CW: Racism
Thanks for listening to Wellness, Community, Magic, a podcast with a pro-donut, anti-racist, Glenda-the-good-witch agenda. In this episode, Elizabeth Moore and Ashley Brooke James join Courtenay Rogers to discuss moving from awareness to action. This episode is all about doing the work, getting out of your echo chamber, and committing to anti-racism.
This episode is for everyone, especially if you are looking for more direction in your anti-racism journey.
Join us next week for a delicious episode on peanut butter, pizza, and dogma.
Links:
TRILUNA: Going From Active to Activated
Calling All White Women (CAWW)
Antiracism & Civil Rights In American Life Course by Chakita
Full Transcript:
[00:00:00] We would like to open this episode with a trigger warning as it contains discussion of racism, bigotry, and or other race-based trauma. If this does not feel safe for you at this time, please skip the episode and come back to it if and when you're ready. I had so much work to do on myself and I worked with this therapist who broke me down to my core and helped me build myself back up.
[00:00:24] And I was doing it for my daughter and I was doing it because I knew I had to live a better life for her. The hate and the judgment that I had for myself that would come out towards anyone different than me was not healthy. And I thought to myself, I can not raise a kid like this. Like that's not a great way to raise a child.
[00:00:47] That was the voice of Courtenay Rogers, owner of CDR consulting. CDR consulting exists to provide underrepresented small business owners with operational tools to scale and succeed. Her biggest inspiration is her [00:01:00] 13 year old daughter who reminds her that one person truly can make a difference. Courtenay is also a co-founder of Calling All White Women, a grassroots effort to support and elevate black women and their work through recognizing white women's privilege and taking action to build a more inclusive world.
[00:01:16] Today, we are talking about investing in black women, unlearning, and the difference between being not racist and committing to being anti-racist.
[00:01:26] Hi everyone. We're your hosts, Ashley Brooke James and Elizabeth Moore, co-founders of TRILUNA and this is the Wellness Community Magic podcast, a podcast with a pro- donut, anti-racist Glenda- the- good- witch agenda.
[00:01:40] We're here to take on diet culture by making self-care realistic, sustainable, and inclusive. So settle in, get cozy and join us on our journey to build community and redefine wellness. Let's get started.
[00:01:55] Ew. Is it just a mean cat pooping outside of his bar? No, it, it was, [00:02:00] um, I think honestly that it was a Dingleberry.
[00:02:03] Oh yeah. I've got a cat with that problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Well, I was just like, wow. Okay. This is what we're going to do today. All right. Okay. Here we are. Yeah. Unfortunately I have far too many of cat poop stories. Yeah. There's a lot. My cat is getting very old. She's about to turn, well, she's 13 now and she just, her new favorite hobby is to vomit on everything I love.
[00:02:29] Everything. My cat too. So this podcast is about cats, right? Yes, definitely. No, I have, I have an old lady cat who projectile vomited yesterday and I happened to see it. Normally I don't see it. I just find it. And I was like, Whoa, okay, this is fun. It's really, and she doesn't like to, like, she is like twice a day now and usually we catch it.
[00:02:52] We have like a routine. She starts to make this sound. We grab the paper towel and put it under her head and we usually catch it but sometimes we don't. I think we [00:03:00] live the same life. I think so. That sounds like a lot. It sounds like me every day. That's funny. I am not a cat person. Cat lovers, don't come from me. Do not come from me.
[00:03:13] They just make me very uncomfortable. Do you have dogs? I grew up with dogs, but I don't have one, but I feel like this is what I think about cats. I think they're sneaky. I think that any time in life that they will claw your face. You could literally be sitting there loving on them and there'll be like, you have a big gap.
[00:03:35] So y'all love that? Nala doesn't do that to me. Yeah, yeah, no. I have one cat that's awesome. And then one, one cat, that's an asshole. And then one cat, that's just an old lady. My biggest fear in life is to have to stay with someone who has a whole bunch of cats and I'm scared to go to sleep at night. Like I have dreams about that.
[00:04:00] [00:04:00] Okay. So Ashley, do you want to come have a slumber party?
