[00:00:00] Cheryl Broom: Alright, well Leslie, welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you here.
[00:00:05] Leslie Vargas: Thank you so much, Cheryl. I'm humbled to be here sharing on this much needed topic today.
[00:00:09] Cheryl Broom: Great. Well, let's dive right in. I know everybody's really excited to to hear this podcast, and I have a premonition this might be one of our most popular ones of the year. So I wanted to start off by having you tell us a little bit about your role at Riverside Community College District, and also tell me about Tea Time with Leslie.
[00:00:30] Leslie Vargas: Okay, so I serve as the Public Affairs Officer for the Riverside Community College District. I actually support the district and its colleges. I've worked at Norco College, Riverside City College, and I'm currently stationed at Moreno Valley College, so helping with marketing, branding, strategic communications, and storytelling.
[00:00:49] Leslie Vargas: Have an amazing team. So my work often includes developing campaigns, managing press releases, leading content strategy, and drafting high level communications, not just for our chancellor and president, but also college leadership and pretty much anybody that needs me. So what inspired Tea Time with Leslie?
[00:01:06] Leslie Vargas: I wanna a disclaimer to the whole podcast world that I love tea. I hope one day be a tea connoisseur, right? So tea helps me meditate, it helps me relax, it helps me decompress, and it helps me think deeply just about things that's going on. So I presented at the California Community College's PIO conference for the past two years now, one year on customer service, and then on how to understand your marketing demographic.
[00:01:31] Leslie Vargas: So this year with tea time with Leslie, I wanted to do something just a little more out the box, but I kept noticing that the imagery, the messaging, and even the tone in higher education marketing, not just in California, but across the United States often centered Eurocentric norms, even when our student populations might primarily be students of color, right?
[00:01:52] Leslie Vargas: So many communications they unintentionally contained implicit biases or microaggressions, not because people are trying to be harmful, but because we just haven't paused to recognize how our language and visuals are being received. So Tea Time with Leslie was born out of a need, right? To have these hard conversations.
[00:02:11] Leslie Vargas: But in a warm, disarming type of way. So yes, I was serving tea literally and figuratively, but it was not about shame, not about condemnation, it was about awareness, about reflection, and about growth, which is important to a lot of people, especially as I serve on the board for the Inland Empire Regional CCPro. 
[00:02:30] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, so I, I know one of our staff members here at GradComm went to your breakout session at CCPro and came out and was like, that was one of the best sessions I've ever been to. She's like, you have to talk to Leslie. She is so—this was so great. And I know, and I wanna get in a little later. I think you did some like really great interactive things.
[00:02:50] Cheryl Broom: It just made this session really accessible to people. But it also was a packed house. 'cause I think this is a topic people are starting to really identify with. Why do you, why do you think that is? Like, why is like conversations around bias and microaggressions in higher ed like so relevant right now?
[00:03:10] Leslie Vargas: So yeah, first, yes, it was a packed room. Thank you to everyone who showed up. But I think it's resonating because honest, honestly, like for so many years there has been this elephant in the room. Right. But I think in present day times with everything that's going on, this elephant has been replaced by a very loud cat, right?
[00:03:28] Leslie Vargas: And I, I like to joke and say the cat is out the bag when it comes to this topic. So most people in this field have either experienced, implicit biases are microaggression or they've committed them, right. Without even realizing it. I'm one of them. And because we're not always given the language or the tools to deal with it, it becomes this awkward space that nobody wants to talk about.
[00:03:49] Leslie Vargas: And I'll say until now, thanks to Cheryl, y'all, let's talk about it. Okay, until now. So what, what we do in marketing and communications, I think it matters deeply because in essence, we're shaping the first impression of our institutions, right through our websites, through our brochures, through welcome letters, speeches, and, and even campus banners.
[00:04:08] Leslie Vargas: So if those materials don't reflect the students we serve visually, but also culturally, we risk sending this unintentional message, right? That this space isn't really for you. And I think that's what a lot of communications and marketing professionals are seeing across the state of California.
[00:04:24] Leslie Vargas: So representation isn't just about who's in the photo, it's about how they're portrayed, what the message is saying, whether the students from all backgrounds actually see themselves reflected in a way that feels real and authentic, and most importantly, not performative. So I always like to say that authenticity builds trust, right?
[00:04:44] Leslie Vargas: Students engage more with institutions that genuinely reflect their identities and their lived experiences. Right? Not just the surface level diversity for the sake of what I like to call optics, because we do that a lot. Not just in college marketing, but just in marketing. Right. And when marketing and communications are inclusive.
