Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Wear The Letterman Jacket

00:00:00.000 class is in session hey everybody and welcome to unlearn 16 class is in session am i wearing

00:00:10.880 a letterman jacket right now yes is it a double double tim horton's jacket again yes there's a

00:00:18.320 point for that there's a point for that this podcast is going to be focus focused on a comment

00:00:26.000 I got from a TikTok and a Twitter post that I made. So in my TikTok, I went on and I did a lot

00:00:35.120 of cool clothing transitions. And let's be honest, it was mostly to showcase my watch. But the point

00:00:40.100 of the matter was this, is that we get judged in society, everybody does differently on different

00:00:47.360 levels by how we look. My students and I talk quite a bit on the fact that when you step into

00:00:53.360 a room, the initial judgment and whether you like it or not, whether it's right or it's

00:00:58.620 wrong, the initial judgment is on your appearance, the secondary judgments, the way you speak

00:01:04.400 and third and distant in the third place category is what you bring to the table, how intelligent

00:01:12.040 you are and how you can do a job or change the world.

00:01:17.340 So I did this TikTok, right?

00:01:19.600 And for the most part, people love the comments.

00:01:22.620 And as I'm sitting here in this letterman jacket, there was all sorts of nuance to it

00:01:26.960 that I really didn't get into. But let me start this podcast by giving you a comment. One of the

00:01:35.040 comments that I got on here, I'm going to read it to you. It's from a person named Kim. Kim,

00:01:41.180 how you doing? Thanks for being the focal point of my podcast. Here's what she says.

00:01:45.840 I hear you, but location, location, location, clothing and appearance are critical aspects to be taken seriously when conveying messages, talking with clients and in being considered, oh, there's some grad, and being considered for professional advancement in corporate environments.

00:02:04.400 We cannot ignore that fact. Now, is she right? Yes. Kim's not wrong. But it was kind of the point

00:02:15.640 of my video. The point of my video was we do give, look, we give so much credibility,

00:02:26.760 almost instantaneous credibility to people wearing the right suit, the right hair, the right makeup,

00:02:33.600 the right heel the right whatever we give instantaneous credibility and and we dismiss those

00:02:44.320 though that don't necessarily fulfill the aesthetic the the visual example of what we think

00:02:52.720 the job needs the group needs the whatever needs and and society does this across the board

00:02:59.680 my point my i do this let me let me be very very honest we all do this to some degree

00:03:06.800 it's not about whether we do it it's about should we and it's about what are we missing out

00:03:14.080 and what do we lose when we do it so first let's go down the the dismissal track because i think

00:03:22.720 this this stereotype and this type of prejudicial um underpinning really does shape a lot of things

00:03:30.800 and everybody would love to say it doesn't exist right everybody's colorblind nobody cares about

00:03:36.640 sex nobody cares blah blah but the funny part is the way you dress some somehow is still a indicator

00:03:46.560 an acceptable level of discrimination. P.S. Everybody still discriminates on all those

00:03:52.060 other factors. Most people are just lying when they say they don't. So, discrimination based

00:03:58.160 on attire and a haircut and the type of makeup, that is seen as acceptable discrimination,

00:04:06.740 right? They didn't dress for the job. They're not being the part, whatever the case may be.

00:04:13.580 It's an acceptable level of discrimination.

00:04:15.680 So when somebody walks in for that job and you see them, let's say, wearing a leatherman's

00:04:20.440 jacket, letterman, leatherman, there's no leatherman, Joanna, letterman's jacket, when

00:04:26.180 they walk in, rather than a business suit, you go, oh, look at this punk kid.

00:04:32.000 I don't care what their credentials are.

00:04:33.900 I don't care what they have to say.

00:04:36.480 I have already devalued them.

00:04:38.600 To be honest, you might as well turn right back around and walk out.

00:04:41.640 Here's the problem.

00:04:43.200 when we do that we are instantaneously discrediting and ignoring and excluding and marginalizing

00:04:53.680 authentic unique interesting voices hear me out this isn't a big diversity and equity ploy in

00:05:03.040 the sense of a in the sense of a visual thing because i i think you can have visual diversity

00:05:10.480 but not actually have any real diversity of thought and understanding and application.

