Responding to the U.S. Capitol Siege

In this ad hoc episode, I outline a response to the U.S. Capitol siege.  I provide some suggestions for ways to talk with your child about the events, but also ask that you take two more steps: (1) examine your own role in these events, even if you condemn them yourself (as I do); (2) take action based on your own position and role in the world to work toward equality. You can find my resources on the intersection of parenting and race here. There's a specific blog post suggesting a script for talking with children about the Black Lives Matter movement (which could be adapted for this situation) here. Showing Up for Racial Justice's Action Hours are here   [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen Lumanlan  00:01 Hello, everybody! I am recording live in our Facebook group. And I'm also recording this separately on the camera and on audio only as a way to share this information more broadly across a variety of platforms. I thought it was actually sharing in the group a minute ago, and I am not sure that it was working so I'm just trying to give this another go around. And I think actually, I just got the same message pop up saying that I was not sharing and now I am sharing, so hopefully this is going through to everywhere that it's supposed to be going. So the content of what I want to talk about today is about what has happened at the US Capitol. And it's been a couple of days, it's Friday, today, January 8, and two days after the events happened at the Capitol. And I wasn't really sure what to say and so I didn't want to say anything, I didn't want to say the wrong thing. And I went out for a bike ride this morning and it sort of clarified for me what it was that I wanted to say. And so that's why if you're watching this on video, you're probably seeing a bit of a stripe across my forehead and I'm freshly showered because I kind of came back and was on fire about what it was that I wanted to say. And so you're sort of hearing my relatively raw unedited thoughts. And I'm a little nervous about sharing those with you which is why you probably hear this in my voice. So I want to start with talking with our children about the events that have happened at the Capitol, because I'm hearing questions in Facebook groups and other places online if parents want to have these kinds of conversations with their children, but they don't know how to do it or they're thinking, okay, maybe my children are too young to understand what's going on and I don't want to scare them, and I'm not sure if I'm going to have a conversation with them at all.   Jen Lumanlan  01:57 And so, I have published resources on this before I actually have a post on how to talk with your child about Black Lives Matter. And I think that a lot of the principles that are discussed in there are very similar. And we want to do it in an age-appropriate way, we want to lead with their questions, and so I think ideally, this will come from them being out in the world, and they'll see things that they're curious about, and they'll ask about them, and that will lead into a conversation on these topics. But if we are not out so much lately, as many of us are not and maybe we don't have the news on all the time, and so their exposure to it may be much less than it otherwise would have been. And so well, what can we do when that's the case? And we're not sure how to bring the conversation up? Well, I would say the first thing we can do is to talk about it with a spouse or significant other or another adult over dinner, or over some other period of time where it's natural for you to have a conversation. And to just talk about what's on your mind—what's been in the news today? how is today's developments casting new light on? what we're thinking about what happened at the US Capitol? And pretty soon your child is probably going to say, “What are you talking about?” Or something that indicates that they're interested in this topic and I think that that can be a jumping-off point for you to try and give some background and ideally, that this won't be the first conversation that you will have had on current events like this, and you'll be able to talk about in context, Donald Trump and the policies that he has been enacting, and the ways that he talks to people, and whom he talks to. And so, that will provide you with the context that you need to then describe what has happened.     Jen Lumanlan  03:46 When they have questions, we can answer their questions clearly and directly. And also not be afraid to say when we don't know, because there's a lot that we don't know. And we don't have to put across the impression that we do know everything to our children all the time. I think it's also fine to share how we feel about the events with our children. It's important for them to see that our words and what we're saying match our demeanor, if we are clearly afraid about something, but we're sort of saying, “Oh, don't worry about it, it's fine,” then what they're learning from that is well, “I can see that my parent is not fine, but they're telling me fine. They're telling me everything's fine. Something really important is going on here,” or they may see, “Well, I just don't trust my own ability to judge how other people are reacting because I'm getting these mixed messages and I don't understand which one to prioritize. It must be what my parent is saying. And so I must not be capable of judging how their nonverbal reactions are supporting that message.” And so, I think behind a lot of these questions around what should I talk to my child, what should I say to my child, there's this big issue of privilege and of having the luxury to make that decision and to decide what we're going to say and to be able to make a decision to choose to say things that don't scare our children. And not all parents have the luxury to do this. So, if you're coming at these conversations for the first time, then welcome. There are resources that I've published available to help you there, a number of them are collected at yourparenting mojo.com/race. There's actually one on how to talk with your child about Black Lives Matter and I think that a number of the principles that are discussed in that post are also very applicable here. And the kind of script that you can use to build on their questions will also be helpful as you're navigating this kind of conversation.   Jen Lumanlan  05:50 So, that's the issue of talking with our children about this topic, but I think that there's a broader issue that I want to make sure isn't neglected. Because I think it's really critical to examine what is our role in this system, in the system that has made it feel to some people like Donald Trump is the best option who's available to me, and what he says is what I'm going to do. Because I think that it's really easy to point to those people and say, “Well, those people are racist, and I'm not like them, and it's all their fault, their problem,” and instead, I think that we all need to examine our role in the system that has created these events and to take action related to that. And so what does that mean? Well, I worked for a consulting company for a long time. And I worked in sustainability consulting for a number of years, which I really enjoyed, but it became apparent that there was a point in time where it was obvious people, companies were not willing to pay the premiums that my company wanted to sell this work for. And so, I was on the verge of getting laid off and an executive that I'd worked with previously, who appreciated my work said, “You should come to work on my team,” and I said, “Sure.” And so, we were in a portion of the business where we were selling outsourcing services and other things as well, technology implementation, but we were also selling outsourcing services. And so what I was essentially doing was supporting proposal development work, and so directly involved in selling the company's services related to outsourcing in countries like India and the Philippines, which would take jobs away from American citizens and outsource them to those companies where it's cheaper to operate.   Jen Lumanlan  07:59 And I remember reading in the news several years ago now that my company would force the American workers to train their new replacements on their jobs as a condition of receiving severance pay. And so, you know, I don't want to point to you and say, “You are the problem, you listeners, you watchers are the problem,” because we are all part of this problem. I was selling work that was taking jobs away from people who are many of them now are supporting Donald Trump, and sending that to other countries. And of course, there's a lot of complexity involved here, maybe I was involved in lifting the standard of living for somebody who was in those countries. It's not cut and dry. But I am not uninvolved in this system and neither are you. No matter where you sit in life, you have a role to play in this system. So maybe you're a teacher, and you participate in systems that involve awarding points for children who are reading books, and so that they can collect points and win rewards for reading books, as they're learning how to read. Well, what does that do? It pits children against each other, and it directly undermines the kind of cooperative systems that children from many other cultures learn at home and says that the way of being that you've learned in your culture is not valued here, competition is valued here. And if you want...