Episode 48:
Sara Taylor earned a master’s degree in Diversity and Organizational Development from the University of Minnesota. She served as a leadership and diversity specialist at the University of Minnesota for five years and as director of diversity and inclusion for Ramsey County, Minnesota for three years.
Sara is the founder and president of deepSEE Consulting and has worked with companies as large as Coca-Cola, General Mills, 3M Company, AARP, and numerous others. She has a new book, “Filter Shift: How Effective People See the World,” that explores how our unconscious is actually making choices and decisions for us, all without our knowing — and how to change that.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- Sara shares some of the important race and culture lessons that, as a white person, she wasn’t taught but had to learn through the experiences of her mixed-race family
- Why it is important to recognize that our life experiences and opportunities often aren’t universal
- Why What Would You Do’s “Bike Thief” Episodes featuring John Quiñones highlights how the experiences we have can change solely based on who we are
- How individual bias creates disparity in many different aspects of our lives including how we are disciplined and even our economics
- Why large majorities of people have been proven to have unconscious stereotypical biases against people of color and other marginalized groups
- How widespread individual bias becomes systemic bias, with shocking statistics to demonstrate these systemic disparities
- How this systemic bias leads to very different interactions with police for black and white people
- Why we all need to know that divisiveness and polarization aren’t just bad for the “other” group but is harmful to ourselves as well
- Why remaining silent perpetuates the systems of dysfunction in racism, and why fear, ignorance, and guilt support racial anxiety
- How our economy was built on a foundation of slavery, and how even our religious institutions supported slavery at one time
- How White Guilt isn’t helpful, but White Accountability is necessary
Additional resources:
- What Would You Do’s “Bike Thief” Episode from John Quiñones: https://youtu.be/ge7i60GuNRg
- Website: www.deepseeconsulting.com
- Twitter: @deepseesara