June 20, 2023 • 47 mins
In a soul-searching conversation with one of my fellow DEI Consultants, she asked the critical question that I immediately wrote down – Can We Stop Pretending? Can we stop pretending that you care about DEI? Can we stop pretending that if we follow the rules, we'll get promoted? Can we stop pretending that you want inclusive hiring practices? Can we stop pretending that you want to hire diverse people? Can we stop pretending that inclusion includes everyone? Lord, can we stop pretending that you want anything Black after Black History Month ends? Breathe!
In this episode of Inclusion Unscripted, Margaret Spence, will unpack the pretenders and ask, when can we all stop pretending that you truly want any of this DEI stuff? So we can have a level-set discussion about the future. Of course, it's hard as a person of color not to call out the pretenders – but to maintain our sanity, we have to say, I think you're pretending to want DEI.
Inclusion Unscripted, where we're not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we're living it. The Inclusion Unscripted Live Weekly Podcast, hosted by Margaret Spence, is unapologetically honest about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Our goal is to empower diverse listeners to ask for what they want and to inspire organizations to co-create more equitable and inclusive workplaces. Tune in every week for a new episode. Inclusion Unscripted is a live-streamed broadcast every Friday at 2 pm EST on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Join us live, or find us on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcasts app.
Inclusion Unscripted with Host Margaret Spence. Sponsored by The Inclusion Learning Lab - https://inclusionlearninglab.com Intro Music Credit (Canva Pro) The Winner by Tape Machine Epidemic Sound
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You are like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
You've listen me, every day I was down with an like a sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
(00:25):
Will your reflection on.
Hi everyone.
Welcome to Inclusion unscripted.
My name is Margaret Spence, and today we're gonna talk about how we pretend that we want diversity and inclusion.
I was talking with a good friend earlier this week and we reconnected after several months and we're both doing d and I work.
(00:53):
And in the conversation she said to me, Can we stop pretending? How do we help organizations stop pretending? How do we help the general public stop pretending? And it was a wonderful conversation and I immediately thought to myself, this is the topic for Friday's program.
(01:16):
This is the topic that we wanna bring forward today for inclusion unscripted.
So you know that we are not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we are living it every day here at Inclusion unscripted.
And I wanna bring forward today this hot topic around, can we stop pretending? I think that's, that's the word today, because I think we're living in a pretend land.
(01:50):
So thank you for joining us.
Here at Inclusion unscripted.
For those of you who are joining for the first time, my name is Margaret Spence.
I'm the founder of the Inclusion Learning Lab and Inclusion Unscripted is sponsored by the Learning Lab.
At the Learning Lab.
We are here to empower those of you doing the work of diversity and inclusion to do that work.
(02:16):
With a new stride, a new step.
We provide courses and classes and support and coaching and one-on-one support for diversity and inclusion and talent leaders to help you do the work of diversity and inclusion more effectively.
So this week has been another one of those where it's like a hard to watch week where you just go.
(02:43):
Are we, are we going any further down the path or are we staying up at the top of the path? So a couple things happened this week that jarred me to where I am with this discussion, where I ended up with this discussion.
And so today is a lesson on pretending, but today's a lesson on diversity and inclusion because I think.
(03:10):
I want us doing this work to frame this up a little bit differently.
So when I wrote the show notes for Inclusion, unscripted, the questions that came to mind and as I was talking with my colleague about, The work of equitable hiring and equitable promotions and building effective employee resource groups to pro, to provide support for for internal employees.
(03:45):
The words, can we stop pretending came up and what I wrote is, can we stop pretending that we care about de N I, diversity, equity, and inclusion? That's a little hard to come to.
Many of you wonder why I am doing this part of the work that I'm doing now, but let me give you just a tiny bit of my journey, and sometimes you always have to go back and explain it.
(04:17):
Many years ago, I was sitting in a worker's comp adjuster desk.
I was managing workplace injuries for employers, and I was managing workplace injuries for one of the largest employers in Florida.
And in that process, I began to see how people were discarded from the workforce because they had a disability.
(04:43):
That's where this work started.
It didn't start at this moment here.
This work started a long time ago.
When I left that desk, I made a point to work on inclusion.
As a core fundamental part of the work I was doing, how do I get employers to realize that people with a dis disability can still continue to work? Because the system is built to exclude those who have a disability from work.
