Welcome back to Count Me In,

IMA's podcast about all things affecting
the accounting and finance world.

This is your host Neha Lagoo Ratnakar,

and we are now starting
episode 181 of our series.

Today's guest is Dr. Kristen Donnelly.

Kristen is a celebrated
TEDx speaker and founder,

and one of The Good
Doctors of Abbey Research.

Join Kristen and my co-host Adam,

as they talk about her work as an empathy
educator and how companies and leaders

can become more inclusive.
So keep listening as a
handover with the mic to Adam.

So Kristen, as we get started,

I think it would be best for us to
define some terms that our listeners may

think they understand, but you know, they
really may not. Things like diversity,

oppression, equality, equity,
tolerance, and privilege.

These are all terms that we hear in
the media a lot. And I think people,

they think they understand what they mean,

but maybe you can help
us by level setting.

I would love to break that down.
So in order to do that though,

allow me to kind of set the stage a little
bit if you wouldn't mind. Of course.

So one of the first things to
understand is that the world is set up

for some people to be the
default definition of human

and all around the world,
infrastructure, laws,

education systems, inventions are all

unless, you know, otherwise determined,

honestly set up with the default
idea that humans will be male.

They'll be probably middle to upper middle
class. They'll be fully able bodied.

Most likely they're gonna be white.
They're gonna be cisgendered.

Which means that their

gender identity matches the
sex their body was born with.

They're going to be heterosexual and
their life goals are going to include

things like a mortgage and
a partnership and children.

Generally, that's the default.

So when we make working hour laws,

we assume that it's a man with a partner
at home. When we make cell phones,

the only hands that Apple ever
tests cell phones on are male hands.

When we talk about, you know,

what we should pay people.

When we talk about how quickly you
can pay back your student loans.

When we talk about lots of things,
whether we realize it or not,

we are assuming that the people we are
talking about is that category I just

defined. So anyway,

in which you line up with any of
those categories, if you're a male,

if you're white, if you're able bodied,
if you're middle to upper middle class,

if your BMI is socially
acceptable, if you're cisgendered,

if you're heterosexual, generally, what
that means is that you have privilege.

Privilege means the system is
designed to work for you because you

were what they had in mind.
When they designed the system,

there is no shame or judgment or
moral imperative that comes with that.

There is just, the system is designed
to work for you. If you're thinking the,

and you're like, that's not
true, cuz blah, blah, blah.

It's probably cuz you've never seen the
system because the system is designed to

work for you.

So then where oppression comes in is
any way in which you don't line up with

those systems,

the degrees of oppression and privilege
vary from category to culture and

everything else.

The other important piece to understand
in this conversation is the phrase,

"intersectionality".

Intersectionality is a term coined by
Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw back in the 1980s,

she's a legal scholar.

And now she's known often for
being one of the four thinkers in

critical race theory, which is not what
we are teaching children in school.

I will just simply say that here. It's

I have a PhD in sociology and I
didn't learn critical race theory.

So I promise that fifth graders are
learning something a little bit different,

but Kimberly Crenshaw came up with
intersectionality to acknowledge the fact

that while all women are oppressed
on some level black women experience

oppression at a more significant
level than white women do.

And essentially what it has come to real
mean as social scientists is that we

are all a lot of things at
once. I am not just a woman.

You are not just a whatever
you are. I am not just white.

I am not just middle class.
I'm not just educated.

I am all of these things and they
come together in very specific ways.

It's kind of like the back of a
cross stitch. We're all kind of,

we're all just a lot of things to make
up who we are in the front of the cross

stitch. Every society has different
priorities in terms of which of

those threads are privileged
and not. I say all the time,

like, you know, we,

we can add in othering and normal as
well for the phrases of privileged and

oppressed. If you're normal in
your society, you are privileged.

If you are othered, you are
oppressed in some way, but again,

your mileage may vary. Degrees vary
here. I have oppression as a woman,

for sure.

I don't have the same level of oppression
in the United States as I would have

in Saudi Arabia. But that doesn't mean
that I don't have oppression in the US.

So the, so there's that. So there's
privilege there's intersection, there's

othering, there's oppression. All of that.

What I like to say is that meaning
that everybody is all those things all

at once. Actually means that we're
all diverse creatures as it is.

So none of us are one thing which means
that you can't create diversity within

your organization or your family or
your social circle because everyone is

already diverse. What you need to
do instead is create inclusivity.

And inclusivity is the decision to let
everybody show up on their own terms

and not determine the
shorthand for who they are.

And we get that shorthand through
using tolerance and tolerance is

simply saying you are alive
because I cannot kill you.

That's it. Tolerance is drilling
everybody down to the easiest,

common denominator that we can see when
we look at them and putting them in

categories that are easy for us
to interact with it denies people,

their personhood and their
complications. It allows us to say, well,

I can't ever know that person, cuz they
voted for someone different than me.

I can't ever know that
person because they're gay.

I can't ever know that
person because they're evil.

And instead if we eliminate tolerance,

which is one of my life missions and we
understand that everybody's already a

diverse person in front of you,
you're diverse, I'm diverse.

We're all diverse heyo. What we're
actually trying is create inclusivity.

Then we can have the hard
conversations about how to do that.

But let's eliminate the myth
that tolerance gets us anywhere.

Wow.

So you've covered a lot of things and
I wanted to kind of circle back to

where you started, where you were talking
about the ideal human, right? Mm-hmm,

so if you don't meet that
criteria, you become an other.

In some way.

In some way, right?

So a lot of times when we get separated
and we try to find others who have been

othered,

who are othered like us and we come
together because we wanna feel comfortable

with somebody who's been othered as well.

Absolutely.

But is that so bad that we do that?

No, if that's, if it's the end goal
and you stay in that group, maybe.

Okay.

Or if you all pretend that the only thing
you are is that thing you got othered

for. Then I think it gets
limiting. That is a weird word.

I like to talk about
limiting more. So if so,

let's say that you and I really bonded
over the idea that we were both,

let me pick something. That's
kind of silly. We really,

really loved brussels sprouts as kids.
Kids don't love brussels sprouts. No,

but let's say that Adam,

you and I were super into brussels
sprouts when we were little.

And so they would serve brussels sprouts
at the cafeteria and we would have to

sit at our own little table because nobody
else wanted to talk to us cuz nobody

else wanted brussels sprouts.

So if you and I only we ever talked
about our love of brussels sprouts and

all we ever were to each
other was the only person,

the other person that loved brussels
sprouts. We'd be missing a lot.

Yeah.

So instead we should use it.

What is best practice of
humanity if you were, is I say,

okay Adam, I love brussels sprouts, but

I am also chronically ill.

I am also somebody who has
seen what addiction looks like.

I am also somebody who
does all these things.

So now you go through
your life and you're like,

so I had this friend in elementary
school who really loved brussels sprouts.

And through that bond,

I learned from her what her experience
was life being chronically ill.

And now I see the world just a little
bit through her eyes of what it must have

been like to both love brussels
sprouts and be chronically ill.

And your world view gets bigger.

Yeah.

You see the world in a different way
because you and I took the time to take 30

seconds and talk about something
beyond brussels sprouts.

And then circling back to inclusivity.

Our table would be maybe other who would
join in saying, Hey, you know what?

I've never had a brussels sprout,

but let me sit with the brussels
sprout people and learn from them.

And that kinda brings
everybody together. And.

We don't say we don't make the rules
that like, okay, well, you know,

what we really need at this table is
we really need somebody who also loves

brussels sprouts and carrots.

And so I don't wanna talk to anybody
who doesn't also love brussels sprouts

and carrots and we just say, Hey humans,

how do you wanna come here?
Do you wanna come here?

Because you don't know anything about
brussels sprouts or even better.

You hate brussels sprouts, but you're
cool with sitting with us who love it.

Yeah.

Cool. Let's all move forward from there.

