What's Up With Karen?!?

A listener recently requested an episode about intersectionality, so here it comes!  You're going to love this conversation with Sanjana about intersectionality, the caste system, and whether or not it's connected to racism in India.  

This week I spent some time at a cabin in the woods with no electricity and no indoor plumbing.  You know - that kind of scene that white people think is special treat and a privilege and some people of color think of as just being what it’s like it to be real stinkin’ poor, and therefore not a “vacation”.

Anyhow, no wifi, no distractions beyond the occasional mosquito left me plenty of time for reading, so I wanted to share with you about two books I read this week.  The first is The Thirty Names of Night, by Zeyn Joukahadar (Zain Jhou/Zhu-ha-dar).  I read about it in The Atlantic, but when I was looking for things to listen to that would help me be sure to pronounce Joukhadar’s name correctly I discovered that I could have just as easily found this book listening to NPR.  I know - so many white ways for me to learn more about the world...  The second book is Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration by Dr. Reuben Jonathan Miller…  It’s a personal look at what happens to people who have been incarcerated after they get out of jail, particularly for people with felony convictions on their record.  

If you caught the last episode of WUWK?! you got to hear the story of me trying to receive some feedback on whether some stuff I’d written was steeped in white supremacy and white privilege despite my best efforts to not do that.  Let’s just say that I was less than graceful in receiving the feedback, but mostly staggered my way to a slightly less white version of what I had been trying to say.

At the end of my conversation with the woman who was giving me (or trying to give me) feedback, she shared an idea with me.  It was about land acknowledgements.  And at first I had a really strong knee jerk reaction against her suggestion.  Such a big reaction, in fact, that I knew I had to dig in there a bit more.  And when I did, I pretty much changed my point of view 180 degrees.  So… let’s talk land acknowledgements!

How do white people learn to be less racist?  Well, sometimes it's by being told that we've just said something racist.  That feedback always sucks, but what we choose to do with it is what matters in the long run.

Hi and thank you for listening to WUWK?!  We’re rapidly approaching the arrival of what I think might be the first ever federal holiday celebration of Juneteenth, seeing as how the house and Senate both just gave approval for making it a federal holiday!  With that in mind, I have been pondering how the past, the present and the future all connect around issues of race and racism.  

But let’s start with Juneteenth…

What do mindfulness and racism have to do with each other?  If given a choice between sitting on a cushion with your eyes closed and showing up at a BLM rally, could sitting on your butt actually make a bigger difference in cosmic battle to eliminate racism?  I have no idea.  But let’s explore the idea of using mindfulness to engage in the battle against racism this week on What's Up With Karen?!

A few weeks ago someone requested a little more content on the idea of white culture or white supremacist culture.  This episode focuses on the work of Tema Okun, a white woman who returned home frustrated from a meeting one day and jotted down 15 aspects of what she saw as white supremacy culture at work.   And her work just gained momentum from there.  So, let’s dig into it a little bit.

Last week’s episode I gave you a quick rundown of the first half of those 15 qualities Okun identified.  Now it’s time for the other 7.  Okun offers antidotes to each, which I’ll also briefly touch on.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed, try just thinking about how one or two of the things on the list impact you and your life in either positive or negative ways, OR how your day might be different if you let go of this cultural belief for 15 minutes or so.

A few weeks ago someone requested a little more content on the idea of white culture or white supremacist culture.  This episode focuses on the work of Tema Okun, a white woman who returned home frustrated from a meeting one day and jotted down 15 aspects of what she saw as white supremacy culture at work.   And her work just gained momentum from there.  So, let’s dig into it a little bit.

This week on WUWK?!  It’s just a bit of pondering about languages that we learn and teach in our schools, and languages that we don’t. 

When I first told people about the WUWK?! podcast project, a number of the white people initially involved expressed an interest in hearing more from people of color about their experiences with racism.  Maybe because some of us white people didn’t have too many friends who weren’t white to talk to.  Or maybe because they it can feel uncomfortable bringing up the topic with the friends we do have.

Anyhow, I decided I needed to educate myself a bit more about racism first.  But at this point, we’re starting to move further into the terrain of conversations about race and racism rather than just Karens.  

So this week we have a conversation with a woman I’ve been friends with for at least 10 years, which is a great kind of friend to try out one’s “hi I’m white - don’t know if you noticed but I did not too long ago and I was wondering (dot dot dot)...” skills with.    Sandy and I  met in a community leadership program where the facilitator, wise woman that she was, assigned us to meet with one different person from the group each week for a cup of coffee.  As a classic white goody two shoes, I took this homework assignment very seriously.  And that’s how I met Sandy.  And I’m so glad I did.  I come away from my conversations with her with new perspectives.  And over time we’ve gotten to that point where we tell each other things that we want to be true, and then realize in the middle of the night that they weren’t true, and then we come back together and tell each other the real truth.  About what we’re afraid of, or how we think we screwed up or that we’re not really sure what defunding the police looks like or if we’re in support of it or not.  Sandy comes from a big family, and I’m an only child.  She’s proud of her Puerto Rican heritage while I am doing my best to embrace my white half Dutch, half German with maybe a little Rottweiler mixed there for all I know status.  And I so look forward to sitting down over a glass of red wine with her in the evening to share stories and laugh whenever we get the chance.