Race and Racism in America - Conversation with the Rabbi

Episode 24

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Published on:

5th May 2022

Race and Racism in America

In preparation for an upcoming episode of the podcast, Rabbi Michael Beyo and Dr. Adrian McIntyre have a candid, "behind-the-scenes" conversation about race and racism in America.

Conversation with the Rabbi is a project of the East Valley Jewish Community Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, neighborhood organization that has served individuals and families inclusive of all races, religions, and cultures since 1972. Visit us online at https://www.evjcc.org

The Conversation with the Rabbi podcast is supported by a grant from Arizona Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act.

The show is recorded and produced in the studio of PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more at https://phx.fm

Transcript
Adrian McIntyre:

From PHX.fm, this is Conversation with the Rabbi, featuring open, honest dialogue, and sometimes unconventional perspectives on the world we all share.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Let me go back to another question I had for you as an anthropologist. How come, in this country, there is more racial tension than probably any other country in the world? It's not that this country alone has a history of slavery, of Black being slaved and white being ... what's the proper term? The slave owners. There is other countries that had that problem. But today those countries don't face the same deep-rooted racial tension. I understand that it is only in this country, that later on, you had the KKK and some other things that prolonged the suffering and the problem and the discrimination. My question is I find that Americans in general, American society is a very racist country, meaning whites and Blacks and Latino, and everybody talks either positively or negatively about race. I'm an immigrant to this country. Why should I care whether my president is white, Black, Caucasian, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, man, or female? I don't care. I want my president to be the best individual that we can have for the next four years. I want my vice president to be the second-best individual that we can have, or the best individual for the vice presidency. I don't care whether it's a male, female, Catholic, Jewish, African American, Asian, first-generation college. I don't care, just like we shouldn't care whether the CEO of Amazon is man, female, blah. No, we want the best person to be the CEO of a company that we all use. We all use it, so we want it to continue providing for us a good service. Where am I wrong?

Adrian McIntyre:

I don't know if you're wrong, but let me just start by thinking through an answer. The first thing always, and this is basic Aristotle, is examine the premise. I don't know if it's true that racial tensions in America are greater than they are in any other country. I think it's worth seeing if there's a way to find that out. I think maybe, experientially, you may feel that, which, in a way, is confirming the reality of something that needs to be explored further, which is, and you said it in phrasing the question, in this country, racial differences are, in fact, highlighted, are salient, and that may not be the same as they are in some other places. Remember that nothing is unified in time and history, given the increasing immigration from North Africa to Southern Europe over the last 15 years.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

There's a lot of tension. Absolutely.

Adrian McIntyre:

There is an increase in this. So we would have to ask ourselves, if we go back to the '70s in Italy, what did the experience of racial difference look like, feel like, et cetera, and what is it like today? It changes.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Sure.

Adrian McIntyre:

Britain is another interesting example because Britain has been deeply multicultural due to empire for so long that you can go further back and see a lot of examples of this. This country is a colonial settler project. Every history of this country starts on the East Coast. Why is that? Human settlement in North America started on the West Coast. 15,000 years ago, let's say approximately, human settlement in this country started from the West Coast and spread eastward. The history of pre-European North America, which is the history of human experience here, starts there. But every history book starts with Massachusetts, Plymouth Rock, whatever.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Right. When what we call Native Americans came 15,000 years ago, do you also call them colonizers?

Adrian McIntyre:

No.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Why?

Adrian McIntyre:

It's a very good question.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

We use the term colonizer, I think, usually negatively.

Adrian McIntyre:

I'm using it as a description of practices. We don't use the term colonizer when people are settling earlier in human history.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I think both are natural, meaning also the expansion of Spain and Portugal and England and France into this continent was a natural progression for maybe different reasons, different motives. But people, societies, populations migrate. They move from one place to another for all kinds of reasons. Just like we don't call the North African immigration into Europe colonizers, we call them immigrants.

