Wanda Swan, is the Founder and Director of the The Swan Center for Advocacy & Research, Inc., Founder and CEO of Start By Talking, an anti-oppressive education and multimedia company that helps White folx, leaders, and organizations map their Oppressive Muscle Memory to dismantle White Supremacy and anti-Blackness, and podcast host of Come Get Your White People; where she hosts conversations and engages in the theory-making and analysis that undergirds her work to unpack the taken-for-granted, automatic attitudes and behaviors that maintain racist practices and processes among people in relationships and organization. Our conversation is riveting and insightful, provoking the type of deep reflection I imagine happens for her clients in 1:1 leadership coaching, their online learning center, and organizational training and assessment. Follow Wanda on Instagram @startbytalking

We are in for quite a treat. Malesha (Mali) Taylor-Browning joins us to talk about the art of leadership. Malesha is an accomplished vocal artist, TEDx Speaker, strategist and the creator of The E.L.E.V.A*T.E. Framework: 8 Guiding Principles for BIPOC leaders and organizations. This framework has emerged from her lived-experience as a trained opera singer, Black woman, Mother, professor, arts administrator and consultant working across arts disciplines and multiple sectors for the past 25 years.   Often, Black women’s leadership praxis involves bringing together multiple complex aspects of ourselves and Malesha’s story and articulation of her work is no exception. I hope you all enjoy this conversation and walk away from it as full as I did.   Learn more about Malesha and her work at musesalon.org/ and follow Muse Salon on Instagram @muse_salon_collaborative To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠

The final installation. Yes, we deal with our new client. They are a system. Their name is Whiteness. As a reminder, I invited @yolie_sealeyruiz and @mindfield_drj to a conversation of remembrance and reflection. We began this conversation Fall 2023 delighted that #ClaudineGay was named president of Harvard University all the while #JoanneAEpps and #OrinthiaMontague were both reported dead within weeks of one another at the start of the term. We were not a week into the 2024 new year when we learned that #BonnieCandia-Bailey completed suicide beneath a deluge of bullying and harassment at Lincoln University by her superior. What is it about the higher education context that makes it so fatal for Black women? While, Black people and Black women in particular have found access to respectable professional lives within a narrow range of roles, education has always been an access point. We’ve been lauded as excellent educators, and now we have must figure out how to survive in academia. Join me for this special 3-part SBR series with my dear colleagues, as we explore what is happening in academia for BIPOC folx, why it is happening (utilizing a framework of intersectional racial and gender trauma), and how we can enact acts of refusal to enable our own recovery. #SheBeenReady!ThePodcast was created for moments like these. Moments where we want to get voice and perspective from Black women thought- leaders about the experiences of us by us. What I know, what we all know is that Black women are not a monolith, nor are the negative experiences we face unique to us. What I also know is we offer a unique perspective that might, just might, lead us to a path of liberation. Somehow, like my grandmother, my mother, my aunties, and my sister “-friends, we survive these spaces and sometimes even thrive. Tune in. LINK IN BIO. #RefusalRecovery #SheBeenReady #RacialTraumaIsrael #DyingInAcademia #BlackWomenAtWork #YouWon’tBreakOurSoul #We’reTellingEverybody

Welcome to Part II our special She Been Ready! The Podcast Conversation of this engaging conversations with Drs. Maryam Jernigan-Noesi and Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz, Break My Soul: BIPOC Folks in Academia. In this portion of the conversation we dive deeper and try to unearth "the why". We want to understand why we see what we see happening for BIPOC folks in higher ed through the view of three Black women scholars utilizing frameworks of racial literacy and intersectional racial and gender trauma. Powerful! #RefusalandRecovery #SheBeenReady #RacialTraumaIsReal #DyingInAcademia #BlackWomenAtWork #YouWon’tBreakOurSoul #We’reTellingEverybody

Release the wiggle, release the job, release the stress, forget the rest! Beyoncé had it right. In the midst of so much sadness and despair, she released her album #TheRenaissance, or rather, welcomed us to it. And it is in the backdrop of her song #BreakMySoul, a refusal anthem, that I invited @yolie_sealeyruiz and @mindfield_drj to a conversation of remembrance and reflection. We began this conversation Fall 2023 delighted that #ClaudineGay was named president of Harvard University all the while #JoanneAEpps and #OrinthiaMontague were both reported dead within weeks of one another at the start of the term. We were not a week into the 2024 new year when we learned that #BonnieCandia-Bailey completed suicide beneath a deluge of bullying and harassment at Lincoln University by her superior. What is it about the higher education context that makes it so fatal for Black women? While, Black people and Black women in particular have found access to respectable professional lives within a narrow range of roles, education has always been an access point. We’ve been lauded as excellent educators, and now we have must figure out how to survive in academia. Join me for this special 3-part SBR series with my dear colleagues, as we explore what is happening in academia for BIPOC folx, why it is happening (utilizing a framework of intersectional racial and gender trauma), and how we can enact acts of refusal to enable our own recovery. #SheBeenReady!ThePodcast was created for moments like these. Moments where we want to get voice and perspective from Black women thought- leaders about the experiences of us by us. What I know, what we all know is that Black women are not a monolith, nor are the negative experiences we face unique to us. What I also know is we offer a unique perspective that might, just might, lead us to a path of liberation. Somehow, like my grandmother, my mother, my aunties, and my sister “-friends, we survive these spaces and sometimes even thrive. Tune in. LINK IN BIO. #RefusalRecovery #SheBeenReady #RacialTraumaIsrael #DyingInAcademia #BlackWomenAtWork #YouWon’tBreakOurSoul #We’reTellingEverybody

Dr. Wendi is in conversation with Dr. Jennifer Mullan, a clinical psychologist who is lovingly called the “Rage Doctor”.  Dr. Mullan is the creator and founder of Decolonizing Therapy and has merged her training as a psychologist with her lived experience to question the ways in which the practice of psychology works and doesn’t work, for whom, and why.  Her work is powerful and is outlined in her recent book, Decolonizing Therapy: Oppression, Historical Trauma and Politicizing your Practice. Dr. Mullan has cultivated her practice through her work as a professor preparing social workers, therapists, and psychologists in academic programs as well as direct clinical work with clients, specifically young people identifying as BIPOC in complex communities and environments.  Her latest work amplifies the importance of getting acquainted with rage such that its expression can be liberatory, releasing her clients (individuals and organizations) from the captivity of unexpressed emotion to the lightness available when one listens to what their rage is attempting to tell them about their boundaries and need for care and protection.  This, she says, distinguishes “rage for rage sake” from sacred rage.  Follow Dr. Jenn Mullan on Instagram @decolonizingtherapy or on her website at https://www.decolonizingtherapy.com To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliamsWebsite: ⁠⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

Dr. Carole Dorham-Kelly, or as she is also known, DC, is the Chief Executive Officer of Rubicon Programs. At Rubicon, they do exceptional work to address the scourge of poverty by equipping participants in their programs to develop the economic mobility to move out of poverty through developing assets, income, wellness, and connections. I asked DC to join me in conversation during our first meeting. We were invited to participate in a conference about workforce issues.  I learned she was a counseling psychologist and in that moment I knew we had to meet.  I am a counseling psychologist, too. And as a scholar and practitioner in the leadership development space, I was curious about DC’s experience as a counseling psychologist, a Black woman, and a CEO.  Sis, is a whole BAWSE and I wanted to talk with her about how who she is and her background, professionally as well as her identity, shape her leadership.  To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠

Activist, Community Organizer, Change Maker. Nsé Ufot is nothing short of a transformative presence in our political landscape. Former CEO of the New Georgia Project, an organization founded by Stacey Abrams, Ufot's coalition building and organizing efforts turned the "Peach State Purple". In this incredible interview, I had the pleasure of being in conversation with a thought-leader and "doer" whose political labor in Georgia got voters' and the country's attention focused on the oasis of the southeast during the 2020 Presidential Election and the 2021 run-off election. We know, now, the impact of both of these elections on the political landscape of the nation at such a tumultuous time. Nsé's story is one of a woman that has #BeenReady! and we need to learn from her! Specifically, what is the leadership praxis of the woman who was at the heart of it all? Who is she and how do her identities shape her leadership? But perhaps, more importantly, how do we find the courage to big things in the face of big power? Nsé's story and journey are filled with gems and in this interview she dropped a few of them. Follow Nsé Ufot's work and conversation on line on her website at https://nseufot.com/ and on Instagram @thenseufot (linktree.com/thenseufot). To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

The marriage of heart and intellect is a beautiful thing, made so for its rarity. And yet, in my conversation with Dr. Yolanda (Yolie) Sealy-Ruiz, we get just that as she shares her work bridging the arts and academia to make layers of ourselves available for our own life practice and for our work and relationship with others. One such example is her program, Archaeology of Self, where she encourages new and seemingly seasoned teachers to do the inner work (in the trenches), socio-emotional work, to understand what motivates and informs their practice in the classroom. Dr. Sealy-Ruiz is an accomplished scholar in the areas of racial literacy, culturally responsive pedagogies, Black Girl literacies, and work with Black and Latinx high school boys. Her work is featured in her books and articles and made accessible in public forums, such as her TedX Penn Talk on Truth, Love, & Racial Literacy. Dr. Sealy-Ruiz is also the author of two volumes of poetry, The Love Vortex and The Peace Chronicles, in which she does the excavation work for herself that she coaches educators through. And she also hails from the South Bronx, USA! A lover of words and poetry, she is currently writing her forthcoming poetic memoir about coming of age in the 80's Regan Era economics, the war on drugs and Black and Brown communities, and the birth of hip hop which she will align with the 2023 50th anniversary of hip hop and the opening of the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx! Follow Yolie's work in a few places. Her website: https://www.yolandasealeyruiz.com/ Instagram: yolie_sealeyruiz X (formally Twitter): @RuizSealey Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ysealeyruizpoetry LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yolandasealeyruiz-714a24126/ To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

Black women are moving in and through in academia while cultivating movement within academic spaces. I see it up close in my own work and also in the work I witness and support others through as they navigate these complex and often intersectionally toxic contexts. And one woman whom I watch with bated breath and intrigue is Dr. Maryam Jernigan-Noesi. I simply want to see what she will do next! Author of academic texts and children's' literature, consultant and truth-teller, Dr. Jernigan - Noesi has rightly been called the "Olivia Pope of racism" as she utilizes her expertise in racial trauma and background as a counseling psychologist. CEO of Jernigan and Associates Psychology and Educational Consulting, she and her colleagues offer a myriad of comprehensive consultation services and professional development experiences to educators, mental health providers, health care settings, and corporations. In this conversation, I talk with Dr. Jernigan- Noesi about her experiences in academia, and how she created a "way out of her own way" to be an entrepreneurial psychologist within her private practice and consulting, while continuing to provide students with transformative professional development experiences while making her psychological expertise accessible to many more, including children and families in myriad ways, like her co-authored children's book, I Miss My Friend, a story of two Black girls grappling with the complex feelings of loss, change, and hope during the pandemic. Learn more about Dr. Jernigan - Noesi's work on her website and following her feed on Instagram (@mindfield_drj). To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠

Hiking is healing! Yes, indeed, it is. Just ask, founder of Hiking is Healing Collective, Tia Williams. In this episode, Dr. Wendi is in conversation with Tia. Tia is an experienced social justice and safe space facilitator who has developed a passion for empowering young people around social justice issues and bringing cultural awareness to those around her. Tia’s identities help shape the work that she does on college campuses and in the community. She is a Black, queer, Buddhist woman living in the south, who loves talking about hiking and healing.  Tia holds an M.Ed. in College Student Affairs Administration and an MSW in Social Work both from the The University of Georgia. She currently works at Emory University in the Center for Women as the Assistant Director. Prior to her start at Emory in 2014, she worked at what was formerly Gainesville State College (now The University of North Georgia) and the University of Georgia. This past fall, Tia gained a certification from The Earthbody Institute in Ecotherapy Level 1 and will soon complete a certification from Florida State University in College Student Wellbeing, Trauma, & Resilience. @tiaisliving and @hikingishealingco. To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠

Do Black women need a communications strategy? We might. Whether it be the negative media portrayals of Black women of ALL walks of life, the failure to consider the vast range of Black women's personhood and experience, or the willingness to believe the worst of us before and even after we've had an opportunity to tell our side of the story, we may need help to be seen accurately in the public sphere. If only we could be Chelsea Fuller's client. Chelsea is the Managing Partner & Senior Strategist, for Black Alder, a radical story-telling and communications strategy firm. In this engaging conversation, Chelsea shares her experiences in formulating powerful and accurate narratives at the heart of some of the most impactful movements of our time. You will have seen her work in innumerable impact outlets telling the actual story of the The Movement for Black Lives, The Me Too Movement and and other formations working to end systemic violence,. In this conversation, we discuss the importance of story-telling and narrative accuracy to make the social and justice impacts that are both necessary for societal change and honor the loss and harm experienced by the communities and families directly impacted. You can follow the work of Chelsea at Black Alder at https://blackalderllc.com/ and on Instagram and Twitter (formerly X) @blckaldr. If you have been enjoying the conversations and guests we've hosted on She Been Ready! The Podcast, I'd love to hear about it. Please like and subscribe to the pod and drop us a line and let us know what you are taking away from these conversations. To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

Dr. Wendi is in conversation with Nataki Garrett. Nataki is a change-maker and trailblazer, a nationally recognized director, and most recently, the sixth Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). She was the first woman to artistically lead a $44 million theater company and was OSF’s first Black female in this role. Born and raised in Oakland, CA, stemming from a family of educators, artists, and community organizers, her work and leadership are both inspired and inspiring.  How does one lead through retelling our collective stories in our collective image? What is required to disrupt the narratives that have erased so many of us?   These are the questions beneath the questions shaping my conversation with Nataki. She is brilliant, that is obvious, but she is more than that. She is brave because of her vulnerability and for that, I was honored to share space with her and grateful to share our conversation with you.  Follow Nataki’s very necessary voice defining more inclusive art and public discourse on Instagram @natakigarrett.   To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at @drwendiwilliams on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865  Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: www.drwendiwilliams.com

Dr. Wendi is in conversation with Dr. Ife Udoh, Executive Vice President of Policy Advocacy and Science at the Black Women's Health Imperative (BWHI - @blkwomenshealth on Instagram). In this episode we bring one of our kitchen table conversations to the podcast. Mothering as leadership, leadership as mothering and how mother's and particularly Black mother's, comport themselves to nurture audacity despite, and perhaps in spite of the precarity of the Black life they carry. Ife is a public health professional, a scientist, and mother. In our conversation she cites the labor and intellectual contribution of the many Black women in the space of health advocacy who are providing critical care in the messaging and practices that are honed more and more by their critique and guidance to keep us ALL safe. As promised in the interview, I am naming their names: Drs. Monica McLemore, Marguerita Lightfoot, Vignetta Charles, Shanelle McGoy, Louisa Fitzpatrick, and Aisha Mays, to name a few. Follow Ife and the transformative work she does in the mothering space @ifeomaseesu on Instagram. And learn more and support the incredibly necessary and critical work of the Black Women's Health Imperative at https://bwhi.org/. To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠

The Month of May is quite special and for that reason we are offering two episodes.  May 1, also called Worker’s Day or International Workers Day, commemorates the struggles and gains made by workers and the labour movement across the globe, observed on May 1 in many countries and in September on the first Monday of that month. Later in the month we will launch Episode SBR 207 on the labor of mothering audacity. Stay tuned! May also marks the observation of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month. Given the heightened racialization and reckoning we’ve faced recently , I wanted to commune across those lines.   For episode SBR 206, I invited my friend and colleague, Dr. Yuying Tsong with whom I became colleagues and friends through our service leadership for a feminist psychological organization.   Yuying is a psychologist, researcher and educator, but what we will talk about is how she/they bring all these parts of themselves to the role of leader.  Currently, an academic leader in a large university system, she/they have also served as president of the Society for the Psychology of Women of the American Psychological Association, as well as has served other roles and launched several initiatives to inspire diverse women’s leadership broadly.  In this conversation, Yuying and I discuss culture, leadership, and mothering as leadership (listen for the set up for episode SBR 207 on Mothering Audacity with Dr. Ifeoma Udoh coming out on …wait for it… Mother’s Day).  Through an ally praxis of truth-telling, we consider how the model minority myth IS white supremacy and allows Asian descent folx to be used as pawns against Black folx and other ethnic groups, including Asian descent who are not experiencing privilege and prosperity as a result of proximity to whiteness. Powerful! In this conversation, Dr. Tsong is teaching, some might even say preaching. And listen out for what she/they call "the slip" and "privilege crumbs." Tune in as Dr. Tsong and I talk about leadership, leadership among Asian descent women, and the importance of solidarity between Black and Asian women in leadership.   Follow Dr. Yuying Tsong on Instagram @dryuyingtsong.  To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

It is time for a rebirth. Welcome to the full thrust of spring and episode 5 of She Been Ready! The Podcast.  I am quite pleased to have Ife Obi, Founder and Owner of The Fit In Brooklyn join me today.  The Fit In is described as a wellness suite that provides a boutique fitness experience and thoughtfully-developed wellness programming to be a truly inclusive space.   The Root online magazine rightly states that The Fit In is “diversifying fitness in gentrified Brooklyn”. With locations in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn on familiar haunts like Malcolm X Blvd., Marcus Garvey, and Halsey, Ife began making the yoga, pilates, and core building fitness and wellness practices enjoyed by a white wellness industrial complex available to the historically Black Bedford Stuyvesant community available in color just as the community was “changing” or becoming aggressively gentrified.   Her work and movement has been featured in outlets such as Good Morning America, The Fit Bit Blog, Health, Refinery 29, Forbes, BET.com and even Beyoncé, to name a few.  It’s kinda of how you know you made it!  Listen in to this amazing conversation about wellness, fitness, health, and leadership and how, at least for Ife (and I agree) designing spaces from the inclusion perspective of Black women, may be just what is needed for EVERYONE to feel welcome.  You can learn more about Ife’s work and following her on Instagram @Ife_o and visit The Fit In online at thefitinbedstuy.com. To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

Dr. Wendi is joined by Dr. Nadia Lopez and Precious Stroud, two guests of She Been Ready! The Podcast and reviewers of her new book, Black Women at Work: On Refusal and Recovery.  In this LIVE Episode of She Been ReadyI The Podcast the tables are turned and Dr. Wendi is joined by two sister-friends and colleagues who know a thing or two about being Black women at work and whose work centers supporting Black women (and others) to traverse problematic workplace dynamics.  To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

