Today, over 70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, there is an urgent need to reaffirm and advance the core principles of the civil-rights movement. The defining question of our time is: How do we break through the demonization and division, and move forward together as Americans? In this episode of Derate the Hate, Wilk talks with Daryl Davis, Bion Bartning, Letitia Kim and Lory Warren, the co-founders of the Prohuman Foundation, to explore compelling questions such as, “How much do identity group labels really tell us about people?”; “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”; And, “How can education help to overcome racism and intolerance?” We discuss the genesis of the Prohuman mission and movement; their focus on promoting the foundational truth that every person is a unique individual, united by our shared humanity; and how the Prohuman approach can make a positive difference for K-12 educators and their students.
Visit www.prohumanfoundation.org to get involved and learn more.
Key takeaways:
Daryl Davis, Global Ambassador and Founding Member of the Board of Directors
Daryl Davis is best known for his talent as a musician; he is an international recording artist and is recognized for being one of the greatest Blues, Boogie Woogie & Rock ’n’ Roll pianists of all time.
In addition to his music career, Daryl is the author of Klan-Destine Relationships, which was the first book written about the Ku Klux Klan by a Black author. His engagement with the KKK started when, while playing at a club in Pennsylvania, a member of the Klan in the audience praised him for his musical style. Daryl recognized that he had an opportunity to ask an important question about racism: “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?” Daryl has interviewed and built relationships with hundreds of KKK members and other White supremacists. His influence has led many of them to renounce their racist ideology.
The documentary film about Daryl’s life’s work, Accidental Courtesy, illustrates his process of conversation and understanding to bridge differences and promote racial reconciliation.
Bion Bartning, Board President and Founding Member of the Board of Directors
Bion Bartning is an entrepreneur and investor, and is also the founder of FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.
Previously, Bion co-founded and led the launch of eos Products, a personal care brand best known today for its iconic egg-shaped lip balm, while serving as an equity partner and Chief Operating Officer of The Kind Group, a privately held company dedicated to the development and expansion of brands.
Bion was also part of American Express’ Strategic Planning Group, where he conceived of and patented a new multi-channel system for booking travel and led the launch of a new consumer online travel business as Director, New Product Development, partnering with a major online travel agency.
Bion earned his MBA from Columbia Business School, and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics and environmental studies from Occidental College. He lives in Miami with his wife and two young children.
Letitia Kim, Treasurer and Founding Member of the Board of Directors
Letitia Kim is an attorney licensed in California and New York. She served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Civil Division of the Northern District of California, where she litigated cases under the Civil Rights Act and other federal statutes. She also practiced at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (now Dentons), focusing almost exclusively on federal litigation and appellate practice. Most recently, Letitia was the legal director at a nonprofit organization advocating for civil rights and liberties in schools and other institutions.
Letitia is an honors graduate of Cornell University, where she received her degree in Philosophy and the University of Michigan Law School. Her passions are reading, physical fitness, traveling, and being a mother to her two children and four pets. She lives in San Francisco.
Lory Warren, Executive Director
Lory Warren brings a range of professional experience to her role as Executive Director at the Prohuman Foundation. She has an extensive background in healthcare, including nursing, hospital administration, network development, and school health services. In the nonprofit sector, Lory has experience in volunteer recruitment and management and most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer at an organization that supported educational initiatives and civil rights. Her most important job is being a wife and mom.
A cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, Lory holds a bachelor’s degree in Human and Organizational Development and a master’s degree in Nursing. She lives in Minnesota with her family and enjoys running, kayaking, skiing, snowshoeing, and anything outdoors.
00:00 Introduction and Purpose of the Pro Human Foundation
03:01 Background of the Pro Human Foundation
05:22 Individual Stories and Motivations
11:08 The Role of Education and Exposure in Battling Ignorance
14:12 The Pro Human Approach and Focus on K-12 Education
22:42 Action Items of the Pro Human Foundation
25:33 Darryl Davis' Role as Global Ambassador
30:23 The Importance of Shared Humanity
38:33 The Pro Human Approach vs. Us vs. Them Mentality
49:47 Recognizing Individual Experiences and Avoiding Oversimplification
56:28 Condemning the Message, Not the Messenger
57:27 Finding Humanity in Others
58:25 Working Towards Redemption and Reconciliation
59:50 Changing the World One Attitude at a Time
01:01:16 Launch of Pro Human Foundation
01:02:13 Bridging the Divide
01:03:36 Recognizing the Humanity in All
01:04:33 Creating Something Together
01:05:30 Unity in the Community
01:06:29 Gratitude and Love for Collaboration
01:07:27 Recognizing Good and Evil in All
01:08:22 Focusing on Common Humanity
01:09:21 Avoiding Oversimplification and Labels
01:10:44 Embracing Collaboration and Inclusion
01:11:12 Spreading the Message and Taking Action
What have you done today to make your life a better life? What have you done today to make the world a better place? The world is a better place if we are better people. That begins with each of us as individuals. Be kind to one another. Be grateful for everything you’ve got. Make each and every day the day that you want it to be!
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I look forward to hearing from you!
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (00:05.866)
All right, folks, this is a real special episode. A lot of people know when I do the Derate The Hate podcast, I typically only have one, maybe two guests. Tonight, I am truly honored to have four guests. And it's more than an honor because it's four people that I admire incredibly, people that I've had conversations with before.
One Mr. Daryl Davis has been on the Derate the Hate podcast before. Then my friend, Bion Bartning, we've had a number of conversations, never on the air. But tonight I have Daryl Davis, Bion Bartning, Lory Warren, and Letitia Kim have joined me on the Derate the Hate podcast. So welcome, folks. Thank you so much for joining me. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all joining me today.
for this incredible conversation and important conversation.
Daryl Davis (01:04.731)
It's our pleasure.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:08.281)
All right, so the reason that we're here today is because there is a new organization launching this month. It's going to be called the Pro Human Foundation. Now, people who may not be familiar with this group, I mean, like I said, I know people, as they hear these names, are going to be familiar with in many ways, especially in the circles.
that we run in the people that listen to the DTH podcast are very familiar with the organization FAIR. I've had a number of people and a number of conversations with people associated with the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism on this podcast. And now I'm excited to find out that some of my favorite people are starting this organization called the Pro Human Foundation. So Lory Warren is going to be the executive director.
of the Pro Human Foundation and then the trio, Daryl Davis, Bion Bartning and Letitia Kim are going to be the founders of Pro Human Foundation. So we're going to get into this conversation, look at what the Pro Human Foundation is, what their goal is, what their mission is with this, and the backstory for what made this thing happen. So.
