Creating Culture Together w/ David Bailey

For today’s conversation, Bethaney has a conversation with thought leader, artist, public theologian, and cultural anthropologist David Bailey. He is the founder and CEO of Arrabon, an organization that cultivates Christian communities to pursue healing and reconciliation in a racially divided world. For the past 5 years, Arrabon has successfully partnered with organizations across the country, providing guidance, education and the tools to build more empathetic, reconciled communities.

Insight: Everyone interprets life through their cultural location.  

Action: Increase your cultural intelligence by engaging in healthy cross cultural collaboration. 

About the Diversity Gap:

The Diversity Gap is for everyday people who want to pair their good intentions for diversity with true cultural change.

You can order the book, The Diversity Gap, at www.thediversitygap.com.

Bethaney Wilkinson is the Host and Executive Producer.

Thank you to our guests and patrons who make this podcast possible!

Instagram - @bethaneybree @thediversitygap

Website - www.bethaneywilkinson.com, www.thediversitygap.com

Links from the Show:

Submit a listener question of your own by visiting thediversitygap.com/podcast

Learn more and apply to The Growth Collective thediversitygap.com/growth-collective

Arrabon: www.arrabon.com/

Account David referenced: www.instagram.com/davidmbailey/

Urban Doxology: www.urbandoxology.com/

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, diversity, conversation, space, happen, reconciliation, race, realize, gap, create, dei, understand, piece, oftentimes, church, dissonance, listening, white, context, practitioners

