Andre's interview Listen to audio | 

'Andres interview Listen to audio | Transcription by CastingWords

Andre: Thank you for taking your time to do this with me. Like I said, a lot of times I spend time in front of the class, in front of a group, and people don't necessarily get the opportunity to ask questions and that kind of stuff, because I'm usually the one talking and presenting in sessions with just a little bit of time for me to answer questions, and that kind of stuff.I just want to open this session with you in an interview format. If you can think of questions that might be burning issues that were either self recovered in our session or things that you just wondered and wanted to ask about, this is a good time to do that.

Matt: Before we go on, if it's all right with you a quick bio background. Because that's always interesting in the class, I would assume, to know where their teacher's at. Your father, he was a pastor. Andre: I don't want to go too far back. All of these pieces are important because I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me. My grandfather moved from Memphis, Tennessee, up to ultimately Dayton, Ohio, looking for jobs and better life. Matt: In the 1920s? Andre: My dad was born in the 50s. Yeah, so late 20s, early 30s. Matt: Oh, the Depression Era. Andre: No, my Dad was born in the 50s, so my grandparents would have moved to Ohio in the 40s. Yeah, my grandfather served in Panama. I don't know that he necessarily saw action, because I don't think that a lot of black people saw action back in those days, but at any rate... Matt: 1948. That's when that was [inaudible 02:19] Andre: Yep. Ironically he ran the film projector and was a driver in Panama, which was very interesting because that was my grandfather's way of trying to create a better life for his family, by serving in the military. He knew enough to know that that would be something that would place our family in a good trajectory.His father was a professional gambler, among other things. They had a cleaners and they had a cobbler shop, so they fixed shoes and all that kind of stuff in Memphis, Tennessee.

Matt: You want to know one of the greatest ironies for the African Americans...? Andre: What's that? Matt: The hardcore southwest was won by the African American soldier. They call them AKA... Andre: Buffalo soldiers. [sings] Buffalo soldiers. Matt: They were tough. The Native Americans greatly respected them, and come World War I, all of a sudden, they weren't allowed to serve. That very same general that commanded the brigade of Buffalo soldiers was General of the Army of World War I, "Black Jack" Pershing.As a matter of fact, they called him "Black Jack" because he served with African American soldiers. He got the nickname from the Pentagon as "Black Jack." It was the only general in the history of the United States with six stars.

Andre: Wow. Matt: I don't know why he didn't advocate for his own unit. Andre: I would imagine I know why. Matt: Yeah, for, duh.[laughter]

Matt: I feel bad for your grandfather, is what I'm trying to say. Andre: No, and that's the funny thing, and this is where people get stuff...where it gets interesting. The natural inclination would be to feel bad, but to be quite honest, subjugated people, people in the so-called "subordinate groups" have always been able to carve out meaningful lives in the most desperate and, in some ways, despicable atmospheres. They're able to carve out their humanity in all of that stuff.If you think about it, wars are about killing and dying, and if you're a part of a machine where you get all the benefits, or you get some benefits, and you don't have to kill or die, that could be considered a benefit to being a part of that machine. That is a place where people like to go, but human beings in general are extreme resilient. I would say that was the same for my family, even in tough situations.

My grandfather used to tell stories about being a grown man and being referred to as "boy" by people who were younger than him. He had choices. He could have spoken up and said, "I'm a man. You don't call me that." However, there would have been consequences for that kind of behavior that would not have allowed for me to be born.

My grandfather facing indignity was actually a tool of survival that allowed me to be in a position to speak to folks and say, "These things are not right." I have a responsibility to do it, because he didn't. My father's raised in that household. In the late 60s and early 70s, it was a pretty turbulent time, so my father thought that the best way to contribute to the struggle was to become a Black Panther.

He graduated in '68 and spent two years trying to figure out what a revolutionary looks like, what do revolutionaries do, and, more specifically, what do revolutionaries do when they start having a family? He and my mother get married, and they ultimately have me, and my dad starts to realize through a number of different incidences that that lifestyle is probably not one that he wanted our family to be a part of.

On that journey out of that kind of rebellion that he was walking in in terms of being a rebel, he had a few encounters where it was clear that the only reason that he did not die was because of God's providence in his life.

He saw God's providence in his life as something to pay attention to, so he ended up moving from being this rebellious person or this rebel to being a God-fearing man and finding faith. All that energy that went into that social movement now went into the church.

Matt: Was there an agency, like Teen Challenge, that he go through, or he just did it on his own? Andre: No. Part of the backstory of our family history is that there've always been ministers, and we've always been a part of a church. Most of my family members have been attached to the Methodist church, which is very logical, particularly for African Americans because of John Wesley.John Wesley fought for the abolition of slavery, then the Methodist became the receptacle, in some respects, to all of those folks who were both abolitionist as well as free men and women. A lot of their allegiances, as they left plantations and farms, were to the Methodist church.

In my family, there's always been that kind of background stuff, that religion is a way to uplift and see past your current situation because there's always a better day tomorrow. Heaven will come to Earth, and all of those things. As a young man, those things were installed to my father, but as most young men, we try to test the waters.

We stray from the things that we've learned, and at some point -- for some of us, and that's not true about everyone -- we go back to what we were taught, or I'll go back to some of those principles, and I think, for him, that that was an important piece to get back to some of those basic principles that he was taught.

When he was raising myself and my brothers and sisters, and in our household, the combination of being politically active and being spiritually active was always stressed, in terms of volunteering for folks, being in the service of others as well as recognizing that there's a world out there that you have to be mindful of, and that you are part of that world even if the world doesn't accept you as a part of it. You have a right to be a part of that, and your humanity is extremely important.

Matt: I think that's wonderful. I can see, with your mission and your talents and your occupation, your father had an impact on that. Andre: Yeah. There's something that I'm trying to make a cliché, which is, I always talk about fruit and trees. Fruit naturally doesn't fall too far from the tree, and in each piece of fruit is a seed that, if cultivated and germinated, will eventually turn into the tree that produced it, so fruit and trees. Matt: Is your father still alive? Andre: Yeah, he is. He has a small congregation down in Nashville, Tennessee. Smart man, extremely smart man. I would consider him a Biblical scholar. A lot of his energy has gone into that. Ironically, he worked for the state of Tennessee in their transportation department as their...one of their special projects was sexual harassment and discrimination pieces, so I thought that was interesting that my father is doing some of the same work that I'm doing in this area, diversity and inclusion. Matt: You focused a lot on your father, sounds like he is a champ. Honestly. I was just going to ask also about Ma'. Andre: Interesting -- my parents have known each other since elementary school. They're currently divorced, but they have known each other since elementary school, off and on. The part of Dayton that they lived in is a pretty tight community, so they've been aware of each other for a long time, and they were high school sweethearts and did what everyone else was doing in that time, got married after high school and some college.My dad's family was steeped in education. Going to two year colleges at that time was an accomplishment, or going to get a certification for a trade, and that kind of stuff. Education was always an important part of my father's life. My mother's family was quite different.