[00:05:01] Leslie Vargas: It's not just good PR, but it directly impacts what matters to us most, which is enrollment, right? Student success and building a sense of belonging. Because when students feel like they belong, they're gonna stay and they're gonna thrive, and they're gonna come back and be these great alumni who's gonna help keep pushing our college and our message and all of the great stuff forward.
[00:05:23] Leslie Vargas: So at CCPro, the room was filled with people who just needed a safe space to learn, a safe space to reflect and ask real questions without any judgment. And I think that's exactly what we did and why it resonated so much with people, with a little tea on the side.
[00:05:41] Cheryl Broom: It's so funny that you like tea so much 'cause I always thought like tea time meant like you were spilling the tea. So it's kind of got like a double meaning there.
[00:05:47] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, yeah. Well now I know what to get you for Christmas. You know, it's interesting you talk about like photography and authenticity 'cause I think a lot of people who are new to these conversations might think about representation and automatically go straight to like photography. Like, we've got to make sure we have diverse photography. But it's, it's deeper than that. I mean, there's a lot of things that you need to think about in your writing, in the way you present things, even in the questions you ask.
[00:06:18] Cheryl Broom: I was thinking about as you were talking when you said we've all experienced like microaggressions or implicit bias and that you have, you've. We've all been, you know, victims and perpetrators. We've been on both sides.
[00:06:33] Leslie Vargas: Yes, I can put both hands up for that.
[00:06:33] Cheryl Broom: Both hands and, I mean, this just jumped in my head. I remember being in a, in a committee meeting with faculty and I would say an idea and nobody would pay attention to me. And then like two minutes later, this faculty, a male faculty, would say the same id—, he'd say the same thing, and then everyone would be like, Ooh, you're brilliant. And it happened like three times. And I'm like, what is happening? And it was another male faculty member who looked at me and he is like, do, do you see what's happening?
[00:07:07] Cheryl Broom: I'm like, yes. 
[00:07:08] Cheryl Broom: You know, and, and luckily I had an advocate there to point out like Cheryl's been saying this and you're just taking her ideas and resaying them. Anyways, it just gives memory came in my head. 'cause I remember being like, I don't know what, what to do or how to say this, or how to address it or what's happening here.
[00:07:25] Cheryl Broom: So I do think we have to look beyond just photos. Like it's a whole experience.
[00:07:30] Leslie Vargas: Correct? Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:32] Cheryl Broom: And so when we're talking about like implicit bias and microaggressions, like what's the difference between those two things? How do you, how do you define those? What are you looking for?
[00:07:43] Leslie Vargas: Okay. Absolutely. So here's the tea. Well, this is actually why y'all.
[00:07:47] Cheryl Broom: Oh, good. I'll have a sip.
[00:07:49] Leslie Vargas: Okay. But implicit biases and microaggressions, I think they're like the quiet background noise, right? That's in our work. We might not ever hear them at first, but they're there. They affect everything that we're doing. So, implicit biases un unconscious attitude, our stereotype that we carry, they can influence our decisions, our actions, even the language that we use.
[00:08:10] Leslie Vargas: Again, without realizing it, it's usually unintentional. Which makes it so tricky to deal with. It can show up in ways that we describe students, who we choose to feature in our materials, or what we assume will resonate with a particular audience that we are serving, right? Microaggressions, on the other hand, are those small, everyday slights and insults, right?
[00:08:29] Leslie Vargas: Sometimes they're verbal, sometimes they're behavior. They can be intentional, but in all honesty, most of the time they're not intentional. And while they might seem minor on the surface, people always love to say, was it really that big of a deal? Why are you getting in your feelings about this? Right?
[00:08:44] Leslie Vargas: They reinforce harmful stereotypes and can really sting, especially when they happen over and over and over again. So there's lots of cultures and backgrounds that experience these. Almost on a daily basis. So this is why it's important to talk about it. And the key is both can do real harm no matter how small it seems to you, right?
[00:09:03] Leslie Vargas: They can damage your college's brand, they could alienate students, alienate faculty, reinforce inequality in ways that aren't always so obvious. So awareness step one is to be aware and making proactive, thoughtful changes is step two. And it's not about shame again, it's not about condemnation. It's about learning to do better.
[00:09:23] Leslie Vargas: When you know better, you do better. And that is the goal of this topic and hopefully with everybody viewing this podcast.
[00:09:31] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, and you, you did a great job in your presentation. You brought in some really like iconic cartoon characters to showcase how these things sneak into our culture. You know, where we, we, especially those of us of a certain age growing up. With like really stereotypical characters, like tell us a little bit about like some of the examples that that you give to show, to show this.
[00:09:56] Leslie Vargas: Okay, so yes. I personally love using pop culture and cartoons to break down uncomfortable topics, right? That's just like something I like because they help people connect the dots without getting defensive. And often something that has been ingrained right in our brains through innocent TV programming for years.
[00:10:13] Leslie Vargas: So I wanna start with one person or character I like to use. Right. Speedy Gonzalez. Right. I know in elementary school everybody loved to draw Speedy Gonzalez, right? He's a beloved character now, especially in the Latino community. But originally he was created through a lens—to be honest, of implicit bias, right?
[00:10:31] Leslie Vargas: The oversized sombrero, the thick accent, the portrayal of all the other mice as lazy. It played into harmful stereotypes as Mexicans. And if I'm being honest, I don't know anybody that wants a mi, a mouse in their house. Anybody that that wants it anywhere near them because it's seen as dirty. It seen as something that is not a part of normal society, and yet we have this portrayal right about Mexicans.
[00:10:55] Leslie Vargas: So the people created him probably didn't mean any harm. I can't, maybe they did. But that's just the nature of implicit bias, right? It's subtle and it often goes unchecked. Another example I like to give is Apu from The Simpsons. So I grew up in the Simpsons age when the Simpsons had just got released on television, right?
[00:11:13] Leslie Vargas: And you have Apu, right? We have some great things about Apu. He's hardworking. And he's intelligent, which is check, check. Those are great, right? But then he has this exaggerated accent. He has exaggerated mannerisms. He has a job as a convenience store owner which reflects the common limiting stereotypes, right, of South Asian immigrants.
[00:11:31] Leslie Vargas: So for a long time, this was the only, I think, south Asian character on mainstream TV. So imagine what message this was send into viewers. Who are not South Asian, but imagine what it was sending to the kids and the students who were watching this. Right. And the Simpsons is a very popular show. And then there's my favorite Miss Piggy.
[00:11:51] Leslie Vargas: So I love me some, Miss Piggy, right? 'cause she's confident, she fabulous, but she's constantly flirting with Kermit, even when he looks visibly uncomfortable, even when he tries to get away and say no. Right? That's a microaggression. So it, it reinforces the idea that men can't be on the receiving end of harassment, and that their boundaries don't matter. 
[00:12:11] Cheryl Broom: You're right 'cause Miss Piggy does harass him.
[00:12:15] Leslie Vargas: Yeah, she was a harasser, right? She would've been if, if she was a man and this was work, she would've had so many sexual harassment lawsuits slapped against her for what she was doing. But because she's a woman and because it's a man, it's like, don't act like you don't like this.
[00:12:29] Leslie Vargas: Right? So again, microaggression. So I use these examples really to show how media. Even in the things we think are harmless are like for us, nostalgic, right? Based on how we grew up. They carry these biases and in marketing and communications people, we are literally creating the media, right? So we have to be intentional because if we're not, we risk reinforcing these stereotypes rather than challenging them and getting them changed.
[00:12:53] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, and these are such great examples because you know, like when you said Miss Piggy, I'm like, what's wrong with Miss Piggy? Like.
[00:13:00] Leslie Vargas: A lot of people in the room, you could see their face was like, miss Piggy, come on. And then when I, when I started talking, they were like, oh yeah. Yeah.
 [00:13:08] Cheryl Broom: Oh yeah, she like forced Kermit to kiss her. She did all sorts of things. 
[00:13:12] Leslie Vargas: Yes, Yes.
[00:13:13] Cheryl Broom: But you know, it's, it's great because I was thinking like, how do we learn to recognize these things. And so these are good, like obvious examples, right? And I think recognizing them in obvious mainstream media can help us learn how to recognize them in everyday situations.
[00:13:34] Cheryl Broom: And as marketers, maybe start to question like, I, is this a stereotypical representation? Does this have a microaggression? So it seems like a natural, natural progression to see it in media. And now. What's it look like in our day-to-day jobs? Like how does it come across? Have you seen any community college examples?Have you seen things in in work?
[00:14:01] Leslie Vargas: Okay. Yes. Every day. No.
[00:14:04] Cheryl Broom: No. 
[00:14:04] Leslie Vargas: It shouldn't be every day, but it's always whether. Of course it's in marketing and communications, but just in everyday interactions. Right. So biases show up I think, more than we realize, or more maybe, than we want to realize. Right. And I think that's the whole problem. 'cause it hides in the choices we make and how we do our jobs.
[00:14:22] Leslie Vargas: So that's important that we're educated and we know about this. So we, like I said, we know better. We do better. So one of the biggest things I like to point out is imagery, right? Again. Our college brochures, banners, websites, photos, if it's mostly showing white students, but your actual student population is students of color, I think that's a problem.
