January 27, 2021

Lessons We Can Learn from the Storming of the U.S. Capitol, with Sara Taylor

Episode 70:

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:

  • How the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 highlights deep racial inequities, especially when compared to the Black Lives Matter protests
  • How the national outcry over the nonviolent protest of NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players further illustrates racial inequity compared to the storming of the Capitol
  • How the treatment of the rioters at the Capitol demonstrates how the almost exclusively white crowd were treated very differently from protestors of color
  • How the “blue lives matter” slogan was never really about law and order and was instead designed to depower the slogan “Black Lives Matter”
  • Why most of the rioters who were arrested were middle or upper-middle class and weren’t acting out of economic anxiety but out of fear of losing their privileged status
  • Why race and economic caste are inherently connected in the United States, and how caste plays a major role in racial inequity
  • How many people who looked like the 9/11 terrorists experienced attacks based on appearance, and how the same hasn’t been true for people who look like the insurrectionists
  • Why white people are typically viewed as individuals, and why people of color are often viewed as part of a group
  • How to begin conversations in the workplace to begin addressing fear and moving out of polarization

Additional resources: