Dr. Ross and Dr. Fuller dive deep into the importance of authentic allyship, exploring why the time has come for white people to take ownership of systemic racism. Dr. Fuller defines what an authentic ally truly looks like—someone who sponsors and mentors BIPOC individuals, speaks on their behalf, and actively works to create inclusive spaces.
The conversation also touches on the economic benefits of a diverse and equitable workplace, the historical role of allies, and how to foster a culture where BIPOC employees can express their experiences without being labeled as “complainers.” Dr. Fuller shares her sources of hope for the future, including her ancestors and the next generation.
Key Takeaways & Discussion Points:
- What is an Authentic Ally? Dr. Fuller redefines allyship as active sponsorship and mentorship, not just passive support. She and Dr. Ross discuss the importance of speaking up for BIPOC colleagues, especially when they are not in the room.
- The “White Problem” of Racism: The episode explores Dr. Fuller’s powerful belief that systemic racism is a problem that requires more white people to take ownership and action.
- The Business Case for DEI: The discussion highlights research showing that inclusive workplaces are more creative, make better decisions, and are more profitable.
Dr Carolyn’s Links
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-coker-ross-md-mph-ceds-c-7b81176/
TEDxPleasantGrove talk: https://youtu.be/ljdFLCc3RtM
To buy “Antiblackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies” – bit.ly/3ZuSp1T
Dr. Fuller is a clinical therapist at Radical Healing Collaborative in Durham NC. She retired from Duke University after 29 years of service at student counseling center(CAPS). She is an integrative health coach and certified eating disorders consultant.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Hi, this is Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross, bringing you the Inclusive Minds Podcast. This podcast was inspired by the book of which I’m a co-editor entitled Anti-Blackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies. Lived experiences in the fight against institutionalized racism. If you’re a psychologist, a social worker, an addiction professional, or a healthcare provider, or anyone who wants to broaden your horizons, then this podcast is for you.
The goal of the podcast is to help you understand some of the more complex issues facing our culture today. My guest. Are experts in their fields, and we’ll be talking about a wide array of topics including cross-cultural issues, the intersection of race and trauma, social justice and health inequities.
They will be sharing both their lived experiences and their expert opinions. The goal is to give you a felt. Experience and to let you know that you are not alone in being confused by these complex issues. We want to provide nuanced information with context that will enable you to make your own decisions about these important topics.
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Inclusive Minds Podcast today my guest is a friend and colleague. Uh, Dr. Mazella Fuller is a clinical therapist at Radical Healing Collaborative in Durham, North Carolina. She retired from Duke University after 29 years. Service at the Student Counseling Center. She is an integrative health coach and certified Eating Disorder consultant, and she’s one of the editors of our book, Anti-Blackness and the Stories of Authentic Allies.
So today we’re gonna be talking about her particular chapter, which is on authentic Allies. So welcome to the show, Mazella.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Thank you so much, Dr. Ross.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Don’t be calling me Dr. Ross on this show. Okay, Carolyn, we go way back, way back, way back, way back actually. Mazella’s bio, her tiny, tiny bio does not really give any evidence of the great deal of work that she’s accomplished in her life.
And it was her idea that we write the book and. You know, put together this, an anthology. So, and she and I and the two other editors are co-founders of the Institute for Anti-Racism and Equity. So let me just ask you, why did you want to do this book and edit this book? What, what was in it? For you in your mind?
Dr. Mazella Fuller: I, I think two things really. It was to blend the lived experiences and stories of, uh, BIPOC or, you know, and just the, the lived experiences for one, that the contributors could bring their real stories. And also when I say blend, I also mean also in a scholarly manner and, and you really can’t get into scholarly.
I think it could be just my bias in Oxford Press. So, yeah, that’s for sure.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah, and I was surprised that they were even interested in the book. Why do you think that they had an interest in it?
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Well, you know, when I spoke to some of the, uh, editors for us right from Oxford Press, it was time, it was time to do, uh, to look at the demographics of really at this point, you know, uh, black stories or black uh, scholars.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah, and we started working on the book right after the George Floyd murder.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: We did indeed, we started working on the book and we actually had it sort of 90 to 95% finished by 2022 and sort of a year ahead of when it, ’cause it was scheduled for, from Oxford Press. They wanted it 2023. But we were so, uh, passionate about this book and, and devoted, uh, to getting these stories out that we were really, you know.
