S3 Ep 3- Everyday Equity: Everyday Ways to Make a Change with Heather Shafter

In this episode of Everyday Equity, Pooja Kothari speaks with Heather Shafter Co-author of Life of Libby and founder of Three P Allies, about what real change requires.

They discuss lessons from historic movements, how advocacy organizations can align purpose with execution, and why asking questions matters more than defending positions, especially in conversations about Palestine.

A thoughtful conversation on activism, democracy, and finding shared humanity in polarized times.

Transcript

 Welcome to Everyday Equity, everyday Ways to make a change. The show that brings real conversations about fairness, compassion, and progress into our everyday lives. I'm Pooja Ari, and each week I sit down with guests from all kinds of industries and backgrounds to talk about what equity looks like, not just in their work, but in their daily choices and personal journeys.

Because building a more equitable world isn't just for academics, activists, or experts. It's for all of us. Every day in big ways and small, we can choose to be more aware, more kind, and more connected. And this is where we learn how.

  📍  📍  📍  📍  📍 Welcome everybody to Everyday Equity, everyday Ways to make a change. I'm so excited for today's guest, Heather Shafter. Heather is the co-author of Life of Libby, chasing Peace and Justice with Humor, guts, and Passion. She is also the COO at Brody, professional Development and founder of three P Allies.

Heather, welcome. I'd love for you to tell us more about your book and all the different roles you have.

  📍  📍  📍  📍 Okay. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here. my book is about a lifelong peace and justice activist named Libby Frank, who she got started in the 1940s with activism around desegregation. And then towards the, you know, the last   half century of her activism. She was focused on the    📍  📍  📍  📍 Middle East. And I met her when I joined the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. And so we spent many years working side by side together, and then we spent many years co-writing her memoir together. So it's a amazing, inspiring story that we still have a lot. To learn from. I'm also the COO of Birdie Professional Development, so that is a corporate training company that focuses on   presentation and communication skills, training and coaching, helping people to be more effective and influential communicators.  And my own company that I launched last year, three P Allies. The three Ps are Purpose plus process equals progress. So   I'm an operations person, I'm an organizational development   person. I think how we do things is really important to make sure that we're effective. And I'm also very purpose driven and I really focus on nonprofit and advocacy organizations, helping them learn from successful movements in the past, how we can face the present challenges. 

Okay. There's so many things. Actually, there's, there's three things that I, that I really wanna talk about today. One is the memoir that you wrote with Libby Frank. I wanna know more about her and how people can find your book that you co-wrote with her, the memoir. I wanna   talk about what you, the work you do with  nonprofit organizations and how you help them and how people can find you so that they, their organization can get assistance from you.

And then, and I only know this because of our conversations before today's   podcast, but I wanna talk about Palestine   and specifically your experiences  in bringing people into conversation and how you approach that. And I think our listeners could really learn a lot about talking about.

Approaches  or points of entry into  a topic that a lot of people think is very complicated or very fraught. And I would like to talk about how you go about that. Okay, so first let's get into the memoir. Can you tell us more about who Libby Frank was?

 Sure. Li Frank was born around, I'm gonna blank on the year, probably 1927. so she lived through the Civil rights movement. I mean, they were doing desegregation activities in the 1940s and the. the Civil Rights Movement was more the 1960s, so she was really on the cutting  edge of these actions.

She also was a  strong supporter of unions and workers' rights. So back when she got started,  we did not have. Osha, you know, we didn't have organizations that looked at worker safety and making sure that workers were not being exploited. Of course, say we still have workers being exploited, but there are laws against that. 

So when we find out about it, we do something about it. There's   📍      I'm not sure what else to tell you about her, honestly. Tell like,

Well.

know?

 Yeah, exactly. What, what made you interested in even co-writing a memoir with her? Why was that important to you?

