Session 08: Transcript

EP 08: Anti-racism for Allies Q&A Session with Carrie Sawyer

Carrie Sawyer: Hello, everyone, thank you so much for coming on. We are going to go ahead and get started.

First, I just want to say thank you so much for just taking this time out of your busy schedules to focus on this really important topic of anti-racism and especially in the context of allies. My name is Carrie Sawyer and we have recently launched the Inclusion First project, which is really exciting because we are going to be exploring inclusion through the questions and the discourse and the conversation that comes up when we are thinking about allyship in the context of anti-racism. And so that is all that this project is about. What we really wanted to do was create a safe space for people to come with their questions, no matter what kind of questions they were, where, how dumb questions, smart questions like potentially even maybe racist questions. As long as we're coming from a spirit of learning, of wanting to grow, of wanting to make a meaningful impact in the anti-racism movement, all questions are welcome.

Thank you so much for being here and for submitting your questions. And also thank you for the questions that will hopefully start to arise and come out of this discussion that we're having today. And so I'm going to be sharing my screen a couple of times, but mostly we're just going to be having a conversation. And in this first kind of iteration of our inclusion first weekly ally session, it's just going to be me kind of going through some answers and some questions that I got submitted and then also things that come in live in our future sessions, which are going to be doing one every week. At the same time, I'll be inviting different guests, different diversity, equity, inclusion guests, different allies, different people who have different opinions and perspectives that they can share with you.

I encourage you to tune in when you can every week because it's going to be different content based on the questions that we get. And so one of the reasons why we're focusing on questions is because I mentioned we want to meet people where they are and understanding what people are thinking about, worrying about, wondering about is really going to help us to create different resources, different tools, different opportunities for people to learn. And that is why we are focused around questions to gather as many questions as possible so that we can assist in people's journey, journey through allyship, in the anti-racism movement. All right. So I'm going to share my screen really quick just to go through a couple of intro slides.

So what to expect? So tonight's flow, I'm going to just start off by talking a little bit to set a collective tone for us. We will talk a little bit about anti-racism, about allyship, just so that we're all on the same page with that. And then we will jump right into answering the submitted questions. And I definitely encourage you, as we are going through the questions, to be active in the chat if you feel comfortable, or you can also be active in the question and answer area, which should likely be on the bottom of your screen, it should say Q&A, and you can actually submit a question as yourself. Or if you're not comfortable with that, you can submit a question anonymously and you just end up going to the dropdown where your name is and changing it to Anonymous. And that will come through as anonymous. Regardless as I read questions from there, I won't be calling out anyone's names. You don't worry about that either way. And I also have an amazing partner here with me who's going to be supporting me in the chat. And then also with the Q&A. Her name is Mel West. And so as you see dialog and conversation happening in the chat, she's there to help. And then, of course, there are any technical issues or anything you've got going on. Feel free to drop that there as well. And we will do the best we can to support you in that. All right. So I talked about the Q&A. I talked about the chat.

With that, I'll give you kind of the best view. Like I said, most of the time, it'll just be me talking. But I do have a few slides to share before we start that.

So I wanted to take just a few moments to talk about creating a positive space for this dialog and conversation. And regardless of what the topic is, I always feel like this is important. And so I just want to reiterate that this is a safe space where all the questions are welcome. Anything that comes from a place of expansion. We're going to go ahead and tackle those tonight and throughout the duration of the Inclusion 1st Project in these Q&A sessions that we're having no shame, no blame. I love that expression. And I learned it from my training gurus. Regardless of where you are, we're not here to shame or blame anyone. This is a judgment-free zone. The next point is really that I am and we are speaking for ourselves only. And so one of the things that we wanted to offer. In this dialog were just some frameworks and some tools and ways of thinking that you can take back to having conversations around race, around anti-racism, and this is one of the main ones. So we're always just speaking for ourselves. And what I mean by that is I'm not speaking for all black people or black women or women or people in San Diego. I'm only able to share with you my experiences and the things that I've learned through my own exploration of everything that's happened to me. But I'm not generalizing for all people. I'm just giving you my perspective. And so as you're having conversations around race and racism and anti-racism in your own worlds, I'm just trying to keep that in mind of the person that you're talking with is only representing themselves and not representing everyone else.

The next thing I want to point out, and I know everyone knows this, we don't know everything. I don't know everything. There's going to be questions that I'm like I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but I can go and find out and get back with you later. And even bigger than that, we don't know everything about our different intersections. So I don't know everything about being black. I don't know everything about being a woman or women's suffrage. I know only about my experience. And so just thinking about that as another tool that we can take away like it's ok that you don't know everything about everything because that's why we're here. We're here to learn. The next point is really just that this is a life long journey, being on an anti-racist path. It's not something that you really step off of. Either you're combating racism or you're being complicit in racism. And so wherever you are, whatever your awareness was before all the civil unrest that has recently started, we're on this path of anti-racism and we're not going to learn everything or do everything perfectly or do all the things that need to be done right now. It's just going to continue to iterate.

And what we're wanting to do is build the knowledge and the skills and the capability and the empathy and compassion to be able to be on this journey of anti-racism from now until there is no racism, which is probably forever. Right. So we're always going to be on this journey, but we're all at different points. And that's actually perfectly ok because we all have had different experiences. And that goes back to the no-judgment zone. We're not going to judge you for knowing something or not knowing something because everyone is different. And speaking to that difference, like everyone's role in the anti-racist movement, is going to be unique. And that's another reason why we wanted to host these conversations. Really, because your job is to figure out what your role in this movement is. And you know, there's a lot of visible things that you can think of being in the anti-racism movement, like going to a protest or donating money, writing to your congressmen or women. But it's not about just those things. Those are some things.

But your role in the anti-racism movement could be raising children who aren't racist. It could be being a beacon of light on your team. It could be training people. It could be a variety of things. But we are all given unique skills and talents and we're all positioned uniquely in a specific sphere of influence. And so our job is to figure out within our sphere of influence, within the talents and skills that we have, what is my role and how can I make a difference? How can I drive this movement forward? And we just know that that's going to look different for everyone. And that's ok. So.

All right, so before we get started, I just want to stop sharing my screen for just a minute and just do this little exercise that my friend Kyle taught me. And it's really just to ground us in this space right now. And so I'm just going to ask that everyone, no matter where you are, like get comfortable in your chair and try to put your feet flat on the ground if that's comfortable for you. And we're just going to take like three deep breaths together. And the reason why we're doing that, it's kind of symbolic, but also physiological, like we're doing that to ground ourselves in space. And then just this idea of like exhaling the old and inhaling the new. And so I'm just going to do this and everyone can kind of do it on their own.

But just three deep breaths in and three deep breaths out.

Ok, so, you know, this can be a heavy topic, and so I just wanted to start there, just getting us all grounded. So I want to start off with talking about just some definitions because it's really great to get us all on the same page and make sure that we're working on familiar definitions. And so that's where we're going to start tonight. And then we're going to jump right into the questions, which I'm very excited to talk about. I have about, I don't know, I have seven or eight questions. I actually have around 30 questions that I've been able to collect. And so I'm never going to be able to get to all the questions. And even when I have a co-host, we will select a few to talk about, and then hopefully that will drive some more questions that you can put in the Q&A or maybe spark new questions. And then one thing we're going to do every Thursday at noon, I'm going to be posting on Facebook live and on YouTube live, just like a couple of quick answers to a couple of questions so that we're able to get to more questions. And as the Inclusion 1st Project continues to evolve and develop, we're going to find even better ways to get more questions answered. So keep sending in your questions and keep thinking about different things, because that is really what's going to continue to drive the value that we're able to provide forward. Ok, so the first thing that we're going to talk about is antiracism. This comes from Ibram Kennedy's book, How to Be an Antiracist.

So an antiracist is someone who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea. This includes the expression or idea that racial groups are equal and do not need developing and supporting policies that reduce racial inequities. And so just this idea that all races are equal and there's a lot of propaganda out there, it's not politically correct to even explore or know about it, but that other races are deficient, there's better races and there are worse races. And so the idea of being anti-racist is being everyone is regardless of what your race is, we're all of the same value. And above and beyond that, anti-racism is really an active state. Right, because we are thinking about how can we support anti-racist policy actions, how we talk, how we're thinking, what that looks like out in the world, and not just being not a racist.

As you explore some of the literature around racism and anti-racism, you'll see this concept of not a racist. There's no such thing as not a racist. That's what Kennedy talks about. Dr. Kennedy talks about and some other experts as well. Because you're either a racist or you're an anti-racist, they're trying to change the way that we talk about that to get rid of this kind of passive middle ground, because in the idea of racism, of sexism, of being homophobic, xenophobic, there really is no neutral ground. And so this is how we're trying to shift people's thinking.

So to either be racist or anti-racist. Right? And this you can actually even think about as a scale because we're always seeking anti-racism. Right. But there we're human and so anyone can be racist. And there's lots of socialization in our society and others that favor racism. And so what we're trying to do is continue to strive towards that anti-racist side of the spectrum.

Ok, so antiracist ideas, I think that this was mentioned in the definition, I just wanted to kind of reiterate this any idea that suggests that racial groups are equal in all of their apparent differences and that there's nothing wrong with any racial group. And, you know, just as we're thinking about this, just keeping in mind that when they talk about ideas, this is what that means. And for me, it's actually been hard to explain this because I'm like, how would you think that different races are different? But apparently, there are people that do. And that's what is one of the things that would be a characteristic of a racist.

And then I just want to talk a little bit about anti-racism, because we've got the subtlety of language here, anti-racist, anti-racism, anti-racist ideas. Anti-Racism really is this action that I was starting to talk about the work of actively opposing racism by advocating for changes in political, economic, and social life. And so politics, like the systems that were in the government, economic, how money moves and where it goes and who has access and who doesn't. And social life. Right? And so social life encompasses everything that we're doing in our communities, in our homes, and in our family.

Anti-racism is pervasive throughout all of these different systems. Whether it is at the government level down to what is happening in your home over dinner, and that is from race forward, which is an organization that talks that I think it was founded in the 80s and it specializes in racial equality. So they have a lot of really great resources. That's definitely one to check out. I really, really love this quote, so "anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself, and it's the only way forward". And so this idea that anti-racism exists or racism exists out in these systems and in these policies, but then racism can also exist in our self. And our job is to not only look for it outside of ourselves but look for it inside of ourselves because we have been socialized to be racist. Like that's just the fact of it. Right. And so we are looking for those places and weeding them out and getting rid of them and replacing them instead with anti-racist thinking and behaviors. And you know that advocacy.