Adrian McIntyre:

Well, that's because the terms are trying to address difference in power relations. When a group of people, a band, tribe, what have you, is expanding their territory due to hunting, foraging, and those kinds of things, we don't see that as exploitative.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

But it seems to me that we are always trying to find a hero and an anti-hero as a society. We say, "Oh, no. The immigrants now, they're good. That's why we call them immigrants. But the immigrants of those ones, those were terrible. So we're not going to call them immigrants anymore. We're going to call them white colonialists. Those ones, they are good. That's why, when I teach the Bible, when I teach Torah, I love slash hate when people tell me, "You see? We Jews, we are so good because we don't do the same behavior as other religions. We don't do crusades. We don't do inquisitions against others. We don't chop off heads like Isis does in the name of their religion." I say, "Come, let me show you what we have done and what we're capable of doing, just like any other human being, like any other religion and any other faith and any other group of people that tries to, for legitimate or illegitimate reasons, win over another population, territory, power, money, or because God said so. It doesn't matter." I think that we need to be very careful not to be anachronistic when we analyze and judge historical facts. We need to be careful, therefore, not to use terms that, unfortunately, have very deep political and ideological ramifications. Nobody wants to be called a colonialist today.

Adrian McIntyre:

This is important because one thread in what you're saying here has to do with in-group, out-group identity. We are like this. They are like that. You see this. This is a human phenomenon. If you go into the Hebrew Bible, every description of the Canaanites, archeologists will tell you it's not clear that's referring to a single group of people called the Canaanites. It's literally saying "those people." They're more barbaric and all the things. But we are this way. In-group, out-group identity matters. At the same time, we have to desensitize ourselves enough that we can talk about it, including the difficult parts. It reminded me of the presentation of the problem in Robin DiAngelo's book, White Fragility. There have been criticisms, by the way, of Robin DiAngelo's writing. The book came out in 2018 and became very popular, primarily among white people, in 2020 during the latest resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests and so on. The criticism was, well, why would you only read white people about racial problems? You should read Black authors as well. My response is that's great! We should actually read all of them because I think they're all valuable. Robin DiAngelo's book is important because she's talking from the perspective of a white sociologist and student of racial issues to other white people in a very explicit and direct way. The framework of the book is really quite simple and interesting. The framework is: why is it so hard to talk to white people about racism? It comes from her experience as a Diversity & Inclusion trainer working in corporate America for 20 years. And over and over and over, as she tried to address these issues in workshop rooms, with people who were told by their company, "You have to attend this workshop," what she dealt with was the anger and the outrage and the sobbing and the deflection and all of these emotional responses. So she asked what I think is a valid question, which is why do white people freak out when you try to talk to them about white privilege and racism?

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I haven't read the book. I'm going to go and get it now.

Adrian McIntyre:

I think it's worth reading. I'll list several others that are also worth reading by Black authors, but this one is also worth reading.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

For me, one is I never know what is the proper term? Is "Black" the proper term? Is "African American" the proper term? Are there things that I should not say or that I should say, because I don't want to insult anyone. There are certain sensitivities that everybody comes with. I think that I am more aware of maybe white sensitivities. I'm not aware of Black sensitivities. Being a white person that did not grow up among Black people, I am concerned that I shouldn't say or do things that inadvertently hurt the person in front of me. Just like I am aware of sensitivities of Catholics. Catholics or Christians believe that Mary was a virgin, so I'm not going to make a joke about that because that would be insensitive. That would be wrong of me telling a Christian friend, "That's not possible. You are not thinking rationally. You have a cognitive dissonance." I wouldn't do that. That's wrong because that is a deep belief, and I don't want to be insulting. So one is, for me, since I don't know the Black community, I am wary of terms, the terminologies, or actions that may offend them, and I don't want to. That's number one for me. Number two is that I am concerned that my ignorance may be interpreted as being racist.

Adrian McIntyre:

Can I just interject here?

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Please.

Adrian McIntyre:

She then proceeds to ask the question. Why is that so offensive and so troubling, and begins to unpack that concern, because that's the automatic response of so many people. How dare you say I am racist? You don't know anything about me. In many cases, the response of these individuals goes into a recounting of their own personal narrative. You don't know that I was raised in poverty. You don't know that I'm an immigrant, I'm from Italy, and how I was treated. You don't know about my experience of antisemitism.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Which is also true.

Adrian McIntyre:

Then you would say, "So how could you dare accuse me of being racist?" She says, and I think this is very instructive and interesting, "What we think people are saying when they point out racially problematic behaviors or statements is because we think that racism is something bad people do."

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Yes.

Adrian McIntyre:

You've spoken about making a comment that you didn't realize was offensive because you're not from this country and don't know the experience, and then you were told later that was offensive. When that happens and our reaction is defensiveness, it's often because we think people are saying we're a bad person. We're like those other bad people. One of the big challenges in the book is to try to reframe racist ideas and actions as something different than just what bad people do, because then everyone's automatic response is, "Well, I'm not a bad person, don't you know?"

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Right. But who should do that?

Adrian McIntyre:

"... I serve and help" and whatever. By the way, I want to tell you one other thing I think you'll like. She points out that some of the most difficult people to have this conversation with were white liberals because their argument was always, "But don't you know I do this work? I do that work. Don't you know I marched with Doctor King? I am not racist. I participated in the civil rights movement for 20 years." The answer is, yes, you did that work, and you still have invisible biases and assumptions that are playing out in racially problematic ways. We want to give you feedback so you can adjust and correct. The real question of the book is not why do white people freak out about conversations about white privilege and racism? The real question of the book is how do we get better at receiving feedback about our racially problematic actions?

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I agree with you. I would argue that her request is almost impossible. What she maybe should have requested is that the people that understand that better help somebody like me. But you cannot ask me to do that because I don't know how to do it. I'll flip it. You told me that you have been accused of being anti-Israel.

Adrian McIntyre:

Specifically of being antisemitic and being a Holocaust denier because I'm critical of the modern state of Israel's human rights record. Yes.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Right. I cannot ask you to do an introspection and understand the differences. I need to do the job in understanding that you are not antisemitic. Even when you are critical of the state of Israel, I need to understand that's a legitimate criticism. We may agree or disagree, but that does not make you an antisemite. It's on me to treat you and give you that respect. Therefore, I would ask why, when I listen to CNN, for example, or any other media, CNN, Fox, or when you read a newspaper, the conversation is so basic, ignorant, that they make me feel like I'm a racist because I voted for Trump. So I understand what you are saying about the book, and I understand my own weaknesses. Probably, there's a lot of things that I need to learn about racism and African community and Black. Great. But we cannot start a conversation by saying, "You are a racist, and let me tell you where you need to fix it."

Adrian McIntyre:

Again, my characterization of what's in the book is probably less detailed than what's in the book. So I hope you'll engage with it, and several others. Her point is that we need to do work. This is why I think it is important that this book is written by a white scholar and practitioner of antiracist ideas, for other white people, because the we who needs to do this work is the white people. She goes into great lengths ...

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

So should Black people!

Adrian McIntyre:

Just a second though. At this point, given everything that has been asked of or demanded of them, for us to continue to make our biases and misunderstandings their problem is inappropriate. We need to do this.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Can you explain better this point?

Adrian McIntyre:

Yes. One of the most compelling examples in the book is a chapter on white women's tears. By the way, what she's trying to get to with people, I think, is two parts. One, she wants people to set aside their defensiveness long enough to actually look at the facts about structural and institutional racism, policies, laws, actions that are grossly disadvantageous to communities of color. I think that's vital. I think we all ought to say, "Set aside myself for a second. Let me hear what you have to say." As books like The Color of Law talked about with housing policies, zoning, all of those things.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I've seen a documentary about that. Yeah.