[00:04:06] When you said, when you were naming all three, I was like, I'm terrified right now. Oh, my gosh. That's so funny, but how are you, Courtenay? How are you doing this morning? I'm doing well. How are y'all? We're doing well. Yeah, we're just taking it one day at a time. I think we're feeling a little tired today.
[00:04:26] Today we're definitely tired but we're talking to you and I know that that's going to change very quickly. Yeah. But first things first, we asked you if you were a donut, what donut would you be and why? And you answered a classic glazed, but warm, simple plus comfortable. And that spoke to me. It spoke to my soul.
[00:04:52] Well, good. Why'd you pick that? Um, I am a pretty basic person. And, [00:05:00] um, yeah, I don't really like overly fancy. Like if you're going to, like, if you're going to have something and make something, just keep it classic. And so to me, that's just like a classic donut. That's what I think of. That's what I want.
[00:05:15] If I see the light is on, the warm light, I am probably going to go get me some donuts. Yeah. There is nothing quite like a fresh, hot classic donut. Absolutely. I'll definitely third that. I will say that we have some classic donuts that have been on our show, our podcast and I'm going to say that speaks to the type of people that we surround ourself with.
[00:05:44] That means they're classy. Salt of the earth and classy. Yes. And grounded. Let's, let's throw in grounded. Yes. Yeah. That's, I was looking for that too so thank you. Liz is always very intrigued. [00:06:00] The first thing she ever wants to know, basically the second thing she wants to know about you before she knows your name, she wants to know your enneagram number.
[00:06:08] She wants to know if you know, and if you don't know, she wants you to find out very quickly. True or False? True. This should not shock you, Liz. I'm an eight. I'm a hard eight. So of course I know my number. Yeah. Yeah. You know why that doesn't shock me because so many of my favorite people in my life are eights and my mom is an eight, so I'm a, I'm a three.
[00:06:34] Yeah. I am very. Attracted to eights, uh, as far as like they are challengers, basically my husband is an eight. A lot of my great friends are either eight or threes. How interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So Ashley, what are you? I'm a seven. Oh, I don't know a lot of sevens. Well we're actually in the triad. So threes, sevens, and eights usually get [00:07:00] along really well.
[00:07:01] I would like to kick off a little bit by you talking about your, it's relatively new, your business, right? CDR, is it CDR? Will you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So CDR consulting is a really new, I officially launched, uh, August 1st of 2020, which feels like yesterday and 5 million years ago, right, at the same time.
[00:07:24] Um, I actually, I had been the director at Pathway Women's Business Center for about a year and a half, which is where I was introduced to the both of you, um, formerly. I kinda knew who both of y'all were at all of that, but I know our paths crossed there. I left pathway in January of 2020 to, um, go work for a tech company.
[00:07:45] It was going to be my big dream job doing biz dev because I love sales. And, um, I had a previous relationship with this company. They recruited me. I was so excited, started in like in February and then Corona happened. [00:08:00] And they closed the entire company in March. They let us all go. And, um, it was shocking.
[00:08:06] Of course I just started and I was so excited and I was like, what in the heck am I supposed to do? And then of course at that time, this was March. We still didn't know what was happening with COVID and all like, it was at the very beginning, right. So luckily, um, I did have, because we were let go because of COVID there was a form you filled out and I got unemployment very quickly.
[00:08:29] So I feel very lucky that I could get into the unemployment system and get funds to keep paying my bills. And so I did that and I did that for a few months and I spent time with my daughter and my now husband, and just was like, what do I want to do? Like, this is a gut to be wake up, call for me.
[00:08:45] And then around July, I was like, okay, I think I'm ready to work for myself. And I officially launched in August and made a couple of phone calls to people who I knew just through, through my network and who I'd worked with in previous roles. And I was like, hey, this is what I'm doing. I'm [00:09:00] focusing on operations and systems and logistics.
[00:09:03] And I got like three or four clients in about a month. And, um, have never looked back, honestly. Uh, it was like, it was one of those things that the universe forced me to do. And now I'm like, why didn't I do this years ago? But I answered my own question because I wouldn't have been ready a couple of years ago.
