Motivation Matters - Interrogating White Racial Identity and Practicing Antiracism w/ Jenny Potter
Insight: Your motivation for diversifying your team matters.
Action: If your motivation is to honor people's dignity, keep going. If your motivation is to appear relevant, stop now.
Jenny Booth Potter is a woman who has dedicated her life to practicing antiracism and to supporting the work of Black women activists. Jenny is thoughtful and brings so much clarity and conviction to her antiracism work. In this conversation, we dive into what it’s been like for her as a white woman to go on a journey of show up to the work of racial justice with consistency and authenticity.
I am grateful for Jenny’s voice and leadership, and I know you will be too.
Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, white, book, question, talking, life, conversation, thinking, jenny, black woman, whiteness, diversity, story, feel, happening, racial justice, anti racism, called, proactive, gap
SPEAKERS
Bethaney Wilkinson, Jenny Potter
Bethaney Wilkinson 00:00
Hey, did you know you can officially preorder my book. It's called the diversity gap where good intentions meet true cultural change. If you are struggling to pair your good intentions for organizational diversity with thoughtful, human centered and story driven practices, then this book is for you, and the book I share eight key insights and actions you can engage to create a diverse and liberating organizational culture. I also share some personal stories in the research I've done over the past three years about why diversity gaps exist and how everyday people can close them. It is good stuff and I am so excited to share it with all of you. Visit www dot the diversity gap. com to pre order your copy today. Welcome to the diversity gap podcast. This is the book edition. My name is Bethany Wilkinson, and I am your host. Hey friends, welcome to Episode Three of the book edition of the diversity gap podcast. I cannot believe that this book is finally available for pre order. And it's so fun to be able to sit down with my friends to have conversations about pursuing justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in this time, I'm just you know, feeling really grateful every year. Now for today's conversation. The guiding theme is on chapter three of the book and the name of this chapter is motivation matters. The key insight for this chapter is pretty simple. It's that your motivation for diversifying your team matters. Your motivation is important. What is your WHY? If your motivation is to dignify people, and to uplift those who've been downtrodden, and to pursue actual transformation, then great, keep going fumble your way through. But if your motivation is to appear relevant and to check diversity off of your list, then I would recommend that you stop and that you take some time to really reevaluate what's driving you and this episode you get to listen in on a conversation I had with Ginni booth Potter, a woman who has dedicated her life to practicing anti racism and to supporting the work of black women activists. Jenny is thoughtful and brings so much clarity and conviction to our anti racism work. She is co producer of a show called The next question, which I will link to in the show notes and Jenny will tell you about a little bit later. But ultimately, this conversation is incredible because we get to dive into what it's been like for Jenny as a white woman to go on her own journey of showing up to the work of racial justice with consistency and authenticity. I am so grateful for Jenny's voice and her leadership. And I know you will be to check out this conversation. Alright, all right. Oh, Jenny, I'm so happy to have you on the podcast today. How's it going?
Jenny Potter 03:07
I'm doing great. Bethany. Thanks so much for having me, of course. So
Bethaney Wilkinson 03:11
I am really excited to kick off our conversation with the first question that I asked every person that I interview and that is, when did you first know that you had a race or racial identity?
Jenny Potter 03:23
You know, I think when I was in my late teens, early 20s, I really had kind of like aha moments that that led me back to reflecting on like growing up. And so I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, predominantly, like white suburban neighborhood. But my elementary school, we had what was called the ESL like classes. So kids that spoke English as a second language were in our school. And I remember, like, as an adult, looking back on that, and kind of observing, like, oh, like, I remember these kids that weren't in any of my classes, but I saw them on the playground. And they all spoke a different language and had brown skin. And that was just like, an all the other kids that were in my class were white. And so just like moments like that, where I look back, and no one, you know, I grew up a child of the 80s. And so that kind of colorblind thinking was pervasive. So no one was talking to me about racial identity as a kid. It wasn't until I was in college, and I went to school in Chicago and and had just started, you know, having classes with people of color and having professors that were people of color and just expanding my lens of what the world was and and then went on, like our racial justice. Kind of like, a trip to the south. And the setup of that trip was, you had like four weeks before you go on this trip, where you're really learning about pretty much the history of the black experience in America starting in 1600, you know, 1619. And so so much of the focus was on the black experience, but by focusing on the black experience, it really started to highlight the gaps in my own education or upbringing of so if there's a black experience, that means that there's a white experience. And that really started kind of laying my own. But yeah, my own interrogation and investigation of what, what did growing up white mean? What does being at the time, like a young white college students? What does that actually mean? So it was it was probably like, yeah, 1920 when I really started beyond the like, I know that I have lighter skin than other people, because I, you know, I think there's an awareness but, but actually taking that from an individual thing, to recognizing that I was part of a group that identified as white and really starting to unpack that was, yeah, was 19 or 20. So I don't know if that feels late or early. But it is what?