[00:14:40] Leslie Vargas: If you're bragging that you are an HSI and 75%, 79% of your students are Hispanic, but you can't even tell. That anything that would be representative of Hispanic students, I think that's a problem because we're not reflecting the community we serve. On the flip side, and this is happening I think a lot across the state of California, if y'all don't like me saying it, I see it.
[00:15:02] Leslie Vargas: Hopefully you see it now too, right? It's you're going all in with diversity on paper, but not reflecting it in practice. So that's what we call something called diversity washing, right? It's dressing up to make our marketing look more inclusive without doing real work behind the scenes. That's not having any students of color in your program, but then having them in your marketing video and then nobody, when their students show up, they're not gonna see anybody that looks like them.
[00:15:27] Leslie Vargas: So language matters too, right? Words like underprivileged at risk, or even saying diverse students. It is sometimes negatively reinforcing deficit narratives, right? A better approach, I think is to do anti-deficit languages that focuses on the student's strength and potential rather than their perceived shortcomings.
[00:15:46] Leslie Vargas: So somebody say, might say, Leslie, but what do you mean by anti-deficit languages? And I'm, I'm glad you asked me virtual community, right? So for example, they're not underprivileged, but students with historically marginalized backgrounds are students from under-resourced communities. The language you use is very important.
[00:16:04] Leslie Vargas: And then I want to give you two real world examples, right? The first was a flyer for a Black History Month, movie night featuring Hidden Figures. If you haven't seen that movie. I think it's great. Right on the flyer, they listed chicken and watermelon as part of the refreshments. Now, I know the intention wasn't malicious, right?
[00:16:23] Leslie Vargas: I know these people, it was just about feeding students during a movie, but those foods carry a deep and painful history, right when it comes to charactering black people. So as soon as the flyer went out, I started getting emails from students, phone calls from employees. People were hurt. They were offended. They were confused. And here's the thing. I didn't even create the flyer. If you work in college, as you know, sometimes departments make their own marketing materials. They just send it out. Nothing you can do about it. You have to put out the fire. Right now, we're being reactive instead of proactive. But I knew as a communications professional, I had to act.
[00:16:57] Leslie Vargas: So I immediately reached out to the department and let them know about the concerns and I use this as a teachable moment. And as a woman and a woman of color, I could say this like, unequivocally, this is something that often falls on the shoulders of people of color, especially women. We're the ones who have to educate others on things that we feel should be common sense, right?
[00:17:17] Leslie Vargas: It could become emotionally exhausting. It could become taxing, but it's necessary. And I think this was one of those moments. That I had to be the teacher, even though it was not my job to be the teacher. So the dean end up responding by sending out an apology which was the right thing to do. But then I had some of my white colleagues come to me asking, they were confused, like, Leslie, what's the big deal?
[00:17:39] Leslie Vargas: And I think that right there, that was a blind spot for them because they didn't see. I share with them, no one ever lists we're serving cantaloupe bananas or strawberries, right? On flyers, it's just refreshments. Maybe it'll save fruit, but chicken and watermelon, those specific foods have an historically been used in racist imagery to mock and dehumanize black people, right?
[00:18:01] Leslie Vargas: And if you don't know that, you're not necessarily a bad person, but you are like, I like to say, being destroyed for a lack of knowledge. So that's why we have to keep these conversations going because if we don't name it, we can't fix it. So that's one example. I want to give you another example that wasn't, that was just in a, in a written letter from a council member, right?
[00:18:23] Leslie Vargas: It was from a local council member. One of the nicest, most compassionate people you will ever meet. Like, that's my personal feeling about him. In his message he was highlighting a major milestone, right? Apparently, Booker T. Washington had been on Mount Rubidoux and they were gonna do an installment to him and to Frank Miller, right?
[00:18:44] Leslie Vargas: So in his message, he highlighted Frank Miller's contributions in Riverside, but barely contextualized Booker T. Washington's legacy, and then singled out Washington's race without mentioning the race of Miller at all. So, right. This is an implicit bias. When we only mention the race of people of color, we imply that whiteness is the default standard and everything else is something else, right? We, we see this all the time, so nobody in the room noticed the, the implicit bias that had just taken place when I shared this. But once I pointed it out and then suddenly the room was like, oh, wow, you're right. Like I see that right. So, in fact, I did a survey.
[00:19:21] Leslie Vargas: 90% of the room knew who Booker T. Washington was and his contributions to the world, right? And only a handful of people, I think it was like two or three, had heard of Miller. And a lot of them didn't even know like what he had done. So that's why these conversations matter. They matter to me because once you see it, I think you can't unsee it.
