Shined Bright Like a Diamond

0:00:01.0 Announcer We've been about this work; Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging. Shared through the voices of a White woman and a Black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursued D&I progress for most of our professional lives. We use Crazy and The King to cover news, tips from colleagues and host incredible guests. Listeners, count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check it. Julie, kick off the show.

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0:00:36.8 Julie: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Crazy and The King.

0:00:42.0 Torin: I'ma tell you right now, you know, I'm... For a little more than a year, whenever we record, I try to make sure that my face is hydrated. I always put on cologne, always. Like I always smell decent, good. But I think I can go back to putting on beanies and rough-looking, bleach-stained jackets. By the way, it was snowing this week here in Baltimore. Like... I don't know, and the only reason I'm teasing you about that... Are we ever gonna use our video? What do you think we should do with our video? 'Cause I don't think we need to necessarily compete and be like everybody else. We could probably have fun with our video. I don't know. Can we turn it into bloopers?

[laughter]

0:01:34.4 Torin: I mean, 'cause we're like always so serious.

0:01:36.9 Julie: I don't know.

0:01:39.1 Torin: I'm just wondering. I sit here and I say, "What can we do with our video to be a little bit different?" I think about Jackie Clayton and Katee Van Horn, and there was a moment there when they were recording Inclusive AF that Jackie would always have a different background. She was just rocking, she was all over the place with her background. Good stuff. And I always said, "What can we do to be different with our video?" I don't know.

0:02:09.8 Julie: Yeah, you know I'm not the creative here. I'm the process girl. But, probably a good time to let the audience know we are looking for a part-time social media person here at Crazy and The King, so that person hopefully will come up with some amazing ideas for all of this video that we have. Although I will tell you, I'm just always happy to see your face. So if we never do anything with this video, and you always show up in a beanie and a dirty ass sweatshirt, I'm gonna be fine with it.

0:02:39.8 Torin: That's right. And let me tell you, I have no idea how a black sweat jacket will end up with bleach stains on it, or a brand new blue sweat suit. I'll find some bleach at like the bottom on the cuff or something like that. Everybody in the house is like they hate it when I do the laundry. And the problem is, I always do the laundry. So it's really a gamble whether or not something is going to come out the right way with me and my laundry skills. But everything is well. I'm good, minus the snow. March is coming in like... Well, actually, March is ending cold. It's in the 20s this entire week. But needless to say, I'm happy. No complaints. We got a really, really, really good show planned for each and every one of you. I promise you are going to enjoy what Julie and I have put together. But I wanna start with a funny story. We always talk about some stuff at the top, and I said to myself, "This has got to be somebody playing a trick on me. This has to be somebody actually out in the ecosystem, the digital ecosystem playing a trick, and when I click on this link, it's going to take me to some site with a whole bunch of pop-ups. You know the one where it captures your screen and says that, "You are now... Your screen is locked. Call this 1800 number. Put in your credit card... " By the way, my mom did that.

0:04:08.7 Julie: Oh shit, no.

0:04:10.4 Torin: Two years ago, my mom calls the 800 number, gives them her credit card. I said, "Mom, why in the world would you... I've told you a thousand times you have... " Anyway, whole notes... 'cause I can't talk about my mom and she can't defend herself, but mom's called the 800 number. So I clicked on the link and it takes us to a story, J, where a guy gave away his dog to the animal shelter, because he thought his dog was gay.

0:04:39.0 Julie: [chuckle] Yes, North Carolina, here we are. [chuckle] So, the dog...

0:04:44.0 Torin: You know the state that had the bathroom issues and all that other good stuff, the... Yeah, go ahead. I'm out. That thing was fun.

0:04:48.1 Julie: Yeah, no, no. This story is fucking mind-numbingly dumb. So, a guy dropped his dog off at the animal shelter and said, "Hey, I think I have a gay dog, and I definitely don't want a gay dog," because the dog was trying to create dominance over another male dog, which probably means he's like super testosterone dog. And, thank the gods this idiot gave up this dog and he got adopted by a wonderful gay couple in North Carolina who have been married for 30 plus years, I think.

0:05:24.7 Torin: 30 plus years. I just... I literally... I sat there and looked at the screen like... I just couldn't believe that the owner allowed himself to think that the dog was gay. But you're absolutely right. I love the fact that the gay couple down in North Carolina grabbed... And the other part that I celebrated in that, and this was... This was a real thing, 30 years.

0:05:54.0 Julie: Yeah.

0:05:55.0 Torin: And I think about 30 years ago, that would have put us at right around 1993 or so, about the same time that I moved to Washington DC from Texas. And I said, "I wonder what they were experiencing in the '90s, early '90s with their marriage."

0:06:13.3 Julie: Yeah, I mean, the...

0:06:14.6 Torin: 'Cause you got to assume they had some period of dating prior to that. So what were they experiencing in the '90s? Of course, I didn't really have a number of points of reflection because I was a lot younger, not as conscious as I am right now, not as in tune with some of those... Or many of those social issues, but that was a part of the story that stood out. They've stood the test of time, and I appreciated that.

0:06:41.3 Julie: Yep, and now they get to give this wonderful puppy, who they renamed Oscar after Oscar Wilde, a fantastic home and probably a much, much better and different experience for Oscar to be with them than the first guy.

0:06:57.1 Torin: Absolutely. So let's talk about some serious stuff. Memphis, brand new airport terminal. Memphis, Tennessee, that is, brand new airport terminal. And I found a story that talks about how some artwork or a piece of artwork was removed, so when Memphis opened up this new terminal, they had a team to commission artwork from a number of local artists. I would say local because outside of the Memphis area, I looked at the names and I couldn't necessarily refer to them from anything other than this particular story, I didn't know of them or see any trails leading to them, so I love the fact that the airport decided that they wanted to commission work, invest in work from local artists, but there was one artist who got his work taken down.

0:07:54.4 Julie: Yeah, so Tommy Kha, who is a Memphis-based artist actually, and I find this really interesting. The painting that he had approved by the Memphis Airport Art Commission and the Urban Art Commission was a representation of an Asian Elvis impersonator.

0:08:18.6 Torin: Stop, pause right here. And I just wanna pause for a moment because I still want you to talk. You brought it up, you inserted it in, but I just think about how many people impersonate Elvis.

0:08:33.3 Julie: Yeah, a lot. A lot. A lot. And so, the airport got some feedback that they found this to be an inappropriate depiction of Elvis and a lot of also very demeaning and racist voices towards the artist and the thought process, and generally, unfortunately, the Memphis Airport decided to temporarily remove the painting of Asian Elvis and are working on what the next step is. So is that actually having another work commissioned by Tommy Kha, is it putting the work back, is it leaving an empty space on the wall? We don't know.

0:09:22.6 Torin: Yeah, and Tommy Kha is T-O-M-M-Y K-H-A, T-O-M-M-Y K-H-A. And if you go there on his Instagram page, you actually will see an image of the actual piece of art, it's from February 16th, and it's still of course up on his Instagram page. And what's really frustrating in this $200 million brand new concourse, $200 million, they invested $1.5 million in commissioned artwork, is that his was the only one taken down. Now, what they said when they originally were considering this, that they weren't going to do anything that profiled celebrities or high profile figures, but they made an exception in his case because it was a bit of a tribute to Elvis. And that's like, what do you call them... Is it the native son? Is that how you refer to a person?

0:10:25.1 Julie: I think so.

0:10:25.5 Torin: Like an Elvis?

0:10:26.3 Julie: Yeah.

0:10:26.6 Torin: Yes, something that like that. So the challenge is that the Urban Art Commission said that they are committed to exploring options to help protect artists in future situations such as this, because Tommy received... Julie, you talked about the comments, but Tommy received a lot of racism, homophobia, and just real, real mean dialogue from people's comments and that's unfortunate. And again, I just go back to the question, how many people impersonate folks like Elvis, Dolly Parton, Michael Jackson, Prince? We could go down a list, these are not figures that are only emulated by people from their same demography or ethnicity, these are global figures, and for people to be that sensitive is just really, really, really disheartening for me. Tell us what Tommy Kha said.

0:11:28.7 Julie: So he said, "While I believe people are free to speak their minds, I do not agree that the removal was the right solution, for many years I've created work that explores my own experiences of becoming an artist in the South, I love Memphis still and I love the countless contributions from many voices and people that have Memphis what it is to me" Excuse me "That have made Memphis what it is to me, home"

0:11:52.3 Torin: Yeah, and let me tell you the piece there, when I read his... And I'm always trying to dance through this equation of understanding, and I've often said to you J, two of the most powerful words are love and process. I'm often trying to dance through that sequence of processing, and I said to myself, "I get it, dude doesn't want his artwork taken down," I don't think that it should have been taken down, but that brings in a whole conversation around the Confederate statues, or that brings in other conversations around Black Lives Matter type artifacts, things that are taking place, that brings up... It brings up so many challenging considerations for each and every one of us, which is why again, while I agree with the story, it just reminds us how complex it is for us to navigate the nuance of getting along in terms of relationship with one another, wouldn't you agree?

