Join Empovia (formerly Change Catalyst) Founder & CEO Melinda Briana Epler with Daralyse Lyons on understanding what it means to be an upstander: an individual who sees wrong and takes action – an important part of allyship. 

We talked about Daralyse Lyons’s upbringing as a biracial child, and what led her to become an advocate and an upstander. In this fascinating conversation, 

We learned about:

• Colorism and the dangerous path of bias based on skin color.
• The difference between an upstander and bystander.
• The important asset of intersectional diversity in the workplace and product development process.
• Leading by example and the inclusive leadership path you can choose to lead in the workplace.

Some of our favorite quotes:

“Once people start to connect with other people in a way that is emotional and real and maybe visceral, it becomes impossible to disengage at that point”

“I don't pretend to know what's best for any person. But I do think that when we start allowing ourselves to be defined by society and by other people's expectations of us, that's a huge problem”

“One thing that people can do if they really want to be allies, is not to superimpose our own definitions on to other people, but to ask them.”

“I think that this idea that we have to kind of rank people, and rank ourselves, is so problematic”

“The bystanders are actually the ones who tend to make up the majority of the social collective, and who tend to be the ones who have the ability to – if they will step into that upstander role – ensure these atrocities don't happen, or at least we could stop them a lot sooner”

Additional resources: 

• Learn more about Daralyse on her website: https://www.daralyselyons.com/
• Demystifying Diversity Podcast https://www.daralyselyons.com/demystifying-diversity
• The Upstander Project at https://upstanderproject.org/
• “Let’s Define Upstander” at Not in Our Town: https://www.niot.org/blog/lets-define-upstander
• “Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Bystanders” at Holocaust.com.au: https://www.holocaust.com.au/the-facts/perpetrators-collaborators-and-bystanders/
• “Dying of whiteness” by Jonathan M. Metzl, How the politics of racial resentment is killing America’s heartland: https://www.dyingofwhiteness.com/

[image description: image of Daralyse Lyons  (Mixed woman with brown curly long hair, smiling) and Melinda Briana Epler (white woman with red hair and glasses, smiling), with the text "Episode 26: Exploring what it means to be an upstander" image shows black background with red and white text]

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For more about Empovia, and to join us for a live recording, visit https://changecatalyst.co/allyshipseries

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