 Yeah, so majored in women's studies in college, and that was where I really got to understand power dynamics in our society. these are global power dynamics, right? But they're also micro, they're power dynamics between two people and also, you know, between groups of people, between countries. So I learned about all of this in the women's studies program and then I   wanted to change the world.   And so when I, when I was in college, I was looking for an internship, I found the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. That's how I got introduced to that organization, which I'll call Wilf for short. Even though it's a weird acronym, they do use it. And after I graduated from college, I went back to Wilf and decided to join as a member, and that's where I met Libby Frank. But I was still really not sure how change happens, you know, I was.   Trying to do different things.  I didn't really know what to   do. I didn't know if what I was doing made any difference. And Libby had already been doing activism on peace and justice for half a century when I met her, so I was curious. What did she do? What impact did it have? What kept her going all of these years? How did she fit this into her life? You know, I just wanted answers to all these questions and it didn't hurt that every time I got together with Libby for the first 10 years that I knew her,   before we even started writing the book, she always would tell me   some outrageous story of something that she had done, and me so curious about. You know, how did that happen? Like how did you end up in East Germany during the Cold War? You know, like as a single woman, you know, just crazy stuff that, wouldn't think someone would do, especially a woman at that time. So it was those combination of things that really made me wanna write the book.   📍  📍 so we spent, I mean, we spent years working on the book together. It   📍  📍 was  📍  📍 

Yeah.

  📍  📍 a project. But I can tell you that what I learned from it really made it worth it. I mean, I would say I spent about 20 years answering the question, how do we create change? And I feel like I'm finally having the rest

 Hmm. And Libby Frank was a white woman who was doing, civil rights work at a time where, you know, the, let's say societal incentive for white women to join in this work wasn't very strong. And even today, you know, it's like  I always ask people like who are   doing social justice work, especially if they're white, like.

What brings you into this work and why do you care? What is important to you? What is your stake in it? Is is, that's the actually the exact question I ask in some of my workshops. What is a stake for you even joining today? So what was Libby's stake? And I'd love to know your stake in this work.

 Okay. Well for Libby, I think it started with being Jewish. And, you know, there was a time when being Jewish meant that you were not white.

  Mm-hmm.  Right.

And some people still see it that way. It wasn't just that she was Jewish. I mean, that was an identity, but it was also, she was raised in a, an Orthodox family and she learned the, the values and the teachings, and what she learned about was justice. In, in her upbringing, and  so looked at the injustice that was happening  around her and violated her values. What's so interesting to me about this is by the time Libby was an adult, she was an atheist, but she still had those really strong values in her around justice, and that's what drove her. 

Yeah, absolutely. I hear that a lot with with, with people. Some people are really value based and value driven people. That's how they make decisions in their lives, and that's their anchor, let's say. So that makes a lot of sense to me. And how about you? What is your stake? 

I also have a very strong justice streak.

 Mm-hmm.

 I also have, I don't know but I've always been driven to make things better. You know, like the idea of continuous improvement. I'm always looking for how things can be better in all   you know, not just in how do we treat people   better, but know, how do we. our software better. How do we train our employees better? You know, I am, I'm driven to excellence along with having that justice streak. So those were my driving forces I would say.

 Yeah. It's clear and speaking with you that that is what drives you. Okay. So I wanna turn now to your work with nonprofits. How do you help them? What problems do they come to you with? Yeah, what do you solve for them? 

What I see with nonprofits, and when I say nonprofits, I'm actually talking about advocacy. There are. You know the category of 5 0 1 C four, which are officially advocacy organizations. There are also nonprofits that do some advocacy because they are allowed to as nonprofits. what I see in that world   is that there are a lot of people   working very hard to try. Make things better for everyone. People who are working to mitigate homelessness, working for economic justice, working for racial justice, working for our environment, which ultimately will save humanity.  And I think people are really  giving it their all. They're so passionate about the missions. If we look at where we are as a society, both in the United States and even globally, it feels like we're not making enough progress. I think part of the reason why we don't make enough progress is   there's not  quite enough Applied within these organizations. And when I say strategy, I think there's two elements of it. One is what do we know about how change happens? do we know from successful change movements in the  past? How, you know, how did  slavery get ended? Right? How did the civil rights. Movement, you know, succeed in, in getting legislation put into place all of these things. So one thing I do is I, I have a workshop where I bring together key stakeholders and I help them look at this in an encapsulated way. I have pulled out six  key elements that I've found based on my work with  Libby and the research that I did. Along with that, my own personal experience. So I've really consolidated it and made it very simple to look at and they can compare. What are we doing with, what have successful movements done? based on that, what do we want to do differently? What do we wanna add? What do we wanna stop doing?  And coming up with some ideas for how to move  forward in the most effective way. And then the second element of strategy is execution. So from a business perspective, I'm a big fan of traction. By Gino Wickman.  So he created the entrepreneurial operating system. And what this does is it helps you look at where are you trying to go long-term,   do you need to be in three years, in one  year, and in one quarter in order to keep moving forward towards that long-term vision. And so. After the workshop, there's an opportunity to work together in a consulting capacity so that I can help you turn those ideas into measurable goals that we actually achieve in a three month period.

 Amazing. Amazing. I mean, the, those are very practical ways that organizations can benefit from your strategy and execution. And I see it a lot in the nonprofits I work with. Although I don't have the expertise that you have, I can  see that the vision isn't lining up with the  strategy. And the execution isn't lighting up with what the strategy is.

And so it's. It's really, really important work. How can nonprofit organizations that are, that are focused on advocacy find you and set up time with you? 

It can go to my website. It's three p allies.com, and there is a scheduling link on the website so they can schedule a complimentary strategic focus session where I'll get to know them, I'll ask them questions about strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, threats, and talk about how I can help them.

 Yeah. Amazing. Alright, so let's get started on, because I think this is gonna take kind of the majority of our, of our time here. I, wanna talk about Palestine. You're one of the few people, that, you know, actively engage in conversation. Anybody who wants to and has the  either a stake in this conversation  or curiosity about it.

And you know, we were talking offline earlier and I think your approach is really different. A lot of people approach you know, Palestine work through protests and, you know, they're in joining. Either you know, public movements or you know, out in the street to show their  support for Palestine.

Some people do it by  fundraising. Some people do it through social media and posting about it. There's so many ways to raise awareness on so many different scales. And your way is through these individual kind of interpersonal conversations. So let's first start with, why are  you, again, kind of what's your stake?

Why are you  interested in these conversations? And what led you to. Be like, you know, I feel strong enough to have any type of conversation with anybody who has any viewpoint on, on Palestine. So what brought you to, to even taking on this role? 

so I was also raised Jewish. I was raised in a reformed synagogue and. I learned about Israel growing up from a Jewish perspective, and what that meant was I learned that  Israel was the Jewish homeland. I learned that it  was, that the Jewish word for it is mitzvah, but that basically it was, it was a good thing to do, a valuable thing to do to go move to Israel for the rest of your life if you're a Jew.

Okay.

 that, that's a great idea.

 Mm-hmm.

that,  that means you're being a good Jew, the best Jew you can be. You go live in Israel for the rest of your life.

 Yeah.

 and, and I learned that there were there, Arab people who wanted to kill all of the Jews in Israel. And that that is why every single Jew was conscripted into the military and had to fight to protect the country. That's what I grew up learning.   And then I  met Libby Frank. And Libby is actually the person who introduced me to another perspective,  and she is the one that started showing me the impact of the Jewish state on. Arabs and Palestinians, and   really like broke my worldview  completely. And just helped me realize that Israel is a country like any other country but for various political reasons. Here in the United States, we look at Israel through a different lens than we look at any other country. And so that became  really important to me because am part  of a community of Jewish people who have very different opinions now on what Israel means, and I almost have to have an opinion to be part of that community. I'm gonna pause there.

 Yeah. Thank you. 'cause there's a lot. My first question is how did Libby, how did, what was her strategy for talking to you and someone, which sounds like was pretty like   invested in the.   Understanding you grew up in, so like, I imagine maybe there was some resistance at first to how Libby approached you.

