ELIZABETH LEIBA joins us again, as she and Tyler discuss specific ways to navigate potentially thorny situations and conversations -- how to hack emotional intelligence in racial contexts. We hope that, after listening to this episode, you’ll feel safer and more comfortable engaging in conversations about race. Elizabeth has been teaching Black History and Culture for over a decade, has been quoted in the New York Times (and other prestigious publications), and has founded Black History and Culture Academy. Check out her site -- https://www.blackhistorycultureacademy.com/ -- and use the coupon code: HEI2021 for half off your first month. (That’s HEI2021, as in H- for “Hacking,” E- for “Emotional,” and I for “Intelligence.”) Enjoy!
ELIZABETH LEIBA joins us again, as she and Tyler discuss specific ways to navigate potentially thorny situations and conversations -- how to hack emotional intelligence in racial contexts. We hope that, after listening to this episode, you’ll feel safer and more comfortable engaging in conversations about race.
Elizabeth has been teaching Black History and Culture for over a decade, has been quoted in the New York Times (and other prestigious publications), and has founded Black History and Culture Academy. Check out her site -- https://www.blackhistorycultureacademy.com/ -- and use the coupon code: HEI2021 for half off your first month. (That’s HEI2021, as in H- for “Hacking,” E- for “Emotional,” and I for “Intelligence.”) Enjoy!
#32: Race, Cultural Competency & EQ - Elizabeth Leiba, Part 2
Tyler Small: Hey guys! It's Tyler Small and I'm here with Elizabeth Leiba for Part II of this. And as I explained in the last episode, part one was the big picture view. We talked about some of the larger topics. And in this episode, we're going to talk more about how to interact with each other as humans. Elizabeth is an advocate for black history, and for cultural awareness, and helping people connect as human beings. She's going to help us with emotional intelligence in terms of what are some things to avoid? How are some ways that we can react to inappropriate things that are said, as well as some of her own tips that she's come up with over the years, to include vocabulary. And I know that every few years, sometimes vocabulary changes. And so we're going to get some tips from Elizabeth on what words are more appropriate.
This might be completely old news for many of you. And I know that in Utah our population here is not diverse enough, unfortunately. And so we're always looking for opportunities to help close the gap and help people feel comfortable talking together. So, with that, Elizabeth, thank you for coming on again.
Elizabeth Leiba: Thank you for having me, Tyler. I really appreciate it.
Tyler Small: Absolutely. And if you didn't catch the last episode, I just wanted to call out the site: Black History And Culture Academy is wonderful. It's this really well put together, really beautiful site designed to help people understand black history and culture.
We've included a link in the description to our last episode and as well as this one, a coupon code to get half-off of your first month. And there's also some free courses there - great, high-quality courses. I highly encourage you to go there.
So with that, I wanted to just tell you Elizabeth, something that I noticed I was watching the LinkedIn Live that you did recently - first LinkedIn Live that you've ever done. And all the sudden, LinkedIn went down. And I was thinking, why, what what's going on here, LinkedIn, doesn't go down. And so it was this really confusing, weird thing right in the middle of your LinkedIn Live. You'd advertise this, and you had tons of people on there and you were telling these amazing stories. And then all of a sudden you couldn't get the comments coming through. You were trying to answer people's questions and stuff and, and it just had like stopped, but it was doing this weird thing where you couldn't tell if it was recording or not. And I was thinking, Oh my goodness, this is one of the most, like most people are afraid of public speaking period. And this would be like the worst possible scenario to encounter while public speaking.
And yet. And yet! In terms of emotionally intelligence, you were so positive, you didn't lose control. You were totally calm and collected. And obviously it was confusing and it was frustrating, but you didn't let your emotions control you. It was the most amazing thing. So how, how did you accomplish that feat Elizabeth?
Elizabeth Leiba: That's a really good question, Tyler. I think I always tell my students and I've been a college, a professor for about a decade or so now I tell my students a lot of being good at anything, whether it's public speaking, which a lot of people - and I've taught speech as well - a lot of people typically are afraid of public speaking. One of the number one fears, people fear, public speaking, even more than they fear death, right?