And you get to show up on your own terms

still within the social contract,

still within boundaries that we set
you don't get to show up as an asshole.

Yeah.

We have the right to kick
you out if you're an asshole,

we don't have the right to kick you out
just because you like carrots or don't

like carrots.

So when we look at the term DE&I, you
know, diversity, equity and inclusion,

a lot of people think that the E is
for equality, but it's equity and like,

why is that? Like, what's
the difference there?

That's a great question.

I mean the most common answer you're
gonna get is that baseball fence analogy,

picture that everybody gives you. What I
really love to do is equality is great.

I'm a huge fan of equality.

Equality just says everybody should have
equal access to resources. Yeah. Done.

Yay. The issue is we can't really stop
there because the world is the world. And

so what equity does is take history into
account. It's a quality with context.

So when we're talking in the United
States about housing, for example, let's,

let's talk about housing.

There has always been some group of
people in the United States who has been

denied housing based
on their race. Always.

Since before there was a United States.

As soon as white folks
showed up on this land,

we started denying housing to
people based on their race. So if

a conversation about equitable housing,

doesn't include historical systemic

oppression of people not getting
house cuz of the color of their skin,

what are we doing?

We've gotta rewrite some
systems to make things

equal. Equity is saying,

we've gotta do some extra
work to get to equality.

That essentially equality is
the thing that we all want.

We all want equal access to resources.
That's Nirvana, that's utopia.

Yeah.

But we don't just get there by holding
hands and wishing we could get there.

There's some stuff that's happened in
the last 65,000 years of human history

that we've got account for. In
Northern Ireland, for example,

which is where my husband
is from and where my PhD is.

The civil rights movements in Northern
Ireland started over housings.

Because if you were baptized
Catholic in Northern Ireland,

you either could not get a house.
Or it was very, very difficult to.

Priority was always given to
those baptized Protestant.

So Catholics in the city
of Derry or London Derry,

depending on your persuasion started
protesting for housing rights.

It was about a lot of other things,

but fundamentally they
wanted housing rights.

So now when you look at the
charter in Northern Ireland

for government housing, you have to
say how you were baptized because

they wanna make sure that
there's equity in there.

A lot of the funding of the peace projects
was put towards communities that had

been notoriously under resourced
because we're trying to eliminate the

things that kept us different and that
kept people from using the system to

their advantage. Is it
perfect? Absolutely not.

Yeah.

Is it weird?

Is it now hard for people who grew up
in Northern Ireland or wanna move to

Northern Ireland and government housing
and have no baptismal status? Yeah,

that's real hard. But in
1998, the main issue was this.

And so we addressed this main issue,
but part of equity is saying, okay,

we addressed that. We're
doing okay on that.

But here this solution introduced
all of these other so problems.

So let's keep working.

My issue with DE&I work is that
people assume it is an end goal.

That is achievable. It's not,

it's a process we keep doing because
every time we include one group of people

or one category or one idea we're gonna
find ones that we didn't because humans

are complex tapestries
of all of those threads.

Yeah.

And so it's a continual journey,

a continual process that we intentionally
engage in towards allowing people to

be their full human selves.

That kind of makes me think circle back
to when you were talking tolerance.

When I asked you the first question
and how you're saying that it,

we need to get rid of it.

This it's almost like you have
to get rid of a tolerance to get

to that equity and equality that
you were just talking about.

I think so, because it allows us
an out. Tolerance lets me say,

we can coexist. I also hate the coexist
bumper stickers don't get me started,

but like we can coexist
without knowing each other.

Mm-hmm.

And my point is like, you
know, for audio listeners,

this is where I gesture wildly to the
planet. That's what's gotten us here.

Yeah.

Where no one knows people who think
differently than they do or even worse.

And this is what I think is even more
endemic is that we know people who think

differently than we do,

but we don't know they think differently
than we do because we haven't done the

work to be the person in
that they disagree with.

Yeah.

We just say, oh, the
minute it's uncomfortable,

we're gonna shut that conversation down.

Or the minute someone disagrees with me,

they are the enemy and I'm not
gonna talk with them about it.

And that's what's gotten
us here. And so my,

my contention is we're here and
none of us are very happy with

here, so if we want somewhere new,

we've gotta try new things.

And I think new is getting used to the
idea that even people who drive you

insane are humans.

As much as we don't wanna talk about
it right now, Vladimir Putin is a human

Adolf Hitler was a human

And we have to wrestle the person who
voted for the candidate you did not is

a human.

That the bully that you have
to deal with is a human.

I am absolutely not saying
be in toxic relationships.

But I am saying we have to start with
acknowledging that every person is a human

being.

That's not easy to do, especially if
that human being is hurting you greatly.

100%. It is. It's why I always joke.

If somebody gives you five easy
steps towards practicing empathy,

like five easy steps, they are
literally selling you something, like,

because it's so, and like,

sometimes we are the person
that's selling you something,

but it's really simple. It's really
straightforward, but it's really hard.

Mm-hmm.

Holding the humanity and the dignity
and worth inherent in every human person

in tension with, you know,

they're factually wrong or they're being
abusive or they're just being a dick.

Many things can be true at once.

They can be a person and
also be a pain in your ass.

Those things can be true.

And this is kind of where we have to
start talking about boundaries about like

where, you know, but I'm a big
believer in informed choice.

And so eliminating tolerance and leaning
towards inclusivity allows us to make

an informed choice about
the person. Okay. I don't,

I'm not gonna do a relationship with,

not them because they're black or they're
gay, or they voted for the other guy.

I'm not gonna do a relationship with them
because they are a toxic person in my

life.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm gonna set that boundary.
That's hard, it's work.

And it's movable.

We really like to categorize people
and keep them in those boxes.

It's safe for us biologically.
And we love safety.

Our brains are always averse to things
that aren't safe, even us risk takers.

There's something in your brain
that's gonna try to keep you safe.

But that doesn't mean it's not worth
it. And doesn't mean it's not possible.

It's like we, humans have been
putting ourselves in categories for,

you know, 65 million thousand
years that humans have been around.

Like we put ourselves in categories.

So it's gonna take a long time
to get ourselves out of that,

to actually see each other
as humans in a lot of ways.

For sure. And I don't think we have to,
like, I'm not somebody who's like, okay,

we have to eliminate all categories.
No, no, no, no. There are like,

there are categories. Like we gotta do it.

What we need to realize is that people
are always more than what they're

presenting you with.

Yes.

There are always many categories.
So instead of putting somebody in,

like I joke, I joked a couple
weeks ago on a podcast that like,

instead of seeing somebody
as a box from Amazon,

what you need to understand is that
everybody is the shipping crate that all

those boxes came in.

Mm-hmm.

And that we're all, all of our things.

And some of those things
include a lot of trauma.

That mean that we can't do relationship
with this category of people. Yeah.

I have a really hard time doing deep,
intimate, personal relationship with,

with people who, you know,

there's a couple different categories
of life that I'm just like,

I can't do intimacy with you,

but I can get a drink with you.

I can work on a committee with you.

Yeah.

I can acknowledge that you're a person
and that you have the right to those

opinions. Even though they damage me.

It doesn't get us anywhere to demonize
people because of their beliefs.

It just doesn't.

Hmm.

And I hear folks being like, well,
that's really easy for her to say,

cause she's this white lady and
all this other stuff, I'm not,

again saying it's easy. I'm just looking
at human history and realizing some,

some changes we might need to make.

Yeah. So as we kind of
wrap up the conversation,

one of the things that I've heard
you mention in your Ted talks,

is to decenter our worldview. So
maybe we can talk about what are some,

what are some steps? Here you go.

Some steps that you can take to decenter
people's worldview and start listening

to each other.

Gosh, there are so many,
so let me say again,

let me caveat this with two
things. So first of all,

please hear me say that you right now
are doing a great job at being a human.