0:13:01.5 Julie: I would absolutely agree, and I would take it even a step further to say that it's amazing how quickly an organization will react when White people are uncomfortable versus the very same organizations who will not act when people of color are uncomfortable.

0:13:20.3 Torin: Yep, I think we'll talk a little bit about that a little later in the show. A little later in the show. So making the case for philanthropy's role in the new movement to re-imagine criminal justice. Now, there is a great deal of conversation around criminal justice, criminal reform, justice reform, just looking at how the penal system, the judicial system, the legal system, all of that... Court system, there's so much conversation around, how do we have and present a different solution? While we understand that folks need to be locked up, folks need to go through some period of... I'll call it retribution, salvation, reclamation... People need to go through some period where they kinda sit on the sideline and figure things out, if you will, there's still a huge demand for us to change our systems.

0:14:19.4 Julie: Yeah. And what an amazing conversation that we're having on the regular, much more often. So we've talked about, on the sidelines, I think criminal justice reform for a long time, especially sort of post-Clinton, super predator mandatory minimums, and we've seen what that's done to our country and what it's done to predominantly Black and Brown men, and how it's created greater inequities for the same crimes and just to our society in general. So this is definitely something that needs funding and needs to drive a conversation.

0:15:03.0 Torin: So when you say it needs funding, I'm wondering just... I'm curious, do you feel like our present criminal justice system is doing more harm than good?

0:15:13.1 Julie: Yeah.

0:15:14.1 Torin: Or do you feel like it really is doing more good, period?

0:15:19.6 Julie: No, I think the system is completely broken, we have massive amounts of death by gun in this country, we have massive inequity in sentencing and the way that crimes are perceived and adjudicated based on color and gender and a lot of other things, and... So yeah, we have the highest prison population in the world and the highest gun death rate in the world, so I don't think anyone could say, at least I don't think, that it's doing more good than harm. What about you?

0:15:57.4 Torin: I would say, you know, again, considering the large population of individuals that are coming from Black and Brown communities, from poor White communities, from other underserved communities, the way that those individuals are being penalized versus let's say a person who's doing White-collar crime if you will, I would absolutely say, and I would also say, given the recent change, and when I say recent... Five, maybe 10 years around the legalization of drugs, I would absolutely say, when you consider our prison system mushrooming to 2.2, 2.5 million people, I don't think that it's doing good, and the reason why I struggle with... No, let me say it differently. I know it's not... It's doing more harm than good. I know that to be the case, and the reason why I say that emphatically is because of the stain that it places on individuals after they've sat on that sideline that I mentioned. When you can't get housing, when you struggle to get work in a kitchen, to be just a bus boy or someone that's washing dishes, when you struggle to be able to work for a delivery company, you know, a lot of these frontline jobs that we talk about often, and you can't even get those.

0:17:28.4 Torin: You can't live with certain family members that may be in subsidized housing or you run or they run the risk of losing their subsidization. I absolutely feel like the system is doing more harm than good, and I think it's a really good story. It's a story over on The Bridgespan Group's website. Again, the title is, I didn't say it right the first time, but the title of the article, it's a March 17 article, "Making the Case: Philanthropy's Role in the Movement to Reimagine Criminal Justice." And the bottom line is, in that entire article, what they are saying is, you in the philanthropic space, you play a role in this conversation, it's not just community organizers, it's not just the politicians, it's not just regular citizens or corporate America, philanthropy, you play a role. And so, this is one of those things where I would share this article, if I'm a listener and I'm inside of an organization, they may have a Corporate Social Responsibility Department, this is an article that I would share with them. This is one of those articles that may resonate, may land well, may be something that you then disseminate to ERNs or ERGs inside of the organization, and it may be one of those external initiatives that the organization picks up.

0:18:56.2 Torin: We have some things that we're doing internally. "Hey, We think that this may be something good for us to contribute to externally, and it may be of interest to employees inside of the organization." So that's the reason why I highlighted the article. And it gave some quick takeaways, I won't mention them right here, but you can go out and read the article again, it's titled, "Making the Case: Philanthropy's Role in the Movement to Reimagine Criminal Justice."

0:19:24.3 Julie: Love it, and a great way to end this top portion of our episode is a great story from the Wall Street Journal, that women are winning bigger pay raises from the US labor boom.

0:19:35.9 Torin: Yeah.

0:19:36.4 Julie: So in February, women's wages were up 4.4% from a year earlier, compared to a rise of 4.1% in male wages, and that makes the sixth straight month that women's wage growth has outpaced men's wage growth.

