Using Education and Empathy to Understand Privilege
During this time of social unrest, Traci and Rob explore how being white means being privileged. They discuss how this came to be in America and what it means today as a business leader and as a human. Through education and empathy, we can make not only a difference in our own understanding, but we can also make a difference in the business world.
Throughout this episode, we talk about educating ourselves on privilege and systemic racism with being able to read all sides of the argument. Here are some books we have found helpful during our journeys.
Transcript
Rob:
I'm Rob. I'm a white, straight male. My pronouns are he and him. I'm on a journey of trying to recognize and struggling with my own privilege.
Traci:
I'm Traci. I am a white female who is also straight, married and also on a journey about learning about my privilege in this world.
Announcer:
Welcome to the Overly Human podcast, where we discuss all things human in the workplace. Because it's not just business—it's personal too.
Traci:
I think Rob, we're both on this journey, maybe in different places on the journey because we've only talked a little bit about it. But we are realizing that it's a journey. We are realizing that the people around us are in different locations on the path. And a lot is going on in this world and in our companies and with our clients. How’s the journey been for you?
Rob:
Yeah, that's a pretty big question. I've been working in tech for over 20 years now, been running Sparkbox as an owner for over 11. There's been a lot of change because I mean, I grew up middle class and very much thought I was earning what I was getting and all of those things. I remember being early in my career and very much thinking that it was a meritocracy, that everything was fair and the systems were equal.
When I first started seeing articles that were dealing with gender bias and some of the other things that are pervasive in tech, I really reacted internally like that's not true, I've worked with plenty of female software engineers. And I pointed to all the examples of where I thought it was wrong and just didn't deal with it cause I didn't have to. I think that so much of that was based on the fact that confronting what I thought I had earned all by myself was core to who I was.
Traci:
I think that's interesting that you put it that way is that it's almost that believing that everything you worked for you earned 110% on your own is so tied to understanding bias and privilege. And it's a very, very deep topic, right? It does take perspective and understanding. You almost have to float above yourself and really understand something way outside just your individual experience.
I know for me, I also grew up middle class. I grew up in a very, very diverse world because I grew up in South Florida. With a ton of immigrants and a ton of different ethnicities. My grandparents were immigrants and married to an immigrant. I have a very diverse perspective. Then I moved to the Midwest and I also entered into the business world as a female. And you start to learn more about your own biases when you're put in certain situations, and we all have them as one that I learned, we all have biases. I think that's the first step in understanding this is it doesn't matter how you grew up, where you grew up, what you were given or not given. We all have biases.
Also, I think understanding more about what it's like to be a woman in a business world. That journey was really interesting and also the journey of understanding how women broke through barriers was interesting for me as well, is understanding that we protested and marched as well to get voting rights, but ultimately we didn't have the power to decide whether we were going to get them or not. That right was voted on and given to us by white men, thankfully. Right? But it could have not happened.
I think it's really interesting when you look at yourself in that big picture, we're a country that's not that old in comparison to the rest of the world. We're a country that was founded with great founding fathers, with great intentions, yet we still struggle for equality. We still struggle for people to have an equal opportunity at things.
What I think was interesting when you were talking, as you said, “I learned to deal with it. I didn't have to deal with it.” When you were talking about biases in the tech world, you had that choice, you had that luxury of I can think about it or not think about it really. I think that's part of privilege, right? Is even us having this conversation today, we made a choice to have this conversation today. We didn't really have to look at, discuss, or think about racism. We're two white people. We have the privilege of saying, you know what? I just would rather not. It feels uncomfortable. I really don't like it. I don't know what to do about it. I'm confused. We have that luxury of saying, we don't have to think about it, or even believe it exists. A lot of people have made that choice too, to just believe racism doesn't exist. Yet right there, the people that we know, our friends, our black brothers and sisters and other people of other ethnicities, they don't have that privilege to just say they don't have to think about it, don't worry about it.
Rob:
It gets back to that, this whole concept of what is the default, right? The default is assumed to be the majority, which happens to be white. In the business world, it also historically has happened to be male. And if you are both of those things, then you don't have to think about these ideas because they were systems built by and for you, in the ways that you act, in the defaults of what we did, testosterone, right? All of that's baked into the cake together.
That's a really complicated thing to realize is that you look around and you just assume that all of the other fish are just happy in the water that we're all swimming in. That's not the case. Some of these systems that we're talking about were actually built to not be hospitable to some groups. That's where it even becomes even worse.