All right, awesome.

Ok, so I wanted to touch a little bit on allyship, and so this is actually from a company in British Columbia, which I thought was super interesting. So allyship, an active, consistent and challenging practice of unlearning and re-evaluating in which a person of privilege seeks to work in solidarity with a marginalized group. And so it talks again about in the same way that anti-racism is an active, not a passive activity allyship is also active and consistent. And they talk about it being challenging because it's this practice of like self-reflection, of unlearning and reevaluating, so unlearning the things that we know and that we think we know to think more in alignment with allyship and also this reevaluation that happened. So, again, that unlearning and this all has to do with people of privilege, working in solidarity with marginalized groups, whatever that is. Right? And whether that I mean, we know that there are tons of different marginalized groups.

You know, the topic that we're talking about tonight is around race, but there are lots of different ways that someone can be marginalized. And so being an ally is more about this active stance versus like, oh, yeah, I'm an ally. I agree that you shouldn't marginalize people, it was not really what allyship is about. It's about what are you doing? And again, we're here to figure out what we can do based on what we know, based on our sphere of influence, and based on the talents and skills that we have. 

So I really liked this little cartoon and I actually love anything in the anti-racism space and ally space where it can be simplified and there can be a lightness to it because we're talking about these really heavy topics. And so this idea was this is actually a longer extended cartoon. And I encourage you to go check out the full thing. But I just took this part about how to be an ally in training because it gives this underlying need to like this is something that you're learning to do and something that you're actively doing. And just as a reference, I did edit a word on this because it was not safe for families and kids. So if you do find it on the Internet, make sure that you do editing before you share it or read all the way through it. So how to be an ally in training? 

Number one is to understand your privilege. And so this is really around like I love this because this person is like looking in the mirror. And we talked about this idea of self-reflection and understanding, like where we are, what is our unique opportunity in this space. And so understanding what your privileges and privileges are, it's a hard thing to understand and a lot of cases, because privilege is typically invisible. And the best way that I've heard privilege described in kind of like an abstract, easy to understand way, was when you think about it, like being right-handed. I don't know how many people on this call are left-handed, but you know, the opposite of privilege when it comes to handedness in this country and in this world. The example that I've seen done was like how many people woke up in the morning was like, man, I am so happy, so excited that I am right-handed because it's just like the most amazing thing. Like people don't think about being right-handed because it's completely in the background in the world and is completely designed for right-handed people. Now, when you're left-handed, this is a completely different thing. And I know that we can all think of I mean, you know, we all there are different things that are designed for right-handed people than left-handed people have to then learn how to, like, accommodate that. So whether it's doorknobs or shirt buttons or scissors or mugs like all of these things. Right. So privilege is something that is often invisible to us, but is super important for us to investigate and as an ally, understanding your privilege and understanding what that means, both at the kind of high level, but then also what that means to you based on who you are and the privilege that you have a super important.

So the second thing here is to listen, listen to what marginalized groups are saying, educate yourself and become a better ally. And I think listening is something that is totally underrated and we're actually not that good at it in our country because we listen to respond typically like 99 percent of the time. Right. We're not listening to understand or we're listening for agreement. I want to listen to you to see if I agree with you or not. And if I don't, I'm going to tell you why this is not what an ally in training is. When you're listening to understand, you're listening to investigate, to uncover. When you're talking with someone from a marginalized group as an ally, you want to ask questions that help you to dig into what they are sharing with you so that you can understand better. Maybe you've never heard of this experience before, but that's OK. What kind of questions can you ask in order to understand more about what they're sharing?

Number three is speaking up, not over. And so using your privilege and your power to amplify voices versus to talk over voices, and it's just really a hazard of having power is that you typically want to assert yourself into a space and silence a lot of the voices around you in the context of allyship, especially in learning allyship and training. We're amplifying, but we're not speaking over people. We're letting the voices come out. We're letting people share their authentic experiences so that it can come from them and not come from us or through us because it's important that everyone in this movement, everyone has a different role to play. And that role is going to change depending upon where you are, what you're doing. But this idea of leaving space for people so that you're not speaking over them and then you're letting certain messages come out from the people that need to share them.

And the number four, and this is where I made the small edit. So mistakes happen. Sometimes you mess up, apologize when you do, and make it a learning experience for the next time. And I think that this is so important. And again, like this, I keep talking about how we've been socialized because these are our biases. These are our unconscious biases, the way that we've been conditioned to think and to speak and to, you know, what's ok and what's not. One of the things that are not ok in our society is making mistakes. But in this context, in the context of being an ally, in the context of anti-racism, let's just accept that we're going to make mistakes. We're going to offend people as we're trying to figure out the right way down this road and whether as a black person, me offending someone, whether as a white person, whether as a Latino, a Chinese person, a Thai person, etc. We're going to step on each other's toes and we have to be responsible for that, but it really is around, Ok, now that we made this mistake, what do we do? Do we put our head in the sand and decide this anti-racism stuff isn't for us? Or do we own our mistake, apologize for it, and then do what needs to be done to do better next time? And one of my favorite examples of this was from several years ago.

