J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with Endia Beal

Episode #17 Summary:

Endia Beal creates a teaching tool by initiating dialog to address cultural profiling and implicit bias experienced in the workplace. Joined in conversation with her publisher, Michelle Dunn Marsh, of Minor Matters Books, they discuss their collaborative process of funding, designing and marketing this first monograph.


Episode Notes 

From her own experience of objectification and othering in corporate culture, Beal innovates entry points to spotlight the experience of ‘double consciousness’ as described by W.E.B. Du Bois, currently referred to as code switching, by compiling the stories of 65 Black women. Also collaborating with white students and colleagues she probes differences in human experiences, exposes assumptions, advances awareness, and increases diversity maturity.

In this book group, Endia Beal and Michelle Dunn Marsh discuss, among other things:

  • Questioning conformity and “similar-to-me” bias

  • Humanness transcending race and gender

  • Investment in scholarship to place more representative stories in the historical canon 

  • The challenges and reality of fear as a maker/creator 

  • The impact of others believing in your work

  • Bringing subjective truths to conversations on race and gender 

  • Supporting the people who create platforms for conversations on diversity, inclusion and equity

  • Mentorship and community in the creative process

Resources

Endia Beals’ Workshops 

Young, Black, Female and Envisioning Corporate Life

9-5 film by Endia Beal

Office Scene by Endia Beal

Seeing being Seen - link to be a co publisher 

Allyship & Action

Girl Trek and Black Women’s History Bootcamp

Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man - by Emmanuel Acho

My Grandmothers’ Hands - by Resmaa Menakem

Published by Minor Matters Books

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J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with David Campany

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J. Sybylla Smith, In Conversation with Michelle Bogre