Bridging Identities and Building Belonging: A Conversation with Hallie Pritchett

In this episode of Our True Colors, Dr. Shawna Gann is joined by Hallie Pritchett — a public health leader, facilitator, and equity strategist — for a deeply personal and wide-ranging conversation about identity, belonging, and the challenges of showing up fully at work. Hallie reflects on growing up mixed-race in the Pacific Northwest, parenting a child who's already navigating complex identity questions, and how her lived experience has shaped her approach to leadership and equity in health systems.

Together, Shawna and Hallie explore:

• The social landscape of race in the Pacific Northwest
• Raising children who present racially differently from their parents
• Bridging across difference in mission-driven workspaces
• How assumptions about identity can lead to workplace missteps
• What it takes to create truly inclusive and psychologically safe environments
• The emotional complexity of DEI fatigue and boundary-setting
• Adult learning theory, code-switching, and why language still matters

Resources & Mentions:

• Jodi-Ann Burey & Ruchika Tulshyan’s article: Stop Telling Black Women They Have Imposter Syndrome (HBR)
• The 5 S's of Engagement: Navigating Your Path Through Allyship

Follow Hallie on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hallie-pritchett/

More from Shawna:

• Visit: https://www.truecultureconsulting.com
• Follow Our True Colors on Instagram
• Subscribe to The Culture Clinic via True Culture Coaching & Consulting on LinkedIn

If this is your first time with OTC, check out  EPISODE 1: START HERE for more background on the show. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram!

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Transcript

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Announcer  00:06

Welcome to our true colors, hosted by Shawna Gan. Join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic enigma and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in.

Shawna  00:21

Hey, y'all welcome back to our true colors. I'm Dr. Shawna Gann. Today, I will be joined by someone who brings both heart and strategy to the conversation on equity, identity and belonging. Hallie Pritchett is a connector, a Bridger and a powerhouse in the world of health equity, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest or PW, Hallie draws from a life shaped by multiplicity racially, culturally and professionally. With more than 15 years of experience across global and local public health, she currently serves as chief equity officer for North sound accountable community of health. She teaches at University of Washington and facilitates conversations around leadership and justice through the Global Leadership Forum. What I love about Hallie is how she weaves together her lived experience, her role as a mom and her public health expertise into everything she does, always leading with curiosity care and an eye towards systems change. We cover so much in this episode, from growing up racially ambiguous in a very defined black and white context, to raising a daughter who's navigating identity in real time, to how our workplaces are getting diversity half right, and what it will take to go further. So without further ado, let's get on into it. Enjoy the show. 

Shawna  01:49

Hallie, I am so glad to have you on the show. I know that we've gotten to talk before. Listeners are getting to hear from you for the first time, at least on this show, but I've been really waiting to have this conversation with you, because we kind of run in a circle where the people who get it get it. They understand what it is to be racially, culturally, ethnically ambiguous and not always fit in some prescribed space. As we dive into this conversation, I'd just love for you to tell us about your journey a little bit. 

Hallie  02:19

I'm Hallie Pritchett. I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest of a black mom, white dad, but from Chicago, so they moved out here. I kind of gotten the sense, like the unnamed sense, that there were, like racial undertones to this mixed relationship, and that's part of the reason they came out here. But nothing's ever been said like out loud. But then out here, it's an interesting place to be black in general, or to be associated with, like black communities, at least in the kind of Greater Seattle area, there's a very strong sense of what it means to be black and what that was supposed to look like. So I grew up, you know, in school, I was a brown kid. I wasn't black enough to be black, and I wasn't white enough to be white, but I was, you know, I was a social butterfly in, like, all the little random groups. But that really kind of opened up my world to a whole bunch of different things, and it led me down a path into global health and public health, and now into kind of organizational development and health equity, and how to just kind of create spaces, since we're at work for huge chunks of our time, how do we create spaces where we're healthy and creating places of well being for everybody and belonging? And so that's sort of the very short version of my career pathway. There's a tie in there somewhere, if you get deep enough? 

