Oral History Interview with Fr. Seth Dietrich

Title: Oral History Interview with Fr. Seth Dietrich
Interviewee: Fr. Seth Dietrich
Interviewer: Ella Dietrich
Description: Fr. Seth Dietrich of Shorewood, Wisconsin was interviewed by Ella Dietrich, a Sewanee student, on November 26th, 2023 in person. While their conversation was primarily on the Black Lives Matter Movement, other topics included his diverse experiences by living in different locations and his Episcopal priesthood. We hope that this conversation will assist scholars with a further understanding of race in the United States during the early twenty-first century. Please click on the link to see the full interview.
Transcript: 0:00:01 SETH: It's going. Alright.

0:00:03 ELLA: This is Ella Dietrich from Sewanee, the University of the South. It's 2:10 PM on Monday, November 27th. I am here with

0:00:15 SETH: Seth Dietrich.

0:00:17 ELLA: And you are from

0:00:19 SETH: Austin, Texas originally.

0:00:22 ELLA: Thank you for being here. So where are you originally from?

0:00:27 SETH: I was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and then I made my way into th Upper Midwest and went to college in the Chicago area and eventually I made my way here to Milwaukee.

0:00:47 ELLA: And where you currently live different from where you were raised?

0:00:53 SETH: Well, there's a lot of differences. It's a lot colder here. Milwaukee has not grown as much as Austin. There's a lot more kind of transplants in Austin, like people who didn't grow up there and Milwaukee's of known for a lot of people who, a lot of people who are here grew up here. The black population in Austin is a lot smaller, but the Hispanic population is a lot bigger than Milwaukee and it's not growing like Austin is. Whenever I go back to Austin, there's a new huge 60, not every time, but there's often really big buildings downtown being built and thousands of people moving there every month. And Milwaukee has some new people coming in, but as a whole it's not experiencing that kind of growth.

0:01:57 ELLA: Do you have a preference on maybe a growing population or maybe more stagnant-generational in Milwaukee?

0:02:07 SETH: I mean, I like to be in places that are growing, but I mean, I like Milwaukee, but it is kind of fun to be in places that have that kind of energy of all that new personality and talent. And there's disadvantages too. The housing can get more expensive. The housing in Austin is really crazy now because all those people,

0:02:34 ELLA: So when you think back to Austin, when you were a kid, where did you find community in Austin?

0:02:43 SETH: I found community a little bit in my little neighborhood. I had a couple friends. We found a lot of community at church. My mom belonged to different churches over the years.

0:02:59 ELLA: And were those all the same denomination?

0:03:01 SETH: No different denominations. There was Southern Methodist for a little while, then Nazarene for a little while. Then this church called the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which was super nerdy about the Bible. Those were all pretty conservative. And then the Episcopal church, when I was leaving for at the end of high school, they started going to an Episcopal church.

0:03:31 ELLA: And I know this because she's my grandma, but she had grown up and lived as a Jewish person who celebrated the Jewish faith. Has that had any influence on your life at all? Does she continue to believe maybe in this?

0:03:46 SETH: Yeah. Well, she describes her childhood / young adulthood as not really practicing Judaism too much, but she was very involved in the Jewish community. So those were her friends. And there was a Jewish community center where she would do plays and their parents hung out with other Jews. So she was very immersed in culturally. She wasn't practice too much. I don't think they went to synagogue too much. And are you trying to wake her up? Yeah, I bet your thing won't really pick it up. Yeah.
0:04:30 She though now believes in a kind of Christianity that is very Jewish. It's very Jewish center called Messianic Christianity. So it's like, well, I don't know if it's Jewish centered. Really, it's about that's not actually true. That's too strong a statement. She is involved in just a regular evangelical church, but then she has had periods of her life where she's been involved in this thing called Jews for Jesus. And that's where you go out and try to convert Jews to Christianity, trying to convince Jews that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah and that the Messiah's already come and that they need to get on board with that.

0:05:21 ELLA: Interesting. She always has been kind of a force of getting people to listen to her my whole life at least. Yeah. Do you think that that's had an effect on you becoming a priest?

0:05:34 SETH: Yeah, I mean, I don't think I could probably disentangle my own faith from my mother's influence in terms of bringing me to church as a kid, because my dad wasn't very involved in any of that until I got to middle school, putting me in a Southern Methodist elementary school. That's why I went to this small private elementary school. So definitely the origins of my faith, my mother, I think was a really big influence. I think now is very, my sense of Christianity is different than my mother's now that probably started even in high school. And so in that ways, she hasn't really continued to influence my faith very much after those younger years. But

0:06:34 ELLA: It did. Going to college in the Midwest kind of maybe defer that trajectory that your life was going with your mom's influence, or was that totally maybe on your own?

0:06:47 SETH: Well, I don't know if the Midwest had that much to do with it. I mean, I went to a Christian college, Wheaton College, so that's kind of like that early influence, continuing in that trajectory. And then that college did have a lot of effect on my later life where I met your mom, and that had a huge effect on the rest of my life and your life.