[00:09:21] It's all about timing. Yeah. So Courtenay, you've worked with us and our new Diversity and Inclusion series that we do for our corporate clients. And we're just so grateful to have you a part of this, to help share your story and help other people. Um, and I'll let you, I say people because she's going to really talk about what people I am speaking of.
[00:09:46] But you have a new project called Calling All White Women and this is in support to elevate black women in their work, but you're not expecting to fix us, us as in black [00:10:00] women. Correct? Am I supposed to be reading this? Oh, I want you to talk about that project and then we'll come back to the work that we're doing with that diversity and inclusion.
[00:10:10] But I think that this is important first because it'll come back to why we chose you to be a part of our series. Absolutely. Yes. So Calling All White Women I think has been brewing inside me for like a couple years, but I didn't know what it was or what I could do about it. And then in November I saw a tweet. I'm obsessed with Twitter.
[00:10:37] I was on Twitter before it was cool. I love it. And this woman was saying, a black woman, was saying "White women, we don't need y'all to fix us. We're good. We need you to fix yourselves." And it hit me like a ton of bricks and that's such a cliche, but it was like, I knew this. I had been trying to live my [00:11:00] life this way.
[00:11:00] I've been trying to be intentional in my conversations and the work I'm doing, but all of a sudden I was like, Oh my gosh, I have to do something about this. And so I put on Facebook, I had a love hate relationship with Facebook, but I posted the screenshot and I put out on Facebook. I was like, "Dear white women" is what I first called it.
[00:11:21] We have a lot of work to do. And what I've realized is that the only way to end racism is to step up and do the work ourselves. This is on us. And the reason I'm focusing on women is 1. I am a woman and 2. I have seen in the past four years, I promise I'm not going to try to get too political, but you know me, I'm pretty political, but I have seen white women come out in support of some of the most horrendous, racist, and misogynist, sexist people [00:12:00] and policy. And I realized I could do something about it.
[00:12:06] So one woman, actually a bunch of women, a bunch of white women, responded to me and I said, great, let's get on a call. Let's take the next step. I still don't know what this looks like.
[00:12:17] I sent a calendar invite to all 20 some people who made comments. One woman showed up for the call. Brandi Flat. I only know her through Facebook. She's a fellow Franklin- ight, but we've never met in person. Still haven't met in person. And she said, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I know I have to do something.
[00:12:36] And so we just talked and then by December we started coming up with a framework and we had a plan and ultimately we realized we need to provide some sort of toolkit for other white women who are not where we are. And I'm very clear in saying this because another huge epiphany I had was I surround myself with people who think like me. I hang out [00:13:00] with other people who have similar feelings about how important it is to be anti-racist.
[00:13:05] We've started down the journey of unlearning and we are reading books that we need to read and surrounding ourselves with people who are helping us to do the work and be better. There's a whole nother group of people out there that are not anywhere near here. And until I get out of my echo chamber and start having conversations with these other white women, the world will never change.
[00:13:31] And it just came together exactly how the universe knew it was supposed to come together. So it turns out Brandi is an incredible designer and creative person. She already has a podcast called Human Amplified. She also has a lot more white women in her life that are our target audience; the women we need to have these conversations with, get them to awareness.
[00:13:54] And I'm stealing this from, from y'all and TRILUNA because I love how you say this, get them from awareness to action. [00:14:00] And every time we have a conversation, it's just like, yes, this is great. And so she got a website going, we've come up with social tiles. We had a, our first kickoff meeting last week, no, this week on Tuesday and eight women showed up.
[00:14:16] So we went from one to eight and we've already had a ton of white women say, yes, I'm ready for this conversation. And so we're in the beginning stages. We're very clear that this is an evolving, action-based, accountability group to actively dismantle white supremacy from the inside. And once we realized what our mission was, and we could say it clearly, we had a lot of white women who are ready to have this conversation.
[00:14:47] Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. I, I was so struck by when you said you sent an invite to 20 people and one person showed up because that happened to Ashley and I in a similar way. We started talking [00:15:00] about this in yoga specifically in like last year, right? It's at least been as long as TRILUNA has been. Yeah, so two years ago.
[00:15:10] Yeah. So we had, you know, we are anti-racist and we're also anti diet. And so we talk about those two things, um, a lot, and we had posted something about my eating disorder journey and got like a huge amount of interaction. And then the next day we put up a post about how we were seeing a lot of pho allyship, which is actually a term that we got from Kia Jarmon, in the white yoga space.
[00:15:38] And it got no interaction and we were not surprised, but disappointed by that. And I think that was one of the moments that first kind of like kick-started my awareness of how much work was left to do, even in communities that I thought were progressive. Absolutely. Well, [00:16:00] human nature is one for, for most people.
[00:16:04] It's so much easier to just like a Facebook post and make a comment and then walk back to your, your little bubble. Right? And I live in a bubble so I'm not sitting here judging other people for their bubbles. But the thing that I asked these women to do. Let's take action before they joined our call.
[00:16:21] And the action we asked them to do was to invest in a black woman led initiative. I gave them the example of Chiquita Patterson here in Nashville, who is doing anti-racism work who's been doing it for years. I took her anti-racism class last year. It changed my life. She's already doing this work.
[00:16:42] I'm not trying to replace what TRILUNA is doing or what Kia Jarmon is doing or what Chiquita Patterson is doing, or what any bad ass black woman has already done and spent so much time doing. I'm trying to elevate and support that work that's being done and then come [00:17:00] back in and do the work on white women specifically. And I got some feedback that was like, Oh, I'm just really busy.
[00:17:07] I just can't find the time to invest. I can't find it the money to invest. And for me, it was like alright, let's move on then. Right. Let's find the people who are ready to make that investment, financially and with their time, because those are the women that are going to really do the work. And so the difference between the first meeting and the second meeting was a very clear mission and call to action and we would not back down on no, you have to invest in black women first before you join Calling All White Women and it's resonating.
[00:17:39] It just took some time. I think it took a little bit of massaging of our message. I can come across as very, I am, very blunt, very straightforward. And this is part of the issue that I have in engaging with our, I just keep saying our target audience. It's the 55% of women who voted for Donald Trump in 2020. It's also [00:18:00] the 53% of the women who voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Sadly, we, we grew 2% in four years after that hell four years that we had to live through.
[00:18:10] Those are the people I'm trying to reach. Like I'm getting worked up thinking about it. I have to like calm myself down. But I can't make a difference if we're not having conversations with those women. And so I had to slow my roll. Luckily, Brandi is very helpful in crafting messages in a way that are a little bit softer and make it a little bit easier to start the conversation with people.
[00:18:39] I'm the one that's like, well, you're racist. That turns off a lot of the women we're trying to talk to. And I realized we can't get to them if we can't even have the first conversation. And so it took me calming down, stepping down, backing away and saying, this isn't about me. This isn't about my [00:19:00] feelings about anti-racism.
[00:19:01] It's about my role as a privileged white woman and what do I need to do to actually see change? And so I think we found it. Again, we launched on Monday. It's two women and we own our own companies. We're kind of seeing what this looks like, but I've already had two other people reach out to say, we want to interview you. Let's have conversations about this. So something is resonating. And I think we have found that sweet spot.
[00:19:31] That's awesome and kudos to you for speaking to the right audience, because that's all I've ever said in the beginning is that the right people need to be talking to the right people. When Liz and I had our conversation, it wasn't for me and Liz to keep going back and forth.
[00:19:48] I expressed how I felt she needed to carry that on into her circle of friends, her circle of white friends, and she did, and they still have conversations about it to this [00:20:00] day. For the people this summer who were only having conversations for a month. Yeah. That's a whole nother story. Those are the people who actually, like you said, those, those numbers for the women who voted for Trump, for the people who spent a month to care about Black America, they need to sit down and reevaluate, you know, some other things in life because it's more than a, excuse my language, but it's more than a fucking Instagram post.