Let's start with Lory since you are, you're gonna be the executive director. Let's get your story first and I'm just gonna go around with how I see y'all on my screen. So Lory Warren, take it away. Let me know what is the Pro Human Foundation and we'll start right there.
Lory Warren (02:55.062)
Well, why don't I start by telling you what our mission is. Our mission is to promote the foundational truth that we are all unique human beings united by our shared humanity. And I have come to this organization, I have come to this work, first of all, because I'm a mom, I'm doing it for my daughter. And when I...
When I first started doing this work, it really came from a concern over sort of the identitarian way of thinking about things. I noticed so much toxic polarization happening in our world today, as well as people not talking to each other, but talking at each other. And so these were matters of concern for me.
And that's what brought me to this work. And that's what I'm excited about addressing with the Pro Human Foundation.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (03:59.917)
Good. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, that's a battle that we're all fighting these days, right? This identitarian, it's something I've been talking about a lot, obviously, on the Derate 8 podcast, is this toxic identitarianism that's going around how everybody's being tossed in a box. And then, you know, everybody loses that individualism that we have that, in my opinion, is one of the most important things that we do possess as an individual, right? So...
Letitia, what is your role with the Pro Human Foundation, other than founder of course or co-founder, but I know with FAIR, your role was very big in the legal aspect of it. What is your role going to be here in the Pro Human Foundation?
Letitia Kim (04:48.612)
Thanks. That's a great question. My role is basically a board member and an officer. So I'm the secretary treasurer on the board of directors. And so I think that gives with along with Vine and Daryl, I think that gives us a really great opportunity to keep the organization tight and on mission. We're not working with a giant board here. We're not working with the giant staff here. And we have very clear articulated specific goals.
So in terms of what brought me to the Pro Human Foundation, of course, I came, you know, via FAIR. And I have a very similar story to Lory's. I too, you know, after spending several years practicing law, I had children, I quit to focus on my children. And in around 2018, I started noticing really by accident, some things that were appearing in the curriculum that were
at the time, they sounded innocuous enough, we're going to study identity in this unit, but they went in a direction that my husband and I were not anticipating. And really that was not consistent with our values. Now I'm in a multiracial family, my husband's Korean, I'm mostly Mediterranean and my kids are a mix. So it really isn't even clear where my children fall on this matrix that's been adopted by the identitarian movement.
And for a variety of reasons, it struck me as being perhaps well-intentioned, but not the way forward, particularly given the times that we were living in. It really seemed to explode around the time that we had just gone through a very partisan election. So I think...
I think our culture at large was basically putting fire on very dry kindling and boom. So for a while, I just thought I was alone, that my husband and I objected to it, but I live in San Francisco and so I figured, well, nobody objects to this but me. And gradually, I found a small community of people who felt similarly to the way I feel, that we do need to address these pressing
Letitia Kim (07:05.46)
of racism and oppression where it exists, both in the present times and in the past. But we have to do it in a way that honors our shared humanity and does not engender so much anger and hatred, which we saw on full display in 2020, 2021 with the school board meetings that just went crazy. I mean, schools and parents are supposed to be partners, and yet we saw them turn into absolute adversaries. So, you know, being at...
FAIR for me. Part of my role there was to help ideally patch that over and try to create bridges. And then when bridges really weren't possible to then to proceed through litigation, which really wasn't commonly done at FAIR. And then when Vine approached me about joining the Pro Human Foundation, I was thrilled because again,
Our mission is very limited and it's very clear and it fills a needed hole right now in our K through 12 system.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (08:12.649)
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, it absolutely does. It's, uh, it's one of those things. And, and, you know, you brought up a really good point there, Letitia, and we can get into a little bit more, but, uh, that, that's one of the things that, that it has really bugged me. And I know bugged a lot of people that I've talked to, uh, about this, this whole identitarian thing and being placed in boxes and stuff like that. What happens to the interracial, you know, families that the families are or, or mixed race families, right?
And and where do they go and how awkward does that make especially the kids because that's one of the things that I am so passionate about and in so many of these different things is how does it affect the children and what's gonna be? the long-term effect of that and did anybody think about the Toxicity that these boxes are to people who you know are like well I should I can fit in that box and I can fit in that box
And if I don't choose that one, are they going to be mad? And how awkward that is for kids. And that just bugs me so much. So.
Letitia Kim (09:20.04)
Yeah, it is increasing really because I believe I recently read that 20% of new marriages are interracial. So it's a rapidly growing family structure that just can't be.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (09:28.163)
Yeah.
Absolutely. No, it is. So, all right. My buddy, Daryl Davis, such a good, I'm so glad to have you back on the show, man. We it's been too long since we've talked. Yeah, it's great to see you, Daryl. And yeah, there's a there's a number of things that I'm looking forward to asking you, especially with regard to this project, because it's actually, you know, it's something that
Daryl Davis (09:42.456)
Glad to be back and see you soon.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (10:00.621)
that we talked about nearly two years ago in the work that you have been doing, have always done. One of the things that you mentioned in our first conversation, and I've seen so much out of your work, is the real solution to battling ignorance and ignorance leading to fear, fear leading to hate, and hate leading to...
you know, hate leading to anger and anger leading to violence. That solution to the ignorance comes through education and exposure, right? Education and getting people familiar with people that they normally probably wouldn't interact with or maybe haven't been exposed to. So, Daryl, tell me about your role now with the Pro Human Foundation.
and what it really was for you that kind of steered you in this direction and how you,
Bion Bartning (11:01.753)
Thank you.
