Claude Steele Has a Better Way to Talk About Race

Summary

The Gist — "Claude Steele Has a Better Way to Talk About Race"

Host: Mike Pesca | Guest: Claude Steele
Date: June 4, 2026

---

Overview

In this episode, Mike Pesca speaks with renowned social psychologist Claude Steele, author of Churn: The Tension that Divides Us and How to Overcome It and originator of the “stereotype threat” concept. The discussion navigates Steele’s new ideas on “churn”—the social-psychological tension that arises around identity in important situations (race, age, gender, etc.)—and how building trust, not just eliminating prejudice, is essential to achieving a truly inclusive society. The conversation covers the pitfalls of current approaches to diversity and anti-racism, the limitations of colorblind ideologies, and practical experiments and solutions for overcoming churn.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Defining “Churn”

• What is Churn?
  • Steele describes “churn” as the anxiety or vigilance people experience when they fear being judged through the lens of a negative stereotype about an identity they hold (race, age, gender, etc.).
  • Quote: “Churn is a term that refers to the tension we can have when we're in an important situation in our lives… and we're worried that we could be seen and treated in terms of some negative image or stereotype of one of our identities.” (Claude Steele, 13:28)
• Examples
  • The classic example of stereotype threat in testing along with vignettes from the workplace, a parent-teacher conference, or even everyday situations were provided.
  • Quote: “If it's important, that situation, then I'm in churn. I start to figure out how to cope with that pressure.” (Claude Steele, 13:40)

2. Churn as Distinct from Prejudice and Discrimination

• Second Order Effect
  • Churn is not simply about another’s prejudice but about the internal tension produced by the possibility of being seen through a negative stereotype—by both prejudiced and non-prejudiced people.
• Beyond “solving prejudice”
  • Eliminating prejudice alone would not resolve churn; the tension remains as long as stereotypes and lack of trust persist.
  • Quote: “We would imagine that if we could wave a magic wand and eliminate [prejudice], then there'd be no problem here... But… this tension would be there for both prejudiced and non prejudiced people.” (Claude Steele, 20:26)

3. Approaches to Race: Colorblindness and Its Limits

• The French vs. U.S. Models
  • Discussion of the French constitutional colorblindness model and its analogue in American legal/social thinking.
  • Steele acknowledges its progressive intention but notes its downside—denying the real experiences and effects tied to identity.
  • Quote: “Colorblindness is an absolute essential… but it can blind us to the experiences people have based on their identities… So it can make it harder for me to have a trust with you.” (Claude Steele, 23:23–25:14)

4. Building Trust as a Solution

• Centering Trust Instead of Just Focusing on Prejudice
  • Steele’s central prescription is to build trust—especially in settings like schools, workplaces, police interactions—to reduce churn.
  • Quote: “At base, when I'm in churn, I'm in a state where I can't quite trust the situation… The real remedy is maybe a focus on building trust as opposed to, for example, being preoccupied with prejudice or thinking prejudice is the sole issue here.” (Claude Steele, 25:38)
• The Tension Between “Remembering and Forgetting”
  • Churn is partly about whether to remember possible threats tied to identity or to try to “just relax” and trust.
  • Quote: “It's a kind of a tension between remembering and forgetting… do I remember how my group… can be seen in this situation or do I just forget that, relax, assume… that isn't an issue.” (Claude Steele, 25:38)

5. When Anti-Racism and DEI Efforts Backfire

• Unintended Consequences
  • Pesca prompts Steele to discuss how some well-meaning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, or the “Kendi” anti-racism model, can stoke more churn or defensiveness, rather than reducing it.
  • Steele cites research and personal experience as an administrator: sometimes, heavy-handed focus on identity “can make us so preoccupied with identity that we're just tense.”
  • Quote: “It exacerbates churn and makes people defensive and… Are you calling me a racist? I mean, it's not manageable. It's not psychologically manageable.” (Claude Steele, 31:40)

6. Media Narratives, Perception, and Churn

• Churn Amplified by Media and Statistics
  • Pesca observes that overreporting or exaggerating certain incidents (e.g., hate crimes, police shootings) can amplify churn among groups—even if the statistical threat is overstated.
  • Steele agrees, highlighting that the point is not to adjudicate blame but to offer a new framework: “the real issue between us that can get to us and cause churn is trust.”
  • Quote: “It's so easy to sort of drift into kind of a blame game discussion of these things… The book is trying to offer another pathway, another framework for thinking about it.” (Claude Steele, 37:40)

7. Experiment: Reducing Churn Through Curiosity and Openness

• Classic Experiment at Stanford
  • White male students expected to discuss racial profiling with Black peers felt tense; typical diversity training backfired.
  • What worked: telling participants to approach the conversation with openness and curiosity—treating it as an opportunity to learn, asking questions—reduced physical and psychological distance.
  • Quote: “With that instruction, they moved in very close for this difficult conversation, which tells me several things. One of which is that they always were interested in the relationship. What was holding them back was this worry that they would be seen in a certain way.” (Claude Steele, 42:47)

8. Rewards of Good Intentions and Acknowledging Progress

• Intent vs. Impact
  • Steele pushes back on “impact only” mantras, advocating for crediting good intentions and iterative social progress.
  • Quote: “We get credit for that. You know, we tried something that seems… reasonable at the time… So now we find that maybe they worked a little bit, but that they also caused problems. So you move on, you figure out the next move.” (Claude Steele, 44:45)