[00:20:31] It is. Yeah. Yeah. I was actually thinking about that just like to continue in Instagram. I was on someone's page and I, you know, in your highlights you can like, as you edit it moves to the front or whatever, as you add to it? I was on like a few different people's page and I noticed that they're like, uh, Black Lives Matter highlight was at the very end, which means that they haven't updated it in months. And so that might be kind of an easy call-out [00:21:00] is like, if you notice that your highlight hasn't been updated in five months, maybe you need to think about whether or not you're still actually doing this work.
[00:21:08] And maybe you are and it's not on Instagram, but like maybe you're not and you could be but you were so quick to put the black square up for Instagrams. You should put the other work up for Instagram as well. That's true. I very much agree with that and I am trying to explain over and over and I will, I'll do this because it's my role and my responsibility.
[00:21:31] Changing a picture on Instagram doesn't do a damn thing. Right? Also, just sitting around talking about it doesn't do a damn thing. The real thing we need to do is get into policy and that's where my political brain comes in. Hopefully that's the next step. But, but when I say policy, I mean like the racist school board members. I mean the books that our children are reading. I mean the secret Instagram accounts in Williamson County that have [00:22:00] a bunch of white kids saying the N word all the time. That's the stuff that we have to stop and get those people taken out of office and continue to bring light to that because it's infiltrating our children and it's fucking 2021.
[00:22:19] Right. Yes, absolutely. I think if any topic that we talk about that we need to let something slip, I'm going to definitely say it's this. But what's very interesting about you, Courtenay, is I met you in your awareness stage and your stage of supporting black women. And that hasn't always been the case. With us being friends you've shared a lot with Liz and I so you weren't always practicing, you know, anti-racism. You, in fact, my friend said to me that you were [00:23:00] racist. Can you talk to us about that?
[00:23:05] Yeah. The reason I am so open and willing to tell people this story is because it was the absolute first step in my journey of awareness into action. I was raised in a Southern, Conservative, Christian military home. My family's originally from the South. My dad was in the Navy, so we moved all over the place, but I had the grandparents that dropped the N word like it was just part of regular vocabulary.
[00:23:37] Um, and it obviously infiltrated me. It wasn't so much when I was younger, but I had this realization when I was in college. I went to the University of Mississippi which is a hotspot for racism. I'm sure it still is. I haven't been back in years, but I thought it was perfectly acceptable to call black people the N-word and [00:24:00] any other racial slur you can imagine.
[00:24:03] Um, I surrounded myself with people that truly thought it was totally fine to live their life that way and I started acting that way. I graduated from college and I joined the Navy. Uh, in the Navy I started realizing that there are so many people from around the country who are so different than me in so many great ways, but I didn't, like I realized it, but I didn't do anything about it, but I kept my mouth shut.
[00:24:34] I will say I realized it is not okay to say these things, but I still thought them and I thought them all the time. Got out of the Navy, got married, had my daughter. When I had Claire, I was 29 years old and I was diagnosed with postpartum and I found the magic of therapy and Lexapro, [00:25:00] my two best friends. And I realized I was so fucked up. I had so much work to do on myself. And I worked with this therapist who broke me down to my core and help me build myself back up. And I was doing it for my daughter and it was doing it because I knew I had to live a better life for her.
[00:25:22] The hate and the judgment that I had for myself that would come out towards anyone different than me was not healthy. And I thought to myself, I can not raise a kid like this. Like that's not a great way to raise a child. And so I say all the time that, and I know like when you have children says, everyone says, Oh, they change your life, and they do, but Claire changed me in a way that made me realize how broken and sad I was but then I did the work to become better for her.
[00:25:52] And then I started realizing that the things that I was thinking came [00:26:00] from places that had been taught to me, things that I learned in school, things that I had heard in my family, things that I had heard from other people. And I was finally strong enough and confident enough to know I need to do some research.
[00:26:14] And then I understood what unlearning was. And I started to unlearn all the things that I had been taught. In 2014, I started a social enterprise company with three of my best friends, actually ended up being four of my best friends called Girls to the Moon. And one of the women who helped start that is a brilliant, incredible person named Courtney Cider and she would call me out.