00:05:16.640 When diversity is important, it's not about putting the nice little picture up on your

00:05:21.220 corporate boardroom and you have like one of each in the picture. That's not diversity.

00:05:26.540 That is the appearance of diversity. Real diversity, real diversity is talking about

00:05:33.740 including people who think differently, who have different ideas, who aren't necessarily going to

00:05:41.080 go along with the corporate or the party line. Why? Well, because that person brings a unique

00:05:47.720 idea and perspective to the table that you might not take. You might not go, boom, your ideas are

00:05:54.760 the best. But, but, but I promise you this, if you figure out what they're bringing to the table,

00:06:00.920 what value it has, I promise you, it will make your idea better if you can figure out how to

00:06:08.160 combat theirs, or how their idea is good, but, or how, whatever the case may be, everything gets

00:06:17.540 better with that kind of diversity. Is it harder? Yeah, 100%. Does it take longer? Absolutely.

00:06:23.520 Is it arduous? Is it frustrating? Yes, yes, and more yeses. But do you get somewhere better?

00:06:32.160 I'm going to say absolutely. And proof of that, proof of that are some of the most successful

00:06:38.280 companies in the world, right? Proof of that is understanding if you just want quote unquote

00:06:45.520 worker bees, cool. Then you can put them in a little uniform and you can march them out and 0.91

00:06:50.580 They can be your Henry Ford factory worker A, but we no longer live in that world.

00:06:58.480 If you're building your company based on an assembly line format in North America,

00:07:05.640 you are doing yourself an injustice.

00:07:08.840 You will fail because like everybody already says, we don't have manufacturing up in here

00:07:15.260 anymore.

00:07:15.780 It's all been shifted.

00:07:16.960 We are supposed to be, and we are building companies and we are building entities that are supposed to be the intellectual, the innovative ground floor of everything else that transpires.

00:07:31.800 And the only way we can be innovative is by having different thought processes.

00:07:36.600 And that goes for me, right?

00:07:38.980 As an educator, I don't want 20 teachers like me.

00:07:43.160 They should all have a good enough haircut, but I don't want 20 teachers like me.

00:07:48.520 And here's why.

00:07:50.140 Just because the way that I teach works best for me, and I think it has value, and I think I can argue the way that I teach has value.

00:07:58.180 It does not make the only way to teach.

00:08:00.380 It does not necessarily make the best way to teach, and it sure as hell doesn't get at every kid the way I want education to get at every kid.

00:08:11.580 i also think this if a student associates with a different teaching strategy more they step into

00:08:17.660 my class i don't like the way joanna teaches i'm going to go back to so-and-so's class whoa whoa

00:08:21.260 whoa whoa pull in the reins here's why as a student it's not just your job to learn more

00:08:29.100 information it's your job to learn how to be in imperfect situations situations with bosses

00:08:37.740 and teachers and co-workers and classmates you don't like you don't agree with you don't necessarily

00:08:43.740 buy into but you need to figure out how you can be effective in it how you can take stuff out of it

00:08:51.020 and how you can make the best of that's the education forget history for a second that's

00:08:56.460 the education so when we expand this to a bigger picture it only makes sense that we loosen the

00:09:04.380 the restraint on the aesthetics of a person.

00:09:08.680 But here's why we can't.

00:09:10.560 Because we've grown up and it's been put in our head

00:09:13.060 that somehow the way we dress denotes respect.

00:09:15.920 The way we dress denotes respect for ourselves,

00:09:18.740 respect for the environment that we are in,

00:09:20.940 and respect for the people that we share it with. 0.99

00:09:23.320 I think that is utter garbage. 0.97

00:09:27.380 You want to go back to politics in the 1800s? 1.00

00:09:30.000 What respect?

00:09:30.660 half of the prime ministers of of our country were absolutely hammered for the duration of

00:09:40.220 their leadership where's the respect thank god they were wearing those little white hair looking

00:09:44.660 things where's the respect where's the respect when they lie where's the respect when they cheat

00:09:51.220 where's the respect you put a suit and tie on somebody it doesn't denote respect what it does

00:09:59.280 is it creates the illusion of professionalism it creates the illusion of respect it creates

00:10:09.280 so many illusions that the wall gets pulled over people's eyes consistently as those individuals

00:10:18.320 get away with more and more and more and more and more why because you did a wins or not whatever

00:10:25.280 the hell that is so not only are we excluding that diversity we exclude that diversity we do

00:10:32.640 poorly we do less than i'm not saying society doesn't do well and a lot of people like joanna

00:10:38.240 that's the way it's always been done well maybe if it wasn't always done like that we'd be further

00:10:42.720 ahead why is it that everybody who is genius level doesn't fit into our little cookie cutter molds

00:10:49.840 Why is that? Why do they all leave school? Why do they all not fit in a corporate environment?

00:10:56.800 We are purposefully creating conformity, and by doing so, we are excluding people and their genius.

00:11:07.960 Now, we have to have some commonalities. I get it. We have to have common courtesies. We have

00:11:13.200 have consistent rules that we all abide the law is one both criminal and civil but also there should

00:11:21.680 be some sort of cultural norms that we all jump into but does dress have to be one of them

00:11:28.960 what good is that serving objectively not not theoretically not emotionally what good does it

00:11:37.840 serve if i wore a three-piece suit rather than a leatherman jacket letterman look i can't stop

00:11:44.080 saying leatherman jacket rather than a letterman jacket when i step into the courtroom and argue

00:11:50.720 for my client what are we doing there but the diversity of thought that is expressed with what

00:11:59.680 we wear might be now as i went through that tick tock and i really think about it you know and i

00:12:05.920 and i'm saying clothing doesn't matter but obviously clothing matters to me

00:12:11.200 you know i get it is a little hypocritical clothing matters to me it's an expression

00:12:16.560 of pieces of me that's why i have so many different sort of um types of clothes that

00:12:22.960 i want to step into because i feel like a they look good be they're an expression of who i am

00:12:27.920 at that time in that place it look i think it looks good that's it that's it so the

00:12:35.520 reality of the fact that clothing matters to me because it's something i get to control that it

00:12:40.720 that that represents sort of what i like in that time and in that space but i sure as hell don't

00:12:46.960 doesn't think that it represents character that it represents work ethic that it represents

00:12:53.520 professionalism or lack thereof doesn't represent any of those things it's art that's what clothes

00:13:00.880 are that's what they can be it is an aspect of your culture and and sometimes a deviance from

00:13:10.240 from the common culture that is put in in front of you so again a letterman's jacket doesn't change

00:13:19.600 who i am what i do what i have to say it just changes somebody's possible perception

00:13:25.920 of who I am and what I'm going to say. Well, there's the problem. And those kinds of stereotypes

00:13:34.400 serve us none. Those kinds of stereotypes limit our growth. They limit our innovation. They limit

00:13:41.960 our commonality. They limit our understanding of each other. You have so many people on the

00:13:49.620 right screaming individuality, but heaven forbid somebody walks into the house of representatives

00:13:54.980 wearing a t-shirt what i thought i thought you guys were team individual no team free speech

00:14:04.740 no team freedom of identity and no only you are only all of those things

00:14:12.540 if you fit into the narrow scope of what we're demanding today

00:14:16.800 now i heard this tiktok podcast and they were talking about architecture

00:14:23.760 and how everybody hates the architecture of the 20th century, you know, 21st century. It's so

00:14:30.080 ugly. It's awful. But look back in the 1600s or the 1700s. That was beautiful. Look what they

00:14:36.240 could do. Do you know what they talked about their architecture back in the 1700s? They thought it

00:14:41.060 was garbage. They thought it was dark and dank and overdone. And they had the very similar 1.00

00:14:49.680 discussions that we're having today want to know why because architecture is art it's an expression

00:14:57.040 of who that person and that time period are and when art gets expressed in the time in which

00:15:06.000 it's done it's very very very rarely accepted it's very rarely looked upon as being oh it's

00:15:13.520 beautiful it's magnificent no no no we gotta wait a hundred years to call it that why because the

00:15:20.640 human brain needs a minute apparently about a hundred years to catch up to the artist to catch

00:15:27.920 up to the true authentic expression of individuality of emotion of content of character

00:15:38.940 We need a minute.