So Satya Nadella, he is the CEO of Microsoft and he was speaking at the largest women's tech conference in the country, Grace Hopper, and he was on the main stage and he was talking to a female president of a college about how if women just put down, put their heads down and work hard, they are going to get promoted just like the men in his organization. You know, it is a meritocracy. And of course, there's no such thing as meritocracy because of all the biases that come into who gets hired and who gets promoted, and who gets opportunities. And this was a huge faux pas that he just said he's at a women's conference. We know the world does not work like that. We work really, really hard and don't have the same result when it comes to success and promotion as men or even pay. Right. And so he got roasted like completely roasted then across social media in the media like everywhere he was roasted. But what did he do? And that's really what I think is the mark of an extraordinary leader in this context is what he did is he went back to Microsoft and he started to learn and he started to understand what the real experience was for women. And then he started to put programs and initiatives in place throughout the company to help with gender pay equality, with promoting equality, with all of these things. And had he not made this terrible mistake and that not actually corrected it with integrity, those programs might not have come along for a long time.

I mean, just this idea we're going to screw up that is a long story to say we're going to screw up. But just getting back up with integrity and not being afraid to keep going, having those difficult conversations.

To continue this. Ok, cool, so I am going to stop sharing my screen. All right, so now we are going to go through some of the questions that I got and I'm going go through as many of them as I can. And again, as we're talking, if you have any questions or any thoughts or any feedback, feel free to jump in the chat or jump in the Q&A on this. Ok, so the first question that I am.

Sorry, it just seemed like my thing was freezing.

OK, I think we're back.

So the first question that I am going to answer is so I work for a nonprofit conservation work that partners with government organizations and other nonprofits and volunteer groups. What are the best practices for inclusion for all? How can we make our work events, outreach, et cetera, safe, fun, appealing, etc.? It's all people, specifically the important demographics we are missing at the table, including people of color and LGBTQ, I.A, et cetera. And so I want to talk a little bit about this idea of inclusion for all on the business side first. And just to let you know, not all the questions are about business. It's definitely about a mix of different things.

So I'm just waiting for this to catch up with me, I'm not sure why. The connection is bad right now, hang on one second.

It looks like it's ok again. Ok, so when we think about inclusion, I like to think about it on the business side, running in two different tracks. And the first track is really how you are running your business. So your internal policies and procedures and structures and your mission and your values, all of those things need to be inclusive. On the other side, you've got the product or service that is going out into the world and that also needs to be inclusive in how you're serving your stakeholders, in what that looks like, and how you're communicating with your stakeholders as well.

In order to have an inclusive company or an inclusive organization or inclusive practice, you actually have to have both of these things running at the same time. So this idea of I'm running my business in an inclusive way and my product or service is also inclusive. And so that's definitely one place to start. And I think the most important place between those two is to think about how you're running your business. And because as if you've created inclusive policies and practices and procedures, then what you're producing from the work that you're doing is much more likely to be inclusive than if you don't do that.

And so when you're thinking about inclusion at the business level, it's always great to think about, Ok, where are we in this process? How do we know what inclusion means to our organization? And have we taken the time to actually define that, what that means internally, what that means externally, what that means for our stakeholders or the community that we're serving. And so starting at the point where you're actually defining inclusion, you're going through the steps needed to understand what inclusion is for your organization and then starting there. And there are so many different aspects of how to run a business inclusively. I won't spend a lot of time on that. But just thinking about just starting right where you are and understanding is a way for us to measure how inclusive we are, how diverse we are. And when you start with that measurement, that really helps you to understand, ok, what is the current state of affairs? And then when we think about inclusion and diversity at our company or our organization, where do we want to be? And then looking at that gap and starting to think about different initiatives that can get you from one place to another.

One of the things that we're trying to change people's thinking when it comes to inclusion and diversity is really treating it like a business problem. If you have a business problem, something that you want to change in your company, you just start by dedicating the time and resources that are needed to make that change. Like you don't ever see someone like overhaul their process without putting the, you know, their IT infrastructure, without putting the time and resources into it that is needed. Right? You start to think about, you know, you do that current state assessment and then you start to talk to the different stakeholders. You start to understand what are the needs that aren't being met, thinking about inclusion like any other business problem, and maybe even applying some of those practices. Six Sigma, that would be incredible to do that in the context of diversity and inclusion. But how can you think about it like a business problem? And then how can you also continue to run both of those tracks so that you're thinking about our internal processes and procedures, as well as what is happening on the external side?

Ok, great. And again, if you have questions or thoughts or comments, feel free to throw those in the chat and I will go ahead and respond as well because I was just taking a look to see if there was anything going on down there. OK, cool. So the second question that I wanted to talk about was a term that someone had a question about, and that is intersectional. So they said intersectional, new word. Let's talk about what it is and how I can understand it to serve as a better ally. And so intersectionality is this concept that all people have different characteristics that make them up. For example, me, I'm a woman, I'm black, I'm a generation X, I'm in Southern California. I grew up in the Midwest. I'm educated. You know, these are all there're so many different intersections. And so when we're thinking about a person, we tend to react to the ones that we can see. So you're going to treat me a certain way based on what you can see about me. Versus there's all these other intersections that you might not know about and even more like these, I don't just like come in. All the decisions I make are based on being a female or being a black person. Like my decisions and my experience in the world and how I navigate are actually a combination of all the different intersections that I have. And so when you start to talk about diversity and inclusion, you'll hear the word intersectionality be brought up because it's more complex than just one of these.

