Let me start by saying that our mission on the podcast has always been to better ourselves. The events of the last week in the wake of George Floyd have really caused us to hit the pause button. Publishing silly videos or life hack blog posts felt disingenuous. So we are taking a different direction with this podcast. We sat down with Donald Thompson and Jackie Ferguson of The Diversity Movement to have a conversation about race and how to be better allies. As a huge disclaimer, we know we are going to get this wrong. Please accept our apologies in advance as we fumble through asking the right questions. The best thing we feel we can do right now is learn and listen.
Deep Unconscious Bias
Donald and Jackie begin by talking about unconscious bias and how it naturally occurs to help our brain process life faster. When your brain makes shortcuts it also can make assumptions about people and things with zero information to base them off of. Look at most characters from film or comic books and you’ll see that we’ve been socialized to believe white is good and black is bad. It’s been built into our subconscious. Even the game of chess, which is made of black and white pieces, has the white pieces always moving first.
It was hard to hear Donald talk about living in America and loving a country that doesn’t always love him back. He has had so much success in his life—he is an Entrepreneur, CEO, Advisor, and Investor, yet he knows when he is behind the wheel of the car he’s just another black man. He believes that the next generation isn’t going to tolerate racism or other social inequalities by watching his daughter and the rest of Gen Z. To begin being a better ally, he advises broadening your network to be more diverse, giving yourself room to make mistakes, and always being open.
The Diversity Movement has put together lots of resources, books for children, our offers and upcoming events that promote allyship and make us all stronger together. You can also purchase their module on Unconscious Bias for only $19 with 100% of the proceeds will go to North Carolina organizations that support, educate and empower underserved and marginalized communities in our fight for equality. Learn more: https://thediversitymovement.com/what-can-i-do/
We hope you’ll listen to our discussion and hear the other ways we’ve made steps to listen and learn:
