Through The Red Door
This episode contains strong language and depictions of violence, which may not be suitable for some audiences.
Kevin Jones 00:09
What you were about to hear will not be pleasant for your ears.
Montage
Another cop puts his gun to the back of my head and says, Yeah, take a breath. One move and I'll blow your fucking head off. Suddenly, I see flashing lights behind the quick shrill of a siren. The officer gets out. If you drop your hands while I remove this gun. I'm gonna shoot you in the face. I’m a social worker, psychologist, paramedic, referee, public relations representative, judge, jury, and sometimes, tragically, executioner. Anytime I see that uniform, I think about all the time those bastards have harassed me ever since I was 14 years old. I don't think I'm stopping him because he's black. But I do think I'm stopping him because he fits the description. I didn't want to shoot this baby. But I know this baby was on his way to kill somebody else's baby. I'm not supposed to get frustrated. I’m not supposed to get angry.
Joel Krieger 01:26
Welcomed outside. I'm Joel,
Pavani Yalla 01:29
and I'm Pavani. Each episode will discover design in unexpected places.
Joel Krieger 01:34
So these creators may not always call themselves designers, they actually go by many different labels. But they all have one thing in common. They create moments that have the power to change us.
Quote Montage 01:47
So evolve, takes the nuance, the conflict between two sides, and puts that on stage.
Oh, I was brought to tears several times. The longer the performance went on, the harder the story's got to take.
All I could think about was I wish I had seen this many years ago,
This kind of theater goes in under the radar. It allows these kinds of feelings to go both ways. And that's what's different.
Could you solve this by pushing yourself to be a little bit less comfortable?
It changed my way of thinking. And my mind doesn't change that often.
The hardest part about being a police officer is to have people not see your humanity. I was just to the point where I was done listening. Somehow, this show made it so I'm ready to listen again.
Joel Krieger 02:41
So you just heard from several audience members, reflecting on their experience with evolve, which is the subject of our episode today. And that super intense segment at the very beginning was a montage of monologues from the play itself. And we put that together because we wanted to give you a glimpse into what this experience might be like. I almost hesitate to call it a play because it kind of defies being labeled. I mean, Evolve is really more like a process that enables us to meet moments of polarization and conflict in a really brave way. And it helps people reclaim their curiosity about others, and helps them to ask the question; what is it like to be you? So today, we're going to be speaking with a remarkable creator. He's been an actor and a director who's performed on stage for over 40 years now. His name is Kevin Jones. And he's the artistic director, the CEO, the co-founder of the Red Door Project. This group is kind of like a theatre company with a twist. The story we're going to follow is a still unfolding creative evolution. So we'll begin with a play called Hands Up, which is about the black experience of police profiling, then to Cop Out, which examines the same subject from the perspective of police officers. And finally to Evolve, which weaves both these perspectives together. So I would encourage everyone to kind of listen to this story with a bit of a wide angle lens. Because while we do talk a lot about issues of race, it's really about something much deeper as well. So Pavani, I never realized theater could be such a transformative medium. I mean, what they put together here is really something special.
Pavani Yalla 04:38
I think he’s come up with a platform for change. But it's really, it's more than a platform for change. It's a platform for dialogue, for discourse. We, myself included, want to go change the world. And in order to do that we need to work together to do it. Right. But if we can't even talk to each other, how are we going to work together? How are we going to collaborate and, you know, change anything? How are we going to solve some of the biggest issues of our time, if we can’t even have a conversation? And I find myself in that situation a lot. I am, you know, often these days, especially talking to folks who I think maybe have different values or have different beliefs than I do, that I don't agree with. And it's difficult too... I'm a pretty open person, I'm a nice person. And it's difficult to navigate the conversation because I feel like we don't have a pattern or just, you know, a guide for how to go about having these conversations in a productive way in which neither of us is going to shut down. And we come out on the other end actually wanting to work together.
Joel Krieger 05:55
Well said, Alright, let's go and get into it. We'll join our conversation with Kevin telling us what the red door project is really all about.
Kevin Jones 06:06
Let me just try to give this conversation as sort of a heading so that he can make sure that we are, you know, careful about how we frame things. So you know, we're talking about race, we're talking about issues that are very volatile, and people have a lot of feelings about it. So I'm going to say something that I think that for a lot of folks is really incendiary. But I'm gonna say it anyway, you can edit it out. But I don't really feel like race is the problem. I mean, I think racism does exist, you know, we all know that race is, is a social construct as the term. But the reason I want to talk about it now, I should say, is because you know, I'm a black guy, and I'm going to talk about race a lot. And I just wanted to, I think it's just important. So yeah, I don't think race is the problem. I think, you know, the fact that we hurt each other as human beings, is and that we do that, you know, that that is part of being human. And that we have also criticized the nature of hurting each other. You know, we compartmentalize it, well, you hurt me, you’re prejudiced. Now we have words; like microaggressions, and things like that, that actually really hone in on this notion of hurting each other. But we do do that. And race is not the problem. Race just becomes an excuse you know racism or sexism or homophobia, this is me talking... classism, these have become the reasons that we assigned to these become the story. holders of race, I got a story about racism, I got a story about sexism. I got a story about classism, right. But the bottom line, the thing that holds the structure together, I think, is the fact that we as human beings hurt each other. And we haven't quite figured out how to reconcile that. But the problem will never get solved. I don't think unless we recognize that, that's what we're doing is we're hurting each other. And it doesn't really matter. If you know, someone is racist towards me or whatever. What really matters is whether or not they want to hurt me. Right? And how that manifests itself. So I don't know, I just, you know, that's something that I want to talk about a lot. I would actually... and listen a lot. I'd love to hear other people's ideas and reactions to that, because I just said something that I think can be very incendiary. And I'd love to. Maybe you want to tell me how that lands on you right now?
Joel Krieger 08:33
Yeah, well, actually, it lands quite well, to be honest, that's part of what appealed to me about this was that you can very clearly see how what you've created has had a profound impact in this one topic, but that it applies everywhere. And you just look at what's going on right now around the you know, vaccine versus anti Vax. I mean, it's, it's amazing. There seems to be no end of labels we can put on each other, to “other” someone. It's this; “Us versus Them”. And there's something inherent about the human psyche, that unless we can get past it, this is never gonna go away, we can cure the problem of racism, and then it's going to be something else. It's a constant... you know, just line them up, label after label—there seems to always be a way that we can create an “Us” and a “Them”.
