This past winter and early spring, I was struggling. I felt as though I was being pulled in a thousand directions. Though I wanted to show up for everything and everyone, I found myself fully present for nothing and no one.
My not-fully-present manifested as exhaustion. Not like a “I really need to sleep” kind of exhaustion, more of a “my soul needs a lie-down” kind of exhaustion.
Read MoreA couple of weeks ago, we did a Facebook Live where we used popular tv shows to help us playfully make a point about how folks sometimes overestimate their skills when it comes to DEI work–or really anything. In this episode, we revisit that conversation and add some additional commentary. If you tuned in the first time around, stick around for a whole lot more. And, fair warning, there are some definite spoilers of the tv show the Good Place in our follow up conversation.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreIn today’s conversation, April and Tracie unpack white Jews’ whiteness, the history of race and Jewish racialized identities, and the benefits of getting clear about who is actually in the ingroup. Using metaphors from physics to sanctuaries, we talk about historic and contemporary intersections of the social construct of race and lived identities of Jews.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreIn this edited version of a Facebook live that April recorded after Whoopi Goldberg’s comments and the controversy that followed, April digs deep into her analysis of the reactions many in the Jewish community expressed. Internalized terror and persisting unhealed trauma–elicited by the Holocaust and centuries of persecution–among white Ashkenazi Jews has caused an understandable misalignment between those folks’ emotional thermometer and the actual thread of danger on the oppression scale. Despite the elevated blood pressures the situation has caused, it seems clear to April that compassion (for ourselves and others!), healing, and solidarity across lines of difference will lead us toward the future we want.
Trigger Warning: This episode is not for you in this moment if as a result of this controversy, you are feeling terror or are in a panic mode.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreMany of us learn about racial justice and try to implement DEI in our lives/workplaces, but sometimes we become so stuck in our questions that it keeps us distanced and prevents us from staying in the deep end. April & Tracie challenge us to get intellectually intimate with the learning and to use our systems of accountability/partnership to stay in close relationship while also taking ownership.
It’s been almost two weeks since the Colleyville synagogue hostage situation, an antisemitic event that was incredibly scary for Jewish communities. During this conversation from just a few days after, we dive into the feelings of isolation that many of us are experiencing, the all-encompassing nature of grief, our internalized terror and communal need for healing, and what it looks likes when we show up and support one another across lines of difference.
A few weeks into 2022, April and Tracie share with us what they’ve learned about how to set intentions and their best practices for succeeding. Referencing the conversation they had in Episode 70, they chat about achieving goals versus implementing systems. They unpack some of the patterns around setting intentions and assumptions of our own enoughness. Tracie shares her personal 10 commandments for the upcoming year.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreAs MLK Day and Tu B'Shvat overlap this coming week, April and Tracie unpack the lessons we can learn from trees and their growth in our racial justice journeys. They get into the nuances and differences between treating the symptoms of oppression and injustice – often addressed through “service” – and diagnosing and healing the root causes. And, they think about what we can do to genuinely honor Dr. King’s legacy.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreIt’s the first week of January and April and Tracie are thinking about resolutions. We delve into willpower, habits, and mindset, and discuss the role of American individualism in the culture of New Year’s Resolutions. Ultimately, we look for a better way to change our habits–and stop beating ourselves up with flawed systems.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Read MoreIn this week’s episode, April and Tracie talk about how questions around racial justice often come from a place of “stuckness,” keeping us from making real progress on racial justice. They discuss ways in which you can work through your questions to get past this stuckness.
Tune into this episode and read the full shownotes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
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