One of the layers of our identity, intersectionality, identity are very closely tied. Intersectionality helps you to understand your identity. And your identity, of course, is defined by you. But then at the same time, the world is treating you in a certain way based on who they think you are. And so when you're having these conversations around diversity, equality and inclusion, understanding that people have different intersections and those intersections impact them and impact their experience and their presentation in the world in ways that you can't see. And so it's beyond race and beyond gender and beyond sexual orientation. It's really the intersections that make us who we are. And so broadening that conversation to think about it in a more expansive way. If that makes sense. Very good. I'm going to check on, see if there's anything going on.

Ok, so the next question that I wanted to talk about was colorblind. So someone had a question just like, you know, what is blind in this idea of being color blind? Like, can't we all just be color blind? Why do we have to think about race and talk about race? Let's just all be color blind. And this is one that, you know, in a perfect world, but I don't even know in a perfect world. That's true. I was going to say in a perfect world, yes, everyone is color blind. But the thing is, color is beautiful. The things that make us unique are beautiful. The intersections of who I am and in my experience and who you are and your experience, are what make all of our interactions so unique. And so to pretend like we're all the same is actually stripping people of their identity and stripping people of the uniqueness that makes the world go around. The diversity that we experience and that we see is what makes everything amazing. And so why you would want to make it so that everyone is the same is one of the arguments, like one of the points that people bring up when they talk about how people aren't colorblind.

That brings you to kind of the second point people talk about, well, I'm colorblind. I don't see color, but that's actually not true. You might think that you don't see color, but you do. And it's all about the implicit and unconscious biases that we have to like. You absolutely treat someone, a woman that you meet differently from a male. And why is that? Because we have gender as a construct. And there are certain things that you do with men and certain things that you do with women. And that is like an automatic response, the same way for so many things, including race and the color of someone's skin. And so to think that you're not treating people differently, that you're not talking to them differently, you absolutely are. And so it's kind of like being real with yourself about what is actually going on.

But the main point is, is that we don't want to be color blind because we want to see the richness of the world around us. We want to understand people's experiences through their eyes, not our eyes. When we say that we're colorblind, we can pretend that everyone is having the same experience as us. But that's not actually true. We're all having different experiences. And even within those experiences, those it's different. Like we're all in a pandemic, right? So we're having the shared experience of a pandemic, but we're having very different experiences within that pandemic based on all kinds of different things, all kinds of different intersections. So when someone says they're colorblind, it's you know, they're not colorblind. They might think that they are and they might not really understand what that term means or why it is important for us to acknowledge each other. Because if you can't acknowledge them having a different experience than you, then how are we ever going to figure out how to get rid of those inequalities that exist because of those differences in how we're treated?

That's kind of the main point around colorblindness and kind of this fallacy that you can be colorblind or that you are color blind. I will provide a link to a good article on that because it's just it's a concept that as we're exploring anti-racism, you'll often hear progressive allies talk about being colorblind. But it's just it's kind of being misinformed and not understanding the value of not being colorblind and really acknowledging the different things that we get from our differences. Ok, awesome.

So the next thing that I want to talk about is this question. So one of my black friends challenged that the term African-American is a white supremacy term. I am British, Irish, Cherokee, American, but I've never been profiled that way. Is it an offensive term? His point made sense to me and to treat me. And I would actually love to hear the full story of what that was because I did a little bit of research on the term African-American and it's kind of more popularly thought to have sprung up in the 80s. Jesse Jackson and his crew, when they were just taking back the power of what's in a name and they wanted to expand it from black to African-American and take back some of that historical heritage. That is kind of the first thing that you find. But what I continue to dig deeper was actually that the word African-American was first seen in print in like seventeen eighty-two. And this was actually in the pamphlet that was created by a minister. It was a sermon that he wrote and he was referring to himself as African American. And so as I was looking around, I didn't see any links of African-American to white supremacy specifically. And the fact that the first time that was mentioned in print was like 1780 to you know, white supremacy was called something else at that time, but. It comes from you know, it was around way, way, way before Jesse Jackson started to say it. So that's that would be my answer to that. And then I had a similar question. Or in the same vein, someone asked if African-American, like using that terminology is like in or out.

And so these are, again, like this is what I think about it. What I would say that if you want to know what someone wants to be called, regardless of what race they are, is that you ask? Because I have friends who are very, very adamant that they do not want to be called black because when you call them black, you get rid of African-Americans. And African is very, very, very important to them and their identity, and they don't want that to be stripped out. I also know people who are equally as adamant that they don't want to be called African-American. They are American and they grew up in this country. And so they want to be called black. Me personally, I actually don't care if you call me African-American or black. And so I think the easiest way to navigate this space is to just ask people what is it that you prefer to be called? And that can go for lots of different things. Right. And when we think about identity, whether it's your ethnicity, whether it's race, gender, anything, you can just ask people. And that's like the shortest and easiest way to not offend someone by calling them the wrong thing. So African-American in or out, it really depends on the person that is. That's my answer to that.

