TRIGGERnometry - May 09, 2021


＂Burning and Looting Doesn't Make People Less Racist＂ - Dr Dina McMillan

Hosted by
Francis Foster Konstantin Kisin
Guests
Dr Dina McMillan
Mentioned
Cardi B Carolyn M. West Michael Jackson Lawrence Fox Joe Biden Carol Jeff Shepard Dina McMillan Jimmy Savile Stephen Fry Manscaped Adina Bias Jaws
＂We Are Angry Because We Feel Powerless＂ - Dr Louise Mazanti Why Labour Keep Losing - Geoff Norcott

Episode Stats


Length

55 minutes

Words per minute

155.64

Word count

8,645

Sentence count

351

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

10

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Dr. Dina McMillan joins us to talk about the early warning signs that someone is in a potentially abusive relationship and how to spot them. Dr. Mcmillan is a social psychologist from the United States, who has worked in a number of different disciplines, including domestic violence and trauma. She is also the founder of a program called Healing the Rift, which focuses on anti-racism and anti-bias education.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantin Kissin. And this is a
00:00:09.740 show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest
00:00:14.940 today is a social psychologist, Dr. Dina McMillan. Welcome to Trigonometry. Oh, thank you. Thank you
00:00:20.420 for having me on. Oh, it's a great pleasure to have you on. Listen, for anyone who's not familiar
00:00:25.240 with you, a lot of people will be, but some won't be. Who are you? How are you? Where you are? What
00:00:29.580 has been the journey that leads you through life sitting here talking to us? Well, I studied
00:00:35.420 social psychology at Stanford University, followed by working in the field and examining the world
00:00:42.880 through that lens, which is going to be very relevant to the conversation we're going to have
00:00:48.120 today. Yes, it is. You are originally from the United States. You live in Australia now. You've
00:00:55.240 worked in a few different disciplines. You've worked with abuse victims. Tell us a little bit
00:00:59.100 about that maybe before we get into some of the other stuff well i i worked i still do work in
00:01:05.140 domestic violence i have one of the only prevention programs available in the world
00:01:09.280 it's called unmasking the abuser and i actually teach the tactics used by abusers during the
00:01:17.100 earliest grooming phases of the relationship and because of covid and the strict restrictions here
00:01:23.960 in Melbourne during that time, I decided to have a podcast where I took all of my information and
00:01:31.660 put it on a podcast. So it's called also called Unmasking the Abuser and it's on all of the
00:01:37.880 platforms. Wow. I mean, that sounds incredibly helpful and incredibly valuable because a lot
00:01:44.540 of the time, you know, people aren't aware of the fact that they're being groomed. So what are
00:01:49.780 these early signs, Dina, that somebody can be aware of when they're getting into this type of
00:01:54.660 relationship? Well, the one thing I usually say, if I have a little soundbite, is that look out for
00:02:00.800 too much too soon. One of the biggest and most reliable indicators of a potentially abusive
00:02:07.440 relationship is speed. That they start from the very beginning talking about the future,
00:02:14.600 too many compliments, too many gifts, too much discussion about how we're going to live our
00:02:21.160 lives, what kind of kids we're going to have. And it's too soon in the relationship. You barely
00:02:26.320 know each other. And by too soon in the relationship, what are we talking about?
00:02:30.940 Weeks, months, days? Days, sometimes. Some of these things show up at the very earliest stages,
00:02:38.100 It's like someone joking on the first date, you know, oh, we'd have beautiful children, or introducing you after the second date as their girlfriend, or jokingly, oh, this is my future wife, that kind of thing.
00:02:54.060 Talking about, oh, we should take holidays together, we should buy a house, oh, if you were with me, we could have such wonderful lives together.
00:03:03.540 You have to be very careful.
00:03:05.300 It sounds like a dream come true, but it's really a nightmare.
00:03:08.100 so there's those initials so that's the first red flag and what are other red flags on this
00:03:14.000 particular journey well at the same time they're trying to pull you in and talk about your life
00:03:20.360 together you notice that something's wrong there's a lot of control that goes on there
00:03:25.960 there will be snipes criticism contempt for your beliefs so it's like too much of one and then too
00:03:33.880 much of the other. And it starts right away. It starts from the very earliest days.
00:03:41.420 It's really interesting. And I recommend the people who are interested in that, check out
00:03:45.420 your work on that side of things. Tell us a little bit about some of the other areas you've
00:03:51.600 been working on as well, because I think they're probably the main thing we wanted to talk with
00:03:55.620 you about today. Well, I also, looking at what happened during this COVID period with the
00:04:02.900 violent protests and the divisiveness in the rhetoric that we're hearing, I decided to put
00:04:12.300 together a program called Healing the Rift. Because as a social psychologist, we learn a lot
00:04:19.240 about the brain, how we learn, how we're influenced, but we also learn flow-on effects.
00:04:24.720 And I was looking at the narrative and the focus and the tactics being used in anti-racism programs, and it was very evident to me from the beginning that they would have the exact opposite impact, that they're likely to increase racial divisions.
00:04:46.200 So I decided to put together a program called Healing the Rift to talk about bias, because a lot of what is being called racism is actually racial bias based on exposure, based on information.
00:05:03.900 and I'm not saying bias doesn't count. It does. But it's much more easily remedied than making
00:05:11.920 a conscious choice to disrespect or hate people who are other races. Dina, there's a couple of
00:05:19.300 things I want to unpack there. So let's start with the first one. I'll come back to the second one.
