Do you feel awkward talking about race?
In a 2016 Jopwell poll, 69% of 300 black, Latino, and Native American survey respondents-engineers working in tech- reported experiencing racial bias.
Companies and nonprofits of all sizes and in all sectors strive to promote "diversity" - but are not doing a great job of creating a culture where people of color belong.
The need to improve in this area is urgent. 44% of US Millennials are people of color and with each generation, we become more diverse. When people don't feel like they belong at work, they disengage and start planning their exit strategy. As the Pepsi ad debacle demonstrates, brands get damaged from being out of touch.
The truth is many people who believe racism is terrible are ill equipped to succeed navigating race in the workplace today. The narratives about race we learned in childhood- "Be colorblind! Don't talk about race!" are not serving us well. Awkward and self conscious interactions harm everyone.
Racy Conversations is a six-week online course featuring live webinars with nationally recognized experts. It's a safe and brave learning community with fellow truth seekers focussed on one thing: improving your self knowledge, curiosity, and compassion so you can listen and grow.
- Six top national experts will answer your questions in weekly 75-minute live interactive webinars
- Peers in a private Facebook group will share their experiences and support you
- Outside of class you'll spend 1-2 hours per week reflecting and engaging in your community
- At a live event in the Bay Area we'll practice recognizing and intervening in racial micro aggressions
- Group calls and one on one coaching are available at higher levels of access
Racy Conversations will teach you how to:
- Understand the origins of your racial biases, and overcome them
- See how systemic racism is operating all around you, and what you can do about it
- Apply neuroscience to overcome implicit racial bias
- Recognize and intervene in racial micro aggressions and not commit them yourself
- Have meaningful conversations about race and intersectionality that lead to change and understanding
- Make your workplace thrive and teach your children
Racism will not end from the top down but from the bottom up and the inside out.- Karen Fleshman
A leader is anyone willing to help, anyone who sees something that needs to change and takes the first steps to influence that situation. -Margaret Wheatley
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.― Alice Walker
Racism affects our minds and our mindset is crucial to undoing racism. Neuroscience can help us to change the way we think about race.
Featuring Shonté Jovan Taylor, MSc., Neuroscientist
Shonté helps leaders, women and Generation X reach their full potential for life and career success by teaching how our minds work. By understanding the brain and mind, people can improve their brain health, habits, thought patterns, decision-making, productivity, and presence. Her goal is to help people find and activate their genius zone, purpose and passion to live a quality and fulfilling life.
Racism is much more than interpersonal slights. Systemic racism pervades every aspect of our society, culminating in police brutality and mass incarceration.
Featuring Ken Williams, Police Brutality Expert
Ken Williams is a former Boston-area homicide detective. He is one of the leading Use of Force/Police Reform Experts in the country. Ken is retained by civil rights attorneys to evaluate and render unbiased opinions in officer-involved shootings and other civil and criminal matters. He is interviewed frequently in print and television media, trains attorneys and law students, and appears in court nationwide. Ken provided an unbiased case review of the physical evidence in the Michael Brown Use of Force incident, discovering non-public material facts which the SCLC delivered in a letter to the Missouri State Senate Panel tasked with investigating prosecutorial misconduct.
America was founded on a racial hierarchy. Understanding the history of racism in our society provides insight on what we need to do now.
Featuring Mark Charles, Historian and Educator
Mark is the founder and director of 5 Small Loaves, an organization that pursues racial reconciliation through honest education, intentional conversation, and meaningful action. His mother is an American woman of Dutch heritage and his father is a Navajo man. Mark's work focusses on the complexities of American history regarding race, culture, and faith in order to help forge a path of healing and reconciliation for the nation.
Conversations about race can harm- and they can also heal. Understanding racism and intersectionality prepares us to make every interaction promote positive change.
Featuring Catrice M. Jackson, Global Visionary Leader of the Awakened Conscious Shift, CEO of Catriceology Enterprises and International Speaker and Best-Selling Author
Catrice is passionate about empowering people and making an impact in the world. She is a humanist and activist dedicated to social and racial justice. As an educator, consultant and speaker, Catrice blends psychology, social consciousness, racial justice, and leadership wisdom into meaningful messages that wow the audience and move them into action. She is a dynamic difference maker with a voice that’s real, bold, unapologetic, captivating and powerful.
My Story
People always want to know why as a white woman I am an outspoken advocate for racial equity. My activism for justice and equality began in elementary school. As an adult, I helped immigrants become citizens and urban young adults launch tech careers. I loved my work, especially the many hours I spent developing relationships based on trust with young people of color- people I met through work I otherwise would not have met.
My mentees became my best mentors, teaching me what it is like to be a young person of color in our society. They are very grateful for their tech careers and incomes, but nonetheless encounter tremendous discrimination. Their stories made me very upset, and raised my awareness of how different my life is from theirs. I spent a long time looking in the mirror asking myself what I was doing to contribute to racial inequity. Meanwhile, every time police kill another black or brown young person, it makes my heart hurt, because the victims could have easily been one of my mentees.
On November 24, 2014, when the grand jury announced Darren Wilson would not face trial for killing Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, something in me shifted. I realized that most of my career had focussed on preparing people of color to thrive in largely white environments. I decided that going forward, I would focus on helping white people understand ourselves better, so that we could form authentic caring relationships with people of color and dismantle systemic racism.
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 what we are doing. Especially now, we feel like we want to do something about racism, but we have no idea what to do and when we try, it often doesn’t go very well. While my focus is on race, I am committed to ending all forms of marginalization- including marginalization of white people. 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."
My mission is to build and support a community of people committed to love, learning, accountability, and action on race in America. I hope you will join us!
