JEDI vs. DEI: Why Justice Must Come First with Chris Talbot-Heindl
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How can we create a more equitable and just nonprofit sector?
In this episode of The Small Nonprofit, we chat with Chris Talbot-Heindl, a seasoned professional with over two decades of experience in the nonprofit world. Chris shares their personal experiences and insights on the challenges and opportunities facing nonprofits today, particularly in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (JEDI).
We explore the challenges faced by BIPOC individuals in predominantly white-led organizations and the importance of moving beyond performative allyship to achieve real, transformative change.
Chris provides actionable advice for fostering a more inclusive and equitable nonprofit sector. They emphasize the significance of community-based learning, emotional regulation, and collective responsibility in dismantling systemic inequities.
Chris's personal experiences and insights offer valuable lessons for nonprofit leaders, staff, and board members alike, reminding us that the path to collective liberation requires ongoing commitment, education, and a willingness to challenge the status quo.
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Key Episode Highlights:
The Importance of Community: Chris highlights the need for community-based learning and support in JEDI work. They provide actionable tips to the audience such as to form groups, share knowledge, and practice calling in and being called in to foster a safer and more accountable environment.
The Power of Emotional Regulation: Chris emphasizes the importance of emotional regulation in navigating difficult conversations and conflicts. They stress that everyone has a responsibility to manage their emotions and avoid reacting with violence or harm.
The Need for Transformational Change: Chris argues that incremental change is not enough to address the systemic inequities in the nonprofit sector. They call for transformational change that prioritizes JEDI principles and collective liberation.
The Role of Cultural Competency: Chris discusses the importance of cultural competency in DEI work and shares an example of a shocking lack of cultural awareness in a previous workplace. They emphasize the need for DEI specialists to have a deep understanding of the communities they serve.
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Transcript:
00:00:00 Chris: Because people didn't understand what was actually happening with the movement and with JEDI efforts, they saw the power to and the power with as power over. And when they saw that they could take that power, they did. And so I think that's another reason why we kind of fucked up how we've taught JEDI principles.
00:00:23 Maria: Hi friends. Ever wondered how you could turn your big ideas into results? I'm Maria Rio, your go-to guide for helping small nonprofits have real world impacts. Together, let's reimagine a better sector, tackle systemic issues, and yes, raise some serious cash. Welcome back to The Small Nonprofit, the podcast where your passion meets action.
00:00:54 Maria: Hi, everyone. Welcome to or welcome back to The Small Nonprofit podcast. Today I am chatting with Chris, who I've gotten to know over the internet for about two years. I don't think we've met in person just yet, but I look forward to that one day. But I'll let Chris introduce themselves and tell you all about how amazing they are. Hi, Chris.
00:01:17 Chris: Hi. I don't know that I can speak to the second part, but I can tell you who I am.
00:01:23 Maria: Okay, tell us who are you?
00:01:24 Chris: Well, how I got involved is like so many other people by accident. So I got involved in the environmental nonprofit movement when I was 19. That would have been 2002 and just kind of never left. That was also by accident. So I wanted to go into Social Justice, but just kind of got stuck in environmental. But that's okay. I currently work at a small environmental nonprofit in Denver, Colorado.
00:01:53 Chris: I also work for Community Central Fundraising as the editor of the content hub. And I also work at Next 100 Colorado, which is a movement to increase equity in the outdoors in Colorado. And I also own my own business because I need to do all the things which in that business, it's called the Talbot Heindl experience. I could do whatever I wanted. And I do.
00:02:23 Maria: Yeah. Well, that's awesome in itself. Oh, I also want to draw attention to the comics and I want to ask a little bit more about them. Do you do them all yourself? Do you do the art as well? That's an insane amount of talent. I don't know how you do that.
00:02:38 Chris: Thank you. Well, actually, my degree is in art, so it's like it's the thing that I do do technically. But yeah, I do all of the comics myself. The stories are not all from my life, though. So for folks who don't know, I do comics mostly related to life as a non-binary person living in a binary world. And all of the stories come from non-binary individuals, not necessarily from me. So but yeah, all the drawings and a lot of the language comes from me. Some of it comes from the people who share their stories with me.
00:03:15 Maria: I love that. Oh, I didn't know it was other people's stories as well. We should definitely link those in the show notes, by the way. Those would be great.
00:03:20 Chris: Well, thank you.
00:03:22 Maria: So Chris, I wanted to ask you a little bit about you have such a wide view of the nonprofit sector and of community-centric fundraising and environmental nonprofits and also with your own business, like you're doing a lot. And I'm just wondering what are some trends that you're seeing in our sector?
00:03:41 Chris: Sure. So I'm sure folks have seen that currently we have a backlash happening against DEI. And I don't just mean from like mega hat wearing folks who are never on board to begin with, but also we're seeing it with so-called white liberals, which is very disheartening. So that has been the thing that I'm seeing the most of and what I'm experiencing in a couple of my jobs is a lot of backlash.
00:04:12 Maria: And what does that backlash look like? Is it people being against affirmative action, for example, I guess that could be one of them, but what does it look like in everyday?
00:04:22 Chris: Yeah. Okay. Here's where we might get ranty Chris. So just putting that out there. Okay. I'm going to rewind just a little bit. So since summer of 2020, there's just been this very extractive nature of white folks in environmental nonprofits, especially for all the BIPOC folks within their organizations. So I don't know if it's just like the nonprofits I've worked at, but it seems like environmental nonprofits are notoriously white and definitely white led. I was the first person of color at my organization.
00:04:58 Chris: Until summer of 2020, most of them believed that Social Justice issues were beyond their scope and they would call it mission brief. If anything, DEI related would even come into play. And I guess I should rewind a little bit too and say that I don't do DEI because I think it emphasizes a lot of things. So DEI for folks who don't know is diversity, equity, and inclusion.
00:05:21 Chris: But I think it's in the wrong order, and I think it's missing justice. So I like to say JEDI, which is justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. So if you don't have justice, you're very performative because justice requires action. So you have to overcome injustice, not just remark that it's there, and pull a few BIPOC or gender-variant or disabled folks through like a glass ceiling. So I focus on JEDI rather than DEI.
00:05:46 Chris: There are a lot of organizations that got on board during summer 2020, they're all about not even the E, they're about diversity and inclusion. And they ignored the justice, they ignored the equity, if they do anything at all. And so with these organizations, it's like pulling teeth. So I'm sure every DEI specialist has heard, it's not the right time. That's a constant thing. Like, oh, we hear you. But it's really not the right time for that. Or these folks aren't ready for that.
00:06:18 Chris: And a friend of mine who's also in the DEI space, [Crystal Eagley] said, she suggested asking them point blank to define the right time, to describe it, describe how you know it's the right time, mostly so they can hear themselves, but also so that you know what conditions you need to work toward if there is a legitimate right time for them, which there probably isn't. They're going to try and move those goal posts and you have to try and not let them.
00:06:48 Chris: There's that that comes into play all the time in the daily. There's the accepted idea that we have to meet people where they're at while never requiring them to be anywhere. If you don't require them to be anywhere and you constantly tell people of color to meet those people where they're at, it's gonna be at racism 101 or remediary racism 101. It's never gonna be to the actions portion. And so we just continually exhaust ourselves trying to bring white people up to speed who aren't engaging enough to do their own learning outside of what you're hand feeding them.
00:07:27 Chris: And then we run ourselves ragged and never get to transform the changes. So those are the kind things that I would say are happening because they're just, they're not awful, I guess. I mean, they are, because over time, there's that bioaccumulation of all that racial stress that all your by-product folks are experiencing. And it does have a weathering effect and studies have shown it takes years off by pop folks' lives. And so, yeah. But I'll just point that out as it's not the most terrible thing that they're doing, but it's the most common thing that they're doing.
00:08:02 Chris: Another thing I would say that happens a lot is the need to cater to white fragility and wordsmith continually to make white folks and others who have internalized white supremacy culture comfortable. So I don't want to just rag on white folks. Because it's not just them, it's other folks who have also internalized that white supremacy culture and don't see a need to dismantle it, mostly folks who generally benefit from it.
00:08:30 Chris: So what happens is we create a term, it becomes popular, then it gets politicized, and then white supremacists go after it. Instead of just being like, okay, well, the white supremacists were never along with us anyway. We then wordsmith that word and are like, oh, we can't use this anymore. We have to come up with something else. And it's a distraction. And it makes us continually in this cycle of re-wordsmithing rather than re-wordsmithing around comfort, then moving forward with the word that was never wrong in the first place. Words are just meant to describe something. It accurately did that. Let's just use it.
