0:00

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

0:02

Vedante. In November 1971, a

0:04

man showed up at a flight

0:07

counter for Northwest Orient Airlines in

0:09

Portland. He asked to buy a

0:11

one-way ticket to Seattle. The man

0:14

provided his name when he bought

0:16

the ticket. Dan Cooper. He was

0:18

carrying a black briefcase. Once on

0:20

board the aircraft and en route

0:22

to Seattle, the man showed

0:25

a flight attendant, the contents

0:27

of the contents of his

0:29

briefcase. It looked like a bomb.

0:32

In return for

0:34

releasing passengers unharmed,

0:36

he demanded $200,000 when

0:38

the plane landed. He

0:41

also added an odd

0:43

request. He wanted four

0:45

parachutes. After the plane

0:48

landed in Seattle, the

0:50

ransom and parachutes

0:52

were delivered. Dan Cooper allowed

0:55

the passengers to disembark. but

0:57

kept the crew on board.

1:00

He demanded the plane be

1:02

refueled and fly to Mexico

1:05

City. The plane took off

1:07

a second time. The hijacker

1:09

ordered the crew to stay

1:11

in the cockpit. He also

1:13

demanded the curtains between the

1:15

coach cabin and first class

1:17

be closed. With no one

1:19

watching him, he opened the rear

1:21

exit on the plane and leaped

1:24

with his parachute and his money

1:26

into a moonless night. Dan

1:32

Cooper was never caught.

1:34

His identity remains

1:36

a mystery. Clearly the

1:39

man who showed up at

1:41

the airline counter that day

1:43

was not who he said he

1:45

was. The story of his

1:48

hijacking, while real, is a

1:50

staff of movies and novels.

1:53

Today on the show, we look

1:55

at how many of us go

1:58

to disguise who we are.

2:00

Most of the time, it

2:02

isn't because we are planning

2:05

anything nefarious. It's because we

2:07

want to fit in or

2:09

be taken seriously. But

2:11

such disguises don't just

2:13

fool others. They have

2:15

powerful effects on us. What

2:17

happens when we pretend we

2:20

are not who we are, this

2:22

week, on hidden brain. Who

2:30

are we really and how much of our

2:32

real selves can we show to the world?

2:35

These are questions all of us

2:37

wrestle with. Sometimes we decide to

2:39

bear it all. Other times, we

2:41

decide to cover up. Kenji Yoshino

2:43

is a legal scholar at New

2:46

York University who studies the

2:48

effects these choices have on

2:50

us and on those around us. Kenji

2:52

Yoshino, welcome to Hidden Brain.

2:55

Thank you so much for having

2:57

me. Kenji, take me back

2:59

in time to the story of a

3:01

very prominent American who went

3:04

to great lengths to manage

3:06

how people saw him. You've

3:08

studied America's 32nd president, Franklin

3:11

Delano Roosevelt. Tell me his

3:13

story. So Franklin Delano Roosevelt

3:15

was struck by polio. And

3:18

in the wake of that

3:20

had a motor disability where

3:22

he was in a wheelchair

3:24

and he made every effort

3:27

to downplay this to the

3:29

American public and that included

3:31

having photographs taken of him

3:34

only from the waist up

3:36

and he was able to

3:38

minimize or edit his public

3:40

persona so that his disability

3:42

was in the background rather

3:44

than the foreground of his

3:46

interactions with others. And I

3:48

am certain that on this

3:50

day my fellow Americans expect

3:52

that on my induction into

3:55

the presidency I will address

3:57

them with a candor and

3:59

a decision. When I think back to

4:01

photographs I've seen of FDR, I often

4:03

see him sitting behind a desk with

4:05

people standing around him. And of course

4:07

he looks very presidential when he does

4:10

that, but perhaps some of this was

4:12

also with a view to hiding the

4:14

fact that he found it difficult to

4:16

stand and to walk. That's exactly right. And

4:18

in fact, we know that he used

4:21

to make sure that he was seated

4:23

behind a table before his cabinet entered

4:25

so that nobody needed to see him.

4:27

kind of laboriously getting

4:29

in or out of

4:31

his seat. So it

4:34

was a very kind

4:36

of manicured and orchestrated

4:38

and choreographed appearance

4:40

that he gave to the

4:42

world. I understand that FDR

4:45

also had a car specially

4:47

designed for him. Yes,

4:50

so this is a car

4:52

that he could drive with

4:54

his hands only. So things

4:56

like the gas pedal or

4:58

the brakes could all be

5:00

manipulated through his hands. And

5:02

he made a special point

5:04

of being photographed driving around

5:06

in this car to give

5:08

the impression that he was

5:10

just as capable of driving

5:12

as anybody else. What's

5:15

striking about the story of course

5:17

is that people knew that the

5:19

president had a disability, that he

5:21

had polio. It wasn't a secret,

5:23

but yet he went to these

5:25

lengths in some ways to give the impression

5:27

that he was okay. That's exactly

5:29

right. So again, he wasn't trying

5:31

to fool anybody, nor could he

5:33

have, but what he was trying

5:35

to do was to soften the

5:37

impression that this made a difference.

5:40

I want to play you some tape

5:42

kenji featuring Margaret Thatcher, the former

5:44

Prime Minister of Britain. In 1980,

5:46

the year she gave the speech,

5:48

unemployment was rising in Britain and

5:50

the economy was in recession, some

5:52

of her critics urged her to

5:55

execute a U-turn reversing the changes

5:57

she had made. Here's how she

5:59

responded. To those waiting with

6:01

bated breaths for that favorite

6:04

media catchphrase, the U-turn, I

6:06

have only one thing to

6:09

say, U-turn if you want

6:11

to, the ladies not for

6:14

turning. Listening to that clip,

6:16

Kenji, it's hard not to

6:18

notice Margaret Thatcher's

6:21

distinctive speaking voice.

6:23

Yes, absolutely. And one

6:25

of the things that, like, you

6:28

know, FDR, she did was to

6:30

carefully, you know, orchestrate her speaking

6:32

voice. So when she was first

6:35

standing for Prime Minister, her handlers

6:37

came to her and said, you

6:40

need to go into voice coaching.

6:42

Wow. And what they were doing

6:44

was saying to her, Look, you

6:46

speak with a working class accent,

6:48

so you need to push up

6:50

your voice, your grocer's daughter, and

6:53

so they told her that the

6:55

voice coaching would allow her to

6:57

lower her voice so that she

6:59

would have more executive presence. She

7:01

dutifully went into the voice coaching

7:03

and emerged on the other side

7:05

with a more patrician resident voice,

7:07

and her voice became one of

7:09

the most distinctive aspects of her,

7:11

where when you hear that voice,

7:13

you... Here are the voice of

7:15

authority. No confidence on money,

7:17

no confidence on the economy,

7:19

so yes, the right honorable

7:22

gentleman would be glad to hand

7:24

it all over. But what is the

7:26

point? Then trying to get elected to

7:28

Parliament, only to hand over your sterling

7:30

and to hand over the powers of

7:33

their authority. And of course, I mean,

7:35

she was known as the Iron Lady, and

7:37

in some ways that voice added to that

7:39

impression. Exactly right. So

7:51

in this case Margaret Thatcher wasn't hiding

7:53

a physical disability. She was hiding the

7:55

fact that she came from a blue-collar

7:57

background, but again, it wasn't a secret.

8:00

that she came from a blue

8:02

collar background, people knew that she

8:04

was a grocer's daughter, but in

8:06

some ways she again was giving

8:08

people the illusion that she

8:10

wasn't. Exactly. So here we have

8:12

a second example of someone who

8:15

is not trying to hide who

8:17

they are, but is trying to

8:19

sort of manage or soften or

8:22

engage in impression management because she

8:24

knows that she has a quality

8:26

that is an outsider. quality that

8:29

people are not going to accept

8:31

as easily in someone who occupies

8:33

a position of power. I

8:36

want to play you another piece of tape, Kenji.

8:38

This one features an actor, Ben Kingsley, talking

8:41

about what it was like to be offered

8:43

the lead role in the movie Gandhi, a

8:45

performance for which he would ultimately receive an

8:47

Academy Award. He's recounting here how it felt

8:49

like to look in the mirror after he

8:52

was made to look like Mahatma Gandhi. He

8:54

didn't know at this point where the director

8:56

Richard Attenborough, who had spent years trying to

8:58

make the movie, was going to give him

9:01

the part. And during

9:03

this moment where I'm staring in

9:05

the mirror, Attenborough walked into the

9:07

dressing room. Dickie slumped into a

9:10

chair. I thought, oh dear, this

9:12

doesn't look good. He slumped. He

9:14

collapsed. I didn't realize that it

9:16

was the collapse of a man

9:18

who'd reached the end of a

9:21

very, very, very long journey. Because

9:23

from its collapse posture, he murmured,

9:25

then I want you to do it. So

9:27

Kenji actors of course are professionally

9:30

trained to disguise themselves Ben

9:32

Kingsley was pretending to be

9:34

someone he was not But

9:36

you say he wasn't just

9:38

playing the role of Gandhi

9:40

Yeah, so Ben Kingsley was

9:42

born Krishna Banji and he

9:44

changed his name when he

9:46

began his theatrical career because

9:48

he thought that his birth

9:50

name would limit the roles

9:52

that he would be able

9:54

to acquire. So the irony

9:56

is that he became Ben

9:58

Kingsley, but then went back to

10:01

playing Gandhi. So there's a kind

10:03

of Russian doll nesting quality to

10:05

this. But the thing that he

10:07

has in common with the other

10:09

two figures you were describing is

10:12

again, he understood that it could

10:14

be career consequential for him to

10:16

present himself as his full. authentic

10:18

self and he modulated aspects of

10:21

his identity because he knew exactly

10:23

what the culture needed from him

10:25

and he assimilated to that culture.

10:27

And of course he's not the

10:29

only actor to have done so.

10:32

There is a long list of

10:34

actors and musicians and performers who

10:36

have changed their names to have

10:38

stage names that sound more charismatic

10:40

if you will than than they're

10:43

given names. Absolutely, and they tend

10:45

to be sort of more popular

10:47

names that are in the semantic

10:49

stock, right? And so you tend

10:52

to see actors changing their names

10:54

in the direction of something that

10:56

will be more kind of broadly

10:58

intelligible, more memorable, more part of

11:01

the semantic stock, right, of the

11:03

country that they're performing in.

11:12

All these figures were very

11:14

visible. Franklin Roosevelt,

11:16

Margaret Thatcher, and Ben

11:19

Kingsley lived in the public eye.

11:21

And yet, there were aspects of

11:23

themselves that they played down. They

11:26

were hiding, but hiding in plain

11:28

sight. When we come back, the

11:30

subtle ways in which we

11:32

all disguise our identities and

11:34

what this subterfuge costs us.

11:37

You're listening to hidden brain,

11:39

I'm Shankar Vedanta. This

11:56

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

11:58

Vedanta. Kenji Yoshino

12:00

is a legal scholar at New

12:03

York University. He says that people

12:05

who feel shame about their identities

12:07

or fear how they will

12:10

be treated by others often

12:12

disguise themselves in three ways, all of

12:14

which he has done himself. Kenji,

12:16

let's spend a little time

12:18

with your own story. You first

12:20

realized you needed to disguise who

12:22

you were when you were at

12:24

boarding school. What did you feel you

12:26

needed to hide? I

12:29

came to the realization that I

12:31

was gay fairly early in my

12:33

life and I think I knew

12:35

that from a very young age,

12:37

but was still in this phase

12:40

of... hoping that this would go

12:42

away, and one of the ways

12:44

in which I willed it to

12:46

go away was by having a

12:48

girlfriend, and of course this has

12:51

collateral consequences on other people. So

12:53

I look back with regret on

12:55

what I put her through because

12:57

I wasn't able to be my

12:59

fully authentic self. But this was

13:01

in the mid-80s, and I think

13:04

that this is unfortunately a very

13:06

common narrative. I understand that

13:08

when you got to college you

13:10

directed all your energies into academic

13:13

pursuits. Were you using your studies

13:15

to hide your identity now? Yes,

13:17

I think that this is something

13:19

that I have heard in a

13:22

lot of LGBT individuals and perhaps

13:24

more generally individuals who are kind

13:26

of overachievers in one domain of

13:28

their life in order to compensate

13:31

for some perceived lack and another

13:33

domain. Poetry

13:37

was a great solace for

13:39

me because it allowed me

13:41

to articulate what I was

13:43

going through without necessarily being

13:45

so public about it. So

13:47

poetry was more public than

13:50

thought, but it was more

13:52

private than prose. And I

13:54

found a great comfort in

13:56

being able to express myself

13:58

without feeling I was... was

14:00

completely exposed. So

14:02

after college you went to

14:04

England on a road scholarship,

14:07

but you became depressed when

14:09

you were in England, tell

14:12

me what happened, Kenji. It

14:14

was a very, very dark

14:16

time in my life, the only

14:18

consistent foray I made from

14:20

my college rooms in the

14:22

first months I was there,

14:24

was to go to the

14:26

college chapel where... I prayed

14:28

to God that wasn't even

14:30

sure I believed in for

14:32

conversion to heterosexuality. So this

14:34

is the most aggressive form

14:36

of assimilation, where you

14:39

desire to change the underlying

14:41

identity altogether. And it's very

14:43

difficult, Shankar, for me

14:45

to remember that young man knelt

14:48

down in prayer, because he so

14:50

ardently wished the annihilation of the

14:52

human being I have become. So

14:55

I'm now currently happily married, my husband

14:57

and I have two kids and

14:59

so on and so forth, but

15:01

that would have been unimaginable to

15:03

that young man. This is 1991. He

15:06

just thought, if I'm going to have

15:08

any kind of life at all,

15:10

not just a professional life, but

15:12

also perhaps more importantly to him

15:14

at the time, a personal life

15:16

of marriage and children, that it

15:18

was inconceivable that you could be

15:20

an openly gay person and have

15:22

that life. So what I desperately

15:25

wanted was to convert

15:27

and to change the

15:29

underlying identity. At some

15:31

point during your time in

15:33

England, Kenji, you went to

15:35

see a psychiatrist. Tell

15:37

me what happened when you talked

15:40

with him and how it turned

15:42

out. There was one pivotal

15:45

conversation that became a touchdown

15:47

for my young adult life where

15:49

he at one point said, Can

15:52

you just describe to me what it feels

15:54

like to be attracted to somebody? Like who

15:56

are you attracted to? Describe someone who is

15:58

attractive. And I said... I absolutely cannot

16:01

do that because it is

16:03

perverted. And he said in words

16:05

that I will never forget, it is

16:07

not perverted, it is thwarted. And

16:09

that sort of paradigm shift

16:11

from thinking about my own

16:14

desires as being something that

16:16

were properly stigmatized to thinking

16:18

that this is actually just

16:20

something that is blocked, right,

16:22

was just a transformative shift

16:24

in my own thinking. So

16:34

this insight helped you accept your identity

16:36

as a gay man, but when you

16:38

return to the United States to go

16:41

to law school Were you open about

16:43

being gay? I Was not and I

16:45

think about this as a movement from

16:47

one phase of assimilation to another So

16:49

if the first phase was trying to

16:52

convert and responding to really the

16:54

demand for conversion, which I experienced

16:56

in society at large The second

16:58

phase was I'm not going to

17:01

convert, but I am going to pass

17:04

And what I mean by

17:06

that is I had by

17:09

that point accepted the fact

17:11

that I was gay and

17:13

I was not trying to

17:16

change the underlying identity. But

17:18

I was nonetheless

17:21

extremely closeted

17:23

and not willing to

17:25

share that identity with

17:28

anyone in the

17:30

community around me.

17:32

but wondered what message it would

17:34

send. And I really debated whether

17:37

or not I should take the class

17:39

because I thought if I sign up

17:41

for this class it's a very small

17:43

community. The class lists are all posted

17:46

in the hallway and the moment where

17:48

I put my name on that list

17:50

I have effectively outed myself

17:52

to the entire community

17:55

I thought. At that time the only people

17:57

who would be caught, you know, taking

17:59

a class... sexual orientation

18:01

law were members

18:03

of the LGBTQI.A.A. plus community

18:05

and then maybe some

18:08

woman, some righteous straight

18:10

woman, but a straight

18:12

man would not be caught,

18:14

you know, touching a class like

18:17

this with a 10-foot pole.

