How to Talk to People You Disagree With—Insights from Brit Barron ~ 1305

Brit Barron Empathy is not an endorsement. And sometimes I think people are scared to empathize because they think, if I’m telling you I understand how you could think that, or I empathize with where you’re at in life, that I’m condoning it. When I’m talking to people who I disagree with, very rarely am I just talking facts. We’re not arguing facts. I’m arguing against their sense of belonging. And again, not that I think it’s right or wrong or that they shouldn’t change their mind, but I have a different level of empathy when I ask myself, what would it cost them to agree with me? The work never changes. I’m a person who believes in liberation, liberation for all people. The work never changes, but my approach to the work changes.

Tim Villegas Hi friends. Welcome back to Think Inclusive. Real conversations about building schools where every learner belongs. I’m your host, Tim Villegas. Today’s episode is about how to get better at disagreement, and no, I am not talking about just being nice or giving up your values for the sake of peace. Our guest is Brit Barron, who wrote a book that takes this topic head on.

Brit is a speaker, author, comedian whose work explores how we stay connected in a polarized world. Her latest book, Do You Still Talk to Grandma? dives into cancel culture and navigating relationships with people we love but deeply disagree with.

In this episode, we’ll talk about how empathy isn’t weakness, how our bubbles can actually hurt us, how educators can lead with compassion even when values clash. As someone who grew up in a faith-based bubble and now works in inclusive education, I’ve wrestled with these questions myself. How do we talk to people who think differently, especially when those differences feel personal or painful? Brit’s insights are a gift to anyone trying to build bridges in schools, communities, and families.

Before we meet our guest, I want to tell you about our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by IXL. IXL is an all-in-one platform for K-12 that helps boost student achievement, empowers teachers, and tracks progress in one place. As students practice, IXL adapts to their individual needs so that every learner gets just-right support and challenge, and each student gets a personalized learning plan to close gaps. Check it out at ixl.com/inclusive. Again, that’s ixl.com/inclusive. All right, after a quick break, it’s time to think inclusive with Brit Barron. Catch you on the other side.

Tim Villegas Okay. Brit Barron, welcome to the Think Inclusive Podcast.

Brit Barron Thank you for having me. I’m so happy to be here.

Tim Villegas Brit, before we get into the questions I sent you, can I just tell you, I’m gonna hold this up to the camera here. This is your book?

Brit Barron Yes. There she is.

Tim Villegas Do you still talk to grandma? There she is. I don’t, I honestly don’t say this very often. I feel like this book was written for me, so I don’t know if you get that a lot.

Brit Barron Yes. You know, I get a lot of people who are a little hesitant to read it, not thinking they’ll like it.

Tim Villegas Really.

Brit Barron Yeah.

Tim Villegas What’s your elevator pitch when someone says, what’s your book about? What do you say?

Brit Barron Essentially, the book is about what to do when we have relationships in our life with people who we love and also deeply disagree with.

Tim Villegas Okay, great. And I think that’s like, we’ve been in this spot for a very long time. It feels like it’s progressively gotten worse and the divisions have grown, the gaps have been growing. Particularly right now and how I’m feeling, and I don’t know how you’re feeling, we’re in a tough spot. There’s more and more people in my life, and I’m sure in our listeners’ lives, that we don’t agree with. There’s a lot of division and disagreement. So to start us off, I’m wondering, tell us a little bit about what you do and how this is playing out in your work.

Brit Barron To describe what I do now, I think it’s a little important to understand what I’ve done. In my earlier career, I actually worked in a faith space, in an evangelical church. Then I left that and sort of left that framework and started working in the DEI space, did that in higher education, did that as a consultant, did that privately, ran a center for racial reconciliation for a little bit, and then moved into full-time speaker writer world. I think my time in evangelicalism and my time in social justice activism started to mirror each other in an interesting way, like in 2020, 2021 when I decided to start working on this book. That’s what was sort of really the linchpin in being like, this is a conversation I think we need to have, because the same route of fundamentalism is working its way in every community I saw.

Tim Villegas That’s a really good description. You’re the word fundamentalist or fundamentalism. Some of our listeners know my background, but just to reiterate, and for you as well, Brit, I grew up in the Evangelical church. I went to private Christian school from preschool, I like to say, until college, because I went to Azusa Pacific University, that’s where I got my bachelor’s degree before I went into teaching. So I understand and get this idea of being steeped in a worldview and philosophy that is really difficult to shake when opposing views come into focus. You said this in the book, it’s really easy, like in the nineties, it was really easy to stay in a bubble.

You went to your youth group, you went to your high school youth group or middle school youth group, you went on missions trips. I went to a private Christian school. I was interacting with mostly people who thought and believed what I believed. There was this whole industry of Christian music, you know, like you didn’t—

Brit Barron Christian movies, yeah, exactly. Christian television, bookstore.

