s not me. And that’s not me. And that’s not me.” And it’s keep in mind folks, we’re talking about sociological constructs that have psychological impacts. And one of the biggest challenges as Dr. Helms points out is one of the things on the list is rugged individualism. Well you’re talking about the difference between an individualistic worldview and a collectivist worldview. And those two pathways don’t match up really nicely.
They integrate really beautifully together, but they’re usually not running in the same direction. And so you got to kind of work with them to figure out what are the compliments. There’s a lot that we can learn from both of those worldviews. And that doesn’t mean that every person of color views things collectively and every person who’s not of color, we’ll just go ahead and call it white, because that’s a place that I can really speak to is always individualistic. I happen to operate in synergistic collaboration, same with our organizations, but that’s not a normalized behavior. That’s a trained, learned concept that is much more in alignment with our natural state of existence. We’re not talking about simple matters here, folks. And it’s not as easy as saying, “I agree with black lives matter or I don’t agree with black lives matter.” To force that sort of agreement without understanding is really, really toxic. And so if we’re not willing to have these kinds of conversations to say, “What is really at stake here?” Then I think we’re just putting bandaids on things
I would agree with you. And I might add that the reason I do the work I do is for white people to understand that there are different ways for them to react to the racial situations in which they are involved. I think Peggy, Peggy McIntosh, actually talks about what happens. She talks about it in the terms of what happens primarily to a white woman in the society. What I try to do is to talk about it in terms of why it happens. What is it about you that leads you to interpret situations in particular ways?
For example, I think that a lot of white people were totally oblivious to the issue of police violence against black men in particular, but black people in general, until the recent events. That in my book would be what I call content naivete, the belief that everything is fair for everyone. Just a lack of awareness of what’s happening with respect to race and racial dynamics in our society. And as you progress through the book, you figure out that there are different ways that people react. And then once you know where you’ve come from, then you have the opportunity to change or not change as you want to.
And I love that approach, folks. We’re talking about awareness. And awareness is always powerful. Then you get to be in choice. There’s nothing worse than going on these trajectories. All of you listen to this show because you are in pursuit of personal development, spiritual growth, you want more, you’re asking for more, for understanding more, for knowing yourself better, for loving better, loving harder, loving more, for all of these great, wonderful things that we want in our existence. And when you turn a blind eye to something and don’t want to look at it because it’s uncomfortable, you imprison yourself. You can not move forward from that place. And so what we’re talking about is choice. We’re not, when you go on these exploratory journeys, you don’t have to plant your flag on one side of the other.
In fact, what typically happens is you find that we don’t actually need to have those sides. But it’s not the naive kind of la, everybody’s great. Everybody’s equal. You kind of come back to the place of, oh yeah we’re all the same, but from wisdom. From an awareness that, yeah, we may as individuals be equal in terms of our abilities, in terms of everything. That the complexities that make us in the eyes of God, whatever framework you want to use, but there are undeniable differences when it comes to opportunities that we have in the construct. Now and of course we immediately go to, well, yeah, but there are black people who have money and are wealthier than I am and da, da, da. Folks, you got to be willing to step back away from that dialogue, because that is solely designed to pit yourself against other people.
You don’t have to defend a position. It doesn’t make you a bad person to be a part of a group of people who exercise privilege. What it does is it means that you get to choose whether or not you’re going to take responsibility for that. And that’s a choice everybody has to make. It’s leaders are making those choices right now. And we’re praying for them to make them in a sound and in loving way. But beyond that as individuals, unless you’re politically involved and get involved, then you’re kind of at the whim of whatever those leaders choose to do. But for your own internal landscape, in your homes, with your children, there are absolutely things you can do that can say, “You know what? I don’t totally understand this, but I choose not to live in fear anymore.” And the only way to do that is if you start looking at that fear and understanding where it comes from. Who told you, you needed to have it? And then that is inculcated within our cultures.
It is. Recognize that we live by a set of laws called the Constitution that were originally structured to protect white heterosexual male privilege. And so what we’ve been doing over generations is chipping away at that privilege saying that everyone is entitled to privilege rather than just a group. And so what we have to do is we’re beginning to think about overcoming racism, if you will, in this society, is we have to ask ourselves in the particular context that we are in, how is that privilege manifested? And what do I want to do about it if anything? You may decide that you like having the white privilege and you don’t want to change at all, or you may decide that that doesn’t feel right to you and you do need to do something about it.
But you can’t make that choice unless you educate yourselves, folks. And amazing individuals like Janet have put forth work that is consumable. It’s understandable. It’s at this point, it would be irresponsible for you not to be aware of some of the less comfortable details of that conversation for people. And I think you’ll find a lot of freedom in persevering through it, honestly. It was gut wrenching. I literally felt like I had ripped myself open, torn everything out, thrown it out to be on display and had to stare at it. But I’ll tell you the most jarring part of that experience was the realization that I was choosing to do that and not everybody gets that choice. Some are just forced into it. And that’s really what propelled me was that if I can make the choice to not look at this and to stay ignorant when atrocities are happening on its behalf, then I had a responsibility to not make that choice. Was where I got to with it.
And I’m going to read here, I’ve read this before it wasn’t intentional. I read it with a group and it ended up getting published. And then, but I think I’m going to keep reading it until it feels like it doesn’t need to be read anymore, but it’s a great segue. If you’ll humor me here for a moment, I’m going to read something that I wrote 25 years ago. And I wrote it in the midst of being in your work. And I want you to know that without your work, this wasn’t possible and what’s transpired in the last 25 years wouldn’t have been possible. And the outreaching and the ripple effects from that are incalculable. And that’s just through me, not that there’s anything special about me, but it’s one point of light. And I know that if you did that with me, you did that with many, many, many, many others.
And I think that if I can just give you that today is remembering and knowing that everything you’ve done and have sacrificed is worth it. At least from my vantage point. I wasn’t in your shoes, but it mattered is what I can say with absolute authority. Whether that seems enough for you, I don’t know, but I know that it mattered. And so this is, you’ll hear from Don Drell later in our race matter series. But for right now, this was 25 years ago. It’s called All Men.
No, I didn’t know why the caged bird sings, but I wanted to know so I found his cage then asked him, “Why such melodious tunes?” But he laughed and said, I couldn’t relate. Then I read about a dreamt of world, one in which every man was free. That surprised me because we live in the states and freedom is constituted or so it reads. And I heard stories about a preacher, a dreamer, a man who used presence and intelligence to fight. He had a dream, a beautiful dream. One for which he was forced to die. Those stories I heard because his ways were peaceful. He never suggested the tables be turned. But what of the others before him and after? What of them and their ideas have I learned? Little or nothing until I met you, but I saw something new through your eyes. Now I understand why the caged bird sings. I know why he doesn’t bother to cry. I saw anger at me and what I portray, I saw struggle, a desire to be. A knowledge that the wall may be invisible now, but the shackles don’t need to be seen.
I see that the fight has moved beyond dreams. It’s been empowered. It’s now one of demand. Your intelligence and knowing of all that’s been taken brings you closer to making others understand. Maybe I can’t relate, but if I see it through you, I can no longer ignore what is real. I can’t stand by your side and fight what I was or pretend that I know how you feel, but I’ve seen what is wrong, I’ve seen what I’ve done and I know what it is I must do. I’ll support what must happen for the dream to live so one day all men will include you.
The fact that I cry every time I read that tells me that I will keep reading this because I think that it took a very personal relationship with a man who had the patience to help me see that. Not always so patient, because it was a tough conversation. And we banded together to make a change, to make a difference at Arizona State and beyond because it was important. And you all don’t have any idea where that path will lead you until you start walking on it and only good things can come. It might be hard. You might be tough to look at some things about yourself in the face, but you all should be used to that by now. It very much runs parallel to all developmental journeys.
Include this into it if you truly want to liberate yourselves from the prison of fear. You can’t do that without looking at this issue as well. Not in the States. And I’d imagine it in many, many, many countries, if not all of them, but I won’t make that. I don’t know. I won’t make that statement, but at least in the States, you have to be willing to include this in or some part of you will always remain imprisoned. And there’s a cost to that. Janet, what final words would you like to leave our people with today?
A couple. One is your poem sort of made me tear up too. I was touched by it. I would leave people with the thought that development, growing is always painful, but if you don’t or not willing to walk through that pain, then you don’t ever learn what it is that you intended to learn. I hope that people will take this opportunity in our society when people are asking questions about themselves, to ask questions about yourself and to try to find answers that make you feel happy and healthy and no longer fearful.
Beautiful, beautiful. And that inspires in me to also say folks, just because you’re a person of color, doesn’t mean that you understand this stuff any better. I think it’s a huge misnomer. And for you, white folks out there, please do not go to all your people, your friends of color and say, “Tell me all about this race thing.” That you can open the dialogue, but it’s your responsibility to educate yourself. And that’s a big, big, kind of beef in that space of on top of everything else, now they’re expected to teach everybody. Take some ownership. And for those of you who do understand this stuff, take ownership and lead others. Our work is isn’t undoing what we’ve done, our work is an attending to our homes. And making sure that they’re being built in a way that does not include ridiculousness like what we’re seeing.
Now, and these are not simple matters, folks. We’re talking about dismantling institutions. And so be gentle with each other in this process. Be loving. And don’t assume that because somebody uses a wrong word that you know their heart. Let’s give people the benefit of the doubt because the worst thing we could do right now is to shut down people who truly want to understand and want to learn. You need allies. Allies, you need allies. Stop being mean to each other and annihilating each other with one misstep. And let’s show some grace in this whole process.
Dr. Helms, anyway, I don’t even know that I have words anymore to express my gratitude to you. I’m just going to keep using that word. Thank you so much. I’m incredibly honored to have connected with you and folks, we will have her book linked on the site. Please check it out. Make sure you check out the event too. I know a lot of you are really hungry for responsible information in this department. And Dr. Helms is somebody I would absolutely stand behind in terms of her responsibility to this conversation. You cannot go wrong leaning into her material. And I recommend that you do. Dr. Helms, thank you so much for everything you’ve been in the world. Everything you are, everything you’re being and the beautiful gift of your existence.
Tonya, thank you so much. Thank you particularly for letting me know that I did make a difference. That’s important to me.
Beautiful. Beautiful. It is my honor. Folks, to all of you out there, until next time, go out, uncover your superpowers and change the world. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. We love you. Goodbye for now.
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