Shawna  03:41

Well, with your permission, I would like to dig a little deeper, because, you know, I've had guests on the show where we've talked about parenting, or what it's like to be parents of mixed race kids, or like, when does the race question come up? So on one hand, there's the conversation about, when does race begin to be part of a conversation and a mixed race household and an interracial household, but then I'd love to hear from your perspective what kind of ideas you picked up or or didn't pick up, so to speak, 

Hallie  04:12

Sure, and you know, it's interesting. I think the only reason I even have an answer for this is because we in various workshops or things that I've either facilitated or been a part of we've asked the question for folks to do some self reflection, of like, when was the first time you realized you were racialized or that racial was a thing? And to be totally honest, my again, my parents didn't really speak about things until I was 18 or so, and we went from like the mother daughter to the mother friend situation. Mother Daughter friend situation and and she opened up a little bit more about kind of her experience as a midwestern black woman moving out to the Pacific Northwest and immediately not being welcomed into any of the blacks or roles like she wasn't black enough for the black identity in the Seattle area, which was just crazy to me to hear about. But growing up, my mom knew how to navigate every social system. We didn't have a lot of money. We lived in an area that didn't have great schools, so she found all of the academic programs and sent us to the schools halfway across the city that had certain programs, like, she got us tested and into some program and into whatever. So we knew that the good the good school, schools that had money, we're doing air quotes, y'all because, like, yeah, I get that. Because Right, right. And a lot of it was social, more than, like, really, whether because Seattle's got amazing schools, like, across the city to be to be fair, but Right, that was considered, what was considered the better schools, the schools that got that the higher academic programs, or whatever, you know, the special benefit was, were in the more affluent white areas. Ballard is heavy Norwegian history. That's where I went to school. So I went all the way across the city to elementary school. I went all the way across the city for to a different middle school, and my mom knew how to navigate that. So I was, you know, one of a handful of kids of color at this middle school. I think, in elementary school, my sister and I were were twins, and we were the the only kids of color in our class. 

Shawna  06:19

Oh, wow. 

Hallie  06:19

And then in middle school, we were a handful of kids of color. I honestly cannot remember another black student in our entire grade, but I hung out with the Latino kids. I hung out with the East Indian kids. I hung out with the Vietnamese kids. I hung out with all the brown kids, and I did a social experiment where I asked all my friends at school, hey, what am I? Like, what? What do you see me? As they said, Oh, you're black. Like, of course, like, I don't know where that's coming from. Yeah. And then so speaking of my mom navigating things. So we also were on scholarship at a Pacific Northwest Ballet, which is a, you know, the premier ballet company in Seattle, one of the few black kids, kids of color again, but entirely on scholarship. And I asked my friends at ballet, what are we? And they said, Oh, you're white. And I said, Oh, that's really fascinating my first and then I don't think we really had the conversation within my family until I was older, but my daughter, however, is and I'm about to do quotes again, but she's, you know, three quarters black, and putting that in quotes, because genetically, it's not that simple, right? But she's already having the conversations, right? And she's nine, and she's having all of the identity pieces and trying to figure out, like, wait, but Mom, I clearly present white, but known as Black, and you're black. And so what does that mean for me? And am I allowed to be here? Can I join this cheerleading group that's all black girls, versus that cheerleading group? Would I be welcomed over here like so she's already learning to navigate that and have the conversation. So it's it's also, it's regional, it's familial, but it's also generational. 