Other skills like writing. Often times people don't like to write. So those are kind of like my wheelhouse. And so the areas that I tend to thrive in, but it didn't start out that way. So I think a lot of any skill, and this is something I would definitely advise people, any skill that you want to have even emotional intelligence to be able to communicate and being able to be sensitive and be able to read, you know, what people are thinking and responding kind and being sensitive to, just, your awareness.
A lot of that just comes from practice. As far as public speaking is concerned, as far as writing or being, um, tactful and being an emotionally intelligent person, able to be responsive based on what others are thinking of feeling - you just have to put yourself out there.
So I think with the LinkedIn Live situation, when that did happen, I had a feeling - I wasn't exactly sure what was going on, 'cause people started texted me and saying, is LinkedIn down. I don't think anyone really knew. And then they went on Twitter and I think somebody had tweeted about it. But at the time it was, like, literally the first 20 minutes of the LinkedIn Live. I was like, okay, I thought people were really active in the comments; now people are not commenting - I'm saying drop your comment in the chat, but nothing is coming through.
Tyler Small: Right.
Elizabeth Leiba: So I was like saying, Oh, okay. It looks like LinkedIn is down. And then I just started just kind of freestyling and just saying whatever I wanted to say. Cause that's normally what I would do in the classroom.
Tyler Small: Yeah.
Elizabeth Leiba: So I think it's just like having the poise of, I don't think I would've had that poise if I wouldn't have been practiced at like, having... Like, if I'm in the classroom, students, sometimes stuff happens where a student will say something randomly or like, okay, I have to just roll with it. So I think the more that you practice, the more that you're able to deal with unexpected, like little monkey wrenches, I guess you would call them different curve balls that get thrown your way.
Tyler Small: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I'm a big proponent of practice, so hearing you talk about practice is really fun for me. The first question, I have: I did an episode recently discussing this book by Maura Cullen. The book is called "35 Dumb Things Well-Intentioned People Say." For those of you in the audience, if you've misheard the title, let me just read it again. It's not "things that dumb people say" , it's "35 Dumb Things That Well-Intentioned People Say."
So wanted to talk about this today? My first question for you, Elizabeth, on this topic is, what are some of the really dumb things that white people are saying these days?
Elizabeth Leiba: You know, sometimes when we think about, um, microaggressions and things of that nature, a lot of it does come from the fact that someone is saying something and it is well-intentioned, like someone thinks that they're giving a compliment, for example. And those that are in those spaces are like, okay, that's not what I want to hear at this time. And then I think a lot of dispelling some of that is being really open and transparent about why some of those things are not appropriate. And then if someone is doing those things, they can say, okay, that's something that is not appropriate in this context, so let me reframe the way that I approach it. And that's a lot, a lot of that is emotionally intelligent as well. It's like, okay. Just because I don't see something wrong with something doesn't mean that it doesn't affect someone negatively.
I worked for the Seminole tribe. I was, I was the editor of the newspaper on the reservation. And I, there was something I used to always say, like, let's go, let's go in my office and have a powwow, or, you know, low man on the totem pole. Some of that language. And I learned from working on the reservation that some of that language is inappropriate because it's culturally insensitive. So I just stopped using it. And even though I necessarily, I'm not a part of that culture, and I, it wasn't something that I was aware of, the fact that it could be something that's offensive to someone else - I have to reframe my language. So, I don't have to understand it. It doesn't have to be something that I'm like, well, I don't get it. There's nothing for me to get. If it's something that can be offensive to somebody else, then I just stopped saying it, right?
So, same thing with some of the things that people in the majority culture might say would be, for example, I don't see color. You know, sometimes someone will tell you, I don't see color.
And that's actually a microaggression where I want you to see my color. Like, it's just like someone saying, I don't see you're a woman. I would be offended if someone said, I didn't know you were as woman. Like, how could you not know? I look like a woman, right? Like, there's no reason for you to not see my womanhood. So if someone says I don't see color, I don't see you as black, it literally is erasing who I am as a person. Like my blackness is not something I'm ashamed of. It's not something to be erased or, you know, just like if you, if me and you met, Tyler, in person and you said, Oh, I didn't know you were a woman. I would just be like, why did Tyler say that, that's really odd, right? So if someone says to me, I didn't know you were black, or you you don't seem like, you're not like the other black people I know, or you're different or, or you're, you're pretty for a black girl. These different things are actually really offensive.
