Episode 25 - Damion Taylor - Conversations Bring Insight
Published on: June 15, 2022
Our newest podcast episode feature Damion Taylor, who was an absolute delight to talk with! Damion is the Co-founder of Prometheus Digital Studio, a media consultancy with production capabilities that specializes in helping media companies and brands utilize data for optimizing online strategy, operations and creative development. Damion wears many hats and is also a podcaster working on a couple of different projects, In addition, he is a member of the Multicultural Insights Collective, a diverse consortia of research, media, and professional education professionals who share a commitment to anti-discrimination efforts in business.
We were so excited to talk with Damion about podcasting, representation, and courageous conversations. We know you’ll enjoy the conversation, too!
Resources from this episode:
Professional Confessions Podcast
Tech Witch Podcast
on Instagram - @Digital_compendium
on Facebook
Digital Compendium/Prometheus Digital Studio
Incubus Curse - coming soon!
Words Matter - by the Multicultural Insights Collective
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Transcript
Linet 00:00
Hey everybody, Linet here. Before I tell you about today's podcast, which I'm extremely excited to tell you about, I did want to say that we're getting ready to wrap up the season. We're looking forward to our next season, and we want to hear from you. What are you interested in? What do you want to learn about what stories do you want to hear? Go ahead and shoot us an email ubp@ubproject.org and remember to rate review and subscribe.
So for today's podcast, y'all are in for a mega-treat. Damion Taylor is our special guest and we covered so much, literally struggling to consider how can I convey the richness, just imagine like super-rich, multifaceted flavors, of like, everything, rainbows, it's really fun. We talked books, we talked research, we talked personal experiences, how to help people get over the fear of messing up. What does it mean to be a leader trying to do and start talking about diversity and inclusion? Even how do we use media? How can we understand media better? How can we understand our words better? It was super-rich and really fun podcast. I know you'll enjoy it.
Hi everyone! ¡Hola a todes! Linet here (and Alexis) your co-hosts both she/her bringing you impactful stories and interviews from our communities to you and explore how we can support each other.
Alexis 01:45
So before we go on, we do want to acknowledge that the Unconscious Bias Project is based in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, on unceded ancestral homeland belonging to the Ramaytush Ohlone and Muwekma Ohlone peoples, some of whom speak the language Chocheño. We encourage you to learn more about the Ohlone people on our website in the podcast links.
Linet 02:07
We’d like to welcome today Damion Taylor, pronouns he/him. Damion is the Co-founder of Prometheus Digital Studio, a media consultancy with production capabilities that specializes in helping media companies and brands utilize data for optimizing online strategy, operations and creative development. Damion wears many hats and is also a podcaster working on a couple of different projects, In addition, he is a member of the Multicultural Insights Collective, a diverse consortia of research, media, and professional education professionals who share a commitment to anti-discrimination efforts in business. Welcome, Damion.
Damion 02:50
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Alexis 02:52
We're so excited to have you, with an intro like that, right? We could ask you about so many different things. And we have before, and we're excited to do it again, on tape (now, tape is an ancient technology, by the way, for anyone who didn't understand that reference). But let's start with Professional Confession. This is a project that you're working on right now. What is it?
Damion 03:17
So Professional Confession is a podcast. It's a concept I came up with in late 2020. I was hearing a lot of people talk about diversity and how to do things and have difficult conversations. But there was never any talk about, “how do you start that conversation?” and what to do about the fact that a lot of times, especially for allies, they don't know what to ask, and they're afraid to ask, or there's a certain shame when you don't know. And I was trying to figure out what's something that I could do to help alleviate that and allow people to have those conversations without the fear or shame of having it or being wrong. And so I came up with a podcast where we let people anonymously submit their stories about diversity or lack of diversity or whatever diversity issues are having in the workplace. And then I bring on an expert, and we talk about it, what can someone do today to help fix it? What can someone do in their own sphere without waiting for their company or the government or whomever to help them? How can they themselves be an agent of change in their small part of the world, and really make an impact when it comes to diversity and equity and inclusive environment. And so that was really the impetus of it. And it's still going, we had to pause because there's some exciting news we're actually working on. There's a research company that wants to work on making it part of a curriculum that companies big corporations use to start teaching their executives etc, about diversity. And so the idea actually caught some attention. And now people want to actually make it into something that's actionable for companies to use versus being a podcast are working on that very excited.
Alexis 04:54
That is super exciting. Yeah, that question of how do we start conversations, and how do we overcome that embarrassment gap, that kind of, or shame gap or whatever it is, is really interesting. We've tackled that a few times as UBP. For instance, when last year, we did a Trans Day of visibility AMA, where we took these questions that, you know, people don't necessarily know what they can ask or, you know, they might not know how to ask. And yeah, creating fora where folks can feel more comfortable is so important.
Damion 05:35
It's huge. And until someone's willing to talk about something or admit it even exists, you're never going to actually see change, they can just stick their head in the sand, or they run away from it, because they're scared. And I wanted to make it so that we give people room to make mistakes and learn because that's how you learn you make mistakes, but it also does so in a way that doesn't cause harm to the very people who they would like to support and to help, right and I can understand, it's a tricky, tricky situation to navigate.