SPEAKERS

Bethaney Wilkinson, David Bailey

Bethaney Wilkinson  00:00

Hi, this is Bethaney Wilkinson. Welcome to The Diversity Gap podcast, the home of race conscious leadership. Hey there, friends. Welcome to another episode of The Diversity Gap podcast. I am so excited to share today's conversation with you. It's actually one that I recorded in I think, like fall, maybe summer 2019. So, gosh, it was a long time ago now or it feels like it was a completely different universe. But it's such a rich conversation. I will be introducing that here in a moment. But before we get to the conversation, I want to extend an invitation to all of the DEI practitioners VPs of diversity and inclusion. Those of you who are leading your ERGs, you're leading your diversity task forces, you care about this work, whether diversity equity, inclusion, belonging, justice, whether those words are in your title or not, I want to extend an invitation to you to consider applying for The Growth Collective. The Growth Collective is a four month mastermind for DEI practitioners, those who have DEI in their titles, those who do not who are looking for Community Connections support, challenge growth, a place to practice your skills to workshop your frameworks to learn from other practitioners from across the country, if not across the world. And so if you are a DEI practitioner struggling with feeling isolated, struggling with feeling like there's not really a space for you to, again, workshop, your ideas or to learn new frameworks or to get feedback on some of the really challenging power and social and emotional dynamics, you're navigating in your role than the growth collectivist for you, I have been the primary or the the lone, aspiring change agent in the organizational context. And it comes with some really unique challenges. And I believe that there aren't enough spaces for DEI practitioners and professionals to get in a room and say, Hey, here's what I'm struggling with. Here's the support that I need. One of my favorite parts of this Growth Collective is that each session that we have, there will be a hot seat, where one person will give a presentation on all of the different aspects of the DEI program they're leading. And the group will give live active supportive feedback to you to help you refine the good work that you're doing in your organizational context. Here at The Diversity Gap, we are all about developing effective, authentic soul guided, just really well nourished and well supported race conscious leaders. And so if you are looking for that kind of support, visit www.thediversitygap.com/growthcollective. There's a link to learn more in the show notes here and you can apply and we'll start the conversation to see what kind of support you need. And to see how the diversity gap in the growth collective might be able to join you on your leadership journey. I hope you'll check it out. And I can't wait to see your application come through our pipeline. Okay, so for today's conversation, like I mentioned earlier, this is a conversation that I recorded back sometime in 2019. And I don't know what happened somehow I've lost the audio. And this episode never got edited or shared with the world. And so I found it, I remembered that I had this conversation with David Bailey, the founder and CEO of Arrabon and I was like, oh my goodness, that conversation was amazing. Did I ever share that conversation? I don't think I did. And so I got lost in my Google Drive looking for it. Because here's the thing, learning from David Bailey is like, golly, it is being watered from the deepest. Well, he is just a wealth of knowledge of wisdom. And those two things are not always the same. He doesn't only know a lot of information, but he applies them with such wisdom. He I mentioned this in the conversation, he shares so many incredible metaphors, helping to not only simplify complex realities, but to help us all as individuals and as organizations, take those lessons and move towards greater action, greater empathy, greater equity even and so I really am thrilled to share this conversation with you. I first connected with David and many years ago, I was in the process of discerning whether or not to take a new job, while also trying to decide what role I wanted to play in my church's racial reconciliation work. Now I know some of you might not know this about me depending on when you started listening to this podcast, but I got my start in this racial justice space through my faith. community. And so I learned a lot about racial justice about racial history through the lens of my faith through the lens of the action or inaction of church communities. And, and yeah, I don't remember all the details. But I had a good friend who connected me to David and said, Hey, David, super wise, he might be able to help you sort this out. And so, in that moment, I was super thrilled to learn from him personally, just he asked really great questions. And then in this podcast conversation, he shares incredible insights, again, incredible metaphors, stories to help us live our value for racial justice and racial healing, and racial reconciliation from a place of compassion, a place of real understanding, and from a place of authenticity. You can learn more about Esteban, the training coaching practice that he leads at www.arrabon.com It's going to be linked in the show notes. But until then, I hope you enjoy this incredible conversation with thought leader, artist, public theologian, just brilliant person, David Bailey. Oh, real quick, one more thing. The audio on this podcast is not my best work. This was back in the day, before I had a really good mic. And I think I was in a pretty spacious room because the sound is just not awesome. And then I think on David's mic, there may have been like a little, I don't know, like a piece of fuzz, I have no idea. Ultimately, I listened through the whole thing. And I was able to really track with the conversation. But I'm giving you this heads up just in case, the audio provides a challenge for you. If you need it, there is a transcript also linked in the show notes. And so if you want to just bypass the listening part and just read the conversation, or if you want to do both together, that's available to you at the link in the show notes along with all of the other transcripts for all the other episodes, should you need those. Okay, I'm done. Now, enjoy this conversation between me and David Bailey. Well, my first question, and this is where I start with everyone that I interview is, when did you first know that you have a race or ethnic identity?

David Bailey  07:13

That's a really good question. I mean, so I grew up in a context where I lived in a part of the suburbs, where black people and minorities would move to when they leave the city. And so I grew up in a diverse context. And I mean, it wasn't like a thing. Like, I think looking back, like one of my first childhood, childhood playmate friends was a Mexican girl. And so I think when I went to a black church, and I, you know, I think, I think it was this guy, brother, Mike, who was like, the only white dude that went to church with us. And he was a guy that struggled with mental health, like schizophrenia. And I think because the black church was like, the only church that would really like kind of take him in and kind of work with this brother. He was very brilliant. But then when he would get off his medication, he would, he would really kind of go on the deep end a little bit. And it was a church that dealt with people that had various types of either addictions or just challenges. So they were just like us to kind of get down in the gutter with people and learn how to, like love, loved one, folks. And so I think in that context, with this being a white dude, I think there was a white guy in a black space. I think that might have been one of the first times that I was conscious of race. Yeah, cause he was just like a white dude in the black space. So I think every other other kind of place. I mean, I was just, I mean, I don't know, I don't recall it being a thing. It was just, yeah, yeah. But I think that's where I got probably conscious of it.

Bethaney Wilkinson  09:05

Yeah. And so I know, in a second, I'm going to ask you more about like your work and Arrabon and what you do to support other communities who are pursuing racial justice or equity in a variety of ways. But when did you first decide that pursuing racial equity and, like, in a professional sense, was what you wanted to do with your life and with your work? Um, because I find that for a lot of people of color or leaders of color within organizations, it's like there's, of course, there's your like, your racial awareness, but then opting in to participate and like, doing justice is kind of its own decision. Can you talk a little bit about what that journey was like?

David Bailey  09:45

I mean, think about a man. It really I didn't really choose it. They kind of chose me. I mean, my parents were really involved in ministry, and they did. We were going to church on urban inner city context. My dad particularly focused on doing a lot of urban suburban partnerships. So I was just going wherever they went and doing whatever they did, you know, as a kid, and that's kind of part of a lot of work that they did. Then I worked professionally as a musician. And so from about 14, on all the way, to much of my professional life, I worked as a professional musician. And so, you know, I would play in all of that type of racial, ethnically and economically diverse context and go country clubs, to jazz clubs, to white churches, to black churches, and even international churches. And so, so that kind of had me professionally going out of different kinds of cultures. And, and one of the things off the cuff say is that when you're a music producer, or music director, you're a cultural anthropologist, I made you a good one, because you you, you get a chance to understand these different cultures, and how do you make a meaningful connection with folks. And so I brought that into my ministry work. And I realized when I'm sitting around meetings with pastors or ministry leaders, you know, they, they don't think about things anthropologically, they say, Hey, we're just gonna fulfill our mission. And not really realize a bunch of priests are worried that and they don't really realize that they're coming from a cultural perspective. And their audience might not have the same cultural perspective. And so yeah, so they, they just kind of might miss each mission, miss their audience, or not really fulfill the mission as great as it could be, because because they're not aware of their own cultural biases, or the cultural biases of their audience. And so, you know, really, it was my wife that kind of said, like, Hey, David, I realized people keep on asking and picking your brain about how do you do this, maybe should write it down. So I just, you know, I, I never thought about that. And I realized she was on to something. And that's, that started Arrabon in 2008. And that was since then, I've been going. So it wasn't, I mean, really wasn't like a conscious choice. And I think, where I was in 2008, and how I was trying to make sense of things, like, I've really evolved and matured over the last, you know, over a decade now. So that's kind of how I kind of got into it.

Bethaney Wilkinson  12:25

Gotcha. I love that point that you made about the importance of being like a cultural anthropologist, because I think, for a lot of people, even when they start their own companies or their businesses, especially if they're coming from a majority culture perspective, there is this often unspoken assumption that what they're working on is universal, as opposed to cultural. And so can you speak to that a little bit like for leaders who are listening, and they think, like, Oh, I'm doing this thing as a universal problem? Or? I don't know, but in reality, they have a cultural perspective, like, what what are some other thoughts? You know, around that?

David Bailey  13:03

Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, in the advertising industry, they understand, like, the importance of cost anthropology, you know, if if you have a degree and incorporate the biology, you can get a job and do an advertising, maybe some marketing, because they just know how human behavior works. And paying attention to that is really, really important and understand like, what is what is society? What are the people, what is humanity saying, is really, really key. And so I think particularly, it's these, these skill sets, the sociological, anthropological skill sets actually happen amongst minorities. And also women to some level, like women also get a chance to have to learn how to engage with to be bilingual culturally with men. But then also, people of color also have to do that, when you're when you aren't a part of like majority culture, that you have to learn how to be bilingual in order to move around in society. But oftentimes, people aren't conscious of that. They intuitively know how to do that. And I think when you can consciously understand how you're navigating the world, and not just only intuitively doing it, it actually gives you more resources and powers to navigate the world much better. And then if you're a participant of majority culture, whether you are male, or whether you are white, or both. You know, it's it's good to kind of realize there are more than one way of doing things, you know, and it would actually help you to be a lot more effective in your work and the work that you're doing. Yeah, and

Bethaney Wilkinson  14:51

I think too, it kind of, if you look at a lot of I need to do more research on this, but like a lot of statistics about like the future of the workplace and the The future of American society where we're only growing in diversity and cultural and ethnic diversity. And so it's almost like if you don't learn if everyone doesn't learn the skills of being bilingual or multilingual, both literally and figuratively, then you're not prepared to lead.

