Why Being Brave Means Letting Go of Being Nice

Why Being Brave Means Letting Go of Being Nice

“Hope isn’t an optimism that one day it will be okay,” says Austin Channing Brown. “Hope is what we owe to one another as human beings.” Brown is a media producer, a speaker, and the author of the New York Times bestseller I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. In her racial justice and leadership work, Brown doesn’t chase hope; she lives it. Brown joined host Elise Loehnen to talk about how she anchors herself amid the stress and emotional toll of her work, and why for many Black women, the missteps of White women, in particular, can sting more. She also explains why it’s more helpful to be brave than it is to be nice—and how to show up with this in mind. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.)