How Racism Harms All of Us with Natalie Burke • Rebroadcast
About This Episode
Way back in season one, we introduced you to Natalie S. Burke, founder of Common Health Action. This week, we want to amplify that conversation.
Natalie has a way of incisively approaching the most challenging questions that fuel her advocacy. She is a leader in an incisive, aware, and focused journey toward equity, diversity, and inclusion. But it is a disruptive journey, and wherever we’re going, we have to reckon with a central question: how does racism harm us all?
We reference this episode often around Mission Partners with our clients and colleagues, and given how relevant it remains in today's world, and just how precise Natalie is in her approach to the work ahead for all of us, we thought you might appreciate hearing it with fresh ears, too. Natalie’s efforts to create what she calls “constructive discomfort” go a long way toward helping us all adapt to the pain that can come through learning and change. When we can face our discomfort in trust, we all win through transformation.
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Links & Notes
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Carrie Fox:
Welcome to Mission Forward, a podcast exploring how big ideas in social change take hold. My name is Carrie Fox, and I'm your host. Listen in, as we talk with innovative thinkers, makers, and doers in social change, and we explore how foundations, philanthropists, and corporate and community leaders are challenging business as usual in order to move missions forward in meaningful and memorable ways.
Carrie Fox:
Hey all, I hope you're ready for today's episode. The present day followup to last week's episode, which featured Natalie Burke of CommonHealth ACTION and Mauricio Miller. I decided to circle back with Natalie to pick up where we left off in 2017. As you heard in the last episode, Natalie boldly challenges assumptions, expectations, and business as usual in her commitment to addressing systemic racism, health inequities, and injustice. Today, dig in on one point of that last conversation, how racism harms all of us. We'll talk about the power of constructive discomfort and what it can do to drive transformative social change. Getting uncomfortable and helping others get uncomfortable in the spirit of systems change and more accurately human change is what Natalie does best. Stay tuned.
Carrie Fox:
Thank you for coming back on Mission Forward. You are not just a friend and a mentor, but one of the greatest influencers in my personal and professional life. And I cannot say that enough. I've told you that I think, but I have also told many, many people in my life how much you have influenced and pushed me along. And so I'm especially grateful that you're here with me today. It's your words, it's your questions that I recall, 2013, 2014, were the match that ignited my equity journey. And at every turn, you keep pushing me further along that path. So I am beyond grateful for you and for your time today.
Natalie Burke:
I don't know what to say, but thank you, Carrie. I'm a little bit shocked, but we'll go with it. Thank you. And it's been great to see your evolution.
Carrie Fox:
You have maybe in the past couple of years started using this phrase which I love. You are a self-proclaimed equity evangelist. And if that's true, I am a loyal follower, as I've just said. But I want you to tell our listeners a little bit more about what you do.
Natalie Burke:
My work is really about how do I bring an awareness, a commitment into untraditional spaces where people don't necessarily think about equity and present it to them in such a way that they are compelled to engage in bringing equity into whatever it is that they do in the world. So a lot of times it means that I am working hard to help them to connect dots and to see pathways into this space that is about fairness and justice and meaning. And it means that I have to serve as a translator. Those of us who are committed to this work that is about equity, diversity and inclusion can sometimes get lost in our own narrative and our own conversation. And what I'm always trying to do is to figure out how do I make it relevant to people in spaces that don't think about this every single day. So I'm trying to create a conversation where regardless of who you are or what you do, you see a space and a place where you can plug in and that not only can you add value, but that this can bring value to your life.
Carrie Fox:
And what do you want our listeners to know about who you are? The first question I asked you is not typically the one I asked, which is what do you do. But, who are you and why do you do it?
Natalie Burke:
So I am Irma Burke's granddaughter. I am Joan Burke's daughter. I am a child of immigrants. And how I came to this work is in a pretty honest way. When I was about 19 and I was in college, I started to get phone calls about my grandparents' health. And my lineage and my background is Jamaican. And for whatever reason, your health is not private in a Jamaican family, you experience it all together. And my grandparents, who I grew up with in New York, were so near and dear to my heart, their health was really important to me. And in those phone calls, what I started to recognize was that they were having trouble navigating the healthcare system in ways that I didn't think were very fair. And they were people of means to some degree, my grandfather was retired and had a great retirement from Pan-Am and so on.
Natalie Burke:
And it was through that that I started to recognize that your health isn't an accident. It doesn't just happen. But there are all of these factors that go into whether or not you have opportunities for health, and that identities matter into whether or not you had those opportunities. And so that's really what started me on this journey to wanting to understand how health happens and to really figure out how to sit at as many seats around the table of health to get different points of view and perspectives. And so that now my job is to try to connect all of those things so that all people have their opportunities to achieve their best possible health. That's how I kind of got here.
Carrie Fox:
You've been talking about social determinants of health for years before it was a catchphrase. You were deep in work. And I appreciate you sharing that personal story on why. Here we are sitting still in the midst of a global pandemic. And I can't imagine that that was something that was on your radar, but I think about it through the lens of the work that you do. You have been deep inside public health, how it works and where it doesn't work and why it doesn't work. And there's so much to digest and unpack about this moment that we're in. But I am curious how you've reflected on this moment that we're in as it relates to you and the work that you do.
Natalie Burke:
So I think this moment has taught me a lot about where our weaknesses were as a society and as a system. So when I think about certainly public health more broadly, where we were missing the mark about owning and driving the narrative and the truth about how health happens, because reality is that when public health is working, no one notices it. When public health isn't working, everybody notices it. And so in the midst of this global pandemic, all of the misunderstandings, the lack of information and support for governmental public health is on display. And I have to remain hopeful that coming out of this time, the public will begin to not only understand, but embrace and support the investments that we need to see in public health. I think that that's a really critical piece of the equation.
Natalie Burke:
I also think in terms of how certain populations and communities have had an inequitable experience with regard to COVID-19 is a reflection of long-standing inequities that come from public policy that is inherently flawed, racist, biased, and that created a perfect storm. So when you look at indigenous populations, when you look at Latino populations, when you look at black African-American populations and you see the rates of infection, the severity of illness, and the amount of death that's being experienced, that's not an accident. And it's not because there's something inherently broken and wrong with our bodies. That's because we had pre-existing conditions in these communities and these populations and comorbidities. And those were a manifestation of broken policy. In housing, education, transportation, employment. And those things manifest as chronic conditions, illness, disease, and early death. The fact that we have those very same populations to have higher rates of diabetes, which is seen as a co-conspirator of COVID-19. It's not just about genetics.
Natalie Burke:
It's about this idea that these inequities in these systems create these pressures on our bodies, that at a cellular level cause genetic expression to shift and change in ways that make us sicker, that make us medically vulnerable so that now we see COVID-19 playing out the way that it is. So, I hope that in the midst of all of this that we can learn and see the failings in systems and institutions and then chart a new course through new policy, because I think that's a big part of what has to happen.
Carrie Fox:
Someone said to me a couple months ago that systems change, really at it's heart, is human change, that systems are built by people. And that so many of the systems that are broken and failed are because of human decision and very much as you and I have talked recently about, that it's those racist beliefs are deeply embedded in how the systems were built because of the people who built them. There is so much that is now finally, finally coming to the surface that people are willing to look at and address. I'm curious if this is a moment or a movement, and I'm not sure that any of us can answer that yet. But what do you hope that we are in?
Natalie Burke:
I think it is a moment with potential for movement, but I think that there are some really critical things that need to happen. So, the good news is that human beings are hardwired for fairness. Our brains actually light up when fair things happen. Yay us. And at the same time, we have this propensity to be prejudiced and to have biases for people who are like us and so on. And we have implicit bias running in the back of our brains while we're moving through society. So all of that stuff is happening at the same time.
Natalie Burke:
I am hopeful that, in an age of social media and technology, things are being brought to the light and are now visible in a way that we can't turn away. We can't look away. And at the same time, I'm very conscious that some of those things that we're seeing are traumatic. And that trauma is real and we're experiencing it individually and collectively and we're going to need to keep an eye open for that in the future. So I am hopeful that the fact that we can't turn away, I'm hopeful that I am hearing and seeing white people engage in a way that I don't think they'll back away from gives me hope, because people of color have been carrying this for a very long time. We always carry it because our survival depends on it. So I think the question then becomes, why will white people not turn away from it?
Natalie Burke:
How do we make sure that white people stay engaged and this isn't a moment for them? It's never a moment for us, because our survival depends on it. It is always a movement for us because our survival depends on it. But for white people, I think the question is, is this a moment or is it a movement? That's it.
Carrie Fox:
You and I, well, you've already finished the book, I am still reading the book, both in the midst of one that is an important book for a lot of people to read, and that's Stamped. Stamped from the Beginning. And you asked me a question a few weeks ago, and I wonder if you are comfortable, and again, we can edit this out if you are not, having a conversation because I think that that's an essential part of what you have just raised.
