What Do You Mean By That?

They say never meet your heroes, but we're so glad we got to meet two of ours, as they gave us the shot of hope at the end of our conversation that we all need, considering everything that's happening around us currently.  To be honest, we had been looking forward to this conversation ever since David Louie (Episode 212, if you want to go back and listen) made this introduction, and it was everyth...

If you know us, you know that we love to focus on our shared humanity - in other words, the threads that bind us together, those common traits regardless of anything else, the things that make us human, after all. And so when we discovered our next guest, we felt like we found a kindred spirit - after all, his whole platform is called The Humanity Archive.   If you, as we do, believe in the power...

If someone talks to me (Sara) about summer reading, honestly, my brain first goes to fiction novels.  I love them, and I have been noticing that if they're particularly well-written, I end up learning a whole lot about humanity.  And the book we're highlighting for you today is just one of those phenomenal book experiences.     We're excited to bring to you a book set in the era just after World W...

Our notes for this conversation with Christine, before we had it, were this: expect this to be a casual vibe, hilarious interaction, lighthearted fun conversation! We would say that was EXACTLY what this was, in a nutshell. We went into this thinking we'd probably discuss some stuff like her upcoming book(s), plans, and more. But it really was more of a conversation that was about so many other fa...

We're so excited to kick off our summer book club with this amazing book: The First, The Few, The Only . When we interviewed Deepa for this episode, we remember being so excited to talk to her about this book because, while we've talked about a lot of books written for White people to learn more about race and racism, it's not often that we come across business books that are written specifically...

Did you miss us last week? We missed you! Listen in to this week's episode in order to hear some exciting updates, a small podcast look-back, and what we have planned for this summer . . .   What to listen for: After four years of weekly shows and 220+ episodes later, we're moving to a new release schedule – releasing every other week! Why?  This lets us focus more on some of the things that we've...

As we've discussed on the show, as biracial people with Japanese immigrant parents, anti-Asian hate is something we've had to be even more keenly aware of over the last few years.  Even beyond that point of tension, let's be honest, the world is just a lot - for everyone - nowadays. So we wanted to present you with a gift. The gift of connecting with spiritual energy, along with an actual sound he...

We've spoken about cross-racial solidarity a few times, but never with quite the beautifully illustrative stories and historical references and personally motivating oomph that we did today. And I think it's important to note that this conversation is one that happened between the three of us, all identifying as Asian and American, about topics that involve not only our shared Japanese American an...

When the email came into our inbox introducing us to a multimedia project called "Jane Crow, Then & Now," we were immediately intrigued.  After all, Jane Crow - or White women's support for White supremacy - is something we've talked about a lot. This support, of white women for white supremacy, has gone on for way longer than most people realize; it's not just confined to the South; and it's a pr...

If you're listening to this episode when it's released, we're now in May of 2023, which is also AAPI Heritage Month. There are a lot of names for this month, which is great, as there are also a lot of countries and ethnicities represented by the simple word "Asian". But one group of people that is often left out of the overarching Asian umbrella are the biracial Asians - and, given our own identit...

What SCOTUS will do this term, and what they decide in June, will determine a lot of our ability to keep some basic human rights in a democracy - and the three cases that we're going to be talking about also may impact you, regardless of what state you're in.   Back in Episode 108, "Why we all should be concerned about voter suppression," we talked a LOT about the history of voting rights in this...

With decisions pending in the two Supreme Court cases discussing the future of affirmative action, today we talk about all things affirmative action, including: where it came from, who the biggest beneficiaries of it have been (and if you know a White woman in this country, you'll want to listen) if we still need it (yes), and what you'll really need to know about where our society may be headed –...

This week marks the FOUR YEAR anniversary of the Dear White Women podcast! From those first few episodes released altogether on April 15, 2019, to now… it's been quite the ride.  This year, in order to kick off year five (!!!) of the podcast, we thought we'd devote an entire shorter episode to talking about not only the past four years but what we have in store for the future (you didn't think we'...

Most people that we know didn't grow up thinking about or knowing people who were involved in unions.  Us too – until Sara married a union man.  And it got us thinking… how have unions impacted all of our lives?  Turns out, quite a lot.     Here's one way: the length of the typical workday.  Thank unions for 8 hours – because that didn't just magically happen out of the goodwill of employers.  Uni...

I hear the word lobbying and used to envision some sort of dark mysterious magic taking place.  But it turns out there are some very forthright, thoughtful individuals who play the role of lobbyist - being hired because they know something about how the legislative process works, willing to give advice and defend positions about what they think is right when it comes to regulating companies and ad...

If you've ever watched an episode of Law and Order, you'll know Jack McCoy, who was the District Attorney (with a capital D and A) in that show. Together with his team, Jack McCoy made decisions about a lot of people's guilt or innocence and argued that in court. Typically, when we think about a criminal trial, there are two phases: culpability, and sentencing. So in the first phase, either the ju...

As this is an episode that's a little bit different from our other episodes (I don't think to date we've interviewed a person who's currently running for office), we'd like to make sure we are very clear about the following:  We are NOT endorsing any candidates in this episode.  We are grateful that Trinidad Rodriguez, who is running for Mayor of Denver, was willing to connect with us to give us a...

When we first released this episode, it was roughly two months after George Floyd had been murdered by the police and it was perhaps the first time that non-Black Americans, and in particular, White Americans, realized that this police violence wasn't isolated to a few communities, but indeed was a national problem.   And now we're sitting here, a month after Tyre Nichols was murdered by the polic...

If you're listening to this episode around the time when it's being released, then you'll be listening to this right on the last day of Black History Month here in the United States. It should go without saying that Black History is American History, but we're going to say it anyway, and that it shouldn't be confined just to the shortest month of the year but instead should be taught to our kids e...

If you've been following us on our journey through (third grade) civics, you'll know that we've covered the federal government/civics on a national level in our Civics 101 episode, which was Episode 203, and then focused on state government in Civics 102, which was Episode 205. We're now here to round out our basic civics knowledge with Civics 103 - everything - and more, if we're being honest - t...

When people think of the government or they think about elections, they often think about presidential elections, and big federal government. But more often than not, our daily lives are hugely impacted by the decisions made by our state and local governments - and this impacts one very high-profile area in particular. Our children, in our schools. In the news recently was the headline that Govern...

We're back in our Intro to Civics course!  You know, the one you probably took in third grade and maybe, if you were lucky, in some form in middle and high school and didn't pay enough attention to?  Or maybe you never took it, if you live in the 60% of states that don't require students to take a civics exam as a graduation requirement - which is something we learned about in Episode 203, "I'm Ju...

This is not the episode we wanted to record this week - but it's the one that we NEEDED to record this week.  Why?  Because just as we're venturing down the rabbit hole of topics over the next few months that is Civic Engagement and making a difference for 2024, we had blatant scary fearful reminders about why we want you all to know and do more - because people's lives are at stake. If you want t...

I'm just a bill, on Capitol Hill… do you remember that song, from Schoolhouse Rock? If that jogs your memory, this is the episode for you. If you're too young to remember that song, this episode is for you. If you hate that song, this episode is for you.  Why? Because this episode is about civics - in other words, how our government functions. We're at a pretty critical time in our country's histo...

We promised to bring you more conversation about civics and engagement - and today we get to bring you a "real talk" episode about one of our favorite topics - civics, engagement, and a White Woman's Work.  Plus, as a special bonus, we do this in conversation with NYT Bestselling Author Kate Schatz - a queer white woman - who is basically the perfect human being to tackle these topics with.   We t...