"I am You, You are Me" with Dr. Natalie Hart

Dr. Shawna Gann and her co-host, Marcel De Jonghe, sit down with Dr. Natalie Hart — speaker, consultant, and educator — for a warm, funny, and honest talk about growing up between cultures. Identifying as Afro-Latina and Latin Caribbean, Natalie shares how she moved past the pressure to prove she's "enough" for every community and learned to carry her full identity with confidence.
In this episode:

Why mixed-race folks feel they have to "prove" their heritage
The "no sabo kids" label and reclaiming culture across generations
Racial ambiguity as a superpower — and calling out harm in "safe spaces"
Representation vs. diversity, and what leadership reveals about a company's values

Plus Mixed Messages, on what really makes a workplace feel open-minded.

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!

Our True Colors is powered by The Culture Crucible. Go to THE HUB to learn more!
Consider joining the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association!

Transcript

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Intro  0:06  
Welcome to our True Colors, hosted by Shawna Gann. Join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic enigma, and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in.

Shawna  0:25  
Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Our True Colors. Today's guest is Dr. Natalie Hart. She's from Tacoma, Washington, and she's a speaker, consultant, researcher, and educator whose work explores identity, belonging, leadership, and the courage to thrive in spaces where you may not always feel fully seen, but instead of me trying to tell you who she is, I'd love for you to hear a little bit in her own words. One

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  0:50  
of my topics is around imposterism, so facing adversity and overcoming adversity, that's where I kind of like share more of my journey and being a first generation college going student and navigating those waters in our educational system.

Shawna  1:09  
Dr. Hart brings more than 15 years of experience working across higher education, K-12 schools, nonprofits, government, and community organizations through keynote speaking, workshops, training, and consulting. She helps individuals and organizations build confidence and confront imposter syndrome and create environments where people can show up as their authentic selves. Her work is grounded not only in research but also in lived experience,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  1:32  
sharing perceptions of who I am in this world, and then how I navigate the professional setting, all the type of isms that may be placed on me being a woman, being a young person, being multi-ethnic, and just kind of what that landscape is like.

Shawna  1:48  
In today's conversation, Natalie joins Marcel and me to talk about what it means to grow up between cultures and to wrestle with questions of identity and belonging, and discover the unexpected strengths that come from living in more than one world. And, oh my goodness, did we have fun with this episode together. As a matter of fact, I wish I had the behind the scenes for you, because we were goofy all, but it was so much fun, and I really hope that you enjoy it too. So, let's not delay any longer. Let's get to the conversation with Dr. Natalie Hart and my co-host, Marcel. Enjoy. Marcel. What's up? How you doing?

Marcel De Jonghe  2:25  
I'm good. I'm good. Been a good weekend yourself?

Shawna  2:28  
Good. I was very proud of myself. Yeah, wanna know why?

Marcel De Jonghe  2:31  
Yes, please.

Shawna  2:33  
Yes, because I made time for some self care. I went to yoga today, and this is a big deal for me, because I have been like, do you remember that show, Home Improvement, with Tim Allen?

Marcel De Jonghe  2:44  
Yes, and Pamela Anderson was in it for a short while. She was his assistant.

Shawna  2:49  
Okay, do you remember the neighbor, though, Wilson? And there's like a small

Marcel De Jonghe  2:54  
bit of him, and he was like, as an intrigue, and you questioned if he had his wife murdered.

Shawna  2:58  
Oh, well, okay,

Intro  3:00  
yeah,

Shawna  3:01  
I didn't, but that's the one we spoke

Marcel De Jonghe  3:03  
about, his wife, didn't he? But you never met his wife either.

Shawna  3:06  
He was just always wise. I don't know, he had the wisdom, but what I'm getting at is that's how I feel like I must be looking to my family with my laptop, because I have been so busy. I am so hopefully by the time this episode drops, I will have already begun my work with my new editor, and then I've got like all these other projects. I think I had like three projects I've been working on for the last week, and I've just been with a laptop, so it felt good to step away, give myself a moment to just chill. Shavasana is the best after working hard and some yoga, and then I came home and ate like junkie food. I shouldn't have, but anyway, I'm still proud of myself for having gone

Marcel De Jonghe  3:49  
balance. Okay, we need balance in life. Let's be honest, I think if we concentrate on being perfect, all we do is recognize the times we fail.

