S3 Ep6 -Everyday Equity: Everyday Ways to Make a Change with Monroe France Global Leadership Strategist

In this episode of Everyday Equity, Pooja Kothari is joined by Monroe France, global leadership strategist, former Vice Provost at Tufts University, and longtime advocate for inclusive leadership.

Monroe reflects on how being raised by three generations of Black women shaped his understanding of responsibility, power and equity. He shares how those early experiences continue to influence how he leads and shows up in the world.

Together, they explore how bias forms, why self-awareness is a leadership skill, and how systems not just individuals, shape outcomes in workplaces and beyond. Monroe also offers practical ways leaders can challenge their assumptions, build accountability, and create environments where more people can thrive.

A thoughtful conversation on leadership, equity, and the work it takes to create real change

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Everyday Equity, Everyday Ways to Make a Change. With me today is Monroe France, a guest that I have been wanting to get on the podcast for a while now. And I'm so happy that you're here, Monroe. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Thank you, Kuja. I'm so very happy to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Monroe France is a global leadership strategist and consultant that has a passion for co-creating and partnering with leaders to cultivate transformative institutions across fields and sectors. Monroe is the former inaugural vice provost for institutional inclusive excellence at Tufts University, and he continues to hold a professor of practice position at the Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life. Previous to his executive leadership role at Tufts, Monroe served as a senior associate vice president for global engagement and inclusive leadership in the Office of Global Inclusion and Strategic Innovation at NYU, New York University, and now at Attler. Monroe, welcome. There's so much to introduce you on. Please feel free to flesh out any or all parts of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

I think I very much appreciate it. And I'm just so happy to be here in conversation with you as well. And so when you reached out, I was like, oh, what an honor and what a privilege to be in dialogue with someone who, you know, is doing really great work as well out in the in this large, like dynamic, complicated, like turbulent world. And so the other thing I would add, in addition to what you've already said, is that, you know, I've been working in the global context for some time now, for probably about two decades of my career. And really, you know, I've like both in higher ed and private sector, and then as well, of course, in nonprofits and community-based or globally based organizations that focus on human rights. And that's something that's very important to me. And I know we'll get to some of that as well. But so it's been just a cornerstone of my career. And even when I've worked in fashion, you know, for me, it was still about how do we think about, you know, the ways in which fashion can either disrupt normative plays in the world or can be used as a leverage to reimagine and help people feel like they can be who they are firmly, trans people from you know from backgrounds that are not usually honored in that field, right? And so anyway, so all of my work, all of my life has really been about, you know, how do we make the world and industries and sectors better for all?

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Yeah, totally. I forgot to mention when I was a graduate of FIT. Oh, that little thing. And it's so true. You know, we think of, we don't think of fashion as being transformative and inclusive, but it's literally all about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

It's literally all about that. Absolutely. You know, it's interesting because I, you know, in my coursework when I was at FIT, one of the courses I really enjoyed was help, it was a course that focused on understanding trends in fashion and how those are directly correlate with politics, you know, what's happening broadly globally, you know, and of course across local localities that, you know, shape and define what we decide to wear, the colors we wear. And then, of course, when we're thinking about environment and climate, you know, how do we do be kinder to our environment, especially at a time of fast fashion? But how does fast fashion create access for people? So those are all the things that we create nuance, but the fashion industry is a prime place for like disruption and possibility too, in addition to the work that we get to do concretely on the direct issues.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

