109. (Re)Learning How to be White: Garrett Bucks [reads] ‘They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us’

One of my favorite questions is simply this: How can I help? The power of it is two-fold. First, it asks the other person to name the help that’s required – that's powerful for them, as it often isn’t totally clear what that is, even to them. The second power – the more important one, in my opinion – is that it disrupts your own assumption that you already know what they need. But, all of this points to a bigger question: How do you best give more to the world than you take? 

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Garrett Bucks is the founder of The Barnraisers Project. It’s just as it sounds: a group of people get together, and collectively build a barn for one of their members. As with all of us, it took Garrett a while to realize what his path should be. 

Garrett reads two pages from ‘They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us’ by Hanif Abdurraqib. [reading begins at 22:35] 

Hear us discuss: 

• “I spent a whole lot of my career feeling like I had a right to leadership, wherever I went.” [4:00]
• Being a neighbour. [10:33] 
• How to unlearn the heroic, individualistic narrative. [14:32] 
• Sitting with whiteness and using your privilege: “Whiteness is completely made up.”  [30:50] 
• The importance of lowering your altitude: “If the conversation stops at the big picture, we’re just gonna be stuck in that morass.” [37:38] 

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Resources:

Garrett Bucks | The Barnraisers Project | LinkedIn | Twitter

Hanif Abdurraqib | They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us