![Episode 74: Whites’ Self-Interest In Opposing Racism With Diane Woods [The Amiel Show]](https://amielhandelsman.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Diane-Woods-e1516844441871.jpg)
You support Black Lives Matter and oppose racial discrimination because you want to help black people. If you have light skin, you can’t get much more noble than that, right?
Not quite. According to this week’s guest, leadership coach and retired executive Diane Woods, the idea that white people need to be altruistic toward blacks is itself a racist idea.
Huh?
Yes, you read that correctly.
In fact, as Diane explains, white folks have an intelligent self-interest in opposing racist ideas and embracing all of us as equally capable and worthy human beings.
I’ve known Diane for almost two decades. She hosted a book club I joined. Back then, I saw her as a fountain of wisdom and curiosity, and over time, those qualities have only grown.
Please join me in this second episode in my new series on the American experience with race. If you enjoyed my conversation last week with Greg Thomas—or, heck, even if you haven’t yet—you’ll want to tune into this one.
Please share with friends and colleagues so we can carry Diane’s voice far into the conversation around race and culture.
Highlights
- 5:00 Why Ta-Nehisi Coates and Diane weren’t surprised by white supremacists marching
- 9:00 Diane’s spiritual teacher’s blind spot around race
- 15:00 Evolution of race work over 50 years
- 20:00 Crafting herself to look good for white corporate America
- 31:00 Despite injustice, my inner life is mine and I will defend it
- 35:00 “They just don’t want us here”
- 41:00 “I may say racist things but I’m pure on the inside”
- 49:00 Racism is corrosive for white people
- 1:02:00 Whites freeing themselves from the burden of racism
- 1:05:00 Countering racism is in whites’ intelligent self-interest
Listen to the Podcast
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Explore Additional Resources
- Diane Woods’s web site
- Stamped From The Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram Kendi
- Article about Ibram Kendi in ESPN’s The Undefeated
- Bryan Stevenson
- Movie about James Baldwin: “I Am Not Your Negro”
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