83: Beyond Fragility: An Anti-Racism Guide by Women of Color Psychologists with Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton and Dr. Yara Mekawi
This episode is powerful. I’m honored to have two of the three authors of the book, Beyond Fragility with me today. Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton and Dr. Yara Mekawi, along with Danielle Dawson, have written truly the best anti-racism resource I’ve ever encountered. As a white person and a clinician, it is powerful to hear this perspective of what we need to do psychologically to get to a place of anti-racism. Drs. Natalie and Yara are researchers, educators, writers, and the co-founders of DEAR, the Dialectical Engagement and Anti-Racism Project. Join us to learn more about this timely and important topic!
Show Highlights:
● The origins of DEAR and Beyond Fragility as an outgrowth of Yara’s Medium article, How to not be a “Karen”: Managing the tensions of anti-racism allyship
● The differences between DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and traditional talk therapy
● Systemic racism, emotions, and “whiteness”
● The goal of Beyond Fragility: to teach hard truths and skills that are necessary for a society that isn’t harmful to people of color
● The DBT skill of effectiveness as a decision-guiding principle
● A perspective on furthering anti-racism instead of placing blame
● Barriers to anti-racism work
● Anti-racism skills covered in the book, like accept, feel, detect, etc.
● “Fight or flight” responses–and how they show up in anti-racism
● Anti-racist repair and apologies
● Skills to use in calling out racist missteps: (CALL) clarify what happened, acknowledge intentions, lay out the reasons, and list possible solutions; (OUT) observing, using humility, and tolerating resistance
● The DEI calculator–and how to use it to ask for other perspectives
● An example of anti-racism tools and skills in action with racial marginalization
Resources and Links:
Connect with Dr. Natalie, Dr. Yara, and The DEAR Project: Website, Instagram,
Beyond Fragility: A Skills-Based Guide to Effective Anti-Racist Allyship by Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton, Dr. Yara Mekawi, and Danielle Dawson
Also mentioned in this episode: White Fragility by Dr. Robin DiAngelo
Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook
Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning
We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.
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KC 0:05
Hello, you Sentient ball of Stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And today I want to talk about the book Beyond fragility. I actually have two of the three authors in the studio with me. I have Dr. Natalie Watson singleton and Dr. Yara McCauley, we don't have Danielle Dawson with us who is a PhD candidate so soon to be Dr. But I did want to start by just saying that this is truly the best anti racism resource that I have ever read or encountered. Yeah, high praise.
Truly, I mean that as a white person. And I mean that as a clinician, it's so powerful to have women who are psychologists who are clinicians who have this like, very advanced level of research and learning marry together this idea of anti racism and psychologically like, what do we need to do to get to that place? So let's start with this. Will you guys just introduce yourselves? Yes, absolutely. Well,
Dr. Yara Mekawi 1:05
first of all, thank you so much for having us. We're so excited to be here. I am Dr. Yara Makai. I'm a psychology professor and my research and my teaching really focuses on racism and anti racism. And I'm also a co founder of the dialectical engagement and anti racism project or the deer project. Yeah.
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 1:22
And I'm Dr. Natalie Watson Singleton. Also happy to be here, a psychology professor, licensed clinical psychologist and co founder of deer. And my research focuses on understanding racism and racism related disparities that impact the lives of African Americans.
KC 1:41
And then can you give us a synopsis about Danielle? Sure, I
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 1:44
think Danielle also is interested in understanding health disparities in black populations. And there's some really cool stuff even around like technology based interventions.
KC 1:54
Awesome. So that this is like the best book I've read. And it is set apart for me because of your kind of unique backgrounds and what you brought to the table around that. Can you tell me like, how did your organization start, first of all, and then how did it become this book? Great question.
Dr. Yara Mekawi 2:09
So it all started in the the dark year of 2020. So it was after the murders of breonna, Taylor and George Floyd. And you know, I don't know if you recall, but that was kind of the time where a lot of white folks were waking up to the reality of racism, there were a lot of Facebook groups about ally ship, I was in one of them. And I will never forget, there was a white person who, you know, she was doing her best. But she kind of was going on this brand where she was where she was just like, you know, I give up, you just can't win. You know, one second, I'm being told us your voice speak up. And then I'm doing that. And then people are criticizing me and telling me to stay in my lane, or to not center myself, like, you know, what are you supposed to do. And you know, she was clearly kind of in that process of just, you know, throwing her hands, you can't see my hands at the podcast, but I'm throwing them up theatrically. And I remember just taking a screenshot and sending it to Natalie, and then later sending it to Danielle, and just saying I think white allies need dialectics, I think that is what's going on because they are getting really stuck in this either or thinking and I can see the consequences with my own eyes of kind of pulling back. And so they both agreed, they both loved dialectical behavior therapy as much as I do, which we'll talk about more later, hopefully, but we got together. And we wrote a medium article called How to not be a Karen managing the tensions of antiracist ally ship, and that really marked the birth of deer. And so it really started with this idea of dialectics and that one article, and then we started to realize that more was needed beyond just dialectics. And that's kind of how the whole enterprise of skills were created. And I think because
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 3:51
we're academics, we naturally have ideas and then share them by writing and I remember having a conversation with Yara and Danielle and being like, and we need if we're going to talk about skills being so important. We also need opportunities to train white allies in skill building. And so I think that's how the organization continued to grow.
KC 4:11
So one question that I have if you could sort of for like the lay people listening who are going dialectics DBT, like maybe they've heard that idea of DBT therapy before, can you give us a synopsis of what that is and how it might be different from like traditional talk therapy that people have experienced?
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 4:30
Yeah, so DBT Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is an evidence based psychotherapy approach that incorporates cognitive behavioral approaches. So thinking about our thoughts, thinking about our behaviors, it also incorporate some mindfulness and acceptance based strategies, and dialectic, how I like to describe it is just a fancy way of talking about balance balancing things that often feel in opposition of each other. And so from a DBT perspective, you're trying to balance excess I've done some change, it would seem counterintuitive that you would both accept and change things. And so DBT has a set of skills that support folks in accepting really difficult emotions, accepting things that we can't change, but also working to change the things that we can, perhaps improving our relationships, improving our ability to manage our emotions. And we felt that that provided a really nice framework for antiracism. Granted, we also pull from other approaches, but really leaned into this idea of supporting folks with managing difficult emotions, knowing when to tolerate them, when to change them, becoming more aware of their thoughts, becoming more aware of their behaviors and how those things were either moving them in the direction of anti racism are getting in the way. Right.
KC 5:50
And you know, when I first heard the title of the book, beyond fragility, obviously what came to mind was Dr. Robin D'Angelo, his book, right, you know, white fragility. And so was that on purpose for those titles to almost talk to each other?
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 6:03
Absolutely. And that in a respectful way, right, so it's not contentious Dr. Robin D'Angelo has also endorsed the book. And what we appreciated about white fragility and the popularity of white fragility is that it really woke folks up to racism and white privilege in the ways that Yarra had mentioned earlier. And white fragility, like a lot of other anti racism resources are very knowledge base. So teaching people about what racism is and what anti racism is. And our book is about going beyond just acquiring knowledge, to actually acquiring the skills needed to apply that knowledge and really show up as anti racist allies.
KC 6:45
One of the things I loved about the book is that you systematically go through like all of the different barriers, like internal barriers, the emotional barriers, the cognitive barriers, like the behavioral barriers, like all of these barriers that I know, I have felt as a white person. And I remember and they aren't like you, they're not like specific anti racism, or they're not only anti racism skills, right? Like, I'm reading this. And as a therapist, I'm going like, these are emotional regulation skills. These are, you know, CBT skills, these are cognitive skills, these are flexibility skills, these are widening your window of tolerance, like these are the skills and remember, you know, in 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd and breonna, Taylor, I joined an anti racism cohort. And it was a very interactive, you know, there were parts that we were learning, but there were also parts where we were being challenged, and we were sharing and, you know, the woman who was leading would directly challenge as we were talking, you know, hey, you just said it this way. Have you ever asked yourself why you said that, hey, I'm hearing this belief under that, like, where did that come from. And as we were doing that, it almost had some similar fields as not, it wasn't like a group therapy session, but it's that similar like, not just sitting back and learning, not lecturing, right. And when we watched each other struggle, and when I struggled in it, one of the things that I thought the whole time was like, Damn, I'm not saying that. I'm like, a super great anti racist, white person. But all I could think about was how I felt very advantaged by the fact that I had gone to rehab for 18 months, and they spent so much time building ego strength, like I had to sit there and rehab and listen to people be like, when you do this, it has a negative impact on me. And that I think might be a shitty part about you. And I had to learn to like, listen to that, and regulate my emotions and tolerate that and go, oh, that didn't feel good. But where's the truth in it without jumping to be defensive? And having you know, in denial about my own things, and and but do it with the kind of like, self compassion so that I wouldn't like crumble under like, Oh, I'm so bad. And I would remember looking around and being like, man, you really can't do that this work without those skills. Like some of these people, their issue isn't that they're unwilling to be anti racist. It's that nobody ever taught them those emotional regulation skills, like when someone says, Hey, that was racist, and my whole body tenses up and I go, Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, I don't want to be racist. I don't want to be racist. I don't think I was racist. But maybe everyone thinks I'm racist, and everything kind of starts to spin out of control like that. That's where the work is. It seems like
Dr. Yara Mekawi 9:20
absolutely, and I as you were talking, I think it brings up a really important point that we talked about in the book, which is sometimes it can feel a little confusing, you know, especially to like sociologists, and anyone who thinks about racism as being or understands how systemic racism can be and thinking about emotions can feel so small, but I think like you're saying, at the end of the day, even when you think about systemic processes, they're still maintained by encouraged by individual people. Like I was just emailing the Kentucky Senate yesterday about some anti di bills, and it was just really interesting to read some of the things that people are so worried about, and you know, one of those things similar to what's been passed in Florida was like, you know, like, you can't basically it's like, this is obviously not what they say. But the implication is like, you can't make people feel bad. And my email to these state senators, I was saying, you know, I've been teaching about this stuff for a decade and like people can learn to cope with emotions, if I am teaching someone about the history of the United States are just talking about specific things and they feel shame, that's completely normal. It's non pathological, and it's not harmful to feel those emotions. And it's not because of their race. It's because it's normal to feel that way when you hear about those things, right. And, and I think that people have a hard time coping with it and then don't even want to expose people to the information so that there's no need for that to even develop. And so I think all of the kind of individual cultural systemic things are really linked. I was
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 10:50
just gonna say, you know, Yara is point to made me think about one of our skills, the facts scale, which is kind of connected to DBT. Checking the facts, right. Just because I feel bad doesn't mean something bad is happening to me, or learning about di or anti racism is bad. And so one of our skills where it really supports people in disentangling the stories that we tell ourselves when we're emotionally activated, isn't it
KC 11:15
ironic, like just as a tangent, that the people who want to dismantle dei and historically accurate teachings about our country and the enslavement of black people, and the resulting oppression are the same people that like to proudly pronounce that, like facts don't care about your feelings? Like they'll say horrendously phobic shit, and they'll be like, I'm just saying the truth. It's not my fault. Feelings? Like, where did that line of thinking suddenly not apply to you? Because you don't want to feel bad? Right. You know, I also wanted to say that one of the reasons I think that this book was so man, like, I feel like my love language is like, just like intellectual discourse, I feel like I interjected into my veins, but not just the lofty stuff like this stuff that has like such practical implications. And this is another tangent, I'm sorry, we have such a beautiful outline for this episode. And the Vyvanse is kick in. And I feel so excited to have you guys here that I just want to share. So actually, the middle of writing my own book about relationships, it's basically like a little handbook for when you struggle with relationships, platonic, romantic, familial, all of these, and specifically, this idea that, you know, how do we have better relationships? And how do you read a book about all of those and not accidentally, like, tell someone to stay when they shouldn't leave when they shouldn't, you know, all these kinds of things. But one of the biggest things in the relationship book that I've been writing about is there's this concept called the vulnerability cycle, about how like it was made for marriage therapy about like how interpersonal conflict happens, and how like our own vulnerabilities and sensitivities get triggered, and we respond in a certain way. And we kind of spiral out and get activated in the fight or flight and how like, the most important skill you can have for having better relationships is the skill of emotional regulation. And it was something that I used to teach a lot when I did workshops for Drug Rehabs. And so it was so interesting to be in the process of that in my own book, and then to read yours and be like, Yes, this is it. Like this is the key to like, all to unlocking all of these skills. And you say about the book, that it is a book for white people that does not center whiteness, and I certainly felt that, but I'd love to hear from you guys. Like what you mean by that? Yeah.