Carrie Fox:
For me as a white woman and for my family, my colleagues, my community, that we have work to do. And it is really centered on this idea of how racism harms everyone, all people. And I wonder if you are willing to talk a bit about that and then let's get into a conversation on that. I think it's really a critical part of what many people need to be able to have a conversation around.
Natalie Burke:
You know, since George Floyd was killed on video, I cannot begin to tell you the number of white people who have reached out to me to process. In those conversations, I more and more found myself revisiting a question that I've been asking for the past probably year and a half, two years, of white people who are allies. They're either self-identified or I certainly identify them as allies. And when I say ally, I mean that they have been committed to, invested in this idea around racial equity. This idea that we have to deal with racism and the wounds and the traumas and the assaults that stem from it.
Natalie Burke:
And in those conversations, just as I asked you, I have asked them. How does racism harm you? And generally, they can't answer. And some of these are people who have been in the fight, down for the cause. I'm talking 20, 30 years of their lives. They've been willing to be out protesting, some of them at 60 plus years old, with the threat of rubber bullets and tear gas, pepper spray, whatever the case may be, to actually put their physical safety and wellbeing on the line. And then I say to them, how does racism harm you? And they can't answer because they've never really thought about it.
Natalie Burke:
And the reason is because, what's happening is, they've seen something wrong in the world. They see racism happening and they know that it's wrong and they are compelled because they don't want to see other people hurt or harmed or endangered. That is lovely. They consider it to be ethical. Some of them consider it to be spiritual or religious. And that's why they say, "I have to stand up for racial equity. I can't allow this to happen." But it's not enough. And it's actually a little bit off target if that's all there is. And so, in my mind's eye, me asking this question about how does racism harm you? It stems back to what's in Stamped from the Beginning. Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister from the 1700s, really looked at the institution of slavery as the mechanism for white Christians to save black heathens.
Natalie Burke:
And so he felt as though it was their job and their responsibility, that through slavery, they would bring black people to Christ and save their souls. Now, the fact that they didn't save their bodies, their families, their history, their safety, their mental health. None of that stuff really mattered as long as they were converted or indoctrinated to Christianity. And in that was the white savior mentality. Fast forward to 2020 and this is where the concern comes in. If we have white allies who engage in the work of anti-racism and racial equity because they want to save the black and the brown people and the people of color from racism, I actually believe that there's a great potential for them to do harm. I legitimately believe that. If I'm at war and I'm in a foxhole and I look to my right and there is somebody who is fighting for someone else's cause versus me looking to my left and I see somebody who's fighting for the cause because they recognize that their very survival is dependent upon it, who am I going to trust more in the fight?
Natalie Burke:
It's pretty straightforward. So that's why I asked you the question, Carrie, because I know that you're committed to this. But I also know that it's critical for you to understand for yourself how racism harms you. And it's not for me to tell you.
Carrie Fox:
Right. Right.
Natalie Burke:
I've asked people this and had them Google it in front of me. They didn't have an answer.
Carrie Fox:
And it's interesting because since you asked me that, I asked members of my family that last week and they all did the same. They kind of looked at me like deer in the headlights. And we sat on it and realized that for me, and actually you just used the word indoctrination, and that to me is a big piece of it, is to me, racism has manipulated how I've learned, what I have learned to question and what I have been told not to question until much too late in my life.
Carrie Fox:
And so now I'm trying to relearn and retrain so many parts of my brain, certainly even more so now as a mother and a parent having now a far greater responsibility for what I am leaving behind. And am I perpetuating part of this fight? If I don't have skin in this game, if this is not my fight, then I am just helping someone else. And you don't need my help. This is our fight together. And so that is a deeply profound question that really needs to be at the surface right now and needs to stay at the surface. And I appreciate that you are bringing that to the surface. And you do it in such a way, and I'm very aware of what you were just talking about as it relates to trauma, that you have both an incredible gift to be able to challenge and come into dialogue and conversation while you are also still carrying a lot, in terms of how you are leading that conversation.
Carrie Fox:
And so I'm aware of that and certainly hope I am not adding more burden to you. But I just want to acknowledge and appreciate that you have this amazing gift to get the conversation started and to push to the point where then I say, it's my fight. I have to take this on. I have to be able to speak publicly about why racism and how racism harms me as a way to normalize that to more white people who I think many of them have not yet articulated that in a way that you've really challenged people to.