18:19

Kenji eventually started to

18:21

come out of the

18:23

closet. He got a boyfriend,

18:26

Paul, but went to great

18:28

lengths. to hide Paul from the

18:30

world. This is a point of real

18:32

tension in my relationship with him

18:34

because Paul quite rightly, you know,

18:37

felt that I was downplaying him

18:39

or hiding him in ways that

18:41

suggested I was ashamed of the

18:44

relationship and that, you know, he

18:46

really deserved better. And the idea

18:48

of holding somebody's hand in public

18:51

or showing public displays of

18:53

same-sex affection were all sort

18:55

of veroden at this time

18:57

for me. So

19:01

eventually Kenji you became a

19:03

law professor and at one point

19:05

you received a piece of advice

19:07

from a colleague that backed up

19:09

your decision to disguise yourself in

19:11

the way that you were disguising

19:14

yourself. What was this advice? So

19:16

the advice that I got when

19:18

I started teaching as a junior

19:20

professor was by a very well-meaning,

19:22

very kind colleague who wanted only

19:24

good things for me and he

19:26

put his arm around me as

19:28

he were walking down the hall.

19:30

And he said, you know, Kenji,

19:33

you'll have a lot smoother ride

19:35

to getting tenure if you are

19:37

a homosexual professional rather than

19:39

a professional homosexual. And

19:41

I knew exactly what he meant.

19:43

What he meant was, you'll do much

19:46

better if you are the mainstream constitutional

19:49

law professor who teaches separation

19:51

of powers and federalism and

19:53

judicial review. And just happens

19:55

to be gay on the

19:58

side as an extracurricular. then

20:00

you will, if you are the

20:02

gay rights professor who teaches gay

20:04

rights subjects and writes on gay

20:07

rights issues and works on gay

20:09

rights cases. Unfortunately, of course, it

20:11

was the latter that I wanted

20:13

to do. This was now 1996,

20:16

a time when the ICE was

20:18

finally breaking up on the LGBTQI

20:20

plus landscape. The Romer versus Evans

20:22

case had just been decided. It

20:25

was really clear that we're barreling

20:27

our way towards Lawrence versus Texas

20:29

in 2003, which was the Brown

20:31

v. Borer, the gay rights movement. And

20:33

I did not want to be on

20:36

the sidelines for that. But what he

20:38

was clearly saying was... If you want

20:40

to get tenure here, you really

20:42

need to manage your identity.

20:44

And there's just a limit

20:47

to how gay you can be in this

20:49

environment and expect

20:51

to succeed. So in other words,

20:53

be gay by Don't flaunt

20:55

it. Exactly. And the reason that

20:57

that was so utterly painful for

21:00

me was it was someone I

21:02

really admired and trusted. And he

21:04

was saying, actually, there's another hurdle

21:06

that you need to wrestle with,

21:08

right? Which is, you don't need

21:10

to be straight, right? So you

21:12

don't need to convert. You don't

21:14

need to be in the closet.

21:17

You don't need to pass. But

21:19

you do need to, as you

21:21

put it, Shunker, not flaunt. You

21:23

need to downplay, mute, edit your

21:25

identity so that the rest of us

21:27

can feel more comfortable around you. So that

21:29

was a moment when I had this pit

21:31

in my stomach and I realized that I

21:34

needed to engage in yet more kind of

21:36

identity management when I thought that the era

21:38

of that was long over in my own

21:40

life. So

21:45

one day you came by a book that

21:47

transformed your understanding of what was

21:49

happening to you and what was

21:51

happening around you. Can you paint

21:53

me a picture of this epiphany,

21:56

can you? Yes, I'm sure the soul

21:58

resonate with most readers, right? who read

22:00

a book and it so aptly describes something

22:02

in their own life that they

22:04

realize that they will never be

22:07

able to see the world in

22:09

the same way again. And that

22:11

book for me was Irving

22:13

Goffman's book Stigma, Notes on

22:15

the Management of Spoiled Identity.

22:18

So Irving Goffman is a

22:20

very eminent sociologist and one

22:22

of the things that he

22:24

was smartest about was the

22:26

presentation of the self. So

22:29

in this book about stigma,

22:31

he said that individuals who

22:33

are quite open about

22:35

the fact that they belong

22:38

to a stigmatized group open

22:40

because they either cannot

22:42

or will not hide

22:44

that fact, nonetheless expend

22:46

an enormous amount of energy

22:48

to downplay that identity so

22:51

that others around them can

22:53

have greater comfort. And he

22:55

called this phenomenon covering.

23:02

And the reason that this was

23:04

so transformative for me was that

23:06

I understood to my very

23:08

bones, right, what I was being asked

23:11

to do, but I didn't have a

23:13

word for it. I had a word

23:15

for, yes, change your identity, that was

23:17

conversion. I had a word for, you

23:20

can have the identity, but hide it

23:22

from everybody. That was passing. But I

23:24

did not have the word for, you

23:26

can be gay, and say that you're

23:29

gay. but make sure that you

23:31

soften it, mute it, edit it,

23:33

down, play it so that other

23:35

people around you can feel more

23:37

comfortable. So this, I'm out of

23:40

the closet, but I'm still being

23:42

asked to assimilate in these ways,

23:44

was what I was really struggling

23:46

with. And I couldn't name it.

23:48

And what Irving Goffman did, and

23:50

it's really like a throwaway line,

23:53

I think it's two pages in

23:55

his book where he talks about

23:57

this. wonderful colleague of mine said

23:59

to me be a homosexual professional rather than

24:01

a professional homosexual because that colleague

24:03

was not saying don't be gay

24:06

or don't say that you're gay.

24:08

He was saying it's fine for

24:10

you to be gay and say

24:12

that you're gay but don't flaunt

24:14

it and covering was what he was

24:16

asking me to do. So I knew

24:18

that would forevermore be attuned to these

24:20

covering demands as a kind of assimilation

24:23

I would be asked to engage in

24:25

on the other side of the closet

24:27

door. And of course,

24:29

once you had the vocabulary

24:31

for this, you started to see

24:33

examples of this in the larger

24:35

culture. Everyone knew that FDR had

24:37

polio, but he goes to great

24:39

lengths to disguise the fact that

24:42

he has polio. Everyone knows that

24:44

Margaret Thatcher is a woman and

24:46

came from a blue-collar background, but

24:48

she goes to great lengths not

24:50

to sound overly feminine or overly

24:52

blue-collar. That's exactly right. So once

24:54

I had this term covering, I

24:56

was able to see it. everywhere.

24:59

In fact, I was unable not

25:01

to see it everywhere in social

25:03

life. And the important insight

25:05

there is that when we're

25:07

talking about conversion or when we're

25:09

talking about passing, these are

25:12

not strategies that are available

25:14

to everybody. So if you

25:16

have immutable identity like race,

25:19

you're going to be limited in

25:21

how much you can convert that.

25:23

or pass. But notice what

25:25

happens when we get to

25:28

covering demands, direct themselves at

25:30

the behavioral aspects of an

25:33

identity. So that means every

25:35

single person can cover.

25:37

So unlike conversion and passing,

25:40

covering is a truly

25:42

universal experience for anyone who

25:44

has a stigmatized or outsider

25:46

identity. And I would add

25:48

to that that I think

25:51

we understand. It is not.

25:53

normal to be completely normal

25:55

along all dimensions. All of

25:57

us have some outsider identities.

26:00

And so therefore all of us

26:02

will have experienced the covering demand.

26:04

So again, Margaret Thatcher, Franklin,

26:07

Donald, Roosevelt, Ben Kingsley, there's

26:09

nothing that they could do

26:11

to convert or to pass

26:13

with regard to their identities, whether

26:15

that was disability or gender or

26:18

race or national origin. But they

26:20

were all able to cover by

26:22

modifying aspects of their identity. So

26:24

I will cover by making sure

26:27

I'm only photographed from the way

26:29

step to hide my disability. Or

26:31

I will cover by going to

26:33

voice coaching to scrub my working

26:35

class accent. Or I will cover

26:38

by changing my name. so that

26:40

people don't have immediate associations about

26:42

what roles I might be appropriate

26:45

for and pigeonhole me in a

26:47

very narrow area of the theater

26:49

world. These are all acts of

26:52

covering and they testify to how

26:54

universal this is. Think

27:06

about a hard-driving workplace. You're a

27:09

new mom. Do you hesitate to

27:11

put up pictures of your children

27:13

on your desk? That's what Kenji

27:15

would call covering. He cites studies

27:17

that show that in such workplaces,

27:20

women face a motherhood penalty. There

27:22

are social science studies that are

27:24

quite depressing on this point. Oh,

27:26

she's now a caregiver. She'll be

27:28

less committed to work. There's a

27:30

follow-on study by Beatrice Aranda and

27:32

Peter Glick that says, is there

27:34

anything that women can do to

27:36

mitigate or eliminate the motherhood penalty?