Tim Villegas Exactly. Yeah. Lifeway, I remember Lifeway. Oh my gosh. I remember the first time I walked into—I don’t remember the name of the store, but it was Pasadena, which you’re aware? It was on Lake Avenue.

Brit Barron Vroman’s?

Tim Villegas Just, it was a Christian bookstore. It was right next to the freeway. I just can imagine going in there and listening to the CDs, all the Christian music, listening to Pedro the Lion and Sixpence None the Richer, and what was the other one? MXPX, all of these—

Brit Barron Yes. Oh my God. Flashbacks.

Tim Villegas All of this culture that you could attach yourself to and be like, oh, this is safe. These are my people. So, where was I going with that? I think I’m just reflecting on the book and what our conversation is gonna be like. It’s so hard when you’re in this cultural soup to break out of that and to think any differently.

Brit Barron Yeah. And I think what’s hard is we can, so for folks who maybe that’s their background, they grew up in a bubble of sorts and then they broke out of it, I think we can look objectively at that and be like, everyone’s thinking the same thing, doing the same things, reading the same books. That wasn’t helpful. But then what’s interesting is as progressive people sometimes we create these bubbles where everyone believes the same things, reads the same books, listens to the same podcast, and we think it’s helpful. We look at those people and think, you just don’t get it yet, your bubble’s so small. But we’re in a bubble too. I think I’m trying to expand the conversation where it’s like, I don’t think bubbles are helpful. Maybe it’s not just jumping from one to another. How do we live outside of that?

Tim Villegas Yeah, how do we live outside of it? One of the big questions I hear all the time from people inside my bubble—the bubble of inclusive education, me all means all, students with disabilities, LGBTQ plus folks, Black and Brown folks, everyone who is interested in how do we support educational equity—we are in our bubble. I hear, well, I just can’t talk with those people who believe that students should be segregated into disability-specific programs, or I just can’t talk to people who are saying trans girls can’t play on girls sports teams. How do we cross that divide? Is it helpful to talk to people that we disagree with and that have different values?

Brit Barron Yeah, I think it is important. The number one thing I believe we need to access to be able to have these conversations in a way that will be meaningful for us and for the folks we’re talking to is empathy. Someone said it to me this way when I was on the book tour: empathy is not an endorsement. Sometimes people are scared to empathize because they think, if I’m telling you I understand how you could think that, or I empathize with where you’re at in life, that I’m condoning it. Even earlier today I was having a conversation with someone and they said, engagement is not an endorsement. It comes from our ingroup, outgroup thinking. There’s this idea that’s like, well, I can’t even be seen associating or having relationships with these people because then my group will think that I’m endorsing or condoning their behavior. It’s really not that. I think empathy at its core is allowing ourselves to humanize this person we’re having a conversation with. You can’t give what you don’t have, right? Our ability to empathize with ourselves and the versions of ourselves that existed before something is going to be incredibly important if we’re going to empathize with someone else. For a lot of folks, there was a moment when they were able to look at inclusive education in a different way. Be it the experience of their own child, someone close to them, a teacher friend—at some point they interacted with something that was able to help them expand that idea. Now we have this and we see it. The hard thing is, sometimes when we expand our beliefs, it feels more true to ourselves and it feels good or right. Then we can trick ourselves into feeling like we always knew. It’s so obvious that we forget that we ever didn’t know it. I think it’s really important that we remember the times before we know now, and we remember our entry point into a conversation. That really helps us empathize with folks who may still be there.

Tim Villegas Yeah. Another theme that you talked about in the book is that there are these different stages or cycles that we go in, right? I’ll give you a quick example, because—and this is, I don’t know if this is gonna be relevant when this airs, but let’s just keep it broad. There were some statements made by a government official that got our community pretty upset. I am fighting the urge to be reactive, not only to these comments but also to everyone who is defending these comments. What I just said is probably evergreen for the next four years or whatever.

Brit Barron You said it in a way that I’m like, that will be relevant regardless of movement. Like a new comment or something by our political leaders was just said, that’s deeply offensive. That’s evergreen content.

Tim Villegas Exactly. I’ll tell you, Brit, I completely failed to not be reactive. There are so many people that I’ve talked to that are just angry. They’re so angry at whatever—pick the statement or pick the comment. There are times where maybe I’m not so angry that I feel like I can be reflective, I can be proactive, I can engage, I can have empathy, but right now I do not have empathy. I do not want to engage, I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to talk about it with somebody that I disagree with or that I know has different beliefs. So is that okay?