Natalie Burke:
Well, I think, thankfully, and I do appreciate the concern about the weight that I carry. I am thankful. I'm really resilient and I am incredibly strong. My father is always reminding me that I come from West Coast, [Hakan 00:19:18] speaking, African people who have survived many, many things over a very, very long time. And I'm very thankful for that. And I think part of what has equipped me for being able to pose the question that I've posed to you, and it's something that I had to recognize. People who come from oppressed identities engage in their oppression in terms of discussing it, constantly, because it's a matter of survival. It's not because we feel like we're victims.
Natalie Burke:
I would never claim that, but it is a necessity to be able to strategize and navigate oppression, to not only survive, but to succeed and thrive. And that's why we talk about it and engage about it. White people don't have to do that. And so, in that, I find that many white people who are very well-intended are very ill-equipped to have the conversation. And here's the problem. If white people who have the power of white privilege spend all their time talking about the oppression of people of color, they spend very little to no time reflecting on the privilege they have, the experience of this society as a whole.
Natalie Burke:
And it means that they are inept and ill-equipped to be the type of ally that we actually need so that we can't turn back from the moment so that we actually create the movement. And if they cannot, in essence, tip into that space, I am concerned that this stays a moment. So that's why I have to push. That's why I have to say, why do you have skin in this game? I don't need to know for me. I need you to know for you, because when it gets hard, when it gets dangerous, when it gets risky, when it gets uncomfortable, when it gets exhausting, you can walk away. I don't get to do that. And I know that. It's not even a consideration. I don't get to step back from this. I don't get to ignore this, because every single day, this society reminds me that I'm black.
Natalie Burke:
I'm good with that. I like being black. That's beautiful. Trust me. And at the same time, the fact that you don't have to engage in that conversation means that these are new muscles, that as an ally, you need to develop. And so my push, my ask of you, is not to have this conversation with people of color. It is to have this conversation with other white people. White people need to talk to white people about this. That's where the work can really happen. That's where the traction in this conversation needs to take place.
Carrie Fox:
The hardest thing and the thing that makes me dig in further is the number of times people have said, why are you putting yourself in that situation? Why are you going there? You've got more to lose. No, I don't. I mean, we have to be in this conversation. We have to do something about it. We don't have to just be in a conversation. We have to do something about it. So, it's not about how much I'm putting myself or my reputation or my business at risk. Risk of what?
Carrie Fox:
I mean, what if I don't? And I often think about the fact that I have a company, I lead a company. I don't do it to profit off of the company. I do it because I truly believe, first of all, that I'm thinking about the model that I'm creating for my girls to watch. Are they watching their mom as a brave, strong, courageous person who is willing to stand up for what I believe in? Or do they see me as a business woman? I don't care if they see me as a business woman. I want them to see me as someone who's got really strong beliefs and convictions.
Carrie Fox:
And so, anyway, I think it's interesting how many people over the years have said, why do you even do this? Why are you putting yourself at risk like that? I don't quite understand that. One thing I've been hearing a whole lot recently, we're talking again, white leaders, often of great privilege and influence, say, "I know I need to do something, but I don't have the words and so I'm not going to say anything." And so I'm curious what you say to the person who doesn't yet recognize how harmful their words are.
Natalie Burke:
It's a double-edged sword in a lot of ways. So here's the thing. If you continue to wait until you have all the right words and all the right language, the moment the opportunity where you can actually show up as an ally may have passed. And what that means then is that you have to put yourself in a mindset of continuous learning. And humility. And you have to be willing to get uncomfortable and to sit in that space of saying, I'm about to say something. I'm probably going to mess this up. I'm going to do my best. And I'm going to ask for grace in advance. But what I'm not going to do is say nothing. Because to say nothing is not acceptable.
Natalie Burke:
And so, me writing How to Fix a Broken Tongue, me writing The End of Nonwhites, is an attempt to help to give people other ways of saying things. And understanding language is constantly evolving. Carrie, when it comes to talking about LGBTQIA+ communities plural. It is evolving and moving so quickly. And as someone who doesn't belong to those communities or identities, I have to listen all the time. I have to go in search of information so that I can be an ally. That's the work that I choose to do.