Daryl Davis (11:15.168)
Okay, sure. Well, I had the pleasure of, you know, I've been in the racial reconciliation arena, if you will, for now, as of 2024, for about 42 years. I've always been interested in that kind of thing and been doing that kind of work. I had the pleasure of meeting Bion Bartning, you know, several years ago, I was referred to him by a mutual acquaintance of ours, and he contacted me and through our conversation, we found that we had a lot in common.
and a great passion for bringing people together and through conversations and solving differences. So he invited me to be on the board of advisors for the organization FAIR, Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. And I remain on that board of advisors. But you know, new doors open and things like that. And I'm proud also to be on this board of advisors of the ProHuman Foundation.
or board of directors, I should say, of the ProHuman Foundation. And we are, like Lory and LaTitia pointed out, we are a smaller, more targeted organization. So we concentrate on solving, you know, not a whole lot of problems, but a limited amount of problems and move from one to the other rather than be as big as we were coming out of a FAIR. So I think, you know, there's room for all kinds of organizations. You need those that are...
that are laser focused and those that are wider focused. And we are the laser focused version.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (12:50.701)
Very nice. Laser focused. And when you say laser focused and, uh, maybe I'll, I'll throw this to, to buy in, but, um, you know, obviously this is going to focus more on, on education than, um, then more on education, less on litigation, right? More, uh, more, uh, engagement with, with youngsters, right? Getting, uh, going right to.
Going back to our conversation a while back, Daryl, when we talked to, how do we address this? We get to the nucleus, right? Root cause problem solving, stamp it out before it gets to the hate, anger, violence situation. So, Bion, talk to me a little bit about, oh, go ahead. Sorry, Daryl.
Daryl Davis (13:38.553)
No, no, we're just talking about what you're saying is being proactive. You know, go to the nucleus. Don't put a bandaid on the symptom. You know, fix the root cause.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (13:48.665)
Very nice. Absolutely. I mean, it's just, it seems, it seems to me and probably everybody else on this, this panel today, it seems so simple yet it's so seldom done. And I, and I just don't know why because it is one of those things that we can look at it. And it's like, okay, well, why, why do we always mess around with, with the aftermath? Why, why are we always going after the, these things?
after they happen. Why don't we try and address them before? So, Bion, talk to me a little bit about that. Talk to me about, you know, how this started for you and what's that backstory there for you, Bion?
Bion Bartning (14:31.737)
Sure, thanks Welk and thanks for having us on. For me, I think similar to Letitia and Lory, I'm a parent and I saw, in my case, it was in 2020, I saw my kid's school, I think, in a well-intentioned but misguided way, embrace.
what I would call a more anti-human approach to addressing real issues of racism, bias, systemic issues that do exist. And when I started looking into where these ideas were coming from, it just really raised a whole bunch of concerns for me. And to me, it felt somewhat existential because I think similar to...
to Letitia, in my case, I'm actually, I have a mixed race background. My father is Mexican and Yaqui. I actually did my 23 and me, and I found that I'm 2% West African even, which was kind of cool. So I have an ancestor from the 1800s from Africa. But I think that's more and more typical in America to have people who have mixed backgrounds. And as Letitia said, the statistics are
are pretty clear that that's the direction that this country is heading. And I think that's a wonderful thing. And so this kind of identitarian group identity-based approach to addressing racism, to me seems not only backwards, but also completely misses the point, because I think more and more children are of mixed ancestry. And I think that that's...
that's the future that we'd all like to see, I think is that people are, you know, are brothers and sisters and see each other that way, regardless of skin color and that we grow, not that we're there yet, but that we grow to see skin color as something that doesn't define a person, you know? And so, you know, it doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. It doesn't mean that these aren't real issues that need to be addressed, but I think where we...
Bion Bartning (16:55.906)
where I came to see an issue, and I think where the Pro Human Foundation would see, would take a different path than some have taken to addressing these issues, is that really the path forward is to recognize that every person is a unique individual, that we need to take the time to invest in getting to know that person. And we are all part of one human race. And so by emphasizing.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (17:18.133)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Bion Bartning (17:21.713)
unique identity, shared humanity, we see that as the path forward. And I think Daryl's been very clear that one of his inspirations and maybe his biggest inspiration has been Martin Luther King. And I think that MLK really did lay out that, articulate clearly the pro-human philosophy. So I...
I don't know that what we're advocating for is brand new. I don't even know that Martin Luther King was the first one to recognize this philosophy. I think this is a philosophy that really has its roots even further back than that. So for me, this is something that is something that I'm passionate about, that I care about deeply, that I see as truly existential.
And I'd like to be part of offering proactive solutions. I think Daryl has said pro-human is proactive and I completely agree with that. And I would also say what brings us together, other than the fact that I love these people, these, LaTisha, Lory, Daryl, I think are just wonderful people. I've had the pleasure of getting to know over the years. But I think that
All of us are problem solvers. We're not reactionaries. We're not the kind of people to get angry and lash out. I think that our approach is to take a more measured approach to understanding problems and then trying to do something to solve them. So I would say we are very much a group of problem solvers.
The focus of the Pro Human Foundation is on K through 12. And that was really what inspired me to start FAIR in the first place is just the experience that I had with my kid's school. I think there is no legal arm of the Pro Human Foundation. We are not a civil liberties or civil rights organization. We are an education organization. And I think that our goal is to
Bion Bartning (19:33.725)
is to really be a light in the darkness and to offer educational materials and support for teachers and students around the pro-human approach.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (19:49.237)
Yeah, and I love that. I absolutely love that. Again, I'll go back to what I said earlier in this conversation. I've said so many times before. We need more people that are focusing on the root cause rather than that reactionary thing, right? I mean, there is always going to be a time for litigation, you know, but if we can focus on that nucleus, focus on
the problem before it becomes a problem. I mean, I'm a business guy. I've been in operations management now for a decade and I've been, you know, one of the things that I try to focus on so much is, I don't like management by crisis. I don't like to fight battles after I'm already on my heels. I would much rather figure out the problem ahead of time or at least identify what the problem could be.
and then work to eliminate that as a possibility going forward so that, again, I'm not fighting that battle on my heels. I'm not ending up in court trying to defend somebody after the damage has been done already. So Lory, talk to me a little bit about some of the action items that the Pro Human Foundation is going to be engaged in to...
to really bring this to like, like Bion said, K through 12 education. What are some of the things that the Pro Human Foundation is going to focus on right away for action items to really get this into the educators or to the educators? Because we know that there's probably going to be pushback because that's just the way that these school boards are right now. So what are some of the things that you guys are doing?
Lory Warren (21:47.15)
Well, first of all, we chose to focus on education because education is so powerful, it's so influential, but with that you also have such a great responsibility. And I also want to say that teachers have it kind of rough in the classroom right now. And so if there is anything that we can do to help them navigate tricky waters, anything that we can do to support educators, that's what we want to do.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (22:03.289)
Mm-hmm.