Brit Barron Yes. The whole point of me putting that part in the book is to understand that our identity development isn’t linear. In different times, in different experiences, we may have somewhere where it’s like, I hope that a majority of my work, my activism comes from this space, but I’m not always in that space because we get activated in so many different ways. These comments that were made, it’s us versus them is sort of one of the stages. That’s led by anger and then it kind of gradually—and these go back and forth all the time. The beauty of understanding it not as linear is you’re not like, oh, I arrived and now I’m backslid and now I’m doing listings. It’s just a framework to allow us to understand where we are. All of this is morally neutral. It’s not like one is good and one is bad. It’s just saying, knowing that this is where I am. Knowing that I am pissed off, knowing that I’m angry, knowing that I’m feeling reactive. Okay. What should my boundary then, this season, look like in this moment? Is this a time—like, I always joke that I have a friend who sees her phone ringing and it’s her mom, and she always goes ugh and then answers it every single time. She’s like, that conversation did not go well. I could have told you that conversation was not gonna go well by the way you reacted to this one. That may not be the time for certain conversations. I’m not here to say anger isn’t bad. There are moments. All I want for us is to have an awareness of understanding of how we’re participating in our own work. Being like, okay, right now I’m pissed off and I’m just gonna draw a line and I’m gonna do these things. In 2020, I acted in ways that I’m like, I don’t know that I would do that again. I’m DMing my chiropractor, like, I need to know where you stand on Black Lives Matter, you know? I don’t know that I would do that again, but I had these feelings. I think it’s a both/and. What’s hard right now in this cultural moment is that we have so many people who feel so dogmatic. This is the reason for me writing this book. I think when we don’t allow ourselves to go to these stages and go to these extremes, then we can be pissed off. There’s a lot of things to be pissed off about in the world. When we think about the work ahead of us, what I constantly say—the work never changes. I’m a person who believes in liberation, liberation for all people. The work never changes, but my approach to the work changes. I’m able to sort of level up. I’ll give you one specific example that just happened a few days ago. I saw a friend of mine post something online about vaccines and not vaccinating her kids. My friend had reposted it with something like, good luck when your kids get sick, kind of thing. I get it because she’s mad, her kid—she’s like, you’re putting my kids around. The tension in this conversation is so crazy and I just said, first of all, I’m a person who doesn’t have kids and I don’t plan on having kids, so I’m out. I’m not even saying—I believe in vaccines, I’m a vaccinated person, but I can’t deny that our healthcare system feels confusing. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s for me or against me, and sometimes I go to the doctor and I’m like, are they pushing me medication? Why are there TV commercials for medication? This is a very—you can say that this is the perfect system. Can we acknowledge that? If you are wanting someone to see the value in these certain things, then is there a world where we say, I know it can be confusing. Here’s some things that have helped me understand the things on vaccines. Again, the work doesn’t change. It’s just our approach. Saying, you’re so dumb if you don’t get this, and I can’t even help you if you don’t understand this basic concept, versus saying, actually, I know that a lot of this can feel really confusing and misinformation is one of the most popular things in the world right now. Here are some ways I’ve helped decipher that. Your work didn’t change, your beliefs didn’t have to change, your ideas didn’t have to change. But I can acknowledge someone being confused. I can acknowledge someone not knowing something. My friends who have kids who have to do IEPs—I didn’t even know that was an acronym five years ago. Now I realize it’s hours and millions of papers stacked up over years. I never knew about that. Someone can be like, this is obviously a broken system. That’s not obvious to me. That may be obvious to you. Allowing ourselves to remember a time before and be like, yeah, I was confused, I didn’t know things, and people allowed me to learn them without just being like, if you don’t know this thing, you’re stupid.

Tim Villegas Right. And that too, we’ve talked about this before on this podcast and with our partners as an organization. We have educational partners and districts that we work with. No one would change if we came into a school district and said, y’all are so backwards for thinking this way about students with disabilities. How could you ever think this way? This is obviously what you need to do. They’d be like, okay, you’re fired.

Yeah. I think, you know—

Brit Barron Thank you for coming.

Tim Villegas Yeah, please get these people outta here. The times that I’ve changed my mind about something, it wasn’t because I was shamed. Behavior change—you probably could get some sort of short-term behavior change if you did feel shame or if there were really significant and strict consequences or whatever. We see this in schools, right? Really harsh, punitive discipline and you get this short-term behavior change, but it’s not long-term. There has to be some sort of heart change and that typically doesn’t happen unless you have a relationship with someone or something bigger than just this one incident. So you think it’s really important, like what you said, it’s really important to remember that. Yeah, I didn’t always think inclusion was the right thing to do.

Brit Barron Yeah. I tell this story all the time. In 2008, same-sex marriage was on the ballot in California, and I was a senior at APU, so I went to APU too. I don’t know if we talked about that. So a senior at this Christian college, I have all these—I’ve been indoctrinated with all these ideas around gay people. I’m not out yet. I’m not even out to myself at this point. I have like two gay friends. So I have this idea where I’m like, but my friends should be able to get married. Then I’m like, but what if I vote Yes and then I get struck by lightning and I die and God’s like, see, you shouldn’t have done that. These are the real thoughts I had. All of this seems insane to me to say now, happily married to a woman and I’m like, queer rights forever.

Tim Villegas Right.

Brit Barron But I had a full-on malfunction in a ballot box in 2008 because I didn’t know whether or not I should vote yes for same-sex marriage. For me to now look at people who are grappling with these things as just antiquated idiots, they’re not dumb. They’re me, you know what I mean? Twenty years ago or whatever, having been indoctrinated by something, and that changes the landscape of it.

Tim Villegas So far Brit has helped us rethink what it means to engage across difference, not with a checklist, but with a posture of empathy and self-awareness. Coming up next, we’ll explore why some people may never change their minds and how belonging, not logic, often drives belief. Plus Brit shares a story about flat earthers that might just change how you approach your next tough conversation.

Before we jump back in, I want to take a minute and tell you about the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education. MCIE partners with educators and school systems to promote authentic inclusion, foster change, and support the implementation of inclusive practices, whether it’s district-wide transformation, customized learner planning, or professional learning and coaching. MCIE walks alongside educators every step of the way. And here’s the best part. Our work begins with a conversation. So if you’re ready to create schools where every learner belongs, visit mcie.org to get in touch and start that conversation today.

So I really like, again, y’all, you need to get this book, especially if this conversation is resonating with you. There are so many great things in there. One thing I wonder, I wonder if you’ve gotten this feedback about the book. I’m gonna just talk and then you can respond because I have a question.

Perfect. So it’s so hard because when people engage in this conversation, they want, okay, give me the five things to do, right? I have this really problematic uncle who has these really wild beliefs. Okay, so number one, what do I do? I sit down with my uncle. Number two, I go point by point and rebut everything he has to say or whatever. Number three, we hug it out or whatever. I think people really want all of these steps, but what I got out of the book and your approach is really focusing inward and being like, people are gonna have beliefs and you cannot control other people’s beliefs, but you can control how you’re approaching the relationships with people. In that situation where you bring empathy, you bring engagement, then it’s very possible that person might change their beliefs, but you won’t be able to get there unless you do some work on yourself. Am I understanding what you’re trying to say? Or am I totally off?

Brit Barron Yeah, no, totally. You’re right. I have gotten feedback or I’ll do live events and during the Q&A, someone always asks without fail, and they give me a very specific example. They say, my Aunt Lisa said this at Thanksgiving. What I wish I could do is give a flow chart. You could say, okay, I’m a family member, they’re this close to me, they said something this racist and then kind of this homophobic, so yes, I could see them, but not during Pride month. I just have to make—right, sort it back out, but that’s not realistic. We want the magical 1, 2, 3 of change. I think there are some principles—binary thinking, empathy, boundaries—those are core principles from the book. We have core principles from what we know as change. But the other thing a lot of us have is a sense of urgency. I’m not saying these things aren’t urgent because we have harm happening in the world as a result of things that people believe. But sometimes that sense of urgency gives us a skewed perception on how change works. We’ll arm ourselves with all this data-backed research, all these ideas, we’ll have one 45-minute conversation and think if that didn’t do it, I don’t know what will. Our expectation is, I’m gonna have this one conversation and then—but it just, yes. So a lot of my work does focus on how, what’s our approach and how do we do this? How do we not burn ourselves out? How do we create appropriate boundaries and how do we engage with other humans as humans and break down some of this polarization that we’re drowning in.

Tim Villegas I think that’s really gonna be helpful for our audience because our educators are constantly—educators who believe in educational equity are constantly being put in situations where they’re kind of working against this system, right? The system could be a principal, it could be a colleague, it could be the whole district or the whole school. Maybe they work at a private school that’s religiously affiliated and they believe they should allow all students of all faiths and gender and sexual identities. There are so many different examples. We’re constantly put in situations where we’re gonna have to have hard conversations with people if we hold certain values. So I think this is a really great conversation and why I’m so thankful that you stopped by, because a lot of times I have this conversation with people in the special education field or education field. As people are listening, hopefully they’re seeing this is a human issue. This is a human problem that we have, right? That we don’t talk to each other, we don’t engage, and we aren’t empathetic. You’ve already mentioned a few beliefs that you’ve changed your mind on. I wanted to share a story, which may or may not resonate with our audience because we come from a faith background and our audience may not necessarily, but I think this is an interesting story.