Dr. Yara Mekawi 13:29
I mean, I think that at the end of the day, you know, when you think about what whiteness means, and what whiteness does, there's a lot of centering of emotions, there's a lot of prioritizing the comfort of white folks, even within anti racist spaces, you know, you know, how do you say things in a way that people aren't going to be offended? You know, there's all this like, tiptoeing and desire for white comfort. And that is not what we are about in this book. And so it's not designed to make white people feel good and comfortable. And it's really about the end goal of doing effective anti racist work. And so even though it's a book for white people, centers, people of color, and that the end goal is a society that's no longer harmful to people of color. And yet
KC 14:14
the book when I read it, I felt like I was talking to a therapist that had unconditional positive regard for me, do you know what I mean? Like, I felt like I was listening to someone that was very safe for both reasons, it felt safe, because it did not feel like your goal was for me to feel bad. But it also didn't feel like your goal was for me to feel good either. Like, your goal was to tell me the truth and to understand why those truths may be hard, and then teach me the skills to deal with that hardness so that I could walk forward in the truth. I
Dr. Yara Mekawi 14:48
was gonna say, I'm just really happy to hear you say that because I think it's really consistent with our goal and also, you know, aligned with the fact that you know, that we are therapists and you know, we knew kind of our long long term goal, which we're now doing is to provide, you know, like CEE workshops to their business. So that's always kind of been our framing like it's we don't have that kind of approach of yelling, shaming, I think we don't think that's effective, and at the same time, not coddling. So it's really great to hear it being received the way that we intended. And so
KC 15:19
the book talks about 16 different skills. And I loved that they were all acronyms.
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 15:24
That's yeah, that's all. Yeah.
KC 15:28
That's, I love that so much. And you also mentioned like, I want to get into the skills and some of the examples, but one of the reasons you say that you're uniquely positioned to write this book. And I think that does have to do with being clinical community psychologists, like you're trained to think about people a societal level, at an individual level with this really practical, what works?
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 15:51
Absolutely, I think our therapeutic training, working with a diverse array of clients really supported us and to think about these skills. And I can't also ignore sort of our lived experience as three women of color who have been on the receiving end of a lot of ineffectiveness, thinking about if this situation, thinking about that situation that I encountered, how could I have wanted a white person to show up? How would I have wanted this to play out differently. And so I think it really is a reflection of our lived experiences, our clinical training, our research, which also made it a joy to write.
KC 16:32
One of the things I also really loved and felt convicted by as I read it, or kind of like UI is that you teach all these skills and then but you also teach, like, one of the skills you teach is like how to call out like fellow white people, and you teach it and we'll get into it later. But you teach it in this specific way that really puts a gut check on like, how do you say this? Like, this isn't your time to power trip, which I think is one of the biggest temptations, right? You get that like Dunning Kruger like, Okay, I know a little bit. And now I see somebody quote unquote, doing it wrong. And we can do what we think we're being told to do. But you really give us those like, step by step, not only like, what am I saying it, but like, what's going on inside of me when I'm addressing this? And how can I be effective? And I just, I just love that. Okay, so one thing that I really I got instant clarity, which is, you said that there's this like North Star principle that's supposed to guide all of our decisions, and it is the DBT skill of effectiveness. So can you talk about that for a second? Yeah, I
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 17:35
think kind of, you know, some of what we've been talking about already is effectiveness is about really thinking about what works. So not getting caught up in what you think should happen, what feels right or fair to you, right. So not getting stuck up, like getting sort of stuck on those components, but really thinking about what works, which we know is a pivotal shift, because it's easy to get attached to this particular way of doing and one of the things that we've noticed, even in when we offer these trainings, people really struggle with not having a checklist, like okay, but no, tell us what the list is in terms of how to be an ally that's going to work in every situation. And it's like, well, that's not the reality of anti racism, it really requires thinking critically about what is it that I'm trying to accomplish that's aligned with my anti racism values, and what's going to move me
KC 18:30
forward, it immediately brought to mind like one of my early experiences on Tik Tok, when I first started my channel, and there was this trend going around where it was like people who kind of like, quote, unquote, looked like career people or professional people. And then they would do this sort of, like, nobody knows that, like I used to be and then like, you know, the scruffy little whatever's and mine was like, nobody would expect that I used to be this like little hippie with dreadlocks, and that was the only part of whatever and there was a woman of color who got really upset and was like, you know, I don't like how you made the fact that you engage in cultural appropriation as this like teehee moment and so there was silence some back and forth in the comments. And I remember thinking like, Well, that wasn't what I meant to do but like I guess I'm sorry if it happened or whatever, but it kind of like created its own little Firestorm controversy, whatever, whatever. And there was a lot of hounding around like okay, you need to take accountability take accountability, take it I remember thinking like accountable to who like I didn't hurt you. I'm not I don't have them. Now, I don't have that. And I was trying to do like the intellectual like, here's what I know about anti racism, but like, this isn't plugging into that. Like, I've done it. I followed the script, I did the things you're not allowed to be mad at me anymore. Like, this isn't fair. It's not fair. And so you open this book by giving this example of a head of school that just started and gets a letter from students of color saying like, here are the things in the school that like we think are like, you know, oppressive or discriminating. And she gets really defensive about like, I just got here, I didn't do these things. And I immediately thought of that tic tock of me being like, this isn't fair, this isn't fair, I did what I was supposed to do, I did the apology, I did the whatever, I don't have to keep bending over backwards, just because every single person doesn't like voicing those things out loud. And then there's this line that just shoots you through the heart where you say, instead of focusing on what you think is fair, ask yourself, what is the most effective thing to do in this situation to advance anti racism? And that to me was like, this book's gonna be different, right? Like this is the shift. It's not about are you right or wrong necessarily? Or is this fair? Or are you being misunderstood? Or, you know, you have to do this just because of that it is, what next steps could I take? Because then even if I think I'm wrong, that question applies, even if I think I'm right, or I've been misunderstood, or whatever, it still applies like that, the literal question of how I can dissenter myself there is still a way to handle the situation where I can engage in like my own anti racism and further anti racism or, and isn't that the truth? Like a lot of times, it's like the way we as white people are responding to whatever has been pointed out, that's where we like, go wrong, for lack of a better term.