00:15:41.900 So we take our time.

00:15:43.360 So let's start addressing that now.

00:15:46.160 I don't know if we can change our instantaneous reactions.

00:15:52.620 Stereotype and prejudice really is jammed in there.

00:15:55.160 And I think it's jammed in there in a lot of ways, but we can acknowledge it.

00:16:00.160 Wouldn't it be lovely if we could all say, well, this is what I thought of you right

00:16:03.940 off the bat.

00:16:04.520 Why is that?

00:16:05.140 Let's talk about that.

00:16:06.080 Let me acknowledge that. Let me acknowledge that in my brain and then push it to the side in which

00:16:12.240 it belongs because it's utter garbage of a broken mentality based on nothing significant. 0.98

00:16:22.920 Now, flip to the other side. Let's say I was wearing a really nice jacket, longer hair, 0.99

00:16:31.240 put on a little bit of makeup because not too much little high heel but not too high 1.00

00:16:36.780 skirt but not too short because heaven help me there are so many goddamn rules for women 1.00

00:16:41.500 i can't count them anymore especially in the corporate world and how we're supposed to be 1.00

00:16:47.160 deemed professional so if i do all those things and and i step into the interview or i step into

00:16:56.220 the courtroom or in front of the classroom or in front of the legislature all of a sudden i am

00:17:01.740 granted a level of respect i am granted a level of understanding people quiet when i speak

00:17:12.220 people give me so much freedom in order to talk in order to convince in order to share

00:17:22.060 my opinion i already have such a step up well that's dangerous don't you think don't you think

00:17:31.420 it's a little dangerous when we as a culture grant these wolves in sheep clothing let's say

00:17:42.060 because they're all sheep really so i think may is the wolf the bad thing they dress up as sheep

00:17:49.660 all the wolves dress up as sheep to pretend to be to pretend to conform to pretend to buy in

00:17:56.560 and all the while they're using their pretense of conformity to take advantage

00:18:02.760 of the lull that we've been droned into

00:18:07.380 you get all of these politicians all of these people in different positions of power that

00:18:15.680 are dressing the right way, that are never challenged for their aesthetic or their associations

00:18:20.820 or their political beliefs. And all of a sudden they step into the room and we shut the hell up

00:18:27.120 and we listen. That's a lot of credit you just gave them. You open the gates wide to let in

00:18:35.940 whatever narcissistic manipulative um individual that can want to walk through that door

00:18:45.940 they know how to play the game they know the suit to wear why do you think there's all these

00:18:53.100 political sort of people around a candidate who are like well you gotta you gotta roll up your

00:18:59.860 sleeves but not too high you gotta take off your jacket at this moment your shoes should be new

00:19:04.440 but not too new with a little bit of a scuff, but not too much scuff because too much scuff is

00:19:08.740 going to say that you can't afford a new shoe. Guys, all of that is to play with your head

00:19:14.740 on purpose. Don't you want to get it out of your head? Don't you want to rip it from your

00:19:20.440 consciousness? Don't you want to be in charge of actually listening to what people have to say

00:19:27.920 rather than forming an instinctual opinion based on your years of oppression, based on your years

00:19:36.600 of indoctrinization that you don't even know has been shoved into your head without your consent?

00:19:41.260 Don't you want freedom? Isn't that what you want? And I think people do want this because heaven

00:19:47.800 help us. People do want this. And that's why we've ended up with guys like Trump, Doug Ford,

00:19:52.880 even to some degree, Pierre Polyev, which is hysterical because he's really chained it from,

00:19:58.860 if you've noticed, if you've noticed about Mr. Polyev, you know, he went from glasses,

00:20:07.140 hair over to the side, quiet, the right blue suit to the guy who's all of a sudden has

00:20:14.080 contacts, his hair a little bit further up, his jacket, his jacket off with a tighter

00:20:22.420 t-shirt, he's hit the gym a little bit, and all of a sudden, he's eating an apple, talking

00:20:26.880 to a reporter, and we are in awe.

