041: Tiffany & Melinda

Written By Tiffany Yu

Tiffany & Melinda | How to Be an Ally ft. Melinda Briana Epler, Change Catalyst

Listen on: Apple // Spotify // Google // YouTube

In this episode, I’m joined by Melinda Briana Epler, CEO of Change Catalyst and author of How to Be an Ally: Actions You Can Take for a Stronger, Happier Workplace, to discuss her own journey to becoming an ally and how all of us can become better allies.

Plus -- win a signed copy of Melinda's book by leaving us an Apple Podcast review answering the question that Melinda posed at the end of the episode on your own allyship action. Screenshot it and email it to hello@tiffanyyu.com by October 20, 2021 (US only).

We discussed:

  • Melinda’s journey to starting Change Catalyst

  • Origins of the Tech Inclusion conference

  • Disability allyship

  • Melinda’s mission to grow empathy

  • Emotional tax, microaggressions and healing

  • On the stages and types of allyship

  • On non-performative allyship and feedback

  • How a TED Talk became a book

  • The book and the state of allyship

  • Intersectionality

Show notes:

About Melinda Briana Epler

Melinda Briana Epler has over 25 years of experience elevating brands and developing business innovation strategies for startups, Fortune 500 companies, and global NGOs. As CEO of Change Catalyst, Melinda is a strategic diversity, equity, and inclusion advisor for executives, entrepreneurs, investors, and activists around the world. Her popular TED talk “3 Ways to Be a Better Ally in the Workplace” reached one million views in the first 24 days of its release. She is also the host of the popular podcast series “Leading With Empathy & Allyship.”

Follow Melinda Briana Epler:

Transcript

Tiffany Yu: Hi, everyone. You're listening to this episode of Tiffany & Yu, the podcast. This is your host, Tiffany Yu. And if you're new to the Tiffany & Yu podcast, Tiffany & Yu is a podcast about things that matter. And more specifically, I'm talking with friends who are using their voices and platforms to cultivate creativity, compassion, and change. Today I have with me, Melinda Briana Epler. She's the CEO of Change Catalyst, had been hosting these really incredible Tech Inclusion conferences all around the world. And it's now the author of How to Be an Ally and the host of a really popular podcast that I've had the opportunity to be a guest on called Leading With Empathy & Allyship. Hi, Melinda. 

Melinda Briana Epler: Hi, Tiffany. 

Tiffany Yu: I feel like we first got started when Change Catalyst was hosting your first Ability in Tech Summit, early 2016. And at that time, I think I had been a little less than a year of getting Diversability ramped up. I had never really seen a conference, honestly, at the intersection of disability and tech looking at that specific aspect of identity. I always like starting with what I call origin stories and everyone's origin looks different, but I was curious if you could share what you see as your origin story that led you to the creation of Change Catalyst.

Melinda Briana Epler: Well, I've always been focused on social and environmental change since high school, I would say, studied cultural anthropology and art, and using art as a medium for creating change. And then we moved into the film industry and actually worked in the film industry for about 10 years. I was a documentary filmmaker in LA. We did a lot of work on documentaries, did some work on more mainstream things like The West Wing and then realized at a certain point that it is hard to create change through that medium. I was working with one of the top documentary companies in the world and was still having a hard time getting that social impact component in there, in that documentary. And at the same time also, the industry is not very good for your health and wellbeing. And, it's six days a week, 12 hour days is kind of standard. I was editing, so I was on my computer for that long. And it just was destroying my body, my health. I had horrible asthma and I just felt like I needed to take a break. And so, my ex-husband, my husband at the time and I moved to Geyserville, California, tiny little town in Northern California, in wine country and lived off the land for a year and kind of reset. And then from there I decided I could create change through storytelling, but didn't have to do it through these long films that it took me years to make, that I could do that through blogs, through short films. And so I started working with mission-driven brands on their storytelling, on behavior change campaigns and branding and marketing for social impact companies. And at a certain point, after doing that for years, one of my clients continuously offered me a job. And I kept saying no, and I finally accepted it. And so I moved, I was then in Seattle and I moved from Seattle to San Francisco, shut down my business and took a job as an executive at an engineering firm and worked in the healthcare industry around moving large scale healthcare systems to reduce their energy, their waste, and their water and improve their social impact through behavior change strategies. And, I also was the head of marketing and culture in that firm. So it was kind of juggling three different roles in that company. And found myself in a very non-inclusive environment as an executive. I was the only woman in a leadership team of 19 and culture was just not created for me. And it took me a while to realize that, actually I went through some pretty severe depression because I thought it was me. And then I read an article in Fast Company I believe that was about microaggressions and toxic workplace culture. And I was like, oh, that's it. That's what it is. And then I started seeing all the microaggressions that I was experiencing over and over again. Megan Smith, the former White House CTO calls it death by a thousand paper cuts, just every day over and over and over again. Those little slices that can really reduce your ability to do your work well and thrive. And so I did work to create some change in that company and develop some strategies. They weren't ready to talk about diversity and inclusion at all. I realized I wasn't the only one that we had kind of a revolving door for women and underrepresented minorities. And so I did work to create some change there, but I really wanted to create a bigger impact in the tech industry here in San Francisco. And so I left my job as an executive to start Change Catalyst. 

