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Behind the Seen

Behind the Seen

By Mark Bauer and Branden Polk

Behind the Seen is a conversation dedicated to uncovering our biases and how to navigate them in a constructive way. New episodes in March 2020
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Episode 14: Understanding Dehumanization

Behind the SeenNov 12, 2018

00:00
42:58
S3 Ep. 6 Victim or Villain with Karith Foster

S3 Ep. 6 Victim or Villain with Karith Foster

Continuing with our #CheckTheBox theme for this season, special guest Karith Foster joins us to discuss two boxes we tend to put people in when it comes to the race conversation: Victim or villain. In reality, those labels aren't so cut and dried, especially when you introduce intersectional identities into the mix. 

Karith Foster is a comic turned motivational speaker, TV & radio personality, actress, author, blogger and entrepreneur—and her new book, 'You Can Be Perfect or You Can Be Happy,' teaches readers basic concepts for embracing life's messiness. In this episode, we discuss how we can apply these same concepts to the race conversation.

Episode Description

Follow us on Instagram

Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod

Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer

Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Website

Wonymedia.com/behindtheseen

*The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and do not reflect that of their employer

Aug 31, 202043:49
S3 Ep. 5: Conscious Masculinity

S3 Ep. 5: Conscious Masculinity

What are barriers to men living conscious, compassionate, connected lives in their homes and communities? How does this apply to the race conversation?

Guest: Addison Brasil, VP of branding for tethr, an online peer-to-peer support community for men.

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Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod

Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer

Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Tethr: @tethrformen

Jul 06, 202058:21
S3 Ep. 4: Policing Behavior and the Preservation of Power

S3 Ep. 4: Policing Behavior and the Preservation of Power

In this episode, we discuss policing behavior (behavior of police) and the act of policing other people's behavior in our day-to-day lives. Recent civil unrest around the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police has shined light on inconsistencies in what we view as acceptable policing. More often, policing of any kind is a preservation of power and is an attempt to invalidate those who are being policed.

#CheckTheBox Call to Action: Who are you policing in your life in attempt to preserve your power over them? Who is policing you in order to preserve their power over you? If you can identify that behavior is occurring, it will set you up to break free of that oppression to live a more fulfilled, balanced, healthy life.

Follow us on Instagram

Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod

Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer

Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Website

Wonymedia.com/behindtheseen

*The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and do not reflect that of their employer

Jun 09, 202028:19
S3 Ep. 3: The Racism of the White Moderate

S3 Ep. 3: The Racism of the White Moderate

In this episode we discuss the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. A lot of white people are being confronted for the first time with the injustice of racism and unsure how to process it. Others are perplexed why race has to be dragged into the equation at all. In this conversation, Branden turns the questions on Mark to discuss how the unexamined identities of white moderates continue to perpetuate racism. The second part of the discussions turns to how to transform guilt into change.

Follow us on Instagram

Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod

Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer

Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Website

Wonymedia.com/behindtheseen

*The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and do not reflect that of their employer

May 16, 202049:55
S3 Ep. 2: Is Love Really Blind?

S3 Ep. 2: Is Love Really Blind?

Apr 29, 202043:54
S3 Ep. 1: Racial Justice in a Post-COVID World

S3 Ep. 1: Racial Justice in a Post-COVID World

Apr 14, 202052:51
S2 Ep. 6: What is Fear Trying to Tell You?

S2 Ep. 6: What is Fear Trying to Tell You?

This is actually a replay of one of our favorite episodes from last season. I've experienced a lot of fear the last few weeks around quitting my job and moving to Los Angeles for the summer, and in conversations with friends there seems to be a widespread season of fear that a lot of folks are walking in. So, in this episode we go a little deeper into understanding what fear is trying to tell us and how we can practice getting over that fear.  Continually pushing the boundaries of what you can overcome unlocks a whole new perspective on life when you aren’t inhibited by fear.

Notes from Show

- Feelings chart by Chip Dodd

Follow us on Instagram

Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod

Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer

Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Website

Wonymedia.com/behindtheseen

*The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and do not reflect that of their employer

Jun 05, 201951:09
S2 Ep. 5: Forgiveness without Repentance, a Review of the Emanuel Documentary

S2 Ep. 5: Forgiveness without Repentance, a Review of the Emanuel Documentary

In this episode, we review the Emanuel documentary, which covers the history of the black church in Charleston leading up to the church shooting in 2015 by Dylan Roof that killed nine congregants, including the pastor. The movie's primary emphasis is on the expressions of forgiveness by family members toward Dylan Roof, less than 48 hours after he committed that heinous act.

Co-hosts Mark Bauer and Branden Polk explore the idea of forgiveness and who it is for, and why forgiveness doesn't need to be preceded by repentance for it to be impactful, right and meaningful. 

We also dovetail into discussions about the contrast between how white offenders are handled by police during arrests, versus how we commonly see black subjects taken into custody. A recent police shooting of Pamela Turner in Baytown, Texas that was caught on camera illustrates this point. 

We also reflect on some points that were raised in a post-screening discussion that Branden and Mark facilitated following a viewing of the film, during which Branden asked attendees for three things black people wished white people would understand about the racial justice conversation, and three things white people wished black people would understand about their perspective on the racial justice conversation.

At the end of this episode, we hope you feel compelled to check out the Emanuel documentary in theaters during a limited run June 17 and 19. Let us know your thoughts by following us on social below! 

Follow us on Instagram

Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod

Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer

Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Website

Wonymedia.com/behindtheseen

*The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and do not reflect that of their employer

May 22, 201948:46
S2 Ep. 4: Understanding Colorism

S2 Ep. 4: Understanding Colorism

May 07, 201955:14
S2 Ep. 3: Racism in Dating (w/ special guest Todrick Hall)

S2 Ep. 3: Racism in Dating (w/ special guest Todrick Hall)

In a freewheeling conversation about dating, singer/songwriter/producer Todrick Hall joins Behind the Seen to discuss our racial “preferences,” how we acquire those preferences in the first place, and why we are OK completely disregarding a different group of people as potential partners based on such inconsequential factors as race.

References

For more on the breakdown of numbers by Nathalie Reshard looking for a straight black man with multiple degrees, who is a high performing athlete and who has never been to prison, visit her blog post here. 

Follow us on Instagram

Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod

Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer

Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Website

Wonymedia.com/behindtheseen

*The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and do not reflect that of their employer

Apr 23, 201901:01:51
S2 Ep. 2: Code Violations | #BeSeen

S2 Ep. 2: Code Violations | #BeSeen

In today's episode, we're talking about code violations. We have our own personal codes, informed by religious texts or some other source, that we violate every day. And we have societal codes, laws and regulations that are in place to help guide, control and keep order in society. 

We discuss how easy it is to slip into a cycle of guilt and shame when we violate our codes, and how difficult it is to break that cycle. It takes a certain amount of privilege to be able to carve out the space necessary to reflect on the behaviors that are leading to code violations, as well as to access the tools necessary to then change that behavior.

On a macro scale, we see the same kinds of problems at play regarding mass incarceration, which disproportionately affects people of color and the economically disadvantaged. One popular retort is: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Not only have we shown how this isn't consistently applied to our own lives, we discuss how it's not always as simple as just not doing something. Our experiences don't exist in a vacuum, and many complex factors contribute to crime: poverty, generational traumas and other motivations. 

Ultimately, the goal of this episode is simply to get you thinking about the topic of criminal justice and mass incarceration in such a way that makes you curious to learn more. For more about the racial disparity in mass incarceration, please visit the Sentencing Project, which has a wealth of information and data on the topic. 

Follow us on Instagram

Behind the Seen: @behindtheseenpod
Mark Bauer: @BarkMauer
Branden Polk: @BrandenPolk

Website

Wonymedia.com/behindtheseen

*The views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and do not reflect that of their employer

Apr 09, 201953:20
S2 Ep. 1: Being Human | #BeSeen

S2 Ep. 1: Being Human | #BeSeen

Welcome back to Season 2 of Behind the Seen! We kick off season 2 with an episode on what it means to be human. A lot of our experience as humans involves stumbling through life trying to figure out what, exactly, makes us tick. What makes us happy. And we have to do this while simultaneously fighting off identities that the world wants to put on us. But we’re never really able to fully comprehend because we have different things competing for our attention.
How does this factor into racial justice? External conflicts emanate from internal conflict. We quiet our internal conflict by embracing life's greatest paradox: We have to lose our life to find it. When we take our gaze off of ourselves long enough to observe the hurt in someone else, we are fully able to see ourselves. That self-emptying, while it contradicts every base human urge within us, really does lead to a joy that surpasses anything external object we could acquire—whether it's fame, fortune or success.
What identities do you need to lay down in order to #BeSeen?
Mar 27, 201950:46
BONUS Episode: Oscar Reaction and Black Representation in Pop Culture

BONUS Episode: Oscar Reaction and Black Representation in Pop Culture

The Oscars never fails to provide good fodder for race discussions and this year proved no different. Despite the diverse representation of presenters throughout the program and several firsts for black honorees and other people of color, the show wasn’t without its detractors. Even the Best Picture winner, Green Book, was widely panned for historical inaccuracies and for how creators approached the storytelling of a black entertainer and his white driver. In this bonus episode of Behind the Seen, filmmaker and producer MoJo Adam and freelance creative director Obi Okolo share their reactions to these Oscar films and discuss why black representation in pop culture and media is so important.