00:09:10 Maria: It actually made me think of this piece, why I'm no longer talking to white people about race, which I'm sure you've read. But it's just so many manners and ways where racialized people, the onus is always put on you. Or even like disabled people, the onus is put on people don't usually go out of their way to educate themselves, which is so painful. And in this piece, why I'm no longer talking to white people about race, they have a quote of I can no longer engage with a gulf of an emotional disconnect that white people display when a person of color articulates your experience.
00:09:45 Maria: And I think that that's just so real and so powerful. And I see it all the time. I sent you that post of the hospital doing that Fiesta fundraiser. And that post has 40 something likes, 46 likes, but it has over 15,000 impressions. And people see it, they know that it's wrong, but to cater to power to white supremacy, I'm not going to say anything. I'm going to not risk my reputation. I'm not going to stir the pot, anything like that.
00:10:20 Maria: But then the onus is then put on the racialized person, the disabled person, your divergent person to then stand up for themselves because nobody else will. So I don't do it. And I deeply care about this. Those people who don't get it or don't care are not going to do it. So I don't know if that's just one of the big problems I have with white liberals. It's just very trendy to be anti-racist, but they don't actually even know what that means and don't put in the work to actually listen.
00:11:53 Maria: Well, part of it is I think that we don't require commitments, just vibes all the time. And if we do have commitments, there's no accountability. We don't require DEI training, it's not mandatory, or if it is mandatory, it's milk toast, really pathetic training. So part of it is that we're not doing it right. And I think that's part of the crux of the matter is because it wasn't safe to do things in a more liberatory way, we developed these systems that are just, I don't know how to describe it. Well, I'll use an example of something outside that hopefully relates and not just in my head. So when I look at environmental laws, they're in place to stop the worst of the worst from happening.
00:11:48 Chris: Not making things better, but just stopping the worst of the worst. And there's this constant race to the bottom where organizations or companies or individuals will do the bare minimum to scrape by those environmental laws, which does so much damage. But because they followed the really pathetic laws, they're like, oh, we're good. And that's what we've done in this space as well. We've created the very bottom line. And we're like, you can't go below this line. So just do this tiny bit of education to stay above it. But then we have no accountability. So people constantly go below the line as well.
00:12:35 Maria: Wait, where do you think the line is for people? Because for me, where I see people, you can't go past that line is blatant racism. Nothing before that, nothing that's still very aggressive and oppressive and horrible, but blatant, a slur or something like that. That's the line that I see. So I don't know if you see it a little bit higher than that for the people that you've been working with or if that's kind of like theirs as well.
00:13:02 Chris: I see it below that.
00:13:03 Maria: Oh, yeah.
00:13:04 Chris: Yeah, I've had slurs. And even that doesn't get disrupted. I have to disrupt it myself, even if the slurs against me. And then I usually get called in for the way in which I said what I said. And it's to me, the bar is in hell somewhere. Or there is no bar. Maybe there is no bar. We have the bar that's being taught which I think is this very much kumbaya. If we don't acknowledge things, they didn't happen and we're all equal unless you do something horrible. But the real bar is somewhere in hell because we're not holding anyone accountable.
00:13:52 Maria: Yeah, it's like, you should just be happy with kind of the scraps. And why can't we just all get along. Everything's so political. Why are you making political but there's no actual acknowledgement or action taken to repair the harm or work towards justice, then you have very surface level of peace. You don't have justice and it's just peace is maintained for this group of people by everybody else kind of swallowing everything that they're going through and not yes, not doing anything about it.
00:14:29 Chris: Yes. And I feel like the second that BIPOC, gender variant, disabled folks, anyone who doesn't fit the supremacist culture that we live in actually addresses something, they become a problem, which is nothing new, but with all this education that we've done since summer of 2020, you think it would be like, oh, I recognize that as a form of white supremacy showing up and maybe I should disrupt that, but that doesn't happen.
00:14:59 Chris: So like an example that I recently saw was a friend of mine who was a leader at an organization, queer BIPOC, was driven out of the organization by white women, white cis women. I didn't work at that organization, but I do know a lot of people involved. And the accusations against this person, they're too loud. It's like, hmm, where have I heard that before? Every BIPOC person has been told they're too loud. And a lot of it is just cultural. But then some of it is, if you speak out against anything, you're too loud.