Tiffany Yu: Our first point of entry, a lot of times into communities that don't look like our own is how they're portrayed in the media. So to hear your background on the documentary side and wanting to shed light on some of these stories that might not get as much visibility, and then finding your way into the corporate world and actually experiencing firsthand what it felt like these slights or the death by a thousand paper cuts, as Megan Smith has said, led to the creation of this. I'd love to chat about the origins of Tech Inclusion too. You had started Change Catalyst. It sounded like you were working with different clients and then what was the decision to create this conference series? 

Melinda Briana Epler: So Wayne, my boyfriend at the time, now husband, was my co-founder. In 2014, the big tech companies started releasing their diversity numbers for the first time. And so there was a new wave of focus on diversity and inclusion. And I would say that company were still at their infancy of understanding and that pushed them to do something. More companies started to hire diversity and inclusion people internally to work on creating that change. And so Wayne and I were sitting on a couch one night and complaining about all of the conversations we were having. We were invited to round table discussions at The White House, the SBA, lots of local tech companies were hosting discussions. We found ourselves having the same conversation over and over and over about, this is a problem. These are the problems. This is the problem, which is important to acknowledge the problem. But what we didn't hear so much about was what are the solutions? What are the solutions that are really working? And what are the things that people are doing that are not working? And so we decided, well, why don't we bring people together across the ecosystem of tech to really focus on solutions together? We were also saying that there were a lot of D&I folks that were doing their work in silos. They weren't connecting, they didn't know each other. And as a result, they didn't share what was working, what was not working. And they were reinventing the wheel, honestly, over and over again, and doing a lot of things that weren't working. And so we really also wanted to kind of break that down. The companies were thinking at the time that their D&I advocates were their secret sauce for the future, that that was going to be their leverage for bringing in more, recruiting candidates. We worked to break that down and worked to build trust with D&I advocates to come and really share what they were doing and start to develop some best practices in the industry. And so we thought it was going to be one conference. We thought it was just going to be one. It was in the fall of 2015. It was hard. It was hard to build it. It was hard to get sponsors, cause that was really early in the process. There weren't really any other conferences that were doing that at the time. And, there were some conferences that were doing bits and pieces of it. There were women's conferences. A great conference that was focused on people with disabilities. It was Alt Conf. It's no longer around. But they did some really great things and we had learned some things from them about just how they did it in a way that was really inclusive for people with disabilities. But there wasn't one that really focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion for everyone who is traditionally underrepresented in tech. And we really wanted to do that. We held our first conference in 2015 and it was sold out and we had to turn people away. People were begging for us to come and we had to turn people away unfortunately. We also realized that the companies at the time, still to some extent a lot of companies, they're still at the recruiting stage. They're not really working on equity and inclusion internally yet. They're just focused on the recruiting. And they were saying, well, It's a pipeline problem. And so the other thing we did was we created a career fair and we said, well, we're going to bring the pipeline to you because there's a lot of people out there that are good candidates, that you're just not finding. And so we also did that and had a line out the door around the block of diverse candidates. As a result of that conference and career fair, there was a real ripple effect across the industry and we realized that we really wanted to do more. And so we kept doing it. We did it in multiple countries across the U S. We also went to London and Melbourne and really worked to create change in lots of different tech ecosystems.

Tiffany Yu: So one of the things that I really admire about you is the way that you think holistically about being an ally. One of the things I advocate for is how can we make sure we're prioritizing disability when we think about diversity, equity and inclusion. I'm curious if you can talk about how you thought about that particular intersection, which not a lot of DEI folks are. 

Melinda Briana Epler: When we did our first Tech Inclusion conference in 2015, we learned. We made some mistakes. We didn't have all the answers at the time. And we were really fortunate that we created a safe space for people to advocate for what they needed in order to be included at the conference. So William Albright, who is Deaf, he said, Hey, here's a link for you to book an interpreter for me. And we were like, we don't have the budget for this. And then we're like, well that's not okay. We can't say we don't have the budget for it. We have to figure out how to pay for it. So basically it came out of our own pay, because we really wanted to make sure that that was something that happened. And so we had ASL interpreters, and then, another person Zeeshan, he reached out and he said, I'm blind. I really want to come. And I need somebody to guide me throughout the conference. And we're like, okay, we'll make that happen. And so, we had volunteers that were dedicated to being with him all day and guiding him. And from there, we actually realized that there wasn't much discussion about people with disabilities in diversity, equity and inclusion discussions even, that people with disabilities were really left out of the conversation, left out of the actions, left out of the systemic change. And so, we created the Ability in Tech Summit that you talked about earlier in 2016 to really address diversity, equity and inclusion for people with disabilities in tech and we learned so much having that event. So for the Ability in Tech Summit, we worked with Computer Technologies Program as a partner, and together we developed the Ability in Tech Summit, we had a career fair as well. We learned a lot there in doing that too just how far there was still to go. We had a lot of companies that said, and this might be triggering for people. We had a lot of companies that said that, well, we can't come. We can't recruit because we haven't taught our people how to speak to people with disabilities. And we realized at that point, we should probably, maybe if we did this in the future, we can also give people some tips about that. Cause I mean, it's ridiculous, right? People with disabilities are people, you just talked to them. But there was this belief that somehow that was a barrier for them. And then the other thing we heard was that we aren't in a place yet where we can accommodate. That Is illegal. We learned a lot about kind of where companies were on that and just how important it was to not just have that conversation at an Ability in Tech Summit, but to really integrate it with all of our work so that people that weren't going to go to an Ability in Tech Summit ever would also learn about it.

Tiffany Yu: I remember in the years following, Ability in Tech ended up being like a track as part of the larger Tech Inclusion conference. You and I have had a lot of conversations around how we can better create events that serve the disability community. Oftentimes I will point conference organizers or event organizers to, I think it was an accessibility statement or the way that you had framed it on your site as a great model to also show that I think that we're all learning together. But I also want to acknowledge, I know you mentioned kind of these statements that potential partners or attendees said to you about why they wouldn't come for them to feel, and I know those are harmful things to say, but for them to feel comfortable enough to say them out loud at least provides a starting point for us to know. Hey, this is your current thought. This is where the starting point is. Let's see how we can work together to make a little bit of progress. I want to take a quick break here, and then when we come back, I want to talk about this book that you have the Ted talk, that whole journey. So stay with us. 

And we are back from the break I have with me, the CEO of Change Catalyst, Melinda Briana Epler, also has a new book out called How to Be an Ally, also has a TED talk on a similar topic that I think the last time I checked has two and a half million views. So before the break, we were chatting about not only how Change Catalyst came to be, but how this incredible Tech Inclusion conference series was created and how Melinda had actually spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to better cater this particular conference to the disability community. I think you just do such an incredible job of showing up for communities and identities that you don't necessarily have. And I was curious if you can talk about where you feel like that responsibility came from. I remember about a year and a half ago, you had posted on Instagram a post about how we can better show up for our black community members and not putting the emotional labor and the onus on them. 

Melinda Briana Epler: Well, first off, thank you. Thank you. That means a lot. I appreciate that. I think I am unusual in that I have always been focused on really making the world a better place for everyone. And I wish more people were born that way, it would make the world a lot better of a place. And I also think that people can learn and they do throughout their lives. And people grow compassion, that you can build empathy. Not everybody has empathy for people. And, there are studies that show that you can build that empathy, can grow that empathy. For me, I think part of it is exposure too. I was born in San Francisco, grew up in Oakland and then in Seattle. And in Seattle, I lived in south Seattle, so very diverse neighborhoods. I always had friends from multiple different identities. So it was just kind of normal for me, and I know that's not how everybody grows up. And so I feel really privileged of having grown up around, and just thought of that as normal. I'm not sure where the motivation comes. It just comes from wanting the world to be a good place for everyone and for everybody to be able to thrive. And I do believe that so many of big issues in the world are as a result of us not having compassion for each other, not really understanding each other. That's my mission in life is to build empathy and grow empathy for people. And one way to do that is through allyship and really understand people's unique experiences and perspectives and have empathy for them. And then take action around that. And to answer your question around not allowing, people with a marginalized identity shouldn't be the only people that are creating the change needed in the world. That really takes all of us. It has to be all of us really, ultimately, to make the biggest change. So we have to step up. And it is our role to step up in part because some people are more privileged than others. There's some people who are born with more privileged than others, and that's an unfair advantage in the world. And for some people, there's unfair disadvantage and it's important for all of us to correct that. 