00:20:30.740 I'll tell you why, because we're real, I think, subconsciously, we're real tired of listening

00:20:35.940 to that pretense, rather than authentically getting people that wear whatever the hell

00:20:43.420 they want to wear and speak how they speak and are honest about it and wear the letterman's jacket.

00:20:49.400 We now are listening to the Trumps, the Piers, the Fords who have been conditioned, who have been

00:20:56.700 shaped, who have given us the pretense. Let me say that again. The pretense of authenticity.

00:21:06.480 You know, every time Trump tweeted when he was allowed to tweet and he spelt something wrong or

00:21:11.220 got grammar wrong he just he gained in popularity why do you think that is do you think he really

00:21:18.980 spelled something wrong do you think nobody's checking or do you think you spell something

00:21:25.940 wrong you get grammar a little bit off and all of a sudden you give the pretense that you're just 0.93

00:21:32.580 one of us one of the good old down hard-working americans doesn't give a crap between you and 0.90

00:21:41.140 you are and you're you don't think it's a play of course it is 1.00

00:21:51.380 trump's even said out loud i love stupid people they're all gonna vote for me 1.00

00:21:56.260 listen and it's because we are living in this world where what we see gets to gear what we think 1.00

00:22:06.740 you know everybody said that tv changed politics well god it changed everything didn't it

00:22:15.380 changed everything everybody that watched the jfk nixon debate on tv everybody republican and

00:22:24.340 democratic alike said democrat alike said nixon won everybody who watched the jfk watching tv

00:22:31.340 JFK won. Listening to the radio, Nixon won. Why is that? Why is that? I'll tell you why. Because

00:22:39.680 the color of his shirt and the tan on his skin and the way that he looked at the camera, as opposed

00:22:45.040 to the way Nixon looked at Kennedy, was a manipulation from start to finish. And a

00:22:51.840 manipulation that we fell for and we continue to fall for. Now, what I find fascinating about

00:23:00.540 today is the internet's a whole other line of that and the internet's a whole other line and

00:23:04.700 here's why because we are inundated with information that it is very difficult to

00:23:11.740 siphon through what's true what's not true what has value what doesn't have value and it's funny

00:23:18.760 because a lot of people would say well this is a better informational age which is true but what

00:23:22.920 ends up really happening is whatever instantaneous thought you had in your head whatever that

00:23:28.000 stereotype you have deep in your soul that has been jammed in there all you do unless we purposefully

00:23:36.240 do against this all you do is use the internet to feed and bolster and support that belief

00:23:44.640 that's all we do so we believe something and now we have the world of the wide world wide

00:23:50.720 web at our disposal to look at all of it and utilize it to bolster that gut feeling i always

00:23:59.680 had anyways how do i prove my gut feeling nobody ever questions why you have that gut feeling

00:24:08.400 nobody ever questions what where you were born who raised you what were the influence what

00:24:13.680 socialized you? What indoctrinated you? What brainwashed you? What limited you? Nobody asked

00:24:21.020 any of those questions because those are painful, tiring, exhausting questions. By the way, that's

00:24:26.920 where real education is. And that's why to leave your home and go to school is important. That's

00:24:33.960 why to leave your town and travel the world is important. That's why to immerse yourself in

00:24:40.000 other cultures and religions and languages is important putting yourself in different

00:24:47.280 circumstance all over this world is important want to know why because the stereotypes and

00:24:52.400 the prejudice fade the hell away they fade away because you're smarter than them now

00:25:01.280 you're so aware that the indoctrinization of your five ten-year-old self doesn't hold a candle to

00:25:12.340 what you've now experienced but if you're going to stay at home and you're going to keep your

00:25:16.460 blinders on and you're only ever going to go to the same Walmart and you're going to go to the

00:25:20.600 same website for your news and you're going to believe a and you're going to believe because

00:25:24.680 that's your gut feeling you are going to lose you're going to lose everything you're going to

00:25:33.080 lose progress you're going to lose enlightenment you're going to lose every piece that is called

