to listen to the podcast version of this interview, and read reflections and link lists from Lyndsey, visit lyndseymedford.substack.com.
Lyndsey: Hi, welcome back to Crumbling Empires, a show about living here and now in the midst of crumbling empires with realism and with hope. I’m Lyndsey Medford. I’m here today with Caroline J. Sumlin, who is the author of the new book, We’ll All Be Free: How a Culture of White Supremacy Devalues Us and How We Can Reclaim Our True Worth. I am so excited about this book. Thank you for writing it and thank you for being here, Caroline
Caroline: Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor and a pleasure.
Lyndsey: Awesome. So there are so many directions we could take this short conversation. But I did want to just start with your last couple of years.
You wrote that January 6th, 2021 was a turning point for you – Although it also, as your story continues, it sounds like this was in the midst of lots of other things, of course. But I’m curious for you what it was about that moment that shifted something for you.
And it just sounds like in the last two and a half years, that has been a really intense journey. And I want to hear a little bit about what these last couple of years of shifting your perspective on life or supremacy culture have been like for you.
Caroline: Yeah, thank you so much for that question. I even felt myself getting like a little chill and like a little emotional when I just kind of thought back to that moment when you’re asking that question of like what that was like when I was just sitting and everything that was transpiring on –
did I say that word right? Sure, yeah. I can’t hear myself talk because I have my headphones on. I know. Am I speaking correctly? I apologize.
– Everything that was transpiring that day on the screen and remembering how heavy I felt and how angry I felt and how frustrated I felt and how I also realized that there was something missing to what I had been, what I had always understood about my lived experience as a black woman in America.
My entire life, I was raised in my history. Thankfully, my parents were very adamant about ensuring that my education in the home, outside of what I was learning in school, was very black-centered and pro-black and truthful. So I very much understood from an educational standpoint, as well as a lived experience standpoint, racism, systemic racism, the things that had been done to ensure that black people specifically and then from the directness of the racism towards black people, every other person of color by default essentially, the barriers that have been put in place for us to maintain the bottom of the racial and social hierarchy in our country. I had understood that.
What I didn’t understand, however, was the vastness and the depthness of what white supremacy was. I, like most people, understood white supremacy to be the Ku Klux Klan, excuse me, and other white nationalist groups.
For example, in the 80s and 90s, the skinheads, all the way up to today with the Proud Boys and other groups. And that was about the extent of what I had thought of when I thought about white supremacy, was a specific person in a specific extremist group that had extreme ideals about the supremacy of white people. And the racial order essentially, that they believed it and fought to physically, violently fought to uphold and maintain.
I didn’t realize, even though I saw it firsthand, I didn’t realize that our society was one of white supremacy because it was so normalized. It was so normalized.
And when I watched that moment on TV, mind you, that was a year after we watched the protests, the Black Lives Matter protest following the death of George Floyd. Not only did I see violence in the most extreme form on January 6 and saw the representation of those people that were committing that violence, but I also saw the response and the vast difference between the [response to the] predominantly peaceful protests and the few violent riots that broke out as a result that weren’t even the goal of the peaceful protesters of the Black Lives Matter movement and the response to January 6th.
That is when I had this moment of, this is so much deeper than the systemic racism that I knew about, that I knew in my education and my lived experience, this was deeper than that. And, but I didn’t know exactly what it was until I began researching and figuring it out. And I essentially went into it with wanting to figure it out for my own peace of mind. Cause I’m like, well, why? I really asked myself, what did we do for real? Like I was at this point where I was like, what did me and my black brothers and sisters do to be this hated and to be this, that’s the only word I can come up with, to be treated this poorly, for there to be such a strong belief that our world, our society is in shambles if white people are not reigning supreme. What is it that we did? And when I went in seeking that answer for my own just understanding is when many, many light bulbs went off about white supremacy and also white supremacy culture. And that’s what led to the writing of this book. And you’re right, it’s been very intense. It’s been very intense few years. So it’s been a journey.
