The Radical Act Of Choosing Common Ground To Create Change With Nisha Anand

In Episode 84, Nisha Anand, CEO of Dream Corps, joins Melinda in a reflective conversation about how we can make unlikely allies and find common ground to create large-scale change in our organizations, culture, and legislation. They share their take on the Supreme Court’s draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, its impact on abortion rights across different communities, and the power every individual can have in pushing for an inclusive piece of legislation. Nisha also provides practical steps for creating common ground in communities and workplaces by learning how to have hard conversations, listening to understand, and finding commonalities that can help drive change forward.

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Wherever we have common pain, we can find common purpose… In the ‘common ground’ work I do, I always try to start with that: where is the pain? Where can I relate to your pain? You can relate to my pain— from that place [on] can we move forward.
Headshot of Nisha Anand, a South Asian female with long wavy black hair, brown eyes, glasses, and a striped black and white long sleeve
Guest Speaker

Nisha Anand

CEO of Dream Corps
(She/Her)

Nisha Anand is the CEO of Dream Corps, a nonprofit organization that brings people together across racial, social, and partisan lines to solve our toughest problems. She is the Political Director of Rebuild The Dream, an organization fighting for an economy that works for everyone. Nisha leads a diverse group of people who are learning, like her, the value of unconventional relationships. Her journey from punk-rock protester to common ground champion is documented in her widely-viewed TED talk, The Radical Act of Choosing Common Ground. With her team of storytellers, organizers, and policy experts, Nisha focuses on criminal justice reform, green economics, and tech equity to create a better future for all.

Previously, Nisha served as Chief of Staff to Van Jones, CNN commentator, and NY Times Bestselling Author. A veteran fundraiser and consultant with decades of experience in nonprofit development and management, Nisha has also served as Director of Development for The Ruckus Society, a national direct action training organization, and for San Francisco Women Against Rape, the city’s rape crisis center. Nisha is a senior trainer and consultant with GIFT, the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training. As a certified coach, Nisha is a pioneer in the field of “fundraising coaching”–providing a unique blend of coaching people through their issues around money.

In 1998, Nisha was arrested while passing out pro-democracy leaflets in the military dictatorship of Burma and was sentenced to five years in jail with 18 other international activists. Her arrest put her on the international stage, delivering speeches at numerous events and conferences and interviewing for TV, radio, and print. In 1999, she received her Masters Degree in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from the American University in Washington, D.C. Nisha plays soccer and is the mother of two teenagers and a great dane.

Learn more about the host and creator of Leading With Empathy & Allyship, Melinda Briana Epler.

Transcript

MELINDA: Welcome to Leading With Empathy & Allyship, where we have deep real conversations to build empathy for one another and to take action to be more inclusive and to lead the change in our workplaces and communities. I’m Melinda Briana Epler, founder and CEO of Change Catalyst, and author of How To Be An Ally. I’m a Diversity Equity and Inclusion speaker, advocate, and advisor. 

 

You can learn more about my work and sign up to join us for a live recording at ally.cc. 

 

All right. Let’s dive in. 

 

MELINDA: Hello, everyone. Today, our guest is Nisha Anand, CEO of Dream Corps, a nonprofit that brings people together across racial, social, and partisan lines to solve our toughest problems. Political Director of Rebuild the Dream which is an organization fighting for an economy that works for everyone. 

 

We’ll be talking today about how to make unlikely allies and find common ground so we can all create change, whether that’s in our organizations, or we’re looking to create large-scale change in culture and legislation. So welcome, Nisha. Good to see you.

 

NISHA: Yes. Thank you for having me on today.

 

MELINDA: I’m really excited to have this conversation with you. We are recording this on the day that Politico published a leak that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs. Wade. During a time when the vast majority of Americans don’t actually want it overturned that CNN survey showed recently that only 30% of Americans want Roe versus Wade overturned. 

 

It seems like a very good example of where we can find common ground and perhaps pass legislation to change the outcome. I want to ask you just how are you doing? What are you thinking about today?

 

NISHA: Today is a really hard day. I feel like usually, people can count on me for giving an optimistic take on things. I am an optimist. But I’m a determined optimist. I don’t think I’m naive. I usually am optimistic because I’ve seen the world change. I’ve seen progress. I’ve seen that if you work for an outcome, it can be achieved. I’ve seen enough things change in my lifetime to believe it. So, I don’t think I’m a naive optimist. I think I’m a determined optimist. 

 

But today, I called my leadership team on a call as we tried to figure out what should we say, what can we say, what’s the right thing to say in our voice? And I didn’t have an optimistic take today. It is devastating. Some days are just hard. And this feels hard. If this is the final decision that comes out, it will have long-lasting ramifications for whole communities. 

 

We know we have to be real that this will impact certain communities more than others. It’s the people that are already struggling that are not going to have access to safe abortions. We keep hearing this. You can’t ban abortions. You can only ban safe abortions. That’s been true in history in every country that has tried to ban it or has an active ban. It only increases the mortality rate for the pregnant folks. That is documented. It’s fact. It’s science. 