Working ahead of time.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Right. As you know, I’ve been interviewing a lot of the other authors who contributed to the book, and all of them are very passionate about their work, and it’s just really been a pleasure to get to know them all. So I, I, I read your chapter and in your chapter at some point you say, as Bipoc transition into the professions more white.
People must help them smoothly navigate spaces that historically have rejected them. In other words, the time has come for more white people to admit that racism is a white problem and that another kind of allyship is needed to combat systemic racism. What do you think it will take for white people to admit this, and why do you say this?
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Well, I, you know, I think historically we have not, we as Bipoc or if, if we wanna just start with indigenous Native Americans, right? Or enslaved people, black, enslaved black people. We have not had the power, we don’t have the generational wealth. We don’t have the generational knowledge. We, we doesn’t, we have history.
We have the, we have the lived experiences in history and we’re documenting that as you see across, uh, let’s just say globally, but definitely across the United States in museums and, and anywhere we can do, uh, you know, be able to share our experiences. So I think it’s all of us need to come to the table and, and what I like about.
Allyship. ’cause I’m also an ally to whites too, right? I go to my friends and say, I like in this book, I invited a lot, uh, several of my white allies to contribute a chapter and they did, which is I was so pleased about. Yeah. So I think I remember one of my allies, I sponsored that individual to do a one year residency at Duke University.
That’s the examples I’m saying, you know, we have to take ownership for, uh, and, and in the book speaks to it. So I think. Eloquently in my chapter as Becky Thompson and Josh Miller, uh, talks about what, what whites have to do. IE if you don’t, if it’s too, if, if the fragility is there, then let’s do it another way.
Right? Let’s just sponsor someone. Let’s just mentor. Let, let’s just move over and make sure when you’re in the boardroom c-suites or wherever you are, our white allies say, you know what, it, this doesn’t look right in here. We don’t have diversity of voices. We don’t, you know, we are, we are probably missing some things.
So if you don’t wanna hire people of color or bipoc people permanently, make sure you have them in some capacity in a leadership role such as your board, such as your advisory board. Consultants, you know, ’cause I’m, I’m also, you know, econ, uh, uh, economist, if you say my first degree was economics. And I understand money, I understand benefits and packages and all that, but there’s some really wonderful outside of the box thinking that could be inclusive such as your, you know, look at your podcast inclusive minds, and that’s going to be the future.
And it’s really not the future. It’s here now.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Exactly. Mm-hmm. So, uh, how do you define an authentic ally? The way I’ve defined it is someone who’s willing to, to speak on your behalf when you’re not there. Okay. Someone who is willing to, instead of speak behind your back when you’re not there.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: That’s correct. Someone who’s willing to speak, to promote you, to talk about what you bring to the organization. That’s an authentic ally. And so in the book, I had to make sure that I had authentic allies to help me with my chapter. And so I consider Dr. Thompson and Dr. Miller. They, I’ve known them for 30 some years.
Actually, Dr. Miller at Smith College, when I was a grad student there in the MSW program in North h Hampton, Massachusetts was the first time I started. I took his class on anti-racism, and that was in the early nineties. Wow. So I consider people that understand right into research going out. Uh, Dr. Miller went and participated in Katrina, and he’s a social worker by, uh, his profession.
And so authentic people, they sponsor you. Dr. Miller wrote my reference letter for Duke University. These are the people know your skills, what you bring, and they allow you to be who you are. Also, you know, I think about, uh, Dr. Ireland who is a Clinical psychologist wrote a chapter in our book who also got her psychology degree from the University of Hawaii, who, you know, went to Duke undergrad, who’s really now, you know, just the, those type of people who know, understand and have made it their life journey to immerse themselves to understand.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: I think we hear so much about people nowadays who are anti DEI, who are wanting to, instead of mentor black, indigenous people of color to kind of get rid of them. And does it take a movement to increase the number of authentic allies, or do you think that they have such a wide scope of benefit that it doesn’t take that many to make a difference?
