Dear Friends,
Black Lives Matter.
I think it’s extremely important to make this known to the world as a human, as a white passing, Jewish woman, and as a business owner. Black Lives Matter. This is where I stand. Period.
While I’ve been doing some deeper work privately around understanding my own biases and white privilege for a while now, I have a long way to go and will continue to do so so.
These two quotes and concepts have been helpful in understanding more of the journey.
“Anti-Racism is not an identity or a checklist; it’s a practice.” Andréa Ranae
And…
“Racism is a spectrum, with varying degrees of unconscious and learned behaviors reinforced by society every day. It’s not: either you’re racist or not. It’s to what degree are you prejudiced, against whom, and why.” Padma Lakshmi
Here’s a little bit of where I’m learning right now and I invite you to join me.
Understanding white fragility (video), Why you need to stop saying all lives matter. An interview with Brene Brown and Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist. Follow Ijeoma Oluo, Author of How to Talk About Race. Listen to this interview with Krista Tippet and Resmaa Menakem, who is a therapist and trauma specialist. Read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (for those of you that love fiction). Be a part of Leesa Renee Hall’s patreon community which includes prompts to explore biases. Also, all over Instagram, there are conversations like this with Tarana Burke (Founder of Me Too Movement) and Dr. Yaba Blay to amplify black women’s voices.
It’s also important to me to stay in my lane so while I share with you my stance on humanity, the way I go about sharing that is particular to my work as a Financial Therapist.
I’ve been trying to incorporate the macro side of money into my teachings slowly over the years. There are additional teachings on this inside my Art of Money program and I have added some beginning macro resources for the public here.
In the past, I was primarily sharing teachings about race, class and socio-economic status through the lens of storytelling and sharing personal money stories in my Money Memoir Series. This series started in 2014 and I chat with folks from all different backgrounds about their money journeys: the good, the tough, the soulful, and the nitty-gritty.
Over the next month, I will amplify black voices by resharing some of the interviews I have done over the years via my Insta page. Starting with Saundra Davis, Financial Coach: Talks about race, the wealth gap, and what real change takes, Toi Smith: What it Really Takes to Support Your Family as Single Mom + Solo Entrepreneur, Rachel Robasciotti, Financial Investor: Talks About Social Justice Investing (a term she coined). You can find more of these interviews here.
Amplifying black voices and learning about our biases are some of the ways to help unravel racism in the US. Please follow the resources above for more ways to create change in ourselves and in our systems to help contribute to the world we want to be living in, where we all are truly free and have the resources we need.
Thank you for joining me.
With my dearest wishes,