Dr. Yara Mekawi 21:20
100%. I mean, that's why the whole repair chapter exists. And I think one of the things that came up for me, as you were sharing that story was even, you know, in the repair, you know, one of the letters is has to do with an apology. And part of what we encourage and think is really important is noting that even if you apologize, you can't demand forgiveness, right. And so in addition to doing what's effective, I think even when you engage in in as best as you can as a repair process, and kind of knowing that people might still be upset, and it's not helpful to then be mad at them for not accepting your apology.
KC 22:03
So you have you opened up with talking about like barriers to anti racism work. And I thought these were really insightful. You talked about cognitive barriers, and I want to read a couple of these for the audience. You talked about okay, so have you ever wondered why people kept hanging on to racism and that racism was a thing in the past? Have you ever gotten stuck trying to figure out the right way to be an ally? Have you ever believed that not seeing race was the best way to overcome racial prejudice? And then you have the emotional barriers, the fear of being perceived as a bad ally, the unbearable guilt of having unearned privilege Oh, and that's the other thing is I feel like you know, for a lot of us that maybe have done the work around some of these ones about like not seeing race and racism is a thing of the past and we're into that like no, I'm all in it's definitely a problem. It's definitely this there's this like second wave of barriers that you discover in yourself after you've bought in that you are specifically speaking to right frustration that you're anti racism efforts have gone unnoticed, powerlessness, about your ability to make a difference anxiety that you might say something or do something to make the situation worse. Oh, I felt like you were reading like my journal. And then you talk about interpersonal barriers. Have you ever been unsure about what to say to bipoc peers following a racist incident hesitant to call out a racist remark enacted by a colleague or family member uncertain about how to apologize after making a racist misstep? I also I'd love that you called it a misstep. Was that intentional? The word misstep as opposed to where it's like mistake, like as opposed to mistake or wrong or screw up or lie, there was just something so like, powerful in what it implied and didn't imply in the way that it was? It's like, okay, it might be my fault. Or it might be a mistake, or it might have been a truly like a, what am I trying to say like an honest mistake, but like, either way, a misstep is my responsibility
Dr. Yara Mekawi 23:57
in response to you know, is it intentional? I would say based on the fact that we probably met for hundreds and hundreds of hours about every little detail in the book. Everything was intentional, every single word. And and I think, you know, throughout, we have a lot of kind of analogies and metaphors about journeys and paths. And so I think missteps is kind of consistent with that way of thinking of going on a path and is also kind of general enough to encompass a lot of different things. And so that's, that would be my, my post hoc guests for why we were intentional about that one.
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 24:32
I was just gonna say I think we are also trying to we're clear that we don't understand these barriers is like moral failings or like character flaws there. They exist because of lack of skills, like you've talked about previously. And none of us showed up with this kind of innate essence on how to be an ally. We have to learn how to do it. And so I think that tone and tenor is really reflected in the book.
KC 24:59
Yeah, I feel like what it does is it helps me avoid like the shame trap. Like it's not trying to necessarily make me feel comfortable. But like the quickest way for me to center myself at this stage for me is when I start to feel a lot of shame over having done a misstep, but then I fall into that hole of what do people think, are people going to like me? How am I going to fix this? Oh, I'm such a bad ally. Like, that's how it all of a sudden, I become the gravitational pull of the whole issue. And misstep neutralizes that a little bit for me. And I
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 25:27
think some of what we talked about in that section of the book is people get really hung up on their intentions and trying to argue what they intended to do or not intended to. And I think part of using that neutral language makes it clear that in some ways, we're agnostic about what you intended to do, it really is about the impact and how to and how to continue to respond effectively,
KC 25:48
it's going into these skills, you discuss a lot of DBT skills, specifically in the book and ways that they can be used and anti racism work. And even though DBT wasn't created specifically for anti racism work, it really does seem to like perfectly apply. And so I want to talk about when you talk about cognitive skills, there's a lot of them. But there's one specific one, one of the ways that you address moving through like cognitive barriers is this skill set you refer to as tapping into your best self. And I want to read just this little excerpt tapping into your best self means reminding yourself of your motivation for engaging in this work, it is the difference between saying, Wow, I made a racist comment, and now everybody will think I'm a horrible person. And I made a racist misstep. And I know I can do better talk to me about the skill, because I feel it strikes me as doing like several things at once this shift to like that inner talk.
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 26:36
Yeah, and I think because our skills are acronyms, they all require you to do multiple things, at the same time to address a particular issue. And so that tapping into your best self is a part of the Accept skill, which was designed to help people move from denying racism to accepting or acknowledging the reality of racism. And so tapping into your best self is about reminding yourself why you're engaged in this work, getting caught up on whether or not you endorsed a worldview, that supported racism or maintain racism, like arguing or trying to maintain this belief is not helpful in moving forward. So reminding yourself, why are you here? Why are you engaged in this work? And are you willing to let go of these beliefs to do this work meaningfully, also reminding yourself of your values, right? Like if you're very much about connecting with your anti racist values, that's going to require you to let go beliefs or worldviews like, I don't see color, right, or I don't see race to do this work. Effectively,
KC 27:45
it strikes me as very self soothing, because part of what happens is like we have this whole construct around, I can't be loved or accepted unless I'm seen as a good person. And so when racism is pointed out to me, like I have this tailspin of I really need you to know I'm a good person, I really need you to know. And I think you laid out kind of perfectly in the book like why that is not an effective response. Like it might be an understandable response. But it is not an effective response. And it will harm people in the process. And so there's something very self soothing about going what is important here, right? Is it important? And one of the things that that I did the last time that I had that moment that was really helpful taken exactly from this right was I asked myself, is it important to me that everyone knows I'm doing like, what am I trying to do? Am I trying to make sure that everyone knows I'm doing the right thing? Or am I trying to make sure I'm doing the right thing? And that small flip of like, you know, what can I do next to advance anti racism or like my old cohort used to put it in context of like, which next step will best serve the cause of black liberation? And so there's, I just think you did that brilliantly. It's like, it's not about me saying, you're okay. It doesn't matter. You're still a good person. It's like, that's not even a question.
Dr. Yara Mekawi 29:09
That's not what this is about.
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 29:11
And I appreciate you know, what it also made me think about going back to Jerez point earlier about this is a book that's for white folks, but that doesn't center whiteness, if we think about, you know, a movement toward black liberation, it's a lot to ask black folks to Pat white allies on the back when they're trying to maintain their own survival. Right. And so part of divesting from this idea that you want to be seen from a good SBC as a good ally is about letting go of the need for I think Yara talks about it as like the ally cook right or the pat on the back. No folks of color are too busy trying to survive to slow down and give you praise or affirmation. Even though we understand the desire for praise and affirmation for doing the work that allies say they're committed to doing
KC 29:56
when it reminded me of like, you know, thinking about these as human skills But like everyone experiences that feeling of threat, that feeling of fight or flight, that feeling of dysregulation when there's conflict and things like that. And that if you are someone who has been directly harmed, or you're you are of the same group that is being talked about in a harmful way, in that moment, it's not as if you aren't having to do internal work in that moment yourselves around that fear and that wounding and that anger and that, like you're having to regulate yourself. And so it's like you said, like, it's not like, it's not understandable to like, need affirmation, but like, I can't, like I don't need the affirmation for someone who is trying to like, you don't need to do your work and my work. So this idea of going from the black and white thinking to the using that skill of and right, I'm doing my best, and I can do better. It reminded me of Well, nevermind, that's a tangent. Okay, speaking of fight or flight, what does fight this was so powerful in your but what does fight or flight have to do with anti racism?
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 30:58
Yeah, I think what we're, again, trying to take a non judgmental approach is helping people understand why they're having the reactions that they are right. Some of it is connected to our belief system, some of it is connected to our socialization, and some of it is very much connected to our physiology. Right? We are physiologically hardwired, to respond to threatening information to maintain our survival. What happens though, is, you know, having a bear walk across your path, which is an immediate threat is not the same as someone thinking you are racist. However, physiologically, folks can have the same reaction. And so it was about helping people understand the physiological hardwiring, why they're having those these reactions, and also being able to take a step back and say, even though my body is telling me that I am unsafe, or that there is a threat is a social threat, right or being perceived as racist, an actual like threat to my immediate safety? And if not, how does that influence how I then show up because when we are physiologically aroused again, fight or flight, what do we want to do fight back, defend ourselves, which is not oftentimes an effective anti racist response, or we want to flee. So disengage and avoid, and whether you're coming off defensive defensively or disengaging from the work, it's not helpful to sustain anti racist work,
KC 32:32
you know, you talked about writing the article about how not to be a Karen. And many times when I watched those interactions, that is always what it's like, that is a person in full blown fight or flight. And that's not to excuse their behavior, but just from a psychological perspective, being like that person is in fight or flight. And I remember being in rehab, and we had to do these like confrontation meetings where people would tell you what was wrong with you, like the shitty ways you were showing up in the world, and you would like you would go into full blown fight or flight and we had this rule that when you were confronted, you were not allowed to say anything, but okay to like, make you sit with that feeling. And one of the things that I was thinking about as I was writing through this idea of reading through your fight or flight kind of chapter is that you describe it as like the your body telling you you're not safe. But even that, like it took a shift for me to realize that that's what the signal was saying. Because I always thought that that signal was saying, You're right, you're right. You're right. And not you're right, as I'm like, I should win the argument. But like, I'm the victim right now. I am correct. You are coming against me. But no, I'm right. And I remember that little thing of having to just say, okay, it was the hardest part for me, and I understood the rule, and I kept breaking it, because I would literally feel almost like a narrative like, okay, no, no, no, I understand. I shouldn't respond. But like in this one instance, I actually am like if you had more information if you needed to, and so like it was like that the first shift was having to go from realizing that that feeling, isn't actually saying I'm right. It's just saying that I'm not safe. And like you said, just because it feels not safe doesn't mean that I'm not safe,
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 34:10
right that in this moment, I am encountering a threat but is it an actual threat to safety? Or is it a perceived threat? Because it calls into question my perceived standing as a good ally, and
KC 34:22
like the powerful knowledge that like our brain doesn't actually know the difference between physical threat an emotional threat. So you have that one read a little excerpt that when you say you say the idea that you are a good person quotes has been threatened activating your fight or flight response when situations like this occur, you have a choice to resist the unpleasant emotions or willingly engage with the discomfort for many people the initial impulses to turn away while this may feel better in the moment, resisting difficult emotions makes it difficult for you to reflect on your missteps and consider the source of bias that may have led to these missteps and I think most white people if we were really honest with ourselves, when we watch Karen and counters of somebody dysregulated and dissolving and whatever. I think if we were really honest, we would recognize that many versions of that is what's happening inside of us in these moments when we feel challenged when we feel called out when we feel like I'm not sure about that. And you talk about how like, we can reframe the negative self talk with more helpful things. And your suggestion is, I'm feeling ashamed, because I think others may believe I'm a horrible person for the offhand comment I made, how can I move forward in a way that is consistent with my anti racist values. And so like you said, this doesn't disengage you from the discomfort, but it saves you from the shame trap, right, that you'll kind of like fall down the rabbit hole. And this is all about me. And I'll have to just think about myself and write like, I still write. And I think that's really interesting, like when we start this journey, and we see everything through the lens of whiteness, and everything is white, and white is the default. And white is the important part. And white is the whatever. And we're always thinking about ourselves. And sometimes we can go through a lot of anti racist education, but not get rid of that same framing. And now in every encounter, instead of thinking about what I deserve, I'm thinking about how I'm screwing up as like, I haven't actually disengaged from centering whiteness in that way. Okay, next question. One of the things that really hit me as a therapist is this idea that you can't do the effective anti racist work outside of your window of tolerance. And for anyone who doesn't know what window of tolerance is, it just means that there's this certain window of stress that you can experience and cope with fairly easily. And then as you move outside of your window of tolerance, either because something is really stressful to you, you become less effective at regulating your emotions and your behavior. And if you continue to escalate, you'll go right into that fight or flight stance. And this idea that emotional regulation skills or anti racist skills, I think, is what makes your book so unique and powerful. And one of the skills that you offer about emotional regulation is called feel. And so I wanted to highlight that one for the episode. Can you talk to me about feel? Yeah,
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 37:03
so feel, obviously, like all the other scales is an acronym. And it really is about it's a distress tolerance skill, right. So it's designed to help you tolerate difficult emotions, which I appreciate what you said earlier about, like these skills being human skills regard, whether it's anti racism or not, we all have to encounter difficult moments where we can immediately change the situation, the context or what we're feeling. And so we have to learn how to tolerate that. And so we have to find our center. So allowing, giving ourselves space free from distractions to really check in with the body being able to embody a non judgmental stance, so approaching how we're feeling with a sense of curiosity rather than judgment, right? And then allowing ourselves the opportunity to check in with our senses to ground ourselves. So noticing what we might be smelling, at the moment, seeing in the moment, tasting in the moment, again, as an opportunity to self soothe. And really also recognizing that difficult emotions and experiencing difficult emotions are what make us human right? Again, you are not a bad ally, because you're feeling shame or feeling guilt. You're not a bad person, because you may even be feeling anger, right? You're not a weak person, because you're feeling these emotions are part of the human
Dr. Yara Mekawi 38:25
experience. Yeah. And I think just to add on to what I'm not only saying, I think that's why the Detect skill about figuring out what the emotion even is and then followed by feel, that was really intentional, because you really kind of need to master those and kind of develop that emotion literacy to then do more advanced skills, like with the reframing that you were referring to earlier, like with the facts skill, which is, you know, really the closest I think skill to like traditional CBT, where it's challenging that interpretation, which is what actually leads to the emotion and kind of fact checking yourself. And so mastering field is really necessary for that to happen. And, you know, you were talking about the Karen's and I just, you know, I remember the central park one that was like the first one that always comes to mind. And I always just kind of imagine, like, what would it have been like for these white women to, you know, pause and do the Detect, scale and do the field scale? Like, I wonder if, if they had tried that for just a moment, they would have then figured out that they needed to do a little bit more checking of what's going on within themselves, maybe they would have done the facts skill, and eventually kind of would lead to the conclusion that they are not being threatened in this situation, that there is a possibility that bias is interpreting their behavior, and maybe there is some more kind of consideration of what it means for them to make the decision to call the police in a situation like that, and then the whole thing can be prevented. So that's always what I think about when I see those instances,
KC 39:57
and you're right that like all of these skills are they have to like work together, it's like they have to, you can't there's no like this one first, really, because and it really honors that fact that like, you kind of have those three different areas of the brain, you know, you have your prefrontal cortex doing the thinking and the logic and you have your limbic system doing the emotions, and you have that brainstem, kicking off that fight or flight and your tools. It's not like one of them kicks off the other. It's not like a domino effect. It's more like a symphony, like at all parts of the brain are talking to each other and affecting each other. And then there's, it's like a big feedback loop. And so you know, you have these skills that are like some of them are a little more geared towards calming down, you know, the brainstem and the fight or flight and some of them are specifically towards, you know, speaking to that emotional brain and bringing that like cognitive section back online. So you can think and not just react and I appreciate it, like it really is a holistic, you have to kind of have them all. Okay, next question. Sidenote, and I'll edit this out, but Are you guys okay to go about 15 minutes past the hour? Okay, that I was sending an email to my next meeting. So I was like, wait, I haven't gotten everything in this is important. Okay. All right, you have a chapter about anti racist repair and making apologies. And you say in the book that you actually specifically put this chapter after the emotional regulation Chapter. Why is that? Yes,
Dr. Yara Mekawi 41:11
another one of those intentional decisions. And I think it's because an effective repair requires a lot of emotion regulation, right? Without emotional regulation skills that can become so easy for a repair effort to become about you, you know, when you were talking about the gravitational pole comment, I really appreciated that when you said that earlier. And I think and it's not just like the sitting with distress, it's there's like the willingness to be vulnerable, that's really important. And you know, part of repairs, kind of really being thoughtful about next steps, and actually doing what's effective, and you can't engage in thoughtful, meaningful, intentional conversation, if you're still in that panicked state, and being really concerned about how you're being perceived, you know, being mad that someone's recording the incident, or, you know, or whatever. And so those really need to be I mean, I wouldn't say mastered, I don't know, if anyone ever really like Masters is but having some practice in them, I think is really helpful before engaging that, especially because evaluating your emotions is part of, of repair the skill.
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 42:19
And I think also, one of the things that came up a lot for us in our early trainings, is people really wanting to jump into the well. But what do I do? Like, what do they do for other people without the slowing down to attend to the internal work? That's also very much a part of this process, like, Okay, well, what do I say, What do I do, and again, in this way, that felt very checklist it without, again, really having to attend to the difficult internal work, that's part of this process,
KC 42:49
it makes me wonder to like, you know, when we first as white people, we first wake up to Oh, my God, this is the reality, we're also having to feel pain in a way that we didn't before because we weren't connected to the reality of it. And I wonder sometimes if like my early urgency to like, run into, like, what do I do? How do I make a difference? How do I like how much of that it's both right? Like, it's both and but like, some of that was this empathy and this conviction from my values. But I wonder too, like, how much of us what's driving us is, I don't know how to tolerate the pain that I feel being open to this. And I certainly don't know how to tolerate the powerlessness that I can't fix it. So what can I do? What can I do? What can I do so that I don't have to feel powerless anymore, and we can lose the step of making sure what we're doing is effective, and making sure that we are effective before we rush into, you know, whatever we're trying to do. And that's something that I thought about a lot while I was reading your book. Yeah. And
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 43:55
you know, if you think about that, like rushing to what can I do? The other thing that a lot of antiracist scholars also talk about is like stamina building, when we just jump into the what do I do, then you have sort of the burn out or nothing I do works, right this, which then leads people back to the other extreme of disengaging. And so acquiring the emotion regulation skills of distress tolerance skills, we also see as again, necessary internal work, but also stamina building skills. And
KC 44:25
when I'm not talking about a lot of them in this one, but I want the audience to know like your use of examples is so helpful. You use so many examples in our personal examples about people at work people with friends, I appreciated that you use examples of somebody making online content because there are no resources for okay, if you are somebody with an online platform, how because there's some nuances there that you're like, I'm trying to apply what I know but I've never seen anybody kind of outline what that's supposed to look like here. I thought that was really helpful. You have this chapter on how to call out other white people when they make racist missteps and That's one that I thought we could go over to briefly. It's the acronym is call out. Can you walk us through that? Yeah. So
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 45:06
at its core, you know, calling out racism is about identifying and challenging instances of racist behavior, language attitudes that you witness, whether it's a colleague, whether it's a family member, or a friend. And one of the things that we also know in the book that I think is important to say, I know that there's some debate in the anti racist space about whether we should be calling out or calling in, we use that language of call out flexibly, right, that allows people to make decisions given the context at hand, like whether it's done publicly or privately, we sort of trust individuals to take in the necessary contextual information to decide that and so call owl is, in a lot of ways similar to the BTS, dear man acronym, which is about what to say, when you want to make a request? Or what to say, if you want to say no, and then how to say it for us, we take that same kind of framing of what to say and how to say it with how to respond to a racist incident. And so for C, right, it's to clarify what happened. And this is really about getting everybody on the same page, right? So if you witness a colleague saying a microaggression, say, Hey, I noticed that you know, you gave so and so a compliment that they're really articulate as a way again, reminding us or getting everybody on the same page about what happened, acknowledge possible intentions. So I know when you said that, perhaps it was meant as a compliment. Or you were really just trying to praise how they describe something, because one of the things that we recognized is people oftentimes, understandably, so get so hung up on what they met, as opposed to the impact of what they did. And so in an effort to kind of short circuit some of the defensiveness that could come up, like acknowledging it almost like giving the person the benefit of the doubt, we know there are people who intentionally want to be racist, but let's assume that this was coming perhaps not from a racist place, or that they didn't mean it in that way, and then laying out the reasons, it's racist, not assuming that everybody has the same education that you have about why calling a person of color articulate is a microaggression, to say, oh, you know, when you do that, it presumes that you didn't expect them to speak English well, or to speak it properly, which may be making assumptions about their intellect, perhaps inferiority, or maybe their nation of origin, and then list possible solutions, right. So providing the person with information for how they can prevent making this misstep again, you know, like, when I went to this training, I learned that calling a person of color articulate is a microaggression, perhaps you can attend that training today, or the next time you want to compliment that co worker, maybe talk about their task, not a personal attribute, right, because it gives people a clear direction. And then the out acronym is about how you do it. So making sure that you're observing your internal reactions, using humility. I know Casey, you kind of brought this up earlier, this is not your opportunity to try to one up the person you're calling out, or to show how you're the good ally with all the information. But really remembering what it was like for you the last time you were called out or made a misstep, and trying to bring that same humility to this interaction, and then tolerating resistance. One of the things that we've also noticed or observed with some allies is anytime they get any kind of pushback, they disengage. So even if the co worker is like, well, you know, you're being too sensitive. I didn't mean it like that reassert, why it's racist, why it's problematic. This is not an invitation to go into an ineffective back and forth, right. You also have to know when it's time to disengage, but it doesn't mean that at the first sign of tension, you have permission to walk away.
KC 49:07
I love that when you were talking about like, this isn't the chance to like one up, you know, whatever. And I just, this is so dumb, but my friends and I that are content creators, we call it the white white woman woke off. And we had to recognize it in ourselves first, but now like, sometimes we'll text each other and we'll be like somebody in my comments trying to get me to do a white woman woke off.
Dr. Yara Mekawi 49:32
Don't take the bait.
KC 49:33
Don't take the bait. Okay, well, I love that. And I wanted to also clarify for the audience that this is for white people calling out other white people. This is not for you to critique how a person of color is calling you out. Absolutely. Yes. Okay. And then one thing I loved in the book because of how practical it was, is your dei calculator as someone who has written a book and is writing a new one that wants input from people of color that wants to make sure I don't just sort of accidentally write from just my own perspective. You know, I want to reach out and ask my colleagues or people that I know or people that I know of, you know, hey, what do you think of this? Or, you know, can you collaborate with me on this? And but there is this fear of like, will that be offensive? Will they think like, oh, you're just asking me because I'm black? Or, you know, you know, if I have a question about something, it's like, well, I don't want to call my friend and have her feel like I just call her because she's black. And so you have this like, very cool calculator about when you're working on a project, and you want to elicit the viewpoints or participation or contribution of a person of color, like how to decide how to do that. So will you guys talk about that calculator for a second? Yeah,
Dr. Yara Mekawi 50:43
absolutely. Um, you know, I think there are a lot of situations where asking people of color, and especially women of color for di related labor could make sense. And there are a lot of times where it really doesn't make sense. And I think this skill really came from the many, many experiences that we've had, where it did not make sense, and it did not feel good and was frustrating. And, you know, I think the calculator is probably our longest skill, right? Natalie has probably the most letters compared to all of them, which I think really captures how complex of a task unit you just think it's so easy, like, I would really just ask this person, but it really is quite complicated. And that's kind of where it came from. And I'll try to keep this brief and de identified, but I think one of the examples that where it's like, okay, it's deeper than that was a few years ago and a in a previous job after kind of like a racist incident, there was kind of this, you know, that organizational kind of desire for anti racism and kind of a discussion of like, okay, you know, what do we do when there was a request from my boss to Okay, well, you know, Yara, you can make like, an anti racism resource list. And, you know, notably, wasn't part of my job. But to be fair, you know, they knew that that was an interest of mine. And, of course, I'm happy to create an anti racism resource list. And at the same time, I'm like, Okay, I really think the way to go here would be like a anti racism or D AI needs assessment in this organization, especially because I knew a lot of the issues that people of color were having in this organization. And I'm like, this is the perfect opportunity to go through, do an honest self assessment, and then make decisions and make goals, specifically based on the issues that are happening within this organization. And I found the tools gave them to the supervisors. And they and it was very clear that they were not interested in doing that work. They, they're just like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. But they didn't want to do it, they didn't want to sit with the difficult process of really assessing how the organization is doing in terms of anti racism, and that, therefore made that request for spending hours creating this resource lists feel so worthless, it's like, what's this for? I'm not doing this. For me, it doesn't really sound like y'all are gonna use it that much, right? Like the commitment to anti racism was really weak, and it wasn't contributing to a long term strategic anti racism plan. It was just, it was like a little BandAid fixing, like an ambiguous wound that potentially didn't like what problem is an anti racism resource list actually solving in this organization, nothing. And so so I just remember being really, really frustrated by that and thinking about, you know, years later, had they gone through the DI calculator skill, they would have realized that this wasn't a good ask. And so as you go through the calculator, you gain what we refer to as equity bucks. And the more equity bucks you have, the more acceptable it is to ask a person of color for di related labor. And the outcomes are basically red, yellow, and green that refer to kind of intensity with which to ask the request. And you know, going back, I was kind of going through that I'm like, okay, they probably would have had two bucks max. And that is very clearly in the red zone, they should not have asked that. Importantly, we talked about how there are ways to move into the yellow and green zone like there are contextual things that you can change about your request to make it more appropriate. So it's not like you're in the redzone never ask, you're on your own. It's like really think think about how to make this sustainable and not exploitative. And I will