[00:19:40] Leslie Vargas: And from there you can start making choices that reflect all of your students. All of your community members with accuracy, but with dignity and also with care. And then, oh, I'm gonna share one more example.
[00:19:51] Leslie Vargas: It just popped up in my mind, right?
[00:19:53] Leslie Vargas: So there's a college in the Southern United States who released a marketing spotlight featuring student athletes. That's lovely. Right? We're highlighting our student athletes. On the surface it looked like a celebration of diversity, but I'm gonna give y'all y'all the breakdown, okay? Of what happened.
[00:20:10] Leslie Vargas: There was two white athletes. They were shown with bold headlines like, I'm a future doctor, I'm a future corporate financier, right? And then there's the two black athletes, one hat. I am an African American woman, and the other hat. I value equality. Right. Do you see the disconnect? So the white students were connected to careers and achievements while the black students were reduced to identity and vague values.
[00:20:35] Leslie Vargas: No majors, no goals. We don't know what they want to be when they graduate school, right? Broad statements that sounded inclusive, but actually revealed a troubling gap in the perception at that college. So there was public backlash and it was swift, right? External media news, they picked this up. The college faced a firestorm, not because I think they set out to offend someone because they didn't stop to ask, are we valuing these students equally in how we represent them?
[00:21:03] Leslie Vargas: So it's a textbook example how implicit bias isn't always loud. It's often in what we don't say. And for marketing and communications professionals, that's a wake up call, right? Representation isn't just about who we include, but it's how we frame them, which is so critically important.
[00:21:22] Cheryl Broom: These were such amazing examples and I, I wanna take a quick break and hear from our soponsor. And when we come back, I wanna share with you a similar experience I had at my college and then, and then maybe we can get into as communication professionals, like what type of questions should we be asking, especially if we're not, if this is new to people, what should they be looking for and what should they be asking?
[00:21:44] Cheryl Broom: So let's, take a quick second and we'll be right. So before the break, Leslie gave us just fantastic examples of real world implicit bias and stereotypes and tropes, that you've come across professionally. And I wanna ask you, I want you to give some advice on how people can. What type of questions we should be asking so that we, you know, are more thoughtful with our communications.
[00:22:17] Cheryl Broom: But I wanna tell you something really quick that happened at my campus and it's fresh on my mind because I posted on it in LinkedIn last week and I got over 2,000 likes. And like I was like my whole team, I'm like, oh my God, I look, I went viral on LinkedIn and it was. Somebody at my campus when I was at MiraCosta made a flyer 'cause they were having Taco Tuesday and it was to celebrate something on campus.
[00:22:43] Cheryl Broom: I don't even remember what, and the picture they used was like a Speedy Gonzalez character with this like giant mustache and this giant sombrero. And he's like, you, they turned Taco Tuesday into like a stereotypical like trope of a Mexican American and they plastered them all over campus. I mean like everywhere. Every bathroom stall.
[00:23:08] Leslie Vargas: So copyright infringement. I got it.
[00:23:11] Cheryl Broom: And people complain to the president and they thought it was my department and it wasn't my department. If I had seen that fly, like it was, I wish I could describe it even better because when you looked at it, you were like, oh, like it was, it was clearly a stereotype, like it was clearly offensive.
[00:23:30] Cheryl Broom: Whoever made the flyer, I think it was maybe student services or a student hadn't thought about that, so they thought it was my department and they came to the president and they were all mad. And I was like, no one, I never even saw the flyer. Like if I had, I would've recommended not putting it up or choosing another image, but just like you, like it was, I didn't make it, but I had to go around taking 'em all down.
[00:23:54] Leslie Vargas: Yeah.
[00:23:54] Cheryl Broom: My job to get it and my job to address it on campus that like, you know, this. You need to be more thoughtful with your communication. Please bring flyers to our department. We can help you, we can help you choose images, we can talk things through with you. So it was a learning moment for the whole campus.
[00:24:12] Cheryl Broom: But it made me think like if I were a student making a flyer, like I'm not trained on these things. Like what questions should people be asking? What should they be looking for? Like how, how do you make us better communicators even if you're not a professional marketer?
[00:24:29] Leslie Vargas: So I think the first thing is to ask yourself, could this be offensive to any group, even though it's not offensive to me. So I think that is step one, is to do some self self-reflection. If you're not doing self-reflection, then you shouldn't be creating anything that has to do with something that's going out to the public, right?