Lory Warren (22:14.098)
And so our programs will be focused on, we focused on a new set of curriculum. We will also be offering training as well as educator grants. So we will have opportunities for educators to apply for grants that will enable them and empower them to apply pro-human principles in their own classrooms.
And so I'm really excited about what our curriculum is going to look like. We will be working on a curriculum that focuses on concepts such as brain science, resilience, conflict resolution, relationships, fostering community, all rooted in the pro-human principles.
Lory Warren (23:06.606)
And then we will also be, we will also be, you'll also see some creative communications campaigns from us as well, which we're really excited about too.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (23:15.565)
That's awesome. That's awesome. Now, Daryl, I know you spent a FAIR amount of time, amount of your time over the years in classrooms talking to, you know, talking to kids and things like that. Is this going to be, uh, more of a, a train the trainer kind of thing where you're going to get together with, uh, with teachers and administrators and supply them materials and then they're going to present the material or, or is the pro human foundation going to
Be like a train the trainer or you guys gonna have people who go out and represent the organization and get into the schools physically and Interact with the kids. How's that gonna work?
Daryl Davis (23:58.076)
All of the above there, Wilk. As a global ambassador for the ProHuman Foundation, I will be out in the public, in the schools, and wherever, promoting this curricula. Laurie, Latisha, and Brian will be more hands-on in designing the curricula. Out of all the people you have here tonight as your guests, I'm the only one who doesn't have children of my own. And so I have not been a student.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (24:15.726)
Mm-hmm.
Daryl Davis (24:26.284)
in a classroom in a number of years, right? So, yeah, last year, right? But, you know, so I'm not as in tune with what's going on in the classrooms today other than what I hear from people like Bion, Latisha, and Lory and others, you know, who have become just, you know, up in arms about some of the things, you know, that are going on.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (24:30.434)
Maybe a few.
Daryl Davis (24:51.876)
And when I first heard about it, I was incredulous, because that did not go on when I was in school. But you brought up a few things earlier, where you point out that we're becoming a more and more mixed race society. And Letitia pointed out her background and Bion's background, et cetera. Well, I'm 65 years of age. And when I was a kid, I was a little kid.
and in school, you know, all people talk about was how great America is, you know, we are the melting pot, et cetera, et cetera. Well, you know, we were not really the melting pot back then. We talked about it and we praised it, all right? But, you know, minorities were very few. You know, this country was probably, when I was a kid, 87, 88% white. So it was not, it was not a big melting pot. You know, we had.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (25:46.309)
Mm-hmm.
Daryl Davis (25:50.936)
Native Americans who at the time I was a child were only 1% of the population. Today, Native Americans are still 1% of the population. When I was a child, black people were 12% of the population. Today we're 12.9, so we really haven't grown. We are, they say 13% now. Asian, Asian Pacifica Americans were almost 3%. Latino Hispanic Americans were almost 2%.
Today, Asian Pacific Americans are almost 6% and Latino Hispanic Americans are 17 point something percent. So, yes, we are becoming that melting pot that we praised so much back in the day. But now that we are becoming it, people are freaking out about it because they never thought it would come to this point. And I want to point out something to you. This is where all these identitarian politics are coming in.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (26:42.565)
Sure, sure.
Daryl Davis (26:48.656)
where you're trying to put people in a box. Because what I hear from the people that I deal with, and you know the people that I deal with, they're telling me, Daryl, I don't want my grandkids to be brown. They call it the browning of America, or white genocide through miscegenation. So there's your identity. They're trying to preserve whoever they think they are, this race, that race. Where they're mistaken is there is only one race, and it is the human race.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (26:56.172)
Yep.
Daryl Davis (27:16.684)
And we are the pro-human foundation. We stand for all people. And what is very concerning to a lot of people, not everybody in America, but a lot of people in America, is this demographic shift that is happening. And it is well predicted in the year 2042, this country will be 50-50, 50% white and 50% non-white.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (27:16.748)
human race.
Daryl Davis (27:44.296)
And between 2045 and 2050, it's going to flip. And whites will become the minority for the first time in 400 years. While there are a lot of white people in this country who accept that and say, hey, it's no big deal, it's evolution, it's a change, no big deal, I can deal with it. There are those who cannot deal with it. And that's what we're seeing today where people want to be put into a box or put somebody in a box.
and they don't understand this mixture and you're defiling, you're race, et cetera, et cetera. This is where we come in and we have to educate people that we all share the same humanity. We may be unique individuals, but we have that shared humanity. And it's my job, since I don't have children, I can train the adults where they
create the curricula for the kids. So it's a partnership where we get people together, kids and adults on the same page.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (28:47.901)
Yeah. And I, and you know, I love that idea. I'm hearing an echo.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (28:57.505)
I love that idea of, you know, that is the one thing that we all share, right? It may be the only thing that we all share is that shared humanity. And you know, Bion had mentioned, you know, the fact that he's got ancestry in Mexico and even a little bit from West Africa and things like that. And you know, I think about my ancestry. I mean, I'm like 80 some percent Dutch.
You know, and then there's some Eastern European in there, smattered in there and whatever. But the reality is this, it's like, okay, so all of our ancestry at some point, at some point in human history, it's gonna be, I mean, there is no such thing as purity of race. And if anybody thinks that there is, they're delusional. They're, yeah, they're sorely mistaken. It's...
Daryl Davis (29:51.984)
Sorely a mistaken.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (29:55.533)
We've all got people that somehow came together from different places. I mean, it's, you know.
Daryl Davis (30:03.244)
And if you want to go back far enough, we all came from Africa until, until somebody finds older, fossil evidence that we all came from China or something.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (30:07.381)
from Africa, right?
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (30:16.533)
Right, right. Yeah, until there's something more. But yeah, you're right. If they haven't found it by now, well, I can't really say that. I was going to say if they haven't found it by now, but they're finding new stuff every day. And that's great. So Letitia, talk to me, like you said, your children are of mixed race in the sense that your husband's Korean
Caucasian or whatever, you know, whatever Your claim to be racialized as or however, however that works, right? but what are some of the things that first of all that you saw in the Within your school district and obviously you're in San Francisco And and they've got all kinds of different things going on out there that I'm sure that many throughout the country would find disturbing
But what was your true inspiration in that sense and in taking it towards the school level? What were some of the things that you guys were experiencing personally in your area? And how is the Pro Human Foundation going to address those things specifically?