0:19:54.7 Torin: Yeah, about 31% of the women who changed jobs during the pandemic, about 31% of them saw an increase in their compensation package, or shall I say, of the 31% of women that changed jobs, more than 30% of them said that the compensation package was higher than in their previous role, so it's looking like women are trying to kinda claw back a little bit of that loss, and we've talked about that when we did our roundtable with Facebook last year, right around this time last year, that was one of the statistics that we talked about, how many women had lost work, and how many months it was going to take for them to kind of get back what they had lost, and so this right here is a promising article, it's still a little disappointing because there was a stat in there that said more than 62% of part-time workers are women, more than 62%, taking on a part-time job, perhaps in addition to their full-time job, so, I like the fact that they are getting their money back, I think that's a good sign. It's trending in the right direction.

0:21:03.7 Julie: Yes, absolutely. We've gotta make up that gap. So this week, we decided there was no other way to close out International Women's History month than to focus on women who are and have made history, so we will be right back after this short ad break to dive right in.

0:21:25.1 Torin: Alright, so we're gonna do our In a Flash segment, this week, what shall I say? The BNC shuttered its doors last Friday, Mackenzie Scott still remains on tear, giving away billions, 3.8 billion since June of 2021, lot of luchi. And, just to remind that the pandemic is far from being over, I know stages are opening up on countries all across the globe, and restaurants are welcoming diners, and folks like Julia are still struggling to get on certain flights, I think you got a little savage on Twitter last week, protests are still happening all over the world, Jamaicans were a bit unhappy, they raised their fists, they presented in war items that donned a pair of shackled wrists and phrases like, "Apologize now," as Prince William and Kate were visiting the country, not the sort of welcome you had wished for... And where the hell is Clarence? Speaking of art, a new exhibit, "I am the Glory" by Stephen Towns, reflects the role of African-American labor in building the US economy. It's in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a population of about 15,000 people, and there is an employee alleging that Microsoft spends about $200 million a year on bribes and kickbacks via its foreign contracts business.

0:22:53.8 Torin: Now, Microsoft says the claims were addressed, and you can read about that over in the Verge, and that too is a lot, $200 million in bribes? That's a lot. But we're gonna continue to talk.

0:23:12.5 Julie: Alright. This week, an emphatic record of history. Torin and I... Looking at you, Torin and I have the opportunity from week to week to not only record, but in a way capture history, that's what we love about the show. In a way, we'll be able to listen five years from now and remember how we felt, what the sounds were with regard to certain events and moments, not in just our lives, but in lives of all of our listeners in the world, this week is one of those opportunities to really capture some of that thought and emotion.

0:23:44.4 Torin: Absolutely, and we're going to do it with three different clips that we kinda gathered from the ecosystem, things that happened over the last 30 days during the month of March, International Women's History Month, and first up is a clip from Yaba Blay, who's an author, have a listen.

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0:24:28.0 Glennon Doyle: So when you say, "How do I be an ally?" What we're hearing is, how do you... Teach me how to care...

0:24:36.2 Yaba Blay: Teach me how to care.

0:24:37.2 GD: And you're saying, either you care and figure it out, think critically...

0:24:41.7 YB: And thank you for saying it that way, Glennon, 'cause that's... That explains my visceral response, I don't know how else to explain it to you, it's not about right or wrong. I know there are people who are like, "Well, damn, I'm just trying to help. I said I wanna be an ally." I'm letting you know what it sounds like, how I receive it in my ears and in my spirit, you are asking me to teach you how to care about something that is so basic, if you recognize us as human beings, carry it, it is so basic, and now you're asking me to take time to prove it to you...

0:25:22.1 GD: And also...

0:25:23.1 YB: And I don't have time. You said?

0:25:24.2 GD: If our children... If White people's children were dying, we would just figure it out, we wouldn't be going, "How... Can people have a podcast for us. Like can people... " We would figure it out, but we don't care enough to figure it out.

0:25:41.2 YB: Not only would you figure it out, you would demand that everybody support it, it wouldn't even be an option, because we would call that human. That whiteness is a default for human. We're not all human in that way.

0:26:18.3 Torin: So as I said, Yaba Blay is an author, she actually wrote a book titled, "One Drop: Shifting the Lens on Race". You can find her on Twitter @YabaBlay, Y-A-B-A-B-L-A-Y. She was actually a guest. So what you heard in that brief clip, she was a guest on a podcast, the podcast is titled, "We Can Do Hard Things", and the host of that is Glennon Doyle, she is the author of "Untamed", a book that was released at the very start of the pandemic and became a lifeline of sorts for millions of individuals. Glennon... And let me tell you, if you had not seen that, if you go out on the internet, you can find the clips on Twitter and YouTube, and Glennon and... Who was the soccer player seated next to her? Can't think of her name right now, I apologize. But, Glennon and her guest hosts took it on the chin, they were so present in that conversation, no emotion, no energy. They were present, J, in that conversation. Did you see the same?