0:07:23 ELLA: Yeah. Okay. So getting a little bit more back to the present, where do you find community today?

0:07:32 SETH: That's a good question. I mean, I think there's some different places. Primarily probably the church where I'm the head pastor. I think that my duties as the kind of caretaker and leader of that community just put me in contact with a lot of people over the course of a week, people who are going through different things, happy, but some really hard things. And so I kind of walk alongside people who are in those parts of their life. And then also I facilitate these large communal celebrations like a Easter service or Christmas pageant or even just a Sunday service. So those are a coming together of the community in a really big way. And then also try to facilitate these smaller communities like a men's group or I try to empower other people to create smaller groups like that. I think I used to think of those as that was just my job and that really wasn't much community for me. But as I've done it longer, I think it's not that black and white, I think I can't say whatever I want to say, and I can't just be totally free to completely be myself, but I can be 85% of myself, I think with a lot of those folks, 80%. And so it does feed a genuine sense of community for me. And then other sources, I think, I don't know, my family is a little tiny community.
0:09:45 I think the neighborhood mean that has kind of ebbed and flowed in terms of relationships with other people here on the block. I mean that there was that little period where I did a movie group and we were gathering once a month and I felt like it was more meaningful. And now I don't see people all that often, even though I like to kind of keep in touch with the neighbors. It doesn't happen all that often. I have a couple friends, I mean outside of church and neighbors and family, there's a priest who, his name's John Hickey, who I know the family doesn't believe who's real. But I have lunch with him at least once a month and we text. And then I have some other clergy colleagues too that I text and I think of his friends. And occasionally we'll get together. Not all that often, but that's a little piece of community.

0:10:51 ELLA: Yeah. Do you think that, I mean, in my other interview, and I've experienced this myself, working for the church and being immersed in it almost every single day, is it hard to separate your personal life from your work life when those friends are coming from the place that you work from?

0:11:11 SETH: Yeah. I mean, I think very few parishioners I would lump into that same category as pure friends. I mean, I'm definitely playing a particular role when I'm with 99% of the parishioners. And again, it's like 80% me, but then there's this 20% that's like, I'm the rector and I'm your pastor. And there are just a few people, I would say Ken and Sue, Susan Lover, that kind of, I mean, I can do that 20% when I'm in a big group with them or whatever. But when I go to their house, I'm shedding that role of pastor. And so

0:12:02 ELLA: Has that been a learning process maybe from when you just started being a priest to

0:12:07 SETH: Yeah. I mean, in seminary they warn you against becoming friends. Be careful about just treating all of your parishioners as friends because you are there to play a particular role. And so if you tell a dirty joke to someone, that has to be a pretty special person, and you have to have a pretty special relationship with them. Otherwise they're going to, they might see you and the church and God in a particular way. So you have to be careful. But yeah, there's certainly been some learning there.

0:12:56 ELLA: I know we've talked about your role in the church, but could you specify exactly your occupation and your journey to this role?

0:13:04 SETH: Yeah. So all the terms get a little complicated, but I'm an Episcopal priest and I became an Episcopal priest through a process that exists within the Episcopal Church where you tell your priest that you're interested in exploring this path. A group from that church gathers together and interviews you and talks about your life story and why you might feel called to this. They write a report, and then you meet with the bishop, and then you meet with a group on the diocesan level and they write a report. And then all the reports go, well, all the reports go to the bishop and he writes a report, and then they say yes or no. And if they say yes, then you pick a seminary and the bishop shows you can pick a seminary or the bishop can pick a seminary, or sometimes it's both. Bishop really wanted me to go to Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. So that's why we went.
0:14:14 And then when I got out of seminary as an ordained and I became an ordained Episcopal priest, and you can do a lot of different things as an ordained Episcopal priest, you could be like a chaplain at a school or a hospital, you could be, I became an assistant priest at a church at a parish, and I was an assistant priest for about a year and a half. And then the rector actually was really burned out, and he left unexpectedly. And then through a couple different little moves, I became what's called the rector. And the rector is just a fancy Episcopal word for the head pastor of a church. So most Episcopal churches only have one pastor, the Rector, but some Christchurch, which is the largest church in Wisconsin, largest Episcopal church in Wisconsin. We have a rector and we have an associate rector. We're an associate priest and

0:15:25 ELLA: A deacon, correct?

0:15:26 SETH: And we have a have a deacon, and then we have also some, what we call clergy in residents who are mostly retired priests who just live in this area and they want to be a part of a church. And then we give 'em a little bit to do

0:15:42 ELLA: And they fill in sometimes when they are sick.

0:15:45 SETH: Yeah, they fill in. Yep, yep. And then they help with little ministries where they can feel like they make a difference.

0:15:56 ELLA: So speaking of your journey to the role you have now, is there anyone that inspires you? And could you elaborate and maybe tell me what traits that they have that you may identify with?

0:16:13 SETH: That's a good question. Who does inspire me?

0:16:16 ELLA: And you could have multiple answers.

0:16:22 SETH: I mean, I don't know quite how it directly interacts with my, well, I mean it does interact, but are these famous people or people? Oh,

0:16:36 ELLA: No, it can be anyone. It doesn't even have to do with your job. I was just thinking.

0:16:41 SETH: Yeah. Well, I mean, some of the more famous people, there's a monk named Thomas Merton and Thomas Merton thought deeply about how to pursue getting to know God. But in doing that, he actually learned that in pursuing to know and to love God, you really have to pursue getting to know and to love other people. And he writes about that, and he's a really brilliant writer, and he's a very deep spiritual person. And so his books have been important to me.

0:17:28 ELLA: Can you maybe list a couple?

0:17:31 SETH: Yeah. The Seven Story Mountain is a famous book that's part of his kind of autobiography. And then he has a book called The Seeds of Contemplation, and he's got great, yeah, he's got some really interesting insights.

0:17:56 ELLA: I think I've seen those laying around the house maybe.

0:17:58 SETH: Yeah, I'm sure you have. There's some, I think over in in that cabinet. Yeah, other major influences on sort of my spiritual thinking. There's this guy named John Cabot Z, who's written these books on mindfulness. He was actually kind of like the father of mindfulness in America, certainly. And those books have been really helpful to me, and I recommend those books. And then just mindfulness in general to a lot of people who are struggling with mental, with anxiety and depression and just kind of getting emotionally overwhelmed. Mindfulness was really helpful for me and continues to be. Although I don't have much of a mindfulness practice. I mean, I'm not meditating every day. I have had periods in my life when I have meditated more frequently, but the principles still hold up and those are helpful to me and to other people. And they're spiritual, but they're also intellectual and physical, which I like.

0:19:14 ELLA: Have you integrated mindfulness at all into your work at the church?

0:19:20 SETH: Yeah, we did. I taught a book called Mindful Christianity, which was written actually by a person that mom and I knew at Wheaton. She's a psychologist who has a PhD in psychology. And so I did that. And then we're actually bringing in for our forum, we're bringing in a mindfulness teacher, I think next week, not this coming Sunday, but the Sunday after. And then I bring it in with my counseling when I'm not trained as a psychotherapist, so people can't come to me. They would come to a counselor for a year, they can come to me for four sessions, and then I have to refer them onto a professional. And that rule helps, helps protect people from priests who would like to think that they're a counselor, but they're not a counselor. So they can see me a limited number of times. But in some of that counseling I have recommended some of the principles of mindfulness.

0:20:31 ELLA: Sounds like it's really beneficial for you and for the people in your community. You talked a little bit about growing up and maybe what the population looked like, maybe more Hispanic people coming from maybe those Latin America, because Texas is obviously closer to Mexico than Wisconsin is. And your work now, I know that Isaiah talked about one of our parishioners that was exiled from China. How have you experienced international cultures in your life?

0:21:06 SETH: Well, my biggest experience was going to Uganda for six months during college. That was a real immersion experience. And there wasn't anyone, there wasn't anyone who had English as their native language within probably a hundred miles of me. So I was in a little Hutt. It was a rural village. The closest small town was still 30 miles away, and very few people had cars, people just had bicycles. So it was really very immersed in a totally different world. Where else have I had international experiences? I mean, your mom and I honeymooned in Mexico. We've done a little bit of traveling to Europe, and we went to Belize In some of my daily life, I get some exposure to international like Le, but there's not a lot. I mean, I think one of the interesting things about living in Washington DC for a seminary, and so this was different than Austin or I was in Alexandria, Virginia, which is basically the DC area there.
0:22:42 Through the course of your day, you would meet a lot of people from different countries. You'd go to the grocery store, and at least maybe my memory is coloring it in a particular way, but it did seem like the person who helped you out at the Apple store was from Nicaragua. And then the person who gave you your Uber driver was from Pakistan. And there was just a lot more kind of international people who had kind of migrated there. And so here, I feel like it's sort of a little bit more of an Anglo, your whole world is a little more Anglo, the people who you interact with. I mean, I go to Metro Market and that is probably half African-American Black now, I dunno if people are from a different country, they're not necessarily international though.

0:23:45 ELLA: Yeah, that's fair. Do you think that people from different cultures and international backgrounds were coming to DC just because it's put on the pedestal in the United States? Or why do you think that there were more people?

0:24:07 SETH: Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't exactly know why you had so many different people from so many different places there. Yeah, I should actually do some research. I don't know. I don't know. But it was known for that.

0:24:26 ELLA: I think I've experienced because we've gone back and visited. There's definitely people at the museum who are helping and just museums in general. There are a bunch of different ones.

0:24:38 SETH: I mean, there are embassies. There are,

0:24:41 ELLA: Oh, that could be it.

0:24:42 SETH: But I mean, I don't know. That wouldn't really bring in your average person to settle there. So yeah, I don't know.

0:24:50 ELLA: Okay. Just in a general sense, how are you usually receiving the news? So maybe through an app on your phone, through the tv?

0:25:01 SETH: Definitely through apps on my phone. I very rarely consume news on the tv.

0:25:07 ELLA: Is there a reason for that at all?

0:25:11 SETH: I guess I've just gotten into the habit of reading the news versus watching the news, and so I don't know. I don't know why. I mean, and maybe because the apps are always with you, so it's just a convenience thing.

0:25:32 ELLA: Which apps have you found most helpful?

0:25:35 SETH: I read the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Atlantic probably the most.

0:25:43 ELLA: Okay. So those are maybe more newspaper

0:25:48 SETH: Oriented. The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times are newspapers. And then The Atlantic is a magazine. But yeah, it's a magazine. And so most magazines, they're not just publishing once a month, physical magazine. They also are publishing stories every day or

0:26:12 ELLA: During the week. And you've found that a lot more helpful than maybe the CNN app because it's just maybe less jarring?

0:26:21 SETH: I mean, I don't know, maybe. Yeah, probably. I think so. I don't sometimes really see the videos. It's just more graphic and I don't know if that's good or bad that I don't want to see them. But yeah, that probably is the main reason is that it's reading about it is just a little more to remove than hearing it and seeing it.

0:26:46 ELLA: Yeah. Did your parents grow up watching the news at all?

0:26:56 SETH: I think they watched, yeah. We would occasionally watch the news as a family. They would watch the news. They would watch both the local news and then they would watch a, B, C news, or that used to be each major network had their six o'clock news. And then my dad, he would usually start the morning watching the financial news.

0:27:23 ELLA: Would you consider yourself for the majority of your life, kind of pretty tuned in? Maybe, than

0:27:30 SETH: I've actually been more tuned in. I wasn't all that tuned into the news when I was younger in high school and college. But then I think after college, I started reading the newspaper more. I didn't really pay attention to the news too much. I mean, there was the Gulf War, I mean, I was following that, but politics and I didn't really care very much. And so, yeah, I think I feel like I consumed had more interest in current events after college.

0:28:08 ELLA: Speaking on the apps that you have consuming media, I know that from being your daughter that you aren't super involved with social media, but have you had any experience and what can you tell me about your experience with social media?

0:28:24 SETH: I mean, I've had very little experience with social media. In fact, I don't even really feel like I know how to work something like Facebook, which is kind of embarrassing, and it isn't how I normally interact with technology. I don't have very many things I feel like I'm really ignorant of when it comes to devices or apps or how to move about in the world of technology. But social media, I definitely have not invested the time. And so there's an awkwardness there. I so I have a Facebook account, but I literally never look at it. I mean, I don't think I've gone on it maybe in three years. So yeah, that's

0:29:14 ELLA: Where I'm at. And in terms of the church, we have maybe a social media person. Do you ever have to get involved in posting?

0:29:24 SETH: Almost never. Yeah. I mean, I just set it up such that I trust the person who's posting things. They're not posting..
0:29:39 They're not posting all that much, but

0:29:43 ELLA: Okay, because seen on Instagram some messages from you, and I'm guessing you just write those and send those in.

0:29:51 SETH: They're just repurposing the weekly email that we send out to the whole church. They just repurpose that content for Facebook and Instagram once a week. Okay. Yeah. What is this class for again?

0:30:07 ELLA: This is for My Black Lives Matter, and then yeah, we're going to get into

0:30:12 SETH: That. Oh, yeah. No, I just couldn't remember right. Midway through the interview.

0:30:16 ELLA: Okay. So speaking of the Black Lives Matter movement, and just when I speak on the little blurbs you give for the Instagram, I think when I first noticed was when all the George Floyd stuff was happening, and you maybe had to address it. I know the Episcopal Church had to address it just because there's been a lot of racism and things like buildings being built by formerly enslaved people that we've had to recently address. But just very generally, how did you first encounter the Black Lives Matter movement?

0:30:56 SETH: Yeah, I'd never heard of it before. George Floyd. I mean, I know it existed, but I had not really heard of it, I don't think. And I'm trying to remember how exactly. I mean, that time, I guess is in my mind, is just totally wedded to the kind of surge of interest in Black Lives Matter as an organization, and then also as just kind of a concept. So yeah, I think that Is that what you asked when I first jumped?

0:31:41 ELLA: Because I know in Shorewood, there were a couple of people that had maybe signs in their front yard, but it wasn't a very personal experience until it kind of took over. George Floyd kind took over in the media, and we as a church had to, or not had to, but responded. We did maybe a protest.

0:32:04 SETH: Yeah, there was a march. There was a march that was organized by the Whitefish Bay High School. That was maybe a week after George Floyd was killed. And so I encouraged us as a church to make a banner, and I actually had a banner made. And then as a church, we joined that much larger protest. So that was probably the biggest, or March. Yeah, it was a protest in a march, and we went to Big Bay Park, and I don't know how many people were there, maybe a thousand. We did not go to that. Yeah, you and Abby, you could interview Oswald, how he felt about that

0:32:59 ELLA: One. Oh, no, that's your associate.

0:33:03 SETH: Yeah, he liked it. He thought it was great. Oh,

0:33:05 ELLA: Yeah. I remember Mom and I and Abby went to the one that was more Shorewood oriented, I think. Yeah.
0:33:13 Then you mom were just, you went to the one in downtown?

0:33:17 SETH: I went to the one, no, it was in Whitefish Bay. It was from Big Bay Park, but I had gone to some other, I don't know that there were Black Lives Matter, but there were some other incidents in Milwaukee, for example, there was a black homeless man who had been harassed by the police on a park bench, and then he was eventually killed. And Darius, yeah, I can't remember his name, Darius that, I don't think that was Darius Simmons, I know End. And then there was a kid at All People's Church who's a member of that church who was killed by his neighbor. His neighbor said a racial epithet, racial slur. Before killing him, he shot just like I think in Broad Daylight. And he was a member of All People's Church. So the pastor of All people's Steve Jerbi would go to the trial. Well, I went to Darius Simmons funeral, and then I would just kind of give support to Darius Simmons pastor, who was also a friend during the trial. And the man was convicted of, I can't remember the exact crime. He was, I guess, murder.

0:34:49 ELLA: Yeah, murder. Were you mostly involved, obviously out of moral reasons, but because you were viewed as the head of a religious organization?

0:35:02 SETH: Yeah, it was my own conscience, but also as a way to symbolize a larger church

0:35:18 ELLA: Living through George Floyd. And maybe the other things that we've talked about, Derek Simmons, and then racial conflict that's happened in Milwaukee. What is your opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement?

0:35:32 SETH: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think of the Black Lives Matter movement, I think it's still an important movement. I think that systemic racism is still very real, although I'm probably, I would throw that term around pretty loosely before. And now I feel like if you're going to say something has systemic racism, you should kind of demonstrate how it has systemic racism rather than just kind of spray it around. Everything has systemic racism. And so I do think that often there are many cases in which black lives still don't seem to matter as much as White lives, and I think you can see that in many places. I think you can see it in the Milwaukee public school system. I mean, in the ways that just continually fails young black kids and puts them at this huge disadvantage. Have you guys talked much about Black Lives Matter as an organization?

0:37:05 ELLA: Yeah, that is maybe more specifically what I am asking.

0:37:07 SETH: Yeah. I guess my impression now is less favorable of the organization. Black Lives Matter. I feel like through some of the news that I've read around maybe how some of the funds were used after the George Floyd, I also think maybe they might be a little further left than I am on things. The idea of blowing up, and I honestly don't know how much of this is actually true and how much of it is the media and how much of it is me just being only half right and kind of ignorant. But I wonder if blowing up gender and human sexuality and just kind of radically wanting to rethink gender categories, for example. I mean, I'm open to transgender people, but I'm also, I think maybe relatively traditional with, I do think there's biological stuff. It plays an important part. And I think, well, I mean, that's a whole nother question. That's a whole nother thing,

0:38:30 ELLA: Is that bringing that back to the Black Lives Matter..

0:38:32 SETH: to Black Lives Matter.. I feel like some of the founders were, at least from what I read, were, I don't know, maybe more radical when it comes to getting rid of gender as a construct. And I guess that's not where I am.

0:38:55 ELLA: So maybe if they had been more pinpointed on just systemic racism as a whole, that you could be more on board with the organization itself.

0:39:06 SETH: Yeah, I think so. I think that would probably help. Yes. I think also what's become hard is that our society is so incredibly polarized, and there are certain terms, and there's certain organizations that are so incredibly polarizing that they're like lightning rods for electricity and energy. And I think BLM has become one of those organizations that, like you just say the word Black Lives Matter and people, it just instantly creates a lot of anxiety for people, or maybe cheers for people. But in terms of it actually helping, I don't know. Because if it creates all that anxiety and all that,
0:40:13 what are you doing? It creates all that. Where are you going?

0:40:20 ELLA: Oh, okay.

0:40:21 SETH: And you're back at four 30. Well, you're not going to be back at four 30 if you have to leave at two 50 for a three 30 appointment. Oh,

0:40:28 Speaker 3: Really?

0:40:29 SETH: So how are we going to go to Happy Hour? Oh,

0:40:31 Speaker 3: Really? How do you think that will work? Running an errand beforehand?

0:40:40 ELLA: Interrupter, oral history interview, mom.

0:40:43 SETH: Oh, yeah. Because this place, your thing is only five minutes away.

0:40:48 ELLA: Where are you going? I'm doing a

0:40:52 Speaker 3: PT visit,

0:40:53 ELLA: But what's your errand before? Oh,

0:40:55 Speaker 3: I'm getting something for my St. Nick

0:40:57 ELLA: Treats. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Okay.

0:41:03 SETH: Yeah, go ahead.

0:41:03 ELLA: When you talk about that lightning rod, maybe more specifically, what was, I mean, the lightning rod, obviously, when you say Black Lives Matter, it encourages a response that may be negative or positive depending on where you are. When we speak of where we are now, this could be Whitefish Bay or here, or even back home in Austin. What was your community's reaction when you would bring up Black Lives Matter?

0:41:30 SETH: I mean, I think in the beginning days, I think it was generally positive. There were some people who were right after George Floyd. There were some people, it was negative, and who told me, but I think generally it was positive. It was seen that George, with George Floyd, it was seen as such a obvious case in which that black life did not seem to matter to those white officers. But it also, Black Lives Matter became associated also with, rightly or wrongly, with Abolished the police, because I think that was a part of their agenda. It was to take community resources and redirect them from law enforcement within a community to less armed police officers and more counselors. And that seemed like a really good idea.
0:42:42 I was for that in the beginning, but sometimes the way that it was communicated was kind of anti-police. And I actually think that, I don't know. I think I used to be more anti-police, but now I do think it's really hard. That's a really hard job. And I think the vast majority of police officers, they are interacting with people of all different races often, and they must be having to, I don't know that they're always, I don't think that they're always acting with these deeply racist actions. I know that happens sometimes, but I have to imagine that a lot of their job is really, really difficult. And so I think that there's some respect owed to that part of society or that job police officers. And so I do think that Black Lives Matter became, it became kind of synonymous with anti-police fairly or unfairly.

0:44:01 ELLA: Yeah. I specifically remember hearing ACAB for the first time during the George Floyd stuff.

0:44:07 SETH: Wait, what's that?

0:44:08 ELLA: All cops in Parent are bad. Oh, yeah. But it was..

0:44:13 SETH: Bast*rds.

0:44:16 ELLA: And seeing that video was so obviously really, really hard to see, and people just grasped onto that visual. And then I think it took a minute for it to set in for some people, and then they really started to submit what they thought, because obviously I had read different things after George Floyd and you, it's been how many years? Three, four.

0:44:39 SETH: Three and a half,

0:44:40 ELLA: Three and a half years. So I think that people have maybe fizzled out from ACAB and started to adopt their own philosophies and stuff.

0:44:51 SETH: That's just more complicated. But I think that was a very easy kind of black and white, but I don't know if Black Lives Matter as an organization. I don't know if they've moderated or come more into the middle and are living in that complexity of police officers are just like everyone else. There's mixed or mixed bag, and they're doing their best. And I don't know, I assume Black Lives Matter is still kind of further out on the edge of policing is racist, but I don't know.

0:45:33 ELLA: That's just why. You mean maybe on that extreme?

0:45:35 SETH: Yeah, I think that they're more on, I just assume that they're still more out on that extreme. I haven't seen anything in which Black Lives Matter movement or organization says, Hey, we actually are really grateful for police. And so maybe that just haven't been paying attention. But

0:45:54 ELLA: I also think that, I mean, this is the premise of our class that Black Power is often grouped in with the Black Lives Matter movement, when in reality they're totally, I mean, black Power as a whole is just the idea that maybe, or sorry, lemme rephrase that. Black Power is the background of how Black Lives Matter as an organization exists, but that Black Power stands on its own as its own entity. So maybe the Black Power Movement as a whole stands for Anti-Police, but Black Lives Matter as a whole has not identified that, those philosophies maybe?

0:46:38 SETH: I don't know. That's a good question. I mean, I'm not very familiar with the Black Power. I don't think the Black Power Movement, except for, so just personally, I associate the Black Power Movement
0:47:01 I associate the Black Power Movement with the sixties and seventies, Malcolm X, and I know that it must have existed in different forms, but then the Black Lives Matter movement seems like more specific, and not just specific, but visible.

0:47:27 ELLA: Right. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about your community's reaction, but specifically because you are a father and you work with maybe older people, so you're involved with all different kinds of generations. What generation do you think was most impacted by the Black Lives Matter movement?

0:47:51 SETH: You mean who had the strongest reaction to it or was influenced by it? In what way? Either way.

0:48:01 ELLA: I guess I just mean in my experience, my generation is the most impacted because I lived through it and I was heavily involved in social media. Maybe I think what I'm asking is because you are involved with so many generations, what have you seen as the biggest impact on the specific group of

0:48:22 SETH: Yeah, I think it's your generation for sure. I mean, I think I don't have a ton of mean, we don't have a lot of 20 somethings in the Episcopal Church. Usually people leave after college and then they come back, or they leave for college, and then they usually don't come back to the church until they have a family. They get married. So I don't know, we didn't have a ton of 19 to 27 year olds or whatever in the church, but the few that I knew, they definitely were more in favor of and impacted. Yeah, for sure.

0:49:09 ELLA: How has the Black Lives Matter movement impacted your life?

0:49:16 SETH: That's a good question.
0:49:27 I mean, it taught me about how is it the organization, the Black Lives Matter movement, and how has it, I mean, it was such a huge part of that summer. And with George Floyd. I mean, I had never been in a protest around race before, so I mean, that was Black Lives Matter protest. So that was a big deal. I think it pushed me to think about systemic racism in ways that were healthy for me and kind of got me out of my comfort zone, I think. Yeah, I think that's probably it. Yeah.

