The Whites of the Round Table: Lynn Burnett, Jared Karol, & Jill Nagle
What does it mean to work to be White while working to end White supremacy and shame cultures?
Loran and Jenny sit down with Lynn Burnett (Founder, CrossCulturalSolidarity.com and The White AntiRacist Ancestry Project), Jared Karol (Founder, JaredKarol.com and author “A White Guy Confronting Racism”), and Jill Nagle (Founder, Evolutionary Workplace and acclaimed author) to talk about working with other White people in conversations of racial equity.
Speaker Bios
Lynn Burnett is a former high school history teacher, and the founder of CrossCulturalSolidarity.com and the White Antiracist Ancestry Project. At Cross Cultural Solidarity, he has built over 100 racial justice history resources, and aims to turn the site into a place where people can plug into the entire universe of racial justice history. The premise of the White Antiracist Ancestry Project is that it will be easier to mobilize masses of White people for racial justice if they have powerful and inspiring examples of White antiracism to guide and inspire them. Based on that premise, the project aims to mainstream essential stories and lessons from White antiracist history.
Jared Karol is the founder of JaredKarol.com, a consulting firm specializing in guiding White people to confront racism and be unapologetic antiracists. As a trusted advisor, he guides executives, people managers, and dedicated change agents at Fortune 500 companies, startups, and nonprofits. A sought-after professional speaker, panel moderator, leadership coach, and facilitator of difficult conversations, Jared’s storytelling approach inspires and influences individuals and groups worldwide. His first book, A White Guy Confronting Racism: An Invitation to Reflect and Act, was released in November, 2021. An avid reader, accomplished musician, and active meditator, he lives with his family in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Jill Nagle has been published or reviewed more than 150 times in the genres of business, personal growth, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and social commentary, including American Book Review, The Women’s Review of Books, Zendeskblog, and many more. She founded Evolutionary Workplace, and Wisdom of The Body: Beyond Talk Therapy, and cofounded Awake Parent Perspectives. She is a regular contributor to AfroSap-ee-o-file, and you can see her Medium.com articles with a link in our show notes . With Dr. Cleo Muh-nah-go, she co-facilitates the 22nd Century Leaders program for white anti-racist leaders, whose next cohort starts in September 2022.
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During the episode, Loran references “Accountability Abuse” and mentions some resources. Start here:
Tada Hozumi, Understanding Accountability Abuse
Ian Arawjo, On dehumanization, accountability abuse, and transformative justice
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Materials Referenced in the Episode
We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Adrienne Maree Brown
The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change, Michelle Kim
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We're so glad you're here refocusing on Whiteness without supremacy or shame. Like. Subscribe. Follow.
BONUS MATERIAL
Just as episode 6 was about to air, the promotional material for the episode on social media turned a few heads. Quite a few heads, actually. Again, The Spillway found itself amid a cancelation campaign. The title of this episode and the tagline for The Spillway (“refocus on Whiteness without supremacy or shame”) were the only two things that started this specific campaign. This time, on the charges that:
Feudalism is never funny.
White people shouldn’t earn a living dismantling racism.
It’s never okay to center White people.
Jenny and Loran re-recorded the intro to the episode to address these points. Still, we decided last minute to keep the episode in its original format. We decided to keep the original version after realizing we were responding from a place of hurt, not a place of connectivity. They weren’t actually interested in listening to the episode, let alone any of The Spillway’s work. Just as we weren’t interested in their healing. We began to mirror our shamers by responding to their tactics rooted in White supremacy with our own.
We publish this bonus material here as a way to memorialize this moment. And as a way to invite people into the conversation of humor, what it means to make money in social services, and the power of connectivity. We offer this invitation independent of the cancelation campaign while acknowledging that this work didn’t grow in a vacuum.