David Bailey  15:19

Yeah, 100% agree. Yeah. I mean, the main, the future is here, you know, and you gotta learn now, if you don't, you'll get, you'll get swept up. No, no, no, no doubt about it.

Bethaney Wilkinson  15:30

Um, well, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit more about Arrabon, you're saying it was in 2008? Your wife was like, Hey, you are doing all of these people keep asking you about this, how about we streamline it? Can you tell us more about what our bond is?

David Bailey  15:43

Yeah. So I mean, the word Arrabon means a foretaste of things to come. And it's a, it's a Christian nonprofit that focuses on helping Christian leaders in their communities, to have the tools to effectively engage in the work of reconciliation. And I know, there's a lot of problematic words with that, where reconciliation impacts what how do we define that? What does it mean, but But you know, the issue of racism as a distinctly unique Christian problem. All cultures have various prejudices, all cultures have various levels of oppression, oppression is like the human problem. But how that looks is particularly unique to different society. So oppression looks very different in India than it looks like in America, and it's different in in Africa than it does in America, that's different in England than it does in America, or in South America, it looks different. But in the United States, you know, we've basically created this, this system called race, and in, and it's uniquely Christian, because, you know, it was co opted, and a lot of like, Christian theology was co opted to justify a lot of slavery and race and, and Jim Crow, and all of those type of things. And so some of the people who are very well meaning in certain Christian spaces, oftentimes don't realize, then what the kind of racist or unjust ideologies that might have been inherited. And so we help people unpack and understand a little bit of that, but then even more, so what we do is we try to help people know what to do with it, you know, like, how do we do something different than what's been done. And so what that looks like is, you know, we help Christian leaders, help their community understand reconciliation, as spiritual formation. And then when I do our reconciliation, I, I, I agree with some of the critiques of that word, where it's, you know, people say, like, hey, in most cases, with reconciliation, you gotta have two people who are, are equal, you know, and, and there's, something's broken, and that relationship is broken. So you're trying to reconcile that relationship back to what it once was. And, you know, if you're talking about the relationship between Europeans, you know, Africans and First Nations people, those relationships will never equal. So we're not trying to reconcile, you know, what happened at 1492, or whatever. What we're trying to do is a theological term, and kind of, in the Christian understanding of the world is that the world was whole, it was good, it was beautiful, it was diverse, and then it was broken. And, and, and so it's a matter of trying to bring more wholeness, goodness and beauty, and eventually, into the world will come together and be whole, good and beautiful. Again, you know, and, and we're trying to be a foretaste of what that looks like. So that's, that's what we try to help Christian leaders think through. So when we, when we have conflict, it's your opportunity to bring goodness, beauty and grace. And so so. So we see that as a basic human need, we see that as how we can be formed to be more Christ like and so. So that's the foundation that we lay. The second piece that we do is try to increase the cultural intelligence of the community. To realize that we come from different spaces of ourselves, we could talk past each other or misinterpret information because of a lack of cultural intelligence. So we try to increase the cultural intelligence. The third thing we do is try to help the community understand the diversity of narrative that we can all have a different the same set of facts that could happen but same set of events that could happen but different experiences based off of that. And so we do the work to increase the share people with standard Motorola differentiator narrative. The fourth thing we do is help folks engage in healthy cross cultural collaboration. And then the fifth piece is that we helping people engage in reconciling culture baking. We are here today because of what happened yesterday. And so if we want to see something different that we need to increase new culture today for we want to see tomorrow. So so that's what we help institutions do and how to engage in that. And we have kind of three programs that we kind of express them. One is through trainings and consulting. The second one is do an urban doxology songwriting internship where we get young people between ages 18 to 25. They study the things that we teach, they study justice, theology, reconciliation, urban context, and instead of writing papers, where they do what they write worship songs, and these were songs become was in our, what we're seeing in our congregation is what we distribute out around the country. And then the third piece is there's a band called Urban Doxology, who sings the songs, but they've invited this in the worship practices. And so they travel around the country and lead worship and do workshops and teach people do this in their own communities. So so that's kind of how we, you know, we focus particularly on our faith communities, because, you know, there's a lot of challenges and faith communities, and a lot of times, people in a racial equity profession, don't have patience for Christians who, who might be a little ignorant about what's going on. So that's the work that we do. And sometimes people in secular spaces might hire me out to come talk to their business or whatever. But as a ministry, we stick within kind of the Christian context.