 

But the ramifications for entire communities. I don’t know why we are not talking about it. No matter how much that 30% of folks who believe that Roe should be overturned, should not be celebrating today. Even if you try to take into account where they’re coming from. There is no option for what you will do for the women who will be hurting first and worst when this changes. 

 

How are you going to increase help? Right now, we’re struggling with childcare. We’re struggling to make ends meet for the families we do have. Let alone the families we don’t want to have or aren’t planning to have. There is no safety net right now. And we are actually going to throw more people into that insecurity at a quite insecure time. So, it’s pretty horrific. Today, I don’t have a lot of good things to say. 

 

I did ask myself. Well, I always try to find common ground. I try to find the Unity take. And the best thing I have for you today. And you know, this is very new. For the listeners, this just happened. It is very new for us when you listen to this episode. The Supreme Court as an impartial arbiter of justice, that we can say went away today. That should scare absolutely everybody. That is a place where we should be able to find common ground. Absolutely. 

 

There are some rights that must be protected by the country as a whole and not state by state. That’s why we have the federal and state split. Surely that can be a place of common ground. But I also think this is a moment to push an actual human rights agenda in both parties. Call Democrats to really make a stand for codifying the rights that they worked so hard to get. Make sure those stay and they last and they are durable. That means making sure there’s bipartisan support when they happen. We can’t have the overturning of these rights like we’ve been seeing. The Voting Rights Act as another example. 

 

And for Republicans who usually are avid human rights protectors, please where’s the love, and where’s the empathy for the women who will be impacted first and worse? It is not the rich women who’ve always had access to this healthcare. We need that love and empathy that is supposed to be part of the compassion side of the Republican Party. And so, I do think there has to be human rights call to action in both parties. That’s my quick take. 

 

My personal take is being a mom is the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s the biggest joy of my life. It’s also the hardest thing I have ever done. I have teenagers. For those of you with young kids, it gets harder. For those of you with teenagers, I feel you. For those of you who have grown kids like me, that put your parents through absolute hell, I’m sorry because I was that kid. 

 

No one should be forced into motherhood. No one should be forced into parenthood. If you are not ready, you are not ready. And so, my personal take is I feel as a mom. I feel for what some parents are going through.

 

MELINDA: Yeah. It’s been hard for a lot of us today to get into work to do our work to think anything else because I think in addition to all of what you said, I think the other piece of it you started to go into a bit is that it has potential long-term implications, not just this, but a future potential decisions as well. Which is, in addition to all of those other emotions can be really scary for a lot of people. And anxiety and mental health struggles as a result of this as well. So, I want to recognize all of that. 

 

If you are struggling, talk to somebody and reach out. You’re not alone. In that, you mentioned that we should all be pushing for our senators and representatives to move on legislation and to really drive change from their perspective. How would you suggest that we do that? What are some ways that we can make a difference there?

 

NISHA: I think that we are in an era where there’s a lack of faith in our political institutions. I’m not sure in history how often this has happened in the United States. But we have with the election results last year and a portion of the country believing that they were fake or false or that there was voter fraud happening in undetectable ways widespread throughout the country. There is a lack of faith that our institutions are there to help. I think that leads to a lack of action, a lack of wanting to act. 

 

There was a time, at least when I grew up, that I was raised understanding there’s a civic duty every person in this country has to make the country better. We’ve lost that right now. I don’t think it has lost forever. I think it’s lost right now in most folks. There’s a bit of trauma that we’ve had over the last decade with the pandemic, with the Trump administration, with a lot of the things that were presented to us. I think a lot of my kids, teenagers who this is what they’ve seen in their life is the norm. There’s a, I don’t want to say apathy. I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s more a lack of roadmap, no pathway to success. 

 

It is hard to say your dreams can come true if the last 10 years you lived where these last 10 years. There’s not a lot of hope. I shouldn’t say that. There have been some hopeful moments, which I hope we can turn into something significant. Out of every place where there’s pain, wherever we have common pain, we can find common purpose. I really believe that. 

 

In the common ground work I do I always try to start with that. Where is the pain? Where can I relate to your pain? You can relate to my pain from that place. Can we move forward? The pandemic is someplace that laid that out pretty clearly on day one. It was that we were all going to experience pain. Not in the same way. Not equally. Some people experience it worse than others. But it was a known factor that was going to impact everybody. We understood how interconnected we were. We had this new framework of essential workers that we had never heard before. We understood how frontline workers bear the brunt of this. There was a whole host of issues, people understood how interconnected we were. 

 

And for a brief moment, there was that spirit of we’re all in this together. We had Nextdoor, developing an app of how can you help your elderly neighbors who can’t go to the grocery store. How can you pick up what they need and bring it to him? You had every sector of society trying to figure out how to cooperate for the greater good of the whole for a moment. And it passed. 

 

I think when I ask people what we can do is to remember that spirit. It’s possible. We have to work to make that culture of interconnectedness of hope and love and care for our communities. That has to be more inspiring than the division and the hate and the fear that is also being pumped out into the ethos right now. 

 

And so, I do think my being an optimist is a choice. I think it can be all of our choices. Your desire to fight, not fight against, and fight to point fingers and fight to point blame, but fight to improve what is necessary. It’s for progress. That’s the kind of fight we can all choose each day. On days when it’s too hard, stay in bed. Take care of yourself. There are days where you can’t fight. And I think we have to appreciate that too. But in terms of what can you do, I think it’s that. Make the choice every day to bring us closer to that dream of a country with liberty and justice for all. We’ve never lived up to that dream. That’s always been for some and not others. But if that’s the dream of the country, like let’s live into it. Let’s build it. Let’s be unrelentless in making that happen. 

 

If this decision does come to pass, which it looks like it will, that can’t be possible in the future we’re building. It won’t be a future where you love. I say this often, but I firmly believe it. You cannot lead a country if you don’t love the country and if you don’t love the people in it. I think that’s what both sides hear a lot is “Oh, the left. They’re not patriotic. They don’t really love the country.” No, we do. We absolutely 100% do. 

 

And on the left you hear, “But they don’t love the people in the country because why would they do A, B, and C.” We have to be able to love both all of the people in this country and this country as a whole in order to lead it. I don’t think you’re a good leader otherwise.

 

MELINDA: I live in San Francisco on high floor in a tall building. And so, I see all the tall buildings in San Francisco and during the pandemic. A lot of the tall buildings made through their windows because nobody was in the buildings, they made a shape of a Purple Heart in those tall buildings. That lasted for months. Slowly, one light would go out of one of them and one light would go out of one of them. And then eventually they came down. 

 

I think the same thing happened with all of us where we at the beginning we were clapping for essential workers in the evenings, right? We were connected in all of these different ways even though we were in our homes and couldn’t leave. We were watching people in their homes across the world and their experiences as well. And so, bringing that love back, those purple hearts, back and remembering that that still is there, that love we can bring forward. Yeah. 

 

NISHA: If you remember what it felt like. And this is for everyone out there. If you remember what that felt, like that is the spirit that has to be sustained longer, and we have to demand to not live without it. That actually is something that’s hard to do every day. To say I’m coming at this from a place of love versus a place of blame and shame, and, you know, fear. t’s a hard thing to do but it actually does change. It’s infectious. It can be. And not in the way that COVID is infectious. But once we make it irresistible, and we make people need and yearn for that, I think we have a different country.

 

MELINDA: And the pandemic is one tipping point. You talked about these as tipping point or potential tipping points, right. Pandemic is one, George Floyd’s murder, another where we had this real movement at the beginning, and then it’s slowly passed to is again, is that reminding ourselves. I think it is a reminder of those human connections that is a piece of all of this. So, how do we do that? How do we find that common ground? What does that look like?

 

NISHA: Well, I think the first thing is we have to be willing to work with people who aren’t exactly like us. It’s interesting, because from my end, and if people haven’t figured it out, I definitely identify as left and far left and progressive. So, when I make the case for diversity, equity, and inclusion, a lot of people hear this is just like fairness. So, you know, it’s about equity or equality or fairness or something like that. 

 

I take it a step further and understand it as this is how you build solutions that actually work. It’s not just that it’s a good way to work to be inclusive, it’s that it is absolutely necessary. And it’s the only thing that does work. And you can understand that in a business. If you build a product, where you only talk to people who look just like you, the product is only going to serve a certain part of the population. We understand that that’s a problem. And so, you have a lot of companies that work to diversify, maybe for the bottom-line reason. Hey, we might serve different communities or we might have a better product. They kind of understand that they’re still grappling with how to do it. 

 

It’s the same in legislation. I think if we try to make legislation that only works for one population, you’re going to get a solution that leaves out people. And it’s usually the people who are traditionally left out and left behind, especially when you look at the makeup of our Congress. That’s not what they’re looking for. So, I believe to build a piece of legislation that works for the most people because I believe in radical inclusivity. As many people as possible should benefit from the laws of this country and the laws of this land. Absolutely. 

 

Well then, you have to build an inclusive table from the start. It might be working with senators who I don’t agree on 99 of 100 things. But if there’s one thing we can agree on and get it done, I feel like it’s my civic duty. I owe this to the people I say that I want to fight for represent, be part of make progress for champion. It’s my duty to work with those folks to get it done. It means I might fight them on a hundred different issues but if there’s one where they can help me get something passed, I will do it. I am so serious about progress for my people that I will work with anyone to help get it done. 

 

But that’s not the climate we’re in right now. Right now, it’s only if you vote with me on a hundred of the thing, will I work with you on anything. And when we do that, we get nothing done. Who suffers? Not the people that are in the halls of Congress or the folks that are trying to influence the halls of Congress. Were largely above the fray of getting hurt by it. It’s the folks we’re trying to serve that get hurt. 

