Ep 77: When you think you’re The Good Place 😇 but you’re really Schitt’s Creek 😮

A couple of weeks ago, we did a Facebook Live where we used popular tv shows to help us playfully make a point about how folks sometimes overestimate their skills when it comes to DEI work–or really anything. In this episode, we revisit that conversation and add some additional commentary. If you tuned in the first time around, stick around for a whole lot more. And, fair warning, there are some definite spoilers of the tv show the Good Place in our follow up conversation.

Check out our discussion/reflection questions for this episode:  https://joyousjustice.com/blog/jews-talk-racial-justice-ep-77

Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com

Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner: https://joyousjustice.com/

Support the work our Jewish Black & Native woman-led vision for collective liberation here: https://joyousjustice.com/support-our-work

Watch our free masterclass to learn more about Racial Justice Launch Pad: bit.ly/RJLPMC53min

Learn more about the series TV “The Good Place”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place

Learn more about the TV series “Schitt’s Creek”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schitt%27s_Creek

Learn more about the series “Lucifer” and the character of Dr. Linda: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_(TV_series)

Learn more about the TV series “Pose” and the character of Blanca: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pose_(TV_series)

Join our private Facebook group, Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice: https://www.facebook.com/groups/590922415522750

Read more about prison and police abolition: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-emerging-movement-for-police-and-prison-abolition

Learn more about Mussar: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-musar-movement/

Read Michael Schur’s book, How To Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781982159313

Transcript

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- [Tracie] A couple of weeks ago, we did a Facebook Live where we used popular TV shows to help us playfully make a point about how some Jewish communal professionals sometimes overestimate their skills when it comes to DEI work, or really anything. In this episode, we revisit that conversation and add some additional commentary. If you tuned in the first time around, stick around for a whole lot more. And fair warning, there are some definite spoilers of the TV show, "The Good Place" in this follow-up conversation.- [April] This is Jews Talk Racial Justice with April & Tracie.- [Tracie] A weekly show hosted by April Baskin and Tracie Guy-Decker.- [April] In a complex world, change takes courage.- [Tracie] Wholehearted relationships can keep us accountable.- Okay, Tracie and I are back for another live. Hi, folks? So glad you're joining us today. In our live today, we will be using some cheeky frames to talk about patterns we see playing out again and again within organizations.- I'm really excited for this one, are you ready?- I know that I am, so let's dive right in. Okay, so here are some of the things that I'm excited to share with you. When it comes to racial Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Jewish communal professionals like to think our organizations are like the show, "The Good Place." We like to think we're deep and thoughtful, with an increasingly diverse team composed of included and respected staff who overall are steadily working against sometimes difficult conditions to make the world a better place. We view ourselves as generally getting the job done and advancing DEI, that's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work, well enough, even if sometimes imperfectly.- Unfortunately, the truth is we're more often like "Schitt's Creek," womp, womp. We're mostly white, feeling damaged, and afraid by our real or perceived loss of privilege. We are good people. But we have some bad habits to overcome and some soul searching to do. And this is totally normal. In fact, when Joyous Justice does an intercultural competency assessment with our clients, we very often see folks overestimate how effectively they navigate intercultural interactions.- Yes, we do. And this overestimation isn't something to be ashamed of. It's actually pretty common, more common than not, in fact. But it is a gap that we can and must work to close. Thankfully, closing that gap and making real change is within reach for our organizations.- Look, even Eleanor Shellstrop wasn't anybody's soulmate from day one in, "The Good Place." She had learning and work to do. She had to try, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, reach for help, and get better. We're playfully referencing these TV shows as a reminder and a model that this work isn't all doom and gloom. So whether you're Eleanor or Alexis, Jason or David, Chidi or Stevie, joy and fun can and should be a part of the process.- And none of those characters, literally not one was able to make the changes they needed to make completely on their own. Y'all my friends, our colleagues to get from "Schitt's Creek" to "The Good Place" we need each other relationships, real supportive, compassionate, and brave relationships along with intentional and incremental growth are key ingredients.- The work of taking on racial injustice is not a solo venture. We each have our own work to do, that's true, but no one person can be the answer.- So I want to ask you, how can you begin to establish or continue to nurture wholehearted relationships and community, both across lines of difference, and with those who share one or more of your identities?- This is not a rhetorical question.- Nope.- Take a few moments, think about it. And if it helps maybe draw inspiration from other shows or characters you identify with or maybe the ones you wish you or your organization embodied. When you think about your racial justice work. I don't know captain Marvel.- Monk.- What about Lisa Simpson?- Shuri from ""Black Panther"" now she is a badass.- She is a badass. And well, I'm kind of showing my age here, but what about Chris the DJ from "Northern Exposure?"- Yeah, Interesting, some of y'all are catching that reference. I am not yet, not yet.(laughing) So I thought it would be good for us, Tracie, as well to share some of who are our aspirational or us and our best racial justice selves, who we are. And so we also took a time before going live to think about who we might be. And it took a little bit of thinking. So also folks, if it's helpful, share this video with a friend and do the sort of havruta-style and discuss this and then perhaps support each other in thinking through who might be a source of inspiration. I'm curious for you, Tracie, if you wanted to share who either in terms of inspiration or who you feel like in different ways, just embodies and reflects back to you, parts of your racial justice leadership and ongoing journey.- You know, Shuri from"Black Panther" was like, that is the aspiration, but I'm probably a little more like Dr. Linda from "Lucifer."- (laughs) Okay can you say a little bit about Dr. Linda,'cause I don't I know you are like obsessed and in love with. And actually have started a podcast about the show "Lucifer," but I don't know. So can you give me a little bit of Lucinda, you said?- She is Dr. Linda, she is a psychiatrist and she's you know, working to improve and constantly reaching for connection even... Sometimes she has to overcome her own fear in reaching for connection, but is constantly reaching for connection and working to support the people that she cares about while you know, working on her own stuff.- So good. (laughs) I like it.- So what about you April?- For me, so, I wanted to think about this more, but as we were trying to prep for this Live Sarah proposed and I was so honored and touched (laughs) this is who my team member part of for me is Blanca from "Pose." Aww! Who is--- Can you tell me?- Yeah, yeah, yeah. I beat you to the punch there, didn't I? Yeah, so she is a trans woman with intersectional identity and left the comforts of a world, familiar to her and then needed to leave it again when she wasn't able to fully be herself and is like an eternal optimist and is constantly reaching for connection and honoring her elders and mentoring young folks and just... Oh, I feel so touched by this. And radiates love and in the face of despair says,"I'm going to believe that the best is possible"and live into that," and so...- Sounds accurate.- Yeah, thanks, it's really touching. And yeah and there are parts of that that I think I fully live into in parts around elements of her living that I aspire to live into. So the fact that Sarah saw some of that in me now is touching. Huh, so maybe you'll have a touching experience too. If you share this with friends and share this question with friend and think through it together and see what they say that might catch you off guard. Okay, all right, recentering. So I'm curious to know and if you get an answer, please share in the comments and more specifically, even better than that, we want to invite you to explore these and other really juicy prompts in our private Facebook group,"Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice." And we welcome you there specifically to join us, connect with others and receive daily inspiration, and thoughtful racial justice engagement opportunities, because this is something I wanna talk about more, but part of the rationale behind our group is that something we know to be really true in Joyous Justice is that habits and systems are what make us, and systems and identities beat a goal and exceed a goal every time. And so in "Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice," we provide daily opportunities for you to connect in meaningful, challenging, and deeply affirming and joyful ways around these and other themes to help you build more momentum and seamless authentic racial justice leadership into your life.- It is really a great place to find community. That's what I'm really taking from our Facebook group, an opportunity to find and maintain that community that we are recommending.- Which connects back to our theme earlier from the start of this of how important relationships are. So, obviously we encourage everyone to do this in your own life. And we in part created this group because we know that can be hard. And so we're here to support you with that and to collectively have us all with each other, all right? So thank you so much for watching. I hope that we gave you some inspiration and some insight in this show and perhaps have encouraged you to not do too much Netflix binging, but maybe expand your Netflix repertoire a little bit because joy and relaxation at times within reason is good.(laughs) And if this video or other ones we've made have resonated with you, if you haven't already please feel free to follow our page and like this video, and we look forward to connecting again soon, take care and thank you so much. Okay, so now for the exciting revisit and deeper analysis and some additional points and insights that Tracie and I want to share. First of all, to pick up where we left off, if you haven't already please feel free to join,"Joyously Pursuing Racial Justice," we're having a pretty good time over there, and it's only going to get better from here. So if you haven't already, now's a great moment to do that. And where I want to start with this is that a friend of ours... I didn't get around to asking him if he would be fine with me quoting him directly. So shout out to you, awesome person. You know who you are for purposes of confidentiality. I'm just going to refer to you as Jake. So Jake is this awesome Jewish professional. I just think is fantastic and does a lot of cool things in the Jewish community and just in general. And when we first sent out the email to our list about this video, this Live we did, Jake immediately wrote back and he was like,"This is one of the best emails I've ever gotten."Thank you so much."(laughs) So, that was just lovely and supportive and very ally-y of him. So thanks for that, Jake. And we wrote back, I think Sarah responded to him and said something like, "Thank you so much."We're really glad it resonated," especially since... Yeah, "We just appreciate your thought leadership"in general." And then he wrote back again, like I think the next day or so, and was like,"Well, I'm like working on this program I want to teach. And I've been thinking about this further. And I actually think maybe it's a little mixed up like"Schitt's Creek" is mostly white, but they're working on their stuff and "The Good Place" is diverse, but they're actually really in hell. And so, yeah. So I just wanted to toss that back to y'all right. And I was like,(laughs) I'm ready for this.(laughs) Already thought about this, Jake, let me tell you my analysis. Now here's why I actually think this is appropriate. Actually, maybe I should pull up or maybe you, or I don't know, did you get this email? I don't know that you got this email Tracie? I think this is just with us.- I did not, you just told me about it.- Right, so actually I wanna actually say precisely what he says, because let me find Jake whose name isn't Jake. Okay, so here's what he wrote,"Thrilled to hear it."You've provoked me in a deep pondering about how the show"Schitt's Creek, despite its name"is maybe a good representation"of paradise slash good place."While the good place mostly takes place"in the quote unquote Bad Place." Although it isn't actually accurate. It's like the in between place, right?" Tracie?- No, it's it mostly takes place in the bad place.- Was it? But it's not like the worst place though in the show.- Well, right. They have to go to the center of the bad place at one point, but like, "The Good Place" Michael's neighborhood. It is actually an experiment of the bad place for sure.- Right, okay. And then he was like, this is good learning for a Adar/Purim when everything is topsy turvy, right?.- Yeah.- And so I wrote back, no... But this is actually the whole point, is that for our organizations who are kind of in "Schitt's Creek," mode, things are overall great, which they actually aren't in our world and for orgs where we ideally want them to be moving toward, it's not the ultimate destination because that's way too far out. We're not looking Gan Eden or Olam Haba. We're not looking where the world to come right now. I mean, in Joyous Justice. That's generally what we're working toward. But what we're recommending to our clients is the next stage that sets us on a path that moves us in that direction, right? Gets us into the right mode, which is a mode in which we have a really pretty deeply racially and culturally and ethnically diverse team that's working well together. That is in a hell like that we are navigating all right now through a quote unquote, hell or bad place of systemic, deeply entrenched racism that is horrific. And it's kind of like in the show, "The Good Place" where it seems like, oh things aren't so bad, but the more we learn, like for a number of us, if we're people of color, since our childhoods and for a bunch of people in the country in the summer of 2020. Oh snap! Like we thought this was, "The Good Place."- Right, it's like that moment Elinor realizes. (laughs)- Yeah, but it's actually the bad place. You know, we've all been lied, we've been lied to. And we've been trained to treat a bunch of people like garbage and gaslight them while we even being misled. And it's actually awful, but yet they still have fun and work together and are committed to being able to move into "The Good Place," which is the best that we can expect from Jewish organizations today, is not to change the external circumstances, but to create a bubble in which a new reality is possible. Tracie, take it a way. (laughs)- Well, I think even bigger, the whole arc of the entire series is not that they moved from the bad place to "The Good Place" it's that they redid the system, they reimagine the system. And that's I think ultimately what is so great about,"The Good Place" as a model.- Can you say more about that for those for those who have, or haven't seen it when you say they redid the system.- Right, so they fundamentally, you realize that the problem is not just that these four people who are capable of growing and learning and being better were sent to the bad place inaccurately, is that the system was stacked against them, right. That it was impossible to actually live a good life, be good enough for, "The Good Place" based on the way that the current system and accounting is done. And so they totally reinvent the afterlife.- And reframe it.- And reframe it and create a whole new system whereby souls are given the opportunity to learn and grow and improve--- And rectify mistakes...- Rather I mean, in some ways it's a very restorative justice kind of abolitionist kind of vision where by there is no longer punishment for misdeeds, but rather--- Or complicity in misdeeds, which was a huge part of it.- Right, but rather rehabilitation for everyone to get to a better level of existence. Yeah, it's such a smart show. I actually just read the guy who created it, Michael Schur wrote a book called "How to be perfect," where he examined some of the philosophy from that you know, the informed the show. And it is hilarious, it is so funny. Like, I can't remember laughing out loud at a book like this in a long, long time and I feel much smarter also. Why didn't no one ever tell me that Musar is Aristotelian? Like maybe they did and I just missed it, but that was...- When did you, learn this, when?- Michael Schur's book, he talks about Aristotle and it's all about the virtues and how you have to find the middle point between two opposite I mean, it's just middot- You mean Aristorian or was Aristotle inspired by middot?- I think that chronology is the other way.- Is it? I don't know about the timing of that.- The Musar masters are definitely post Aristotle.- Or as someone who studies and thinks about this a lot in my personal life. So I'm happy that you're diving into this sort of thing and who reads multiple books and multiple disciplines. And there's sometimes where I both see influence. And then there's also times where to me, it's also just part of the collective consciousness of or similar things.- Or like a fundamental truth with a T like in a way Like Calculus simultaneously discovered by Liebniz--(crosstalk)- Please, my white friend and partner, I am happy for you to take it there because as a woman of color, I am very careful about I'm working on it. I'm like actively in the process of shifting it, of what I openly share for fear of being dismissed and disregarded outright. So yes, exactly that of both collective consciousness and also dancing around and touching. And sometimes I think it's both of those. And sometimes I think it's one or the other of like the capital, like whether it's collective consciousness and or part of the essence of capital T truth and or capital D divinity (laughs) to use phrasing that my beloved friend and colleague, former colleague, Rabbi Leora Kaye, (laughs) would often, she used often used for different things like small C little c, big T little t, lower g upper G.(laughs) She didn't actually say that, I can hear her now. I never said that one, you get what I mean, Leora!(laughs) But yeah, no exactly, exactly. And so that's actually part of the... That is actually part of the point, Jake. I also made up a different name. So shout out to you and I hope that video, and maybe even this podcast serves as inspo for your Adar Purim lesson and teaching that you will be leading and enjoying. I was a little like when I posted I made a little post about this on Facebook with those sticker things that you can do. And someone watched the video and quoted part of it, about organizations think they're here and they're actually these following different things. And this person meant it in supportive there way. And they were like oh, harsh. And for me, that set off signals for me as someone who generally endeavors to both. And it may not always be this way, but right now it's key in my leadership to speak truth and to bring rigor and as much as possible and whenever possible to do so with kindness. And in that moment, when that person said that. And they said it like oh, that's so cool. And I was like, oh no. And so I wanted to touch upon this, not because we received any complaints about this video, quite the opposite, we've received lots of excitement and different folks saying oh, I hadn't thought of this this way. And wow, that's really true. That's so interesting and I'm a DEI practitioner. And I find specifically what you lifted up about such and such a point and such and such a point to be useful to me in my practice. So great but since this person lifted this up, just in case, there is likely anyone who either now or previously heard this and felt like it's harsh. I wanted to just touch upon that for a moment and share some love and additional context to be supportive. And Tracie, I thought you raised a good point about this. that I think in a meta way is applicable to the episode itself. Is that one of the themes that we spoke about that you just listened to in the Facebook live itself, I think is also applicable here in a slightly different way, right?- The fact is that there is a measurable difference for many if not most of us between what we think our competence is in terms of intercultural interactions and where we actually are, and that's totally normal. And it's actually, it's not just normal. It also provides us a roadmap or at least a postcard from the destination of where we wanna be. So, it provides us with the aspiration of where we wanna be.- I love that. So good,- Which I think is really, really helpful. The other thing in terms of the compassion around this. That I also wanna lift up as you're naming it, is that my recollection is that one of the people who was really like, oh, that's really harsh, had not seen either of the shows. And I think part of like, when I am talking about like, as someone who adored "Schitt's Creek," well, both of these shows, I love them both, yes.- You're the reason why I watch, "The Good Place." is because you're such a fan.- Yeah, and "Schitt's Creek" too. Like I have so much affection for the Rose family. I even though they are, you know, feeling damage and afraid by their loss of privilege. The harshness doesn't mean I don't love them. You know, like I think that there's... We can acknowledge where we are and face the growth opportunities that we have with love and affection. And I just wanna name that because you know, I just I love them. Like I missed them when the show was over. Like I wanted to go back and re-watch because I enjoyed the family just so much. So which is... And also they were damaged and afraid from loss of privilege and did and said some pretty reprehensible things.- And that doesn't mean the damaged is permanent too. But in that moment and they were, and the damage will remain if we're not willing to name it.- Exactly.- And take ownership of it and get resourcing and support, which is why we do this dance and walk this path mindfully at Joyous Justice, where it is never our intention to reinforce pain. But at times it's absolutely critical for us to shine a light on what's happening so we can notice it. And hopefully, so we the collective of the royal we. So that you and some of our clients and prospective clients can start to see this because what functions, you know, it's like you know, what is measurable or what remains unseen and unacknowledged continues to operate and the power of sight and honesty. Part of it's honesty in certain ways that absolutely is true and part of it's just accuracy, accurately seeing this. And you know, this is something that I've debated for years and I continue to think about it now in light of some of the themes that we've mentioned. And so I don't need us to fully unpack it here, but I think about this a lot as it relates to DEI or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion assessments within a lot of Jewish organizations, because I think in some ways in light of what we are saying, if in fact folks really are not able to see what? From a different vantage point is very evident, which oh, this gets to the other piece we wanted to talk about. This is another, a piece that you named in a certain way. And then it reminded me of a theme that I've talked about a lot over the years. And do you remember the precursor that led to me talking about beliefs versus behavior, you had like a little bit of a preamble to that Tracie, do you remember what it was?- Yes, it was about the... It was specifically about the aspirations, about the way that where we think we are versus where we are and you talked about how in institutions, those that difference between your aspiration and your behavior is the difference between your stated values and your behavior. Those are the words that you used values and behavior before--- Yeah, and so this is also the source potentially of some tension that some folks may have, when they hear this episode or other similar facts shared is because they have collapsed. They have mistaken or have collapsed. Like I'm bringing my hands together as opposed to one being above and one being below, collapsed their beliefs with their behavior. And they truly deeply believe in their beliefs. And they think that because of that means that their actions or their behaviors or their policies always align. And that is not true. That's not true. And this is something that at times, you know, this is one of the upsides of a dynamic that generally has been pretty crappy of people not sheltering me at times from their meanness or their assessments or their perspective. So, I'm a little bit of a statistical anomaly, at least with this particular study where my assessment is pretty close, right. Because I haven't had the luxury of being of overly projecting skill that wasn't there because even when I had the skill, people would often discount me. So I had to find a way through support of parents and friends and therapy quite honestly, and healing to be able to have a balance between saying no, this is valuable and also getting really good at assessing no, actually this might be valuable, but there is room for improvement and me, having to discern that.- You also have done a lot of work and healing, and intentional growth in this dimension.- Yeah, and so this is a skill... So this isn't something that's going to get fixed overnight, but this is a body of work and a practice. And quite frankly, a spiritual practice and also a pragmatic practice. I think there both can be spiritual elements of it and pragmatic elements of it for Jewish leaders, for Jews who are leaders and Jewish leaders and Jewish communal professionals and Jewish organizations to get into the habit of... And the nice thing is be... And people often have an either or dynamic of this where they either feel like they have to fully accept blame beyond what is required and see selves as bad, or say that they have not been true to their values. And there's a way or that their values aren't right. Or I'm not getting it quite right, but there's like often this tension and it's possible for us for our organizations and in racial justice launchpad, this is one of them, this is a specific we pragmatize this and operationalize this in our DEI and racial accountability statement where I actually recommend that organizations speak to this directly and state with pride and clarity here are our values. And we have become aware or we know that we... Our actions aren't yet fully in a alignment with these values and we are moving forward in that direction. And here are the actions that we are taking that can help to start to honor both parts and honor the amazing work that we're doing and feel incredibly proud of what we've done to date and say, and... Which actually, once you can get through the dissonance is actually a really great place to be because then your path is fully your own. Exactly, because you're actually just you're being anchored and pulled by your stated values, right. Which is a good thing, right.- I think it's really interesting and maybe important, to notice too, the difference between sort of the aspirational values or beliefs and the actual behavior is not... It doesn't just happen in this realm of DEI. It happens everywhere, right? I think some listeners know that marketing is my career background. I spent a lot of years doing marketing and the studies in marketing are so clear what people say they want and what they behave like, what their behavior or their dollars proof they want are totally different things, right? Like what they say they want to receive in advertising is not what actually works, it gets them to click and buy. We aren't, as a species, particularly good at sort of accurately assessing those things. And that you know, knowing that is actually a really important first step to living toward your values.- And freeing and if we can start to know it sans, without judgment- Without judgment, yeah.- Without critique, it's just like, oh, this it is what it is.- Without here's sort of self's deprecation and self-flaggelation Yeah, all of that. Like none of that has to be there to own this. Yeah, it can be neutral and or even pride of, wow. We had really beautiful intentions and we're not quite hitting the mark. So let's reasses and figure out a strategy that honors what the work great work we've done, that gives us support around the places where we've fallen short. And part of that can be, and part of that support can be us reestablishing, a different relationship with our values where instead of unconsciously or accidentally or at times consciously using them as a shield, using it as a source of inspiration for something that we share with a bunch of other people and owning the parts of that where we are working to be in deeper alignment with it.- Yeah.- So still more to say, but I feel like this is kind of a good place to draw to. And I don't know, I feel--- Like pun intended a good place.(April laughs) This is a good place for us to draw to a close friends.- Good catch, although maybe not quite, I feel like did we co I feel like, before we talked about the almost wait, before we talked, did we close, I feel like I opened up, so I just wanna close that loop for some folks.'Cause I feel like for some folks, that's a thing, about the diversity equity and inclusion statements. I think I've talked about this book for maybe on this podcast, but just to wrap that up for now, what I would say is that the jury's still out for me, I'm still in the camp of I know that that's what a number of funders like to see.