How do you tell someone their comments sound racist? Or that they’re joke seems sexist? Or any other -ist?

This video, from Jay Smooth, host of New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show (WBAI’s Underground Railroad), does a perfect job of describing a really effective approach. He nails it:

[Can't see the embedded video in your RSS reader or email? Click on the post title and you'll be taken straight to it.]

In mediator-speak, it’s called separating intention from impact. We don’t know their intention…but we do know the impact on us and others.

Conflict Zen by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at ConflictZen.com.