Khayshie Tilak Ramesh · 78 min
From a classroom in Ashfield where a child apologised for the colour of her own skin, Khayshie Tilak Ramesh traces a journey that transformed personal pain into a practical roadmap for building workplaces that leave no one behind.
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In year two at Ashfield primary school, a boy told Khayshie Tilak Ramesh that the colour of her skin made him want to vomit. She was so young she thought she had done something wrong. She made an apology card with an art set, slipped it into her pocket, and gave it to the boys the next day. She thought that would fix it. A teacher had to sit her parents down and explain that her daughter didn't understand what had happened to her, that the cruelty said something about them, not about her.
That fracture taught Khayshie to watch. Over decades, she noticed how racism transforms. The overt childhood cruelty becomes subtler in adulthood: assumptions, stereotypes, microaggressions dressed up as compliments. A coworker asking what her mum cooked while she heated a microwave meal. People amazed at her English. These quieter forms are harder to name, which is exactly why they stick around so long.
Today Khayshie is a DEI strategist and consultant who helps organisations see what their systems are leaving out. She translates the principle of intersectionality, how overlapping forms of discrimination compound and create unique experiences, into practical tools for change. She speaks about being anti-racist, not just non-racist; about calling people in instead of calling them out; about reframing system failures as failures of structure, not character. She knows how to sit in rooms where power is unequal and keep her cup full afterwards with people she belongs with. And she knows that the movement only survives if the people in it rest, win small victories, and stay sane.
This is a conversation about what it takes to stay in advocacy work without burning out, and how to build workplaces where no one gets left behind.
“The color of your skin makes you want to vomit.”
“All of these instances together are just those constant reminders that you are not the norm or you are being othered in some way.”
“If we can't see a problem we can't solve a problem.”
The hero, today
The difference between overt racism and the quieter kind that comes later is that as an adult, discrimination becomes harder to spot because people have learned not to be confrontational, but the beliefs underneath can still be there. Intersectionality is not the sum of your identities; it's how the marginalization tied to different parts of your identity multiplies and compounds together, creating a unique experience that systems often can't see or solve. Being anti-racist requires active action to question the systems and structures around you, not just avoiding racist behaviour yourself, because neutrality itself carries you toward a destination you may not have chosen. When advocating for change, focusing on someone's underlying interests rather than their stated position often opens room to move, because positions feel fixed but interests can be addressed. The movement is only as sustainable as the people in it, so rest, small wins, and time in spaces where you fully belong are not luxuries but necessary parts of staying in advocacy work.
Yes. Khayshie Tilak Ramesh is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
The difference between overt racism and the quieter kind that comes later is that as an adult, discrimination becomes harder to spot because people have learned not to be confrontational, but the beliefs underneath can still be there.
Intersectionality is not the sum of your identities; it's how the marginalization tied to different parts of your identity multiplies and compounds together, creating a unique experience that systems often can't see or solve.
Being anti-racist requires active action to question the systems and structures around you, not just avoiding racist behaviour yourself, because neutrality itself carries you toward a destination you may not have chosen.
Hello and welcome to From There to Here, the podcast where we explore life between cultures and what it means to move through the world in a body that's seen as other I'm your host Emma Bilami and today I'm speaking with Ki Tilac Ramesh Ki is a DI strategist and consultant who helps organizations notice what and who their systems are leaving out. In this episode, we unpack what intersectionality actually looks like in real life, the difference between being non-racist and [music] anti-racist, and how to handle those really tough conversations about discrimination. Kishi shares her own experiences of being otherred from painful memories in the playground to the subtler stuff that happens as an adult and how that shaped the work that she does today. She shares simple practical ways to respond when something doesn't sit right, set boundaries, and stay in advocacy [music] work without burning out. All right, let's get into the episode. Ki, I'm so glad to have you here today. Thank you so much for being on the mic of From there to here. Ah, it's an absolute pleasure. I know this has been in the calendar for a while, so I'm excited to get into it. Me too. Me too. So Kesha, you are on the front lines of many important conversations in the DEI space and I'm really curious about where this all began for you. You've spoken before about growing up with the challenge of being otherred or excluded in school and social settings, and I'd love for us to start there. Can you take us back to a memory of one of those moments? You know, if I were a fly on the wall in that classroom or playground of yours, what is it that I would have witnessed? So, the experience that I talk about the most is probably the first time I felt this concept of aided. So, that came from I think I was in year two or three if I think about it. And I was coming in at in primary school from being out on the Ashefeld playground coming back and I sat down at a table that I don't usually sit at with these two young boys and one of them looked at me and he looked so disgusted and he said, "The color of your skin makes you want to vomit." And the other boy sort of did this and made like a sort of wretching sound, like a vomiting sound. And I was so confused cuz I was quite young. It's like year two, right? So my first reaction was, "Oh my god, I've done something awful to make these people feel so physically sick that we need to do something about it." Like I just felt terrible and I felt really confused. So luckily the teacher overheard and was like, "Oh, that's not appropriate." And sent us to the principal. Um they're crying on the walk there. I'm a bit emotional on the walk there. We don't really know what's happened. All I know is I've done something wrong. So, we go to the principal, we go home, and then I don't know if you remember these art kits that used to be all the rage where you have these art kits that fold over with a little button and little textures and stuff inside and a paint set. So, I went home and I got one of those art sets recently as a kid and I made them a card which like a red fire engine card and it said, "Sorry I made you feel that way or sorry for whatever I did." And I took it to school the next day and I gave the kids those cards and I thought great, that's fixed. I did something. I apologized. I made sense of it. And I think the teacher had seen that and then mentioned it to my parents and said, "Hey, you need to talk to your daughter about what has happened cuz I don't quite think she understands." And I think that was the first experience that I can think of where a difference was pointed out between myself and somebody else. And that difference was bad thing. Because I think as kids, I'm really steadfast in the assumption that I don't think we're hardwired to think about people being different as a bad thing. As kids, we naturally notice these things of this person wears glasses, this person doesn't wear glasses, or this person has curly hair, and I have straight hair. But it's not ingrained within us to think that that's bad. So, I became really curious across my life. And it's only later in life that I really realized this pattern that was emerging of, you know, you go through primary school and then you realize that that behavior is not good. People generally learn that's not what you should do. And then racism or discrimination or marginalization becomes much more evasive. It becomes harder to spot. So while we're young and we say these inappropriate things, as we're older, it turns into stereotypes and assumptions. So things like I remember at a part-time job like heating up a microwave meal and someone very lovely who was working with me being like ki that smells amazing. I like what what has your mom cooked? And I had to pull it out. It was just some Lean Cuisine microwave meal that I picked up from Coohl's and I was like oh no no this was just something that was unspecial but that assumption that you know that's not necessarily negative but it is that reminder of what you're having or like I'm assuming that your other I'm assuming that your experiences are different. And then moving into my work as the multicultural youth commissioner, I thought that being in a position where multiculturalism has come such a long way and we have now I'm in a position where we're talking actively about multiculturalism, I still had instances of people saying or like inviting me to talk about my refugee journey where I had to break it to them that I was born here and my refugee journey from New South Wales to Bendigo is not all that interesting, but I can talk about it. Or I'd have people approach me and say, you know, Kesha, your English is amazing. And I'd be like, thank you. It is from Bendigo. [laughter] I really hope that it's good. So these things, they're not as I feel like in a lot of ways, racism can be really stark in some of those early experiences, but we do have it ingrained in culture and ingrained in systems and structures around us now where it's often harder to spot or it doesn't seem as bad. But these all of these instances together are just those constant reminders that you are not the norm or you are being otherred in some way. Yeah, I love this distinction that you make between your experience as a child where kids can be so blunt and overtly cruel and as an adult where it's a lot more diffused because we learn how not to be confrontational, but the the beliefs can still be there and that's what makes it so much harder to identify and address. Absolutely. And so I guess that this has planted the seed for your work and a part of your work is to explain to people what the term intersectionality means. Now a lot of people have heard the term but not many really understand it. So can you tell us what it means and perhaps you know give us an understanding of where the concept originated and why it matters that we get it right. Absolutely. You've picked my favorite topic to talk about, Emma. [laughter] Intersectionality. So, intersectionality is a really popular term that's cropping up in government policy. We're seeing it in corporate spaces nowadays. But I think the mistake that we're making is that often the term intersectionality is being conflated with the term diversity. So, we look at something like diversity and we're like, okay, so diverse means something different or something other. So, we're comfortable with that term. and intersectionality, maybe it's just a collection of the identities that people have when that's actually not what the meaning of intersectionality is. So intersectionality was a term that was coined in 1989 by this woman called Kimberly Krenshaw. So she was a black civil rights activist. She was also a legal scholar from the US and she created this term and this name to help name something that she was noticing where the experiences of black women that were really unique were being overlooked by the systems. And when I teach this and I teach a lot of classes on intersectionality, I often get people asking me, okay, well, how do we know what an intersectional issue looks like compared to like there's just discrimination going on? Like what's the difference? And my favorite way to explain it and part of it is because my background is as a lawyer. So I got very stuck into the legal case. But Kimberly Krenshaw in creating this term actually relied on a few key legal cases to explain it. So one of those cases was called Degraphen Reed versus General Motors. So within this case there was five black women in the US and it was from the 1970s and they brought a legal action against their employer who was General Motors. And what their allegation was is that a seniority based policy was perpetuating the effects of past discrimination against black women specifically. So to understand the case, you kind of need to go back into the context of history and what happened. So this was the 60s and 70s which was a really big time of change within the US. So you had the civil rights movement which was fighting for racial justice and then you had secondwave feminism which was pushing for gender equality. And black women were in a really interesting space. In the gender equality conversation, they were kind of being left behind from being black women. And in the civil rights conversation, they were being left behind for being women. So when we understand the policies that were at play at the moment, if we look at General Motors and who they hired before 1964, and 1964 is particularly important because that's when the Civil Rights Act came into play and you cannot discriminate against people. So you're looking at this case from two angles. So before 1964, General Motors typically hired white men for skilled and high-paying roles. Eventually, as the civil rights movement progressed, they started hiring black men, mostly into labor and factory jobs. And then as the second wave feminist movement started going through, they started hiring women, but predominantly white women for usually office or clerical roles. But what was happening was that black women were left out completely and they weren't being hired at all. And it was only in 1964 when those civil rights protections came in that they actually started hiring black women and it was predominantly into that lower factory level jobs which didn't offer much protection or seniority or security. So then came the recession and this company very unknowingly in a way said okay well we need to lay some people off. How do we do this in a fair way? And they created a policy based on seniority. So they said, "Okay, well the people who have been with us the longest, we're going to try and keep them. And the people that we've hired the most recently, we'll let them go." And it seemed all well and fair because they were like, "Okay, cool. We're going to reward people for being with us for longer." But what that meant was that all of the black women at the company got fired. So when these five black women bought this case, they said, "Hey, we're experiencing a particular impact of discrimination because we're black women." and they went to the court and they said, "Because we're black women, this policy unfairly puts us in this position." But what the court said was, "Okay, well, let's look at this in two parts. Are you being discriminated on the basis of sex and gender or are you being discriminated on the basis of race?" And they said both. They're like, "I'm not just a black person one day and a woman the other day. I'm experiencing both of these at the same time." But the court said, "No, no, no. You can't add these two things together. if we're doing this as a legal action, you need to do this one at a time. So then the court looked at General Motors and said, "Okay, well, is this a sex discrimination issue?" And they looked and said, "No, there's women that work here, so there's no problem there." And then on the flip side, from a race perspective, they said, "Well, there's no point looking at the racial side because there's black men that work there. There's not a racial issue there." So what came of that is that the women weren't successful in that legal suit. So Kimberly Crunchaw in seeing this and in talking to one of the lead people pursuing the case saw that the fact that the legal industry couldn't see that there was a particular form of discrimination being faced was a problem because it wasn't that these persons experience is the marginalization that women experience plus the marginalization that black people experience. It's actually unique. It meant that the court couldn't actually see a problem. So there's a really brilliant phrase that the quote that she has which is if we can't see a problem we can't solve a problem. And that's exactly what she was trying to do with this term intersectionality. So she was trying to say that it's not that people are diverse and we need to look at diversity. It's that when people have certain aspects of their identity and those aspects experience marginalization, we can sometimes find oursel in a position where that's compounding. So the reason she calls it intersectionality is cuz she imagined this kind of like a highway intersection. So if you imagine like one road going this way and one road going this way and you have sex discrimination going down one road and you have race discrimination going down one road. We have legal remedies that will help you if you're experiencing sex discrimination. We have legal remedies that will help you if you're experiencing racial discrimination. But if you have a car accident in the middle of where these roads intersect, we cannot help you. So that's why we talk about taking this intersectional lens because it's about understanding that if we just try and solve for issues in their single sort of lenses, we won't actually get to the heart of the inequality that someone's experiencing or the heart of the oppression that's overlapping that they're experiencing. So, it's really a call to action to look at it's not a number of different hats or identities that someone has. It's having this lens to understand how we see the world and how other people are treated by the systems and structures that are around them. So, it's the other of exclusions or discrimination. You said it's not about adding them. What is it then? Is it that they kind of multiply? Multiply. It's the right type of thinking. So what it's looking at is the fact that if you are both black and a woman, if you are someone who is young and you're someone who's a person of color, that is a uniquely different experience to someone who is just a woman or someone who is just a person of color because you're experiencing the impact of the marginalization of both those identities at the same time and that's creating a unique experience. So it's not one plus one. So say if I'm using myself as an example, I'd say that I'm a woman, a person of color, I'm born in Australia, for example. And all of those things create a social position. So the fact that I'm a woman places me in a certain social hierarchy compared to men compared to gender diverse people. The fact that I'm a person of color places me in a social hierarchy. The fact that I'm born here creates a lot of privilege compared to other people who may be a woman of color. And then based on that I'll experience a degree of marginalization. So that might be discrimination, racism, sexism, agism for example in terms of being young. And those various forms of marginalization operate together and amplify one another. So then within the social systems and structures that we interact with every day, so say the workplace, the legal system, um the healthare system, having to experience these overlapping forms of discrimination in all of those systems is what leads to these positions of disadvantage. And what's interesting in that is this idea that you can experience both privilege and oppression at the same time. So I often talk about how for myself I might experience racism because someone sees the color of my skin and makes assumptions but also I experience privilege because I was educated here. So the minute I open my mouth people are like oh she's one of us which is very different compared to say my parents who migrated over here and they get treated very differently because of their accent. And the other key thing is that your experience of intersectionality and your experience of positional privilege can change over time. So I often talk about this, you know, in a really easy sense with travel. So here in Australia, for example, I'm someone who when I'm with my family, I'm the one navigating us, reading all the street signs. I'm the one who is like making small talk with the Uber