KC 54:23
say, you know, I didn't mention it before now. But I want the audience to know that I found this not only a helpful book for just me as a individual person, but also I'm so impressed that it also is a helpful book for me as a business owner me as a part of a an organization like an organization could use this to be a better anti racist organization. Like there's tools in there that apply to thinking about things in that way. Not just me thinking as an individual. So I wanted to kind of land the plane here with maybe one last question if you guys would be open to it. There's this one line in the book that I found myself having an emotional reaction to and feeling a resistance to. And I'm curious if we could use this as like an example of I can share with you what I was feeling. And you can maybe share with me like what tools in the book, you know, if I was your friend and I called you up and was like, This is what I'm feeling, what tools in the book would be my next step for like how to move through that. So there's a part of the book where you're talking about white supremacy, culture and this tool of self preservation and how, you know, we feel like we have a right to comfort and we feel like the threat that we feel when we're being called a racist it like, in that moment, it almost feels as important as the threat that a person of color would feel by the actual racism. Anyways, the point is, there's this line that says, however, for white people, unencumbered by the weight of marginalization, that act of self preservation is rarely if ever necessary. And so I found myself feeling resistance to this and as a specifically as a woman, and I think there's this interesting thing that happens as a white woman where there, I feel like I have this experience of needing to engage in self preservation constantly in my role as a woman, but not necessarily in my role as a white person. And I felt that pull of but wait, but wait part part of it, is even when I look at Karen's, I'm like, yeah, like, yes, Karen is entitled, but part of it is that like, she is so shit on by her own like, patriarchal situation that she is like squeezed to the brink. And then she gets in a situation where she perceives just even more disrespect, right? It with her, and you marry that with a racism of like, these people are beneath me, and they're disrespected. It's like, she already gets so much of that from men, that it just like pops. And so I felt this like, wait a second, no, like, as a woman, I engage in self preservation. So if that was kind of where I was, and I didn't know what to do with that feeling, what are the tools in your book? That would be like my next step right there?
Dr. Yara Mekawi 57:02
I think it's such a complex question. And I think, you know, and specifically, what we're referring to is the weight of racial marginalization as it's kind of implied, but not clearly stated there. So I just wanted to clarify that and also say, I mean, I think immediately My mind went to the field skill and sitting with it. And then I and then my mind personally, I'm curious, Natalie, what our reliability on this would be, but it's kind of going to the fact scale and really asking yourself, like, if we had more time, I would like ask you these questions now. But just really asking yourself, like, what are the interpretations that are happening? I think sometimes, especially when you get into talking about intersectionality and intersecting systems of oppression, there can be a misunderstanding among white women that the system of sexism is not real, or because you're a white woman, you don't experience sexism, which is of course, not what intersectionality is about at all. So that would kind of be one of the things I would be curious about is what are the interpretations? Is there an assumption of invalidation? Other things and then really kind of questioning that like, is that invalidation actually happening? And kind of going through the process of checking the facts?
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 58:13
Yeah, I was thinking feel as well. I was also thinking about detect, and I think you're you kind of named it detect, like, what I'm noticing resistance. I'm curious about what the emotion is, what's getting activated? Perhaps that provides some insight. It also made me think about the Accept skill that also has the worldview assessment attached to it right? Does this resistance reveal some worldviews that I have about my positionality as a white woman that are being threatened? Does it raise questions for me to around my divestment from whiteness, right? And thinking about what the function is, if I lean into the gender marginalization, but not really sit with the racial privilege, like what's the function of that? It also makes me think about the and skill, right, can we hold both? Right that I've benefited from whiteness, and I may experience marginalization in light of these other social identities, but what's the function of me trying to play up or lean into the other types of marginalization that quote unquote may let me off the hook in terms of my anti racism work so I think there's a lot there that's
KC 59:31
it's just so cool, because I feel like you know, I've had so many brilliant mostly black women but some black men as well and non binary folks like kind of walk through what to do with that process. But you guys are the first ones that wrote it down in a step by step by like this idea of like, okay, sit with the feelings, feel the feelings get grounded past the panic. Look into some of these cognitive like, is that even what they said? What am I is there's this fear, what's the fear? Oh, there's this invalidation. This invalidation. Okay? Well, that's where you know, I'm wanting to really address my invalidation. But like, where are we? What are we thinking about? What's the Northstar? Like, what's the next step for advancing? Antiracism? Like, is it really, you know, needing these people in front of me to validate this thing of me or like, maybe it's my job to validate that, like, that's real and hold those hands and like, moving forward. And I just think that is my favorite part of the book is how practical it is, and that roadmap that you guys have given. And so I just wanted to say, again, that I really, really love the book. I appreciate the book. When does the book come out? By the way? April, April? 2024? Yes, excellent. All right. Well, that's wonderful. Where can they go? If they want to do GupS have a preorder sale? Where will it be available?
Dr. Yara Mekawi 1:00:42
Oh, I was just gonna say it's available everywhere. So on Amazon, apparently, even on Walmart. But also, we're trying to get into more local bookstores. But yeah, if you just search beyond fragility, a skills based guide to effective anti racist allyship, that's how you can find it.
KC 1:00:58
Awesome. And if they wanted to follow your organization, where would they learn more about that? Yeah,
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 1:01:03
we have a website. We also have Instagram, Yara, do you want to give the website information? Yeah,
Dr. Yara Mekawi 1:01:09
so the dub website is www dot the deer project.com. And on there, we have all of our information about our socials, we also have information about our workshops. There's also our information, more information about the book, some of the lovely endorsements that we have received.
Dr. Natalie Watson-Singleton 1:01:26
And our Instagram is the period deer period project. We're also on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,
KC 1:01:32
and that's D AR. We'll put all that in the show notes. But just for those listening, awesome. Well, thank you guys. This has been a wonderful conversation. And I really appreciate your time, and I appreciate the book. Thank you. Thank
Dr. Yara Mekawi 1:01:42
you so much. It was such a pleasure to be here and we really appreciate your support. I think validation and encouragement. It really does mean so much to us. So thank you so much.
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