00:05:23.340 The first one being, and to me it was also self-evident that this would be the consequences,
00:05:28.680 but how did you know as a social psychologist that this so-called anti-racism training would
00:05:34.560 actually increase racial tension? Well, I knew, and it's interesting because I told my listeners
00:05:41.880 for my podcast series, and I'm going to tell your audience now, the same tactics I was seeing
00:05:49.380 abusers used to lure in new partners and take over their lives and lead them astray, I was seeing
00:05:58.020 social movements do the same thing. So once you recognize the tactics of not just influence,
00:06:06.540 but manipulation, gaslighting, once you know those, you can apply them anywhere in your life,
00:06:13.760 not just to romantic relationships. And I was seeing the social movements use the same
00:06:19.780 manipulative, even abusive tactics to get their message across. Like what? Like what, Dina? Can 0.99
00:06:27.040 you give us some examples of some of the things that were being done that set off the alarm bells
00:06:32.060 for you? Well, one of the simplest examples is having protesters go past restaurants where people
00:06:39.700 are sitting outside and eating and forcing them to do the Black Power salute in order not to be 0.95
00:06:46.460 harassed by the protesters. And as a student of history and as a former military brat who went to
00:06:55.720 high school in Germany, I recognize that sort of methodology is something that the Nazis used to
00:07:02.620 do. They used to force people to give the Nazi salute. So I looked at that and I thought, you
00:07:09.460 know, having a slogan is not the same as having a policy. You know, Black Lives Matter. Yeah,
00:07:16.900 well, they do. And I also wanted to quickly explain to your British audience why that's
00:07:23.600 such a big deal. In the States, there is sometimes among very biased law enforcement,
00:07:34.320 the use of a term NHI, whenever blacks are involved in a crime. And that means no humans 1.00
00:07:41.780 involved. And if you study the judicial system, you'll see a lot of disparity between what happens
00:07:51.120 to a white person who commits a crime and what happens to a black person who commits a crime
00:07:57.100 so that is where the impetus came for a you know a movement like black lives matter
00:08:03.620 but they took a slogan and an issue and everything they did made it worse
00:08:10.120 so you're saying everything they did made it worse can you give us some examples please
00:08:15.000 um violent protests having 245 violent protests often taking place in black communities so
00:08:25.100 encouraging people who are frustrated with their lives first of all to look outward for the problem 0.98
00:08:32.120 let's blame it all on the police let's burn down city hall let's burn down the stores let's loot
00:08:41.160 the stores in our neighborhoods, how in the world is that going to make people less racist? 0.82
00:08:49.140 Billions of dollars of damage. How in the world is that going to make people less racist?
00:08:55.840 It's a good point, Dina. Their counter argument would be, look, you know, we've tried peaceful
00:09:00.440 process before. This hasn't happened. We need to do extreme measures in order for our aims to be,
00:09:06.140 you know, fulfilled. Yes. But it's the same. You cannot threaten people to accept you.
00:09:15.780 And I have also, as someone who works with relationships, not just abusive ones, but
00:09:21.640 healthy ones too, I've never seen anything work if the effort is only on one side. So now we have
00:09:29.200 a movement that's teaching whites that all of you are racist, all of you are wrong, being white 0.99
00:09:35.000 equals being a white supremacist with no effort expected on the black community to look at 0.98
00:09:41.600 what are we doing that is leading us to these poor results? Is there anything we can do to improve?
00:09:49.140 There's not a lot of emphasis on that. And that is always a problem.
00:09:53.860 And I want to talk about your solutions and your approaches in a second. But
00:09:58.080 you mentioned the difference between racism and racial bias. Can you break that down for
00:10:06.300 us and our audience? Because that is a distinction that is rarely made.
00:10:11.420 Well, it's rarely made. And it's funny because I'm putting together some short YouTube videos
00:10:16.180 and my first one is going to be called Why You're Not a Racist. And the simple reason is because
00:10:23.480 they switched the definition. Racism used to be a conscious choice where you said my race is
00:10:30.820 superior, all other races are inferior, I disrespect, I dislike, I even mean harm to those 1.00
00:10:37.380 other groups. Now they've switched it to if you have a certain tone of skin, you absolutely must 0.98
00:10:44.680 be racist. Now that doesn't mean there isn't racial bias. We have a lot of messages, social
00:10:51.080 messages built into our environment that show Blacks one way, Whites another way, and that can 0.85
00:11:00.220 lead to bias. Bias is just a predisposition, positive or negative, against a person or a group.
00:11:11.540 So you can be, I'll give you an example. Over this COVID period, for some reason, I've been
00:11:18.700 meeting all these wonderful women named Carol or Carolyn. So I recently had an interview with
00:11:26.560 a woman who's writing a chapter in a book I've been asked to write a chapter in, and her name
00:11:31.140 is Carol. So I apologized to her because I was positively predisposed towards her even before
00:11:38.280 she said a word because I've met all these wonderful Carols and Carolins. It can be positive
00:11:43.640 too but bias is just having a little bit of your mind made up before you actually even interact
00:11:52.980 with that person that's not the same as disrespect dislike and even an intention to harm
00:12:01.460 but isn't the problem as well the fact that you know we're just more biased towards people who
00:12:08.920 look like us, sound like us, come from similar communities. So then when you have someone who
00:12:14.640 comes from a different community who looks different, it's going to be more of a challenge 1.00
00:12:19.180 for them to get the job than somebody who is different to them. So wouldn't that feel like
00:12:27.400 racism as well? The fact that they're always having to prove themselves and do a little bit
00:12:32.100 more to secure a position and so on and so forth. Absolutely. All of us have bias. Every person has
00:12:38.500 a bias. And it's based, the foundation of bias is a perception of us and them. So the solution
00:12:48.680 is pretty simple. In my program, we go through a few exercises you can do to widen the scope
00:12:55.400 of what you consider us. So as long as you see someone as them, you're not going to utilize as
00:13:04.000 much cognitive energy to process that person. You'll make up your mind more quickly. You'll
00:13:09.920 be way more heavily any mistakes that they make. But you can stop yourself in the middle,
00:13:16.660 take a deep breath and reprocess that. It's not even that hard.