Linet 06:05
And I love that they're real-life experiences. So these are people's real stories. It's the technique that we use in our own workshops, we turn them into cartoons, that's how we work with them. We have an awesome cartoonist, shout-out to Theresa Oborn, they're really great at capturing people's facial expressions of that moment of “did you just say that?”, that moment of awkwardness, but putting it in settings that are so relatable, like, you're just catching coffee, you're just hanging out after a talk or something, and then somebody says something, and you're like, “Ah, it's not as, as clear cut as I think.” Maybe everybody here has been through some awful corporate training, where it's this really obvious, very tailored, created, so robotical situation is happening. What do you do? Do you intervene? A, do you say nothing? B? Do you change the topic? They're making it so clear-cut and obvious what the right answer is that it's like, are you really training anybody with these kinds of scenarios? So having something that is real life can be subtle, can be obvious, can be a little messy, and might have multiple layers built into it, that's priceless, right? There is that real-life experience that gets shared in a teaching setting, right? As you were saying, it removes the direct harm component of which people have done in the past in diversity and inclusion type related teaching settings where they have their one Black woman employee come and share their experience. And then everybody else gets to talk about it. Like, what? That's layers and layers of terrible. But if you have a little space, like, “Okay, this is a real-life experience, but it's not necessarily, have somebody in your organization right now, practice what you would do, what are the ramifications?” Even not just what to say in the moment, but are your policies really helping you out here or not? I think that's super cool. That sounds really exciting.
Damion 08:32
Well, it also gives it life, because a lot of times those scenarios are, just to your point, they're so ridiculously overt. But it's not addressing the unconscious or the systematic things that might really be causing harm to people in the organization. And so having a real-life experience is something that you can then hear why it's problematic and understand the nuances of it. There are times where whatever was said or done may not be offensive, and you can start to understand the differences there. I think it gives people that knowledge to be able to understand context, and understand both sides of the equation, because without empathy, again, it doesn't mean anything, either. We even have an episode where, I think it's probably one of the most subtle ones, where there's a consultant who presents and always gets the feedback of “you're so articulate,” he happens to be Black, but his coworkers never get that, “I love listening to you. You're so articulate.” And so finally, when he blows up, and he's with an Asian coworker, who you assumed didn't get it, and his white female boss, who he assumed also didn't get it, and the three of them ended up bonding and talking about it because his Asian coworker said, you get it when you present. I get it anytime I speak. “Oh, you speak English so well.” It's like, “I hope so. I'm third-generation, I've been here my whole life,” right? Or his boss who said, “Oh, you're so strong for a woman managing all those men. You must be really in a hard position trying to keep them in line.” And she's like, “No, my team is really great and because I’m a woman, do you think I couldn't handle it, like it's different somehow?” But all of them started talking about these things that people say, off the cuff, not meaning to cause harm, not meaning to be implicit, and they're labeled as microaggressions. But when you're the receiver of it, and it's coming from multiple directions, that micro becomes macro really quickly. But that's a scenario that people don't get to hear about, or think about. They could think of, I just wanted to tell you something nice, but they don't understand the context within which it can be understood.
Alexis 10:30
Right? I mean, oh, God, those things that they mean to be nice. It's like when I started transitioning, and people would say, to me things like, “oh it's, it's so good for you that you have such lovely cheekbones and like,” blah, blah, blah… And it's hard to say when they're trying to compliment you trying, to lift you up, it's like, “Yeah, but the implicit thing underneath what you just said is that in order to qualify as a woman, then you have to be beautiful, you have to have this certain set of characteristics,” which also are usually very white-centric. That's insulting not only to trans women, but it's also insulting to cis women, and it undermines everybody by saying, “oh, yeah, in order to be a woman, you have to be pretty in all these ways. And they mean it from a good place, and it's hard to have that conversation to say, “think about what you just said.”
Damion 11:31
And so that's where I really wanted to be able to have those conversations, because the intention is not to do harm, but the impact or the actual result is doing harm. And that's where it starts to allow us to get into some of those societal and systematic things that we've been raised with or with we've seen our whole lives and don't realize are really there. That's the unconscious part of these biases. And once you can make people aware of it, it's a first step, and then being able to now do something about it and understand and deconstruct a lot of those things that we may have assumed just to be “normal,” quote, unquote, right? When in actuality that that idea of normality is a fallacy, right? It doesn't really exist, there is no such thing as normal or average. So, yeah, the whole point of the podcast was to start having that conversation, because that's a really hard one to have. And it's not one that you show up at a party or meet someone new. It's like, hey, let's talk about some unconscious bias, right? So we wanted to give people a forum for that.
Linet 12:31
Every couple of sentences that you were sharing about yourself when we first met, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, he has this so similar to something that I lived.” Oh, my gosh, and we had so many connections, both Alexis and myself. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how your path got you to something like Professional Confession or, you know, talk a little bit about how this has spurred your different podcasts or even your work at Multicultural Insights?
