Happy Hour #307: ATS/ Dr. Andrea Holman

Today’s episode is the second in a series of three episodes we’re sharing with you from our Patreon Party! It’s from a series called After the Show where we invite our Patreon listeners to submit their questions about one of the Happy Hour episodes and it is one of my very favorite parts of the Patreon Party.

Today’s episode is with my real life friend, Dr. Andrea Holman. Andrea serves as an Associate Professor of Psychology at Huston-Tillotson University where she teaches, conducts research, and gives talks and trainings around the city about race, racism and privilege and their impact on interpersonal relations. She also uses her expertise to assist foster/adoptive parents pursuing interracial adoption through the local foster agency through which she and her husband are currently licensed foster parents.

In this episode, Lyndsey and I get to talk with Andrea about some of the questions you guys had surrounding foster care, advocacy, and beauty standards in the church, just to name a few. We talk about the goal of fostering to always be reunification, how important it is to name our pride, and humanize the parents while allowing humility to be the bridge between birth-families and foster-families. Andrea shares with us so transparently about the weight of holding space for herself and other people of color in predominantly white spaces and the impact it can have if it’s not balanced with life-giving people and events. I love the advice Andrea communicates when we were talking about how white women can approach interpersonal relationships and advocacy. She says, “rather than making the interaction about you, because that’s what privilege allows you to do, make it about them. See them, ask them, be okay holding and maintaining your own emotional response, because that is work for the person of color to hold your emotional response.” Friends, I am so grateful for Andrea, her experience, expertise, and the time she shared with us today!

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to head over to our Patreon Party and check out more of what we have going on there, including a brand new show I’m launching with Aaron called On the Other Side. It’s going to be a good time!

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