27:38

As it turns out, there's nothing

27:40

you can do to eliminate it,

27:42

but you can mitigate the motherhood

27:44

penalty if you engage in behavior

27:46

that is work devotional, where you

27:49

never ever talk about your children

27:51

and you constantly talk about your

27:53

infinite capacity to take on more

27:55

work. That in my terminology is covering.

28:01

I'm thinking about the famous

28:03

writer and activist Helen Keller.

28:05

She was blind, but she

28:08

was uncomfortable about being photographed

28:10

from angles that showed her

28:12

protruding eye. At one point,

28:14

she later had her eyes

28:16

replaced with glass eyes. And

28:18

in fact, sometimes journalists would

28:20

comment on how beautiful her eyes

28:22

were. That was an incredibly painful

28:25

irony. And one of the richness

28:27

of that anecdote that you just

28:29

told is that... If you were to

28:31

ask somebody who the most

28:33

famous disability rights advocate was,

28:35

it would probably say Helen

28:37

Keller. So you would imagine

28:39

that she would lean heavily

28:41

into her disability and her identity

28:44

as a person who was blind,

28:46

among other things. But the fact

28:48

that she engaged in this cosmetic

28:51

adjustment to appear more kind of

28:53

normal and mainstream. testifies to the

28:55

fact that none of us ever

28:57

evolve away from the force of

29:00

these covering demands. I also want

29:02

to make really clear that in

29:04

all these instances, I'm not victim

29:07

blaming. I'm not saying that, oh,

29:09

FDR or Margaret Thatcher or Ben

29:11

Kingsley or Helen Keller. we're self-hating

29:13

or that they should have had

29:16

more pride in their identity, I'm

29:18

actually not interested in that at

29:20

all. What I'm interested in is

29:22

looking at the societal demand that

29:25

in order to be seen as

29:27

a full equal dignified member of

29:29

society, that you would need to

29:31

downplay or edit these aspects of

29:34

your identity. And that to me

29:36

shows how much further we have

29:38

to go in achieving full equality

29:40

alongside these stigmatized traits. Are

29:43

all sort of cosmetic interventions in some

29:45

ways forms of covering? I mean, you

29:47

know, from the very trivial about the,

29:49

you know, the bald man who has

29:51

a combover or, you know, the person

29:54

who is dyeing their hair because their

29:56

hair is turning gray? Are these all

29:58

examples of covering? answer that

30:00

by saying yes there are all

30:02

forms of covering but not all

30:04

forms of covering are problematic. So

30:06

if I came to work alongside

30:08

you and I was rapidly obnoxious

30:10

to everybody in the workplace and

30:12

you finally took me aside and

30:14

said Kenji knock it off you're

30:16

driving everyone to distraction and I

30:18

said well wait a minute Shanker.

30:20

This is my authentic self. This

30:23

is who I am. I just

30:25

happen to be an incredibly obnoxious

30:27

person. And you told me that

30:29

you valued authenticity in the workplace.

30:31

And so this is what you get.

30:33

I would offer to you that that is

30:36

covering that you're requiring of

30:38

me, but that a world in which

30:40

I win that argument with you is

30:42

a world in which none of us

30:44

want to live. So that means that

30:46

there are some forms of covering that

30:48

are at least neutral, but... potentially

30:51

even positive or even essential to

30:53

the smooth functioning of a workplace

30:55

or of a community. And that

30:58

in turn pushes me to the harder

31:00

question of, okay, if they're good forms

31:02

of covering and bad forms of

31:04

covering, how do we distinguish between

31:06

the good and bad forms? And

31:09

to me, it's really about societal

31:11

values. That's my answer of how

31:13

we distinguish between the good and

31:15

the bad forms. Because if you

31:17

actually say to somebody. Yes, you have

31:20

to downplay your obnoxious personality. And I

31:22

say, well, that's an impingement on my

31:24

authenticity. You have a really good answer

31:26

to that, right, which is to say

31:29

that we ask everybody to adhere to

31:31

those norms and we understand that that

31:33

might harm some people in their self-presentation

31:35

more than others, but this is a

31:38

tax that we're willing to exact in

31:40

the name of the community because we

31:42

think this is an utterly defensible value.

31:44

On the other hand, if you said

31:47

to me. Well, we believe in the

31:49

inclusion of women in the workplace, but

31:51

to go back to the earlier example,

31:53

if you want to get a promotion,

31:55

stop talking about your kids. If you

31:57

say that to women and you would...

31:59

say that to a man,

32:01

then that's a covering demand

32:04

that I would have a

32:06

problem with because there the

32:08

covering demand is not backed

32:10

by a community value. And

32:12

that's the inconsistency I want

32:15

to challenge. When we

32:17

come back, how covering

32:19

complicates our understanding of what

32:22

it means to belong. You're

32:24

listening to hidden brain,

32:27

I'm Shankar Vedanta. This

32:44

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

32:46

Vedante. Kenji Yoshino is

32:48

a legal scholar at New York

32:51

University. He is the author

32:53

of covering the hidden assault

32:55

on our civil rights. Kenji,

32:58

by the year 2001, you

33:00

had long since come out

33:03

as a gay man to

33:05

your parents. They are of

33:07

Japanese ancestry. But you found

33:10

yourself having a tense discussion

33:12

with them about an article

33:14

about you that was about

33:17

to be published in the

33:19

New York Times. What was

33:21

this article and my work

33:23

on covering? And it was

33:25

a very positive piece that

33:27

might in other circumstances have been

33:30

a cause for celebration, but the

33:32

article explicitly talked about the fact

33:34

that I was an openly gay

33:36

man with my permission, you know,

33:38

of course. And the thing that

33:41

was challenging about this was that,

33:43

again, my parents were the very

33:45

first people that I had told that

33:47

I was gay. But this was something

33:49

different. You know, this was being in

33:51

the New York Times and being advertised

33:54

as an openly gay person to the

33:56

world. And so from their perspective, it

33:58

was just a different love. of

34:00

publicity and so they were

34:02

essentially saying It's fine for you

34:05

to be out of the closet,

34:07

but please don't draw this level

34:09

of activism and advocacy to this

34:11

role. So essentially, please downplay or

34:13

cover. And the most pointed thing

34:15

that my mother said to me

34:17

was, you know, if this is

34:19

published, then I won't be able

34:21

to go home, meaning go home

34:24

to Japan, because gay rights was

34:26

in a much different place in

34:28

Japan than it was, you know,

34:30

in the United States. Your

34:33

mother used a Japanese term

34:36

in this conversation that you

34:38

didn't understand. What was this term,

34:40

Kenji? This is a term that I

34:42

believe would be unfamiliar

34:44

to many Japanese people as well

34:47

because it was transliteration. So she

34:49

said, we understand that you're gay,

34:51

but why do you have to

34:54

be a Jean-Dauke? I was

34:56

like, what? What is that? And she

34:58

said, you know, the woman who heard

35:00

voices, and I was like, what on

35:03

earth are you talking about? Until the

35:05

kind of penny dropped, and I realized

35:07

that she was talking about Joan of

35:09

Arc and the transliteration of Joan of

35:12

Arc is Jean Dach, so essentially what

35:14

she was saying about Joan of Arc

35:16

is Jean Dach, so essentially what she

35:18

was saying is it's fine for you

35:21

to be a banner carrier for this

35:23

identity, why do you need to be

35:25

an advocate for anybody? So

35:28

in other words live your life be a

35:30

gay person, but don't make it your cause

35:32

Exactly, and it was a version of

35:34

the it's fine for you to be

35:37

a Homosexual professional, but don't

35:39

be a professional homosexual.