(05:15):
One of the highest unemployed unemployment rates that we have right now are people with disabilities.
And so fast forward, I wrote a book called From Workers' Comp, claimant to Valued Employee.
I wrote that book in 2008.
So not today, not last week, not since George Floyd, the book was written to incorporate a D A F M L A with retention of disabled employees in the workforce.
(05:51):
And how do I, how do we work within a system to keep disabled employees in the workforce? So that was 2008.
That book was published, and then I wrote a second book for supervisors and managers so that they can clearly understand keeping disabled ill and injured employees in the workforce.
(06:13):
I went out and I formed a week called National Return to Work Week.
That was focused around keeping ill injured and disabled employees in the workforce.
In 2009, I launched a podcast around keeping injured and ill and disabled employees in the workforce, and I went around the country and I spoke about disability inclusion and what that needed to look like.
(06:38):
Okay.
I worked then with the job accommodation network.
Brought them here to Florida to speak.
Worked on an app that they were developing to keep disabled employees in the workforce, how easy it was to allow us to accommodate disabled employees in the workforce.
(06:59):
So that was the basis of the work I'm doing now.
So I didn't come to this desk overnight.
This wasn't a overnight to today.
What's happened with me is that I've clearly found my voice because I no longer care if the planet is offended by what I say.
(07:22):
There's a difference.
There's a difference because the work that I've been doing, I've been doing this for a long time, the work has been consistent.
Okay, so earlier yesterday there was a post on LinkedIn about the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and while this is not a political show, it is still my program.
(07:51):
So I think I get talk about whatever I want to, and I'm appreciative that you're listening to me.
But Greg Abbott.
Put out a memo to all state agencies and public universities ordering them to stop applying diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in hiring.
(08:12):
The Texas Tribune is reporting this.
It was on the SHRM website.
The memo said, D E N I.
Policies violate federal and state anti-discrimination laws and hiring cannot be based on factors other than merit, according to the trivia.
That's what he said.
The memo claimed that de and I efforts favor some demographic groups while putting others at a disadvantage.
(08:40):
It doesn't specify what about the de and i programs or initiatives are so problematic.
And a professor Michael Green with Texas a and m University School of Law said, I'm not aware of any law that makes D E N I programs illegal.
Governor Abbott's statement said that policies in hiring anti-discrimination laws are likely to be challenged.
(09:06):
Texas will try to attempt to pass a law to codify his views around d e I.
Okay? And the courts have been clear in ruling that the mere presence of A D N I initiative, a program is not per se, violate title.
(09:26):
Nine.
We're title seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it doesn't violate any anti-discrimination laws that exists out there.
Okay, so Greg Abbott put out this rule on no de N I in hiring.
(09:54):
Basically at the colleges, the universities, the schools, the state agencies and so on.
So there was a wonderful gentleman on LinkedIn who put out a note on this article and said, I don't want to get down into the swamp.
(10:15):
We just need to be focusing on what we're doing, darling.
We can't focus.
We can't focus.
I asked a question to this individual.
What part of focusing are you asking us to focus on? Because if you're trying to take away the ability for someone to be hired under diversity, equity, and inclusion, basically what you're saying is the following.
(10:41):
Let me give you the following that you're saying.
And for all of you people who are non-black out there, I'm talking to you cuz maybe it is that you agree with Greg Abbott, which is why I wrote this thing today about Stop pretending.
Maybe you agree with Greg Abbott, but let me give you how this works.
You're a woman, a white woman, you're in the D E N I category.
(11:01):
You have a autistic child who's a high functioning autistic child who you wanna get into college, and there's no office of equity like our governor here in Florida has removed the office of equity from the college campuses.
How does your child with a disability get to navigate the functional spaces that are built for able bodies when those able bodies don't have to make an accommodation for your child? If you have a, if you are an individual who's in a wheelchair, who is blind, who is deaf, who has a able-bodied issue, a body, an issue that prevents you from functioning the way everybody else does, if you are, if there is no office of equity and there's no de and i in any part of the hiring process, that involves you too.
(11:57):
If you are a person who is senior, And you're trying to maintain your job or you're trying to get hired over age 55, d e I and I includes you too.
De and I is not a black person thing.
