SUMMARY KEYWORDS

privilege, guilty, refuse, feel, people, unapologetic, space, work, hard, recognize, amber, smart, apologize, reserve, path, concerted effort, share, give, day, intercultural

SPEAKERS

Bahja Johnson, Amber Cabral, Tieko Nejon, Corey Smith, Shawn Pean, Keila Hill Trawick, Conrad Woody, Sevetri Wilson, Jeanenne Ray

Amber Cabral 00:00

This podcast is called guilty privilege. The reason I called it guilty privilege is because I think there are a lot of people who think of privilege as something to be ashamed of or feel guilty about or deny. Some of us are delusional about having privilege, and I honestly think privilege is something that allows us to show up and make an impact and push forward. You privilege is all around you. It shows up in your clothes, where you live, the places you frequent, your network capital, and even how you spend your money. It’s useless until you recognize it. So it’s time to stop feeling guilty and figure out how to use your privilege to make an impact. Welcome to guilty privilege.

Corey Smith 00:47

So I don’t ever apologize for, you know, having had a great education. I don’t ever apologize just for being black excellence every day, all day I walk in that, you know, head held high, and I’m actually, to your point, trying to pass it on, you know, I’ve got, I’ve got three beautiful girls, and I’m raising them to be independent and fierce and unapologetic and Nah, you know, don’t cower or feel that you are not entitled to something simply because somebody else thinks that you’re not right. So, so this idea of independence and entitlement is something that I refuse to ever, ever give up. I work hard. You deserve to be here.

Amber Cabral 01:34

That’s right. That’s right.

Jeanenne Ray 01:36

In that session, when you were saying, What do you how to use your privilege, I suddenly had a light bulb go on and realize my privilege is my job. It’s what I do every day at work. Yeah, and and that I needed to be doing a better job publishing the study of first voices, everything we’ve been just we’ve been talking about, right? And I’ve made a concerted effort to do that, but I recognize that this position is a privilege, and I don’t feel guilty about that, but I do want to use it to the best of my ability, to me, you know, to make things different.

Tieko Nejon 02:13

You’ve worked really hard to reserve my time. I’ve never been the one if the lights aren’t on, you’re not working, but I participate in and hustle a tiny bit. Yeah? I now reserve my time. Yeah? I If there’s anything I brag about, is the amount of hours I work, you already know, oh yeah, we talk about all the time. I get there three days a week, yes, nine to 230 Yes, and that’s it, but I’ve worked really hard now, putting you on full blast, part of that was not being afraid to charge a particular number when I went into this space. Can you believe it’s been five years when I went into this space and when I knew I only wanted to work with corporate and training and talking to you and us being really transparent with numbers, it was like, you know your worth, you know the impact. I know how long my worth stays, yeah, you know. And so I don’t have a shelf life with some of the things I teach, I know. And so learning to charge that, yep, time is the thing I don’t apologize for. I can get on a plane and then second right behind time would be my support system. I do have a husband who works a very powerful job, except he’s home with the kids. He’s working from home today because my son has an award ceremony, but they’re gonna give the same awards at his graduation. And because it’s you, I was like, Okay, now there’s probably only three of you that. Yeah,

Amber Cabral 03:39

we talked about the sermon. Circles, we talked about it,

Tieko Nejon 03:44

and so, but yeah, time is the privilege I have, and I worked so hard to be able to just breathe and play with my woods and my saws. You know, I think I’m about better the builder, right? And so I worked really hard for time. And so that’s the privilege I have, and I will preserve it and protect it at all costs.

04:03

Living a good life. What’s a good life to my friend?

Sevetri Wilson 04:07

It’s being able to bring my friends to New Orleans from our wedding and saying, I want to give them an experience. Yes, right? We, we gonna do this one time, sir. Okay, so we gonna do it right? And it’s being able to, like, travel, yeah, I feel that particularly, like women, our space, it’s what we gotta explain ourselves. That’s right. Oh, I live like this, or I could do this because of x, y. It’s like, you don’t have to explain anything. Like you deserve a good life. You can live a good life, and that’s okay.

