Special Edition: MAKERS: Keep Going - Microaggressions and How to Stop Them

I want to give a special thanks to the Maker's conference sponsors, PNG, Price Waterhouse Coopers an official wellness sponsor Lulu Lemon. Now. We launched the Seneca Women podcast Network about a year ago with founding partner PNG and I Heart Radio with the goal of amplifying the voices of women around the world. You probably know that podcasting is a fast growing industry, with over fifty scent of podcast

audience being women. But what you may not know is that only twenty of top podcasts are hosted by women. We want to change that, so we are launching dozens of women focused and women led podcasts. So if you have a show where you want to collaborate on a show, reach out to us at info at Seneca Women dot com Now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our guest host for the Keep Going series, Amina Brown. Amina is a spoken word poet, author and host of the

podcast Her with Amina Brown on the Seneca Women Podcast Network. Amina, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Kim. I'm so excited to be the guest host of this special series and collaboration with Makers. And we have been doing some really good learning here and I hope that you have been following along with us. Today we're going to hear an excerpt from a talk given by Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and residence at Policy Link, and her topic micro aggressions.

The talk took place at Maker's conference, and I am still processing so much of what Angela is bringing to the table here. Following Angela's talk, I'll be joined by the amazing Vernet Myers. Berne is founder of the Verne Myers Company and Vice President Inclusion Strategy at Netflix. Bernee and I are going to discuss what we're hearing from Angela, and Vernet is going to give us some practical suggestions

that we can all bring back into the workplace. Here's Angela Glover Blackwell and I'll be back right after microaggressions. They stand in the way. They stand in the way every day, all the time, and we have some urgent business to attend to. I remember, years ago, many years ago, when I was first beginning to practice law, I joined a very prestigious public interest law firm. They didn't really hire people out of law school, but I had gotten a temporary job there right out of law school to

help to get ready for a tule. People were so excited about what I was bringing they quickly developed a program that would allow me to be able to join the firm. But as a fellow, I joined the fellowship program. It was their way to bring me in. But within six months they said, oh, just let that go, Just come be one of our partners. And I did. But there was a woman there who had been what they called legal secretary. Then I don't suspect they use that

language anymore. I have practiced law in twenty years. But she was smart as a whip. She understood the law, but she wasn't a lawyer. One day, I had gone to work, not expecting to have to go into court dressed very very casually, and something happened in my case was up and I had to go to court. Went into the women's room with a couple of other women who were there. Borrowed a skirt from somebody, got a blouse from somebody else, somebody else had a jacket. Looked

at myself. I looked pretty good, looked in the mirror and said, m does anybody have any lipstick? I think I need to add a little color. And this woman, who had smart as a whip, knew everything about the law, but not a lawyer white woman, said, I thought, that's why we brought you in. I was so taken aback. I mean I had been friendly with her, she had helped me out on a couple of cases, and I thought, not, she didn't hurt me. What she did is she exposed herself.

I thought, I didn't know you were in that kind of pain. I could see it, but I didn't know it. That was a long time ago for me. Lots of things have happened. As I thought of what story I was going to tell you, I had to flip through hundreds. Okay, but I lifted that one up because it was a clear example that it was really about her. It wasn't about me at all. But many women in my same position, black new attorney wondering how are you doing? Could have

been deeply wounded by it. We all know about these situations. I want you to just stop. Just take thirty seconds and turn to somebody and say, it happened to me. I heard about it. I was the one who miss stepped, misspoke. Just take a minute and bring this reality into this room, into all of our lives right now, just a few seconds. Turn to the person next to you. It took you a second, but you know what I'm talking about. You absolutely know what I'm talking about, and you also know

how to fix it. Oh my mind, this is gonna be a good conversation today. I am delighted to welcome Verne Meyer's vice president Inclusion Strategy at Netflix and founder of the Vernet Myers Company. Verne Welcome, Thank you, Anina, happy to be here with you. Okay, let's get into it, because the way my neck whipped around in the middle of Angela's story. Just now, Okay, let me start with this vernet for women specifically and BIPOC folks in general, how do you know when or if you should respond

or address a microaggression? Because we're not getting to hear an Angela's story if she addressed this woman directly. And I know I have had sometimes I've experienced a microaggression, and sometimes it almost stunted me, shocked me, I shouldn't say shocked really, but surprised me in a moment that I didn't know what to do, and sometimes I was afraid of how to respond depending on who did the microaggression.

What are your thoughts on that you? I was like out, So one of the things that I think you have to do is you have to do something. The most important thing is that we do not internalize these kinds of acts or behavior, because then we're the only ones in pain. I thought Angela was amazing by just saying, oh, I'm so sorry you're in so much pain. That is an evolved perspective. I think some of the smallest things you can do, because yes, that is sort of one

of the issues around micro necutives. They come from nowhere. They may even be unintentional, or they might be purposeful, but they have the impact as if someone purposely walked up to you and select your face basically, and so the only response is to register some response. Sometimes I might just say ouch. Sometimes it's about I just look at people or make us till or make a face. I learned this from my kid. My kid does things like awkward, that's just awkward, right, or sometimes people like,

oh no, you need to catch up on that. I don't think that's the right language, or you can so. So the main thing I want to say is that you don't have to go into a bigg you know workshop. This is something that I've learned. You basically need to register a response now when I say need to. If you can't in that moment, you can come back later and you can say maybe you don't want to be in the audience, maybe you're a little worried about repercussions.

You can still call a person and say hey, because in this case they work together, so she could like, you know what, after do you can we can we have a conversation. I was shocked when you said blah blah blah because I thought this or that. The upside of doing that, for example, is you might hear more from that person about what they meant. But the main reason why and I know some people say, look, I am too tired. I should not have to fix these people's ignorance. I totally get all of that, and yet

unless someone does it. And that's why we like allies, because if someone was in that ring and they heard that, that would have been an ally of ship move right there be like what did you just say? Sometimes all you have to do is ask a question, because ultimately you're not trying to teach the person. You're not trying

to do a workshop taking to school. What you're trying to do is you're trying to interrupt it so all the pain doesn't fall on you and so that person can take a beat and think about what they said. I love this advice. I love this advice because there is a middle ground right there where if you are the person that is receiving this microaggression, it's not on you. Two. Now open up your large briefcase of the workshop, all

of the education to this person. But there is a way you can respond so that you are not taking in sort of the stinger the dagger in this case. We gotta stop taking it in. We spend too much time taking in and it ruins us inside. It sometimes makes us bitter, It makes us um skeptical when we should be faithful. Um. We actually cut ourselves off from certain relationships because we haven't actually said to that person.

You know the way you talk about when you say things like you you're you've done so well, I mean especially as a mother. But you know, now with that fourth child, do you think you're gonna be able to do this? I mean feigning concern or maybe they really are concerned, but deeply on in artful and having gone to the bias workshop, right, But you have to be able to say because now here's the other thing. Sometimes

microrectis hit on our sore spot. For us, it is a sore spot because we're worried about it, or it's a source of spot because it's been said over and over again. So you feel like, Heaven, I proved myself, Yet I gotta keep proving myself over and over again. Or you at you're at the height of something and someone says something to take you down or not. I

had a friend who had just gotten the board. She had just started as the executive director of this nonprofit and she was being introduced to the full board and they shared her resume and as an introduction in all of her accolades, and then a she was black woman, a white man turned to her on the board and said, Wow, you've done a lot. If you've never if you never do another thing as a black girl, you should be happy. Oh right, doesn't it still hurt? Like you just gotta

pause on that. Now she's in front of her board, the whole board for the first time, she's taking on the e D role. What do you do in that situation? Because she said, like, my instinct was to say, you know, as a white guy, you really haven't achieved a lot. Okay, I don't love that, impressed with you, but she like, that's not I can't do that in that situation, and so she did nothing. And this is why we can

aunt continue this way because we swallowed too much. But it it then allows people to continue to make conversation, make comments like that, right, or going up to a trans person and asking them about their body. You never do that with assist person. Right, Somebody's got to say, why are you asking me that question again? Interrupt the bias.

If you go to touch our hair, someone needs to say, Like, if someone tries to put their hands on your hair, as a black woman or any other woman whose hair somehow people are fascinated by the texture, you need to say, I don't know but if you know that, but that's actually not allowed. When people commit these atrocities over and over again, you know, we call it micro, but it's

not micro. The impact isn't micro, right, The slight might be, but it's like the point about micro aggression or inequities is that they're happening over and over again, and they're happening with different people over and over again. M hm. So like, you know, my Asian colleagues from the US, people are constantly complimenting them on their English, and they're like, well, thank you, I grew up in Kansas. Appreciate the compliment. But that's how people are thinking of them farig in

different whatever. People don't have as much relationship and as much networking with people who are different from themselves, so they don't understand the impact what impact this has on people's ability to show up to like, believe, to like perform it. Sometimes people will say things to you. You You go back to your office, you waste a whole hour trying to figure out what the person said. Why would they have said something like that? What you did wrong?