One of the things I think you said is this whole idea of bias. Yeah, we all have biases. I think one of the important pieces of work that we need to do individually is turn unconscious bias into conscious bias, so at least we're aware of it. The unconscious bias is so dangerous because it's little judgments and big judgements we're making that we're not even clued in on. This is happening because we assume that so much is right and that we have the same perspective and the same experiences, that those are the default. Least, if we do the work and understand that we have unconscious bias, we have a chance to do something, to get in front of that cycle.
Traci:
Yes. I think one of the things that—and we talked about this right in our opening—is this journey that we're all on. I think one of the reasons why I want to say that we all have bias is because none of us are fully evolved. None of us have this all figured out. None of us can honestly say we live without any prejudice or any bias. I know people would argue with me on that, but the reason why I think it's important to point out that we're all on different parts of this continuum and on different places in this journey is because the danger comes when there is somebody who's just still struggling with even is this real? Is white privilege real? Is racism actually exist? Then you have people who feel like they're way down the path and they're very evolved and they're really well-read. They start shaming the people that are just struggling with understanding this and understanding the reality of it and their place in it. Then on top of their struggle, they feel shame and guilt, which then makes them feel angry and they start wrestling with all these emotions and then they shut down and we've made no progress.
Can we realize that people are in different places in this journey and help each other along? I think that's just a really important thought because we're working as teams. We may think we know what somebody else on our team thinks, but we might not, or we may start to lead these discussions or have a book group or whatever. Try to educate ourselves as a team in the workplace, as many companies have committed to doing. Then are we handling it well? Are we being overly human when we're dealing with each other?
Rob:
Yeah. I think that's really, really important and how we lift each other up. I would go one step further. One thing you were saying is that I do think everyone has biases, full stop, because we're all live in a system and an environment that is biased. When we live in that environment, and that's everybody, that's the big all, then everybody doesn't have a choice because we all are products of that system.
If we really want to do better, it takes intentional effort. If the default and inertia is what we have, then by doing nothing, we will continue to have what we've always had as far as culture and defaults and norms and all of that. It takes active energy and attention to make progress in this, which is why it feels so exhausting is because you are literally fighting every system that's in place all the time by doing something different and trying to have equality, right?
All the things that we were told as kids, you have to fight against that. All the things that you think happened. Those struggles were real but you may have just had an edge or not have the punishments of making mistakes or some of those other pieces. It's so, so important that we start to think about the bias that exist in the systems so that we can do something about those things. If we're talking mostly to leaders and business owners on this podcast—at least that's what I believe—that means you have to intentionally design your systems to not be that if you don't want this be the norm.
Traci:
Yes. I think understanding that this is a systemic problem is key because there are a lot of people having arguments about who's a racist and who's not a racist. This isn't about racist versus not racist and racism just equals being mean, we're talking about systemic breakdown here, right? The sooner we see it that way, then we don't absolve ourselves of participation, right?
I'm going to speak really broadly here. Liberals might say that conservatives are racist and therefore they're the bad people. Conservatives might say, well, racism doesn't really exist, so what's the problem, right? These are very sweeping examples, but both sides have absolved themselves of participation. Because I can say, “Well, I'm not, I mean, racist, so therefore I'm not participating and therefore I'm good. I'm good. Right?” And that's not a good way for me to operate.
I need to sit exactly in what you're saying, which is this, it does have something to do with me and my morality and my actions, but it's deeper than that. It's not just me agreeing to be a nice person and not to come across as a racist. It's me intentionally breaking down the system, breaking down and rebuilding it in a way that's better and more equal.
Like Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, right. He wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Then a decade later, what did the founding fathers write into the constitution? That slaves were three-fifths of a person, right? There is where it started, what started with slavery, but that's just a great example of the system. Then we could go on and on and on and on about all the different laws and things that were denied.
The more you read about it, the more you see the disparity in income, wealth, education, health, incarceration, all of that is just to staggering degree tied to ethnicity. And so you're right, it is a system. It's a system that unfortunately is based on exclusion or based on a group of people being thought of as less than. We have a lot of work ahead of us. And it's going to take all of what you, you said it beautifully, the intentionality of us leaning into rewriting the system.