I, I don't know for sure, but I wanna ask like, what was her approach to you? How did she kind of like penetrate your, your understanding?

 I just first wanna say that Libby went through the same transformation that I went through. was raised with the same understanding, even though it was Preis, Israeli state.

 Yeah.

 She also came to discover the. Narrative that we are given is not the full picture, so she knows what it's like to be on both sides.

Also, when I met her,  Libby introduced information  to me that I had not heard before. It was brand new information to me. I have to say there was a level of trust there. I trusted Libby. I trusted the Women's International League for peace and freedom. I believed in what they stood for.  So when Libby came to me and said,  there's a lot of injustice in the Middle East, are you aware of these things?

Do you know what's happening at the border? Do you know what's happening with checkpoints? Do you know what's happening with. Military strikes that, that are  going on, and I didn't know those things because I hadn't  heard about them before. So it really, there was a lot of research and education and one of the things that we worked on together was putting together an educational booklet to share information with people that they weren't getting from other sources at the time.

 Hmm. So it sounds like she remembered kind of what we call, you know, in, in facilitator land, you know, the beginner's mindset. You know, you're, you're all, we're all beginners in something. And if you think that  I. If you forget, I should say  that you were also a beginner at something that you're really experienced at, then you're, you kind of miss educating other people and you miss that curiosity.

So it sounds like she really remembered that like everyone starts somewhere.   And there's no like, shame  in beginning your education. You also mentioned trust, which is so foundational to understanding another perspective. You have to trust  that the other person is  not out to get you, not out for any got you moment.

And is, is is there to catch you. When we all inevitably make mistakes or fall for some other slice of  propaganda, which is just so,  I mean, we all fall for it. So I think trust is so foundational, so I'm really glad you mentioned that. Okay. So Libby first introduced you and was like, here we have like the foundation of trust.

Here's some information. Let me teach  you about. You know, the segregation that's  happening and, and basically, you know, mirroring, you know, kind of like the apartheid happening there, mirrors the apartheid in South Africa mirrors, you know, the apartheid or kind of like the Jim Crow laws and unwritten  laws now that we have in this country.

 Okay. So Libby introduced you to that. And. When you think about, okay, so actually let me, before we get there, let me start with, kind of like the middle part. So, so Libby introduces  you to this new understanding, and then tell me more  about within the organization and your, how did you increase your own knowledge of, of, of Palestine and, and, and I think I do wanna name it of Zionism.

 It is Zionism. Yeah. Well, I. I would say I learned by teaching in a sense. So I mentioned the booklet that we were working on. There was a, a committee there was a Middle East committee within the Philadelphia branch of wil, and we decided as a committee that we were going to create  an educational booklet about the Middle East, and   each person had different parts of it to research.

So we were all doing our own research. different areas of the Middle East, and then we were reading each other's work, and so we basically became a learning group that ultimately produced a pamphlet that could be used to teach other people.

 What happened? How, what, like version is this pamphlet on? Since that time, I'm sure there's been many many versions of it. Revisions of it? Yeah. 

They created they started working on another pamphlet after I was no longer participating with wil. So the pamphlet that we created, it, it did at, at one point kind of in time and and then they moved on to, to focusing on some other things. 

okay, so at what point do you transition from. Your work or like even writing this pamphlet, which gets you kind of like deeper into the issues to then talking to people about it.

 Well, the first person I talked to was my dad.

 Always start local. Very, very, you know, it's true. It's not, I mean, I know you're like, you're kind of chuckling, but it's like if you can't start with your own local people. Including like the family members, whoever they are. We don't have any business going out to anybody else. So I love that. I think it's very, very important.

 Yeah, and I did a terrible job.