Letitia Kim (31:37.252)
Mm-hmm. Well, from what I understand, well, let me start up by saying my children were and are still in private school. At the time, they were both in elementary school. Now my eldest, my daughter is now in high school. But for my daughter, it started in about fifth grade. And for my son, who went to a different school, all boys, my daughter went to all girls. For my son, it started a little bit younger, I think in about third grade when they started the identity unit.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (31:46.684)
Mm-hmm.
Letitia Kim (32:05.224)
I have to say that one of the things, you know, upon discovering this, you know, pedagogy by sheer accident, really, the first thing I thought was that this is going to drive a wedge within our own family, or potentially it would. And I was very concerned about that because if they are being taught these rigid categories, which of course they don't really fall into a rigid category. But
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (32:24.613)
Mm-hmm.
Letitia Kim (32:34.804)
I generally speaking, they will probably be deemed, if you had to do a coin toss as a person of color. So I felt that they were being effectively told that their own mother belonged to a group of persons that was oppressing them, either indirectly or directly, or through participation in this system, which, you know,
which held them back. Of course that bothered me deeply. I mean, I love my children. I was a sweet mom. Yeah. And it also really, I think almost trivialized my marriage to my husband in the sense that we weren't to be seen as just two human beings who met, who got along, who fell in love. And I've known my husband since college.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (33:09.802)
And who? Yeah. Why wouldn't it? Right?
Letitia Kim (33:34.312)
Um, but we were rather, you know, representatives of two, you know, two racial groups. Um, you know, one of which was actively, you know, uh, you know, oppressing the other, although to be honest, the categories are, you know, seem to be changing. And I, I'm not sure if the East Asians remain in the oppressed category at the moment. Um, but that was my initial reaction. And then of course, I felt that it really is engendering a lot of resentment and anger on all sides.
So I did approach the school. I approached both of my children's schools on more than one occasion. And I saw other manifestations of this as well. My daughter's school administered the implicit association test to the students when they were in, I believe, sixth grade, which of course I had a bit of an issue with because obviously that test has been questioned as non-scientific because it's not
reliable and it's not very predictive of what you're going to do. But it always comes out, you never get the answer, well, you're not, you're okay, you're fine. You're biased. It's just a question of in what direction. My daughter came home and of course she was biased. Of course I did not like that. I approached the school again. I think it's pretty...
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (34:44.494)
Mm-hmm.
Letitia Kim (34:56.652)
It's not unusual. What my kid's school did was not unusual. And again, I'm sure it was well-intentioned. I do not distrust their motives. But I do think it's part of this much larger trend where private schools, especially those that are members of the NAIS, use a curriculum that really doesn't differ all that much from school to school. And so I think...
What the hope is for the Pro Human Foundation is that we will create an alternative curriculum, you know, to at least one of the ones that is, you know, quite popular now, I believe it's called Pollyanna, and give schools a choice and give them a glimpse of what anti-racism education can look like if, as we believe, it is done right constructively.
and in a pro-human way.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (35:58.477)
Yeah, no, and I think that's beautiful because I think a lot of times when people hear the word at least people in the circles that I run in and this has been my personal experience and which is really at the end of the day the only thing I can talk to, right? But when people hear anti-racism and DEI and things like that, they think about people like Ibram X.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (36:25.769)
which is using racism to stamp out racism, in my opinion. At least that's the way that I read it, and I think that's so toxic. And the, you know, kind of going back to the boxes and the identitarianism thing, to me, so much of that material that I've gone over does more to promote the us versus them, us versus them, you know, controversies than it actually does.
to bring us together. So going with the pro-human approach, the pro-human anti-racism approach, something that's not promoting the us versus them mentality. So Bion talk to me a little bit about that and how this pro-human approach differs from that us versus them.
and steers that in a different direction.
Bion Bartning (37:27.065)
Sure, I mean, I think Letitia mentioned Pollyanna, which is a curriculum which is very popular with a lot of independent schools. And they do consulting work as well. And that was the curriculum that my children's school in New York had adopted. And the curriculum is, I think, what I reacted to initially.
was just the oversimplification of some of these complex issues, and in particular, the concept of identity. And it was an important issue for me, because I have brown skin. My kids, my wife is from the former Soviet Union. The kids came out with a skin color closer to hers. So we actually have different skin colors. And so when you're teaching,
children to see their identity as being inherently based on the color of their skin and to see themselves as inherently different, that was quite personal for me. But the other issue, and this I think has become much more relevant or much more widely understood, I think post October 7th, is there was just a deep seated anti-Semitism in the curriculum itself. And again, I don't know that this was intentional, the woman who,
who created Pollyanna is actually a Jewish woman. So I don't know that the intention was to be anti-Semitic. But in the curriculum, it was lumping Jewish people into a white racial group, which A, is not true. Not every Jewish person has Caucasian ancestry. There are Jewish people who are...
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (39:12.962)
Mm-hmm.
Bion Bartning (39:20.813)
have African ancestry, there are Jewish people who have Asian ancestry. So it was something that was teaching ignorance. But second of all, it was really diminishing the recent history of the Holocaust. It completely erased the almost extermination of the Jewish people. And this is at a school that had about 40% Jewish students. So...
So to me, that was something that I reacted to as well. And I think that that's the inherent flaw with any sort of identity-based, any sort of reductionist approach to addressing the real issues of racism and prejudice and anti-Semitism and all these other isms, I think, is that if you take that identity-based approach,
you are always going to be doing things in a way where you are dividing people and you are trying to say who's the bigger victim. But if you take the pro-human approach of saying, look, let's take a step back and just recognize, first and foremost, every person is a unique individual. You can't make any assumptions about somebody just based on what they look like, based on their ancestry.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (40:36.756)
Mm-hmm.
Bion Bartning (40:44.997)
That's just wrong. You can't make assumptions about them. And let's not lose sight of the fact that we're all part of one human race. There is only one race, which is the human race. And so if you take that approach of teaching people unique identity, shared humanity, you're actually going to solve the problem. If you take the identitarian approach, you're going to create more conflict, more divisions. And again, you're seeing it manifest post-October 7, where you have a lot of people now
waking up and saying, oh, wait a minute, this approach was supposed to end bias and prejudice, but actually we're seeing that it's creating anti-Semitism, it's creating anti-Asian bias, it's creating conflict, it's actually creating anti-black racism as well. So it's kind of creating the tools, the solutions that we were given have actually created more racism, not less. And that was kind of my...