Lyndsey: Yeah, because your book is just so full of this research that you have done and the answers you’ve found to that question, which are obviously:
Black people didn’t do anything except exist. And White, you discovered how far this sort of disease of white supremacy goes down to steal the humanity of White people and Black people to enable that hatred. But you also, of course, the book is about how White supremacy culture is a form of hatred also manifested these ways that we have forgotten how to label as hatred. And so they are normalized. And so we cannot see them.
And, however, moreover, your book also just fills this gap. I have been waiting so long for someone to address, which is the space between understanding all these things, even perhaps understanding the depth of their impact on us as individuals, depending on art, which is different depending on our race. And then there’s another step, which is: okay, how do I move forward in the world with this knowledge in a productive manner? And I am so grateful for the very specific steps and the sort of framework you’re offering us for how to start that journey of moving forward.
And yeah, I think I said to someone else on the podcast recently that I have been waiting for years for their book, but that is very true of both of your books. I don’t say that to everyone, I’m just saying.
This book, How a Culture of White Supremacy Devalues All of Us, it is for Black folks and it is for everyone else. I’m curious what it was like for you to write for an audience, like such a wide audience and people who share certain experiences and cannot share other experiences of how White supremacy culture affects us.
And why did you make that choice to call the book, We’ll All Be Free, and the daring choice to include everyone in that?
Caroline: Yeah, thank you for that question. Because I know that sometimes that can ruffle feathers. It can ruffle feathers on multiple sides. How are you going to speak for an experience that you don’t know about? Or the fact that we don’t want to forget, of course, that white supremacy specifically was created to ensure the oppression and marginalization of black people. And as a result, every other person of color and want to make sure we give a special consideration and category for indigenous people as well. And I make that very clear in my book. I make it very, very clear in my book. This was created, this entire, you know, societal ideology was created for that reason.
But as a result, and I’m not the first person to talk about this. In fact, Heather McGee in The Sum of Us talks about how racism affects everybody and the effects of racism, the effects of hatred will always come back and bite everybody in the butt. That just is what it is. And we have to see that about white supremacy as well. And my reason for wanting to attack it this way was two things. One –
Well, actually, let me say three things. One, I felt the Lord say to do it, so I did. Let’s just be real. I was like, all right, here we go. But I realized, listen, this is what we’ve been talking about this at the core for a while. At the core, we are human beings. We are human beings. Yes, I’m not the kind of person that believes we’re human beings or our identities don’t matter. No, no, no. We’re human beings and our identities matter and our lived experiences matter and our race and our culture and our gender expression and everything else, those things all matter. But at the core of it, we are human beings. At the core of it, we have all experienced that feeling, especially in our society of feeling like we are not enough, that we’re doing something wrong.
And I noticed, I apologize, there’s a gnat there. I’m gonna… I’m so afraid I’m going to eat the gnat. I apologize. You ever do that? I apologize.
Lyndsey: Summer problems.
Caroline: Or keep it in the podcast. Everyone can have a laugh. You ever be walking and the gnats are just flying out and then it’s over for like 10 minutes? I’m sorry. I got so distracted. Okay, bring it back.
So at the core, we are humans and in our society, if you look everywhere, everywhere you look, you realize that someone is dealing in some capacity with this ideology of: I’m not enough, I’m not good enough, I have to strive for more, I have to be better, something’s wrong with me. And that is not an accident.
And it’s obvious when you look at the history and you look at our culture and you see the type of culture we live in and you wonder, where did that come from? Why did we get to this point? I started asking questions, why do we have this hustle culture? Where did we get this obsession with being thin? Why are we taught certain things in school that cause us to think that some people are more intelligent than the other? Where did that idea that you have to pass a certain test in order to prove what you’re worth in order, as far as your education and your higher education and your career opportunities are concerned, where does that come from? And when you answer all of those questions, all those things that we would never even consider being connected to racism, when you answer those questions, you’ll realize, oh, that’s actually all intentionally connected to racism.
So when you realize just how much White supremacy affects us all, you can’t not address that. You can’t not address that, that because it is harming us all. And the third reason, I believe I counted correctly, the third reason is that when we went, excuse me, when we realize just how much something is affecting us personally, and while this is very selfish, it’s true, it’s human nature, we tend to care a little bit more.
We tend to realize, oh, this is why we need to do this work. There are so many people that when they see white supremacy, ooh, they are triggered. They think, oh, nope, you’re attacking white people, you’re blaming white people for your problems, and that’s because we have been trained as a society to have that mindset towards racism and towards especially post-Civil War era. So they’re triggered by that. They think, oh, how dare you speak about white people? How dare you say, X, Y, and Z, you’re just looking for things to point your problems about because they’re not realizing just how much they themselves are harmed by the same systems and structures.
So my hope is that people that would not normally pick up a book like this, would normally be feel triggered by the words white supremacy, would pick up this book and realize that it is harming us all and realize it’s not about an attack on a certain person or a certain race or the existence, even, of Whiteness. It’s about the idea that Whiteness is superior, Whiteness is supreme, and the society and culture we’ve created as a result, thus harming everyone in its path. So that’s why I dared to include that all in there.
Lyndsey: Yeah. Yeah. I’m also, the other way people look at it is like- White people – is like, those people over there, the KKK people, they’re the White supremacists. They’re bad and by having an opposite political view from them, the problem is not with me or for me. I think that connecting to how it’s harming us all also helps to uncover where we’re participating in these things we don’t see and sometimes refuse to see.
You had put that about how it’s harming us all. The way you put it in the book is our society’s warning lights are worn out from flashing, which I think is so… I loved that metaphor. And I talk here on the podcast about crumbling empires. And I feel like there’s… Some people feel like that’s strong language. But you talk a lot about the many ways and it sort of keeps expanding out from like a cataclysmic January 6th center to all these other ways we’re seeing white supremacy and white supremacy culture corroding everything around us and everything even within us.
One quote is: “For us to heal, to reclaim our worth, we must not only dig deep enough to discover the roots of our collective feelings of unworthiness, but also dig deep enough to pull them all out together.” And you do a great job of keeping these things together of like, as individual, the first step is to heal ourselves and accept healing for ourselves. And the second step, the only way to continue and complete that healing, is also to insist on the healing of the world around us. And so I’m curious, like, so far on your journey, or even in places you’re observing around the country or around the world, how does that reciprocal relationship work? What does it look like to do both of those things at the same time? Or is there a relationship there that shifts and changes between the two? And how do you pull them together in a practical sense?
Caroline: Yeah, I think, like you pulled out with that quote, I think it’s always important to understand that our own healing, we do have to be a little bit selfish when we begin this process. As with any type of healing, right? I mean, it’s such a cliche, but there is a reason why they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first before you assist your children, because you can’t assist them if you aren’t getting the oxygen yourself. And that’s just so true with any sort of healing.
So even just taking this aside, I always encourage anybody, whatever it is, like you do have to work on your healing or at least begin that process, at least begin that journey. But I also emphasize too that I personally don’t believe that we’ll ever be fully healed from something, anything, whether it be our individual personal traumas or white supremacy culture and the trauma that it has caused us individually, collectively, I don’t think we’ll ever fully be healed because I do think that that’s something that we’ll achieve on the other side of heaven, but we can get closer and closer to that and we can get more and more healed and more and more whole and the more that we do, then the more that we are able to begin spreading that that healing or at least assisting or or encouraging whatever that looks like for you to those around us.
And I think we know when it’s when when we’re ready for that, you know, I think it’s, it’s kind of like, this is going to sound weird, but it’s kind of like when you know you’re ready to like date again. You know what I’m saying? Like when you’ve gone through a breakup and you’re just like, I’m working on myself, you know, I’m not looking for anybody right now. And then you don’t, it just kind of hits you out of nowhere when you realize that that work that you’ve been doing, that you’re ready to receive love again, or you’re ready to work on a relationship, you’re ready to invite that that other person in and the dynamics that come with that.
I think when it comes to this, it’s the same thing. I don’t think there’s any sort of rule that says, all right, what you’ve done, X, Y, and Z amount of healing, you’re ready to begin working with others and spreading that to somebody else, you’ll know.
Either it’ll be an opportunity that comes to you, either it’ll, you know, whether that be in a friendship of yours where you’re having a conversation with a girlfriend or a boyfriend or whomever, and you realize it’s an opportunity to share something, or you’re in an environment where you’re, you know, with a group of people, or you’re in a work environment, or something where you just realize that certain things, certain ways you used to see things, you see them differently now, you see yourself responding to things differently now. Maybe people start asking you questions about, oh, I’ve noticed a little shift in you, I’ve noticed you’ve changed your perspective here. Those opportunities will come and they’ll come organically.
And I think that’s the beauty of it. We don’t have to feel forced, it doesn’t have to feel like you have to meet some sort of standard. We’re saying no to those types of things, saying no to perfection. It’s all going to look different for all of us. And I think when we have our eyes opened, that those opportunities will come. As long as our eyes are open, we don’t have to force anything. I’m not sure if that 100% answers your question, but that’s the way that I would like to answer it, I guess, and hopefully that comes as far as a hopefulness and a little bit of a pressure off, because I know sometimes people will say, oh, this feels like a lot. I get it, I get it. Take a step, slow down, take a step back. You don’t have to save the world tomorrow. I promise, it’s gonna be all right.
Lyndsey: No, I love that answer. I actually, and I feel like that is an answer that resists the sort of infiltration of white supremacy culture into activism culture. Where it is like, things are wrong and we’re going to fix them and we’re going to fix them tomorrow.
Caroline: Right.
Lyndsey: And it just causes more harm, often, so often, so astoundingly often. And I think when we have started with our personal healing, we also can know how to continue to integrate that into our work in the world, rather than leaping into work or relationships or organizations that are triggering or bringing out the worst in us without us actually knowing – because we haven’t started from that place of integration with ourselves.
Caroline: Um, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Lyndsey: I actually, and I also, I was so grateful that you named the characteristics of white supremacy culture in your book. Um, because I, I find so many of these conversations just refuse for some reason to get very specific. Um, and also because I think once we’re being specific about some of these things, we know a little more what we’re dealing with. And we can be a little more aware and awake to those places where white supremacy is showing up in the organization around us or within ourselves. If we get good enough at naming these things, we can start to be like, Oh, I’m doing this thing and I didn’t mean to. And now it’s time to take a second and figure out where that came from for me so that I’m not contributing to its perpetuation around me.
So I’m just gonna name, save the list so that it can continue to be out there in the world.
Caroline: Yes, let’s do it.
Lyndsey: These are Dr. Tema Okun’s characteristics and I have seen some other lists that are also helpful, but I do come back to this one a lot. They’re time tested and well researched.
Fear,
perfectionism,
one right way,
paternalism,
objectivity,
Qualified,
either/or thinking,
denial,
defensiveness,
right to comfort,
fear of conflict,
individualism,
power hoarding,
progress equals more,
quantity over quality,
worship of the written word,
and, our favorite, urgency.
I am curious. If someone just read that list for the first time, how would how would someone understand first of all, what these words even mean? What they denote refer to? And what if people struggle to even imagine anything different for a business or a church, or their family or themselves? Where would we, where would they take this list in their life?
Caroline: Yeah, that’s such a good question. And actually that’s what my, my last chapter of the book helps a lot with. Um, I name the tenets of white supremacy culture. I kind of, and this is me taking Dr. Tema’s work and kind of bringing my own spin to it. And, um, five tenants of white supremacy culture that I believe pretty much everything can be lumped into and then what characteristics. are aligned with those tenets and then what the antidotes of those are. So if you read, when you read chapter 10, that’ll help you out in kind of understanding, well, how would this look if I was to do it differently?
Because you’re right, it is so hard to imagine when something so normalized, another way to do it. And that’s, and a lot of defensiveness comes up there too, because it’s like, well, wait a minute, why are you like, but it wouldn’t it just make sense for these standards to be in place? Because
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that’s what success is or that’s what professionalism looks like or that’s what prestigiousness looks like or whatever we’ve been taught, right? So it definitely comes up as a lot of times one of the first characteristics that you will display when you see that list is a little bit of defensiveness, like, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? Because I’ve been told that these are the right ways to be, the one right way to be, right? So I think that-
Lyndsey: And the either/or thinking is like- If we’re not going to do that, then we have to throw it all out and throw it all out. If people can’t have qualifications, then what is there?
Caroline: Exactly. No, no, no. You’re absolutely right. If people can’t have qualifications for something, then how will I know that they’re qualified? There’s that very either or black and white binary thinking. But you know, taking, for example, something about qualifications, it’s about looking at, well, what are the qualifications that you’re requiring and why? What are those rooted in? Why are they specific to? And then what, for example, if you’re, you know, say you run a business and you’re hiring somebody for a job and you have such and such qualifications, are you asking yourself what those are rooted in? Are you asking yourself for these equitable qualifications? Are you accepting more than one way to meet a qualification? Are you accepting more than one way to exhibit and exude professionalism?
There’s multiple ways to do so, but we’re taught that it’s a certain way to speak, a certain way to dress, a certain way to write. And that if it’s not those particular ways that one would essentially utilize when they’re writing an essay for the SAT, then it’s wrong. We’re writing their dissertation for their PhD. Then if you’re not, if you don’t sound like that, then you’re not professional. If you don’t sound like that, then you don’t represent somebody well.
This is actually such an, I don’t know why this just came. No, I do know why this came to me because I was just watching this show. But this, this example actually just came to me. So I’m obsessed with a show called All American. It’s on the CW. And it’s just wrapped up its fifth season. It’s going to go into a sixth season, by the way, everyone should watch it because there’s a spin off, All American Homecoming.
Those two shows are the first shows on the CW to have predominantly black casts. And they do an excellent job of portraying black culture in a realistic but positive way. Anyway, that – just watch it. And you can binge watch both shows on Netflix right now, all the way up into their current seasons. So do that.
But anyway, I was watching one of the episodes of one of the shows where One of the girls, just to give you a little picture, she is a black, queer, gay girl. In this episode, she’s about probably about 18. And the first show All American, it takes place in the Crenshaw neighborhood in Los Angeles, which was very well known to be one of the black neighborhood in that area. It’s known for a lot of gang activity and things of that nature.
And so this, the girl, her name is Coop, that’s what they all call her, her name is Tamiya Cooper, everyone calls her Coop, and she ends up going from being heavily involved in gang activities to taking her first pre-law class in a university, a made-up university in the area, of course. And she’s in that class, but of course, she doesn’t use – not of course, I shouldn’t say of course, that’s the wrong thing to say, but she, being from the Crenshaw neighborhood, being her upbringing, she doesn’t utilize the most prestigious law terms when she speaks. She speaks very just from the heart. She has an African American vernacular English dialect and she is more intelligent than every single person in her class. And because of her ability to be real and to break things down in a way that you can understand, all of her classmates love her. They’re able to understand the law.
I’m not sure if I’m even using the right terminology. I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. But the concepts essentially of the class, so much better when she breaks it down because she’s like, okay, listen. So so and so the did it and she’s kind of goes into it like forget all the terminology, forget being prestigious, forget, forget the advanced words and let’s just be real with it. That’s how she presents it.
And her classmates love her, but the professor is always on her because he has already stereotyped her. He’s already, you know, he looks at her like a charity case and constantly gets on her for the ways that she dresses. She dresses well. She dresses like a queer black woman. She has on like a vest and she has on some slacks and a belt and she got some cornrows in her hair. And she doesn’t look raggedy, but because she doesn’t dress like all the white girls in the class, he deems her as slouchy. Because she doesn’t sound like all the white girls in the class, he deems her as unprofessional and he essentially rags on her about the way that she’s presenting herself and she knows exactly what’s going on, she knows exactly how she’s being stereotyped in this class.
So all that to say, that’s when we’re looking at white supremacy culture, that’s what we mean by qualifications. We mean the specific types of qualifications that you think someone has to do or say in order to meet some sort of standard that essentially deems themselves worthy of whatever it is that they’re trying to achieve. That’s an example of that.
Lyndsey: Yeah. Yeah. And I actually meant to quote this from your book right before you lay out this list, you write, “Most of the characteristics of white supremacy culture are in opposition to the cultural norms of Indigenous, African, Black, non-Westernized European and other non-white cultures because those cultures tend to focus more on collective community than on power, profit, and individualism.”