And so yeah, completely. It touches every aspect of our identities.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Culture and culture, indeed. So you're here, I've been wanting to talk to you, and I've been very much interested in why equity matters to you, and I know it matters very deeply, but for those people in our audience who are maybe at the start of their careers or even at the start of like their maybe higher education, and thinking about okay, how can I make a different? You know, how would I ever be able to reach where Monroe is at, affecting all of this change in such a global way? So, how did it start for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Ah, well, you know, I often tell this story or you know, provide this as a frame for you know how I engage in the world, why me as a like cisgender, you know, generally able-bodied man, right, and born in a US context, in the US space, why it has been important to me. And I have to start in my childhood, right? That is the place where you know often I ask people, tell me about your childhood, because it helps me to understand people. And for me, I was raised by my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother at all at some point like in my upbringing through life. And I was also the oldest great-grandchild, grandchild, and child. You know, I've had a lot of expectations that were put on me, but more importantly, I've learned a lot by being raised by three black women, three black women across generations, and especially to watch them navigate the world and you know, and through all kinds of different conditions, through whether it's through like things they've had to navigate through being a businesswoman, being a woman living an everyday life, or even an internal household and dynamics that come up through patriarchy, through men, assist men, et cetera. And one of the things that was, and I think I gained from that experience was the importance of understanding where you can show up. And like those three generations of black women who were trollblazers in their own right in different ways, helped me to understand my responsibility. My responsibility is being the oldest child and also my responsibility in the world, right? How do I take my power, my privilege, or whatever resources I have to use them for good? And, you know, with that, I think that's why I like this, that's why equity is important to me, I will say, is that, you know, I watch those experiences of my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother, and I wonder, you know, for like different parts of their life, how it could have been better and you know, and how they could have been able to live up to their full potential, you know, had conditions been different in our world, had conditions been different in the communities, had you know, the feel that my grandma-grandmother was an entrepreneur, had she like, you know, had different access points that like some of her male counterparts had, where could her career her career have gone over time? So I growing up, you know, these were the things that as I watched them experience, you know, navigating the world and raising me and my two brothers, my my great-grandmother and my mom, my grandmother passed away early. And again, I think because of the conditions of the world, lack of access to quality healthcare in the way she should have received it. So it's a personal, it's a personal thing for me. But then it became, you know, as I've become a leader over time, also very important in my work because when I, you know, when I'm able to thrive, you know, I feel it's a responsibility for me to help others thrive. And the equity conversation, I feel that no matter where you are in your career, no matter where you are in terms of positionality and organizations or the world, the thing about equity is it's about how do you, based on your positionality, whatever power access you might have when you're in a position of authority and position of making decisions, how do you think about all and how do you ensure that they have access? And so that is to me just a general way of living in the world. It's a general way of living in the world. And again, when I go back to the why I show up, I go back to those three black women in my life that have really helped shape me. And when I think about my responsibility, you know, as a cis like cis man, you know, and thinking through allyship and thinking through, you know, showing up for things that matter. Those are always just that's where I go back. That's my foundation. But why is it important in the work? It's because I think if we want innovation, we want creativity. People need to have access to be able, because we're leaving people behind if they don't have access, if we don't give them the resources to thrive, and we don't give them, you know, the platform to exist. We're leaving back creativity and innovation and possibility for all of us. Yes, yes, and it's to all of our detriment. All of our detriment, all of us, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah, yeah, it's so true. And you can see that in such easy ways of even thinking, you know, just a classic example of anytime you make anything more accessible or have one population in mind that you're going to create access for, it actually happens to benefit population.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Totally, yes, definitely. When you even think about, for example, you know, the the access, you know, thing on a door, right? To be able to push that so the door opens for you. Many benefit from that. People with strollers, parents with strollers, or uncles with strollers, if I'm, you know, moving around, my nephew or niece, you know, moving boxes, heavy boxes, right? That gives you access. The elderly, even if they don't have you know a condition, you know, and so there are just many reasons why. Even we know too, it helps with, you know, it helps with temperature things sometimes too, depending. So I think it's, you know, so that's an example how where the intention was for people with disabilities, but it actually created a pathway that made things easier for many.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Yeah. For many. Yeah, it's really, you know, I feel like I say this uh maybe way too often. This country and a lot of countries, because of the systems of oppression that they are so willing to uphold, have wasted so much human innovation and creativity through patriarchy, misogyny, racism, able, and always that we want to push certain populations down, and then we lose it's like to all of our detriment that we lose it. Can I ask you about, you know, the what how you mentioned about growing up, you know, and as a cis man, you know, how do you challenge yourself on the systems that are there that and I'm not gonna say systems of oppression benefit anybody, but that kind of hide the oppression? So for example, like misogyny, you know, sometimes we see it, but we're not maybe it it's a little hidden for us, the detriment it does and the harm it does to all of society. How do you make sure to see it or to see whatever system is there a little bit more clearly? And I'm just picking misogyny as an example, but it could be anything, you know, um whatever system. And for me, you know, there's many systems that I have to take an extra second to think about and to interrupt.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Yeah, no, it's a great question. I, you know, I have years ago, you know, I became I became more aware of this framework called tracking, right? Where you're tracking, not tracking, not the problem, very problematic forms of tracking. So we know those educational systems are very trapped, yeah, traumatic or problematic, right? But maybe a little akin to that in some ways, in this way, in a more positive way, when we think about monitoring our thoughts, monitoring team, monitoring where we spend our time preoccupied, monitoring how do other people respond to me in positions or scenarios, like you know, whether it's overt or covert or like direct or indirect. And there may be in some days, I think it's helpful to track like a very in a great deal of specificity, meaning. So if I am like out and about in the world, and I've done this one day, I did it around gender one day. I was on a subway, for example, years and years ago, on a subway, and you know, I was just let me just track in this moment gender, my relation to it for the day, how I'm seeing other people show up, etc. And one of the things that I had done earlier that day before I decided consciously to track, and this is probably what motivated it, was that I was so preoccupied about someone on the train, their gender identity and their gender representation. You know, and I was curious. One was because they had on a fabulous outfit, but the other part of it was just the curiosity. And I eventually I think what struck my decision to do the like to lean in more into that tracking that day was because I had to understand why I was so preoccupied for trying to put a gender label on this person. Yeah, what was that about for me in that moment that day? Why was it something that I was curious about? Why was it sitting with me? Why was it, and is it a bad thing? Was it a bad thing? Where was it coming from?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So I think it's for me when you say the how do you do it, ways in which that you like, you know, you become more conscious, is that you have to make an effort at it. You have to give yourself, I think frames matter because when you give yourself a frame and way to approach it, whether it's through ways in which we think about growth mindset frameworks, whether it's about internal consciousness, whether it's about disrupting like our unconscious biases, that has to be done in a framework. Like what frame are we using to be able to do that? Can't just say I want to do it, because then you know, then what are the skills that you need to do it? What are the actions you need to take, right? And adopting frameworks or frames to be able to do that work. And some of it is about learning because we need to be constant state of learning. So I feel like, you know, I'm a constant like learner, right? I'm always want to learn more, this being about curiosity about self. Who am I? Who am I as I grow? Who am I as a leader? How am I showing up? How am I not showing up at times, etc.? But the frames for me have been really helpful. You know, I've used frame around intersectionality to understand, you know, if I'm coming from an intersectional framework in this moment, how might I show up? You know, a framework around intercultural awareness, right? And so if I'm thinking about how do I not make the worst assumptions about people when they make cultural mishaps, but maybe there's something else there that I don't understand. That's the end, that's a frame, right? That's a frame in which that I'm processing the information, frame in which I'm trying to understand and explore. And it's a foundational frame for me to understand how to put this into something that helps me make sense of it, make sense of it. Some of that's about your own behavior. Some of it's about why did I show up that way? And if I put that in a gent, like in a feminist framework, what might that say? If I put in a third-wave feminist framework, what might that say? If I put in a contemporary framework around feminism, what might that say? So I think adopting frames, deciding that you're making a commitment, you know, you decide that you're making that commitment. And then finally, you know, you have to put yourself in a space in a circle around people who are going to challenge you. Right. And I usually talk about this thing about your board of trustees, right? Some people use the board of directors. I'm like, I don't like people directing me, but I do trusted people, right? Trust that I bring into my space and my circle, whether it be personally or professionally, right? And so know sometimes can look different. People that you bring into your circle to challenge you and hold you accountable personally, may not necessarily be the people same in a day-to-day workplace. You know, I don't think they're not, you know, in conversation with each other, but it may look different, right? Depending on what some of your goals are. Just like someone I might bring in for fitness, like to challenge me to help me grow, would be very different than the person I bring in for like my mental health, right? And that's the same way I think about that when you think about your personal or professional board of trustees, people who are going to be in your not only your circle, but your corner. And being in a corner, it means that you know, you're willing to bring me in, call me in, you know, and sometimes maybe I need to be called out just a little bit, you know, in a way that's helpful and healthy. But so I have people who are part of my board of trustees, both professional and personal, that call me out, challenge me. And I, and that also when I think about the areas I want to continue to grow in, you know, I know that they have done some work in that space themselves.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Right. So that has been very helpful, that wraparound, right? People who hold you accountable. And people become a mirror of some sort sometimes of you know, that model of what you might want to be, right? And and that doesn't necessarily mean by age, right? Because you know, I like to say they're eight-year-olds that I learn a lot from in terms of how to show up in the world and who I want to be, you like and how I want to see who I like, who I want to grow into. So yeah, the frameworks, the tracking, the relationships of people who challenge you and hold you accountable have been all really effective for me.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yeah, yeah. And you know, if you're gonna be learning from an eight-year-old, they're gonna be teaching you in a way that no one else is gonna be teaching you, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

The truth that comes out sometimes, that's so great. You're like, Did you have to tell me I have food in my teeth right now and point it out? You know, or why is your eye bigger here and that than that one? The truth tellers, there can be real radical truth tellers.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

Yeah, so that day when you started on the train and we're tracking this where your curiosities were at and noticing their genders and how people dress and live and maybe interact with each other. Yeah, can you tell us more about what that day was like if you remember?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Like what you remember? A little, you know, it was I walked off and I started laughing at myself, and then I went into my office. And I think at this time, maybe I was so long ago, perhaps I was director of the LGBT center and NYU at this point in time. So what I decided to do, and it was a little bit of a like for me, made me just a tad bit uncomfortable, but I'm direct, you got to practice this stuff. So uh what I recall is I think soon after I was going into a conversation with some of my students at some point in that day. And I engaged them in the conversation because my students were gonna hold me accountable. You know, these are all like pretty, you know, from their they, you know, they were always ready with a critique. Let me just put it that way. So I had to help them take the critique and put it into educational frameworks, you know, as leaders and facilitators of education. Um, and so I used them as an opportunity to help me think through some of my thoughts because, you know, I was like, I think the person was attractive, but I don't know why I needed to know exactly what their gender was other than, oh, I like their outfit. They were like, you know, they looked like for me, my perception of attraction is, you know, if that's something I was going for. But what was that curiosity really? Because I was stuck with me, I was really wondering how they were defining their gender for whatever reason. I don't remember how they were presenting it for that triggered that for me exactly. But what I try to do is bring other people into the conversation, is what I did to help me think through. And what I recognized, if I recall correctly, you know, it is part of what came up for me was it was curiosity. Part of it was curiosity, part of it too was me like feeling that I think they were stepping outside of a normalized form formation of gender in some way, and it was disruptive to me in that moment, and so I got caught up. It was disruptive to me in that moment because it stood out. And it and so it may not have necessarily been a horrible thing because you know, I acknowledged the person present and why I wasn't thinking poorly about them, but I was really preoccupied. So I think it was about the it was about presentation, it was about my curiosity, but it was also you know about ways in which that you know, I I perceived normal like whatever my perceptions at that time of what gender looks like and gender representation and gender and also gender exploration. And so I think that's what it was. It was a learning moment for me. It disrupted, you know, my my understanding of gender presentation in a particular kind of way.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that that's you know, the it's really propaganda of what we have been taught is that you must know the anatomy of the person in front of you. And when you when this person, you know, you know, disrupted that moment for you, is he talking about like fashion and the role of that?

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yeah, definitely, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

This was like the total purpose of expressing yourself is to disrupt is to disrupt and uh and that it had this effect on you of wait, why am I so interested in someone's anatomy? And then you can counter-brainwash yourself until like totally I don't think anybody's anatomy.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Asking the why, the why, because how does that you know, was I needing to support that person in some way in that moment? No, and it was that needed to be able to support that person if I did, no. Was I planning to approach that person to share like you know my feelings about them? And you know, and attraction is like sometimes attraction is linked to like your what genders are we attracted to in gender presentations? No, so why did that matter? Why didn't I just stop at I love that outfit they're wearing, and that's quite fly. Why didn't I just stop there? And so that asking that question, the why. So I love that point about the why of the why. Why am I showing up this way? Why did I have that thought? Why didn't I just stop there? And what and then what do I do with that next? The what? And what do I do with that next? And what did I learn from that moment? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

I bet your students had a lot to contribute to that.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Oh, they did.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