Kevin Jones 09:19
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's well said. So I'll leave that there for a moment. And please feel free to keep me on track. So going back to your question around what theater and acting did for me, there are a lot of different ways to enter that because I got into theater at a relatively late period of my life. But I've always liked watching people, whether it is an airport, bus stop on the street or whatever, and all different kinds of people. And I was always fascinated with that. So I think that was kind of my way in but then once I started to take acting, consider acting as a serious advocation. I noticed that I was always being asked to play people that nobody else wanted to play. Let's just put it that way, right. And I remember telling a director once, just years ago, I said, I don't like these people. And he said to me, well, no wonder you're such a bad actor. And I thought, gee, I thought I was a good actor, but okay. He said, Yeah, you can't play anybody, Kevin, unless you actually learn to love them, not just like them, but love them, you know? Because when you love them, then you understand their motivations. You understand the story behind why they do what they do. Not only do you understand, but you're curious, you have to know you're, you're very active, listening in, you're listening. And you're, you're very adamant about getting the answers to your questions about, you know, like, why does he do this? What you know, everything from, you know, when was he raised by his mom or dad, both parents? Were they together, were the parents loving? How much education did the parents have? Were they religious? Were they not religious? You know, it's like, because you recognize that all of these things are the milieu that make this human being... It's like a systems idea, right? You know, all of your influences, all of the people that have you that have had influence in your life, the ones that you've gotten fights with, you know, what was your dad? You know, what did your dad, what was his vision for you? Right? What was your mom's vision for you? So, that to me was like, once I got that, I was like, Whoa, you know, it really changed the way I thought about race, right? Because, you know, I mean, I remember I was raised in an all black community in New York City, Jamaica, Queens, and the cops were always around. And they're mostly white. And they were, you know, pretty rough. Right? And I remember I tell the story in the TED talk, but I, you know, just being harassed by police officers on my way back from Carnegie Hall, he throws me down on the ground, you know, they all surround me, they look at me, they go, Well, you know, where the fuck are you going so fast, you know, just and, you know, get your black ass on the ground, and yada yada, yada. And it shocked me because these were authority figures. Right, these were the personifications of right and wrong. These are the people that have... that wield all power, you know, I was like 14, 15 years old. And they're talking to me like I was dirt. And I've never been taught to like that before. So it really stayed with me, to the point where I did believe the rhetoric, I did believe the stories about racism, and I did believe that cops hated black people. I've come to learn a different... I have a different story that I tell myself now, a much more nuanced, much more complex story about why cops are hard on black people. But that's where it started. And so when I got introduced to, you know, this idea of really being curious about my characters, it just, not only did it give me a sort of a bridge into someone's perspective, but it also gave me a kind of a welcome sign. And once I was able to do that, then I just noticed that this idea of prejudice and subjugation and oppression and all the language and the stories that we tell about — that they are stories, and you know, and they think stories don't mean what we think they mean. Let's just put it like that. And so the stories I was telling about why police officers were hard on black folks was very different after I played a cop and played a cop who was an alcoholic cop who had been shot too. Especially while doing all of this work as a, with the police officers, that just gave me a certain level of insight into character and understanding how hurt how scared and frustrated how hopeless police officers are. How wounded and some permanently wounded and traumatized police officers are. I think that you know, one of the things about being an artist is maybe you can't know everything that the person was thinking and feeling. But you can get really close. And, and the most important thing is that we can reach a level of empathy and understanding for that individual.
Pavani Yalla 15:13
I'm curious, in the trajectory of becoming an actor and then having this realization that as you get to know the folks that you're acting, you understand them as a whole person. Was there a moment... is the moment that you played a cop where you understood that this was a very specific thing that you were interested in, in investigating further? Or, you know, at what point did you feel like this?
Kevin Jones 15:41
Right. Yeah. So I think, so that takes us back. Right. So I think if I understand your question is this. What was the impetus that got me into this and so that started with the program of Hands Up? So this might be a good time to talk about Hands Up?
Pavani Yalla 16:00
Yeah, tell us about Hands Up.
Kevin Jones 16:02
So I'm going to read you a couple just just excerpts from two monologues. One is from Hands up, and then the other one's from cop out. So we did one play was, it was called Hands Up, seven monologues written by seven black playwrights depicting their life experience as it relates to police profiling. And um, I’ll just go into that monologue now: “I think there's a difference between a Caucasian person and a white person, a Caucasian person is one whose skin just happens to be lighter than yours, they're just trying to get along and get through life and get through America just the same as as a black as any black person. And they don't treat you any different than anybody else. But a white person. When a white person walks into the room, you can tell by the way they've looked at you that they know that they're white, and you're black. It's the smugness in their face, when they look at you they come into events in our community. And they act like they should have special treatment, or even some merit badge for coming off their high horses and spending an evening with the help. And when you enter into the majority of white areas, they look at you like you're lost. What you're about to hear will not be pleasant for your ears. You see, when I speak of white America, I do not speak of every white citizen in America, I speak of the majority of Americans who influenced the laws that keep the good old boy network in power, or reap the benefits of it. While giving their silent consent, in order to protect their privilege. It's pretty much the same as I feel about cops. I know they’re not all assholes, and I know some who actually do a lot of good in the black community. If my loved ones or I were in danger, I would surely call them. But as for the majority, I hate cops. I wish I could stand here and tell you something politically correct. I wish I could make my language nice and plentiful for your ears. But I wouldn't be true to myself if I stood here and told you that I trusted any cop that I didn't know personally before he put on that badge.” So that monologue is from Hands Up. It's called “Superiority Fantasy.” It's about a 15 minute monologue. And that is written by a playwright who actually had this, tells the story about police profiling, how he was stopped, and so on and so forth. And we have six more monologues that tell a different perspective. We have one monologue from an African American man who was biracial, and people who looked white. And people thought he was white, and the internal struggle that he has as a black man who wants to be identified as a black man, but also is aware of the privilege he has from having white skin. We have a monologue from a black man who is adopted by two white parents who talks about he's never, you know, never experienced racism or police profiling, except from his parents, and talks about how he was never able to talk to his parents about being black and so he felt dismissed. So they're very complex, very nuanced. And we said we were going to take the show and present it to six different venues around the city of Portland, just six, we'll just give it to the community. And essentially what we wanted for our community to receive from us were two things. For the white community, we wanted to educate them, because we realized that the stories that they have been told about being black are usually taken from TV, the media, the news, radio, the entertainment industry. And they're so they're jaded. They're, they're not, you know, they're not honest and not real. And so we wanted to give them stories that were real, so that they could start to understand what this relationship with who these people are, and the kinds of relationships that are available to them. And then for people of color, we wanted them, we wanted to give them a place to heal. And what do I mean by heal? You know, I probably have been pulled over and stopped and harassed by police officers more than 100 times in my life. I'm 69 years old. And I remember I was with a friend of mine who was white. And we were in a car together and I got pulled over and the cop just talked to me awful. And he just, he was really rude. He was so rude that my white friend was sitting next to me leaned over and said, “Hey, what the fuck is wrong with you? Calm down.” I’ll never forget. And I freaked out. I was like, “Kenny, don't do that. What are you doing? Never talked to a cop like that. What is your What is? Have you lost your mind?” He said, “No, Man, fuck that. He's, he has no business talking to you like that.” And so they had a little exchange. And the thing that was shocking to me was that the cop calmed down. Never apologized. But he calmed down and he went away. And Kenny and I sat on the curb for a good hour. Me telling him of my experience with police officers. I said “Man, that happens to me all the time. All the time.” He said, “Kevin, I did not know.” He broke into tears. We were in our 40s at the time. And he said “I did not know that is not okay.” That is you know, and, and I realized that two things he'd never, he didn't know the story of what black folks go through. And I never was able to be witnessed by a white person before. I'll be honest with you, and you talk to most black people about this. two things. One is when it happens, they don't tell anybody. They don't tell anybody. They don't even tell their best friends, because it's too much shame in it. Cop pull you over, you must have done something wrong. So there's always a doubt. So you don't tell anyone. So here I am. Here is he's witnessing it. I didn't even have to do anything. I didn't tell him the story. He was a part of the story. So that was very, very, very profound. So black people need that opportunity. So when they come to Hands Up, that's the deal for them. They get to come there, they get to see this. And at the end of it, they go, “That shit happens to me all the time.” And they can say it publicly to everyone, to each other. And we've heard so many black people that would say people of color, not just black people, people of color who would say, “Man, I got a lot of shit to work out here. I got issues. I'm wounded internally. I've been wounded by this.” They realize that for the first time, many times, so I thought that was a great thing. So during the time that we were doing the show, and touring it all around. Someone said the police want to see this show. And I said yeah, okay, but when it doesn't, it doesn't bode well for police officers. This is not a show that you want to bring cops to. You know, there’s a lot of “we hate cops” here. Well, you heard it in that monologue. So I was like, yeah, okay, well, fine. But then someone did come to the show, as a cop, and stood up and said that I think that every police officer should see this show. And I freaked out. And he said and he came over to me at the end of the show, and he said “would you mind in me introducing you to our Director of Training?” that was Bob day at the time. So I met Bob and Bob was like, “Hey, you walk in here, you think you’re going to come in here and tell me how racist cops are? You might as well just turn around and walk out right now. It's not going to happen.” And I said to him “No, that's not what I was gonna say. But I'd love to hear more about what you're thinking and feeling there.” And that began a relationship. I told him that I wanted to interview police officers. We hired playwrights from all over the country, most of them black, to identify police officers in their life that they wanted to interview. And if they couldn't find anyone, we would help them find them. And we produced about 25, 30 police monologues from that powerful model. How about if I read you a short one from Cop Out. Is that okay?
Joel Krieger 25:34
Yeah, that'd be great. And this is from the second show?
Kevin Jones 25:37
Right from the second show, Cop Out: “Are you kidding me? Are you absolutely fucking kidding me? Stopping you because you're black is against the law. Profiling is against the law. You saying I'm breaking the law? That I'm willing to risk my family, my home, everything I stand for just to stop you because you're black? You have any idea how much I don't want to stop you because you're black. First of all, profiling is illegal. And don't tell me I'm getting and don't tell me I'll get away with it in this culture. Please. Shit you can't even even make jokes about it. Yesterday, I stopped the car because of the taillight. So I get to the car and a black guy loses his mind, because it's the 14th time he's been stopped in a white neighborhood in the last three months. He launches into me, you're a fucking racist. You're profiling me. Okay, he's not entirely wrong. Was he stopped all those times because he was black? Probably not. But was he stopped because he fit the description? Possibly. You see, we're trained for possibilities, not probabilities. Here's an example. And this is how it works. A resident calls 911 and reports a robbery. The call taker types in the computer 20, 5’10”, mask, dark skin, maybe, and gives the report to the dispatch. Dispatch gets the report to me, interprets it, and tells me male Black 20s. And I'm on the street at 2am. And I get the report. And I see a black guy, 20 year old male. He's not happy to see me. If we were in a place where there were more black people, New York, Chicago, Oakland, I would have to look more closely. But here, Portland. I don't think I'm stopping him because he's black. But I do think I'm stopping him because he fits the description.” So that's just an excerpt of a monologue called “Full Stop” from the next series of monologues that we produced. And we've created a show called Cop Out. And this was one of the monologues from there. So to go back to your question, how did this happen? It happened through this process. How did how did I why was I interested in playing police officer is because I went through that two, three years of being I'd been heavily entrenched in the world of police officers, interviewing with police officers, spending time having coffee with police officers, being coached by police officers, going on ride alongs with police officers. Hearing, you know, police officers are interesting people, they don't... they don't talk a lot. But then they're incredibly emotional. They're more sensitive than your average bear. And that, you know, so when once they were able to realize that I was trustworthy, that I was on their side, they believed in what we were doing. I just, I had a wealth of material to work with when performing as a police officer.
Pavani Yalla 29:22
So one thing that I didn't realize was that it wasn't necessarily with the intention to have cops come experience it?
Kevin Jones 29:29
Oh, yeah. No.
Pavani Yalla 29:30
So that kind of emerged. And that's when you realize the power of these monologues. I also love the structure or the strategy of leveraging monologues. I guess it's not even a strategy. It's just art. Right? But can you talk a little bit more about that and why you think his monologues were so powerful?
Kevin Jones 29:53
Sure. So the power of story can probably start there. Before we had language, we had stories, right. And then language came as a compliment to stories, but they weren't separate. You know, this is how we learn to do everything that we do. This is how we navigate our conflicts is by watching how other people navigate their conflicts, we learn how to accomplish the certain, all the things that we want to accomplish in our life is by someone first sharing a story about whether it be through a lesson or telling us what happened or, you know, let me tell you something that I want in the future, whatever, it's all wrapped up in story, the learning process is all wrapped up in the story. So realizing that first person, “let me tell you what happened to me” kinds of stories... There's a kind of linkage that happens in the brain. And I'm not a neurologist or cognitive scientist or any of that. And it's kind of amazing that, you know, that thing that happens when someone, “let me tell you what happened to me.” So the monologues are all written in first person. And the design of them is to bring out the humanity in the individual. So how do we do that? Well, first off, we don't assign names to the people, we don't give anyone a lot of background that we let the person come up and talk about. So as you heard from these two monologues, these are just you don't get a lot of context. But because it's in first person, because it's acted well, because it's an emotional arc. It has an impact. So the monologues usually start with Let me tell you a little something about who I am. Let me tell you something about something that happened to me. Let me tell you how I felt about it. Let me tell you about a challenge that occurred because of that, like something that got in my way, or something that I had to overcome in order to accomplish or get to what I wanted. And then let me tell you about the prize or the thing that I received at the end. So monologues tend to have all of those things, because that's what Joseph Campbell discovered is the hero's journey is built into our cognitive map for learning, for mastering, for achieving stuff. It's just, it's just laid in there. That was the amazing discovery that he made, is, you know, they're in the hero's journey as the hero he's in the land of the familiar, he gets a call to the adventure, a call to become something else a call to do something else a call to learn something, to save someone, that takes him out of the world of the familiar, he has to cross a threshold. As he crosses that threshold, he then has to make some, ask himself some questions like, do I really want to do this? Yes, you do. When he does that, he meets his spiritual aide, his mentor, his teacher, his guide, the guide prepares teachers and runs them through some lessons, and then he's tested; did you learn what you needed to learn? Did you accomplish it? And once you do that, then you go and you face into it on your own. And once you face it, you slay the dragon if you will. And you discover in slaying the dragon, that you weren't really afraid of the dragon, or the thing that you thought you were afraid of. It's not out there, it's actually something in yourself. And then you get the prize and you go back to the beginning and share that with your world and with yourself and become a more self actualized human being. And that is just sort of cooked in. It's baked into our storytelling, you know, so we when we told us when we asked our subjects to tell their stories, like we say to the playwright, the writer of the monologue, okay, I'm going back to designing the actual monologues, we would say to the playwright, find a subject and focus on these things. And then they'll allow your creativity to do its thing. Just Just tell whatever story catches you, but remember, just remember that it's got to cover these areas, but the nature of the work and the way in which we approached it, I realize now looking back on it actually allow for us to be able to interview cops and to be able to embrace that process just as much as we did with Hands Up, we had when we were doing Hands Up, which is the show about that was written by black playwrights. There's a lot of anger, there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of histrionics. And we were doing a show for high school kids. And two, black high school kids stood up after the show and said: “I guess this means that I'm going to be dead before I reach... before I become an adult.” We looked at each other at the same time, we thought, Oh, I think it's time to move on from this. I felt almost, I felt guilty. I felt like Oh, geez, you know, if I'm just now seeing this, how long has this been happening? You know, how long have we been propagating this message? And how long have we, you know, benefited from it through our own self, ego, and our own need to be first or whatever. And we had to stop for a minute. And we realize that the only thing we could do at that point was to really, eventually bring both monologues, both sets of monologues together, because we recognize that there were conversations that were starting to emerge from what we had started that weren't based on truth. And we wanted people to become more self aware, and less reactive. I guess, you know, because when we're less reactive where we are, we're just less polarized, and we were realizing that what we were doing was creating a lot of polarization. So I just want to say that was an emergent property of the work that we were doing.
Pavani Yalla 37:11
The focus first with you on Hands Up, and then Cop Out, they were kind of two very, almost opposite sides of that discussion, and you wanted to bring them together so that you have a more holistic…
Kevin Jones 37:26
Yes, Thank you. I wanted to reflect back to the general audience, our actual state, the kind of conversation that we need to be having. And the state that we're in, we are in conflict. And I wanted us to be able to see ourselves on stage with all of our emotion with all of our vehemence with all of our certainty with all of our hurt and pain on both sides. To see how compelling both sides are. Right? It's like we only see one sided. Absolutely, right. I mean, I can't say that's wrong. But when you see both sides being both logical in their own way, there's a symmetry that forces people to look at themselves. Like, Oh, well, what is the truth? What do I think? What do I really believe? Well, I always thought that the black guy was always right around this, but like, you know, he's, the cop is making sense over here. When he talks about, you know, for example, police profiling, it's against the law. Why would they want to do it, of course, they don't want to do that. So yeah, yeah.
Joel Krieger 38:37
It's a very nuanced thing we're dealing with, it's like, we're so conditioned, to have a side. Why does there always have to be a side? And there's something really powerful about, well, there is no side.
Kevin Jones 38:50
Right? Yeah. And why? And, and, given that there is no side? Why are we, as human beings, so invested in creating those sides? It's like, we know plenty about the problem. What we don't know is about each other. It's really what I'm just trying to say. We just don't know how to be curious about each other. And if we could do that, we wouldn't have to be some fancy schmancy, about all of these theories and ideas about why we're not getting along. That's what I believe. I mean, and that's been my observation, I should say, I just, I don't feel safe in the world. like I used to. I feel like I have to find my tribe and, and stay with them. And you know, because I look out, you know, I look at the faces of people on TV and the news and, and what they're up to, and I think oh my God, people are like, just really, like that whole January 6 thing was. Just what was that? You know? Talk about theater. Yeah. Anyway.
Joel Krieger 40:07
Yeah, it's going off the rails, it's almost like this, I think everyone can feel it. There's this underlying sense of something's not right. Something's deeply not right.
Kevin Jones 40:17
Something is deeply not right. That is, that is it. Something is, and we all know it. And I have to feel like, you know, like this conversation that we're having and how we're thinking about this, I have to think that there were the majority, I can't you know, it's so there's a very loud minority of people that are making me scared, right? To the point where I don't trust my ability to connect with other human beings, like I used to think we just have to find ways to do it. And that's what evolved is supposed to do for, for the audience is supposed to give people insight into our problems. And what we try to do is we try to portray some of our most gnarly issues, issues of race. Issues of what we're doing monologues now, judges, we're doing monologues of the homeless, we want people who work with youth. We want to talk to social scientists, we want to talk to people in religion, we want as much from the Zeitgeist, the current days, I guys we want, we want as much as we can stand without confusing folks. We don't want to just stay on the race and police issue.
Pavani Yalla 41:42
It strikes me that you are kind of investigating or learning and are on a journey yourself. Right? It seems like you're really trying to understand what's going on and what those narratives are, rather than having kind of a topic like a single topic that you want to go about in like, an angle, if you will. Yeah. So that's, I think, what is also interesting to me, because you are discovering this work, and really trying to inspect it and understand what it what's really going on here.
Kevin Jones 42:16
Yeah, yeah. Sure. Curating. It's like, how do you curate a culture, you know, like, we were, our job is to reflect back to people. Like the homeless problem. As an example, I have a series of monologues from the homeless right now, homeless women, and the stories about how they got there. Break your heart, shocking, scaring the shit out of you just because it can happen to anybody. And it's the reason why we don't want to look at the homeless problem. Because we can see it happening. Like, I don't want to go, I can't look. But the bottom line is, we don't really have an answer to the problem. And it is a byproduct of how we live. And so to look at that, we immediately have to look at how we live. But everybody's telling me, Kevin, we can't do monologues on the homeless. Why? Because nobody would come. I go, you know how many times we've thought that and we were wrong? Why do you think that now? Because now it's really serious, people don't want to hear or deal with the homeless. I think that there's something in us, a survival mechanism, maybe that will not allow us to face into that kind of hopelessness, or death. You know, and because we are there, we can see how complicit we've been in this. So I have these wonderful monologues that I really want to get out there. And they're just, yeah, they're just beautiful, beautiful stories, but they're hard. They're hard. And they can be, these are people who could be living right next door to you, or be at on your job or people who, you know, go to your church, you know, there's so many things to learn in this relationship with with, that we have with with the homeless, there's so many things that we can learn about ourselves and, and each other, we can really find a way to face into this.
Pavani Yalla 44:26
So you mentioned that this was a really hard topic, but all of the topics that you've delved into are really hard. And when you say that they're hard topics, like do people want to come see this? That's what you're thinking? Yeah, you're thinking about the emotions that they're going to feel. And so can you talk a little bit more about what people feel when they come and experience some of these stories? Like what is that emotional journey that your audience is going through?
Kevin Jones 44:54
Yeah, yeah. I think where people come to, you know, come to the theater to be entertained. I think what happens for folks is because it's one person coming on the stage at a time, and there's no background, you know, we just let him walk out onto the stage, there's maybe some transition music from once one monologue to the next. It always gives them the sense of being entertained. And what they go through is a transformation in what they believe. Right? They think that on a fundamental, fundamental level, they come in believing that life is like this. And they come out understanding that it's not, it's actually like this. So when it comes to white folks hearing about how black people experience their reality, it's like, oh, wow, I really just thought black people were just the ones that were were angry, were just, you know how to, had a problem had anger issues, or there was something that was going on in the culture that just made them that way. But now I understand that, yeah, if I was being harassed by the police, as much as these people are, I would think differently. Holy mackerel, I never thought that before. And the same thing is true for black folks who see this and go, you know, what, I kind of did think this was just my problem. I mean, I know what happens, I hear about it. But you know, and she is thinking, and internalizing these incidents in the same way that I internalize them. And that is very uplifting for most people, it's an illuminating experience, I will say that it's an illuminating experience. It becomes a series of epiphanies for people to where they want to talk about it, you know, the talkbacks that we have, what happens is it becomes like church almost, it's like the room becomes the energy shifts, things get really silent. When the show's over, I will say something or Leslie, my partner will say something like, so we don't want to hear what you think we want to hear what you feel, we ask that you maybe check in with your body first. And just speak from that we don't even if the thought even the thing you're going to say doesn't make any sense. We would much rather hear that. We'd much rather feel that as a group. And that always, you know, creates even more silence, because then people will hope because we immediately want to go into what I think right? And like, then they sort of put the brakes on that. And then, you know, ask themselves, what do they feel? And for some, it's much easier than others. And we as facilitators are trying to sort the space for those groups of people who are on the edge of something, you know, how are some people who are just very fluid, you know, they come to these kinds of things, they immediately know what to say, boom, boom, boom. And then there are some people who are very quiet and stoic and have nothing saying there's nothing you can do to make them say something. But then there's a group of people who are just kind of like... yeah… well....
Pavani Yalla 48:40
Yeah, I can relate to that. Same.
Kevin Jones 48:45
So we try to pull those out. But then what happens is, you know, there's this amazing gathering of people like this, this networking process that happens, people share telephone numbers and contact information. They bring others and they make agreements to get together later.