Damion 13:03
Yeah, I think one of the things that's been most influential in my personal experience is just the diversity of, for lack of better terms, the diversity of experiences that I've had, and it's not the norm. But because of that, I've learned to be very empathetic to those around me, and also to see the same situation or scenario from multiple perspectives. So in college, I was an undergrad, and I studied neuroscience, very scientific, very analytical, very focused. But I also minored in music performance, completely different side of the brain looking at the world in a totally different way. And so with that, I learned that there isn't necessarily a wrong and a right way to do things. So in my work, for example, we work with a lot of creatives. And I work with a lot of data, I can't go to someone whose normal behavior or routine is to think creatively out of the box, and really morphing and challenging things and come and say 50% of people said, “blah, blah, blah,” and just give them a number and expect them to know what to do with it. By the same token, I can't come and say, “Oh, your creative is awful,” because that took, every time someone creates something, it's a part of them, right? They put a lot of effort and their own experiences into it. But having had both of those experiences throughout my career, and education, allows me to say “this is the data.” What does this data mean for someone who is creating? How can it help them and what's actionable for them? And then what I come back with is not “50% of people say x,” it's, “Hey, we noticed that most of the people have people said this, because when they came across this scenario, they expressed this thing,” so that we can either highlight that tension at that point in that creative, we can change it and play with their expectations. And now they have a tool belt to work with, versus just giving them some number and running away. And so I've really started to be more empathetic. I feel like the older I get, the more I learn about other people, the more experiences I get, the more I move out of my comfort zone, the more empathetic I become. And that's really been a driver in everything. Even in Professional Confession, I realized that I don't know everything. I mean, shocker, right, people, we all think that we know so much. I don't and I couldn't possibly have had some of these conversations without the experts that were there. We have, one of our episodes, we have an expert who's a white male who teaches white men about being allies and the difficult conversations that they have to have with themselves. That's not something that I can teach. It's not an experience that I had. Even if I wanted to have it, I couldn't have that conversation unless it were with someone who already spoke to it and knows the nuances of it, and has lived it. And I wanted to make sure that the podcast brought that piece to light. So that we're talking to people and highlighting individuals who usually aren't the focus of the conversation, but who could also bring insight into how we can improve our interactions with one another. And I tried to do that in everything I do. But it really helps now to have had so many experiences where I'm either the odd man out, or the new guy, or the random person who is trying to learn this new whatever, that it really I think, gave me anything is a superpower now of being able to sit back and be empathetic.
Linet 16:27
I think that's so powerful. Talking about experts, I hear you talking about being humble, in your own expertise being like, “Yeah, I know a lot about this experience. I know a lot about that, I've had practice or experience with this.” And that, at the core of all of this work is really staying humble, right, staying open to somebody else's expertise, somebody else's experience. It's something I think about a lot, when a client would come to us and say, “What's the best practice? What can I do? What can I implement right now, that's going to really work? Give me an example of how this has worked in another company, so that I know which one to choose from,” that gives me pause, because nobody is an expert. On any, I mean, you know, we run a nonprofit, we've consulted a lot of people, we've helped a lot of folks, we can track impact data, right? We have data to show that we people's attitudes are changing after we work with them, we have all this stuff to say the things are working the way we're doing it, and we are not experts. And it's not like dentistry, where you learn, I mean, there is continuous learning, but you are an expert. And we have worked on facilitation, we've worked on thinking about conflict, we've read a lot, we've practiced, we've tested, and it's an ever-evolving field. And, you know, I will never know what it is like to be Seth, I will never know what it is like to be Alexis or Damion, I will never know, and that's okay. And so what you just said about being able to just sit back and empathize, I mean, I cannot further highlight this some more. But that's so important, and it's such a great way to approach this work. The staying humble, staying open, listening and connecting.
Damion 18:26
I think it's actually a great learning experience, too. I mean, the moment I start telling myself how great I am is the moment I stop listening and learning. And so being able to quell the ego and just shut up and listen for a moment, sometimes it may be hard, but then once I do, I realized that it was the right thing to do. And it's been critical, and the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know anything. It's one of those things where the world is so big, and there are so many experiences and so many things to learn from, that you can't ever do your point really be an expert. And what you can do though is listen to the experiences of others and find those universal threads of humanity through them that really allow us to connect.
Linet 19:08
I wanted to learn more about how you're creating those spaces for personal connection in podcasting. I know you don't have just one podcast. What are all the different podcast projects you're on right now? And how did those come about?
Damion 19:23
So we talked about Professional Confession. That was my way of making a contribution to a lot of what we saw happening over the past few years and really trying to make an impact. But then I have another one that's it's called A Digital Compendium, and it's literally a compendium of whatever comes into my head. I meet interesting people and we talk. Sometimes it's about diversity, sometimes it's about a movie, sometimes it's about just nonsensical things. But those are the ways that life works. And I really wanted this to be a reflection of that because I felt like my other podcasts and a lot of them, you know, we have a focus, you have a theme, which is great, and it helps people to really engage. But there are times when you just want life and nonsense. And so that's what that podcast is. And then there's another one called Tech Witch, and that's completely fantasy. It’s narrative fiction, and it's fun, and that one is interesting because it ties back to some of the diversity work that I'm doing. But it does it in a different way. One of the things that we work with lots of media clients, with lots of clients in general. And whenever they asked about diversity stuff, there's always the idea of “Get me the Black so and so, I need the, you know, female, blah, blah, blah, and neither whatever.” And it's always this monolithic, talk about people like widgets. And I didn't want to do that. I didn't want a series called like Black Lightning, or whatever it was, and not to really highlight that series itself. But anytime there was a character, they somehow tried to put it in the name. So you know that this character is ethnic, or this character is whatever, right? And I wanted to not do that, I wanted to make stories about people that everyone could identify with. Because one of the things that I've seen over and over and over again, is we do this weird game where we pretend like media, has no impact on us, it's just entertainment. But then when it's convenient, we talk about how influential it is, and how it can actually influence our thoughts and behaviors and patterns. And I've seen it firsthand, it's incredibly powerful, it mediates, provides a window into a world for a lot of people that they may not know about. And some people take it as gospel, whether they admit it or not. And so I wanted to start creating media that helps to create a more accurate narrative and representation of people who don't usually get to be seen. So this first foray into that for our company is called Tech Witch, and it's about a biracial pair of twins, who are witches. And they discover that they can't control nature, but they can control technology. So it's super fun, it's way out there. And I intentionally fashioned it a bit after my own life. My wife is Korean, I'm Black, those are two groups, especially in LA, that are not supposed to get along very well. And we're married, and we have a son. So clearly, we got along well. And it's one of those things where the other assumption is, well, if people are biracial, then they have to look one way or another. And I wanted to break all of those stereotypes. In the first season, for example, we never ever mentioned race at all, we never mentioned color, there were very few descriptions of the character. That's because I wanted people to be able to identify with the human part of these characters. There are subtle elements in there that if you know, you know, but it's not something that's beating you over the head. That's not how life usually is. And so there's a scene where one of the characters is playing a video game, and he has a big afro, and kids from school are throwing popcorn and stuff and trying to see if it gets stuck. If you're Black and you've ever had an afro, you know that experience. But if you're not, you can identify with the fact that these kids are just bullies, and you've seen them kind of follow him around school and just bully him. So you didn't need to be Black to understand that he feels uncomfortable, and he's being targeted. And we wanted people to do that and enjoy the story. And it's more about people who happen to be not, you know, people through whatever lens of underrepresentation they are. Now we're turning people into widgets and tokens again. And I didn't want that I wanted to just have stories by people who are usually not seen and given the limelight and allowed to be just people. I think that when we first launched it, the tagline was written by some guy who just wants to be some dude, which was me, like, I don't want to be The Black Guy, I don't want to be the, you know, I just want to be, I want the ability to be just some random person, right? It doesn't matter who or what I am just some random person on the street. That's it.
Alexis 23:49
I empathize with that a lot. Because you know, your friends, if you see them in person are going to know that you're Black. While my friends know that I'm trans, one of the reasons I moved out here to the bay was because it was a place where I could know that I was not like The Trans Friend, where I know “oh, I am just a friend, and I happen to have this particular trait.” But like, none of my friends out here has just one trans friend. So like, it means that I get to be me instead of one of this bucket. I hear you so much on that.
Damion 24:33
I'm so excited because Tech Witch is the first foray into it, but we have a few more that are in development. And they really start to touch on a lot of topics in a way that's organic. It's not the - again, beating you over the head. So the next one that I'm really excited about is called Incubus Curse, and it's about a kid who goes to college and due to a case of mistaken identity, he's turned into an incubus. And so now he has to confront all of these sexual desires and tensions that he has coming from a very, like, conservative family. And how does he rectify that, right? And he has to start to grapple with sexuality, which is not something that people want to talk about, especially if they're, the main character is Black in this one, but his friends are not. And so how does he rectify those things? And what does that look like? Because now as an Incubus, none of them don't care about sexuality. They just cared about the interaction, right, and the power, and so it doesn't have to be a bad thing. He starts to learn that having those urges and desires is not a bad thing. He's been taught that it is, it's not until we set it up as if it's going to be this really bad, horrible “Oh, the Incubus and Succubus community is so bad,” and then you realize that they're really not, and that there's just a lot of misconceptions. And you have to kind of come to life, come to grips with that. And I think it's really fun. But then we also start to talk about in that when power structures where women are in charge, and what does that look like? And how can someone who's moving into a world where the hierarchy is really based on matriarchy, not a patriarchy, what does that look like? And how do we interact with it, that we bring in like a goddess of war, who's actually an Egyptian, a Phoenician goddess, but she's a goddess of war and love. And that was really common in the past for the goddess of love and war to be joined as one. And we'd like to play with her version of war and how she, they're going in expecting like swords and blah, blah, blah, she's like, men, why would I do that. And she's actually kind and gets people close to them. And then she'll take them, right, or she'll flip into her side or so it's just a very different world. And I think it gives us room to to talk about things in society, again, taking away some of that shame and some of that, like, we don't want to have that conversation, but in a way that, you know, we have our guard down, we're being entertained. So I'm just really looking forward to doing more of those sorts of things where it's not like, “Oh, this is a person who's, you know, insert your marginalization here it,” this is a person who happens to have that trait or multiple traits, because again, no one is just one thing.