 God.

 my dad and I had many, many arguments most of which I lost because he was. at arguing his point than I was. And it, it got to the point where if the topic of the Middle East would come up, my stepmom  would get upset and say, please don't talk about this.  Because she knew how heated it got and it upset her. So I, I actually went back to Libby one point and I was like, I don't know what to do. I'm trying to talk to my dad about this stuff. I'm trying to teach him about what I'm learning.  he's just not listening. And  Libby started asking me questions about what my dad thought. So she would say, well, what does your dad think about the checkpoints? You know, what does he think about Palestinians needing to wait in line for hours in order to get to their jobs, which are in Israel?   And she just had  many, many questions for, you know what my dad thought about these things and I couldn't answer any of her questions. Because I hadn't been asking you any questions, so I didn't, I didn't know what he thought, you know, all I knew is he disagreed with me and he had his argument and he told me his argument.

 Yes.

helped me realize that the key to having these conversations asking the questions.

Yeah. Yeah, keep going please.

So.

how do you know what, what do you mean? Like how do you know which questions to ask?

 The way I think about it is if you have a fact you wish someone would know, maybe they know it already, you just wanna understand why doesn't this fact convince them that I'm right? That's where I started,  you

Yeah.

asked my dad. What do you think about these checkpoints where Palestinians have to wait in line for hours to get to work, to get to school, to get to a hospital? And I let him answer the question. The interesting thing about that is it pushes  people to think about their own opinion,  maybe in ways that they hadn't thought about before. So yes, you are. Really looking to understand someone else's perspective, but you're also pushing them a little bit gain more clarity for themselves as well.

 Which could happen behind the scenes

 Yes. You may not.

of that  conversation.

Yes, exactly.

Actually,  which most likely will happen not in front of you. And you have to trust that, look, this might land and I might not ever feel vindicated or like you said, like convinced. I mean, never, ever see that. And that's, that's has to be okay if you wanna engage people   in exploring what humanity means.

Like you  say, like what? Whose humanity matters. Yeah, you might never, ever get that satisfaction. And that's, that's the whole point, is that you don't, you shouldn't ha need to have that satisfaction, like if you're in, in this role that you have taken on.

 Well, I will tell you that by having these kinds of conversations with my dad, I got to see that there were places that we agreed. And I don't know if we always agreed, like I don't know if before I started  asking the questions, we actually had that agreement  we hadn't talked about it. So it was really satisfying to me to reconfirm for myself. dad does care people's humanity. does care about human life. He does care about  justice,

Yeah.

which. Didn't surprise me at all because I'm his daughter. I, I grew up with his values. understand why we had to fight about this,

Mm-hmm.

 but through asking the questions, I got to see how it played out within that particular conversation. And it was really Many, many, many years later. So recently, I. Delivered a keynote where I talk about these conversations with my dad. And afterwards my dad was in the audience and afterwards he came up to me and he said, I remember when you started asking questions. And that was when we stopped fighting.

 I got chills. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, when people think, I mean, especially right now, but it's always been necessary, like as we talked about Libby's life, you know, it's always been necessary to be active and focus on social justice and civil  rights and, it's the beginning   of time, I guess you could say. We're really talking about organizing and you know, when you, when we think about organizing and coming together to do what's right, especially now when people are a little  bit more aware of, you know, how precious  our rights are and seeing them kind of dwindle, the that point of asking questions to see what you have in common is like a cornerstone of organizing. Not the  debate, not how could you possibly  think this way? Don't you know that X, y, Z has happened? This statistic, that statistic that's not. That's not the way to understand the shared values and to, and to organize people to come together for a shared goal.

 Exactly. Yes. And the problem with taking that approach is it or insights people to focus on everything that is different about them, right?

 Yeah.

 approaches people to focus on their differences. When we take that approach.

 Yeah. And to, and to sit get more rooted into their position. 

Yeah.

 yeah. It's also a tactic we use in, in mediation is not trying to get, not trying to ask the ultimate question. Well, don't you think that Palestinians deserve? That's the ultimate question. And we're very  far. I mean, you know, if you, if you're not,   if you're starting in, into this conversation, that's like, that's the last question that you can't even get there until you ask all of these smaller, smaller step questions.

With the curiosity and with the goal of not solving for it, but listening for it.

 Okay. So you started with the person, I'm gonna guess kind of like very close to you and maybe hardest to reach. So that's like. I don't want to say like hardest to reach, but like who was far from your understanding? 

