The CATK Interview: Zach Nunn

0:00:01.0 Torin: We've been about this work diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, shared through the voices of a White woman and a Black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursue DE&I progress for most of our professional lives. We used Crazy and The King to cover news, tips from colleagues and hosts, incredible guests, listeners. Count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check it. Julie, kick off the show.

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0:00:38.1 Julie: It is happening. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Crazy and The King.

0:00:43.1 Torin: Hey, I know you've heard that phrase, angry... I could probably pick anyone that I want, but because we are having a special conversation today, I know that you've heard the phrase angry Black man. When you heard that phrase like, this is well before you rocking with Torin, Crazy and The King. So this is pre-2018. When you heard the phrase, J, what did you think? And I really want you to just try to go back, even if it causes you to pause, be silent for a moment, be honest, I really want you to think when you heard phrases like angry Black woman, angry Black man. 'Cause they never said, angry White woman. They've never said, angry White man. It's always been angry Black man, angry Black woman. Occasionally, maybe, but that typically is the phrase. What did you think prior to doing all of this work in diversity and inclusion and how are you?

0:01:57.7 Julie: Yeah. It's a great question. Because the way I think about angry Black man actually changed dramatically after you and I became friends because we had very different conversations than I've ever had in my life about it. Well, that being said, I feel like when I heard it as a kid, it was just sort of probably something I heard pretty regularly. I was a kid, so it was just a common descriptor that I don't know if I took it as good or bad, but it certainly probably created something in me that started to set that bias as a child that I had to work through. But I think the other thing is, is that, when I think about it as my first adult reactions, it was always about someone who was asking for what I had. Just normal things. Normal things like Malcom X is an angry Black man. Dr. King was an angry Black man. Reverend Sharpton is an angry Black man. It was always in it for me, at least my first reaction and this really is true you're getting it firsthand from me, is that it was always directed at activist class Black men as a way to demean them. And I didn't realize that or understand that until I was probably in my 20s that that was done with purposeful action.

0:03:24.4 Torin: Yeah. So let me ask you, and I know I cut you off. I apologize to a degree, but you said something, and I wanna see if we can get in that conversation just a little bit. You said you didn't recognize it. First, you started as a child and I know what... I think, I know what you mean when you say as a child. A mid-level teen, older teen, 18, 19, 20, where you're really recognizing what's happening. Actually, it was happening before that?

0:03:52.7 Julie: Yes. As a kid, I grew up in a very racist part of the country, still is a very racist part of the country. And so I don't remember ever hearing the N-word as a kid, but it was derogatory.

0:04:07.1 Torin: Interesting. Okay.

0:04:08.0 Julie: Yeah. Very, very derogatory. So yeah, I'm talking... In my brain, it was like seven, eight, nine.

0:04:13.9 Torin: Okay. Got it, got it. Thank you for that. Alright, cool. So then you say that you began to... When you really paid attention to the phraseology and maybe even silently uttered it yourself, it was typically towards those that were more of the activist. And so I think I heard you say it was really in your 20s that you began to sort of wrestle with that understanding and really how it meant. You used the word to demean. I would like to throw in the word to diminish, if that's okay with you. You would use it to devalue, to diminish, to distract individuals, if you will, from what was being said. And so, for you now, does it sit... How does it sit now when you hear that phrase? Does it cause you to pause when you say... If you hear it from someone or you read it somewhere, do you take a moment to say, "Wait a minute. Let me evaluate who they are attaching it to, why we are attaching it and sort of process it differently"? What do you sort of take yourself mentally through?

0:05:26.2 Julie: Yeah. So there's two times that actually stand out to me in this moment. The first one is not long after you and I met, and you told me a story about something that you said on stage that caused you some pain. And Chad and I actually stopped and we talked about it and... I can get away with saying less things than he can. You can get away with saying less things, I think, sometimes than I can as I'm an angry psycho woman, you're angry Black man. Then Chad can get away with, right? I can see clearly sort of that distinguishing now in a way that I couldn't until I knew someone who was a Black man, who had sort of a... Not sort of, has a platform. What that conversation caused me to do was always to think about how you have to say things differently than I have to, and I have to say them differently than you do. And that's one of the things I have learned a lot from you. The other time, is not an angry Black man but an angry Black woman, when we had... Oh, my God. When we had Michael's wife on, Melissa. The man that died a couple of years ago now, the disabled Black man.