They came from Alabama and were farmers and share-croppers, where education wasn't necessarily as important because the need to earn through hard work was the path to liberation for them.

Lots of folks on my mom's side, particularly the older folks had very limited education but had smarts out of this world. Could figure -- we would call it mathematics, they called it figuring -- could figure things in their heads and could make incredible things, could make soap, could fashion clothing out of...Just really incredible things, ingenuitous spirits.

My mother came out of that. Her father died at a relatively young age, he was about 45, 47 when he passed, so the majority of her adult life was without him. My great-grandfather, my grandfather's father, lived with us growing up, so I had the opportunity to hear how wise this man was who had a third grade education, dropped out before he went to the fourth grade because he had to go to work.

Here it is, this man with a third grade education was able to achieve great things, not because he had a formal education but because he was ingenuitous, and he worked hard, and he believed in working hard. The highest position that he held was that he was the parking director for the municipal parking ramp in Dayton, Ohio.

Before that he was the chief elevator operator for the city of Dayton. These were what people would call good jobs because they were municipal jobs, you work for the city, or you work for the government. After doing that for 30 years he was able to retire and live with us. My mom came from very hard working and earnest kinds of folks, so I think those are the things that she tried to instill in us.

One advantage that she had over her parents was that she was afforded the opportunity for education. She took that very seriously and did a masterful job of helping us to remember that importance as well. My great-grandfather -- I call him grandfather -- my great-grandfather instilled in her that, "You don't have to work as hard as I worked if you get the education that I didn't get."

Had he had the opportunity to be educated, it would be scary how far he could have gone had he been afforded those opportunities, so with my mother, education has always been the key to success, and knowing how to do stuff, so there's that balance too, that you have to know how to do stuff, but you also need education. She was an adaptive phys ed teacher.

What that means is that she worked with what was then labeled handicapped kids, and she taught them gym. I remember going to her classes a few times and just marveling at both her creativity and her compassion for people, at that time, that were largely thought of as disposable people or people that would not necessarily live a full or complete life.

I remember she had a student that didn't have arms or legs, and I was like, "How do you do phys ed?" [laughs] "How do you teach phys ed to a kid who doesn't have arms and legs?" What she did, which was absolutely genius, was that she faced the kid towards a corner, and she gave the kid a ball. The game they would play would be how many times the kid could get the ball to bounce in a particular corner. I was like, "Oh!"

She explained that, she said, "What we want for this kid is for whatever he has to be able to manipulate it so that he can do whatever he needs to do in life to survive." I would watch the kid squirm and move what limited body parts he had. It was just absolutely incredible.

I think a lot of times underestimate the kind of compassion and intestinal fortitude it takes to come in every day and deal with a population, that at that time, appeared to be broken, but now we would see those folks as having different abilities and less that they were disabled. That's the kind of stuff that I was cut from.

My parents tried to really instill a balance of those values, that you have a responsibility to your community no matter what that community looks like. To be quiet honest, as people of color, as black people, there were very few opportunities that we could actually just walk away from folks and not deal with them.

In large part, we were all in the same bucket together, so to speak. That was always interesting, that I certainly could have made choices to walk away from certain groups of people, but if I walked away from them and I kept walking I'd walk right back into them, because we were in such a small network.

Matt: What about your siblings? Andre: I'm the oldest of four. My brother William was named after my father William, and my sister Crystal and my youngest brother Damien. We all grew up in the church and have taken different missions, or taken the lessons that our parents have taught us and used them in different ways. Really great people. Solid people. Matt: OK. Let's talk about some reflective questions from your class here. The first thing I wanted to ask, right off the bat, is, when were you first presented do you think with the concept that you were treated differently because of your ethnicity, your background, the color of your skin, all of the above, or any of the above? Andre: The first time I was presented with being different because of the color of my skin or all sorts of stuff...Actually those conversations came in through a back door. What I mean by that was that my parents never had to tell me that I was different. However, it was made very clear to me as a young child that success for me would entail me working twice as hard as people who didn't look like me.I was never told that I wasn't as good as anyone else, or I didn't recognize that my skin color made a real difference in anything until those messages started to come across. To be quiet honest, as a kid I was relatively lazy, so the whole idea of working twice as hard as somebody else, that was not a motivating concept to hear.

I think, later, I got a sense of what that really meant in terms of having to work hard to be seen as equal to. I don't even know if that was necessarily true or necessarily the case, because I've seen some pretty mediocre folks who don't look like me in some really significant roles.

Matt: Give me an example. Andre: I was actually just making jokes about some of our former Presidents. Not necessarily being at the top of their class, however they were kind of middle of the road folks who were able to be elected, but at any rate...No, I think that was a little disheartening then, I have to work doubly as hard, mostly because if I could get out of work as a kid I was more then happy to do that as opposed to work hard. Matt: During this time, is this when you might have experienced our first micro-aggressions? I guess that's what my question asked in a re-framed way. Andre: Yeah, the funny thing, particularly if we look at the world retrospectively...I think micro-aggressions are a nice way to talk about those things now. I think back then, you just got straight up racism. Matt: Straight up, [inaudible 25:50] in your face, [inaudible 25:54] ? Andre: Yeah, and there is some folks who were a bit more suave with it, a little smoother with it. Matt: Give me an example. Andre: OK, well, growing up in the '70s and '80s there was a television show called, "All In The Family" where the chief character was Archie Bunker. Matt: The bigot, right. Andre: The bigot. We would watch that as a family. I watched it, I laughed when everybody else laughed, but I didn't necessarily get it. I think the popularity of that show demonstrated the environment that we were in, in those times. I've tried to go back and watch that as an adult, and it's nauseating to me.It physically makes me sick how much intolerance and hatred and bigotry was normalized through this sitcom. I know it's partly satirical, I know that the show was partly a statement of changing times, but there is still something to it that's just like, "Wow, we were there?"