00:13:21.480 And what level do you go to? Because to me, that sounds like a good argument for
00:13:26.920 like a nation state, let's say, like we can all come to America and we can all say,
00:13:33.100 well I'm an American or we can all come to Britain and we can say well we're all British and that way
00:13:38.700 the divisions within the country potentially become less important because we're all British
00:13:43.980 doesn't matter what our skin color is our religion we're all British but then the problem is if we
00:13:48.320 say well we're all British then we're sort of legally obliged to hate the French and then we 0.98
00:13:52.520 right and then we start a war and then before you know it you're in world war three so how far do
00:13:59.380 you take this expansion of what you perceive as your tribe well what happens though is once you
00:14:06.080 start to expand who you see as your tribe you're not as inclined to just go to war with people
00:14:12.400 all it will take is a few nice french people to come over with some wine you know some nice
00:14:18.680 nice little nibblies and all of a sudden they're not them anymore they're they start to kind of be
00:14:24.680 us. And you start talking about, you know, we decent people against the bad people. And it
00:14:32.120 changes. Now, I grew up military. I mentioned that. One of the things that's really interesting
00:14:37.240 growing up military is when you live on a base, all of your neighbors don't look like you.
00:14:44.480 You have a lot of intermarriage where military people go overseas and marry someone from that
00:14:49.540 country. You're assigned housing. So you're not allowed to use your own bias to determine what
00:14:56.260 neighborhood you live in. And it's interesting how many of those divisions start to mitigate
00:15:04.640 once you live next door to people. So that's not, you know, the Vietnamese people are a real problem. 1.00
00:15:11.140 It's, you know, Joe was really there for me when my mom had a heart attack. And, you know, this
00:15:16.680 person helped me put my cable up. And it starts to really change your idea about us and them.
00:15:23.840 So I did have an advantage going into social psychology based on the fact that I'm an army
00:15:29.700 brat. And I think I already know the answer to this question. So what do you think of
00:15:34.700 initiatives like anti-biased training, somebody coming in and leading a training program? Do you
00:15:40.320 agree with that? Or do you think it needs to be done more organically? Well, one of the reasons
00:15:44.800 I developed my own anti-bias program is because a lot of the anti-bias programs that I was seeing
00:15:52.180 were actually anti-white programs, and that's not the same thing. I wanted no blame and shame
00:15:59.640 talking about the fact that we all have biases, looking at examples that have nothing to do with
00:16:06.040 skin tone. You know, my sister, Ia, who lives in Minneapolis, she did some of the training with me
00:16:12.480 over your summer. And she uses an example of having a bias against a guy who was applying
00:16:20.120 for a job because his shoes weren't shined and coming from a military family, we were taught
00:16:25.480 that was a sign of disrespect. Now, talking about somebody's shoes has absolutely nothing to do with
00:16:31.020 racism. I think a lot of the anti-bias programs that we have put the onus completely on whites
00:16:40.000 to change their thinking without any acknowledgement that, first of all, some of the bias is always
00:16:46.420 going to be there because we're more comfortable with people who think like we do and believe like
00:16:52.540 we do. And also, they don't really, when you're starting on the back foot, you're not necessarily
00:16:58.840 going to be very open to the teachings. I just think that they start off with, you know, all
00:17:05.520 white people are bad i would hate that i felt like as a black person i had to come forward 0.98
00:17:12.140 because i can't stand bullying i don't care who it's against and i saw white i never thought this 0.99
00:17:19.720 would happen i saw white people being bullied and i just couldn't stand it hey kk do you like 0.98
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00:18:50.560 Do you think part of the problem is, Dina, is that because we've all moved forward as
00:18:56.580 a society, we're more tolerant. Look, there's still a way to go. Racism still obviously
00:18:59.960 exists and no one would deny that but isn't part of the problem for a lot of black people especially
00:19:05.660 older black people you know living in the 80s the 70s the 60s they've experienced real racism
00:19:11.920 real bigotry that in a way isn't this just unprocessed trauma as well absolutely absolutely
00:19:21.020 and it's it's really interesting I use an example and I've been talking to some of my colleagues in
00:19:26.040 the States about this. And it's led to some interesting conversations. When I first moved
00:19:31.660 to Australia in 2004, I had family come and visit me, but I didn't go back to the States for two
00:19:40.000 years. Now, my family, my dad had retired to Tucson, Arizona. And I thought, oh, it's just,
00:19:45.800 it's okay. Kind of unfriendly, but it's okay. I went back after two years in Australia where
00:19:51.800 people didn't assume I was dangerous. People didn't assume that they knew everything about
00:19:57.400 me when they saw my skin tone. And I didn't realize how much it had changed me beyond my
00:20:03.640 conscious awareness. And Constantine, that's what I mean about the different areas of the brain that
00:20:08.240 process information. I went to Tucson and it was a totally different place for me.
00:20:14.540 Everywhere I went, everyone was talking to me. Whether I went to a restaurant or a cafe or
00:20:19.940 you know the checkout line um at the chemists everyone was suddenly so friendly and the
00:20:28.100 political situation hadn't changed the only thing that had changed was me and you can hear you could
00:20:34.800 not look at me and say oh i'm sure she lives in australia i sound like i just arrived yesterday
00:20:40.500 i still sound very american they had no way of knowing but my non-verbal behavior my lack of
00:20:48.600 defensiveness made a huge difference in how people interacted with me. So while we're trying to get
00:20:55.860 rid of bias and racism and whatever else negative that we want to get rid of, let's teach both sides.
00:21:03.600 Let's teach people who've been discriminated against how to relax when they're interacting
00:21:09.980 with people, have an expectation of acceptance and see what happens. Well, Dina, one of the
00:21:15.960 things you mentioned it and actually it was something we were talking about before we started
00:21:19.920 so let's get into it now because I think it's a crucial piece of this. We are having what I mean
00:21:25.760 could be described as an intellectual discussion here right? Not one our type partner. Correct but
00:21:31.500 when I'm involved we're having an intellectual discussion but what you are really talking about
00:21:38.580 and this is something I found very powerful and very interesting about your approach which is why
00:21:43.420 we were so keen to get you onto the show is that you talk essentially about the fact that you cannot
00:21:50.100 convince people of what you are saying logically. We like to joke on the show about destroying
00:21:56.760 people with facts and logic. And essentially, your senses or your experiences and your belief
00:22:03.940 as a professional, that doesn't change minds because this stuff is taught at the level of
00:22:11.160 emotion. Talk to us about that. Yes. Well, one of the things that I teach, even in the seminars
00:22:17.700 that I do for 13, 14-year-olds, I use Paul McLean's triune brain theory. Now, there's a little bit of
00:22:27.680 controversy about it as being too simplistic, but I find it to be a wonderful device because it
00:22:33.300 basically divides the brain into three parts and talks about the fact that they process information
00:22:39.640 differently and all at the same time. Now, if you look at, and what is really fascinating is that
00:22:47.400 most of us are so attached to our neocortex, our intellectual brain, the language part of our brain,
00:22:55.340 but it's only responsible for between 5 to 8 percent of our life decisions. The other 88 to
00:23:03.880 95% are made using primarily the limbic brain, which is the emotion center, and our reptilian
00:23:12.600 brain, which is the primal reactive part of our minds. So when people have a belief that motivates
00:23:20.420 them, that they cling to, that means that that belief has gone into their limbic mind, and it
00:23:27.080 may even have been fear-based or desire-based and therefore in the reptilian brain. So if we're
00:23:34.600 going to change their thinking and their attachment, if we're going to dislodge this
00:23:39.560 error in thinking, we have to use the same sort of mechanisms that implanted and embedded that
00:23:46.200 information in those parts of the brain. So in other words, if feelings don't care about your
00:23:51.760 facts how do you convince people to listen to what you're saying which is yes bias exists yes
00:24:01.840 prejudice exists but saying all why people are evil isn't the way to solve bias and it's actually
00:24:07.640 going to make it worse because let's be honest it's been going on for quite a while a lot of us
00:24:12.600 have been saying this is bad this doesn't work this reminds us of certain bad things and it's
00:24:18.060 only accelerating. So how do you do it? We have to get together and do more than just discuss it.
00:24:24.520 We have to use the influence mechanisms that are the most effective. We have to use
00:24:29.780 storytelling. We have to get role models. We have to use role play. We have to use music,
00:24:38.300 music lyrics. We have to use all of these mechanisms. Um, the, what I call the three
00:24:45.640 A's, which is attention, admiration, and acclaim. So we have to use who gets an award or a reward,
00:24:55.560 who gets the attention about something. We have to use the same influence mechanisms that the
00:25:01.460 other side used to make people believe these things, to dislodge these things.
00:25:08.400 To give us something a bit more concrete on that front, what are you talking about exactly?
00:25:13.240 Well, you look at who gets the attention, okay? Carolyn M. West is a professor at the University of Washington, and she is helping me with a revision of my original book called Buddy Says He Loves Me, where I outline the tactics used by abusers, and we are specifically targeting Black women in America. 0.55
00:25:35.780 And she has worked her whole career on this. And we've been talking about the imagery projected by things like Cardi B and Cardi B's popularity and the fact that Cardi B was the one black woman selected to speak to then candidate Joe Biden.
00:25:55.440 When you do things like that, it's like saying, okay, who gets to actually have a public audience with the queen where it gets lots of publicity?
00:26:07.360 That has a huge impact on what those primal parts, the emotional parts and primal parts of our brain perceive as important.
00:26:17.600 Even if we intellectually dismiss it, those parts of the brain are more powerful than our intellect.
00:26:24.460 And they don't have a filter. So they take it all in. And our brain is programmed, pre-programmed to adapt. So we start first by being less shocked and then by being more accepting of these values.
00:26:41.160 So I'm looking at all of this. Cardi B, really? That's the black woman, not a black scientist, not a young black girl who's, you know, worked hard in her community to improve things for the average person living there.
00:26:56.820 the role model is a woman who is a former stripper who talks about having robbed her johns and 0.87
00:27:05.240 presents herself in the most pornographic way possible this is who they have held up as
00:27:12.220 an icon for young black girls would you not argue though dina that is a sign of racism though 1.00
00:27:18.700 because what it's saying is you know for example that that is all that that particular
00:27:25.200 intersectional community are capable of. For example, that's the thing that we should uphold
00:27:30.180 about them, not, you know, the business owners, the intellectuals, the academics, etc, etc.
00:27:36.740 You're saying Joe Biden is racist?
00:27:38.940 Well, if you don't vote for him.
00:27:42.300 I absolutely think it was racist, but one of the problems about stereotypes and racism
00:27:50.020 and even strong bias is that it doesn't just impact how other people other tribes think about
00:27:57.680 your tribe it will influence how you think about yourself oh absolutely and i'm looking at how many
00:28:03.980 young black people accept this give awards to these people they say oh my goodness you know
00:28:10.080 the presidential candidate actually spoke with her so this is something we should admire you saw all
00:28:15.580 the TikTok videos of people, you know, dancing and doing even small children doing these things.
00:28:23.600 And I watched in horror because I know not only were they replicating the values that were being
00:28:32.560 presented, it was going into a part of their brain. It's going to take real effort to dislodge
00:28:38.300 that, but it's not going to lead them anywhere good. Adina, I guess what I'm asking you in terms
00:28:44.620 of what can be done.
00:28:46.000 I know that your program, Healing the Rift,
00:28:47.980 will be part of that, of course,
00:28:49.200 but I was thinking in a more selfish way,
00:28:51.440 like what can we,
00:28:53.580 what can people watching this at home be doing?
00:28:55.760 Like for us, I guess we've had a number
00:28:58.540 of prominent black intellectuals on the show
00:29:01.560 who are concerned and critical
00:29:03.400 about some of the things that are being done.
00:29:06.560 And through the example of them talking about it,
00:29:09.300 I know many, many people who watch our show
00:29:11.500 who maybe were sitting on the fence,
00:29:13.080 in many black people, but seeing the example of a, of an Aisha, a Canby, or a Naniya Falarin 0.92
00:29:19.600 Iman, or a Zubi, or a Glenn Lowry, or yourself, or other people we've got in the pipeline,
00:29:25.740 I think opens their mind somewhat. Is that one of the things that we all ought to be doing is giving,
00:29:31.920 you know, a voice and a platform to people like that? Absolutely, because attention is part of it.
00:29:37.280 One of the ways of processing information, how our primal child brain that still makes a lot of our decisions, it is so important who gets the attention, who gets to actually tell their story.
00:29:52.280 It's a huge influence.
00:29:54.680 You'll notice that any cause that is being promoted gets a lot of attention.
00:30:00.220 People who are part of that group get a chance to tell their story always from a sympathetic perspective.
00:30:07.280 and it has an impact. So yes, paying attention, actually listening, actually thinking about it
00:30:13.400 is a big deal. But we need to also, those of us who want to change things, whatever race we are,
00:30:20.460 we need to do things like Lawrence Fox, run for office. We need to write films and stories
00:30:28.260 that have these values in them that actually show things. I am actually looking for funding right
00:30:34.180 now actively seeking funding I want to do an online YouTube course on influence because I want
00:30:42.260 to show everybody in the world how the brain works and how we're being influenced to believe things
00:30:49.340 and to advocate for things that are actually not in our best interest and may even be destructive
00:30:55.020 and I don't want to just preach it people I want to show you how your brain works
00:30:59.600 and you've touched on YouTube again another part of the puzzle is social media because the reality
00:31:06.040 is you know that the most divisive voices are the ones that get elevated on social media
00:31:11.700 because they have the most engagement yeah 60,000 followers though mate come on
00:31:15.700 well yes but I have to say I don't consider myself divisive no no no we were joking we
00:31:26.100 weren't talking about you we weren't talking about you no it is easier well one of the things that
00:31:31.760 you may not be aware of that a lot of people who think like i do who look at a lot of the policies
00:31:37.820 being advocated by the people that are being that are often called the woke um that if you are
00:31:47.060 against anything they believe you are absolutely abjectly rejected if you're black you're called
00:31:52.640 all sorts of names. But on the other side, if we label ourselves conservative, there is an
00:31:58.520 expectation that we claim that racism is a lie, that currently there's no racism anymore. It's
00:32:06.140 all about personal choices. So for people like me, I'm kind of stuck in the middle because
00:32:11.660 I am a social scientist first and foremost. And I have seen too much rigorous evidence. I have
00:32:18.000 too much lived experience of racism to say it's all gone. My argument is that the approach that
00:32:24.800 they're taking to get rid of it is actually making it worse. So yes, social media helps us get out
00:32:31.960 there, but look at the fact that social media allows us to only listen to people we agree with.
00:32:38.880 We need to get a claim. We need to get a wider range of material. We need the people in the
00:32:45.760 middle like me now i know this sounds self-serving but i think we need more people in the middle
00:32:51.680 so that we can get people who have been indoctrinated with those what i consider
00:32:57.180 self-destructive values they won't listen to the opposite perspective but they may be willing to
00:33:03.440 listen a little bit to someone in the middle hey constantin how are you feeling good and
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00:34:40.740 and it's very true what you said about you know being listening to someone in the middle
00:34:46.680 isn't part of the problem Dina that being in the middle is actually very very difficult
00:34:52.180 because it means you because it means you're essentially tribeless you're not part of the 0.82
00:34:57.220 tribe on the left you're not part of the tribe on the right which means that it goes against
00:35:03.000 what we're hardwired because we want to be part of the tribe and it means you take flack from
00:35:07.300 both sides he's talking from personal experience both of us well I would say this if I found it
00:35:13.280 interesting because on social media and one of the ways that I started interacting with Lawrence
00:35:18.800 Fox for instance is he made a comment about there not being racism anymore and the difference
00:35:26.200 between people who consider themselves non-woke and the woke is that I disagreed with him and
00:35:33.180 usually when I disagree with woke people, they call me a lot of names, many of them beginning
00:35:38.180 with C or N, and then they block me. Instead, he followed me, sent me a text, and said, okay, show me.