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Well, I think historically, if we could look back in time, just say, you know, we’ve always had allies, you know, the civil rights, you know, when, when, when we’re in s swer and them we’re drowned and we have always had white allies, they’re willing to Martin Luther King. You can think stories in your community where whites, the abolitionists, so we’ve always had allies, so it’s, we don’t need to educate people what they, it’s out there, we know, and now you have AI.
You just say, what is the AI? It’ll, it’ll tell you what it is.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: It won’t give you the names of the people though.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: No, it won’t give you the names ’cause they, they don’t do that. But it’ll tell you what is. So it’s just someone who is, they got you. They got you. They understand what you need. Promotability uh, economic wealth.
We live in a capitalistic society.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: So, and, and we have to be able to compete in this society Economically
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Absolutely. , not just, yeah. Just mm-hmm. Not just, you know, community wide. Are we gonna be nice to each other? That’s fine. And we wanna do that ’cause we’re decent human beings. But there are other things that people, people, you know, bipoc or people of color, and specifically my research areas, African Americans or black, we want the same thing to, we, we, we want just, you know, Maslow Hierarchy of needs.
You know, needs, hardship, needs. Right. We just want, you know, you know, housing, food, and a, and a, and a and a means to take care of our families.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah, exactly. So another quote from your chapter, which was a great chapter as all of them, mark. Mm-hmm. They are, when black, you say, when black people express their discriminatory treatment to their white coworkers, many of their white coworkers refer to them as complainers.
And you cited some research about the impact of that. How does this fact make allies more important, and how can someone be able to express their needs? Someone from the Bipoc community, say in a workplace, express their need for support or mentorship without being considered complainers.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Well, I think, you know, it’s, it’s two, two.
I think I look at it two ways. One is if you are in a sponsorship or a mentorship role or a leadership role, right? Yeah. And you have someone because you, you know, your, your white bosses or leadership, or they have, they’ve designated someone that you can talk to or, you know, maybe a person within the HR department or somewhere where, where you can validate and affirm and normalize.
The person’s experience and not to pathologize the person’s experience, right? Because one is normalizing and another is pathologizing. And when you look at it, when you look at the research in terms of whether it’s that superwoman syndrome or allostatic load, when people are not validated and affirmed.
Uh, in any way they begin, then it could be, you know, a sickness, right? Uh, uh, whether that’s a mental illness, whether that’s a physical illness because of the stress and strain of not being validated, but also the expectation to be productive. You know, so if you, you at, you know, whether, whatever organization you have a there are expectations for you to meet your role, whatever that role is, and you aren’t getting anyone to support or validate what your experience and you are also witnessing.
We don’t work in a vacuum. So you are witnessing people maybe with. Challenges or, or just, I just don’t want to deal with my dog today, or I just don’t wanna, so all my dog is sick, so I’m gonna go home for the rest of the day, or I won’t be in for the rest of the week. You know, you, you, you, so you see those things happen and you wonder, well, is this what is what’s going on?
And, and that can be, uh, you know, I mean, it’s, it it really doesn’t bode well for individuals to feel that they’re part of the work organizational culture.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah, and even economically, the studies have consistently shown that inclusive workplace is make more money. They make better decisions, they’re more creative, and so on.
Okay, so what do you want people to take away from your chapter?
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Well, I really just want people, and also to understand the importance of. Community for blacks because I grew up at, in a time, I don’t want to date and age myself, but in a time when we were all kind of living together and how important our first mentors, sponsors were, maybe our church or teachers in our schools.
’cause our, in early years, it was pretty much all black schools before integration. So just kind of looking at how we. You know, would thrive in the communities. There were, you know, whether it was the milkman or the principal, but everyone was kind of in that same community.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah. And I grew up in the same, you know, time period, although, I know, I know you’re much younger than I am, say, but you know, it was kind of like you walked down the street, you couldn’t do anything bad ’cause the neighbor would knew your parents and your grandparents likely, and they would let them know what, what, what you were up to. And then. Your teachers also knew your parents and grandparents and there was a, so that was one of the advantages of, of people having that solid community that we, in some places we’ve lost, you know, because Absolutely.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Yeah. Move, migration, you know, moving And also, yeah, or gentrification. There’s a Asian or something.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah, that’s happened, you know, a lot. So that can be a problem. So other than the sense of community, is there anything else you would like people to take away from your chapter?