Matt: That's where society was at. Andre: That's where society was. Matt: But they were laughing at those kinds of softcore yokes. Andre: Yeah. I don't know that they were necessarily micro-aggressions. I would tell you that my grandparents certainly didn't experience any micro-aggressions, it was all straight up aggression or passive-aggressiveness. Micro-aggressions are just a nicer way of having to deal with those things. Matt: I appreciate that insight on reinterpreting micro-aggression for today, because that was going to be my next question, because obviously you're what we call a multi-cultural specialist. Where do you see it's going? Or has it come a distance? Where is it at right now, if I was going to give you a scale? Andre: To be quiet honest, there has been some movement. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act just passed. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation is signed. Matt: Wait, I got that wrong, it was after the Battle of Antietam, not Gettysburg. Sorry about that. Andre: OK, no problem. The Civil Rights Act in '64 says, "In the powers that are given to the government to enforce these things," that "all people are equal," so It's not until '64 that people are human, so when we start talking about all people are considered human and citizens of this great republic.When we talk about movement that becomes the point of zero. Any movement that happened before then was to get us to zero. Now that we've had 1964, that's our zero point. Any advancements past zero is in fact an advancement, but we've got to remember we're starting at zero.

Some people might argue that I have either a sarcastic way of looking at history or that it's tainted, or whatnot, but I think it's important that we look at where we're starting from versus where we think we want to go.

Like somebody asked me, "Why do we have to have hyphens to describe us? Why do I have to be Afro-American? Why do I have to be Asian-American?" and I said, "Because people don't fully believe that we're all Americans, so we got to keep reminding them through these hyphens that you may just call me Asian, but I'm actually connected to the United States through America, so that's a reminder."

Will we get to a place where we don't need hyphens? Yes, we will. We will get to that place. We're not there now. I don't know that I can give a scale on where we are, but I know we're just now starting to crawl out of the muck and mire. I think it was Vernon Jordan who talked about the fact that Dr. King was demolishing the house of oppression.

Not just Dr. King, but all of those movement that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Snick, Score, all of these activist. Even the Panthers, the Nation of Islam. We can include all these folks in the destruction of that old system. Now what we have is all of the demolition, and there's rubble everywhere. Now, we are at a point where we are starting to move this rubble out of the way.

The system has been torn down, or has been partially torn down, there's still people who are trying to resurrect the old system, while their brothers and sisters, we're trying to take up this rubble and we're trying to build something new simultaneously. All of these things, all of these activities, are happening at the same time, and nobody knows what the future will bring.

It is funny because 2040 is going to be a clear demarcation in terms of the flipping of our society from Europeans being the dominant to Europeans being, not necessarily the minority, but they won't necessarily be the majority the way they have been in the past. That becomes a clear demarcation.

I find it interesting [laughs] , I was watching a show and there was a conversation -- this was a Christmas special -- there was a conversation about who will play Santa Clause in the office. The gentleman who played Santa Clause last year had died of a heart attack, so people were anxious about who this Santa Clause would be.

The black character, the protagonist in this drama, goes to the supervisor and says, "Bob, when you're thinking about who can play Santa for this year, I want you to be open-minded. I want you to think outside of the box, and I want you to pick someone that you wouldn't regularly pick." Now, his hope is that Bob picks him.

Bob gathers everyone at the water cooler and he did tell the man, he said, "Thank you so much. You know, I'm gonna do that. I wasn't thinking about doing that before, but now you've got me thinking," so the father is very excited about this, and he's feeling very optimistic.

Finally, Bob grabs everybody around the water cooler and he says, "You know, we've made our decision about who's going to play Santa this year, and it is going to be Juanita Lopez from HR." Now, the African-American father who made this pitch to the supervisor is upset! He's upset because the natural order has been disturbed! Everybody knows that it's supposed to be a white man, then a black man, then a white woman, then a Latino!

When we start talking about 2040, we don't know what that's going to look like. We may make plans to say it's going to be X, Y, and Z, and there could be some kind of shift that happens that...We can't tell what that stuff's going to be. More important than knowing what it's going to be like, I want to know what kind of people are going to be here when it does change.

A large part of the work that I try to do is to make sure that people's hearts are in such a place that whatever transition happens, we're able to recognize people's humanity, we're able to give them the opportunity to demonstrate their humanity through relationships.

Matt: If I'm understanding and finally can catch where everything is, there is movement, but we still got a way to go. Andre: Yeah. We've come a distance, we've got a way to go, and we're not as far now as we were when we started. Matt: Wow. That's rather interesting because that's challenging for me. What I was going to ask, then, is, what are some areas that you think should immediately be addressed, so that we can make this promise? Andre: One [laughs] of the things that we know is that, for better or worse -- and people may not agree with me on this -- but it's pretty obvious that there is a connection -- I won't say it's a direct tie, but there is a connection -- between race, income, and where we live. Those three things have to be addressed if we want to have an equitable system.What we know is that there is a connection -- not necessarily saying a direct connection --between where you live and the kind of education that you get, and the kind of education that you get is based on where you live. The property taxes of that place that you live pays for the schooling that you get, based on what you look like.

It's this crazy kind of intertwined relationship that those things have that we have to address. We have to address those things. If I live in a predominantly poor community, we're going to have low property taxes which then means that we're not guaranteed to get the high-quality education that is supposedly afforded when you are able to pay teachers more.

Matt: ...and the programs [inaudible 38:20] . Andre: ...and the programs, and the specialties, the equipment. Matt: Even the buildings. Andre: Yeah, even the buildings. What is happening is, these poor communities export their kids to a place where the kids can get these resources, which is great, but the secondary message to these kids is that you can only have these things if you come over here to where we are.If kids can't come over to where they are in terms of ideology, in terms of clothing, in terms of other stuff, then that shipment of kids outside of their neighborhood, that exporting of kids, is actually a tease to them in terms of giving them false realities. Those three things need to be addressed. The connection between race, place, and education.

If I had an opportunity to change the world, one of the things I would do is I give tax credits for multicultural communities. The more diverse your community is, the greater tax credits, either individuals get or the municipality gets.

Matt: That's interesting. Andre: Then that will squelch a lot of different things, that will take care a lot of different things. All the disparities can be addressed with a format like that, making sure that we have mixed income communities, that we have mixed racial communities, and the people are rewarded for that. If we're serious about those investments, it wouldn't take more than five to seven years to increase the way communities look.Communities are designed! They are created by human beings, they don't happen by accident. I was talking with a friend on Facebook and he said, "You know, when they founded Minnesota in 18 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, did they know where the Somalis were going to live? Did they know blah, blah, blah?"

I laughed. I said, "I hope you're joking because that's not what I'm talking about. The kind of social engineering that I'm talking about is more recent, and more current, and...

Matt: Relevant. Andre: ...and more relevant to where we are today." When we talk about social change, that's a primary place to go. When I looked at St. Louis, this was the case. I don't know if it's the case now, and I don't have any data to support its effectiveness, but I think that government employees should live in the place that they serve. If I'm a police officer, I live in the community that I serve. If I am a social worker, I live in the community that I serve in.I'd love to have a conversation for folks who might have some push-back on that. I'd love to have that conversation, but the smaller we can make communities, the more effective that they are. The more people who are responsible for the success of those communities, the more effective they can be as individuals. The governments that govern those places can also be held accountable and become more effective and efficient in what they do.

