Welcome to Season 2 of Create Your Magical Life!
This year in addition to talking about the ways we can make life more magical for ourselves, we’ll also be talking to people who will encourage us to make life magical for others. Guests will continue to encourage us to look inward, increasing our self-awareness, self-understanding and connection to our highest selves. We’ll also turn our gaze outward, to deepen connections and increase our awareness and understanding of the world around us. It’s my belief we are being called on to walk our talk in ever more powerful ways. We want to strengthen our inner light so we can help illuminate the path forward into a more beautiful, more just, more magical future.
We’re diving into the deep end today with a conversation I’ve been having a lot in my personal life but that people, especially white people, are often afraid to have “out loud” for fear of saying the wrong thing.
Diversity. Racism. Privilege. What do all of these words really mean? And why is this conversation vital to our collective evolution as spiritual beings having a human experience?
My guest is Desiree Adaway, who is a master at leading difficult conversations on race, class, and gender. As a consultant, coach, and strategic business professional, Desiree specializes in the challenges of organizational transitions and projects related to racial equality and social justice. As a person of color in America, she speaks out eloquently about racism, oppression, privilege, and diversity.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- How we define ourselves according to racial norms
- Racism: overt, subtle, and systemic
- Racism is prejudice plus power
- White supremacists and white separatists—do you know the difference?
- How racism is embedded in many areas of our culture
- Institutional racism and structural racism—What are they and where are they found?
- Hashtags: Do they REALLY help?
- Spirituality and social justice
- What white privilege really is
- How to analyze your bias
- How oppression has been perpetuated
- Being polite vs. raising hard issues
- Why being “colorblind” is NOT the answer
- How to teach kids about diversity
- Topics covered in Desiree’s Diversity is an Asset class
- Reaching out to people of color in genuine ways
Resources:
www.desireeadaway.com (Find Desiree on Facebook, too.)
Facebook groups: The White Nonsense Roundup and White People Do’s and Don’t’s
Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ)
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ain’t I a Woman? By Belle Hooks
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Enter the River by Tobin Miller Shearer
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Download the article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh