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Justice, Change and What Matters to Us Now
Interview with Lee Hawkins, WSJ Education Reporter and Author of Nobody’s Slave and Edward Roussel, Chief Innovation Officer, WSJ and Dow Jones
Introduction: Be’Anka Ashaolu, Director of Marketing, Propel
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Be’Anka Ashaolu: From Amaud Aubry to George Floyd to Briana Taylor 2020 has been a year of awakening and social unrest.
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BA: Wall Street Journal reporter and author of nobody slave how uncovering my family's history sent me three
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BA: Lee Hawkins joins us next to discuss how his family history has driven a deeper understanding of how American history has created a multi generational impact on racial inequality and disparities.
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BA: His insights will help us better understand the recent social unrest and how all of us can be part of the solution. We are joined by Edward Roussel Chief Innovation Officer of Dow Jones will conduct the interview. Let's listen in to justice change and what matters to us now.
Interview with Lee Hawkins and Edward Roussel
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Edward Roussel: Hello, my name is Edward Roussel I am the Chief Innovation Officer for the Wall Street Journal and Jones, and I'm delighted to have as my guest today.
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ER: Neocons hey Danny, how are you.
Lee Hawkins: Hey, good to see you. Edward
ER: Now Lee you've been at the journal now as a reporter for like 17 years and I got that right.
LH: Yes, you're right, you're right. And you know you reporting this very old.
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LH: Stories in recent months from the date of the talking about some of those stories.
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ER: And then you've also been busy writing an extremely important book the books called history 73 and your company is going to be published by Harper Collins next year pre orders are available now on Amazon, which is exciting and the timing.
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ER: Couldn't be better for you right now
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LH: Yes, I grew up in Minnesota, which is geared towards boy was killed in I have a lot of insight into that having grown up there and understanding the climate and some of the issues that have led up protest. So I think it is a good time to release to go
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ER: Now me let's pick a day off the what's happens this song that little bit and unpack that a bit and bring it to the President.
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ER: George Floyd was killed in May of this year.
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ER: There are a number of other things that were significant we had black lives matter that kicked off hard throughout the summer, not just in the US, but really around the world. And this is an event this had global ramifications.
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ER: Fast forward to the present day. And of course kitten us beginnings, go back to school. So we're seeing versions of black lives matter.
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ER: popping up in schools. Now you've been doing some reporting on schools, what are we, what are you learning about how schools adapting to the need for racial equity and how they're responding to the events of the summer.
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LH: Well, what I'm finding is in speaking to administrators and teachers, they are looking for a way to address the issue to
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LH: Make sure that the students feel that their questions are answered that their concerns are heard and that the school has a commitment to diversity and inclusion and
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LH: I think that it puts principles and leaders of schools in a position where they now have to address it at some level. And if they don't, they're questioned about it. And so there's a certain amount of tension that goes with that as well.
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LH: There are
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LH: Country feel that
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LH: You know anti racism agenda and critical race theory and all of these different things that have sprung up in recent times.
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LH: Just another form of political correctness and so it quits leaders into a quagmire where they have to try to address the issue of the EU and also just parents and feel that they should
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LH: Take a stand on social justice and balance that against the people who feel that schools to just be
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LH: One thing just education, education, education and feeling that the traditional way of teaching history, which explains a lot of the trauma and the pain.
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LH: That came along with the founding of our country and sticking to that in excluding that from
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LH: From the Caribbean. And so this is a debate that will go on and the tension will continue to be strong and I think that sort of mirrors the experience in some ways that
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LH: corporate leaders are facing as well that at some point they're trying to Wayne, what role they should be playing in making sure that all of their stakeholders and constituencies are are feeling that they're addressing social justice and sensitive to issues of diversity and Inclusion.
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ER: Not, not all of your reporting response to the Wall Street Journal, The lead you to get to speak to a lot of administrators around the country.
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ER: And to what extent do you think that the role of a school administrator is changing. This actually changes the fighting, because in the old world is about applying the curriculum and
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ER: Getting the results are coming into colleges. Now there's expectations have shifted its all it's all of that, but it's also this social responsibility. Does that make the children typical
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LH: Um, yes I do. But I don't think it's driven just by the protests. I think it's also driven by academe are in higher education system, which tends to mean more or on the progressive side of things and you see universities and professors in universities teaching
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LH: All of these different approaches to education.
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LH: Which sort of coincides with the split demographic change that we're seeing. We're moving to a much more multicultural America.
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LH: Where minorities will be the majority in the coming decades. And so, as that changes and as the power structure changes. Remember
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LH: People of color have not always been included in the power structure in this country. It's only been 56 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed so
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LH: I'm black and brown people in this country is particularly in the south, have not even been able to compete on equal turns with
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LH: With whites. And so now, as you see more people coming into the educational sphere into the corporate sphere, you're seeing
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LH: A change. And this is something that is a good thing. It's just, it just depends on how it's done. And it's going to take a lot a lot of
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LH: Educational sort of development and people are going to have to do their own independent research and figure out what's best for them and how as leaders thing want to
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LH: Move forward. We've seen in many cases in recent in recent years that this is could be a career ending issue that
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LH: You're not just the lack of sensitivity. But the way that you perceive in the way that you treat your employees or if you're aware of things that happened within in the company.
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LH: That shouldn't be happening and it happens on your watch it could be over. And so I think I think when it comes in corporate America, but just
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ER: To finish up on the schools. Okay, you're an administrator right we're responsible for the academic for to them, increasingly, you're also responsible for
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ER: Helping to solve.
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ER: racial inequity. That's an obligation on some illustrators. And that's something that's come out of the reporting and you've got this responsibility on keeping the parents and students aligned and on the side.
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ER: Have you come across administrators you particularly gifted at at managing those three challenges, and if so, what can we learn from those people. What are the skills, there's one person in particular name is
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LH: Megan man, she's a principal at Urban urban school of the performing arts in Manhattan and she's a white woman for Boston, but she has
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LH: Over 90% seeds are black or Hispanic and of course that's a unique challenge. It's a rare talent for her because
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LH: The composition of the student body is one in which people are going to be concerned about social justice, particularly the young people.
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LH: The young people in this country are the ones who are driving this protest in this movement and to understand
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LH: This protest in the movement and the reasons behind it. You have to understand the young people and you have to engage them in the conversation and they have to know
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LH: That you are concerned in that you're upon issues and that there is a commitment and so I think Megan is a good example of a person who, instead of
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LH: counting on it and kicking the can down the street and hope hope that the issue goes away. The answer dress to five writing notes to the parents and for some of these incidents of her
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LH: And engaging the school more broadly in a school wide conversation about these issues and also understanding and I hate to keep bringing it back to corporate america but I see so many parallels.
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LH: Understanding what people on a personal level are going through when these when these incidents occur, understanding that your students are your employees.
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LH: Are affected by the things that they see a TV on TV, they're affected by these viral videos that go around.
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LH: That show um you know this. So, so much violence and and it's things that are happening at the hands of
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LH: Our law enforcement and so of course they're in a tough situation as well. But we have to understand the way that it impacts people and hopefully bring that to work, and they bring it to school when it gets shipped to corporate america and you know the journal. The ninja piece about
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LH: Black executives in America. The headline number was the only 1% of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are black and then the story goes into some detail about why that might be the case, the absence of training.
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LH: The inequity in terms of the approval processes. But if you lead in corporate America right now. What is it that you should be doing. What have you learned from your observations as a reporter about the successful seniors that are transitioning as period.
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LH: When I've learned. I haven't seen as many CEOs who have been as successful as they could be on this issue and what I've learned is that people of color are people who over prepare women or people who over prepare
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LH: Or their careers to rise in corporate America.
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LH: And then something that people put a lot of thought into people go to get MBAs people go to get it that additional training people take
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LH: Profoundly higher risks. Many times when you've seen them become successful in the interview secondary suite. They. A lot of times they're taking more risk.
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LH: They can to do more with so coincides with what they're taught at home. Many people are taught. If you're a woman. If you're a person of color, you have to work twice as hard to get equal treatment and that's not a political statement as much as it is just a commentary on what
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LH: The reality in this country has been. And I know we all know that the numbers have not been repin reflective of the ability that people have, and I don't think
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LH: I have a lot of people coming to me and I'm happy to discuss the issue and I'm happy to help out. But I have a lot of people coming to me saying
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LH: What should I do. I'm a leader and how big of a problem is when you know how big of a problem. This is because in many ways as a leader. If you're not
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LH: Going well on diversity and inclusion, you're part of the problem and the problem isn't just that people of color and women are not being able to be
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LH: Get the opportunities in the company. But it's also from a consumer product standpoint.
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LH: And also recruitment and retention standpoint it's you're losing your competitive edge because we see what's happening in our country right now with the script demographic change that spoken about.
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LH: How can you speak to America without understanding all of America. How can you have an employee thinks that is not
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LH: representative of what America looks like. And I'm not talking affirmative action. I'm not talking racial folders. I'm talking a student leadership and there is a difference right whatever your
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LH: I think that there. It's sort of racist on its face to say that
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LH: April minority or a person of color is in a position of leadership, where they must be there because of affirmative action as if there are no people of color in this country that are qualified and so first of all, we have to evaluate the way that we think the way that
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LH: We are conditioned to think basically that companies should look like and then spot the individuals in the company who have socked the training out
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LH: You've got the MBAs, who have gotten the additional training, who have done to put up strong numbers in the company and look at them and say, what about this person.
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LH: Why is this person being overlooked. Is there something that I can do from a mental standpoint to help this person's role.
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LH: And what can I learn from this person when you start to think in those ways that's where you get the competitive edge. It's not just altruism. It's also about capitalism.
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LH: And we have to understand that to be successful companies can can that leadership come from anywhere else. But the CIA and other i mean that there's been a trend I guess in
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LH: Recent years to hire diversity offices. I think that certainly helps companies. Surely that's not a substitute for the CEO himself or herself meaning no resistance.
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LH: Not at all. And I think one of the frustrating things I see is
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LH: While I respect the number of African Americans who have gone into diversity and inclusion. I've seen us a lot in diversity and inclusion. I've seen us in human resources. I haven't necessarily seen
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LH: Enough people of color in positions that affect the bottom line. And that's, that's just in what I've seen in my, in my career.
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LH: I think it's it in the question is why. The question is one, right. So, um, it does have to come from the leadership of the company.
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LH: Or people respond when the senior executive says this is a commitment. This is part of my legacy and how I want to influence the company.
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LH: And yeah, it has to come from there and it has. We have to look at ways that companies can be more
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LH: Geared towards understanding the contribution this, think about the profoundly talented people that you've seen come through at the CEO level attention know
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LH: Tim's to NOLA from American Express. I mean, what a what a powerful executive and we've seen people that you know there was a person Bernard Tyson at F. Now unfortunately he passed away, but
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LH: Just looked at the numbers, says that some of these people have put up in the incredible incredibly illustrious careers that they can. How did they make it maybe give one of those people call maybe talk to us to talk more to your to the
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LH: Black or Brown employee, you can just got their MBA part time at night and talk to them about what led them to do that and what their experience in the company has been taken off being the second will take everybody off golfing and that's where the solutions.
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LH: And the. Is there an essence and then you mentioned some, some are charismatic high school teacher. Megan had to have communication you talked about her communications is communicating nonstop to parents, students issues have been discussed
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LH: Is that, is that a critical facet of any more than SEO is being having the ability to communicate on topics of race on an ongoing basis. It really is. And I got. However, I do believe that
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LH: A lot of the discussion and the fact that people are not on the issues of diversity and inclusion and race as as sort of a chilling effect on
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ER: Your ability to feel comfortable communicating. Um, but, but, but we have to understand that, just like any thing else there's part of every job that's difficult, right.
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LH: This is one of these issues that needs to be confronted. It's an urgent issue and, you know, communication, then the way that it shapes. Every branch your culture and the culture that you want to put forward in the company.
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LH: Has to be on point. And you have to work at it.
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ER: That's it. I mean, there's no other way to look at it. Now let's segue to your book. So again, the title. Nobody's slave how uncovering my family's history. Set the free
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ER: Is going to be published by Harper Collins next year pre orders are available now. And you've been reporting on your family.
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ER: Or why on this particularly challenging task because you've trained to family history, you understand it from slavery in Alabama nutrients to a family history really back to the dawn of the beginning of
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ER: Of slavery in America, all the way back 400 years how have reason to vent. It's changed the way that you frame your book. How does it mean to think differently about your vote against the tool.
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LH: It has it made me think differently at all. It's made it sort of reinforce the points that are in my book because
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LH: This is a. These are issues that I was well versed in a long time ago. I'm a lot of times, African Americans and people of color come into the conversation.
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LH: Having read most of the articles that come out about these issues. Having read many of the books that come out are having had these conversations have been had to have these conversations
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LH: In order to navigate successfully through the world so it wasn't new to me when George boy got killed because I grew up in Minnesota in the in the suburbs of Minnesota, and I can speak more to dance. So it didn't. I didn't learn much from there, but
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LH: There's a very important thing in your book Lee, which you call intergenerational trauma. There's also a particularly chilling anecdotes in your book. When you say that
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LH: In every generation of your family since the 1830s, a member of your family has been murdered.
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LH: Very often in racist is, um, can you talk a little bit through how what you mean by intergenerational trauma and also hasn't impacted you possibly
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LH: Okay. Yes, it's the, it's the ripple effect of the things that happened in the late 1800s and early 1900s in route the decades affects me today and my generation, when you say that my family descends from slavery. You have to really broaden it and explain that that's both sides of things.
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LH: What I mean by that is in my research, I will. I was able to trace my family back to the 1600s, but I found that my great great grandmother charity.
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LH: Was a slave on a plantation in Pike County, Alabama, and the family that enslaved, for I am related to okay and that's because of rate. And so as a result of that, I am 20% European and 80% descending from West Africa.
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LH: That is a reflection of America. That's what America looks like. And we have to understand that the complexity and then the complexity of America and the truth.
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LH: Is something that we want to explore to to understand these issues, more broadly, um, a lot of times you can watch a movie like you or you can
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LH: Watch a movie by 12 Years a Slave and feel that you've been enlightened about the trauma aspect.
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LH: But not necessarily understand it. I would bet that has some distance from it and not understand that affects people that you know, on a personal level.
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LH: People of color, whose families went through this. So my family has had a murder on either side of the family every generation since 1837 I'm
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LH: In that the first the first murder of the first killing was actually a white slave owner from the family that I belong to. He was killed by the creek Indians after taking land.
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LH: From the creek Indians, and then they revolted so establishes the the pattern and the truth of racial violence in America's history.
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LH: And how that sort of in our founding how when land was being stolen when labor was being stolen to build up the country the world that violence clean and
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LH: And how that sort of set the stage for things to happen down the line. My father's father was murdered.
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LH: My father's parents both of their fathers were murdered when they were five and nine years old. These are things that I didn't find out until much later in life at work.
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LH: And informed me on the way that my father raised me because when I was a child, and this is a big, this was a big question in the book is what happened in Alabama.
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LH: But my father was raised in Greenville Alabama in the 1950s during jim crow is born into Jim Crow. Now remember this is a this is an
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LH: American Air Force veteran. I was born during the Vietnam era on an Air Force Base, but my father didn't get voting rights; he wasn't born knowing that he would get voting rights. I'm the first in my generation.
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LH: To have voting rights in this country and my family's been here since the 1600 I've had family members in the Revolutionary War on both sides of the Civil War and but i just i
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LH: I got bullied ranks. I was the first generation and so that trauma out of trauma affected me personally, it affected need primarily because my father was so afraid for me.
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LH: Because of the fact that there was so much murder in the previous generation, right, that when he was in Alabama. He never felt safe.
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LH: As a child, his parents never felt safe for the test children because they knew that their parents had been killed in this American Holocaust.
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LH: And so, and you can go in the newspapers and you can find the murders of both of my great grandfather's and that has a stinging effect, right, but it also informs me as to why when I was growing up in Maplewood Minnesota. My father used the belt to enforce perfect he
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LH: Because he was so afraid for something to happen to me in that community based on the sort of PTSD effect that he experienced in
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LH: Alabama and that has really informed the way that many African Americans and come out of Jim Crow imports are raising their children.
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LH: That doesn't mean they don't love us. My Father loved Me profoundly but but that fear and the idea. Can you imagine what it means to
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LH: Feel that you have to beat your child with a belt to protect them out of lung.
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LH: So in many ways. That's what the protest is about the young people in this country, particularly the people of color who are young, young people in this country. They're tired of the hyper vigilance and having to hear
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LH: To fear and to also see the level that violence but world that violence has played in this country and in the enforcement of what I call legal white supremacy.
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LH: And that's a very, very touchy term that people out there right now who might not be comfortable, but the truth is that from 1619 to 1964 white supremacy was the law in this country.
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LH: And it's been all but if you six years that African Americans have been considered equal to white people on paper.
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LH: In this country. And so coming out of that America is having a really, really hard time adjusting to that new reality to the extent that for some people in this country, equality, the notion of
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LH: Equality for people of color at the fundamental subliminal level deals like oppression to them, right, and you can blame our educational system, to some extent, because it hasn't done a good job of educating people about this as
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LH: Well, because pick up on that. So I think part of what you said is the on a pastoral level in your family history there is an element of suppression of this history really bad things happened and people
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LH: To some extent, that is to was to press on on a macroeconomic level, a very controversial subject is what you could call the suppression of black history. It's taken media events such as
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LH: It's exposed to many people, what the reality was the history of America, seen from a black perspective how significant is that suppression of history in this intergenerational trauma and other ones.
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LH: Is part of the intergenerational trauma, the result of suppressing history. That's a really good question. And we're in there. I talked about a concept called the racer.
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LH: Eraser of this this ugly history and it's something that African Americans have internalized because of the fear that our ancestors and elders had
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LH: Of even discussing, they were traumatized on a personal level. Many times they had to leave in the middle of the night to leave these towns after the murders were committed and
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LH: They don't want they didn't want to speak about it. And so what does that do really to a person
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LH: When you're that stress, but you're constantly in fight or flight, it puts a hormone called cortisol in your system, which is a stress, stress hormone
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LH: That ultimately if it's running through your body long enough, it'll kill you in the form of heart disease, diabetes, or cancer and there's been
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LH: research that's been shown the adverse childhood experiences study that shows that when people have traumatic childhoods as you would from having a parent murdered.
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LH: From having to leave your home because of these atrocities from living under Jim Crow all of this shortens the lifespan can shorten your lifespan by 20 years and in my book I get into that, I get into the idea that
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LH: Of course every generation of African Americans who came through slavery experience childhood trauma every generation of African Americans who came through Jim Crow segregation experience childhood.
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LH: What does that mean,
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LH: You talked about
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LH: You see the disc fortunate level of African Americans who die of these chronic illnesses. What role does
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LH: Stress clean. How does it manifest itself as need addiction and all kinds of other things that contribute to the overall the overall health.
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LH: realities of people of color in this country. And so, yeah, we have to just start to to wait. Once we start to look at things at the personal level and at the family level.
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LH: We can start to make some progress. It's not just about watching cable TV and and watching the interviews of
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LH: People Power speaking about their experience and then feel like they're informed. Let's talk about it in a deeper level about the way that this affects families and especially children.
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LH: They were almost out of time. So, you know, ask you one final question, which is, you are a Baptist, the trenches will go to
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LH: You personally, but also to your family going back hundreds of years. We won't way as the church and the music in the church.
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LH: Been a solace for your family in the toughest of Belize. Well thank this universal the spiritual the spiritual element of our lives is what helps us get
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LH: A lot of these traumatic periods and I want to make sure that I mentioned, my cousin, Jim, who's a descendant of this family that I spoke about. He was a white man.
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LH: And he's a descendant of this family and I need someone who I actually knew before he was my I knew that he was my cousin.
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LH: I actually worked with him and he had the same last thing as my Greg with my grandmother and we used to joke about cremated and then when you did the
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LH: research, we found out that you were distant relatives and that's one thing that's very universal that we share is that they helped us get through.
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LH: A lot of the challenges that we faced as a matter of fact, he lost his father when he was three years old.
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LH: And he was the person who's one of the people who really helped me get through the loss of my father and held in a bank.
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LH: And I think that whatever we mentioned you are whatever spiritual beliefs you have it is important to understand mind, body, and spirit. So when I talked about how uncovering my family's history set me free.
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LH: When I'm saying is that I was able to on a personal level, connect with Jim and began to heal the process to heal the wounds from slavery start the process of beginning to understand what happened, why it happened.
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LH: And what you can do to move forward for post traumatic growth as a family, and as the nation. And that's what this is all
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ER: Lee Hawkins. Thank you very much, inspiring. As always, and I can't wait for your book to come out on the call is 2021 Thank you everybody. It's a pleasure. It's an honor. Thank you for having
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