Matt: That is rather interesting, I like that. Getting back to what we have learned in the class, let me ask you one thing that would help me where I'm at in my journey as a therapist, and you're my teacher. Andre: Yeah. Matt: I work in a crisis residence. If you ever call that crisis line, you get some operators, depending what county you're in, and if it's bad enough, you come to where I'm at to stabilize that. I'm going to say that maybe two thirds or three quarters are Caucasians. The last quarter is between the African-American-Hispanic, maybe something else. It might be a third in that area. Can you contribute why that might be that dynamic? Are Caucasians more susceptible to mental illnesses? Andre: No. I wouldn't say more susceptible. What I would say is that they're more likely to ask for help. Matt: Interesting. Do you think that's the factor? Andre: Yeah. Matt: Do you think we need to learn to reach out to people with diverse cultures, multi-cultures, teach them to ask for help? Andre: Here's an example. In my faith community, there's an elder who is getting up there, he's about 80-something. I went to him, and I said, "You know, I'm in your neighborhood. So, if you need some help cutting your grass, just give me a call." That's what I said. Do you think he called me? Matt: Never. Andre: No. Why? Him calling me says that he can't do it himself and that he needs my help. The question that I asked was not a question that would move him to action because it was very much was based on my superiority and his perceived inferiority. I didn't get a call, and I knew he needed his grass cut.Next time I saw him, I said, "Sir, I'm gonna be in your neighborhood on Tuesday. Can I just stop by?" I stopped by, and I said, "Just came to check on you and see how you're doing blah, blah, blah. While I'm here, do you need some stuff done?" He was like, "You know what? While you're here, if you can cut that grass, that would be great."

Wait a minute, two weeks ago, I just asked him...I did not allow him to save face when I asked him if he needed my help. When I offered, when I showed up where he was and had resources available, then he was able to take advantage of the help that he needed but could not verbalize himself.

When we talk about these ideas of people of color not calling crisis lines, not doing these things, part of the problem is, we've got to talk to them in ways that help them maintain their humanity. Not that we're the specialist, "Because you're broken, we can fix you." We need to say, "Here's some tools that you can use if you need them."

What that means is, we know people have social workers. Why aren't crisis lines connected to talking with social workers or working with social workers to point at...Maybe some are. My point being that asking for help, particularly in communities of color, is seen as a sign of weakness.

Matt: It sounds condescending, maybe, you're feeling condescended. Andre: Even condescending, and with a little bit of justified paranoia about systems that are supposed to help us. If people get on me and they say, "Andre, you believe in conspiracy theories and that makes you a little bit nuts."No. My presence on this piece of land is a result of a conspiracy! As a black man [laughs] the majority of my American heritage is a result of a conspiracy! A conspiracy to kidnap people from another land and bring them here. It was a conspiracy.

When people don't understand why people of color are a little bit hesitant in getting help from the system that for a long time was used to brutalize them, I try to help them remember that. They have good reason to not trust the system. One of the things that's very interesting in my family system is that elders live with us. They do not go to nursing homes. There are two reasons for that.

The first reason is that, historically, there were no homes for African Americans [laughs] . There was no nursing home to send African Americans to. Secondly, they typically didn't have the resources to pay for a home if they could get in one. With those two things in mind, it is my expectation that one of my parents will come live with me at some point. Just as the foreparents before us did the same.

When we look at this kind of medical model, it says, "Call this hotline, and that's going to help you." That model may not necessarily translate to other folks because, "I don't need talk therapy. I need action. Come get me off this bridge because I was gonna hurt myself." Sometimes the medical model doesn't necessarily work for folks because of their cultural norms and because of the system itself.

It is difficult to trust systems that that have consistently been untrustworthy. We talked about this in class, a little bit about the Eugenics movement, use of pseudoscience to say that certain groups would be extinct because because of their living conditions, or their patterns of behavior. It's ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous, but people use those things to make policies that try to do exactly that.

The medical model, a lot of folks don't necessarily have faith in that. They won't call that, but they will call their pastor. They'll call someone in their faith community before they call this hotline. They'll call one of their best friends. They'll call the weed man. "I can self-medicate, let me do that." Those are some of the things we have to take into consideration.

There are reasons why people don't do those things and why other people do, because the medical model has served white people pretty well, I would say, 100 percent complete because there are tons of white people who weren't white all the time. Italians, and Polish people, Jews, Albanians, did not all get the benefits of whiteness at the same time or with the same benefits attached to whiteness.

Matt: I've got two more questions, but it looks like in answering in this question, you're answering another question that might be relevant for my fellow students. I used in my paper that's coming this Thursday [laughs] , about how [inaudible 52:39] emphasized that, not only can we know predominant Caucasian, we have to realize that, not who they are, but how they impact just because of who they are, how they impact the other multicultural. To be ineffective multicultural.I was going to say, on your experiences, an African American...I don't want to focus primarily on the African American. We can use people of color, but I know that there's a wide variety, because people of color is just as relevant, Native Americans are just as relevant as Caucasian in their perspective [inaudible 53:21] of the world. It's just for everybody.

What I was going to say, using that scenario with, lets say African American, Native American -- I always want to stay with those two because those two have been predominantly exposed to the most -- coming to Caucasian therapists, have you ever tried to address how, when it gets down to the nuts and bolts, why people are here at this school?

Andre: This is a age old kind of question, can white teachers teach black kids? Can a white therapist be a good therapist to a Native person, or an Asian person, or a black person...There area couple of ways to answer the question and to think about the impact of the question.First of all, I think effective, conscious, and caring people can work with anybody. If am drowning in the ocean, and a life guard comes out, I don't care that much what they look like as long as they have on the red outfit with the little life preserver thing. If you could save my life, I am going to work with you. You can work with me if you're skilled and talented.

If somebody runs out there and they are not gifted, they're not talented, they're not competent, I am going then look at the rest their faults and say," I cant work with this kind of person. [laughs] I don't want this person saving my life."

If people really don't care who helps them, if they are competent, the question then becomes, how do we create the competency that's consistent in everything that we do? I don't want a black, incompetent pilot. Does me no good. I don't need a Sous chef, a Native American Sous chef, that doesn't know how to prep.

The real question should be, how do we consistently come up with competent individuals? How do we turn them out in such a way that everyone that we put into service is effective and competent? Part of it I think we have to give a well rounded, well massaged, comprehensive approach to history. For the most part, we get a version of history that's pretty whitewashed to a political end.

We want people to be good Americans. We want people to be good in this particular mode or model. We don't want to tell them about the other stuff that happened. For example, the Dakota 38. The popular version that gets told is that these Native Americans assaulted these pioneers and homesteaders, so they were convicted of a crime, and they were hung.

What we need to also talk about, when we talk about things like the Dakota 38, was the fact that the government was withholding their rations in order to get them to give up more land, so the government somewhat precipitated this thing, and they wanted to get them off the land anyway, so if we can start a war with them with them firing the first, whatever, then we can start these whole escalation of stuff.

That's an important conversation to understand and to have. We also need to understand that when those massacres were happening, particularly around Rochester, around Southern Minnesota, guess where those bodies were going? To a place we call the "Mayo Clinic." The Mayo Clinic then used those cadavers as laboratory experiments with their students and blah, blah, blah, without the permissions of the families.

If we don't understand all of these things and we encounter a native American and we say, "Native American, get over it, why are you still angry, blah, blah, blah," well, the atrocities have not been brought to light that have consistently happened in the past and are consistently happening today.

One of the biggest problems in our social environment here in Minnesota is that American Indians or Native Americans make up about one percent of the population, so scientists say if you don't have a critical mass, we can't collect data because we can't get enough of a sample. Well, what does that do?

When you don't collect information and create a sample, what it does is it creates an environment where people don't get counted. Now we're guessing at what is effective and what is not effective, if we're measuring it at all. If we want to create people who are compassionate, who are effective, who are efficient in their work, we've got to get people to start telling the truth or understanding the truth about why folks don't or can't participate in the dominant system.

Then, we have to start working to deconstruct and reconstruct a system that does allow for everyone to get equitable treatment. We talked a little bit about how things have moved, and have we made progress? Well, what 1964 was trying to do was create equality, so everyone has the same access to good jobs, services, and money no matter what they look like or where they come from.

Equality is the first step. Some folks think that it's the end, when in fact it's just part of the process. The next step is looking at creating equity. How do we move from everybody getting treated the same to now moving to people getting their needs met in the way they need them met? Not just by getting them all [inaudible 61:16]

An example of creating equity would be drug courts. It is equality because people are being held accountable just like everybody else, but there are some nuances in drug court that allow people to actually help themselves as well as pay for whatever restitution they have to do. As more and more of these types of courts come up, then we start moving towards a more equitable system where people actually get what it is they need and that they want.

When we start talking about, can a white practitioner do X, Y, and Z, or can a Mong or Laotian practitioner do X, Y, and Z, and work with this kind of population? If you're skilled, you're gifted, and you know what you're doing, nobody has any problems working with you. It's those folks that are questionable that we have problems with.

Matt: That is an interesting answer. That's one of the greatest things I think I learned in this class. There is a few of them, but one of them was that difference between equality and equability.There needs to be a push of teaching everybody just because this is available for this one predominate class [laughs] it isn't going to be applicable to multiple other classes or multi-cultures. Definitely with our Native American brothers and sisters as well are people that comes to my mind.

I got a question that was given to me because I was the only person of color, you're in a working class type of job, landscaping, and I couldn't answer it. The question was -- I think they were appealing to my Native American side, and I think they were referring to the African Americans -- why do they blame me, this person holding this shovel, me, for an institution that I agree is wrong, and I had nothing to do with it, and my ancestors actually fought for the North.

Why are they mad at me in particular? Why do I have to take that kind of rage? First of all I had no idea what he was talking about, he sort of blindsided me with the whole question. To this day I still have a lot of questions. You mentioned something in class about a history, and that's what I'm trying to ask here.

Andre: There are a number of ways to address that question and then the meaning behind it. Matt: Do you remember when we were talking about the buffalo soldier? Andre: Go ahead, yeah. Matt: He actually said, "Why do not the Native Americans not trust the African American, especially..." Who were the Apaches? They were under the umbrella of a big [inaudible 65:03] here in Southwest. Andre: I'm not sure, yeah. Navajo... Matt: He's looking at me, and I have no idea what's going on, and I'm sort of dumbfounded here, going, "Sounds like this guy had a lot of..." Andre: He's got a lot of stuff. A few things that he was doing with that line of questioning was trying to shift the focus or get ammunition to take the responsibility and shift it a little bit. In the '80s we had an Ozone Layer problem. It's not a problem that I created, I didn't create that problem.However, they had these things called aerosol cans, and a certain point, I would say it was like the late '80s, they stopped producing these aerosol cans in the same way that they had before, which meant that when they were available and I use them, I was contributing to the problem, even though I did not create the problem.

Now, had I gone on to eBay to look for those aerosol cans that were produced the same way they were back then, then I certainly could be held responsible for a problem. I'm seeking out what the problem is so I can continue bad practice when the world has changed. The Ozone Layer was not my fault. When they decided to change the aerosol cans, I then had a choice to keep using the aerosol cans or to use whatever was replacing it.

Although things were not my fault, they are my responsibility in terms of what I'm going to pass on. What other people give me, it is my responsibility to look at what they give me and accept it or not. Every gift that is given to me I have that choice, to accept it or to decline it. If someone is trying to make me feel guilty, and it's not warranted, I'm not going to take that guilt. If somebody is going to try to blame me, and it's not warranted, I'm not going to take the blame for that.

But then the question then becomes, if people give you that and you accept it or you question it or you are looking at it, is there something there that you should be paying attention to? Those are the lines of questions that I would help him with. The other thing that I would encourage him to do is that you can't pit other groups against other groups to try to hide behind what your part is.

The thing to also recognize is that we've all been given things that we did not earn. It is what we do with those things that determines our character. As a man there are things that I can do, places I can go that a woman dare not think about.

I don't have to think about where I park that much. I give some consideration to that, but women give a great deal of consideration of where they park, what time they have to leave and go and come, and that kind of stuff, and as a man I don't give that same level of consideration to those things because I don't have to. That's somewhat my privilege to live life like that.

Right handed people never really think about what left handed people have to go through in terms of where they sit, eat, how cabinets open and how scissors operate, as a right handed person I don't have to think about that until I have a left handed person in my life that I care about and I say, "You know what, I need to figure out this left handed thing." I would say the same is true for these gentlemen.

Sometimes people's stuff is misguided and not directed to the right person, but you can't pit other groups against each other and you have to listen to the feedback that people are giving you about stuff.

Matt: That's what I was going to say after being after being in this class and just seeing when I was speaking to you. If I can go back in a time machine when I was there, I would probably ask him, you might be right, this is how I would frame it, but my question would be, "What are you doing to contribute to the solution, to any solution?" Andre: Any solution. Matt: Any contribution. Andre: Yeah, what is your contribution? Matt: Maybe he will appear pretty angry, and it's like, "Maybe if we do a little bit more focusing on a solution here of being sensitive to a multi-cultural or what people of color had to go through and it still affects them." Obviously it's a reality. [laughs] Andre: To be quite honest, reflect on what your own family had to go through. It just burns me up that people forget that they have an immigration story themselves, they have an immigrant story themselves. To deny someone else the opportunity to have an immigration story that you have, what is that?If you are able to remember your immigration story, then you are much more likely to allow other people to have theirs. But for whatever reason...I think it's so funny when people talk about American history and we've got, what, 260 years? How old are we as a country?

We look at England, who has thousands of years of history. We look at the Middle East, thousands of years of history, and we've got this little blimp on the screen and we call it history. For some folks, the 1960's is ancient history. That's embarrassing. When we think about these things, these things didn't happen that long ago.

This stuff is really fresh, and it's new. Just because the United States -- and I hate to keep using "America" -- but just because the United States is new doesn't mean these other things haven't been impacting people for a long time.

Matt: I think that's sort of the answer I guess I could give at the time. I wasn't trying to respond to the Caucasian because I was out numbered, but I literally said something the effect of, "Well, it affects them." [laughs] "It's real. You can't deny there is something going on."It sort of ratcheted up things. I just took the quiet approach from then on. Like I said today, if I was going to advocate anything, the question all that energy should be put forth with, "What are we doing to be a part of the solution? What are we doing to understand it?"

The Caucasian [inaudible 73:40] of my father, his people had on everybody else. They were the scum of the Earth, I guess. Like you said, when they came over they were just spat upon by somebody else. They don't realize that now. In 2040 -- help me out here -- will it be more Hispanic?

Andre: Yep. Matt: Predominantly? Andre: Yep. Matt: I think it maybe is a wise thing we're teaching our children [inaudible 74:12] . Andre: [laughs] The interesting thing is that the African American population is 13 percent of the population and hasn't grown. Matt: The African-American -- and quote me and help me understand, tell me if I'm wrong -- they're are falling suit as the Caucasians. They are replicating exactly what the Caucasians have done to themselves. Going more and more less children, and I told you about the Japanese. Andre: Yeah. Matt: By the year that's projected, by the end of this century, they will be 50 percent less senile people in this world, on this planet. Andre: Yeah, which, one might attribute to the masters of the universe doing exactly that. Making sure that there is less people on the planet, blah blah blah. That gets into some controversies. Matt: Well we then look at the Chinese. I don't know if they're still growing. I don't know the ratio. India... Andre: The problem is, in a number of countries woman haven't been valued enough. Their lives haven't been valued enough, so now... Matt: They're input would probably have been massively [inaudible 75:41] Andre: Yes. Because people are under-educated, we've got places that are doing female circumcisions, we have places on the planet where rape is a tool of war, there's tons of femicide, all these things. We're going to be hurting for women on the planet, and there won't be enough "women" to keep this biological process going for many communities. Matt: That's right. In China, there is a situation there where you're only allowed one child. Then the most valued one, and help if I'm wrong, is suppose to be the female, is it not? Andre: No, it's the male child. Matt: It's still the male? Andre: Yeah. Matt: I thought it was a female, because they're so rare. [laughs] Andre: I don't know if they're necessarily rare, but I do know that there has been a moratorium or adoptions and most of the adoptees that get sent out of that part of the world are female. I think there's... Matt: [inaudible 77:03] . That just blows my mind, actually. Andre: There's certainly indicators of what the world might look like, but we really don't know what the world will look like, particularly given all of these things. Again, if we have people who are critical thinkers, we have people who are compassionate, it doesn't matter what the world will look like. These compassionate critical thinkers will help us figure out what our way looks like. Matt: My hobby is military history. That's my second hobby besides behavioral. I've tried [inaudible 77:52] , of course you know I come from a spiritual background, such as yourself, and was even a licensed minister. I don't know if I told you that. Andre: I didn't know that. Matt: I went through North Central University and got licensed [laughs] through the Assembly of God and I said, "Whoa! That's too much to write." [laughs] What I'm just trying to say is, help me if I've got this quote, this is a personal thing, and I want to balance it against the next. Andre: I have expertise, I am not an expert. [laughs] Matt: After reading the articles and things like that, there are those that are [inaudible 78:26] that lead this field of study and get the message out. Bigotry. Andre: Yes. Matt: Military history has always been what has caused it. The number one, religion, the number two, acquisition of some kind of economical power, and I forgot what the third one is. I wanted to propose to you that bigotry, even white-on-white, French against Germans, English against the Irish, or the Chinese tribe against the Mongol, are just bigotry.It doesn't even have to be color, just bigotry, period. I wanted to add that as a fourth reason for warfare in the history of man kind.

Andre: I would say it may not necessarily be a reason, but it is certainly the fuel. If I can't get you to hate somebody, I'm certainly not going to be able to get you to kill them. Matt: Absolutely. Andre: If I can get you to hate them, I can get you to kill them. Matt: There is this thing about a culture. Their culture is different from ours. The French drink wine. The Germans drink beer. I'm using Caucasians versus Caucasians...The biggest one that's the biggest problem today besides the melting pot in America -- and there's lots of them in the world, I'm not trying to say we're the most important thing -- but that Palestinian and Israeli thing, that's some amazing dynamics. Don't you think? The Russians and the Czechs. [laughs] It's just amazing that some kind of bigotry towards another culture is just like you said, a fuel.

Andre: Again, human behavior is emotions, coupled with thoughts, equals behavior. If bigotry becomes that emotional fuel, and I can get you to think hard enough on those things, then I can dictate or predict your behavior. In all those situations, in terms of war what we call bigotry and thoughts, we call that propaganda.The propaganda machine is made up of those two things. It's designed to make you feel a certain way about a group and to also make you think, so find some logical reasons to justify this emotional state that you have.

Boom. There you got war. You've got a production machine to produce soldiers and warriors. I believe that we'll come to a point where we don't need war, but right now we do. I believe that there are good battles to fight and there are bad battles to fight.