Feb 27, 201959:49
Episode 17: Racism, Slavery and the Church

Episode 17: Racism, Slavery and the Church

In this episode, we take the audio from our first Facebook Live that included special guest Bill Riedel, pastor of Redemption Hill Church in Washington DC. We brought pastor Bill on to discuss the race and the gospel series he preached earlier this summer. He discusses what compelled him to teach on this subject and what he learned in the process.
Dec 20, 201801:02:30
Episode 16: Justification

Episode 16: Justification

In this episode, we discuss Justification, a really strong word used both in a legal context and a theological context. Justification is the act of showing something to be right or reasonable. In the theological context, the action of declaring or making righteous in the sight of God. And in the race conversation, what we’ve done historically is justify legally and spiritually the mistreatment of people who look different from us. These justifications aren’t as explicit as they might have been during slavery or Jim Crow, but they continue to influence how we talk about the mistreatment of the other today.
Nov 26, 201842:44
Episode 15: How to Talk to Your Relatives About Politics at Thanksgiving

Episode 15: How to Talk to Your Relatives About Politics at Thanksgiving

In this episode, we take a different approach to those articles you see all over the place this time of year that tell you how to talk to your relatives about politics. Our culture is so polarized that even a holiday about solidarity and gratitude can be hijacked to create division rather than unity. And so we will talk through what it looks like to have a posture of curiosity and gratitude, and offer some guidance on how to navigate political discussions that do end up getting a little heated. And while Thanksgiving is the springboard to this topic, these lessons are ones that you can actually apply in every aspect of your life.

Featuring special guest Destiny Herndon De La Rosa founder of New Wave Feminist.
Nov 19, 201851:49
Episode 14: Understanding Dehumanization

Episode 14: Understanding Dehumanization

In this episode, we discuss Dehumanization, which is a pretty strong word but one that we all engage in in some degree or another. Dehumanization occurs when we don’t fully see other people for their inherent worth or value. We don’t see the hardships they might be enduring, the joy as well as their sorrows.

You might argue that dehumanization is among the greatest sins. If Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love Lord with all your heart, soul and mind, and then the other one is like it--to love your neighbor as you love yourself. In order to do that, though, it requires you to view the Other in their totality just like you do yourself.

So we’ll break it down today by discussing what it looks like to dehumanize someone in our everyday lives--it doesn’t have to be explicitly racist or bigoted; we'll also look at the language that people tend to use when they dehumanize and some surprising areas where people are dehumanizing others.
Nov 12, 201842:58
Episode 13: The Importance of Safe Spaces — Even for White People

Episode 13: The Importance of Safe Spaces — Even for White People

In this episode, we discuss the importance of safe spaces. They are certainly important for minority or marginalized people to associate to freely air grievances without feeling a need to defend themselves. Less often we hear about safe spaces in regards to white people. Steve Park, executive director and founder of Little Lights in Washington DC, joins the episode to talk about the community guidelines he has erected for a Race Literacy 101 class and why that's necessary to fostering healthy dialogue on the topic of race.
Nov 05, 201840:22
Episode 12: The Politics of Identity

Episode 12: The Politics of Identity

In today's episode, we discuss how identity politics--the associating of people around social groups by which they identify--is often necessary to advancing equity where these groups have been typically marginalized. Politics of identity flips that and is more of a manipulative device that seeks control rather than justice, and uses identity as a wedge.
Oct 30, 201827:39
Episode 11: White Fragility

Episode 11: White Fragility

In this episode we discuss the ego, and how the ego creates stories about ourselves and the world in a way to understand reality. Think of it as a sort of programming. And this programming that tells us how to see the world becomes integral to our identity. And any new information that is introduced that conflicts with what we know literally becomes an attack of the self. How can we posture ourselves for integrating new information into our lives that allows us to live harmoniously with others without giving up core parts of who we are?
Oct 22, 201845:04
Episode 10: Conforming to Expectations

Episode 10: Conforming to Expectations

Today we’re going to talk about expectations, and how our expectations guide so many of our daily actions and how we see and interact with the world. So what are expectations? And what happens when we forfeit parts of ourselves to conform to unhealthy expectations put on us by others?
Oct 15, 201851:12
Episode 9: Reputation

Episode 9: Reputation

Today's episode coincides with Columbus Day, a day dedicated to honoring a man for his contributions to history, but who also committed horrific atrocities in the name of colonization. How should history judge such unsavory characters? We'll discuss how we form ideas about people's reputations, and how too often we take snapshots of people's lives—oftentimes their worst moments—and use those to make judgments about their character and value.
Oct 08, 201843:42
Episode 8: Generational Trauma

Episode 8: Generational Trauma

We all know that we inherit physical characteristics from our parents, but new understandings around a relatively new field called epigenetics, meaning “outside of genetics," shows how we can also inherit our parents fears, stress, and anxieties that even they themselves inherited from their own parents. In this episode, co-hosts Mark Bauer and Branden Polk discuss how that trauma passed down from slavery and Jim Crow might manifest today and what we should do with that knowledge.
Oct 01, 201848:11
Episode 7: Understanding Privilege

Episode 7: Understanding Privilege

Privilege is a word given to an idea that says there are certain advantages that some people have access to based solely on their race, gender or economic status. These advantages are wholly unearned because we were born into them. We inherited opportunities from decisions that other people made. The most obvious ones are those our parents made, but also the decisions those in society have made leading up to the time and place where we find ourselves.