Adrian McIntyre:

All that stuff, redlining, et cetera, but also banking.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Adrian McIntyre:

We got to look at all of this. And how it is that then the racist ideas about bad neighborhoods are actually coming as an after-the-fact phenomenon, when those neighborhoods were essentially forced to be that way by city councils, by states, all those things. Thing one, she wants us to be able to set aside our defensiveness long enough to consider the realities of structural racism. That's important. Thing two, she wants us to, at the more interpersonal level, become better at accepting feedback. By the way, when I was reading this book, I actually thought, "This would make my marriage better. This would make my friendships better." What she's really talking about in that aspect is a set of communication practices that include being willing to hear people say things, give us feedback that we don't like ...

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

She's right.

Adrian McIntyre:

... and accept it and learn from it.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

She's right.

Adrian McIntyre:

And she has very practical ...

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

The problem is that we live in a society that, when we are letting ourself be vulnerable to hearing criticism, we never associate that with constructive criticism. We usually associate that with "Ha! I got you."

Adrian McIntyre:

Right. And we don't want to be got.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Therefore, the automatic reply is what I also said just two minutes ago. But they also need to, because we don't want to be ... It's a problem. It's a problem. We need to be able to just shut up and listen.

Adrian McIntyre:

Here's the thing. I have come to the conclusion that while I may want more grace and understanding from people of color I interact with in life, it is unfair for me to require that to happen first when I have very clear work cut out for me. I need to work on myself and not make that a burden. While yes, over time, the process of healing is going to mean less dismissive comments from other people, less eye rolling, whatever, that's less of a problem. It's a little bit like we said earlier on in a conversation about using the word fascism. Is name calling and actual fascism equivalent? They're not. Is the eye rolling, the critical clapback comments, is that the same as perpetuating a system of structural racism that oppresses these people on a daily basis? No, they're not the same. Yes, hopefully that will improve and get better. But it's not my place to ask for that before I'm engaged in the work. Let me give you another example. Someone that I have been engaging with on Twitter, your favorite place, who is a white woman, who was a former Nazi sympathizer, white supremacist, et cetera, was active in groups and all the rest, and has now broken free from that and is engaged in antifascist work, she will openly talk about her previous antisemitism. She will openly talk about how she was sucked in to those communities, why they were so attractive as a young, poor white girl who had been sexually abused, who felt powerless. She'll talk about all those things. As she was rehabilitating, as she was coming back to consciousness and awareness and humanity, she also very clearly held some remnants of hateful ideology that undoubtedly didn't go away overnight. In the process of her renouncing that and the very difficult things I'm sure she must have gone through in actually separating herself from this community ... I mean, talk to anybody who's tried to get themselves out of a street gang. There's very, very real threats to people trying to extricate themselves from those groups, especially when those groups are structured around violence. If she accidentally slipped up and still said something negative or antisemitic or critical or whatever, would it be fair for us to say, "Well, all of us enlightened people are the ones who have to do the work to just accept that from her and be more kind and gracious"? No, it's not wrong to say, "Both sides have to do their work." Here's my question. This is not a gotcha-type question. I'm really curious.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

No. Yeah. Yeah.

Adrian McIntyre:

Which side do you think has more work to do, the explicit antisemitic, white nationalist people, or the rest of us who should be more gentle in ... For myself, I think it's both.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I don't see that. I don't see them on the same plane. Those are ...

Adrian McIntyre:

Yeah. Fair enough.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

... two separate types of work. That's what I'm talking, also between the white community and the Black community. Those are different types of work that we both need to do at the same time. The name-calling and pointing fingers ... Listen, I'll be very open. This is our open space. Do I think that it's not smart ... Unfortunately people judge others by the way that they look, by the way that they dress, by the way that they talk. That's true within a society and across societies.