[00:24:45] Leslie Vargas: It has to be some level of self-reflection. And I think that. We do such a great job on social media of keeping up with what's going on with celebrities, keeping up what's going on with the Joneses and blah, blah, blah. We need to do a good job of keeping up with history, with things that have happened in the news because I think that's gonna help shape the way we think and the type of questions that we ask and the way we see things, right?
[00:25:09] Leslie Vargas: Like the example I gave before, a lot of people never heard of chicken and watermelon as caricatures of black people, even though they exist in so many racist tropes, right? They, they just do. But I think that's where education comes in. So I think most importantly is just to ask yourself, would this offend somebody with this? Would this be inclusive of the population I'm serving?
[00:25:31] Leslie Vargas: Because it's almost like, is it okay to share it? But yes. But is it necessary to share it? And if it's not, then just don't, just don't do it.
[00:25:40] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, and I think getting feedback is important. I mean, a lot of times we're so busy. Like, you're so busy. You know, we, we, before the podcast, for those of you listening, Leslie's like, I'm dealing with this and this and this and this. And I'm like, should we postpone the recording? Like do you need to go deal with all this stuff because, but if we did, we never have a chance to record.
[00:26:00] Cheryl Broom: 'cause that's the life of a community college. I mean, it's, it's putting out fires every single day. So I would also encourage, like getting feedback, like asking people, you know, and I think there's some fear around this topic. I think some people are afraid of saying things wrong or asking the wrong question or coming across as nitpicky.
[00:26:20] Cheryl Broom: I mean, how do you, how do you reassure people who might be nervous about getting it wrong? How, how do you engage with this topic? Is there a right way, a wrong way? What are you, what's your advice?
[00:26:30] Leslie Vargas: So I don't think there's a right way or wrong way. I like to use a litmus test. So I think I use a litmus test for lots of lots of parts of my life, not just right, right here in marketing and communications, right? So I always like to say like, before we hit send print our posts. Like, it's like a quick, I call it a gut check, right?
[00:26:50] Leslie Vargas: That's why this. I shared in our conference a bias and microaggressions litmus test, right? It was like five simple questions that can help anyone from graphic designers to speech writers to pause and ask. Like I said, is this respectful? Is this inclusive? Is this safe to share? So, how the test works is, number one, is a language check, right?
[00:27:12] Leslie Vargas: You ask yourself, would I say this to anyone? No matter what their identity is? So if it feels awkward in any way or offensive, when you imagine saying it to someone of a different race, a different gender, or a different background. It's probably biased, y'all. And then I do stereotypes and assumptions. Check, right? So am I assuming something based on appearance, ability, age, or culture? Right? Like when someone says, you don't sound black, I get that a lot, right? That's a microaggression. It assumes that black people sound a certain way. I know a person in that presentation shared that they were doing marketing and they happened to always make all the athletes.
[00:27:53] Leslie Vargas: The same culture. And they said people perceived it like they were doing it on purpose, but when in actuality all the athletes were the same culture. So that's important to do, like this representation check, right? Am I showing diverse perspectives are just reinforcing one story. So if our images are examples, only reflect one group, say—just one ethnicity of students. We have to ask ourself, is it time to broaden our lens? Do we need to take some new photos? Do we need to set up some photo shoots with students? Do we need to, you know, do some interviews to see how this could work? And then impact versus the intent check. I think this is important.
[00:28:33] Leslie Vargas: Impact. Y'all remember that impact versus intent, right? So even if I didn't mean to offend, could someone still be hurt by this? Intent doesn't erase impact, right? If someone points out a problem, you have to be willing to revise the message. And I'll go back to this. This is like. If you commit a crime, right?
[00:28:51] Leslie Vargas: You could say, I didn't mean to do this crime. The judge is gonna say, but you still did it. You're still liable. Right? So we have to really manage that impact versus intent. And then tone and empathy check is so critical, right? Does this feel respectful and does it feel humane? Would I feel okay if this was said to me?
[00:29:09] Leslie Vargas: Or to somebody I love. So if you can confidently answer yes to all five of these things, it's probably safe to send. But if you answer no, even one, you need to pause, adjust, maybe get a second opinion. Like was mentioned, and if you're unsure, that's your cue. Seek the feedback right from a diverse peer group, or even use a bias checking tool.
[00:29:29] Leslie Vargas: I don't know if you guys know, but there are buying checking tools like AI, fairness 360. Google has some that are free. So again, this is not about perfection, it's about pausing, thinking before we communicate. And that's where the real change starts. And maybe to your viewers, you could pay some of those bias, you know?
[00:29:48] Leslie Vargas: Check three tools in there to help them out in case they just need that little bit of extra.
[00:29:53] Cheryl Broom: I was really glad you brought up AI because we, we here at GradComm have developed like a custom AI tool for colleges and we did some, we trained the tool to recognize implicit bias. So as we're recording this in June, it's still the tool still in testing mode, but just today I was testing it and I uploaded a document that we've written that we designed, and so we're a professional marketing company.
[00:30:14] Cheryl Broom: So you think that we're like really. Like aware of these things and I asked our AI tool to scan it and it came up with a couple things that I was like, wow, like I hadn't even thought of this. And one of them, I'm gonna pull it up really quick. It says starving artist reference. The phrase, the days of being a starving artist are over reinforces an outdated trope.
[00:30:37] Cheryl Broom: And I was like, oh my gosh. Why do we use starving artists in our copy? Like that's true. Like some students wanna be artists and you're, it could be really successful. Like that's a, 
[00:30:48] Leslie Vargas: And that's anti, you need to go to anti-deficit languages, right? Because we're using deficit languages instead. So yeah, you're right that that's a great
[00:30:56] Cheryl Broom: That was a great one. And then another one that I thought was interesting that went beyond just photography. It says in the public services section, you included mostly enforcement related careers, but I'll have to say like the photography in that section is both men and women, but this tool said that career itself can feel gendered.
[00:31:18] Cheryl Broom: So a suggestion is to highlight social work, case management and community advocacy and equal measure 'cause that's on the same pathway. And I was like, you know, that is such a good point. We talk about this public safety pathway and we only show like law enforcement and firefighters, like why aren't we showing social workers and you know, traditionally more female jobs and more caring jobs where, because it's easy to show pictures of people scaling buildings and with, with hoses.
[00:31:49] Leslie Vargas: And those are fun. Those in marketing, those look great and they look cool.
[00:31:55] Cheryl Broom: Yeah.
[00:31:55] Leslie Vargas: But you're right, it's not inclusive of the whole umbrella and of the whole population, so yes.
[00:32:02] Cheryl Broom: So I thought, well, I'm glad you mentioned AI tools, because it was, it was eye-opening and, and the other, it found a couple other little small things that will change. But I'm like, I'm glad I used this tool to check because even though we're professionals and we do think about this, there's always things you can improve.
[00:32:20] Cheryl Broom: And so think you need to be open to knowing that you just, this is something you do every day. It's just part, it needs to be part of your work.
[00:32:27] Leslie Vargas: Yes.
[00:32:28] Cheryl Broom: For sure. I had a faculty member once come and look at an ad and she pointed out to me that we'd select a photograph with a, a male standing over female people.
[00:32:41] Cheryl Broom: So he was teaching, but it was like a group of women and he was standing over them and I hadn't even thought of that. And she's like, this looks very threatening. Like, would you want this man like towering over you? Like this doesn't look that we don't teach like that. And so that was another moment where I was like, wow, I had, I had never thought of that.
[00:33:01] Cheryl Broom: And I was so thankful that she had pointed that out because now I'm really aware and I look for photographs that don't feel like a little bit aggressive. So don't be afraid, I think is the thing I wanna say is don't be afraid of the topic. Right.
[00:33:14] Cheryl Broom: So clearly you've got this great litmus test and I think you proved in your session like you don't need to invest in like a $20,000 trainer to help you do this, right?
[00:33:28] Cheryl Broom: There's simple things you can do each and every day. So if there's like one piece of advice for people who are listening to listen to this podcast that they can start doing immediately, like today after they're done listening, what would, what would you tell them to do.
[00:33:42] Leslie Vargas: So I would say yes. Is we good? We good that she. Ask this question, right? because often people think that it's this kind of cultural shift, right? That needs a six figure budget. We need to hire a consultant firm and we need to do this. But I'm gonna tell y'all like she said, nope, nope, nope. Some of the most meaningful change start with intentional reflection and just a community conversation, right?
[00:34:04] Leslie Vargas: So. I shared a framework, right? That's rooted in what I call the three Rs. You recognize, you respond, and you revise. Right? So first, recognize, give people space and examples to recognize their own biases. When you recognize what you're doing for yourself, it helps you receive the change better than if somebody's always pointing out the mistakes you're making.
[00:34:25] Leslie Vargas: So, right? That means showing them. What microaggressions actually look like, actually sound like or how coded language, right? Even in coded language that we use can slip into press releases or campaigns without even noticing it, right? You can't name it. You can't change it. So let's go ahead and then we have to respond, right?
[00:34:44] Leslie Vargas: We have to empower folks to do something when they spot a bias. That doesn't always mean putting someone on blast or in a more PC way, calling someone out, right? It might, meaning just talking to them, offering a better word choice, are gently pointing out, Hey, this might land differently for some folks if blah, blah, blah.