And I, and I laugh just because I'm just that kind of person where I just, I think a lot of it is, it's not something that I'm necessarily saying that I'm like, Oh, I'm angry if someone says that. I just want people to understand that some of these things - just like, when I would say powwow, it's not anyone on the reservation would get angry about it, but it's like, that's a sacred ceremony. So me saying, Oh, let's have a powwow would be something inappropriate. So just understanding some of those, um, terminologies and some things that you might say - Oh, you're so articulate... if the black person, if you're telling a black person, Oh, you're so articulate. It's like, well, why wouldn't I be articulate?
Tyler Small: Right.
Elizabeth Leiba: Like there's no reason for me not to be articulate. So why are you giving me that "compliment," quote unquote. And someone maybe telling you, "Oh, you're articulate" and thinking it's a compliment, but you don't, you wouldn't tell someone else that they're articulate because it would just be a matter of fact that they are. So there's nothing to compliment if you see a black person. I think I just saw an article literally on LinkedIn, like two minutes ago, Kamala Harris is articulate and people are saying, Oh, she's so articulate. Okay. But we didn't say anybody else is articulate, like there's no reason to compliment that. She... that's her job to be articulate. So it's just like, if you're a teacher, you're like, Oh, you're good with kids. Yeah, I'm good with kids. That's my job if I'm a teacher, right? If I work, like if I teach eighth grade or first grade... Yeah, I'm good with kids. I'd better be, 'cause that's my job. So...
Tyler Small: Yeah.
Elizabeth Leiba: Stuff like that, like kind of pointing out the obvious or stating that you kind of don't see someone's color. Those are some of the main ones that I see come up a lot.
Tyler Small: Thank you. Thank you for bringing those up. My next question is, what can black people say about this in an emotionally intelligent way? How can they respond?
Elizabeth Leiba: I think for me when I've had those kinds of, um, microaggression or, or people saying things that are not necessary culturally sensitive or not understanding, um, I try to take a minute and just process it and not respond in a way that comes off as angry or that -- 'cause sometimes it can be upsetting. But I think when it's happened to me, my biggest takeaway is always just being very - just like I would with anything else. If someone said something in the office, And I didn't like it. And if it was something that was offensive or something that I think anyone has the ability to just pull someone to the side and just say, Hey, you know, that made me feel this way. And I appreciate it if, you know, as you go forward in the future, you can address it in this way or that way.
I've had situations where I'm on a conference call, for example, and someone's like, Liz, you're getting so angry or you're getting excited. I had literally had this happen to me a few months ago and I was like, well, I'm actually not angry, so let's not use that terminology. And, um, moving forward, let's try to be a little bit more sensitive when we talk about what someone's saying on a conference call and address it in a way that's a little bit more professional. And the person totally emailed me afterwards and was just like, I appreciate you, you know, I apologize. It was totally my bad.
But I think sometimes there has to be, I think, especially with microaggressions, especially when it comes into an office situation where a lot of black women are the, uh, quote unquote angry black women, or there is an accusation of being loud or aggressive. Those, some of those, um, some of those narratives and some of those archetypes are extremely harmful and hurtful. And not saying anything, it's just not really productive because then that person's gonna go do that to somebody else. So if you saw someone doing something - it's like "see something, say something." John Lewis, my hero, civil rights activist, and member of Congress said this, and I think I really emulate that, that in order for us to move forward in a positive direction, if someone's doing something that isn't, whether it's in that moment, correcting it, or if it's like, you know, can I speak with you afterwards so that we can address that? And then making sure that, you know, that person has an understanding, okay, I'm just saying you noticed: in the future, that is something that is inappropriate and I'd rather you not do that moving forward so that the person can adjust their behavior. It's not up to me to adjust how I feel about it, because I already know that it's wrong. So making sure that a person knows not to do it in the future, so they don't do it to somebody else, I think is really important.