Rob:
I think it all starts on a personal level with being able to be okay with being wrong and not fighting to be right. I think that's such a key piece of all of this is I have yet to meet the person who has made progress on this journey of struggling with their own privilege that hasn't grappled or dealt with the fact that there's things they thought they were sure of that they're wrong about. I think that that's something that I've taken out of this and started trying to live my life by is always being open to being wrong and being okay with it, because wrong things in my past are indicators of growth oftentimes. I think that there's a perspective flip that we can go through to say that almost a little bit, the more I'm wrong, the more I've learned, because either I have all the answers upfront which I know is not true. And I don't think anybody does. I think that we have to grapple with that. It's just a huge piece of all of this.
Traci:
Yeah, and I think I've had so many of my clients ask like, “What do I do? I feel a bit helpless. How do I get myself further down the journey? How do I help the people around me get further down the journey?” And you've hit on the very first step, which is education. We have to educate ourselves with the right information, with valid, true, good information.
You are describing a certain level of vulnerability there, right? We like to feel right. There's a safety in feeling right and being right for a lot of people. And it's a different degrees depending on your ego and your struggle with ego—I'm going to get a little more psychological here— but a lot of people are resistant to information, to more information, to learning more, to reading more because they know that will challenge their way of thinking. Maybe the way they were raised to think, maybe their belief systems, maybe just the comfort in being right and feeling right. It may wrestle with so many different things, their political beliefs, anything, and that's scary to people. That vulnerability of admitting you don't know it all is a real step. It's a true step.
I think what we want to strive for is knowing the most we can about a subject, whatever that subject is. We need to look at both sides of the argument. My uncle who just passed away. I loved him so much. He had such a great influence on me. One of the best pieces of advice he gave me when I went off to college is he said, “The biggest way that you can look like a fool, Traci, is to not have read both sides of the argument. Don't ever get stuck arguing just one side of an argument. You need to read—as uncomfortable as it might make you feel—read the other side, understand the other side.”
It was the best piece of advice he could have given me going into college where everything, the world is your oyster, and all the books are there and information is there, is to really open yourself up to learning. That doesn't mean you have to jeopardize your beliefs or put your morals on a back burner or change your politics or anything. You don't have to do any of that. The knowledge is just going, hopefully it will make you feel stronger, right, and more well-equipped to guide you down this journey of understanding. And yes, in the case of what we're talking about today, race and inequality, it is going to challenge your thinking. You're never going to get to where you need to be down this journey if you don't open a book, if you don't read something.
Rob:
And I think that's really important, and I love the idea of reading both sides. But I think it's also perspectives too. You need to digest all of the different perspectives that go into this conversation. As two middle class white people who had success and have families and children, there are things that we never have and never will experience. What I think is you have to open yourself up to is when you read someone else's perspective and experience, you have to default to believing what they say and believe that that's how they felt and were made to feel. And not jump to, “Well, that's not true. That doesn't exist.” It's okay. You have to trust people from where they're at and find good sources from all of that. But I've learned so much by reading so many things and from so many different perspectives and actively seeking out new inputs.
Because if you're like me, my default environment was just feeding me more of what I was reflecting on them. Only when I started being intentional about seeking out new things and new perspectives and some probably radical things, especially definitely seemed radical for me at the time was like, “Oh, I didn't know that was out there. Didn't know that existed. Okay.” Sitting with it, struggling with it, and then making informed decisions is such a huge part of this journey.
Traci:
I want to stress that they're informed by good sources. I mean, we know you're in the tech world for decades. I was in television world. I know that there are so many things that look real and can be designed to look valid and the story to look real, but it's not.
I just want to encourage people, television is designed to win audiences. We say that all the time and television is like, we want to win people over. We try to win them over by making them feel comfortable and right. You have to push beyond what you're watching and you need to push and really read and interact with people who are well-educated on these topics and who are known and who are well-versed. Like you said, have perspective, have walked in these shoes, understand and can articulate what it feels like. I think that's really, really important because we can fall into these lazy habits of just hearing a snippet on the news or seeing a YouTube video and thinking it's 100% real and then quoting it all over the place. That's not education, that's not education. That's just more feeding our ego.
Rob:
It is. You had a second thing. The first one was education. You had a second one as well.
Traci:
The second one is empathy. We are not going to get anywhere down this journey without our ability to put ourselves in other people's shoes. You were hinting at this before with perspective.The thing that fights us with empathy, especially in America is just our individualism. I mean, we like to protect ourselves, think about ourselves, our own situations, what inconveniences us, our freedoms, how is this going to hurt me? When we get into that mindset, it's a slippery slope and it's a hard abyss to climb out of. We need to climb out of that individual mindset and really start walking in other people's shoes.
