Psychology Today’s Editor at Large, Hara Estroff Marano, and I continue our conversations on challenging topics.

Today we continue with white men and preconceived notions of us.

We were talking about topics before hitting record, I started to describe the pattern that comes up a few minutes into this recording, she lit up in the way someone who has thought about something and has something to say about it does, so we picked stereotypes of white men.

Here’s the article.

Here’s the recording:

I think we both thought, “I hope we don’t get fired,” but also felt, “how can we learn if we don’t speak?”, so we bit the bullet and recorded. I haven’t heard a conversation like it before.

The number of threads we couldn’t follow greatly exceeded the ones we could, but if you like controversy or challenging topics, you’ll like this one.

On a personal note, you’ll hear my views and questions evolve over the conversation. The questions I asked her about trying to understand what it’s like to be blamed, I hadn’t explored before. Between recording with her and recording these words, I’ve continued exploring this thread. I’ve discovered a lot about myself and my experience. Others have shown surprise at something meaningful under their noses that they never noticed.

I credit Hara for her supportive, nonjudgment and patience.

Here’s the article.

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