9. The Uncertainty of Churn and Role of Stereotype Threat

• Churn’s Discomfort Rooted in Uncertainty
  • Uncertainty (“Is this racist/discriminatory or not?”) is often more uncomfortable than certain negative knowledge.
  • Churn draws cognitive energy away, a form of psychological multitasking that can impair performance—not just academically, but socially and professionally.
  • Quote: “They're doing worse in big part because they're… trying too hard… It's multitasking and puts the mind in a frame where you're kind of multitasking… That’s what the book is trying to capture and provide remedies so we can be calmer with each other and connect.” (Claude Steele, 47:45)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Churn is the experience of being in some situation where you worry that, you know, you could be seen in terms of some identity.” (Claude Steele, 13:28)
• “It can make us so preoccupied with identity that we're just tense. We're just completely in churn with each other and make us want to avoid relationships with each other…” (Claude Steele, 30:05)
• “Simply telling [participants]: be open and curious. View this as an opportunity to learn… With that instruction, they moved in very close for this difficult conversation.” (Claude Steele, 42:47)
• “The main goal… is to be able to see full humanity in difference.” (Claude Steele, 45:47)
• "Churn starts to enter the picture now and undermines their performance… It's just a head full of busyness dealing with that situation." (Claude Steele, 47:45)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Definition & Examples of Churn: 13:28 - 18:54
• Churn vs. Prejudice and Discrimination: 18:54 - 21:42
• Colorblindness — Good Intentions, Downsides: 21:42 - 25:14
• Building Trust as Remedy: 25:14 - 29:41
• Failures of DEI and Anti-Racism Approaches: 29:41 - 32:46
• Reporting, Perceptions, Media & Churn: 34:44 - 41:45
• Stanford Experiment – Curiosity/Openness vs. Diversity Training: 41:45 - 44:00
• Intent, Impact, and Acknowledging Progress: 44:00 - 44:45
• Uncertainty and Stereotype Threat: 45:47 - 49:09

---

Conclusion

This episode of The Gist delivers a nuanced and hopeful take on modern identity tensions. Claude Steele argues that after civil rights movements realized legal and formal progress, the central task is now building trust and finding ways to manage the everyday psychological “churn” that can corrode relationships—even without explicit prejudice. He critiques certain popular solutions for diversity and anti-racism, showing through scholarship and practical experiments that openness, curiosity, and validation of intentions pave a route to a better social contract—one in which difference is acknowledged, but not pathologized, and where trust can flourish.

Steele’s message is practical yet optimistic: Success in navigating identity and difference depends on the small, everyday choices to approach each other with trust, openness, and recognition of our shared humanity.

Transcript

[Notion Developer Platform Promoter]

If you build things online, you know the stack can get messy fast docs in one place, project tracking somewhere else, AI tools scattered everywhere. That's why I've been spending more time in Notion lately. It's become the one workspace where I can actually organize ideas, collaborate with people, and now build on top of it too. Notion just launched their new developer platform and it opens up a ton of possibilities for builders, startups and teams. You can create integrations, connect workflows, build AI powered experiences, and customize Notion in ways that fit how you actually work. What I like is that it doesn't feel overly technical or locked behind enterprise complexity. I was recently experimenting with automating some recurring workflow tasks and it was surprisingly easy to get something functional up and running without rebuilding my entire system from scratch. That's the sweet spot. Whether you're building internal tools, AI agents, automations, or entirely new products, the Notion developer platform gives you a flexible foundation to work from. Learn more about Notion's developer platform today at notion.com amp that's all lowercase letters notion.com amp A M P to try Notion's developer platform today notion.com amp Oregon

[Oregon Lottery Announcer]

parks make an Oregon Summer but what makes an Oregon park? Well, Oregon Lottery Gameplay helps no matter the game Megabucks, video lottery or keno funds from lottery games help support parks projects across the state, ensuring they stay safe, accessible and open for all. In fact, Discover State park scratches are in stores now. It's the perfect way to put a little bit of Oregon's parks in your pocket. The Oregon Lottery Together we do good things. Must be 18 or older to play Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for Entertainment only.

[Mike Pesca]

Foreign June 4, 2026 from Peach Fish Productions, it's the gist. Yesterday we brought you the ongoing story of Spencer Pratt, or really the LA mayor's race. And we quoted Fox News saying he is likely, Pratt is likely to get through and I back that up or well, first we questioned likely and then we questioned Fox News. And finally we question Spencer Pratt. I mean a lot of questions there. He used to sell crystals before getting into politics. But then again the current Democratic leadership of L A hasn't been great. So there is the opening, the crystal sized burned down house in the Palisades opening. So we quoted the prediction markets telling you that Pratt had a 75% chance of beating Nithya Rahman as the second person on that ballot for mayor of L A. But now it's totally flipped. It's flipped and Nithya Rahman is now at 67% and Pratt said at 37%, that's couchy polymarket. Is it? Slightly differently, but what happened was just as we said and the experts said the vote is going to come in the vote that comes in late, trend towards. Trends towards the Democrat. Yes, I know no one is declaring their affiliation, but Nithya Rahman is the Democrat, is the much more leftward leaning and governing person between him and Pratt, who of course hasn't governed and all that is going to help her. All this late vote, the question is on election day was the lead, the 8% lead that Pratt had enough to be a buffer to protect him from all this that we've been talking about. The reason they're saying that this could be a Nithya Rahman win or second place finish is that there are more votes out there than they thought. So think about it. As the later vote comes in and is the later vote maybe is 10% more towards Rahman than Pratt? The amount of the vote begins to matter a lot. And this is why the markets have said, ah, now it might be a ramen victory. The question I've been asking myself is, although it's a little frustrating to know the answer, is there a cost? It'd be nice to have certainty on day one. Is there a cost? And I think that there are small costs, but the costs are mainly giving too much power to malefactors within the political process. The people who say this vote is coming in and Pratt's going to lose. It's fishy. It's fishy. Investigate the election. I mean, it would be better if California were able to count this quicker, but since they have rules that allow you to put your ballot in the mail right up until the postmark is due the day before, it's going to take a while. And so as I think about it, I can't really think of any significant downsides. Unless you give a lot of power to the forces of confusion, who will make a big deal out of an accurate count. I can't think of too much of a downside when weighed against the benefit of just having a fair and full and accurate counting of the vote. So if you can think of any, let me know. I'm at [e-mail]. drop me a line. But as I can see it, I don't know how it's going to shake out. If it does shake out at this petty pace, as the board said, I think it's not as good as if we knew right away. But really isn't the demand that we know right away. Isn't that based more on turning the election into a TV show and turning election night into a TV show? And all of us who are interested in politics or just civic minded do want to know now. But I think it's okay to wait until we get the accurate counting of the vote, whether that's Pratt or whether that's Rahman or maybe the dark horse candidate shows himself or herself. Yes, I'm talking about Nelson chang, currently at 648 votes, 0.1%. Could be the chain gang could show themselves. I doubt it, but it could happen. And in that case, I would call for an investigation on the show today. Someone I have never had that I checked my notes. I've never had him on the show. He's Claude Steele. He is a preeminent academic, a social psychologist. He was at Stanford for many years, still is an emeritus professor there. And he's best known for his concepts of stereotype threat, which has been validated very often where you have to think about if there are certain stereotypes and those stereotypes are in the air when you, for instance, make people cognizant of their racial category before taking a test, still show that test results go down, you know, and there are many other ways in which stereotype threat does threaten the fabric of society. But it's been years since then he's been writing and churning out ideas and his new book, speaking of Churn, is called Churn, the Tension that Divides Us and How to Overcome It. And the overcome it part I thought was really hopeful. Claude Steele. Up next, The 2026 primaries are taking shape and you could trade the biggest political races on Kalshi, on Calshi, you could trade major primaries, election outcomes and the biggest political storylines as they happen. Will Spencer Pratt become the mayor of la? I don't know, probably not. But that probability has a number. And if the public's assessment of the probability is different from mine, I could have fun with it and not just sit thousands of miles away and say, how's this thing going? I could say, how's this thing going? And I'm making some money off it. Hey, look, I don't want to talk about specific candidates. In the presidential race, there are all these Democratic candidates who are like 2% and if you quote, invest in them, they go up to 6% chance of winning and you feel great about yourself, right? So from two to six, a hundred dollars trade, if you put in $100, I mean, you're getting $300 right there at Kalsheet. And Let me tell you one other thing. This is a hedge against disappointment in a way. That's how I use it psychologically. If I see someone who I think is undervalued and just might win and it wouldn't necessarily please me, you know, making a couple bucks on it on the side is that silver lining that maybe gets election Day? For a limited time, download the Calshi app and use code gist to get $10. When you trade 10, you got to do that. There's no way. Why? Why would you leave $10 on the table? K A L S H I kalshi trade on anything 18 and over. Only restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices, values and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see kalshee.com/regulators here's something I hate. I mean, I hate having to make a call to customer service. But these days, man, are you inviting on yourself. Just endless frustration, no one getting back to you. And then on the other side of it, if you do run a business and this isn't your strategy because I know a lot of businesses, mine included, want to be responsive to customers. They just know that missed calls or not following up, it's just a killer for businesses. That's how you leave money on the table. That is why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q U O the business communication system built so you never miss a call. Kuo is the number one rated business phone system on G2 with over 3,000 reviews views. It's built for how modern teams work and more than 90,000 businesses, from just a guy working alone to really big teams, rely on it to stay connected and professional and consistently reachable. And don't you want that as a point of pride? Not just for the business case, but for who you are and how you represent yourself as a business. It works wherever you are, right from your phone or computer. Keep your existing number and teammates in minutes, sync your CRM and let the call routing handle itself as you scale. It's so very, very easy. And they give you the voicemails and the transcripts and it's all in one clean view. You don't have to press a million codes to chase it down. Money is on the line. Always say hello with quo. Try quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com gist that's quo.com gist live shopping on whatnot is exploding right now. Exploding in the good way I've seen the shows, I've seen the rankings, I've seen the revenue numbers. The numbers of sellers making over $1 million on whatnot has doubled in the last year. So if you're selling online or out of a storefront, which they still have full time side hustle, you know how hard it is. You're hoping that someone somehow finds your listing. You wait for them to walk in. Whatnot flips that. On Whatnot, you go live, you sell directly to people in real time. They see what you've got, they ask questions, they keep coming back. My producer Corey loves whatnot and he's always selling and acquiring collectibles. Let us even call them collectibles. I don't want to use brand names, but they are a fun company. Anyone can sell whether your business is big, small, or yet to exist. Across Whatnot, the number of sellers making over a million dollars a year has doubled. Some make more. This is how averages work. Some make less. But consistency pays off. Download the Whatnot app today and get free shipping on your first order. Just search for Whatnot wh a t n o t whatnot in the app Store and start scoring amazing deals Oregon