The best way to put yourself in somebody else's shoes is to talk to somebody. If we're talking about racism, you need to talk to an African American and ask them, “What's it like? What's it like?” About any of these of topics. What's it like to look at that statue? What's it like to work in this environment? What's it like to interview for a job? What's it like to talk to a white male boss? I mean, all you have to do is get perspective from somebody that's not like you and just hear their journey and keep asking these questions. Empathy takes a lot of curiosity.
Rob:
It does. I think there's a couple things there that are important. Like you said, “talk”, I heard, “listen.” You need to listen to those perspectives.
I also want to make sure that we're encouraging people to do your homework first. Don't put the onus on educating you on other people. There's lots of things to read. The internet is an amazing thing. You can find tons and tons of articles about perspective and all of that. I think that's a really important piece to this is making sure that we're not putting the onus on the people who have to live this every day to educate us when there is so much great writing out there. You can do that work.
I mean, some of the most valuable conversations I've had on these topics of course have been with people that have experienced them firsthand, but those are earned conversations. A lot of cases, they're not the first conversation I've had with that person, right. It's an earned thing out of a relationship into a place of trust, that where there is the empathy and there's that grace to be able to have that conversation in a safe place.
Traci:
When we talk about diversity and inclusion, it helps us to understand why that's important. One of the things of understanding why inclusion is important is to understand what exclusion feels like. That's what empathy does. It helps you to understand what it feels like to be excluded in a design, to be excluded when you look at a television screen or a movie screen and you don't see anybody like you. When you see things that don't at all represent your culture or aren't sensitive to you. It's putting yourself in somebody else's shoes to feel what that feels like. I don't think we do that enough as white people to understand what's the benefit of inclusion and why is it important? And what does it feel like to not be? To not see yourself, to not be included.
Rob:
I think we could sit here and talk about all of the different studies that show that diversity is good for business and this, that, and the other, and how collaboration and diverse perspectives. But I think that for me, this is a moral issue. This is what's right and wrong. You don't have to make business cases for what's right and wrong. I think that being able to say that to our teams and say, "This is why we're doing this, this is what we're doing. This is a journey we're going to go on together," makes it really clear about expectations, where they're being led. Not that everyone will take the same path or the same speed, but there's a direction that you're headed and you might have some people opt out.
I know that it feels like we have over the years as we've gone through this journey with our company. At first, it was a bummer. Then I accepted like, no, this is no different than any other direction we take. There's people that either agree with where we're going in our values or they don't. How do I make peace with that?
Traci:
I think that is what being intentional is about. That's what being anti-racist is about. If you don't feel like racism is a good thing, then you need to be against it. I think that's a bold step for some people. For other people it's a very easy step, but you're right. It can lead to people leaving your company. It can lead to tension on your team. It can lead to a level of dysfunction for an amount of time.
You have to be able to enter into that, knowing it's possible and being okay with it and also being the leader that's going to step up and engage. You're not going to be the leader who's like, okay, let's have the discussion and I'm going to sit back. You need to lean in and be part of it and to be active and to create that safe space for everybody who's on the journey, and to be empathetic to people along the way.
I think the best way we can move things forward are really focusing on these two avenues of educating ourselves, putting our ego aside. Being more vulnerable, not feeling like we have to be right and safe but allowing ourselves to venture out and learn the most we can about the subject from valid sources and being empathetic. Putting herself in other people's shoes, walking just a day in the life, and really understanding what it feels like.
For me, it's what does it feel like to walk around this world? Walk around even my town, my city, with a different color skin. What does that feel like? I've had friends say, "You'll just never know. I can't articulate what the looks of suspicion, fear, trying to convince people I'm not a threat." I can't. I don't know what that feels like, I never will, but man, I can try. I can try
Rob:
Traci, I just want to say I appreciate being able to have this conversation with you.
Traci:
Yeah, I appreciate having this conversation with you. I think we're both on this journey or both trying and there's such a long way to go, but I am hopeful for that. I'm hopeful for what lies ahead. And I think you and I can keep holding each other accountable along the way.
Rob:
I'd like that. Thanks, Traci.
Traci:
Thank you.
Announcer:
This podcast would not be possible without the amazing communications team at Sparkbox. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe and tell your friends to listen as well. The Overly Human podcast is brought to you by Navigate the Journey and Sparkbox. For more information on this podcast, or to get in touch with Traci or Rob, go to overlyhuman.com. Thanks for listening.