Shawna  4:00  
I will never pretend that I'm anything close to perfect, so I'll give you that, but I was wondering, thinking of the food, if there's any kind of meal that makes you think of home or like your roots.

Marcel De Jonghe  4:13  
My mom is some Zimbabwe, and one of the staple foods they have is like a corn maze, which can be used for everything and anything, but one of the main dishes they create is a thing called sardsa. It is an edible utensil. It's, it's white. You use a wet spoon to create little dumplings, and it goes on the side of your plate. As one of my aunts once told me, which came first, your fingers or knife and forks, Marcel? And then smack my hands out the way. I would use your hands to pick up your food. So, when my mom gets involved in any food, she overdoes it. She realizes she can perfect something, so you're going to have that for the next couple of months, and then she will hate it.

Shawna  4:50  
I just did that with lemon cookies. Have you ever had any Girl Scout cookies? It's a very American thing, so I don't know of them, and

Marcel De Jonghe  4:59  
I know that they are. Possibly responsible for large amounts of diabetes in your country,

Shawna  5:04  
maybe, but I don't know. So much people cannot afford Girl Scout cookies, like they are so much money now. But there was a kind called, I think they were called Savannah Smiles. They were like these little short, oh my god, they were my favorite. So I went on this quest to find like a copycat recipe, because you can't buy them anymore, they don't make them anymore. But I put too much butter in this one, so then I got to make another batch, and so that this was, you know, and like try them out, and then till nobody wants lemon cookies anymore, or I'm done with it. So I feel it, I got your mom, that's how I do things sometimes too.

Marcel De Jonghe  5:37  
Yeah, Monique does exactly the same with food, and then she'll batch do it, and like this one, gonna have on my lunch five times in a row, and like, you're going to hate this by the end of this week.

Shawna  5:47  
It's always an interesting thing trying to navigate these little eccentricities, these these little nuanced things in our family. I'm hoping we could talk a little bit about that with our guests today, who knows what it's like to come from different spaces and have these different parts of identity that come through. Her name is Dr. Natalie Hart, and I am so happy to introduce her. Y'all don't even know before the show how we've been cutting up, so hopefully we could get through the show like we're supposed to, but if we don't, then we don't. We're just gonna be who we are, right? Hi, Dr. Hart. Welcome. Hello, hello. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, thank you for being here. Marcel and I are talking about the premise of the show. Really, we're talking about, like, racial ambiguity. Sometimes we're talking about different cultures, and how would you say you might describe yourself to listeners?

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  6:41  
Yeah, I feel like that has been a journey in figuring out, like grasping what that identity is like as a mixed person, like I felt like I had to, like, list everything out, like back in the day, that I'm like, oh yeah, so I am Mexican, I'm black, I'm Caribbean. There is some British in there, there's some German, there's some Italian, and I felt like I had to, like, list everything out, because I'm like, I don't want to not acknowledge a part of, like, who makes me. But as I've gotten older, I guess I have, like, a couple that I use now to try to, like, embody all of that, so I label myself as Afro Latina or Afro-Mexicana, and then I add that I'm like Latin Caribbean, so like a hodgepodge of identities.

Shawna  7:34  
I feel that because, as I used to say, dang, I need to walk around with like my little ancestry DNA thing in my pocket and list it up, you know, but it's interesting, like why we would feel some sort of compulsion to do that, but then you're like, okay, here's now how you introduce yourself a certain way,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  7:53  
yeah, like when I was younger I felt like I had to carry a picture of my parents, this is true story, I had to carry parents to show people, like, oh yeah, these are my parents, these are what my identities are, to feel like I had to prove something to people that here's the authenticity in who I'm claiming to be, where they feel like I'm impersonating someone being in those spaces when I'm like, I am you, you are me, but they're like, we need some proof, we need some proof of that. So, yeah, it was very ostracizing to feel that, like, that was a necessity when no one else needs to do that.

Marcel De Jonghe  8:32  
Yeah, that's a real thing, I think. Since camera phones and being able to have pictures on our, on our phones, on our devices, it makes that bit a little bit easier, but beforehand, God, that was so difficult.