And so this made-up definition of professionalism helps to protect power, profit, and individualism for a certain group of people. And it also keeps us from that focus on collective community. It keeps, it would keep Coop from explaining things to her classmates.
Caroline: And really the lawyer that she wants to become, which is a lawyer for the people in her neighborhood, to have the type of representation that they that is essentially, um, usually not available for people that that are from neighborhoods like Crenshaw. That’s exactly why she’s doing what she’s doing and that’s exactly why the systems were created the way they were created exactly what you’re saying, you know, there’s there it’s it’s created to to to to create it. I’m saying the word create a lot, but it’s it’s there to to make sure there’s a divide between you know, white people and black people and what that hierarchy is supposed to look like socially, economically, and within, of course, the power and control in our country. That’s the reason why white supremacy exists. And then the way we see it playing out is an example like in Coop’s case.
Lyndsey: Oh, my gosh. I love that example so much because I feel like that’s one, the professionalism thing is one of those things where people are like, it’s not that big of a deal to put on a blazer and straighten your hair. And it’s like, well, first of all, if people say it’s a big deal, it’s a big deal. But second of all, it has all of these continuing downstream effects anyway that you just laid out so well.
And I did really love the third part of your book that was like, all right, here we go. We’re going to sit down and take this list and take as long as it takes to figure out where it’s showing up in your individual life. And so I had, I read this book in about a week for podcast purposes, but I will be going back through it and all the journal prompts and the last part for as long as it takes for probably a couple of months. Just for the reader to be aware, there’s a whole journaling component for you. So you’re not just like reading this stuff and then putting it down and weeping and not having any other recourse.
Caroline: Putting it down, putting it down and weeping! Did not want that to happen.
Lyndsey: And your book also, I want to mention for people interested in it, has a whole personal story we haven’t gotten to as well. And so throughout this, you’re also talking about healing from personal trauma as well as our collective racial trauma.
I just think for both of those things, there’s this temptation to be like, something bad happened and then I worked through it, and now I have progressed beyond that. And I really want to not frame the hard work and the horrible realizations and the difficult conversations and the losses and the grief. I don’t want to frame that as just…bad things.
Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lyndsey: But they’re part of who we become.
Caroline: No, I hear what you’re saying. I think it’s, it’s, it’s so important to understand that. And okay, so one thing that I that I make clear in my book is that I am I am a believer. I’m a deconstructing believer, but I’m a believer 100%. I do a lot of criticism of Christianity in the book, so don’t get it twisted, but I am a believer, and I 100% believe that the Lord takes our ashes and turns them into beauty. They’re not ashes that he intentionally caused. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that he’s a God that causes harm, so we can learn a lesson. I used to believe that. I used to feel that way.
But in my deconstructing of Christianity and Western evangelicalism, I’ve learned since that that’s not the God that we serve. But he is a God that will take every single dark thing that we’ve gone through and he will use them for his glory and use them for our good.
And so that is how I view the difficult, every single difficult moment, the reliving of the trauma that we have experienced, understanding that there is going to be trauma in our futures. It’s going to happen. That’s part of the human experience. And we will have to continue to rework not only these particular steps that I have in the book in that, but also other things that are only healing. That’s why I say healing is ongoing. It’s ever present.
Sometimes we have to start over. Sometimes we have to pause from it even. It’s hard and it’s messy work, not to sound cliche, but it is. It’s hard, messy work that’s extremely meaningful. And I hear you, like to not just think of it as like all this bad thing that I have to get over. I’m going to get to the other side. I’m going to dance in the mirror. I’m going to sing Beyonce and everything’s going to live happily ever after. No, not at all. I sing Beyonce in the mirror and then I have days where I have to go through an entire process all over again of learning how to love myself because I still fall into those mindsets. I still fall into those frames of thinking. I may have seen something on Instagram that triggered me.
It’s ongoing, but that’s okay because I’ve learned and I’ve grown in that process. So I have the tools to equip me every time I get knocked down and you will too. Um, in, in this book and, and many other resources, I’m, I’m, believe me, it’s just one of many resources that I hope that people can have in their, in their tool belt.