00:15:43 Chris: This person was called racist for saying that rich white cis people sucked. And it's like, where's the lie though? I mean, come on. Okay, but specifically they said white cis, powerful white cis people who use their power in a certain way, so totally true. And then the third thing was they were accused of inappropriate behavior for saying that someone looked nice.
00:16:13 Maria: At that point, you know that they're gonna come after you for anything.
00:16:16 Chris:Yes, and then you have to sit back and think, this person is a queer, BIPOC individual. How much bullshit did they experience at this job that they gave grace to, that they gave a free education to, that they ignored because it didn't impact the larger organization. And they're like, I'm just gonna swallow this harm and carry on because we all do it. Everyone who lives at an intersection has done it and they know what I'm talking about.
00:16:47 Chris: So how many times did this person do that in that role? And then there's these three things, two of which I would say are completely cultural and white women need to learn how to regulate their emotions and not weaponize them. But anyway, ignoring that part, if that was the true problem, but you only had the white staff saying so, the white board members doing the deep dive, hiring a white led organization to do that deep dive, and they came out with the conclusion that out of there.
00:17:25 Chris: Okay, if those things were actually a problem. This is the first time this person's heard of that issue. It was never brought to their attention ever. Why wouldn't you spend two seconds to call that person in and be like, this is a problem for me. Can we amend our working relationship in this way? Though white led contractors that did the deep dive, why didn't they come through with educational materials on whatever they thought need to be done because they don't do that ever. White people get the benefit of the doubt forever.
00:18:03 Chris: They get grace forever. They get to say all kinds of racist shit, slurs and everything forever. And it's constantly like, oh, they're listening and learning. They're trying. They're going to learn. Don't you worry. Just be patient. And the second a BIPOC individual does anything that could just be cultural, it could be a cultural mishmash. It's not meshing with white woman culture somehow. There's no education provided. It's automatically you're out of here. And it's all the time. It's what I'm experiencing at my workplace. I can't tell you how many blatantly racist things I've had to swallow.
00:18:41 Chris: And I've explained to them what they are. And I've gotten an apology for one that was conditional, because a lot of times they are, right? Well, I'm sorry if and then, but I don't remember, blah, blah, blah, whatever. That's not an apology, that's not accountability, but I swallowed it because it's, well, it's better than nothing, which is what I've gotten for the last six and a half years. So the amount of education I've had to do and the amount of grace I've had to give.
00:19:08 Chris: And then I wear a keffiyeh at a meeting and this coworker just went on an unhinged anti-Arab racist rant at me and has weaponized his feelings ever since and this was December 18th, this happened. So we're at month five now of this weaponization. And the ultimate goal it seems like is to drive me out of the organization. So if they can't fire you, they will drive you out. So there's very separate worlds that we live in, even at working at the same organization.
00:19:46 Maria: You know, one of the things that kills me, it's like not only am I forced to do all this education. Now, this is a form of education for an audience that is mostly white. But like, I'm forced to do this education because you won't educate yourself. And obviously that's everybody listening, blah, blah, blah, disclaimer. But no, there's one of them that's going to be like, not me, anyways. But then I also have to provide proof. My lived expertise and experience is not enough to tell you, hey, that's racist. Stop doing that.
00:20:16 Maria: But it's, oh, when you're saying like white people always get the benefit of the doubt forever, no matter what I thought of like four different examples immediately, because I know someone listening was like, yeah, who when that's not true. I've seen white people get in trouble.
00:20:31 Chris: For how long? I mean, for how long immediate trouble, but it's going to be forgiven eventually, like even Amy Cooper. She had immediate trouble. And then glamour. Forgiven, even though she never took accountability.
00:20:47 Maria: I think you're gonna have to tell people who that is.
00:20:49 Chris: Oh, yeah, okay. So Amy Cooper was...
00:20:53 Maria: Walking her dog.
00:20:55 Chris: Yeah, with no leash on in a very environmentally delicate space for birds. And Chris Cooper, who is a bird watcher, was in that same area and asked her to put her dog on a leash. And Chris Cooper is a Black man, a gay Black man. And she immediately weaponized her whiteness and white womanhood, specifically, and threatened to call the cops and say that he was attacking her. And then she did it. And she got increasingly hysterical on the phone to the cops, which we all know could be a death sentence for a black man, when a white woman is doing that. So it was very serious and bless Chris Cooper, because he had more patience and grace than I ever would. And he forgave her early on and said that he didn't think that she should be getting as much.
00:21:53 Maria: Backlash.