driver and all that sort of stuff. And for the longest time, I thought that was because I'm a really social person. like I'm so social and I'm really outgoing. And then I went on a trip with my mom and auntie earlier this year to Malaysia and Singapore and all of a sudden the tables turned because their predominant language of Tamil was what was predominantly spoken. So all of a sudden they're reading the street signs and they're chitchatting to the driver and I felt so uncomfortable where I was like, "Oh my god, I feel so lost." And I realized and you had to confront that privilege of me being here in my first language is a privilege that I hold. And it might not be that I'm this amazing sweet talker that I think I am with all of these people. It could just be that I hold a privilege that my parents don't necessarily have, but as that changes in a geographical context, then that privilege might shift and change in the same way that your privilege might shift and change as you get older. because we know that people face a lot of agism as they sort of move up in that age range. So it's very interesting. It's intersectionality is just this lens that we look through to understand different people's experiences. So are they experiencing yes because of a particular part of their identity marginalization but the more parts of their identity are likely to experience marginalization the more unique of an experience they will be having. And it's not the sum of all the parts, but they have a really unique position because they're facing all of this at the same time. One thing that you said that really marked me is how easy it is to make an assumption about our character, our qualities when in fact it has been the product of a privilege. So you know when you said and you gave this example of being outgoing and social perhaps there is a part of you who is like that but in another context you would have been a completely different person. A lot of people I've interviewed said that some of their personality traits changed as they migrated that they went from being very extroverted to introverted because they felt disempowered by the fact of being a migrant. So it's really interesting the parallel that you are making here. Yeah, it's huge. For example, if I think about my parents or if I think about like people that I spoke to while I was commissioner who have English as a second language, something that I often hear is like, I wish people could hear how smart I am in my own language because people are having to actively translate in their own minds while they're speaking English. And we have this really frustrating phenomenon where we assume that someone's intellect is inextricably linked to their level of English. So the minute that somebody has broken English or has an accent, that will automatically create perceptions in some people's minds about how smart they are or how educated they are. When realistically, a lot of people know five or six languages, but English isn't necessarily their first one. [snorts] and they have all of this to give, but they're just actively translating through so many languages at the same time. But a lot of those assumptions and that racism does come from this idea that if someone's not expressing themselves in the way that I think is intellectual or I think is fluent, that is a reflection on the intellect they have. Yeah, that's so that's so true. There is a very interesting distinction as well that you make between being nonracist and being anti-racist. And you really draw a line here. Can you explain to us why you think this distinction matters? I think this comes from the idea that I refuse to believe that people are racist by nature or discriminatory by nature. What I think this really comes down to is the systems and the structures that we have and the cultures that we have that perpetuate an idea of racism. And what that results in is people who act in ways that might be racist but they don't realize because they're just perpetuating a policy that they have or they're just following the rules but they haven't taken a minute to consider what the outcome of that rule is or what the inference is for example. So, there's this really brilliant book called Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And it's by Beverly Daniel Tatum where she explores the psychology of racism. So interesting. And does it through all of these different racial allegorories and one of the allegorories that she uses is a conveyor belt and she calls it like the conveyor belt of racism. And that has since been extended to be talking about a traveler. So the travel aid is that you, you know, you go to the airport, you're trying to get to a terminal really quickly and you go along the little moving belt. So what they talk about is the fact that society is on this moving belt and this moving belt is the systems and the structure and the cultures that we're born into. So we don't get to choose every system and structure that we're within. Like we don't set the rules of school. We don't set the rules of workplaces, for example. All of these cultures and norms that we have have evolved through history where some pretty awful things have happened in history and a lot of the traditions that we take forward today come from these really terrible contexts. Right? So it's natural that some of the norms that are not fantastic that perpetuate disadvantage have carried through these systems and we haven't realized. So the idea is you're on this travelator that's constantly moving and that's all these systems and structures we're using and people who are racist are people who actively move on the travel. So we have these systems and structures that are taking us to this place of racism. So say there's a terminal called the racist terminal and some people see these systems and structures that are happening and they're like oh my gosh that's exactly where I want to go. I'm really racist, so I'm gonna actively run on this travelator and I'm gonna run towards that destination. And they get there really quickly. There are other people who say, I'm not racist, and they're like, I would never do that. Like, I'd never say something racist. I would never treat someone differently. And what they do is they stand on the tribal. And they don't actively run. But what they don't realize is these systems and structures that they're a part of, which they potentially haven't questioned. they haven't looked up to see, okay, well, where am I traveling towards? They're still being carried through this traveler. So, when we talk about being anti-racist, it's this idea of action in that if you don't take action to actively question the system and structures that are around you and what's the destination you're heading to, you don't actually get the opportunity to look up, realize, oh, this might be getting me to a destination I don't want to go to, and you turn around and you walk the other way. But that requires active action and it's going to be annoying for some people because you're walking against the flow of traffic. Some people are going to be like, "Please stop disrupting us. Like, we're happy where we are." Other people will notice and you can be like, "Hey, we're heading to this destination of racism. Are you happy with it?" And they'll be like, "Oh gosh, no." And they will follow you there. And eventually the idea is you get off the traveler and you dismantle it. But I think what really resonates with me about that analogy of being anti-racist is this idea of indifference where I think in society we're often like, well, I'm not the problematic one. Like, I'm not the one making these verbal comments. I'm not the one doing these awful things. But it's really easy to think that we're doing the right thing by staying silent or we're doing the right thing by not actively contributing to the issue, not realizing that some of the systems and structures we're perpetuating, whether it's a policy, whether it's a workplace culture, whether it's a process, might be carrying some of those racist undertones, or might be carrying some of those discriminatory practices because they all came from somewhere. And it wasn't very long ago in all of our histories where some pretty awful things were happening very outrightly. So the idea that we've moved on from that time is a bit hard to swallow if we've kept a lot of the same systems and policies and procedures from the time. I really love this metaphor because to me it shows as well that neutrality isn't neutral. that in a way neutrality is a form of complicity in that it actively participates in harm or at least in maintaining harmful systems. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that some of these I know that you know later we might chat through I guess some of the strategies in DEI and and this is one of them is like how do you use some of these concepts to get people to like join some of the dots around what's happening I guess in society or how are we finding ourselves having these policies where say for example you might have a policy like a hiring policy where you're like we want people to be really confident in in the workplace or like in a interview. So when you're looking at a hiring guide or something that says, "Okay, we want to rate people's confidence." People's perceptions of what confidence means is very different. So that might mean that you have people who are neurode divergent, for example, who aren't making eye contact and someone registers that as not confident. Or it could be someone with an accent coming forward and someone saying, "Oh, they're not very confident." So we need to really look at these like policies and these guides and these rules that we follow in the workplace to interrogate are we happy with the outcome that it's taking us to. Oh, I love that. And I was thinking as well when you talked about the fact that you need to take action. I was reading this morning research on the bystander literature and they show that bystanders when they are witnessing harm they do not intervene. not because they do not care but because they are unsure about whether it's appropriate or about what to do. So I wonder you know what what we could say to people who are like well I'm not doing anything racist because they may not know what to do even if they witness something racist they may not know what do you think they should be you know perhaps