0:50:32 ELLA: I mean, has it impacted the way that maybe you bring race up in conversation at all?

0:50:42 SETH: Yeah, I think I've been on kind of my own journey, and so I think that, I kind of was alluding to this earlier that I think there's good, I think there's a time in which something is related to systemic racism, and then there's a time in which there is a lot of factors, and maybe systemic racism is at play, and maybe it's not at play. And I think we have to, I also feel like what I'm most interested in is what actually helps black people gain more wealth and power in the world? What makes their life better? I'm more interested in that than actually appearing like I'm on the right side and kind of signaling to everyone that I have the right ideas, because I do feel like sometimes there are conservative ideas that the person who's making those ideas, they would never put a yard sign that says, Black Lives Matter because it's so supercharged.
0:52:03 And they would never say, I'm a fan of the Black Lives Matter movement, but their particular ideas about maybe economics or jobs or their company that they're going to start that's actually going to make black lives more, give more power and more wealth. And so I guess I do associate, I almost kind of associate my interest in Black Lives Matter with my interest in that kind of signal. It's called Virtue Signaling. And I think those two kind of peaked together. And I think part of my journey since summer fall of 2020 has been trying to say, I don't necessarily want to be just interested. I don't want to just be seen as the person who's progressive. I want actually be involved in things that are, or I want to be more open to solutions that come from a variety of different places and not just this one strand.

0:53:20 ELLA: Yeah. I think that at least in my experience, a lot of the being known as someone who's progressive or has the right ideas was from a lot of armchair protesting, especially when we were going through the Covid epidemic. And George Floyd was because it was so easy to put a message out in the world to be seen as the right person, but not actually do any good. So I think it's very important that other people realize it is about giving black people more power in the world and not just about saying the right things. I think in my generation, it's very much about just saying the right things and being a progressive, and

0:54:05 SETH: I mean, one of the most, we haven't talked much about it, but in DC in just those three years, one of the most interesting parts about being in DC it was that there was a large middle and upper middle class and even some upper class black population. And the reason I remember reading about the reason that is is because DC was one of the very first places to give really high quality public education to black people. And so I feel like that is a place where our society could invest a tremendous amount of money. And the reason that we're not doing that, some of it is systemic racism, but some of it is just like some of it is.
0:54:59 So this is where my thinking has just gotten more complex. Now. I look at Milwaukee and I see what keeps black people from getting a good education. There's some systemic racism there, but it's mainly a legacy of the systemic racism that settled Milwaukee in these very particular ways, such that all the black people had to go over here, or the freeway was built, and it eliminated the black business district in Milwaukee redlining. These are things that they don't exist now, but we are seeing the downstream effects of these things. So what's going to have the biggest effect? Me always talking about systemic racism or me trying to through the way I vote, or what I talk about, or trying to get more economic opportunity to come into the black community. So that's on the, I am more interested in that kind of on the ground, where do we go from here? And I don't know how much Black Lives Matter as an organization. I don't know what they're involved in with that.

0:56:27 ELLA: The housing crisis?

0:56:29 SETH: The housing crisis, or encouraging black entrepreneurship and black businesses education. What are the real education reforms that would improve the lives of young black students? I don't know what they're doing with that stuff.

0:56:50 ELLA: Yeah. And you talk about why you may be deferring to different avenues of promoting, I mean that Black Lives Matter, but not through the organization. What are some ways, do you think that that Black Lives Matter movement has failed?

0:57:16 SETH: Well, I think it's failed because I think both from, I think intentionally from their own intention and probably just the way that they were seen, it was seen as this part of this far left part of the political spectrum. And the problem with that is to get anything done to even have a chance of getting anything done, it seems like in the real world, you have to build a coalition of people from different perspectives. And if you're coming at something from the far part, whether it's the far right or the far left in most parts of the world, I mean most parts of the us, you're not going to be able to get anything done on the ground. People are just going to instantly be like, those are not my politics. You're too radical for me. And so I think that there was a big surge of interest in that.
0:58:23 And then I think Black Lives Matter could have pivoted and they could have said, yeah, we are getting, it wouldn't have been too hard to do and probably probably did do a little market research. How are we perceived? And if they were perceived as radically progressive, they could have done some intentional things to say that would've been hard and probably would've gone against their values so that I understand why they didn't do it. But I'm more interested in that kind of practical, how do we bring people together who are going to disagree about a lot of stuff, but they're going to be more in the center of things, and they're going to be more interested in practical solutions for the black community to improve people's lives. Then I'm more interested in that. And I just don't sense that Black Lives Matter is their brand is so far left that they're going to have a hard time facilitating that kind of on the ground change. I feel like

0:59:32 ELLA: I totally agree that because our world has become so polarized that it's hard to even get something going with something that's already seen as so progressive and so radically liberal.

0:59:47 SETH: Yeah, totally.

0:59:49 ELLA: I, I think our political system is already so polarized, and I think it's becoming even more polarized as time goes on, but what do you think that the trajectory of Black Lives Matter? Or sorry, what do you think that the future of Black Lives Matter is from this point on?

1:00:08 SETH: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if, I think it was kind of this catalyst, it was an important catalyst, and it was important kind of energy. It spurred a lot of people to think about are other members of our society that matter less? And so I think in the moment it was a really important movement, but in terms of its sustainability as a movement to get anything done, I think I see it kind of fading into irrelevance and it not holding, it needs to be reborn as something else. I think that energy of how do we offer the American Dream to everyone to that is an ongoing project, and I just don't know if Black Lives, I don't think Black Lives Matter. I think it's become too toxic as a brand to really have much of an effect on that larger ongoing project of how do we share this American abundance with everybody, not just white people.

1:01:33 ELLA: I think that the consensus upon Black Lives Matter fizzling out in all of the interviews that I've done is it's so focused on and not focused, but the youth have really taken it up. And even Gen Z now is trying to head it up that it doesn't encompass the whole American people, that it just is not, oh gosh, what's the word?

1:02:02 SETH: Like universal.

1:02:04 ELLA: It is not as universal as I think that they want it to be. And it did peak when we were all so isolated that now that we've all gone on to live normal lives, it's hard to be as committed as maybe we were in the Covid Pandemic.

1:02:21 SETH: Yeah. I think that is really interesting that your generation is, because you're Gen Z,

1:02:29 ELLA: I think I am.

1:02:30 SETH: Are you right on the end of millennial?

1:02:33 ELLA: Oh, is yeah. Gen Gen X? No, gen Z. No, I'm Gen X.

1:02:37 SETH: And then my brother Tim is on the front end of millennial. You might be in the back. He was born in 84, and you were born in 2003, so you could be the very end of millennial, but I think you're probably Gen Z. Yeah, I think I'm Gen Z. You're probably the beginning of Gen Z, and then Gen Isaiah is also, I mean, gen Z must run into middle school now. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you're Gen Z. Yeah. I didn't know that. I didn't that Gen Z is still pretty committed to Black Lives Matter as a movement.

1:03:09 ELLA: I don't think that I need to rephrase what I said before.

1:03:13 SETH: Well, you didn't say that. I'm putting the words in

1:03:15 ELLA: Your mouth. No, I just think that because of social media having such a big impact and Black Lives Matter being so invested in the hashtag itself and how they're perceived in the media, that people who were so involved in social media, because Gen Z and Gen X, all the generations that come after me are obsessed and addicted, that it is easier for us to carry this movement, and Gen Z just gets bored, and I think that's what's happened. And the rest of the world, because they're not on social media, are not seeing all these things. It is fizzling out for them, but it's also fizzling out for us,

1:03:56 SETH: Just it is fizzling out for you guys because bored, and it never had the, for my generation and the boomers above me, it never had quite as much of a charge except for just those months around George Floyd.

1:04:12 ELLA: Yeah, I think so.

1:04:14 SETH: Gen Z just generally is also seen by a lot of us as pretty radical, especially the highly educated Gen Z. And you probably have to kind of differentiate that because I think if you're a small town, gen Z, you may not be all that down with Black Lives Matter. That's fair. But if you're in college, in college, gen Zs, I mean, I think the whole world sees in college American Gen Zs as the most radically progressive group that has ever lived. And so whether that's fair, I mean, that certainly is a generalization, and that obviously doesn't ping everyone in that at all. But as a whole, that's the perception. And so that would make sense that your group is still, if there's anyone who's kind of going to ride BLM all the way into the ground, it would be your generation.

1:05:13 ELLA: I also think that I identify more with that or identify, but my experiences more with that radically liberal Gen Z because we do live in, or at least outside of a bigger city, and I'm in college with a bunch of people who have been in big cities and been in a more liberal community. But there are definitely perspectives, especially because, I mean, Tennessee is in the South, and I haven't ventured too much outside of that, but there are definitely different perspectives
1:05:45 Maybe from what we've grown up with.

1:05:47 SETH: And you have people in your college, which is what I really like about Swan is who are a little more conservative. You're dating someone who's more in the center, and so I think that those perspectives are allowed. Maybe those people still feel like minorities, at least Stew did when we last time we were talking about it, but that they can be themselves to a certain extent. Is he able to, in your class, is he able to express any hesitations about BLM?

1:06:18 ELLA: We haven't really had too many open discussions about BLM as a whole. We've mostly done pretty intense, intricate work on how the Black power movement has evolved into what it is now, and then just society's reaction to BLM and the state of race relations in the United States, and also discussion of reparations. I mean, it's so broad that we do not get to have too much discussion, but I think that when I interviewed him, he was pretty open about what he thinks about BLM. Yeah.

1:06:58 SETH: Yeah. I mean, those are all really complicated questions and yeah, it's hard. It's good.

1:07:09 ELLA: Yeah. Thank you for talking.

1:07:11 SETH: Oh, am I done? Yeah,

1:07:13 ELLA: We're done.

1:07:13 SETH: All right. Let me save it. That was an hour seven.

Part of Fr. Seth Dietrich