0:06:46.1 Julie: Why is my brain blanking on the last name? The last name. Michael and Melissa and I was talking to someone who worked at the hospital and they started degrading her, diminishing her account of what happened as an angry Black woman. And I was... It hit me immediately and I was fucking furious. I'm like, "I can see what's happening. I can... You know the words that you're using are meant to lessen my opinion of her or the validity of her claim, and you are doing it on purpose." And that was like, oh, this crazy aha moment for me of going like, "No, no, that... I can see it. And now it's happening someone... This is someone that I know and you're doing it to her in front of me." That was like... That has sat with me the whole time.

0:07:43.4 Torin: Yeah. I'm looking away from the camera. I'm literally trying to... I see the last name, it begins with an H and for whatever reason, I cannot think of Michael's last name right now, and it's really blowing my mind because it was such a great example. Just the disregard in which they... The way that they devalued the wife... Go ahead, say it.

0:08:06.0 Julie: Hixon. Hixon.

0:08:07.0 Torin: Hixon. That's it. I know it begin with H. Thank you. Michael Hixon... In the way that they devalued his wife. The family did not listen to her. Just the agony and the voicemail. I remember, I wish I could Google real quick, the episode in which we talked about them. I wanna see... Actually, I gotta do that. You know what? I have to do that just so I can... I think that that was episode July 8th of 2020, episode 21. I believe that was 21. So the reason I bring that up is because we're gonna have a conversation today with Zachary Nunn from Living Corporate. And I wanted to have this conversation and thank you again for just your honesty and your transparency, your slight moment of vulnerability, your revelation, if you will. Because I think it's extremely important for people to understand why certain personas, persons, why we show up the way that we show up, unapologetic, unwavering, relentless, if you will... Determined in how we present the information, how we challenge individuals to live and wrestle as my good friend, Dr. Cornel West says, wrestle with what it means to be human.

0:09:37.0 Torin: Zachary Nunn, challenges you to wrestle with what it means to be human in the corporate quarter. And he does it in a way, again, that is... Listen, I'm not trying to be mean-spirited, I'm not trying to be bombastic and toxic in the bowl and the China shop. I'm just simply saying, here is... These are the facts, and I want you to see the facts for what they are. One thing that I like about Zach is, he's not an individual who is going to spend a great deal of time and inordinate amount of time trying to go back and forth negatively. And you and I talked about this. There are some people that we have considered bringing on our show and we've said, "You know, well, I know." Yeah, we've just decided, maybe not now. Perhaps another time, but maybe not now, because that's not the energy in which we want to be captured and recorded in history on our show. Zach has a voice that we want to be recorded historically on our show. And so I think it's going to be important for people to receive him differently than they made with that whole angry Black man. So let's take a quick break and let's skip to Mr. Zach Nunn.

0:11:08.4 Julie: So in our prep, Torin, for this conversation with Zach, CEO and founder of Living Corporate, we were talking to Zack about what really started as a monthly singular podcast. And now it's turned into this multi-media network called Living Corporate. And how important it was for Zach to think beyond just corporate diversity, equity, inclusion programs as they are and sort of bring us into a larger conversation.

0:11:42.4 Torin: Yeah, absolutely. And when we had Zach, it was beautiful for him to really paint a colorful picture around the broadness of DE&I and DE&I related content. Not that that content had to sit only in one place or business unit inside of the organization, but the broader collective of contribution. How we would raise and provide that content for the larger audience. And so if we can, let's just pick up where Zach really reinforced the need for this broader curation of content.

0:12:22.4 Julie: So Torin, as we were prepping for this call with Zachary Nunn, CEO and co-founder of Living Corporate, a new media platform. Zach really told us, you think corporate diversity equity inclusion programs are a scam. And we're gonna get to that in our conversation. But what we really wanted to know is, how does this monthly singular podcast turn into this multi-media network? And why was it so important that Zach take this conversation in this direction?

0:12:54.0 Torin: Yeah, it was. It was a really good conversation. We talked about online trolling. We talked about some of the things that he said around respectability politics in the workplace. But really we have to start with why Living Corporate is here. And for Zach, it was just about there not being any content. There not being enough content. There not being enough individuals that are contributing to the curation of that content. And I think third and most importantly, where this content was coming from. Zach really, really felt like we should have a broader range of voices contributing to the conversation. And so, that's where we actually pick up in this episode of Crazy and The King.

0:13:39.2 Torin: I just wanna make sure that listeners heard what Zach said in that response. And in such he didn't lay the responsibility of curating that content on a particular department like learning and development or a particular role like a chief diversity officer. He put it on a broader audience of individuals and really what he is asking each of you to do, encouraging each of you to do, instructing each of you, even though it was a post-response, we gotta shift our relationship with power. We have to demand something different of those that are responsible for feeding, including, developing and inspiring us inside of our workplaces. Which is in part why we have Living Corporate. Go ahead, J.

0:14:32.2 Julie: Yeah. I think just even more bluntly, is that all of this is about keeping White people comfortable in power, certainly, but also comfortable with their power and not making us have those uncomfortable conversations because then we may not choose to participate. What would we do if a White person chose not to participate? In a quote that you had Zach in Voyage Dallas I really loved is the reality is, any time you explicitly push to advocate for Black and Brown people, you'll face some adversity. We've had external pressures to broaden our platform to center White men in our work and stray away from certain terms and language like White Supremacy, racism and White fragility. Even go on to say, I honestly take that as a sign that we're on track because we're genuinely looking to include all perspectives. You've had White folks on, but we always wanna center on the most marginalized. And my question in that is, what's the backlash been from your employer, your sponsors, listeners who are sort of lurking or trolling when you had that really frank conversation of, we are staying centered on the population and the group that we are most interested in raising up?

0:16:00.8 Zachary: Yeah, thank you for the question. So the backlash comes in a few different ways. One, of course, on YouTube. First of all, we don't even promote our content on YouTube like that. We use YouTube just for SEO purposes. But every now and then a bunch of trolls will find a YouTube video and then start just comment bombing, disliking, whatever the case is. Living Corporate as a podcast on Apple Podcast suffered a few trolls. But I'll say this is like, we've been really fortunate and not getting super attacked. Again, I can point to a handful of videos and a handful of episodes where we've gotten... And I can, maybe like seven or eight emails. But again, compared to other platforms, it's not that crazy. And then I think the other piece is when it comes to our sponsors, we're really selective and thoughtful in who we choose to work with because we're very explicit and intentional about what our brand is and what we're doing. So we don't get backlash from any sponsors. That's also though, why we don't do a lot of dynamically inserted ads. We don't do... We don't work like that. Any brand that we work with, they know we're here to center and amplify Black and Brown voices. That does not mean we're here to necessarily demonize any other group. We are gonna speak historically, factually, objectively. Again, factually about the landscape within which we exist. And if that happens to hurt your feelings, well, maybe you take this opportunity to learn and grow.

0:17:36.7 Zachary: But I'll say for us, is that we've been really fortunate. If I was to compare, I would say like... If I was to compare all of our engagements, I would only say maybe like 15% of it is racist trolls. And I think that's pretty great when I look at other platforms and spaces where it might be half, and then you become the space where the majority of your content is clapping back at racist trolls. And I respect people on LinkedIn who do that. Who take the time to write content to shut racist down and all that kind of stuff. I feel like that's kinda like throwing a tennis ball against the wall. I don't know if you're really ever gonna win that match. I'm not interested in doing that. I'm interested in creating content that's centers and amplifies Black and Brown people. And so, I'm never gonna fall into the trap of like, "Oh, they wrote this about me", or I don't... There's probably like 30 comments on... We had an interview with Saira Rao and Regina Jackson, who created Race to Dinner. And there's probably like 100 comments on there that are all racist. I'm not about to be on YouTube dog arguing with y'all back and forth and commenting and trying to justify my position.

