The Waging Peace Podcast

Countering Hate with the Power of Non-Violence

• Diana Oestreich • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Imagine a world where the strongest force isn't violence, but Peace. 

Dr. Reverend Vonnetta West is a force. Her work is reshaping hate and conflict with the power of Kingian Non-Violence. As a Senior Trainer at The King Center in Atlanta, a Consultant training us to work for justice in our workplace or in Liberia in the school she founded to positively impact youth.

She  joins us to illuminate the transformative power of Kingian nonviolence, a force that remains as potent today as it did during the civil rights movement. 

Dr. West challenges us to break free from the norm, daring us to become "creatively maladjusted" and "transformed nonconformists" in a society often blinded by hate and division. 

This episode promises to reshape your perspective on conflict, encouraging a deeper understanding of nonviolence as a practical tool for change, rather than a mere ideal.

Confront the harsh realities of hate and understand the necessity of a committed nonviolent stance through this episode's penetrating insights. We tackle the horrors of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and more, examining how maintaining our humanity is essential in the face of violence that seeks to define our norms. By discussing the role of social media in desensitizing us to brutality and the challenges of upholding peace, you'll be drawn into a profound reflection on our moral responsibilities and the power of nonviolence in preserving our shared humanity.

In our final chapter with Dr. West, we're inspired by the King Center's educational programs that breathe new life into the strategies of the 1960s civil rights movement and their enduring relevance today. We explore the beloved community's vision and the six steps of nonviolence in a way that's both enlightening and actionable. By the end of this episode, you'll not only have a greater appreciation for the complexities of waging peace but also be equipped with the knowledge and conviction to stand against violence in all its forms and declare yourself a peacemaker.

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Speaker 1:

Today we're going to talk with someone who knows a thing or two about what it means to work for change and to disrupt the status quo Dr Reverend Venetta West. She is unmaking violence and disrupting our culture, christianity and world politics by championing Kingian nonviolence. We show up and read the newspaper, respond to local politics, practice faith and confront violence and conflict by teaching Kingian nonviolence in everyday ways. She wears many hats. She's the senior nonviolence trainer at the King Center in Atlanta. So, dr Venetta West, welcome to the Waging Peace podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, diana, for having me. I've been paying attention to your podcast on Instagram since I've been following you, so I'm looking forward to being a part of this episode.

Speaker 1:

Well, you were one of the people who I never cared about peace and I never heard about nonviolence until I was in middle of Iraq and I was waging war. And you never care about having peace until you see what it isn't and you realize it is worth everything.

Speaker 1:

So I come back from war and now I believed in peace and non-violence. But when I came back to my neighborhood, to my church, to my community, nobody talked about nonviolence, like it was just like being a vegan, like either A nobody talked about it or B nobody wanted to hear about it from somebody else. But I knew it was really this way that saved my soul in the middle of violence and I signed up to take a class from you violence and I signed up to take a class from you.

Speaker 1:

So nobody was talking about non-violence. And I saw Dr Veneta West at the King Center is teaching about non-violence and I was like sign me up. And this is like years ago. But I remember thinking like in America, so much violence and conflict, like I couldn't find someone who was talking about nonviolence or who was willing to teach it. And so yeah, it was. It was a life changing thing and having just a place to hear and learn about it with you. So that's how I became like a big fan of yours, long before I think we probably ever really met. Oh wow.

Speaker 2:

I'm trying to remember. You know, one thing that has happened for me over the last 10 years is I've taught a lot of nonviolence especially in the last 10 years yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I feel like that was really. I'm like women who are waging peace in middle of these warring ideas of why we accept violence, why we don't question violence, why we have yet to even ask ourselves like is it getting a passing grade for what you want, or is it like a total F, like we don't even ask if the thing that we're serving is even getting us a passing grade.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, I was thinking yesterday after the shooting in Kansas City. It's just the day after that shooting, people gathered to celebrate a Super Bowl win at a parade and some of them didn't go home, and you have children who were shot, and I started to just think, you know, we have such a capacity to get rid of this. What has made something else more important than saving lives, else more important than saving lives, and why is it, for some, so justifiable Violence? Violence on many fronts. You know lead in water, the rubble in Gaza. You know just the different forms of violence that have just become, in many ways, so acceptable.