[00:26:40] This is 2014. This was not that long ago. I had gotten to a really great place where I had done some great work on myself, but I was still, my unconscious bias was really like, it would come out and she very lovingly would say, can you tell me more about why you feel that way?
[00:26:57] And then we would talk about it and she would be like, can [00:27:00] I offer you some insight? And then the more comfortable she got she'd be like, Courtenay, I can't believe you just said that. I'm like, Oh my gosh. You're right. And so I continued to do work on myself. And then I realized, finally, I am the type of woman who is not afraid to tell this story.
[00:27:18] And I'm the type of woman who is not afraid to help other people do the work that's necessary. When I see other people, I mean, white people and I'm very specifically talking about white women. Men, white men. Good luck. I don't even know. I don't even know where to start with you. Y'all have your own issues that I just can't dive into right now and focusing on the white women, but it's my vulnerability and this is part of Calling All White Women that Brandi and I have really worked through.
[00:27:46] It's sharing our story because every white person has a story like this, right? It might not be nearly as ingrained and hateful and racist as mine, but we all have the [00:28:00] story and once we're vulnerable and we say, yes, I was racist. In fact, I still am racist and I work on it every single day because that's what I have to do because I'm walking through this world as a privileged white woman. No one judges me because of the color of my skin. I've never been followed in a store. I've never been turned down for a job because my name sounded like maybe I was a person of color.
[00:28:29] Like all of the things that I've learned about, I have to now share with other white people, because I guarantee you, when you have that moment where you're like, Oh, you're right, that's going to lead to the unlearning that will lead to the awareness then lead to action. And so I feel it's my duty to tell, I call it my racism story. It's got to have to come up with a better title, but we'll just call it [00:29:00] racism story for now.
[00:29:01] Yeah. I think that there is a lot of power in telling your story. I mean, when we start our diversity and inclusion series, which starts with empathy, we always tell the story of how I epically fucked it up and how Ashley had to sit me down as her business partner and her best friend and say, Hey, you're not doing enough. And I know you think you're doing the work, but you're not doing enough. And it's hurting me.
[00:29:32] And that, it was like the hardest conversation I've probably ever had in my life, but it was a catalyst moment. That's why we say that is the moment that took me from active to activated because I had some awareness before, but I didn't understand my impact until that moment and it changed me forever.
[00:29:54] And I think what that really speaks to, and the conversation that white women need to be having [00:30:00] more and more often is actually one about the difference between being not racist and being anti-racist. And how being not racist doesn't actually exist because you either are benefiting from the system or you are actively working to dismantle it.
[00:30:18] And the fact that there is not a middle ground there is really hard for some white people and white women specifically, but it's the truth and that's where the work has to begin. Absolutely. I learned about anti-racism from Chiquita when I took her class last year, because I was in a similar place as you Liz, I was like, I'm, I'm doing some decent thing, but I wasn't doing enough.
[00:30:45] And when I figured out what anti-racism looks like from an action perspective, and from a perspective of it is up to me, it was life changing. So one of the first things I do when people say, I want to get involved with [00:31:00] Calling All White Women is I'm like go take tequila's anti-racism class. It will change your life.
[00:31:05] In fact, we put up a whole resource guide yesterday. TRILUNA is on our resource guide. Thank you. Absolutely. You're doing the work. We're doing and I know we have a conversation a week or two about bringing y'all in to talk to the Calling All White Women group because you're already doing the work.
[00:31:22] You've put so much time and effort into it and I know that because I was honored to be part of your first six month program. When I read your chapter, I'm actually getting goosebumps so that means that the universe is telling me that this is real, real good. When I read your handbook and your workbook, I've read it twice.
[00:31:39] The first one I read as a student, just to make sure that I was going to hopefully be beneficial to talking to the people you were talking to. And then the second time I read it as a white woman, knowing I have so much more work to do. The chapter on dismantling white supremacy shook me in a way that I want every single person to experience that.
[00:32:00] [00:32:00] And why would I try to teach that when you're doing it so well and we need to pay you for your work to continue to get your message out. And so that's the idea behind this. It's not just a bunch of white women sitting around in a book club, reading white fragility written by a white woman. Right? Well, read the book, like read the book.