Alexis 27:08
I also love that you're using these amazing sci-fi ideas to explore all of these issues through metaphor and, you know, sometimes not even metaphor in a long tradition, whether it's Ursula LeGuin, Marvel, X-Men, et cetera, et cetera.
Damion 27:26
That's all that, I grew up in all of that and loved it from the beginning. So this is only just par for the course at this point.
Alexis 27:34
Yeah, also, I have a question for you, because you mentioned about movies. This is a little bit of an aside, because you kind of mentioned movies, and I was thinking about some of the things that we've been talking about, have you gotten to see yet Everything, Everywhere, All at Once?
Damion 27:52
Okay, I'm so excited to see that movie. I've not yet one of my friends was lucky enough to interview Michelle Yeoh and actually go to the premiere. And so I've been jonesing ever since ever since she went and I just haven't seen it. And my friend saw it three times and has cried all the time, and just talking about how amazing it is, so I have that on my to do list. And hopefully in the next two weeks, I'll be able to finally watch it.
Alexis 28:17
I've only seen it once so far, so far, and definitely cried. And I'll cry again when I see it again. But it touches on a lot of the themes that we've been talking about, and I think you'll enjoy it.
Damion 28:31
It sounds so awesome. In the meantime, I've been just sitting at home watching the Moon Knight,
Alexis 28:47
I don't know if you've watched that series, but no, tell me about it.
Damion 28:57
It's a Marvel series. And it's about a character, it's a small character that they're actually giving his own series. But it's about, he has dissociative personality disorder. So he literally has to deal with lots of mental health issues and losing himself, and that's part of why he's a superhero, and it's part of what makes him really human. And I have to admit the last two episodes, I was just like, “you're just a little kid, man, I got it, it's okay.” It was so good. And it does it in such a way that is respectful. It's not making a spectacle of mental challenges of any sort. It's actually highlighting that this is why this person is special, and it's difficult for them to deal with, but they're still human. They're still a person and it allows you to identify with that. It's just so well done. And so if you haven't seen it, it starts off really kind of weird and quirky because you're disoriented, trying to figure it out and you do it. Imagine if you had a dissociative personality that can be disorienting, I'm sure. But then slowly you start to understand what's happening and it's really well done and really done spectrally which is impressive.
Alexis 29:49
Oh my gosh, that sounds fantastic and fun. I am gonna have to check it out.
Linet 29:54
I want to go back to something that you mentioned at the beginning. Talking about equity and how you're letting people in on who the character is like, what identities they might have with different identities they have intersectionality there without, like, slapped me across the face with it. I feel like I cringe every time I see “female tennis player.” Granted, there are spaces where we need to highlight that, because it's important. Like first Black female astronaut, that's really important. But like every woman astronaut.
Damion 30:40
I don't know how to say it every time, we have eyes, we know, don’t to tell us.
Linet 30:44
I find it especially grating in sports, where it's no longer something new. Right? When you know, we know, we know there's a lot of like, you know, great woman basketball players, right? And so but it's like that, woman’s basketball, it's like, can we just talk about the basketball though?
Alexis 31:03
It's also funny how sometimes I'm like, “Should we be saying, ‘tennis players and female tennis players?’ Or should we be saying ‘tennis players and male tennis players?’”
Linet 31:13
Yes. Marking the unmarked categories? Yes.
Alexis 31:17
And who's really the best tennis player in the world?
Linet 31:21
Absolutely. The other thing I wanted to highlight was that by not necessarily naming your main characters, and giving people that space to empathize with them, I feel like that's so beautiful and powerful. Because in our workshops, we need to intentionally craft like, “Okay, now we're going to do this exercise where we're going to be working on empathy,” you have to name it, and bring people along to it. Because it won't occur to them that part of discrimination, white supremacy, inequities, like all of this stuff, is othering, right? “It's that category of Other, so then I won't care as much.” Even if you don't like intentionally think that way, that's the way it happens. I feel like by bringing people along to connect with the character, before worrying about whether or not that character is in their in-group or not, I think builds that in-group-ness, so that whenever they start to understand all of these experiences are actually impacted or caused by or related to this particular identity, they've already built, that person is in-group, and it's so much harder to distance, right, and say, like, “well, that doesn't apply to me, or I've never seen that. So it doesn't happen,” that kind of distancing.
Damion 32:47
One of the things that we are very adamant about whenever we do diversity work is what we're calling it Diversity 2.0. And it's not looking at the whatever monikers we've had before, it's really, now let's humanize and individualize people in these groups. Let's stop talking about monoliths, let's stop talking about people as if they're all the same. Everyone in this group does blah alike, everyone in this group is like this, and start looking for those universal connectors and discussing topics that are more likely to connect versus divide. And you'll start to see that as you do that people become much more empathetic to others, right? Because now to your point, they're in the in-group. And that's really what we've been trying to do with our content as well, making sure that we can build that connection, understanding, “oh, I'm someone who's felt that way. I've had that experience. It may not be that exact one. But I know what that feels like,” right? And it starts to form now a bond versus “Oh, I'm this low down poor person who's always been attacked by the system.” Well, if that's not your experience, you have no reason to connect with them. But if you can act with them as a person, and then see them being mistreated, it's different.