Speaker 2:

And Dr King talked about this concept of creative maladjustment, and that's what I believe we really need. We need to refuse to adjust to violence, and the opposite is happening now. There's such an adjustment in what we watch, what we listen to, what we do to violence that we need to become, his words, creatively maladjusted. And he said we need to be transformed nonconformists, which I believe, if nothing else is needed today, being creatively maladjusted and being transformed nonconformists is vital if we're going to get ourselves out of this human-made conundrum that we're in.

Speaker 1:

Amen, and if you were going to put those words in, probably like a fifth grade level, you know, transform nonconformist, like what's another way you would describe that.

Speaker 2:

Wow that I reject being unkind. Wow that that, uh, I reject being unkind. I, you know kids. I talked to my nieces and my nephew I have seven nieces and one nephew and when I talk to them I do I simplify the language that you have to determine that everybody is as important as you are. Think adults haven't gotten this simple concept of there's no human being less important than me. And the minute we get that simple concept, which I can simply say to my nieces or my nephew nobody at your school is less important than you. They don't deserve violence. They don't deserve you to bully them or talk to them in a harmful way. They don't deserve to be beaten at home or shot at school. So in their minds they can start to think wow, okay, everybody is as important as I am, and I'm very important, and everybody else is very important too. How do we in this world create places where everybody's treated like they're important? That's simple, and I'm telling you, diana, that's hard for grown people.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I got two kids and I feel like raising them with simple concepts you know, like do no harm of it's like guess what? You can be mad and someone can do something to you, but you choose what you're going to do with your hands and your fists. That's on you. Like you have power.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

You're accountable for how you use it. You can either build someone's world up or you can break it in half in a millisecond.

Speaker 2:

We get choices.

Speaker 1:

And I think without. I feel like the the sneaky thing with violence is with other things. In our hyper patriotic country, somehow violence has gotten connected with loyalty to your group or to America or to your values, and so if you question doing violence, then there's this instantaneous well, who's that? Are you one? And there's this discrediting and this like well, maybe you don't have good character. And as a soldier I was celebrated and welcomed anywhere. And when I said I'm a soldier who works for peace and I refuse to fight with bombs and bullets, all of a sudden the warm welcome, the door shut and my character is questioned, my credibility is questioned and I was like, why is it?

Speaker 2:

the most controversial thing for people is when I said I wouldn't kill yes, and when you're um, um assertive about it, you know in a real, true sense, it's the ability to not and this is a another favorite phrase of mine from Dr King. He talks about I will not segregate my morals. Well, there is a call today for segregation of morals that I refuse to comply with, where I'm going to have to say that I'm against violence against Palestinian people and I'm against violence against Israeli, jewish people, against Muslim people, against Black people, and not get in that place where I feel like I have to contend for my integrity as the peacemaker. And that's hard right now, because you know people want you to be on the side, in a sense of you're not for this group if you don't want violence against this group, which, when you think about how violence is destroying us all, that if we start to allow it, if we allow it for one group of people in this world house, if one room is burning, then it's going to affect the entire house.

Speaker 2:

But we have this concept that's, frankly, very inhumane and disconnected to our creation, where we have started to believe individually and in large part collectively, that we can only care about certain people and we're going to be okay as human beings, and it's not going to work.

Speaker 2:

We're ushering in our nonexistence and our extinction when we start to segregate our morals and say, ok, we're going to care about hostages, but we're not going to care about the folks that are being bombed. You know, we're going to care about this group, but not this group, and so it is, I think, surprising to people but not this group, and so it is, I think, surprising to people. Sometimes I'll make comments on Instagram and people will come and they'll say well, do you care about Sudan and Congo, the way you're caring about this issue? Yes, absolutely. On this day, I did this post about the Congo, I did this post about Sudan, and so what I want is for people to, when they come to me, they find no segregation, like they're not able to say this person doesn't care about this group of people.

Speaker 1:

That's very important to me, that I'm able to demonstrate that I'm against violence, against all people, and so you have to have integrity with the message, I think, concerning violence and I think the two really interesting thing you said is you have to have integrity with your morals and then underneath of that is you have to interrogate your morals because they're not morals If you can do it and it's good, but nobody else can do it and it's bad, Like that's just, that's just self supremacy, where if I do it in in, you know, in benefit to me or my country or myself, then it's fine.

Speaker 1:

And I feel like that was one of those. There's one of these things that I think that people aren't willing to accept the cost, and this is in the pro and the con. It's like if you believe that killing kids in Gaza is acceptable, then you would have to be okay if someone else decided to kill your kids. Why? Because somebody in your country committed a terrorist attack. And if that isn't okay for you, if that leaves you being like, no, that's not the way, then you have to accept that, even when it benefits you, even when fear tells you the snake oil scarcity that, oh, we have to do it in order to get security or a future we have to call it a liar.

Speaker 1:

Violence is always a liar and it uses us, and I think it costs us our morals, it costs us our integrity. I think it even costs us our future.

Speaker 2:

Oh, absolutely, and it just chips away at us. You know, I was these commercials that came on during the Super Bowl. One of them was a commercial against anti-Semitism and I looked at some of the comments on Twitter and they were just like we. We can't believe they're playing this commercial and I was like the anti-Semitism commercial. Well, anti-semitism.

Speaker 2:

You know, some of the most devastating things I've encountered have been books I've read and things I've learned about the Holocaust, where you know, millions of Jewish people, lgbtq people quote unquote gypsy people, romani people, disabled people were murdered, thrown in ditches, incinerated, and I never want to see that happen again. But what happened when I went to the Holocaust Museum, diana, when it said never again. I thought about that for all people, not just for Jewish people. I never want to see it happen to Jewish people again. I don't want to see it happen to Palestinian people, to Black people, to people in Yemen. I don't want to see it happen to Sudanese people, to Congoese people. I just don't want humanity to suffer genocide and violence.

Speaker 2:

And the moment I look at something and say I can't believe they're saying anti this or anti that, because I think it's going to be contrary to something else I'm working for, then I'm in danger of becoming the thing that I say, that I battle, and what nonviolence does for me is that it keeps me from being unjust in my fight against injustice. And I think that's a real, true danger for us right now, that in our efforts to work against justice and to work for peace, we can often be unpeaceful, hateful and violent ourselves, and we have to be careful not to become the monsters we say we're fighting in this work that I'm able to say absolutely I'm anti-Semitic, I'm against anti-Semitism, absolutely I'm against Islamophobia, I'm against these things. And so I want to clarify if I said before hopefully I said that I'm against anti-Semitism, I'm against Islamophobia, you know just. You have to just be again, have that integrity in what you're sharing and what you're doing. You know it's one thing to say something, but how are we showing up?

Speaker 2:

That's very important.

Speaker 1:

And I think committing to nonviolence it was one of the most. It was probably the first time I ever felt any amount of freedom, because when you grow up you think you're free, you think everything's fine, and then something changes you, something demands something of you and all of a sudden you found out that violence had always kept me chained to things. And accepting nonviolence was where I got to take agency of my full humanity, that I was going to be for life. I was going to be for life and no matter what situation I was in, no matter what somebody else did, I was committed to doing no harm and I feel like there's a peace in that. And then it gives you limits, so you just can't. I don't believe we're going to bomb anybody. To peace. What's good for me?

Speaker 1:

is good for somebody else and I think, without us taking a serious commitment to ourselves and putting boundaries around how we talk and our actions, then we're going to do something unjust. We're going to do something that, even if we can't see it today, it's going to cause a harm down the road and it is going to be devastating. Because one of the things that I found out I thought I visited Vadyashem, the symbolic grave for the six million in Jerusalem. So it's kind of like the Holocaust Museum, but it's more of a symbolic grave. It's it's kind of like the holocaust museum, but it's more of a symbolic grave.

