Welcome to Racy Conversations

Our mission is to inspire the antiracist generation.

We believe EVERYONE deserves a fair and safe work culture. We bridge communication and teach people how to relate across differences as equals at work. Our learning experiences unite people and result in real improvement in the way we interact with each other: with dignity, respect, and kindness.

Karen Fleshman, Esq. She/Hers, Founder, Racy Conversations

Karen Fleshman is a mentor, activist, entrepreneur, attorney, author, educator, proud San Franciscan, and a single soccer mom. Building on a career in the immigrants’ rights movement and preparing young adults of color for careers in tech, in 2014 she founded Racy Conversations, a workplace workshop facilitation company, to inspire the antiracist generation. Known as “Commonsense Karen,” she is the author of the forthcoming book White Women We Need to Talk: Doing Our Part to End Racism. Karen is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, the University of Texas at Austin, and New York Law School, and is admitted to practice in New York.

Join the hundreds of companies committing to build harm-free workplaces:

Signature Services

Racy Conversations are intentional, consistent, vulnerable, authentic, accountable, learning experiences for coworkers to share what we are experiencing and help each other continuously improve. Our goal is to increase empathy and knowledge to foster a harm-free workplace for all people at scale.

We prefer to work with companies over a period of time. We are open to partnering with you to customize workshops to your workplace. Is there a topic you’re seeking you don’t see offered? Contact us and we can create it for you.

For previous workshops, see below:

• Webinar: How to Confront Microaggressions

• Panel: Combatting Racism at Work

• Panel: How to Be An Active Ally in the Workplace

Inspiring the Antiracist Generation

The origins of gendered racism and white privilege in America, contemporary demographics, intersectionality, and how racial inequality crystalizes in police brutality. We discuss the interplay between segregation, unconscious bias, racism, and systemic racism and what we can do to disrupt it.

Healing the Divide Between Women

While all women continue to fight for parity in and outside of work, white women have tremendous power and privilege in our society. Especially now, it’s crucial that we raise white women's awareness of our role in US history and the practices we can adopt today to relate across difference as equals, earn the trust of women of color, and help create workplaces and communities where everyone belongs and thrives.

Cocreating an Inclusive Workplace

(Covers CA required anti-harassment training)

Psychological safety at work is not only required by law, it results in a more productive, creative, an innovative workplace, less turnover, less costly lawsuits and social media debacles. We learn how to relate across difference as equals, be an upstander when you see harm, receive feedback when you are the person who caused harm, and cocreate a culture of belonging.