November 4, 2025 • 58 mins
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What if the shortest path from fear to trust is a conversation you’ve been avoiding? Mary sits down with anti-racism educator and Interracial Sisterhood Coalition founder Karen Fleshman to explore how intentional, story-driven friendship across race can heal divides, strengthen workplaces, and change what power feels like between women. We begin with honesty—Mary naming her background, blind spots, and worries—and move into the systems that keep us apart: redlining and “greenlining,” segregated social networks, and the profit motive behind polarization. Karen shares her pivot from preparing young adults of color for the workplace to preparing workplaces for them, and why solidarity starts with empathy, consent, and practice.
Together we unpack how trauma shows up in the room—fawn, freeze, fight, flight—and how white women’s historical conditioning fuels silence and scarcity. Karen offers grounded guidance for receiving hard feedback without defensiveness, reducing emotional labor, and repairing when harm happens. We get practical about beginning interracial friendships: choosing opt-in spaces with clear community agreements, minding our energy and body language, sharing rather than interrogating, and letting connection grow at the speed of trust. Along the way, nature metaphors help us see the stakes: monocultures are fragile; diverse ecosystems—and diverse networks—are resilient, generous, and honest.
If you’re curious how to expand your circle without making it weird, this conversation gives you words, frameworks, and first steps. You’ll hear a fresh take on solidarity, an invitation to self-compassion as a strategy, and resources to go deeper, including retreats, a membership community, and reading that reframes history with clarity. If this moved you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review—we read every word and it helps more listeners find conversations that build courage and connection.
You can find Karen HERE.
Karen's LinkedIn
Books mentioned in the episode:
Erased: What American Patriarchy Has Hidden from Us - Anna Malaika Tubbs
Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation - Silvia Federici
Do you want to get fun perks and peeks inside my upcoming book, Nature Knows: Growing and Thriving through the Wisdom of Nature? Sign up for my Launch Team HERE.
Sign up for the launch team for my book, Nature Knows, and get free insider news and surprises at https://maryrothwell.net/natureknows
Comments about this episode? Suggestions for a future episode? Wanna be a guest? Email me directly at NSVpodcast@gmail.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mary (00:05):
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets.
I'm your host, Mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness, what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature, and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hey Violet, welcome to theshow.
I grew up in a rural whitetown.
Today, about 78% of thepopulation is white
non-Hispanic, which, to behonest, is surprising because I
(00:50):
would have thought it was closerto 90%.
I've worked in both a communitycollege setting and at the
second largest campus of a majoruniversity, Penn State.
At the latter, white studentswere the minority, yet when I
left, 100% of the counselingstaff was white, with the
exception of a blackadministrative assistant.
The staff and faculty ethnicityoverall did not reflect the
(01:12):
student body.
As a hiring manager at thecommunity college and a frequent
chairperson of searchcommittees at the Penn State
campus, I experienced the lackof applicants of color in every
search of which I was a part.
However, I didn't have theleverage or honestly the power
to push and find out more aboutwhy that was the case.
However, I did often need toaddress the imbalance with
(01:34):
students.
When I work with students ofcolor, often from inner cities
here in the US orinternationally, I put the fact
that I was a middle-aged whitewoman front and center of our
early discussions.
Students often responded withvisible relief from naming the
issue, or they responded withwariness.
For some, it took a long timeto not only untangle the impact
(01:55):
of racism and prejudice on thetherapy process for both of us,
but often from their livedexperience overall.
One time I had a black femalecoworker claim that none of us,
as the rest of the staff waswhite, should even bring up race
or ethnicity in ourconversations with students of
color.
I was both speechless andinwardly scrambling to figure
(02:18):
out what I had done to causethis claim.
We'll unpack more of that withmy guest today, I think, because
it created in me one of theissues that my guest so often
helps white women to address.
So anyway, the great thingabout Penn State was that an
education about diversity of alltypes was baked into training
for the counseling staff.
That did not change my worrythat I wouldn't inadvertently
(02:40):
say or do something that wasunintentionally hurtful or
prejudiced or just, well,clueless.
After having been away fromthis environment now for three
years, that feeling has onlyintensified.
So I'm looking forward to thisdiscussion with my guest today
with many emotions, chief amongthem humbleness and a bit of awe
for the path that my guest hastaken.
(03:01):
As I truly believe that life isa path we walk along a thousand
doors that swing open along theway, I believe this
conversation will be animportant doorway into learning
for me.
I hope it will serve to helpyou step more fully into your
own space or encourage you towalk through an unfamiliar door
that might swing open on yourown path.
Adjacent to that is a commontheme in many of my episodes,
(03:24):
how we as women are positionedby society to interact with each
other.
Is it support or is it from aplace of scarcity or
competition?
I believe the bond of femalefriendship is a force, and that
women, whether throughfriendship or any connection,
can empower each other in a waythat is itself uniquely
powerful.
My guest today is KarenFleshman.
(03:46):
Karen is the founder of theInterracial Sisterhood Coalition
and of Racy Conversations.
She is an anti-racism educatorand retreat facilitator,
community builder and single momand caregiver to her own mom.
She helps women heal racialdivides by facilitating
transformative conversations,interracial sisterhood retreats,
and workshops on race andgender dynamics.
(04:09):
She creates spaces for healing,trust building, and
collaboration, helping womenfoster authentic conversations
and solidarity acrossdifferences.
Welcome to No ShrinkingViolets, Karen.
Karen (04:21):
Thank you so much, Mary.
It's such a pleasure to meetyou and to be invited to your
show.
And thank you so much for thoseuh prefacing comments.
There's just so much going oninside my mind right now.
Mary (04:35):
Yeah, I think we have plenty to talk about today.
So I'm gonna start the way I dopretty much with every guest.
If you could talk first alittle about you, like what are
your flashball moments as youlook at your own history?
How do you think sort of yourissues or learning experiences
transpired to get you to whereyou are today in the work that
(04:57):
you do?
Karen (04:58):
Yes.
Well, similar to you, andsimilar, I would say, to the
vast majority of white people inthis country, I grew up in an
almost entirely white community.
The town I grew up in had beena sundown town.
And there were thousands ofsundown towns all throughout the
United States with theintentionally created all white
(05:21):
communities.
So um there was a sign on theoutskirts of town, welcome to
Loveland, a great place to raisea family.
And underneath it was ahand-painted sign that said, We
practice Jim Crow laws here.
So this was a way of um makingit clear that black people,
(05:42):
people of color, were welcome tocome into the town and work
during the day.
But by sundown, they had to beout.
They could not rent, they couldnot own a place, they could not
stay in a hotel overnight.
Um, and in addition to sundowntowns, there were other
intentionally created all-whitecommunities.
I would imagine perhaps thecommunity that you grew up in,
(06:05):
uh, which are red-lined andgreen-lined neighborhoods.
So we I think a lot of us arefamiliar with the concept of
redlining, where banks and thegovernment drew lines around
certain black uh people of colorneighborhoods and said, do not
make housing loans here, do notuh make business loans here.
(06:27):
But we're not as familiar withthe green lines they drew around
primarily white communities andsaid, yes, offer mortgages in
these places, sell homes inthese neighborhoods exclusively
to white people.
And I raise all this to saythat I think this intentionally
(06:48):
created residential andeducational segregation is a big
part of why everything you justsaid happens.
So, so coming back to my story,in my uh small town that was,
you know uh blonde, blue-eyed,Christian, like everybody went
(07:09):
to church on Sunday.
It was a very homogeneous town.
Came when I was 10 years old, afamily of refugees from the
former Soviet Union.
And they were the firstrefugees, you know, the first
Jewish people, the first umdifferent people um to come to
(07:31):
my elementary school.
Their daughter became my bestfriend, and that family just
opened me up to the wider world.
They were into jazz, they wereinto art, they were into travel
and nature and all this stuff.
And so they really inspired meto open myself to the wider
(07:55):
world, and it taught me howimportant it is to have
friendships with people who aredifferent from you.
And and I was also became anactivist at a very early age.
In in my town, um, conservativeparents tried to ban Judy Bloom
books, and I was like, oh, hellno, you know, and this was when
(08:17):
I was in sixth grade, and Iorganized on my um on my
elementary school playground.
I I collected signatures on apetition, and then I presented
the petition to the school boardwith an impassioned speech
about how important Judy Bloombooks were for our health and
(08:38):
well-being as as children.
And lo and behold, the schoolboard voted to keep the books on
the shelves.
And I and Judy Bloom sent me avery sweet letter.
The governor of Colorado sentme a letter.
It was just a really amazingexperience.
And I think also the victory atan early age was also a very
(09:02):
affirming experience.
Like I don't know if the schoolboard had said, no, we're
keeping, we're taking the booksaway, you know, would I have
still considered continued downthis path?
But from that, I became anactivist, you know, against
apartheid, against USinvolvement in Central America.
I'm talking about when I wasstill in high school, you know,
(09:24):
and then that set me on the pathmy whole life um toward
anti-racism.
And and it's um anotherinteresting aspect of my life is
that although I grew up in anall-white community, throughout
my career, I have through orthroughout my adult life, I've
(09:46):
lived in majority, globalmajority.
So I don't I don't like to usethe term minority.
Um the correct term RosemaryCampbell Stevens coined is
global majority.
Um, so um Austin, Texas, NewYork City, now San Francisco.
And I always worked inmajority, global majority
(10:10):
organizations.
So I was I had to learn how toshow up in an in an organization
where I was the minority.
Uh, and then I almost entirelyworked for women of color
leaders who were extraordinaryleaders, and they gave me very
(10:32):
direct feedback on the thingsthat I was doing well and the
areas of improvement.
And they also just role modeledfor me what it is to see the
humanity in every person, whatit is to deeply listen and
respect and honor people and beable to connect with people from
(10:53):
all different backgrounds allover the world.
And I am so lucky to have hadthose experiences.
And I also had the experience,the turning point for me when I
really wanted to go intoanti-racism was when I worked
for a workforce developmentorganization called Year Up.
(11:15):
And I was partnered with manyyoung adults of color to be
their mentors as they beganworking in corporate America.