Speaker 1:

And what caught me when I was there even more than the atrocities because, you're right, like we kind of grew up reading these accounts, um was the look on the faces of the people who perpetrated the constant camps. They were smiling, they looked like normal people. My extended family came from Germany. It looked a lot like my grandpa the blonde hair, the blue eyes and what I realized is so many atrocities and tragedies were perpetrated by people who did not believe that harming this person was actually wrong. Like in some twisted way, they had been recruited to killing people or supporting or being okay with it and they thought it was for good. And what I take from that is that we have to have this line in the sand that says never again and no violence for anybody, because we're just people and we have our biases and our prejudices. Like we can't live together if we aren't going to commit at least to the bottom line of just not killing each other. If we can't do that, yeah, how do we even work together in good faith?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it has to be. I've seen enough. I've seen enough. I've been to the Door of no Return, Cape Coast, ghana. I've been to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, south Africa Holocaust Museum, the Legacy Museum in Montgomery. I've seen enough. I'm trying to understand the thinking and how we got here as human beings that our own demise became acceptable, and that's what we're facing when know when?

Speaker 2:

when we can tweet or I can post and say I'm concerned about the thousands of children who are being killed in this country, and somebody else responds Well, hamas just should let them go and let the hostages go. And I'm trying to figure out how did Hamas, a terrorist group, become the standard for my humanity? Why is that the standard? And we know they've been so harmful.

Speaker 2:

Instead of saying no, we need to treat people better than this and it's almost like, especially in our social media spaces we've gotten to the place where inhumanity is the thing and so when we should be saying, oh no, we should be doing something different, we should be treating people based off of a response to a group who came in and did these violent things. And we're also going to have to examine history, Diana. In every account of violence I see across the world where there's acts of mass violence happening, there is also a history in that region that preceded the most recent occurrence of violence, that if we don't pay attention to house, if you don't clean it out and work on it and replace it with something else, then it comes back and it brings seven more just like it. And that's what we're facing with violence in this world. We try to just get rid of things and sweep them under the rug or bomb enemies away, and we don't get rid of the thinking we didn't get rid of the thinking behind Nazism.

Speaker 2:

You know, jewish people were liberated. People were liberated in the Holocaust. But you see some in some instances now there are people who classify themselves as Nazis, white supremacists, aryan nations walking the streets. Now because we didn't deal with the ideology, we just said let's get rid of this instance of it, and now we got some hard work and some mind work to do.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, we'll just take this from a blockbuster summer movie quote as our wisdom today, Dr Venno.

Speaker 1:

but ideas, ideas live forever, people not so much yes now that's from the barbie movie, but I have been holding on to that because that is what we see. These ideas are living forever and in fact, I think that they're growing this idea of entitlement to violence and guns. I'm like people didn't wake up. They're not eviler today in America than 30 years ago, when I was a kid, but they are shooting people more and they are killing other people. So there's this idea of entitlement to violence. That just wasn't there 30 years ago. People were not reacting that way. They didn't believe they had the right to do this. I do think what you say violence ricochets because you know a ricochet with a bullet, it is one bullet and if it ricochets, it hits about 15 people in one room yes

Speaker 1:

and so I guess what I want to ask you about is for people who are listening, like they're listening and they're not totally sure, but they want to engage. How? How did they start? They start Cause I, I, I totally think we really do just like live ourselves a new way of thinking. We can't just think ourselves into a new thing Sometimes, we really have to just start. So what is a way for people to start kind of transforming or interrogating their mind of if I want to start showing up and I want to start waging peace instead of continuing to, you know, to wage the wars that we've really been handed us?

Speaker 1:

ways to think, ways to be, um, collateral damage where you know, if you question somebody like, well, it's just a necessary evil or that's just collateral damage, it's like I'm not buying this.

Speaker 2:

Sure, yeah, you know, and that's the. There was a politician who was on, a former world leader who was on a daytime show, and that person said that that in war there's going to be collateral damage and people got on social media. Now, if this person says this and they've been in this position then we need to listen. That's wisdom. And I was like, no, I don't believe this person is going to be my gauge for what's humane and what's the right thing to do. I'm going to have to land on the side of we can save these lives, and this doesn't have to happen if we're looking for lasting, true peace.

Speaker 2:

And as a starting point, diana, I would say spiritual and mental practices that somehow we have to retrain our minds and our hearts and convince ourselves that we need to be better and do better, and start to make confessions and say things like I want to be the most humane human being that I can be. And I think it's going to start with a shift in our language and what we say to ourselves about ourselves. If we could get 10,000 people to just start to say I want to wage peace. And it's going to start with me being the most humane human that I can be.

Speaker 2:

And then once you start to say that to yourself over and over and over again, the universe, god, starts to show up and show us how we're not that, so that we can become that.

Speaker 2:

Well, ok, as you remember years ago, sitting and saying stuff like there must be more than this guy, there's something else out there, and I started to see there's something else. There's something else for me to be inside, there's something else for me to do outside, and so I just started to see it, because I was saying something different or, if you don't have the ability to speak, writing something different, and that affected what I started to see and believe and practice going forward. And then I had to learn the methodology and the philosophy to correspond with that, but just the power of confessing that I'm not yet the human being that I want to be and I want to be a more humane human. And then you start to find out what that looks like. The minute you put that in the atmosphere, you start to. I believe the universe wants to conspire for good and wants us to conspire with it, for good.

Speaker 2:

I believe the universe wants to conspire with us for good and I'm a very high faith person. I'm, you know, in my beliefs. I don't classify myself as a Christian anymore. I'm a very love-centered follower of Christ and I believe, once I started to say I want something different, that I know regardless of faith practice or faith background or what you believe that word you put out there that the universe and everything in it starts to conspire for good. The moment I say I want to be a more humane human, I start getting opportunities to do that and insight on how to do that. Now what happens to us is we sometimes practice what we see. So when we see darkness and hate, we start to look at it and we're like do I conform to that or am I willing to be something different? And I know what we need right now is people who refuse to conform and I'm you know the last.

Speaker 2:

I think I've lost some friends since October 7th that I thought were close friends, who want me to agree that it's okay to bomb people in Gaza and I'm just like I can't agree with that. The same way that I'm going to stand against people being in their communities or at a music festival and being violated and hurt and harmed and killed and kidnapped, it's the same way I'm going to stand against people in this strip in Gaza being bombed and I can't take a side in that in the sense of I think either group is less important and it's not the way to peace. But what I've also faced is a lot of people who are at play in what's happening and party to it, cultivating and building this militarism that we're seeing. They're not working for peace anyway, so it's a lot of profit in war, you know there's that power.

Speaker 1:

There's the power of naming what we want and what we're going to work for and I just have a little bit of a tough time seeing myself in the mirror. It's just a tough thing. I don't quite know why If I say I'm this, then I'm like, well, you're not that good, I don't know what it is. So for me it's easier to name what I'm for and I think when I say out loud I'm a peacemaker, I experience this like zing of power and positivity and hope and a little bit of vision, and in a minute I feel like it's the universe, it's God who really knows. But when you declare this is what I'm for, then all of a sudden, like I feel like my arms get a little longer and I know, I know where I'm headed and I know what I'm looking for and instead of because I was taught to wage war, uh, 12 weeks, it's not hard, it's just bare bones. Um, there's thing that you have to just do X, y, z.

Speaker 1:

But when I decided to be a peacemaker, all of a sudden it's like the lights turned on and I was excited about something, because I was going to build something, not just do what everybody told me to do as a soldier. And then we'll just cross our fingers and eventually think peace is going to happen, even though that's not what happens at the end of wars, even though we think it will happen. So declaring this I'm going to be a peacemaker and I'm waging peace, I feel like, gives agency and power to what we're going to look for and what we're going to participate in. And so for me, that's always interrupting violence. Whether that is a starving kid or whether that is my friend or my country that thinks that bombing anybody's okay, I just will always interrupt violence, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's a. You know that I get invited to speak and sometimes people would put Dr Vanetta L West anti-racism activists and I would have to tell them that's not who I am and they would ask what do you mean? I said I wouldn't classify myself with anti. I would classify myself with what I'm for. I want to help you create a culture of honor. In order to do that, we have to eradicate racism. But anti-racism activist is not an appropriate. But anti-racism activist is not an appropriate descriptor for me, because that's not where I center myself on what I'm against. I center myself on what I'm for and I think that's important. That's my confession, Not that I'm anti-hate or anti-racism or anti-Semitism there's two antis that go in together but that I am for humanity. I'm for peace, true peace, which Dr King says doesn't just mean we don't have tension, but it's justice, it's the presence of justice, and that's a different space. Sometimes I think people think I'm asking for just gun violence to stop. But we got to put something in there once we stop gun violence, which is justice.