Bethaney Wilkinson 06:23
Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm wondering, how did it feel like to, to start to think of yourself in that way? Like, yeah, how did that feel?
Jenny Potter 06:34
In a weird way, like I was, I, it felt honest, it felt like, Oh, this is how the world actually works. And, you know, from a young age, I really always cared about issues of injustice, or unfairness. That that I was, yeah, I just always, I kind of saw the world by who's included who's excluded like that, that was just kind of how I saw the world working. And so it just, in a lot of ways, it felt like, Oh, this is, this is how the world is actually working. So if we want to make sure everyone is included, we have to be including race, and I don't, I think I had a really empowering on ramp to understanding my whiteness, because I think I think I leaned into I can, I don't have to be like, I wasn't shamed for being white. And I don't know if that's every, every white person necessarily feels as they're kind of unpacking their, their racial identity. I think for a lot of people, there's a lot of shame, I think I move past the shame pretty quickly to how do I, what do I do with this? How do I how do I utilize this? So in some ways, it was just, it was incredibly it felt like a road forward of how to do more good in the world more honestly. Um, but I think that's because I was really focusing macro, and it wasn't probably until my 30s, that I really started kind of going to the like, Okay, well, let's interrogate the parts of whiteness, that that are really personal that you that you might have, because you were so eager to, you know, throw yourself into issues of anti racism. You were maybe, I don't want to say ignorant too, but just like, more quickly wanting to move past and you didn't actually interrogate them fully. And I think that's just the ongoing work of being a white person is, is that back and forth of you don't want to get bogged down in the shame of things. But you also don't want to think that you're like an exceptional white person. So it's kind of this dance of Yeah, of keep momentum of keeping moving forward. But doing that honestly, and not. Not thinking that there's like a, like, well check that box. And, you know, now I've no, I've completely mastered how to not perpetuate or maintain or uphold white supremacy as a white person. Like I think that's just always it's always available to you as a white person. And so it's a constant rejection and having to come up with something else that you're trying to sustain and live out of.
Bethaney Wilkinson 09:52
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting because in a different way, I I've been thinking a lot about like, the racial trauma that exists in my family history, like being a southern family. And, and I'm not going to go down this rabbit trail too far because I want to talk to you about your life and your experience. But I've been thinking a lot about how the work of experiencing healing is ongoing and how it's never, it's never going to not be here, like, and I think part of it might be because of like these modern times you live in where I'm like, okay, we will solve the problem of race and this generation, just step back and be realistic and say, you know, probably not gonna happen. And so the work to be like healthy and whole and proactive about my identity as a black woman, is also ongoing work. And so I just I appreciate how you frame that like, this is an ongoing, constant journey.
Jenny Potter 10:48
Oh, completely. And I yeah, I think that's, I even think back to kind of my I had this like, aha moment on this trip that I mentioned. And I mean, my words, were basically like, I'm going to work for the rest of my life. This is a direct quote, I'm going to work for the rest of my life to make sure that the racism I saw in our history and that I've heard, you know, you articulate does not happen in your children's lifetime. Yeah, I thought that me waking up to injustice. Like, I'm not so I'm a, I don't even know the word like, egotistical to think that I was the key. Like, once Jenny gets it, we're all gonna be, you know, but I do think there was like a, oh, we, the rido I think coming from like the colorblind mindset, it was like, Oh, we just haven't talked about this. So now that we're talking about it, that's going to solve it because people just don't know. It's not that they're actively maintaining these, like horrible, you know, principles and ideas. It's that, Oh, just people are they're just, they're purely ignorant, where that's absolutely not the case. Like, we just weren't talking about it, but it was still happening. And once as we've seen, I mean, we've been talking about race and racism more in the last year, publicly as like a nation than I've ever seen. And black people are still being pulled over and murdered and targeted and, and passed over for promotions, or, you know, so many things, so many in justices are still happening. So talking is not gonna that's not the that wasn't the hindrance to actually solving these problems. But I think it it's, like I said, it's one of those things that I look back and I'm like, Oh, yeah, that was, I think that was even whiteness in my response of like, now white people are talking about so now it's gonna be solved. The key was there weren't enough white people talking about this before as if, which I think there's truth to but it's also like, let's not get it twisted, and white people are more compliant with what's going on then. Even though we
Bethaney Wilkinson 13:12
Yeah, it's so complicated. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. It makes me wonder like when you when you step back and look at the world of, I guess, like racial justice activism. And when you think about the community, you come from maybe communities of other white people, white women, are you seeing things that are exciting to you, in this current cultural moment as it relates to racial justice activism? Like, are you seeing anything that gives you hope? And then I'm also wondering, what gaps are you seeing?
Jenny Potter 13:44
Hmm, anything I see that gives me hope, is not coming from white people. And I don't want to you know, I think the time of this conversation is really important. I think if we have been talking last July, I would, I would have a different answer to that. And I know I'm, I'm hyper aware, and I was pretty aware last summer, that there was as we watched, you know, just massive uprising and protest and, and really the tides shift of public discourse about what we were what we what people were calling for what we were what we were starting to have be, like, you know, like suburban moms talking about abolishing the police. It was a it was a really like, oh, we're, you know, maybe the water is rising, and we're gonna kind of all lift, lift to like the next place that we need to go as a country to actually pursue justice and equality. But even if that was all happening, I was very aware of like, I just kept imagining a window. I was like, how long is this window gonna stay open, like? And so while it was open, it felt really exciting and like, wow, we're imagining things that are really radical. And we're talking about, we're not talking about small tweaks, we're talking about wholesale changes. And so I was really, you know, I was really excited and energized by that by the imagination of things. You know, my husband is from St. Paul. So you know, St. Paul Minneapolis, so he was hearing about things kind of on the ground more of, hey, like, you know, the Minneapolis Public Schools are breaking their contract with the police, like, all these types of things are happening. And so that was really exciting and hopeful to me to see this collective change and, and taking steps without knowing exactly where this is going to lead. But just saying, Let's, let's eliminate the problem first. And by doing that, the solutions will, you know, we'll figure out the solutions. But let's, let's not need to have everything ready to go at the beginning, let's kind of let's let's meet the need of this moment and say, we don't want to be tolerating systems that are killing people over and over again. Um, so that was giving me a lot of hope. Um, I think what I, I think, what has what's been, I don't want to say discouraging, but I think kind of like, I think you phrased it this way, like, what gaps Am I seeing? I feel like there is this like, Okay, great. Well, we had this, like, a national conversation. But I, I'm hearing from not all white people, but several white people that are like, okay, but practically, like, how are we, you know, how does this really work? And, and I think there's this I mean, it's really what like MLK talked about with like, the white moderate, right, who's more interested in order than justice, where there's this, okay, but break it down for me like, Okay, so we're gonna do this for six months, and then we'll do this for six months. And then like, in five years, we'll be here and then 10 years, we'll be here. And it's like, I don't think that justice works like that. I don't think that it's this. Super, you know, like, neat and tidy plan. I think you take steps forward. And you you know, you see what needs are still there, and then you move on from there. But I think there's not enough like, I don't think there's been enough like transformational thinking, or just transformation that's happened. I think there's a lot of the public conversation has evolved. But I still think it hasn't evolve, like quickly enough, or for there to be an urgency in terms of I'm going to trust that things not working the way they are now is enough of a reason just to just stop. Yeah, even though we've you know, we're comfort we've, we've always or we think, you know, in our lifetime, we've always done it this way to say you know, what note works stopping that because, because it's not working for everyone. So we stop it, and then we figure out from there versus like, wow, break this down. For me, practically. It's like, Okay, well, if you're, if you were scared about your son driving to target every day, I don't think you would want I don't think you'd need a five year plan. Right? I don't think you'd want to know that. Like, it's an airtight, you know, fail proof plan, because the plan that we're operating, currently is failing, and I just I and so I think there was an urgency in terms of like, what tell us what books to read, and what, you know, what should I watch and what, like from white people there was that but I don't think there's been enough of an urgency of seeing that through to like, because I understand these things now. I'm going to like leave the timeline that maybe I'm comfortable with, and adopt the timeline that people of color and people in my community really need me to adopt, which is a lot less known. And I think that's, that's, that's what's exciting to me. Like that's what's giving me hope is the people that are like we're gonna figure it out but this isn't working. And the thing that's discouraging is that people that are like, but we need to see we need to see Like the end goal, we need to have an end goal, because how will we know we were successful or not? Yeah, and I just I'm, like so grossed out.
