 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to LEAD, Leading Equity and Diversity. I am Dr. Debbie Willis, pronouns she, her, hers and I lead the DEI certificate program at the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School. We started this series because scholars wanted to hear from real people, their experiences leading equity, diversity, inclusion and social justice efforts. We thank you all for joining us today. Given all this going on in the world, we really appreciate your presence here. You received the prompt that the session is being recorded. And though your audio and video is muted, we encourage you to engage in the conversation through the question and answer portal. We love to bring your voices into the room. If you see a question that you also like to hear the response, please like or upvote that question. We ask the questions with the broadest interest first. We ask that you remain patient with us as we have close to a thousand of you who have registered and we had lots of questions from registration. We will not get to all of them in one hour, but we're committed to continue the conversation and have dedicated this LEAD webinar series to address racial equity for an entire year, and we invite you to join us each month. This LEAD conversation will address the need to have people of all social identities involved in the fight against racism. We, how can we avoid the us versus them mentality and mobilize as a unified force against racism? Our featured guests, Howard Ross and Sonya Jacobs will discuss pathways to bonding and bridging across difference. Howard is a lifelong social justice advocate and is considered one of the world's seminal thought leaders on identifying and addressing unconscious bias. He is the author of the Washington Post's bestseller, Every Day Bias, identifying and navigating unconscious judgments in our daily lives. And he will have a revised edition of that book coming out next week on July 30th, and I'm really excited about that. He will also be discussing his latest book, Our Search for Belonging, How Our Need to Connect is Tearing Us Apart. Sonya Jacobs is the University of Michigan's Chief Organizational Learning Officer and Senior Director of Faculty and Leadership Development. Sonya and Howard, can you please get on now and introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about your journey as a leader in the space of diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice. Howard, can we start with you? Sure, thanks David. So good to be with everybody. I am. As you know, I have two of my sons who are University of Michigan graduates. So U of M has always had a special place in my heart. So I'm glad to be with everybody and also some of the folks there who I work with. You know, I've been doing this work my whole life and one way or another. I went to my first civil rights meeting when I think I was 16 years old, which is now like 53 years ago. And we've gone through many changes and at some point I figured out a way to make a living based on my passion. So I've been doing diversity, inclusion work in the organization this after 35 years. And a lot of it just came out of my own family background. My family is on Jewish. I'm from my family's from Eastern Europe, but we suffered enormous loss during the Holocaust. So I grew up right in the shadow of that being born in January 1951. I think that, you know, we've seen evolution over the years. And the question that I know I'm confronting and I sure many are confronting is whether this moment that we're in will become a movement. I've seen some people refer to this as the potential for a third reconstruction. The first of course being after the Civil War, the second being the civil rights movement of the 60s and now the possibility of moving this to another level. But at the same time, we know we're also getting a lot of counter reaction. And so it's basic Newtonian physics, you know, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And so I think it's important. And I know we'll talk about this today for us to be incredibly thoughtful about how we deal with this. And, and it's also distinctly different whether we're talking about a university environment or corporate environment or civil society kind of environment. So there's a lot for us to talk about today. Yeah. Yes. Hi Debbie thank you so very much for inviting me and I'd like to say hello to my counterparts in this work that are out there in the audience, joining us. It is a privilege to be in this discussion with Howard who I had the opportunity to work with little over 10 years ago with the health system leadership where he came to share, you know, the scientific and the business perspective of DEI efforts and that went a long way and then, you know, fast forward to 2016 when we were able to engage Howard's company in bringing the unconscious bias training here to Michigan. But a little bit about my journey to DEI advocacy and leadership like Howard, I think I was destined to do this work. Now there was an organizer for the Detroit Walk for Freedom in 1963. I was not yet born then a few years after that but activism and advocacy has been a part of my life for a very long time. And with that walk that being you know the precursor for the walk in Washington that did actually occur a couple of weeks after that. It was always instilled in me that I had to take action when I saw, you know, something wrong. But then my lived experience has truly, you know, been a journey in DEI advocacy and leadership. I remember going to Catholic school in the city of Detroit and it was predominantly African American, but my teachers, the clergy, the nuns, 90% of them were white. When I attended college west of here, I'll say that. I attended, you know, that college 3% of the student body was minority and I remember, you know, bumping shoulders and elbows on the sidewalks with white males who refused to share, you know, the path. And so I've had a lot of experience in DEI advocacy and leadership development, working for minority owned and majority owned companies that were committed to diversity, and then having a great fortune of bringing that work and experience to Michigan in 2002. You know, where I was training diversity education for all of the health system leaders, some 600 leaders there. And I think it was truly the commitment that Michigan Medicine had at that time it was the health system to diversity equity inclusion that I thought I saw opportunities for change. And then when President Schlissel convene the groups to create our strategic plan or five year strategic plan for diversity. I really feel as though there is a time and we will be able, I think to make change right now so I'm glad to be a part of this journey with the University of Michigan. So thanks for having me. Thank you both for being here. So we received a lot of questions. One of our questions is education plays a role in fighting