35:41

Don't make this your cause One

35:51

of the concerns that your parents had

35:53

was not just the effects that this would have

35:55

on them, but the effects that it would have

35:57

on you. They were worried that you were gonna

35:59

get... hate mail. I think about this all

36:02

the time as a parent now where, you

36:04

know, I have a, my parents are extraordinarily

36:07

wonderful, supportive people, but

36:09

since my husband and I have

36:11

had her two kids, I think about this

36:14

all the time as one of the most

36:16

poignant things that they said to me because

36:18

of, of course, when you're... a kid in

36:20

your, I think I was in my 30s

36:22

by that point, so not so much of

36:24

a kid. You don't like to think of

36:27

yourself as somebody whose parents need to look

36:29

out for them in those ways. So when

36:31

they were saying, oh my gosh, you're going

36:33

to get hate mail, you're going to get

36:35

death threats, you're going to get this or

36:37

that. I was just like, well, that's kind

36:40

of my business. I'm fully able to

36:42

take care of myself. I'm going into

36:44

this with eyes wide open. So this

36:47

is not something that you need to

36:49

worry about. I'm much more concerned about

36:51

what you're saying about yourselves and much

36:54

less concerned about my own sort of

36:56

risk profile. But now that I'm a

36:58

father, I... totally see where they are

37:00

coming from, where in some ways there

37:02

is nothing more painful than thinking, oh

37:04

my gosh, my child could be the

37:06

subject or object of hatred or hate

37:08

mail or vitriol of some kind, and

37:10

it's not something that I as a

37:12

parent can protect them from. So I

37:15

think that's what they are trying to

37:17

convey to me. So as a parent,

37:19

I have made sure to reconnect with

37:21

them on this particular point to say,

37:23

you know, I really deeply appreciated that

37:25

sentiment and probably was not able to

37:27

hear it. because I was only seeing

37:29

it through the lens of a child

37:31

rather than the lens of a parent

37:33

sort of desperate with worry about their

37:36

child. So you told your

37:38

parents that you already got hate

37:40

mail, and your father was shocked

37:42

and surprised by that, that you

37:44

already were getting hate mail. And

37:46

it struck you that in some ways,

37:48

this detail that may have been

37:50

connected to his own experience as

37:52

a young man from Japan who

37:54

came to the United States in

37:56

the 1950s. Tell me what went

37:59

through your mind. that point, can

38:01

you? I can only speculate here

38:03

because this is something that I

38:05

don't really know because it's not

38:07

really something that is talked about

38:10

openly in our family, but I

38:12

can only imagine what anti-Japanese sentiment

38:14

must have been like in the

38:17

middle of the 20th century when

38:19

he came over very very young,

38:21

you know, after he graduated from

38:24

high school and was going to

38:26

college. So if you think about

38:28

this era after World War II,

38:31

the anti-Japanese sentiment must have been

38:33

enormous. So I do sometimes think

38:35

that they thought, well, we suffered through all

38:37

of this because we had to, but

38:39

we thought that you were going to

38:41

grow up in a kindler, gentler America

38:44

with regard to race, and so you

38:46

would be able to kind of write

38:48

your own ticket. But now you are

38:50

embracing or identifying with this identity that

38:52

is so stigmatized that you're essentially going

38:54

to have to go through all of

38:56

this prejudice that we went through just

38:58

on a different dimension. Your

39:02

parents had a view of assimilation

39:04

that is quite different than

39:06

yours. Your dad sort of

39:08

describes himself as sort of

39:11

the stereotypical success story of

39:13

the American dream and the

39:15

value of assimilation. Tell me

39:17

how your views about assimilation have

39:20

come to differ from your parents,

39:22

Kenji. I want to say that

39:24

they differ, but I also feel

39:26

that I owe them an incredible

39:28

amount for... the fact that I

39:30

can hold a position that's different

39:32

from theirs. So to explain this,

39:34

I think my dad's attitude towards

39:36

assimilation was this, you know, I'm

39:38

going to be 100% American in

39:40

America and 100% Japanese in Japan.

39:42

And so he was deeply, you

39:44

know, assimilated and went from being

39:46

a young immigrant to this country

39:48

to ending his life as a,

39:50

you know, chaired professor at Harvard in

39:52

the business school. So he had a

39:55

very storied career and I really did

39:57

think that he felt that this ability

39:59

to code switch. seamlessly between the two

40:01

cultures was what he wanted to

40:04

do. And my view was I actually

40:06

don't want to code switch. I

40:08

don't want to assimilate in either country.

40:10

Like I want to be myself. I

40:13

want to be the same person regardless

40:15

of where I am. And to the

40:17

extent that environment is inhospitable to the

40:20

person that I really am, then I

40:22

will not live there. I will not

40:24

work there. So I think one of

40:27

the reasons why I. cooled on Japan

40:29

as a place to live or work

40:31

was that I just felt like LGBTQA

40:34

plus rights were just in a different

40:36

place than they were in the United

40:38

States. But the two stories are

40:41

intricated with each other, right? Because...

40:43

I don't think that I could

40:45

have the life that I am

40:47

privileged enough to live right now

40:49

if he hadn't lived his life,

40:51

so that he actually created the

40:53

conditions of, you know, privilege and

40:55

advantage, whether that was educational or

40:57

familial nurture or self-confidence or what

40:59

have you, that allowed me to

41:01

live the life that I'm living

41:04

now. It's

41:15

striking, Kenji, because I feel like

41:17

the idea of assimilation, the idea of

41:19

the melting pot, like we leave our

41:22

identities behind, we forget that we were

41:24

Irish or Jewish or, you know, gay

41:26

or black, that we come to America

41:29

and then we all become this new

41:31

thing, which is an American. I think

41:33

that's held up as being a

41:35

value, you know, an important idea.

