What Do You Mean By That?

One question that comes up frequently enough from White, or non-Black, people to cause us to write not only a whole chapter in our book trying to answer it, but also record this podcast episode, is short but impactful: "Can I say the N-word?"  The short answer is no. Absolutely not. The longer answer? Listen to this episode to hear not only why you should never be saying the n-word, but also why i...

So our book, Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism is broken into three sections: On Being White in America; On Being Black in America; On Being a Non-Black Person of Color in America.   And here's the question we get when people see that structure: Why do we need to focus on the experiences of Black people in this country?  In this episode, we tell you why - including s...

For the past 3+ years, we've been getting loud on this podcast, where our stated mission is to help White women use their privilege to uproot systemic racism without centering themselves in the process. This summer, we've been specifically focused on answering the question we often get, "what can we do to be more anti-racist?" and have been releasing bite sized pieces of our work, especially with...

All Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter, and decentering the White experience in these conversations.  That's what we're discussing in today's episode, because White people, you keep asking us what you can DO differently to be more anti-racist.  And while we won't offer a checklist, we do have an incredible, level-setting book Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism that you...

White people, you keep asking us what you can DO differently to be more anti-racist.  So this summer, we're answering that question in bite-sized ways.  This isn't a checklist; this is simply a primer.  If you want more, go buy our book, Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism. Today, we're talking about what the real differences are between performative allyship and real...

As biracial - Japanese and White - hosts of a long-running weekly podcast, we are very aware that, given how we look, we have, at times, benefited from White privilege.  We are also very clear that this is a privilege that Misasha's Black husband will never once benefit from. Today's short episode dives into defining what White privilege is, explaining common misconceptions of the term, and what t...

White people, you keep asking us what you can DO differently to be more anti-racist.  So this summer, we're answering that question in bite-sized ways.  This isn't a checklist; this is simply a primer.  If you want more, go buy our book, Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism. Today, we're hitting up some of the most common points of push-back or questions we get when we...

This summer, instead of spending 50-60 minutes sharing some of the most amazingly honest and thought provoking conversations that we've been personally privileged to have (the listen), or doing a deep dive into some part of our collective history that we may have never learned about in school (the learn), or sometimes getting up on our soapbox to get loud and angry about what's going on in current...

In 2003, Misasha drove across the country from New York to Los Angeles with two of her law school girlfriends. In her words: "We were all Asian, and this was the time of SARS, so while they felt a LOT of eyes on us (and repeatedly joked, to ourselves, "no one cough, or we're never getting out of here", which wasn't so much of a joke as us trying to make light of a painful reality), we never felt l...

If you've ever heard about Ancestry.com and thought that this wasn't something for you due to your own family's immigration story, or alternately if you love nothing more than to have centuries of your family's history in the United States documented for you, then this episode is for you. Or, if you've never heard of Ancestry before, but you work in corporate America and know you want to help make...

When we've talked about intersectionality in the past, we've often talked about it with regard to race and gender, or gender and gender identity - but never quite like this. Our guest today is a queer British Chinese woman who also is a Brazilian Jujitsu competitor, an entrepreneur who raised over $10 million in venture capital financing, and the co-founder of an intentional, beautifully designed...

You know around here we love a good "Dear…" title, especially when it starts with "Dear White Women." That's why we were excited to sit down with this week's guests because Kimberlee's book title alone had us at "Dear White Women" (for obvious reasons, friends).  Her full book title is " Dear White Women, Please Come Home: Hand Me Your Bias and I'll Show You Our Connection " and once we started re...

Our platform is called Dear White Women - and through it, we have this podcast, we have a book, we do talks - and a lot of our work, as biracial women, is to welcome more White women into the conversation.  As part of that work, we run into people saying that they're tired of talking about race, worry about saying or doing the wrong thing, and are very concerned about cancel culture, which is why...

Sometimes we meet people completely new to the conversations about race and racism - and one of the things we say is important to do is to start with introspection.  Andre Brown stood out to us because of his very practical approach to DEI work - in particular, to help us address the question that we think is critical at the very beginning of starting to do this work, which is how to establish tha...

This episode's topic was inspired by a webinar about banned books that featured Nikole Hannah-Jones, Nic Stone, and Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, in conversation with Dr. Emily Knox. IT. WAS. FIRE. But it also got us thinking about CRT, banned books, and the link between the two.  So in today's episode, we answer several questions: first, what is CRT and what is it not (hint: it's not being taught in K-12 s...

April marks THREE YEARS since we started the Dear White Women podcast, so it's only fitting that we run this back to talk about one of the issues that we get asked about (and challenged on) the most: affirmative action.   Maybe even hearing those words brings up emotions for you, as it does for us.  But today we're going to talk about all things affirmative action, including where it came from, wh...

  This episode follows the same thread that we started in last week's episode: namely, how do we create inclusive workplaces, especially for women of color?  And this week's guest knows all about that and more, especially when it's related to women of color in STEM.   This week we get the pleasure of sitting down with Michele Heyward, who's not only an engineer herself but the founder of PositiveH...

While some things have changed in the 18 years since Sara was in corporate America, a lot of things - namely, DEI work, how we talk about DEI, what words we use, and the urgency with which (White) people view this - have remained the same.  And while Misasha's first official role in DE&I was in 2007, she's spent a number of years living the reality of what it's like to not be 100% White in legal A...

For those of you who grew up not seeing yourself in books, or for those of you who did, but want to understand what that may be like for others - this next episode is one you don't want to miss. Today, we're so excited to speak with Abigail Hing Wen, the author of both the New York Times bestselling book Loveboat Taipei and her newest book, Loveboat Reunion, and hear all about her writing journey,...

Today is International Women's Day, which is 8 days into Women's History Month.  So it's no surprise that we are here with Sybil Amuti, the founder of The Great Girlfriends platform, to talk about friendships, community, and so much more, especially as it relates to women. This conversation was also a great reminder of two things: (1) we have women in our lives 365 days out of the year, not just 3...

Community.  Gentrification.  Generational wealth.  Low status.  Brain drain.  When you read those terms, what comes to mind for you?  If you know what those words mean, have you thought about how they play out in your own neighborhoods?  Because even if you haven't seen these dynamics at play yourself, they are definitely happening where you live.  And we're going to tell you why that matters - no...

If you're listening to this episode at the time of release, we're three days past a momentous anniversary in United States history - and one that you may have never heard of.  On February 19th, 1942, 80 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 into law.  This was the law that effectively incarcerated over 120,000 American citizens on US soil during World War II. T...

There are those moments when you watch something, or learn something, that changes how you see not only yourself, but our history, along with the future, completely differently.  That's how we felt about Who We Are , a new documentary featuring Jeffrey Robinson, produced by Robinson and our two guests: Emily and Sarah Kunstler.  I feel fortunate to have first met both of these amazing women when S...

At the time that A Kids Book About Racism was published, there was no other book like this.  There was no other book written FOR kids talking directly about racism, let alone a book that was written by someone who looked like Misasha's mixed-race kids.  She still has that copy; they've read it as a family countless times, and the kids have read it themselves a ton since then.  Since then, she's ad...

Middle age.  What comes to mind?  Next question:  When you think of a woman who's aged somewhere between her early 40s and mid 60s, who do you picture?  And if you're not one of then, when you're thinking about women in this age range, how do they show up in your daily life?  Do they show up?  And, what race is the woman you pictured?   Depending on your answers, and your own stage of life, you'll...