So back in college, when I was at APU, I lived with some guys in an apartment. I had a friend who—we’ll call him Rick. Rick was the same age as my peers, but he did not go to APU, he just kind of was there. He lived with us, hung out with us, we did everything together, we worked together. He didn’t go to college with my roommates. He and I had the same job. We worked at a window covering place, so we would drive around in these vans all over LA County, hanging mini blinds, going to office buildings and dorms. We had lots of time to have these conversations. We both grew up in the Christian faith. A lot of times we would listen to sermons, have sermons on tape or listen to Christian radio. He was really into this particular theology called Calvinism. I’m not even gonna try to explain that. If you want to look it up, you can, but very firmly held beliefs about certain things. I asked him, Rick, do you ever think you’ll ever change your mind on these things? He looked at me with a straight face and said, never. I was like, okay, okay. I don’t know if he still does or not, because I haven’t talked to him in a while. It just reminded me, I certainly held views about theology or religion and I’m at a way different place, but I know some people aren’t. So I don’t know if there’s—not really a question in there, but I wanted to know your thoughts about that. What do we do with that? Some people don’t necessarily change their beliefs.

Brit Barron Yeah. Some people don’t. Some people do. Some people do at different rates and don’t for different reasons. I have people in my life who I wonder, is changing their mind even on the radar? It doesn’t seem to be. Then I get to make the decision of how do I engage right there. In all of this, there needs to be some level of mutuality. I always say I’m always willing to understand where you’re coming from if you’re willing to understand where I’m coming from as well. There’s a story I tell in the book of watching a documentary about flat earthers, people who believe the earth is flat. Since most of the folks that listen to this podcast work in education, I’m assuming no one on this—very likely.

Tim Villegas There are no flat earthers that listen to this podcast. Exactly. But you never know, that documentary was—

Brit Barron You never actually, and that’s the thing, you really never know. It was a fascinating documentary and the man making the film believed the earth was round. He would go around and interview people, went to a flat earth conference, doing his interviews. He sat down at one interview that really changed the way I look at and along in the work I do. He’s interviewing this man, asking, how can you believe this is flat? We have all this evidence that it’s round, science, yada yada. They go back and forth for a second. Finally, the guy being interviewed says, you know what, man? Honestly, it’s really hard to make friends. I found this Facebook group, we talk all the time, I go to two conferences a year, and these are the people who feed my cats when I go out of town. I was like, you know what, this man doesn’t care about what shape the earth is. Flat, round, hexagon, octagon, star, triangle—he could care less. What he wanted more than anything is community and a sense of belonging. Humans will do almost anything to find that. So I think your friend Rick, I think this flat earth man, I think the people in my life—they’ve said, for these beliefs that I’ve held, I have found community, a sense of belonging within a church, a flat earth Facebook group, a Sunday Bunco club, a country club, a neighborhood cul-de-sac, a moms group, a knitting community, dads who play soccer together, whatever it is, and my group believes something. For me to change my mind, it doesn’t just require some kind of cognitive rearranging. It might actually cost me the one thing I crave more than anything, and that’s a sense of belonging. When I’m talking to people who I disagree with, very rarely am I just talking facts. We’re not arguing facts. I’m arguing against their sense of belonging. Again, not that I think it’s right or wrong or that they shouldn’t change their mind, but I have a different level of empathy when I ask myself, what would it cost them to agree with me? Because it cost me to change my mind. I used to have this beautiful sense of belonging to this community and then I didn’t. That was painful. I think it was right, I think it was good, I think it was pure and true. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard. So I think for people like Rick and Flat Earth man, they’re thinking, who’s gonna feed my cats when I go out of town? For teachers who have excluded students with different abilities, who have done that for years, there’s gonna be some pain in changing their mind and realizing, have I treated these students in a way that is harmful? Have I been a teacher for 30 years and for 29 of those years I’ve seen this the wrong way? There’s—it’s hard to change. Again, I think it’s right and good, but I think people don’t, for a lot of different reasons.

Tim Villegas That’s so important to think about. And the example that you gave about educators who have been doing—it, I mean, I don’t think that they would necessarily call it excluding kids, because I really feel like at the core, they believe that this is the right thing to do. You have a student with extensive support, high support needs, and they really believe that they would be better off in a separate space.

I certainly believed that at one point in my career, and it took an experience of me going, oh, this is what you mean. This is what you mean to support somebody with high support needs in a regular class, in a general education class. This is what it looks like. This is what it means. It took an experience for me to be like, oh, okay, this is what you mean. Then I was able to make a change, cognitively and also in my belief system. But if you don’t have that experience and you don’t have any sort of frame of reference, all of those things—like what you said, the feeling of membership, community, belonging within a certain group or belief system—that’s incredibly difficult to break through. I’m not sure if I would be strong enough. I don’t know. I’m trying to think of what really changed my mind about what pushed me over to the progressive side of theology and gender and sexual identity. It was actually the disability community.