Tyler Small: I like that. My next question is how can other white people respond in an emotionally intelligent way when somebody says something that's really dumb.
Elizabeth Leiba: Yes - actually a really good question that goes to allyship, right? So when we think about allyship, there's a big movement now for white folks that are observing things to be maybe more proactive, right? Because in order for society to move forward in a positive direction, everybody has to be invested, everybody has to be on the same page. So if a white person is in a meeting, for example - let's talk about the whole Kamala Harris, let's go back to the example of how she kept saying, "Excuse me, Mr. Vice-president, I'm talking." And a lot of times, women in general - it's women's history month, so that's the address that - the women in corporate spaces and women just in leadership positions that have typically been marginalized, have not had their voices heard. And black women in particular. So women in general a lot of times, in corporate spaces, are accused of being bossy. Accused of, Oh she, she's being a witch or she's being aggressive, or she has a chip on her shoulder.
That's not something that happens to men. Usually men are, Oh, he's, he's a go getter. He's a leader. He gets results. And women typically are seen as the opposite -- oh, they're a shrew or they're, you know, they're being too bossy. So I think that is just something that happens with women in general. And then particularly with black women, there is this angry black woman stereotype or archetype that has been pervasive throughout history.
So I think for me, If I'm in a meeting and a white person, especially if it's someone with privilege, someone that's in a leadership position, a male. So even a woman, another white woman, but, um, particularly a male, if they see something like that happening, it's the whole idea of see something, say something that John Lewis said. So, Hey, Liz is talking. Let's give her a minute, let her get her point out, and then you guys can jump in and ask questions.
So I think the idea of a community of support and understanding that certain people have privilege. I have privilege. I'm a married black woman, so I would have privilege over someone in the LGBTQ community. So if I see something in the office where someone is saying something disparaging, or marginalizing someone in that community, then me with my position of privilege could speak up and say something. You know, everyone has their areas of influence that they're able to utilize. So there is a responsibility that if I'm in a normalized, you know, my status as a, a married woman is normed over someone that maybe in the LGBTQ community - we know that societaly - then I have to use that position so that I can make sure that that person doesn't feel... In my school, we created a bathroom for trans, those that identify as trans folks, so that they could have a bathroom where they don't have to come and say, Hey, which bathroom can I use? Or can I get a key to use a particular bathroom? So I don't feel like I'm disturbing people. Or I don't feel like I'm unsafe. So that's something that has to be addressed from a systemic point of view. It's not up to the person to figure out how to navigate those issues. Those that are in positions of influence need to make sure that those people feel comfortable.
So we did that because it was like, okay, someone that's trans shouldn't have to come in and figure out, you know, ask and feel further marginalized by havin' to ask which bathroom they should use. We have to have a bathroom set aside so that that person can be comfortable. So in a meeting the same thing, in work environment the same thing: make sure that those that do feel marginalized - if you notice something is happening, then step in and intervene. So that person doesn't feel ashamed or abused or marginalized, or feel like they're in a toxic environment. Like we all have to be a part of making sure that doesn't happen, that people feel safe.
Tyler Small: Thank you so much. I remember... Your words bring to mind a situation I encountered when I was in early elementary school and I remember I said something inappropriate that now I would consider very racist, right? And so I'm this little kid and my friend, my good friend, immediately said, Hey, that's not cool. And I remember thinking, like he wasn't saying it in a mean way. He was saying it in a way to let me know, and everybody else know that was there, this is not what we do here. This is totally inappropriate. And we need to value this other person, just like we value everyone. So, I think it's often as, as simple as, Hey, that's not cool.
Elizabeth Leiba: Absolutely.
Tyler Small: But the other words that you said I also loved. You said the example about Kamala Harris, how she had said, um, What was it? Pardon me, Mr. Vice-president?
Elizabeth Leiba: Yeah: Excuse me, Mr. Vice president. I'm talking.
Tyler Small: Yes. So excuse me. Um, ex excuse me. I'm I'm not finished yet. Excuse me. I'm talking. Um, uh, what are some other words that we can give people to use in that situation where they're being interrupted or mowed over.
Elizabeth Leiba: Yeah, and I think that is important for the person to be proactive. I think that, excuse me, I'm talking to is just a perfect example of utilizing your voice and making sure that people understand it, and standing your ground. I also feel like it's important for us not to put the onus on the person that is being marginalized. Right? So really if I'm in a meeting and I noticed that, Hey, this person that typically is from a marginalized population, that I'm in the dominant culture and, or the minority culture, I should say, and I notice that that is happening.
I think it's really important not to put the onus necessarily on that marginalized culture - if it's a person in the LGBTQ community, or just like if the person's neurodivergent or differently abled, there's so many different communities where those types of persons are typically just pushed aside. Or people kind of speak over them, or people interrupt, or people don't necessarily take their opinion seriously. So I think it's really important to - I think there is a culture switch now, where people are really starting to reframe that, you know. If I'm a marginalized population - I think it's happened a lot with the LGBTQ community, which I really so align myself with the idea that those that were in the majority, those that were coming from the more of the heteronorm - 'cause LGBTQ community, I think that's 8% of the population. So if you look at them as a community, they're really small compared to the rest of everybody else. So we all need to make sure that we're, if someone is being marginalized, that we speak up.
So I, I definitely feel like the, those that are in that community, that marginalized community, disadvantaged community, whatever the respect is - that they need to be, um, very firm and just say, Hey, I'm speaking, or I didn't like that. Can you please not do that in the future?
I think sometimes the issue though, when we think about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging is a lot of times people don't feel safe in those spaces. And they're afraid. I spoke with a company yesterday and the person said, you know, I wanted to speak up. I was being spoken over, but I felt scared of the repercussion. And then when I did speak up, I spent the whole night being afraid that now I have a target on my back. So I think also, we want to definitely encourage people to speak up, especially in corporate spaces about feeling marginalized or feeling they're just being spoken over. But also keep in mind that I think it's really important to be sensitive to the idea that a lot of times people won't speak up, right? It's just the reality of it. When we think about the Me Too movement, a lot of people said, well, why weren't people speaking up? Women were scared. You know, as a victim of sexual assault myself, I know that it's scary to speak up. You know, you, you do feel as though you'll be judged or you do feel like people won't believe you.
So I think the same occurs in communities of color. Where people are saying, Hey, I would speak up, but if I speak up now what's going to happen. Maybe I'll lose my job. So those who are in leadership positions, they need to take the onus off that person. Just say, Hey guys, get it together and let this person speak. Or whatever that microaggression is happening. Be really like you said, emotionally intelligent, be culturally sensitive. So that that person doesn't have to just advocate for themselves. And we advocate for them because they're the ones that are the victim in this situation. You know what I mean?
Tyler Small: Oh yeah. Yeah. It brings to mind... I wish I had the source, but - I recall, somebody was talking about some research that had been done. They what they did, they had this scenario, and what they did is they'd show the research subjects this scenario where somebody had said a certain thing. And they had showed half the subjects the scenario where the person saying those things was a male and half where there were a female. And then they asked them to evaluate the, the appropriateness of what was said. And the scores were very different when the scenario was about a male, just using male names, versus... or, a male name versus a female name.
Our perception of what's appropriate and what's, um - you said there are those stereotypes that you mentioned , that Oh, black women are angry or that women are loud or whatever it was. Thinking that women are bossy if they speak up. Those stereotypes can run very deep and be very unconscious to us.
Elizabeth Leiba: Yeah, it's the whole idea of implicit bias. And a lot of that is culturally, you know, we we're, we're basically programmed to think a certain thing, right?
Tyler Small: Yeah. So what, what advice would you give to help people to have courage? I remember. Um, when you, when you shared that story of the person who spoke up about being run over, being interrupted, that , when they finally did speak up, that they, that night, they were all stressed out and they were worried and they didn't feel safe. But I remember one time myself, I spoke up for someone, and I was very stressed out about their response and they had no idea , you know, how that would be perceived later on. And I, I wasn't sure in the moment how to deal with that, how to, how to recover. What advice would you give for that?
Elizabeth Leiba: Yeah, I think it's really sometimes challenging to find your voice. And I think on LinkedIn - I've been very prolific on LinkedIn over the past year, I went from maybe 7,000 followers to now over 40,000 followers. So I think that it took me time, you know, that's something that only happened in the past year or so.
And I've been active as a college professor for, like I said, over a decade. I've been in higher education for 20 years. And I always felt like I was an advocate in my classroom, but I didn't have, I think, the courage to speak up about things on a national level. I've been interviewed by New York Times and by Forbes Magazine. I wrote an Op-ed piece for CNN that went viral, had 2 million hits on their website.
Tyler Small: Wow.
Elizabeth Leiba: Those are things I only gained the confidence to do over really the past year. So I think everyone has to grow in their own time and their own space. And I think a lot of times, if you have communities of support where you see other people that are speaking up, whether that's on the job, if you develop mentoring relationships with, or relationships with others that you feel like you have common goals with, or that you share common experiences with, then it gives you that support system, that support mechanism that you could rely on when you get that encouragement. Uh, so there's that just developing those bonds, whether you have someone that's really in your corner that, you know, will advocate for you.
And also just giving yourself grace. I mean, there are situations where you will feel comfortable and you're able to speak up, but then, you know, sometimes it takes time. The CNN Op-ed piece that I wrote was about being racially profiled when I was 19. I was arrested and racially profiled and had to go to jail. It was for shoplifting, quote unquote "shoplifting," but I didn't shoplift - I had a receipt for the item. So I had to get a lawyer, produce the receipt, get the charges dropped. Then I fought the company for three years and sued them, pursued a civil lawsuit that I won in court. That took like three years for me to - thank you- - it took three years for me to get my name cleared, literally to get the company, to admit that what they did was wrong - they didn't ever admit it, but the jury said that they did something wrong.
But I didn't talk about that until literally November of 2020. When I felt compelled and I'm like all this racial profiling, all these things that are going on in the news, I have to put a different face on this, because there are too many people saying that someone deserves it die if they commit a crime. And if they, whether they did or didn't, they're accused of a crime that, you know, people - the victim - is shamed. George Floyd is shamed, or Ahmaud Arbery, whoever that person is - Brianna Taylor. They'll jump on the victim and see what the victim did wrong in this situation.
So I didn't want to talk about that. I was very ashamed and embarrassed, even though I didn't commit a crime. There is a sense of, well, hey, how were you in that situation? Something seems a little bit suspicious, right? That's always what was in the back of my mind. So I don't necessarily know if there's really a one size fits all just because it took me so long. I mean, now I have a child that's older than I was at that time. I was 19. My child is 22. And I literally just started speaking about this and being vocal about it over the past few months.
So I think - I encourage people to give themselves grace. If you're able to speak up, and if you're able to challenge the system, and if you're able to be an advocate or a voice, whether it's for yourself, for others - then go for it. And if you need time and if you need space and if you need others to advocate for you, find those people that you trust that can do it, if you can't do it for yourself. Not everybody's in a situation on the job where they feel safe enough to be able to advocate. So go to someone that you feel can make your concerns known and heard so that you don't necessarily have to feel afraid or targeted. So I think those would be some of these pieces of advice that I would give us based on my own experience and observations.
Tyler Small: Wow. Wonderful, wonderful. I'm just, I'm just absorbing that; doing the right thing and how to do it. Love it. Can you tell us about some of the vocabulary? Hopefully our listeners have heard a lot of the vocabulary that you've been using. And, and made note of what are the appropriate terms. And I just wondered if you could share some things with us - when people wonder what is the terminology that they should be using?
Elizabeth Leiba: Yeah, that's a good one. I think we talked about this idea of, you know, identity, right? Identity is a big one. So we think about, um, black people, black people are not a monolith, and that's worth being able to really stress, and a big takeaway, especially that I've thought about over the past year or so is how I even identify like I'm, I'm black. I identify as black, but, um, I'm not from America. I'm an immigrant, I'm from the UK. My parents are Jamaican. So... and two generations are from Cuba. So we have a very diverse background. So I think for most black people, my children are, um, are biracial. So my husband's Italian and my children, um, are biracial.
