SEASON 2 Episode #1
Speaking of Race
Guests: Sherry McAdoo Champion & Shelly McAdoo
On this episode I sit down with my friends Sherry McAdoo Champion and Shelly McAdoo, twin sisters, to talk about race. Sherry is the Manager of Community Advocacy and Coalitions for Chicago CRED and Shelly is the Consultant of Executive Projects and President of the Diversity Council at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. It’s a conversation between girlfriends - we are not experts. The hope is to shed light on how white people can be more effective in our work to combat racism and to find out how my friends (and mothers) are feeling about today and the future.
Listening Notes:
2:21 Welcome Sherry Champion & Shelly McAdoo
4:24 Unpacking white privilege
4:45 Where can we go from here? What is our call to action? How can white people
be more effective allies?
5:15 How is your heart feeling?
7:36 The Talk
10:00 Sherry on having a white grandmother
13:43 Doing the work internally
15:30 Allyship
18:10 White Supremacy
19:10 How is your community at work doing?
19:29 George Floyd’s death
22:50 Chicago CRED
26:15 Young people stepping up
27:00 Do the work
28:22 Always have a mirror
29:40 Allyship is earned
31:46 Shelly: “This is the first time in my life where black people 400 years later, are trending.”
34:35 Sherry: “It hit me like bricks.”
35:33 Sherry: “In order for us to be heard, we’re going to have to fight a different fight.”
35:56 White Women Against Racism
39:55 People of color are not white people’s therapists
40:15 Shelly: “No one, specifically white people, should have the audacity to tell me how to feel.”
41:00 Systemic racism
42:25 Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th
42:45 Jane Elliot
43:20 Shelly: “If you know that this is wrong and you wouldn’t want it for yourself, why are you content to have it for someone else?”
45:32 Shelly: “All I did was be born in this skin.”
46:00 Peggy McIntosh – White Privilege
49:30 Sherry: “Systemic racism is real.”
49:48 Sherry: “Please stop having conversations about how our people need to just pull ourselves up from our bootstraps.”
51:32 St. Paul AME Church in Glencoe – Reverend Dwayne Gary
55:44 Sherry: “This is not a moment, it’s a movement.”
56:24 Sherry: “If you are going to protest in Glencoe then make sure you are inviting the black person into your neighborhood to be your neighbor.”
56:50 HEROS
57:13 Sherry: “Segregated schools, segregated neighborhoods, segregated anything
produces racism.”
1:02:29 Shelly: “We are not predisposed to violence.”
1:06:30 Sherry recalls Tupac’s words
1:09:19 “We are careening for a race war.”
1:11:36 VOTE
1:11:51 Follow young people @BKWC – black kids who care
1:14:26 Understanding Jim Crow by David Pilgrim
1:15:10 White Supremacy: A Comparative Study of American & South African History by George M. Frederickson