systemic racism. What comes after basic unconscious bias training, and how do we move people to connect more deeply across differences after learning of their biases power you want to start your muted. My computer froze for a second. Can you ask the question again please. Yeah, no problem. Education plays a role in finding systemic racism. What comes after basic unconscious training, and how do people move to connect across differences after learning their biases. Well, thanks. First of all, I think it's really important. I think a lot of times see unconscious bias, people see unconscious bias work in the wrong context that sometimes I hear people say, you know, well this is letting people off the hook and so I think first of all it's important for us to realize that systemic racism and bias are twin siblings that support each other, you know the system of systemic racism comes from what what Brian Stevenson calls the narrative of racial difference in our culture and we know that that gets created through everything we learn growing up and and underneath that the connected tissue at that is all the biases that were taught all the assumptions that we make about about different people. And then of course what happens is because we have those assumptions we create structures and systems in society which are consistent with that so policing restricted living circumstances access issues relative to quality education health care, you know, all kinds of other things. You know so all of that stuff creates a system that's consistent with the narrative we have, and then that system of course produce results which are disparate results because if you don't have that same access to quality education you don't have access to health you don't have access to all these other kinds of things, then the outcomes show up in a disparate way, and those outcomes then perpetuate this narrative of racial difference so we can see we're stuck in this conformational system. So we've got to attack that from two directions one way is the more individual way and that is to look at how our biases give us the world that we see, and allow us to accept things that we shouldn't be accepting in front of us, you know, various different forms of bigotry to subtle forms of micro behaviors whether we call them micro aggressions or, or other language that we use for that. And then at the other so we got to deal with those personal issues and then at the same time we have to look at the systemic kinds of application you know what are the policies practices and procedures that we need to change. How do we create systems and designs in our structures that are designed to catch those biases and action, but if we only work the systems without dealing with the biases, then I like to say to people it's very much like losing weight most people I know who want to lose weight know exactly what they need to do to do it the system is there eat less and exercise more, but we don't do it because we haven't looked at what we have going on internally that has us resist those systems. So it's a both and not an either or. Yeah, I agree with Howard there. I think, when it comes to our own learning, we're continuously learning. Okay, we always have to know that we have biases, and those biases are shaping our perspectives, right, and our view on the world. So there's a need for continuous learning. Also, we do have to think about those systems and practices as Howard mentioned, you know, I think about our hiring practices, you know, are we very consistent with how we go about bringing people into the organization. You know, on the values that we espouse, you know, as an organization, are we checking, you know, ourselves when we are promoting people and why are we promoting them, you know, with the expectations and the qualifications but also do they have the values that we want to see, in the organization that we are trying to create. So we do have to have a very critical lens on all the systems that we have in the organization. And then personally, we've got to acknowledge our own biases, we've got to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and then we've got to create space where people will make mistakes, and we have to create space where people are going to be I remember somebody telling me as a DEI practitioner or a facilitator, if I'm not making people uncomfortable, I'm not doing my job. And it's in that discomfort that we can begin to really talk about our biases and how they impact what we do, who we are, and how we lead so it's a continuous learning journey, you know, inwardly as well as hourly. Thank you. Yes, definitely a continuous learning journey. The next question is given that people are more likely to stick to groups when they feel safe. What can we do throughout the year to create an organizational community and sense of safety for everyone. Sonya you want to start here. Yeah, I think it begins with dialogue. We've got to invite all to the table for conversation and in doing so create a safe space. I remember a thought leader Margaret Wheatley talking about, we're only afraid of the stories that we don't know. You've got to be bring people in so we could get to learn about one another. Okay, going back to my earlier comment, allow people to be vulnerable, but also be clear on what our norms are. We come together have different views and different perspectives, but we need to talk about a group norms what's going to be accepted, or what's not be okay with being checked for what we say, you know, because we're going to make mistakes. Okay, but always be thinking about that individuals intent, why they said what we said, and really help to impact that. So I think having opportunities where we can come together for dialogue be it you know, in book discussions in our staff meetings, you know, start every meeting with some reflection that gets at some of the challenges that we're dealing with now and how are we feeling. And I can remember a situation whereby I myself as the leader being the only African American woman in that particular leadership team and being vulnerable and okay with saying, we have a problem. And I feel burden, but I knew that I could say that in that space, because I was amongst what I would call allies so in doing so being vulnerable. We have to make sure that there are people who around us that are going to help us feel safe and be okay with making a mistake. I also say that throughout the year when we're bringing groups together, you know, we have approximately 50 people that participate in our FEP program Debbie is one of them which is the facilitator engagement program. We have skilled individuals across the university that could assist leaders or groups in having some of these difficult conversations and so I want people to know that those resources are available, because not everybody is comfortable with creating that space, or having that dialogue so know that there are resources across the community, the university community to help with those. Howard, did you want to add to that one. Well, I would just, I would just build a little bit on what I'm saying because I couldn't agree more with everything she said I mean I like to say that the more we get to know each other for who we are the less we treat each other like what we are so there's personal connections are so important and part of that is understanding that that's built on our willingness to be vulnerable with each other. I mean, one of the ways this system is put in place and I really recommend that people check out Resma Malcolm's work around this racialized trauma because he's doing some brilliant work. We wrote a book called my grandmother's hands, which I'd recommend to people is that we all carry this racialized trauma from our culture, you know, it's obvious that people of color have been traumatized by the culture and so abusive over hundreds of years towards people of color, but white people also have a different kind of trauma that that is that we've had to find some way to deal with a culture that at our core we know is inherently unfair and inequitable, and yet we benefit from it. And that requires some kind of machinations that we all have to do in our inner world to justify the fact that the obvious is right in front of us and yet we don't want to deal with it. And, and so from all directions we have to deal with the way this trauma has impact our way of being with each other. And it's important for us to understand not just our way of being with each other across race but even our way of being each other within race. Because as you said in the question, you know, we do need to fit into the groups we're a part of and this is the research that we did for my book or search for belonging. And so what we found was that this is our core human need that in fact Maslow was probably wrong that that our core need to belong may be more important even than our physiological needs which is why you see things like suicide bombers right because belonging to the group is more important than my own personal physical needs. So in order to fit into our groups, we have to accept the narrative of our groups which means that if growing up as a white person that means I have to accept the narrative to some white supremacy if I'm going to fit into my group. And yet there's another part of me at the same time that knows how fundamentally that wrong that is every aspect of what I've been taught about what it is to be a good human being. And so, so when we talk about that openly with each other and we can share that vulnerability, we that begins to that begins to give us a chance to bridge now the one challenge with that of course, is that we've been sort of given the impression of the way to do that is by singing by out together, or that these conversations are going to be really nice and we're going to have a conversation over a book group or we're just going to fall in love with each other, you know, my experience has been that the most valuable relationships that I have with with people across our relationships where we can battle it out, you know, we know we're coming from well intention as Sonya was saying we know we're coming from good intentions, but we're willing to argue we're willing to debate we're willing to challenge each other and even get mad at each other. In context of that because that's where the truth sometimes emerges that's where the pain emerges that's where people can really get how challenged we are how afraid we are and how sometimes threatening it is to let go of the power we have in the system. Yeah, thank you Howard so you both talk to the discomfort that's needed for growth. We had numerous questions around affinity groups or tribes. Like, how do you encourage people to do anti racist work across difference when organizations, including many on our campus are typically organized by single identities. Sonya. Yeah, I've got a lot, a lot of thoughts there, you know, when I were third pandemic, which is what I've been calling the racial unrest after COVID the financial pandemic and then the racial unrest. Prior to that, we were dealing with anti Asian discrimination, right, with reference to the COVID virus. And I remember telling a few colleagues, we have to come together in this discussion, because it's people of color that are being impacted and disproportionately affected by the COVID virus and we won't be successful in ending systemic racism, unless we are all working Now, we do know there is comfort in having our affinity groups, you know, and our tribes, we get a lot of our support, you know, there, but we have got to come together collectively to make a change so examples of the work that we have been doing and engaging in indigo and NC ID, the women of color, a PETA, we have an advancing Asians and leadership group at Michigan Medicine and advancing inclusive leadership as well and it is requiring all of us to come together to talk about how do we support one another. How do we be allies and to one another, and by standards, each group still has particular challenges, as we know, 400 years of that, but we all, I think will contribute to the solution. And it begins by bringing those different voices and those different perspectives in to have a shared understanding of what is happening and bring those different perspectives to some of the solutions. Thank you Howard a similar question is how do we support affinity groups that create safe communities for marginalized groups, while also encouraging those groups to build coalitions with out group members. Well, you know, it's interesting. I think that we, one of the, one of the challenges we have as human beings in general is we create false binaries. We create this sense that things are either or that don't have to be either or and I think this is a great example of that. I mean, I think, you know, there's value in having our own tribe. There's value. There's, there's something safe at a very deep level about having people who inherently understand a large part of your experience and that's not to say of course that every person from any group is the same. I'm speaking art typically now we know that within any group within any group we have intersectionality. We have subgroup differences and sometimes vast differences, but nonetheless, you know, people who are black in America have a shared experience that's different than people from other groups and we could go through each of the groups attorney was talking about to find the same thing at the same time there's real value in bringing together people who have a shared commitment to have a breakthrough in that area. So one of the things that I'm finding with some of my clients who are in more advanced stages of diversity inclusion work, for example, is that instead of having, let's say, a gender affinity group, they'll have a gender equity or excuse me women's