Bethaney Wilkinson  21:52

Okay, so a big question. And I only have a couple more questions for you. But a big question that I'm always asking, especially doing this work that has a lot to do with race, and systems and history and all these things. How do you know that you're having a good impact when the problem of racism is so large and so deeply entrenched? And so part of me thinking like, how do you measure progress? But then also just generally? Yeah, how do you feel what helps you know that you're making things better when the problem is so big?

David Bailey  22:29

I mean, the way that I answered this is that like, I'm a big local community guy. Like, I always want to see, I'll get knowledge from anybody, you know, whether I agree with you disagree with you. I'm open for truth, no matter where it comes from, who it comes from. But I only get wisdom from people who are rooted into something, some people that are part of a thing. You know, in the conference world, there's so many people who have these concepts and ideas, and aren't a part of any kind of community. They just go around to talk about stuff all the time. But they haven't actually been doing the stuff and put in practice, and I'll get knowledge from them. But the people that I really admire and respect are the ones who are known by a community that's really Camille is trying to make stuff work out in the community. And that's, that's where I think true wisdom comes from. And so oftentimes, like, we look at like Dr. King, or Gandhi, or Mother Teresa, who like these, or even Nelson Mandela, and we're like, oh, man, I'm trying to start a movement. I'm trying to do something great, you know, and I'm like, Dr. King was just a kid, like, I mean, I mean, he was like a young man who just finished his PhD and had his first church, he got tired of being under his dad. He was in Montgomery. And there was this thing called Jim Crow. That was a significant pastoral concern to his congregation. And some of the other pastors that were around the table. He was a group of pastors in Montgomery that were like, Hey, we got to do something. And they came with this boy bus boycott, he just got pushed out because he was the youngest one that had the least amount of lose. Um, he did not come out to be like, I want to start this movement called the Civil Rights Movement. He was just serving his local context. And he just so happened to be nice looking. He just so happened to be born during the time with technology, speak a piece of technology called Color TV TV, colored TV came out, and he he spent a good amount of time studying and then they just had to write just for the right time to help spark something nationally, and but it started out in a local community. So I do think if you think about the issues of race, and the global space, and just I'm gonna call but just kind of national space and just all I have Things are challenging. I mean, it's an impossible task. But I think that reconciliation I think everybody has a piece in the reconciliation puzzle to play. And I think that's going to be in your company is going to be in your family, I think it's going to be in your, like, local community of look at the kind of stuff that you have in your hand. And so I guess the close that thought out is, you know, there was a guy named Moses, if you've seen a prince of Egypt, you might be familiar with Moses. And he was he was an oppressed people group he was trying to let let go to be free. And he had friends, his his old friend he grew up with named Pharaoh. They had a showdown, they said, like, hey, Let my people go. And eventually, Pharaoh let them go. But then, you know, Pharaoh had buyer's remorse. And he was like, oh, man, maybe I should, I shouldn't let them go. And so Pharaoh started to chase after the Israelites, when they were up a few miles ahead. And Moses realized Pharaoh was behind him, but then the Red Sea was in front of them. And Pharaoh was like, Oh, God, what do we do? When you got the thing that you try not to be behind you that has caused you so much trouble and a precedent? For the nurses insurmountable thing in front of you? big body of water? And they would like like, what's, what do you do? If Moses looks up to God says, God, what do you do? And God's like, oh, I gave you everything that you need, we looking for me for looking at what's in your hand. And Moses had a staff in his hand. And that was a thing that God used to have on the part of the Red Sea. And you know, you whether you're religious person or not. I think when we deal with issues of race, we're in a red sea moment where there are some things that are behind us that we don't want to go back to. And the future is looking pretty challenge. And also this very moment sounds very challenging. But I think they want to read the moment and we interessi moment, look at the thing that's in your hand, because I think that's the thing that's going to help you to get through the challenge that you've asked.