0:18:45.2 Zachary: We've had all... I'm not doing that. You all have a blast with that. Thank you for keeping our engagement numbers up. I'mma stay on my mission, I'mma stay on our purpose. And I'mma continue with that. And our sponsors appreciate that and I appreciate that too.

0:18:57.5 Torin: As do we. And when Julie said a moment ago, White fragility, it leads to a clip that I captured earlier in the year, or shall I say late in the year. You actually did an interview...

0:19:10.0 Torin: You did an interview with some folks over at Blind and one of the hosts in this right here, I'm saying Blind and I'm saying the host, Jack Kelly and his co-host Rick Chen. But I say their names, not in a way of being punitive, but amplifying or showcasing real-time that white fragility that you mentioned. So in this clip, Jack is answering a question that you had. Your question to him was, "Do you really believe that something is being taken away from you?" So before you respond, let's let listeners hear the clip.

0:19:56.1 Zachary: "So what are you alluding to with the first time, you're saying that you think that Black people have some type of privilege, they get more scholarships than white folks.

0:20:03.5 S4: They do, absolutely, absolutely.

0:20:05.5 Zachary: Okay, that's not factual.

0:20:06.0 S4: Absolutely.

0:20:06.4 Zachary: You should read, you should study 'cause that's not true.

0:20:11.3 S4: Well, think about it, 'cause every company, you need a certain... There's trying to have diversity in the workforce, and if you may have two people of similar skills, often times the hire person who fits the bill that they say, "Hey, we have to give that person a job," it just happens.

0:20:34.0 Zachary: Jack, who told you that?

0:20:36.0 S4: I've seen it for the last 20 something years with my own eyes.

0:20:42.0 Zachary: But what data says, that's not accurate though.

0:20:45.4 S4: I see it all the time, I'll give you an example.

0:20:49.9 Zachary: But pause. Jack, that's factually not true."

0:20:54.2 Torin: So Zach, what do you think about that? I know you meant what you said, but maybe you even have a different 90-day perspective since that was 60 to 90 days ago, maybe there's even more that you would have wanted to say to him. He didn't provide you with data. What struck me the most is that he says twice, three times. "I've seen it happen." And then he said over the last 10 or 20 years. I was floored that this guy really thinks that jobs are being given to Black and Brown people and other marginalized, underestimated communities more than they are been given to white men. I was just floored by that. And he was serious, he was genuine and serious.

0:21:44.7 Zachary: Yeah, so it was wild because... Okay, so let me keep it at 1000. First of all, I got mad love for Rick and Blind. So while he was... Y'all hear the whole episode, it was strange, and I think I said something like, "This is actually really interesting to engage in this real-time." But I was also hitting up Rick on the side and I was like, "Hey man, your host is wilding." I was really confused and what I was thinking about in real time Torin was like, "Man, these white folks are really, really threatened by non-white people," and it was scary, and I think I said this later in the conversation. 'Cause I said, "You should read more." I told him, "You should pick up something. You should read a book."

0:22:38.3 Torin: You did. You sure did, you absolutely did.

0:22:42.2 Zachary: Because it was scary to me, 'cause like, Man, this is a grown man. Torin, I think he's older than me and you, dog. He's grown. So it was scary, you've been living life long enough and you're advising executives and you've been doing recruiting. He said it himself, "I've been recruiting for 20+ years." Whatever he said. I'm like, "Bro, you by the merit of your own experience, you should have a more informed position." So it was scary. It was sad and it made me mad because it was like, "Well, damn, this is kind of the example of what I mean, there are people out here who really are dedicated to making themselves victims, there are people dedicated to using their anecdotal experiences," which is again, through the lens of their own biases, to then make broad statements about whole groups of people that have been oppressed.

0:23:32.3 Zachary: And I think the last thing I'll say is, it hurt me because it's like, dog, later in that conversation, he kept talking and I kept just saying, "Hey, let's look at the data trends. Let's look at the data." And then in real time, if you all listen to the whole episode, in real-time, he made some comment about, "Well, what about these poor white guys who were losing jobs to women?" And, "What happens to them?" And I said, "First of all, white men are overly represented in the executive position, so I don't care about what happens to white men, but two, if that white man was to lose a job out to a woman, he'll just end up getting another job somewhere else. He'll be fine, 'cause he had a little goofy example and then he back-doored and said, "Well, yeah, I mean with the guy I'm talking about, he just ended up getting another executive role." I was like, "So then what are you talking about, Jack? What are we actually having a conversation about at this point?"

0:24:27.3 Zachary: And so it just becomes this huge exercise and just ego, insecurity and weakness. I don't wanna say fragility, 'cause fragility intimates some level of care that needs to be taken or some level of something precious. There's nothing precious about white people constantly having to stamp down Black progress, Black voice, anything Black and Brown in the name of your power sustainment. There's nothing precious about that. That is sick. It is destructive. It's oppressive, it's wrong. And I know people have taken issue with even the term White fragility. If anyone is fragile, it's oppressed people. Because we've been beat down and yet we have to continue to stand back up and deliver in spite of.

0:25:21.7 Zachary: We have to continue to grow and be successful in spite of. We are the ones who should be treated with some fragility because of the oppression that we have faced historically and the micro-macro aggressions we continue to experience. Anyway, you asked me one simple question, Torin, I went off of...

0:25:40.9 Torin: No, I appreciate it, I appreciate it.

0:25:46.3 Julie: I love the way that you just sort of couch that because it is. I'm sitting here as a white woman watching this cringey as fuck conversation that this white man is bringing to the table. And it is weakness. There's no other way to say it. It is just pure and simple weakness, especially when so calmly and much power to you on the ability to stay calm there is that you kept saying, "The data doesn't support it. The data doesn't support it." And he just sort of could not live outside of his own bias, that example of like, "Well, I've seen it, I've seen it, I've seen it."

0:26:27.4 Julie: Hopefully, he watched it himself and has had some sort of epiphany about how he represented himself to the rest of the world. And I just wanna go back to some of the things that we're talking about in the beginning is, during introduction, part of that introduction was that you're just not sold on DEI&B efforts in the workplace. Talk to us more about that and about respectability, politics in the workplace and where do we go from here?

0:27:06.0 Zachary: Yeah, I'm not so... So here's the thing, when you really examine the concepts around inclusion and equity, they all go back to power. Everything goes back to power. So if you really wanna create an environment where people are included and are treated equitably and have a sense of belonging, then give those groups of people power so that they can help shape the work environment that is beneficial and helpful to them. Folks don't do that because they don't see Black, Brown, queer, disabled, women, any intersection of all the different dimensions that I just named as worthy of "ruling", of worthy of leadership. They don't. And so, because there's a refusal, 'cause I would say resistance, but at this point, we can see now, it's more than resistance. It's refusal to really empower and put and cede power to these people. Then we end up just kind of having a bunch of dog and pony shows. We end up having a bunch of performative theater that looks good. That's why I even like... Shoot, I'm talking with Living Corporate. Living Corporate, we have a job board, we just launched it in July. This is going somewhere, I promise.

0:28:42.3 Zachary: And organizations want to work with our job board, and they quickly go, "Yeah, we have some great entry level positions that we can put on your job board." And I pause and I say, "That's interesting 'cause I sent you my information deck about my audiences." And you know if you look at my information deck, I have a standard information deck I send out to everybody, one of the slides is, Who's our core audience?

0:29:04.7 Zachary: And part of our audience is Gen-Zers, part of our audience is in millennials, Gen X-ers and then young baby boomers. And then I'll talk about it, it's Black and Brown, here the cities. So for you to look at that information and then say... For you to default still, or without even asking who our population is, to default and say, "We've got some great entry level positions. We have some great college positions." It's like, we are honestly conditioned to see Black and Brown, to see non-white straight men as inferior. And so that's part of just how DEI, or DEI&B, or ID, or however you wanna make the acronym up, there's limits there because there's a genuine resistance and refusal to cede power, so that's the first thing.