affinity group they'll have a gender equity affinity group or or race equity affinity group. And then within those groups they have times when they break out and have separate sessions so so at the beginning of a meeting if they come together for a couple hours maybe the first hours they're in separate sessions based on racial identification however people want to identify themselves. Excuse me. And then in the second hour of the meeting they come together and share what they've seen separately, and then say, How can we together work towards creating an environment that's safe for all of us. And so, and so you can kind of get the best of both worlds that way so I think we need to break out of this either orness and see that there are ways to meet both needs, because both of them have a very clear importance to us. I think so just a follow up to that we had someone say that the word tribe is problematic. Is there any, this is one of those spaces where we're all learning and growing. That question actually came in with the word tribe, but do you all have any commentary around that. I would just say that you know this has come up at different times and certainly there's certain no intention to offend a lot of times people associate that that terminology with more indigenous peoples but and the reality is that that there have been tribes in virtually every culture on the planet language has been used by virtually every culture in the planet so you know I do think as a rule we have to be sensitive to that and as the language evolves, be ready to move on to other language. Thank you. How do we support affinity groups that create safe communities for marginalized groups, while encouraging those groups. Oh, I already asked the question. Okay, the next question. How can people generally, generally, gently let well intention allies know that they don't need to dominate the conversation. You ready to jump into this. As a well intention ally who has an occasion dominated the conversation, I will say, first of all, we need to I think I think there are a couple things about this first of all we have to stop seeing ally as a now that starts seeing it as a verb that allyship is is an active practice. We have a badge to put on your chest or a bumper sticker to put on your car. And that means that we have to be constantly engaged in the conversation with our with our partners who represent different groups from us and part of that is being able to create the kind of open relationship where we get feedback. And that is, despite our best intentions, we're all raised in a in a system of, as I said before, Brian Stevenson called it this narrative of racial difference which places me as a white person at the top of that system. I'm saying the way the system is designed, and other people blow so what can happen sometimes with the best of intention is I may still be coming from. I may still be I just got to know to speak a little louder I hope you can hear me okay. I may be coming from the best of intentions but not realize that my being is still built in the white supremacy the white privilege that I was raised in in this system. And it's only by people giving me feedback sometimes that I can notice that because for me it's just a normal way of being and as much as I work on it I can tell you. Like I said I've been doing this work for 50 plus years, and there's still times when blind spots come out because it's inherently part of the air we breathe in the system. So creating those kinds of open relationships where we can give each other feedback is really important and and that means, you know, tell it to me straight. You don't need to be you don't need to bat me over the head with a sledgehammer with it but at the same time you don't need to protect my little ego because if my ego is so frail that being told that my attempts at that allyship are not as effective as they might that makes me run away that I'm not being a real active ally anyway. So Sanya this one's in higher education, it asks, what steps can students or staff take when we see faculty causing harm. What can students do specifically given the power dynamic. How do you avoid the us versus them mentality about race, when there's also a significant power differential. That is a problem that we have and we know we have to break down these systems that reinforce the power differentials. We've had this discussion related to the sexual harassment and misconduct issues that we have. We as an organization, we got to be consistent with what we say, and what we do. Okay, there are reporting systems, and when individuals report instances of discrimination or harassment, they are acted upon. We might not be following up with individuals as they may like, but we've got to be really clear what behaviors we're going to tolerate. And we have to hold people accountable for those behaviors that are counter to the culture that we want to see. But there are various reporting mechanisms for students, staff and faculty. There's the Office of Institutional Equity, our Dean of Students also has a reporting mechanism where they can report campus climate concerns. Michigan Medicine has a compliance hotline. There's a separate hotline for our medical students as well. And then on the sexual misconduct website, there's also another reporting mechanism there. But I would have to say as an organization, we got to be really clear on what we value, what those behaviors look like, how we're going to hold people accountable. And, you know, themselves and others accountable to those behaviors that we expect to see, and then be consistent, you know, and how we go about addressing those. Thank you. I love it. Accountability, consistency, and anonymous ways to report. Yeah, thanks so much. Howard, I know from reading your work that you can respond to this question. It asks, I worry racism is becoming a partisan issue. How can we cut through that? How do we have critical conversations with people who have political affiliations or opinions, especially different from theirs? Look, I just acknowledge it's hard. I mean, it's hard right now. I think, you know, when we look just at demographics of voting, we know that overwhelmingly white people supported President Trump and the relatively tiny percentage of people of color did. And, you know, the same on the other side, the reverse on the other side. So what's happened, this wasn't always true. It's important for us to recognize that it wasn't always true that our political lines were so clearly drawn. Back in the 60s, you had it was it was more drawn by region, you know, you had more northerners who supported the civil rights movement, whether they were Democrats or Republicans and Southerners who were against it, whether they were Democrats or Republicans. So, so we've moved from what I call a bell curve society where people are basically issue oriented, you know, I might agree with you about civil rights but disagree with