Shawna  8:44  
My son does the same thing you talk about, Natalie. He's got our family photo favorited on his phone, so it's right there and ready for proof. But isn't that crazy, the proof thing? Anyway,

Marcel De Jonghe  8:55  
it's like more of a pass, isn't it? Whether you can like look, look, I can get in there and without size, yeah, and it's like, yeah, it's, it's infuriating. I've told you about the time where I had a friend who constantly told me my mom wasn't black, until one day my mom appeared, and I was like, look, I told you my mom was black, and he was so annoyed at me for that, because it embarrassed him.

Shawna  9:17  
There's sometimes like this idea where even we, not not just having to prove something to somebody else, but even to ourselves, where there's this question of are we enough of something or enough of anything. Do you have, have you ever experienced that enoughness situation?

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  9:32  
Yes.

Shawna  9:33  
What's that like? I feel like I still

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  9:34  
do, just as a woman in corporate America, a woman of color in corporate America, like even with the ability to put doctor in front of my name, our communities always have had to struggle with working twice as hard and being seen as half as good. So, a lot of spaces I would be in, it's that combating that imposterism, and so I feel like that could be applicable when you talk. About race and ethnicity and nationality, as well as just your skills and accomplishments and accolades, that yeah, I still will be in spaces, and I may mask this very confident, put together woman, but like inside I'm like, was there a mistake? How did I get here, and so when it came to like being around like black communities or Latino communities, Mexican in particular, especially here on the West Coast, like because of how I present physically I always felt like I wasn't enough for either of the communities, and so, like, like within the black community, when I would be around, like, other black women, and they were talking about that very bonding moment between, like, a mother and daughter when they're braiding hair. I specifically remember a moment in high school, I felt like I was in a more diverse space in high school, and I remember some girls talking about, like, oh yeah, like something, something, the hot comb, something, something, oh, when you know, pulling too hard, and I was just like, at that point in time, in that particular moment I was like I had never had that experience with my mom, and I didn't share that earlier, but my mom is Mexican, our peoples are from Chihuahua, which is the northern state of Mexico that borders or touches the border to Texas, and so my mom and my mom's side of the family is very white presenting, so she looks like European, like Italian woman, very, very fair skinned, but super dark black hair. Yeah, so my mom does not have curly hair like mine. It is very slick, straight, and so yeah, I just look back on that moment, and I just felt like I'm an imposter. I'm an imposter. I'm not allowed to even speak on this experience because I don't have a black mom, and so there was a moment of grappling with my identity, or how to connect with that, where I felt like, and we know kids are mean, where I felt like folks knew I was mixed for whatever reason, the way I present, or maybe I had shared that with them, but when intentionally bring up situations that, because of what you knew about me, would make me feel excluded. So that was a moment where I did not feel like I was enough, and that was within the black community, and then amongst the Mexican community, because of the way I present, which I will add that, like, obviously Eurocentric media, like Univision, like when they see Mexican people, right, they look like my mom, right, very fair-skinned folks, and white presenting, and so I never saw myself when it came to, like, Latino media or Mexican, in particular, and so I was like, I would look at those people, and then I'm like, I look, look at my mom, and I was just like, oh my god, like, why do I look this way that I'm not allowed to call myself Mexican?