Tiffany Yu: Something we often talk about is shared humanity and that's exactly what you're talking about because the identity we all hold is that we're all human. And so we can use that as the place to start and care about other people then I think that helps move things forward. I want to talk about your podcast Leading with Empathy and Allyship. And you've had some incredible guests on there. I'm curious if you want to share one or two things that you've personally learned, because not only have you been so deeply entrenched in this space, now you have an opportunity to get to dive deeper with a lot of either friends that you've known or new friends who are doing work in this space.

Melinda Briana Epler: I don't know if I could pick one or two it's hard, but because I learned from every single conversation, that's one of the reasons why I did it also for me to really better understand allyship and what different people are experiencing in their lives and how they want allies to show up for them. I will say that when I interviewed Andrea Tatum from Catalyst, we talked about the emotional tax. And that has really stuck with me, that there is, through experiencing microaggressions and biases and systemic discrimination over and over and over in our lives, there is this emotional tax that people have in addition to their everyday work. They have this emotional burden on top of it that is unfair and important for us all and important for managers and leaders to really understand so that they can remove what's behind that emotional tax. And also, we all need to heal and time needs to be spent on that healing. And I think we don't spend enough time talking about how, in addition to intervening and reducing microaggressions, there's also the impact of them that people experience. And then I started researching more and more, the long-term effects of microaggressions as well, and there's studies that show that there's a lot of long-term health impacts, biological and emotional and mental, where it can reduce life expectancy, it can increase heart attacks, all of these things that are a bigger burden than just that moment of a microaggression that we're not really talking very much about. And that needs to heal. I'm actually really privileged to have a partner who is starting to work on that with The Icon Project. Wayne is starting to work on The Icon Project, making that his full-time work to really address mental health and wellbeing for Black and Brown men. 

Tiffany Yu: I've been doing more research on microaggressions as well because we do spend a lot of time talking about them and people are like, oh, well it wasn't intentional. And as I was doing my own research, very helpful to hear from you the health impact of it, but it's also a symptom and a cause of much larger structural barriers and inequities. And if we don't start at these small slights that are happening every day right under us, then again, a paper cut in the same place ends up becoming a very large wound. I want us to talk about this word allyship. It has entered the zeitgeist. Some people prefer the word accomplice. People don't like the word. They like the word. It's just in our world. So I was wondering if you could talk about the evolution of this word and how people are, or aren't embracing it.

Melinda Briana Epler: I'm not sure where the word started. I do know that people have been acting as allies for a long time and just maybe not using the word. The LGBTQIA community has used the word allyship since the seventies, I believe. So it has been around a while but not as prominently as it is now. There's a lot of terms that people will say, you know, we need to go beyond allyship to being an accomplice, being a co-conspirator, being a co collaborator, being a advocate. I actually think all of those things are allyship if you're doing it right. And each of those roles is important as well, and they're not the same. So, allyship for me is kind of a broad term of people who go beyond denial because there are definitely people that are in that. We have at Change Catalyst, we created a stages of allyship model to really show how people change their behavior over time to become allies. And it starts for most of us, it did for me, as being in denial. And then once you have a illuminating moment, that could be a moment that you experienced yourself, or you see a colleague experience or a friend or a partner experience, then you start becoming an observer. Just kind of looking to see, is this right? Is this real? And then, and then become a learner. And so learning is where a lot of people get stuck. It's important to learn, and we also have to go beyond learning as well and keep learning throughout our lives, but to go beyond learning to take action as allies. And so allies are people that make sure they're not doing harm themselves through biases and microaggressions are the main ways, but also perpetuating systemic inequities. And then intervening when they see harm and doing something about it. Accomplices are, if you think of an accomplice, an accomplice is somebody that breaks the rules, breaks the law. An accomplice is somebody that breaks things, stirs things up, changes systems. There's risk in being an accomplice. Not everybody is going to be an accomplice. And that's okay. Advocates are people that are advocating for change. You and I are advocates or activists. Activists are the next level of dedicating your life to creating change. Each of those has a role to play. And to me, it doesn't really matter what term you use as long as it's about action. Allies are not passive. Allies are not bystanders. Allies are upstandards. Allies take action. And that is really, really the key. 