Pavani Yalla 49:04
Do you feel like then that the monologues themselves? There's a transformation that happens to the point where people are then primed for the talkback. And that the talkback is kind of like a necessary cap to the experience?
Kevin Jones 49:24
Yes, yeah. People would say the show is great. But you come for the talkback, that's what people would say. Because it's the opportunity to hear and share. feelings. You know, we had one audience. It was a black woman. She's sitting in the back of the theater and afterwards she just howled like a wolf. Just howled. An old woman. She was older than me, she was in her seventies. And that's that's it. And an echo that sort of like, bellowed in space. And either I said it or Leslie said it's this is, let's just be with that, please let's not, let's not feel like we have to respond or speak to it or describe it as just let that be. And it was to this day, probably the best talkback we've ever had, where we just were able to go to a deep place as a group, where people were talking about their experiences of being, for example, white and how their parents were, were racist, and how hard it was to, to get over that and how much shame they had in that because of their connections to a racist history or whatever. And hearing, you know, the amount of internalized white oppression that we rarely get a chance to hear publicly. And not in a way of putting them down or shame or feeling any kind of internal shame, but really a way to help them celebrate this, this epiphany that they're having an opportunity to let it out. And watching the marginalized group and black folks and people of color, hold space for them and welcome them and allow that to happen, was really quite powerful. Because, you know, and I think I know, it came from this woman and her howl it was just, I mean, oh, my God, it was gut wrenching. You know? And,
Pavani Yalla 51:41
Yeah, so you created a safe space, basically. And for however many minutes that that lasts, people don't get to experience that really anywhere else. And it's a very unique room at that point.
Kevin Jones 51:57
It's so true. We just don't get to experience that anymore.
Pavani Yalla 52:01
And we should be, to your point earlier around community, you know, how we communicate and dialogue? And
Kevin Jones 52:07
yeah, yeah.
Joel Krieger 52:10
It's almost like, so few of us have ever I mean, I just feel like as a, as a culture, the art of listening, is this forgotten practice? And what you're describing is, I imagine this unfolding. It's almost like the play broke down whatever barriers we have to actually hearing another human being. And then there's this time where you're listening at a level that you may not have ever listened before.
Kevin Jones 52:40
Exactly. That's exactly right. I think, you know, listening is not easy. There's a lot of different kinds of listening and the kind of listening that happens when first person storytelling happens, is the person who's listening. There's a transformation that can happen doesn't always but when it does, it's it's really amazing, is that you become dropped into this container that removes all judgment, it becomes an agnostic listener, you become just, I don't care what the story is, I don't care what this person did. I just want to hear this one, I want to learn. I'm fascinated. I don't even know why I'm fascinated. But I'm just, I just want to hear the end of the story. I want to hear everything. I'm rooting for them. Like a child, you know, I have a grandson, who's six years old. And it's so amazing. When he's you talking to him, it gets up on your lap, he's this close to you. And he's like, listen to you like this. That's where we all came from, is, you know, that kind of listening that kind and so... when we listen, we change, we do change.
Joel Krieger 53:57
Well, what I've noticed about listening to you talk is that your process seems to have this very emergent quality of paying attention and reacting in real time and designing in real time. But at a certain point, you've kind of noticed these patterns, and put it into a kind of a theory of change that I think you call the protect, expand and evolve cycle. I'd love to hear you unpack that process for us.
Kevin Jones 54:21
One of the things that we've learned in the work that we do is that there is truly a cycle that occurs for people when we are changing, when we change our minds, when we learn something new, when we get into a conflict as systems. We do three things, human beings are systems, we protect, we expand and we evolve. Now when people hear that they think linearly they think well, this first this happens, and then this happens. And then this happens. And it's, I think of it more as a quantum thing, it's always happening. But to think about it for the brain to be able to sort of lay it out and understand that it's probably best to lay it out linearly. But just know that in hearing it that way, it's not necessarily how it plays out. All systems on this planet, for example, have a boundary, we have a boundary, we have skin, we have immune systems, and it's there to protect us, it's there to keep us whole. Now, if I need to, if I go outside, and it's really cold outside, then my protective mechanism, which is also protecting my temperature, is going to have to make some adjustments. And now as a human being, what do I mean by that? What is protected look like in the human being, it means I hold on to my values, my beliefs are dear to me. I hold on to my identity, I must be seen as this kind of person, you must see me as a X person, not a THIS person. So those are all of the kinds of mechanisms that keep us in protect. If you make a suggestion that I eat a certain food that I don't believe in or don't like, or it reminds me of something, I'm going to bristle. I don't want that food. Why not? Why don't you try it? You never had it before? Well, it looks bad. What do you mean, it looks bad? How can you tell it's bad, just by the way it looks? Look, if you keep at me like this, I'm gonna hit you in the face, right? All of this is protect. So and so what happens, expand is like, well, you know what, maybe I should give it a try, you know, it looks kind of good. Well, it smells good. Or, you know, I should be more open to things. I'm going to start to try to be more open to things that I, you know, I'm usually closed down to. So I'll give it a try. Let's expand. Now, two things can happen when you expand, you could say, shit, I knew this was bad. And you can go back to protect, because you didn't like what happened. Or you can allow yourself to stay open and curious to the experience. And that's what we try to get people to do, we try to get people to let go of the protective boundary, let go of the protective barrier, and open up and be available to something new. And then in our case, you'll hear something different that you don't like you'll hear if you're a police officer, you're going to hear stuff you don't like if you're someone from community of color, or whatever you're going to hear stuff you don't like, what we are asking you to do is to not shut down know that this is part of the process, what you're feeling angry, protective, judgmental, is all part of the change process, don't give it meaning that it doesn't really have. It's a mechanism. So we can try to get people trained to that, to accept that. So that they can understand it gives them permission, sort of a way to change, we find that when people can embrace that, that gives them sort of a platform to move into expand, and considering new thoughts and ideas. This notion of evolve, you know, think about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, No, there's nothing about a caterpillar that you can recognize in a butterfly, the whole system is different. And we don't realize it, but we as human beings have that ability as well to, right. I mean, we can't change our physical makeup in that same way. But we can in other ways, but we can change our beliefs completely. We can change our values completely. We can change our attitudes, we can change our ideals, you know what is most important, we can literally change those things. And there is a process for doing it. And art is one of the ways and one of the mechanisms that is used to help us get into that process. So the butterfly so the notion of changing and changing completely i think is just understated. Like, we live in a culture where we get the message that it's important to become a fixed person, you know, we establish a fixed sense of self, right? That's what we all are supposed to become something. What are you going to be when you grow up? Who are you going to be, you know, and so, you know, you get your job, you get your degree, and then you're good, you're good to go. So, is that a bad thing? I don't know, I know that there are consequences to that though. Because when you become so fixated on an idea of who you are, then it makes it very, very difficult to evolve. Because evolving means you'd have to find a way to let go of those things. Right. So that's the, and letting go of those things, does require a leap of faith, does require that we are willing to step into the danger. And that's where the hero's journey can help us. Because understanding that through the hero's journey, there's your gateway, there's your template, there's your guide, for going through to that world that's different, that's new for you, you don't have to be afraid that's actually a good thing. And we're aren't does that where art comes in is art helps us through storytelling, through metaphor, through mythology, through mysticism, it provides us with the the messaging, the imaging, the symbols, the sense sensations that we need, in order to be able to determine if this is a safe place, if this is if this transformation is safe for us, we need to hear stories, the mystical thing about hearing a story is that it's not my story, I'm hearing your story. But somehow my brain thinks it's my story. And what I hear you solve the problem, I'm actually solving it for myself. That's kind of mystical. And so that helps us in the process. How do you get there without art and music and celebration? And, and ritual? And sensation? How do you get to that place of transformation without those things, it is not a brain thing. Let's remember that every civilization that has come before us in this world is gone. Right? There's not. And what makes us so special, that we think we're going to be able to figure it out and know that this is this is my PSA here, if we don't figure out how to make that transformation, if we don't figure out how to use the, the human mechanism of art, to the make these transitions that we are attempting to make in our in our world, that we won't have anything left to do, but to do things like figure out how to get to Mars and, you know, keep expanding out, taking, you know, I mean, that's all that's it. That's why I think, yeah, so protect, expand, evolve, is simplistic. But when you really, you know, if you meditate on it, for example, just this notion that you're always in that fluid motion of protect, expand, evolve. And when you can embrace it and understand it and really believe in it. Then it can in fact, transform you in the moment it transforms your way, your orientation in your relationships with people. Because you don't think just because Oh God, I got a funny feeling in my stomach, or, like, the way she looks at me is just really pissing me off. We don't have to, like react. So you know, as if it means so much. It's just the cycle of you protecting, expanding and evolving.