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  13:12  
I used to feel that way, like I'm not allowed to call myself that, because I don't look like the people, and my grandparents are from Mexico, but my mom and her other 12 siblings were born in El Paso, Texas, and so they are first generation US born, and myself, my siblings' cousins were second generation US born, and usually first generation they want to reject the culture, reject the language, and I think a lot of folks look at like second generation born and they would call us no sabo kids, so it's like it would be us combating this idea of like don't even try because we're going to make fun of you for even trying, and so I felt that, but we didn't have a term around it until I got older and I started hearing no sabo kids, no sabo kids, and I was just like, oh, wow, they had created this label for people who wanted to claim that they're Latino, or especially here, or in Southern California, Chicano, right? That used to be like a sting at American-born Mexican people, that you were like a little bit Mexican, you're not Mexican enough, so Chico, like little, so you're Chicano. And then, as we got more empowered, right, we took back that term, like, yes, I'm happy to be Chicana, like I'm happy to still represent the culture here in the United States. I'm happy about that, but because we didn't speak Spanish, I felt like, you know, that that is a huge part of a culture, to be able to speak the language, and I'm like, I'm trying, but I didn't have all of that training outside of, like, moving from Los Angeles, because we used to be around my grandparents often when I was younger, and they, they speak Spanish as their first language, so we would communicate with them, but then coming up here, Pacific Northwest, not a whole lot of. People who look like me are people to be able to practice. I just kind of lost it, so like what I know now is like what I took in school, and now trying to reclaim that in in my identity and my culture and who I am, in hopes that one day when I stop meeting too many knuckleheads and I find my husband and have kids, I want to be able to pass that on, so it's like it is very much important to me to be able to learn it, but yeah, between the two cultures, those are times where I did not feel enough, and carrying these like two buckets that are never full for either community, and I feel like that is the struggle of mixed people, is that we have these two buckets, and they're on our shoulders, and we're walking around with them, and it's just no matter how much I pour in, like I can tell you about this, and my experiences, it's like, but you're mixed, you don't really get it, that's not really your experience, and they try to project the not enoughness on me, even though you know I have done as much as I can to try to learn and embrace and teach myself these parts,

Shawna  16:08  
you know, I say sometimes that whether we realize it or not, there's advantage to being mixed race or having multiple cultures that you've grown up with. What would you say could be the superpower, despite the half buckets, which, by the way, what an image, that's a very vivid image I'm carrying now that you've shared it that way. What's the good stuff?

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  16:29  
Yeah, well, I feel a superpower is like, I love the racial ambiguity, I love being able to enter spaces, and they're like, I think you're this, but I'm not quite sure, we know in many communities like anti-blackness exists, and so I love where in some spaces I may hear comments that are not okay, and I love being able to, you know, represent my community in those spaces, but they're like, "But we're not talking about you, Natalie, or your siblings, because, because you're one of us, we're talking about those others, but you, so then you, then you're one of us, yeah, so

Marcel De Jonghe  17:07  
you've got to leave some of you behind, because you're not all of them, as you said to you,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  17:12  
yes, yeah, so we'll claim the Mexican part of you there, but leave out the black part that stays by the

Shawna  17:19  
door,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  17:19  
exactly,

Shawna  17:22  
exactly,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  17:22  
so and and some like spaces, like Mexican spaces or Latino spaces, that I'll be in, and now that many people know that that is what my identity is, and I'll be allowed into those spaces, and I'll hear comments, and I'm like, no, we don't say that, no, you don't, you need to reframe that, no, that is, that's an outdated term, we don't do, and so I'm there to like represent or try to tear down those structures of, you know, Eurocentric ideals of beauty or anti-blackness within the Mexican or Latino community, and then amongst the black community I have heard comments, and as somebody who can enter the black community as well, where they'll be like, yeah, blah blah blah, Mexicans coming and taking our jobs, and I have to stop that right in its tracks as well, too. And I'm like, you know, that's not okay for you to say that. And I'm like, my people are hard working people, you don't talk to people like that. Do you want to go out there and do agricultural work like they're they're hardworking folks, and taking jobs that other people don't even want to do, just to be able to provide for their families, and so it's like, are you standing in line to be able to do that? And so now that with all what's going on with horrible with ice and immigration, we see so much things that are going on now with like agricultural work and other things because of the removal of my people and other folks as well, and so, yeah, so I feel that's the super powers to be able to enter those spaces, but especially when it's about folks that connect to me and my culture. I love being able to shut that down, and they were like, "Oh, I didn't know that you were also Mexican, Natalie, my bad. I don't, you know, I wasn't. And then they try to backtrack in that space, but they were saying it loud and proud, and with their whole chest, right before they knew that I spoke up, and that I'm also Mexican.

Marcel De Jonghe  19:13  
Do you sometimes find yourself, because of that power, intentionally agitating people? Like, I don't hold a British passport. I was born here. My mom was Zimbabwean, my dad was Belgian. I hold a Belgian passport. So, when Brexit came in like 2017 and people were like, "Yeah, get rid of you, want to get rid of Europe, and I'm like, "What do you think, Marcel? I'm like, "Oh, yeah, but why do you want to get Europeans? Why'd they do it? And then, by the way, I'm not British, and they're like, what I may sound, it, you know, but my name is Marcel Dejong, like, come on, it's not John Smith, so I found myself, I couldn't help sometimes going into spaces and asking the question, because I wanted to see people's cards, I wanted to see where they stood, like, should people from Europe be able to come over and. So the EU extended further to, like, say, Romania, Bulgaria, and other far eastern European countries, which meant that we had more people be able to come over to the UK, and so forth, and we had exactly the same problem, where people saying they're stealing our jobs, suddenly you've got farmers down in the southwest of the UK, who, when Brexit happened, all of their workers disappeared, and all their stuff is going rotten in fields, because no person in the UK wants that job. They're like, "Oh, I'm better than I'd rather be on benefits, whereas these people came over, worked their backs off,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  20:42  
come on,

Marcel De Jonghe  20:42  
did the work, and then you've got people turning around saying, well, why is fresh fruit and veg so expensive? Because we're having to buy it from other countries, because no one in this country wants to pick it anyway. So there are cause and effect, so I just found myself being like I said, that little instigator stepping in, and, and just wanted to know, and see people's true cards, and the amount of times I've had people talk to me about black people, and feel this a safe space, and just for me to go before you go any further, to want to let know my mom's a black woman, and exactly the same, Dr. Hart, where it's, oh, but not you, you know, you're okay, and I, oh God, you've doubled down.

Shawna  21:25  
Yeah, I guess the thing that bothers me is just hearing you say that they find it to be a safe space because we talk about safe spaces in such a protected way, like we want people to be in safe spaces, but if safe means that you're going to be harmful while you're in that space, like, how can we make it? Like, I don't want to make that a hospitable place for you to be to cause harm. Does that make sense? What I'm saying, like, yeah, I want you to be able to be open, but if being open means you feel open and entitled to harm people, that's not okay.

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  21:58  
I think that those safe spaces, like, part of the definition of that is to allow authenticity, so I appreciate that. Show me, just as Marcel said, show me your true colors. I want to know, show me all your cards, lay them out on the table, so then I know what I'm dealing with.

Shawna  22:14  
I'm not saying don't do that, I'm saying it bothers me, the fact that that is, I mean, I guess it's a reality. I just, I just hate that.

Marcel De Jonghe  22:24  
I think it's the term safe space. It's an oxymoron when it's thrown in that regard, because they're not

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  22:29  
creating safety for others.

Marcel De Jonghe  22:31  
It's safety for a few, not for all. They're looking for spaces where no one can come in, so they can say what they want, do what they want without any repercussions, and I think as mixed people we sometimes manage to get through those gaps, and we're there, like, hey, what's going on, we've been invited, and suddenly they start saying things, and then suddenly, ah, you see their faces drop when we just turn around and go, that's not an acceptable thing,

Shawna  23:03  
right?

Marcel De Jonghe  23:03  
And they're like, "Oh, you're not one of us, but their quickest decision is to turn around and say, "But we'll embrace you, because if we embrace you, it means that you know we all want that sense of belonging. So, if we bring you into the fold, so to speak, you know, it allows us to say what we want, or at least damage control it, whereas saying it once in a space where you thought you could get away with it just means that you're editing on the fly constantly. Yeah, yeah, every other space,

Shawna  23:32  
right? Right, I talking to you, Dr. Hart. You do have this very confident way, despite talking about, you know, some instances when you do experience some imposter syndrome, as we all do. What has helped you move towards owning your identity with this confidence and with clarity,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  24:02  
I think the more that I learn and educate myself about my people, I think that helped me to become more empowered about what those identities are. I think that exposure is the end to a lot of isms in the world.