you about the foreign policy and agree with you about gun rights but disagree with you about something else. So, like on a bell curve, we would we would find our partnership. Now we're kind of in a dumbbell curve where everything's on the edges and nothing's on the middle and it's no longer I disagree with you about an issue it's now you're one of those kind of people. Now, it's understandable to feel that way and it's there's no question it's frustrating and you can feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall when you're dealing with somebody from the opposite end of the political spectrum. But there is still value I would suggest in finding people who we disagree with who we can still have meaningful dialogue with and while it's more difficult than it's ever been. I mean, I think you know, Deb, I interviewed over 100 people who voted for President Trump, which is definitely on the other side of the spectrum than me, for my last book. And, and a lot of them were really good reasonable people who just saw the world fundamentally differently in certain ways or had a particular issue that was the issue for them the witness test issue for them abortion, for example, or something like that. And then you had others who were, you know, the extremists. And so, you know, what I started to learn to do is to identify, you know, which were with so I could continue try to continue the dialogue with those people who are more, you know, towards the moderate side and unless it was the extremist side. And the problem is where we've gotten now is there's a psychological phenomenon and some people call the backfire effect where the more hard it is to defend the position. The more information people give you the challenges your position the more you dig in and unfortunately that's happening now where people are getting more and more dug in so I would say every time that we could do that the better, you know, with people in our lives who we really care about, you know, we a lot of people find these splits even across their family with their parents their siblings, people that close to them. And I think that, you know, we have we all have a responsibility to try to keep our society knit together as we're moving forward social, moving forward social change, because if we don't, what's inevitably going to happen is the pendulum will swing back in the direction that we consider to be positive, and then we'll have it swing back in the other direction and that windshield wiper will continue to get wider and wider all the time. Thank you. Debbie I would like to just make a comment because I think that this is a really important topic related to people's political views and having space to have some discussions as we prepare for November. And I even leading up to that. We have got to be equipped to have safe space to have conversation. I remember in 2016, our office literally just opened up the organizational learning office it just opened. The president had announced the month before our strategic plan for diversity equity inclusion, and the day after the election, we were flooded with requests for people to come out to units to help facilitate a conversation because people weren't feeling safe. Right. They, they had their views and we needed to acknowledge that people have different views and we must listen that's how we learn that's how we grow in diversity equity inclusion we're going to have people with different views but how do we come together and have some conversation and dialogue about those views while respecting one another, you know, who we are and like Howard said not what we are, and we have got to prepare our community for, I think a repeat of that in these next couple of months so all that we're doing now these dialogues, you know about how do we create safe space, we really need to do more of that as we move into the next few months. Yeah, it's going to be a repeat or worse, actually. I think I think that that it's really clear that it's going to be like worse than anything we've ever seen and and most of us are are don't have the skills or the background experience to be able to deal with this I think that all are all rules have been thrown to the side at this point and so so it's going to be even more important for us to take our own responsibility for for trying to do the kinds of things that son you're talking about. Yeah, this topic is has we got many questions around this I think everybody's anticipating that the question specifically is how do we have those difficult conversations in a healthy way. How do we resolve the conflicts when they occur because we know they're going to occur. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say I learned behavior, I'm sorry, and how to have difficult conversations, you know, we have to continue to practice that. I think going into every conversation with some norms, okay, we're going to disagree, you know, but how will we have, you know that healthy dialogue, right, so that we can understand each other's views. We have formal programs that we offer impactful conversations as one of them. And as some of you may know, anti racism primer, where we have this group of very dedicated individuals, the AU a ask us anything who've been getting questions related to that and thank you very much, Debbie, for your work there but it's acceptable. Okay, but we got to get the skills to be able to have those conversations and understand one's intent, but be safe and saying, I'm offended by that comment. Okay, and then as an individual accept that apologize and don't do it again. But it's going to require really getting skilled to be able to sit with discomfort and have some really difficult conversations. Yeah, I agree and, and I can actually share really quickly a very effective, but simple tool for doing this and it actually comes from a woman Elizabeth lesser who was one of the co founders the Omega Institute in Rhine back New York, and I've She calls it taking the other to lunch and that is and it's it's very simple choice and I'll, you know, list the four questions but it starts you make an agreement with the person you're talking to that the purpose of our conversation is not to convince each other, not to talk But just to understand more deeply why we believe what we believe. And then, and then you ask each other for questions and you each have a relatively equal amount of time to answer each question so one person just doesn't dominate and talk over the person so you say okay 10 minutes for each So the first question is, what in your life experience has led you to take the point of view that you that you have and so the per each person gets a chance to share why they believe what they believe and they talk about their background experience again depends upon how much time you have What's the reasoning for it how this ties into their personal values why it's important to them. So that's the first one. The second one is