Speaker 1:

Right and at the end of the day, I'm only going like I need something that's going to feed my soul, that's going to energy my spirit, and to me, for me, that's joy. And joy isn't that it's actually happened. Gun violence is over, people have decided not to wage wars. Like I'm not waiting for the end, the joy is in what I am doing.

Speaker 1:

The joy is what I'm putting my hand to the joy is that I am making people in my city get to eat dinner. I haven't solved hunger, but when we put ourselves to what we want to build, I think that's where we get this rootedness, that's where we get our sustainability, that's where our soul sings, that's where we get to survive.

Speaker 2:

Because always waiting for or being against something, that is a soul sucking place to sit. And I think, especially in terms of these triple evils, this Kenyan understanding that we have this racism, poverty and militarism that we have to contend with, if I spend my days just being against those things versus saying what type of culture do we need to create where these things aren't possible, aren't possible. What do we need to create where people don't sit around thinking about how to kill each other or how it's okay for poverty or how racism is just going to always exist? But we shift our minds and the one thing I think that was most unfortunate to me, apart from Dr King being with his family and his children, was that I think the heart work then persist, because he was very much focused, Diana, on legislative work and heart work. He understood you don't stop the legislative work to focus on the heart work, because he said a law won't make a man love me, but it'll stop him from lynching me, so you need the legislative work. But he was very intentional in understanding that we got some hard work to do and I think when he was assassinated, for the most part that hard work wasn't the focus that we have to learn to live together.

Speaker 2:

Those words from Dr King just resonate with me every time I hear them or I think about them. We have to learn. I want to help people learn to live together. That's one of the things I often think about that. Doing that is my life's work. How can we be good neighbors to one another? How can we learn to live together? How can we create families and relationships and schools and workplaces where people learn how to deal with conflict in a way that it doesn't de-escalate to physical violence? If we can do that and do it in our legislature, goodness, our politicians need to learn how to handle conflict. We have people that are divided on party lines and won't sit down to talk about what's in the best interest of humanity. Um, and that is, you know, unfortunate when you're sent to govern and it it feels so bankrupt.

Speaker 1:

It makes me look at these folks and be like man, your heart is like half full. It feels so empty by how you act and like have something, a love for humanity that shows up with the person next to you, um, and can you just say, man, you know I got no idea how we're going to go through this, but I believe in you and I believe in me and I know that, that, that we're gonna walk this together and I think when we see people without that, it feels bankrupt, like what happened to you, like don't you have enough money? Like what is wrong that has made you feel so caustic to other people. So I mean it feels like survivor, where they really would love to have these people just get voted off the island. I don't want to deal with you, I'm just hoping that you will get voted out or get kicked out, and I think that that is a contagious mentality of violence.

Speaker 1:

I think that is more scary than anything, but I keep seeing. I keep seeing with courage. So before we wrap up, I have some. I have some fun wrap-up questions for you, but I really wanted to know two things. So what is like? When did you first just connect with mart Luther King's like message? Like do you remember the first time where you were like whoa Sure, I was in 11th grade, 11th grade.

Speaker 2:

I grew up in Tuskegee, Alabama, which is a, you know, very historic historical place and just really, I think, for me, a great place to grow up. I learned Black history and African history and I had great teachers and in the 11th grade one of my teachers, Vivian LaPred, assigned me a letter from Birmingham jail to do a speech on, from Birmingham jail to do a speech on, to study and do a speech on. And since then, you know but it was the intriguing thing is that same year, that same class, I did a speech on night by Elie Wiesel which is his account of his time in concentration camp. So I had this kind of double exposure to this brilliant letter from this brilliant peacemaker in response to people who disagreed with him about his work in Birmingham, Alabama Clergy no less eight clergy he was responding to. And then I also was reading this book that same year about the devastation of the Holocaust and I just started to, from that point, really be attentive to one the teachings of Dr King.