Alexis 33:59
Exactly. So in a moment, we are going to come back and we've got a bunch more questions for you about your other projects. But we are going to go to a brief break. And we'll talk more after the break.
Seth 34:20
Hi, everyone, this is Seth and I am one of the audio editors and volunteers here at UBP. The Unconscious Bias Project brings creative, accessible, evidence-based solutions for unintentional bias to academic, technological, governmental organizations, and beyond. We sustain a welcoming home for inquisitive and creative minds and encourage a growth mindset. Working by the model of “0% Guilt, 100% Empowerment.” Please subscribe or follow our Facebook and Instagram for the latest in events and how you can learn more and be involved. Also, take a look and check out our guest's website and learn more. Look for that information in the description section of your podcast or on our website.
Alexis 35:20
All right, welcome back from break everyone. We are here with Damion Taylor, talking about podcasts about media about representation, all sorts of great stuff.
Linet 35:32
So speaking of diversity and inclusion, speaking of empathy and working with people, tell us a little more about Multicultural Insights Collective, how did it get started? You know, what is it exactly?
Damion 35:47
Yeah, this is, Multicultural Insights Collective is a really great story of how we started it. It's a group of seven individual business owners and CEOs who came together during 2020 because we all wanted to make an impact on what we were seeing in terms of how companies and brands were dealing with diversity and equity. We have lots of people saying “Black Lives Matter,” but then firing people for wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt at work. And so we wanted to start to help companies understand how you can actually make an impact and what supporting and being an ally really means, especially during 2020, like my jam was not I was not going to go out during the middle of a pandemic and protest. It just wasn't my jam, right. But there were things that I could do if I could start directing bigger organizations in places where people spend a lot of time at work, how to be better. And so one of my colleagues, her name is Carrie Edelstein, we worked together like 15 years ago, and I had posted an article on LinkedIn that I wrote about diversity in working together, and “how do we make an impact?” And she saw that and reached out and said, “Hey, I've been having these same thoughts. And I really want to do something to make sure that we're guiding organizations in a way that's reflective of what society the individuals who are being impacted, really need and want, but also is insightful, such that there are things that people honestly just don't know, and we don't know. So what can we do?” And we talked to a bunch of other people and we all came together and we started meeting in June, July 2020. Shortly after George Floyd and meeting every week for like an hour and a half trying to figure out “what can we do? How can we make an impact?” And it was great, because the team is so diverse in terms of geography, in terms of age, in terms of gender, I mean, we're literally all over the spectrum, which at first sounds like it can be daunting, and you get nothing done. But it made the work that we've been doing so much more applicable and actionable, because we actually had those additional opinions and thoughts and perspectives and experiences that you don't normally get from research. And so where we were lacking, we brought in a board to really help us fill out those pieces that we just didn't know, and couldn't ourselves speak to as a team, because we didn't have the experience. And as a result, we did our first big project, called “Words Matter,” where we started diving into the language of diversity, how do you even start to talk about it. And that came from one of our meetings where we were literally talking and realized that we weren't using the same language, and we didn't even understand the words that we're using the same. One person said “microaggression,” and I'll be very transparent, until 2020. I had never heard the word microaggression. And I had just heard it maybe a couple of weeks before we had that meeting. And someone's like, “Oh, that's a microaggression” like, well, to me, you know, it doesn't feel very micro when it's happening to you over and over and over again daily. And then someone else used the word “intersectionality.” And so it's like, what does that even mean? I never heard that before. And so suddenly, we realize that we're speaking in all these words, but we weren't using the same vocabulary. And we didn't necessarily understand the words the same. Even the word “diversity,” we realized that some people were talking about diversity, and they meant just racial and ethnic diversity. Some people meant gender diversity, some people meant anything under the sun diversity. And depending on what you were thinking, it was, you'd be really disappointed if your version of diversity wasn't what was reflected in what a company said. So we decided to dive into the language. It helps companies really understand how to talk about equity, diversity, inclusion, not just in their brand and their marketing, but internally as well with their employees, because that's really where it starts. It was a year-long project. And it was really great, we had some amazing sponsors. I don't know if we can see all their names, but from CPG, to media, to consumer packaged goods and beauty and financial and insurance. We really had some really great sponsors, and they learned and taught us so much. And we started to discover things about, like no one talks in their daily lives about diversity in such academic terms, the way that companies were doing and they turned it into jargon. Whereas the way that most people were talking about diversity was in terms of personal experiences and stories. And so it was never “Hey, tell me about that time you experienced unconscious bias, right?” That's not how people were talking about it, they were talking about the time when they were at work, and somebody put their resume at the bottom of the page, because they assumed that their name was foreign, and they couldn't speak English. That was the way that they spoke about it. And so we wanted to help them start to understand those human experiences, and how they can bring that to fruition internally. First, marketing is the very last thing they should be doing. And really, what does that look like? So that was our first big project. And now we're really great. We have our sponsors, and we're looking to do another project and really start to dig deeper in other areas of diversity to help companies like you know, environmental diversity, what does that look like? There's lots of environmental ecological projects going on, but a lot of them are harming people who just can't afford to be the rich person who benefits from it. And so we wanted to start working on taking on big projects that on our own, we couldn't handle but as a collective, we can handle. It's funny, one of the biggest takeaways, and it's something that we all knew. But now we had data and we had consumers and we had employees all saying the same thing very loud and clear, is that you tell us about diversity, you say that you're supporting it. But what we're looking at is, who's on your board? Who's running your company? Where are you spending your money? How are you helping or adding to the communities in which you are navigating and working? And at the end of the day, what actions do you really have to support those claims that you're making? You're no, we're all about diversity. But what did you do prove it? And want you to prove it first, and then tell us about it? Not, we're going to do something and then disappears in six months, or whenever the storm blows over?