Matt: Luckily it's getting more of a justice model. Andre: Well, I don't know. That depends. Matt: [inaudible 81:42] [laughs] Andre: That's what I was going to say, it depends. Matt: I'm coming from the US perspective. Some tribe in Central Africa might not have a clue what I'm talking about. Andre: Nelson Mandela is a prime example of the different paradigms. Matt: He was actually one of the greatest men that lived in the 20th century. Andre: To some people. He was perceived as a freedom fighter to some and a terrorist to others. At the same time in the same physical space. Matt: That's what blows me away, what is the thing that makes that? Isn't that core belief bigotry? Taught bigotry of fear? It's just amazing. On a therapeutical level, I just wanted to address that. Andre: I have no idea. What I do know is that, when you look at the sum total of a persons life from beginning to end, [laughs] that will tell you what that person was and what they did. There are people today that still see Nelson Mandela as a terrorist versus someone who was trying to bring people together in a path of peace. If that can be true, there are tons of other things that won't necessarily move people to think differently. Matt: My dad, unfortunately, he was very cool. I never say a bigoted bone in his body, but he was by default Caucasian. [laughs] He actually taught me some good things, very good things. He had to use the model that was afforded at that time. Andre: I was going to say, there are good people in every racial category, so-called racial category, and there are bad people in every one. Matt: I want to say, there is something that both him and Warren Betty said. Warren Betty is an actor. He was on equatabilities and issues like that. He said, "I am the example of what the average American will look like in 200 years. Olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes." That's what he thinks.He thinks we're coming together. I always thought that was encouraging, to be honest with you.

Andre: I think we've always been together. I think all this other stuff is an optical illusion. An artificial barrier to keep us from relating to one another. Matt: That's the Adlerian macro question I put to it. "What is the purpose of this behavior?" If you were going to say, "What is purpose, with such enlightenment that we have available" -- I mean we're not fully enlighten obviously, but we have compared to 100 to 200 years ago a lot more teaching -- What do you think are still some of the barriers today that would keep people... Andre: The biggest barrier that's keeping us from this stuff is our consistent amnesia. We have amnesia. We have forgotten how powerful and brilliant and great we are. We've forgotten how we can also be destructive and contrary we can be at the same time. I think people are looking for this enlightening and that kind of stuff. What we need to be doing is just trying to remember. That's where we're great.What does that look like practically? That sounds like a great esoteric philosophical thing. To bring it down practically, when I'm able to remember that you're trying to do the best you can with what you have to reach your goals and that it's going to be inadequate, you are going to be inadequate.

Matt: That's an interesting thing. Andre: When I'm able to remember that about you, I'm also able to remember that about me. When I see a behavior in somebody else that drives me nuts, it's typically because that behavior is one that I have that also drives me nuts. Matt: Something in our own core of beliefs. Andre: Something in our own core of beliefs. We won't remember those things. We won't give each other grace. We won't do those things, because to look at another person as if they are me makes me have to look at myself, and we're not ready to do that yet.The hope for humanity is not coming from a spaceship. We're going to remember. We've forgotten how the pyramids were built. We've forgotten that. I find it interesting that the people who don't believe in a spiritual deity, a creator of all, will believe that there are aliens.

Does it take more faith or less faith to believe in a creating deity than it does to believe that aliens taught us how to build the pyramids? I don't have an answer to that, but I do think it's interesting.

No, I think our amnesia is what keeps us from building relationships with each other. We keep falling for these illusions that we're different, that the shape of my nose or the curl in my hair has something to do with my intelligence or my lack there of. Those things are not related.

Matt: The spirit within the man. Andre: Or, if certain people have spirits or not. Matt: I'm just amazed that some people, depending on your prospective, they would allow something as fallible as the way they look or particularly act or a particular context they were associated with what is right.I remember growing up...This is the irony, right? Already there are some families that did not allow their boys to play with me, for whatever reason. I'll be honest with you, I think it's because we looked more Native American and act a little bit non-white. My town is unique because 40,000 people blossomed, came from the north central mid-west and the west coast within a span of four to six years.

This part of town had a few share croppers. I'm talking about literally built in the century beforehand. I remember still growing up seeing actually ex-slave housing. They were abandoned and dilapidated. But I remember seeing them as a kid. Anyways, boom, all of a sudden there's this most influential side of town right there, in four to six years. Huntsville, Alabama.

We come in and we're one of the few people of color, but we're only half color to them. Kid you not. I remember poor Billy Woods and Johnny Woods and Tony Woods. Their family were there before even these people were there. They are direct descendants of slavery, literally. Living in the houses, literally, or at least on the road, where there was a field behind them, their ancestors picked that field.

I am not joking. I am very serious. It was across the rail road tracks, between the two neighborhoods. This is their neighborhood over there, and a good neighborhood over here. There is this big field right here, and there is this gravel road. This was literally a little ex-slavery thing. I remember two things.

Let me tell you how much of a rebel my dad was. I came back from that, where I'm going over there and sitting down, I was the only person they said that ever came to their house and sat down and watched TV with them. Ever. I'm serious. The mother said that. She was looking at me...

Then my dad sort of congratulated me. He did in his own way, but he was pleased about it. He wasn't mad. But my grandmother, his dad...Check this out, I said to her -- we were watching Sanford and Son -- I said, "Come on Grandma," I'm just a child, "You have a crush on Fred Sanford."

She stops. "He's black." [laughs] I didn't know the difference, you know what I mean? That was one of my first...Like when they wouldn't play with me. I'm just saying, if I'm semi, tell me about some of your experiences. Like I said, I'm wondering, even though I had to receive it, I'm wondering if it is getting better, coming back to this question sort of rounding it up.

Andre: Well, I don't know. Matt: One last thing, can I interject? Andre: Yeah. Matt: My ex of 19 years, rural Wisconsin. [laughs] That's all I'm going to say. Andre: What I will say is that there, again, there have been advances, but we're starting at zero in many respects, that we're just now starting to see people as human beings. Until you operate from that place for a while, it's hard to know what change looks like. I look at the thing that happened down at the Mall of America. Black lives matter, they protest... Matt: Go ahead and explain what happened. Andre: Black Lives Matter folks went down to protest. They applied for a permit, were denied a permit. They wanted to put them in some other place other than the Mall. They wanted to be in the Mall. Matt: That doesn't work. Andre: They showed up, and they protested, and people were charged with crimes of aiding and abetting, of being public nuisance, and so forth and so on. All those things happened, and then the city Attorney said, "We're going to press charges because civil disobedience has its consequences." Matt: This was at Mall of America? Andre: This was at the Mall of America. Matt: Oh my goodness, you know it's just about money. Influential money people told these guys to charge them. Andre: Right. I don't know if it's getting better. There is so much work to do. I'm not sure. Matt: What were they protesting? Andre: The central thing about the Black Lives Matter movement is that there is a young man in Ferguson, Missouri, that was a victim of police brutality. One of the things that is not shared about that, and I had to find it out on my own, was that this young man was shot by police. He may or may not have been physically aggressive towards them. There's all that stuff. Matt: Conveniently there was no video and no audio. Andre: Yeah, there's no video or audio. However, once he was shot his body laid in the street for four hours. Matt: That might be a big time no-no. Andre: Well, it's problematic because I don't know under any circumstances why a body would be allowed to lay...I'm not an officer, I'm not a crime scene investigator, I don't know if they had certain procedures they had to follow.It does seem hurtful, particularly to a community that hasn't been communicated to, why this man is being left to lay in the street for four hours before removing him. I don't know about other crime scene investigations. I don't know those things. That coupled with the Trayvon Martin acquittal not long ago, the shooting of some other folks, there are a bunch of incidents that have happened back-to-back that led people to say, "We need to protest police brutality."