00:21:53 Chris: Yeah, yeah, backlash. I was gonna say consequences. She got consequences for her actions.
00:22:01 Maria: It's consequences, exactly. You deserve that.
00:22:05 Chris: Because you're not safe. And if you are in a position of power and you're not a safe person for an entire demographic of other people, then you shouldn't be in that position. So it's really consequences. And the fact that she never once took accountability.
00:22:24 Maria: And that goes back to the proof. He needed that video. Who's going to believe you? That sounds wild and like screenshots and like saving these emails and saving as many receipts, cause you know that they're not going to believe you. But this is something that they definitely get when a white woman is in a situation where it's a man who's sexually harassing her.
00:22:43 Maria: They get it. They save the screenshots. They know that other people might not understand their lived experience. They videos, everything. But I don't know, just something does not translate to the empathy or understanding doesn't translate in some of these cases. And it's just really annoying.
00:23:01 Chris: Yeah, it's mind boggling. But, you know, she got her job back, the dog back. The dog that she was choking back. So in the end, no lasting consequences. Just what's his name? I can't remember his name. The comedian, Kevin Hart.
00:23:19 Maria: Long list of these guys. Yeah.
00:23:22 Chris: Yeah, he had immediate consequences. He lost one job, which was some award show. But then he got a show out of it and like all this other stuff. It's like, there's no lasting consequences for people when they hunch down, basically or in other ways are horribly bigoted. I've never seen it.
00:23:42 Maria: Well, like you're perceived to have more power. It's fine if you punch down.
00:23:46 Chris: Yeah. Well, and then speaking of power, I wanted to make sure to say this part. So I've been watching or trying to decipher what it is, what's happening in this current moment. So we see white folks, I think see power with or power to as power over. They don't decipher between the three. So they always see any power whatsoever as power over. I'm gonna control you with this power that I have. They saw that since summer 2020, BIPOC folks are finally being listened to and in some places giving head of stalls in which to speak.
00:24:23 Chris: But this was reparations in a way from being ignored or pushed to margins or shamed into silence. So this was power to or power with. But they saw it as just power, and so they saw it as power over. So when they had the opportunity to use their own intersections of marginalization, they used it as power over. So in Amy Cooper's case, it would be womanhood is her marginalization. So she's using womanhood as power over Chris Cooper, her design to remind her to put her dog on a leash in an area where it's required, right.
00:24:48 Chris: You see my coworker who's Jewish using his Jewishness as power over to try and get me first to be disbelieved by my other coworkers, shamed, removed from the JEDI committee, and then trying to force me out. You see the white woman weaponizing her womanhood against a gay BIPOC individual and getting him removed from his position. So it's how white folks use power. They always use power over and over each other and over us. And so I think that's what's happening in this moment is because people didn't understand what was actually happening with the movement and with JEDI efforts, they saw the power to and the power with as power over.
00:25:54 Chris: And when they saw that they could take that power, they did. And so I think that's another reason why we just kind of fucked up how we've taught JEDI principles. People haven't developed discernment. They haven't developed a lens. So JEDI isn't meant to be, here's a checklist of things that you do. And here's a checklist of things that you don't do. It's a lens through which you see your work.
00:26:19 Chris: And just like at an environmental organization, you would put anything you're doing through a lawyer's lens, through a biological lens, through a something else lens, you would add that JEDI lens, right? So it'd be another thing that you would check to make sure that your workflow is abiding by all of the rules, but it's a lens, it's a way of looking at things.
00:26:44 Chris: So for folks who are just watching this happen, they're not seeing that because they're like, oh, but that person's marginalized too. So who do I listen to? Who's right? I'm supposed to listen to the most marginalized. Who is that? And so because they haven't developed discernment, they're not looking through an equity lens. They're just saying, that person is marginalized, that person is marginalized. I don't know what to do here.
00:27:09 Chris: So I think there's that happening as well. I do want to say, though, I don't understand Amy Cooper. I don't understand this white lady that pushed someone I know out of their organization. I do understand that Jewish folks right now, white Jewish folks in my purview, are reacting from a trauma response. I want to recognize that because it is real. It is important to acknowledge they're in a trauma state and rather than being thoughtful like we all are when we're in a trauma state, we get reactive and we let the fear center of our brains take over.
00:27:44 Chris: And we can't really have rational thought at that point. But I want to say also that it's really important and it's everyone's responsibility to emotionally regulate. So, BIPOC folks, know to do this because we've had to do it our whole lives. Because when we react out of a fear response or emotional response or a rational response, there are consequences immediately. We're not allowed that grace to be that reactive.
00:28:16 Chris: And so if you emotionally regulate, despite how folks have done our entire lives, and it's a skill you can learn, it's very, it's not easy to learn, but it's a skill you can learn. You can really hear what's being said instead of reacting with violence, whether it's power violence, verbal violence, or physical violence, or using the cops as violence. And you can understand what a keffiyeh means rather than reacting through fear. So I want to say, I understand where it's coming from, but it's also all of our responsibilities to emotional ability through fear responses.
00:28:55 Maria: Another type of violence that I see a lot in our sector is I'm going to call your board member. I'm going to call your major donor. They're the police. So I'm thinking this is one of the reasons why I got into consulting, because the people who get what I'm about, they come find me and we work together beautifully. There are such amazing, amazing executive directors that I get to work with. And the people who are like, I'm going to call your board chair and tell them that you support anti-racism or whatever, this person is going to think is radical about me, which is so basic.
00:29:30 Maria: I don't have to worry about that, which I think is really empowering. But it just reminds me of how stifled I felt in house, not being able to call things out that were completely horrible or be able to do so only because I held the power of being a fundraiser. Like I hold the money. So are you going to fire me and club on the foot? They also had to do some risk assessment, but it was just... It's hard that they don't get to hear these conversations and yeah, thank you for coming on and sharing your thoughts because I think people need to tune in a little bit more.
00:30:06 Chris: Yeah. Well, and I think that we've forgotten the goals. So the goal is obviously like collective liberation. Like our collective mission is collective liberation. No matter what part of the non-profit industrial complex we actually work in. It's all collective liberation. And we've lost sight of that and you can't do collective reparation if you're not a collector. So JEDI has to be at the forefront. It can't be something you add on. It can't be something that's an c. It's that lens that I was talking about. Incremental after thought. It's that lens that I was talking about.
00:30:44 Chris: Incremental change, if there's change at all, is not going to be chipped basically. We need transformational change. And the only way you're going to do that is through really living JEDI principles and having it at the forefront, having that lens. I think also, well, I don't want to, maybe I don't want to muddy the waters, but I think there's a lot of folks that need to be kicked out of the DEI positions. And not just white folks, folks who are by-product of internalized that white supremacy culture, because I've experienced, unfortunately, two of them in really, really bad ways.
00:31:22 Chris: So after the summer of 2020, so many white folks and other folks who hadn't done their work jumped in without any historical or cultural competency. So they saw an opening, they saw an opportunity to get a bag and they went for it. And so we have just a ton of culturally incompetent specialists who have no interest in transformational change because the status quo works fine just for them. And it continuously gives them that bag. It's the same thing with nonprofits that don't try to solve any problems because they want the nonprofit to continue. It's the same deal.
00:32:00 Maria: That reminded me of, I used to work in a Jewish nonprofit and they had an event planner who was talking to them about just the cultural competency part of this is shockingly bad. Who was talking to them about like, hey, we're selling raffle tickets and now how do we know if someone bought them? We can't just ask them like seven times if they already bought some. So she's like, why don't we put gold stars on people if they've purchased a raffle ticket? Bro, I could hear her from out of the room and I was, I am gonna don't laugh. But the room was completely quiet and they were like, no, obviously. And then she's like, why? It's like because of the Holocaust. And it's like, but why? And like they had to like walk her through all that.
00:32:44 Chris: Oh my God.
00:32:46 Maria: And that's just how it feels. There's people who are out here working with our communities who don't know anything about how we talk, how we act, how we communicate. Even when you were talking about that queer person giving someone a compliment, that's very normal in the queer community. We're very friendly. So it's just like that cultural competency that comes with actually understanding DEI and having that JEDI lens. So helpful.
00:33:15 Chris: Yeah.
00:33:16 Maria: Okay, Chris. Thank you so much for your time today. How can people continue the conversation with you?
00:33:24 Chris: Okay, well, can I just say one more thing? Sorry.
00:33:28 Maria: Of course.
00:33:29 Chris: Okay. I just wanted to make sure I added this in too, because I think this is the crux of the problem as well, is that we continuously do our JEDI work in isolation. So like we'll say, Oh, do your own work. And we don't mean that. Do your own work by yourself. Because why would you? You can do better together. There seems to be shame with how little folks know, but it hasn't motivated them to know more. Little side story, a friend of mine gave away 2,000 free passes to an educational hub that she had created with her partner. And one person redeemed it out of 2,000.