But it's a it's like part two of this story, it's not is not just keeping it to yourself or feeling whatever loads of judgment we can put on ourselves. Why did you have that thought? Why don't tell anyone you had that thought? You know, instead, you were like, I'm gonna speak over and just be like, hey, I had this thought. Anyone want let us talk about it? Um that, you know, when we stop feeling I feel when we stop feeling any shame, guilt, weird judgment about things, we can let it go and then we can get on a podcast and start talking about it. Absolutely, and not feel like anything from that moment, but just grateful for the education or the curiosity in the same way when I'm in workshops and I'm telling a story, and people come up to me later and they're like, Thanks so much for sharing that. It's not you know, because you accept it is. What it is. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yes, absolutely. And that vulnerability piece, right? We only, from my perspective, and even in this work around equity and advancing equity and upholding equity or advocating for greater equity or teaching about equity and equity practices and principles. A lot of this comes back to the vulnerability piece. The willingness to be able to say, I didn't know, the willingness to be able to say, you know, teach me something new, the willingness to be as a leader to say, you know, I don't know all the answers. And so I need to bring forward a diverse bench of people with multiplicity of perspectives and ideas to help me figure out whether it's on a personal level or like you know, even as a leader, when you're making decisions about how to, if you say you uphold this idea of equity, it means that then if you uphold that, you can there is no way you can make every decision by yourself. Why? Because, like, how could I possibly uphold you know an equity practice where I don't know the needs of all people? Right? I don't have an experience the world as every person in the workplace, or I haven't experienced the world in every person in healthcare. I haven't experienced the world in every person in educational systems, right? So I need to bring in people who either have had those experiences, and I have not done, you know, I've now many because I've been in the work for so long. But at the same time, especially earlier in my career, right? Earlier on, you know, and I was thrusted into leadership world roles very early on in my like my my life, even as a student leader. And I learned this pretty early, even like in high school, or maybe in junior high school, because I have very diverse groups of friends. And you know, and part of it was I think I was born with this curiosity DNA, just something that was like, you know, something a part of my soul. Then there was also this other piece where, you know, I earlier on realized that you know this greater richness that comes out of, you know, having a very unique, and at that time I probably would have called it unique group of, or you know, or you know, this very interesting group of friends, right? People, or my like people I wanted to be around, or people who were co-leaders with me. And I've learned that as a leader because I don't have not, and especially as I said earlier in my career, because I did not had not worked in all many communities, you know, when you first start in this work. So I had to bring those people together because I was charged with making decisions that was going to impact across, right? And so I could hear those perspectives if I say I'm committed to equity, because how do you get them the tools and the resources they need to be able to thrive and achieve whatever the goal is that you set up and as the workplace, right? How do we get people the tools they need in order to deliver what we said we expected of them? How do we get them tools and you know the need to live a life if life is meant to be lived? How do we do that so that people live like quality lives, right? Mayor from New York, we just saw he had a clip that I think everyone's been sending out about the differences of New York, you know, the median income, you know, for white New Yorkers is 100,000 and for black New Yorkers is 10,000. And wow. Wow. So are you telling me that, you know, in terms of that there's one racial identity that actually needs more in order to live and thrive than another? And you know, that is not a like a small difference. That is a I mean 10% of so do black people need 10%, like only 10% of what white people need in order to live meaningful lives? And do we think that black people only work at a 10% rate in comparison to white people? So these are the kind of you know, being a leader now, these are the kind of pragmatic, practical questions I like to ask in order to get leaders to understand the importance of equity. Because this is what you're telling me about this scenario that they white people work 90 hard 90% harder than black people have.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

I just want you to commit to that. If that's what you believe, commit to it then. So but if not, we have a problem then. We have a problem with the outcomes. We have a problem with the outcomes. Why are those outcomes that way then? What's broke? How do we get here? Right. And those are the types of things I think when you're doing an equity analysis, those are the kinds of questions you must be asking.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Yeah. Yeah. And why are we, you know, committed to keeping obstacles in the past uh when we know it's not working? Why are we so committed to that?

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Yeah. I don't, you know, yeah. Good question.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

You know, in all in your career, you have accomplished so much. I want to talk about this book that came out last year on global partnerships. And you know, we started the podcast talking about you know work around the world. Can you talk to us about this book and also give us insight as to like the partnerships you make um across the globe and like how you with so many differences in how inequity appears all over the world through caste, class, skin color, you know, global anti-blackness, you know, how how do you, and especially patriarchy, how do you how do you engage in a global partnership when there's just such a variety of ways we oppress each other?

SPEAKER_01 27:26

No, thank you for that question. And this is, you know, I've a lot of the cornerstone of my work over my career has been about how do you build like strategic partnerships and collaborate, you know, across across oceans and seas and rivers, and then of course, you know, across sectors and disciplines, et cetera, and across generations, which also is a very important work that must be done. And so the book that, you know, I was then did a chapter in with some of my best friends, some people I care deeply about. And then, you know, the primary editor was someone named Tawana Kupe, who is the former former of VC for a university in South Africa. And so that book was all about how do we like facilitate partnerships that helps us to think about the ways in which that we can advance higher education or K through 12, but also as we think about how we posture and position power, right? And as we know, you know, where there are like a lot of humanity, like human humanitarian, you know, humanitarian differences or you know, are in the global south in relation to what happens in other parts in the west or you know, north or whatever. And this that the book was very much about how do we better understand that? How do we think about, you know, how do we think about the UNESCO's, UNESCO's, the oh my gosh, what I can't think of the word? I'm just having a uh one of those brain moments. It'll come back to a minute.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