[Oregon Lottery Announcer]

Parks make an Oregon Summer but what makes an Oregon park? Well, Oregon Lottery Gameplay helps no matter the game Megabucks, video lottery or keno funds from lottery games help support parks projects across the state, ensuring they stay safe, accessible and open for all. In fact, Discover State Park Scratches are in stores now. It's the perfect way to put a little bit of Oregon's parks in your pocket. The Oregon Lottery Together we do good things. Must be 18 or older to play Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment only.

[Mike Pesca]

Claude Steele has not been on the show before, but I am so pleased to welcome him. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Arts and Sciences and is the Lucy Stern professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Stanford University, has written a few books that are in the pantheon of modern sociology and has a new contribution called Churn. The Tension that Divides Us and How to Overcome It. Welcome to the gist.

[Claude Steele]

Great pleasure to be here.

[Mike Pesca]

So excuse. I excuse myself by asking the obvious, but we can't have this conversation without you providing the definition. I'm sure it's what everyone asks to lead things off, but would you please tell us what you mean by Chernobyl?

[Claude Steele]

Yeah, Churn is a term that refers to the tension we can have when we're in an important situation in our lives, like a classroom or a workplace or a Traffic stop. And we're worried that we could be seen and treated in terms of some negative image or stereotype of one of our identities. Then we just know that we could be seen that way. And because the situation is important, it's upsetting and we become vigilant and kind of, we're trying to think strategically, how can I handle this? What's going on? What's the best way to cope with this and why am I experiencing this and is it fair? And all of those things are what I'm trying to refer to as churn. It's just the experience may be the best term being in some situation where you worry that, you know, you could be seen in terms of some identity. I'm an, I'm an older guy now and there are circumstances where, you know, I could worry that I would be seen in terms of stereotypes of older people, that my views are dated, that I'm not so good at technology and so on. So. And if it's important that situation, then I'm insurance. I start to figure out how to cope with that pressure. And that's what that is referring to.

[Mike Pesca]

So is churn essentially a second order effect of stereotyping?

[Claude Steele]

It is, you know, we all know the stereotypes of our various identities and we know the negative stereotypes of our negative identities. And so when we're in a situation where they could apply and it's again, it's important to us, we worry, we go into churn. You know, I begin the book with a story that illustrates the churn that people can have around a parent teacher conference. And I don't know if I have the time. Should, should I go into that story at this point or.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Or an illustrative one. Was a short one. Was an older person taking a technology class. And I thought that that was good because it, and I know you did this on purpose, it got us away from maybe some of the third rail examples of churn that might occur on issues that are racial, sexual, gender. But you could take either one because I think an example is always good.

[Claude Steele]

Yeah, well, that, I suppose the parent teacher conference is useful because it kind of graphs out, I think, a situation which we may feel a lot in our society. It's a parent teacher conference between where the child involved and the parents are African American and the teacher is white. And as they go to the conference, as the African American parents get in their car to go to the conference, they know the stereotypes out there about African Americans and ability and maybe aggressiveness. And here it's an important concern. And so here they have an opportunity to talk to the teacher about these things and help her and the school not see their son in terms of those stereotypes. So they're having a normal conversation. Well, what's this teacher like? And how does she think about things? She comfortable with the realities of race in this society, or is she not comfortable? And she's, you know, let's don't jump the gun on race. And maybe things have nothing to do with that, and we don't know. But so as they walk into the room, they're in churn. And for her part, the teacher has an equally sort of powerful form of churn. She's really dedicated to her students, and she thinks of herself as very committed to their development, all of them. She tries to be sensitive to the needs of minority students and so on, but she knows that if she says something even slightly negative in this conversation with the student's parents, that maybe she could be seen in terms of a negative stereotype about her identity in that situation, which is that maybe, is she racist? She would hate to be seen that way. She would think it's incredibly unfair. And so she too, is in churn. How do I manage this conversation so as not to be seen and treated in terms of that image? And I suppose coming from my research in the past and from my experience as an administrator, I felt this tension. This. This churn was a bigger factor than we appreciated in our relationships with each other, that especially when we think about identities and the like, we think the primary issue is prejudice and bias. And as I hope the example illustrates, it's something different than that. It's just a tension over how we're going to be seen based on the images of our identity that exist in society and the importance of the situation. If we're on a. I keep stressing importance here. If we're sitting on a subway and we could be seen in terms of these stereotypes, we don't care. It's not that important a situation. But, you know, again, in a classroom or workplace or traffic stop, this kind of. This churn is intense and can have pretty powerful effects on our life, our decisions and the like.