00:34:15 Chris: So I don't think working in isolation is working for anyone. It doesn't motivate us to work together. And I don't think that it helps us learn the skills. So if we wanna dismantle that shame, we need to come together. So make your learning a community activity, learn mutual support and foster a sense of unity and solidarity together. Build meaningful relationships with each other so you can call each other in. And so you can get used to being called in without feeling that shame.
00:34:44 Chris: If you build rapport with each other and you actually practice calling in, that other person receives that education of how to be called in and how to react in a safe space. So do all that, practice collective responsibility and accountability, learn conflict resolution and reconciliation in your group, and get to the point of radical honesty with that group so you can do minimal honesty with all the other people in your life.
00:35:13 Chris: If you practice in a small microcosm, you can bring those learnings to the macrocosm and you can be all the better for it. Like I think when people say here, do your own work, they think I got to read all these books. But what if one person in your group read a book, another person did, and you shared those learnings. What if you practiced all these practices together in a safer space? That would be incredibly helpful. So that's my last plug is don't do this work alone, do it together.
0035:48 Chris: All us BIPOC folks, we're doing it together all the time. We always have these little groups where we learn together, where we share learnings, where we talk about ways we've been harmed and ways that we've called in other people that worked, things that didn't work. We support each other all the time. And I want white folks and folks that don't have that kind of community to do that as well. Because it makes the work so much easier. And it does help you practice those skills.
00:36:15 Maria: That's actually exactly how I got started on my journey of learning and unlearning. Because two people greatly respected and thought were totally normal, reacted to the same that I thought was okay, like white people wearing dreads in such a large way that I was like, wait, but I deeply respect these people. So there's something that I'm missing. And then that led me into educating myself and that was almost 10 years ago, but it was someone calling me in. So I love the very, very actionable tips that you just shared. And I think we're stronger together as a community.
00:36:50 Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to bring something else totally into it, because that's what I do. But I'm also in adult children, alcoholic and dysfunctional families, anonymous. And that has changed my view of how much healing can come from learning together as well. We're all harmed by white supremacy culture in ways that we will probably never know. It'll take generations to really dismantle the things we're not even thinking about that have impacted us.
00:37:23 Chris: And when you come together with other people who are experiencing the same thing, not only do you learn how to notice things or call yourself in, because a lot of adult ACA is the acronym. A lot of the ACA stuff that I learned is how to stop punishing myself for things that are out of my control. So you learn these things together, you practice things together, you heal together. And just the act of being in community means that I'm going to be continually in that community. I'm going to keep coming back.
00:37:57 Chris: If I was doing this in isolation, this kind of work in isolation, I would have burnt out a long time ago. But I'm coming up on my one year anniversary in this group. And it's because I'm doing it in community. So I think this is excellent advice for no matter what you're dealing with, do it in community.
00:38:16 Maria: Okay, now do you wanna tell us where we can find you?
00:38:20 Chris: Oh, sorry.
00:38:22 Maria: No, it's free.
00:38:24 Chris: I'm on LinkedIn. It's just my name, Chris Talbot-Heindl. And then my website is talbot-heindl.com. And then I'm Talbot_Heindl on Twitter and Instagram.
00:38:36 Maria: Nice. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. It's always so lovely chatting with you, and I'm glad that we've been able to do it on video twice now. And thank you so much for all those actionable tips and for being so vulnerable. I know it's not always enjoyable in the context.
00:38:52 Chris: Oh, no, I have no qualms about being vulnerable. And I really appreciate you asking me to be on here and to share what I know. Because again, community, yay.
00:39:02 Maria: Love it. Well, thank you everyone for tuning to today's episode of The Small Nonprofit. I love what Chris said about the community. So go find your people go make sure that you are doing your learning and unlearning in a space that feels safe. And that pushes you to do better. We can't be scraping the bottom of the barrel anymore. And we're really counting on you to take that learning upon yourself. But that's it for today. And for now, we'll chat with you next time.
00:39:31 Maria: Thank you for listening to another episode of The Small Nonprofit. If you want to continue the conversation, feel free to connect with our guests directly or find me on LinkedIn. Let's keep moving money to mission and prioritizing our well-being. Bye for now.