Black people fought for the rights, for the civil rights, but the people who benefit from civil rights are not black people.
(12:23):
They're everybody else.
They're everyone else.
There was a time when a child who had a disability could not go into mainstream colleges.
They were not required to create a safe, inclusive space for people with disabilities.
(12:48):
They were not required to do it.
They had no reason to do it.
So for all of you who are sitting back and pretending like this law means something to only black people, I have a little message for you.
(13:11):
The laws that are being put into place in Florida and Texas and any other governor who wants to pick on diversity, equity, and inclusion involves every single person in the United States.
When I was doing the work of inclusion based on your disability, what I said to everyone then is the following, every person is one banana peel away from having a disability.
(13:40):
You can fall down, you can have an accident you can beat.
You can go from able to disabled in a matter of seconds.
So if there is no diversity, equity, and inclusion, Across the board, what happens to the people who don't fit the black category? Because see, these folks want to make de e n I the boogie person.
(14:08):
They wanna make de e n I the boogie person, right? That is the goal to make De and I the Boogie person, right? The challenge here is, Diversity, equity and inclusion is not just for people of color.
It's not just for people of color.
(14:31):
There is a misconception that de and I is only for black people.
Diversity and the, and the process of creating inclusion includes people who aren't white males.
It includes white women.
(14:52):
So if you don't wanna hire based on de and I, that means that white women are at risk of being hired as well.
So you get to say, I hired that white man based on equity or merits, and they will find a reason not to hire you or I am.
(15:18):
I have a, a disability, but it's easily accommodated.
And because the employer is no longer able to look at how they include me in the process, they can only look at my merit.
Then I get excluded.
And so what we end up with is another homogenous group of rein entrenched men in organizations.
(15:45):
So my question is, when can we stop pretending? That is the question, when can we stop pretending? When can we stop pretending? When can we stop pretending that if you follow the rules, you'll get promoted as a person of color? When can we stop pretending that? When can we stop pretending that we absolutely like each other? That we like each other beyond? Hi, Margaret.
(16:20):
How you doing? When can we stop pretending that inclusion includes everyone? Because obviously right now inclusion doesn't include everyone.
And the process of Reen entrenching diversity and inclusion is happening right before our eyes, and I don't see anyone waking up and saying, wait a second, this doesn't sound too right.
(16:51):
See, many of you allies got out there and you protested after George Floyd.
And, and guess what? The people who were doing this saw you joining Arm and Arm with us to protest injustice and they got scared, which is why they are creating all of these laws to Reen entrench us.
(17:13):
But here's the thing that I want everyone to understand.
This is what I want you to understand.
This process is not new.
For those of you who are just doing the work of diversity and inclusion, this process is not new.
This has been occurring for a long time.
(17:38):
This has been happening for a long time.
Let me, let me hit on a subject here and the reason why I brought this forward.
Right, it is because I want us to stop pretending so we can have a level set discussion about where we go from here.
(17:59):
I wanna have a level set discussion about where we go from here, what's, what's our next opportunity and our next option beyond right here.
What does that look like for all of us? So let me, it's Black History Month, and so I'm gonna unpack a little black history for everybody.
(18:27):
Just unpack a little black history and I live again, as I said in the state of Florida and in the state of Florida and across the us.
They're banning books written by black people, written by LGBTQ plus people, written by Jewish people.
(18:49):
They're, they're, they've even banned in our state books on Martin Luther King.
So if you think that this is just some, oh, we are just gonna sing and everything's gonna be okay, and we need to create a policy that looks a little bit different than it does right now.
No, these folks that are.
Hell Ben on undoing de and I right in front of our eyes.
(19:12):
And for all of us who stay silent because we don't think it belongs to us.
We think that this is not our problem are mistaken because this is your problem.
This is your problem.
It's not a black problem.
We are the current Highlighted targeted group with the LGBTQ plus community.
(19:38):
But it is an everybody problem.
It's an everyone problem.
Let me, let me go back in history a a little bit for you.
The book The book Banning that is going on right now where we're pretending that we don't see the book banning going on out there.
(19:59):
The first time a book was banned was in 1650 in the United States.
The earliest book ban occurred in the United States in 1650.
I got this information from the national Archives.
(20:20):
I went into the history part, and I searched on book banning Mark Twain, Harriet Beretto, Judy Bloom, William Shakespeare were banned from school curriculums in the early days, not 2023.
(20:43):
20, 21, 20 19.
The first book that was banned in the United States was called a meritorious piece of our redemption.
It was a pamphlet that argued that anyone obedient to God and followed Christian teaching on Earth can get to heaven.
Imagine that many of you are on the Christian, right, or Christian folks think, God, could we ban that now? They did.
(21:08):
In 1650 it was banned.
Fast forward in 1850, uncle Tom's cabin was banned, which is Harriet Becher Stove's book in 1851.
The book was banned, right in 1860.
(21:30):
There was an antislavery book that was banned right in 1873.
There was an act passed called the Comstack Act that basically made it illegal, obscene, and illegal to possess obscene in a moral text and articles, right? The law was designed to ban content about birth, about sexuality.
(22:07):
About anything to do with anything around women.
Right? In 1836, we had another ban.
In 1920 Boston, the city of Boston had the most notorious book banning process in the entire country.
(22:31):
19 60, 19 20.
1954, they banned the rabbit wedding and children's books by Garth Williams who depicted a white rabbit marrying a black rabbit.
(22:52):
This was not even people, this was just some rabbits marrying each other.
The book was banned, right? 1950.
Huckleberry Finn, catcher on the Rye to Kill a Mockingbird and Canterbury Tales were banned under MacArthur era era 1969.
(23:18):
The Supreme Court said, y'all can read whatever you wanna read, more or less, right? So, In 1982, New York Liberal, New York decided to ban a bunch of anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic books, including Langston Hughes.
(23:45):
See the Playbook to Dismantle Diversity and Inclusion Didn't start today.
The playbook to dismantle diversity and inclusion did not start today.
This is a playbook that is well oiled, that is well tuned, that is easily deployed, that just gets new buzzwords added to it and deployed again.
(24:12):
The problem here is many of us pretend that this is not happening.
We go about our business, setting up our programs, doing what we think is what needs to be done apparently.
And we think that that is going to overcome the burden that we are being, that is being placed on us to prove that diversity and inclusion is actually important because that's the burden that's being put on us right now.
(24:45):
And so I wanna stop pretending.
That any of this is, okay, let me, let me give another class today cuz today is a, is a teaching day.
In 1996.
I spoke at the SHM conference on diversity equity inclusion in two in nine, in 2006 16.
(25:13):
I spoke at the Charm Diversity Conference, I meant to say.
And at the SHRM Diversity Conference, I talked about a couple things and I went back today in preparing for this show to look at my PowerPoint that I presented back then, and I talked about the journey of diversity and inclusion, the journey of diversity and inclusion.
(25:36):
I from 1916 to 1970 DE and I was affirmative action.
Until that word got to be so bad that no one today even says it.
And when somebody says affirmative action, I even cringe at the word affirmative action.
(26:00):
Right? I had a client say to me this week that they don't wanna call their diversity and inclusion program de and I anymore.
They wanna find a new word for it.
Okay, go.
Go for it.
Find a new word.
But this is where we are.
Back in 1970, affirmative action was the word.
(26:21):
Find me a person right now that doesn't think affirmative action is the biggest F word in the planet.
Right? By the time we got to 1980, it was equal employment.
Find me a person that can say equal employment out loud and not get swatted down because you said equal employment.
(26:52):
Find me that person.
Right.
By 19 83, 84, we got to diversity.
The field of diversity was formed.
And there were early pioneers in this field.
Howard Ross, Lenore Billings Shirley Davis, these early folks has been doing the actual work of the E N I for years coming forward.
(27:23):
Who set the foundation for the rest of us to walk on? Right? And.
By the 1990s is when we, we first got the first inkling of reverse discrimination.
1990 is when reverse discrimination became a thing.
(27:47):
That's when it became a thing.
So what we are seeing today with Greg Abbott, And Rhon, DeSantis and others who want to dismantle the word diversity, equity, and inclusion, and who want to dismantle the entire process of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and who are no longer pretending that that's not what they wanna do.
(28:10):
See, they stop pretending.
See, many of us think, oh no, that's not really what they're doing.
No, they're not pretending anymore.
They're saying it out loud.
They're issuing memos, they're passing laws.
And then to codify it here in Florida, they passed a law that they could run us over with a car if we go protest.
(28:30):
So there ain't a lot of us running out there to go protest in the street because we could get run over by a car.
Right.
So I wanna stop pretending all of you doing the work of diversity and inclusion.
I want you to stop pretending.
That the work you're doing in your organization is going to stop the work that is happening outside to dismantle every part of what you're doing.
(28:57):
When the tech giants laid off recently, they laid off whole swats of their diversity and inclusion department.
Their diversity recruiters got laid off.
The, the, the money that they were spending under the covers of George Floyd's murder, they don't wanna spend that anymore.
People are scaling back their De N I processes and programs.
(29:20):
They're eliminating the de and I leaders from the table.
They're reconfiguring the table so we don't have a voice there.
So exactly what are we getting today in the diversity process? In the early two thousands, people started.
(29:43):
To talk about the business case for diversity and inclusion, and so the business case became the thing that drove what we are doing right now.
The business case became the thing that we, that drives what we're doing, but the business case is not enough because people are still pretending that they want diversity and inclusion and they don't want it.
(30:09):
Because if you're, if you are even thinking that you don't want to use the word anymore.
We are technically back for those of you who want the history on D E N I, right? We're technically back at 1980 when the word affirmative action was a dirty word and they made it a dirty word till the point where nobody wanted to use it anymore.
(30:35):
Right.
And then, Fast forward to 1987 when they made equal employment a dirty word to the point where nobody wanted to use it anymore.
See, when the field of diversity was born in nineteen eighty three, eighty four, eighty five, in that region the dominant groups didn't wanna hear the word diversity either.
(31:03):
We have not evolved.
In this landscape that we are a part of, and I want all of you to stop pretending that we are evolving from the landscape.
The playbook is being rewritten for the current timeline, and we are pretending that everything is okay.
(31:29):
When I, when I talked to the group at shrm, In 2016, I said there are five parts of this process.
There are seven factors to social change that many of us don't understand.
(31:51):
The first factor is consciousness.
We gained consciousness about anit.
So during George Floyd's murder and during the pandemic, people became conscious for the first time, many that black people had a problem.
So they got conscious, they made a commitment to the process of fixing it.
(32:19):
So imagine a winding road that goes up and down.
And this is the analogy that I used when I presented this charm at the beginning of the curve.
The first curve is consciousness, and we make the curve to consciousness, and then we make the curve to commitment.
And then we make the curve to collaboration and we curve into collaboration.
(32:45):
And I'm gonna collaborate with you.
And boy, this work is hard.
And the next curve is courage.
And we make the curve to courage.
And when we get courage, after consciousness and commitment and collaboration and courage, we find courage, then we get to common purpose.
(33:11):
And when we get to common purpose, it's right about the time that we start backpedaling back to unconsciousness.
It is the moment that we backpedal to unconsciousness.
And so the history, so let me give you one more history lesson.
(33:33):
In 1933, there was a young black history teacher.
Her name was Tessie McGee and she wanted to share a book in her classroom, and the book was called The Fugitive Pedagogy, Carter g Woodson, and The Art of Black Teaching was the book that she wanted to share in her classroom.
(34:01):
This was 1933.
And she was teaching at the only black secondary school in Parish, Louisiana.
Ms.
McGee, like other teachers, had been instructed by Louisiana's all-White Department of Education and the parish school Board to only teach the approved learning objective and to keep the approved outline visible on her desk.
(34:31):
The state approved textbook showed not only you're not only not supposed to talk about the black race, but you're not supposed to talk about blackness as a civilized group of individuals, and so she defied.
(34:55):
The process and she wanted to teach the Negro is our history, which she held in her lap.
When the principal entered the room, she would teach from the approved outline and book, but when the principal left, she would return to the book in her lap, right? This is what happened to her.
(35:23):
This is what happened to her.
She returned to teach from the book, hidden in her lap because she wasn't allowed to teach the history of black Americans.
So she hid, she put on her lap the book she wanted to teach from, which was the true history of African Americans, and instead she taught.
(35:51):
From this Pedagogie book that she was given, 1933, can we stop pretending that the playbook isn't being used against us again? Can we stop pretending that the playbook is not being used against us again? See, I went out and I looked for this history.