[Mike Pesca]

Right? It's an internal turmoil. And from the parent teacher conference are few negative effects that could happen. The teacher might not give the necessary corrective advice for fear of being seen as racist or creating a faux pas. The parents might not press and get the necessary honest feedback. They might even get the honest feedback and say, did I get the honest feedback? Or were they just afraid to say something to me? And then even if none of this happens and the feedback is perfectly suited to the kid, the amount of stress takes its toll. And there's some research about allostatic load and how well. And also we don't even have to go so far into the medical aspects of it. No one likes that much stress. Now, is it the case that I asked about second order effect? It's better you just said. And you talk about in the book. It's not really a prejudice. It's not about prejudice, it's not about discrimination. You give good examples actually about how the action of discrimination sometimes reinforces the prejudice as opposed to our concept that prejudice leads to discrimination. But is it more the case that in many aspects of society we understood that question. The sociologists of 50 years ago got us to understand that there is this prejudice, there is this discrimination. We need to stop that. And now we're on to a byproduct that maybe gets ignored or not even recognized because we tell ourselves that the big strides had been made.

[Claude Steele]

Yeah, that's a good chronology of maybe our understanding of things. We do tend to what dominates our thinking about our relationships with our identity and groups is this idea of prejudice and bias. And we would imagine that if we could wave a magic wand and eliminate that entirely, if we got rid of prejudice, then there'd be no problem here. We could just. This conversation, for example, would go on in an untroubled kind of way. But I hope the example illustrates that this tension would be there for both prejudiced and non prejudiced people. It's not really about that per se. This is not to diminish the importance of prejudice and bias in our lives. I'm a social psychologist. We've demonstrated that over and over again. But it's to say that this is something else. This is something on top of that. It's just a sort of tension between people that can arise from different identities in a situation and the worries we can have about that. Will we be fairly treated? Will we be, you know, understood? Will people be nice to us and fair and so on? Those are the kinds of thoughts that. And feelings that Chern refers to.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Would we be at this point in 2026, would we be better off as adopting something closer to the French conception of our sensitivities around race? In where they do not allow references to race. They believe in the equality of all citizens under the law without this distinction of origin, Race and religion. They put this in the Constitution. It is A little bit like the American conception of a race blind society, but in some ways way beyond that. Because it's not just a conception. You can't keep racial statistics. But also there is, you know, the upside is there's not an obsession over race. So maybe there's less churn. The downside is when something happens with a clearly racial or ethnic component, like rioting or unrest among the Muslim and Arab population, there is a lot of denial. So that is the question. Assess the French way of thinking of this.

[Claude Steele]

Yeah, they're strengths and weaknesses. And you're right, I think it is analogous to our idea of color blindness, identity blindness, an idea that arose in the 1960s as a way when we committed ourselves legally at the legal level to having a diverse integrated society, to expanding opportunity and so on. The idea of colorblindness was a very progressive idea at that time. That, at that point, and I, I think it is.

[Mike Pesca]

One of the major proponents of this was Bayard Rustin, who is the civil rights leader. And my friend Coleman Hughes has cited his work and makes the best case out there, I think, for colorblindness in a not incendiary way. But please go on.

[Claude Steele]

Yes, so, and I, I think colorblindness is an, is an absolute essential in a, to, to a degree it's an, it's an essential feature of a diverse society like we have. We want our access to health care and we want the nature of our policing, for example. We want these things to be colorblind. Our access to mortgage capital. We don't want these things to be meted out on the basis of a person's identity. So I think at base there has to be a commitment to colorblindness in the functioning and operation of our society. There's no doubt about that. I think there can be a cost to it though, which, and it kind of gets into the zone of my argument, which is that it can blind us to the experiences people have based on their identities. It can get us to maybe ignore those or diminish the importance of those. So if I respond to you in a sternly colorblind way, that may lead me to deny some realities that you face based on the identity that, that you have. That in certain circumstances that identity, it does mean something and it does have an effect on your experience and your outcomes, your behavior and the like. And I'm kind of blind to it because I'm committed to this rule. So that, with, with that as, as the downside of, of colorblindness, I, I think it can sometimes undermine trust in each other that, oh, you, you're not really open to what I'm really experiencing. And I can feel like you're maybe ignoring some very important part of my life, that of the reality of my life that I have to deal with. And so it can make me, you know, it can, it can make it harder for me to have a trust with you, to connect with you.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. And if we, if we jump ahead to the solutions part of your book, which I have to say I've read a thousand books which describe a sociological phenomenon and often a negative one. And then the solutions portion is obligatory and there are no good solutions. Yours is not like that. In fact, I think you maybe even wrote the book because you have some solutions and that word trust is essential to the solutions.

[Claude Steele]

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad you react to it that way because that was my mission in writing the book. That, that, that this. At base, when I'm in churn, I'm in a state where I can't quite trust the situation. And what is it that I can't trust? I can't really trust it that you're going to see me, that you recognize my full humanity, that you're not seeing me stereotypically. I'm kind of, you know, let's. Both the teacher and the parents are good examples of that. The parents can't quite trust. They don't know that they will be discriminated against, but they can't trust that they won't be. And the same with the teacher. She doesn't know that they're going to see her as a racist, but she knows they could be. And so it's a kind of a tension between remembering and forgetting. That's one way I phrase it that I think captures illustrates for people what the tension is that do I remember how my group, my identity can be seen in this situation and use that to interpret what's happening to me in this situation, or do I just forget that, relax, assume that I'm not going to be seen in these negative terms and that isn't an issue. That's kind of what the psychological, the form of this tension is is. This tension between remembering and forgetting and the like. So at base the to churn is a problem of trust and the book is arguing that a remedy for the tensions of our diverse experiences in the real life settings of our lives, our classrooms, our workplaces, et cetera, basketball teams or so on. The real remedy is maybe a focus on building trust as opposed to, for example, being preoccupied with prejudice or thinking prejudice is the sole issue here. Not for a minute do I want to be taken as diminishing the importance of us educating people out of their prejudices. I think this should be a primary feature of our educational system and in any society as much as possible and to continue to figure out ways of mitigating its effect because it is of course real. But this is something that I think offers a new pathway to having a successful diversity, a focus on building trust and the improvement in relationships across identity divides that can follow from that that may be one of the most effective ways of reducing prejudice.

[Mike Pesca]

So have there been in your estimation in recent trends of how to identify racism or anything else that would lead to stereotypes? But let's even focus on racism, racism, recent trends in the best way to conceptualize this that actually creates more churn. If you suspect this is a leading question, you are correct. I have opinions on that. But I want to ask you first.

[Claude Steele]

Oh yes, yeah, yeah. I mean we have evidence of that in our research. You know, I mean I think having been in a, you know, an administrative role in several big organizations, universities, you know, I see this. Some of the most well intended things, some of the things that I've supported can just put people in painful churn. Go ahead, tell people avoiding these things, these topics and the like. So that's part of the motive behind the book is that I'm not sure we've done it right. I'm compassionate with us Americans because this idea of having a fully integrated society is pretty new, 60 years or so and we're learning how to do it and we try things and we discover in the trying that they don't work entirely. Well, maybe they can, maybe they do work in some ways, but they don't work completely. So I think of ourselves as on a refinement mission and I hope that this argument helps helps that refinement.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. Or this is also important. Some of the things do work and let's take note of that. Right. And let's not say, let's not use words like irredeemable or oh yeah, progress is impossible. But can you tell me about some of the specifics maybe that the well intentioned have tried that you saw as an administrator that were inimical, inimical to lessening churn.

[Claude Steele]

Well, I do think that some of the DEI things, some of some of those kinds of efforts, again, well intended and having some successes, affirmative actions been a focal point of controversy for the last 50, 60 years and it's had some gains. I Think it really has contributed to the development of a middle class among African Americans and other minority groups. And certainly women have benefited from that policy. But on the other hand, it can make us so preoccupied with identity that we're just tense. We're just completely in churn with each other and make us want to avoid relationships with each other and can set up walls between us that, you know, that really undermine our ability to get to that kind of post identity, post racial, post world that we may aspire to as a society. And so that's how I position this argument. It benefits from the efforts that we've made and from some of the positive outcomes, but also some of the negative things, some of the things that we can improve going forward.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I would say that the Ibram X Kendi trend of anti racism as the concept, when I heard about it, I said to myself, that's an interesting way to look at it. But then when it became in many social circles the de facto setting, it created churn and had some downsides. Yeah, yeah.

[Claude Steele]

It creates a kind of. It exacerbates churn and makes people defensive and. Are you calling me a racist? I mean, it's not manageable. It's not psychologically manageable.

[Mike Pesca]

No one wants to live like that is another way to think of it.

[Claude Steele]

So people avoid it and then when they avoid it, progress doesn't happen.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Claude Steele]

And we sacrifice some of the great advantages of diversity. I mean, I think in our lives a lot of us have the experience of having good relationships with people of very different identities than ours, very different backgrounds. We've developed a trust that enables those kind of concerns to sort of drift away. Not entirely. You don't want to be friends with somebody who's in denial about your experiences. But once you become friends, relationships, we can enjoy the differences. They become real, positive things. We partake of of them in a way that augments our own experience in life. So that's some of the cost, I think, that we have paid through some of these approaches to it.

[Mike Pesca]

And we'll be back with more of Claude Steele right after this.

[Claude Steele]

Foreign.

[Mike Pesca]

Summer always changes how I get dressed. Not really how, just what I wear. I want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable. Of course, that's why I keep coming back to quints. They are reliable, they are high quality, they look amazing. And the price, well, the price is also. I. Did I already say amazing? The price is transcendent. Quint's European linen pants and shirts are starting at $34. Their T shirts are soft and easy to wear lightweight cotton sweaters. I have a pair of Quint kind of dressy pants, kind of stretchy pants. They very much work for me. Everything at quints is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quint.com the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com the Gist for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com the Gist Oregon Parks make an Oregon Summer.

[Oregon Lottery Announcer]

But what makes an Oregon park? Well, Oregon Lottery Gameplay helps no matter the game Megabucks, video lottery or Keno funds from lottery games help support parks projects across the state, ensuring they stay safe, accessible and open for all. In fact, Discover State Park Scratches are in stores now. It's the perfect way to put a little bit of Oregon's parks in your pocket. The Oregon Lottery Together we do good things. Must be 18 or older to play. Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment only.

[Mike Pesca]

We're back with Claude Steele talking about his book Churn. And now I'll read a part of your book and I'll tell you what it made me think of. Think of the Asian grandmother living in the center of a major city, getting out her cloth grocery bags for a trip to the neighborhood farmers market. Images flash across her mind of women who look like her being pushed to the ground and kicked and their assailants scurrying off. She may know something about the 11,000 hate crimes in the United States over the past year. Can she assume she won't be next? Perhaps. But at another level, she knows that out there on the streets, she has a threat tied to her identity as an Asian woman. She too, for no reason and despite being small and in her 80s, can be pushed to the ground in the US at this point. The simple anticipation of being in public space can put her in Churn. It can. But I've done some reporting on those 11,000 hate crimes and it's very hard to define a hate crime and they definitely did go up. But I also think that the reporting exaggerated them and definitely scared some people and I One example is there was a mass shooting in Asian of mostly Asian women in massage parlors in Atlanta. But the real motivation of the shooter was less tied to the Asian identity of the most of the people he killed than his own issues with tied up with sex and massages. Anyway, when that gets portrayed and publicized as the worst example of a hate crime. It could lead to unnecessary churn. And it brings me to the case of George Floyd, which you wrote about and I did notice and have been chronicling after that. There were many, many cases where a person of color was stopped by the police and engaged in actions that they plausibly wouldn't have otherwise if they weren't very worried about the threat of police violence. Takia Young in Ohio was one such person who was in a car asked, are you going to shoot me? Are you going to shoot me? And I don't think before George Floyd she would have come to that conclusion. And then there was the lieutenant colonel we all saw. He didn't die, but his name was Nazario in 2020 in Virginia. And he was saying, I was afraid to get out of the car. He wouldn't get out of the car because he was worried about George Floyd. He even said that in the moment. So George Floyd happened. Sorry for this long disquotation, but when they asked people, when they polled Americans how many unarmed black men are shot and killed by the police every year, the estimates ranged. And the more liberal you were, the more you were likely to say a thousand or more. And the answer is somewhere in the teens. It's a long winded way of saying, what do you do? What's your prescription for balancing that out? That these things do happen. But it could also put so many of us in churn. Some examples of which I cited based on misperceptions of the actual threat.

[Claude Steele]

Yes, I mean, Grace, I agree with your characterization there. And I think the whole book is really trying to offer people another way to approach the problem. It's so easy to sort of drift into kind of a blame game discussion of these things. The right versus the left. Is it the fault of the driver? Is it the fault of the police whose prejudice is contributing most? And we get into a kind of endless struggle. The first publicity is, oh, how horrible the police are. And the second reaction is, well, actually, when you look closely, there was behavior on the other side of this. So we're kind of arguing over those things in a way to sort of adjudicate responsibility or guilt for how our society is structured around these issues. And this book is trying to offer another pathway, another framework for thinking about it. The real issue between us that can get to us and cause churn is trust. And then a focus on building that, which is, as I'm grateful you pointed out, so much of the book is dedicated to, how do you do that? How do you do that between individuals, how do you do it in settings like classrooms or workplaces? And how do whole organizations, institutions, build the kind of trust that reduces churn? That a focus on reducing churn and building trust is a new way, a kind of integration point 2.0 that I think has been there all along, but that our society hasn't appreciated. And that can give us a great deal of calm about dealing with these things and acceptance. I can give you an example of an experiment which demonstrates that we had white male students at Stanford come into the laboratory and they expected to have a conversation with other students. That was going to be what they did that day. When they sat at their desk, they saw that two photographs of their conversation partners. And for half of them, the two photographs were of two white guys. They're white. And for the other half of them, the two photographs were of two black guys. And then they learn that the conversation is going to be about a topic that's easy to talk to anybody about love and relationships, or it's going to be about racial profiling. So, as the experimenter then says, I'm going to go down the hall and get your conversation partners and bring them back for the conversation. And while I'm gone, would you arrange the three chairs for the conversation? And as you might surmise, what we're interested in is how do they distance themselves for this conversation? And what happened is what you might expect, that when they're going to talk to two white guys about either topic or two black guys about love and relationships, they put the three chairs very close to each other. But when they're going to talk to two black guys about racial profiling, they distance themselves. And what they're worried about, we know from other measures, is that they could say something that would get them seen as racist. And they really don't want to have that happen. So they kind of just out of nervousness, distance themselves. So the question is, how can. Is there something we can say to them that would enable them to get closer for that relationship? That's sort of the question of the book, in a way. This was an experiment done by. This is by Phil Goff, who at one time was a student of mine. And what we tried over for almost a year were things that were recommended by diversity training operations, many of which program, many of which I had supported, and they backfired. They made those students even more tense and they distanced themselves more from their conversation partners in that situation, which again,

[Mike Pesca]

is not you saying diversity doesn't work, but you saying it may Work in a setting that has already a strong culture of trust, but backfire in a setting of new employees or distrustful employees.

[Claude Steele]

Exactly, exactly.

[Mike Pesca]

But there are a lot of great experiments in the book. There's an experiment with classic experiment of shocking a victim. And it turns out that when the. The observed get a chance to interact with the victim, it leads to more trust and less suspicion of the pain she's actually feeling. There's even a study there of how New Yorkers, I identify with this one cope with stress. And they gave him a red button on the desk, which, by the way, I'll show this to you. I have a red button on my desk. And just by pressing this red button that doesn't do anything, it maybe gave them a feeling of empowerment. I thought this was a funny experiment because red button, desk, every walk button at every intersection does the same thing. It doesn't do anything, but it just gives you something to press while you wait for the.