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Well, I think that’s the, the, you know, just the importance of how important it is and, and especially for our allies and, and authentic allies or folks who are saying there are allies or want to be our allies, right, is really to.
Center otherness, right? Whether that’s bipoc, right? In conversations in, uh, making sure that you’re fair to all, you know, in terms of recruitment, hiring. Um, so I think those kind of things just kind of what does it take, you know, and it’s small steps. They don’t have to be huge steps. They can just be Yeah.
Come and visit, I mean, come into the communities, come into the spaces, uh, where, uh. Bipoc or, or blacks are, you know, just come into those spaces. I mean, there’s churches, there’s uh, sororities, there are fraternities, there are Masonic temples, there are, you know, all sorts of, uh, places that we do, some type of community engagement and outreach.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah, I know in LA they have a, a big, um, a market like fair, uh, once a month that, you know, attracts black vendors from all over, and I think that’s another opportunity. Oh yes, absolutely. So really just being, getting yourself exposed so that absolutely. More comfortable and more able to understand what your role could possibly be.
And that finally, um, is intentionality and equity important.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Very, very much. And it’s, and it’s a, it’s gonna save all of us, right? It’s just not for, you know, bipoc black and black bipoc people, or, uh, indigenous people or other of color, people of color. It is, you have to be intentional and intentional. It, it, it, it’s a win-win for everybody because you aren’t just going to, it, it, you know, select people who, who, well, it doesn’t work when you select people who, who are just, you know, gonna be.
Not thinking strategically. Right. Uh, ’cause there’s a, you know, when you think about intentionality and equity, kind of, what does that mean and how are people defining that? Because it’s, it’s not you, you know, it’s not, it should not be that you’re gonna have someone that’s gonna be, um, blind, obedient, or participatory obedience.
To a cause when they know it’s not right. So how to align yourself with people that you will take that are willing to take risks, but are willing to also work with you. Right? Intentionality of that and folks. And then, you know, you’re just gonna vet people, right? You gonna, you, you know, you’re looking at vetting people who’ve had lived experiences, uh, as well as, um, you know, research in whatever.
That way, whether that’s quantitative or qualitative. Yeah.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: So what gives you hope in these troubling times?
Dr. Mazella Fuller: You know, my ancestors really, to be honest, because if they gave up, I, you and I wouldn’t be able to do this podcast. We wouldn’t be here. We would not be here.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah. Or we would be here in a different format.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: That’s correct. In a different way. So they did it. I know what all the resources I have, I can survive. So I, I say my ancestors and I also say, uh, I have a, uh, my youngest. Um, grandniece, uh, just turned two. Then there’s one that’s just turned three who live out in Saratoga, California, where you’ve kind of near out, or it’s really nor northern, but still.
Uh, yeah. And, and then the other one is five. So there’s like, there’s like a 2-year-old. Two, three year olds and a 5-year-old. I have hope for them.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: And, and we, we need to do work for them. That’s correct. You know, I, if I would have nightmares just thinking that my kids are inheriting a world that’s worse than the world that I, or the country that I lived in.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Absolutely. So I don’t wanna leave it to my children and, and grandchildren. Worse off than what it was. And then that’s right. So we have to continue to, to, you know, run this marathon and this race and it is a race. It’s not, you know, it’s not, we are never gonna get to a destiny. You just keep on keeping on and, and listening to, you know, passing.
Because there are all, you know, as you well know, Carolyn, we have generational knowledge too, right? That we wanna pass down wisdom.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yes. The wisdom.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: Yes, indeed.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Yeah. Okay. Well thank you Dr. Fuller for being on the podcast. Always great to speak to you.
Dr. Mazella Fuller: You too. And thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this.Look forward to our continued journey together, Dr. Ross and I work together.
Dr. Carolyn Coker Ross: Thanks for listening. Please subscribe to The Inclusive Minds Podcast so we can let you know when the next great guest comes on. The link to subscribe is in the caption below.
