What makes you feel good about yourself? I remember how much I used to dread performance evaluations. I remember so often feeling anxious, my palms would sweat, I’d feel restless, and have this sick feeling in my stomach in the hour before I’d have my yearly performance review. I hated it. It like I was … Continue reading Episode 283: An Antioch Podcast Encore: White Supremacy Culture – “Perfectionism.”

What makes you afraid? A common thing that people across cultures run into is having a fear of unfamiliar foods. New flavors, textures, or smells can create strong responses – sometimes embarrassingly strong responses. However, we tend to think that the food “we” like is … “normal.” I remember discovering that some of my non-American … Continue reading Episode 282: An Antioch Podcast Encore: White Supremacy Culture – “Fear of Disconnection.”

Have you ever had the thought that because someone doesn’t express themselves with proper grammar, that what they have to say is somehow less? Perhaps we don’t even think about the point the individual is making because they don’t express it according to the grammatical values we hold. Perhaps we never consider how these grammar … Continue reading Episode 281: White Supremacy Culture – “Worship of the Written Word.”

We have been talking the past few episodes about aspects of White Supremacy Culture, and noticed … well … a lot of these characteristics cause us stress. Its true, the list of white supremacy culture characteristics in many ways is a list of stressors that impact so many of us – trying to be perfect, … Continue reading Episode 280: White Supremacy Culture – “This Stresses Me Out!”

“But if we do that, we will lose people!” Have you heard these words before in a meeting? Someone proposes an idea that is in keeping with the mission or values of an organization, and the idea is not shot down on its merits, but rather because there is a fear that it will turn … Continue reading Episode 279: White Supremacy Culture – “Progress! Bigger! More!”

Have you ever been the victim of a lost story? Viola Davis tells a story in her autobiography “Finding Me” of a time when she was in elementary school wearing clothing that smelled badly. Her teacher could have told herself a story that black people like Viola didn’t care about standards of cleanliness and that … Continue reading Episode 278: White Supremacy Culture – “Either/Or – There Is No Between”

Who is qualified to make a decision? Like it or not, it is in the human nature to continually evaluate our surroundings based on almost imperceptible judgements. Sometimes these judgements keep us alive. Our bodies remember things to keep us safe, to “jump out of the way” of all sorts of perceived dangers. Some of … Continue reading Episode 277: White Supremacy Culture – “Who is Qualified?”

Do you think you know other people’s motives? A lot of us do. I remember working in a psychiatric hospital many years ago where a part of my job was to write down the observations I made about the individuals under my care. It took training to try to describe factually what I noticed in … Continue reading Episode 276: White Supremacy Culture – “Antidotes to Objectivity.”

I know a number of perfectionists who tell me that one of the things they like most about their personality is that they strive to make things better. And it makes sense, there are a lot of things about the world, and about ourselves, that could benefit from improvement. But one of the things which … Continue reading Episode 275: White Supremacy Culture – “Antidotes to Perfectionism.”

Everyone has a perspective or bias, and most of us like to think that our biases are accurate. As a therapist, I often hear couples tell me about the problems in their relationship, and I will ask each partner to tell me the story of the problem. Often these stories are somewhat different, reflecting the … Continue reading Episode 274: White Supremacy Culture – “Objectivity and Paternalism.”