[Claude Steele]

Give you some sense control.

[Mike Pesca]

Exactly.

[Claude Steele]

Although the punchline of that experiment I should describe because it fits exactly with what you're reacting, your reaction to it, which is that what did work, what enabled those white students to move in close for a conversation with two African Americans about racial profiling was simply telling them, look, nobody really knows how to have these conversations. And the best thing to do here is be open and curious. You view this as an opportunity to learn about somebody else's experience in life and in this particular situation. So when you're in doubt, ask questions, follow your curiosity, be open, transform it that way. And with that instruction, they moved in very close for this difficult conversation, which tells me several things. One of which is that they always were interested in the relationship. What was holding them back was this worry that they would be seen in a certain way. And once that kind of. You gave them an approach to that, a way of handling that, a red button, then they were able to have that conversation. And that's where I think the hope in our society lies.

[Mike Pesca]

Have we gone from our status as a status as a society that under punishes racism to a society that over punishes it?

[Claude Steele]

I think, you know, the whole society is hard to characterize, right? Some parts of it, yes. But it's very important to reward people for their good intentions. And I think that needs to frame this, this particular part of the discussion.

[Mike Pesca]

So then one of the shibboleths of maybe an older way of thinking, not that much older, a few years older, is when people say the intent doesn't matter, the impact does. That is A backwards way of thinking about things.

[Claude Steele]

Yeah, I think we should get. We get credit for that. You know, we tried something that seems. That seemed reasonable at the time. The best ideas that we had, we tried them. So now we find that maybe they worked a little bit, but that they also caused problems. So you move on, you figure out the next move. That's what America is. That's where I feel proud to be an American. That we took on these kind of challenges and that we're reasonable people about this. And this book is based on a lot of personal experience and a lot of research. Just an attempt to say, oh, here's something that can give people a red button, a comfortable way of thinking about this sort of. It can do for people in general in the important settings of their lives. What we did for those participants in that research, just relax, follow the main goal. I think I try to describe this quite explicitly is to be able to see full humanity indifference.

[Mike Pesca]

Have you studied and found a correlation between the amount of churn and the validity of the worry?

[Claude Steele]

That's an interesting question. No, I don't know of research which gives an empirical answer to that question. So here I am just going to surmise a bit. I think it can happen. You know, you walk into it and I think anybody, the two of us and our listeners can think of circumstances where we worried that something was there and it wasn't there. And when we got a signal that it wasn't there, it was a huge relief and we kind of transformed the subsequent interactions and so on. On the other hand, sometimes it has been there. I've been in situations, speaking for myself, where no there really was. There was bad feeling there, prejudice, racism at play. And it really affected outcomes. For me that's the problem is that you never know when it's real and when it's not real. And that's turn is. Is. Is. Is sort of focused on or concerned about.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, there is a sociological and psychological deep findings that uncertainty is more discomforting than actually knowing that you're not good at something. Let's say yes.

[Claude Steele]

Yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. I was thinking of. I was thinking of the white guy. This is stupid example, but at least it's a clear one. The white guy who's a defensive back, right? And he shows up at, let's say the NFL combine and there are no defensive back, sorry, there are no cornerbacks in the NFL who are white. And so he might be saying, oh, they don't expect me to run fast. But he knows he could run fast. He's always Run fast and then he runs fast and that's very easy to clock. Then again you're the guy who, who clued us all into the idea of stereotype threat. And on tests people who could do better often do worse when their stereotype or their category, their ethnic category is pre identified.

[Claude Steele]

Yeah, yeah, they're doing worse in big part because they're sort of now they've got two things to do. They got the test to take, you know, the questions to answer and they've got to, to, you know, defeat this, disprove the stereotype. They've got to really bear down is so they're sort of trying too hard and it's like it's kind of, it, it, it's multitasking and puts the mind in a, in a frame where you're kind of multitasking. What is this question? Is this frustration? I'm having an indication that I'm going to confirm the stereotype. So Churn starts to enter the picture now and undermines their performance a bit in testing situation. That's where a lot of the research has focused on. But it's also focused on athletic performance and other kinds of, of performances as well. It just makes us self conscious. You know, the white male colleague who finds himself in a diversity training seminar. There's a lot of churn going on there. You know, what can I say? How can I say it? What's the right way to behave here? Why do they hold me to these ridiculous standards? It's just a head full of busyness dealing with that situation. And I that that's what the book is trying to capture and provide most importantly some remedies so that we can be calmer with each other and connect.

[Mike Pesca]

Claude M. Steele is the author newly of Churn the Tension that Divides Us and How to Overcome It. Thank you so much.

[Claude Steele]

Thank you. It's been a real pleasure.

[Mike Pesca]

And that's it for today's show. Corey War is the producer of the Gist. But not today. Jeff. Jeff Craig produced today's show. Well, Corey helped. I don't want to get into all the inner dynamics, but it was, let's just call it a tandem job. Jeff usually produces how to. Ben Astaire is the booking producer of the Gist. Kathleen Sykes runs the Gist list and Michelle Pesca oversaw that palace coup as the coo. She knows about coups. And thanks for listening.