Jordan Thierry and Ben Sand, A KIDS BOOK ABOUT
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens and you're listening to the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:13]Please sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com for weekly updates about my podcasts, events, and more.
[0:20]Also, follow me on Instagram at zibiowens and also at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:26]And finally, join my virtual book club called Zibi's virtual book club, which meets every other Tuesday at 2 p.m.
[0:32]Eastern Time until 3 p.m. and features half an hour of book club discussion followed by 30 minutes of Q&A with the author whose book we've just discussed.
[0:41]You can sign up on my website zibiowens.com under the virtual book club section or even on Instagram, under the link in my bio.
[0:49]I hope you'll find me in all these different channels and enjoy this podcast.
[0:53]Hi, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I have an anthology coming out called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:01]And it comes out on February 16th and has essays by 60 plus of the authors who have been on this podcast.
[1:09]So first of all, please pre-order this book. I think you will love it. I'm so excited about all the authors who are represented.
[1:16]Just to give you a few, Chris Bajillion, Jewel Parker Rhodes, Ashley Prentice Norton, Gretchen Rubin, Rima Zaman, Eileen Zimmerman, and that is just from the first page of the multi-page table of contents.
[1:30]So please pick up this book. Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:34]It's available anywhere you buy books, Amazon, bookshop.org, and your local independent bookstore.
[1:39]So please pick up a copy. And also, I want to invite you listeners to my fundraiser slash launch party.
[1:49]The night it comes out on February 16th, the Tuesday at 7 p.m. Bookhampton and the children's
[1:55]museum of the East End are co-hosting it for me. And 50 of the authors who wrote essays in this book,
[2:02]as well as many of the amazing authors who blurbed this book, who wrote little praise worthy quotes
[2:08]at the front, will be there. And you can be there too. So if you go to my website zibbyowens.com
[2:16]and just click on anthology and go to book tour, you will see a whole fundraiser section.
[2:21]And for $50, you can attend. You'll get a copy of the book. And you'll get to shmooze on zoom
[2:30]with all of these amazing authors. This is like going to be the literary happening of February.
[2:36]So please come. I would love to see you all in person on zoom, I guess. But even see some of your
[2:42]faces. I know so many of you are really loyal listeners and that makes me really happy.
[2:47]All proceeds of the book and the fundraiser are going to the Susan Felice Owens program for COVID-19
[2:54]vaccine research at Mount Sinai Health System. And it is named after my husband's mother
[3:01]who passed away from COVID over the summer, which many of you followed along on Instagram as I
[3:06]recounted that horrific experience. So all the proceeds are going there. The cost includes the price
[3:12]of a book. So thank you for supporting this effort. And for supporting my book, I can't wait to
[3:18]see you there. Today's episode is brought to you by page and pairing. Page and pairing is the weekly
[3:23]email that brings you book, wine, and recipe recommendations plus exclusive perks like author interviews
[3:30]and essays, music, playlists, and writing tips. Sign up for free at page and pairing.com. And if
[3:36]you're tired of wondering what to read, drink, and cook, page and pairing does it all for you,
[3:41]dropping all three into your inbox. Books are definitely better when paired with great wine and
[3:46]delicious food. So page and pairing is the weekly email that brings you all three curated for your
[3:51]pleasure. And drop in your inbox again sign up for free at page and pairing.com. This is a joint
[3:57]interview I did with two authors in a series. Ben Sand wrote a kid's book about white privilege
[4:03]and Jordan Terry is the author of a kid's book about systemic racism. A little more about
[4:08]Ben Sand. Convinced that now is a time for pioneers. Ben Sand serves as the CEO of a venture
[4:14]nonprofit focused on empowering leaders and mobilizing community for the common good. Ben is a
[4:19]collaborator, connector, and convener. Jordan Terry is a documentary filmmaker, activist,
[4:24]and storyteller. He has worked for over a decade to highlight the stories of people of color
[4:28]and working to undo the ongoing legacy of systemic racism in the USA. Welcome Jordan and Ben
[4:34]to moms. Don't have time to read books. Thanks for doing this in a read together.
[4:38]Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us on. Oh, it's my pleasure.
[4:41]So Ben, you're the author of a kid's book about white privilege and Jordan, a kid's book about
[4:47]systemic racism in the new series of kids books, which are fantastic educational, inspiring,
[4:53]all the rest. So first, how did you two end up contributing to this series? I guess I can go first.