And it's so interesting youraised Penn State because one of
our students, a brilliant,brilliant, brilliant uh young
woman from Puerto Rico, had goneto Penn State on a scholarship,
(11:39):
and someone had written racialslurs on her door.
Um her financial aid packagegot all messed up, and she wound
up having to leave Penn State,but still owing a lot of money
to the institution.
And she was extremely depressedbecause at a very early age she
(12:02):
had had this horribleexperience, and it was also, you
know, she was in a financialhole at this point, and just
listening to that story.
I had always been the highereducation for everybody person,
but I heard so many of thesestories of of young people of
(12:23):
color going to these uh highereducation institutions and
having terrible experiences, andit was through listening to
these stories that I realized Ineeded to stop preparing young
adults of color for theworkforce and start preparing
the workplace for young adultsof color.
(12:43):
And that's what motivated me togo in this direction.
And to your point aboutfriendship, I do believe the
interracial friendship,interracial uh exchanging of
stories, is how we get out ofthe situation that we're in
(13:06):
because they use the the peoplewho profit from racism and
patriarchy use stories to divideus and pit us against each
other and fill our heads withnonsense lies.
And we really need to, we haveso much more power because
(13:30):
there's so many more of us.
Um, but we need to havesolidarity with each other.
And I do believe thatsolidarity begins with empathy
and exchanging of stories.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah.
Karen (13:43):
So that's that's kind of a long, long-winded reply to
your well, okay.
Mary (13:49):
There's 3,000 threads I want to pull out of there.
Well, but and I think the onething, so that this is what I
found interesting on my journey.
And I am such a neophyte, likeI am so at the beginning of my
journey, even though I'm I'mpushing 60.
But I think, you know, I'vetalked to people about you
mentioned redlining, and I don'tthink many people do know what
that means because we're nottaught it.
(14:10):
That's the alternate version ofhistory.
So when I was talking tosomeone about this, and this was
probably two years ago, theresponse was that didn't happen.
And so I think this is whereit's very interesting.
One of the many interestingthings, and I'm going to use a
nature um analogy because I usenature all the time.
(14:33):
I feel like you're standing inthe forest, and all you see are
the trees.
You're so close to the trees,you only see the trees that look
like you.
But if you could somehowlevitate and look at the whole
ecosystem, you would be like, myGod, there's like a thousand
different kinds of trees.
And they all in nature actuallywork together and support each
(14:56):
other.
So we forget that.
But anyway, I think we justhave this very uh myopic view of
things.
And when it is somethinguncomfortable, I think, and I'm
gonna own this too.
I think the first thing islike, well, then I'm not gonna
look at it because, first ofall, how could anybody
intentionally do something thathurtful?
(15:17):
And so it's probably not true,but you keep looking in the face
of it.
Like you at a young age, Ithink we're able to say, wait a
minute, this is what's reallyhappening here.
I'm gonna call this out.
Karen (15:30):
Yeah, um, so many things.
And and I think that the reasonwhy white people want to look
away is because we haveintergenerational trauma too.
We we talk a lot about theintergenerational trauma that
(15:52):
people of the global majority,in particular uh people whose
ancestors uh were enslaved bywhite ancestors experience,
right?
Um but we don't talk as muchabout the secondary vicarious
trauma that we, the descendantsof the enslavers, experience.
(16:19):
And some people are like, oh,well, I didn't have anything to
do with slavery.
There was only a small group ofAmericans who were slave
owners.
Well, guess what?
All white Americansparticipated and benefited from
slavery in some way, whetherthey were in the north and they
were um employed in textiles oror uh slavery-related
(16:46):
industries, or whether they werein the south, where literally
every single white man had tospend several weeks or months of
the year on runaway slavepatrols in order to maintain the
whole system.
And all white people wereexpected to enforce the racial
(17:06):
hierarchy in every interaction,whether they owned enslaved
people or not.
And they also had to um policeand punish.
This was particularly thefunction of white women, and as
we learned from Stephanie JonesRogers' book, um, they were her
(17:27):
property, is to maintain controlof all the dynamics and report
any infraction to uh white mento to um to inflict violence.
So all of that causes us to betraumatized.
And that is something that we,of course, when we hear about
(17:49):
something, we don't, we wouldrather pass over it because it
was very painful to ourancestors to have done this.
It it affects them.
And whether they directly didit or they witnessed someone do
it, there was this uh demand ofwhite solidarity that you would
(18:14):
never defy this system.
And in fact, if you did defythis system, you would likely be
hanged or raped or some otherterrible violence inflicted upon
you.
And I'm not saying this tolegitimize um why more people
didn't defy the system, theycertainly should have.
(18:35):
And in every generation, therewas a handful of people who did.
I'm just trying to say why thisthing was so diabolically and
meticulously designed that therewas very little incentive for
people to do so.
And so it became like oursurvival mechanism to maintain
this.
(18:55):
And one of the things that'sbecome really clear to me is
that part of the reason we're inthis situation as women, is
that women of the globalmajority survival depended on
them getting as far away fromviolent white men as possible,
and white women's uh survivaldepended on our getting as close
(19:20):
as possible to violent whitemen.
And so that's why we have thesedifferent trauma responses,
right?
That that women of the globalmajority, not to not to
completely stereotype, but theydo have uh a trauma response
that's more aligned with fightor flight.
(19:41):
And white women's traumaresponse is more aligned with
fawn, um, fawn and flop.
And I'm trying to think of theother one.
Maybe freeze, yes, freeze, 100%freeze.
I'm actually freezing, tryingto think of your brain froze.
(20:02):
Exactly, exactly, and so we arepolarized, yeah.
Okay, and and then white womencontinue to inflict the violence
that our ancestors inflictedonto women of color in the
(20:23):
workplace, in the community, andother white women who see that
happening and are morallyopposed to it are frozen and and
unwilling to hold the whitewomen who are doing it to
account.
And this keeps happening andhappening and happening, and now
(20:45):
we you know, the United Stateswas determined to be the most
dangerous country for um forwomen uh by you know
international uh feminists andscholars of of what is going on.
We have the highest maternalmortality rates, we have the
(21:08):
highest rates of domesticviolence, we have all of these
things, right?
And I was blown away recentlyto learn that in Norway, I think
their maternal mortality ratelast year was zero.
It is possible, yeah, it doesnot have to be like this, but
(21:29):
it's so incredibly profitablefor a small group of people, and
it's becoming even moreprofitable today, right?
It's just unbelievable theamount of wealth that is being
accumulated in the hands of afew and how they keep us all
(21:50):
perpetuating this is by dividingus and making us hate each
other.
Mary (21:57):
Yeah, and I think that historical um information or
where where things sort of fit,I think it's important.
And, you know, I'm gonna againgo back to sort of the analogy
of the ecosystem that when youtalk about monocropping, which
is having one crop because youhave to spray and you have to
you do all these things, it isthe most unhealthy way to grow
(22:20):
food or you know, have a systembecause you're also killing all
of the beneficial pollinators.
And you know, I am totally aplant and a nature nerd.
But I think we so often don'tlook to nature.
So here's what I, you know, oneof the things that I would like
people listening to thinkabout.
If if you feel an in, so firstof all, this is not bashing
(22:41):
white people.
This is not a doing anythingabout, you know, this is better
than this, or it's this isinformational.
And I think if there is aninternal sense of like, wait a
minute, is this really true?
I would say be curious aboutthat because we all have a
history.
(23:01):
And when you really start tothink about, for instance,
epigenetic, epigenetics, likeour genetics are affected by the
experiences of our ancestors.
And it's not necessarily agenetic change physically, but
what epigenetics does is itkeeps us from expressing certain
(23:25):
parts of our genetic code.
So if that is more of this ideaof shrinking, and I'm gonna go
directly to no shrinkingviolets, women shrink to stay
safe, which is legitimate.
But I think it's also now whatyou're saying is you kind of
walked through this door to say,okay, this is gonna be
(23:46):
uncomfortable, but there's somuch growth that can happen
here.
So I want to talk a little bitabout you said in your workplace
that you were kind of informedabout some things, like Karen,
maybe you want to think aboutthis, or you know, it sounds
like you had some really honestconversations with coworkers or
(24:06):
supervisors.
What was that like for you?
Because I alluded to asituation where, you know,
something happened in theworkplace and I reacted sort of,
I was stunned.
Like there's that freezereaction.
I was like, what is going on?
So how did you navigate that?
Karen (24:24):
Well, I I tried to listen, you know, I I made
myself open.
Now there weren't I I'm nottrying to say every single time.
There were times when thingshappened that I was literally
could not believe what washappening.
You know, it took me a beat.
(24:45):
And and um even now I talkabout how I've experienced
sexual harassment, wage gap, uhglass ceiling from white men in
the workplace.
But by far the mostpsychologically harmful behavior
I experienced in the workplacecame from white women who
(25:08):
perceive me as a threat to theirproximity to the white men in
power.
And they would reach out to meas like mentors and friends and
confidants and try to get me toopen up about things, and then
they would take things I toldthem that I thought was in
confidence and use it to squishme like a little bug.
(25:29):
Okay.
My experience with the women ofcolor leaders who I reported to
was very different, verydifferent.
They really saw in me someonewho could be developed into
someone better, and that was thethat was their approach to me.
(25:52):
Um, they wanted me to um togrow and they gave me tons of
opportunities.
I mean, that literally up untillike 2014, every job I had was
because a a woman of colorreached out to me and said, I
want you to come work here, orthey're opening up a position
(26:15):
here and you should go, youshould go do this.
Literally every single job Ihad.
I did not apply for jobs, I wasrecommended and recruited in.
Um, so they saw in me someone,you know, who could be
developed, let's say.
And they remain my mostincredible mentors, and and um,
(26:39):
I'm just so lucky that I gotexposed to all of that.
But I think it's reallyimportant when we receive
feedback, even feedback that'sextremely hard to hear, that we
receive it with grace.
And the most important words tosay when someone gives you
(26:59):
feedback is thank you.
Okay, because that is already asign of trust that they even
shared that feedback with youand did not withhold it from
you, okay?
Because that shows that theyknow that they can give you that
feedback without youretaliating or or um escalating.