Linet 41:56
You know, people at the top, they're like, “Well, we tried,” but when you don't follow through, when somebody tells you like, “Hey, I am being harmed by this, I experienced racism, I'm experiencing sexism, I'm experiencing transphobia at work.” And then they're like, “Okay, yeah, well, we're really committed, you know, we're gonna do some stuff. And here's some workshops or some talks, and we're gonna do some marketing, the end, okay, we're done,” or are they don't do anything, period, that they don't communicate, like, “yes, we received what you said. And we're considering what we're, like, the lack of communication, not following through, checkbox following through, only sticking to marketing,” all of those things cause harm, and are as painful or more painful sometimes than even receiving that harm in the first place. And at the end, totally echoing microaggressions, overt, unconscious, you know, any of those. They're all harmful. It doesn't matter if it was subtle. It doesn't matter if it was obvious. It doesn't matter if it was something systemic. It doesn't matter if you heard it from somebody else, or a stranger. They're all harmful. So like, yeah, helping companies, organizations, connect that it's not a feature, it's not a widget, it's not a checkbox, it's not putting diverse models in front of people's faces. I feel like for this group right here, Alexis, you, myself and Seth. It's obvious, it's crystal clear for us, we know we know what's needed, we know why it's important. But if you haven't ever thought about it, if you're scared of like, “what if I say something wrong when I talk about racism? What if I say something wrong? What if we put a wrong policy?” and you continue to have that fear, you never act? That's still harm. I think that's something they really don't get, that it’s still harmful.
Damion 44:01
By not acting, a lot of times a company comes across and they believe, well, “we'll not do anything because it's safer, and then we won't get in trouble.” But by not acting, you're actually making a decision and acting and taking a position, right? And so a lot of companies think that “if we don't say anything, that means we didn't take a position,” but you actually did. You decided to be complicit. It's a hard pill for people to swallow. It's a really difficult conversation. And it does mean that you have to actively do something and sometimes make changes or sometimes just take a very honest look at yourself. And that's scary for individuals, let alone a bigger corporate organization, right? And we had some really amazing sponsors and companies that were incredibly receptive because some of the work that we did, it was not easy to swallow, and it wasn't light. But the thing that they did that was really amazing, was they were all super-receptive, more than I would have expected. And so when we talk about the way people are speaking, or the messages that are being conveyed, or the way that you interact with employees, some of them were like, “Oh, let's see how much pushback we get.” And you sort of brace yourself for it. And we actually got the opposite of, “well, what can I do to be better?” And that said, a lot. And that was really impactful for us, especially since they were all along for the ride for a year. So it's not like diversity is something “Oh, yeah, we got our training, we solved diversity. We're great,” right? It's continuous. And they were all very receptive and willing to take that journey, and they're still doing it. So yeah, the Multicultural Insights Collective has been amazing. It's been a really, really great group. And it's been, I've learned so much, and I think our clients have as well. And we're really looking forward to now being able to hopefully put out white papers that can be publicly available to help people in their organizations who may not have been a part of the study to start learning, and implementing policies and actions that really make a positive impact versus doing harm.
Linet 46:08
You're, it sounds amazing. I love that you're experiencing that for yourself personally, and also professionally. I love working at UBP. I love working with Alexis, we have lots of clients that we really enjoy seeing the impact of our work and seeing like connecting with them, and then really listening to us really listening to their staff and their leaders and you know, the people that they're impacting, and that's what fuels me. So I love that you have that for you.
Damion 46:39
I think the biggest impact that I came across was that there were people who previously I would have just been like, “yes, that person just doesn't get it. And they're a total naysayer. And they're just, you know, they're bigoted, or they're racist,” or whatever it is. But then when we dug in deep and started talking to them, we realized that deep down they wanted the same thing. And some of what they were bristling against was way that it seemed like - there was this one guy, I remember in a focus group, who were just like, “oh, diversity, it's all crap,” right? And he literally said that in our focus group, and we're like, whoa, but then like, five minutes later, he's like, “I like going to this store over here, because I don't feel like I'm left out. It has diverse people.” And, and he literally went through how horrible all this diversity stuff is. But then the very brand and the stores and the examples he gave, were all about how they included everyone. And he was really excited about that, and he didn't feel left out. And he thought they did a great job of making other people feel included, and then he talked about the things he wanted for his family. So he literally was saying all the other things, but as soon as you couched it in language that he saw as being woke, “no, I'm not for it.” If you talked about the concept, and defined it with him, he was down, he was going to fight for it, right? So it's very interesting to see that sometimes people can't get beyond the superficial to really understand what's like the undertow, the current that that's really there, or the concept itself. And that's hard for organizations, because jargon is what companies do. Jargon isn't how they get it done. They have to actually talk to people and be honest and vulnerable and transparent, which is new for companies.