00:25:38.680 real education that is out there and and as a result we all lose by the way it's not just you

00:25:45.720 it's me it's all of us all of us are going to lose bigger if we don't fight the feeling that's

00:25:58.200 in our gut talk to more people travel more listen and stop judging the letterman's jacket

00:26:08.200 stop giving credit where credit has not been earned stop giving respect

00:26:16.520 where respect should not exist I don't respect people I don't know

00:26:24.260 I can give the option of respect but true respect true acceptance comes with understanding and

00:26:36.560 becoming educated and aware of who that person is. There's horrible people out there. I'm not

00:26:42.340 respecting them. No, thank you. You say things, you do things, you stand for things that are

00:26:48.900 disgusting and, and destructive and violent. Why would I respect? We don't respect everybody.

00:26:57.940 I give space for you to earn that respect. And I try to earn it with how I handle myself and how

00:27:06.080 I stand in the conversations I'm willing to have. But if you look at me and discard

00:27:13.260 what I have to say, or you look at somebody else and give them the power to tell you who you are,

00:27:22.860 what you think, and how you feel because they have on the right suit, we lose.

00:27:29.240 it's a hard one to fight it's exceptionally hard and it's nuanced and don't think for a second

00:27:41.580 that just because i'm speaking on it i never fall into the trap of course i do of course i do

00:27:49.360 but don't you dare say that you're above it stop it stop it don't you dare say that you're you're

00:28:00.960 so highly evolved that that never was allowed to infiltrate 75 of who you are was set by the age

00:28:09.980 of five do you even remember being five do you remember what was set around your christmas table

00:28:16.040 Do you remember what was said in your elementary and your preschools?

00:28:24.580 Do you remember what your brothers and sisters did?

00:28:29.660 You might have some memories, but you don't know.

00:28:33.860 And all of that is the foundation of who you are.

00:28:39.020 And no matter who you are, no matter what environment you were grown up, you were raised

00:28:44.500 in we all all of us have to acknowledge there was stuff shoved in our head without our consent and

00:28:54.660 therein lies the prejudice and the stereotypes and the absolute disregard for the beauty

00:29:01.860 individuality and diversity that humanity has to offer but you can't stop there you can't stop

00:29:09.940 there you can't see there's diversity out there you got to go find it you got to go immerse yourself

00:29:14.420 in it you got to go looking for it at every chance you go to and if you're in the majority

00:29:20.180 culture by the by you got to look harder because you can very comfortably sit in the same culture

00:29:27.540 that reinforces the same mindset for your entire life you want to be that person i don't know if

00:29:34.180 i can help you you want to be better you got to push yourself into uncomfortable scenarios

00:29:39.940 to understand more to become more aware that's that's your job living in the majority culture

00:29:47.460 period minorities tend to understand it bigger why because they understand their culture but 0.70

00:29:55.620 they already obviously understand the majority culture because it shoved down their throat

00:30:00.500 of course they get it of course they do and that's not nefarious that's not like this

00:30:08.420 Horrible. It's just the way it works, guys.

00:30:13.200 But don't you dare sit at home thinking you read a book once and you're good to go because you're colorblind,

00:30:20.720 because you judge everybody individually, because you would never, ever be driven by stereotype or prejudice,

00:30:28.180 because you would never judge an individual by the way they look before hearing what they have to say.

00:30:35.160 Stop it.

00:30:38.420 admit it's human nature admit it's not the best of us and admit that we are smart enough

00:30:45.540 we are brave enough we are empathetic enough if we allow ourselves to be to fight the lesser parts

00:30:54.260 of our base nature because that's the only way the only way anything ever gets better

00:31:03.140 and on that note i'm gonna go pick out a new letterman's jacket to wear to school tomorrow

00:31:09.000 You guys pick out something a little bit different for Wednesday.

00:31:12.040 Do me a favor, just to see how people react to you.

00:31:16.500 Have a great day, guys, and I'll see you next Tuesday.

00:31:19.280 Same bat time, same bat station.

00:31:22.700 Dismissed. 1.00

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - February 20, 2024

The One Where I Wear The Letterman Jacket

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