Natalie Burke:
And I choose to do that for a host of reasons that are very clear to me because I recognize what it means for my life, not just for the lives of people who identify that way. That's what people of color, that's certainly what black Americans, African-Americans, are looking for and expect. So this is not just about want anymore. I expect you to do that work, because that's what's going to create this more perfect union that we keep talking about. That's what means that you actually have the skin in the game and you get it. And so, words matter. Words matter so much, in fact, that there's evidence that language has the ability to make us physically sick. But it also has the ability, when used in the best possible ways, to trigger the release of certain chemicals in our bodies that help us to become more resilient.
Natalie Burke:
So let's use language in a way that can support equity, that can help to bolster people and bolster populations, but also can help us to have conversations. Because this is the other piece. The lack of a common language is a big problem. It's part of why people don't talk about this stuff. Not even at Thanksgiving at the Thanksgiving table. People misuse racism the word all the time. People misuse the word racist all the time. We bought into these ideas of what they are and what they're not, but we don't necessarily understand what they are. And when we're talking to one another, we bring all those assumptions into the conversation and get nothing accomplished. So, for people who want to have this conversation in a family, or let's say even within their community or organization, before you go too far down the road, make sure you have common language and you've agreed upon it. I think it's a big thing. It's a big deal, a very big deal.
Carrie Fox:
I want to go back to where we started. In large part, thinking about influence and influencers and pulling off of something you just said of how much are we really listening to learn versus just listening and then having something to say in response. And I think that there is so much more listening that we need to do. And one of the things that you and your team challenged me on, again, going way back to when I first did my first EDI training with you and your team, as we did that circle of influence, the 10 people that we trust most and realized how alike my 10 folks were to me in terms of religion, sexual orientation, all of the the marks that we looked at. I essentially had a group of 10 that looked just like me, thought just like me.
Carrie Fox:
And so I have very intentionally shifted that team of 10 over the course of the last 10 years, a little less than 10 years I guess, to now really be proud that you and the entire list is much more diverse than it once was. And that's my circle of influence. That's my circle that I learn from and listen to. I wonder, as we think about wrapping up here, as you think about how important that diverse circle of influencers is, as we come into the most important election of our lifetimes, what we are listening to, what's informing our opinions, what you're seeing. What's on your head and your mind as we're coming into this election that we want to reinforce to our listeners right now?
Natalie Burke:
I think that this is a time where we can't afford for anyone to be on the sidelines. I think that there are so many opportunities for people to engage in creating the world in the future that they want to see become a reality. The thing that I hope as a starting point is that people do the personal reflective work. It's easy to read a book and read somebody else's words. It's easy to watch a podcast or to listen to a podcast or to watch a show. Those are things that you can do. It's easy to go on your phone and make a donation. It's easy to say that you'll phone bank for a candidate. It's easy to watch the news and rage. It's hard to look at yourself first and to recognize the work that you have to do. And so one of the things that I encourage people to recognize is that you cannot swim in dirty water and expect to be clean.
Natalie Burke:
This is a society that has been built on racist, classist, sexist, xenophobic ideology for hundreds of years. And we have created a history and a culture that is dirty water, and we are all swimming in it. And we are all, to some degree, carrying that. The first step before we look to try to clean up everything else is to figure out what does it mean for us to clean up ourselves. And I'm not saying do one or the other. I'm saying, do the personal work and do the work of being civically engaged and informed and educated and connected to other people. And then I think this is the key. When you talk about diversifying your circle of influence, you didn't go about that collecting people and saying, I'm missing this identity, let me go find somebody. What you did was to put yourself in spaces and create opportunities where you could be an authentic relationship.
Natalie Burke:
That's the difference. When we are not in authentic relationship with one another, it leaves these blank spaces of information that we get to fill in and pre-judge. And that's why we end up with the inequities that we have in society. But when you are in relationship with people who don't share your identity, those blanks get filled in with truth. Racism is a lie. It's a lie that we continue to perpetuate generation after generation, day after day. So it's time for us to peel back the layers on that and to actually get to the truth of who we are as human beings. And we do that by being in close relationship with one another. So I hope that in the midst of all the vitriol and the hyper partisanship and the polarization that is being driven by social media and everything else, that we can figure out what it means to actually be in authentic relationship with one another, and in that, to get rid of the lies. Because I think that that's the first step to us moving this from being that moment into being that movement.
Carrie Fox:
Natalie, I am so grateful to you and to the gift that you are to everyone who gets to know you and learn from you. Thank you so much for being with me and in conversation with me today. And I wish you good health and good rest and all good things ahead.
Natalie Burke:
Thanks Carrie. And thanks for being willing to have the conversation. This work is important. I'm glad you're in it.