Linet 48:18
I recognize that it's really hard as a leader. Some of what we talk about to leaders in our groups is like, “you're sort of like used to having all the answers and people look to you to steer the ship. And you can do that and be vulnerable. You can not have all the answers and be a good leader. You can say, ‘I'm trying something new, I might fuck up. And it's okay. And I'm going to listen, I'm gonna try something else. We're going to try something together. And it's going to be okay,’” you can do that as a leader and I wonder where it is in our culture. It's not just the US, but our culture worldwide where we've put so much onus on leaders, on even our elders to have all the answers and not mess up.
Alexis 49:14
I think it's partly the celebration of the masculine, and that masculinity is supposed to be strength, and leaders, even when they're women, are expected to have” masculine” traits oftentimes strengthen that infallibility that we expect that men have.
Damion 49:34
And that's even interesting is how we define strength, right? Because in my career, it's not the norm for a career; 90% of my managers, supervisors have been women. And they've been the ones who are willing to take a chance on the guy who didn't look like he fit, or train me so that I can become better. And it wasn't because they had what we would stereotypically call “male strength,” care, optimistic. But each one of them was incredibly perceptive and incredibly skilled in what they did such that they could see potential and hire people in a way that was different. They didn't hire with the idea of “you will be subservient to me and work for me,” instead, “you will work with me, and I will help build you. And if you get promoted, or I help you get to a better place or become a better person, then I've done my job,” that was a completely different definition than some of the male bosses I've had. And it's not to say that every male boss I have had had done that way. But I've had that as well, where it's, “you work for me, you do what I say, you make me look good,” versus “this is a collaboration, I want to make you better, by making you better, I get to be better.” It's a very different workstyle. And I think just to your point, how we define leadership is very different, because in some places, people don't, that's not leadership, that's you collaborating, there's a thought that a leader has to be dictatorial or authoritarian in some sense. And that's not necessarily the case.
Alexis 51:01
In my mind, it takes so much more strength to be willing to stand in front of people when you might mess up, than to only do what's in your comfort zone, to only do what's in your realm of knowledge.
At the end of every podcast, we ask our guest, do you have any resources that you want to plug for our listeners today, any projects that you want to give particular attention to whether they're yours or anyone else's? Are there any things that you want to give anyone this is, this is the time to tell us all what you’re working on.
Damion 51:37
I should roll out my list. So many people, I think I have to really thank the Multicultural Insights Collective, they've been, it's been an amazing group of people to work with, I learned from them every time I work with them. So if you have a chance to check out Multicultural Insights Collective, you can go to LinkedIn and find the Multicultural Insights Collective. Or you can go to their website, which is voicesofequity.com. And there's just, you can see the vast group of people that they're just very different and all have amazing perspective and so much experience that, for me has been enlightening. But also, we have a an animated version of Tech Witch coming out soon, it'll be the pilot. So hopefully, that'll be out in June. So keep your eyes out. In the meantime, if you would like you can check us out on our Instagram, which is @digital_compendium. We're putting clips up from some of the animation work we've done. But I'm very excited to see it brought to life and have characters of color, being animation, not in the sense of being othered or made into tokens of some sort.
Alexis 52:48
Where's that going to be found?
Damion 52:50
So we will have it on our YouTube and our Facebook pages, both of which are called Digital Compendium. But if you go to our Instagram, that's where everything is, then you can find us there. Yeah, very excited. There's an even easier way to get it, I will give you all the link afterwards. But we have a site called linkme and you can find all our links there and you'll see where it is. That way you don't have to pick one. That's my shout out for today. Thank you all for letting me on here. I've been so excited ever since our first conversation. I've been looking forward to it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very excited that we finally got to chat.
Alexis 53:24
Yeah, we've been looking forward to it too. So this is this is absolutely fantastic. We're so glad that we've
Linet 53:30
got to connect. Thank you so much, Damion. You're a total joy to have on podcasts. Really great to meet you. Thank you.
Seth 53:40
Thanks for listening. You can find more information and donate at unconsciousbiasproject.org. Dr. Linet Mera, she/her, and Alexis Krohn, she/her, are your hosts. Seth Boeckman, he/they, is your editor. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to this podcast and follow us. We can be found on Facebook at Unconscious Bias Project, Twitter at UBP_stem, LinkedIn, Instagram, or join our mailing list. UBP is a fiscally sponsored project of the Social Good Fund, a tax-deductible 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. If you wish to sponsor us, please contact us in the contact us tab at unconsciousbiasproject.org.