Speaker 2:

I started to study him more and eventually, as an AmeriCorps member once I graduated college, started to develop trainings on him and on his teachings, and it's actually how I started working at the King Center I met his daughter, Dr Bernice A King, who's now the CEO, and I just started to have conversation with her and eventually started working with her on speeches and concepts. And then she invited me to join the staff of the King Center and be over education and training. And I got that job because I presented, when I interviewed, a binder of the trainings that I had done on the beloved community and on Dr King. So this has been for me. I'm 40, I'm about to turn 48 on leap year on February 29th, and I have, you know, since the age of 17, 31 years spent teaching and kind of communing with Dr King's thinking initially, and then really starting to study and practice and embrace the philosophy and methodology of nonviolence.

Speaker 1:

I love that. And then, what was the moment when you found your purpose?

Speaker 2:

And then what was the moment when you found your purpose? Wow, now that I saw that question and I said, the moment, hmm, hmm, you know, and I'm going to be very honest, I think I only recently discovered my lifelong purpose, amazingly enough, um, that I started to get this kind of divine revelation about this concept that I want to share for the rest of my life, even writing books on and doing virtual experiences about our need, holistically and across the globe, to rise up with the concept of neighbor. What does neighbor mean? What are the facets of it? How do we become good, humane neighbors? Who is my neighbor?

Speaker 2:

All of these different things that I started to get just dropped in me and write down and kind of formulate. And that was only in the last two years. So I think all of the work that I've done, the thinking that I've done, the contributions that I've made, the sessions that I've led, that I've been a part of kind of, have culminated in understanding that for the rest of my life, I want to talk to the world about how to be better to each other and how to do that not by just getting rid of things but by embracing things and by building. So I think a lot of our work is sometimes focused on deconstruction, and I think we need to focus more on construction.

Speaker 1:

Because that's the sweaty part. That's where you got to put your back into it. I feel like it's easy to sit on the bench, but it is hard to get in the game and say I will sweat over this.

Speaker 2:

Well, we're in the age of commentary.

Speaker 2:

And it's very concerning. So even after Super Bowl the other day, everybody was commenting on halftime show and it really just struck me how we have a diminished capacity to either not say something nice or not say anything at all, and so I was really like what's wrong with just saying this is what I like and then not saying anything about the things that I dislike, and then not saying anything about the things that I dislike? What is it about us that when we're not in the arena and we're just sitting on the sidelines, we want to have this commentary that picks apart what everybody else does? And it's very concerning to me. I want to teach my nieces and my nephew and everyone I encounter a different way that we can get in that place of okay, if I saw a performance and there was something that I liked, let me highlight that, and we can do that with people. We can say let me highlight for this person the things that I think are great about them.

Speaker 2:

I'm not talking about injustice, I'm just talking about different personalities and people. And then, if that person is complicit in an injustice, how can I talk about that without diminishing them as a person and making them feel inhuman, not inhumane, inhuman? How can I treat them with dignity, while expressing that thing that you're doing is hurtful to other people and is devastating to communities? How can I maintain my capacity for love and for being gracious? I think if we each ask ourselves that, then we'll create spaces where there's love and joy and peace, and it takes practice and using our words.

Speaker 1:

So one of the ways that I have been practicing with this with my two boys, from their toddlers now to teenagers, is we have practiced saying don't yuck my yum is what we say in our house. Don't yuck someone's yum, because there is this reflex where it's like word vomit, but no matter what everybody feels like, they just have to comment on somebody else's thing, and so it is self-control and it's love in action by catching yourself and remembering I don't gotta yuck their yum. And then, at like holidays, birthdays, christmases we all write each other a letter. So we practice using our words to build people up One.

Speaker 1:

I want my kids to know they have power. Two their offering of words builds relationships. It is important and so, just as practice, of writing each other a letter that says I love you because of this character quality I saw you do this this year I think if we could start to practice the power of telling people what they are and the positives that we see, and then the self-control to just not say it they don't need to know how you feel about the olives on the pizza, but it is self-control. I gotta work at it. I'm like you know it is.

Speaker 2:

I delete posts all the time like I'll type up something and be like why would I say this? You know, why would I put this out there? I mean, I didn't like this movie, but somebody like it. Why do I have to tell the world? That I didn't like it, versus letting people have their own experience and go.