So when I was growing up with very conservative values politically and religious values, and then going to school, becoming a teacher, and then exploring this idea of disability rights and justice, I interacted with so many different people that identified as trans, as asexual, as queer—these are all terms that were really unfamiliar to me. I was like, whoa, wait a minute. If this is what it means to be for disability justice, I need to really figure this out. I need to really think about what I’m doing because I’ve held all of these really stereotypical, horrible stereotypes in my mind about, you know, quote unquote those people. I have to figure it out. So I went through a really long period of deconstruction of my faith, and that is actually what got me through to where I am now, where I still would call myself a person of faith or a believer, but I have a different lens and a different view about all of this entirely. So, you know, I thank God for that, because I don’t know, if I hadn’t started Think Inclusive—the blog, the podcast—and started interacting, I’m not sure if I would have changed. You know what I mean?

Brit Barron Yeah. What’s helpful is to remember that process. I think once you get fully versed in a topic or an idea, it does seem just so obvious. For me to say, oh, yes, I have a faith that’s fully inclusive of everyone, and it’s just like, duh, right? Or whatever your specific field, or as broad as it is, it just feels so obvious now to you. I’m sure that God is not some weird exclusive thing or that classrooms should be open and all—this just feels obvious to you. When something feels so obvious and someone steps outside of that, it feels just like, ugh. For someone to say, oh, I think these students are better off in their own thing, you’re just like, that’s so dumb. You just feel like that’s so obvious, it’s right in front of you, but it wasn’t. We have to hold onto those experiences of that long deconstruction of your faith, the move from the disability conversation to gender and sexuality and different identities, the move of inclusion—all of these things happened.

I always say it took me years, like two years after I came out to myself—okay, I think I’m queer, I think I’m in love with my best friend, this is the classic lesbian story. I think about it every single day for years. Then I go to therapy and I see this therapist once a week, every week for years. I break down all these ideas and all of these things that I was taught as a kid and all of these things that I’m working through, working and working for years. Then I tell my parents, and at that point, it was so obvious to me that I was okay, that this was a good thing, that we were gonna find—but I had years to process that information. So it’s unfair for me to put an expectation on someone to say, I have had years of a slow burn in a process at a therapist and friends, and I’m gonna tell you this information in 15 minutes, and I would love for you to have the response I have now after having years to process it with professionals.

Tim Villegas Right. Do you know what I mean? So it’s like—

Brit Barron You’ve gone on this whole long process of disability and inclusion, and sometimes we do that. You’ll have a conversation with someone and you’ll be like, this, this, and this about schools and classroom inclusion. They’re like, what? And you’re like, get into it. But you’ve had years. It’s hard. It’s so hard.

Tim Villegas Yeah. Well, I wonder, what’s your advice then? If I’ve had years or if we’ve had years to get through these barriers to where we are now, how do we—no matter where you are on this journey of openness—how do you move forward? Because I don’t think I’m done yet. I’m sure you don’t feel like you’re done yet. We’re constantly growing. Is it really just a matter of how we approach friendships and professional relationships, and is it just about being patient or is there something else that we should be doing? Not necessarily steps, but how do we keep growing in relationship with other people?

Brit Barron It’s definitely a both/and. Whenever I start to feel my own sort of self-righteous air come back, that should be a flashing warning to me that I need to take a second and reevaluate and be open to the reality that I may not have it all figured out. I live for Gen Z, because I’m always like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? I have Google open to be like, what does this even mean? I was radical growing up for being like, I think men and women are equal. Now I have a generation being like, Ew, you believe in gender? Oh God. The needle’s always moving. Allowing yourself to grow in the conversation as well allows for you to—I want those people to keep me at the table. I want them to keep inviting and pushing and expanding. I don’t want them to be like, oh, you didn’t know this thing, you didn’t know what that word meant, you’re out.

I remember not that long ago, I was at a conference and the term AFAB was on something and I didn’t know what it meant. So I just asked, what is this? They were like, assigned female at birth. I was like, oh. I remember this point in my spirit of, am I gonna get kicked—are you gonna still—am I—like, I just asked. I didn’t know.

Tim Villegas Your inclusion card has been revoked.

Brit Barron Exactly. That’s—I don’t want people to have that sense around me, and I don’t want people to engage with me in that way. I think it’s realizing you’re never at the top of the food chain. You still have work to do and you still have things to learn, and you would want people to keep you at the table as you grow. We can and should do both.

Tim Villegas Yeah, I really appreciate your suggestion of when you’re feeling self-righteous to take a minute, take a few minutes. I think it’s so hard, because we talked about this earlier, just being reactive, whether it’s something we read online or something a friend or family member says. We want to do something about it right now. We want to make that comment, type that comment out. We want to say the thing to shut down that racist or sexist comment. We want to do something because, like you said, there’s a sense of urgency. But maybe ask ourselves, do we need to do that right now? Does it need to happen right now? Is there another way to approach it that could hopefully make longer or more substantial change in the future?