Ok, so number six, what should we be aware of from the book White Fragility and the criticism it has received? We have a question in the chat room. So with this, so one question is, so would this be a question you could ask an interest such as sharing your pronouns or your email signature or on your email signature? I think that I don't see people starting to put their ethnicity in their email language. I'm not sure that that's even what you were asking. But I think that it's totally something that you could do if it came up organically, like, you know, what is your ethnicity or do you prefer African-American or black, even something as simple as that. Oh, which do you prefer? I mean, they might even prefer something else because African-American or black, one of the criticisms of African-American is that it leaves out all of the other like Africans who are from the Caribbean or from Haiti or from these other places. But there are also black and American and have African roots as well. So I think that if you just ask people like, oh, do you? What's your ethnicity? Actually, and these aren't things that we normally do, right? It's not like always it's not politically correct to talk about race half of the time. But this is something that we actually have to change because, in order to have these conversations where we're noticing differences and embracing differences and asking those questions that I can actually properly, like, identify with who you are, it's OK to ask these questions. I actually did this at my acupuncturist recently because I realized that I had been really lazy. And although I always criticized the box Asian because it encapsulates way too many people, it's too vague and I think it's lazy. I noticed that I didn't know all of the ethnicities within Asian of my friends, and I thought that that was actually really lazy. And I wanted to change that. And so I was at my acupuncturist and I asked the woman who was assisting. I know that my acupuncturist is Chinese, but her assistant, I'm not sure what she is. So I just was like, hey, you know what? I'm trying to be more conscious, about race and ethnicity. And I want to make sure that I'm being correct. And if you don't mind telling me what's your ethnicity, and she's like, oh, I'm Vietnamese. Like, Hey, thanks for asking. People normally don't ask. So now I know that she's Vietnamese and I can put that in the box. And have that so. So yes. So I can probably identify with who you are.

Cool. Thank you, sir. That was a great question. Thank you so much.

Ok, cool, so we were going to be talking a little bit about white fragility, I actually have not read the full book. I have looked at some summaries, read some articles, and watched some interviews with the author. And I think it's a really interesting book. I don't know if anyone on the line has read it, but the general concept is that white fragility just means that any time that white people talk about race, they get really defensive and they're not able because it's not something that they're, like, super aware of or super good at or super used to talking about. They just kind of like shut down and do all these different things too, like, get the subject off of race in order to go talk about something else and relieve that discomfort. And this woman who wrote it, I'm sorry, her name is escaping me right now, but she is a sociologist. And so she actually was doing diversity, inclusion, training, and studying over and over again and watching this kind of scenario play out.

Any time that people, white people were challenged around race, specifically around being racist, that they would go through just a series of kind of predictable, consistent reactions and expressions, whether that be they would get really defensive, start arguing or retreat, leaving the room, talking about how they have black family members or black friends, all these different things that have nothing to do with whether you're racist or not. And that was because the way that people were defining racism was like you. You're like a bad person who's like doing mean things knowingly to people because of their race. And that's what a racist is. But that is not what a racist is. That's like a very, very small definition. Right. And so when people were confronting like, oh, you're a racist, like you're calling me a terrible person and I'm not. And so this idea of the kind of breaking down around it, I think that it got four different kinds of criticism from different communities for different reasons. And some of the reasons he African-American community was that it kind of took a lot of the power out of African-Americans hands in their experience and made them seem a lot like victims. And that wasn't appreciated. And then in the white community, I think a lot of the criticism was defensiveness, potentially, which kind of falls into her whole theory of like, you can't be talked about as a racist without getting defensive. And so I definitely am going to read this book in full because I had never actually heard a white person talk about the experience of race and being called a racist and considering their own racism in this way and regardless of the parts that people criticize or not. I mean, I feel like we read all kinds of books, right? You don't like everything that you read. You don't internalize some things you agree with and some things you don't. I think there's definitely way more than enough in this book that might resonate with you to check it out than to just dismiss it completely. And also, you can get a preview if you want to, just see if it's kind of worth your time. There are a few different YouTube videos of her getting interviewed. And I think it's just a really fascinating subject. So I'm definitely going to read it for those reasons and get a little bit more information on white fragility because I just haven't ever really thought about I haven't seen it expressed from the viewpoint of white people before. There are lots of conversations that happen about racism from the viewpoint of people who are experiencing racism, but way, way less about people who are doing racist actions, even if unintentionally. And so, again, racism isn't just like intentionally being treated mistreating someone because of race. It goes way, way beyond that. So I would recommend reading. I know that I'm going to and perhaps in another session if a white fragility question comes up, we'll have a different conversation about it because we'll have more information. So.

Ok, number seven, I want to be an ally, but I don't know where to start other than standing up when I see something glaringly wrong, how do I start the conversation with my BIPOC friends and colleagues? And so BIPOC. That's black indigenous people of color. So how do I start the conversation with my BIPOC friends and colleagues? And I think that this is really interesting and this is a great question. This is kind of like the premise of why we're all here. Where do you start when you want to be an ally other than standing up when you see something glaringly wrong? And so that's the thing about our very limited definition of what racism looks like as we were looking around for it, but it's something that's so insidious, but also ubiquitous like it's the systems that we exist in are racist. And so it's not about someone being like a racist to someone. So race being a racist, that's like the individual racism is like the system that we exist in. And so there are so many.

I'm just going to give a couple of super high-level examples. And so any of these topics that we're talking about tonight, including what I'm about to explain right now, could be their own lecture in and of themselves. But so systems that have racism, every single one so legal, law, what we know about the like, you know, the prison, the pipeline to prison pipeline that take black people from the streets to prison, like we know like, oh, about the abuse of police officers we know about in health care. There are so many disparities in health care for African-Americans, for example, one that I learned recently, like a black mother is eight times more likely to die in childbirth than a white mother. Like, why is that? Like, physiologically, we're no different, right?