[00:32:20] So there is a lot more books you need to be reading. This is about bringing in experts like you to share your story and your expertise, and we're investing in you so that you can continue to reach more people as well. Well, you keep talking to all those white women, keep talking to them because they, they do need, I mean, when you say things like that, I think even outside of TRILUNA, I do a lot of yoga and so a lot of expectations of me and I'm like, but my services cost. My time costs.
[00:32:52] You get on a phone call with me, it costs. You want me to talk to you about business and [00:33:00] it's a part of it. So we get questioned a lot, even about our setup fees and things like that. But we, Liz and I, work very, very hard. Nobody's just paying for the time that we spent putting this curriculum and these workbooks together.
[00:33:16] And so we make it very clear and we hold our ground with that. Yeah. I'm proud of you. It's, it's working through fear a lot, and it actually was more Liz telling me my worth and that's what I needed in a business partner. I needed someone to push me, to continue to use my voice and then doing the work that she needed to do in her sector.
[00:33:39] And if it wasn't for Liz, I mean, she's very, I mean, if you come asking me to meet with you to have kumbaya over diversity and inclusion, she gets very angry and it's not even me. Like I don't even get angry cause I know that she's going to get upset that someone's asking for my time to, to [00:34:00] make me relive trauma.
[00:34:01] Yeah. If you're going to ask Ashley to sit down and explain her life story, you better, it just like... First of all, and Ashley talks about this a lot in our courses, it is retraumatizing to ask black people to tell the story of racism in their life over and over and over again. So if you are going to ask them to do that, you better have done so much fucking work that it is worth their time to sit down and do that for you.
[00:34:26] If they want to. Yeah. Thank you for that reminder. I need to put that in writing as well. I think it's incredibly important to remember the trauma because Liz, you and I don't have that trauma, right? Not one drop of it. And the women we're trying to talk to do not have this trauma. We all have our own trauma.
[00:34:46] So this is where I'm struggling. Because when I do reach out to white women in particular, they're like, well, I had a really rough life growing up too. Yes. Yeah. I was really poor growing up too. [00:35:00] I had, I was sexually abused growing up. Like I understand we all have our own trauma, but if you don't have black skin, you do not understand what it's like to walk through this world as a black person.
[00:35:13] And the trauma that comes along with that. Right. So we created a toolkit and we've got social tiles that we're going to share. Today's social tile, I have no rhyme or reason to like, Oh, here's our marketing strategy or plan. It's like, I got to get this out here. This is one of those things that's like minimal viable product.
[00:35:30] Get it out there because people need to hear this. I'm, very specifically, I'm not asking you to apologize for being white. I'm asking you to understand the work that it takes a black person just to wake up in this country every day. Right? Like, I'm not saying like, don't be proud of who you are and who your family is and where you come from.
[00:35:58] But please [00:36:00] be aware of the systems that are in place to keep us as white people in power. Yeah. And that's, privilege doesn't mean that you haven't had struggle. It means that you were systematically allowed more access, more money, more prep, whatever it is than someone who does not have that privilege.
[00:36:23] And I, this is a conversation I have when I have with white women about this is like, yeah, but my life is hard too. It's like, no one's taking that away from you. We're just saying that there are systemic reasons why someone who has black skin or Brown skin has not had those advantages. It's systemic.
[00:36:42] It's bigger than just like your personal experience. Absolutely. Preach. Okay, so we can talk about this all day. We could talk to you all day and I think it would be a good idea to possibly bring you and Brandi back and we get deep, deep, [00:37:00] deep into this. I think that's it, Liz. And that's all. Thank you, Courtenay.
[00:37:05] We appreciate you.
[00:37:10] Thank you for listening to the Wellness Community Magic podcast. If you liked this episode, leave us a review or drop us a message and tell us your favorite part. You can find us on Twitter at wellness_pod or online at TRILUNAwellness.com/podcast. Tune in next week for more tough but necessary conversations about the future of self-care.
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