like one thing that they should do. Yeah. And it's such a common problem, right? Because these things aren't comfortable. And that's the thing with bystander awareness. And there's a whole model about this, which is like different strategies to intervene. So there's like distract, delay, delegate. Like there's all these things like different actions that you recommend. But I think the easiest way to think about it is calling in versus calling out. So we talk a lot about this very simple model. If you call someone out, I'm saying like, "Emma, that behavior was really inappropriate. I don't like it." And that idea of being really direct terrifies a lot of people, right? Because they're like, "What does that mean for me? What does that mean for how I'm going to experience this?" And this is the really difficult and uncomfortable topic is [snorts] that we're sort of wired in some ways to prioritize our own safety. So when we do have the opportunity to intervene and interact, it's easy to fall into this place of wanting to protect yourself and not you don't want to rock the boat for example. So calling out is this very usually very public usually very stark and direct way of doing things. There's another form of this which we like to call calling in, which is where are the more gentle ways or where are the more not so public ways or not so stark ways to call someone in on their behavior. So it's the difference between going to a leader and saying, "Hey, I just wanted to pick up with something that happened in this meeting. I know that you really value everyone's perspective um and I think that when you did this, it may have caused this person to feel not great or like when you ignored this opinion." So, I just wanted to say that maybe that's something that we should check in on that person. And that's great when you have people who have no idea the impact or the power that they hold because they might not have realized like genuinely, but it's not always appropriate to call in cuz there might be people who are doing things purposely or there might be people who actually need a bit of the starker wakeup call to be called out or to be publicly sort of put on display in that way. So, I think they're all sort of tools that we have in our toolkit around when we have a situation, how do we potentially call them in if you're unsure if they know what they're doing or you think that it might be more effective to do it in a more gentle way. Because even if you do have somebody who might know what they're doing, they might not realize that people are watching. So, the fact that you go to them and you say, "Hey, I noticed this thing that happened in the meeting. I wasn't really comfortable with it." They might be like, "Oh, no. People have noticed now that this has happened, but nine times out of 10 with a lot of the people I've dealt with or I've seen, they just don't know that what they said may have been offensive or what they did might have caused a particular outcome. And I think that's where like a lot of the training that I do in the DEI space usually starts with this slide that says, you know, we are all being born into systems that we didn't create and norms and structures that we didn't create. And we need to be kind to ourselves, I guess, in that sometimes you act in ways because that's how you've been conditioned. But once you know about them, you have a choice about whether you want to do something differently or whether you want to continue down that path. And I think in that way, for example, it's really easy in some ways to be, you know, to be ableist in planning an event. Like if you're somebody who doesn't have a physical disability or doesn't have particular like mobility needs, you might inadvertently plan an event that doesn't have an accessible venue. You might not know that, but it's because as leaders and as just people, we create systems in our own image. So we create for ourselves as the end user in mind which is why leadership not being diverse is problematic because they're the ones who are creating systems and if they're creating systems with themselves in mind not necessarily in a you know inherently evil way more just that's our frame of reference for what things need it means that we inadvertently create a lot of processes policies events and structures that are built for people who are exactly like us. So that's where I think some of those call-in things are really useful because I'll talk to leaders and say just so you know we need to make sure that the things we create benefit everybody and here's how we do that and you might accidentally be creating things that you don't realize are inaccessible or are exclusive to people and are leaving people out and you will get leaders who realize that are mortified and will do something different but you may have a group of people who are like it's too hard It's all too hard and I don't care. In which case that call out behavior and being a bystander to that behavior is really harmful because you being a bystander can sometimes mean that other people are watching you be a bystander and assuming that that behavior being done in front of you, you are condoning it and you think it's okay when that might not be the case at all. And what if as well the person you are talking about in the company says to you very defensively there is no discrimination here or you know becomes very defensive about it because you say yeah most people probably wouldn't be aware of it but I assume that some people would react to even you stating the fact that the system may be unfair. How do you deal with that from your perspective but as well perhaps from the perspective of people who are employed by those people and have faced that resistance and defensiveness? Oh, it's so hard. I think is the main thing like I did inhouse diversity inclusion work for a while and I think it's one of the most difficult positions because your job is to call out problems in the system or to call out where things might be going wrong but you're kind of biting the hand that feeds you in a lot of ways and it's the same thing with calling out bad behavior because at the end of the day you're like I want a job and I want to be liked at my workplace and all these things so is that going to get in the way? So I think it's really challenging but the way there's many ways that you can deal with it and there's no necessary right or wrong way to do it. So in terms of the strategy that I take in working with teams particularly in the DEI space [snorts] say for example you have a marketing team and you've noticed that the marketing team is creating presentations that only particularly feature one type of person or like everyone is all looks the same in the marketing decks. there's no diversity or anything like that, right? On one side, you could be thinking that, you know, this is a bias issue. You're like, okay, well, this is it could be that there are people who are biased in the team, so maybe I need to go and talk to the manager of that marketing team. So, when you talk to that team, often I've had experiences where they're like, oh no, Ki, like we would never like we would never ever do that. Like, my team's amazing. Like, I've all hired them. We have this amazing culture. And it's really difficult because you don't want to think about the fact that someone in your team who you love very dearly has bias. But the truth is we all have bias. Like that's natural. That's just as people we have these things, right? So the strategy that I take is this idea of how do we be tough on systems but soft on people. And this is not trying to excuse people's behavior by any means. It's just recognizing that it is much easier to recognize that there's a lack of a system in place than what it is to realize that a person might not be doing the right thing. So, I've had this before where I spoke to a manager and I said, "Okay, you have this amazing culture. That's awesome." Hypothetically, if someone or your whole team was to win the lottery and leave, what is protecting that culture of creating that inclusivity and creating that culture? Because for me, there's a systems failure here where we actually don't have ground rules about what our marketing deck should look like. We don't have ground rules around what our expectations are in terms of making sure that things are inclusive. And then they're like, "Oh yeah, that's not great." So then you say to them, "Okay, well that's great. So we now we need to look at well what are the systems we can put in place and let's work together to look at what that objective system looks like." So then you kind of take it away from the people because I think that's what's hard is that people can't imagine their friends participating in behavior that might not be inclusive when if you talk about a lack of a system, it's a little bit easier to swallow. And I got that from there was a mentor of mine who used to say if someone got hit by a bus tomorrow which I don't like. So I often say the lottery thing they win the lottery they leave. It's a bit different but I think that also just takes that people side out of it of this is about what are our expectations and how do we intentionally create inclusion and create systems that do that and not rely on educating people as a sole silver bullet that's going to solve everything. Because from a company perspective, people can leave at any time. So if your only sort of I guess strategy in DEI is we're just going to educate everyone really well, it's not the most sustainable approach to DEI. And you know, taking it a step further into the arena of negotiation, you shared something with me during the pre-in. You said speak to someone's interest, not position. So the position is what we say we want and the interest is what is sitting underneath that. Why do we want what we want? So can you elaborate on why this distinction is important? So I'm a big glutton for negotiation and mediation. So I teach it and it's something that I've studied before. So, there's a really fantastic book called Getting to Yes by Fisher and Yuri, and they talk about this really great analogy of like two kids fighting over an orange. So, if you indulge me for a minute, you have these two kids, they're yelling, they're screaming over fighting over the last orange in the orange bowl. So, their parent goes out and they're like, you know, what's