My Story

People always want to know why as a white woman named Karen I oppose racism. Throughout my career, I have worked in organizations serving communities of color. The majority of my colleagues were people of color. Most of the leaders I have worked for were women of color, great mentors and role models. I learned from them how to relate across difference as equals, give and receive feedback with grace, apologize when I cause harm, treat people kindly when they make a mistake. Through women of color’s grace I learned how to be a white woman contributor to a multiracial team.

The early part of my career was in the immigrants rights movement. I moved to NYC to help immigrants become citizens. We helped 50,000 New Yorkers apply for naturalization before being defunded in the post 9/11 economic downturn.

Around that time reports came out that 50% of Black men in New York City didn’t have a job and nearly 200,000 young adults, almost entirely Black and Latine, were not in school and not working. Coming from the immigrant rights movement I was shocked to read these numbers. I thought the answer was workforce training, connections to employers, and internships, and dedicated the next ten years to that work, becoming a mentor to hundreds of young Black and Latine adults as they began working in tech. My mentees are my best mentors. From them I learned everything I learned about race and racism growing up is harmful, inaccurate and racist, I am part of the problem, and I need to change. In 2012, I relocated to the Bay Area and continued this line of work.

In 2014 I fixated on Mike Brown and the Ferguson protests. I saw in Mike Brown the many young adults I mentor. Black Lives Matter activists standing up to tear gas inspired me to move out, get divorced, and join the protests.

On November 24, 2014, when the grand jury announced Darren Wilson would not face trial for killing Mike Brown, something in me shifted. I spent a long time looking in the mirror.

Why have I worked so hard to prepare young people of color for the workplace but made no effort to prepare the workplace for young adults of color? 

Why have I spent most of my career working in communities of color when I should have been focussed on white people this entire time? 

White people are the problem, even well intentioned white people like me, and white people need to do something about it.

I decided that going forward, I would focus on preparing the workplace for young adults of color, teaching the practices of relating across difference as equals.

There are many people like me who grew up in largely white communities and now live in very diverse cities where we enjoy limitless career opportunities while many people of color born and raised in these cities subsist in joblessness and underemployment. We believe that racism is wrong, and Dr. Martin Luther King is awesome, but almost all of our friends are either white or Asian American.

We have very little understanding of what racism is and how we contribute to it in our daily actions, often without recognizing it. Especially now, we feel like we want to do something about racism, but we either have no idea what to do or don’t feel empowered to do anything and when we try, it often doesn’t go very well.

While my focus is on racism, I am committed to ending all forms of marginalization- including but not limited to sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, ableism, classism, ageism, xenophobia. I am proud of my heritage, proud of the values my family instilled in me, and not at all ashamed to be white. I want everyone in our society to thrive and to recognize the humanity in each other.  

As Bobby Seale says, "you don't fight racism with racism. You fight racism with solidarity."

I hope you will join us!

Official Biography & Credentials

Karen Fleshman, Esq. she hers  Bio

Karen Fleshman is a workshop facilitator, coach, public speaker, entrepreneur, feminist, activist, survivor, attorney, mentor, mentee, blogger, proud San Franciscan, and a single soccer mom. In 2014 she founded Racy Conversations, a workplace workshop facilitation company, to inspire the Antiracist Generation. She is the cofounder of the Interracial Sisterhood Coalition, the Collect Our Cousins LinkedIn live series, and Moms Allyship Against Racism. She is writing her first book, “My Name is Karen and I am an Antiracist” and posts frequently to Medium and LinkedIn.

As a white woman, Karen experienced sexual harassment, wage gap, and glass ceiling from white men in the workplace, but she noticed the most harmful workplace behavior came from white women who viewed her as a threat to their proximity to white men in power. She worked for diverse organizations leading diverse teams, largely reporting to women of color, who were excellent mentors and role models. Emulating them, she learned how to relate across difference as equals and build relationships based in trust. 

Mentoring young adults of color launching corporate careers in tech, Karen came to understand that racism is the underlying problem in our society, everything she had learned growing up about race and racism was harmful and inaccurate, she was part of the problem, and she needed to change.

Inspired by Mike Brown, Black Lives Matter, and her mentees, in 2014, Karen vowed to stop preparing young adults of color for the workplace and start preparing the workplace for young adults of color by sharing what she had learned. This was the genesis of Racy Conversations, 

Karen's passion projects are police accountability activism, building interracial sisterhood and raising antiracist children. She was active in the Justice for Mario Woods Coalition. Her 2018 video Dear White Women: No More Permit Patties received 7MM views. Alongside her Women’s March sisters, she was part of Women Disobey, the largest women-led act of civil disobedience in US history, and was arrested five times disrupting the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. In June 2020 he was featured on Nightline speaking to other white moms about how she talks with her kids about race.  In 2020 she was arrested two times protesting the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.

Karen is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, the University of Texas at Austin, and New York Law School, Evening Division cum laude, and is admitted to practice law in New York. She resides in San Francisco.

Prior to starting her consulting practice in the Bay Area, Karen was a founding team member of Year Up New York. She served in the City of New York Department of Youth and Community Development in a variety of capacities, including Director of Special Projects, Assistant General Counsel and Director of Internal Review.  She is a cofounder of Citizenship NYC, a city service that assisted 50,000 New Yorkers to apply for naturalization, and of Ladders for Leaders, a city service that connects low-income high school students to corporate internships and college.

Karen began her professional career as an immigrant community organizer in Austin, Texas. 

Academic Credentials

Juris Doctor cum laude New York Law School, 2003

• Recipient of Evening Division Student Writing Award, Ralph Terhune Memorial Scholar, Mayor's Graduate Scholar, Notes and Comments Editor, New York Law School Journal of Human Rights

• Article: Abrazando Mexicanos: The United States Should Recognize Mexican Workers' Contributions to its Economy by Allowing Them to Work Legally Spring, 2002 18 N.Y.L. Sch. J. Hum. Rts. 237

Master of Arts, Radio-TV-Film, College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin, 1995

• Thesis: Comparing Communications Practices Between Authorized and Unauthorized Latino Immigrants, 1995

Bachelor of Arts, Mount Holyoke College, 1991

• Study abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Quito, Ecuador