As we’re still in our summer of action, we had a conversation lately behind the scenes to ask ourselves: are these episodes actionable enough? And we really believe that to make all of this work sustainable, sometimes it has to be in the little things. It has to be in which link you send to your friend about a book you’re recommending - Amazon or Bookshop? - and it has to be in looking deep within yourself and looking around to build a more diverse community. But sometimes it’s also about doing work - social activism, DEI work in your organizations, and the groups you’re a part of.

We’re back with Part 2 of our fabulous conversation with Kelly and Aurora of The Opt-In to look at all different forms of activism, ways to think about where we’ve collectively been and where we are in this realm, and suggestions for courses and people to look at. And fundamentally the message is: we can do hard things. This isn’t even one of the hardest things we’ll do in our lives, but it may be what has the most lasting impact - not only for ourselves, but for our kids. Remember: it’s seemingly little things and little choices that make lasting, much larger changes in our communities and our world.

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We’re continuing our summer of action and diving deeper. And as we’re releasing this episode, we’re also in the midst of a summer that’s been filled with more friends and family and conversation and ability to BE TOGETHER in a way that we haven’t been able to be since March of 2020. #vaccines

It makes us think of friendship, community, and how much we learn from each other - not only through our similarities, which is how we often create friendships, but also our differences, which can be particularly true when we think about cross-racial friendships and communities.

Today we’re excited to have Kelly and Aurora from the Opt-In, two of our very favorites, to discuss community, cross-racial friendships, and so much more. What we love about these women is that they are real - real about the good parts of their friendships and identities, and also the tough parts. And because we loved them so much, we split our conversation with them into two parts. Part I is this episode. Part II - well, you’ll have to stay tuned. But it centers around what we can all do in terms of social activism and moving the needle - and spoiler alert, it starts from within.

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If you’ve been listening to our episodes in order, you know we’ve been focused on the role of community, as well as small business in community - and how we can show up for one another when we support the amazing people who run these.

Today we have Bunnie Hilliard, the owner of an Atlanta-based bookstore called Brave+Kind, on the podcast. She talks about her move from corporate America to opening Brave+Kind, the intentionality that comes into all of her decisions about the physical space of her store as well as how that showed up online during the pandemic, and what she’d like us all to know not only about children’s books but how we can take those conversations into our own homes, and have our buying patterns reflect what we truly believe in.

Our ask for you after you listen: Take those books out of your Amazon cart and find them in an independent bookstore - online, or in your community. Tell all your friends to do the same thing. And if you’re looking for recommendations - shoot us an email at hello at dearwhitewomen dot com. We’ve got you.

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Let’s face it: we are an app-based, “easy button” based, instant gratification kind of society. One click of a button and we get something brought to our house: food, alcohol, flowers - basically anything you can ask for. If it’s not instant, you can get it for free shipping and in two days if you’re an Amazon Prime member. But, as we’ve often asked on this podcast, what is the true cost of your purchases when you’re getting them through these apps, and not through your community and local store owners?

Today we talk to one of those businesses - and the women behind it. Nirvana Soul isn’t only about providing amazing coffee to the people of San Jose, California - it’s about creating community through shared spaces, carefully curated art, and so much more. Be’Anka and Jeronica opened their doors during a pandemic, but in so doing they brought community to their own community - and that’s priceless. Our ask for you after you listen: go find one of these spaces in your own community, go support them (and for real - not in a performative way), and then tell all your friends to do the same. We rise by lifting others, and we need each other right now more than ever.

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Every once in a while, we both read a book that makes us immediately text the other to say: have you read this? Isn’t it amazing? That’s what happened when we read A Radical Awakening.

We were blown away by the revolutionary way of thinking and being that is suggested for women in this book, and were so deeply grateful to find that Dr. Shefali’s energy and authenticity match her reputation.

There’s little else left for us to say, other than this is a can’t-miss episode, and that you should go to Bookshop to order this book immediately.

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Mamas, here’s a real question for you: How Whyte are your spaces?

We write that word that way because the censors seem to be limiting our ability to write it as w-h-i-t-e without being hurt by the algorithms.

But really, when we talk about a summer of action, we mean starting within your very own spheres of influence. And as moms, we have a lot of influence. So let’s start by looking at our own circles!

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If you’ve been listening to our podcast for a while, you know that we lean into heart-led action to create change - and today we get to interview an expert on where that heart-led action comes from. Terri Givens is a woman of many talents, but one of them is author, and we’re talking to her about her book Radical Empathy, which provides a framework as to how we reach radical empathy for ourselves, and where radical empathy can be used to make change and bridge racial divides (hint: it’s pretty much everywhere).

We’re also super excited to announce that Terri is the one who wrote the foreword for our forthcoming book Dear White Women: Let’s Get Uncomfortable Talking About Racism - which is now available for preorder!

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When’s the last time you had a conversation with someone of Asian descent? Not just a transactional conversation, or a “hi how are you” mumbled in passing, but one where you saw them as a product of their history and experiences and asked them something perhaps more sensitive and interesting than “where are YOU from?” Something about their goals, their passions, and how their identities may have played into shaping who they are, rather than relying on the stereotypes that are so pervasive in American culture?

Our guest today, Jerry Won, is the host of Dear Asian Americans, a podcast featured by Apple Podcasts at the TOP of the list of podcasts to listen to for Asian American Pacific Islander Month this May. His podcast growth has more than quadrupled since the latest slew of anti-Asian hate - and he’s used it as an opportunity for personal and professional growth to get more narratives of the often under-celebrated Asian community in America out into the world.

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We’re kicking off a five-episode series that takes a deeper look into what it means to be Asian/Asian-American in this country - looking at the history behind anti-Asian discrimination, but also really talking about what being Asian means for us, and for our guests. Today we talk about all of that, and more, with Sara’s dear old friend Alan Mak, who is the co-founder and CEO of Version Tomorrow as well as the managing partner of the well-known fashion brand Public School.

This is a conversation not to be missed.

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If you’re listening to this episode while scrolling through your phone, we want you to stop and pay attention. This episode, after all, will be all about attention - how we use it, where we spend it, and why some people are so good at pulling attention towards them, good OR bad.

We want to thank Charlie Warzel at the NY Times for bringing this week’s guest, Michael Goldhaber, to our attention. After all, how often do you get to connect with a visionary human being who predicted the destructive forces of social media and the fight for people’s attention - all the way back in the 1980s and 1990s (in other words, before social media even existed)?

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We bring you a conversation with Hari Ziyad, author of Black Boy Out of Time, to talk about their own experiences growing up Black and queer in America, and the necessity of prison abolition - not just physical prison, but the mindset of punishment as a method of control.

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Have you heard the term fake news? It’s been around for a while, but it was popularized by Trump who continues to dismiss all checks to his Big Lie and tries to continue muddying the waters around truth, facts, and reality.

We bring you a conversation with Professor Emily Bell of Columbia University School of Journalism. In it, you’ll get the tools to fight for reality, for facts, for science, and be on the factually correct side of history.

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If the fuming, seething feeling we sat with for weeks after the Capitol was stormed is any indication, feeling anger stinks and is bad for our bodies. But we as women have not been taught how to handle this feeling; in fact, we’re often taught to shove anger down and away, while going on with our day, taking care of others.

This is why we’re thrilled to be having a conversation with Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her, to talk about how women have been conditioned by our society, what our biology actually indicates, and what on earth to do when we feel the steam coming out of our ears, so we can make positive change around us.

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Professor Ervin Staub, who survived Nazism as a young child and has dedicated decades of his life to the study of good and evil, joins us to discuss division and violence in America, and what we can do to help ourselves and our country.

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Uncomfortable question: Why can’t we as women get behind policies that strengthen all women - not just the ones who are White - especially when the only ones who really benefit from White supremacy and the status quo are rich White men?

We bring you a conversation with one of the founders of the original Women’s March and author of Raising Our Hands, Jenna Arnold, who spent years speaking with White women in their homes about just these very topics.

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In case you didn’t see the news, our US Capitol was overrun by a mob of insurgents at the beginning of 2021, largely spurred on by a conspiracy theory led by the American president that the 2020 US Election was rigged.

We figured now was a good time to talk about conspiracy theories - with an expert. Today, we bring you an enlightening conversation with Professor Karen Douglas, a social psychologist specializing in the study of conspiracy theories.

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There are people among us who elevate art to something beyond imitating life - to something that makes us think deeply, find the beauty in those moments both trivial and profound, and challenge the meaning in things that seem obvious.

Enter our guest today. We speak with internationally renowned poet and inspirational human being jessica Care moore about her latest collection, We Want Our Bodies Back, which is dedicated to Black Lives Matter activist Sandra Bland, who died in jail under suspicious circumstances following a pretextual traffic stop in 2015.

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We spoke with lawyer Melissa Torres-Montoya of If/When/How last week about the legal landscape for women’s reproductive rights with the appointment of Justice Barrett to the supreme court, the continued assault on Roe v. Wade, and all the other circumstances that add up to shape a woman’s ability to have a child (affordable healthcare, housing, and more).

But those are big issues that sometimes are passed off or pushed aside as issues that don’t affect us. That’s not true. To make sure that we continue to recognize that reproductive rights is an issue that affects every single person in our country (you’re here because of reproduction, and you’ll likely have choices in your life to make about reproduction, or your children, or someone you know will) we bring you back the conversation with abortion provider Dr. Jenn, who puts real stories of real people into context.

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Abortion.

Whether you’re pro-choice or anti-choice, you’re likely to have some emotions jolt through you when you hear the word. However, with the appointment of conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and Roe v Wade related decisions on the docket, we want to make sure we all know about the abortion and reproductive rights landscape, which is way broader when you consider what it takes to bring a child into the world - affordable housing, healthcare, and living wages - along with a new program for any lawyers out there who want to get involved.

Promise, it’ll be relevant if you know any women at all.

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Here’s something we’ve never thought about before, because we’ve taken privacy law HIPAA at face value. What happens with my private medical information if I’m in an emergency room of the hospital, and there is a police presence in that same emergency room?

And importantly, how is this situation even worse for people who aren’t as rich or White as some of us listening to this podcast?

Today we’re excited to have Ji Seon Song return to the podcast to talk about her new research (and soon to be published note in the Harvard Law Review!) regarding the problematic role and presence of police in emergency rooms, and what medical providers - and laypeople - may want to consider about how patients’ information are handled in that setting.

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