the problem here? Like, why are you screaming? And they both say like, oh my god, I really want this orange. I need it. Like, I'm I'm going to die if I don't get it. And then I often ask an audience like, "What do you think the parent does?" And nine times out of 10, everyone's like, "They cut the orange in half because that's rational, right?" So the parent goes to cut the orange and the kids start screaming even louder. And they say, "No, no, no. I need the whole orange. I need the whole orange." And then usually I'll ask an audience again and be like, "What do you think they did?" And then the audience will usually say they eat the orange themselves or they like take it away from the kids because it's all too hard. But what this parent does instead is they ask the kids, "Well, why do you need it?" And one of them says, "Oh, well, I have this bake sale tomorrow and I've promised my school that I'm going to bake an orange cake and I need the orange rind." And then they go to the other kid and the other kid says, "I'm so thirsty. I need orange juice so badly and it's the only thing that's going to help." So all of a sudden, this parent juices the orange and gives the pulp and the juice to one kid and gives the rind to the other. And all of a sudden, you've created two oranges out of one orange. And we talk about positions and interests because the positions that these kids had was I need the whole orange. The interest is that I only need the rind or I only need the juice. But we find it really hard to see it. So often in negotiation or in having these really crunchy conversations with people, [snorts] I'll sort of take on some of those tactics and say someone's position might be this is due tomorrow, but their interest is, oh, I need to make sure that this is reviewed by this person, reviewed by that person, and I can't do that unless I get it tomorrow. So instead of saying, no, I'm not going to get it to you by then. Sometimes you have more luck by saying, okay, well, I know that you want this due tomorrow. is that because of something else and they're like, "Oh yeah, I need this person to approve and that person to approve and blah blah blah." In which case, that gives you a little bit of room to work with. Cuz then you're like, "Oh, well, how about I include this person in my review so then I can get it to you by Friday." Then they're like, "Oh, yeah, that's great." But the original position doesn't give you much to play with. If it's due tomorrow, it's due tomorrow. But if we can really train ourselves to look at the interest, it's a bit easier. This is all like the advocacy toolkit sort of stuff of what are the things that we can do as to be better as advocates. So part of this also applies more broadly into the DEI space, but also just into the social cohesion and inclusion space where people have really tough positions of we do not want this policy or we do not want this particular like social issue or whatever it may be. And I've found at least for the most success that I've had is by getting into the why behind it. And often you realize that a lot of these positions are fueled by fear. like they're worried about what's going to happen to their organizational culture or they're worried about the budget or they're worried about something else. And once you actually get down to what those interests are that are driving that hard position, you can start to talk to that instead. And generally people then start moving where you're like, okay, you're worried about the culture. Well then, okay, how do we protect that culture? Or like what are the parts of the culture that you really value? And why do you think that doing this particular hiring practice is going to change that? Or why do you think this is going to do things differently? And when you get people to open up about some of those things, it means that they naturally feel a bit more validated cuz they're like, "Oh, okay. This person, they're not here to argue with me about this position. They're here to get to the heart of it." But naturally in some situations that leads to them relaxing their position a bit or it leads to them at least feeling like their fears have been acknowledged or feeling that they've been validated in some way which kind of helps with the massaging of how do we get people to a particular position or get to meet in the middle and get them to either compromise or try something new. I love the fact that basically if we keep focusing on the position that we have, we may miss the fact that our interests are actually compatible and even complimentary. And let's try to take another example. Let's say my position is anti-immigration and I do not want any migrants in let's say Australia. But then when you kind of question what's underneath that, a lot of it is fear. And let's take the fear of seeing the Australian culture being eroded. Then you can kind of question what are the values or the cultural aspect that they are thinking are under threat and seeing whether multiculturalism or having migrants in the country really makes them in danger or whether they are compatible and most of the time I guess they are right. So how would you go about this example? No, that's just a great I feel like you stated the principle. That's exactly it. So, I think that this isn't going to be an approach that's going to solve everything, right? Because some people are really fixed in their position and that's fine. But where we look at things is the movable middle. So, in advocacy, we'll talk about there's people who you cannot change because something's really deep-seated and really ingrained. There's some people who are on your side and then there's this movable middle where like they are shiftable. They may have a position that is not what you're thinking about or not very progressive, but they're open to reason. So that's where like I've had really great conversations with, you know, colleagues or with people in the community who are really worried about migration, but when you talk about it, they're like, I'm really worried that I won't have housing and I'm really worried that it's going to drive taxes or I'm worried that, you know, it's going to mean that the cost of living is going to go up. So those are things we can talk about. because it's much easier to talk about those and how migration does or doesn't impact on those factors than what it is to just be pushing against I don't want migrants, I don't want migrants, you know, like it gives you a little room to play. So you you've put it perfectly and that that's exactly what you do is you you try and look towards of the people who are willing to be flexible in their position because I do believe that there are a lot of people who have not very progressive views on migration, but it's out of that fear like they're like, I love the people around me. I love my multicultural community, but I feel like we have to call it somewhere or we have to like put a number in somewhere. And it's usually because of these fears. But if we can talk about that and get to the heart of it, sometimes you will get movement from people where they realize like, oh, okay, maybe I thought that if we reduce migration, it's going to fix all of these things. But what I'm hearing is that's not the case. And then you can actually get to somewhere that is common ground. But I think it's important to acknowledge that it's not a silver bullet solution by any means as well because there will always be people who refuse to move from a position and they're not actually interested in a conversation talking it through or Yeah. Exactly. So I think as an advocate, part of this topic around sustainable advocacy that I'm really passionate about is being able to acknowledge when you should be putting your efforts into it and really sitting in that side and trying to exercise that conversation. Best is like you also need to protect yourself as an advocate and the movement is only as sustainable as you are. So if you are consistently burning yourself out and not replenishing yourself and resting that also hurts the movement just as much as you potentially like exiting the movement for example. And how do you do then? Because I guess we live in a world that is increasingly polarized and there is a segment of the population who may think that your work is woke, right? And so how do you how do you navigate the challenge of being a DEI strategist when the world itself is being weaponized and dismissed as being woke? Do you have to I don't know perhaps reframe the way you talk about your work so that more people listen to it? I think it comes down to how you understand your work. And I think this is because like when I was growing up, for example, DEI, as it's known today, didn't really exist back then. But these principles of we should treat each other well. And when people generally treat each other well, we work together better. That's always been a principle because it's kind of obvious, right? That when we include people in conversation, we have better solutions. And when people feel safe to talk about their ideas, we get more ideas, which means that we'll probably get to a better idea in the end. Right? So all of these central tenants, I think, are quite obvious. But today, they're called psychological safety. It's called diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. It's called affirmative action, for example, which are all these big terms that I think are consistently attacked in media depending on political climates. But if you're someone who's a bit more of a purist, where I probably sit in that bucket a bit more, all of these words, while it's important, the language is protected, the core of the work remains in that you can be anti-Dei, but then I struggle to see how you wouldn't want a high performing team or how you wouldn't want good leadership. And for me like having a course on good leadership naturally should include how to be an inclusive leader or how to be able to support your whole team and no one is the same. So you need to be able to understand how to talk to people about their circumstances and their difference. So I think one side of it is it's really sad to see I guess the sector be attacked in so many ways. But often when I mentor other practitioners, I say to them, try not to get disheartened or caught up in the deep criticism of like these are work values and we don't want them and blah blah blah. Because if you truly believe that creating diverse teams means that you will have more ideas which means innovation in what universe is a business not interested in innovation? So it could just be a call to action for us to think about how we frame this to people. And I often joke that like I can sell the same training to somebody in in terms of buyin. For an organization who's progressive, I can get buy in through making an inclusive teams thing. If it's someone who's a bit less on that journey, it's a high performing teams. If it's someone who is really reticent to it, it could be just leadership training in general or it could be like culture training or whatever. Like we use many different words and many different framings to teach the same principles over and over again, but I feel like I often sit in this place of like I'm less precious about what it's called so long as the work gets done. And if the work is we can create more innovative environments, we can create safer environments, I think there's not going to be people who aren't interested in that. but also within the Australian context like we're seeing some really great legislative progress as well. So you're seeing things like the respect at work reforms, you're seeing things like the national code to prevent and respond to gender- based violence and all of these legislative instruments that are coming in to protect this sort of work. So I think that while international looks a little bit dire, there are some really fantastic things that are happening locally which should be really good signals to the local DEI community that there's still a lot of attention in this space and there's still so much work to do in the space as well. M but because of that tension that you may feel there is I guess a a pull to diluting your message so that it becomes more appealing to a greater number of people and I think in your line of work there is really a tension between staying non-controversial being likable diluting your message so that you appeal to many people and being bold you know being bold in a way that you say things as they are and you really carry impact. How do you navigate the tension between the two? You've put it so well. Like that's exactly what the tension is because I think depending on the roles you're in, and I'm fortunate to have moved across many different roles, the way that you position your message and the part that you play in this broader advocacy world differs. So I often talk about how we pit advocates against activists. So when I talk about activists, I talk about people who are very well known in the community. They're known for being like loud, proud, bold, calling things out and being really at the forefront. And then you have advocates who are sometimes like the quiet movers and shakers. They're the ones who they're not as bold. They're not maybe as widely recognized, but they're doing some of the work a bit slower. They're working within the systems and structures that you're trying to change. And it's really easy to fall into this trap of thinking that these two things don't work together. Like you're either big and bold or you're either, you know, quiet and strategic when really the movement calls for all of it. So any progress in the DEI movement, I believe at least is warranted. So you have people who have, I guess, more palatable messages, but it caks open the door slightly for people to hear a bit more of the bold messaging. So while there was a time in my life where I'd be probably a bit more like, no, you need to be out and saying these things or separate times in my life where I'm like, it is not safe to say these things and no one's going to listen if I say it. I think we need to acknowledge that as a profession and as a community, we all have a part to play because there's people who are going to need someone to be a bit more like I hate the word palatable, but like you know, a bit more like non-controversial to help lead them along gently to something a bit more impactful. And that might be impact because this is an industry that would never even consider it. Whereas now they're like okay I guess I would host an event or I guess I would you know maybe think about this thing whereas you might be in a sector where hosting events is really tokenistic. So it's really sector dependent I think as well of like I'm just very reticent to sort of look at particular DEI exercises and be like this one's bad that one's great or like this one's not doing enough and this one's not impactful because from what I've seen of being across different sectors the sector readiness to engage in this work is really different and we just need people who can be responsive to that readiness whether that is doing the wide message that may not feel as impactful and I You should never lose your values and how you do that, but I can acknowledge the strategy in sometimes there is a greater plan if we need to make it a bit broad and eventually we'll get them there. Um, [snorts] versus looking at someone who's very bold and assuming they don't have strategy and that they're just like, you know, they're screaming at the sky and there's no strategy in it and where's your decorum and tone policing that person. I don't think that's useful either. So I [snorts] think that if we can get to a place where everyone's like we all have a role to play in advocacy that's the best position to be in and that you strike this it's not necessarily striking the tension for yourself on how loud you are versus how quiet you are but acknowledging that different situations might call you to be different types of advocates or different types of activists and acknowledging that broader community who are probably all feeling that same tension as well. And something else that perhaps people don't consider is that being bold comes at a cost, a personal cost and also a professional cost because you may probably be excluded from work opportunities. So, you know, I think it's really important to self- advocate like self- advocate shouldn't be mutually exclusive with doing that for the greater good of the community. And yeah, advocacy burnout is real. Is it something that you've experienced as well? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think advocacy burnout is something that I think we're starting to talk about it now. I feel like there probably hasn't been as much attention on it as what there should be, but there is a lot of We talk about advocacy burnout, which is, you know, you've done so much advocacy and your energy is waning low. There's also compassion fatigue, which is like you've lend your heart, time, and mind to so many causes that you're just feeling really fatigued about it. And I talk a lot about both when it comes to sustainable advocacy because you can find yourself being like I'm trying to be there for everyone and I'm trying to engage with everything and I don't have the bandwidth to sustain it. And this is why I talk about the, you know, the the movement is only as sustainable as you are. Because if everyone is in that position and not letting themselves take a break for a bit, it means that the movement doesn't actually go on because people can serve in it for like 6 months and then they're like, "Okay, I'm so tired now." Then they like they burn themselves out and they harm themselves in terms of their own, you know, resolve to engage with the work. So there's such an important thing around like while a lot of people have no choice but to be advocates because you're part of the experience or you're part of the community facing something trying to find the little ways that you can experience rest whether that is actually sleeping or like engaging with your community or engaging with the environment or whatever it is to give yourself a bit of that reprieve. so important because we now live in a world where you have access and connection 24/7 on a phone. So what I found myself in at a point in time was that I was working in a job that was more of a DEI aligned role. I was volunteering in all these DEI related boards and then I would sit on social media and because all the people that I engage with are often advocates and activists in the space, they're sharing a lot of content about a lot of these topics which is so important and I'd find myself in a position of feeling really guilty that I didn't want to engage in it because I'm like I'm so tired like where's my Instagram feed of just like puppies and kittens? Like I [laughter] don't want to like I don't know if I have the resolve to keep engaging in it. So there was a point at which like I created a you know a separate Instagram page that was just recipes and then I would come home and I'd be like ah it's just recipes which is great for me but then I realized that there's such an importance in doing that because if you're going to be engaging in these really tricky and complex issues 24/7 like you need a time at which you can rest. But if that rest is fueled by guilt and there's guilt overhanging that rest, the quality of that rest is going to be not great. So we need to as advocates be looking at how do we build in these systems of rest and how do we build in these really intentional moments or intentional safeguards just like the systems we talk about, right? Like don't rely on the person, rely on the system. What's the system that you've set up as an advocate yourself to make sure that you're actually taking those pauses as you need? What have you done in your life to make sure that you don't burn out? Oh, constant. I feel like it's a constant question. [laughter] Look, I think it's it's really difficult. I'm very much a do as I say, not as I do sometimes when it comes to sustainable advocacy. So, I'll take intentional moments out with friends to debrief on the world, which I think is quite nice, but not do it in an advocacy sense, more in a commiserating sense of like, oh my god, like let's just talk about what's happening in the world and let's just like feel all our feelings and be together. So, I feel like having a really good peer network you can do that with, whether it's friends or whether it's family, I think that's great. I'm someone who loves being creative, so I will turn to music and singing and guitar as a creative outlet as well, which I think is fun. But there's so many ways that you can engage and debrief and sit with yourself, whether it's meditation or whether it's like going to like going outside and like walking around and like doing something that's accessible because I think for so long like self-care has been co-opted by I guess a capitalist sense of self-care. like you need to pay to go to the spa to engage in self-care or you need to pay to get a skinincare product to do a skincare routine when there's really fantastic literature often by black women that talk about how rest is resistance and like rest is part of advocacy and you need to be able to lie down and you need to be able to do whatever it is that's going to help you stay in the movement but also just help you rest without feeling that sort of air of guilt. Do you feel still the guilt as you rest or have you been able to combat the guilt? I think I've got a lot better at it. I think that's the thing. It's tricky because the work that I do now as a consultant, so it's often like usually at a 9 to5 you have like I finish work at 5:00 and then you have a natural end to your day in consulting. While there's a lot of freedom, which is fun, it [snorts] can also mean that you overwork quite a bit because there's no boss looking at you being like, "Why are you clocked on at this time?" like you know workplace protections I guess to to yeah look at conditions. So you do need to be intentional. So I'll build in time to do social stuff but also build in time to do social stuff that's completely unrelated to what I do at work whereas sometimes it's easy to just like attend events in your field especially if you're passionate about it. Yeah. Yeah. And make work become your whole life in a way. Hm. And especially like DEI is one of those places where you put so much identity in what you do. And I think that's part and parcel of this advocacy conversation and sustainability because if something goes wrong at work or if something doesn't go your way, sometimes you think that reflects on you as an advocate when a lot of these things are out of your control. So a lot of it is also doing that mindset work to realize that I can only do my best. And part of this is accepting that the system around me is hard to change. That's why people haven't really changed it yet or like what you're doing is trying to change something that's been ingrained for so many years. So you're going to have little wins and change won't always feel possible. So like even some really like silly and pragmatic ways like I remember I had a week a couple years ago where things were just not going my way. like things were at work, things were not working, like change was not happening. And I felt so like I feel like I didn't realize it at the time, but it actually reflected so much on how effective I felt as an advocate. And my partner all of a sudden, it was like a Thursday night, I didn't feel like going anywhere, but he booked three backto-back escape rooms and he's like, "We're going." And I was like, "Why? I don't want to go." And he's like, "No, come on. You'll love it." And then I got there and I was so immersed and we got through all of them, which was great. And I felt great at the end. And it was like 11:00 at night. It was ridiculous. [snorts] And then what he said to me was like, "Ki, it was so clear that you just needed a win." And I was like, "Yeah, that's so fair." So like I even do stuff like I'll play like video games with my partner and things like that because they're little ways when when you're in a a job where you don't really get wins very often or they're really hard one wins. By the time you get a win, you're on to thinking about the next thing and trying to get the next thing going. Trying to build in those little wins somewhere along the way is also really handy. Even if it's as trivial as like an escape room or like playing a game or whatever, it does a lot, at least for me in my experience, it does a lot for you in terms of showing you that you can achieve these things or you can build that resilience or you get through a really hard level of something or whatever and it creates some of that satisfaction that you might not be getting from work at the time. Yeah, those feeling of agency even if it's a micro success. Absolutely. Yeah. So, Keshi, for people who struggle to find their voice or self- advocate, what's one piece of advice that has been a gamecher for you? Good question. I feel I'll take this from a personal angle. I the biggest piece of advice that I got given when I was I think I was at uni and I walked into a like now mentors office and he had all of these like awards and stuff at the back of his office and I was looking at that and I'm like wa you're so cool like how do you do like that's amazing and he looked at me so bluntly and he's like you apply and I was like what what do you mean? And he gave me this great advice. He's like the worst thing anyone ever is going to say to you is no. So if you become really comfortable with no, like things aren't scary. And then I feel like that has really shaped so much of what I've done since then. Because when it's putting up an idea or advocating for yourself or doing these things, if you become really comfortable that the worst thing they're going to say is no, you're much more likely to speak up for yourself or you're much more likely to apply to the thing or apply for the job or do whatever it is that is success for you or is the next step that you want to take. Whereas sometimes we sit in this really big fear of what's going to happen of like, but what if they say this and what if they say that? Whereas once I got really comfortable with the idea of no, it became a lot easier. So then when it happened, which is inevitable in self- advocacy, you're not as knocked down by it, you're kind of like, oh, okay, cool. What's my next strategy that I need to do? And you can sort of carry forward. So that's more of a like very pragmatic, I guess, piece of advice. But that's genuinely I think one of the pieces of advice that's taken me the furthest in my career. I love it. Yeah. Try more even if you get a no because perhaps the next time you're going to get a yes. Yeah. And like people are different. Things are different. Like don't let other people's inability to see your vision make you feel like you're doing the wrong thing or like your idea is not good. Like maybe it's that they couldn't get there. Like like don't try and blame yourself. Whereas I think often as as migrants or as people from different cultural backgrounds, you can assume that you're the problem or that like maybe I didn't do it as hard or maybe there's something I could have done better when like it's not that your idea is not good or it's not that something didn't work and it's your fault. Keep trying or like keep trying to try a different angle, try something new, reach out to people. Like these are all the things that it seems really obvious when you hear it, but when you start practicing it, it really helps. Like there have been ideas that I've pitched to people where some people are like no idea or like didn't get it or like a scholarship or an award or something that you've applied for and they don't you don't get it and you're not successful in it and then I've taken the same thing and I've talked to someone else and they're like that's brilliant that's amazing. Whereas like there was a time in my life where I thought that no meant this is wrong or like this isn't good enough. So like if you can try and quiet those voices that are saying you're not good enough or this idea is not good enough that is so powerful and will take you really far because as a migrant or as a person of color or someone from a culturally linguistically diverse background you have this little voice that's saying are you good enough? Do I belong here etc. There are many people in the world who don't have that voice. So when you consider that, you realize just how encumbered you are sometimes by that self-doubt. But I can guarantee you there's a lot of people who do not have that level of self-doubt. So if you can find ways to quiet that voice even momentarily, it will take you so far. But it's not easy to do. No, it's not. Do you have any content to recommend to the audience? A book, a movie, a show, something that really inspired you that you think everyone should see, watch, or read? Good question. I feel like I'm doing a lot of work in the gender equality space. So, there's a book called Invisible Women that I talk about a lot because if you're an advocate that's looking at how do we convince people that gender inequality exists when it's this big concept that's kind of hard to understand. This book goes through the really pragmatic examples. So, like for example, things like women are more likely to have fatalities from a car accident because when you look at crash test dummies, it wasn't actually up until very recently that we had female anatomical crash test dummies. It was always based on male crash test dummies. So, all of the safety ratings we have are often based on a male dummy. So things like that where I'm like these are really good examples and really tangible things that people can pull out or the fact that you know women developed carpool tunnel syndrome. So like wrist issues because some mobile devices are optimized for male hands. So like really like quite real world pragmatic scenarios that help you make your case as an advocate. So it's something I've been rereading at the moment because I just love it. But I would recommend it if you're someone who is looking for some of those really tangible pieces, but also read it with a cup of tea and a chapter at a time because you'll get very frustrated about it. Yeah, that's the kind of book that I would feel so angry about. [laughter] But sometimes anger is also something that is needed and is needed to take action. Oh, for sure. And the other thing that I'd say, and it's not necessarily a book, but something that I've been thinking a lot about recently, is what forms of knowledge do we value? And how do we deconstruct, I guess, this hierarchy that's often built through centering, you know, dominant ways of being. So, for example, we respect books because they're published, and we respect movies because they're something's been produced. But something that I think is so understated is each other's stories. So from a content perspective, I'd really encourage anyone to reach out to people