Do you have to say your name 2-3 times each time you introduce yourself in a new setting? Do you code switch at work because you know you can’t be your authentic self in certain environments? If you’re a person of color, queer, non binary, a womxn--how should you respond when you’ve been made to feel like you don’t belong?
This workshop will be led by Karen Fleshman, a social justice lawyer and activist, founder of Racy Conversations, and author of the upcoming book White Women, We Need to Talk: Doing Our Part to End Racism. Karen will lead us in a workshop to learn how to thoughtfully confront microaggressions in spaces that weren’t made for us, and how to cultivate a culture where you feel like you belong.
Karen Fleshman, Esq. is an attorney, activist, single soccer mom, and a nationally recognized expert on racism, feminism, workplace fair practices, police brutality, and politics.
Working at Year Up, a nonprofit that prepares young adults without a college degree for corporate careers in tech, Karen came to understand the harm caused by tokenized hiring and the racism and sexism pervasive in the workplace.
In 2014, Karen founded Racy Conversations, a workshop facilitation company, to help people feel more willing and able to communicate honestly with each other about racism, and to do so with increased empathy and understanding.
Racy Conversations' mission is to inspire the first antiracist generation. In workplaces, Racy Conversations change culture by creating a brave space to address unconscious bias, microaggressions, sexual harassment, and allyship. Organizations including the Sierra Club, the Wikimedia Foundation, Yahoo, Sony, Xero, Upwork, KARGO, Pixar, and the Fred Hutch Cancer Center have hired Karen to assess their culture and facilitate Racy Conversations.
Karen's passion project is to build interracial sisterhood and raise antiracist children. She is the author of "White Women, We Need to Talk: Doing Our Part to End Racism." to be published by Sounds True in 2020 and is a Medium Top Voice on Racism, Feminism, and Politics. Karen cohosts Inclusive Conversations in cities across the United States, events designed to unite women across age, race, sexual orientation, and class. She frequently facilitates workshops on “How to Teach Your Kids About Race.”
Karen was arrested five times at the US Senate protesting the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and once protesting family separation. She is a police accountability activist and volunteers on the workgroup overseeing implementation of the United States Department of Justice recommendations on ending bias in the San Francisco Police Department.
Karen is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College, the University of Texas at Austin, and New York Law School, Evening Division cum laude, and is admitted to practice law in New York. She resides in San Francisco.
Prior to starting her consulting practice in the Bay Area, Karen was a founding team member of Year Up New York, where between 2007 and 2012 she led a fundraising team that fueled its growth from serving 27 students a year to 270 students a year. Previously, she served in the Bloomberg administration in the City of New York Department of Youth and Community Development in a variety of capacities, including Assistant General Counsel and Director of Internal Review.
She is a cofounder of Citizenship NYC, a city service that assisted 50,000 New Yorkers to apply for naturalization, and of Ladders for Leaders, a city service that connects low-income high school students to corporate internships and college. Karen began her professional career as an immigrant community organizer in Austin, Texas.