what frightens you about the other person's positions because underneath dissonance there's always some sense of fear so what are you afraid of about this other person's position. Why is it that it's challenging to you why do you judge it so harshly and you can actually get a chance to share how how you're afraid this might impact you or people you care about or the society or whatever it is so people actually get the fear that's on the other side. And then the third and this is this question is really an interesting one and it's surprisingly impactful and that is, what have you, what question have you always wanted to ask people from that side that you've never gotten the chance to ask before. So I was doing this one time in an immediate using this technique for example as a mediation between a gay guy and a straight guy who had gotten into a public, you know, challenge and, and at some point the the straight guy asks the gay guy excuse the short cut of language but I just want to get to it here. He says, when did you decide you were, when did you decide to be gay, you know, and they and the response he got from the other guy was, but when did you decide to be heterosexual. And of course the response was I didn't decide I always was that way. Like I said exactly and the guy's jaw dropped he got sexual orientation, as opposed to sexual preference for the first time. And the last, the last question is, is there anything from your past that you need to clean up or apologize for to move forward and this is an opportunity, an important opportunity for us to leave behind because all of us have participated in one way or another in behaviors that were that now look at me say what was I thinking at the time, but because we don't clean them up because we don't have a line in the sand where we're saying we're no longer to do that anymore we sort of drag it with us like this guilty thing that happened to us as opposed to saying, to be honest or sometimes when I sat in the room and I've listened to people tell inappropriate jokes and I haven't said anything about it I want you to know that I apologize for doing that and I promise you that moving forward in the future I will no longer do that again. And there's now a clean start that we can have with each other by doing that. So again, four questions are what your background gave you this point of view. What is your fear of concern about the other background. What questions do you want to ask that you've never had an opportunity to ask before and what do you need to do to clean up the past and I can't tell you that anything works all the time, but this has been a very powerful tool that I've used within very difficult situations, very effectively. We can't hear you Deb, I think you're muted. I said we will definitely send those questions out to you all following the workshop and our resources that we send to everyone. I'm going to bring in one of the questions from the audience since we're very interested in this topic. It says what are some tips to compassionately bring discomfort forward in these conversations so that we don't create barriers of not only bias, but of guilt and shame. Brene Brown has talked about this issue acknowledging shame but not shaming that either of you want to speak to that. Yeah, I mean I'm glad to jump in because I was actually just talking about that this morning you know there's there's some wonderful work that's being done around this in the restorative justice movement and some people have had have called this circle the circle of shame is what they talk about because we this is one of the challenges that we have in diversity and inclusion work is that often we've overused the currency of guilt and shame and overused it not in a sense that people weren't responsible for behavior but there's a difference between guilt and responsibility. You know guilt is more of a personal attack on people. And what happens is as as Brene talks about so brilliantly when we're shame. We can go in one of a couple of different directions. One is that we withdraw and contract and make ourselves wrong, which makes us incapable of moving forward in any positive way. I mean we can on the surface do the things that people want us to do so that we don't get in trouble but underneath the surface we feel violated by it. And therefore, like something either something is wrong with us or the corresponding and opposite reaction which is something's wrong with you for making me feel this way this is where we see white fragility coming in. In the way that Robert D'Angelo is talking about that you made me feel uncomfortable by being uprace bring up race therefore it's your fault that that mindset there can be there. And so what we want to do is we want to find a way to talk to be willing to be uncomfortable because there's no way we can deal with this issue honestly without having some level of discomfort. But we want to do it while still giving people a chance for a path towards to use Dr. King's language a path towards righteousness so in other words if we don't leave people a pathway where they can clean up the mess and move in the positive direction and then all they're going to do is find other people and other circumstances where they can justify where they are. And so it's it's an interesting dance because we don't want to put people in a particular circumstance where they are where they're responsible for other people's comfort, but on the other hand we don't want to drive people into a cave that they can never come out of. And I wish there was an easy answer for how to do that but keeping those things in mind is the best suggestion I can make. If I could add to that just briefly I think about some of the principles and difficult conversations where we focus on the behavior or how it made me feel right. And I think people can understand that versus it feeling like it's an attack on the individual. And we're going to have to be, you know, wrestle with that and be uncomfortable when somebody says to me, you know what you said offended me and here's how I took it. And again, I'm going to have to say I am sorry and I'm going to work not to do that again. But then I may also invite that other person to help me think about what I might do differently in the future. So we're working together, you know, on on, you know, the resolution, rather it like you say is their problem. Yeah, if I could if I could jump in just for a moment to build on what Sonya saying because I think that's so true and those kinds of tools, you know, the ability to deliver that message in a constructive way as possible. And I think one of the things that we need to do is to recognize that there are some people who are unconscious about doing this and there are some people who are very aware of what they're doing and we don't want to hit them with the same response. So if you start with the response by like Sonya saying like, for example, if one of the two of