Brit Barron Yeah, and not to go down this rabbit hole because we don’t have the time. No one has the time. But I think there is an important part of the work where we are able to appropriately assess our abilities and influence. I used to—this is a quick story—I used to lead civil rights tours. Put people in a van, we would go to the South, trace the steps of the Freedom Riders, interview people, really immerse ourselves in what that movement meant. One year I took a woman who was a white woman who had an adopted Black son. We’re learning and experiencing all these things and she’s kind of experiencing some of it for the first time. I think for the first time, the weight of living in America, what that would mean, is going to mean for a Black son, the danger. I remember one night she’s like, we gotta do something about this. It’s actually been an issue since before you found out, and a lot of people have been doing things about it. This energy—what the leaders of that movement knew and told us and reiterated—is that they may not even see the fullness of this change, but they’re committed to it regardless. This sense of urgency that this woman was spinning out in a hotel room on, is that even helpful? I’m not saying we can’t speak about our beliefs and do all these things, but sometimes posting on social and just being like, here’s all the reasons this thing was stupid that this friend said—it’s fine. Sometimes it scratches an itch that relieves the sense of how long of a journey change actually is. In a way, that stunts our activism when we’re able to just be like, oh, I feel so uncomfortable about this, this man’s so stupid—send. Again, I’m not saying we can’t use social and speak our minds. I think a lot of good things happen on social media, but I do think it’s giving us a sense of relief that I don’t know that we should have. I think we’re meant to sit in some of that murky—MLK, Fannie Lou Hamer said they weren’t gonna see it. They planted seeds and watered them. I’m watering and planting more seeds. The next generation will—that, it’s sometimes a little bit self-centered to be like, the fullness of the work is going to exist in my five to ten years of doing it. I just don’t think that’s realistic. Sometimes our reactivity and the availability of the internet gives us a just—I don’t like what it does there sometimes.

Tim Villegas Well, this was an awesome conversation. I want to end it on a slightly—well, actually before I do, before I do, okay. Before we get to our last segment, which is the mystery question, where can people find you, your work, your book, anything you want to plug?

Brit Barron Yes. Do You Still Talk to Grandma available anywhere books are sold. I always recommend finding it in a local bookstore, requesting it at your local library if you want to get it that way. It’s available also on Audible, and you can find me on Instagram at Brit Barron or online at britBarron.com.

Tim Villegas What a conversation. Brit Barron reminded us that empathy isn’t about agreement. It’s about connection. We explored how our need for belonging can shape our beliefs, why change is rarely linear, how educators can lead with both courage and compassion in divided spaces. Before we let Brit go, it’s time for something a little bit lighter. It’s the mystery question handpicked by my 12-year-old, and this one’s all about embarrassing moments. Let’s just say one of us had a run-in with a missing car, and the other had a surprise encounter at Disneyland. Stick around. You’re gonna love this.

Amazing. I did end up getting it at my local Barnes and Noble, so yes. Love it was there and I found it. I’m so happy that it’s in my library. All right. So the mystery question is, there are questions written by my 12-year-old on various topics. We’re just gonna have to pick one by random and then we’ll both answer it. So here we go. I love this. All right. So what is the—oh gosh. What is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you? This is a big question, so it may not be the funniest, but one of the funniest things that’s ever happened to you. I’m not really good at the funniest, but there is a—if you have one, go ahead. But I do have one that comes to mind. It’s real, it’s embarrassing. It’s not really that funny.

Brit Barron Okay. Mine’s an embarrassing one too.

Tim Villegas Okay. All right. So we’re on the same page here.

Brit Barron Yes.

Tim Villegas Okay. So let me tell you, I’ll tell you this one about when I stole my own car. This was an APU story. Okay, good, good. So I lived in some apartments across from campus, and it was just me and my roommate. I had gone to class or whatever and come back, and I woke up the next day and went out to where my car was in my driveway or whatever, and it was gone. It was just gone. I’m like, oh my God, somebody stole my car. So I get my roommate out, I’m like, do you know what happened? Does anyone know what happened to my car? So I called my mom and my dad, I’m like, oh my God, the car is stolen. They’re like, it’s okay. Just report it stolen. So I make a police report or whatever.