Bethaney Wilkinson  27:26

Wow. Um, man, that is so encouraging. I have never thought of it that way. Wow. Okay. So my last question for you. This is the last question I asked everyone that I talked to the goal of the this project, The Diversity Gap is to explore the gap between what we intend and then what actually happens in real life as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion work in our organizations and in our communities. And so, in your own words, as you look at the landscape of the work that you do, and the teams that you support, what is the diversity gap, and how do we close it?

David Bailey  28:10

I think we understand what the nature of races like race was created. To allow one people a group to maintain and cultivate wealth. So whiteness and blackness was created. Because when Europeans and Africans were Europeans read the Germans, Africans were enslaved folks, they would teach they teamed up together to fight against the minority group of landowning rich men. And so those rich men who own land, said, Hey, we don't want this to happen again. So either they were people who made law lawmakers, or they were friends with folks and made laws. And they said, like, we can't do this anymore. We, we don't want these poor people to band together to overtake us. And so let's do this. Let's divide these poor people. By we'll call if you're black, we'll assume that you're a slave. And if you're white, when we'll make it illegal for you to be a slave, you'll at least be what they call a Christian servant. And we know that you can have opportunity to to change your your freedom and to get the opportunity to advance economically. And so what this did was to create a situation where you have poor people who just so happened to be white supervise the poor black folks, and and have somebody underneath them that they can look down on and have somebody above them that they look up to or aspire to be, but it actually didn't change their actual economic status. And so it's important to realize that that's what race is about. Race is about. It was created for me economic oppression, and to create economic instability for one group of people, and economic aspirations for another group of people. And so and also to maintain a cultivate economic power for another group people. And so we just understand that that's what races have been about, and that was about slavery, then it'd be about Jim Crow, he's understanding race economically, then you realize the way to what the problem is really about economics and economic opportunities. And, and so here's the thing, like, I think the diversity gap is, is really my friend Rudy Rasmus said it this way, if you want to know what's going on, listen, when people say but follow the money trail. And the more that we can create economic opportunities for men and people of color, sorry for women and people of color. And the more we create economic opportunities for women and people of color. And I'm not talking about just to get paid more, I'm talking about so that they can be entrepreneurs, so that they can be employers, not just employees, there's such, there's more and white communities at certain spaces levels, there's just more opportunity to get capital. And there is not that same opportunity to get capital, amongst people of color, even folks like you and myself, Bethany who are in white spaces. There aren't that many ones of us who are running wealth capitalized businesses and nonprofits, you know, and, and I one of the few, it must be like, I'm, like, by the grace of God Arrabon did not come up with connected to any kind of, like white institution, like it was just, it was literally, you know, just kind of God's grace and sovereign hands kind of helping to navigate to certain spaces. But when I school well capitalized, but we're in like, I know how to money trail goes in these spaces, you know, and that that circle is very small, and they trade money back and forth to each other, any grants and all those kinds of things. That's the way I see it. Like, I'm not telling you something I heard I see it, I want boards. I'm on all these different things. And I think when people realize it's not like that, because people are personally racist. It's like that because the system was designed to be that way. And you don't have to you don't have to be personally racist in order to, to participate in this system, the system was designed is getting the results of the store the desire for. And so I think when you understand that, then that that creates opportunity to fulfill that, to fill that gap. You know, and I think, I think any conversation about that is, you know, it's not it's not a substantive conversation, you know, mean, actually, that might be too harsh, harsh phrase, but this isn't that getting to the root cause is probably a better way of saying that. I, you know, I think and I do think we have to get to that place where we do things at that level.

