Episode Description:
Being a “Karen” has become a popular term for a white woman who is racist. Now in this provocative documentary, “Deconstructing Karen” , Director/ Producer Patty Ivins, along with Saira Rao and Regina Jackson of “Race to Dinner” , allow white women to experience what RADICAL HONESTY ABOUT RACISM looks like…their daily role in upholding it, their conditioning to ignore it and the essential part they can play in tearing down the systems that are killing black and brown people every single day.
Saira and Regina are also NYT best selling authors of the book White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and how to do Better. This episode is a candid conversation about our inherent racism and where we are in America today. Discover how you can stop being “nice” at the expense of your own racism.
Show Notes:
Watch the Documentary Deconstructing Karen:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/deconstructing-karen/id1654085496?ls=1
Buy the book (if you’re white please by 10 copies and give them out like I am)
Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better
https://amzn.to/3Vaz1lu
Guest Bios:
Regina Jackson:
Born in Chicago in 1950 Regina remembers an America where everything was in Black and white. Burned into her memory are; the beatings and horrific treatment of civil rights workers throughout the south, the Goodman, Chaney & Schwerner murders, the murder of Viola Liuzzo, the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the murders of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert. The violence perpetrated on innocent people going about their lives, by white people. It is these memories that drive Regina to push for real change in America. Which is why she co-founded Race 2 Dinner.
Saira (NOT Sara) Rao: Saira grew up in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of Indian immigrants. For forty years, she wasted her precious time aspiring to be white and accepted by dominant white society, a futile task for anyone not born with white skin. Several years ago, Saira began the painful process of dismantling her own internalized oppression. Saira is a lawyer-by-training, a former congressional candidate, a published novelist and an entrepreneur. Saira and Regina are co-founders of Race2Dinner.
Patty Ivins:
Patty Ivins is an Emmy-award winning producer, director and writer dedicated to making films about humanity that inspire and challenge audiences, including documentaries about womanhood (Logo’s HUNGRY, Discovery’s Mean Girls Mind Games, PBS’s Girls on the Wall), equality (Logo’s Light in the Water) and human rights/white supremacy (Deconstructing Karen).
Patty believes in anti-racism work and continues to deconstruct her own inner Karen and to walk in Regina Jackson’s wisdom to have the courage to “call a thing a thing.”