you were to come up to me and say, you know, Howard, you made that statement in a meeting yesterday and I want to tell you as the black woman, here's how it felt to me. If my response is wow, I really apologize. That was absolutely not my intention. I had no idea was coming across that way. You know, I will definitely be aware that in the future and I want to invite you if you ever see me doing that again to give me feedback, you know, that's one response. And then maybe we're in conversation, then we go into a deeper conversation about it, as Sonya was saying. On the other hand, if my response is, oh, for God's sakes, you have to make such a big deal about everything, why are you so thin skin, then my response is go for it. Then at that point, go ahead and let me have it because I deserve it at that point. But I think if we give, if we at least give people a chance, we will find that a lot more people than we realize do not want to be coming from the place that their conditioning has led them to. Yeah, thanks so much. I'm going to stay in line with with this questioning and go to one of the live questions. When we create a space for uncomfortable conversations, only the converted tend to show up. How do we incentivize these conversations? How do we show the advantages that all of us can gain by building an overall together community? So it's one of those, you know, speaking to the choir type conversations. Well, I think that, you know, look, it's hard. Just no question about it. And the challenges were stuck kind of between a rock and a hard place in a way because what the research shows is that when you force people to participate in these conversations, it doesn't usually go well. On the other hand, we force people to participate in all kinds of conversations all the time. You know, we tell people that they have to take certain classes as part of their academic tradition. We tell people that they have to. I mean, how I've seen organizations that forced everybody to take a two hour training on how to use a new phone system, but refused to force people to make mandatory diversity training. So, so, you know, there's some obvious contradictions and even hypocrisy in this. I do think that it that one of the ways that we can do this best is by understanding that people are at different maturation levels for these conversations. And there's certain people who could sit down and sit with each other for three days and, you know, tear open the kimono and tell the heart and soul and really be engaged in that conversation in a really positive way. But that's not the only way we can have these conversations for other people. It may just be, you know, sort of a more 101 or 201 conversation to start to get them moving in the right direction. And I think that if we look at it from the standpoint of an entire to use academic terms and his higher curriculum, you know, the student who's in chemistry 101 is not like the student who's taking advanced graduate chemistry. They're at a different level to understand things and the teacher or the facilitator has to recognize that and be able to work with different people in different ways. I agree with Howard and the curriculum or the continuum right because everybody is at a different place and, you know, the words of the OD professionals we have to meet them where they are, and take them where we want them to go. But I think as an institution and as a community, we do need to have some set standards right where everybody has an opportunity to understand early on here's what we value and this is what we expect. So that's one way to get those that are not yet converted to understand our commitment and our expectations. And then truly make sure embedded in our systems there's these opportunities for these regular conversations about our expectations and our values and what we want to see in the organization. Some are going to come along and come over to the other side and others aren't because I always think about this word. I can appeal to your head but I can't change your heart. But what we can do is say this is what we expect to see in the organization and hope that you know throughout those conversations and those practices, we might be able to convert others. I think another factor is that we have to recognize that you can never take people, I'm talking now to those of us who are facilitating or teaching this work, is that you can never take people any farther than you've gone yourself. And there are an awful lot of people who are practicing diversity work right now who have their own unresolved trauma that they're working through. And if you're not careful, you can look for the participants that you're working with to resolve your inner trauma. And so we need to always be doing our own work in order to keep our space clean. And so we're at a sense of equanimity so that we can hold space for other people because if you're a facilitator and you're not solid, there's no container for people to engage in. It's a little bit like if you've got either, we've got a new puppy, you know, and if we put that puppy in our yard and our yard has the fence in our yard has holes in it, we've got to watch him every minute of the day. We cannot take our eye off him because he might wander through one of those holes in the fence and go out into the street. But if that fence is secure, we can put that puppy out in the backyard and relax about it because there's only but so much trouble he's going to get in. And it's the same thing, you know, the facilitator has got to provide a solid container in which people can feel safe to roll up their sleeves and get to work with each other and you can't do that if you're dealing with your own unresolved issues. I agree. Thank you. So Sonya, here's a question for you. What structures can an organization put in place to hold people accountable when they behave counter to the inclusive culture that you just spoke of that the organization proclaims to have. Well, well, quite a few systems, I think, you know, we talked about the reporting systems right where people can report anonymously when they see behaviors that are counter to what we believe. And at the same time, we've got to make sure that we have systems to support those who may be retaliated against because they've done that. Okay, so making sure we have those safe spaces are going to be really important. I also think going back to my earlier comments around having values and behaviors, and are we evaluating or assessing people on those behaviors, the extent to which I am demonstrating those behaviors. And then if I don't, what are the consequences for that and being consistent in how we apply those. We've got to do that or else we won't make any changes. It's just systems of accountability, but also reward and recognize so for those that are demonstrating the behaviors that we want to see. What are we doing to reward those. Great. So to follow up with that how and