Lyndsey: Yeah, I loved your resource list at the back of your book. You may have just answered this. I love to wrap up asking interviewees, how do you define hope and where are you finding it in your life right now?
Caroline: Mm. I’ve never actually thought about how I define hope. That’s a good one. I’ve never I’ve just never actually put like a like a definition to it.
Lyndsey: I’ve been really I’ve been like very stuck on this question for like a few years since I heard Ta-Nehisi Coates be like, you know, I don’t have to be hopeful. I don’t have to. I’m like, wait, that’s I hope is in my Bible. Not that Ta-Nehisi Coates has to care, but I have to figure out what this means to me. So I’m always curious where people are with that.
Caroline: And I feel what Ta-Nehisi Coates is saying, one of my favorite authors, because there are days where you just don’t have hope. And I think those days are OK. I do. I used to feel shame, shameful. I used to feel ashamed. That’s what I’m looking for. I used to feel ashamed when I felt hopeless because I felt like I was doing something wrong as a Christian. Because as a Christian, I should always be hopeful. I should always be faithful. I should always be did it. But that can sometimes cause you to neglect your very human emotions as well. And allowing you to sit with those heart emotions of being like, this does not feel hopeful right now. I don’t know why I’m doing this.
But I think when you actually feel that, then when you get up the next day, that hope is oftentimes renewed because the Lord can come in and like, all right, you got that out and now I can come in with my goodness and I can renew that hope for you. But I do think when we force ourselves to feel like we have to always be hopeful and have to always be faithful and we don’t allow ourselves to go through the ebbs and flows of what hopefulness looks like and feels like that actually causes more harm than good.
I think if I were to define hope, it is number one, it is God. I know that the times when I feel hopeless, it is through God that I’m able to get back up again the next day and have renewed hope. I know that I can’t do that on my own. That would be the one definition I guess I would put to it.
But also hope is, I find hope in humanity because I don’t know if this is the definition, but I can say where I find hope, I do find hope in humanity. I think that humans are beautiful. We are beautiful, complex creatures who love and laugh and cry. And, and I look at our children and I look at, at, at goodness happening around me. I look at conversations that I may have had with somebody in the store when she’s trying on jeans and I’m trying on jeans like, Oh girl, you look good in those jeans. Okay. I see you, you know, little things like that, or, or just even going on Tik Tok and looking at a hilarious video and you’re just busting out laughing because humans are hilarious. Like humans are fascinating people. We are awesome. And I really do find a lot of hope in humanity as a whole.
I do think that we will be okay. I think we got a long way to go, but I do think we’ll be okay. And I think that’s because we are sometimes the hope. We’re not giving up on ourselves, you know? And I think when we lose hope is when we’ve given up on ourselves. And we can’t afford to do that. I don’t think we will. So I’m not sure if that defines or answers the question for you, but.
Lyndsey: Absolutely it does.
Caroline: That’s what comes to my mind.
Lyndsey: I love it. Caroline J. Sumlin, thank you for being here. Your book is, We’ll All Be Free: How a Culture of White Supremacy Devalues Us and How We Can Reclaim Our True Worth.
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It’s really good. It’s a resource I’m going to be coming back to a lot. And your Instagram also, I do not sit and look at infographics on Instagram very much. I don’t normally think that’s a useful place for me to absorb information, but I really like yours. And if people really want to get into more of the details of where we’re alluding to histories and systems and the definition of White supremacy, etc. You have these really helpful resources on your Instagram as well. So that’s @carolinejsumlin and We’ll All Be Free, and we’ll link to the book and Caroline’s website in the show notes.
Lyndsey: You’ve been listening to Crumbling Empires with me, Lyndsay Medford. As I speak right now, I am 35, 34 weeks pregnant. As you’re listening to this, I will probably be snuggling my newborn. So getting these podcast episodes and essays all lined up for my maternity leave has been such a joy and it’s been a labor of love. So if you are appreciating the podcast, if you would like to get more essays from me in your inbox, and hear how baby life is going, go ahead and join me over at lyndseymedford.substack.com as a subscriber or as a paid subscriber to help keep it going and to continue to share about living in crumbling empires with realism and with hope. Thank you so much for listening.
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