Then the next few days, I go to chapel, you know, so you go across the campus and there’s chapel three times a week or whatever, and everyone knows, they’re like, poor Tim, his car got stolen. Oh my gosh, it’s so awful. Then I hear somebody from across the campus—my nickname in college is Vegas. They were like, Vegas. I’m like, yeah, don’t you have that SUV with a bunch of stickers on it? I’m like, yeah, that’s my car. He’s like, it’s parked on the other side of campus. I’m like, what? At that very moment, I was like, oh my God. What happened was it was raining and I normally walk to class. Normally I just walk to class and it was at night, but it was raining. So I’m like, I’ll just take the car. So I drove the car over to campus and then went to class. In my normal routine, I walked home because that’s what I do. Then after a day or maybe even a day and a half, I didn’t use the car. When I went over to where my car was, it was gone. So I automatically thought someone had stolen my car.

Brit Barron This is before AirTags?

Tim Villegas No, this was late nineties, so this was like 98, probably 97.

Brit Barron Did you have to go back to the police station and be like—

Tim Villegas I did. I found—had to. Yes. I called the Azusa PD to—I’m like, I found my car, but I also had to tell campus safety. What was funny is the car was parked next to campus safety. So there you go. That’s my embarrassing story. It was not in danger at all.

Brit Barron It was just waiting for you. I love that.

Tim Villegas Um—

Brit Barron So I’ve got—this is not long after I had finished grad school, or maybe it was undergrad, and I was at Disneyland and I saw an older white man who looked very familiar. So I was like, oh. In the context, I’m a person of—he wasn’t a family member, I was like, oh, he must have been a professor. I can’t place his name right now, but I’ll go say hi, because obviously that’s how I would know him. For context, APU is a very small, private Christian college. It’s not like USC or Brown, it’s also a random school. So I go to this man, I’m like, hey, do you teach at APU? He just sort of looks at me with this look, and three seconds of complete silence goes by, which is a long time in this scenario. Then I realized it was Nicholas Cage. He looks familiar because he’s famous, he’s an actor. It has to be taught at APU, which is disrespectful, honestly, to his career.

Tim Villegas But you must be from APU.

Brit Barron Because you look so familiar. Why else would I know this older, balding white man? Terrible.

Tim Villegas That is so funny.

Brit Barron I was like, awkward. Never mind, and walked away.

Tim Villegas Did you automatically realize, oh, wait a minute, he’s Nicholas Cage?

Brit Barron As soon as I looked, I was just like, nope. National Treasure. That’s it. You’re not—oh my gosh.

Tim Villegas Exodus, Deuteronomy, independence, constitution.

Brit Barron Exactly. Yeah, you sold.

Tim Villegas Okay, terrible. That’s what it’s—yeah.

Brit Barron I got it. Now I found it.

Tim Villegas Oh, that’s great. So terrible. Brit Barron, thank you so much for being on the Think Inclusive Podcast. We really appreciate it.

Brit Barron Oh, thanks for having me.

Tim Villegas This conversation with Brit Barron reminded me of something essential. We don’t have to sacrifice our values to acknowledge the humanity of others. Inclusion doesn’t mean agreement and empathy doesn’t mean endorsement, but if we want to build schools and communities where every learner belongs, we have to be willing to stay in the room with people that we disagree with, even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard.

So here’s one practical step for you today. Think of someone who you’ve written off because of their beliefs, and instead of debating them, try to understand what belonging looks like for them. You don’t have to agree, but you might just find a way to stay connected.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, family member, or colleague. Please rate us and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. It helps people find the show and join the conversation. And if you listen on Spotify, there is a section for comments. You can share what you thought of the episode there as well. Shout out to our listeners in Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We are so thankful to all of our listeners, and I love that this podcast is being listened to all over the world. If you want to share where you are listening from, you can always email me at tvillegas@mcie.org.

Now, let’s roll the credits. Think Inclusive is brought to you by me, Tim Villegas. I write, edit, mix, master. I basically wear all the podcast hats and the baseball caps. This show is a proud production of the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education, scheduling and extra production help by Jill Wagoner. Our original music is by Miles Kredich with extra vibes from Melod.ie. Big thanks to our sponsor, IXL. Visit ixl.com/inclusive.

Fun fact. I went to Azusa Pacific University for college and one of my favorite places to go was Donut Man. This is a 24-hour donut shop in Glendora, just a few minutes away from campus. They had these seasonal peach or strawberry donuts, which were basically these fruit-filled, glazed donut monstrosities, but so, so delicious. I forgot to ask Brit if she ever went to Donut Man, but chances are if you went to APU, you did. So what is your favorite place to get a donut? I’d love to know. Email me at tvillegas@mcie.org. I read every single message.

If you’ve made it this far, you’re officially part of the Think Inclusive Inclusion Crew. Want to help us keep moving the needle for inclusion? Head to mcie.org and click the donate button. Give $5, $10, $20. It helps us keep partnering with schools and districts to move inclusive practices forward and support educators doing the work. Find us on the socials almost everywhere at Think Inclusive. Thanks for hanging out and remember, inclusion always works.