Bethaney Wilkinson  33:34

That's yeah, it's really good. I think that'll be really eye opening. And I think it'll give a lot of clarity to people about who, especially those who are asking, like, Okay, what do I need to do differently, as their understanding of race as an economic system, how those two things are tied together, as they're growing in that understanding, being able to see like, oh, actually creating these opportunities for ownership and, and to be able to create that not necessarily to create wealth, but to at least sustain and grow something for women and people of color, I think that's just going to be really helpful to people. So

David Bailey  34:11

yeah, and even just to unpack that, because So imagine you have a bull's eye. And economic capital is the thing that's in the red that you're trying to get to, outside of that, and where to get that as another ring. And that's the intellectual capital of how to get access to that actual financial capital in a way that you get a chance to understand intellectual capital is the third ring and that's that social capital. And so people do business and they give philanthropy, philanthropy to the people that they know and they like and so because of the way our cities are designed because of the way the race is worth in America, they're oftentimes just aren't even people of color or women that are in these spaces, etc. to social circle. even know who they are, let alone like them, you know. And so, so that is one space that is really important to understand. And we kind of know that and the diversity gap conversation tends to know about how do we engage in our social spaces, to make our social spaces look and more diverse. But wherever that social space is going on, there's an economic core that's at the inside of that. And what happens is that a lot of times, people come or women aren't invited to that next level. And that's the intellectual capital aspects of how you access the money. So for example, you know, if you went to Harvard Business School or Stanford Business School, there's some social capital that people know, you know, and you can have an Amen, and what was Harvard, they went to Stanford, but then what's in as you've learned how to get money for startup money, like you know how to do a presentation, you know, how to do certain kinds of things. And so you get that from their social circle. But the thing about that is, it's really, really important understand is that there's certain conversations, that that oftentimes doesn't happen because company, there's certain conversations don't happen when women are in the room, there's certain kinds of conversation that will happen when people of color in the room, or there's an assumption that folks know, when they're being judged off of the intellectual capital, when they're in that social space, that social capital space, they're being judged about, like, Oh, everybody knows, this is how you put a proposal together? Well, if you didn't come from a community, they put proposals together for multimillion dollar companies or know how to do pitches, then you didn't even I didn't even know how to do a pitch. If I had to do a business plan. People like oh, man, people start doing business plans, like 30 years ago, you know, they do they do pitches, you know, you know, nobody prints off a piece of paper and says, like, Hey, here's my business plan, can you take a weekend read this, you know, and so, so that's how to do stuff as the intellectual capital aspect of it. And I think, when you when you understand the gap, and women and people of color, what you want to do is maybe just try to ask, and then there's some people in my life, who would have been helpful to kind of help me to ask cocoa dominating the right questions, you know, and when you're a woman, and we're the only person, the only woman in the space and you know, the person of color, most of the time, it's not a safe enough space to be like, Hey, I don't know this, can you? Can you can you tell me that because if you don't know it, then it's oftentimes a judgment on your character. And so just understanding that would help out a ton. And then the third piece would be getting in on that bull's eye. That I found that the most of what I've ever I've been able to raise a lot of capital has really been tied to have an generally speaking a white female advocate, or, or a white, some kind of white advocate, like, and I don't have any ego on this kind of stuff. I just recently, let me think about this. Yeah, I think I might have one, maybe two people who have actually given money to me directly, like I'm talking about 25,000. Like that kind of level of 20 $25,000. Of like, one time gifts, like, to me directly, most of that has come through a relationship with some white person. And I just think, you know, I'm not like, I'm not a I'm not angry. But I mean, sometimes I might be angry about it. I don't think it should be that way. But I mean, I'm just like, it just is what it is. So I just know, that's how it has to work. So, you know, when I'm talking with white people who are tight with me that wants to do something, I'm like, Hey, can you can you go to bat with me in the community? Because like, people who can give check for $25,000 oftentimes give $2,500 to minorities. One because basically, oftentimes, because they don't know and trust them in the same way that they would they want to trust somebody who's white. And I'm not saying that they're racist, I'm saying this because culturally, that's what they're familiar with. And this is an outsider coming in. So I don't know if they can handle these resources in this way. And as a lot of times, these like cultural biases that have been a part of this conversation, so I mean, these are things that I've learned over the last 11 years of doing this, this organization and and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to navigate around around these things and navigate through these things and, and I just want to encourage people to realize this is a thing and then you can do something about it, you know.