In this episode, Branden Polk and Mark Bauer discuss the real-world effects of privilege and how it impacts our everyday lives.
Sep 24, 201844:35
Episode 6: Are You Listening?

Episode 6: Are You Listening?

In this episode, we delve a little deeper into what it means to actually listen. It’s one thing to hear someone, but it’s another thing to actually understand what they are trying to communicate.

Assuming that you two are speaking the same language, a variety of factors can get in the way of listening. You have the speaker, who is trying to communicate from their perspective and life experiences, and then you have the listener, who is interpreting that information and trying to make sense of it based on their perspective and life experiences.

By the end of the episode, we'll hope you're able to identify areas where you haven't listened and take away some practical applications for hearing others.

*What you’re listening to is raw, unedited dialogue. Views expressed in this podcast are our own.
Sep 17, 201843:32
Episode 5: Using Fear as a Guidepost

Episode 5: Using Fear as a Guidepost

We’ve talked a lot about discomfort and tension when we encounter things that are different than us. This episode will go a little deeper into the actual psychology of that fear. Practicing getting over that fear is like building and stretching any muscle—it requires repetition. And continually pushing the boundaries of what you can overcome unlocks a whole new perspective on life when you aren’t inhibited by fear.
Sep 12, 201846:30
Episode 4: The Excuses We Make

Episode 4: The Excuses We Make

For this episode, it’s important that we talk about justification—or the excuses we make—when we’re confronted with our biases. If the last three episodes have caused you any kind of shame, guilt or anxiety, our typical reaction when we experience that kind of discomfort is to put it on somebody else, usually the person who pointed out our wrongness in the first place. We become the best defenders of ourselves in those moments to absolve our responsibility. But once you realize the discomfort is saying more about you than it is about the other person, there's freedom when you stop running, quit making excuses, and own it.
Sep 05, 201846:02
[BETA] Episode 3: Understanding 'Black Anger'

[BETA] Episode 3: Understanding 'Black Anger'

In this episode, we try to de-stigmatize the stereotype of the "angry black person." We have this idea that civil discourse means we can’t be passionate and angry, and so when dialogue rises to that level, white people use it as an excuse to disengage.

But political dialogue can often get heated, and we rarely shy away from it when we're emphatic about highlighting an issue that's important to us. It’s a necessary tool that we have taken away from a whole segment of people who need to use their voices for expressing their grievances.

*What you're listening to is raw, unedited dialogue. Views expressed in this podcast are our own.
Aug 20, 201842:57
[BETA] Episode 2: Understanding Whiteness

[BETA] Episode 2: Understanding Whiteness

In the first episode, we talked about what is at the root of misunderstandings and the snap judgements we make about people based entirely on the information we’re provided about their outward identities. Those outward identities never tell the full story about who that person is behind the seen, and when we’re confronted with those misunderstandings it creates tension between what we think we know and what actually is.

And when a whole bunch of people live together who share a bunch of commonalities related to economic status, religion, and ethnicity, they develop social norms as general guidelines for living together in a geographically defined area. In the United States, we might call that "Whiteness"--and this isn't in reference to the skin color so much as a social construct. In this episode, we discuss the history of Whiteness and its implications on us today.

*What you're listening to is raw, unedited dialogue. Views expressed in this podcast are our own.
Aug 13, 201840:24
[BETA] Episode 1: Understanding Misunderstanding

[BETA] Episode 1: Understanding Misunderstanding

For this first episode, we introduce who we are, discuss what we’re trying to accomplish and lay some ground rules for the rest of the series.

Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is contribute to dialogue that will help produce racial harmony. We know that there are still terribly, dark, hateful and racist people in the world, but our goal isn’t necessarily to talk to them. The people we’re trying to reach are the ones in the center, where we believe there’s more ignorance than animus, where their perplexity has led to disengagement on the topic.

To open the series, we start by asking questions around why we continue to make snap judgments about people's outward characteristics, and offer some practical tips for navigating the conflict that arises when what we think we know about someone doesn't align with what actually is.

*What you're listening to is raw, unedited dialogue. Views expressed in this podcast are our own.
Aug 13, 201839:47