Stories Seldom Told

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“There is a basic core principle of the work that I have done all these decades. It is the principle that nobody should be punished simply for what we put into our bodies. There is no legitimate basis in science, in medicine and ethics, the Bible, you name it, for distinguishing between or discriminating against people, based upon which substance they put in their body.”

Described by the American magazine Rolling Stone as "the point man" for drug policy reform efforts and “the real drug czar,” Ethan Nadelmann is widely regarded as the outstanding proponent of drug policy reform both in the United States and abroad.

He founded and directed first, The Lindesmith Center and then the Drug Policy Alliance from 1994 to 2017, during which time he and his colleagues were at the forefront of dozens of successful campaigns to legalize marijuana and advance other alternatives to the war on drugs.

Ethan currently hosts the leading podcast on all things drugs: PSYCHOACTIVE.

Trigger warning to listeners. This episode deals with stories around abortion and racism that could be distressing to some listeners.

“Here's an unconscious bias and a cognitive phenomenon.The human brain likes simple causality.So if a case got in front of a jury, the experience from talking to lots of people, including on long flights from one part of the country to another is that, if it comes out of your vagina, it must be your fault. The ability to think in any complexity about pregnancy doesn’t really seem to exist.”

Lynn Paltrow is an attorney and the founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, a non-profit advocacy organization. NAPW works to ensure that no one is denied civil or human rights because of pregnancy or any outcome of pregnancy including birth, miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Audible, Visit www.audibletrial.com/tharoorassociates for a 30 day free Audible trial and one free book token!

“I don't have to become British, I don't have to become Japanese and I don't have to put on a front or a mask in order to just exist. This is the centre in my body that gives me the validation that I need. That it's fine to just be exactly who I am. And that changes day to day as well, there's a fluidity to it.”

Kate Kinoshita is a writer, movement artist and mentor based in West Yorkshire.

She is of Japanese and white British descent and graduated from Oxford University in Chinese Studies.

Her chronic health conditions led her to explore ch'i-based movement practices in Taiwan, and to living and working in rural Japan.

She is interested in non-dual animist frameworks and the impact of colonialism upon the collective and individual soma.

Kate runs regular online group classes exploring meditative movement.

~ you can find details via her Instagram @_oakshine.

Between: Us Stories of Unconscious Bias is a society and culture-based podcast hosted by Smita Tharoor.

Between: Us Stories of Unconscious Bias connects with guests from all over the world, asking them to share their stories and to reflect on their life experiences with unconscious bias, with an end goal of bringing us all closer together.

Listen to Between: Us Stories of Unconscious Bias on the Tharoor Associates website or the streaming service of your choice.

- Tharoor Associates website: https://tharoorassociates.com/stories

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/454nZEq

- Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR

- Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast

- Radio Public: https://radiopublic.com/stories-of-ou

- Breaker: https://www.breaker.audio/stories-of-

- Pocket Casts: https://pca.st/rkdsoc2b

- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/

- Find Smita @SmitaTharoor on Instagram or Twitter

This week’s episode is sponsored by Audible, Visit www.audibletrial.com/tharoorassociates for a 30 day free Audible trial and one free book credit!

“Feeling a heightened sense of my family being in peril really made me realise that a lot of what people were doing and saying and reacting to was based on a couple of things. One, a lack of experience with the groups or the cohorts that they were rallying against. And the second, being their only exposure to those people or concepts was through media, which is common through so many people's lives.  If you don't have access to a specific culture or group or cohort, the little bit that you do becomes the whole, the totality of your perception of that group.”

Damion Taylor has spent the last 15 years applying data and technology to entertainment. Both analytical and creative, he brings a unique skill set that’s in high demand for brands and media companies.

However, being Black in media and technology, Damion has experienced first-hand the impact of pervasive unconscious biases.

Damion has now begun the journey of helping to bring those biases to light for himself and for others. He hosts a podcast : Professional Confessions.

Where to find Damion’s Podcast - https://shows.acast.com/Professional-Confession

The Professional Confessions Website - https://professionalconfession.com

“And we have centuries worth of information at our hands and we really don't find time to do the sort of work we should, as individuals, to make this world a more thoughtfully choreographed place rather than one where we have existing inequalities and the powerful manage to control media and the way we think. I think we have it all in our power to actually be more informed.”

Simone, a Bangladeshi-Brit, is an economist and photographer and grew up in North London in the 1970s.

Aged 5, Simone along with her family escaped from persecution during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war and moved to London.

She grew up in a fairly politicised family, her parents influenced by the left politics of the 1960s, and their activism grew with the movement to liberate Bangladesh.

She herself married a South African involved in SA’s liberation and has spent much of her working life working in the consensus building space with different stakeholders on economic policy, gender rights, climate and worker safety.

After the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh and the tragic death of over 1000 workers, Simone has been working with safety for workers in the global supply chains with some of the largest global brands and local industry.