It's real hard. It's real hard.

And none of us actually get
educated in how to human.

We learn by doing, we learned by
doing it together. And we, the,

one of the worst things that happened
is we got sold in that at some point we

are done. You're never done, you're

never finished. You're
always a creature in motion.

So picking an area to grow in doesn't
mean that you were a failure or wrong or

evil or something before,
or that you were bad before.

This is just the area in
which you're growing now.

So do what you can to relieve yourself
of the guilt, of not knowing things

and then pick a thing.

So decentering your worldview
is a constant process,

and I'm not saying decenter yourself
because we need to be priority.

But how we see the world
doesn't necessarily need to be.

The story I frequently
tell is that in 2001,

after the Atlanta terrorist
attacks on the Asian spas,

my best friend and business partner and
I realized that we didn't really know a

lot about the Asian American experience.

Neither one of us was in deep personal
relationship with an Asian American

immigrant. We didn't
really know a lot about it.

And so we realized that that was
an area in which we could grow.

So I emailed a friend who was
married, who was a white American,

married to a Cambodian immigrant. And
I said, Cheryl, like, where do I start?

How do I know? What do I learn?
You know? And she said, well,

I'm sure you've seen the PBS documentary.
And I was like, mm, come again.

And she was like, okay, start
there. It's six hours for Americans.

It's free until 2033.

It is six hours of the
six biggest Asian American

immigrant groups and the story
of how they came to America,

how they assimilated, what,
what we did to them as a nation,

what it looks like. I learned about
things like the Chinese exclusion act

and the true impacts of
Japanese internment camps and

why there are so many like people
from Thailand that do nails,

all of these things were covered in this
documentary and it took six hours of my

life. And so now I can,

as I'm going through the world and
sitting back, it didn't make me feel done.

I can't speak for the entire
Asian American experience,

but I learned what the
phrase bamboo ceiling means.

I learned a phrase I learned about
the not your model minority movement.

And so now when I encounter,
and when I hear about

anti-Asian American hate crime,
I have some context to put it in.

Took six hours of my life. They're
even shorter ones. If you don't know,

if you are not in a close
personal relationship with
somebody who is physically

disabled. I highly recommend
the documentary Crip camp.

It was nominated for
academy award two years ago.

It's the story of the Americans
with disabilities movement.

It tells you exactly what the ADA is
and what it isn't. Because by the way,

if you are an American with a
mental health documented issue,

you are protected by the ADA.
Did you know that? I didn't.

So what it does, the ADA actually mean?

That's an hour and 45
minutes of your life.

And then you, you know, you diversify
who you follow on social media.

If you're on Instagram,

make sure you're following
like organizations that
you don't really know a lot

about. And just listen.
There's lots of small ways.

If you're a sports fan, oh my gosh. Find
a sport that you know nothing about.

One of the best ones I can recommend
is, is hurling. H U R L I N G.

It's an Irish sport that doesn't really
happen off of Ireland or outside of the

Irish diaspora, but it's the
fastest land sport on the planet.

Google hurling, watch some
videos, get to know it,

dive in and learn what Gaelic sports are.

That's pretty amazing.

I went into YouTube spiral once
watching it so I can attest.

Oh my gosh. It's like my husband's
mother played it. She played Camogie,

which is the women's version of it.

When she was growing up in her teenage
years. And that's how I learned about it.

If you love food, pals, let me tell you,

that is such an easy way
to learn about, about like,

if you are in a fairly adventurous eater,

find a restaurant of an ethnicity that
you've never eaten head in, say, Hey,

I've never eaten here. I don't know your
food, but I really love these flavors.

Can you bring me something? Get humble,
admit that you don't know things,

start asking questions
and continue the process.

It becomes a discipline in a way,
and it becomes like knee-jerk,

but it takes a lot of work at first
to remember that how you do humanity

is not the only way to do humanity and
you can have a richer human experience

by learning how others do human.

This has been Count Me In,

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of thought leaders from

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