Ashanti Branch is a good brother.  We met twice.  Once, as I was seeking support to begin a podcast.  So you all have him to thank for it. And during that time, I learned that he was an alum of the teacher preparation program of the school I was running.  As an educator, he wanted to understand what was happening with the boys in his school. The boys who were super smart, but distant and did not allow his lessons to permeate their bravado. Those boys in working-class and poor communities of the East Bay (Oakland, San Leandro, and San Lorenzo) who attended the schools he taught in.  Ashanti understood that the absorption of constrained (not toxic) masculinity plagued his students. This is what inspired his work with them. Well, to understand a problematic thing, one must also learn its antidote. Tragic masculinity has a kryptonite. It is the divine feminine. And it is from this space that Ashanti and I engage in this conversation. Follow the Ashanti's work with Everforward and get involved in the global #MillionMaskMovement; a movement to help our young people, adults, and community gain a deeper understanding of how much we have in common by inviting people from around the world to participate in an activity of self-reflection and deep connection. Learn more from Ashanti from his TedXMarin Talk, The Mask We All Wear, and the conversations he hosts on his podcast, Taking off the Mask. Follow Ashanti on Instagram @branchspeaks. To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

Dr. Wendi is in conversation with Jamor Gaffney and Nia Martin-Robinson of For the Culture.  Jamor and Nia are culture shifters. Along with their colleague, Sabrina Lakhani, they work with individuals and organizations to make changes in their organizational cultures that are for the culture. The DEI space has gotten quite crowded. In this episode, we delve into this work from the perspective of two impressive practitioners whose positionality as Black women shape their leadership in this space. Our Guests. Jamor Gaffney is an experienced consultant and organizational strategist with deep expertise advancing equity in K-12 education and the nonprofit industry. For over 10 years, she has turned her passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into programs and events that seed transformation. She serves as an educational consultant designing K-12 curricula covering film, TV shows, and other cultural works. Nia E. Martin-Robinson, is a queer, femme, Black woman, born and raised in Detroit. Her values and approach to anti-racist equity work are rooted in Black Feminist theory and a deep desire to be in service to all Black people, particularly women, girls, and femmes. Throughout her almost 20-year career as a facilitator, trainer, and convener, Nia has shown an unwavering dedication and commitment to challenging racism and inequities in mainstream social movements and large non-profit organizations, such as the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Learn more about the work of For the Culture at their website and follow them on Instagram @shiftyourculture and their Beyond: Conversations Series in which they encourage a deeper dive into traditional observances. To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠

Dr. Wendi is in conversation with Shri Deihl.  Shri Diehl (she/her) is a certified yoga teacher (E-RYT 500, YACEP) and recipient of the Yoga Alliance Advanced Training Scholarship. Her additional training in trauma-informed wellness complements how she facilitates. Her inspiration comes from living yoga beyond the postures and she is dedicated to being authentically present in all of her endeavors. She studied yoga and Ayurveda in Rishikesh, India, and has been teaching in cities across the United States since 2007. She gives much respect to her teachers and circle of elders who have given invaluable lessons about being well. Shri practices yoga to reaffirm her body and spirit. She teaches yoga to hold space for others as they navigate their own wellness journey.   Shri's current work involves co-leading in the healing collective, In Her Power,  which is dedicated to supporting self-generating wisdom for Black women using yoga, sound baths, and resource sharing.  She is also the founder of Yoga for Abundant Bodies, which are yoga spaces open to larger-bodied people who want to practice fully without the discriminatory gaze of most yoga spaces.  The wisdom of her teaching practice has been featured in The Shadow League and other publications and can be followed on Instagram at @grierdiehl. To learn more about what Dr. Wendi is doing and thinking about, follow her at ⁠⁠@drwendiwilliams⁠⁠ on Instagram and Twitter and stay up with the latest on She Been Ready! The Podcast on Facebook ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/She_Been_Ready-The-Podcast-105193828770865 ⁠⁠ Music Credit: She Been Ready - Arranged, produced, and mixed by Shawn Nealy-Oparah Instagram: @drwendiwilliams Website: ⁠⁠www.drwendiwilliams.com⁠⁠