 

That was the choice that came to us when we were working on a piece of legislation that got passed under the Trump administration, which was the First Step Act. We had started working on bipartisan criminal justice reform during the Obama administration. And I should tell you, when we told people that we were doing that, they all thought we were completely living on a different planet. That that wasn’t possible. Those two words didn’t go together—bipartisan and criminal justice reform. No one could think of it. Now, everyone’s like, “Oh, that works on criminal justice, but it would never work on climate.” So, I’m kind of reliving this moment. 

 

We started off during the Obama administration. We got pretty far but not far enough. We had a decision. I run an organization, like you mentioned, Dream Corps. It was founded by Van Jones. Van Jones came to us and he said, “All right, Trump has been elected. A lot of people want us to not pursue this law that will bring people home from prison. They don’t want us to pursue it because they think in a future administration we could get more. We could get a better outcome. We could get a better piece of legislation if we wait. But I’m turning to all of you today and saying the people inside cannot wait. They do not care who’s in the White House. They want to come home to their house.” 

 

He asked us all if we were willing to work with the Trump administration to do it and Republicans to do it because it’s a Republican Congress. A lot of people on the left didn’t want us to, but we did. And we passed this law 87-89, either 87 or 89 senators voted yes on the First Step Act in a Republican controlled Congress. And today, almost 20,000 people are home because of this law. They got rid of some horrible things that were in the federal criminal system. 

 

Twenty thousand people. Could we have gotten a better piece of legislation if we waited? That’s a question they asked. At first, I could say, we were right to do what we did. Twenty thousand people are home. But now I can say we were right to do what we did because if we had waited, we may have gotten nothing. Because I see that happening with Bill Back Better. I saw it happen with Voting Rights Act. Nothing. We waited. We have a Democrat controlled House, Congress, Executive. Nothing. 

 

George Floyd is the one that hurts me the most because in that moment, an issue of police brutality and police regulation and police accountability had never been a mainstream talking point. It was always a third rail issue. Nobody could touch it. And for a moment, everyone wanted to do something on it and we waited. And now we’ve got nothing. And that breaks my heart. 

 

And so, for me, in order to get something done in this country strategically, yes, get some votes from the other side, find out what motivates them. On criminal justice reform, we weren’t there for the same reasons. I was there for justice for laws that have always targeted low-income communities, Black communities, specifically other communities of color. That’s why I was there. I saw injustice that was racist from the start. 

 

But the Republican counterparts were there for different reasons. The fiscal conservatives were there because they didn’t want taxpayer dollars going to pay for prisons, tax reasons. You had Christian conservatives and their religious right that believe in second chances and redemption, and are generally anti-death penalty. They didn’t like what they saw in the criminal justice system. 

 

You had libertarians, who by and large do not like any kind of overreach from the government complaining about our drug laws and marijuana laws. So, they were coming at it for different reasons. But that’s where I think allyship can come into place and why I think this is important when we’re talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, which I think is actually what got me talking to begin with, is it’s also that diversity. I can count on them to bring other viewpoints, which actually makes sense. 

 

We don’t have to agree that it’s racism and that’s the number one reason to do it. I can bring the race framework to the table. They can count on me to do that. I will always think about that. I mean, I have to walk in this world as a woman of color. I will bring it to the table. We’ll talk about it. And I can count on them to bring the tax implications or the fiscal responsibilities or the individual liberties. I don’t always think about that. 

 

That’s what that type of diversity can bring. You will have a better piece of legislation, if you also build a solution that’s inclusive. So, that’s a long way of answering the question, but it seems I think, I’m just really heated right now, given the news of the moment, so I’m pretty passionate that we have to start doing things that work instead of doing things to prove points.

 

MELINDA: Yeah. I’ve been working on behavior change my whole life and around social impact. That’s kind of how I ended up with diversity, equity, and inclusion as what I’m doing now. It’s really important to know that we are all motivated for different reasons. And that motivation is not where we need to align. That motivation is where we often try to align. 

 

I think on social media when we’re not aligned on motivation, there’s often a barrier that happens. But we did a study on allyship called the State of Allyship Report and one of the things we’ve looked at is what motivates people to be allies. It’s different. We’re not all motivated for the same reason. Some people are fairness and justice. Some people want to be a good leader. Some people want to give back or pay it forward. Some people are doing it for the next generation for their kids or their grandkids. Right. And it’s important to know that we have those different motivations and that there’s different ways into through that story. There’s different ways into the ultimate outcome that we were driving toward. I think that’s so important.

 

NISHA: I didn’t think about that. I actually wrote it down. I took notes. I’m like, aligned around motivation. That’s actually a factor. It’s an interesting way to put it. I haven’t thought of it that way.

 

MELINDA: Yeah. The outcome is the key, right? How we get there, we start to converge and move forward together but we come at it from different angles. Yeah. I want to take a step back. I also am definitely activated today and thinking about what’s happened in the news. And the question I always ask at the beginning I did not ask, which is, tell us about you, about where you grew up, how you came to do the work that you do today? What drives you?