Joel Krieger 1:03:51
So we really wanted to talk to somebody who had experienced a change from attending Evolve. Kevin recommended we speak with Bob Day. Now Bob is a 30 year veteran of the police force. He actually retired in 2019, as deputy chief of police. Bob has a really remarkable journey that goes from being an audience member of hands up to collaborator of cop out, and eventually to serving as a core member of The Red Door project staff. So at the time of Hands Up, Bob was the captain of the training division for the Police Bureau, one of his colleagues saw Hands Up and decided that this is something that Bob should have on his radar. So we set up a meeting between Bob, Kevin and Leslie. So here's Bob telling us about that initial encounter with Kevin.
Bob Day 1:04:41
And I told Kevin that if he was coming here to tell me that cops are racist, he could leave. And Kevin's response was, well, tell me more about that. Which was remarkable, that I never had that response before. And I'm not proud of my delivery, but that's kind of where I was in 2016. You remember, we're coming have, you know, a lot of events, including Michael Brown, Ferguson, Obama had really been on the police, there's just a lot of energy around this conversation that I wasn't prepared or skilled or knowledgeable about how to navigate, as I think is still the case today with a lot of cops. And so when Kevin said, Tell me more about that, that really opened up a door, a conversation that I'd never had before. And so that's what launched us on this, on this journey, was really his willingness to, to be the first one to say, you know to be curious.
Joel Krieger 1:05:37
What were you expecting him to say? When you told him that?
Bob Day 1:05:41
I figured he'd leave. I mean, I was pretty clear in my remarks. And I just, you know, I kind of figured it was an easy way to end an uncomfortable meeting. And then, in that meeting, you know, they really encouraged me to go to Hands Up, they told me about Hands Up what it was, and knowing how I'm seeing that, I've had, you know, 25 years of people telling me, I'm a racist, and I'm a bad person, and cops are bad, and this and that. So I went home, and I told my wife what a crazy invitation I received that day. And she looked at me and said, I think that might be a good opportunity for us, which I tell people now as marriage lingo for: get your coat, we're going to the play. And so we went, and it was exactly what I expected. It was, you know, seven monologues of black people saying all these things about the police that were, you know, largely, you know, hard to hear. And, you know, some of it because it's for the stage is embellished, inflammatory, you know, hyperbolic whatever, but it's a show, but the core essence of it is true. And I knew it was true and accurate. And it's their experience. And at the end of the show, they do a talkback, where the audience can, you know, 250 people in the room, the audience can sort of say what they want. And I was not in uniform, I didn't tell anybody I was a police officer, I just was sitting there with my wife. And towards the end, this black man, he was sitting about, I don't know, six or seven chairs over from me, just an average looking dude, just like me. He wasn't angry, wasn't, you know, intense, he just was talking about how tired he was of the treatment of people of color and city of Portland by the police and this and that. And towards the end, he essentially said, you know, if that doesn't change, I'm, we're going to take matters into our own hands. And I'm like, Huh, that's a fairly significant statement to make. And, you know, this guy is a community member, a person who lives in the city, he seems pretty normal. It's like, it was just like, caught me so flat footed. And I remember thinking, now, I should probably know more about that. And, you know, I did not connect with him. But, you know, going to Kevin afterwards and saying, okay, clearly you're, you're reaching somebody here that I'm not. And my initial, you know, reach out was along the lines of my role as a captain of the Police Bureau responsible for leadership responsible for the men and women doing the work of police in the city of Portland. And then over time, I had no idea how it would, you know, impact me and change my life personally, that that was kind of the beginning of the journey.
Joel Krieger 1:08:34
Yeah. And when you think back to the way you felt, during the show, and after the show, can you describe some of the emotions that you went through?
Bob Day 1:08:46
You know, there was anger, there was frustration, and probably the biggest thing for me was, you know, I wanted to just shout out, you know, that's not true. That's not accurate, you know, policing. So we pride ourselves on, you know, the facts, we just want the facts, what are the facts? Well, I've learned, you know, the facts don't always tell the truth, right. They're not always all of the truth. But we, we try, we strive for accuracy. So it was odd for me to be in this performance, and see it, you know, as a theatrical production. I want to go up there and correct everything. What Kevin's helped me to understand, you know, is the power of art and the power of story. And it is a production. It's not a, you know, documentary. Yeah, you know, what I mean? It's, you know, once I was able to wrap my head around that, then I was able to listen differently and listen to it as a story. And, and what I've learned from that is, it's easy when things are uncomfortable to want to dismiss versus lean in. So what I was essentially doing was, you know, looking for an out like, well, that, you know, that story can't be real because look what they said about Michael Brown, right? So that person's experience can't be real, because they're not even saying the truth about that. So it's you know, you find that you're looking that you're into that uncomfortability level, you're into that dissonance, you know, where something's rubbing up against something that you believe, and it's not the same thing that you believe. So it's like, you know, fingernails coming down a chalkboard, you're trying to get rid of that dissonance, that noise, and the best, easiest way to do that is just dismiss it like now, you know, that's just not right, that's not accurate. So I can move on. And what I've learned is that's, you know, that's, that's the last place I want to be, actually want to, I want to be more curious, I want to sit with that uncomfortability, because that's where the growth and the change and the excitement and the richness really lives in my opinion. After that one, I said to Kevin, you know, I need to know more about this. So I started going to more Hands Up shows. So this is in, like August of ‘16. And just, I mean, I don't want to say this lightly, so please bear with me. Two weeks after we saw that show, we lost our son to cancer, our son was 15 years old, he was diagnosed at age nine, and he fought for six years against Ewing sarcoma. You know, it was really, I mean, in lack of a better word intense, doesn't even partially describe. In fact, it'll be five years this month on August 27, that we lost him. So that's an important, excuse me, that's important note towards sorry, what's going on in my life, right, you know, this, impacted by this, you know, monumental loss that you know, even to this day is still is still painful. So, from you know, I saw the show, had conversations with Kevin, Sam died, then I kind of just, you know, checked out for 30, 60 days, didn't work, you know, just healing, family trauma, all that. But, you know, life does go on. So I got back into conversation, I got back into work, and so forth. And I started attending these Hands Up shows, just because I wanted to hear these stories. And I wanted to hear, you know, what the audiences are saying. And I was sitting there after one of the shows, and this black man stood up as a father. And he started to talk about how he was afraid that his son was going to die at the hands of the police. And I went right back to my dismissive nature. But the likelihood of a black man being killed by the police in this country is actually really low, the argument would be that it is high. But if you look at the numbers, the police kill about 1000 people a year. So 50 to 60 million people a year contacted 10 million people arrested, 1000 of them killed, about 225 of them black. And now that 225, probably, on average, and don’t quote me on this, but the numbers are around 20 a year that are quote, unarmed. So I'm running through all these numbers in my head, like, anyway, as he's talking, his son sitting next to him, he's like, 14, 15 year old kid, he's just embarrassed as hell trying to blend into the theater seat next to his dad. This dad starts to cry, he starts to weep in front of this audience of like, 250 people, and he just starts weeping. And he says, I just don't want to lose my son. Well, I've lost Sam, like, six or seven months earlier. And I'm like, I mean, that just hit me. Because I knew that fear, right? I knew that that sound in his voice, I knew that emotion. And suddenly, you know, I didn't see him as a black guy, me as the police. I just saw us as a couple of dads. You know, we're just a couple of dads who are, just love our kids. It occurred to me in that moment, like, my desire to be right, to be justified, my numbers are accurate. I mean, really, that the likelihood of his son dying at the hands of police are really low from just a pure statistical everyday standpoint, that's irrelevant in this conversation, the tendency for I think all of us, but certainly for me, you know, you want to be right, you want to be justified. You want to be on you know, your side and say, Hey, we're on the side of truth. We're on the side, you know. And in that moment, I realized, you know, what, that's not what's important here, right now, what's important is to hear the fear in that man's voice. And to realize that, you know, rightly or wrongly, that message is being communicated to his son. I mean, it's been communicated very publicly in that room. But we know that, you know, at tables across America, every day, black families are having a totally different conversation about the police than white families are. And so whether I agree with that or not, I needed to understand that's happening. And then I need to understand so what's my role, particularly as a police leader? What's my responsibility in this and that goes back to the curiosity piece. I went back and I sat down with my officers, and I'm like, here's the story. And of course, they're all the same place, you know, and I'm like, no, that doesn't matter. If this 16, 17 year old kid has been told this messaging and believes that, and then we contact him on a traffic stop that we think is just super benign and super, you know, I ran a red light at one o'clock in the morning, we're just going to go up and tell him to knock it off. And as we're walking up on the car, he thinks he's gonna die. You know, and we teach our officers to look for furtive movement, nervousness, sweaty brow, lack of cooperation, you know, reaching around the car, you know, all the things that if you thought this was your moment, you'd probably be experiencing and doing, you can see how these events continue to escalate into these tragic outcomes oftentimes. And so really, that was the transformative moment for me was when I was able to see, you know, it was less about who's right, who's wrong here? And who's on what side and see, actually, what's my role in helping here? What's my role in being a part of the solution? How do you hold competing views? I have strong personal beliefs. Don't get me wrong, I don't. But how do you hold those beliefs in the face of you know, those other competing views, and not just completely shut down, lose your mind, walk away or resort to violence. And that's a muscle that we just don't work very often in this country, particularly in the last couple of years. You're either with me or against me, you're either on my side, or you're not.
Joel Krieger 1:16:31
Most often when we're having a discussion, or a debate, the goal is to win, the goal is to be right, and to convince the other person, but how often do we enter into a conversation? Not trying to be right, but trying to understand why the other person believes what they believe. You use the word curious, that's really what it's about, isn't it? It's just getting people curious to know, why do you believe that? Why do you feel that way? I want to understand.
Bob Day 1:17:01
Well, and the thing about it is, see what curiosity does, Joel, is it, it starts to allow you to move past all those, you know, presuppositions or stereotypes. And then all of a sudden, you start to see that humanity. You know, like, I saw that dad, in a more dramatic way. I am so grateful. My life is richer, I mean, not only just conversations like this, which I love, but I mean, I have sat in the room with some people who have been really, really mad at the police for a long time. And I sit in the room with some really strong white male straight conservatives. I mean, I've had incredible opportunities on both sides of, of this divide. That's just been rich, and that I've learned from, and I think if people would be more open to that, then I mean, I said, I can only speak for myself, but my life is forever changed the relationships, the conversations, the experiences, the places,
Joel Krieger 1:18:00
What is it about Evolve that makes it so powerful? I mean, what is it about this medium?
Bob Day 1:18:05
The crude way that I say that this evolved experience works is we sort of put everybody shit out on the street. Like, we don't hold back the monologues, both by the cops and by the African American participants are pretty raw, pretty in your face, and pretty one sided intentionally so. So I like to say these are the conversations cops are having at Starbucks or in the locker room with each other. These are conversations black people are having in their homes or on the street corner, but they're not conversations people are having together. Well, you can put it on stage. And when it's over, it's kind of like, Huh, well, it's all out there. I guess we need to talk about it. It's a lot to take in. I mean, it's you see it, and you're like, wow, okay, I didn't know anybody actually said that stuff publicly. These emotions are coming to the surface. And now we're actually going to address those, through facilitated conversation through reflection through questions. I mean, it's incredible. I've never seen anything like it. It's using the media and of art, to evoke a response to bring those emotions and ideas to the surface. And then creating space for those to be able to be to be able to be talked about, your voice will be heard, no matter where you're at, on the spectrum, if you go to this thing, your voice is going to be heard, you're going to hear yourself and see yourself in some part of some story somewhere. And that's, you know, that's a good thing. I mean, you want people to connect at some point. Yeah, I can see, you know, I can see that I can understand that. And then you're also going to hear a lot of stuff you don't like, and you don't agree with and that's why we're here. We're here to both affirm and challenge and give you practice and sitting in that space. And, you know, I don't think you can do that in just an everyday conversation because people get too caught up in the moment and the emotion but if they sit through a few monologues, they have time to kind of absorb and process it.
Joel Krieger 1:19:59
Yeah, well, for somebody who's very change adverse, you seem to have embraced change in this part of your life and just, you know, gone all in. I mean, I love it. You're telling me you weren't like that before?
Bob Day 1:20:14
No. Like I said, I just cannot emphasize enough how exciting it has been to have this awakening. I mean, I am your quintessential 100%, conservative, straight fundamental guy. I mean, I'm, you know in my core like, I don't like change, I like things the way they are at Starbucks, I get the same drink. I've gotten the same drink for probably 15 years. We just moved into this house this week, my wife started telling me we were going to move two years ago, because she knew it would take that long to give it up, you know, I mean, I am the model of consistency. And so this is a huge shift for me.
Pavani Yalla 1:21:07
So I didn't get to meet Bob. But you had, it sounds like a great conversation with him.
Joel Krieger 1:21:12
Yeah, it was such a remarkable story. I really enjoyed my time with him, we talked for like two hours, it really left an impression on me, I mean, that you can't really understate the amount of change that he went through. And, to me, that just speaks to the power of this platform that Kevin and his team have developed. But he just kept talking about this richness, this world that has opened up for him. And how grateful he was for this change. It's almost like it has enriched his life. And he knows it. And he lives it every day. It's amazing. But he's kind of made it a practice to be curious about other people. And he had all these stories about being in the middle of these super intense situations, just taking it all in and listening. And it's almost like, I don't know, he's developed these muscles, to be able to sit down and listen to someone who not only do you not disagree with but they kind of hate you without getting triggered. I mean, he's, he's figured out how to maneuver around this reactionary reflex that we all have when we brush up against dissonance. And he just channels it into curiosity. It's amazing.