Adrian McIntyre:

Correct.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Is that fair? Ideally, no. But that's a reality. When a 16-year-old boy walks down the street dressed in a certain way, moving in a certain way, talking in a certain way, maybe, with his friends, all of these are ways that I am not familiar with because I was not raised in his community understanding that's normal. I'm an outsider to that community. Is it normal if maybe I am more apprehensive? I think, yes, it's normal. Does that make me a bad person? I don't think so.

Adrian McIntyre:

No. I think it's what happens next that's the deciding factor. I see what you're saying. I share the same thing. There's definitely situations where I feel I have my guard up more. I sometimes question myself, "Is this based on my racist prejudices?" The answer is often yes, it is. Then the question is now what? I noticed that. Obviously, there's also an overcompensation, which is to pretend I didn't have that reaction, to try to walk over to the person who's a total stranger to me and act as if I'm completely comfortable. Hey, what's going on? That's also inauthentic. We don't know each other. There's no reason for me to cross over the Walmart parking lot lane to the other side of the car and try to engage this person.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

And even try to imitate their specific way of speaking, that each community has.

Adrian McIntyre:

In fact, it's probably ...

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Offensive, maybe.

Adrian McIntyre:

It's deeply offensive and problematic to do that because you're also pretending that the very obvious differences aren't there, which is just as much of a racist paradigm.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Exactly.

Adrian McIntyre:

So the question that I have is I noticed this initial reaction. I see a Black man with a do-rag on his head. He's on the other side of my car as I'm walking up to it. I have a tension in my body, and I have a thought, "Am I safe here?" Then I notice that this human being is simply getting into their car, their car's parked next to my car, and that my reaction to it was heightened by the fact that they have dark skin and that I have implicit racist biases and ideas. I noticed this, and then the question is what comes next? If I tell somebody, "I had this natural reaction. Not natural, but I had this automatic. I think it's unnatural and automatic. I had this automatic response. I noticed it. It points to me how much there is for us to do, how much there is for me to do." If the response to that was, "You racist," then clearly, that's an unproductive exchange. They're not wrong. It's just that the conversation's not going to go anywhere on those terms, which I think is what you're saying about the labeling and the name calling.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

No. I agree with you, and I would like to add, that person that has every right to dress however they want, every right, if they want to have a good relationship with somebody like me, should take that in consideration.

Adrian McIntyre:

See, I don't think that way. I understand that you do.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Let me explain as a Jew that lives in a non-Jewish society most of my life. I am not going to walk down the street with my tallit on and my phylacteries, my tefillin, dancing the street as if I do in my synagogue, because I understand that is not the norm in the community that I live around. If I live in Jerusalem or I live in Borough Park, I may do that. But I'm not going to do that in North Central Phoenix because I need to understand that the community that I live around, they may not understand what I'm doing.

Adrian McIntyre:

But where do you draw the line? What's the threshold?

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I don't know. I don't know.

Adrian McIntyre:

Because you do wear a kippah.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Yes.

Adrian McIntyre:

And his is not the norm in the community.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I understand. I don't know. I don't know. That is a very good question.

Adrian McIntyre:

You're clearly willing to demonstrate difference.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Yes.

Adrian McIntyre:

Actually, let me say it the other way. You're unwilling to compromise on what you understand as a commandment.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Correct.

Adrian McIntyre:

A covenant. You are unwilling to compromise on that because the environment around you is different.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Very good. I don't know.

Adrian McIntyre:

The same question goes to what we call the veil, which is an unfortunate word, because it almost never means completely veiling the face like a ninja. But the conversations about headscarves in France or anywhere else ...

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Yeah, yeah. A very good point.

Adrian McIntyre:

What we have to ask ourselves is the weight of our demands, if we really look at them in some sort of a scale, which I don't know is even possible, but a traditional scale, two plates on separate sides of the balance, is the weight of our demands on others to adapt so that we are more comfortable, or is the weight of our demands on ourselves to respond to a world more openly?