Bethaney Wilkinson 20:09
You know what's so funny about that, too, I find so I leave these these workshops or trainings or seminars or whatever they might be. And just in the way that I even tell stories and lead them, I know that I'm all I'm sharing, like active, like proactive things that people and leaders can do to begin moving into more liberating direction. Like, that's the whole point of most of my seminars and workshops. And so it's so funny to me how I'll go through like 60 to 90 minutes worth of content where I know I've intentionally communicated, hey, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this, you can do this. And at the end, someone will still say, Well, what can we do practically? And I'm like, wait, I used to feel like, in my earlier days of this work, I would feel like I did something wrong. Like, oh, maybe I didn't break it down enough. Maybe I can make it like, simpler or whatever. But I've since learned that that no, I have told no to do. It's just that if I don't know, maybe it feels like it's too much or too heavy. Like I don't know how they're experiencing it. But it's not that I haven't said here are some things you can do. It's like a funny dynamic.
Jenny Potter 21:13
No, I that makes so much sense to me. And that makes sense to me that at the beginning, you were like, yeah, you're like, Oh, well, maybe Yeah, maybe I haven't, you know, quite clearly, like, you know, you're looking back here. No, it's like, did I I just I haven't speaking for 16 minutes about what to do. Um, but I, but I think that's why I really do think I've been thinking a lot about this, because I've been thinking about that's such a common question that you hear from white people. And I think it's an earnest one of like, what do I practically do what, you know, what should I do next? What's my next right thing, whatever. And I was just thinking about this a lot recently, and I just did an Instagram post about it about like, that is a great question to ask, but that can't be your first question. And that can't be your only question. And I, I really believe in having a framework for this work. Because if you're constantly just add, like people that ask that are and are responding, when you've literally laid out here some paths to liberation. And they come back to you like, well, but like, here's my here's my like, specific situation, can you tell me like what I specifically should do? It's like, okay, you want a checklist. And transformation doesn't happen through a checklist. And, like, you clearly don't have an end goal in mind. And I don't mean that in the way I was talking about it. Like, you don't have a vision for this work. And so until you have a vision, you're always going to be going back to the like, but tell me exactly what I should do. Yeah. Because those things aren't naturally coming up for you. And or your so I mean, that's very complicated, but you're it hasn't, it hasn't been important enough to you to figure out how to make this part of not just your everyday life, but like how to stay connected to the work, how to stay sustained in it. And those are, you know, those are some questions that are going to take in some self interrogation. You know, I'm constantly thinking through the lens of what have I What am I learning? What am I unlearning? But I really think there's such a lack of framework for so many people that it's, it's all reactive. And so when I hear people saying, what should I do that feels like a rip that doesn't. It sounds like it should be proactive. It sounds proactive, but it's actually a reactive because it's okay, Bethany, I'm going to put it back on you. Yeah, you tell me what I should do. And then I get to decide whether or not that fits with my timeline or my skirt, you know, whatever. But that's, that's not proactive. Proactive is saying, I believe that black lives matter. So I am going to email my what you know, email call petition research, have conversations with my neighbors like just all sorts of like, that's that but that's you owning it. And I think there's a lack of ownership by a lot of white people and that's why and that's what's just stinks. Yeah, it's it's really frustrating because it's like, this is on white people. And we're constantly pushing it away and saying, and, and just living out of reactions of another, you know, video that was released like that. All of a sudden, there's What are you know? What should we do is if is if the answer isn't there so clearly all along, but so i think i'm just i'm really, I don't want to say I'm tired, but I am worn by watching just the like, almost scripted reaction that keeps happening over and over again. It's like, when is the tide going to turn to like real proaction proactivity in your own life? And then when are we gonna see that? Not just the ripple effect, but like, though I want some waves I want I don't want tweaks in our society, like we need Yeah, we need to turn everything on its head and, and have some, some real what's what feels like drastic changes, but are really what we need for everyone to be able to survive. Mm hmm.
Bethaney Wilkinson 25:55
Yeah, that, um, gosh, so much wisdom. And like you just you just shared. I'm curious, because I think this will be helpful to listeners. I'm thinking about the importance of uplifting, honoring, affirming, and protecting black women in this work in general. I'm in life, but in this work, specifically, and I'm wondering what your journeys looked like, like, how do you do that without centering yourself. And I know, there's like an irony to me asking you this. But I also planned it that way, that I will be asking the white woman to center herself and unpacking how she doesn't do that. But I think that'd be helpful to a lot of a lot of the listeners to just hear some of your process around. Yeah, protecting black women as a white woman in this.
Jenny Potter 26:43
I am really thankful for this question, because I think it's really important. And I think it's one that's taken me a really long time to be able to kind of Yeah, to pinpoint what has what has been what has been true about my relationship to the black woman in my life, that means that I still have them in my life. And so I, you know, I mentioned, I went on this, like racial justice trip, and the way that they worked it is they have every white student paired with a black student. And so I was paired with a black woman. Yeah, you're a woman when you're 20. Right. Okay, with a black woman. And so really my, you know, so we, we met, before we go on this trip I'm hearing we have, I'm hearing stories of her childhood, we grew up, maybe like 45 minutes away from each other in the Chicago suburbs. And hearing all these things about our lives that were similar that were and then like, things that were radically different, even though so much on paper looked, you know, looked the same. And so, as I was preparing to actually, like, go on this trip with my partner, her name is Katrina, um, I kept coming back to this phrase that I have really come back to, over and over again, and I still think about it all the time. And the phrase that I came back to was Jenny, your story has been told. And so as I'm listening to Katrina, talk about things like to keep that at the forefront, as she's telling me stories, to as we're going to museums, and it's parts of American history that I've never been exposed to, I'm wanting to not ignore my story, not say my story is wrong or invalid. But just through a minder, that my story. In the lens of, you know, every area of media, every textbook, every what, you know, whatever has been told, through the lens of white Christian people, you know, um, and to be secure, to be secure enough. I want to be careful how I say this, like, to be secure enough in that to say, there's room for more than one story. And, and so I think that really, that allowed me to enter into stories where I wasn't saying, Well, what about, well, my grandparents? Well, I never, you know, it was just like, no, there was there was that phrase helped me accept just the reality that my story is and to make space for someone else's story. And so that was like, you know, that felt like one on one level. As I'm, as I'm cooking, you know, in my early 20s And then I think as I have grown, and I, and really grown in my activism work and opportunities that I've had, I've always done it alongside and under black women's leadership and authority. And so in some ways, I don't know any differently when it comes to this work. And I, and, and what that has meant, for me, has been life giving and beautiful, and it doesn't feel like, Oh, I can't even bring who I am. You know, like, it hasn't been anything, but, um, it feels like I'm being invited into a better way. And so. And I mean that wholeheartedly, like I, um, and so I think by having been led and behind black women, I, I have now my framework is that's the way it should be. Yes, I do think that I need spaces to unpack what it means to be a white woman. But I think the majority of that space is with other white people, predominantly other white women. And so I think that's just been something I've been mindful to as well of making sure that I have relationships with other white women where we're talking about race, because like, we started out this conversation, this work for me is ever evolving, and I'm constantly figuring out or not even, you know, learning ways that like, oh, gosh, like I, you know, I need to pay attention to that, or I need to watch out for that tendency. Um, so I think that it's not that you abandon that and you don't have, you know, you're not having a place for that. But I am really careful about what I'm bringing to the black woman in my life as it relates to my own, you know, learnings about whiteness.
Bethaney Wilkinson 32:17
One of my favorite things you've done creatively is hosting or co hosting the online show the next question with your friends, Austin and chichi. And I just, I have a lot of questions about this. I want to know, why did you all create this show? How did you decide the trajectory of the content? And then lastly, Do you have plans for another season?
Jenny Potter 32:38
Yeah, so Oh, my gosh, I know we're not on video, and no one else. No one else can see me. But this is like my, my face is like, happy. Good, good. Um, I love talking about this. This is something that I'm really proud of. So yeah, so a couple of years ago. So let me back up a little bit of context. So I keep talking about this trip I went on. So the trip that I went on in college is actually how I met my friend and kind of creative partner Austin Channing Brown, she was on that trip with me. And we connected as a result of that, and then just started really mean, we didn't know what at the time, but like, a lifelong friendship and, and creative partnership. And so, we had worked together. And then she and she had worked together. So this is really Austin's baby. I mean, like she, so she launched a book in 20 Oh, gosh, shoot, I should know, the year was 2018 I think it was 2018 Thank you, um, and was on a notice, like podcasts are there for a reason, including the site, but she was just invited on so many podcasts, and she is such a, like visual person. And she'd always be making faces or you know, whatever. And being like, I wish the audience could see could just see me as I'm talking about being a black woman, I want them to see me see me being a black woman talking about my experience. And so she really had this idea of I want to move we have these like national conversations on race, which at the time, although I don't think we've evolved past this, but at the time, were really like, Oh, this white Congress person did blackface in 2014 and now you know, now we're all going to talk about his blackface, okay, or now we're going to talk about can white people say the N word and the you know, there's a conversation about that, but it was always like, very Yeah, just 101 level types of questions. And she was like I, she has a moment that she talks about, I think publicly where she's watching Michelle Alexander who wrote the book, The New Jim Crow. And so you have this woman who is just brilliant. And the interviewer asked her the interviewers, first question is, so your book is called The New Jim Crow. Can you tell us about the old Jim Crow? So basically, like, waste Michelle's time with, uh, with like, that's a, that's a, that's a fine question to just Google, you know, but like, let's not waste. Michelle Alexander's time, with like, going backwards, and recapping what Jim Crow laws, you know, have been in America. And so Austin was just like, we are surrounded with all these brilliant people and brilliant thinkers. And I just don't think we're, we're asking the types of questions that, you know, that like regular mainstream media is interested in asking. So that's kind of where the the title came from of the next question of like, we want to be the question. After the like, mainstream interviewer ends, we'll be like, Well, our follow up question to that, and just and go deeper in the conversation. So yeah, so Austin, gathered me and our friend cheat sheet. And we really just started thinking through what are the things in racial justice work that are exciting? What are you know, what are like institutions that need to be looked at and held up and examined? And not only that, but how are the leaders of our times? How do we hold them up and honor their humanity? As we're talking to them, so not just not just viewing these brilliant people as resources, but as you know, fellow human beings? How do we how do we ask them questions that center their humanity, that get at more fully who they are. So that was kind of our like, general outline. We knew that we wanted predominantly black women to be our, our guests. And we knew that we really wanted the topics to be ones that we all cared about, but that needed, like needed some, some real like, yeah, expertise and people that had had a real vision for this work that weren't just naming problems, but were like, Yeah, well, I'm not just going to we all know the problem. So let's like start dreaming about what, what some of the solutions could be.
Bethaney Wilkinson 37:59
Okay, are you ready for the lightning round? As ready as you can be? Ready? Okay, so number one, what is your favorite story of all time?
Jenny Potter 38:11
Okay, this is gonna sound I don't care. Well, my favorite story of all time is the story of the subversive upside down kingdom that Jesus lived and modeled. That I think, get so overly reduced and simplified. But the older I get, the more I'm just like, drawn to the radical. The radical nature of Jesus and how completely anti christian a lot of what a lot of what he lived really was.
Bethaney Wilkinson 38:46
Yeah, so good. So good. And what's the last book you read and loved?
Jenny Potter 38:52
Okay, so I'm going to emphasize on loved and not last because, but I read the I finally finished the warmth of other suns by Isabel Wilkerson last summer. And I, I think about that book all the time. Like, it's just it's really stayed with me. I think it's, you know, when we did the next question, one of the things we asked all of our guests for was a book list. And that was on almost every single one of our guest lists. And so I was like, I should, okay, like I should attention to this. And I just think it is storytelling at its best. It's sweeping history and real life and I mean, it's, I just think it's a masterpiece, so I, I truly loved that book.
