Diverse Joy

S1E08: Being Intentional in Diversity Efforts

In this new year's episode, Will's joy is cozy winter activities, especially his friend group's weekly movie night. Amber's January joy is birthday celebrations, because her family has a lot of birthday celebrations in January. As she does in all things, Amber brings lots of themed, personalized festivity to birthday celebrations! Connecting to new year's traditions of setting new intentions, this episode's discussion topic focuses on how to be intentional in diversity efforts. We don't want diversity efforts to be something we fall backwards into; diversity and inclusion deserves forethought and intentionality. Continuing that theme, we share stories that exemplify unfortunate diversity attempts and some that are more successful. This episode's question is "How do I ask about someone's identity respectfully?", and we discuss bad ways to ask about identity and offer suggestions for more positive and respectful ways to ask about others' identities. This episode's habit-breaking skill is to Think Ahead. Bias is more likely when we're figuring things out spontaneously, and less likely if we've thought things through ahead of time. Will's media recommendation for this episode is the action-packed period piece, "Prey", which is a wildly entertaining sci-fi action flick that also showcases Comanche history, language, and culture.
 
In this episode, we mentioned our producer, Eric Roman Beining, and his photography. If you're interested, check it out at erbeining.com.

S1E07: Finding the Joy in Cultural Humility, Responsiveness, and Justice

Amber's joy this month is everything festive, most especially the ever-expanding array of Christmas movies! Will's joy is his friend group's annual "Krampus and Crafts" tradition, where they watch the holiday comedy/horror movie "Krampus" and do a holiday craft project. This episode's discussion focuses on some common terms used in diversity discussions (cultural competency, cultural humility, and cultural responsiveness), and how to translate those concepts to practical actions. In brief, we recommend learning common ways people may see the world differently from you (cultural competence), but also recognize that we can never have complete knowledge of this (cultural humility), and we should be receptive and thoughtful in our response to listening to others’ perspectives and feedback about their experiences (cultural responsiveness). This episode's question is "What is justice?" and we discuss how to define and think about social justice in our efforts to be more inclusive. This episode's habit-breaking skill is to Consider Situational Explanations for Behavior. Amber's media recommendation for this episode is the touching and fun reality TV show, "We're Here".

S1E06: Learning about Trans* and Nonbinary Identities With Guest Sandy Eichel

For this Trans* Awareness month episode, we bring back special guest Sandy Eichel, who is a transgender nonbinary person themself! We start off addressing notions of tokenism, and specifically discuss the difference between including an underrepresented voice versus tokenizing that person to speak for their whole group. This episode, we share our joy around Will's costume room, Amber's holiday sweater collection, and Sandy's amazing annual Solstice Party! We discuss a variety of trans*-related issues, including pronouns, how to correct yourself if you slip up and misgender someone, and hearing about Sandy's own journey to understand themself as a transgender and nonbinary person. This month's habit-breaking skill is learning to Replace Stereotypes, and we learn about using the pneumonic "Detect, Reflect, Reject" as a way to help us retrain our automatic reactions. Sandy's joyful media recommendations is the powerful documentary "Paris is Burning".Learn more about Sandy at SandyEichel.com.

S1E05: Joyful Representation of Interracial Relationships on TV

For this Halloween episode, Will and Amber are dressed up as Captain Christopher Pike (from "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds") and Lucy Ricardo (from "I Love Lucy"). Bringing us joy this October are Will and Eric Roman's annual "Hallow-Crafts Day" and Amber's traditions of visiting pumpkin patches and going apple-picking! Matching our outfits, we discuss representation of interracial relationships and racial diversity in the media, especially "I Love Lucy" and "Star Trek" (and, in true A&W fashion, we go down a rabbit hole of many others, including Brandy and Whitney Houston's "Cinderella", "Black Panther", "Wakanda Forever", "The Princess and the Frog", and "Champions"!). Representation Matters! We also discuss some of the issues surrounding actors being cast to portray people with identities they don't share. This episode's habit-breaking skill is to Broaden Your Input Via the Media, which is something we emphasize every episode, with our media recommendations! Amber's dual media recommendations for this episode are the hilarious and evergreen "I Love Lucy" and the more recent, fantastic Netflix show, "Bridgerton".

S1E04: Better Together: Disability Desegregation in Schools With Guest Nicki Vander Meulen

With special guest Nicki Vander Meulen, we share our joy about the TV show Star Trek: Lower Decks, back to school, and football season! Nicki is a lawyer focused on disability issues and the first-ever openly autistic person to be elected to a school board in the U.S., and she shares her perspectives on disability desegregation in schools. We argue that desegregation is best for not only student with disabilities, but those without disabilities as well. We also discuss language norms around disability (e.g., the difference between "person with autism" and "autistic person"). To develop our bias habit-breaking skills, we learn to Do Perspective-Taking as one powerful way to forge emotional connections to others' experiences that drives our inclusive behavior going forward. Nicki's joyful recommendation is Judy Bloom's amazing novel "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret".

S1E03: Joyful Facets of Identity: Get to Know Us and Our Backgrounds!

To start off, we explain that, even though we both have doctorates, we describe ourselves as “so-called experts” because diversity and inclusion topics are ever-evolving, and there’s always more to learn. Things bringing us joy this episode are Will’s visits to the Bristol Renaissance Faire in Bristol, Wisconsin and Amber learning to make her Italian grandmother’s recipe for long sauce. Our discussion this episode focuses on our own identities and backgrounds, and we each share our stories of how we came to our career paths. As with many folks, our appearances aren’t complete indicators of our racial/ethnic identities — Amber discusses her Black and Italian heritage, and Will talks about being White and Hawaiian, as well as sharing his story about coming out as gay to his religious, Mormon family. Then we reflect on our answers to the question "Is race a social construct?". To work on our bias habit-breaking skills, we learn to watch out for Impression Justification as one way that biases can influence judgments and decision-making. Our joyful recommendation is the delightfully diverse and absolutely hilarious TV show, “Superstore.”

S1E02: What is ”Professional” Anyway? With Guest Sandy Eichel

With special guest Sandy Eichel, we share our joy about gardening and working with kids. We discuss ways that stale notions of "professionalism" can stifle authenticity and increase marginalization. People are happier and more productive when they can authentically express themselves through their appearance. In other words, we celebrate Sartorial Joy! We also share our perspectives on how to start diversity discussions in workplaces that aren't talking about diversity issues. To develop our bias habit-breaking skills, we learn to watch out for Norm Enforcement as one way that biases play out. Sandy's joyful recommendation is the fantastic TV show, "Schitt's Creek."
Diverse Joy is hosted by Dr. William T. L. Cox and Dr. Amber Nelson, produced by Eric Roman Beining, with music by Jay Arner. New episodes release the first Wednesday of each month. Learn more at DiverseJoy.com.
Diverse Joy is sponsored in part by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R35GM128888. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Production is also supported by donations to our nonprofit, Inequity Agents of Change. Learn more at BiasHabit.com.

S1E01: Centering Joy, and Why Non-Scientific Diversity Trainings Fail

In this premier episode, we introduce the core idea behind our podcast and why we want to emphasize and center our “Diverse Joy.” What’s bringing us joy this episode is the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser and the new acronym for diversity work, JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion). We also discuss the widespread issue of non-tested bias and diversity trainings, and how they often make bias problems worse. Answering our first "audience" question, we reflect on "positive biases" and whether bias is always a bad thing. To develop our JEDI skills, we learn about the habit model as a scientifically validated method of cognitive-behavioral change. Our recommendation for something bringing us joy is the NBC show “Grand Crew” starring the hilarious Nicole Byer.
Diverse Joy is hosted by Dr. William T. L. Cox and Dr. Amber Nelson, produced by Eric Roman Beining, with music by Jay Arner. New episodes release the first Wednesday of each month. Learn more at DiverseJoy.com.
Diverse Joy is sponsored in part by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number R35GM128888. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. Production is also supported by donations to our nonprofit, Inequity Agents of Change. Learn more at BiasHabit.com.