41:37

You're pointing in some ways to

41:39

the dark side of assimilation. Can

41:41

you talk about that a moment? I

41:44

certainly can. So yes, I

41:46

actually see the allure of the

41:48

melting pot ideal of the idea

41:51

that we need sort of what

41:53

the political scientist Robert Putnam calls

41:56

bridging capital of these

41:58

supervening identities. that sort

42:00

of bring us all together, like the

42:02

identity of being an American. But Robert

42:05

Putnam also talks about the importance

42:07

of bonding capital. And he says,

42:09

if we melt totally into the

42:11

pot, that's a problem too. And

42:13

part of the capital that we

42:15

need to offer to society is

42:17

the. kind of capital we build

42:19

only internal to communities. So the

42:21

LGBT community, for example, or the

42:23

Asian American community, being a part

42:25

of those communities, actually enriches the

42:27

whole rather than impoverishing it. So

42:29

we can't be tilted over one

42:31

wing and one direction or the

42:33

other. So someone who bridges too

42:35

much would say, why do you keep

42:37

banging on about your identity? Like you

42:39

should just leave it behind the only

42:42

identity that you have as this identity

42:44

as American or this identity as a

42:46

citizen of the world or as a

42:49

human being or what have you. And

42:51

I believe that we have... more uncommon

42:53

than not, you know, as human beings,

42:56

and it's really important to keep that

42:58

steadily visible, but not at the expense

43:00

of understanding all the differences that we

43:02

also retain, and this kind of sense

43:05

that there are parts of us that

43:07

rightly refuse to melt into the pot. and

43:10

that I belong to sub-communities within

43:13

the United States that are different

43:15

from this kind of generic idea

43:17

of the American. And when you

43:20

tell me to melt into the

43:22

pot, that always means that the

43:24

marginalized group is assimilating and conforming

43:27

to the norms set by the

43:29

dominant group. So it has really an

43:31

egalitarian effects to quickly or categorically

43:33

say, let's all embrace the melting

43:35

pot ideal because some people are

43:38

much more comfortable with that ideal

43:40

because they shape that ideal than

43:42

the others who are being told

43:44

to melt into it. I understand

43:47

that you have conducted

43:49

surveys in corporate environments

43:51

that find that covering

43:53

negatively impacts individual sense

43:55

of self and diminishes

43:57

their commitment to their

43:59

organizations. on my wonderful colleagues at

44:01

the Management Consultancy Deloitte for

44:03

the empirical work on this,

44:05

but I got the kind

44:07

of call that. I think

44:10

most academics are kind of

44:12

gobsmack to receive sometime in

44:14

2012 where they said, look,

44:16

like this idea of covering is

44:18

a game changer, but no one

44:20

in our world is going to

44:22

believe anything that you say unless

44:24

you have data. You're not an

44:26

empiricist. We are. So let's do

44:29

a survey and figure out what

44:31

the incidents and impact of covering

44:33

is. And so I of course

44:35

said yes, the survey came back

44:37

to robustly support the hypothesis that

44:40

people were covering at a very

44:42

high rate. We found 61% of

44:44

people overall reported covering and of

44:46

that 61%. 60 to 73% depending on

44:48

the axis of covering said

44:50

that this was somewhat too

44:53

extremely detrimental to their sense

44:55

of self. I

44:57

understand that you faced a

44:59

moment a number of years

45:01

ago that brought all of

45:03

your complex views about assimilation

45:05

into play. It had to

45:07

do with a wonderful job offer

45:10

from NYU. Tell me that

45:12

story, Kenji. This comes from

45:14

2008, and it's actually one

45:16

of my favorite stories to tell,

45:19

because I think it ennobles

45:21

everybody who took part in it,

45:23

because it's a story of change

45:25

in growth. So, In 2008, my husband

45:28

and I are thinking about starting a

45:30

family, and we decide that we need

45:32

to be in the same city to

45:34

do that. So I applied to schools

45:36

in New York, was fortunate enough

45:38

to get some offers, and then

45:40

the recruitment season began. So the

45:42

then Dean of NYU, Ricky Reves, reached

45:44

out to me and he said, we

45:46

know we have you have a chair

45:48

at Yale, that's very dear to you,

45:51

which is Guido Calabresi, Professorship of Law.

45:53

It was named after the judge for

45:55

whom I clerked on the Second Circuit

45:57

and the former Dean of the Law

45:59

School and a great. mentor of mine, not

46:01

by the way, the mentor who gave me that

46:03

advice. And then he said, we've scoured our

46:05

existing chairs to find one that

46:07

would be comparable in terms of

46:09

its significance to you. We couldn't

46:11

find one. And so we took

46:13

the extraordinary step of raising $5

46:15

million to endow a new chair.

46:17

And that chair is going to

46:20

be named to honor your contributions

46:22

at the intersection of constitutional law

46:24

and civil rights. And we're going

46:26

to name it the Earl Warren

46:28

Profership of constitutional law. And every

46:30

people pleasing bone in my body,

46:32

Shanker, wanted to take the chair,

46:35

which had been given with all

46:37

the goodwill in the world. But

46:39

I had literally written, finished writing

46:42

the book on covering, and I

46:44

knew that it would be a

46:46

form of covering to accept the

46:49

chair without some kind of

46:51

protest. Why? So I said, Ricky, like,

46:53

I can't take that chair. And he

46:55

was... astonished and I could tell

46:58

a little bit annoyed and he said why

47:00

on earth not I hope you understand how

47:02

much work went into this and I said

47:04

yes I'm aware of that but as you

47:06

may know I'm of Japanese descent and as

47:09

you may know as Attorney General of California

47:11

Earl Warren superintended the

47:13

interment of over a hundred

47:15

thousand people of Japanese ancestry

47:17

without any due process or

47:19

criminal charges. And I said, I

47:21

can't be honored with the name of

47:23

a individual who is so dishonored my

47:25

people. So he took that away, he

47:28

immediately got it, and he said, please

47:30

don't make any sudden movements, you know,

47:32

don't go to another school, I'll call

47:34

you back in three days. And three

47:36

days later, he called back and he

47:38

said, I have a new chair for

47:40

you. And I said, lay it on

47:42

me, I'm all years. And he said,

47:44

we want to offer you the chief

47:47

justice, Earl and professorship of constitutional law. And

47:49

this time I was the one who

47:51

was a little bit annoyed and certainly

47:53

astonished because I thought well wait a

47:56

minute I just rejected the Earl Warren

47:58

professorship three days ago you're now attacking

48:00

there was Chief Justice to the front of it

48:02

and flipping it back to me as if this

48:04

were a new chair. So essentially how stupid do

48:06

you think I am? Like what's going on here?

48:08

And he said please hear me out. In the

48:10

days since our last conversation I've read

48:12

a biography of Earl Warren and

48:15

he said as Chief Justice of

48:17

the United States Supreme Court who

48:19

wrote canonical opinions like Brown v.

48:21

Board of Education or Loving versus

48:23

Virginia which legalized interracial marriage in

48:25

the United States. that the thing

48:27

he most regretted about his career

48:30

was the interment of the Japanese.

48:32

So he said, you know, given

48:34

your commitment to civil rights and

48:37

given your commitments to diversity inclusion,

48:39

I take your life work to

48:41

be taking people along this journey

48:43

or maturity curve of understanding how

48:46

many different valid ways there are

48:48

to be a human being. And he said,

48:50

given that Earl Warren was able

48:52

to travel so far along that path,

48:55

in a single lifetime, we actually

48:57

think that it would be a

48:59

wonderful emblem of the power of

49:01

your work to hold his name,

49:04

but to hold the title that

49:06

he held when he was completing

49:08

rather than beginning that journey. So I

49:10

said Ricky, that chair I can

49:13

take, and so I am speaking

49:15

today as the Chief Justice Earl

49:17

Warren Professor of Constitutional Law. When

49:35

we come back, techniques

49:37

to uncover our true

49:39

identities and help others

49:41

do the same. You're

49:43

listening to Hidden

49:45

Brain. This is Hidden

49:47

Brain. This is Hidden

49:50

Brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

49:52

Legal scholar Kenji

49:54

Yoshino has spent decades

49:57

thinking about how people

50:00

mask their identities in order

50:02

to conform to both real

50:04

and imagined pressures from those

50:06

around them. He's also thought a lot

50:08

about how we can be more of

50:10

ourselves, more of the time. Kenji,

50:12

you sometimes hear from people who disagree

50:15

with you. They say, you may be

50:17

a gay man and feel the need

50:19

to hide, too. Maybe it's because I'm

50:21

overweight or elderly or drink

50:23

too much. Maybe I have

50:25

a mental illness that's stigmatized.

50:27

Maybe I'm just shy. Tell me

50:30

about these encounters, Kenji. This

50:32

is one of the most remarkable

50:34

findings of the Deloitte study, which

50:36

was that we found that 45%

50:38

of straight white men reported covering.

50:40

I think my colleagues found that

50:42

really surprising, and I didn't find

50:44

it surprising at all, because I

50:46

had spent many years after publishing

50:48

the book where white man would

50:50

come to me and say, here

50:53

are all the identities that I

50:55

have to cover. So if anything,

50:57

I was surprised that that number

50:59

was so low. But the dominant

51:01

ways in which straight white men

51:03

reported covering were things like

51:06

age, socioeconomic status, or background,

51:08

mental, physical illness, or disability,

51:10

religion. and veteran status. And

51:13

the thing that's so important

51:15

about the fact that a

51:18

plurality of the ostensibly most

51:20

empowered group in society is

51:23

covering. is that it shows that

51:25

this is truly a universal phenomenon.

51:27

I go back to what I

51:30

said earlier, which is to say,

51:32

if you're outside of the mainstream

51:34

in any way, you are going

51:37

to be asked to cover. And

51:39

oftentimes, you're going to experience that

51:41

as a harm. So no matter

51:44

how many dominant characteristics we hold,

51:46

we're going to hold some non-dominant

51:48

ones. And once you see that,

51:51

then this really becomes a project.

51:53

of authenticity and thinking about what

51:55

the world might look like, what

51:57

our individual communities might look like

51:59

if we were off. empowered to

52:01

be a little bit

52:04

more ourselves.

52:06

I'm thinking also

52:09

just of behavioral

52:11

things, you know, perhaps I'm a shy

52:14

person, you know, perhaps I'm a sad

52:16

person, and perhaps being shy and being

52:18

sad are not celebrated in the workplace.

52:20

I'm not going to be seen

52:22

as an up-and-comer, as a promising

52:24

employee if I'm seen to be

52:27

retiring or depressed, and so I

52:29

feel the need to cover up

52:31

what I'm going through. I'm

52:33

so glad that you've said that

52:36

because oftentimes people say, well, you

52:38

know, that's a kind of false

52:40

equivalence of, you know, your shyness

52:43

is not the same as my

52:45

race. And I, by no means

52:47

I'm saying that they're the same.