whether it's on LinkedIn, whether it's on Instagram, whatever it is. If there is someone that you admire that's in your local community or that's in your spaces, reach out. Tell them that and ask them out for coffee because I think I've learned the most 100% in my life from catching up with strangers for a coffee and talking to them about their life. And it means that that knowledge is not outdated. Whereas by the time we get to writing a book about it and going through publishing and all these sorts of things, sometimes the knowledge we've kind of moved on. So I always remind people from a content perspective. Sometimes the most powerful thing is just remembering that we're collectivist as our cultures. Like we're not often individualists where we have to seek out knowledge in really specific ways when sometimes our communities and our families and our friends hold sometimes that knowledge that we need. Wow. That's that's beautiful. I have two final questions that I ask to all the guests and the first one is you know migrant is such a loaded word and so I'm really curious to hear when I say the word migrant what are the words that come to mind for you? Good question. I think for me it would be storyteller comes to mind because I think a lot of the best people I know have really fantastic stories and that's how we create change. courageous comes to mind and multi-talented I think is the other one that comes to mind because often we like so many migrants I know speak so many languages and they also speak they're they're able to spend their time walking between worlds and that is so hard but we don't recognize that as talent sometimes when really being able to navigate systems that were not built for you and being able to survive and thrive in communities that don't look like you is such a talent and we don't often talk about the resilience that migrants inherently have because they're able to do all of those things. There is a a psychotherapist that I love. Her name is Esther Pereel and she talks about this idea of having an unofficial resume that collects kind of your life experiences and they are things that you don't put in your professional resume but they are so much more meaningful and they tell so much about the person that you are and I wish that we had not those very outdated views of what a resume should look like and that we could introduce things that are just yeah highlighting the multi-talent of people who have gone through life experience. Oh, totally agree. And you think about the many steps that it takes to migrate. It's so many steps. And in terms of being able to then like set up your life in a whole other space, like the amount of people that I've mentored, cuz I used to help people write their resumes and write their CVs. And when I'd come up against people who'd say, "Oh, I migrated x amount of years ago." I'd often find that people had a really deficit framing of it where they're like, "Oh, because I've only been here for so long." And I'm like, "Yeah, but that how many years have you been alive and all of the things that you achieved in the different countries you've been in is so much more experience than potentially someone who's grown up here. So like we need to look at even the idea that you can move into a whole other national context, jump into a whole other culture and a whole other language. Like that in itself is such a skill set that you need to look at. It's not like a I'm behind the pack, but no, I'm resilient and I'm agile and I'm innovative because I'm able to flex myself in so many ways and I'm able to like move in different ways and I can be across cultures and I can do all these things, especially in like an increasingly globalized world. It's just so interesting in that sometimes and maybe it's because of the work I do. I look at migrants and I'm like, you're so tough. You are so hardcore in that you can do this because it's so hard to move across context and to be able to thrive despite it and because of it. But I think there's so many narratives that people get told around how migrants are behind because they don't have that national context. Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard as well to shift from the deficit mindset to okay, what is it that I actually have done and can do? you know what is the potential that I have. Absolutely. And my last question for you is a bit more personal. It's about authenticity. I love the conversation around authenticity because yeah, I guess it tells a lot about where a person is at personally. So, do you feel that you can be your authentic self wherever you go today or is your authenticity confined to a few safe spaces? I would say it's a blend. I think that I'm able to show up as myself [snorts] in majority of spaces, but that's through a lot of work in order to be in the spaces that I think are very accepting of me or are very, you know, because of my experiences and because of who I am, it makes me very useful in those spaces. And that's why like I work in this space or why I work in change and influence because I know that I can show up in those spaces. And while there might not be an inherent sense of belonging, there's a lot of people who are having similar values to me and having very similar perspectives I guess to me. But [snorts] I think there's always going to be some spaces where you are a little bit more cognizant or a little bit more like I don't know if I can fully show up as myself here. And that's usually related to systems of power. So when there are really big power differentials in a room, sometimes you can find yourself a little bit more muted than what you are usually or things like that. But I think it's really important to intentionally create time and space for you to engage in the spaces where you feel the most comfortable. So like I will often if I have say like a really big speaking event, right, where like I'm comfortable engaging as myself on stage, but sometimes you're a bit more intimidated because you're like, "Oh my god, it's a giant audience." That's terrifying. So you are a little bit more careful I guess in how you present and you don't just say whatever comes into your mind because you are you want to present yourself in a particular way. I will always make sure to book in something afterwards where I am with my friends because then it refills up your cup a little bit of like okay cool I'm doing this big event and now I'm going to go and go to a space where I feel really safe and where I feel really empowered I guess to be myself and empowered to belong. So part of it being intentional, I think in roles like mine where sometimes you do need to show up in spaces where they're doing diversity education because they need it or they're doing it because you're consulting on something because they need help in an area. So you'll naturally be in spaces where you need to be really cognizant of the people around you and like how you can best show up to support them, but then make these spaces where you can absolutely be yourself, where you belong. And I think as well that when you have had an experience of being otherred early on, it becomes harder to reach a stage where you feel like you can empower yourself to be authentic because you have to do so much code switching to Yeah, absolutely. That's so true. And I think in communities where there's a lot of multiculturalism, it's way easier, I think, to feel like you belong because you see a lot of people who like they don't necessarily look like you, but you can see that you have shared sort of experiences with them because there's a certain degree of multiculturalism that's in an area. Whereas sometimes if you walk into spaces that don't have that multiculturalism just yet, you can feel a little bit on guard of like, okay, I am representing at this point. And that's also important as an advocate because sometimes you can be in spaces where you are the only multicultural person or you are the only person of color and that puts a responsibility on your shoulders to then represent community. So things like that too which I think also complicate it and affect the level of authenticity perhaps or individuality that you can show because you're trying to Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to like represent a really large majority of people. So Ki for listeners who want to follow your work and connect with you what's the best place for them to go? Yeah well firstly please do I love to to chat to people and I love to be connected. LinkedIn's the best place to go. So I am my name on all platforms because my name is quite unique. So if you want to find me on a website it's ki.com. If you want to find me on LinkedIn you can look up casei and I'll be the only one that's there. Great. Well, thank you so much, Katie. It was such a an insightful conversation. You are so articulate. It's just a joy to speak with you and I feel like you've taught me so much, you know, in the little I've known you. So, thank you so much. Oh, thank you. It's been such a pleasure. Yeah, me too. [laughter] Thank you for listening to this episode. [music] I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Ki. If our discussion gave you a language for something you've [music] experienced, share it with a friend. Follow the show. Leave us a rating or some kind words in a review. That's how the show grows and how these stories find the people who need them most. Next month, I'm actually going to take a little break to bring to life a fresh new season, season [music] 2, with incredible new guests and brand new angles on stories and insights that matter. I'm going to keep this a [music] surprise for now, but I'm genuinely so excited for this one, so stay tuned. I was your host, Emma Bilami, [music] and I cannot wait to bring you on another journey from there to here. Hallelujah. [music]
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When advocating for change, focusing on someone's underlying interests rather than their stated position often opens room to move, because positions feel fixed but interests can be addressed.
This conversation includes a boy tells her skin makes him vomit, the apology card that didn't fix anything, racism gets quieter as you grow up, what intersectionality actually means, the privilege that shifts when she travels and the travelator of racism.
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