 

NISHA: I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. I was in Atlanta at that time. I was born in ’77. So, most of my youth was in the 80s. In the 80s in Atlanta, it was very much a divided town. It still is, to some extent, very Black and White. And so, me, an immigrant child, who lived with my father, a divorce kid of the 80s. And I end up with my dad. So, I was already immigrant in the south where I didn’t fit in, living with my father. I was always a misfit. I didn’t quite fit in anywhere. I struggled with that. 

 

I think that there was a way in which I had to be both upset about it. Sometimes I feel like, “Oh, poor me. I’m excluded. I’m left out and left behind.” I know that’s why I have a passion for fighting for those who are left out and left behind. But I also found a little bit of a superpower in there. I could be the literal translator for my parents between the old world and the new. I could serve as that bridge that helps them. It also helped me. Right? Like, if I could translate for them, I could get more of what I want as well. 

 

I very much learned how to fit in in any community I was part of. I thought it was my duty as a first-generation kid. But I also saw it as my superpower. If I could fit in with every group, I could create my own sense of belonging. And I think that’s really important. That sense of belonging is so important. I’ve been fighting for my whole life. I think I fought in different ways at different times. I was a young activist who was very much like in your face. I usually use the term Hellraiser. I don’t know how appropriate that is here. It’s very radical. 

 

I’ve been arrested over a dozen times for civil disobedience actions. I always led the groups at my schools to seek change. It was really important I did it. What propelled me into the spotlight was in 1998. I went to the military dictatorship of Myanmar, and to part of this international action where I was arrested and sentenced to five years in jail. I was deported the next day. And after a week, a little more than a week in prison with 18 other activist and when I was deported, it was an international news story. It was everywhere. 

 

An American representative who’s Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey. He was on the Human Rights Committee at that time. He’s still in Congress. He’s a Republican from New Jersey, flew across the country to try to get us out. There were six Americans of the 18th. I thought it was my duty as an activist to sit next to him on that plane on our way home, so it was a long ride home from Thailand getting deported. And to really, you know, pitch him, and convince him about all my ideas. 

 

I was also Captain of the debate team. So, I do love to argue. I do love to win. I mean, I’m not going to say I’m always common ground. I can listen to every viewpoint. I’m certainly a persuader and I like to win. So, I had that hat on on our way home. But there was a moment in which he turned to me and asked me about where else am I concerned about international human rights. And we had a conversation that lasted a long hours and hours about areas of common ground where he was passionate about some human rights issues, I was, and I saw things from a little bit of a different perspective. 

 

I think of that as one of my formative moments. I don’t know that right then I changed how I was doing activism, but it really sticks with me to this day, that there are people out there, all different places in every different sector, that want to help and want to do the right thing. 

 

We work a lot with corporations on DEI work. There are people there in what I used to think as a young activists, “Nisha, this is the evil sector that want to do things to make the world a better place.” And that’s really what it’s about. It’s not about winning and everyone seeing the world exactly how I see it. It’s about making this world better for those left out and left behind. So, I can look back now and tell the whole story of my life is making sense. It certainly didn’t feel that way. I certainly felt more misfit than more superpower but I can choose that other angle and I think it really helps get stuff done.

 

MELINDA: Thank you for sharing your story. I think that is so important. I do the same. My story certainly sounds a lot better when I look back and tell it than it did when I was in it. It’s like, “What am I doing now? Okay, I’m going to do this.” And now, it all makes sense, right? You can put the puzzle together afterwards a lot better. 

 

We’ve been talking a lot about legislation and a lot about large scale change across countries. I know a lot of folks that are listening are interested in that and also interested in how can they create common ground with their colleagues, how can they create common ground where they’re their team if they’re a manager, how can they create common ground as they’re moving Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion forward in organizations? What are some practical things that we can take from what you’re doing at the legislative level and bring it in the activist level and bring it into the workplace?

 

NISHA: Yeah. I mean, I think that’s a great question. And one, I’m sure you’ve answered from your area of expertise a lot. So, I certainly want to defer to you. Is this being more in your wheelhouse than mine? What I do know about is hard conversations, that we have to have them and embrace them and learn from them. 

 

I think the number one thing for me in these rooms that I go into where I know I’m going to be seen as this and I do come across usually to most people as being a lot younger than I am. So, here I am, a young-looking CEO, woman of color, walking into a space sometimes where there’s senators and businessman and Republicans who have been in fiery opposition to everything I do. 

 

And one of the most important things that I have always is to bring my whole self and my authentic self, but to allow them to bring their whole selves and authentic selves too. That’s how we actually build partnership. People ask me, “Oh, are you selling out when you do this work with Republicans in this type stuff?” That doesn’t ever come up for me. I don’t ever feel like I’m selling out if I can be authentic, but I have to allow them to be authentic too. 