Shawna  24:18  
I agree, and

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  24:19  
the more that I, you know, got to be around different groups of people, and I let the community, like, teach me more about what my cultures are, and to get an understanding of that, I think, as I learned more, and, yeah, exposed myself to different things, I was like, I can carry that with me, so once I've seen it and experienced it, now that is a part of my repertoire of things that are part of or connected to my culture, and so I'm able to bring that now into other spaces where it's like, oh, I went to Mexico and I got to see this, and I know that we do this, and so now I can bring that into a new space, or I've. Into the Caribbean islands, and I've got to see this exposure, and what we do, and this is why we do that, and go relating back to like feeling a bit of that imposterism within my own community, like there are like significant milestones that we relate to culturally that I felt that I didn't have, so that I wasn't able to, like, have the full experience of what it means to be that thing. It's been on me, it's my on my own accord. But now I've attended Keith San Yas in person, and I know, like, all of the pageantry and the different parts, and who's involved, and you know why we do x, y, and z, so then I'll be able to offer that experience if I ever have a daughter in the future, that you know it would be her, it would be her prerogative whether she wanted one or not, but to know that that would be an opportunity at that point, so I feel more confident in bringing my identity in different spaces, because of that exposure.

Shawna  26:04  
I like that, you know. Later in life, way after I graduated from college, I was like, "Dang, I should have gone to an HBCU. Plus, you know, I live in DC, so there's Hampton, you.. there's.. there's the two HUS. We got the Hampton U and the Howard U.

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  26:20  
My allegiance is to Howard, even though I didn't go, but my sorority was founded there, so my allegiance is to Howard. That's the mecca.

Shawna  26:29  
So, if I go age, you, you know,

Marcel De Jonghe  26:34  
we don't have that over here. We've right over, do you

Shawna  26:39  
know? Okay, so it's a historically black college and university, and that is very important, because of our history with being the segregation, maybe we weren't allowed to

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  26:48  
go to the white ones.

Shawna  26:49  
Nope, which we call PWI, predominantly white institutions. Then there's the Hispanic HSI,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  26:57  
yeah, even though I don't really connect to the term Hispanic, but that's a,

Shawna  27:02  
that well, that's that's another American thing, and by American I mean colonial. What I'm trying to say, Marcel, is there's an identity thing there too. I went to a PWI, I went to, I went to the University of Alaska, and so when I got older, especially when I got into the DEI space, and I started meeting all these people that have been to, like, they start naming off their schools, like their HBCUs. There was a piece of me that was like, "Damn, I wish I had that. And I don't know if you've ever watched the show Alex Cross. It's like a

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  27:35  
yes, you

Shawna  27:35  
know it, yeah. So the most recent season, there's a character who misses out on her cultural upbringing, and one of those things is a quinceanera, and it's interesting because the character does not identify as being mixed race or multi ethnic, so it's like I hope that people can understand when we're talking about feeling torn or not having all those pieces that even folks who would identify as being mono racial or mono ethnic, could also experience that and get it, like yeah, maybe there are things that you missed out on, even if you don't identify in that way.

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  28:09  
Yeah, agreed. Me joining a historically black sorority was that empowerment and affirmation that I needed as somebody who also identifies as black, like around other women who were leaders and confident in who they are, and just killing it, and everything that they did, and looking good doing it. I was like, I love this, and it was one of the best decisions I made. Besides being the first in my family to go to college, it was the best decision that I made. I have met so many people who have gone to HBCUs, and just the pride in how they carry themselves in our world, right. Black folks make what, 13% of the US population, and so you can imagine within corporate America how often you'll see somebody who looks like you based on how many people actually, you know, from from our groups and subgroups actually go to college and get accepted, because right, that whole nother conversation about how many barriers are put up to still keep us out of college, but

Shawna  29:09  
new ones, thank you, or I should say, renewed ones,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  29:13  
yep, yep, exactly that, and you are not going to be around people who are just like so proud to be black and be who they are, like it's, it's so beautiful, and I admire that so much of folks who have attended HBCUs.

Marcel De Jonghe  29:39  
My daughter loves Encanto, she loves Moana. I've been trying to get her to watch Coco, but I think the Dead kind of scares her a little bit. She's only two and a half, you know. And in Princess, not

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  29:49  
scary, that's nice.

