Welcome to the season finale of Diversity & Inclusion: Revolution or Reform?  Today’s episode is a very special conversation around dismantling White Supremacy culture with Tema Okun, author of the original and groundbreaking article “White Supremacy Culture” in 1999. Join us for this important conversation about White Supremacy Culture, its complexities, and the work needed to dismantle it. It was truly an honor to have Tema as a guest and we want to extend our gratitude to her for her lifelong commitment to this work. 

Guest Bio

Tema was born into an upper-middle-class family, her father the son of first-generation Jewish immigrants escaping the pogroms in Belarus and her mother the daughter of a postal clerk father and housewife mother, both with immigrant roots in Scotland or Ireland. She grew up in a very small town in Texas. Her father was a college professor in an elite Southern college town and her mother worked on and off in the public schools. Tema grew up during the last years of Jim Crow and the first years of school desegregation, both enactments of violent white supremacy and racism. Her parents were liberals in the best sense of the word and very active in the local Civil Rights Movement. Tema is cisgender, currently able-bodied, upper class, older, and sometimes an elder.

​(from Tema):

“I have lots of so-called credentials - degrees and a book and articles and poetry and art and curriculum and talks and speeches and teaching and consulting and mentoring and ... my hope is you would care more about my heart than anything. I am conditioned to be fearful while determined to be open-hearted and I live in that ongoing tension each day with as much grace and humor as I can muster. I am deeply puzzled by why and how we seem to value profit over people and why and how we base our belonging on who we can keep out rather than who we welcome in. And by we, I mean our culture, our white supremacy capitalist patriarchal ableist heteronormative fool of a culture. I am deeply moved by how so many of us do all in our power to refuse the invitation into such toxicity and I admire both up close and from afar all engaged in the solidarity effort to live into the world we all want and deserve. I am lucky beyond words to be well-loved by a community of people, which is why I have any kind of open heart at all. I aspire to remember every day that I love you as I love myself, and we all know, or most of us do, what a struggle it can be to love ourselves well. Learning to love well is my current project. Thank you, thank you for all you are and do.”

Connect with Tema and her work

• https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/
• Dismantlingracism.org

Learn more about our work:

Email: revolutionorreform@gmail.com

Connie’s Instagram: @and.now.collective
Connie’s Work: and-now-collective.com

David’s Instagram: @amplify.rj
David’s Work: amplifyrj.com

Listen and follow the podcast on all major platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Stitcher

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Welcome to Diversity & Inclusion: Revolution or Reform?  Today’s conversation is a behind-the-scenes look at life and work as a solo DEI Practitioner with special guest Carissa Begonia. David and Carissa speak about the growing pressure on solo DEI Practitioners to do it all within their organizations as the only one. The conversation also highlights the growing need for healing specifically for POC within DEI work and organizations. A big thank you to Carissa for her time and openness to having real conversations. 

Guest Bio

Carissa is a first-generation Filipina-American daughter of immigrants. She is the founder of CONSCIOUSXCHANGE, an equity-focused leadership and business coaching and consulting company with a mission to forward the economic advancement of BIPOC, women, and folx of historically marginalized identities by helping them lead values-aligned careers or launch their own purpose-driven businesses.

Carissa, aka the Dream Doula, serves as a startup and small business consultant as well as executive coach, helping BIPOC entrepreneurs and leaders bring their wildest, most audacious dreams to life and design a life they are proud of. She is the former head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) of Zappos and has over 15 years of experience working on both the operations and the human side of business at some of the country’s largest retailers including Macy’s, Saks 5th Avenue, and Ross Stores. Carissa has been featured in TIME magazine and has been invited to speak at organizations including KPMG, Publicis Groupe, Kapor Capital, Pearson, and the YMCA.

As a serial entrepreneur, Carissa is also the co-founder of Green Mango International, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization supporting educational opportunities for underserved school children in the Philippines, as well as the co-founder of AARISE - Asian American Racialized Identity and Social Empowerment for AAPIs, a program and community focused on justice and liberation for all centering Asian American activist history, AAPI experiences, emotional processing and somatic healing.

Connect with Carissa

• LinkedIn: Carissa Begonia
• www.consciousxchange.com

REMINDER!

Join us on Thursday, January 272022 at 4pm PST/7pm EST for a LIVE conversation + audience Q&A on Dismantling White Supremacy Culture in organizations and society with poet, artist, & writer Dr. Tema Okun. Tickets are available HERE.

Learn more about our work:

Email: revolutionorreform@gmail.com

Connie’s Instagram: @and.now.collective
Connie’s Work: and-now-collective.com

David’s Instagram: @amplify.rj
David’s Work: amplifyrj.com

Listen and follow the podcast on all major platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Stitcher

Click here to access the transcript of today’s episode.

Special Announcement! to celebrate this stage in our podcast journey we're hosing a live event!
 **Join our LIVE webinar on Dismantling White Supremacy Culture with Dr. Tema Okun January 27, 4pm PST/7pmEST**

To pump you up we're airing this episode recorded with Tema, one year ago on David's podcast "This Restorative Justice Life".

Enjoy!

Guest Bio
Tema Okun has spent over 30 years working with and for organizations, schools, and community-based institutions as a trainer, facilitator, and coach focused on issues of racial justice and equity.

She is the author of the award-winning The Emperor Has No Clothes: Teaching About Race and Racism to People Who Don't Want to Know (2010, IAP) and the widely used article White Supremacy Culture. She publishes regularly on the pedagogy of racial and social justice.

Learn more about our work:

Email: revolutionorreform@gmail.com

Connie’s Instagram: @and.now.collective
Connie’s Work: and-now-collective.com

David’s Instagram: @amplify.rj
David’s Work: amplifyrj.com

Listen and follow the podcast on all major platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Stitcher