Uh sorry World Heritage.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

Stop. Yes, I got it. I got it. I'll come back to it. Gosh, whatever can I think of the word? It'll come to me in a minute. But anyway, so the book, going back to the book in partnerships. So the book, you know, is focused on understanding the importance of partnerships across sectors and how do we address equities and how do we advance innovation in higher education, K through 12, and in private sector and public sector across international contexts and global contexts. And for me, why that has been so important in my career, one, it just makes the work far more interesting. But two, I just believe that we're seeing with the proliferation of technology, AI, of course, with the ways in which that people have greater mobility, like things like even Zoom or ways in which that we're making the world in some ways smaller. Well, at least that was what it was starting to feel like a little bit up until this moment that we're doing. But it in order to find solutions, we have to bring people to the table. And so often we know that some countries, some regions that represent black and brown people in particular have been left out of conversations. And this book was meant to shift that, right? Meant to disrupt that. Some of my co-authors, and again, the editor, you know, he is from, he's African himself, and then has worked in this and lives in South Africa. And then, and then my other colleagues, South African, another colleague that wrote in the like in the book of South African as well, and then you know, other folks from the US, including myself, and it just made it much more dynamic. And it just made our analysis and you know, our conclusions in our chapter much more rich and complex. And, you know, how I have come across doing this work is I started. Literally, I just said, you know, wherever my life was the I want to begin, I want to be in a global conversation. I started again, remember that board of trustees. I started to engage with people who were doing this work in a global context. And, you know, and I sought their consult. I learned from them in terms of spaces I needed to be in. And through that work over time, I educated myself more in the cultural frameworks, how to be more globally conscious, even when you don't know, because people ask me, How do you land in other places? And you've never been there, but you have to go and do the work. Yeah, you're trying to do the work consciously. So part of that was just coming in saying often, I don't know. I don't know, listening more, engaging more, asking questions. Of course, I do my research beforehand and all those things, of course. But it's also the you know, not coming in feeling like I have all the solutions, coming in wanting to be a learner, coming in and understand. I always think that someone has something to offer, even when they've asked me to come in to be the expert on something. And sometimes I've brought in global spaces to be an expert on something. And what I've realized is that no, I'm a co-learner, right? And so I may be coming in with an experience that like, you know, aids me in order to be able to deliver what I've been asked to deliver. But in the end of the day, I'm there to co-learn with others. In the end of the day, I am there to be a co-learner, you know, as a part of a as a part of an experience. And that has helped me, I think, to be much more conscious, to be more thoughtful for how I show up, and then also being willing to say, I'm sorry, I screwed up, I made a mistake, I'm still learning. I am like, because there are times I've made mistakes and have done things that, you know, like from a cultural context, it may have been inappropriate. Thankfully, not so egregious I couldn't recover. But I think that's the other piece, too, is that, you know, in all this work and equity work, leadership-based work, we must also talk about the recovery. How do we recover when we've made a mistake? How do we take accountability for it? How do we say, you know, well, going forward, this is what I'm going to do differently? Or I'm going to go back and do my education. Or, you know, that you know, you show, you know, through your commitment that, you know, this is work that you really care deeply about. And it gives some space for people to then have that space of greater empathy, even when you make a mistake and you misstep. And so those are some of the things I think about in the how do you do the work globally. And then finally, I would just say that, you know, there's so much, even being in the US, I can learn from people from elsewhere that have tackled really complicated authoritarian governments. There have been people who have had to navigate like disruption and crisis that we can learn from. There are folks who have had to build up organizations without zero resources or in a like very hostile climate. And so I can learn from that. There are people who have used very few pennies, or you think about places like you know, if you think about you know, places like Chiapas, where women have had to figure out how to make sense, you know, Waxaka, like Oaxaca, like places people have had to figure out how to make sense. And you look at you know, the women who are like, you know, creating blankets and baskets and using their skill set, but then have a whole strategy around entrepreneurship. How do you learn from them? Because they have a lot to teach us.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

And so that idea that I can learn from everyone. I can learn from everyone. And that is a for me, to me, that's a way in which that you practice greater equity leadership, that you believe someone, everyone has something to offer, and I want to ensure they can get there.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

We've lived a long time. So we've lived through and we know, if we remember and have learned actually from things, a lot from the past. But that doesn't mean we know anything about the future, and it doesn't mean we know anything about the younger generations that have had very different lived experiences, and then of course, spreading out across the world. And and uh, you know, I think people often, so do I, confuse age with experience and knowledge, and they are not interchangeable. There is uh very low correlation, in fact. Very low.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

So true, so true. We have young people who are doing incredible work in the world, incredible work in the world, and especially around climate. Let's not even get started. If there was not a youth movement around climate, where would we be? Absolutely globally, a youth movement. I don't know that we will be as far as we are right now. And certainly when you think about, you know, the women's movement, you know, initially, and we think about even some of the queer movements, right, in spaces, especially globally, especially globally, not just using the United States as an example, it's often come out of the youth. It's often come out of the youth because they feel like they have less to use. Like oftentimes they feel, you know, they don't have all these attachments to things in a particular kind of way. Um, and have been not, you know, and they don't been so socialized in a particular kind of way. So, in the same way we have just, you know, by upholding these systems that don't really serve us all.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

I want to talk about May, which is coming up for us. We're recording at the end of April. And May is mental health awareness month. And I'd love to talk to you about what you're doing and anything that's coming up for you, why it's important to you. Yeah, thank you. So very important to me too. But tell me about it.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Very important, very important. I don't, you know, and we know that especially since the pandemic, young people like have, you know, the number and the rate of young people being diagnosed with mental health like challenges has increased exponentially, right? In terms of, especially in the university setting in K through 12. Some of it's about, you know, the experiences through the pandemic, et cetera. And so months, so yes, May is mental health month. I am currently serving as a strategic advisor to the president at their university, Lisa Coleman, Dr. Lisa Coleman, whom I worked with before at NYU. And, you know, and in this work, we're preparing to feature her on a couple of news stations to talk about the importance of mental health awareness, and then working on several events that we'll be partnering with across Chicago and across the city of Chicago to greater bring awareness to mental health through the arts, mental health, you know, through like everyday praxis, right? Mental health through community partnerships, and also to understand the importance, the impact of trauma on people, whether it be like life-based trauma or workplace trauma, like et cetera, and how that shows up and how we navigate that. The other piece that I think, you know, for us, we're featuring some videos to speak to the importance of understanding your mental health and launching a little bit of a campaign related to that. And then, you know, to your point too, for me, mental health, you know, is incredibly important. I've had my own life experiences through my family that have made mental health, you know, even more important to me. But the thing about, from my perspective, and I've said this all for many years, and this is a cornerstone to the work of Adler through the Adlerian theory, is that you cannot, and this is the equity piece here as well, you cannot you cannot help heal a person or support that person in their growth and healing without also working on community.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

Because the person will go back right back into a trauma-informed, trauma-induced like spec, like space. And if we don't address the trauma, like the collective trauma, if we don't express address the environmental trauma or environmental ways in which that you know produced, that continues to cause people to go into these mental spaces. Now, and I know mental health, like mental health disorders are a like you know, are a medical condition. But I also know that what can trigger you know an episode or what can keep people from healing and working and navigating when it's a medical condition is that you know when a community to go back into continues to perpetuate the same things that you know has caused them to be triggered. And then I also know that all of us experience some mental challenges at some point in our lives, which is often caused sometimes by external factors and how we experience them internally. So we have got to then, I, from my perspective, solve for this. And we also know if we care deeply about those who are already marginal, those are the communities that like experience mental health and have the least of access to resources, you know, at the greater rates. And so caring about the work of equity, I don't know how you do that with also caring about mental like health and well-being. And how it has to be beyond just a clinical model, but also like how do we think about this from you know, from a collective, community-based, societal approach to how do we think about creating healthy, healthier environments and communities as a whole?

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Completely.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Someone a child is you know has asthma, you take them out of the polluted environment. Yes, and you're like, okay, you're all better. Like ultra trauma, go back to the polluted environment. Yes, we just don't have to deal with the pollution.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

We have to deal with the pollution, and I, you know, and sometimes I think people feel maybe I don't know, that this is a little frivolous when I talk about the joy framework. But I believe, you know, to your point about a child with asthma, you know, I grew up with asthma and have had to come back in different phases and adult, so often because of my environment, something I'm in. And, you know, and I imagine the joy that child feels when they're taken out of the environment and they're no longer having asthma attacks or episodes. Imagine the joy you feel like you know, when you're in community with other people that are healthy. Because we're all thriving with each other.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

So ultimately for me, you know, in this work, ultimately, it's about joy. Ultimately for me, equity, like thinking about how do we create spaces that like you know, all people can thrive by resourcing, you know, those communities by ensuring that they have the tools and access. Not it is and it's not necessarily about giving someone something, right? It's moving the barriers so those people can, you know, to have access to you know what's made available. And sometimes that means you have to need to do some restoring, which means you've got to pour into those communities to restore for the harm you've caused. And but that ultimately for me is about joy. And it's about you know, joy for people with disabilities, joy for people who've experienced, like, you know, like experienced what it comes out of being in a misogynistic culture or a misogynor culture, you know, the joy that comes out of, you know, like when you were able to get outside of a culture that predominantly perpetuates like racism and homophobia, what that joy brings when you're around people who are who get it, who understand. And so I just want everyone to experience joy. Yeah, I think joy should be a human right. I it should be a right for all beings, right? And so I want animals to experience joy too.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

You know, yeah, and exactly, and you know, it's when you can have and have a reliance on some semblance of equity and having things, just like that tomato in your fridge, the onions, the masala, and then you have the basis for some food that you can cook that day, like knowing all of that, that it's not just equity for equity's sake, no, it's for the joy of living.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Yes, the joy of living. And you know, what I say to people, if I'm coming into my workplace, even because even if you're like, I don't care about the bottom line, as you know, I'm working in a corporation, and end of the day, I care about the bottom line. Yeah, okay, let's start there. That though, that's what you care most about. Well, if you have employees who all feel disgruntled, who are all angry about the organization because you're like, I could care less about their feelings or who or how they or how they experience the place, right? Or how they experience the world. If you say you don't care about those things, but yet you want the bottom line to be achieved, yeah, people are much more motivated when they are feeling joyful in the world. Uh, and I'm not talking about parties, I'm not talking those are good things to have, right? And socials and all those things, of course, but I am talking about in a workplace where you understand it, you have clarity about how to navigate in that workplace, where you have your baseline needs met, and you know, even more, right? And so, like where people are coming in feeling, you know, feeling nourished, both physically and also mentally and intellectually, that produces better outcomes. Yeah, creates more innovation.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

Speaking of sparking joy, can we talk about global black pride?

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yes, please. Let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Yeah, three or four months. Yeah, tell us everything.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

I'm so excited. What a way to what a great way to move towards the end. But this thing about like joy, right? So I am a chair of advisory chair for global black pride. We have now had three global black prides. One was virtual during the pandemic, which was supposed to be in New York, and then we had one that was in the one four years ago that was in Toronto, and then also most recently in Atlanta, two years ago, and then finally we'll be in Paris, France, but to my namesake. And we'll do that in September. So it'll be September 7th through 9th. It's meant to be a time of you know, of global black joy, a time for like communities to come across, come together across the diaspora, to be in community with one another through. Through celebration, through education. So we'll have a conference. We're going to have a community. So we'll have a festival where we'll have vendors, you know, being able to showcase their resources that are made available to the community. And our hope is that we have people coming from all across the world joining us for this time of celebration, but also a time for reclaiming who we are as a collective community and defining where do we want to go next? Where do we want to go forward? And so this was the brainchild of my dear friend Michael Igodora, who was also the executive director and founder of Global Black Gay Man Connect. And so it's just been really wonderful to be a part of this space where we're bringing black leaders across artists, intellectuals, thought leaders, community-based folks to come together and to be to celebrate who we are.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

We need this more than ever. So join us or check out the Global Black Pride website to learn more about this, about our time together in September. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

This is so fun. Globalblackpride.org. If you're leaders from business, government, philanthropy, global health experts, practitioners, LGBTQ, advocates activists, movement builders, artists, anyone committed to inclusion. What fun? Paris in September. Oh my gosh, it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Oh my god, it's gonna be brilliant. It's gonna be absolutely brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

It's gonna be brilliant, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

And we're looking for more partners too. And so if you're looking to partner, be a part of the conference, right, in terms of leveraging your your like your community-based organization or the work you do in high in education, you know, we'd be very happy to partner with you. And then always, you know, we always want sponsors. That's just a natural thing.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

Excellent. And I'm as I'm on the website right now, I can see like constant donations, like so-and-so donated from Canada. So and so don't so cool.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Keep the money coming in. We need it.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

Yeah, no, it's wonderful. Go to the site globalblackpride.org at Paris2026. That's phenomenal. We will be shouting it out. And for those of us who can't come, how can we follow along with the festivities?

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Absolutely. So the conference itself was going to be virtual. So more information to come about that. Please just join the mailing list at globalblackpride.org. And there will be many ways to engage virtually through the conference. And then, of course, you'll be able to join our news list, a newsletter list, and to be informed of upcoming events that we'll have in addition to the pride festivities themselves in September.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

So fun. So fun. And you're perfect for this. Mr. France is going to be in France. Yeah. So wonderful to speak with you, Monroe. You are such a delight. And you speak so just in a way that's so beneficial and informative and accessible all at the same time. It's so great to finally talk to you. I'm so happy you could make the time for us.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Thank you for the work you're doing in terms of bringing forward and uplifting voices that you know that matter. Not all voices matter, voices who in this particular moment we need to hear more. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Yes, thank you so much, Monroe. And for all of you, we will see you next week on Everyday Equity. 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 at 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 Puja Kotari, and I can't wait to keep learning and growing with you right here on Everyday Equity.