[5:01]So yeah, I mean, I know the founder of a kid's book about combining memory from youth,
[5:06]I'll play basketball together growing up. And so we have done some work together as adults.
[5:11]He reached out. He wrote a kid's book about racism and we had sort of touched base and
[5:17]we're thinking about a topic for for me to write. And then after the murder of George Floyd,
[5:22]we sort of, you know, reconnected and decided that a kid's book about systemic racism would be
[5:29]a really great topic to help people understand why these racial injustices continue to thrive
[5:37]in our society that explain, you know, that phenomena beyond the sort of, you know, individual
[5:45]one of one sort of racism as I think a lot of people like to think of racism, but looking at
[5:50]the systems that allow these things to continue. And how about you, Ben? Yeah, in a way similar,
[5:56]memory, this CEO of a kid's book about is a friend of mine. And, you know, he and I have been in a
[6:01]conversation now together over a decade, really about what we're experiencing and are going to
[6:07]continue to experience in our country and in our culture as white people continue to resist
[6:15]their own exploration on the topic of their ethnicity. What does it mean to be white?
[6:20]Well, we've been talking about it for quite some time. I think in this particular moment
[6:24]in 2020, and as we look ahead, Jalani, I think feels that this is an incredible pivot that's
[6:29]taking place and now's the time to make sure that we're having this conversation. And so he asked,
[6:34]and I said, yes. Amazing. So have you guys met before? We have. No. Oh my gosh. Ben, this is Jordan.
[6:41]Jordan, this is Ben. I think that he's bringing us to another. No problem.
[6:46]I'm surprised there's no, you know, that Jalani hasn't organized and sort of meet up with everybody.
[6:51]Right. Right. It's been, you know, it's been crazy. It's been very busy over the last few months.
[6:56]So, and I think with the with the pandemic, obviously we haven't had tested doing in-person
[7:02]mixer and doing that, but hopefully soon. I got it. Well, when you were both writing your books,
[7:07]what were some of the things that you wanted to make sure to include? And how did you figure out how
[7:14]to get them into bite-sized information for kids? Right. Because obviously writing for adults
[7:19]is way different. What's your experience been like talking to kids? You know, Jordan, you did a
[7:24]whole deep dive on on fatherhood. So I know you're familiar with that and Ben, you're part of this
[7:31]contingent. So you're actively organizing people. But what about kids? Well, for me, at least,
[7:35]it was this really, really challenging and really uncomfortable somewhat of a process because this is
[7:41]such a deep issue. And there's just so there's also just a lot of nuances. And you know,
[7:48]writing a children's book forces you to make a lot of generalizations. And so that's the one part
[7:54]that I really struggled with was making a generalizations. And like, of course, there's exceptions to
[8:00]all of these things. But I think I have to have confidence in the parent that or the adult that
[8:09]will be reading with these children, right, and helping contextualize what's in the book and offer
[8:16]some of that nuance. You know, themselves, based on their own lives and, you know, their own family
[8:21]experiences. And I just have to kind of trust that process. I haven't gotten too much sort of
[8:28]critique or pushback yet. But I'm a steady way before. But that was definitely the hard part
[8:35]making those generalizations and knowing obviously there's exceptions to all these things, you know.
[8:40]So yeah. But I think the kids book about team, you know, they have this process down pat and they
[8:46]really supported me and being comfortable with that and trying to tell the story and also not shy away
[8:53]from some of the just harsh realities that I wasn't sure how to phrase some of those things about
[9:01]genocide, about slavery. And, you know, I was very grateful that they they were not shy
[9:06]in a way from those things. It was hard to package up genocide in a very, yeah. And other books
[9:12]are about, you know, like sleeping sheep, you know, this stuff. That those are the choices at the end
[9:17]of the day. So how about you, Ben? So I have three children, two biological white girls. And my son
[9:26]is half Vietnamese, half Mexican. And so we've been having a conversation about their whiteness
[9:33]for as long as they really can remember. That really was for me, I think where this started to
[9:40]percolate has someone that lives in a very kind of multicultural community in the work that I do
[9:45]intentionally engages communities of color part of what what I was longing for was a method to try to
[9:51]translate our internal family conversation to a conversation that could spread with the world.