00:35:47.000 So when I'm dealing with people that are more conservative right now, even if I disagree with
00:35:54.520 them, I'm not so summarily rejected as I am from the people in the progressive left, the woke
00:36:03.100 people. They do not allow any dissension of any degree without complete rejection.
00:36:09.900 And why do you think that is, Dina? Because it's something that I've noticed, particularly
00:36:13.300 like people are friends that I've got on the right. You know, we will talk and we'll disagree
00:36:17.680 and, you know, I'll be fine. And then we move on. Friends. Well, I don't have any friends left on
00:36:22.360 the left. I've been summarily expelled. Well, most of them anyway. Why is it that those people
00:36:28.840 on that side of the argument are so intolerant? Because their world is intolerant. Their tribe
00:36:35.920 is intolerant. Because people like me come along who've spent years and years being educated how
00:36:42.640 to dissect research to see whether or not it's credible. Most of what they're being told
00:36:51.600 would not hold up to scrutiny a lot most of the research that they're presenting to support their
00:36:58.040 arguments I turn to the methodology page and I go on social media and comment if I had written
00:37:03.960 something like this for my doctoral dissertation I never would have graduated so when you're
00:37:10.840 dealing with with people who cannot afford to have the light shine on their beliefs because
00:37:17.240 then you see all the little critters in the middle of it it's got maggots in it they teach
00:37:23.000 people willful blindness that's that's how they have to to act if they're going to keep their
00:37:30.060 their numbers so large and you talk about willful blindness do you think that's part of the reason
00:37:37.560 why the young people tend to be more woke is it because they're more impressionable is it they're
00:37:44.020 more idealistic or is there something else going on? And I suppose the second part of that question
00:37:48.380 is stats show that women tend to be more woke than males on the whole. Is there a reason for
00:37:54.220 that as well? Well, I would say with young people, it's because the executive parts of our brain are
00:38:00.740 not fully developed until our mid-20s. So we tend to see the world more in black and white before
00:38:06.820 we're young. We also see ourselves as invulnerable. We see things in absolutes. We get
00:38:13.540 very highly motivated by things. Everything's emotional. That starts to dampen down by the
00:38:19.200 time we get to the mid-20s, and we start to see the shades of gray. Now, women, one of the issues 1.00
00:38:25.680 too, as much as I have issues and problems dealing with Black people around a lot of issues when I 0.75
00:38:32.520 bring these things up, I also often have problems with women because women are brought up to be nice 1.00
00:38:39.860 and that being nice is more important than being respected. So if something seems, you know, if you
00:38:48.060 have someone, we're taught to be extremely compassionate, even at our own cost. So whenever
00:38:54.060 a cause is supported by sob stories women were often sign on come on board full on not asking 0.99
00:39:04.100 themselves well wait a minute what is the other side of the story is what they're saying really
00:39:08.500 true how is that going to impact people like me how is it going to impact my children they're not
00:39:15.520 asking any of those questions because that's not how most women are socialized and normalized 1.00
00:39:22.300 We're taught to be an easy, easy for sob stories to take advantage of.
00:39:27.760 We're taught, people used to call us bleeding hearts, you know, the kind of person that
00:39:33.780 anytime somebody seems sad, you side with them.
00:39:36.960 Most women are socialized that way. 1.00
00:39:39.580 In fact, it's one of the reasons when I do my Unmasking the Abuser workshops, I have 1.00
00:39:45.220 a segment that I've had to include teaching women how to say no.
00:39:51.340 Because most of the time, if the abuser is able to cry, tell a story about their hard life, make them feel like you're only picking on me because I'm whatever, the woman will back down.
00:40:05.660 And I have to teach them not to do that because women are socialized differently. 1.00
00:40:11.120 It's so interesting.
00:40:12.460 You reminded me of one of our very first ever interviews with a guy who doesn't have much profile called Jeremy Shapiro.
00:40:20.160 And when we asked him our last question, which we'll ask you, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be, he said the power of the media and he wasn't talking about the mainstream media, just the media in general, whether that's social media, YouTube, the mainstream media, whatever, to create impressions and ideas in people through a story.
00:40:44.360 And I think the example he gave was,
00:40:47.280 even if every night for the rest of your life,
00:40:49.700 CNN runs a story about a bear eating somebody,
00:40:53.800 that does not mean that you are in danger of being eaten by bears
00:40:57.380 because the statistics show that bear attacks are almost non-existent.
00:41:01.800 But if CNN or Fox News or both of them still run that story every night,
00:41:07.460 people are going to be terrified of bears.
00:41:10.020 I remember actually doing an NLP course a long, long time ago and the guy who was running it saying how Jaws was a great, great movie for him because suddenly people living in the sort of flyover states of America had a terrible phobia of sharks and he was making loads of money curing it.