It wasn't just something that happened here in the Twin Cities, it's happening through out the nation. There are lots of these kinds of protests that are stirred up by non-organized bodies to demonstrate their sadness and, in some ways, anger around these police policies that have black people dying at the hands of officers.

Matt: Yeah, there's just to many coincidences to be a coincidence. Andre: I would say they're not coincidences. I would say they are bad... Matt: A double negative I was trying to... Andre: I would say they're just bad policies. Matt: They're not getting out to the communities communicating, for one thing, just come there sort of enforcing the law. Andre: Right. As Dr King said, there's a difference between a just law and an unjust law. We've talked about that in class. Just laws are those that support the people, and unjust laws are those that support some of the people [laughs] or designed to kind of squelch some of them while not giving access to others. Matt: I like that equity model that you taught us, and it's a life changer by the way. It'll go more and more as time progresses on. [inaudible 98:05] It's like that with justice, I think, because if you look at the pictures and the videos of Selma, Alabama, in the 60's, it should be teaching a message that African American communities are not going to put up with anything that even suspects...That's why there's got to be liaison officers, community officers. There's got to be something where you get a community involved and really has to investigate this. The killings, they're dead.

Andre: Then that goes back to a history piece. How much is a human life? How much is a black life? How much is a... Matt: Native American. Andre: ...an Asian life? How much is a Native American live? Matt: Do you remember in the early 70's there was a thing where they actually were surrounded? Andre: Yeah, Wounded Knee. Matt: I'm talking about in the 70's, just recently. There was something that was being protested, and the Native American tribe, [laughs] a few of them just decided to camp out in the middle and they brought their rifles with them. Eventually they were surrounded by Sheriffs and whatever. It made the news, and they finally had to negotiate with them. Andre: No, stuff happens. It happens a lot. Have things changed? I don't know. We're in a process of doing something. Something's happening. Matt: Well, all right. Andre: Any other questions? Matt: These are the ones that I enjoyed the most.The thing's that's impacted me the most was learning more about micro-aggression because it coincided with the life we're living in. Then that equity thing. For me, and like I shared in class, that was a pretty wonderful moment, I guess my dad is Caucasian, so I answer Caucasian, but I never put it down, even in the Army.Maybe I did, I don't know, I was 17. What I'm just trying to say is, I'm one of these few people that, I've never been able to fully, with both feet in the water, identify with one particular or be accepted by...Do you see what I'm saying?

Andre: Yeah. Matt: Maybe I might represent a new breed. Andre: Yeah, and thank you. Matt: [laughs] I don't know. It's not very good. Andre: That's certainly one way to think about it, about not being good. The other part is, you're not locked into the conventions, the trappings that other people have. [laughs] I'll never forget, a woman said -- they were going to bring me in to do some training -- and one of the comments was, "Let's not bring in Andre because we've already heard the black perspective."I was taken back a little bit, because I don't know that I give the black perspective. I don't even know if I have a black perspective. I happen to be black, and I happen to have a perspective, so maybe that is the black perspective, but I just through that was very interesting because I certainly don't see the way that I talk about things as a perspective other than trying to build humans up.

I'm not a humanist, per se, but I do try to help people see the value in their brothers and sisters. That was an interesting comment to me. When I taught high school, I would do this exercise and I'd have the kids -- here is a demonstration of that -- I'd have the boys and girls separated, and I'd have the boys draw a hot girl.

The hottest girl, what does she look like? What's her name? What are her features like? I asked the girls to do the same thing. Come up with a hot boy or somebody who is cute or fine, as the kids would say.

Matt: That's a great exercise. Andre: I'd have them do that. Then, I'd have them introduce this person to the class. The girls barely had clothes on. Big features here. Just balloon, voluptuous all over and half naked and all this kind of stuff.The women would have men with six packs up to their neck. Muscles and no shirt, piercings and tattoos and all this kind of stuff. Then, I asked the students, "All right, so these are the people. You designed these people, and you've given them a name. Now this is your son, and this is your daughter."

It was absolutely amazing when they started to see this person they created as their child. Then they started deconstructing like, "Wait a minute, my daughter's not wearing this. My daughter is not acting like this. My son is not going to have these kind of piercings and tattoos." Wait a minute, why is this different all of a sudden?

Because now they're connected to you, but what if the brothers and sisters you see sitting in this room were connected to you? What if they were your real brother and sister? Would you treat them the way you treat them if they had a different relationship with you?

Then, I go down the path that, as human beings, we're more alike than we're dissimilar. So, we are brothers and sisters and cousins, and whatever language they could get. The point being, once we're able to see the connection that another has with me, then my relationship takes on a whole different level of meaning.

Matt: It's amazing, when you said that, somethings striking me right now. I bet that's one way core beliefs all of a sudden start getting challenged without the help of a therapist. Andre: Oh, yeah. Matt: Well, unless the therapist was doing that equity [inaudible 105:02] . Andre: No, those core beliefs get to be challenged. Matt: The bigoted ones are. Andre: Yes, any of them, and understanding that the world is like this, and it was different than it is now, therefore it can also be different then what it is now as we move into the future. Because the past is different then the present, and the present will certainly be different then the future.Although these things have happened for a long time, they have not always been like this. They won't always be like this. But we can either decide what they're going to be like, or we can wait and find out what they're going to be like. It's going to be different. It's going to happen, so we get to make those decisions.

Matt: Yeah. Andre: Thank you for spending this time with me, I really appreciate it. Matt: Thank you for this opportunity, it has been a wonderful experience. You know I really enjoy these classes usually, but this one was probably the best one I had. Too fast. What is the deal with that, man? This one was way short, this had to be one of your shortest classes, right? Andre: It just felt like that. Matt: I mean it was New Years, and then a week later it's the Superbowl. Andre: It is just time, time just seems to be... Matt: It was just amazing, this was the fastest class, and I've had some fast ones. This is the fastest one I ever had, and also when I wake up I have three papers I forgot that are due here. Good thing we got next week off, but thank you Andre for everything. Like I said, our CEO allows people to email her, and Starlet works there, so I wonder if she already dropped your name in. Andre: Keep dropping it, man, until they call. Matt: I'll [inaudible 107:11] your link, there. Andre: All right. I think I locked myself out of my office. Matt: That might be a good reason to go home. Andre: I don't see my keys. Matt: Are you here tomorrow?