Tiffany Yu: I appreciate that breakdown. With your definition of accomplice, there's a level of privilege in there too. You have the privilege to break things without having to think about what the ramifications might be or you're okay with them, whatever they are. 

Melinda Briana Epler: Power, influence, all of that plays a role too. 

Tiffany Yu: This is a question that I have personally been simmering on. And so I would love to ask you as well. And the question is how do you know when your allyship is not performative? 

Melinda Briana Epler: When you're doing something, not just saying something. That would be the short answer. Also I think that you can't call yourself a good ally. Other people call you a good ally. And so if people are telling you, oh this is helpful, then that's a good indicator that you're going beyond performative allyship. Not that you should be an ally and take action as an ally for recognition. Absolutely not. And if people are telling you that you're doing the work, then that's a good indicator that you're not performative. Performative is a lot of companies last year. And a lot of people last year after George Floyd was murdered were performative in making statements and putting up black squares, and saying they care, but then actually doing the work behind the scenes to increase their diversity, equity and inclusion in their companies was not really being done. And the same is true when people say they're inclusive of disability, but they don't have basic accessibility even in events or in recruiting processes, then they're not, they're not. It's performative.

Tiffany Yu: One of the things that you highlighted that also happened with Tech Inclusion was that someone from that community came to you and said, Hey, I noticed that there's not this, here's the solution. Or I'd really like to attend and here's the solution. And so it's this delicate dance of being in conversation with each other, having that pathway open that people feel comfortable enough to say, Hey, here's something I want to participate in. Here are the barriers to my participation so that you can then work together. And co-create something that works for that person. In the design world, we call it, designing for one to design for many. And I'll add it's not only a one-time action. It's a sustained action. And then it's also, if people provide you feedback, being open to receive it. 

Melinda Briana Epler: Absolutely. Absolutely. I've learned so much along the way by receiving feedback. And I would say there are different ways to give feedback that are more effective than others too. The ways that have not been helpful for me to receive feedback are when people are like outing me for something that I did wrong on social media, especially as somebody that is dedicating my life to creating change, that doesn't help. It doesn't feel good and it doesn't help. And often they end up being wrong. They just don't know what's actually happening behind the scenes. What really is helpful is somebody DM-ing me. For Tech Inclusion, we had developed an inclusion and sensitivity guide for speakers. And, we said in that, don't use the word handicapped, don't use the word differently abled, use people with disabilities. And then somebody reached out and said, some people like to be called disabled and you should own that and use that as well. Some people want to be called autistic if they're autistic. And so we modified our documents. And so it really takes being open to that feedback, receptive to that feedback and then implementing it, right? That's the key. 

Tiffany Yu: I want to rewind like three years ago because that's when Diversability hosted one of our signature Unplugged events on allyship. And at the time I believe you were in the prep stages of your TED talk, which is called three ways to becoming an ally in the workplace. 

Melinda Briana Epler: Three ways to become an ally in the workplace. Yeah. Yeah. Actually that was, You okay if I jump in? 

Tiffany Yu: Yeah, go ahead. 

Melinda Briana Epler: That was like an amazing act of allyship and really meaningful for me, because you reached out to me and you said, Hey. Can I help by creating an event around allyship where you practice your TED talk? And I was like, oh my gosh, I don't want to do it. I'm scared. I'm not ready. And then I was like, yes, that's a really good idea. That was huge. That was really helpful for me. It was terrible when I did it, but it was really helpful for me to kind of do it and then learn from it and make it better. And that whole process was actually really painful and hard to create a TED talk. It's almost as painful as a book, not quite as painful because it's a shorter amount of time. But it is a lot of work. And also I will say that, all of the imposter syndrome, all of that fear of speaking that I had gotten over at that point, it all came flooding back and I think it was that because it's such a platform, I was thinking maybe a million people would be seeing it. There was a lot of pressure. I put a lot of pressure on myself and so I was incredibly nervous. I used to have a deep fear of speaking and it came back. And I had to work through that in order to do the TED talk. But I did it and it reached a million views in 24 days. So from there, once that kind of gets out there into the world, slowly things start to happen. People start to reach out and a literary agent reached out to me, a couple of months after the TED talk aired and said, Hey, are you thinking about writing a book because I want to represent you. And I was like, well, I have been thinking about it for a long time and that's interesting. And what would it take? And so he said, well, you have to create a proposal. So it took me another year to do the proposal. But then I submitted it and within the next week or so he had multiple offers and I had a choice. It was amazing. 

