What's Up With Karen?!?

This week on WUWK?! It’s an interview with a woman who runs a non profit organization called Access Opportunity.  Their mission is to create opportunities for high potential, low income students who - not coincidentally tend to be primarily people of color.  They work with a lot of kids who represent the first generation in their family to college.  I wanted help learning to see and identify some of the barriers that exist for kids who aren’t legacy college attendees the way I, my partner, my kids… all were.  The kinds of things that people like me might otherwise not recognize because of either my racial or my economic privilege.   Access Opportunity is a relatively new organization, but others like I Have A Dream have been addressing these kinds of inequities for some time.  I figured it was time to take a listen and see what I could learn.    https://www.accessopportunity.org/ 

This week on WUWK?! We’ve got an interview with a woman who works as an international adoption lawyer.  But before she got her law degree, she got some personal experience as an adoptive parent herself.  Also, she was even nice back in high school and how often do you really find yourself remembering people in that way?! Enjoy meeting an old friend of mine - Diana. 

This week on WUWK?! We’ve got an episode that focuses on just one conversation with a woman who is one of the people that I use as a role model - she’s a white woman who definitely gets racism and social justice issues on deeper levels than I do.  I am just cheesy enough that I have really and truly asked myself from time to time, “what would Pam do in a situation like this?” particularly when contemplating putting my foot in my mouth when I think I’ve just heard or seen something racist.  And I often come away from interactions with Pam realizing that although she didn’t bother to call me out or call me in, if I pay attention to her tone of voice, I can learn something new about yet another one of under-educated about race white people tendencies.  I’ve edited our conversation so you won’t hear too much overlap between the wisdom Pam is sharing here, and in other episodes.  Also, so I don’t sound like a totally dipshit.   So, with no further ado, let me introduce you to Pam.

For many years our educational and economic systems stacked the deck using a myriad of  systems of oppression so that mostly white people do better on standardized tests.  They are more likely to end up in STEM fields designing the software that can define our lives in crazy ways, and - in a really different form of standardized testing, those same white people can intentionally or unintentionally change how football players are compensated for head injures.  

This week on WUWK a crazy journey into the rabbit hole of what happens when the standardized tests are designed to benefit white people. 

In the beginning, there was no What’s Up With Karen?! Podcast.  There was an idea, and some inspiration, and a lot of spare time.  But there was also a root to it all.  And this is the story of how it all began.

After hearing Robin DiAngelo talk a bit about modern segregation, I found myself  wondering  how did neighborhoods get so segregated in the first place?  That’s what we're going to explore in this week’s episode on segregation, with a s*** ton of help from Richard Rothstein who wrote The Color of Law.

Okay, full disclosure… This episode is basically a book report.  I’m new enough to a bunch of this stuff that I’m in no way speaking from a place of expertise, so instead I’m going to try to sum up in a moderately concise fashion Rothstein’s book.  Or at least the first half of it because I’m not quite done reading it yet.  So all the quotes come from Rothstein unless otherwise noted, and you can find uninteresting details like page numbers for those quotes in the written transcript for the show.

This week on WUWK?! We’ve got another 1 on 1 interview for you.  Today’s episode is a conversation with a woman who I met through her volunteer work with a non-profit organization, but when she’s not out saving the floundering volunteer boards of the world, Trish can be found at her day job as entrepreneur and strategist for TEEM.  Oh, did I mention she is the CEO of TEEM?  Since I tend to ramble in these conversations, I’ve tried to cut out most of that so you can enjoy some key tidbits and sage wisdom from Trish.  And I also pulled out some choice wisdom from Trish to share in other episodes, so if her voice sounds familiar, or you start experiencing deja vous before your third glass of wine while listening next week that’s why.  Probably.  That or you’ve gotten into tequila a little too early in the afternoon again.  Anyhow - here’s Trish!

A few weeks ago, I got an email.  Well, sort of.  Someone wrote to a friend who had suggested they check out What's Up With Karen?! and told them “So far it's interesting but I hope it gets a little more specific.... what actual words should we not be saying in our out loud voices.”  And women being women, she passed that dish right on to me with a matching tuper-ware lid, I might add.  Thus, we find ourselves here today, on What's Up With Karen?! with an episode I’m calling “Language Matters.”

This episode of What's Up With Karen?! explores the question of "if I heard you say something that I thought was racist, would you want me to tell you?"  Then we hear tips from a bunch of different people on making that information easier to hear.  Next, we consider the differences (or lack thereof) between white culture, white dominated culture, and white supremacist culture.  Finally, a few thoughts on shame and racism - should we feel shame?  Is it really a bad thing to feel shame?  And of course, a few groovy music breaks just for you!  

This episode is a 1:1 conversation with Nia of Mission Launch about issues of race, racism, systemic oppression and of course all things Karen, as they pertain to non-profit organizations.