Shawna  08:04

Yeah. So what's interesting about my experience in the Pacific Northwest Anchorage is a decent sized city too, about 400,000 people, and it is incredibly racially diverse and ethnically and culturally diverse. My classes were filled with people of color, and it's very prolific culturally as well. And so I think when I tell people about my growing up experience, I didn't ever think about race, because everybody looked like all kinds of things. Yeah, some of the racialized stories that I had from when I was very, very little, like kindergarten age, I can remember them, but I didn't know what was going on until much later in life, when my mother would explain to me what was going on, right? My experience changed when we moved to Pittsburgh for a six year like, just a little six year window, that is where I learned how different I was and where I did not belong. And wow, like it was a wake up call. It was such a shock. Now we were only there for a short time of back to Anchorage when I think I was like a sophomore, like, middle school years are already painful. Y'all right, Pittsburgh, man, that's where I learned I was like, oh, but then, you know how you said, even with your your mother, like, had trouble, like not being black enough to be in a community like, I didn't really fit in with the black community as a kid, like, as a middle schooler, those girls are like, that was the first time in my life I'd ever heard of a thing called talking white, or that I thought I was cute, or I thought I was this, or that I'm like, I just wanted friends. I mean, I guess I grew up realizing we all look different. It was the other part that came in school for me so and then we went back to Anchorage. I was like, thank the Lord Jesus. I'm back home. And, I mean, I went to an alternative high school where everybody's different. Anyway.

Shawna  10:00

And there's a thing like in Anchorage, at least growing up in the 90s. Well, I mean, I was, I graduated in the 90s, but being a teen, we'll say that. Being a teen in the 90s, it was almost like, the more different you are, the cooler you are. You know what? I feel like. I was not a teen in the 90s, but I feel like, if I look back at, like, the TV shows that I watched things like I I feel like that's what I saw in the 2000s it was not that. It was like, how similar can you be to everyone around you? 

Hallie  10:32

So y'all can't see but I have braids in right now, but I only started braiding my hair as an adult, and I only do it like once a year, because it's so expensive, but, and it takes a long time.

Shawna  10:43

It takes a long time. 

Hallie  10:46

But, you know, I grew up not braiding my hair, straightening my hair, and I just had a, I just gave a workshop on anti racism. We talked about kind of this, like cultural racism, and this concept of trying to adhere to social dominant norms, and that are white centered professional standards, right? Yeah. And so, I mean, that's, that's how we grew up. So in going to the ballet school, we did the Nutcracker every year. And the hairstyle is for the, you know, the girls in the party scene are these little ringlets, you know. So I would have to go to school and sleep with these big hot rollers, because I'd have to straighten my hair and then put these big hot rollers to curl the way out the weight right way again, in quotations, right, right. The ballet company actually, just recently, maybe last year, even their cover, Clara, was a little black girl with her hair and braids and her little braids and some ringlets. And it was beautiful, and I was so but no, no, they still do the ringlets. They still do the ringlets to fit whatever the like esthetic of The Nutcracker is, but, but we were not only even allowed to have braids when I went there, you know, that was not an allowable hairstyle, you know. And I very specifically was told when I wanted to audition for Clara like, No, you will not be Clara because we do not have an adult dancer who looks like you. And they, at the time, they had a young Clara and an adult Clara. So I said, But you know, we only have, like, white blonde adult dancers, so no, you know. And yeah, they're changing, right, slowly but surely. But things are shifting, and it's beautiful to see, yeah, absolutely, as people realize that doesn't have to be a set standard, just because you've seen a story told in a certain way that it has to always be right, that doesn't always fit This narrative that you tell yourself, yeah, yeah, exactly you

Shawna  12:52

You've worked in different settings, from public health academia, you've mentioned that you do some speaking and workshops and things, what helps You stay grounded when you're doing all of this, as you consider who you are as a person, your identity, what plays a part in that? 

Hallie  13:07

Yeah, I entered into public health, and that journey into public health was very health equity centered. So then that just kind of became the central tenant. And everything that I did after that, and all of the different avenues and the speaking engagements that I do most often now are like anti racism workshops and leading for Health Equity workshops and, you know, things that are finding ways to bring in, like leadership, expertise and equity. And now my role as the chief equity officer at a local community based health organization is like organizational development with an equity lens, like that's pretty much what it is. So I a lot of what I do in terms of training and speaking, is all on that, on that edge. But I think as far as kind of that staying grounded and staying centered, a lot of that actually comes and this is my the reflection I've kind of come up with over the last couple years, from my mixed identity and growing up in this space of in previous conversations, we've called it like interstitial space, like this in between. But that bridging space it It made it so that as a child and growing up, I didn't know what I was learning, but what I learned was I can be your friend and your friend. I can learn about you and you, and I can build those bridges. And that has something that has allowed me to become a good supervisor, to like everyone, because I stop and get to learn about them and get to know about them, and I help them to be successful, it's allowed me to develop organizations in a way that is supporting all of our community and all of our staff across all these different needs. And then I think so it's a piece of that it's not knowing that I learned that as I learned it kind of growing up, it was just kind of that built in. I didn't have to go and learn it as an adult. 

Shawna  14:56

I think that's a very valuable point. 

Hallie  14:58

Yeah, yeah.

Shawna  15:00

Yeah, the point the idea that it didn't have to be an intentional thing, yeah, it just because of your lived experience. It just was part of who you are.

Hallie  15:08

And I will say Just on that point, that as I've worked with students and and staff, I've noticed that there are a handful people who kind of share that lived, learned experience. When I have students who are, you know, first generation, or have moved to the US, because, right, I'm based in the US, but and they have family members who speak other languages or are from other cultures, they're always doing that, like navigation piece, and they're all already like, it's the same thing. They've learned it throughout their lives, growing up different than I'd had to very different, but they've learned how to do that bridging. So once they get to that workplace, they're like, Ah, I want to, I want to bridge between the community and the Medical Center. I'm like, Ah, you get it already. I don't have to explain this to you, you know. And it's, it's pretty amazing to see in so many different identities and people. 

Shawna  15:59

Yeah, I actually really love that you brought this up, because right now, my research is specific to mixed race communities, and I won't go into all of it today, but there's these different ways I've identified, based on my survey participants and my interview participants, different ways that people identify as being mixed race. But my future research will be in a couple of other areas. One of them is third culture, global professionals. So, you know, some folks may have heard the term Third Culture kid, and they, I think, are also very equipped for the bridging concept. And another one that I think gets overlooked a lot is trailing spouses. So whether it is outside of the US or not, people who have found themselves in so many different communities or places, even within the US, they have to be agile and adapt, and so they also, I think, come equipped with this bridging. So I love that you brought it in. Like it doesn't have to be just because you're mixed race, multiracial, multi ethnic, et cetera, like, there are other communities that come sort of equipped with being able to do that bridging. So, very cool, yeah, no. 

Hallie  17:08

And I think you hit kind of the nail on the head. It doesn't have to be international. It might be different places in the US, but it's that ability to literally be able to recognize and bridge those cultures. I mean, I think travel is like, it should be an essential piece of anyone's growth and development, just because it forces you to learn how to be agile in those ways. I didn't travel with my family, but my family was always integrated into various cultures, just within the region, I said, because my mom never felt welcomed in the black community, she didn't go to a black church. We went to a Byzantine Catholic Church where we spoke Ukrainian and I did Ukrainian dance. And like, wow. So like, again, I'm not Ukrainian, but again, it's that learning and being a piece of and being welcomed in by different cultures and understanding how to how to do that, just again from a young age. Well, that's cool, yeah? Super random factor, yeah. I mean, it's a perfect illustration of what you're talking about, to be able to do that and and what it means for you. Then, as an adult, like, when you've had these experiences, and I wish everybody could travel too. Like, seriously, I know it's not accessible to everyone to travel outside of the US, but even, like, sometimes you just need to visit another county, right? You need to visit another state like the US is so big that just an hour away can give you a different experience. And the more that we can expose ourselves, yeah, to different experiences, the more we come closer to being able to do that Bridget, because you begin to understand, right? Like, Ah, I don't know 

Shawna  18:38

Anyway, I  think that's really cool. So kind of sticking with the whole workplace thing. You know, a lot of places have been successful in the last several years in diversifying your workplaces. Some are more naturally diverse than others, racially speaking, culturally speaking, etc. How have you seen that play out when it comes to identity and belonging for others, I know you've talked about yourself and your family's experiences, but as you work with folks in these communities at work, what kinds of things do you see as people are really working towards acceptance and feeling like they belong? 

Hallie  19:16

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I find that there's different phases, right? So there's the phases of folks who are who are still actively trying to diversify, and there's that the very intentional we're looking at our hiring practices, and we're looking at this, and we're looking right. And then there are the organizations, the companies or teams that have kind of naturally diversified. And often I find that in I should, I should, I was gonna say in academic spaces, but not like in the professorial space of the academic space. It's in, like the staffing space of the academic space, faculty and there's right, but there's a little bit of that. But in the the community based, kind of smaller social impact type organizations, a lot of that happens really naturally, where it's less of the Corporate we must diversify and create this mentorship program. It just happens because people are driven together by shared values of social justice values or what have you. Right? I want to help these communities very mission driven, very mission driven.

Hallie  20:14

What I have also seen, though, is where that goes a little bit topsy turvy, in that everyone makes the assumption because we're so diverse, or because I assume you share my cultural identity could be one or the other, I assume you think like me. And what happens is people, people make the mistake and they they make general statements about politics and culture and values, that they assume everyone else think the same way they do, and they find out the hard way, but they put their foot in it. You know, that that they made an assumption about someone's political identity or someone's religious identity, or someone's gender or sexual identity and and because we're in the culture that we are in the US, where everything is still very much kind of hinging on this call out culture. We've lost the ability for people to just in the moment, be able to say, Oh, hey, let's have a quick conversation. Let me let you know that that impacted me and like we're friends, I know you don't want to impact me, so let's talk about it. We've lost that so organizationally, they have this amazingly diverse team, and they're infighting because they they're they made assumptions about someone's identity based on how they either racialized them or culturalized them based on, you know, their lived experience, right? And it's intriguing. It's a new a new layer. 

Shawna  21:41

Yes, yes. Exactly when we talk about identity and belonging. I think it is just so imperative to recognize that we cannot just ignore politics. And it makes it even harder when, like you said, these assumptions are being made, but people believe like, Well, you look like me, you sound like me, you must believe like me. Or there's the other piece, where we might not look the same or whatever, but because we're both mission driven, we must have and share the same values, or we can overcome these political differences, because we have these other sort of things that we enjoy. So can't we just ignore all this other stuff? And I think it there is some of that that we have to remember, that people are people, but I think we are in a time where the politics and the policies impact us on a human at a human level that we have not early for to me, I believe that has played a huge role in the level or the degree to which a person feels like they belong at a place beyond just phenotype and accent and language so much more complex. 

Hallie  22:47

It is. It is, and I it's fascinating because I'm I think I everything I do in my life, I find comes to some sort of attention or a balance, right? Nothing's all one way or another. But there's a really great article by Jody mbury and Ruchika tolshin called Stop telling black women they have imposter syndrome. And Jody and bury his whole concept, right? Is this, this concept that it's not possible to bring your true, authentic self to the workplace. Stop telling me to bring my authentic self because you don't want it. And I, I find that perspective spot on and really valuable. And at the same time, I'm not going to give up, like, trying to figure out how to continue to help organizations learn how to create welcoming and inclusion centered spaces of belonging. And I think that's something that you know, we are really working on, trying to to get a really strong handle on, is this idea of, what does it actually mean to create belonging? What does that look like this idea of like being curious and getting to know people, but then we still have to have that talk about politics, so that we actually have the conversation, and it's no longer that like elephant in the room, because if that elephant is still sitting there, we can't move past I think we need to to learn how to reconnect and and actually be able to have those difficult conversations, and we need to create a space for it, right? Because that's, that's the other thing. Everyone's afraid to have the conversation right now, rightfully so in most cases, especially right now. Like, it's kind of tense out there, yeah, right? Like, I'm afraid to have many conversations. And I've, I've had a spend a lot of time thinking about this, right? Yeah, would I go to that protest, or could I do this? And why wouldn't I, if I choose not to? And you know, I chose not to go to a lot of the protests and things that were happening around the Seattle area in 2020 because for me, it was I need to be able to provide for my children, and if I happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time in this protest and get arrested, that's gonna negatively impact that option. So for me, that was the decision I had to make. And and then I, you know, then you start to, like, question, well, did I do the right thing? Am I? Am I not doing enough? Right? And you have all of these inner monologues, yeah.