52:49

There's a kind of sedimented history

52:52

of subordination in the case of

52:54

race that there isn't in the case

52:56

of interversion. If we look at

52:58

introversion, one of my favorite books

53:00

of all time is Susan Kane's

53:02

Quiet, the subtitle is The Power

53:04

of Introverts in a World That

53:06

Can't Stop Talking, and she talks

53:09

about how people who are introverts

53:11

are about one-third, according to our

53:13

definition of American society, and are

53:15

constantly being asked to torque themselves

53:17

to lie down on the procrastian

53:19

bed of extraversion, so that we

53:21

have this extrovert ideal in American

53:23

society that says that a true

53:25

leader is a true leader is

53:28

a... kind of backslapping, glad-handing, charismatic,

53:30

you know, person, and that the

53:32

introvert really needs to adapt to

53:34

that modality if they want to

53:36

get anywhere in life. And she

53:39

makes a really compelling kind of

53:41

moral and policy-based case for why

53:43

this shouldn't be the case, saying

53:45

that people are just naturally introverted

53:48

or extroverted, and even in our

53:50

own history if you go back

53:52

in time. Our greatest leaders, like

53:54

James Madison or Abraham Lincoln, were

53:57

classic introverts. So this idea

53:59

that there's something... consistent between

54:01

being an introvert and being

54:03

a leader is something that

54:05

our own history completely belies. So

54:07

one of the things that I think

54:10

is really important is to just keep

54:12

a weather eye out for these emerging

54:14

identity categories where if you say, you

54:16

know, in a certain point of time,

54:19

oh, what about introversion or what about

54:21

depression or mental health issues, that, you

54:23

know, other people might say, well, those

54:25

are kind of tangential or epophonomial identities.

54:28

This is not about sort of race

54:30

or gender, and so therefore I'm going

54:32

to ignore it. My analysis would be

54:34

quite different, which would be a kind

54:37

of curiosity about those identities to

54:39

say, please tell me more, right?

54:41

And to ask, as we were

54:43

discussing earlier, what possible justification could

54:45

an individual have on the other

54:47

side of asking people to change

54:50

or cover the underlying identity? So

54:52

if I say you have to

54:54

cover because leaders are just extroverts

54:56

and so you should be ashamed

54:58

or downplay or introverted identity, again,

55:01

our history. that assumption. So there's

55:03

nothing inconsistent with being a leader

55:05

and being an introvert. We should

55:07

celebrate leaders who are great orders, but

55:09

we should also celebrate leaders who are

55:11

great listeners. Similarly

55:14

with depression, I'm so delighted that we're finally

55:16

having the mental health, you know, conversation nationally

55:18

that we need to have. I realize we're

55:20

still in early days, but I feel like

55:22

we are talking about it in a way

55:25

that we have not talked about it in

55:27

my lifetime. So I view that to be

55:29

a really positive development. Here too, it might

55:31

be like, oh, but here, we want to

55:33

change the underlying condition. We don't want you

55:35

to be depressed, you know, so we want

55:38

you to find help or you want to

55:40

find medication medication. But that too to

55:42

me seems like an argument about authenticity and

55:44

candor because how are you going to help

55:46

the person who is struggling with depression more?

55:49

Are you going to help them by saying

55:51

pretend not to be depressed? Or are you

55:53

going to say we acknowledge that you are

55:55

depressed? We do not think any less of

55:58

you because you're depressed if you need... Well,

56:00

this is where you can get help. We're

56:02

here for you. When I think

56:04

about something like addiction, for example,

56:06

or the ways in which addiction

56:09

has touched so many lives in

56:11

this country, you know, it has

56:13

touched the lives of people who

56:15

are rich and poor and black

56:18

and white and, you know, every

56:20

socio-economic group and every demographic group,

56:22

but clearly there is a huge

56:24

stigma. about addiction today and there's

56:27

a huge demand to cover up,

56:29

you know, addictions in the workplace

56:31

but also in social life.

56:33

And exactly that way, I

56:35

really want people to think

56:37

about this project of uncovering

56:39

as a project of fighting

56:41

stigmas that have no basis

56:43

in morality or in sound

56:45

policy. We are going to

56:47

do so much better if

56:49

we eliminate... the blaming shaming

56:51

approach towards individuals who are

56:54

struggling with that addiction and

56:56

to let them speak frankly

56:58

about them because then we

57:00

actually have some prayer of

57:02

identifying them and giving them the

57:04

help that they need rather than

57:06

you know pretending the problem doesn't

57:08

exist or shaming them into even

57:10

worse cycles or spirals of addiction

57:12

or depression. Kenji,

57:17

what I hear you arguing is that

57:19

covering in some ways is a

57:21

unifying cause, perhaps even sort

57:23

of a universal civil rights

57:25

struggle. I entirely

57:27

believe that. That's exactly what I'm trying

57:30

to say. I always think about Maslow's

57:32

hierarchy of needs, where he talks about

57:34

the needs that we need to get

57:36

met as human beings before we can

57:38

go to the next level of needs,

57:41

so that the very bottom is like

57:43

food and water, obviously, and then there's

57:45

shelter. But then the one beyond that,

57:47

which is quite surprising, is belonging, that

57:50

we really need to belong and feel

57:52

like we belong to a community or

57:54

society, or we're just going to be

57:56

unable to And my project of covering

57:59

is really. trying to make sure

58:01

that people find a pathway to

58:03

belonging that is based, as I

58:06

think it has to be, on

58:08

authenticity. So at the risk of

58:10

sounding sentimental, I will again go

58:12

back to my wonderful parents and

58:15

to say that they constantly were saying

58:17

to me as I was growing up,

58:19

we love you. But I trusted

58:21

the love, but I didn't trust the

58:24

you. Because the you that I was

58:26

presenting to them was not the real

58:28

me So I thought if I come

58:30

out to you as gay I don't

58:32

know if you will still love me

58:34

And it was only after I came

58:36

out that I trusted them when they

58:38

said as I continue to say we

58:41

love you and so That idea and

58:43

you could frame it and less kind

58:45

of sentimental more daily terms of if

58:47

I say Shankar I respect you But

58:49

there's something about yourself that you're not

58:51

fully disclosing to me You might trust

58:54

the respect, but you might not trust

58:56

the you you might think well that

58:58

respect attaches to some Kind of fictional

59:00

me that I'm presenting to the world

59:02

rather than my me my real self

59:05

And it's only when I give you

59:07

right the conditions to be fully authentic

59:09

that I can say I respect you

59:11

and you contrast the respect and the

59:13

you. So for me, this project is

59:16

a project about saying, you know, how

59:18

do we actually achieve belonging? You don't

59:20

achieve any kind of belonging if the

59:22

person who belongs is not really you.

59:25

So if I say an extreme case,

59:27

like, passes a straight person and everyone

59:29

says, oh, can she's a great guy,

59:31

we accept him, he belongs in this

59:34

community, I'm never going to trust that

59:36

sense of belonging because a person you've

59:38

included is not me, it some facsimimally

59:40

of me that I've created in order

59:43

to be. included. So I've not

59:45

given the community the chance to

59:47

accept me for who I really am.

59:50

So I realize it can feel

59:52

very scary and very risky, but

59:54

this idea that I could actually

59:56

say to my community, this is

59:58

who I truly am. And then

1:00:00

the community responds by saying, and

1:00:03

you belong as you, that's when

1:00:05

I can really trust that sense

1:00:07

of belonging. You say that there

1:00:10

are a couple of different ways

1:00:12

that stories of uncovering can be

1:00:14

shared. One is what

1:00:16

you call distinct storytelling.

1:00:18

What is this, Kenji?