[9:56]And honestly, you know, I live in Portland, Oregon.
[10:00]So when George Floyd was murdered in the protest began
[10:03]of which those protests continue,
[10:05]I think the white kids in my city were seeing these protests
[10:10]and we're asking questions about what they meant
[10:12]but then and it struck me that there are not a ton
[10:16]of resources out there to talk to white kids
[10:20]about their white privilege.
[10:22]In a manner that actually asks them to acknowledge it,
[10:26]to give it up and to use it for the benefit of others
[10:29]and so so much of the narrative around white privilege
[10:32]has been co-opted by kind of a culture war
[10:35]that's questioning whether or not white privilege even exists.
[10:38]But when you ask the question, what does it mean to be white
[10:42]in a moment when we're asking big questions about race?
[10:46]It felt like now was the time to do that.
[10:47]And so for me it was a bit of a translation of taking
[10:51]evening pajama conversations and putting them
[10:55]in a book that could be brought to homes across the country.
[10:58]Well, you did it.
[11:00]Haha.
[11:01]Big dog, awesome.
[11:04]Congratulations.
[11:05]Even the format I feel like this is totally digestible for kids.
[11:10]Do you know what I mean?
[11:11]I have a six and seven year old and then two,
[11:13]13 year olds, although forget about getting them
[11:15]to do anything, but the little guys I can still read to you.
[11:17]So no, the colors, the message, the questioning,
[11:21]it's an engaging versus didactic type of read for kids
[11:26]which I think is so important, you know.
[11:28]What is like really exciting, you guys?
[11:30]Like is it that this content is getting out there?
[11:34]Is it that you're a part of it?
[11:36]Like there must be something that made you stop
[11:39]and feel passionate enough about this,
[11:42]that you were like, yes, I'm dedicating all this time,
[11:44]to writing it, marketing it, and getting it out there.
[11:46]Like what is it for you personally that made you the ones
[11:50]to do this?
[11:51]For me personally, I'm just really excited to be in company
[11:55]with folks like Ben and the other authors
[11:57]who I think were all really focused on this really positive
[12:02]just message for our young people about love
[12:06]and hope and resistance and change, acceptance, right?
[12:10]And I think at the end of the day,
[12:12]that's probably what the kid's book about legacy
[12:15]is gonna stand for because all the looks to date
[12:18]have been in that vein.
[12:20]And I think it's just gonna have a really positive
[12:23]impact over the long term.
[12:24]I'm also just really excited to be equipping parents
[12:28]and teachers with something to help get these conversations
[12:31]starting with their kids and their students.
[12:33]Yeah, you know, Zibi for me,
[12:34]I think what's exciting to me about the book
[12:37]and a kid's book about, you know,
[12:39]any of these topics that are being discussed,
[12:40]but particularly the topics around race is it feels
[12:45]that we are pushing conversations with a generation of kids
[12:50]that are going to be in leadership
[12:53]in a really critical moment in our country's history.
[12:56]I imagine that we're looking at a 20 year arc
[12:59]in this conversation.
[13:01]Some of the elders, some of those generations
[13:03]that have gone before us are not prepared
[13:05]to have this conversation at scale.
[13:07]And we're seeing a polarization as a result of that.
[13:11]And there are many leaders that have huge concerns,
[13:15]you know, about our inability to have a conversation
[13:18]about race and the wealth gap in our country.
[13:22]And as a result of that, the inability to have that conversation,
[13:25]what it's led to is those that are in previous generations
[13:30]rejecting the idea of critical race theory
[13:32]or systemic racism altogether.
[13:35]So to be able to make a deposit into a generation
[13:38]of young white kids to ask these questions
[13:42]in critical moments of their formation for me feels like it's,
[13:47]it's a very strategic move for a 20 year conversation
[13:53]that has to take place with a quickening pace for the days ahead.
[13:56]Oh, in 20, 30 years, we'll be watching the election
[14:00]and they'll say, well, it all started
[14:02]when I read this children's book.
[14:04]One boy, yeah, that's right.
[14:06]I'm sure that's what it would be to ask.
[14:08]Yeah, I had it on my shelf and I kept looking at it
[14:10]and then you came in, there you go.
[14:13]Oh, you never know.
[14:16]I mean, people have things.