Shawn Pean 04:39

I refuse people, you know, and in some cases, when you’re the only person of color in the room, I got challenged on just being smart and being intelligent and being able to articulate myself and my I won’t curse, but you’ll get a big you know, you for even you know, I. Questioning what I bring to the table, yeah, you know, because I’m at the table for a reason, yeah. So why question why I’m here versus understanding what I’m bringing to it, absolutely. And so, yeah,

05:09

I would also, you know, like to share that sometimes that smart thing is intercultural, like being the smart black person among the black people. Sometimes can be a little tough. I

Shawn Pean 05:19

mean, it’s tough there too, with our own people. Yeah, look, I it’s funny. I was, I was having a conversation yesterday with someone about, like, when I first graduated college, and I came back home, and, you know, the guys I grew up with were just like, Yo, you on that side now. And it was like, you know, that old Chris Rock, you get more respect comes out of jail than you do coming that’s right? And I felt that. And so, you know, but it’s one that at that point, I didn’t care, because the path that I wanted to go down, I knew it looked different than the path that I started on, yeah, and so I was happy to go down that path. I was happy to kind of, so, you know, in some cases it’d be your own people, but you feel it more when it’s from others?

Amber Cabral 06:02

Absolutely, yeah. So we kind of get it when it’s our own people.

Shawn Pean 06:06

We get it. We don’t love it, I mean, but we grew up with that, right? Like, not a navigator. Everyone you know, you know how to navigate it. Everyone’s on clown each other. Everyone’s gonna cry, and you know you’re gonna catch these jokes and you keep it moving, yep. But when it comes from others, it’s different because you don’t have a right to tell me, yes, that

Amber Cabral 06:26

exactly.

Bahja Johnson 06:26

I refuse to feel guilty about all of them, because they are a gift. Listen, and I did something with it again, there are a whole lot of people out here who don’t utilize their privileges for good, and they don’t recognize the power that they have. Yeah, I recognize it every single day, yeah. And you use it, and I use you, and I make choices, and I talk about it Yes, and I make sure that it’s not only people who have privileges, like me that get to have a seat at the table.

Conrad Woody 06:50

The privilege that I don’t apologize for is having access to these extremely, you know, rare spaces, you know, being able to and I, and I take it with a great amount of gratitude to engage with board directors and engage with, you know, publicly traded CEOs and people in the political space, but not only because the learning that I get from it, but also the things that I can pass down and share with others, and so I am unapologetic that, you know, I’m able to be placed in these environments and spaces because, frankly, Amber, I’m using it for the greater good, right? So, right?

Amber Cabral 07:34

And that’s what we want folks to use our privilege for, indeed. So I appreciate that, and thank you for extending it to me,

Keila Hill Trawick 07:40

I feel guilty about all of my privileges all of the time. This is very true. I think there is something special about me, about the life that I’ve had, about the way that I was raised, about the opportunities that I had access to. And I feel guilty the more and more that I learned that that is not normal. You know, in a lot of ways, especially in entrepreneurship, you cultivate your own circle. And so there’s a lot of people that may not be exactly like me, but they run in the same way. And then you step outside that bubble and you like, Oh, everybody doesn’t have this correct I will say one of the privileges that I refuse to feel guilty about anymore is the way that my brain works. Yes, and there are ways in which it makes me feel like I’m crashing sometimes because it isn’t in order and it doesn’t go the way, and it shoots me far ahead, right of a lot of people that would do the thing that I did, we’ve had conversations where at the very beginning or early on, Amber told me, you don’t think that is special, because you think anybody could do it, that’s right. And I was like, but anybody could, like, if they just took these steps that I did absolutely wrong. And that is a privilege that I refuse to feel guilty about, that I am in a place that, not on my own, like this is just the way that I was built. I’ve been able to make something from scratch that is beautiful and is caring and is successful. And I would say, probably, up until recently, that very much felt like a I mean, but I just happened to be smart, or I just happened to be driven, and really it’s a built in privilege that I’m really proud of, right? And that I don’t have to feel bad about being there for me.

Amber Cabral 09:26

We need you to shine with it. Yeah? So I’m glad you get out. Yeah?

09:29

You