 

And so, the tool which we learned in kindergarten, and we keep learning over and over and over again is about listening. And about listening not to win an argument, which I do like to do often, I’ll admit it, but listening to understand, because like you said, we all have different motivations. If we don’t understand each other’s motivations, we won’t be able to find common ground. So, listen to understand. 

 

I always ask. If I don’t understand it, “Tell me more.” “Wait. I don’t get that.” “Tell me why you think that.” Sometimes just to get the background of them coming to a conclusion different than mine. “Wait, can you tell me why how you got to that?” And I try to do that a lot. 

 

My father who’s a Republican loves to talk politics. We used to fight and argue all the time because he likes that heated passion, fiery talk. He’d like to get me going. I’d like to get him going. We never change each other’s mind on anything. And then in the last 10 years, which were probably the hardest years to have a father who you love be a Republican and he proudly voted for Trump twice. So, you can see my persuasive skills, you know, I don’t know. What can you say about me? But I have to say I threw him completely off balance the first time I agreed with him on something. And I think that’s really important. 

 

If you are in a conversation, where you pretty much disagree on the final thing, there still will be a place of agreement. I find this like with parents on masks is the issue that I think proves a point really well. I live here in the Bay Area. I do believe masks protected us from some of the most serious outcomes of this pandemic. I think you should wear masks. That’s where I am. In a conversation with a parent who’s very against mask and this was most of the kids on my son’s baseball team, I could talk and say tell me more. “My kid is getting pimples all over.” “They want a girlfriend and can’t find one.” “They can’t breathe doing their exercises and they need to get big to get the scholarship for college.” 

 

I could say, yes, yes yes to all of that. “Pimples suck.” “I know they want a girlfriend. They’ve been isolated for so long.” “I know you need that scholarship or you might not go to college.” I can say yes to all of that and it’s still not diminish, my belief, that there’s a scientific reason to wear a mask. That changed everything for my dad, when I looked for the place of agreement first, and I said, “I agree.” It through him completely off balance, because he was used to no matter what it was, I was going to argue the opposite. We’ve gotten ourselves into that pattern. 

 

There are places for agreement, if you can find it. Listen to understand. Listen for agreement. Say out loud that place of agreement. Ask probing questions. I think the last thing is my favorite phrase, which is, “I see it a little differently.” If I can’t get to a place of agreement, I just say, “I see it a little differently.” That’s my perspective and that’s okay. It allows them to see it a little differently too. That is a much better place where we’re acting like your belief is the death of me and my community. I mean, sometimes it is when we look at a decision, like last night and what might happen, but that’s not everything. It’s very few things have that dire consequence.

 

MELINDA: I think when people have conversations like this, we hold on to our beliefs without listening for understanding, without opening up and really finding a yes. Right? And also, I think the other thing that comes into play in conversations about hard topics from masks to abortion to racism is fear. And also, cancel culture too, which I think, there are some overlap there because people have a fear of being cancelled if they say or do the wrong thing. How does that play a role in how you think about moving conversations forward, moving change forward?

 

NISHA: I think fear and shame, it’s a really big problem right now. Absolutely. I think it’s why you don’t have some brands speaking out like they were in the moments after George Floyd. Because they tried, they did. And then they were celebrated and then criticized. We have to meet people where they’re at in order to make change happen. 

 

Until we can show that love and being together in belonging is more enticing than the fear, the division, and the hate, it’s going to be an uphill battle. So, I guess this is someplace where I don’t have a ton of optimism here, either. I don’t want to paint some picture of like, oh, yeah, you know, if we just do. It’s hard. And so, I’m striving to really find a way to make love outpaced that hate, to make love outpace that fear in terms of what’s an attractive quality in the world. 

 

There have been times when that has happened. And so, I know it’s possible. That being said, I think we have to be willing to have those hard conversations. My son’s a junior in high school at Berkeley High, and there’s a lot of talk about safe spaces and what you can and can’t say at school, what is and isn’t allowed. He has been grappling with this a lot because by nature, he likes to troll. He likes to find the oppositional angle. With me, at least. I think at school, he pretty much argues the good left politics of it all. But with me, he likes to troll. 

 

And there’s this idea of safe space. I think everyone should be safe physically. I think with the decision last night, we’re actually looking at a world where you’re not safe physically. That is really critical. In terms of safe space, I’m all for that. Safe Space politically or philosophically, I don’t agree with that. I grew up a debate nerd. I had to argue every side of an issue. It made me better. And if we say I can’t hear your viewpoint, and I can’t talk about it, and engage with it and argue it because somehow it is not a safe space, we’re weakening ourselves. I see that a lot. 

 

I see that sometimes people say I’m against. I mean, voting rights, right? On the left, we don’t want Voter ID laws. We’re like, ” I can tell you why.” Right. Like for a lot of folks without IDs and access, it makes it really hard if you have a voter ID law. We understand that access part. But if you ask somebody else who wants to pass a voting rights bill, and you say, “Hey, the main opposition from the right is they just want a voter ID law because they’re worried about fraud. Why don’t you want a voter ID law? 

 

So many kids have no idea. So many folks that are on our side can’t answer that question. You lose that because you haven’t argued it. You haven’t battled it out in the great battleground of ideas. We need to do that. We need to be strong. We need to also think about where our arguments have holes. Other folks can point that out in ways that we can’t. And so, we have to make it permissible to have disagreements. I don’t know how you show that online, because that’s where really a lot of this comes down to. 

 

If someone says something you don’t like, and immediately it’s like, this person is now not part of the in group. They’re the other. They’re out. They are part of the people we’ll never work with again. I don’t know how you change that. I think enough of us showing it’s permissible to have these debates could help. When you find out how we can do that, how we can show that you can have productive, not just productive conversations, but arguments and battles of ideas, what will make that possible online, I would love to know. If you have a guess, it’s like, here’s how you do it, tell me. I need them.

 

MELINDA: I think also, there’s something about conflating safety with discomfort, safety and comfort. I think that that is an issue that we’re seeing that turns into legislation actually, right. That discomfort because people are saying they’re feeling unsafe, but really, they’re uncomfortable. 

 

And so, I do think that we need to break apart those two terms. What is safety? What is comfort? Do we need to be comfortable? No. No. But do we need to be physically safe? Mentally safe from harm? Yes.

 

So, this show is about moving from learning to action. So, we learn and then we take action, right? So, what action would you like people to take after listening to this conversation?

 

NISHA: I would love for folks who engage in one of those hard political conversations with that person in your life you’ve been avoiding. You don’t want to talk to them about vaccines or masks or Roe vs. Wade. I would say have the conversation and listen for understanding and find a place, just one, place to agree. It will open up something else. Find out why they think that. 

 

Most people aren’t unreasonable. There’s a reason why. So, I’d say have that conversation. And then, I am trying to build out of Dream Corps, a place where anyone who wants to solve some of our toughest problems can come together. 

 

We put together these beautiful coalitions of unlikely allies who are willing to work together to get stuff done. It’s what we did on the First Step act but I think there are millions of other places where that’s possible. And so, I’d say for anyone looking for that home where you can be for progress without being for polarization, you can definitely join Dream Corps.

 

MELINDA: Awesome. And so, my next question is, where can people learn more about you, about your work?

 

NISHA: Yeah, both things are hard to spell. So, our organization is TheDreamCorps.org online. TheDreamCorps.org online. And then, my name also is NishaAnand.org.

 

MELINDA: Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Nisha, for this conversation and also for all your work to really move positive change forward.

 

NISHA: Thank you. It was great to have this conversation today.

 

MELINDA: Yeah, yeah. And I hope you have time to find love today. Because it is a hard day for a lot of us and it is, you know, those of you who are listening or who will be listening after today and it will still be hard and super important to still find that love within and also find it in each other. 

 

NISHA: Thank you. 

 

MELINDA: To learn more about this episode’s topic, visit ally.cc. 

 

Allyship was a journey. It’s a journey of self-exploration, learning, unlearning, healing, and taking consistent action. And the more we take action, the more we grow as leaders and transform our communities. So, what action will you take today? 

 

Please share your actions and learning with us by emailing podcast@ChangeCatalyst.co or on social media because we’d love to hear from you. And thank you for listening. Please subscribe to the podcast and the YouTube channel and share this. Let’s keep building allies around the world. 

 

Leading With Empathy & Allyship is an original show by Change Catalyst, where we build inclusive innovation through training, consulting, and events. I appreciate you listening to our show and taking action as an ally. See you next week.

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Privacy Overview

Privacy Policy

Last updated: April 25, 2023
Effective as of April 25, 2023

Introduction

Empovia is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy applies to www.empovia.co website (the “Service”) operated by Empovia (“us”, “we”, or “our”) and governs data collection and usage at all Empovia sites and services; it does not apply to other online or offline sites, products or services. Empovia is a general audience website intended for users of all ages. The personal information of all users is collected, used, and disclosed as described in this Statement of Privacy. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, and disclose your personal information in compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”).

Please read our Terms of Service before accessing our Services. To the extent permitted under the applicable law, by accepting the Terms of Service, you agree with our privacy practices as described in this Policy. If you cannot agree with this Policy, Terms of Service, or other policies, please do not access or use our Services.

We may modify this Policy at any time, and non-material changes may apply to any Personal Information we already hold about you, as well as any new Personal Information collected after the Policy is modified. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top of this Policy. We will provide you with advanced notice by email or telephone number, which we have on file, or through a notice on our website if we make any material changes to how we collect, use, or disclose your Personal Information or that impact your rights under this Policy. The such material change will not apply retroactively to any Personal Information we already hold about you. If you continue to access or use our Services after receiving the notice of changes, you acknowledge your acceptance of the updated Policy.

In addition, we may provide you with real-time disclosures or additional information about the Personal Information handling practices of specific parts of our Services. Such notices may supplement this Policy or provide you with additional choices about how we process your Personal Information.