(27:20):
Okay.
But then you need to reallybreak down the feedback.
And I don't I don't think it'sa good idea to ask the people
who gave you the feedback toeducate you about why that
feedback was given, at least notinitially.
If you don't understand thefeedback, I highly recommend
(27:41):
going to other people who are ina similar position to you who
are further along in theirjourney to help you understand
why that feedback was given.
Now, you may want to go back tothe person who gave you the
feedback and say, hey, I've beendoing a lot of um unpacking of
(28:02):
what you said to me, and becauseI really want to understand it.
And this is what I have, I havesort of uncovered through that.
And I I just wanted to sharethat with you because I would
love, I welcome your feedback.
Is this what was underlyingwhat you were saying, or is it
(28:22):
something else, right?
So you don't want to put them,you don't want to make them do
that emotional labor or put themin a position where they feel
like you're asking them to givethat emotional labor unless you
yourself are are doing that.
And always, of course, givethem the option.
If you don't want to respond tothis, I completely respect that
(28:43):
and I totally understand.
But I'm just I really do wantto improve and I really want to
understand what you were saying.
Um, and so that's why I'masking you if that makes sense.
And it's also important to knowthat people, the global
majority, are not a monolitheither, right?
(29:04):
What one person's experience,viewpoint, etc., is maybe very
different from someone else's.
But I think it's extremelyimportant to read, to follow the
many black women, anti-racismeducators, authors, organizers,
(29:28):
really read and follow and readtheir books and follow them on
social media and listen to whatthey are saying.
Um, go to hear them when theytalk, you know, buy them a
coffee, do all you can tosupport their work, go go to
their workshops, etc.
Um, because those are the folkswho can really help you
(29:52):
understand what is going on,what is going on in the ways
that we need to change.
Mary (29:57):
Yeah.
And I want to go back to Thisidea of emotional labor, because
I think that may also sort ofbe a new term.
So when we want to have thesedeeper connections, we really
want to be authentic, we reallywant to open those lines of
communication, which is a lot ofthe work that you do.
Explain a little bit howsomeone can start.
Because I think there's fear,and I think there's also this
(30:20):
idea of, well, you have anopinion.
So tell me your opinion andtell me why.
And we want to start to minethat as the um we go on the
offense.
You know, like tell me, here'swhat I want to know.
And I think you're talkingabout that's what the emotional
labor is, right?
Putting someone in a positionto be your teacher.
(30:41):
So I think that can create thissort of um uncertainty.
Like, well, how am I supposedto start this if I have to be
careful about what I'm asking ofsomeone?
Karen (30:53):
Yeah, yeah.
That's a that's a very goodquestion.
Well, this is literally why Icreated the interracial
sisterhood coalition, because Isaw there was a need for an
opt-in, safe, generative spaceoutside of the workplace for us
(31:13):
to begin to listen to eachother's stories.
So no one has to be there.
You only come if you're open toit, if you are a willing
participant, if you see thepower of um interracial
sisterhood and solidarity, andyou want to support that.
(31:36):
Okay.
So how do we begin to bridgethat divide?
And it's so important too,because we are very socially
isolated from each other.
So the social science researchtells us that uh on average,
(31:56):
white Americans' social networksare 90% white.
I'm talking about our ourfriendship um social network,
90% white, and 67% of whiteAmericans' friendship network is
100% white.
So that means we're onlyhearing the stories of other
(32:18):
white people, we're onlyexchanging our social capital
with other white people, andthat is harming everybody
because when I say socialcapital, I'm talking about job
leads, I'm talking about uminvestment opportunities or
where to send your kids toschool.
All those types ofconversations were only
(32:41):
exchanging with other whitepeople.
So I think there is anincentive um to have these
conversations for all partiesbecause we could all benefit
from having more raciallyintegrated social circles.
Um that's what I would say agood place to start is in a
(33:05):
place like the InterracialSisterhood Coalition where
everyone comes to it becausethey want to be there.
They're open to theconversation, and we create an
environment where people canshare their stories and listen
to each other and ask questions,and we do role plays and we we
(33:27):
figure things out so that we cango forward better together.
We also break down, you know,what happens in interracial
interactions that cause themfrequently to leave both parties
feeling terrible and what whitepeople can do in those
interactions because we have themost power to determine the
(33:50):
outcome of the interaction, toput our best selves forward in
these interactions so that theydon't derail.
Now, that does not mean thatsometimes at the interracial
sisterhood coalition events thatsparks don't fly, you know, it
they do, but when they do, westay in the room and we work
(34:14):
through that together, and thatis also something that we need
to learn how to do is how torepair when something goes
wrong, and that's exactly thework that we do.
I truly believe thatinterracial friendship is a huge
(34:36):
part of the solution.
But if you Google the wordsinterracial, there's all these
resources for interracialdating, interracial families,
interracial marriages, blah,blah, blah.
There's there's nothing aboutinterracial friendship.
Um, and that is that is thespace that the interracial
(34:58):
sisterhood coalition occupies.
Mary (35:02):
Yeah.
Well, and it's interesting toothat we put so much effort into
working out um relationshipswith like a heterosexual
relationship, you know, and andI think sometimes I feel like
men just think differently, butwe spend so much energy on that
(35:22):
trying to understand like what'sthe difference is, or
regardless, it could be asame-sex uh partnership.
Everyone is different, but andwe spend a lot of time and
invest a lot of time into, youknow, trying to maintain that
and understand where someoneelse is coming from and
adjusting our behavior if weneed to and being a better
(35:45):
partner.
And I would say, what if webrought that spirit to trying to
connect to people that we likewe sort of see them as different
than us, you know?
What would that, how would thatchange?
Because I know for me, likesometimes I think about even if
you just look at different typesof food from different
(36:05):
countries and the awesomeness ofexperiencing all of those
flavors.
And, you know, even when I didwork at Penn State, and I will
go back to your comment frombefore, it was not a perfect
institution.
I mean, I saw situations ofsexual assault that the response
to that dragged on and on andon and on.
And, you know, so there, Ithink in any huge institution
(36:27):
like that, there's going to be,you know, issues that's just
like even with you said in yoursisterhood coalition, there can
be conflict.
And it's really like, how do weimprove that?
But I think trying to go intospaces that are going to enrich
us.
And I know there are peoplelistening thinking, I don't need
to do this.
I'm happy with my friendships.
(36:47):
I'm happy with, but for thepeople that are thinking, okay,
I want to expand in this way,and maybe the Interracial
Sisterhood Coalition, maybe thatis, they see that as a bridge
way, way too far at this point.
How would you suggest someonestarts to gain some comfort in
going into spaces where they arenot the majority?
Karen (37:14):
Great question.
Because it is true that whitepeople, we are gonna have to be
the ones to initiate becausepeople of the global majority
are not gonna come seeking usout to be their friends.
Okay.
Uh so, and I am someone who hasa very racially diverse
(37:36):
friendship network, and I havebeen the one to initiate those
friendships by putting myself ina space where those friendships
can get started.
So, for example, going on hikeswith the black hiking group or
(37:58):
going to a black professionalnetwork uh event, et cetera, et
cetera.
Now, when I enter these spaces,I have to be very mindful of my
energy, right?
Because people think thatracism is about racial slurs or
(38:19):
or things like that.
But so much of racism is aboutbody language, it's about facial
expressions, um, the overallenergy you bring to the space.
So I would not recommend doingthis unless and until you have
worked on some of those elementsand you can be your nervous
(38:42):
system can be totally calm andyou're not too overly eager, and
you're just, you know, a calm,kind, accountable, relational,
respectful person.
Um, and then I would seek thoseopportunities out.
And maybe you're maybe you'remore of a um introverted person,
(39:05):
and the idea of going to anetworking event or even a hike
where you don't know anyone isextremely overwhelming.
Uh, then I would say just thinkabout who do you know from your
daily life?
Maybe it is someone in yourworkplace or someone in your
house of worship or whateverthat you see on a regular basis,
(39:28):
but you've never really had ameaningful conversation with.
Ask that person, hey, could wecould we get coffee sometime?
I'd just like to get to knowyou a little better and see how
they respond.
Um, and from there, I think wecan start to build a bigger
social network.
The other thing is is obviouslysocial media.
(39:50):
I mean, social media isterrible in many ways because I
believe these tech companies aredefinitely profiting off of
division and trying to designthe algorithm so that we would
be in conflict with each other.
And it is also super useful tomeet people that you otherwise
(40:11):
would not have met by findingpeople who share common
interests.
So maybe you've met someoneonline.
Um, and you can just say, hey,would you be open to having a
virtual coffee sometime?
Or I'm gonna be in your city.
Could we maybe get together andgo for a walk, whatever the
(40:32):
case may be?
But you're gonna have to be theone to initiate, mind your
energy, don't interrogate, youknow, just let the conversation
flow and and don't beextractive, just let the
conversation flow.
And I can tell you so manyfunny stories ranging from my um
(40:54):
one of my closest friends andcollaborators, Colette Lucky,
who I met on a black hikinggroup excursion, and it was a
long hike.
I think it was like, I don'tknow, it was like six miles in,
six miles out.
And we we started talking veryearly on, you know, we had just
(41:15):
so much to talk about, and wewere having this great
conversation, and then we werewe were on the way back out like
hours later, and she wasliterally like, Hey, well, you
know, we're almost to theparking lot.
You better go find the peopleyou came here with.
And I was like, What do youmean the people I came here
with?
And she's like, Well, this is ablack hiking group.
(41:39):
You better go the whole time.
She thought that I had beenwith other white people just
hiking, and like somehow I gotbroken off from them, and then I
found her somehow, and westarted talking with each other,
and that caused me to getdistracted from being with the
(42:00):
being with my group, and I waslike, this is my group.
I came here to be part of thisgroup, and she thinks that story
is so funny because she herselfis an anti-biased educator,
right?
So she's like, it really showedme how I have biases too.
You know, we all we all do havebiases, yeah.
Mary (42:21):
And so I would say, you know, stay curious, which I
think that this really comesfrom a place of curiosity and
open, like try openness.
Picture yourself being open.