Yes.

Which  is really brave and I feel like probably gave you like the best experience, the most like knowledge of how to go about this.

 Yeah,

 Who, how did it continue? Like how do you not, how do you get into that conversation over and over and over again, not get discouraged and then continue to wanna keep talking to other people? 

   I just, I find that people are. They're so upset and Right. Rightfully so. And I can tell you that are very upset. You know, a lot of who are pro-Palestinian think that Zionists are kind of like  evil, racist people who  don't care about anyone except Jews. And that is not true. I mean, it, it should be obvious that it's not true, but it's not. but what you have is you have people who are really hurting about what's happening in the Middle East. on the Zionist side, there's a lot of fear, like really  existential fear. Like if Israel is destroyed,  if Israel is not a Jewish state, it could be the end of world jury like. It feels very existential to them. then of course you have the, you know, this pro-Palestinian side where it's like human rights are being violated, people are being killed, there's genocide, there's  You know, it's not  just, and it can't go on, you know, very real valid feelings of being upset. The problem that I see and what drives me to wanna keep talking to people, and I like talking to people across the spectrum because I do see both sides of it.    I think people would like peace. They would like a Middle East where there is not bloodshed they have no idea how to get there. I believe that the only way that we get  there is by  understanding the different perspectives. So that is what drives me to have conversations no matter who I'm talking to.

I'm actually always asking questions to help them understand different perspectives.

   Yeah, I mean, when we're talking about in this, in this level, this individual level of, of having conversations, it is, very different than talking about the systems that are in place that cause the  injustice, the segregation, the violence, you know, the,  the murders and the killings despite a quote unquote ceasefire.

You know, or, or maybe we should say, because there's a ceasefire there is continued you know, strikes by, the Israeli government. And it  is one thing to talk on a systems level of what is going  on. And it is one thing to reach the individuals. You know, it's not the individual who has power, it's the system.

So it's, I think it's also kind of a, a mistake that can be made, like when you enter   conversations to talk about what  anti-Zionism means and why anti-Zionism doesn't mean anti-Semitism. And if you go into kind of a system, a launch into the kind of like the systems level understanding instead of reaching the heart.

Of the individual, it, it  might go over the person's head. And, and  it's, I think it's really important to kind of, at least at the beginning, to separate those two and understand people's individual's motivations and incentives and these existential threats that they might feel. And then once that trust  is built of, like, I hear you and like,  and let's talk more about like what comes up when you, you know.

Here, X, Y, Z. Once that trust is built, then you can start talking about, you know, oppressive systems and, you  know, have a little bit more what might seem  intellectual. So like kind of start at the heart, at the core, what people are feeling in their body. And then over time move to what's a little, what alludes us as individuals, which is like understanding how systems  work.

And I think if you  start with the intellectual, well that's easy to discount 'cause that's just like an intellectual exercise. But if you start with the body like you, that's inescapable, like we all have a reaction to that. How does that land for you?

 I think, yeah, I think when we start speaking theoretically, becomes more about defending a position

 Hmm.

 versus when we talk about really opinions. I mean. How do you feel about this? What do you think about this? And you don't have to be an expert to have a feeling or to have an opinion. Like you can just respond. And, you know, sometimes you might ask a question and people's response will be, I don't think that's true.  And then of  two things could be the case. It could not be true. Sometimes we might have a fact that's not a fact. Or it could be that they don't know it to be true and they need to verify it in their own way, but you've planted that seed like, oh, that can't be true.

I mean, I hear things from people on the left all the time that I think to myself. It   can't be true, but I have to go and look at  it, you know, and, and sometimes, a lot of times I'm right, like a lot of times when I hear somebody, like, say something totally off the wall about something that conservatives are, you know, the, the current administration is doing.

And I'm like, that can't be true. And I research it and I'm like, it's really not true. Like someone literally made this up. and, and other times it is true and it's shocking and it's like, I can't believe they're actually doing this. But I believe it because   I see it. But I think there's another  point that you bring up when you talk about individuals versus systems, and it's a challenge that I get from people when I talk about the importance of having these conversations.