Who We Are

Our website address is: https://empovia.co

Collection of Your Personal Information

The personal information we collect about you may include:

  • Identifiers such as your name, postal address, email address, and phone number;
  • Commercial information, such as products or services you purchase from us;
  • Internet or other electronic network activity information, such as your browsing history, search history, and information regarding your interaction with our website;
  • Geolocation data, such as your location;
  • Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information, such as call recordings;
  • Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed
  • Location, IP address, and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping
  • Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order and send you the order,
  • Professional or employment-related information, if you apply for a job with us; and
  • Inferences drawn from any of the information listed above to create a profile about you reflecting your preferences, characteristics, behavior, and attitudes.

We collect this personal information directly from you, as well as automatically through our website and third-party service providers. We may also obtain personal information from other sources, including publicly available databases and our business partners.

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • To fulfill your requests for products and services;
  • To communicate with you about your orders, purchases, and account information;
  • To personalize your experience on our website;
  • To conduct research and analyze usage trends;
  • To comply with legal obligations and respond to lawful requests;
  • To protect our rights, interests, and property; and
  • To recruit and evaluate job applicants.

We also collect information about you during the checkout process at our store. We also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site. View our Cookie Policy below.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details, and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes such as to:

  • Send you information about your account and order
  • Create your account for our LMS
  • Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
  • Process payments and prevent fraud
  • Set up your account for our store
  • Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes
  • Improve our store offerings
  • Send you marketing messages, if you choose to receive them
  • If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email, and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

When using our LMS, we store course progress, including completion status, quiz scores, assignments and/or essay submissions (if applicable). We will also store comments on courses, lessons, topics, assignments, and essays if you choose to leave them.

For the purposes of processing recurring subscription payments, we store the customer’s name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, and credit card/payment details. Members of our team have access to the information you provide us. For example, both Administrators and Group Leaders can access Order information such as your enrolled courses, course progress, and username/email address. Any additional information added to your WordPress User Profile can also be visible to the administrator(s).

When shopping, we keep a record of your email and the cart contents for up to 30 days on our server. This record is kept to repopulate the contents of your cart if you switch devices or needed to come back another day. Read the Mailchimp Privacy Policy here.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Use of Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your device (e.g., computer, smartphone, or tablet) when you access our website. Cookies are used to help us enhance your user experience and to provide certain functionalities on our website. Some cookies may also collect information about your browsing behavior or usage patterns.

We use the following types of cookies on our website:

  • Strictly Necessary Cookies: These cookies are essential for the functioning of our website and cannot be turned off in our systems. They are usually set in response to your actions, such as logging in or filling out forms. You can set your browser to block these cookies, but some parts of the website may not work as a result.
  • Analytics Cookies: These cookies collect information about how visitors use our website, such as which pages are visited most often, how visitors navigate between pages, and whether they receive error messages. We use this information to improve the performance and design of our website.
  • Functional Cookies: These cookies enable our website to provide enhanced functionality and personalization, such as remembering your language preferences or login information.
  • Advertising Cookies: These cookies are used to deliver advertisements that are relevant to your interests. They may also be used to limit the number of times you see an advertisement and to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

We may use third-party cookies on our website for the following purposes:

  • Analytics and Performance: We use Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors use our website. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect information about your visit to our website, including your IP address, browser type, and referral source. We use this information to improve the performance and design of our website.
  • Advertising: We may use third-party advertising networks to serve advertisements on our website. These networks may use cookies to collect information about your browsing behavior and interests, and to deliver advertisements that are tailored to your interests.

If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

You can control cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser. Most browsers allow you to block or delete cookies, or to set preferences for certain types of cookies. However, if you block or delete cookies, some parts of our website may not work properly.

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time in response to changes in applicable laws or our use of cookies. We will notify you of any material changes to this Cookie Policy by posting the revised policy on our website or by other means. We encourage you to periodically review this Cookie Policy to stay informed about our use of cookies.

Embedded Content from Other Websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who We Share Your Data With

We may share your personal information with our service providers, who help us operate our business and provide products and services to you. We may also share your personal information with third parties for other business purposes, including marketing and advertising and automated spam detection service.

We accept payments through Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, Bancontact, EPS, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Stripe. When processing payments, some of your data will be passed to them, including information required to process or support the payment, such as the purchase total and billing information.

Please see the following for more detailed information:

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

How Long We Retain Your Data

We generally store information about you for as long as we need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. For example, we will store order information for 5 years for tax and accounting purposes. This includes your name, email address, and billing and shipping addresses.

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

Your Rights Under the CCPA

Under the CCPA, you have the following rights:

  • Right to Know: You have the right to request that we disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you, the categories of sources from which we collected your personal information, the purposes for which we collected your personal information, and the categories of third parties with whom we shared your personal information.
  • Right to Delete: You have the right to request that we delete your personal information that we have collected from you.
  • Right to Opt-Out: You have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information. We do not sell your personal information to third parties.
  • Right to Non-Discrimination: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights under the CCPA.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the information provided below.

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at contact@empovia.co