- You mean the assessments? Is what you're talking about?- Like, an audit. Like a DEI audit.- Yeah, yeah, yeah.- Organizational audit, yeah. And I'm still of the mind in part. And I think in some ways that's a helpful journey for certain organizations to go through. And for me a lot of our Jewish orgs, we could do that on the back of a napkin. Like with support, but like we could do that on a sheet of paper in a matter of minutes and look around and be like, we are 98, 99 or 100% white. We live in a city that has this much or a region that has this much diversity and we have zero dollars or 2% of our budget right now is going to support our ability to work effectively across lines of difference or specifically to racial and ethnic diversity, right. And so it's, it's just interesting to me. And because of this common differential, a number of folks need all this time. I'm just clear for me as a practitioner to date that it didn't seem ethical for my perspective to receive dollars of potentially tens of thousands of dollars from an organization.- For an audit, yeah.- For an audit where we could just already around.- It was, yeah.- We could take a couple hours and fill out a sheet. And you know, to me audits are more interesting for organizations like.- They've been doing the work.- Who've been doing the work for years and actually have some success in it and are still very much along a journey like Jews for racial and economic justice, right? Like Bend the Arc like perhaps some Jews of color led organizations who are doing liberation work to get an outside POCJOC person of color led evaluation group. And there's some exciting work that Shahanna McKinney among other leaders and scholars are working on developing to serve this purpose, to assess from a POC perspective, are there ways where you can be even more liberatory, right? In your leadership, right. That to me is interesting, it's kind of like assessing a organization that's doing no fundraising doing a fundraising or development assessment for an organization that has never fundraised any zero dollars.- Yeah, it's because ultimately what an assessment is looking to reveal is opportunities. And so if you're starting at zero, then it's all opportunities you don't need someone to come in and tell you, but if you're still starting from somewhere opportunities, where are the opportunities, where are the biggest opportunities where, you know, where are the things where just a little bit of extra effort would make a big, you know, like I think once you've actually walked down the path a little ways, it's interesting to then do an assessment to figure out which is the right next branch. But the whole path is ahead of you, like any way you walking, any way you are walking will be an improvement.- Right, and you can actually again, like, so in the back of a napkin or in a worksheet, like ones that I've created for my clients, like for indices, where is it? I'm pretty sure it's almost zero. So yeah. And even if it's not, and even if it's like up to a certain percentage, likely there's likely very little, if you don't already have a number of racial justice initiatives, that likely means there's probably healing and repair and education and a variety of things that need to be instituted. And so again, just to draw all to connect all the dots here and what keeps people from seeing this is either an overestimation of skill and or progress of where they are in racial justice. And that is interrelated with a conflation and this is why various organizations, because they've conflated their values with their behaviors and their outcomes, right. With their outcomes and their results. And those two, as you start to look at it become pretty plain and obvious. And so that for me is the intervention that I am interested in doing with doing with organizations where I want to give value. And I would love to perceive compensation for that value we are giving, but I not interested, even if certain prominent leaders or sources of funding say that's necessary from my almost 20 years of expertise. I don't actually think that it is. And not to be clear if there's a different organization. If there's a number of organizations who have done this. I'm happy to look over with what you've done. I don't think, I don't condemn it it's just for me personally, my leadership, it's not something I feel like it's a good use of my time or an organization who's at the beginning of their journey. And the steps that need to be taken are relatively, there's some variety, but it's a pretty similar course of action, which is why Tracie and I co-created racial justice launchpad for that reason is the money that you could spend potentially a fraction of the money you could spend for an assessment. You could just hop in with us, do a quick assessment in phase three, get what you need in a couple weeks and be able to move forward steadily in effectively and from a place of strength and internal clarity, be positioned for long term racial justice, growth and evolution within your organization.- [April] Thanks for tuning in our show's theme music was composed by Elliot Hammer. You can find this track and other beats on Instagram at Elliot Hammer. If this is so it resonated with you, please share it and subscribe, to join the conversation visit jewstalkracialjustice.com where you can send us a question or suggestion, access our show notes and learn more about our team. Take care until next time and stay humble and keep going.