0:27:26.9 Julie: Oh yeah, absolutely. And I just love the bluntness, right? The figure it out, "Why are you asking me to teach you how to be a better human, or a human at all in a lot of respects?" And she really hit on that...

0:27:42.8 Torin: Yeah, I know...

0:27:43.8 Julie: Oh, sorry, go ahead.

0:27:46.0 Torin: No, I was gonna just say, she was so... [chuckle] You're right. I mean like, she was so incredibly direct. Passionately direct. And it's one of those things where, you know, you have... When you are in the face of someone who is that in tune... To me, Julie, you know that they're not just simply giving you academic leanings, that they're not just giving you polished messaging, that they're not giving you what they think might be the algorithm of going viral, she was fully present and in her right mind and just gave you how she is feeling. And I think I watched that clip like 30 times. I've listened to the entire podcast twice, but I've watched that clip like 30 times because there was so much in there. She even talked about allyship. I don't know if you saw that part.

0:29:00.8 Julie: Yeah, I love that, the allyship versus being an accomplice, and, you know, when she first said it, I was like, "Okay, how do we like... What's the language? How do we square this?" And then when she was like...

0:29:14.3 Torin: What do you mean when you say, how do you square this?

0:29:16.1 Julie: Well, when you think of an accomplice, you think of someone who helps you do something bad, right?

0:29:20.3 Torin: Okay, okay.

0:29:21.8 Julie: But then she completely turned it and she said it's basically like you're my ride or die, right? You're getting in the car with me, you have skin in the game, you have some sort of commitment to this relationship, it's not just you, you know, hanging out at home and talking about things that should be done, like, you're in the car, you're on the go.

0:29:41.9 Torin: Let me tell you something, Julie, you said it, and I want you to say it again, because I think sometimes when we are having these conversations around allyship, you remember last year my presentation was less allyship, more action, what Yaba Blay was saying is, we need you to take more action, and yes, we want you to be an accomplice, we want you to catch the charge with us, we want you to also be convicted of being guilty of trying to get better, to generate progress, we want you absolutely tethered to us hand-in-hand working towards whatever we say is extremely important. I love how she flip... What'd you say? Square this, I love how she squared this with the definition of, "Yeah, that's what it means. And that's exactly what I want you to do."

0:30:35.1 Julie: Yeah, I loved it. I haven't listened to this podcast yet, the Glennon Doyle one, but it is actually added to my list today, so I'm very excited about more Yaba Blay in our life.

0:30:46.5 Torin: Love that, love that, love that. So next, we want you to imagine a world, [chuckle], I just smile because, you know, when I... I caught this one when I was driving a couple of weeks back, I was driving, listening to Progress on SiriusXM, and this person was a guest on the show that I was listening to, so the person... This next clip comes from a person who says, "Imagine a world where women top over men in the boardroom... " By the way, before I finish that, I just said something to you, and you know... I don't know if I've ever said this to you Julie, but when we are in conversation, and it's better now, it's better now in year number four, than in year number one, because remember year one and two, and most of three, certainly a good portion of three, we weren't recording, definitely in one or two, we didn't have video going, so we didn't see one another, it was merely working off of pauses. So one thing that I still struggle with is having conversation with you and our listener not saying Torin is talking over Julie.

0:32:02.3 Julie: Really?

0:32:03.8 Torin: Never said that to you before.

0:32:05.3 Julie: No.

0:32:05.8 Torin: Never said it to you before right now.

0:32:07.3 Julie: No.

0:32:07.8 Torin: And there are a number of times where I... Like we just did it on the square up piece, I just didn't wanna get... I didn't wanna get too far away from the square up because I wanted people to attach your definition to that in the moment and not "Well, when did she say... What... " So you need that back and forth, and there are so many sensitive people out there listening that they may say, "Well, why does Torin always talk over Julie?

0:32:33.3 Julie: [chuckle] I think that's hilarious.

0:32:34.8 Torin: So anyway, this is good, so...

0:32:36.3 Julie: I swear. Yeah.

0:32:37.3 Torin: So our next person... There you go. So our next person is, she says, "Imagine a world where women talk over men in the boardroom, where women are handed the bill first in restaurants, and where women resist working for a male boss and where women won't read books written by men." Have a listen.