My concern when I first spoke up about this three years ago is, you know, hey, I love the idea. I love the idea of anti-racism. I remember talking to Daryl when we first, you know, came up with the term pro-human. And I said to Daryl, I said, Daryl, you know, because actually it was being called anti-racist. You know, Daryl, there's got to be a better way to be anti-racist. Like what my kids' school is doing is not anti-racist. And Daryl had.
Two points, one he said, Bion, you really need to be against the ism, not the ist. Because in the end, every person can be redeemed. We can educate people. But if we're attacking them as a racist, then we've shut down communication. But that doesn't mean we can't be against the ism. But let's try to embrace and win over the racists and the people who we think
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (42:19.621)
There you go, there you go.
Bion Bartning (42:43.133)
are ignorant, but that means we're going to focus on the ism, not the ist. And the second is, it's really important to define yourself by what you're for, not what you're against. And so that's where the term pro-human originated. And I think just to give a little definition to what it means to be pro-human, we've kind of bucketed this in.
in three different ways. And this is going to be in the curriculum, and this is really what embodies the pro-human approach. And it really comes down to three sets of core values that are embedded in the pro-human approach. So the first are the pro-human principles, which we've defined as fairness, understanding, and humanity. And these are really about
societal goals. You know, this benefits all of us because fairness, understanding, humanity, this is kind of the basic ground rules for having a society that is harmonious, right? If you don't have fairness, understanding, humanity, you will not have a just and functioning society, right? The second group of core values that we're focused on are more at the individual level, and these are gratitude, optimism, and grit.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (44:00.556)
Mm-hmm.
Bion Bartning (44:11.553)
which is really about the, it's the psychology of thriving, right, there's science that shows that, you know, for an individual to flourish and to be a fully functioning member of society and to reach their maximum potential, gratitude over grievance is preferred, right? Optimism over pessimism and grit over just giving up, right? So those are the other three core values at the individual level. And then the last are three,
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (44:29.946)
Right.
Bion Bartning (44:40.537)
three core values that I think Daryl has exemplified through his life's work, which are really about positive connections. And these are curiosity, courage, and compassion. And these are the core values that really help to create relationships, healthy, positive relationships between people. And this is how Daryl has been successful in actually connecting with people.
who hated him just because of the color of his skin. And then they came to understand him. He developed positive connections with him through that combination of curiosity, courage, and compassion. And that's really how you change the world, in our opinion, is by as many people as possible not just talking about these values, but living these values, these nine core values, the societal values.
the individual values and these interpersonal relationship core values.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (45:48.033)
No, and that makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know, obviously on the Derate to Hate podcast, I'm constantly talking about, you know, bettering the world one attitude at a time, right? Starts with us as an individual. It's our own mindset. There's so much that's out of our control. But as long as we start with us, recognize ourselves as the one thing that we can change. We can change the world.
in doing so because that's going to spread. And I love these nine principles that fall into here, the societal, the individual, and then the interpersonal. It just makes, again, it makes so much sense and it goes right to the core of the issue. And if you focus on that as a baseline for from which you're going to work,
the possibilities are endless. And I mean, I do love that. And then the fact that we've got a legendary icon like Daryl Davis is the global ambassador for a mission like this, getting out there and sharing, I think so much of what we see today in society is people, they're talking about stuff that's happened.
You know, in theory, but never really worked in real life. But we, we've got, like I said, we've got somebody like Daryl Davis, an icon in the space of, you know, race relations and, and reconciliation and redemption for radicals and, and things like that showing and, and providing true life examples of how. This, these principles are not just.
something that looks good on paper or will you know is a theory thought up in some Intellectual lead or some academic institution that said yeah, this looks great. We're gonna make this, you know We're gonna make this work. This is this is real life real life examples and how this thing can work and then and then just the battling of the against that us versus them thing, I mean obviously
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (48:09.357)
Y'all know on this, on this, uh, everybody on this panel knows that my biggest thing or the thing that I work so much on these days is, is in the depolarization space and, you know, polarization isn't nearly as big a problem, right? If there isn't an us versus them, if there isn't separate buckets, there's nothing to be polarized. I mean, there's always going to be things that we don't agree on and, and disagreement is good and diversity of thought is good.
but it doesn't always have to be toxic.
Bion Bartning (48:43.861)
Yeah, and I think it comes down to people dehumanizing people who they see as different, people who they disagree with. And I think once you dehumanize, that's when horrible things can happen. And that's what scares me, because I think we've seen it in history. And we think it can't happen here, but it does happen. It is happening. And I think that once you start dehumanizing,
Daryl Davis (48:44.158)
That's me.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (48:53.282)
Right.
Bion Bartning (49:13.813)
whether it's because somebody is politically different from you or has a different skin color than you, once you start to see that person as less than human, I think that's when really bad things can happen. So, you know, I think that's where, you know, being pro-human starts with embracing the fact that we are all brothers and sisters. We are all part of one human race.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (49:38.661)
We are all part of one. Go ahead, Darrell.
Daryl Davis (49:40.944)
To add into that, I want to point out, you know, seeing somebody's skin color or their religion or whatever, no, we should not make assumptions about who they can be or what they can become, you know, or this will put them in some kind of a box. But we also need to recognize that there can be certain identifiers.
that go along with those skin colors and religions that an experiences and we don't want to disavow somebody's Experience, you know If if I if I know somebody is Jewish I Know not every Jewish person has experienced anti-semitism But I know if somebody is Jewish there is a chance
that person has experienced anti-Semitism. If somebody is a black American of my age, I know that person has experienced some kind of racism at some point in their life. So I cannot disavow them and just say, oh, you know, I'm not gonna make any assumptions. But now if somebody is black from another country, it's a different story. You know, they may not have experienced the same things that we experienced over here. So, you know, we wanna be very cautious
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (50:48.301)
Mm-hmm.
Daryl Davis (51:05.376)
when we do make assumptions, because we're always going to assume something. It's just like if you call somebody, you call some company on the phone to complain about something or ask if they have a certain product. As soon as a person answers the phone, you don't see that person, but you're making assumptions as to what that person looks like. That person sounds like an old lady, a white lady, a black lady. That person sounds Indian. We're always making assumptions. So that is something that we always do.