[14:18]I think about different children's books all the time.
[14:20]It's a good time to really get in there.
[14:22]And if you can learn a whole new language
[14:24]without even trying that hard,
[14:26]it's a good time to learn a lot of concepts
[14:28]that when you're older or maybe they're too challenging,
[14:30]not too.
[14:31]I mean, I'm not convincing anyone should give up
[14:33]and just saying the impression of a brain
[14:36]at the young age is a good time to get positive messages around.
[14:39]Do you think that getting to a place where kids
[14:44]don't see race is where you want things to go
[14:48]or do you want kids, would your goal be having kids today
[14:51]grow up, acknowledging when I was growing up,
[14:55]I feel like everybody was like race,
[14:57]you don't see race, right?
[14:59]And all my education and all that,
[15:01]I didn't even realize it was a thing
[15:03]until I was older and people were polarized around it
[15:06]because I grew up in a really diverse education environment
[15:08]and all this stuff.
[15:09]And I didn't think twice about it.
[15:11]But there's so much focus now on race
[15:14]that I feel like, especially for little kids,
[15:16]they might not have even really noticed it before.
[15:19]Is it better to notice and sort of probe the differences?
[15:23]Or is it better to just be like,
[15:24]okay, well, like her skin's a little darker than mine,
[15:26]but like, I don't know, whatever.
[15:27]Did you understand my question?
[15:29]Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'll take a crack at that.
[15:31]Jordan's book really addresses this,
[15:33]I think, even uniquely beyond mine.
[15:36]But I think it's absolutely essential
[15:39]that we have conversations
[15:41]about the black experience in America
[15:44]and the experience of what it means
[15:46]to be a part of the Latinx community.
[15:48]What we have not done historically
[15:50]is taught white kids about their whiteness
[15:53]and helped them to understand
[15:55]that their whiteness has been rooted
[15:59]in a systemic, unearned advantage
[16:02]that they benefit from and have been benefiting
[16:05]from for some time.
[16:06]So when I think, when we think about race and whiteness
[16:10]in particular, which is what this book is certainly focused on,
[16:13]we won't be able to have a conversation
[16:16]about race that builds bridges
[16:18]until white people learn about their whiteness.
[16:22]And when I do this a lot, you know,
[16:25]and when I talk to white people, I ask them like,
[16:28]when was the last time you ever thought about
[16:29]what it means to be white?
[16:31]And the vast majority of white people
[16:34]can't answer that question.
[16:35]They're not thinking about their whiteness,
[16:36]they don't understand where the term came from,
[16:39]they don't understand how deeply rooted
[16:42]this systemic, unearned advantage has been.
[16:46]And they certainly are uncomfortable
[16:48]with exploring the topics in Jordan's book
[16:51]around slavery and genocide
[16:53]and the laws that were created.
[16:55]And so from my perspective,
[16:57]we won't be able to move forward
[16:59]until white people understand their whiteness
[17:02]and then begin to wrestle with it in a way that's critical.
[17:04]And that means that to understand your whiteness,
[17:07]you have to understand how whiteness has created
[17:11]adverse effect at a systemic level
[17:14]for people of color in our country.
[17:16]And that needs to be named and parsed out carefully
[17:19]in my view.
[17:20]Jordan, what do you think?
[17:21]I mean, I agree with that group.
[17:22]And you said that, thank you, you know, for me,
[17:25]this is not about trying to work towards a colorblind society.
[17:30]It's about trying to work towards an inclusive vibrant society
[17:34]where these inequities and injustices don't exist.
[17:37]And so the book, I think for me,
[17:40]is helping encourage young people to take into consideration
[17:47]the history behind the inequities that we see today, right?
[17:51]And that goes not just for race,
[17:54]but I want them to understand that too,
[17:56]for gender, right, for sexuality, right?
[18:01]So we can kind of contextualize these inequities
[18:04]and then work our way backwards
[18:05]to try and address those new causes.
[18:07]So if the book helps kind of train that mental framework
[18:12]for young people, then I'll be very, very pleased.
[18:15]So as authors, in addition to, I would say advocates
[18:20]and almost history teachers and, you know,
[18:23]documentarians and all the other amazing things
[18:25]you guys do as authors,
[18:27]when you sat down to write this book,
[18:28]like what did you learn about yourselves in terms of,
[18:31]like any sort of advice on writing children's books,
[18:36]on getting your messages out,
[18:38]like what would you tell someone else who was like,
[18:40]you know what, I want to a, help this problem
[18:42]and be do so through reaching kids.