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

First of all, it's on ourself. I hope, even slash demand, if I'm being honest, that the other judge me with understanding.

Adrian McIntyre:

Right.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

But it's on me first.

Adrian McIntyre:

Where I'm at, and again, maybe my feelings about this are a bit stronger because I'm even more, in a general societal level, the unmarked white male majority, not majority demographically, but in terms of the power structure, I'm coming to terms with the fact that my group is the most problematic that needs to address these things.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I understand. Yeah. I can see that.

Adrian McIntyre:

I'm not taking the position of a religious group, an immigrant, et cetera, that you are in, because that's not my position. I was born into the structure that I was born in. I have plenty of friends who would get heated on this subject and say, "Well, what am I supposed to do? It's not my fault that I was born into a white family in the suburbs. Why blame me for it? That's not my fault." I think the answer to that is, "Look, it's nobody's fault about any of this stuff, anymore than it was their fault to be born to a single mother in a poor neighborhood in the inner city. Here we are." Given that here we are now is unequal and that it wasn't your fault to be born this way, and it wasn't their fault to be born that way, but that if you stack them up side by side, who has the advantage? We do. Who has more work to do? We do. That's my point of view.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

One question and one comment. It's all nice and dandy that we are having this conversation. Can we have this conversation with a Black person?

Adrian McIntyre:

Of course.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Is it possible?

Adrian McIntyre:

Of course!

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

As I said, I'm always concerned, afraid to say things that offend. I don't want to offend, so I'm always like, "Okay, whatever," because I don't want to offend. You understand?

Adrian McIntyre:

Right.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

That's my first question. What can we do about it? My comment is if I walk down the street and in front of me, I see, by the way that they're dressed, somebody that, in my opinion, is a neo-Nazi, and on the other side of the street, I see an African American male that I think, based upon my prejudice, belongs to a gang, I will go to him without even thinking, asking him to protect me, if I need protection. It's not a skin thing for me, not necessarily. It's more complex than that.

Adrian McIntyre:

I think it's also important to allow for the possibility that everyone is also making these calculations all the time. If a young, Black teenager who happens to like hip hop and wears his clothes in a style that models prison styles and things, because that's a status symbol and a way to be cool in the community, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, feels threatened by a uniform and crosses over to you, or, I don't know if this is even imaginable, crosses over to the biker gang on the side of the road, because he feels that a bunch of beard-y white dudes with tattoos is going to be more on his side than the police officer, and he may be right. These are survival-based calculations at some level.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Sure, sure.

Adrian McIntyre:

Going back to what you said about it's one thing for the two of us to have this conversation, it's one thing to have a polite conversation about this stuff. One of the insights that I had is the ability to be academic and polite about these issues is also a reflection of privilege because there are plenty of disadvantaged communities who are threatened every day by the power structures who don't have the luxury of being polite and civilized about them when it is a very literal matter of life and death. Tell me the last time a nine-year-old white girl was handcuffed and then pepper sprayed in the face by a police officer as they were trying to shove her in the car, as the white girl said ...

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I don't know.

Adrian McIntyre:

... "I just want my daddy. I just want my daddy." The cop says, "Stop acting like a child." She says, "I am a child." That doesn't happen. As a parent of two white boys, the number of conversations I will never have to have with them about how to be safe outside our house and how to not get hurt or killed by people who are supposed to protect them, I will never have to have those conversations with them because the game is rigged in their favor.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

I understand.

Adrian McIntyre:

One of the things that I'm also grappling with for myself is the expectation that all our conversations about this should be civil, polite, academic ...

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

No, they don't always have to be like that.