it's one of the things that you both actually addressed a little bit. How can we get our executive leaders more involved in the education and activities that promote inclusion, belonging and unity. I want to comment on that quickly if I can because most recently, you know there's been this interest to learn and grow more and I've said to many leaders, you've got to be a part of the solution, you've got to be open. You've got to be vulnerable and you have to admit you don't know everything related to the my lived experience or the lived experiences of others that are going through this and inviting them, you know, really to take the lead so for example, I've reached out to one of my leaders to host a book discussion on white fragility, right, and saying that it can't be me to do it you as a leader have to demonstrate your authenticity and your vulnerability that you too are learning in this space, but know that there are supports for you, you know, as you go along that journey. I will say that I know that there are many leaders who have been engaging in intentional professional development in this space looking at the cases around other universities that have had many incidences of racial unrest, and really think about what would that look like here, you know, and what can I do in my leadership role to make change. And so I think inviting them in and being honest and open with what we think needs to happen. But then I'll go back to our systems and our processes, you know, they've got to critically look at how they are hiring. Who are they hiring. Who are they promoting and why, and then making sure that we're holding people accountable for what it is that we want to see. That's how we need to be engaging our leaders in this work. Yeah, I would say, again, I agree that you and I are so in track. It's fun. I think that one of the things that we also have to do is we can never stop making it clear to leaders how this affects the overall functioning of in this case the university. You know, we've shifted dramatically as a body politic around this issue. A Washington Post study that I just saw yesterday which was repeated in two week intervals because they wanted to see whether it was just an immediate response to this sort of George Floyd murder or whether it was something that was more sustainable. So the 69% of Americans now say that they believe that there's systemic racism in their policing system now just to give people a sense of comparison. Just six years ago after Ferguson that same study was done and the number was only 46%. So there's been a 50% increase in just six years which for somebody who studies data. So we know this is a systemic problem. People inherently know it and we can't be, we can't get into this false equivalency where the tiny minority of people who refuse to see that systemic racism, for example, or systemic sexism is an issue for us as a society. We can't build our system on this notion that this is on this false equivalency. This is something that any system, any university system has to pay attention to in order to create a safe space for people to study in order to create an environment where all students are going to flourish in order to create a brand where all kinds of people want to come and study in your place in order to create the kind of brand where people who graduate from that institution are seen as having had a good well-rounded education. And so leaders who are not willing to engage in their conversation, it's not a function of them not liking diversity. It's a function of them not supporting the values of the institution. And then you have a question of, then you have a real serious question of, you know, how can we function when we have leaders who don't support our fundamental values. I think that needs to be built. And once you once you get people to really accept that and understand that, then there are lots of different methodologies for getting leaders in place. Sonya just shared a number of really perfect ones. And there are others out there as well. But it starts with that sort of ontological shift, the shift in being where people really get, this is really who we are as a university. It's not some tangential thing that we send off to the diversity department. Yeah. Well, unfortunately, we're almost at time, but we had a variety of questions around how do you create an inclusive environment for marginalized communities in predominantly white spaces, like the University of Michigan. What kind of concrete actionable steps can we take? Sonya, would you like to take that one? Yeah. As I mentioned, I just think about myself and what I do for my mentoring and coaching space, right, for those who don't see a reflection of themselves in their area being open, right, for them to come and get support. Our leaders have to recognize that we have individuals who feel marginalized in their areas and take responsibility for bringing them into the conversation, right. I'll go back to what you said about dominating the conversation to well intended, right, you know, we have to identify those that aren't speaking up who are not participating in events and ask why. Because there's something that we are doing or not doing where they don't feel included and could be a part of the conversations. So it's going to require that we get out of our, you know, tunnel vision and be open to others, right, but also let individuals know that they can come up to us or come to us when they're not feeling valued or included or the environment is not supporting them to thrive. Thank you so much. So what I want to say is I really want to thank the two of you for joining us today. I know we had numerous other questions that we won't get to but we will continue this conversation monthly. And next month we've had a variety of questions come in about how we can involve faculty into anti racist work. So we will be discussing that specifically next month. So thank you both for joining us. I also want to take the time to thank our leaders at the University of Michigan, a few of our, a couple of our executive leaders, who really are trying to push this work for as well. On the Michigan medicine side we have Dr. David Brown, MD. He's an associate vice president and associate dean for health equity and inclusion, and he encouraged all of Michigan medicine. So we greatly appreciate that. And I want to thank our Rackham graduate school dean and the vice provost for academic affairs of graduate for graduate students for joining us today as well as many of our associate dean and Rackham graduate school. Finally, I'd like to thank all of you once again for joining us today. And I hope you join us each month to continue the conversation. You can continue to send us questions. We will get to them eventually on some of the other webinars. With that I'll say thank you so much for joining us and we look forward to seeing you soon. Bye. Thank you. Thanks so much, Deb. Thank you.