Pavani Yalla 1:22:26
It's like he recognizes it, names it, and it's like, oh, yeah, it's that thing again, and then just like dismisses it. And then forces the other way of being right. Which is like living into curiosity. And
Joel Krieger 1:22:40
Yeah, Kevin uses this phrase, “embrace dissonance”. Dissonance is something that's unpleasant, we shy away from it, you almost you just don't want to go there. But that's almost what this requires of us, is to, is to lean into it. And that's what I think is so powerful about this project is it gives us a way forward, it gives us a model, to, to wade into those waters of dissonance and to navigate through them.
Pavani Yalla 1:23:10
You know, Kevin, definitely gives credit to storytelling in our conversation. And you'll hear him say several times, like, I'm not a neuroscientist, but it's everything that he's talking about, though, is backed by the science. And we know now through several research studies, that your brain when it's listening to a story, there's a lot that goes on, like a lot of fascinating stuff that goes on both neurologically and chemically. And when someone when you look at the brain of someone who's listening to a story versus when they're just being told facts, their brain will not just the language processing parts of their brain light up, but all the parts of their brain that they would normally be using, if they were experiencing the story themselves also light up. So it's as if your brain thinks you're experiencing the story. It thinks you're there. And that's why we feel transported often when we're listening to a good story, right? And what's also really fascinating is that, so Kevin, you heard him say, Oh, you know, when someone says, Let me tell you about something that happened to me. There's a linkage that happens in your brain. And he's absolutely right. I went back and I looked into this because I was curious about it. When someone is being told a story, their brain mirrors and synchronizes with the brain of the person who's telling them the story, and that's called neural coupling. Which means that you're connecting with this person, neurologically. Which is so interesting because it means storytelling has the power to connect you physically, literally connect you to another person, step inside their shoes, understand their reality and all the things that we talked about when we talk about empathy. I mean, he just there was so much that he talks about and then again, the science really backs it up like he was saying, people listen, when you tell a story. And like, chemically, what's happening is your brain starts to release cortisol, which is kind of like the stress hormone because your brain is trying to figure out what's going to happen in the story. It's trying to figure out how things are going to resolve and that's the attention grabber and the attention capture gets you to listen. Oxytocin is released when you're listening to a story. And that's what gets you to care about the character and gets you to empathize. This is art. But at the same time, there's a lot of science going on, as well.
Joel Krieger 1:25:53
It's almost like it's deceptively simple, because, you know, there's really two parts to this design. There's the two major parts, there's the story. And then there's the dialogue, the talkbacks. These are things that I guess, are taken for granted, in a lot of the design world, it's like, you know, there's this desire to want to use technology are these sophisticated things. And it's almost like this is really all the technology you need to break through this polarization trap. It's like stories and dialogue.
Pavani Yalla 1:26:24
Yeah. So both of those right, story and dialogue, are ways of communicating. And they're just very different. The whole time he was talking about what happens in these talk backs, I couldn't help but wonder and wish that the environment, the ethos, the energy of that room, like how awesome would it be, if that could be replicated? Everywhere that we find ourselves in discourse with folks who might have diametrically opposing views? Too often, we're not in that type of a room when we're talking about these things, right? We're either in an echo chamber, or we're engaging through social media, we're consuming the news. And like, those are the stories we're getting. We're having dinner conversations that are very ineffective. And yeah, it just made me wonder, how awesome would it be if we could just replicate those conditions? Every time we were having important conversations about things like this?
Joel Krieger 1:27:27
Yeah. I mean, speaks to the power of ceremony and ritual. I mean, these are hard conversations, and you cannot just jump right into them. Our default mode of existing and maneuvering through this world does not allow for that type of listening, and dialogue. It just doesn't. I mean, dialogue is a lost art. We talked about this a little bit, how we're kind of losing the we're losing our ability to listen to each other to be curious about each other. We're losing the ability to have real conversations. It's very easy for us to mistake our beliefs for us, you know, it's like you, you are not actually your beliefs. One fun little, I don't know what you call it, if it's like a metaphor, like a little experiment or way of looking at it that I've found helpful. Because I've actually been told that I changed my mind all the time. Yes. So I'm going to take that not as a sign of wishy washy this but as a sign of open mindedness. Sure. So yes, so, but I like to think of it as trying on clothes. So if you think of ideas as clothes, and it's like, oh, here's a shirt, or here's some pants, it's like, oh, that's like, not something I would usually wear. But like, let me put it on for a little bit. I'm gonna walk around in these pants for a day. And it's really kind of fun. Because you, you're not attached to it. It's just a pair of pants. If I don't like it, I'll take it back to the store. But it allows you to inhabit those ideas in a non committal way. It's not threatening to your sense of who you are. It's just, Hmm, what would it be like to believe this, and it's really easy to do. And it's kind of fun. And you just, you know, like any other pair of clothes, when you outgrow them, you discard them, and you get a new pair that fits you. So, you know, I feel like there's lots of techniques like that, we could be playing with to develop our muscle memory for this. It's like, it's like, we almost have to get better at leaning into the dissonance and just being with it. And I think a lot of that has to do with not attaching your identity to these ideas. Because when you aren't so attached, you don't feel threatened. And that's that protect thing that Kevin was talking about. It's like, you don't feel the need to protect to be defensive, if you don't feel like you're being attacked. So if you're able to separate your sense of I from this idea, then I feel like it's easier to steer through that channel, you know?
Pavani Yalla 1:29:53
Yeah, I think these are muscles we all need more and more. Now. I think I know I find myself struggling to have conversations more now than I ever did.
Joel Krieger 1:30:06
Kevin had this great phrase, we're in a state of conflict, we are trapped in opposition. It's, it's the perfect way to capture this moment in time, this structure, this platform they've developed, really should be looked at as a tool that can be built upon that can be used in different ways to tackle really tough subjects to move us past this very binary polarized state that we're in.
Joel Krieger
Alright, that's it for today. Thank you for listening. So it's important to point out that evolve is not only a live event, it's also offered online as well. Now, this version has already been presented to community leaders, law enforcement, judges, and the criminal justice community, as well as corporate clients interested in augmenting their DEI programs, or implicit bias training. You can learn more about this by visiting their website at reddoorproject.org. This podcast is offered for free in the spirit of the gift. It takes an enormous amount of time and energy to put each episode together. So if you find value in these stories, and we really hope that you do, please let us know. You can actually do this right now. It's really easy. Just take a moment, go to our show page on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. It will only take a minute of your time and it will really help us out.
Pavani Yalla 1:31:47
To get key insights from this episode, visit our show notes at outsideinpodcast.org. You can get links to everything we discussed and can learn all about Kevin, his collaborators Evolve and the Red Door Project. If you want to stay in the loop for when new episodes are released, you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, our handle is @outsideinxd or sign up to our mailing list, subscribe on the contact page of our website.
Joel Krieger 1:32:14
Let's go ahead and close with a bit of gratitude. Thank you to Kevin Jones, who gave so freely of his time to dig into his work and his process. It was truly inspiring for us on so many levels. And thank you to Bob Day, who shared so openly about his own personal transformation. Special thanks to our dear friend David Waingarten, who put Kevin's work on our radar and connected us. And thank you to our friends at Blue Chalk Media, who supplied us with the field audio and audience interviews from the Evolve play that we remixed into that mosaic that you heard at the beginning of the show. We’d like to acknowledge the monologues that Kevin read during his interview were excerpts from “Superiority Fantasy” (written by Nathan James) and “Full Stop” (written by Bonnie Ratner).
Alright, that's it for the story. We hope you join us next time.
