What Do You Mean By That?

One of our philosophies is that anti-racism work has to be done in a way that's sustainable - meaning, just like we can't post a black square to Instagram and say we're done, we also can't spread ourselves too thin or work ourselves to the point of irredeemable fatigue because then we also stop having impact.   So to kick off this year, we are bringing you a really open conversation on a topic we...

Welcome to Episode 200 of our podcast, and welcome to 2023! Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! (Happy New Year!) In our first episode of this new year, we want to reintroduce ourselves, give you a run of where we've been with our platform, and make sure you have an overview of what you can expect from us this coming year. As we're heading into yet another major election in 2024, if we want to build a...

It's that time of year when everyone starts to think about not only the end of this current year but also the beginning of the next. And friends, we've got some big plans for next year - but we'll save that for EPISODE 200 (our next episode, and our first of 2023!). This episode will be a little bit of year-end reflection for us - and if these questions resonate with you, we hope you'll spend a li...

This was a conversation that made us lose track of time.  Because even if the core conversation about transracial adoption doesn't capture your attention - which it should because nearly 30% of kids who are adopted are adopted across borders or across cultures or race - the trajectory this conversation takes into why adoption should NOT be positioned as a solution to abortion absolutely is a persp...

It's December, the time of year when it seems like regardless of whether you celebrate Christmas or Hannukkah or Kwanzaa or anything else or nothing at all, our schedules get busy. And lots of times, this busyness centers around food, be it potluck gatherings at work, holiday parties, big family dinners, or even coffee and treats with friends - because food brings us together as human beings bette...

We've been asked a lot about how to have uncomfortable conversations lately - namely, the reality that, yikes, my people are coming over for the holidays and how on earth do I handle it when those uncomfortable, racist, inappropriate comments and jokes come up? (Because let's be real - they're coming up.) While there is no official checklist for success, we DO have quite a number of tips to help g...

For those of you who have been listening to Dear White Women from the beginning, or for those listeners who just joined us (welcome!), you probably understand that this whole platform comes from our own deeply personal connections not only to this work but to the world that we'd like to see in the future, as we find that it's often that personal connection that leads to intentional, lasting change...

For a lot of the second half of this year, student debt relief and the student loan crisis have been in national news - and there have been a LOT of feelings about it, ranging from joy and happiness that some of this extreme burden to repay what often can amount to predatory lending practices has now been lifted to the other extreme, which amounts to a lot of "well, I repaid my debt. Why should ot...

Hey, so remember how last week we were talking about how we have hope?  This is another conversation and way of thinking that gives me hope - in particular for anybody who knows children, knows new parents, or thinks they might eventually know folks who might want to stop reading the outdated encyclopedia that we call What to Expect when you're Expecting and flip over to a more contemporary, inclu...

If you're reading this on the day this episode comes out, this is a big, big day in America. It's Election Day 2022, and we don't think it's an understatement to say that this is the most important election that those of us who have the privilege to vote in will be voting in - because this election may determine if you or I even get to be able to vote in the next election. So, if you're reading th...

DEAR WHITE WOMEN  - About that Voter Fraud… If you saw the title and thought "oh, I don't believe voter fraud impacts me" or "oh, I live in an area where we don't hear much about that" - you may be very, very wrong. According to a recent analysis by FiveThirtyEight , 60% of Americans will have an election denier on the ballot. And for those of you who have only heard about election deniers since 2...

Abortion, by all pollster accounts, seems to be one of – if not THE most – hot-button issues for the upcoming midterm elections in 2022. That's why we thought it was so important for us to dive into why and when abortion became so political - because yes, we can point to a specific political strategy that linked the pro-life movement with the Republican party, and how that is playing out today in...

If you asked me (Misasha) at the end of 2021 how long it had been since we published our book, I would have told you 5 years, give or take 3 - because it felt like we had been thrown into this whirlwind of activity and PR and interviews and ALL OF THE THINGS about this book. So it seems impossible that just now marks the one-year anniversary of the publication of Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)co...

Have you ever had your eyes glaze over when someone hands you a history textbook or walks you through a museum full of facts and dates?  But then you hate yourself because you are smart and yet don't feel like you *know* things?  I've been that person (it's Sara here) - which is why I'm absolutely thrilled to share this conversation with the authors of a fabulous historical fiction novel that taug...

When you think of physical education, or PE, or gym class - what do you remember?  Probably the physical side of it, like jump rope or pull-ups or dodgeball or kickball.  But what blew our mind in today's conversation is all of the seemingly invisible, yet intentional, ways PE class teaches us about social interactions, our own capabilities, deconstructing perfectionism, and more - and frightening...

Nothing to kick off this next episode like a fiery title, right?  But in case it makes you question whether you'll hit play, please know that this isn't your typical economics podcast, nor is it going to be so dry that you turn this off 5 minutes into listening.   That said, it IS crucial for you to listen if you want to understand how policies that were made now 40 years ago are still directly af...

The 2022 Republican Party would have never been able to back Abraham Lincoln as their presidential candidate - except for one tiny detail: Lincoln was a Republican, and espoused the original beliefs of the Republican Party (down to the anti-slavery, committed to equality part).    So how did we get from Lincoln's Republican Party to today's Trump political base?    Who were the Whigs?    What do w...

Someone very smart sent me an article just today that talks about the role of humor when we deal with stressful situations/anxiety-creating moments. And on that front: have any of you (and in this moment, I think we're specifically talking to White people) ever felt weighed down by how heavy anti-racism work can be?  You maybe noticed that sometimes we're pretty serious on this show…   Though I'm...

In all of this anti-racism work, have you ever had a time when the fear of making a mistake kept you from speaking up?  It's not every day we get to interview a NYT bestselling author who's willing to share how she's made mistakes so that you know we ALL mess up from time to time.     A huge hello and welcome to author Kate Schatz - author, activist, educator, and queer feminist mama who's been ta...

Over the last 3.5 years, we've had this weekly podcast (now on episode 182!), we've written a book ( Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism ), and we've spoken with many different people at many different organizations.  Meaning, we've heard and learned a lot of things.   With a few exceptions, our sense is that people *want* to be seen as good people; they say they *want...

You might be tired of hearing about the Supreme Court taking away people's rights - but the process behind how SCOTUS does that is important, as depending on the results of the midterms, we may be seeing this more, and with a much wider scope.    For example, do you know what SCOTUS did about immigration in July? And if your response was "Wait, what?" then this episode is for you. Tune in to hear...

In our book, we talk about the federal boarding schools that were just for Native American children - and by boarding schools, we mean that the U.S. government rounded up Native children over the course of 150 years (!!), separated them from their parents and often took them hundreds of miles away… and often times, those kids never came home.    If you haven't heard that story (which is fairly com...

Have you ever been that kid who tugged at the corner of your eyes, pretending to be Asian, or maybe even mocked people of Asian descent?  In today's episode, Sara shares the story of when a little neighborhood boy did that to her.     Sure, there might be some sweeping generalizations you can make about Asian people - a lot tend to have dark hair, more almond-shaped eyes - but the truth is, in Ame...

In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, many of us heard the phrase "qualified immunity" for the first time in a new light - but what does the phrase even mean?  And why is it so important when we think about police, driving (or existing) while Black, and civil rights in this country?  We'll talk about all of this in today's episode, so we can help set some context for a major conversation happ...

This episode was recorded before the Dobbs decision came out, but it highlights what we know to be true - there is a disparate impact on Black and brown women when it comes to reproductive justice in this country. And for all of you who have told us, "I'd really like to be friends with Black women, but I don't understand their experiences," you'll want to listen extra carefully.    This episode hi...