And there will be things that Ithink are uncomfortable and
being able to sit with that inthe sense of like you're growing
from that.
Like anytime you travel rightto another country.
(42:42):
I remember the first time Iwent to Italy and I went with an
educational group.
So there was this whole list ofthings.
Like, you know, there's nolines in Italy, like somebody's
gonna push in front of you andorder the coffee if you're not
getting up there and ordering.
And that's not rudeness in thatculture.
And I think, you know, we wouldinterpret it through our lens.
Look how rude these Italiansare.
(43:04):
It's like, no, you don't, likethat's just how it works.
Or you go into a store and youdon't touch the clothing.
There's different just culturalthings.
And I think you get expanded somuch by having those
experiences.
It also helps our brain, by theway, because it's new neural
pathways.
But I think anything that we donew like this, it's going,
(43:27):
there's going to be fear becauseI think, and I'll circle back
to this idea of how women weresocialized.
A lot of us, as the pleasers,as the connectors, we're worried
we're gonna offend someone,we're gonna say something wrong,
we're gonna be embarrassed,we're gonna embarrass someone
else.
So before we even open ourmouths, there is all of this
stuff.
And I will remember, I rememberwhen I was, I was pretty young.
(43:49):
It's one of my first jobs.
And I said something to one ofthe women about her hair.
And later somebody, it was ablack woman, and later somebody
said, You don't ever talk abouta black woman's hair.
And I'm like, what ishappening?
Like, I don't.
So there's also sort of theseideas that people put out there
where you don't know, like, isthat really true?
And so then I felt like, ohgosh, do I address this?
(44:11):
So I think there are so manythings along the way that when
we run up against a situationwhere we feel like we did
something wrong, then we want tofold in and be like, I'm not
even gonna go there.
And so that just deepens thedivide, regardless of all the
history and all of this stuffthat we talked about in the
(44:32):
beginning.
I think anytime there's adifference, that can then become
an excuse to not engage becauseit's safer to stay small and
just put that to the side.
Karen (44:45):
Yeah, yeah.
It's interesting about the hairthing.
Um, I think it's totally fineto say, oh my gosh, you look so
beautiful.
I love your hair like that.
It's very different to be like,oh, your hair looks totally
different.
Is that your real hair?
How did you do that?
(45:06):
Like, don't interrogate people.
Yeah.
Mary (45:09):
Right, right, right, which I didn't, but I think it was
still that idea of like, there'shere's the thing, I don't have
the playbook.
Like, we think we know this ishow we interact.
It's again, it's like going toanother country.
There's stuff you don't know.
And I think when you step in itand you're like, oh shit, like
I didn't know that, then you'resort of like, what do I do with
(45:32):
this?
So I think it's reallyimportant to just keep that
openness of like, okay, I hearthat, I'm gonna file that away,
but I'm not gonna use it as anexcuse to put a barrier up and
stay small and stay safe and notventure into that part of the
world because it was toouncomfortable.
Karen (45:55):
I love that.
That is so important.
And going back to the exampleof visiting Italy, this is what
Audre Lourde taught us.
Like we are going to have toteach ourselves patterns of
relating across differences asequals because nobody role
models for us what that is.
(46:17):
We are gonna have to be theones to initiate those neural
pathways.
And it is gonna be awkward, butwe've only ever seen in society
this hierarchical good, badbinary of like this way of
behaving, this way of being inthe world is good and that way
is bad.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yep.
Karen (46:37):
But what is it like if I have one worldview and cultural
practices and this person hastheir worldview and cultural
practices, what is it like forus to see each other as equals,
even though we have verydifferent um underlying beliefs?
And I do want to go back totalk a little bit about the
(47:02):
intergenerational trauma ofwhite women in particular and
why it relates to what you'resaying about the silencing, why
we don't speak out.
So my mentors, several of mymentors were like, Karen, you
really need to go back and learnabout the history of white
women.
And I was so resistant to thatidea.
(47:24):
I was like, white women, we arethe oppressors.
I don't want to know anythingabout white women, I want to
learn more about you, I want tolearn more about women of the
global majority and all thisstuff.
And they're like, listen, youreally need to do this.
So when so many people tell youthe same thing, you start to be
like, oh, perhaps I should dothis.
(47:47):
And when I went back andstudied the history of white
women in Europe and how, youknow, before capitalism, we had
collective power.
We had, you know, we tendedcrops together, we tended
(48:07):
animals together, there wasn'tthis idea of monogamy, you know,
it was much more free-spirited,and we had we held power as
healers and as midwives, as alemakers, as faith leaders, etc.
And so then when they werelike, okay, now you all have to
(48:32):
be sharecroppers, and you eachhave to be on your own little
parcel of land, and you gottagive almost everything you raise
to the Lord who ownseverything.
And oh, by the way, men aresuperior to women, and um, you
gotta get married, and you gottastay with one person in your
(48:52):
little isolated abode.
The women who were like, Uh, Idon't want that, I reject that.
I want to go back to the oldways, they called them witches,
and in a very public spectacleof violence, they would parade
them through the town.
Sometimes they were naked, andhumiliate them, either by
(49:15):
dunking them in waterrepeatedly, or by putting a um
metal clamp on their tongue anda whole mask on their face to
prevent them from talking, or toburn them at the stake as
witches, like throw them in thewater, and if they drowned, they
(49:36):
weren't a witch, and if theyfloated, they were a witch, and
then they could be burned at thestake, and they would put their
children in the front row towatch them burn.
So think about what that did,and the entire town would
participate in these displays ofviolence.
So again, it was if you speakout, if you disrupt, this is
(50:02):
what will happen to you.
Instead, we want everyone tocome out and cheer.
We want you to point fingers ather and make her, she is the
bad one, we are the good one, wethe violent ones are the good
one.
And you want to be part of thegood ones to in order that you
(50:24):
be spared of violence.
Come with us, which isabsolutely absurd on its face,
but I believe those samedynamics are exactly what is
happening in the workplace andin the community today.
You be the whistleblower, youare the bad one.
You do anything to contradictthe dominant power, you are the
(50:49):
bad one.
You are the pariah.
Don't be like her.
Mary (50:54):
Yeah, I think it's fear versus love.
And we think hate versus love,but it really either you're
functioning from a place of fearin the world or you're
functioning from a place oflove.
And that love is yourself,loving yourself, loving the
world, loving other people, justloving the idea of connection
to other people, or you allowfear to be your driver.
(51:16):
And I think starting to thinkin terms of that.
And the other thing is, and toto wrap it up, I'm gonna bring
it back to nature.
If you look not only athistory, like you're talking
about, and I would challengepeople that internally might
feel like, wait a minute, thatdoesn't sound that sounds like
that might not be fully true.
Do your research and find out.
(51:36):
But I think the other thing isif you look at nature, the power
of the female in nature.
So I like to talk about honeybees.
So in the honeybee world, thefemales are the workers.
They gather the pollen, theymake the honey.
They, of course, there's aqueen and they tend all the
female bees.
The female bees then mate withthe males, which are called
(51:58):
drones, and then they kick themout of the hive.
So I'm not saying we do that,but I think if you look at the
power of the female in theworld, in nature, I think that
gives you an idea of, you know,the power that I believe women
have to be connectors and ofcourse bring life and nurture
(52:20):
and all of these things that wesometimes I think paint as a
weakness are actuallytremendously strong.
And so I would say, you know,do one thing this week that's
gonna connect you to your femaleenergy, to other females, to
maybe if you're gonna make aquick judgment on social media,
(52:43):
just let someone be who theyare, like be that, let them be
that person.
We don't have to agree witheach other, but I think we all
can connect to this idea of atthe core, we have the female
energy and we just want to beconnected to something and
belong to something.
And so I think if we can openourselves up to more of that
(53:07):
connection, the world issupposed to be diverse, that
anything that is mono anythingis typically the beginning of
the end for it, because you haveto then, you know, support it
with things that are not nature.
So that's kind of my checkpoint.
You know, I sort of look at,well, how does nature handle
this?
And I think when we feel thatfear of something diverse or
(53:31):
something different, open yourheart and be curious because I
think that's the way theconnection happens.
Karen (53:37):
Yes, I love that so much, Mary.
And I would add two books Ihighly recommend everyone read:
The Caliban and the Witch bySilvia Federici, Italian Marxist
uh feminist historian, andErased, What American Patriarchy
Has Hidden From Us by Dr.
(53:59):
Anna Malaika Tubbs.
These will help you to reallyunderstand the dynamics that um
I've been talking about.
And um, and I love the idea ofnature and the diversity within
nature and all of that.
So, so deeply, deeplyinspiring.
(54:20):
And that desire to connect.
So when you feel threatened byanother woman, just take a beat
and ask yourself, why am Ifeeling threatened by her?
And and come back to that placeof self-compassion.
That is what we work on in mywork with white women, is the
(54:41):
compassion for the self is thefoundation for our compassion
for others.
And when we feel good andstrong about ourselves, that is
how we're we're not threatenedby other people.
We don't we don't fear thembecause we feel good and
(55:03):
confident right now.
Mary (55:05):
So let's end with having you remind us where people can
find you to connect.
Karen (55:11):
Yes.
So you can come to InterracialSisterhood Coalition.com.
Um, you can download our guide,subscribe to our YouTube
channel, um, learn about ourupcoming retreats, um, join our
online membership community.
We have a very robustinterracial sisterhood
(55:35):
coalition, um, online membershipthat is not on social media.
So we, you know, vet who is inthere, we have community
agreements, and it's really aplace where we can come together
and um and learn about eachother and have a lot of fun um
(55:55):
in a place that is safe andgenerative.
And I also have a uh cohort forwhite women.
I do small group coaching forgroups of white women.
And if anything I said todaysparked something in you, I
encourage you to join our nextcohort.
It's called BecomingTrustworthy.
And you can learn about that atInterracial Sisterhood
(56:18):
Coalition.com.
And my main social media isLinkedIn.
So find me on there at KarenFleshman.
Mary (56:26):
All right, and I'm gonna link all that.
I will also um put the booksthat you mentioned into the show
notes so that everything isthere that anybody wants to dig
into anything.