A lot of times we are wrong. But it is important to recognize that certain people do have certain histories, and we can't just toss them aside as though they never happened and expect that person to behave normally. That's just like, you know, you don't, you know, you would not expect an adult who has been sexually abused as a kid for years by somebody to not manifest that later on. So you have to be, you know.
cognizant of somebody's history as well.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (52:07.437)
Well, yeah, and I think the word that I'll go back to that Bion used is oversimplification, right? I mean, every individual, while we are individuals, we all have our own stories. We have our own past. We have, you know, some of us have experienced great violence and pain and different things throughout our life. And those different experiences will carry on with us throughout life, but no single thing about
Daryl Davis (52:12.037)
Yes.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (52:35.217)
any of us as an individual can define who we are as human beings. It is not the entirety of our identity. You know, it's just like I'm a white male Christian conservative, right? But none of those individual things make up my entire identity. So each time somebody puts me in...
Daryl Davis (52:41.445)
Absolutely.
Daryl Davis (52:46.832)
Yes.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (53:04.229)
one of those boxes and assumes they know everything about me because I'm a conservative. So, so they automatically assign all these tags to me as a conservative or a white male or a Christian or whatever, or, you know, in your case, a, you know, a black man or in
Jewish people, whatever, you cannot take any of those things and oversimplify it and assume that just because you see one trait or pick up something about them on the phone, now you know everything. You've already started a scenario in your mind by which you think that interaction is going to end. And so often people are wrong. And so...
Daryl Davis (54:01.236)
Exactly. Well, you know, I was talking not too long ago with the former head of the NSM, the National Socialist Movement, which is the largest neo-Nazi organization in this country. His name is Jeff Schoep and I, myself, and a Muslim woman, a great filmmaker named Dia Khan, helped get him out of that. He was the leader of that organization for 25 years.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (54:03.769)
So it goes back to that word.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (54:18.753)
Mm-hmm.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (54:25.261)
Mm-hmm.
Daryl Davis (54:28.288)
And now for the last half decade, he's been working very hard to de-radicalize people still in those kinds of supremacist movements and ideology and prevent young people from going down that road. Anyway, he was telling me not too long ago that he ran into some people from Cameroon and they were telling him that they didn't realize that they were black until they came here.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (54:40.559)
Mm-hmm.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (54:50.285)
Hahaha!
Daryl Davis (54:51.588)
I mean, we laugh, but it's true. And I know because I lived in Africa. I lived in Africa for 10 years, four years in Ethiopia, two years in Ghana, two years in Guinea, two years in Senegal, and visited many African countries in between. And they don't consider themselves black, they just consider themselves African. So, exactly. And that's where we need to get. And this is what the Pro-Human Foundation is about.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (54:54.125)
Right, right. They've never known anything.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (55:13.597)
Just another human being don't
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (55:18.987)
Mm-hmm.
Daryl Davis (55:20.836)
And like Bion was saying, you know, we want to be not against the isst, the racist, that's the person, but the ism, the racism, the message. So in other words, don't kill the messenger, let's condemn the message.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (55:35.285)
kill the messenger, condemn the message. It's just, you know, I just recently had and yeah, I love Jeff Schoep. He's been on the podcast a number of times, a good friend of mine as well. But yeah, I just recently had a conversation on the podcast with Jonathan Rauch and him and I were talking about, you know, don't kill the person, kill the bad idea, but don't kill the person. You know, we have to work hard and that's why I love that whole concept of
You know, go after the ism, but not the, not the ist. The ist, you know, we need to stamp out the ism, but we need to try and redeem the ist, right? Um, like, uh, you know, redemption for radicals, the whole concept of that, uh, you know, I got into that in my first conversation a long, long time ago with Jeff Schoep and, and I've had, had a number of, and he's actually even, uh, guest hosted a, uh,
Daryl Davis (56:14.538)
Exactly.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (56:30.829)
Derate the Hate podcast for me a little while back, talking to another former NSM member, so people can reach back and look at that, but, or listen to that. But the whole concept, right, is if you don't assign a monster tag to the person and realize that even though they are maybe stuck in an evil ideology, like, you know, groups like the NSM or
or the Ku Klux Klan or any number of whatever you want to call white supremacist movements. But if you can at least find that smidgen of humanity in them and then try to connect with that and work towards, work with them towards some type of redemption, some type of reconciliation and
and show them a path forward to getting away from that. Yeah, stamp out the ism, but don't condemn the ist. I like that a lot. We only have so much time on this rock, and if we remember that as human beings, we all have...
something within us. We've got a soul. We've got our own infinite value as human beings. Some people, it's just going to take more work. Some people, to find out what it is within them that makes them one of God's children. Like I said, I'm a Christian, and I believe we're all made in the image of God. As my friend, one of the founders of
of Braver Angels David Blankenhorn says, you know, we all have our blind spots, but not one of us is not worth talking to. You know, if we reach down and groups like the Pro Human Foundation can help others get to that root cause, find a way in to deal with the problems before they do become catastrophic, existential threats, you know, within each individual's life. We can.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (58:50.529)
We can really change the world. We, you know, like I try to do here, you know, bettering mindsets, better, you know, one attitude at a time, bettering the world, one attitude at a time, you know, what the Pro Human Foundation is trying to do. Show each person you are a human being with infinite value. And if you see the humanity in all people and not focus so much on the identitarianism or identitarian way of thinking.
You know, get out of the box, think as an individual, work with other individuals. So, so let's, let's kind of go around the, uh, I know we're probably getting a little close to the end of our time here today, but let's kind of go around and, and do a quick checkout and, and just, what is the, the parting thought? Well, we'll start with Lory again, the parting thought from, uh, from, from our conversation here today. And, and, you know, when is, when is the, the
actual launch of Pro Human Foundation and you know what people can expect right off the bat and what the you know the parting words that you want to leave people with today you start off.
Lory Warren (01:00:05.982)
Um, first of all, Wilk, I just can't thank you enough for having us on. Um, I just appreciate it so much. We've been so excited about this and, um, this has been so fun. It's just been such a pleasure and just a real honor too. So thank you very much for having us. Um, and so, um, as to when we are, when we are launching, we are launching at the end of February. Um, and so you'll be seeing some, um, you'll be seeing plenty of.
emails and communications and social media about that. And we'll be unveiling our website. And so there's lots that's going to be happening here at the end of February. And it's a lot. And so, yeah, it's a lot to do for sure. And so in.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:00:52.405)
Lot to do.