There are some genetic things or some presentation things. But this is really all about care and about the systems that we exist in and how they're just not equitable. Also access to quality health care to understanding like, you know, having the top resources or having the access to the top, you know, top science, top minds, top doctors. One thing that I had learned recently as I was doing some research on the idea that your property taxes fund, the schools in your area. So if you're in a poor area, you're not getting a lot of funding to your schools, whereas if you're in a rich area, you're getting a lot more funding to your schools. And typically, when we look at, you know, median incomes and things of that nature, marginalize people and minorities are going to be making less. So automatically, you're starting off from literally the moment you step into school, you have less access, you have fewer resource resources, you have less quality, lesser quality teachers that are because of the pay, or where they're sourcing them from or what have you. There are just all of these different things.

And so thinking about, Ok, like where do I start other than standing up when I see something glaringly wrong, like looking around you and actually understanding where is racism happening around me, but at the systemic level. Right. And how do you figure that out and where do you one of the other places to start is really by figuring out where you can start to educate yourself. There are so many different books and I'm going to send out a list of different things that you can read, that you can watch, that you can listen to just to start to educate yourself. But there are so many different opportunities. And because of that, that's why I talked a little bit about figuring out where you fit into this. Where are you interested? What field are you in? If you're in health care, I think it'd be the best place to start for you to start looking at disparities in health care. If you're in law, look in law, if you're in tech, look in tech, like just look where you are and also think about your own social circles and what that looks like. One of the examples that I have given in the past is when you hear racist things happening around, you're not even I mean, it doesn't have to be overt, just like questionable things about other people based on things that we shouldn't be judging them on. Speak up and say something. You know, it's no longer Ok to be like, oh, that's so gay. Like, you can't say that around people anymore. Why? Because people start to stand up and say that's not OK to say about me.

And so starting to go into your social circles and just not being that bystander, because as we talked about, there's no like by standing in this idea of anti-racism, anti-racism is an active thing. And so we want to make sure that we're not only looking into our social circles but looking at the systems that we are a part of so that we can start to understand where racism is and doing that investigation. Right. The second part of this question was around how do I start a conversation with my BIPOC friends and colleagues? And I think that these conversations that are happening are super important. But how you have them is also very important because there's like I talked about, the weight of these conversations and people, you know, it can be traumatic to be approached and have someone ask you about your experience, because at the end of the day, whether it's a microaggression or like police brutality, these are like traumas of different sizes. And so asking people to share their trauma with you on-demand is insensitive. And I think that that's not the intent. Right. You want to understand.

And so I think the first thing that you can do is go and do research on your own so that when you show up to have these conversations with your minority friends and colleagues, that you're not coming empty-handed, but you've already started to consider some things you're learning, some terms you're getting some resources, you're following some different people. And that will help to make the conversation richer, because typically and I won't say typically, a lot of black people in my experience and working in corporate America, working with different organizations, oftentimes people will come to you and ask you to fix their problem when it comes to race. And you're like, hey, can you help me figure this out? Ok, great. Well, what have you done to help us figure this out together? We want to partner with white America. We don't want to do this on our own. In fact, we can't. That's why we are where we are because it's not possible for just brown people to rid the world of racism. Racism is something that is inside of individuals. Right. And so in order for you not to be racist, for you to be an anti-racist, you have to do that work.

And one of the best analogies that I heard about this was actually from Mel, who is helping me out here today, and she talked about thinking about this journey into anti-racism as like you're doing personal training and like, you know, that it's going to get hard, in fact, that it's going to burn and that it's going to hurt. But that burn in that hurt, those are actually good things. Because why? Because that means that you're getting stronger, stronger. Your muscles are getting stronger. You're building skills, you're building capacity. And I love thinking about the anti-racist movement in the same way we know that there are going to be times when it hurts.

But we know on the other side of that hurt is strength and understanding and learning. I also like this metaphor because this idea of you have a personal trainer, people like me, other brown people, other diversity, inclusion, people we've raised our hand to say, yes, we want to help facilitate this conversation. We're basically like the coaches. And sometimes your coach yells at you, screams at you, kicks you like maybe not literally, but cheers you on, gives you encouragement like it's the whole range, right. Because we're trying to encourage you along this path. But at the end of the day, if you don't do the work, if you don't do those push-ups, those verses, if you don't run that hill, nothing at all is going to change. And so think of the people in your life who you know, you're your BIPAC friends and colleagues. Think of them if they want to if they opt into this, that they're like your coaches. But you have to do a lot of the work that you should always, always do work before you show up asking questions, because it's you know, people black people, brown people don't want to fix it like it was not possible. Right. And we want you to do your part of this. And it's a huge part. We all have a huge part in being anti-racist and pushing for the anti-racist movement.

But we all have to do that. And if we don't, we're not going to get anything anywhere different than where we've been. I mean, we have such a huge opportunity right now to make a change because people are listening in a way that they were never listening to before. So just be ready to do the work the same way that you would in that analogy. And Mel, I'm going to get you to write that down for me so I can do it even better because it was really beautiful when you talked about it. And it was just a very poignant demonstration of this burn and pushing towards that because of what's on the other side of it.

 Ok, so four fifty-five, I'm going to answer one more question, and then I'm going to just give you a little bit of information on how this is evolving and where you can continue to find resources and follow us and find out what's going on and get, more importantly, more answers to more questions and hear from more people. So the last question that I'm going to talk about today is how to discuss this person said, how do I discuss the importance of Black Lives Matter with individuals that claim it takes away from other minority groups such as Hispanics? And I think this is a really great question. Mostly when we talk about Black Lives Matter, it's in the context of like, what is it? How is it different than all lives matter? And I actually want to share my screen with you because I think that this is still relevant. Hang on, let's look at a relevant graphic, talking a little bit about Black Lives Matter and in this, like, super easy to understand the context.

Ok, maybe there we go. It looks like some of my programs closed down in the interim, it just doesn't want to work right now, that's all. Can my computer one second. To pull this up, and so I really love this explanation of Black Lives Matter, because it just again keeps a really, really simple and really straightforward.

Ok, so I'm just going to start up here in this corner, so black lives matter, black lives matter, ok, actually all lives matter. And I feel like this is still a relevant explanation because this idea of all lives or what about Hispanic lives is basically what this person is talking about. And so the guy's like, oh, ok. So of course, all lives matter to the point of the phrase is that black lives are being treated as expendable by the police and the government that employs them. If someone says save the rainforest, you don't actually save all the force, do you? Just because we need to save the rainforest doesn't mean other forests have no value. It's just that one needs our focus right now because the situation has gotten out of control. So I love that. So the guy thinks a little bit. And so he's like, ok, so I guess I never really thought of it that way before. But like, if I change my mind, doesn't that make me a hypocrite? And the guy's like, no, it means you're a growing person. And I feel like that's going to happen a lot in this journey to anti-racism. We thought one thing and we had all these reasons for it. And now we're going to think something different because it's better and it's more inclusive and it's anti-racist. So that's like a huge lesson right there. And then so the guy is like, ok, cool Black Lives Matter.

Yeah, but I feel like it's the same thing with Hispanic lives as well. Like obviously all lives matter and there are a lot of different conversations that are happening right now. All the isms need to go. And the way that I'm looking at is if the Black Lives Matter movement is like that pebble that starts the avalanche to all of the isms that we've been working on forever, then that's awesome, because guess what? It's the same exact skills to not be sexist and not be homophobic, to not be xenophobic as it is, to not be racist. Right. We don't have to wait for a gay guy to get killed before we're like, hey, let's not do that anymore. Like, we can take these are transferable skills. Right? And in our society, we're always moving between that macro and that micro. And there are lots of different micro Hispanic lives. Yes, absolutely. Black lives. Yes. There are these larger systems that we're working within. And so that's just this idea that if we focus on one, then something else isn't getting it. That's not true because all the people who care the most about this can go and work on that, too. In fact, we can work together to actually work on all of these at the same time, because, again, there's a lot of differences there's a lot of similarities. There are definitely some distinct differences between the different movements.

But there are enough similarities that we can work on those together and work on getting rid of all the isms at the same time. So that would be my response to that, that focusing on black lives does not take away from any other lives mattering. They do all matter, which is why we're having this conversation, to begin with and letting people everyone is going to be called to do a certain thing and be in a certain space and work with a certain audience. And that's ok. Go find your space, go find your people, go find your part of this cause and double down on it. And that is in the antiracist journey, anti-racism journey on that path. It's about that action, about that movement. We'll find your space and be ok, that other things are happening in other spaces at the same time because that is how this has to happen. We can't just start working on health care, not work on anything else. We can't just start working on police and not working on anything else. We have to work on all of them together based on who cares most about that and who has the most skills in that area to support that part of the movement.

Ok, cool. So I just want to say thank you, everyone, for being here today and for listening to just some thoughts on anti-racism and some questions. Again, this is our very first one, officially under the umbrella of the inclusion first project. And I want to give a huge shout out to Kyle Moss and Shelby Fowler for getting this idea off the ground and this format and just helping to bring this into this new iteration. And so, like I said next week and all the other Tuesdays after that, we are going to be doing a co-host. So there'll be two people having these conversations, taking these questions, engaging in the chat, engaging in the Q&A. We're just going to keep going through the questions and giving you different things to think about. If you agree, if you disagree, if you have insights, just keep all of these things going in your head.

Our goal is to answer questions and to inspire new questions all towards you figuring out what your role is in this anti-racism journey. And we're just starting right at the beginning, right where we are. And so I am going to share my screen one more time if it lets me. It might not. So it did. I just wanted to share this. Just so that you can see all the places where we are, where you can find more information about the Inclusion First Project, we have our Inclusion First Project, Facebook page, we're on Instagram. LinkedIn is mine right now and Twitter as well. That will likely change as this project evolves. As I said, we just kicked off two Mondays ago. So actually one month ago, it's been a week. But I'm going to be posting those micro-videos on Thursday and you'll see some blog things. And we're just going to keep generating answers to the questions.

So keep sending us the questions and please share with your friends or family whether they want to come watch and be a part of the Q&A session or they want to see the micro-videos. I'm also going to be posting everything on Facebook and the YouTube channel so that you can go and look at it at your own leisure. But yeah, all these questions are going to help us to get to the tools and get to the answers that are going to help to move this forward. And so I just appreciate you being here and I appreciate your questions and your thoughts and your time today.

Feel free to find more information about the Inclusion First Project at www.inclusion1stproject.org.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I hope that you'll join us for another session because we're going to have a really rich conversation as we get into this cohosts model. I'm very excited about that. So have a great night. Have a great week, and we will hopefully see you another time.