Bethaney Wilkinson 39:38
Oh, great.
Jenny Potter 39:39
Have you read it?
Bethaney Wilkinson 39:40
I've read I have it an audio book. And I've listened to like the first third of it. I haven't watched it. I need to face it.
Jenny Potter 39:47
I mean, I read it on my Kindle, so I couldn't actually see how, how thick that book is, but it is. That thing is no joke. So um, but yeah. It's, yeah,
Bethaney Wilkinson 40:02
I can't recommend it enough. Oh, that's a great one. Okay, number three, if you could have dinner with one person, someone who's living or dead, who would you choose?
Jenny Potter 40:11
Okay, I just need to go on record saying I hate this question.
Bethaney Wilkinson 40:13
I know, I know me to kind of, but I'm still curious about
Jenny Potter 40:17
it. So I asked, so, um, this answer could change tomorrow. But right now, I so I am a mom raising two little boys, I have a four year old and a six year old. So I just keep coming back to Mr. Rogers as just such an example to me of so many things that I want to be as a mom. Um, and I think he was so I mean, talk about like, subversive, I think some of the things that he did as a children's, you know, like, children's, I don't want to call him an entertainer, but like educator and producer of children's content was so incredibly anti racist. And just beautiful. I mean, I feel like I've watched, there's, I feel like a couple years ago, there was that, like, awards show, where he he won an award, and he just invited people to think about someone that they were grateful for. And they just showed all these people in the audience like, tearing up, but you know, as they're thinking about someone that they love, and I don't know, I have a what I this is why I hate the question. Cuz I'm like, What if they don't like me, like, what I meet someone that I have held as this, like, oh, and we don't click, we don't, you know, there's no spark. And I'm like, you know, what Mr. Rogers? would just like, see to the center of my soul and a really beautiful way. And he's a vegetarian, and so am I. So like, the menu would be, you know, a Okay. Um, but yeah, I just think as a mom, and as someone who is like producing work, I would just love to glean from his wisdom.
Bethaney Wilkinson 42:03
Okay, name one song that would be on the soundtrack to your life.
Jenny Potter 42:09
So at my wedding, the first song that my husband and I danced to was stay with me by john legend. So I feel like that would
Bethaney Wilkinson 42:18
be great. And then last, but not least, how can everyday people close the gap between their good intentions for diversity and true cultural change?
Jenny Potter 42:30
Ah, I mean, I think you have it in the question every day. Like, I think there needs to be something. I think there needs to be something that you're doing everyday. That's proactive. And I don't think that needs to be a huge thing. But I think the way that we really shift the tides is, you know, one day at a time, consistent resistance and momentum. That might feel really small, but bit by bit and person by person adds up. But yeah, I just I think you you, you start with the framework you commit, and then you do something every day.
Bethaney Wilkinson 43:11
Yeah. Gosh, so wise, so much wisdom. Thank you so much, Jenny, for giving us some of your time and sharing your story. Where can people keep up with you?
Jenny Potter 43:22
Well, my favorite places, Instagram, although, yes, I'm going to not edit that. My favorite places, Instagram. So I'm Jenny B. Potter. There. I also have a website that I barely keep up with. But that's Jenny booth, Potter, calm. And then you'll probably be seeing me a lot more on Facebook and Instagram in the next couple months as I get set to launch my book, which comes out next spring.
Bethaney Wilkinson 43:47
So exciting. We will be sure to link to all of these things in the show notes.
Jenny Potter 43:53
Thanks so much, Bethany. It's been really great to talk to you.
Bethaney Wilkinson 43:57
Didn't you just love learning from Jenny Potter? Gosh, I could talk to her all day all day. She just has so much wisdom, and she brings such thoughtfulness and commitment to her anti racism work and I think that is a lesson we can all be learning from every single day. If this content has been helpful to you. Please consider pre ordering the book The diversity gap where good intentions meet true cultural change. You can also subscribe to the diversity gap Academy on Patreon to get access to bonus content all year long. Thanks again for listening to the podcast. And until next time, may your good intentions for diversity lead to true cultural change. Bye