1:00:20

Distinct storytelling is kind of what

1:00:22

I've been doing at multiple points in

1:00:25

this wonderful exchange chunker, which is... When

1:00:27

I talk about a story like, oh,

1:00:29

I was on the tenure track and

1:00:32

I was told to downplay my sexual

1:00:34

orientation if I wanted tenure or not

1:00:36

write on gay topics if I wanted

1:00:39

tenure, or when I was offered this

1:00:41

chair and I had to debate whether

1:00:43

or not to speak up, like those

1:00:46

moments where you are being asked to

1:00:48

cover and you rejected the covering

1:00:50

demand and you came. out of

1:00:52

it on the other side much

1:00:54

stronger than you would have been

1:00:56

if you had ducked your head

1:00:58

and gone away. Those are what

1:01:00

I'm calling distinct stories. set pieces

1:01:02

or stories or anecdotes that just

1:01:04

illustrate to people the power of

1:01:06

authenticity. So just to land the

1:01:08

plane on this, imagine if I

1:01:10

had accepted the very similar sounding

1:01:13

chair, the Earl Warren Professorship of

1:01:15

Constitutional Law, without pushing back on

1:01:17

my dean, I can guarantee you that every

1:01:19

time I was introduced, whether on this interview

1:01:21

or elsewhere, I would have had like a

1:01:24

wave of shame of like that was a

1:01:26

moment in my life where I should have

1:01:28

stuck up. for myself and I did it

1:01:30

and here I am stuck with the title

1:01:33

for the rest of my life. Whereas because

1:01:35

I stuck up for myself in that moment

1:01:37

and got that title change, it may seem

1:01:39

like a very small thing, but I can

1:01:42

tell you that every time I'm introduced as

1:01:44

a chief justice or a war in professorship

1:01:46

of constitutional law, then I feel completely

1:01:48

differently about it. I remember that that

1:01:50

was a time in which I brought

1:01:52

my authenticity at the table and the

1:01:55

other side rose to the occasion of

1:01:57

honoring that authenticity. You also talk

1:01:59

about something called Diffuse Storytelling.

1:02:01

What is Diffuse Storytelling,

1:02:03

Kenji? Yeah, we contrast, Diffuse, and

1:02:05

by we, I mean, my colleagues at

1:02:07

Deloie, and my wonderful colleagues here at

1:02:09

NYU, Christina Joseph, and David Glasgow. We

1:02:12

draw a distinction between distinct storytelling and

1:02:14

diffuse storytelling, because when we talk about

1:02:16

share your story and the importance of

1:02:18

storytelling, to create a culture of uncovering

1:02:21

talent, I think people feel like they

1:02:23

need to have like a set piece

1:02:25

where, you know, they're standing at a

1:02:28

podium, and they're telling a story about

1:02:30

their own life. And that can certainly

1:02:32

be powerful. That's what I'm talking about

1:02:34

when I talk about distinct storytelling. But

1:02:36

diffuse storytelling sort of takes a bit

1:02:39

of the pressure off, which is to

1:02:41

say, not everything needs to be, I'm

1:02:43

standing on a stage and I'm giving

1:02:45

a speech. It can really just be

1:02:47

this diffuse, very... offhanded comment, like it

1:02:49

can be when I'm leaving to go

1:02:51

to my kids' school play, which I

1:02:54

did yesterday, early from work, I say

1:02:56

that's where I'm going. So if I

1:02:58

say that, then that means that other

1:03:00

colleagues of mine realize that if they

1:03:02

need to go to some function that's

1:03:04

important in our life, that's not work

1:03:06

related, they too have the permission to

1:03:09

do that because I've modeled that for

1:03:11

them. So it can be as offhanded

1:03:13

as saying, you know, this is a

1:03:15

reason I'm leaving early today. this big,

1:03:18

sad, you know, dramatic, you know, piece

1:03:20

that I'm delivering from the podium. It

1:03:22

can just be something that I'm talking

1:03:24

to somebody over coffee of, something that

1:03:27

I'm saying at the end of a

1:03:29

Zoom call, or what have you. Or if

1:03:31

you're talking about a family member, for

1:03:33

example, talking about what you did on

1:03:35

the weekend, there are ways in which

1:03:38

we can reveal our lives to others

1:03:40

without it being, you know, as you

1:03:42

say, a set piece that's delivered

1:03:44

from a podium. 100% right. What

1:03:47

do you think the effects are

1:03:49

of this kind of

1:03:51

uncovering? You have done

1:03:54

some research that basically

1:03:56

finds that this kind

1:03:58

of storytelling both the

1:04:00

distinct and the diffuse form

1:04:02

have benefits. Yes, our research

1:04:05

has mostly been on the side

1:04:07

of if people. Like expect you

1:04:09

to cover what is the harm

1:04:11

to you. So in our survey,

1:04:13

like 53% of the people who

1:04:15

we surveyed said, this is in

1:04:17

the Fortune 500. So this is

1:04:20

3,129 respondents across eight different sectors

1:04:22

of the Fortune 500 said that

1:04:24

their leaders expected them to cover.

1:04:26

And of that, 53%, 50% said

1:04:28

that this somewhat to extremely diminish

1:04:31

their commitment to the workplace or

1:04:33

their community there. So this is

1:04:35

just evidence that, you know. covering

1:04:37

demands are hurtful and that they're

1:04:39

particularly hurtful when they come

1:04:42

from leaders within the organization.

1:04:44

I understand, Kenji, some time ago you

1:04:46

were at a supermarket and you had

1:04:48

an exchange with the cashier. He asked

1:04:51

you a question that had to do

1:04:53

with your husband, but you didn't tell

1:04:55

the cashier about your husband. Tell me

1:04:57

that story. Yeah, this is a funny

1:04:59

one, which is that we're never done

1:05:02

with covering. The supermarket story is where,

1:05:04

you know, my husband has this kind

1:05:06

of guilty pleasure where he's obsessed with

1:05:08

the royal family. And so when I

1:05:10

see a kind of trashy tabloid about,

1:05:12

you know, the royal family, I will

1:05:15

buy it for him. And it's kind

1:05:17

of a running gag in our family.

1:05:19

And it's just a cute, I think,

1:05:21

cute thing that we do for each

1:05:23

other as a couple. And, you know,

1:05:25

I was getting rid of the cashier

1:05:28

for, you know, buying this because

1:05:30

the other things I was getting

1:05:32

were somewhat more high-brow. So he

1:05:34

was like, it's not often that

1:05:36

we see somebody buying this book

1:05:38

and then this tabloid at the

1:05:40

same time. And then I thought...

1:05:42

Oh, I'm going to say, this

1:05:44

isn't for me, this is for

1:05:46

my husband. And then I thought

1:05:48

about it and I thought, well,

1:05:50

I'm not going to say this.

1:05:52

And then, and it's going to sound

1:05:54

like I went through a giant loop, but

1:05:56

this all took place in the course of

1:05:59

two seconds, right? But I thought,

1:06:01

like, I'm not gonna throw my,

1:06:03

Ron, my husband under the bus,

1:06:05

so I'm not gonna say this

1:06:08

is for my husband. And I

1:06:10

remember thinking, like, oh, am I

1:06:12

doing this because I'm worried about

1:06:14

saying my husband? Like, am I

1:06:17

covering my husband? Like, am I

1:06:19

covering my sexual orientation? I was

1:06:21

like, no, if I'm covering something,

1:06:23

I'm covering his trashy taste in

1:06:26

tabloid. And this is actually a

1:06:28

lightning fast. And I think all

1:06:30

I'm asking is that we just drive

1:06:33

those decisions a little bit more to

1:06:35

the surface of our consciousness so that,

1:06:37

you know, we make these decisions in a

1:06:39

way that kind of lives out our values

1:06:41

about who we are and who we want

1:06:44

to be in the world, and also who

1:06:46

we want to let others be in the

1:06:48

world as well. Kenji

1:07:04

Yoshino is a legal scholar at

1:07:06

New York University. He is the

1:07:08

author of covering the hidden assault

1:07:10

on our civil rights. Along with

1:07:12

David Glasgow, he is co-author of Say

1:07:15

the Right Thing, how to talk about

1:07:17

identity, diversity and justice. Kenji,

1:07:19

thank you so much for

1:07:21

joining me today on Hidden

1:07:23

Brain. It was such a pleasure. Thank

1:07:25

you. Do

1:07:31

you have follow-up questions about covering

1:07:34

and identity for Kenji Yoshino? If

1:07:36

you'd be willing to share your

1:07:38

questions with the Hidden Brain audience,

1:07:41

please record a voice memo on

1:07:43

your phone and email it to

1:07:45

us at Ideas at Hidden brain.org.

1:07:48

That email address again is

1:07:50

Ideas at Hidden brain.org. Use

1:07:52

the subject line covering. Hidden

1:08:00

Brain is produced by Hidden

1:08:02

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1:08:04

team includes Annie Murphy Paul,

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1:08:15

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1:08:19

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1:08:31

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1:08:40

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1:08:42

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1:08:44

Apple.co/Hiddenbrain. I'm Shankar

1:08:47

Vidantham. See you soon.