00:41:29.540 And so how much of this is really about the fact that we live in a technological society now where if you see one person being badly treated, then by, let's say, a black person badly treated by a police officer, we're not capable of contextualizing that with enough data and enough research and enough other stories and also understanding why police behave the way that they behave.
00:41:56.200 we just go like I would not want that to happen to my son or to my daughter or to my brother and
00:42:02.600 to my father and therefore I don't care about all that other stuff there's the narrative you know
00:42:07.460 the police are evil you know this is what we need to do how much of all of this is simply the fact
00:42:12.260 that as you talk that primitive part of the brain just goes well that's why I am absolutely
00:42:19.400 determined and I'm hoping to by doing publicity like this I can get some benefactors I can get
00:42:25.680 and sponsors and support, once people understand how our brain works and how, no matter how
00:42:33.120 intellectually intelligent you are, the parts of our brain that influence our emotions and influence
00:42:39.440 those primal responses have no filter and will adapt. They have been pre-programmed in our DNA
00:42:46.580 to adapt, you become much more protective of what you allow in your brain. So it's something that
00:42:56.340 everybody needs to know. I can explain it to kids and they get it. And it absolutely works. But I
00:43:02.920 know it's disappointing, but the first thing they told us when we got to graduate school
00:43:07.640 was knowledge of a phenomenon will not make you immune to its effects. And I need to show people
00:43:14.760 why that's true, why when shows and programs and social media sites are supporting values or
00:43:23.940 telling stories with values, when the music has values that go against what you believe to be
00:43:29.640 right and true, why you have to turn it off? Why telling yourself, oh, but it's got a good beat,
00:43:35.840 or I watched that show because I like that one character. No, you can't do that. You have to
00:43:43.140 protect your brain is that really true though i mean look i'm i'll be i'll be honest with you
00:43:48.860 give you an example right i'm i think all of us actually would i don't know i don't want to
00:43:54.280 slander anyone but i'm a big fan of gangster rap right i've never shot up anyone i've never sold
00:44:00.940 drugs i've like none of the things that they talk about in the rap lyrics i've ever done or been
00:44:07.440 tempted to do ever, but it has a good beat to it. And it's going into your mind. But I haven't done
00:44:15.320 anything, have I? No, not yet. Because you're not in the circumstances that allow that. But again,
00:44:22.200 when you're buying music, when you're supporting the music, what are you supporting? And what
00:44:27.320 about people who are more sensitive? What about people who are in those circumstances? What about
00:44:32.700 situations where a decision has to be made in a split second. None of us are immune. I know it's
00:44:44.840 boring to say this, but I don't advocate for anything I don't do myself. I am very careful
00:44:51.420 about what I allow my brain to normalize. Even in programs that I like, films that I like,
00:44:58.780 if they are advocating for values that i don't believe in i turn it off
00:45:03.520 really i know how my brain works my intellect my knowledge will not protect me
00:45:09.960 because i'm not in control of the majority of the my brain that makes my life decisions i'm just not
00:45:17.180 that's it i mean i've never heard this this argument espoused but it's now in your head
00:45:25.680 then you can't get it out.
00:45:26.940 Yeah, exactly.
00:45:28.600 So where would you stand, Dina, on...
00:45:33.700 It's just a message.
00:45:35.080 And what about the person producing the art?
00:45:37.440 What about if the person is a problematic person
00:45:39.680 but produces great art?
00:45:41.620 Do you still...
00:45:42.700 Would you say that the art and the artists are divorced?
00:45:45.760 He's a Michael Jackson fan.
00:45:46.940 Yeah, basically.
00:45:50.900 It gets complicated
00:45:52.940 because if you really, there's a part of us that wants to like the people who produce content that
00:46:00.060 we admire. And when, for instance, when Michael Jackson had legal cases, the people who admired
00:46:08.260 his music and all the thousands of fans standing out front had an influence on the jury. It's a
00:46:15.000 challenge because, of course, if you support, if you go to their concerts and you buy their music,
00:46:20.960 you're supporting that person's lifestyle so it does get i didn't say this was easy
00:46:27.580 but if we want a better world than we've got we have some tough decisions to make and that
00:46:35.480 includes really looking at the values of what we allow in our brains we have to just become
00:46:42.300 more protective of our minds it's really interesting coming back to more to the
00:46:47.700 context of our earlier discussion because if you're saying that and i guess i i don't have
00:46:53.680 any reason to believe it's not true it sort of sounds true to me well you kind of at this point
00:46:59.580 have to switch off pretty much every hollywood movie pretty much all of the mainstream news
00:47:05.460 social media social media right like the i mean the institutional take i mean and by the way this
00:47:13.700 is an issue we've been discussing on the show a lot because you know if francis and i want to
00:47:17.680 have kids this is an issue that will come up is well education system is completely taken over as
00:47:22.340 well so what the hell do you do you find other members of your tribe and you get more active i
00:47:30.020 think the problem we have is the people who and i'm going to include the two of you as members
00:47:35.620 of my new tribe the members of our tribe have been incredibly passive and we've allowed people
00:47:44.060 with other intent to influence everyone around us and if you think it's not harmless it will
00:47:53.520 influence your buying habits your voting habits whether you sit on the school board or not
00:48:00.180 i had a pack contact me recently and asked me if i want to run for office in the states
00:48:06.080 if they come forward i'm taking it because i don't have the right to preach advocacy and
00:48:13.900 activity and, and, and showing people that you have a right to question, you have a right to
