Categories
accountability learning privilege

Giving without Strings

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 […]

Categories
learning privilege

Summit Session Video Clips

Last month I had the honor of participating in a webinar for the Adventure Nannies Summit Sessions series, a set of monthly webinars tailored for their audience of childcare providers. We talked about white cultural values, as presented by Tema Okun et al., and how those intersect with domestic work. At the end I took a few […]

Categories
learning

Podcast Recommendations

Part of my work as a white person is to uplift the voices of people of color, so I’m letting you in on this not-so-secret list of great podcasts. I don’t subscribe to all of them (my weekly podcast list is long, and my podcast listening time is short), but I have listened to at […]

Categories
accountability caucusing learning

Underpinnings

I was facilitating a caucus the other day, and the topic of discussion was apologizing: the pieces that need to be in place for us to make a sincere apology and how we can quell our natural instinct to defensiveness. About half way through the session, one of the participants turned to me and said, […]

Categories
accountability learning privilege

Putting Relationships First

Equity Matters, a Seattle-based consulting firm, has a set of ground rules they use for workshops and discussions. One of those ground rules is, “Put relationships first — Work to build community and trust with an awareness of power dynamics.” I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and what it means to put relationships […]

Categories
caucusing coaching learning

Shifting Focus

In order to practice antiracism, we have to continually shift our focus from the micro to the macro and back again through four levels of racial oppression: internalized, interpersonal, institutional, and systemic. As a race-based caucus facilitator and one-on-one antiracism coach, I am constantly thinking about those different levels and how to guide people to […]

Categories
coaching

Is coaching right for you?

Race-based caucusing is an incredibly helpful tool, but it can be a tricky space for leadership to navigate. Having executive staff in the room while other employees discuss issues they experience in their workplace can lead to a reluctance to speak frankly. For this reason, I believe one on one antiracism coaching for upper-level management […]

Categories
accountability learning privilege

What does it mean to be white and to be paid to do racial justice work?

What does it mean to be white and to be paid to do racial justice work? What are the ethics of me, a white person, making money off racial oppression? I struggled with these questions a lot once I decided to try to make antiracism facilitation my career. I had been doing this work as […]

Categories
caucusing

Do we need help?

This article is part of a series about race-based caucusing. If you’re new to the idea, please take a look at Internal Race-Based Caucusing: Why do it? and Race-Based Caucusing Part 2: Risky Business. How do you know when it’s time to hire outside help for your caucus sessions? My answer to this question is […]

Categories
learning

Definition of Terms

Diversity. Inclusion. Equity. We see these terms used all over the place, but what do they really mean? What’s the difference between them? The following is an attempt to give a little clarity and help us all understand each other a little better. Let’s start with Diversity. Institutions that are at the beginning of their […]