SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, girls, talk, privileges, ballet, storytelling, dei, cities, part, marketing, organization, dance, atlanta, restroom, brown, love, workforce, boys, impact, work

SPEAKERS

Ifeoma Ike, Takiyah Wallace, Bahja Johnson, Corey Smith, Sevetri Wilson, Lisa Cunningham, Amber Cabral

Ifeoma Ike 01:40

I use marketing’s dollars to help with anything experiential or event driven, right? It’s really how you tap into the rest of the organization to actually invite them into the DEI experience. We can’t do this alone as a dei practitioner, the same way I can’t solely use my budget. That’s right, right? And so how you engage other areas of the business, and how you engage other departments to really drive the mission of dei is critical. With that, though, you then have to make sure you’re tracking to their ROI, not just your own, right, because now they’re engaged, now they’re invested, literally financially invested. You also then have to make sure you’re giving them the impact that they need to see. I think impact in any organization shows up in a variety of ways. Right? It is, it is about, how do you make the workforce more diverse? So for example, at LVMH, one of the first things I did was put in a goal for the organization to increase the number of people of color in executive position. Yes, and we set a target, we set a timeline which we want to see that shift. The reason I wanted to do it at the executive level is diversity begets diversity. That’s right. So if you put more women at the top, they’re going to hire more women, and put more people of color at the top, they’re going to hire more people of color. Doing it at the lower ends of the organization is important, but it doesn’t have the same impact, that’s right, and trickle down effect as if you do it at the higher ends of the organization. So that was really key. But again, it’s really about explaining to people this work doesn’t only fall on my shoulders because I have the title correct, right? I talk to our chief marketing officers, I talk to our heads of HR. I’m talking to legal and finance about all these things that impact their area to see how we can improve it. So how do you impact workforce? How do you shift corporate culture? Again, what is the marketing strategy and the optics on what marketing looks like and how we’re going out with our storytelling and what we tell the world? Because the other disconnect for me is marketing is operating over here, doing a bunch of storytelling. What I really try to explain to them is the images and storytelling that you put out into the world actually impacts who would potentially apply for a job if you don’t see yourself reflected in our brands. Why would you even think you could work there? So marketing and HR are actually very connected that they’re not because they’re very different functions in the organization, but I’m like marketing is doing all the storytelling. That’s right again, if I can go to Instagram, right? Yeah, right, that’s how I’m gonna do all my research. And so I know marketing is, in theory, about the product, but it also affects our workforce as well. So those conversations, you know, have to be intentional around what is our storytelling? What is our brand? What are we trying to communicate to the world? And by doing that, it also highlights what we actually care about.

Amber Cabral 08:15

That’s right. So what do you think that we need? We were talking about how black women aren’t well represented in this space. What do you think is necessary to make it more equitable?

Corey Smith 08:25

So something that you often talk about, allies and advocates, right? And the difference between the two? Because oftentimes, sometimes you know your skin folk, right?

Amber Cabral 08:38

That part, not your kinfolk, not your kinfolk. That’s right, right? Gotta be willing to diversify the folks you’re asking

Corey Smith 08:43

exactly so. And we have been taught this, and I do think it’s true, more diverse fund managers equate to more money for black founders and others. However, we can’t just depend on that. That’s right, right? The who’s writing the checks, like does matter, but we also need for you also to write a check to us. Jim, don’t

Amber Cabral 09:08

just refer me, right? Don’t refer me. You two also write a check. For you to also write a check. So the thing about being an ally or being an advocate is when you take the action, it encourages others to take the action. Yeah, so you referring me to someone is one thing, but you telling someone I invested in? Yes, I am recommending this person for you to invest in is really going to be the more impactful action? Oh,

Corey Smith 09:33

absolutely. I remember when I was raising my seed round, a white investor by name Tim Milliken from TPG Capital, which is a large PE firm, private equity firm, met up with me for lunch, and he said, Oh, I’m gonna put a check into your company. And it wasn’t even a large check. I’m talking about like $35,000 which is not large for someone. However, he was writing an angel check into my ground. And because his name was on my cap table, literally, it was like a call to all these other investors, yes, and others came in with much larger checks because they saw his name. That’s right on my cap table.

Amber Cabral 10:14

That’s right. This is what allyship and advocacy is about. It’s using the power you have to be able to influence the change you want to see. Yeah. So just the willingness to say, I’m going to make sure that this shows up this way, made all the difference. I love that amazing. Just to jump in you have it’s educolor, yeah, just to make sure that it’s the color part matters. Oh, yeah. And so I just want to, like, zoom in on that aspect for a moment, because one of the things I love about educolor is that it prioritizes centering the identities of people of color, not not just the student, but also the teachers. Can you talk a little bit about why it’s important for both the students, but also for the teachers and also for us in the community to be a part of, you know, an educational equity experience, or at least thinking about educational equity. I mean, as you know, I don’t have kids, but I still care a lot about this. But why should we

Sevetri Wilson 11:04

what we noticed over time, and of course, myself being a black Latinx man, but also any number of people who I’ve spoken to, is that we put race first because we wanted to ensure that that was spoken about. So if we said all other things were equal, then race would still play a large factor into how people actually treated us. So for example, in the disability community, there’s a big conversation as to who gets treated and how. So often we noticed that the black students were getting referred to, you know, special ed, so on and so forth, because it was a form of detention was a form of confinement, as opposed to those who were white students that were getting the same labels. They were getting longer time to do their tasks. They were getting extended treatment. They were treated in many ways with kid gloves, right, right? That would be that. And so that was happening all across the board. You know, well, white women versus black women, so on and so forth. And so forth. And this is just white and black, but yes, like, even when you look at differentials between, like, who makes what monies and who gets to work, where black women administrators have struggling in different capacities in the way that their white male counterparts don’t, yeah, and so even when you get to those upper echelons, you still see those racial dynamics happening. And so educolor wanted to focus on that color part, because we recognized that that coalition was powerful, and it was a way for us to elevate a lot of these racial biases, but also racial triumphs and the ways that we can actually win through the cultures, and elevate culture in the way that we do.

Amber Cabral 12:33

I do think sometimes we get a little bit of push, and in fact, I’ve talked about this in some other episodes of the podcast, how we are brown girls do ballet, and how sometimes we get pushback about specifically, the word girls, yes. What are your thoughts about that?

Takiyah Wallace 12:53

I think I always go back to why I started this. Because it was for a girl. It was for my girl, right? But now it serves so many other girls around the world. And then you think about the word women, when, when a girl becomes a woman, she is like an owner of her her life, her agency for the most part, and she knows where she wants to go, right? We’re dealing with girls who do not for the most part. Now, some of them come to us like together. I have a plan that’s true. I need you to help me execute. Here

Amber Cabral 13:25

is where I would like to go. I want to go to this school Exactly. This is what I want to

Takiyah Wallace 13:30

do after school, exactly. But I think that when I think of brown girls, it is for young girls. Now we are are very blessed in the fact that we have girls that will come to us as young as 10 and never leave us. So I still have brown girls who do ballet, who are like 24 now, that’s true.

Amber Cabral 13:47

That’s true. They are brown women, and some of them, I’ve gone on from not just doing ballet. We have other dances and other art forms too, which is also really amazing. I love that about ballet specifically, is that it’s a great foundational it

Takiyah Wallace 14:00

is, it is, and it’s one of those things. If you know from a from probably around the age of 12 or 13, if ballet is going to be the thing that you do if you’re going to want to go to eventually dance at New York City Ballet or abt, you know that very young, we have a lot of girls who come to us as 17 year olds, who love dance, who love ballet, that’s right, but know physically, it may not be for them. Yeah. So we have been fortunate enough to be able to connect them with other professionals that expose them to other ways that they can still be attached to dance, but not maybe be a dancer or on stage. So we have a lot of girls that are in college now, getting degrees and looking at things like arts administration, because if we’re in making making those decisions exactly

Amber Cabral 14:46

so like, to that end, like, that was why I wanted to ask you the question about brown girls, because, you know, I remember when we first started to get, like, the pushback around that. And I was like, Okay, we get to be focused. Focused on who we’re focused on like, yeah, inclusion doesn’t include everybody all the time, yes. And so we are focused on brown girls. But that doesn’t mean that brown boys or brown trans people or white folks don’t have an opportunity to donate, to show up as allies, to still apply for a lot of the money that we give

Takiyah Wallace 15:16

away, that I tell people that all the time, because there has been a big push recently for us to consider boys in what we do well, that we’ve gotten that in waves. Okay, I am, I am not changing the name. That’s not happening, no. But we do help boys. We do when they fall on our radar, yeah,

Amber Cabral 15:32

yeah. And we’ve done things for boys in the past absolutely, you know. So it just kind of depends. And so I think it’s really important to realize that just because you are not centered doesn’t mean that it isn’t still for you. You just aren’t the identity that’s at the center in that moment. And

Takiyah Wallace 15:45

I think it’s educating the people who do that as well, because what they don’t know is, if you are a boy who wants to dance, you are 10 times more likely to get a scholarship for your social and complete training than any girl, absolutely, simply because you are a boy and who wants to dance. Exactly that is a fact.

Amber Cabral 16:01

What is one privilege you refuse to feel guilty about, but you’ve already done it.

Bahja Johnson 16:05

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.

Amber Cabral 16:29

So you gave a TED talk, which I thoroughly admire. Oh, and I do. I it’s coming, yeah, and I appreciate that. And what you talked about was how people were coming to Atlanta to escape discrimination, and how Atlanta was creating a more equitable space. I would love for you to talk a little bit about that, and then also maybe give some recommendations about what you think cities in general could do better to create more equitable spaces.

Lisa Cunningham 16:55

You know, it’s funny, because that TEDx talk was in 2019, still relevant, and that’s the painful part of it, yeah, is that it’s still relevant. You know, there’s this thing that the it’s an index that the HRC, the Human Rights Campaign, puts out every year. It’s, it’s the municipal Equality Index, and it basically tells you how cities show up. Um, how they how that infrastructure is as it relates to the LGBTQ community? How do they have laws that protect and and, you know, um, and when you look at a city like I’m from, the privilege of being in Atlanta, where we always get 100% 100% right, but you look at the the report, and you just click on a city that’s not even 30 minutes away That’s right, like Roswell Jordan, right? And it’ll say 5% How is that even possible? So when you have people that are saying to us, why are you all Why are you you constantly bringing this up? Why is this always a thing? You know, it’s always a thing because we don’t have equity.

Amber Cabral 18:12

You can’t go anywhere. You can find like these three little cities, right? You

Lisa Cunningham 18:16

can’t you can be denied in 29 states, you can still be denied housing. You can be denied that you just want to walk into a certain business and and patronize it, and you can’t. I mean, there’s so many in 29 states in this country, you’re not protected. So I think that that part of it in terms of being in an Atlanta and what can other cities do? It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a lot easier, yeah, then it’s not Yeah. Quite frankly, I’ll share this. One of my personal biggest pain points is, and you see who I am and how I am. This is how I am all day, mostly every day. This is you act, right? This is you. This is me. I’m a pretty happy go lucky. You are. Yes, when I’m out, I do this strategy thing, right? Because I immediately get anxiety if I start to feel like I have to use the restroom in public, I start, I go, Oh Lord, I drink too much water. Oh no, I come up with a strategy just to use the restroom in public, and that’s because I am more masculine presenting I’m she her all day long, right? Was born that, right? But I present a different way, right? So when I head to that restroom, there’s gonna be someone who comes out that says, you’re going to the wrong restroom. And then I say, No, I’m a woman. And then they say, No, you’re not. Ooh. Once

Amber Cabral 20:00

you figure out what your privileges are, then the question becomes, what do you do with them?

20:05

You.