So thank you, Karen, so muchfor taking the time to be here.
What a great conversation!
Karen (56:40):
Yes, thank you so much, Mary, and for all you're doing
to bring healing and growth inthis world.
I really appreciate thisopportunity to speak with you
and your wonderful questions.
Mary (56:54):
And I want to thank everyone for listening.
I would love to call on y'allto help me out with something.
My first book draft is gettingprepped to go to the editor.
So if you would like to be amember of my launch team,
basically you'll get thephysical book it costs six weeks
before it's officially in theworld, plus some super secret
insights and maybe an audiosnippet of the book and a couple
(57:15):
freebies.
Simply click on the link in theshow notes to sign up.
This does not obligate you fora thing.
You'll only get emails relatedto my book launch unless you
want to opt in for my weeklyemails.
I would love to have you on myteam.
And until next time, go outinto the world and be the
amazing, resilient, vibrant,violet that you are.
Welcome to No Shrinking Violets.
I'm your host, Mary Rothwell,licensed therapist and certified
integrative mental healthpractitioner.
I've created a space where wecelebrate the intuition and
power of women who want to breakfree from limiting narratives.
We'll explore all realms ofwellness, what it means to take
up space unapologetically, andhow your essential nature is key
(00:28):
to living life on your terms.
It's time to own your space,trust your nature, and flourish.
Let's dive in.
Hey Violet, welcome to theshow.
I grew up in a rural whitetown.
Today, about 78% of thepopulation is white
non-Hispanic, which, to behonest, is surprising because I
(00:50):
would have thought it was closerto 90%.
I've worked in both a communitycollege setting and at the
second largest campus of a majoruniversity, Penn State.
At the latter, white studentswere the minority, yet when I
left, 100% of the counselingstaff was white, with the
exception of a blackadministrative assistant.
The staff and faculty ethnicityoverall did not reflect the
(01:12):
student body.
As a hiring manager at thecommunity college and a frequent
chairperson of searchcommittees at the Penn State
campus, I experienced the lackof applicants of color in every
search of which I was a part.
However, I didn't have theleverage or honestly the power
to push and find out more aboutwhy that was the case.
However, I did often need toaddress the imbalance with
(01:34):
students.
When I work with students ofcolor, often from inner cities
here in the US orinternationally, I put the fact
that I was a middle-aged whitewoman front and center of our
early discussions.
Students often responded withvisible relief from naming the
issue, or they responded withwariness.
For some, it took a long timeto not only untangle the impact
(01:55):
of racism and prejudice on thetherapy process for both of us,
but often from their livedexperience overall.
One time I had a black femalecoworker claim that none of us,
as the rest of the staff waswhite, should even bring up race
or ethnicity in ourconversations with students of
color.
I was both speechless andinwardly scrambling to figure
(02:18):
out what I had done to causethis claim.
We'll unpack more of that withmy guest today, I think, because
it created in me one of theissues that my guest so often
helps white women to address.
So anyway, the great thingabout Penn State was that an
education about diversity of alltypes was baked into training
for the counseling staff.
That did not change my worrythat I wouldn't inadvertently
(02:40):
say or do something that wasunintentionally hurtful or
prejudiced or just, well,clueless.
After having been away fromthis environment now for three
years, that feeling has onlyintensified.
So I'm looking forward to thisdiscussion with my guest today
with many emotions, chief amongthem humbleness and a bit of awe
for the path that my guest hastaken.
(03:01):
As I truly believe that life isa path we walk along a thousand
doors that swing open along theway, I believe this
conversation will be animportant doorway into learning
for me.
I hope it will serve to helpyou step more fully into your
own space or encourage you towalk through an unfamiliar door
that might swing open on yourown path.
Adjacent to that is a commontheme in many of my episodes,
(03:24):
how we as women are positionedby society to interact with each
other.
Is it support or is it from aplace of scarcity or
competition?
I believe the bond of femalefriendship is a force, and that
women, whether throughfriendship or any connection,
can empower each other in a waythat is itself uniquely
powerful.
My guest today is KarenFleshman.
(03:46):
Karen is the founder of theInterracial Sisterhood Coalition
and of Racy Conversations.
She is an anti-racism educatorand retreat facilitator,
community builder and single momand caregiver to her own mom.
She helps women heal racialdivides by facilitating
transformative conversations,interracial sisterhood retreats,
and workshops on race andgender dynamics.
(04:09):
She creates spaces for healing,trust building, and
collaboration, helping womenfoster authentic conversations
and solidarity acrossdifferences.
Welcome to No ShrinkingViolets, Karen.
Karen (04:21):
Thank you so much, Mary.
It's such a pleasure to meetyou and to be invited to your
show.
And thank you so much for thoseuh prefacing comments.
There's just so much going oninside my mind right now.
Mary (04:35):
Yeah, I think we have plenty to talk about today.
So I'm gonna start the way I dopretty much with every guest.
If you could talk first alittle about you, like what are
your flashball moments as youlook at your own history?
How do you think sort of yourissues or learning experiences
transpired to get you to whereyou are today in the work that
(04:57):
you do?
Karen (04:58):
Yes.
Well, similar to you, andsimilar, I would say, to the
vast majority of white people inthis country, I grew up in an
almost entirely white community.
The town I grew up in had beena sundown town.
And there were thousands ofsundown towns all throughout the
United States with theintentionally created all white
(05:21):
communities.
So um there was a sign on theoutskirts of town, welcome to
Loveland, a great place to raisea family.
And underneath it was ahand-painted sign that said, We
practice Jim Crow laws here.
So this was a way of um makingit clear that black people,
(05:42):
people of color, were welcome tocome into the town and work
during the day.
But by sundown, they had to beout.
They could not rent, they couldnot own a place, they could not
stay in a hotel overnight.
Um, and in addition to sundowntowns, there were other
intentionally created all-whitecommunities.
I would imagine perhaps thecommunity that you grew up in,
(06:05):
uh, which are red-lined andgreen-lined neighborhoods.
So we I think a lot of us arefamiliar with the concept of
redlining, where banks and thegovernment drew lines around
certain black uh people of colorneighborhoods and said, do not
make housing loans here, do notuh make business loans here.
(06:27):
But we're not as familiar withthe green lines they drew around
primarily white communities andsaid, yes, offer mortgages in
these places, sell homes inthese neighborhoods exclusively
to white people.
And I raise all this to saythat I think this intentionally
(06:48):
created residential andeducational segregation is a big
part of why everything you justsaid happens.
So, so coming back to my story,in my uh small town that was,
you know uh blonde, blue-eyed,Christian, like everybody went
(07:09):
to church on Sunday.
It was a very homogeneous town.
Came when I was 10 years old, afamily of refugees from the
former Soviet Union.
And they were the firstrefugees, you know, the first
Jewish people, the first umdifferent people um to come to
(07:31):
my elementary school.
Their daughter became my bestfriend, and that family just
opened me up to the wider world.
They were into jazz, they wereinto art, they were into travel
and nature and all this stuff.
And so they really inspired meto open myself to the wider
(07:55):
world, and it taught me howimportant it is to have
friendships with people who aredifferent from you.
And and I was also became anactivist at a very early age.
In in my town, um, conservativeparents tried to ban Judy Bloom
books, and I was like, oh, hellno, you know, and this was when
(08:17):
I was in sixth grade, and Iorganized on my um on my
elementary school playground.
I I collected signatures on apetition, and then I presented
the petition to the school boardwith an impassioned speech
about how important Judy Bloombooks were for our health and
(08:38):
well-being as as children.
And lo and behold, the schoolboard voted to keep the books on
the shelves.
And I and Judy Bloom sent me avery sweet letter.
The governor of Colorado sentme a letter.
It was just a really amazingexperience.
And I think also the victory atan early age was also a very
(09:02):
affirming experience.
Like I don't know if the schoolboard had said, no, we're
keeping, we're taking the booksaway, you know, would I have
still considered continued downthis path?
But from that, I became anactivist, you know, against
apartheid, against USinvolvement in Central America.
I'm talking about when I wasstill in high school, you know,
(09:24):
and then that set me on the pathmy whole life um toward
anti-racism.
And and it's um anotherinteresting aspect of my life is
that although I grew up in anall-white community, throughout
my career, I have through orthroughout my adult life, I've
(09:46):
lived in majority, globalmajority.
So I don't I don't like to usethe term minority.
Um the correct term RosemaryCampbell Stevens coined is
global majority.
Um, so um Austin, Texas, NewYork City, now San Francisco.
And I always worked inmajority, global majority
(10:10):
organizations.
So I was I had to learn how toshow up in an in an organization
where I was the minority.
Uh, and then I almost entirelyworked for women of color
leaders who were extraordinaryleaders, and they gave me very
(10:32):
direct feedback on the thingsthat I was doing well and the
areas of improvement.
And they also just role modeledfor me what it is to see the
humanity in every person, whatit is to deeply listen and
respect and honor people and beable to connect with people from
(10:53):
all different backgrounds allover the world.
And I am so lucky to have hadthose experiences.
And I also had the experience,the turning point for me when I
really wanted to go intoanti-racism was when I worked
for a workforce developmentorganization called Year Up.
(11:15):
And I was partnered with manyyoung adults of color to be
their mentors as they beganworking in corporate America.
And it's so interesting youraised Penn State because one of
our students, a brilliant,brilliant, brilliant uh young
woman from Puerto Rico, had goneto Penn State on a scholarship,
(11:39):
and someone had written racialslurs on her door.
Um her financial aid packagegot all messed up, and she wound
up having to leave Penn State,but still owing a lot of money
to the institution.
And she was extremely depressedbecause at a very early age she
(12:02):
had had this horribleexperience, and it was also, you
know, she was in a financialhole at this point, and just
listening to that story.
I had always been the highereducation for everybody person,
but I heard so many of thesestories of of young people of
(12:23):
color going to these uh highereducation institutions and
having terrible experiences, andit was through listening to
these stories that I realized Ineeded to stop preparing young
adults of color for theworkforce and start preparing
the workplace for young adultsof color.
(12:43):
And that's what motivated me togo in this direction.
And to your point aboutfriendship, I do believe the
interracial friendship,interracial uh exchanging of
stories, is how we get out ofthe situation that we're in
(13:06):
because they use the the peoplewho profit from racism and
patriarchy use stories to divideus and pit us against each
other and fill our heads withnonsense lies.
And we really need to, we haveso much more power because
(13:30):
there's so many more of us.
Um, but we need to havesolidarity with each other.
And I do believe thatsolidarity begins with empathy
and exchanging of stories.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Yeah.
Karen (13:43):
So that's that's kind of a long, long-winded reply to
your well, okay.
Mary (13:49):
There's 3,000 threads I want to pull out of there.
Well, but and I think the onething, so that this is what I
found interesting on my journey.
And I am such a neophyte, likeI am so at the beginning of my
journey, even though I'm I'mpushing 60.
But I think, you know, I'vetalked to people about you
mentioned redlining, and I don'tthink many people do know what
that means because we're nottaught it.
(14:10):
That's the alternate version ofhistory.
So when I was talking tosomeone about this, and this was
probably two years ago, theresponse was that didn't happen.
And so I think this is whereit's very interesting.
One of the many interestingthings, and I'm going to use a
nature um analogy because I usenature all the time.
(14:33):
I feel like you're standing inthe forest, and all you see are
the trees.
You're so close to the trees,you only see the trees that look
like you.
But if you could somehowlevitate and look at the whole
ecosystem, you would be like, myGod, there's like a thousand
different kinds of trees.
And they all in nature actuallywork together and support each
(14:56):
other.
So we forget that.
But anyway, I think we justhave this very uh myopic view of
things.
And when it is somethinguncomfortable, I think, and I'm
gonna own this too.
I think the first thing islike, well, then I'm not gonna
look at it because, first ofall, how could anybody
intentionally do something thathurtful?
(15:17):
And so it's probably not true,but you keep looking in the face
of it.
Like you at a young age, Ithink we're able to say, wait a
minute, this is what's reallyhappening here.
I'm gonna call this out.
Karen (15:30):
Yeah, um, so many things.
And and I think that the reasonwhy white people want to look
away is because we haveintergenerational trauma too.
We we talk a lot about theintergenerational trauma that
(15:52):
people of the global majority,in particular uh people whose
ancestors uh were enslaved bywhite ancestors experience,
right?
Um but we don't talk as muchabout the secondary vicarious
trauma that we, the descendantsof the enslavers, experience.
(16:19):
And some people are like, oh,well, I didn't have anything to
do with slavery.
There was only a small group ofAmericans who were slave
owners.
Well, guess what?
All white Americansparticipated and benefited from
slavery in some way, whetherthey were in the north and they
were um employed in textiles oror uh slavery-related
(16:46):
industries, or whether they werein the south, where literally
every single white man had tospend several weeks or months of
the year on runaway slavepatrols in order to maintain the
whole system.
And all white people wereexpected to enforce the racial
(17:06):
hierarchy in every interaction,whether they owned enslaved
people or not.
And they also had to um policeand punish.
This was particularly thefunction of white women, and as
we learned from Stephanie JonesRogers' book, um, they were her
(17:27):
property, is to maintain controlof all the dynamics and report
any infraction to uh white mento to um to inflict violence.
So all of that causes us to betraumatized.
And that is something that we,of course, when we hear about
(17:49):
something, we don't, we wouldrather pass over it because it
was very painful to ourancestors to have done this.
It it affects them.
And whether they directly didit or they witnessed someone do
it, there was this uh demand ofwhite solidarity that you would
(18:14):
never defy this system.
And in fact, if you did defythis system, you would likely be
hanged or raped or some otherterrible violence inflicted upon
you.
And I'm not saying this tolegitimize um why more people
didn't defy the system, theycertainly should have.
(18:35):
And in every generation, therewas a handful of people who did.
I'm just trying to say why thisthing was so diabolically and
meticulously designed that therewas very little incentive for
people to do so.
And so it became like oursurvival mechanism to maintain
this.
(18:55):
And one of the things that'sbecome really clear to me is
that part of the reason we're inthis situation as women, is
that women of the globalmajority survival depended on
them getting as far away fromviolent white men as possible,
and white women's uh survivaldepended on our getting as close
(19:20):
as possible to violent whitemen.
And so that's why we have thesedifferent trauma responses,
right?
That that women of the globalmajority, not to not to
completely stereotype, but theydo have uh a trauma response
that's more aligned with fightor flight.
(19:41):
And white women's traumaresponse is more aligned with
fawn, um, fawn and flop.
And I'm trying to think of theother one.
Maybe freeze, yes, freeze, 100%freeze.
I'm actually freezing, tryingto think of your brain froze.
(20:02):
Exactly, exactly, and so we arepolarized, yeah.
Okay, and and then white womencontinue to inflict the violence
that our ancestors inflictedonto women of color in the
(20:23):
workplace, in the community, andother white women who see that
happening and are morallyopposed to it are frozen and and
unwilling to hold the whitewomen who are doing it to
account.
And this keeps happening andhappening and happening, and now
(20:45):
we you know, the United Stateswas determined to be the most
dangerous country for um forwomen uh by you know
international uh feminists andscholars of of what is going on.
We have the highest maternalmortality rates, we have the
(21:08):
highest rates of domesticviolence, we have all of these
things, right?
And I was blown away recentlyto learn that in Norway, I think
their maternal mortality ratelast year was zero.
It is possible, yeah, it doesnot have to be like this, but
(21:29):
it's so incredibly profitablefor a small group of people, and
it's becoming even moreprofitable today, right?
It's just unbelievable theamount of wealth that is being
accumulated in the hands of afew and how they keep us all
(21:50):
perpetuating this is by dividingus and making us hate each
other.
Mary (21:57):
Yeah, and I think that historical um information or
where where things sort of fit,I think it's important.
And, you know, I'm gonna againgo back to sort of the analogy
of the ecosystem that when youtalk about monocropping, which
is having one crop because youhave to spray and you have to
you do all these things, it isthe most unhealthy way to grow
(22:20):
food or you know, have a systembecause you're also killing all
of the beneficial pollinators.
And you know, I am totally aplant and a nature nerd.
But I think we so often don'tlook to nature.
So here's what I, you know, oneof the things that I would like
people listening to thinkabout.
If if you feel an in, so firstof all, this is not bashing
(22:41):
white people.
This is not a doing anythingabout, you know, this is better
than this, or it's this isinformational.
And I think if there is aninternal sense of like, wait a
minute, is this really true?
I would say be curious aboutthat because we all have a
history.
(23:01):
And when you really start tothink about, for instance,
epigenetic, epigenetics, likeour genetics are affected by the
experiences of our ancestors.
And it's not necessarily agenetic change physically, but
what epigenetics does is itkeeps us from expressing certain
(23:25):
parts of our genetic code.
So if that is more of this ideaof shrinking, and I'm gonna go
directly to no shrinkingviolets, women shrink to stay
safe, which is legitimate.
But I think it's also now whatyou're saying is you kind of
walked through this door to say,okay, this is gonna be
(23:46):
uncomfortable, but there's somuch growth that can happen
here.
So I want to talk a little bitabout you said in your workplace
that you were kind of informedabout some things, like Karen,
maybe you want to think aboutthis, or you know, it sounds
like you had some really honestconversations with coworkers or
(24:06):
supervisors.
What was that like for you?
Because I alluded to asituation where, you know,
something happened in theworkplace and I reacted sort of,
I was stunned.
Like there's that freezereaction.
I was like, what is going on?
So how did you navigate that?
Karen (24:24):
Well, I I tried to listen, you know, I I made
myself open.
Now there weren't I I'm nottrying to say every single time.
There were times when thingshappened that I was literally
could not believe what washappening.
You know, it took me a beat.
(24:45):
And and um even now I talkabout how I've experienced
sexual harassment, wage gap, uhglass ceiling from white men in
the workplace.
But by far the mostpsychologically harmful behavior
I experienced in the workplacecame from white women who
(25:08):
perceive me as a threat to theirproximity to the white men in
power.
And they would reach out to meas like mentors and friends and
confidants and try to get me toopen up about things, and then
they would take things I toldthem that I thought was in
confidence and use it to squishme like a little bug.
(25:29):
Okay.
My experience with the women ofcolor leaders who I reported to
was very different, verydifferent.
They really saw in me someonewho could be developed into
someone better, and that was thethat was their approach to me.
(25:52):
Um, they wanted me to um togrow and they gave me tons of
opportunities.
I mean, that literally up untillike 2014, every job I had was
because a a woman of colorreached out to me and said, I
want you to come work here, orthey're opening up a position
(26:15):
here and you should go, youshould go do this.
Literally every single job Ihad.
I did not apply for jobs, I wasrecommended and recruited in.
Um, so they saw in me someone,you know, who could be
developed, let's say.
And they remain my mostincredible mentors, and and um,
(26:39):
I'm just so lucky that I gotexposed to all of that.
But I think it's reallyimportant when we receive
feedback, even feedback that'sextremely hard to hear, that we
receive it with grace.
And the most important words tosay when someone gives you
(26:59):
feedback is thank you.
Okay, because that is already asign of trust that they even
shared that feedback with youand did not withhold it from
you, okay?
Because that shows that theyknow that they can give you that
feedback without youretaliating or or um escalating.
(27:20):
Okay.
But then you need to reallybreak down the feedback.
And I don't I don't think it'sa good idea to ask the people
who gave you the feedback toeducate you about why that
feedback was given, at least notinitially.
If you don't understand thefeedback, I highly recommend
(27:41):
going to other people who are ina similar position to you who
are further along in theirjourney to help you understand
why that feedback was given.
Now, you may want to go back tothe person who gave you the
feedback and say, hey, I've beendoing a lot of um unpacking of
(28:02):
what you said to me, and becauseI really want to understand it.
And this is what I have, I havesort of uncovered through that.
And I I just wanted to sharethat with you because I would
love, I welcome your feedback.
Is this what was underlyingwhat you were saying, or is it
(28:22):
something else, right?
So you don't want to put them,you don't want to make them do
that emotional labor or put themin a position where they feel
like you're asking them to givethat emotional labor unless you
yourself are are doing that.