00:48:20.160 say no, you have a right to look at the flow on effects of what people are promoting and not put
00:48:26.620 myself in the hot seat. And that includes moving to a country, which is a lot tougher than the one
00:48:32.500 I'm in. I mean, the problem is, Dina, isn't the challenge that you're asking people to act against
00:48:39.840 their own self-interest. No, I'm asking them to act for their self-interest. I'm asking them to
00:48:47.020 think beyond today. I'm asking them to gather all of that strength. I mean, for you Brits,
00:48:56.620 you've got it. I watched so much footage of what happened during the Second World War
00:49:02.480 before America came in 0.97
00:49:04.540 and you were standing alone
00:49:06.500 against Nazi Germany
00:49:07.840 I've never seen
00:49:10.420 such collective courage in a people
00:49:12.700 in my life
00:49:14.220 you've got it
00:49:17.300 you have the courage
00:49:18.720 now you just have to act on it
00:49:20.360 social media allows us
00:49:22.880 to find other members
00:49:24.560 of this new tribe
00:49:26.080 even if they're not nearby
00:49:27.560 and we can start
00:49:30.140 not by anything extreme
00:49:31.920 but just by saying no just by asking questions just by telling people no i won't be silenced
00:49:39.780 if what you're saying is valid i want to see the evidence i think that's a very powerful message
00:49:47.140 and actually you've sort of summarized the credo of trigonometry there really it's about asking the
00:49:52.740 questions looking at the data creating a community uh and you know doing things like speaking to
00:49:59.060 people like you and others about these issues to present people with the information. And they can
00:50:04.260 then make up their own mind about the direction that they want to go in. So, Dina, imagine I'm
00:50:09.760 not Constantine Kissin, co-host of Trigonometry, but I am Constantine Kissin, president of the
00:50:15.700 universe. And I've just clicked my fingers and you are all powerful and you can do whatever you want
00:50:20.680 to solve all the racial tension and all the racial problems. What do you do?
00:50:25.140 um talk about common humanity talk about what we have in common um enjoy the differences
00:50:34.420 hold everybody accountable for what they do fix tell people fix yourself first you know
00:50:43.380 before you demand all of these things or other people let's fix ourselves first
00:50:48.860 and i just want to make a brief point from everything i've studied and having lived in
00:50:53.900 the UK, as well as in eight states in the US. I've lived in Germany, France, now Australia.
00:51:01.600 Racism in the UK is not as extreme as it is in the States. And it's in the States, it varies
00:51:08.640 depending on where you are. But when you're having people talk about how racist the UK is,
00:51:15.280 it is not as racist as the US because slavery wasn't such an integral part of your culture.
00:51:21.340 and but i think once people find something in common once they can laugh together once they
00:51:29.440 can eat together okay maybe not for the english sorry but everybody else well we we eat other
00:51:39.880 people's food that's what we do and then we call it our own that's why our national dish is now
00:51:44.080 curry well you know fish i like fish and chips so you've got that at least but once people can
00:51:50.500 get together and look at each other and stop. Let's take the capital letter off of us and the
00:51:58.780 capital letter off of them. Make it a small letter. And it's amazing how much we can learn from each
00:52:06.300 other, how much we can enjoy each other. Let's get back to enjoying each other's company instead of
00:52:12.560 seeing each other as enemies. Do you think we've gone too far down the road though, particularly
00:52:18.300 in the states we're seeing each other as enemies no because there are people like me they should
00:52:23.840 never let me study social psychology no that was that was their mistake if i got into any position
00:52:31.460 of influence i can actually produce i can write scripts i've done it before um i can produce
00:52:38.160 content commercials public service announcements that can show people that can start telling a
00:52:44.500 different story and start undermining this divisive message that is setting us at each other as
00:52:51.720 enemies well i'll tell you what i know you're looking for for financial support and everything
00:52:56.700 but i i think if you start putting stuff out uh even just you talking at the camera uh and you
00:53:03.300 know you send it to a few people you show it to people it will start getting spread around
00:53:07.180 and if it's good which i'm sure will be it will get the audience and then the support will be
00:53:11.660 there whether one wealthy person comes in and supports you or not. So I hope you do that. I
00:53:16.920 hope you keep putting stuff out. I am doing it. I know you are. I hope you keep going is what I'm
00:53:21.360 saying. Well, I would say thank God for YouTube. So my first video on why you're not a racist
00:53:29.580 should be out within the next week or so, followed by bias isn't bigotry, okay? So I'm trying to
00:53:37.300 teach people what's going on that the message that mainstream media will not tell you so that
00:53:44.280 you can't start healing from a place of being kicked constantly let's stop kicking each other
00:53:51.480 and start communicating so it's a really great message and i look forward to to seeing the
00:53:57.260 videos and i'll be doing my best to help you promote them but um we've got one more question
00:54:03.100 free dinner which is what is the one thing we're not talking about but we really should be
00:54:07.420 we're not talking about what we have in common
00:54:10.900 you know everything is about how you're intrinsically different from me you don't
00:54:18.220 understand my world i'm we're not looking for the commonality and and building from there
00:54:25.700 and i think that's our mistake i think that's a really good point uh and a very refreshing
00:54:32.760 take on all of these things which i think is much needed uh dr dean mcmillan thank you so much for
00:54:37.900 coming on the show and thank you everybody for watching we'll be back very soon with another
00:54:42.380 brilliant interview like this one all of them go out at 7 p.m uk time take care and see you soon guys
00:55:02.760 Thank you.