She chaired BRAC UK for ten years, was on its global board and is now on the founding governance body of BRAC which is the world’s largest development NGO.

BRAC is ranked number 1 in the Top 100 NGOs for the last five years running - with scaled impact on health, education, livelihoods, gender rights and a trailblazer in eradicating extreme poverty.

“When I first heard the term unconscious biases, it actually had a negative connotation to me, as the word bias often does. But after some thought, I realised that unconscious biases are actually very natural. What separates us as humans is our ability to learn from our experiences, both good and bad. Now, like emotions, we have positive ones and negative ones, the problematic ones are the bad ones, like for example, anger. How do we deal with that negative emotion, we have to acknowledge it, we have to manage it.”

Sonia Dandona Hirdaramani had a career in finance, fashion and entertainment before pivoting to personal investing and non-profit work after her move from New York to Sri Lanka.

When she was working in entertainment and fashion, she was commended by Hillary Clinton for building bridges between South Asia and the USA

She currently lives in Sri Lanka with her husband and two young sons.

An occasional writer, Sonia writes a column, Island Life, Global Views, in the Daily Mirror, the English newspaper with the highest circulation in the country.

She also wrote a chapter for Anupam Kher’s best-selling book, “Your Best Day Is Today.” She is a graduate of Columbia University and completed a Harvard University Graduate Proseminar in Journalism.

“So here's the question, the unconscious bias is not that, that you got a tendency to go for the, smaller dog in the fight. The question is whether you do it to glorify and validate yourself. In which case, you know, there’s no real pure energy involved in that. As some selfless Jesus like figure, who is willing to give his life to save humanity, because that's what he wants to do.”

Cyrus Broacha is an Indian TV anchor, theatre personality, comedian, political satirist, columnist, podcaster and author.

He is also a prankster, best known for his show Bakra on MTV and his show The Week That Wasn't on CNN News18.

He is also the host of #CyrusSays on IVMPodcasts which is one of the best podcasts of the country.

"I recently read how it's only .01 percent of our DNA that's responsible for the expression of our skin colour and our traits, all of which are our outward appearance that we define as race. But those things are the things that we use to define each other. We are biased when we look at a person, when we are talking specifically about race"

Marguerite is an American writer and editor with a background in literature, translation, and magazine publishing.

Marguerite currently has a book out titled The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human, which you can locate at here website linked below.

Focusing on world cultures, she aims to understand the nuances that separate us, with the resolve to further our understanding of each other through her work.

Marguerite has spent many years living in different environments that are & foreign to her -  Holland, Chile, France, and now lives in Sri Lanka.

She is currently editing memoirs by Iranian, Kuwaiti-American, Bangladeshi, and Ugandan-American authors, and gathering writings for an artist book about birth traditions around the globe.

Marguerite recently curated a collection of diverse stories by authors from many Muslim worlds, entitled The Ordinary Chaos of Being Human, which was published by Penguin in December 2019.

She says her mission is to try to promote cultural awareness by supporting the voices of those heard less often than her, specifically through literature.

Marguerite’s website - https://www.margueriterichards.com/

Marguerite’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/margueriterichards/?hl=en

Marguerite’s YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT9ESu76fwhqn9_NRndQ2Eg

“So, I think the first thing we must realise that there is no end-game here. It’s not like 10 years, practice this and in 10 years you’re going to be relieved of all unconscious biases, thats never going to happen. First to understand that, that’s a perpetual operation within our, our mind, it’s going to always be there. So I think what it requires is, I mean, you know, kind of acute awareness of it, I mean, can we be aware of it?”

Thodur Madabusi Krishna or T.M. as he prefers to be known is an Indian Carnatic vocalist, writer, activist and author. As a vocalist, he has made many innovations in both the style and substance of his concerts and is known for his individuality. His concert stage, whether in his hometown of Chennai or anywhere else in the world, is wholly classical but his concert practice is uncompromisingly his own.

In the year 2016 he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for “his forceful commitment as an artist and advocate to art’s power to heal India’s deep social divisions, breaking barriers of caste and class to unleash what music has to offer not just for some but for all” In 2017 he received the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration Award for his services in promoting and preserving national integration in the country. In 2017, he has also received the Professor V Aravindakshan Memorial Award for connecting Carnatic music with the common man.

T.M. speaks and writes about a wide range of issues, not confined to the cultural sphere. His interests span the breadth of left-wing activism, be it the environment, the caste system, social reform, religious reform, combating communalism, innovation in classical music and more. He has started and is involved in many organisations whose work is spread across the spectrum of music and culture. Recently, he has spoken out against the destruction of statues of Lenin, Ambedkar, Gandhi and Periyar

In collaboration with Ashoka University, T.M. Krishna is now involved in The Edict Project, an attempt to reimagine Ashoka’s edicts in musical form. The project aims at creating vibrant aesthetic, socio-political and academic conversations around the edicts.