Judy Blair
What does it mean to look professional? What does it mean to act professionally? Who decided what it means? Professionalism standards are classist and racist, rooted in an elitism that wants to keep the “right” people separate from (and hierarchically above) the “wrong” people. This elitism evaluates the way people look and act against a […]
I came across this article by Annalisa Padilla recently and found it helpful. Maybe you will think it’s useful, too? “White People, Stop Centering Yourself”!
Over the past six weeks many books on antiracism have shot to the top of the New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller List. The surge in sales of these books is a result of the Black Lives Matter uprisings around the country, and I suspect that a majority of the folks making the purchases are […]
This month, instead of writing about how white people can amplify the voices of people of color, I’m going to go ahead and do just that by sending you to South Seattle Emerald to read Melia LaCour’s piece, “A Call to White People: It’s Time to Live in the Answer“. © 2020 Judy Blair LLC
A few people have asked me how we can keep people focused on antiracism and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work when they’re worried about their lives and livelihoods. This work can often feel like an add-on at the best of times, so what do we do now? My answer to this question is to […]
Over the past two weeks I have been posting daily on Facebook and LinkedIn some ways in which white supremacy culture, as described by Tema Okun, Kenneth Jones, et al., might be showing up in the midst of this pandemic. The following is all of those posts in one place. Note: the values and norms […]
I offer coaching for white leadership as part of my services because I believe that real change can only happen when executive staff is on the same path to inclusion and equity as the rest of the staff. Some of the things I coach leadership in are soft skills, things that I’ve written about in […]
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about when I choose to reach out to my community and when I don’t. Like most white people, I hold the value of self-sufficiency pretty strongly, and I’m an introvert at heart who wants nothing more than to be sitting on her couch at home knitting. But I’m curious about […]
A current experiment involving universal basic income in California and a recent large study using cash transfers in Kenya show that giving people money without conditions on how they spend it often contributes to a better quality of life for those people. It turns out that trusting people to do what’s best for themselves in their specific situation results […]
I was speaking with an acquaintance recently, and he shared with me that he has discovered the beauty of small talk. He had been talking about how much he hates small talk when someone had pointed out to him that small talk fosters social cohesion; it is a way for us to find commonality and […]
Judy Blair 