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0:33:24.3 Mary Ann Sieghart: To see this more clearly, it helps to flip things around, so if you're a man, try this. Imagine living in a world in which you are routinely patronized by women, imagine having your views ignored or your expertise frequently challenged by them, imagine trying to speak up in a meeting only to be talked over by female colleagues, imagine women subordinates resisting you as a boss, merely because of your gender, and imagine women superiors promoting other women, even if they are less talented than you, imagine people almost always addressing the woman you're with before you, imagine writing a book and finding that half the population is reluctant to read it because it's written by a man, imagine being trolled by women on social media threatening violence against you merely for expressing an opinion. Not great, is it? See, the trouble is that privilege is often invisible, most men simply don't notice it until it's flipped around like this.

0:34:26.0 MS: And why would they? I struggle to notice my White privilege, yet in everyday life, it's as if men are swimming with the current in a river and women are swimming against it, so the men see the banks racing past them and congratulate themselves for swimming so powerfully, and they look at the women struggling to make headway against the current and think, "Why can't they swim as fast as me? They're obviously not as good."

0:35:11.9 Julie: Alright, so that is Mary Ann Sieghart, I'm not sure if I'm saying that right, author of "The Authority Gap" where she delves into unconscious bias in our everyday lives and reveals the scale of the gulf that still exists between the genders. And it's funny, I just wanna go back to one thing you said. I've never felt like you were talking over me, in fact, a lot of times I feel like I'm talking over you or I'm getting ahead of the game, this is just how friends have a conversation, and so, just to our listeners who have complained, it's all good, thank you ladies, but, you know, that I don't have to imagine that world, because I live in a world where I'm subjected to that every single day, right? And so, I really thought that it was interesting how she started to create a scenario where a man could imagine not having all of that privilege.

0:36:10.6 Torin: Yeah, she talks about boys being taught that they are more clever and better at math at the age of five, and then at six and seven years old, when boys and girls start to select people to participate on their teams, boys select boys for their teams, and that's when you start to see girls wanting to select the boys for their teams rather than, and over some of their young girlfriends, because they are being socialized, according to Mary Ann, I believe it's Sieghart, according to Mary Ann, and certainly a whole lot of other individuals, boys are propositioned or positioned as being superior, better at certain things, a number of things, a lot of things, too many things. Because of that, you know, young girls are internalizing this, and now they find themselves feeling a bit less, and we start to see why the formation of that imposter syndrome begins to fester. You know, I gotta tell, you know, personally, I have a granddaughter who's 10, and my granddaughter, I would say from five when she could start picking things out, maybe a little bit sooner than that, but real heavy between that five-year-old and eight, nine-year-old, and she's slowly coming out of it if you will, and I don't even wanna say coming out of it, let me just say it this way, five to eight, nine years old, you couldn't buy her anything girlish. No Barbie, no pink bicycle.

0:38:00.1 Torin: Like I literally bought her one of these gloves that was the Incredible Hulk, that made the sound and lit up and big and... Loved it. Try to put her in something frilly and girly, hated it, hated that, and I was like, "Well, we're gonna... " You know, I'ma support what she likes, I'ma buy her the things that she likes...

0:38:21.4 Julie: Yeah.

0:38:23.0 Torin: That's what I'ma do.

0:38:24.2 Julie: She doesn't need to be conditioned to think that other women are less than the men around her, she doesn't need to be conditioned to think that the men around her are better than her, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle right there, so much time that women work against each other, and men certainly aren't gonna, at least at this point, step in and sort of take up our mantle. Mary had a lot of good solutions though, right? Is for men to kind of start taking stock of what kind of time are they taking up and consuming all of the oxygen in the room, I will say, in spaces where women are present, and I love this one, "To provide elevation and applause to women, right? To be more active with regard to women," and I think that is something that men have to develop a comfort with.

0:39:16.3 Torin: Yeah, she calls it The Fantastic Group.

0:39:19.0 Julie: Yeah, and finally, my favorite one of all of her recommendations was to relegate chauvinist, misogynist and resistant men to the class of the dinosaurs. Bye boys.

0:39:30.8 Torin: The class of the dinosaurs. [chuckle] You know I'm smiling because... And I... These are little subtle drops. What was the joint for 2019? Dinosaurs, lions and diversity. Dinosaurs. Get rid of them dinosaurs.

0:39:47.7 Julie: Hell, yes.

0:39:48.2 Torin: Let's get rid of them. So, Mary was on it. I loved that clip. For those of you listening, make sure you listen again. And finally, finally, this is where history comes in, finally, Julia and I, and you, will be able to listen to this five years from now, 10 years from now, and we'll be able to kinda replay what we were thinking about when this moment happened. And last week, the Honorable Ketanji Brown Jackson had to make a number of statements, this is a statement that I don't think got enough press, enough airtime, and I wanted to make sure that Julie and I captured it in Crazy and The King. This is about perseverance.