So they're... I think when we look at black families, a lot of times it's not like a one size fits all and not everybody's identity is going to be, um, just... We don't all think the same. And I think in terms of identifying, as some people don't like to say black, some people feel like, Oh, I don't want to say black because I don't want to offend, but me, I identify as black because I'm not African-American. I think that the popular terminology for a long time was African-American; I think it was first popular with Jesse Jackson where like, let's identify with what we are. My husband's Italian-American, so he's very quick to say he's Italian. Right? So a lot of times. Black folks were saying black. It was like, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud. Kind like the, uh, the, the, the James Brown song. But I think, um, at one point during the eighties, uh, Jesse Jackson was one of the first ones to popularize this idea of, Hey, but we're from Africa, so let's talk about being African-American. I think that the pendulum has kind of swung back where we have so much of an immigrant population. We have so many black people that are from all over the world that are here and they aren't necessarily African-American because they're not from America. So I think, I always say the safe bet for the most part is most people are identifying as black right now.
I think for me, people of color had become kind of like a catch-all. So I personally don't identify as a person of color. I have heard other black people say people of color, but for me, I feel that people of color, it kind of, um, diminishes what, who I'm talking about. Because when we say of color, like who is that color?
It could be... My kids are brown, you know. I'm brown. But I think that not necessarily everyone identifies as a person of color because we have the Latinx community that can say they're people of color, or we have someone that's from South Asia, like Kamala Harris with a South Asian background that could be a person of color. Um, there's people from the Middle East that might say they're a person of color. There's just so many different elements when we come to, when it comes to people of color that I personally feel as though I don't necessarily identify with that, but there are some black people that will. So I just think it's always safe to just say black and then, you know, the person can kind of, um, I guess, give you guidance if, if there's something else that you should add to that.
Tyler Small: I love this. Um, so one last question: What is an appropriate way to find out what terms the person prefers?
Elizabeth Leiba: Yeah, that's really good question. I think the safest thing to do is just to assume that black would be the preferred color. I think, uh, the preferred identity, I think, you know, the, the, the idea of the, that, for example, if I ended up introducing myself as Elizabeth and a lot of people I've, I've seen on Clubhouse a lot, when people say my name is Elizabeth, she, her pronouns, you know, preferred because people are just letting you know, this is who I prefer to identify as.
I think black folk, we haven't gotten to that point of saying, well, this is what I prefer to be identified as. But I think for most people, we know that black is what we're identified as, and then I think - I love to hear people say black and say it with confidence because I feel as though when people say African-American or people saying people of color, it's almost like more of a polite way of just not wanting to not wanting to acknowledge the idea of me being black.
I'm black, and I'm proud to be black. I love being black. And as a woman, obviously the intersectionality of being a black woman is something that I'm extremely proud of. So I think that if someone asks me, well, what would you prefer to be identified as - I probably would be like, huh? Like, I don't even know... it's not even in terms of gender identity. I think that the expectation is, well, people want to, you should make sure that you're using the proper identity, uh, the gender pronoun and ask people what that is. I think that you will get a sense. It's just like with gender pronouns when people say she, her, you know, okay. That's the safe pronoun, I think for, um, taking the cue from the person. So if I'm saying, you know, as a black woman, blah, blah, blah, then it's okay. She's okay with a black woman. If the person says I, as a person of color as a woman of color, then I would roll with that. So I think sometimes in those type of situations, the emotional intelligence is understanding that - take a cue from the person.
So it's like, uh, that your parents used to tell you, you have two ears and one mouth for a reason, right? So listen, try to cue into what -- take the person's cues. I think we do that in life, you know, just in anything that we're doing, we don't lead, you know, necessarily in situations like that. If you're being emotionally intelligent, you let the person set the pace and then you literally just follow the cue from there. I think that's usually the safe way to do it.
Tyler Small: Thank you so much. And thank you for all of your kind words and your wonderful advice. I feel like it's such a, such an honor and such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Leiba: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been my, my honor, my privilege to be here. I appreciate you.
Tyler Small: Thanks again. And this has been Elizabeth Leiba. And I'm Tyler Small, and this is Hacking Emotional Intelligence.