[18:45]Like what would you tell them?
[18:46]I would say the key here is let your life speak
[18:49]and look back on your life and try to identify
[18:53]that thread that brings you to this point
[18:56]where you have a longing to write,
[18:57]you have a longing to communicate.
[18:59]So much of, I think, an author's experience
[19:03]is really about exploring their own identity.
[19:06]And so for me, as a white person
[19:09]and my own white experience,
[19:10]being able to write about whiteness,
[19:12]and then to want to talk to other white people,
[19:15]you know, about this is really a culmination of a journey
[19:20]that I've been on that pivots me to this moment
[19:23]to enter into a new chapter of that journey.
[19:26]But I think for me, it was just as important for me
[19:32]to come to the text looking for my own growth
[19:35]in light of my own journey and any aspiring author
[19:39]or anyone that wants to communicate to kids,
[19:41]I think needs to also imagine how that topic impacts them
[19:46]and to write from that kind of intimate personal space.
[19:50]I'm feeling like, is there a memoir coming
[19:52]on the heels of this event?
[19:53]I don't know.
[19:54]What's that?
[19:55]It's book about, it's book about Ben's life.
[19:59]No, that's right.
[20:00]Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything, but they're picking up kind of on those notes as well.
[20:08]You know, I think people should buy you their own lived experience, right?
[20:13]And a lot of people just don't.
[20:15]They don't think that their own experiences, own stories have value for other people to know and learn from.
[20:21]And that's one of the biggest things I'm always pushing for as someone who does documentary work is like,
[20:27]you know, share the story because someone is going to benefit from it, right?
[20:30]So that's, that's the one thing.
[20:32]And sort of like, that's kind of right from that place and explore our own identity, your own experiences.
[20:37]The other is a more sort of, I guess, practical sort of tangible thing because there's a lot of fantastic children's books out there that deal with issues of race, gender, sexuality, culture.
[20:49]But they don't get out there, right? I mean, because the children's publishing industry is sort of so rigid.
[20:58]And there's, you know, just only a few big players, there's a lot of these really fantastic books that just don't have this type of reach in what, you know, I'm learning from a kid's book about because they've created just a really valuable pipeline for new kind of content to go directly to consumers instead of having to go through the big players in the total
[21:18]children's book publishing industry and the marketing that they're doing is just incredible.
[21:23]And so with some of our books being included on Oprah's wish list, like the kind of reach that that's getting is just, you know, I never would have imagined, right, for this children's book.
[21:33]And so I think trying to pick up poll from some of the lessons that from what a kid's book about is doing in terms of the marketing and outreach and not having to go through the big, the big players in the industry.
[21:46]I think people can learn from as well.
[21:48]It's a great point.
[21:49]Well, yes, great point. Definitely the advice is get on Oprah's list. I'm going to put that at the top of my way.
[21:56]These are so good.
[21:57]That helps. That definitely helps.
[22:00]But first, you have to have great content. So that's well, thank you both. I'm glad I could be here to introduce you to each other. Maybe now you guys can go have a nice interesting dynamic possible conversation of your own without me bothering you with my questions.
[22:13]And thank you for contributing to society and trying to help the next generation. I think that's really admirable of you. And it's just big thumbs up as a parent and whatever I am these days.
[22:24]Anyway, it's a person.
[22:26]So thanks. That's awesome.
[22:28]Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for having us.
[22:30]Thank you so much.
[22:31]All right. Bye bye.
[22:32]All right. Take care.
[22:44]And just a reminder, again, please pre-order a copy of my book,
[22:48]Moms Don't Have Time to Acc
[22:51]Quarantine Anthology. And go to my website under the anthology tab for the fundraiser and I hope you'll buy a ticket and join me for...
[22:59]And I should have mentioned I'll proceed to COVID-19 research. So please join me for the fundraiser. Thanks so much.
[23:07]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[23:10]books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zibioins, and at Moms Don't Have Time
[23:14]to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibioins.com and sign up for my virtual
[23:19]book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and
[23:23]Ryan at The Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morningland Productions
[23:28]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.