[00:35:03] Leslie Vargas: And one thing, if we genuinely, as marketing and communications professionals. Care about people care about making a difference. When we do share something with somebody, then and we do respond, they're gonna receive it because they know our heart is coming from a place of care. And finally, revise, right?
[00:35:21] Leslie Vargas: Encourage a culture where people can and should revise their messaging over and over again if we're missing the mark. I know we often work on time constraints. We work on constantly putting out fires. We're getting a million assignments at one time, right? But we have to be okay with revising, not as a punishment, but as an opportunity for growth.
[00:35:40] Leslie Vargas: We need to normalize feedback, normalize edits, normalize learning out, and don't pick people to edit your work because you are having an implicit bias on who you think would know this topic better. Right? Just put it out there and then see what you get from your team members. So I love using scenarios.
[00:35:58] Leslie Vargas: I love them because they're low risk training stake tools. I get again, like Speedy Gonzales, like Miss Piggy, I think I even had in my thing a thing of James Brown saying, do you hear what I'm saying now? Because it's important that we're, we're listening right? So walk your team through real life examples.
[00:36:16] Leslie Vargas: They can share examples that they've experienced. One good thing in the presentation is I allow people to anonymously share an implicit bias or microaggression. They experienced, they committed, or they witnessed, they dropped it in a cup, the cups were passed around throughout the whole room. And when people got to pull it out and read it.
[00:36:34] Leslie Vargas: It resonated with a lot of people. Some people got their own and they were like, oh my gosh. Like they could see what they did. So we can create bias, spot checking list something quick. Folks can run through right before they hit send. So it's like how I said the litmus test, right? Have a peer review system.
[00:36:51] Leslie Vargas: Have a trusted colleague that can check for you and listen and build your team across differences. We don't want group think. Marketing and communications. If we're a group, think we are in the wrong thinking box. So collaborate with folks from different backgrounds, different departments, even different generations, because a 50-year-old Black man might think differently than a 20-year-old Black man on your marketing team, right?
[00:37:13] Leslie Vargas: Or vice versa with any culture, right? So the more the diverse voices are at your table, the more nuanced and inclusive these messages are gonna be. So above all, keep educating yourselves. One and done bias training. It does not work. Stop paying for one and done bias training for people to come in. You spend all these thousand dollars for them to tell you what you're doing wrong, what you need to improve, and then there's limited change.
[00:37:36] Leslie Vargas: You need ongoing learning and a space again for people to talk, people to ask hard questions, people to not be offended where you could, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas in this room so they can share honestly. And because inclusion isn't a checkbox, it's a daily practice.
[00:37:52] Cheryl Broom: I love it. Well, I sure wish I had gone to your workshop. I hope that you offer more of them. I'm, I'm telling you now, we need you, Leslie, you need to make the conference round this fall. If anybody has questions or maybe they hear you talk and they're like, gosh, we want Leslie to speak at our conference.
[00:38:11] Cheryl Broom: How? How can people get ahold of you? Are you on LinkedIn or.
[00:38:14] Leslie Vargas: So, yes, I'm on LinkedIn at Why Not Leslie. you can also email me at Leslie at Why Not Leslie or leslie.vargas@rccd.edu. So if you have a question or you think of something that has to do with anything marketing, communications, life, who can help me think, why not Leslie? 
[00:38:34] Cheryl Broom: Why Not Leslie? Good. I'll put that in the show notes too. I mean, I, so everybody came out of your presentation and were like talking and there was like a buzz in the room and I think it was so great that you gave us space for people to be honest. And I love this idea of like writing down.
[00:38:52] Cheryl Broom: Even admitting what you've done and writing it down, because that's like a confession. And we need to share when we make mistakes, like we, we need to share with people. Like, we did this and, and we didn't mean to. 'cause then others, like you said, other people got that and we're, and we're like, oh, I did that too.
[00:39:07] Cheryl Broom: You know?
[00:39:08] Leslie Vargas: Yes, you're right. We can't live in a bubble that we are perfect and that we have arrived. And that's just in life general. So students need to hear that from us. Our colleagues need to hear that from us. Even our leaders need to hear that from us because if they don't feel safe, but they're around somebody that's making them feel safe, it's easier for them to open up, share and ask these questions.
[00:39:29] Cheryl Broom: Great. Well, Leslie, it's been such a joy talking to you. I really appreciate you taking the time on such a crazy day.
[00:39:35] Leslie Vargas: Yes, and y'all don't know It has been crazy, okay. But yes. Thank you so much, Cheryl.
[00:39:41] Cheryl Broom: Thank you.