0:40:55.5 Speaker 6: So I wanna end my time today by asking you this question on behalf of the young people I visited with last Friday in South San Francisco, and for the many others across the country who are watching this confirmation hearing today. What would you say, Judge Jackson, to all those young Americans, the most diverse generation in our nation's history, what do you say to some of them who may doubt that they can one day achieve the same great heights that you have?

0:41:35.7 Ketanji Brown Jackson: Thank you, Senator. That was very moving, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to young people, I appreciate it very much. I do it a lot for the reasons that you have articulated. I... I hope to inspire people to try to follow this path because I love this country, because I love the law, because I think it is important that we all invest in our future and the young people are the future. And so I want them to know that they can do and be anything. And I'll just say that... I will tell them what an anonymous person said to me once. I was walking through Harvard Yard, my freshman year, as I mentioned, I went to public school, and I didn't know anything about Harvard until my debate coach took me there to enter a speech competition, and I thought, "This is a great university." It was basically one of the only ones I had seen and I said, "Maybe I'll apply when I'm a senior." But, I get there and woah! It was so different. I'm from Miami, Florida. Boston is very cold. [chuckle] It was... It was rough. It was different from anything I'd known. There were lots of students there who were Prep school kids like my husband, [chuckle] who knew all about...

[chuckle]

0:43:49.4 KJ: Knew all about Harvard and that was not me. And I think the first semester I was really homesick, I was really questioning, "Do I belong here? Can I... Can I make it in this environment?" And I was walking through the yard in the evening, and a Black woman I did not know was passing me on the sidewalk, and she looked at me, and I guess she knew how I was feeling, and she leaned over as we crossed and said, "Persevere." I would tell them to persevere.

0:44:44.1 Speaker 6: Thank you Judge Jackson. You don't have to hope, I'll tell you right now. You do inspire. You are an inspiration.

0:44:55.0 KJ: Thank you.

0:44:56.0 S6: And I will associate myself with the closing words of my colleague and my brother, Senator Booker, that I too refuse to let anyone steal my joy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[music]

0:45:30.8 Julie: So, I watched that moment live, and...

0:45:34.5 Torin: You caught it. See, I didn't see it live.

0:45:37.0 Julie: I caught it, I got lucky, just happened to have the hearings on at that time, and I was kinda walking around sort of listening while I was doing some other things and I had to stop and take that moment in because it was so powerful, and through this whole process, she has just shown extraordinary vulnerability and ability to be transparent about the things in her life, and this was one of those moments where everybody needs that woman to say, "Persevere." Right? "Just persevere." Incredible.

0:46:16.9 Torin: Yeah, absolutely. It absolutely was incredible. And for me, it was a real complex moment because, again, I didn't have the luxury of seeing it live, and although if I would... I believe if I would have saw it live, I would have had the same emotional reaction to it, like that whole fall back motion, like, you know, you put your hand on your chin and you're just in a real thoughtful posture, you're taking it in, and what I found really interesting about that two or three minutes where she talked about perseverance, where she talked about what she would tell other young people, she at the same time is rewinding through all of the experiences that she went through.

0:47:04.0 Julie: Yeah.

0:47:06.0 Torin: Like she's being positive and emblematic of this incredible desire to do and be a spirit of good and force, and inspiration for these other people that she would be talking to, and right behind her, literally, is this rush of all of these experiences that she had to stand in the face of, to include the moment in which she was sitting in that chair.

0:47:38.0 Julie: Yeah, it did feel like a recall moment. You could see in her eyes that she was reliving that moment, and to talk about sort of the difference in both class and race in such an elegant way, when you think about all those young men who are being groomed to attend Harvard, and to do all of that right now. And also, I think she received a lot of praise. Cory Booker gave an adoring speech that drew me to tears, and I think it did to her as well. But as always, there are assholes out there with people like Shelly Washington calling her a chick, Charlie Kirk, unintelligent, and Mr. Tucker Carlson called her just a tanned version of Biden.

0:48:31.3 Torin: Yeah, yeah, and this one guy, but one of the good guys was a guy on Twitter, Tristan Snell, he said "KBJ just withstood Cruz, Hawley, Blackburn, and Cotton." And then he says, "Her reward? Putting up with Kavanaugh, Alito, Barrett, Roberts, Gorsuch, and Thomas every day for the rest of her career." I absolutely love that one. But the best tweet to me, J, the best tweet, at least the best one that I saw, was by a guy by the name of Clarence Patton. And he is quoting Ben Sasse because Ben Sasse asked her, "What judge would you mold yourself on?" And her response was, "I don't have to mold myself on a judge. I am a judge."