0:29:56.2 Zachary: And then when it comes to respectability politics, I think because whiteness is seen... Kinda going back to what I said earlier, Whiteness is seen as the default, and it is also the ideal. It is the North Star to be. So what happens is, you have Black and Brown folks, we're conditioning, this has been historically for our own survival to "coat switch". To put on a different personality, persona voice to better assimilate into these majority white spaces. I think the obvious fact though that destroys all of that, that destroys all of the [0:30:47.3] ____ is that White people know that you're not white. So I'm gonna show up, I'm 6"2', 285 pounds. I am Black.

0:30:58.2 Zachary: It does not matter how I conjugate my verbs, it does not matter the tone in which I take in my speech pattern, it doesn't matter what pop culture I decide to reference, it does not matter the humorous phrases I may take on. It doesn't matter how much I follow NASCAR, it doesn't matter. You're not going to do enough to outpace the fact that they see your different skin, or the fact they know that you're not a man or that you're... You cannot outperform racism. You cannot outperform your pigmentation. And so the trip, a lot of us, we've deluded ourselves even now in 2022, that if we dress a certain way, if we speak a certain way, if we walk a certain way, then White people will suddenly treat us like we're not not white, and we'll be able to ascend.

0:31:58.1 Zachary: And I can tell you, going back to what you said about my conversation with Jack, the data shows that respectability politics are not beneficial to Black people as a whole. We have fewer Black CEOs, fewer Black board members now than we ever had before in the past like 40, 50 years. Our numbers are not growing and increase. They're not. Morehouse is not churning out Black CEOs every year, they're not. You don't see a bunch of Black CEOs coming out of how... These are some of the Meccas of respectability. These space Spelman, we do not see... These are the places where White organizations flock to to get Black talent and yet even with that, we don't see booms of Black representation and even mid-level manager positions.

0:32:54.3 Zachary: Let's not even talk about C-suite, let's just talk about director up, executive up. We don't see a bunch of us. And so my goal is to be as free as possible in these spaces that do not want me to be free. I'm going to show up as authentically me as I possibly can every single day. I'm gonna say what I wanna say. I'm gonna say it with respect because I expect respect back. I'm going to serve others. I'm gonna be gracious. I'm gonna be kind, and I'm gonna be me, and I'm not gonna swallow who I am in the name of being accepted or thinking that that's gonna be some type of camouflage, it isn't. It's not possible.

0:33:37.5 Torin: You mentioned the pop culture just a few moments ago, as well as the not mincing of words, and you actually... You have some things to say. So I'm going to assume that a few months back, you saw the social posts of one of the rap stars and the political mouthpieces wearing shirts that said "White Lives Matter". And it's one of those things where I don't comment. I don't really share those things because I just don't wanna give them my attention, I don't wanna amplify it, I like to stay away from that. But the part that I do want you to comment on is the Coonery.

0:34:16.9 Torin: You've often talked about the Coonery that takes place. And some people, Zach, you may hear that as being offensive. But the reason I'm bringing that up is because more often than not, White people will look at Black people and assume that we are doing DEI only for the favor or advantage of other Black people. That we are doing this work because we are protecting our own. That we will support all of our own in a monolithic type way. What I see in you, in me, and in certainly a number of others, is that we ain't for the bullshit. And so you will call out that Coonery, why is it important for you personally to hold all audiences accountable?

0:35:10.0 Zachary: Hey, because you're absolutely right, I'm gonna call out when I see it, because it's destructive, it's harmful, it's wrong. So I try to call things down in the middle, and I'll say there's a certain additional level of harm that happens when you have White supremacy dressed up, like White supremacy in Black face. It's interesting, we actually had Caitlin Rosenthal on... This was years ago. This was like maybe two years ago. Dr. Caitlin Rosenthal is the author of this book called Accounting For Slavery. And it's a study of organizational management, or rather how slavery, shadow slavery, helped to shape and create a lot of the organizational management structures that we look at today.

0:36:03.4 Zachary: It's very, very riveting work. I would recommend everybody check it out, it's incredible. But the point of it, what she talked about was, is that the whole of White folks delegating other Black folks, sometimes Black folks who were maybe older or who maybe had a disability, like a physical disability, were too tired, too weak to work, or could not work in the conditions. I don't wanna say they were weak, but they were too... They could not fulfill the field hand duties, they would be overseers. They would be overseers under the chief overseer. And I am sensitive to the idea of Black folks oppressing or creating other oppressive barriers for other Black and brown folks.

0:36:52.6 Zachary: I'm sensitive to that because it's insidious and there's a layer of harm that Black folks who decide to be coonish can take on torn because they're camouflage. They are camouflaged with other Black folks or other Black and Brown people at least for a season, because they look like the people that they are oppressing. And so it's important that they get called out and not that they get called out on a silo, but they have to be named because all skin folk are not kin folk. And if you don't name those people who are being harmful, then you have all sorts of damage and chaos that could be created over time.

0:37:39.9 Zachary: 'Cause they could be quietly usurping genuine efforts to really create equity at work, but you think this person is on your side. Meanwhile, they're running back to Master, talking about you, or they just kind of throw little wrenches on what you're doing, asking you, "Well, what does that really mean? And, "Why don't we try this and try that?" And it dilutes the message, it's harmful. And so it's important that those people are held accountable within the context of this larger White supremacist system. I've yet to ever call out like a Black diversity inclusion leader or a Brown diverse inclusion leader without naming the system that they're participating in and really calling out that CEO right next to him. 'Cause they're only moving like that because they're empowered to move like that.

0:38:25.2 Torin: Interesting. Do you know what he's saying, J? What I'm hearing, if I could synthesize that is those folks that are in Black face under guarding White supremacy and institutional systems that oppress other people, they're pulling that ladder up. They are the ones that are pulling that ladder up, making it harder for other individuals to receive the development that they are so deserving of, the inspiration that they are so deserving of, the resource that they absolutely are deserving of. Those individuals, they are the chaos in the system, and he is absolutely right, we need to underscore them. And so let me go back and just make a brief edit to my piece. I said the rap star and the political mouthpiece, that would be Kanye and Candace Owens. That would be those two individuals that are dangerous, and they're the ones that are pulling the ladder up, so J, take it away.

0:39:29.7 Julie: Incredible, incredible conversation. I've enjoyed it immensely. If you're interested in connecting with Zach, learning more about Living Corporate, you can go to their website, living-corporate.com, Zach's on Twitter at RevNunn, N-U-N-N, Wisdom. Zach, where else can our listeners connect with you and your team over at Living Corporate?

0:39:55.6 Zachary: You know what, just Google Living Corporate, do you know what I mean? Y'all got a bunch of links every day that y'all gotta get out there. Just check out Living Corporate.

0:40:08.7 Torin: All right. Wow, what a conversation. You can only say, "Wow," when we have somebody who is able to talk about the corporate community, talk about the social community, talk about pop culture, if you will. Love how he could weave in a little bit of his opinion around politics. Zach, we really appreciate you for joining us here on Crazy And The King. Her Voice segment is where we amplify women that are making moves, and first up, J, I think you like the folks at PowerToFly.

0:40:42.7 Julie: I do, I do. So PowerToFly co-founders, Millennia Berry and Catherine's Zaleski to fast track economic equity by up-skilling and connecting under-represented talent to roles in highly visible sectors. Love it.

0:41:00.2 Torin: And we have Dr. Sheila Robinson, she is a celebrated publisher, best-selling author on leadership, inspiring speaker and talent innovation specialist. Her company is Diversity Women Media is being recognized nationally as a leading multi-platform enterprise with program offerings that advances all dimensions of diversity and inclusion.

0:41:26.4 Julie: And to wrap up this episode, Julie Nergararian, Manager of Education Partner Program at HubSpot and Kim Diaz, Director of Talent and Outreach at Pixar. These two names came from the untapped 100 DEI&B leaders for 2022. As always, you can check out the full list at untapped.io.

0:41:47.3 Torin: Untapped.io, some incredible names on that list. And if you missed our episode with Tariq Meyers, you can kind of scroll back. I know it dropped at some point in early October, go catch the replay. And while you're there, make sure you sign up for our newsletter, crazyandtheking.com. We close reminding each and every one of you to share the pod with your digital tribe and to find your voice. Be a better human, let's create better culture teams and workplaces. For now, J and I are in that holiday spirit. And we're ghosts.

0:42:25.2 Julie: See ya.