Then some of us on the phone with our mothers and we're telling you know what, say that's a loss of energy. That's a loss of of of productivity. So the impact is big. We've got to get away from the innocence. No more innocence. Either you don't know and you open your heart to be told and see it as a gift, or you go and learn and spend some time trying to be empathetic and putting yourself in

the shoes of others. If someone had said that to you, someone's questioning your competency over and over again, how would that feel. Because most people don't want to do this intentionally. Some people do not gonna lie. Some people do, but a lot of this falls in the unintentional but nevertheless harmful space. Let me ask you one more follow up question here, because microaggressions is a thing we experience individually, which means it's also a thing that can be addressed individually.

But how out in the workplace For people who are listening that are in the C suite, they are in a position where they are overseeing quite a few people, you know, in a work team, how can you create an environment where microaggressions are either not welcome or where microaggressions can be more easily addressed. Because some of how microaggressions live is that we haven't really given the proper space in our work environment on how we address that.

So I wanted to close with getting just an answer

from you on that. So for right now where we are, it's not it's unlikely that you're not going to experience micro inequities because, like I said, a lot of people don't have heterogeneous kind of relationships and um exposure, So some people are gonna say the wrong thing, right, somebody is going to be surprised that the woman is in charge and and come in a room and still be looking around for the leader, right, and the person like I'm here, thank you very much, especially like the black

woman or whatever, the Latino you're like okay. So I don't even think it makes sense right now to for us to be like we're not we're going to eliminate all micro in equities because a lot of it is just how our brains work and bias, and like we're going through categories and schemas and we come up with the wrong thing. So what I think we need to do is have leaders who model the vulnerability around this.

Leaders step in it all the time. But how many leaders do we set do we see and they go, oh, man, I think I just used the wrong word. I think I just may have insulted someone. Let me change that right. That to watching a leader do that is powerful because what it means is that we're not after perfection, but we are perfecting and that is important for all of us. The other thing is absolutely workshops where you act, you get to break down what was the intent, what was

the impact? What can an ally do, what can an individual do? Who is the recipient of that UM comment or that act or behavior. It's only not only comments. It's not being asked your opinion. It's like never being called on. It's giving people furtive glances and weird sort of expressions when they speak. It's like complimenting people as if they didn't go and get their masters. Wow, that's really amazing. So there are so many things that happen. And basically, if you go to any group of people,

and that's another thing you can do. You can go to your e r g s. You can go to folks who you think UM are an underrepresented groups or historically UM excluded folks and say what are your pet peeves? What are the main things that you are hearing people say that, you would like people to no longer say. You can create a document around that, you can create a conversation around that. And as I said, all of us fall like us, none of us who've got it

all correct um. And so you might actually use your own experience with your teams to talk about what you've noticed and where you've tried to go and grow, because that gives the space. A lot of this is about, you know, and I appreciate the compassion and the kind of empathy that we need to create the environment we want. We're not there yet. We've got to give people good feedback. We've tried to do it without blame, shame, and attack.

We also need to accept that feedback and change. I don't want to hear like, oh I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, but you don't change, or you don't go read more about why you were misinformed about you know, people going, oh, you live in that neighborhood. Is that safe? Now you have just moved your entire family to that neighborhood from them from another state or country. Oh, I didn't know they had skyscrapers in that country. Really, right, They're just so many things that It's a community project,

is what I would say. This isn't about one person being better than another. I mean, some of us are much better because we've been in the we've been in the recipiency and so we know what we don't want to hear, and so we work on it. But we need more people to work on it. It will not come because you're good. I mean enough of the good people. We need people who really want to be their best selves. Yeah, Ferne, thank you so much for joining us. So much good stuff, y'all.

Thank you. Oh I wish I could spend more time. I super appreciate being here, Mina and take good care of yourself. Wow, Erne, thank you so much. Bernie shared so many excellent points with us. Let's review. Ask yourself three questions that can lead to a more equitable workplace. If you're on the receiving end of a microaggression, what conversations, boundaries, or self care practices do you need to ensure you

don't internalize microaggressions when they happen. If you are in leadership, how can you model the vulnerability it takes to admit where you are wrong when you have said or done the wrong thing? And accept feedback and accountability. And this is for any of us when you watch microaggressions happen, how can you demonstrate ally ship by using your voice and speaking up. I love what Verne reminded us of today that the work of diversity, equity and inclusion is

a community project. It's something we all can work on in our own lives, and that means there is something we can all do to make things better. So let's continue to learn together and let's continue to take action to make our workplaces are equitable. You're listening to Seneca's Conversations on Power and Purpose, brought to you by the Seneca Women podcast Network and I Heart Radio with support

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