Lory Warren (01:01:02.054)
I want to say that I'm always on the lookout for what pro-human means and what pro-human is. And like you, Wilk, we're interested in a lot of things, including I feel that we are in the bridging the divide space like you are. And Bion sent me.
the other day, something that he saw at a coffee shop. It was a picture of a poem that was written in a window of a coffee shop and it read, Republicans are red, Democrats are blue, but it doesn't matter, we love you. And I said, oh, fine, that's the most pro-human thing I've seen in ages. And because it really spoke to this idea that, you know, we are all...
different. We are all individuals and that's okay, but let's remember that there's something bigger and more important and more fundamental that connects us all. And so to your point, Wilk, that we're all made in the image of our creator. We are, and we are all imperfect, but we're all also...
very worthy of love and redemption. And that to me is what pro-human means.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:02:33.805)
Beautiful beautiful Letitia
Letitia Kim (01:02:42.872)
So I was actually clicking the wrong spot. Yeah, I mean, I think Lory said it really, really perfectly. And I mean, for me, an important takeaway is that the four of us at present who are chiefly involved in this foundation, and there will be more for certain, but we're four different people. We all come from very different backgrounds. And yet, we commonly saw that there was a need for this foundation.
and we're creating something together, you know, despite, and in some ways maybe because of our different backgrounds. I am very, very excited for our curriculum to really be in the works and under a series development. And again, as Lory said, I hope everybody who's listening keeps an eye out for emails and other communications, checks out the website and, you know,
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:03:11.926)
Absolutely.
Letitia Kim (01:03:38.732)
keeps updated as to what we're doing and where we are in the process.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:03:44.245)
Yes. And I'm assuming you're going to have a newsletter and things like that, right? That's going to be coming out on a regular basis, talking about what you guys are doing with the Pro Human Foundation, how people can get involved and things like that, right? So, and Daryl parting words for the DTH listeners?
Daryl Davis (01:04:04.348)
Sure, well, you know we all are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. You know when you buy that jigsaw puzzle and you dump it out of the box, every piece is a different color. Every piece is cut differently. But the puzzle is beautiful when all those pieces fit together. That's what makes the puzzle. Alright, and you know, even as individuals, we all can contribute. Whether you're on the front lines, the back lines, the side lines,
All right, and be on some line and do something. Come join us at ProH You know, we can use you regardless of your station in life. I am a trained professional musician. That's how I make my living. I'm not a sociologist or psychologist, but if I can accomplish the things that I've done, you know, being a rock and roll piano player, anybody can do it. And our country, our society,
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:04:59.077)
Mm-hmm.
Daryl Davis (01:05:02.096)
can only become one of two things. It can become one, that which we sit back and watch it become, or two, that which we stand up and make it become. So it's all an individual question that we have to answer ourselves. Do we wanna sit back and see what our country becomes, or do we wanna stand up and make it become what we wanna see? Personally, I want unity in the community.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:05:25.945)
Unity in the community, man. I love it. I love it. Bion, and take us home, man. What do you got?
Bion Bartning (01:05:32.817)
So I mean, I started off just expressing my love for these three individuals who are on this podcast with us. And I want to close with that. I'm so grateful for their friendship. I'm grateful for this opportunity to really, you know, I think.
bring something positive into the world. And I'm excited for what we're gonna be doing. I wanted to share a quote that really has spoken to me for a long time. And as we were talking about being against the ism and not the ist, I think, I keep coming back to this quote, and it's from Martin Luther King.
There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us When we discover this we are less prone to hate our enemies and I think this is very true And I think that as human beings we tend to be tribal, you know I just I think it's just part of our genetic makeup and I think that what we what we are at risk of and I think especially those of us who don't
acknowledge that we're at risk of this, I think those are the ones who are the most at risk of it, frankly, is ignoring that basic truth that there is evil in our friends and there's good in our enemies and we should really recognize that. And ultimately, we're all human, you know, and so we should find ways to connect with each other. So yeah, so I'm just...
really excited for the launch of the Pre-Human Foundation and for all the good work that this group and the others who will be part of this are gonna do.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:07:32.949)
Yeah, I'm so excited for it myself. I mean, the idea that... I always love to see great people coming together, working together in unison to do things that are gonna make this world a better place. And the idea, again, and thanks for the backstory on how pro-human, what we are for, not necessarily what we are against.
and the idea that, you know, focusing on our common humanity. And one of the things that you brought up there by in that MLK quote, that it really makes me think of something that I key on in a lot of the things that I talk about. And that's, you know, people are so quick, you know, going back to the oversimplification thing, right? People are so quick to put us in a box and then...
within that box, they will use the worst of us as an example by which to define all of us. And I think that's a cautionary thing I want to make people realize when they think about pro-human is there's always going to be people out there that try to put us in boxes, and whatever label they want to put on that box, even if they do,
Don't fall prey to that idea that we have to look within that box, take the worst within that box, and then cast that as the definition of all people in that box. You know, we're all good in some way, we're all bad in some way, we're imperfect human beings, but we are all still human beings. We're all worthy of love, we're all worthy of dignity. And at some point, some way...
Daryl Davis (01:09:13.977)
Yeah.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:09:28.141)
We all have to get along because we've only got one rock to spend our time on. So thank you so much. You guys, you guys are so great.
Daryl Davis (01:09:32.956)
That's right. And let me just give you a quote from Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, who said, I'm gonna paraphrase, she said, "'If they don't have a seat for you at the table, bring a folding chair.'"
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:09:49.233)
That is absolutely right. Well you guys all have a chair at my table any day, any time, and I love you all and I look forward to many more things. I'd love to collaborate more with the Pro Human Foundation and just encourage everybody to, as soon as we get the official launch date, you'll definitely see it in the show notes and check it out.
Daryl Davis (01:10:15.44)
Thank you.
Bion Bartning (01:10:16.505)
Thank you, Wilk.
Letitia Kim (01:10:17.516)
Thank you.
Lory Warren (01:10:17.998)
Thank you, Wilk.
Wilk - DerateTheHate.com (01:10:21.561)
All right, we're going to stop the recording.
Bion Bartning (01:10:24.184)
Thank you.
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