Adrian McIntyre:

... based on evidence. I know you're not saying that, but I also feel like if a conversation got heated ... first of all, I think you'd be very comfortable and be able to hold your own in that environment. I have no concern about you needing protection from a conversation. If a conversation were to get heated and uncomfortable, that might in fact be the best kind of conversation because we've got to be dealing with the reality of this. If we keep it civil, sometimes we are not dealing with the reality. If we require other people to only be polite and civil and to use academic standards of evidence and make their argument in a logical way, that's what Michel Foucault called epistemic violence. We are forcing this system of logic on them in a way that is oppressive because their experience doesn't need to fit into those terms. Their experience doesn't have to map into our language for, well, you're not making your point. That's illogical. That ends up being gaslighting. And I'm not ... Well, okay. I was about to lie. I was about to say, "I'm not afraid to have those hard conversations." The reality is I'm totally afraid. I'm uncomfortable. I'm not eager to do it. I am worried about being embarrassed. I am worried about being misunderstood and that having a lasting impact and being thought of in a community that I very much would like to be an ally of, being thought of in a negative way is upsetting to me.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Sure.

Adrian McIntyre:

I don't see any other way forward other than to do that. I don't think that requiring our conversation partner to be the most gracious and kind toward us is a necessary precondition.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

No, they don't have to be the most gracious. Yeah. But you see, I have never had an open conversation like we had about race in America with a Black person. Also with white people. Yes, I have with my wife. I've had one now with you. I don't remember that I've had many other with many other people, because with all those things that you said, we are concerned, we are worried, the status impact. What will they say? How will this brand me, et cetera, et cetera. I remember that there was one time that I tried to initiate a conversation with a Black professor at ASU after an event that my wife did with the Arizona Jewish Historical Society. It was interrace. I don't know what they call ... whatever ... Jews and Blacks. I wanted to ask him some questions. Either he completely misunderstood me or maybe his own biases, it went very sour very quick.

Adrian McIntyre:

That happened. I get it.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

We stopped it right there and then.

Adrian McIntyre:

Yeah. But that can't be the end of conversations, obviously. I know you're not saying that.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

No, that cannot be the end. That's what I'm saying. Right. Yeah. I would love to be able to have those conversations because, first of all, I'm happy to admit that there's a lot of things about the Black community that I don't know. What do I know? I know what I see on TV. I know what I see on movies. I know what I may have read in a book or two. Does that encapsulate the Black community? If somebody tells me, "I know all about Jews and Orthodox Jews because I've watched Fiddler on the Roof, and I have seen a documentary about the state of Israel, and I've read Leon Uris' Exodus."

Adrian McIntyre:

Even those of us who have devoted many years of our life to rigorous study and experiences that expose us to other dimensions of human life on this Earth will never have the same experiences and frames of reference. So it would be as offensive for me, although I've spent a lot of time in the Middle East and a lot of time in Israel, first traveled there when I was 10, returned many other times, and yet have worked professionally most in the surrounding Arab countries, lived for many years in Jordan, had an apartment in Cairo, lived in Sudan, spent extensive time in Syria and Lebanon, Morocco. It is as offensive for me to take the position of all-knowing about Israel, even though I am critical of policies and I am concerned about a human rights record that seems unequal, et cetera, et cetera. I can't come at that from a position of I know everything about this place because I don't. I've never lived for more than a few weeks in Israel. I am an outsider. I never studied Hebrew the way I studied Arabic. I didn't study Hebrew at all. I studied Arabic intensively for almost a decade.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

You're fluent in Arabic, right?

Adrian McIntyre:

I was. I haven't spoken it at all for a long time. In fact, I think on September 10th, 2001, I was one of, I don't know, I'm guessing maybe 20 or 30 people in the country who were not Muslim or Arab, who had the level of language, skill, and experience in the region that I had at that time. It's even intensified since then, but not for the last 15 years. I checked out of it. Anyway, in other words, I still need to acknowledge that I'm an outsider, that I have an incomplete perspective. I can't bring the authoritative hammer down on it. Well, I know the truth about it. But the thing that I think most people don't realize is none of us can actually do that about almost anything.

Rabbi Michael Beyo:

Yeah, that's true.