Shawna  24:54

You know, that's interesting. So I wrote an article about being an ally, and that there's like, five levels that I came up with. Not everybody is an activist, and we shouldn't expect that we have to be. I would love to throw something at you. See what you think? Yeah, I'm curious. As we're trying to build bridges and help people and facilitate these conversations, there are some folks who are like, could you just actually not see who I am. Racially, it's not color blindness. Yeah, it's more like they just desire neutrality. They just wish you wouldn't even care. So how do we if we want to have these conversations, yet respect that there's folks who are like, can't we just talk about that presentation that I kicked as on last week? Like, does it matter that I look like this?

Hallie  25:44

Yeah, actually. So it's, it's funny that you bring that up. So one of the areas I recognized that I was struggling with, and then I slowly started to recognize it in my staff and in my students, in addition to how to have the conversation, right? That's a piece of it right, and how to have the conversation includes creating safety to have the conversation. There's pieces of it to have that, but there's also understanding what a boundary is and how to hold those boundaries. And that's something that we're working on teaching people too. For example, I had some some staff who were community health educators. They're going to have to work on a weekend because they're going to go to a health fair or something. They can't say, Well, my boundaries, I don't work on weekends, so you can't force me. That's not a boundary, no, right? But my boundary, for me as an educator who works in the space, right? It might be that there are moments in time where, because I have expanded my threshold to be able to have this, these difficult conversations, and that's like muscled right? I've built that over experience, over learning, right? Because I've built that threshold, I'm in a space where I can have that conversation more often than not, but I all my boundary is when I am feeling burnt out with my kids at home. Just do not have capacity for that. I do not have the mental capacity. Then I say, No, not today. I just don't want to have the racial conversation today. And that doesn't mean I'm any less committed to the work. It doesn't mean that it's not something that I could consider at a different time, but it just means right now in this moment. And I think for us to be able to, for all of us, to be able to acknowledge that and respect that, when someone says just right in this moment, just celebrate me. For me, you don't have to bring it to the racial space.

Hallie  27:41

I think that's really important. It's, it's something that we do a disservice to many people who might be willing to have that conversation once you've built safety and relationship and you've recognized them as as human beings, right? They might be willing to have that conversation at some point, but right in this moment, that's, that's not what they're ready for. And one thing I've noticed in any kind of dei space, especially in the corporate world, but it's kind of filtered into various dei spaces, is when folks push when they say, No, you have to have the conversation right now. It's important. It's impacting you, right? Yeah, you're at risk. Stop telling me how much my life is ruined because of this right now, celebrate that I had this amazing win, and let's, let's see it as that, and that's great, but we do a disservice. And then the other piece of having those difficult conversations is you're never you should never enter into a conversation expecting to change someone's mind or get them to think like you, right? This goes back to the assumptions and everything else. It should always be a conversation to learn about the other and to have the open conversation. What happens is, if I set things up, if I set up a conversation in a way that's not psychologically safe, someone can't absorb it, they're going to leave that saying, I never want to talk about this again. I don't want to ever associate this with me. I just want to talk about me. Someone recognize me, please. And they're never going to learn. But if I've built up a relationship and just seen them as a human, yeah, and we, we've developed that trust in that respect, we can have even the smallest one off conversation, and that will start to get sparks running. Yes, systemically, yeah, sure, there are things that might impact me, but it doesn't mean that that was entirely my lived experience. There might be things that it was impacted more here but not there. And I want everyone to see the full identity, full me, and so putting me into that is not enough. I like very much separating the systemic from the individual. Yeah, in all reality, that's what equity is in organizations. It's organizational development. You can design an organization to be a place of inclusion, to be a place of belonging, whether or not you call it that, 

Shawna  29:47

Oh, for sure, right. 

Hallie  29:49

But you can design it. You can develop that, and you can still see the individual and all of the successes those individuals have. And you can create accommodations and supports for individuals if and or they want. It, yeah, you know, or you see they need it, or whatever the case is, 

Shawna  30:03

Well, there's the key word right there, the need. It's needs based. So when I was studying to be a classroom teacher, I'll never forget I was in my classroom management course, and my instructor in that class, her premise was about fairness, and she was like, I'm a fair teacher. And what that means is everybody doesn't get the same thing, because fairness isn't about everybody gets the same fairness is about everybody gets what they need. And that was my introduction to the concept of equity versus equality, right? So fast forward to all the pictures of standing on crates and who's looking over the fence and what's equity versus equality and all of that stuff. And it was like, Yeah, I got that lesson in the 90s with the word fair. It's not about getting the same thing. It's about what is it that you need? That's the bottom line. Like it boils down to that one. I think that's the fascinating thing about all of the conversations right now about terminology, is we've gotten so deep into equity language, and it is. It's a whole language. It changes all the time. You have to relearn it. Like it's a complex language, and I get it, and I understand why some people are adamant that, like, I will not change. I can understand where they're coming from, and at the same time, like it's about fairness. The way you learn fairness, right? And it's that simple, and it can be that simple. And also I think, Okay, I'm gonna say a thing.

Shawna  31:32

Y'all us in this DEI space got to be a little pretentious. Okay? I think so many people have felt that level of frustration. They're like, My language is policed. If I say the wrong thing, I'm in trouble. If I don't say the wrong thing, I'm in trouble. I'm scared to talk. I can't but I'm expected to do this and ask about it and try to learn about it. I'm in trouble. Yes, then I'm in trouble. You know, people think they're better than me. The elites are doing this and that. And so I'm like, Yeah, I think there's a real danger. Well, now we see it playing out. But I think those years between 2020 and 2022 where organizations were like, we're intentional, we're going to do this thing, the language is what alienated a lot of people. If we could just speak to folks how they get it and not punish for learning. I think we would not see the pushback we see today. 

Hallie  32:28

Agreed, 

Shawna  35:15

Well, this has been so valuable. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing not only what you do, but like who you are as a person. For our listeners, if they would like to learn more about what you do, is there a place they can find you, or if you'd like folks to reach out? Yeah, folks want to reach out to chat LinkedIn is probably the best way to get a hold of me. All right. Well, thank you so much. This is so good. I enjoyed these conversations so much. No, this was fun. I appreciate it absolutely.

Shawna  35:55

What a powerful conversation. I hope you agree with me, and I'm so grateful to Hallie for joining me and sharing not just her professional lens on health equity and organizational development, but also her personal story, one that echoes so many themes that we explore here on our true colors, her insights on identity, belonging, boundaries and bridging are exactly the kind of dialog that we need more of in today's workplaces. If this episode resonated with you, let's stay connected. You can visit my website at trueculture consulting.com to explore how I help organizations build healthier, more inclusive workplace cultures through the lens of business psychology. And you can sign up for updates to learn about my upcoming book and other goings on in the true culture consulting space. You can read the culture clinic, my newsletter where I dig into Leadership, Culture and equity in real world terms. To subscribe to the newsletter, follow true culture coaching and consulting on LinkedIn. That's where each new issue gets published first. But you can find it on the website too, under resources. And don't forget, if you haven't already, you should also follow our true colors on Instagram for episode clips, quotes and more. I'll be doing more behind the scenes and hot takes, because, y'all, we got a lot going on, a lot a lot going on.

Shawna  37:12

Until next time, though, stay curious, stay connected and keep embracing your true colors. Spread the Love y'all. I'll talk to you soon.

Announcer  37:31

You've been listening to Our True Colors.