Bethaney Wilkinson  40:05

So good. Thanks for breaking that down and, and illuminating it with some of your own stories too. I think that will be super helpful for everybody. So gosh, thank you, thank you for your time and your wisdom and your metaphors you're really great at just like you kind of said earlier, taking what's complicated and making it simple. So yeah, thank you so much, David, how can people follow you in your work?

David Bailey  40:29

Yeah, so I would say, Go on arrabon.com definitely sign up for the newsletter, we we, the fourth quarter going into 2020 We're actually going to have some really good resources, and that is gonna provide some great resources. I am not super great at social media. But you still can follow me like whenever I do something, at least you could find a find that out. Is David airband. upside is David. David M. Bailey. That's my social media handle David M. Bailey. And yeah, you check out Urban Doxology. Check out on Spotify, Apple Music, what kind of stuff?

Bethaney Wilkinson  41:15

Cool, cool. I'll make sure to link to all those things in the show notes. Oh, gosh, so rich, right. I really hope that you enjoyed that conversation between me and David. And I want to encourage you to grab a moment after this podcast episode is over to jot down on a piece of paper or in the Notes app on your phone. Just take a moment to capture what's resonating, or what's created dissonance for you. resonance and dissonance I find that listening for these two things and our hearts minds, stories bodies, gives us such good data in our leadership lives. And so when I say listen for what's resonating, listen for the thing that sticks out to you, that feels good to you. That sounds true that brings energy to your organizational life to your leadership to your thinking on diversity, equity and inclusion. And then in terms of dissonance, that's where we pay attention to discomfort, things we didn't like things we didn't agree with. And when we create space for both the parts that resonate, and the parts where there's dissonance, we really get into the magical dance of becoming race conscious leaders of practicing mindfulness. It's just a really simple way to dial way into what's happening for you and what the unique invitations are for you to expand as DEI leader, practitioner champion, advocate, whatever title you would use for yourself. And so again, take a moment after this episode is over to just jot down the resonance, jot down the dissonance either or it can just be one thing, or it can be 10 things, whatever you have time for. But that's one way to make sure that you're able to carry these lessons into your future. And lastly, as we land the plane here, I want to extend an invitation to you to submit a listener question if you have questions about this episode. If you have questions about any part of your organization's diversity, equity and inclusion work, I would love to tangle with you around those things. And so if you check out the link in our show notes, again, there's lots of links in the show notes today. There's a link for you to submit a listener question and once you submit it, I will review it and hopefully in a future episode, I'll be able to respond to that question. So check out that link. And I look forward to catching you here next week. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Diversity Gap podcast. I'm really glad you're here. If this episode has been helpful to you in a big way in a small way. Please take a few minutes to rate and review the show. This is how other people find The Diversity Gap and are able to get involved in our work. You can also learn more about the diversity gap and all of our offerings over at www.thediversitygap.com Thanks for being here.