Tiffany Yu: So How to Be an Ally, published by McGraw-Hill. Who is this book for? Who should buy it? What are we going to learn? 

Melinda Briana Epler: Well, honestly, it's for all of us. I wrote the book that I needed a few years ago and it turned out that I still learned a lot when I was writing the book as well. I don't think anybody is a perfect ally for people of all identities. I've really thought about writing this for everyone to really learn more about each other, build empathy for each other. And understand the specific actions that you can take and in there's stuff in there for people who are managers and leaders as well. But anybody can also lead the change. You don't have to be a leader. And I broke it down into like, what are allyship actions? There's seven basic things in the book. And I talked about a few of them. The first is to learn and unlearn and relearn and then to make sure you're doing no harm through biases and then also recognizing and overcoming microaggressions, and then advocating for people. So many different ways you and I do that for each other quite a bit. Here we are, you're advocating for me right now. And then standing up for what's right. And really intervening when you see harm is being done and then leading the change, and everybody can lead, the change in their own own way. And the last number seven is to transform our organizations, transform our industries, transform our society because it is so much needed. 

Tiffany Yu: I love that the book, goes from the deeply personal to the organizational, the people who potentially have more power and influence within their organizations and how to bring that in. I can't imagine a better time for this book to come out.

Melinda Briana Epler: Here's a website, melindabrianaepler.Com, and where you can learn more about it too, and purchase it from wherever you want to purchase it, whether that's Amazon or independent bookstore. There's personal stories in it. Tiffany's quoted in it. Because I've learned from her and there are lots of quotes in the book from different advocates and activists that have been working and doing this work for a long time. Also in it is some of the data that we studied at Change Catalyst around allyship, so we're actually releasing our allyship report, the State of Allyship Report. It will be online soon that where we've been working on allyship since 2015. And so it's kind of a compilation of what we learned. And also we did a comprehensive survey on what people want from allies versus what they actually received from allies. And there's an incongruence there. And then, the business case for allyship as well, how allyship really impacts business outcomes as well. So it makes the case for, ah, you need to do this work internally and really provide people with training as a barn above how people wanted to learn about allyship and also, the most impactful thing that you can do to really help people learn about allyship is training.

Tiffany Yu: We can be allies within our own communities as well. And one of the things that I have become really curious about is infighting that happens within communities and how we can mitigate that or more what potentially is at the root of that. And I don't know if studied that a little bit, or had conversations around that in some of the conversations you had for this book.

Melinda Briana Epler: It's really interesting because it happens in protests too. There are people that are protesting other things at that protest and I think there's are different activists communities. There are different priorities. And so that is part of what's happening is that people have different priorities and I also think that sometimes we forget to have empathy for each other, even in those activist communities where can we work together to achieve this for people in this community and then and also work together to achieve this so that we're really working together and using our collective voices and power together to achieve more ultimately rather than working against each other. Also one of the things I have realized is that there's such a need in activist communities to recognize that intersectionality, and sometimes I think that is, there was a rub there where maybe the majority is not inclusive of, and not having empathy for people at different intersectionalities. I mean, certainly that's the case for women and white women championing feminism and forgetting or leaving out or actively excluding, women with multiple different intersections, whether that's race, ethnicity, or that's disability, or that's a religion or LGBTQIA, age as well. So and so on. And this is where we often forget to be inclusive in those community. 

Tiffany Yu: So the question that we do end on is what are you grateful for today? 

Melinda Briana Epler: Hm. Well, I'm grateful for you and this conversation and all that you do. Because I think that I have learned a lot from you and appreciate, very much your energy, whether that's awkward or not as you said on social media earlier. I actually think that a lot of us are awkward inside and that sometimes has to do with marginalization and oppression and working through that. And maybe it doesn't, maybe we're just awkward too. So I'm also grateful for my life, given that we're in a pandemic right now, my health, given that we're in a pandemic. I did have COVID early on. It was scary, but it was not nearly as bad as it was for a lot of people. And so I'm really grateful for that. 

Tiffany Yu: Wow. Thank you. And with that, that is the end of this episode. Thank you, Melinda, for coming on the show. 

Melinda Briana Epler: I appreciate you. I would ask everyone to think about what is one thing that you will do to take action for somebody else today or over the next couple of days. What is the one thing? 

Tiffany Yu: I love that question. Thanks, Melinda.

Tiffany Yu
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