Marcel De Jonghe  29:50  
It's amazing, Princess and the Frog as well, you know. So you got Disney,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  29:55  
even though Princess Tiana is a frog, 95% yes. But that's another conversation,

Marcel De Jonghe  30:01  
it's a step

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  30:02  
better,

Marcel De Jonghe  30:03  
it's a step forwards, even if it's 5% you know, right. So, no, like, so I know that the Moana films, because my daughter loves them, that a large amount of the actors, and so forth, are actually Polynesian, it's not people pretended to be, but I think they're missing a trick. This world is a beautiful melting pot of people, they don't do stories which are about mixed identity. I haven't seen it. I hope they would do it.

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  30:27  
There's one that they did. It's called Wish. It came out during the pandemic. I wish they did a better job, but that princess is the first Afro-Latina princess. Her name's Asha.

Marcel De Jonghe  30:37  
Now, I weirdly started to watch that this morning, and like you said, not the best. It was for their 100 years, wasn't it?

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  30:45  
Yeah, did so much better, but it was during the pandemic, and I, I wish they did another crack at it, but I was like, yeah, Afro Latina Princess, when they were advertising it. I was so excited, I was like, yeah, me. And then it has a

Marcel De Jonghe  30:57  
talking goat in it, and there's a star, and Chris Pine is the baddie, right? That's.. I remember, yeah. Unfortunately, weird, you had to start watching it this morning whilst I was doing my daughter's hair, but I just think we don't see.. sorry,

Shawna  31:10  
that was a very sweet daddy moment. While I was doing my daughter's hair, he said,

Marcel De Jonghe  31:13  
'Oh, that I love doing her hair, she's got lovely, curly, afro. we kind of red hair as well. So I she's got the attitude, yeah. How she was rude to the woman in the restaurant because she wasn't given her attention. Oi, lady, oi lady. And then, because she wanted to give her a little star on a sticker star on her arm. So, yeah, I had not lots of them in the restaurant placed upon me. Okay, we digress. It's literally just

Shawna  31:45  
today is different.

Marcel De Jonghe  31:47  
I'm sponsored by Tom Tom, that's how I go off every single direction, but I will come back.

Shawna  31:52  
Oh, the GPS, yeah, I was it. I went like shoes, Tom, like I was like

Marcel De Jonghe  31:58  
Tom Tom

Shawna  31:59  
got it. I had to make the little connection. It took me a second. I got to,

Marcel De Jonghe  32:03  
sorry, and it's apart from which I never saw as a mixed character, actually. But now you talk about it, and literally watching it, parts of it this morning, first 30 minutes, think the media, and especially for children who are mixed, because you know there is no such thing as pure anymore?

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  32:22  
If you get real technical, was there ever really a pure anything?

Marcel De Jonghe  32:26  
No, was this Sierra Leone? Is it where, like, the cradle of life is? I'm trying to remember where the cradle of life comes from. It's like there's probably one person, whatever

Shawna  32:35  
Mesopotamia used to be, like whatever is now what Mesopotamia was,

Marcel De Jonghe  32:41  
and even then, genetically we need to mix our DNA to survive, and it's just this. I love the how that they have ingrained in Disney this really great DNI, because I've got a friend who went and worked in their DNA function, but I do think there's a trick being missed here where we could see more representation of people who are just like the human race,

Shawna  33:04  
and they could explore all the things that we talk about on this show, like those nuances whenever you are carrying multiple complexities at once. Yeah, yeah, I would love that. And as a Disney adult, I 100% love that, I well, we have reached that point in our conversation where it's time for mixed messages, I keep saying I need to like have some sort of like stinger, like it's time for mixed messages,

Marcel De Jonghe  33:50  
ladies and gentlemen. Mixed messages.

Shawna  34:00  
All right, so I am reaching in the drawer, and I am randomly picking one out. Okay, here is what today's mixed message says. It says, I feel lucky being in New York City in an environment that has gotten more diverse recently. So, I feel like my company is doing a pretty good job. I think everyone is fairly open-minded. Thankfully,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  34:19  
it would make me think that the person saying it is is open and has recognized that there maybe wasn't as much diversity in the space that that person was in before, and so they're they're thankful that whatever they're doing is is is bringing more folks from different backgrounds into the spaces that they're in, or they're being more intentional about entering those spaces, because it's not like New York wasn't diverse before, but be selective about the places that you enter, and and may not encounter folks from other places, depending on where you spend. Your time,

Shawna  35:00  
well, I think it's interesting, because it says they're in New York, which I agree, New York City, in particular, is pretty diverse, but they said I feel like my company is doing a good job, so I wonder if the location, like being in the city, didn't necessarily match with their workplace, so I, the question I ask myself is, like, what specific things make a workplace feel open-minded, because they said I feel like everyone's fairly open-minded.

Marcel De Jonghe  35:26  
So, for me, I think in my early career, when I was like young, and I felt like I never saw people who look like me. Now I'm slowly starting to see people who look like me, but what is interesting about that is diversity and representation, are they the same thing? Because I can work in an organization which has loads of diversity, because I'm holistically looking at the company, but the higher up I go to start looking at, like, who runs this company, who has the power, and I'm like, okay, that's where we slip, that's where that, that's so it's, you know, it sounds like this person's probably doesn't have that problem, that there is representation across the board,

Shawna  36:10  
or at least now, because they said it's gotten more diverse recently,

Marcel De Jonghe  36:14  
yeah,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  36:14  
yeah, and then

Shawna  36:15  
they were, they were feeling like their job, their company's doing a pretty good job, nice, so yeah,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  36:22  
yeah, maybe they instituted more policies or recruitment tactics to attract more folks from different backgrounds, like at their company. Marcel, something you said when you talked about leadership, it made me think about, I think it was a quote I heard before, or just from something I heard from a speaker, but it was like you can tell a company's values by looking at what their leadership represents. So it's like, do I see different people from different cultures or ethnicities and backgrounds? Is there women there? Like, what type of representation folks from, you know, like, sometimes, like, you can have a physical representation of different religions as well. Is that represented there, or, or how people present themselves? Yeah, that made me think of that. That's why it's important to always disaggregate data anywhere you're at when you're looking at things like that.

Marcel De Jonghe  37:19  
I love titles,

Dr. Natalie Hart ( She/Her/Hers)  37:20  
disaggregate.

Shawna  37:20  
Oh, thank you, Dr. Hart. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. So, tell us, where can folks find you and learn about great things you're doing? Yeah, LinkedIn is my living portfolio, so if folks would love to connect and learn more, LinkedIn is a wonderful place to connect with me, Dr. Hart. This was so good. I really appreciate you coming. Thank you, Marcel. Always for hanging.

Marcel De Jonghe  37:48  
My pleasure. Thank It

Shawna  38:06  
was so great talking to Dr. Hart. I'm so glad that she was able to join us for a conversation today. What do you think about what she said when she said carrying two buckets that never quite feel full enough, man? That enough thing is something that we talk about all the time. It's one of the major themes, I think, when we discuss belonging, especially when your person who is mixed race or multicultural, or you live in a liminal space, like so many of us do. I think so many of us know what it really feels like, even if our stories look different from hers. Belonging doesn't begin when someone else finally gives us permission to belong. It begins when we become curious about ourselves, about each other, and about the stories we carry. We have to expand our circle of belonging, find the people that make us know without a doubt that we are whole. We don't have to divide ourselves for other people, waiting for permission to take your guest pass and hang out for a while, always worried that it's going to be revoked at any moment. You know what I mean. When we create spaces where people don't have to prove who they are before they're welcomed, then we are practicing true connection, membership, and belonging. If this conversation resonated with you, I think you'll enjoy what's coming out this fall. My new book, y'all, Mixed Signals: A Multiracial Window into Civility and Belonging at Work. It's a continuation of so many of the conversations we've been having here on Outre Colors, and I truly cannot wait to share it with you. Stay tuned. Soon I'll be announcing pre-sales, and I can't wait to reveal the book cover. There's one more exciting update I want to give you. My company, True Culture Coaching and Consulting, is getting a new name, a new look, a new vibe. Over the next weeks, I'll be sharing more about our rebrand to the Culture Crucible and what that means for the. Work ahead, that's going to be a fun one to share with you too. As always, thank you for spending part of your day with me and with Marcel and our guests. Until next time, stay curious, stay connected, and keep embracing your true colors. Spread the love, y'all. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

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