And always, of course, givethem the option.
If you don't want to respond tothis, I completely respect that
(28:43):
and I totally understand.
But I'm just I really do wantto improve and I really want to
understand what you were saying.
Um, and so that's why I'masking you if that makes sense.
And it's also important to knowthat people, the global
majority, are not a monolitheither, right?
(29:04):
What one person's experience,viewpoint, etc., is maybe very
different from someone else's.
But I think it's extremelyimportant to read, to follow the
many black women, anti-racismeducators, authors, organizers,
(29:28):
really read and follow and readtheir books and follow them on
social media and listen to whatthey are saying.
Um, go to hear them when theytalk, you know, buy them a
coffee, do all you can tosupport their work, go go to
their workshops, etc.
Um, because those are the folkswho can really help you
(29:52):
understand what is going on,what is going on in the ways
that we need to change.
Mary (29:57):
Yeah.
And I want to go back to Thisidea of emotional labor, because
I think that may also sort ofbe a new term.
So when we want to have thesedeeper connections, we really
want to be authentic, we reallywant to open those lines of
communication, which is a lot ofthe work that you do.
Explain a little bit howsomeone can start.
Because I think there's fear,and I think there's also this
(30:20):
idea of, well, you have anopinion.
So tell me your opinion andtell me why.
And we want to start to minethat as the um we go on the
offense.
You know, like tell me, here'swhat I want to know.
And I think you're talkingabout that's what the emotional
labor is, right?
Putting someone in a positionto be your teacher.
(30:41):
So I think that can create thissort of um uncertainty.
Like, well, how am I supposedto start this if I have to be
careful about what I'm asking ofsomeone?
Karen (30:53):
Yeah, yeah.
That's a that's a very goodquestion.
Well, this is literally why Icreated the interracial
sisterhood coalition, because Isaw there was a need for an
opt-in, safe, generative spaceoutside of the workplace for us
(31:13):
to begin to listen to eachother's stories.
So no one has to be there.
You only come if you're open toit, if you are a willing
participant, if you see thepower of um interracial
sisterhood and solidarity, andyou want to support that.
(31:36):
Okay.
So how do we begin to bridgethat divide?
And it's so important too,because we are very socially
isolated from each other.
So the social science researchtells us that uh on average,
(31:56):
white Americans' social networksare 90% white.
I'm talking about our ourfriendship um social network,
90% white, and 67% of whiteAmericans' friendship network is
100% white.
So that means we're onlyhearing the stories of other
(32:18):
white people, we're onlyexchanging our social capital
with other white people, andthat is harming everybody
because when I say socialcapital, I'm talking about job
leads, I'm talking about uminvestment opportunities or
where to send your kids toschool.
All those types ofconversations were only
(32:41):
exchanging with other whitepeople.
So I think there is anincentive um to have these
conversations for all partiesbecause we could all benefit
from having more raciallyintegrated social circles.
Um that's what I would say agood place to start is in a
(33:05):
place like the InterracialSisterhood Coalition where
everyone comes to it becausethey want to be there.
They're open to theconversation, and we create an
environment where people canshare their stories and listen
to each other and ask questions,and we do role plays and we we
(33:27):
figure things out so that we cango forward better together.
We also break down, you know,what happens in interracial
interactions that cause themfrequently to leave both parties
feeling terrible and what whitepeople can do in those
interactions because we have themost power to determine the
(33:50):
outcome of the interaction, toput our best selves forward in
these interactions so that theydon't derail.
Now, that does not mean thatsometimes at the interracial
sisterhood coalition events thatsparks don't fly, you know, it
they do, but when they do, westay in the room and we work
(34:14):
through that together, and thatis also something that we need
to learn how to do is how torepair when something goes
wrong, and that's exactly thework that we do.
I truly believe thatinterracial friendship is a huge
(34:36):
part of the solution.
But if you Google the wordsinterracial, there's all these
resources for interracialdating, interracial families,
interracial marriages, blah,blah, blah.
There's there's nothing aboutinterracial friendship.
Um, and that is that is thespace that the interracial
(34:58):
sisterhood coalition occupies.
Mary (35:02):
Yeah.
Well, and it's interesting toothat we put so much effort into
working out um relationshipswith like a heterosexual
relationship, you know, and andI think sometimes I feel like
men just think differently, butwe spend so much energy on that
(35:22):
trying to understand like what'sthe difference is, or
regardless, it could be asame-sex uh partnership.
Everyone is different, but andwe spend a lot of time and
invest a lot of time into, youknow, trying to maintain that
and understand where someoneelse is coming from and
adjusting our behavior if weneed to and being a better
(35:45):
partner.
And I would say, what if webrought that spirit to trying to
connect to people that we likewe sort of see them as different
than us, you know?
What would that, how would thatchange?
Because I know for me, likesometimes I think about even if
you just look at different typesof food from different
(36:05):
countries and the awesomeness ofexperiencing all of those
flavors.
And, you know, even when I didwork at Penn State, and I will
go back to your comment frombefore, it was not a perfect
institution.
I mean, I saw situations ofsexual assault that the response
to that dragged on and on andon and on.
And, you know, so there, Ithink in any huge institution
(36:27):
like that, there's going to be,you know, issues that's just
like even with you said in yoursisterhood coalition, there can
be conflict.
And it's really like, how do weimprove that?
But I think trying to go intospaces that are going to enrich
us.
And I know there are peoplelistening thinking, I don't need
to do this.
I'm happy with my friendships.
(36:47):
I'm happy with, but for thepeople that are thinking, okay,
I want to expand in this way,and maybe the Interracial
Sisterhood Coalition, maybe thatis, they see that as a bridge
way, way too far at this point.
How would you suggest someonestarts to gain some comfort in
going into spaces where they arenot the majority?
Karen (37:14):
Great question.
Because it is true that whitepeople, we are gonna have to be
the ones to initiate becausepeople of the global majority
are not gonna come seeking usout to be their friends.
Okay.
Uh so, and I am someone who hasa very racially diverse
(37:36):
friendship network, and I havebeen the one to initiate those
friendships by putting myself ina space where those friendships
can get started.
So, for example, going on hikeswith the black hiking group or
(37:58):
going to a black professionalnetwork uh event, et cetera, et
cetera.
Now, when I enter these spaces,I have to be very mindful of my
energy, right?
Because people think thatracism is about racial slurs or
(38:19):
or things like that.
But so much of racism is aboutbody language, it's about facial
expressions, um, the overallenergy you bring to the space.
So I would not recommend doingthis unless and until you have
worked on some of those elementsand you can be your nervous
(38:42):
system can be totally calm andyou're not too overly eager, and
you're just, you know, a calm,kind, accountable, relational,
respectful person.
Um, and then I would seek thoseopportunities out.
And maybe you're maybe you'remore of a um introverted person,
(39:05):
and the idea of going to anetworking event or even a hike
where you don't know anyone isextremely overwhelming.
Uh, then I would say just thinkabout who do you know from your
daily life?
Maybe it is someone in yourworkplace or someone in your
house of worship or whateverthat you see on a regular basis,
(39:28):
but you've never really had ameaningful conversation with.
Ask that person, hey, could wecould we get coffee sometime?
I'd just like to get to knowyou a little better and see how
they respond.
Um, and from there, I think wecan start to build a bigger
social network.
The other thing is is obviouslysocial media.
(39:50):
I mean, social media isterrible in many ways because I
believe these tech companies aredefinitely profiting off of
division and trying to designthe algorithm so that we would
be in conflict with each other.
And it is also super useful tomeet people that you otherwise
(40:11):
would not have met by findingpeople who share common
interests.
So maybe you've met someoneonline.
Um, and you can just say, hey,would you be open to having a
virtual coffee sometime?
Or I'm gonna be in your city.
Could we maybe get together andgo for a walk, whatever the
(40:32):
case may be?
But you're gonna have to be theone to initiate, mind your
energy, don't interrogate, youknow, just let the conversation
flow and and don't beextractive, just let the
conversation flow.
And I can tell you so manyfunny stories ranging from my um
(40:54):
one of my closest friends andcollaborators, Colette Lucky,
who I met on a black hikinggroup excursion, and it was a
long hike.
I think it was like, I don'tknow, it was like six miles in,
six miles out.
And we we started talking veryearly on, you know, we had just
(41:15):
so much to talk about, and wewere having this great
conversation, and then we werewe were on the way back out like
hours later, and she wasliterally like, Hey, well, you
know, we're almost to theparking lot.
You better go find the peopleyou came here with.
And I was like, What do youmean the people I came here
with?
And she's like, Well, this is ablack hiking group.
(41:39):
You better go the whole time.
She thought that I had beenwith other white people just
hiking, and like somehow I gotbroken off from them, and then I
found her somehow, and westarted talking with each other,
and that caused me to getdistracted from being with the
(42:00):
being with my group, and I waslike, this is my group.
I came here to be part of thisgroup, and she thinks that story
is so funny because she herselfis an anti-biased educator,
right?
So she's like, it really showedme how I have biases too.
You know, we all we all do havebiases, yeah.
Mary (42:21):
And so I would say, you know, stay curious, which I
think that this really comesfrom a place of curiosity and
open, like try openness.
Picture yourself being open.
And there will be things that Ithink are uncomfortable and
being able to sit with that inthe sense of like you're growing
from that.
Like anytime you travel rightto another country.
(42:42):
I remember the first time Iwent to Italy and I went with an
educational group.
So there was this whole list ofthings.
Like, you know, there's nolines in Italy, like somebody's
gonna push in front of you andorder the coffee if you're not
getting up there and ordering.
And that's not rudeness in thatculture.
And I think, you know, we wouldinterpret it through our lens.
Look how rude these Italiansare.
(43:04):
It's like, no, you don't, likethat's just how it works.
Or you go into a store and youdon't touch the clothing.
There's different just culturalthings.
And I think you get expanded somuch by having those
experiences.
It also helps our brain, by theway, because it's new neural
pathways.
But I think anything that we donew like this, it's going,
(43:27):
there's going to be fear becauseI think, and I'll circle back
to this idea of how women weresocialized.