And the challenge is, well, what are we gonna do? So great. We had a conversation, we reached common understanding. Nothing has changed. And that's a question that I asked myself for a long time and I said to myself, why am I even having these conversations?   What is the point of this? Yeah.   The way I see that is that as long as we live in a democracy or approximate a democracy vote for the people who lead. And right now, and this is, this is a bigger issue than the Middle East, but now we have  a divided population, right. And.  You know, politicians know that Democrats rev vote for Democrats. Republicans will vote for Republicans, and you know, you can have half the country up in arms about something, but if the other half of the country is gonna get them elected, they don't need to pay attention. And so the way I look at it is we need to. Beat the  system. We need to beat the two party system. We need to  find a way to come together across political parties and across left and right to see what do we have in common? Where's the shared humanity? What can we all tell our elected leaders that we want? That you cannot ignore this because both, all across the spectrum are asking for this. And the interesting thing about the Middle East issue is that it is  supported.  possible   because of the United States. And that's something that Libby focused on a lot. She said, we can't change Israeli government policy. We're here in the United States. We need to focus on US policy. And so she was always organizing around how do we get people to support changes to US policy.

   Absolutely. I, I really appreciate that concrete goal because what is the goal of organizing and meaning having these conversations and That's right. It's, it's improve the environment that we live in, which then has, you know, ripple effects outside of, outside of this country. So, you know, as we, as we wrap up this conversation, I wanna ask  you what, if you have some advice  for our listeners who want to start talking find the courage to have conversations.

'cause you know. For some people, even having a conversation about this can feel like a confrontation, even if it, you know, isn't one in reality or, you know, it could turn into one and it's scary. What advice do you have where if, if people are just starting out.

   Thinking. The reason why these conversations become confrontational is because we have the urge to defend our position and. One of the things I've struggled with is if I'm not defending my  position, does that mean I'm in some kind of  moral no man's land? Does that mean that I don't have an opinion? Does that mean that I'm not standing my ground? the conclusion I've come to is it doesn't mean that I hold my opinion I'm open to other perspectives,  but I know what I believe. I know what my  values are. I don't need to defend that. And so if you are having a conversation with someone who sees the issue totally different from you, it's not your job to defend your  position. All you need to do is  learn, ask questions, understand why someone sees things so differently than you, and especially if there are particular facts that you're like, how can they possibly think this is okay? Ask it, but ask it with  curiosity.

Yeah.

why. Why do they think it's okay?

 Oh, I love that. Because nothing's gonna happen to your point of view. Just because somebody disagrees with it, it's not going away. It's yours to keep. It's not under threat. And while the political is personal and the personal is political,  it it, it isn't personal to you  in this specific way that they have that point of view.

Even if it's diametrically opposed to yours, it's, it's you can still keep your opinions. That's, that's beautiful. I really appreciate you, Heather. I  love the way you you know, come to  these issues and come to these conversations and use your own lived experiences. To really compassionately engage other people.

We have a lot to learn. So Heather Shafter is the founder of three P Allies. Get in touch with Heather help your organization   and and, you know, get this memoir  about Libby Frank. I mean, she sounds like she was just an incredible, incredible activist. So I'm so glad you had that. Friendship with her over, over all those years. Thanks so much for appearing here, Heather. It's been a really great conversation.

 Thank you so much for having me and for making me think. I, I really enjoyed the conversation.

Well, we'll see you all next time. Take care. 

Thanks for joining us on Everyday Equity, everyday Ways to make a change. If today's conversation inspired you, keep the momentum going. Connect with us on LinkedIn at boundless awareness. Subscribe to our YouTube at Boundless Awareness and explore more free resources to support your anti-oppression journey @boundlessawareness.com.

Remember, progress isn't about perfection. It's about showing up every day with curiosity, compassion, and the courage to do a little better. I'm Pooja Kothari, and I can't wait to keep learning and growing with you right here on everyday equity.