0:49:26.6 Julie: That's beautiful, beautiful. So to wrap up Women's History Month, we wanna celebrate these beautiful, amazing women and take a quick break and then jump into some more amazing women in our Her Voice segment.

0:49:43.3 Torin: Absolutely. Alright. Our Her Voice segment is where we amplify women that are making moves, and we have two this week, because we've done a lot of women in the show. Not do too much, but we wanna bring the show to a close. So, according to the four A's...

0:50:05.2 Julie: Never too many.

0:50:08.0 Torin: Yeah. According to the four A's, there are 22,000 ad agencies across the continent of North America. Less than 1% of them are owned by women. So a shout out this week to Zambezi founder and CEO, Jean Freeman, and Cornett President and owner, Christy Hiler, who this week launched Own It. And Own It is the first database of women-owned ad agencies. They've also created a podcast, and the guests on the podcast will be women and non-binary ad agency owners who tell their stories to help empower other women to start their own shops. Love, love, love what Zambezi Founder and Cornett President are doing through Own It.

0:51:00.0 Julie: And you can find them on Twitter @zmbzagency. Zmbzagency.

0:51:08.0 Torin: And I'll just say this real quick. Real quick, J, just... And when you go over to Zambezi's website, they're serious because they are being very, very transparent. They have their Zambezi values, nine of them, and then right below their values, there's a little statement that says, "What makes us different, makes us better." And then they put up their diversity stats. Most agencies are not willing to be that transparent. So I appreciate that you're not finding it in a report, it is actually on their website.

0:51:41.3 Julie: Yes, love it. And also then our second, Her Voice, this week is sitting at the intersection of people and our planet, focused on creating solutions that serve everyone, are Noemí Jiménez and Sam Hartsock of QB Consulting, and you can also find them on Twitter @consult_qb.

0:52:04.8 Torin: Love, love, love the work that Sam and Noemí are doing. It's been a while since I've talked to them. Probably about six or seven months. One just had a baby. They're doing beautiful things, growing the firm down there. One is in California, one's in Texas. Love, love, love the work that they are doing over at QB Consulting. Our quote this week, "At the end of the day, we all want the same thing. We want to be honest. We want to be respected. We want to feel good. And that's exactly how I show up." That was said by Ally Love. She's a Peloton instructor and fitness influencer on her popular Sunday Peloton workout class. You got a Peloton?

0:52:45.1 Julie: I do not. I've got a treadmill.

0:52:47.2 Torin: You got a treadmill? Okay, got it. I have neither. Well, let me just say this, I do. We have a treadmill, but the weight limit on the treadmill is like 240 and I'm 230, so I'm like, "We ain't even gonna... I need a little more than 10 pounds distance." So I don't have a Peloton and I don't get on the treadmill.

0:53:09.8 Julie: There we go. And today, as a quick mention, March 31st is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. And...

0:53:18.8 Torin: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I guess. And you got a name drop, don't you?

0:53:21.8 Julie: I've got two name drops this week. The first one I'm gonna say is a joint name drop from you and I to Adam Gordon and the team over at Candidate.ID, who earlier this week announced their acquisition. Adam is one of the best guys in our industry and so excited for he and his team to go on this next journey, and to get acquired is amazing. And the second one's a little bit harder. So this last week, the Foo Fighters lost their drummer, Taylor Hawkins. And I think that we all can know and appreciate what music does for us as humans and where it so often meets us where we need to be met, and the Foo Fighters is one of those bands for me, and Taylor Hawkins was an incredible talent and an incredible personality. So my love goes out to the entire Foo Fighters band, and Taylor's wife and kids.

0:54:18.8 Torin: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm glad that you'd raise that as an issue because he was trending and they absolutely said it was untimely. So I didn't read further to see what possibly happened, but all of the comments, so many of them were positive. So many of the comments talked about his energy, how he presented, he was always smiling. You have to absolutely appreciate when people unfortunately depart and the timing is just something that is so unexpected. Speaking of which, just some prayers go out. We didn't get the chance to do this two weeks ago, last week when we recorded, but to all of those who are out there who may have lost family in that plane that went down, that Chinese flight that went down, so for all of them that may be experiencing that untimely death as well, we send our heart and prayers out to each and every one of you. And we close reminding you, like that, to just be a better human. Be more empathetic, be more intentional about the work that you do, be more proximate and get close to the stories and the people you say you care about, those that are unfamiliar to you, and be more transparent.

0:55:42.2 Torin: Julie and I stay on the journey of transparency. We just want you to be a better human. Find your voice, build better teams, better culture, better work places. For now, J and I are ghost.

0:55:55.7 Julie: See ya.

[applause]