Adrian McIntyre:

When we were talking with Avi, here's somebody who's very clearly on the apologist side. He's an active messenger for the greatness of Israeli innovation. Cool, cool, cool. Even to listen to his own experience -- and I'm sure if we talked more about his personal history, we would find complexity -- there are plenty of Israelis who would say, "Dude, you come here for the summer. Come on. Maybe you were in the army, maybe you stayed some time here in the past, but you live in Washington DC. You don't even know." The more we get into it with any community, you're always going to find that dynamic. "You don't know the truth about this because you're not X, Y, and Z." I mean, it's a logical fallacy. It's a play to authority. "Well, I know the truth!" The reality is that our experience is probably the worst kind of evidence, because it's so specific. Yet we relate to it as universal. It's just a human thing.

Adrian McIntyre:

If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe to Conversation with the Rabbi on your favorite podcast app. You can also find the latest episodes online at ConversationWithTheRabbi.com. For all of us here at PHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks for listening. Please join us for the next Conversation with the Rabbi.

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About the Podcast

Conversation with the Rabbi
Rabbi Michael Beyo, CEO of the East Valley Jewish Community Center, talks with an eclectic mix of faith-based and secular leaders from around the world.
In an era of political division and polarized debate, we are losing our ability to hear each other. The volume of our disagreements is at an all-time high, while our ability to communicate with kindness and empathy is at an all-time low. This podcast seeks to change that by engaging people from different backgrounds and beliefs in good old-fashioned conversation.

Listen in as Rabbi Michael Beyo and anthropologist Dr. Adrian McIntyre spend time listening, sharing, and discovering common ground in an effort to understand and appreciate the wondrous diversity of our human family. From interfaith dialogues to discussions with business and nonprofit leaders, this podcast shines a spotlight on the different ways we can learn to live, work, and worship together in a contentious and conflicted world.

We invite you to use these conversations as a lens to open up new understandings of self and the other, to develop empathy for diverse viewpoints, and to explore what is possible when we listen to others with respect.

Conversation with the Rabbi is a project of the East Valley Jewish Community Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, neighborhood organization that has served individuals and families inclusive of all races, religions, and cultures since 1972. Visit us online at https://www.evjcc.org

The Conversation with the Rabbi podcast is supported by a grant from Arizona Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act.

The show is recorded and produced in the studio of PHX.fm, the leading independent B2B podcast network in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more at https://phx.fm

About your hosts

Rabbi Michael Beyo

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Rabbi Michael Beyo is CEO of the East Valley Jewish Community Center in Chandler, Arizona. He was born in Milan, Italy and has lived in Italy, England, France, Israel, and the United States. An Orthodox Jewish scholar with a successful career providing religious guidance to all the Jewish denominations, he was ordained as a rabbi in Israel, where he earned three Rabbinical Ordinations of the highest honor. In 2015 Rabbi Beyo moved to Arizona from Atlanta, where he had served as the Chief Development Officer for Hillel of Georgia, overseeing 12 colleges and universities. Prior to that he served as the Executive Director and Rabbi of Boston University Hillel, as well as the Jewish Chaplain for Boston University. Rabbi Beyo brings over 25 years of professional, entrepreneurial and non-profit experience in education, cultural, humanitarian, social and religious sectors. He successfully ran several start-ups in Israel before dedicating his career to the nonprofit world.

Adrian McIntyre, PhD

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Dr. Adrian McIntyre is a social scientist, storytelling strategist, and internationally recognized authority on effective communication. His on-air experience began in 1978 at the age of five as a co-host of "The Happy Day Express," the longest-running children's radio program in California history. Adrian earned his PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a Fulbright scholar and National Science Foundation research fellow. He spent nearly a decade in the Middle East and Africa as a researcher, journalist, and media spokesperson for two of the largest humanitarian relief agencies in the world. Today he advises and trains entrepreneurs, executives, and corporate teams on high-performance communication, the power of storytelling, and how to leverage digital media to build a personal leadership brand.