What Do You Mean By That?

Have you ever felt like you don't belong somewhere simply because of one or more of your identities? Being biracial, we've felt that way in various settings - sometimes all White crowds, sometimes Asian affinity groups.  And sometimes in rooms full of men… anyway, you get the picture.  And what we can say is that growing up that way leads to a lot of introspection, learning to tune into our own in...

We had a different episode planned for this week, but in light of the fight that is going down in the Senate right now, we needed to re-release this episode on the filibuster, with a special introduction as to why we should all care about the Freedom to Vote Act and The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and encourage you to call your Senators to act on the filibuster.* * If you're part of...

If you've been on LinkedIn recently, it's likely that someone you know has liked something that our next guest has written - because her posts are just THAT GOOD. But it wasn't just her LinkedIn activism that made us want to sit down with her today - it was some impactful articles that she wrote, including one for Cosmopolitan in 2019 and one for the Harvard Business Review in 2021, that made us e...

  Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu! Or, in English, Happy New Year!   We kick off this first episode of 2022 by reintroducing ourselves, so you know who we are and where we're coming from as you listen to all the episodes to come (because you're following our show on your favorite podcast app, right?). But we also did that so we can begin engaging a skill that is urgent to focus on this year - namely...

Well, we made it to the end of 2021. As we think back on this year, we're sharing not only a little bit about the podcast and Dear White Women platform (along with our favorite episodes and guests), but also looking back at some key events of 2021, and what we did for self-care and community. Our hope for you is to listen, reflect, and think about what you're going to do to make change going into...

We're finally done with 2021… but if 2020-2021 taught us anything, it's that this period of time we are living through will be examined in the history books. Our grandkids will be asking us what life was like during the global pandemic, where we were during the January 6 insurrection, and what we did to stand up against the racial and social injustices that were made so painfully clear during this...

One thing that we've found to be true, from discussions around the book, to how to have uncomfortable conversations around the dinner or holiday tables, to sharing the stories that we are so lucky to be able to get to do on this podcast - it all comes back to how this work, the hard work of inclusion, anti-racism, and how to make lasting change, has to start first  from within. We have to see each...

One of the questions that often has come up around our recent publication of our book (leave us a review on Amazon!) is what it was like to write the book during the end of 2020. And one of the things that always sticks out to us is that the problems, the racism, the treatment of non White people in this country that we wrote about in great detail throughout the book, didn't get fixed in 2020, or...

Our next guest is not only the author of a book we both can't wait to read - Decolonizing Wellness - but also talks specifically to those individuals who are at the intersection of BIPOC and LGBTQ identities. When you think about bodies, beauty, and self-care, that's often a group that gets lost, not only in popular consciousness but also in media portrayals of what is considered desirable or attr...

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...

When we sat down to talk with our next two guests, we were already big fans. They had presented as part of the Embodied Social Justice certificate course that we had taken together this summer, and their theme was clear: how we end racism. In one generation.   So, if your immediate reaction is one of incredulity, then maybe you need to hear this episode more than you think. Because their method is...

We first heard about our guest today when we were all participating in the Edelweiss Book Fest as Editors' Picks and couldn't get her, or her book, out of our heads. While "abolition" has been a word largely associated with slavery, it has taken on a new meaning when it comes to the police in America. Yes, we know - this word is scary. Police reform can seem daunting. But Derecka Purnell not only...

If you're listening to this episode on the day it's released, this is Election Day in the United States. So, if you haven't gone to vote yet, and you're not in a mail-in ballot state, go do that and come back and listen - or, if you're not sure if you're going to vote, you may want to listen right now and make time to get out and cast your ballot. Because this Election Day is really important, esp...

When we first thought about talking to our guest John Tateishi today, we thought about diving into the reparations process that he helped lead for Japanese survivors of the internment camps on American soil - especially as a great follow-up to our conversation with cameron whitten about reparations for slavery. Being biracial Japanese/White women, growing up in the United States meant that the his...

When you hear the word "reparations" - what do you think? If you're like us, it's probably something you sort of thought about in theory, but realize there's so much to understand that you want to hide. It's not an easy word with an easy answer or a clear path forward, nor is it uncomplicated.   Fortunately, we love to get complicated AND messy on this podcast, and so that's why we're thrilled tod...

It's book launch day! And if you haven't already pre-ordered, it's time that you get your order in for Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism ! And then tell your friends and family today about it so they order, too. Will make for some good conversations – plus, we'll be opening up a book club conversation with you in November! What to listen for, in celebration of our bo...

Remember the Titans has the specific scene that happens part of the way through the movie, when Coach Boone gets everyone out of bed in the middle of the night and tells them they're going for a run in the woods. They run to the location of the Battle of Gettysburg. And Coach Boone stands there and he tells them: "Anybody know what this place is? This is Gettysburg. This is where they fought the B...

Sometimes there are those books that are so hauntingly beautiful, disturbing, or touching (or all three) that you can't stop thinking about them for days after you finally put them down after binge reading them. Some of those for us are The Handmaid's Tale , or Americanah , or Song of Solomon . But recently, we found another book that we've been thinking about ever since putting it down - Beautifu...

Last week's episode was all about QAnon and how conspiracy theories can divide us as a nation. One of the things we think we can do to bridge the divide is bring mindfulness and skills around living with mindfulness into conversations about race, racism, identity, and beliefs - and to do that, we got to speak with an incredible law professor named Rhonda McGee. In speaking with Rhonda, we learned...

This fall we're focused on hot-button topics. If you remember, we kicked off the fall with a conversation about the census and representation, which then moved into representation in the media and movies with Kamala Avila-Salmon, the head of inclusive content at Lionsgate Films. Today, we're here to talk about another hot button topic that we've all heard about the last couple of years but we've n...

We promised last week in our intro to fall and census conversation that we'd be focusing on some hot button topics that we've seen trending of late. And representation is a huge one - especially with the recent release of the mostly Asian cast of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - and the question of how people in the entertainment field can get "diverse" movies totally right, or totally...

Hello and welcome to Fall! What we're really excited about - besides our book coming out in mid October! - is our fall lineup of episodes. Now that we're done with our Summer of Action, we're focused on issues that have not only been in our consciousness, but ones that we've been hearing about throughout 2021 and ones that we'd like to highlight for the fall.   In September, we'll be focusing on c...

Let's talk about workplace safety. No, not that kind of workplace safety - we're here to talk about building psychologically safe workspaces, which in our opinion is a crucial conversation especially as we're reimagining workspaces in this era of COVID. And you'll want to hear this WHOLE conversation, because there are knowledge bombs just being tossed around by our guest throughout this entire ep...

If you're listening to this episode at the time that it's being released, and you're thinking about work, you're probably thinking about returning to a physical office in this new land of the Delta variant, or perhaps you're looking for a job, or you're figuring out how to get a new job because you're done with the one that you have. Or maybe you don't want to talk or think about work at all. But...

After last week's episode with Christine Platt (aka the Afrominimalist), this scenario may sound familiar: You look around your house.  It's full of stuff - stuff that you don't wear, stuff that you don't use, stuff that you don't need. You gather everything up in bags and boxes and, once the Donate pile is big enough, you move it to the garage or outside, ready for the next step.  But then you pa...