But Who Will Fly the Plane?

This is a summary and recording of our LIVE Calls with the Publisher, held every Friday with The Good Men Project Community.

Lisa Hickey Introduction:

The shootings in Georgia were clearly horrific. How do we talk about things that are almost too difficult to talk about?

I want to start by talking about a comment by Police Captain Jay Baker, who said, in talking about the shooter: “Yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”

And it is the normalization and minimization of violence that I want to talk about

As if no one else had a really bad day yesterday.

As if his day could somehow be compared to the bad day the victims and their families had.

As if going on a shooting spree and killing 8 people was a logical response oto “having a bad
day.”

Minimizing horror– many people also said this was the latest case of law enforcement seeking to underplay crimes when the suspects are white.

Also, the narrative about Mr. Long’s “sex addiction” narrative is one example of the victimhood narrative which is central to MRA, INCEL, and MGTOWs; to all masculinity extremists’ world views. It’s “Look what you made me do.”

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I also want to tell another story and come back to what I opened with.

On our Thursday call with our editorial staff at The Good Men Project, I was saying how our #StopRacism calls are *really* great. Usually, we get 13-15 people and we’re all sharing stories, and ideas, and helping each other articulate what racism looks like and sounds like.

But on this one particular call, there were 7 people of color, and me, and one other white woman.

And we talked about some really difficult things — the trial of Dereck Chauvin, the cop who is on trial for the murder of George Floyd.

We talked about Tamir Rice, a 14-year-old black boy who was shot by police on a playground for holding a toy gun.

And we talked about a woman’s basketball team who took a knee for the national anthem and a white announcer called them a “bunch of n-words and hoped they would lose because they were kneeling.” This same announcer later blamed his racist rant on his diabetes.

Sound familiar? A white announcer who called a woman’s basketball team the n-word apologized by implying: “Sorry, I was having a bad day because of my diabetes so I went on a racist rant and happened to get caught”

Sounds very close to: “I was having a bad day because of my sex addiction and shot 8 people dead.’

You are excusing behavior that actually causes harm because there were forces supposedly out of their control.

It’s similar to the dynamic of “boys will be boys” to explain away bad behavior.

Anyway, at the end of the #StopRacism call, a long-time caller, LaDonna, said she was feeling sad because she didn’t see an end to racism. She said something like “Hey Lisa and Carol, you’re great and all, but you’re never going to be able to solve racism by yourselves.”

So I was recounting this story to our Editorial Staff. And one of the Editors asked if there were any white men that came to the calls. And after a pause, I said “Wade”. Many of you know Wade — he’s been coming to these Friday calls for almost a year now.

But I didn’t want to get it wrong. So I went back and looked at the call logs.

And for the calls from January till this past Tuesday in March, there was Wade. One other white man, Dave Kanegis, came to one call in February. And there was one other white man, Steve, who came to one call but I don’t think said anything.

The calls — that averaged 12-14 callers — had almost all POC and white women.

And what this made me think about today was this.

There are a lot of people who want racism to go away.

They want racism to go away because it is abusive, harmful, deadly, unfair, unethical and not the type of world they want to live in.

And some people want racism to go away because they don’t want to be forced to think about racism anymore.

Before you think I am exaggerating with that statement, let me tell you some ACTUAL things that have been said to me by people who think of themselves as on the right side of justice:

• “I just don’t want to think about racism when I’m watching football. I should be able to enjoy football.”
• “I don’t want to think about racism at family gatherings. It’s more important to keep the peace and be able to enjoy my Thanksgiving dinner.”
• “I don’t want to have to think about racism in the workplace. I come to work put my head down, and just work as hard as I can.”
• “I don’t want to think about racism during the holidays. Halloween, Native American costumes? It’s just kids being kids. Let them enjoy themselves.”

Guess what I hear? “I don’t want to think about racism. I want it to go away so *I* can just enjoy what I want to enjoy.”

But we can’t change a racist culture unless we get you to think about it. You, meaning everyone.

I remember Kat (a frequent attendee to these calls) telling a story about Tim Wise. Tim is a white guy who writes about racism all the time. We have been publishing him on Good Men Project weekly. He’s really well known as an anti-racist.

And Tim wrote one day about how he — despite ALL his anti-racism training, he was getting on an airplane and he was greeted by a black pilot

And Tim’s first reaction was “But who is going to fly the plane?”

He had a racist reaction to seeing a black person in a job that is woefully underrepresented by black people.

Now, say that happened to you. Say you had a racist reaction to something.

• Do you fill yourself with shame and guilt for
• Do you blame that thought on your diabetes or sex addiction (also nope).
• Would you say “Hell, I’m 82 years old and I ain’t never gonna change by built-in racism (guess what, that is a nope as well)
• Do you call yourself out on that racist reaction and then try to figure out how to change it? Bingo!

I was trying to think — if that happened to me — how I would try to change my reaction to that.

1. Look at the data to see why you might have had that reaction: 3% of airline pilots are black less than 1% are women
2. Maybe find some black pilots historically — read about their experience. Roger Ashby and Bessie Coleman
3. Find some modern-day black pilots. look at photos of them dressed in uniform. Ingrain that image into your head
4. Talk about your experience at the dinner table. have other people tell their experiences of when they called themselves out on racism.
5. Read a first-person narrative of a black person — maybe of the opposite gender. One in which you actually put themselves
6. Call up a black friend of yours to just ask them how they are doing. Ground yourself in the normality
7. Be hyper-aware of forms of racism
8. Ask your workplace what actions they are taking to make the workplace more diverse and inclusive
9. Play with some children you know. Get them dolls of POC — maybe there is a black barbie airline pilot!
10. Help support people of color who are trying to win seats in government — doesn’t have to be monetary support, could be

There — that is 10 things that I thought of in less than 10 minutes.

But the point is — you need to have the intention to change, or you will never change.

You’ll just have a bad day after a bad day.

Ok, I’m going to open it up now.

Listen to what others on the call had to say. Better yet — join our next call! Talk to you soon!

The Good Men Project Call with The Publisher

Friday at 3:00 PM EST (12 Noon Pacific)

701-801-1220
access code 934-317-242

Or: Join with your computer audio:
Link:  https://join.startmeeting.com/934317242

These calls are a supportive and inclusive group that aims to “first do no harm” and will not tolerate any racism, sexism/misogyny, or homophobia.

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This post is republished on Medium.

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