A lot of us, as the pleasers,as the connectors, we're worried
we're gonna offend someone,we're gonna say something wrong,
we're gonna be embarrassed,we're gonna embarrass someone
else.
So before we even open ourmouths, there is all of this
stuff.
And I will remember, I rememberwhen I was, I was pretty young.
(43:49):
It's one of my first jobs.
And I said something to one ofthe women about her hair.
And later somebody, it was ablack woman, and later somebody
said, You don't ever talk abouta black woman's hair.
And I'm like, what ishappening?
Like, I don't.
So there's also sort of theseideas that people put out there
where you don't know, like, isthat really true?
And so then I felt like, ohgosh, do I address this?
(44:11):
So I think there are so manythings along the way that when
we run up against a situationwhere we feel like we did
something wrong, then we want tofold in and be like, I'm not
even gonna go there.
And so that just deepens thedivide, regardless of all the
history and all of this stuffthat we talked about in the
(44:32):
beginning.
I think anytime there's adifference, that can then become
an excuse to not engage becauseit's safer to stay small and
just put that to the side.
Karen (44:45):
Yeah, yeah.
It's interesting about the hairthing.
Um, I think it's totally fineto say, oh my gosh, you look so
beautiful.
I love your hair like that.
It's very different to be like,oh, your hair looks totally
different.
Is that your real hair?
How did you do that?
(45:06):
Like, don't interrogate people.
Yeah.
Mary (45:09):
Right, right, right, which I didn't, but I think it was
still that idea of like, there'shere's the thing, I don't have
the playbook.
Like, we think we know this ishow we interact.
It's again, it's like going toanother country.
There's stuff you don't know.
And I think when you step in itand you're like, oh shit, like
I didn't know that, then you'resort of like, what do I do with
(45:32):
this?
So I think it's reallyimportant to just keep that
openness of like, okay, I hearthat, I'm gonna file that away,
but I'm not gonna use it as anexcuse to put a barrier up and
stay small and stay safe and notventure into that part of the
world because it was toouncomfortable.
Karen (45:55):
I love that.
That is so important.
And going back to the exampleof visiting Italy, this is what
Audre Lourde taught us.
Like we are going to have toteach ourselves patterns of
relating across differences asequals because nobody role
models for us what that is.
(46:17):
We are gonna have to be theones to initiate those neural
pathways.
And it is gonna be awkward, butwe've only ever seen in society
this hierarchical good, badbinary of like this way of
behaving, this way of being inthe world is good and that way
is bad.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yep.
Karen (46:37):
But what is it like if I have one worldview and cultural
practices and this person hastheir worldview and cultural
practices, what is it like forus to see each other as equals,
even though we have verydifferent um underlying beliefs?
And I do want to go back totalk a little bit about the
(47:02):
intergenerational trauma ofwhite women in particular and
why it relates to what you'resaying about the silencing, why
we don't speak out.
So my mentors, several of mymentors were like, Karen, you
really need to go back and learnabout the history of white
women.
And I was so resistant to thatidea.
(47:24):
I was like, white women, we arethe oppressors.
I don't want to know anythingabout white women, I want to
learn more about you, I want tolearn more about women of the
global majority and all thisstuff.
And they're like, listen, youreally need to do this.
So when so many people tell youthe same thing, you start to be
like, oh, perhaps I should dothis.
(47:47):
And when I went back andstudied the history of white
women in Europe and how, youknow, before capitalism, we had
collective power.
We had, you know, we tendedcrops together, we tended
(48:07):
animals together, there wasn'tthis idea of monogamy, you know,
it was much more free-spirited,and we had we held power as
healers and as midwives, as alemakers, as faith leaders, etc.
And so then when they werelike, okay, now you all have to
(48:32):
be sharecroppers, and you eachhave to be on your own little
parcel of land, and you gottagive almost everything you raise
to the Lord who ownseverything.
And oh, by the way, men aresuperior to women, and um, you
gotta get married, and you gottastay with one person in your
(48:52):
little isolated abode.
The women who were like, Uh, Idon't want that, I reject that.
I want to go back to the oldways, they called them witches,
and in a very public spectacleof violence, they would parade
them through the town.
Sometimes they were naked, andhumiliate them, either by
(49:15):
dunking them in waterrepeatedly, or by putting a um
metal clamp on their tongue anda whole mask on their face to
prevent them from talking, or toburn them at the stake as
witches, like throw them in thewater, and if they drowned, they
(49:36):
weren't a witch, and if theyfloated, they were a witch, and
then they could be burned at thestake, and they would put their
children in the front row towatch them burn.
So think about what that did,and the entire town would
participate in these displays ofviolence.
So again, it was if you speakout, if you disrupt, this is
(50:02):
what will happen to you.
Instead, we want everyone tocome out and cheer.
We want you to point fingers ather and make her, she is the
bad one, we are the good one, wethe violent ones are the good
one.
And you want to be part of thegood ones to in order that you
(50:24):
be spared of violence.
Come with us, which isabsolutely absurd on its face,
but I believe those samedynamics are exactly what is
happening in the workplace andin the community today.
You be the whistleblower, youare the bad one.
You do anything to contradictthe dominant power, you are the
(50:49):
bad one.
You are the pariah.
Don't be like her.
Mary (50:54):
Yeah, I think it's fear versus love.
And we think hate versus love,but it really either you're
functioning from a place of fearin the world or you're
functioning from a place oflove.
And that love is yourself,loving yourself, loving the
world, loving other people, justloving the idea of connection
to other people, or you allowfear to be your driver.
(51:16):
And I think starting to thinkin terms of that.
And the other thing is, and toto wrap it up, I'm gonna bring
it back to nature.
If you look not only athistory, like you're talking
about, and I would challengepeople that internally might
feel like, wait a minute, thatdoesn't sound that sounds like
that might not be fully true.
Do your research and find out.
(51:36):
But I think the other thing isif you look at nature, the power
of the female in nature.
So I like to talk about honeybees.
So in the honeybee world, thefemales are the workers.
They gather the pollen, theymake the honey.
They, of course, there's aqueen and they tend all the
female bees.
The female bees then mate withthe males, which are called
(51:58):
drones, and then they kick themout of the hive.
So I'm not saying we do that,but I think if you look at the
power of the female in theworld, in nature, I think that
gives you an idea of, you know,the power that I believe women
have to be connectors and ofcourse bring life and nurture
(52:20):
and all of these things that wesometimes I think paint as a
weakness are actuallytremendously strong.
And so I would say, you know,do one thing this week that's
gonna connect you to your femaleenergy, to other females, to
maybe if you're gonna make aquick judgment on social media,
(52:43):
just let someone be who theyare, like be that, let them be
that person.
We don't have to agree witheach other, but I think we all
can connect to this idea of atthe core, we have the female
energy and we just want to beconnected to something and
belong to something.
And so I think if we can openourselves up to more of that
(53:07):
connection, the world issupposed to be diverse, that
anything that is mono anythingis typically the beginning of
the end for it, because you haveto then, you know, support it
with things that are not nature.
So that's kind of my checkpoint.
You know, I sort of look at,well, how does nature handle
this?
And I think when we feel thatfear of something diverse or
(53:31):
something different, open yourheart and be curious because I
think that's the way theconnection happens.
Karen (53:37):
Yes, I love that so much, Mary.
And I would add two books Ihighly recommend everyone read:
The Caliban and the Witch bySilvia Federici, Italian Marxist
uh feminist historian, andErased, What American Patriarchy
Has Hidden From Us by Dr.
(53:59):
Anna Malaika Tubbs.
These will help you to reallyunderstand the dynamics that um
I've been talking about.
And um, and I love the idea ofnature and the diversity within
nature and all of that.
So, so deeply, deeplyinspiring.
(54:20):
And that desire to connect.
So when you feel threatened byanother woman, just take a beat
and ask yourself, why am Ifeeling threatened by her?
And and come back to that placeof self-compassion.
That is what we work on in mywork with white women, is the
(54:41):
compassion for the self is thefoundation for our compassion
for others.
And when we feel good andstrong about ourselves, that is
how we're we're not threatenedby other people.
We don't we don't fear thembecause we feel good and
(55:03):
confident right now.
Mary (55:05):
So let's end with having you remind us where people can
find you to connect.
Karen (55:11):
Yes.
So you can come to InterracialSisterhood Coalition.com.
Um, you can download our guide,subscribe to our YouTube
channel, um, learn about ourupcoming retreats, um, join our
online membership community.
We have a very robustinterracial sisterhood
(55:35):
coalition, um, online membershipthat is not on social media.
So we, you know, vet who is inthere, we have community
agreements, and it's really aplace where we can come together
and um and learn about eachother and have a lot of fun um
(55:55):
in a place that is safe andgenerative.
And I also have a uh cohort forwhite women.
I do small group coaching forgroups of white women.
And if anything I said todaysparked something in you, I
encourage you to join our nextcohort.
It's called BecomingTrustworthy.
And you can learn about that atInterracial Sisterhood
(56:18):
Coalition.com.
And my main social media isLinkedIn.
So find me on there at KarenFleshman.
Mary (56:26):
All right, and I'm gonna link all that.
I will also um put the booksthat you mentioned into the show
notes so that everything isthere that anybody wants to dig
into anything.
So thank you, Karen, so muchfor taking the time to be here.
What a great conversation!
Karen (56:40):
Yes, thank you so much, Mary, and for all you're doing
to bring healing and growth inthis world.
I really appreciate thisopportunity to speak with you
and your wonderful questions.
Mary (56:54):
And I want to thank everyone for listening.
I would love to call on y'allto help me out with something.
My first book draft is gettingprepped to go to the editor.
So if you would like to be amember of my launch team,
basically you'll get thephysical book it costs six weeks
before it's officially in theworld, plus some super secret
insights and maybe an audiosnippet of the book and a couple
(57:15):
freebies.
Simply click on the link in theshow notes to sign up.
This does not obligate you fora thing.
You'll only get emails relatedto my book launch unless you
want to opt in for my weeklyemails.
I would love to have you on myteam.
And until next time, go outinto the world and be the
amazing, resilient, vibrant,violet that you are.
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