Speaker 1:

So one of the things that you said, that one of the books that kind of go along with the books of Martin Luther King's Birmingham, the letters from Birmingham, jail and also night is also man's search for meaning. Have I just got really into Victor Frank for a while because of his connection with purpose and why we need it, and so I just want to bless you and say, yes, you have found your purpose, and I've heard it said that oftentimes women don't find their voice till 40 and they're calling until 50., so you're ahead of schedule.

Speaker 1:

I know that, like what you're doing, and that is going to grow things, and I am grateful that you are saying yes to doing the work of what is a neighbor. So thank you so much for being with us. I'm going to end with our last two fun questions and there's no wrong answer here, so just you can shoot from the hip.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

What is your superpower?

Speaker 2:

Encouragement.

Speaker 1:

And how do you play?

Speaker 2:

Music. I love music. What kind I was just listening I got. I went down a Cynthia Erivo rabbit hole on YouTube last night.

Speaker 2:

And I felt I know this is a powerful word, but, Diana, I felt healed after I listened to her for three hours and after that shooting yesterday, I needed it. And so music allows me to hear a story through somebody's playing or singing their instruments. But it also, I think, is such a gift. When I hear her voice recently I just think, wow, whitney Houston still does that. For me, I think that's transcendent, the ability to play an instrument or have a voice like that that can lift somebody. And so music for me, it does it.

Speaker 2:

I met Stevie Wonder the other day and I was just like I'm meeting Stevie Wonder and I started to think about, you know, this gift of a human being who, the songs he's written Love's in Need of Love Today and you know, I just called to say I love you His ability to talk about the human condition but to also inspire hope. Music is clay. For me, it's wonderful. It's a wonderful space to just go into and Graham Norton episodes. I don't know if you ever watched Graham Norton, but he makes me laugh the most. He's a host from Great Britain, he has this show and I started watching it on YouTube years ago and then, 10 hours later, I'd be like I watched 10 hours, but it's just laughter and Clay, for me is laughter. Golden Girls, it's.

Speaker 2:

And play for me is laughter. Golden Girls oh, you know, it's funny, funny things, because you need something that reminds you that there's good in the world, and I think for me that's important for every issue that I'm working on, have a source of hope and to find a solution to.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think you are offering hope as you teach nonviolence and also I think you stay human, and that's one of the things that I love about following you. I'm like because we are going to do the work, we're going to have solutions, but we're also going to live a little, because if we don't honor just who we are, you know that we like stand-up comedy, I like music. You know like I just I've gotten into birds and I know it's like an 80 year old thing, but now I am like laugh out loud when I see a really cool bird and I'm like this is ridiculous, but I am. I am loving life in this moment, like just embracing the joy of it. So where can people support you? Or what is one thing we can do to support nonviolence? What would you point us to?

Speaker 2:

Well, you can support me via my website. You can learn more about, learn more about my trainings and what I do. I have this series that I recently did called Peace Talks, and I'm looking to continue that. I have a session coming up, a seven part course that I'm teaching called Changing my Mind called Changing my Mind. As you can find out more about it, my website, vanettalwestcom V-O-N-N-E-T-T-A-L-W-E-S-T dot com, and I just welcome engaging you there and on social media at Vanetta L West everywhere.

Speaker 2:

The King Center is a great place to learn about King and nonviolence. I'm always delighted to be a part of the training team there and go to the kingcenterinstituteorg. We have a great online course. It's 18 hours but it's phenomenal to learn about the campaigns nonviolent campaigns of the 60s and how that can still work today. That nonviolence can still work today. You can learn about the beloved community, what it is, how we can get there, the principles and steps of nonviolence and just really get into more what is nonviolence, because there's so many misnomers about it. But I certainly want to invite everyone to go to my website, vanettalwestcom, and also go to thekingcenterinstituteorg.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us and for giving us some tools and some hope of how we can continue to stand up for anyone experiencing violence, whether it's in Gaza or Israel, or our neighborhoods or the next shooting. So, dr Venna, thank you so much for being with us.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Diane.

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Diana K Oestreich

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