(36:27):
I looked up history on reconstruction.
I looked up the playbook on reconstruction, and I asked myself, are we pretending that we want diversity, equity, and inclusion today? Because we're running the same playbook and the world is silent as the playbook is being run.
(36:51):
And those of you doing the work of diversity and inclusion, like the gentleman who told me, oh, we just need to do talent acquisition a little bit differently, how do you do talent acquisition a little bit differently if you have, if you are unable to use diversity as a means of hiring someone, if you're not able to say, I want a diverse slate of candidates who are qualified.
(37:17):
How do you do diversity differently if you can't say that? Tell me.
Cuz.
I'm trying to figure this out.
So I'm gonna pretend with everyone that we all want diversity and inclusion, but I know in my heart of hearts, That not everybody wants this.
(37:39):
And so for all of us doing this work, for all of us doing this work, we have to ask ourself a single question.
Have we been given a winnable role? Have we been given a winnable role in the organizations that we work for? Is the role that you are occupying as a diversity leader, is that role winnable? Does the organization at its core, believe in the censorship of books, believe in the dismantling of education around African American history? Does the organization support this? And it's financing of processes like campaigns.
(38:40):
But physically, you get to say, I support the D N I program for my employees.
But the reality is I support the people who want to bring this in as the law of the land.
Because here's the thing, we doing this work.
For standing on the backs of our ancestors need to understand that we have not crossed the river fully.
(39:08):
We haven't seen the mountaintop fully.
We are still climbing the mountain and we are still crossing the river.
We've not been given a winnable roll, but here's the lens that I wanna leave you all bit.
I wanna leave you with this.
Because we have to care.
(39:28):
If we fail at doing this work, we have to care.
If we fail, we have to care.
If this work fails, because if this work fails, if the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion fails, it fails for everyone.
It fails for women, all women.
(39:48):
It fails for people who have a disability, all people.
It fails for young people.
It fails for people who don't meet the criteria.
The folks who have tattoos, the folks who have curly hair.
It fails for those people if we don't do this work effectively.
(40:10):
And if we don't go back and look at the history of the work we're doing, then we fail the whole process.
We fail the entire process.
We've gotta really be conscious about what we are doing.
As we do the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion, this is a winding road.
(40:35):
This is a winding road.
You know, when I presented this program to the SHRM group in 2016, what I said was a quote that Nelson Mandela had, which is after climbing a great hill, one only finds out.
(40:57):
That there are many more hills to climb.
Nelson Mandela, let me say that again.
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
We haven't started climbing this hill yet.
(41:20):
This hill is not built yet.
It's still being built in real time.
Every day and every day we get up.
And those of you who think that these guys are making headline news and they wanna be in the news, that's why they're trying to dismantle de n I.
No, they're dismantling de n I for everyone that is not a white male.
(41:44):
That's what they're doing.
Let's be real.
But there are white men who don't agree with this, who don't want this.
Who recognize that they want their daughters, their sons, their nieces and nephews to walk into a world that is diverse, that is homogenous, that is not homogenous, that is expansive for all, that allows this unity to be created.
(42:12):
But we need your voice at the table.
You can't be quiet.
We as black people can't be the only ones protesting against the dismantling of d e i.
It is not our issue only, we are not the only ones who are going to be affected when de and I is dismantled at the university level, at the college level, at the high school level, at the elementary school level.
(42:41):
At the daycare level, we black people are not gonna be the only ones who are at the back of the dismantling of DE and I because De and I, dismantlement is coming for all of us.
It's coming for all of us because if you have an autistic child, you want a department of equity at a college that your child is going to.
(43:06):
If you are not cited, you wanna make sure that there's equity on the campus so that you can get a full education.
You can get hired based on not fitting the merit goal, but fitting the equity goal, the inclusion goal, that even if I don't look like everyone else, I will be included.
So if we are all okay with the dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion, go for it.
(43:31):
But let's not pretend that we want something different.
If we don't really want something different, I'm gonna stick to the Nelson Mandela theme.
I'm gonna climb this hill, and I'm gonna recognize that there's more hill to climb, and every day I'm gonna climb this hill recognizing there's more hill to climb.
(43:53):
And I'm gonna be back next Friday to talk about this again and again and again because now I'm fired up.
Now I'm fired up.
Because the work I started doing around inclusion is now full circle, being dismantled under the guise of getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
(44:14):
So I thank you all for listening to me and those of you who are gonna listen to the recording on your favorite podcast app, thank you for joining me on Friday.
This is a tough sub subject, but I think.
If we're going to talk about diversity and inclusion, we need to have a level set discussion about what this means for all of us.
(44:39):
We need to have a level set discussion.
What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for me? If I am not a diverse person, and let's level set it so that we don't all pretend that this is what we want when we don't really want it.
If you don't want it, And you want the thing to be rolled back, have at it.
(45:02):
I'm good with that because I know I might, 20 years from now, somebody will find this podcast and remind you that you made the decision not to support De and I fully and all of you doing the work of De and I pull out the history books and go back and look at the playbook that is being run right now because that playbook is coming to an organization near you.
(45:29):
That playbook is coming to an organization near you.
So thank you guys for joining me today.
Thank you Terrence for your wonderful comments.
I posted that this is Black History Month.
I'm not celebrating black history.
I am honoring Black history.
I'm honoring our history.
(45:51):
I was told this week by someone that they needed a speaker who could talk more about black history than I could, but that's okay.
Margaret's good.
Ah, the things we go through when we're doing this work.
So I thank you all for joining me.
I'll see you again next Friday.
Not sure what we're gonna talk about next Friday, the last week of Black History Month, but I'm coming with it.
(46:15):
I think I'm gonna talk a little bit about reconstruction and how the effects of reconstruction are hitting us right now in corporate America.
So let's tune in.
I'll see you all again next week, and thank you for joining me.
Have a wonderful week and end.
And week ahead.
You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(46:47):
You, me, every day I was down with an illusion like Sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
Will your reflection on.
Take care everyone.
Have a good weekend.
See you next week, and tune in on your favorite podcast app, download like it, share it help my podcast gain more, more viewers and listeners, and invite a friend next Friday.
(47:14):
Take care.
Bye-bye.
You are like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
You've listen me, every day I was down with an like a sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
(00:25):
Will your reflection on.
Hi everyone.
Welcome to Inclusion unscripted.
My name is Margaret Spence, and today we're gonna talk about how we pretend that we want diversity and inclusion.
I was talking with a good friend earlier this week and we reconnected after several months and we're both doing d and I work.
(00:53):
And in the conversation she said to me, Can we stop pretending? How do we help organizations stop pretending? How do we help the general public stop pretending? And it was a wonderful conversation and I immediately thought to myself, this is the topic for Friday's program.
(01:16):
This is the topic that we wanna bring forward today for inclusion unscripted.
So you know that we are not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we are living it every day here at Inclusion unscripted.
And I wanna bring forward today this hot topic around, can we stop pretending? I think that's, that's the word today, because I think we're living in a pretend land.
(01:50):
So thank you for joining us.
Here at Inclusion unscripted.
For those of you who are joining for the first time, my name is Margaret Spence.
I'm the founder of the Inclusion Learning Lab and Inclusion Unscripted is sponsored by the Learning Lab.
At the Learning Lab.
We are here to empower those of you doing the work of diversity and inclusion to do that work.
(02:16):
With a new stride, a new step.
We provide courses and classes and support and coaching and one-on-one support for diversity and inclusion and talent leaders to help you do the work of diversity and inclusion more effectively.
So this week has been another one of those where it's like a hard to watch week where you just go.
(02:43):
Are we, are we going any further down the path or are we staying up at the top of the path? So a couple things happened this week that jarred me to where I am with this discussion, where I ended up with this discussion.
And so today is a lesson on pretending, but today's a lesson on diversity and inclusion because I think.
(03:10):
I want us doing this work to frame this up a little bit differently.
So when I wrote the show notes for Inclusion, unscripted, the questions that came to mind and as I was talking with my colleague about, The work of equitable hiring and equitable promotions and building effective employee resource groups to pro, to provide support for for internal employees.
(03:45):
The words, can we stop pretending came up and what I wrote is, can we stop pretending that we care about de N I, diversity, equity, and inclusion? That's a little hard to come to.
Many of you wonder why I am doing this part of the work that I'm doing now, but let me give you just a tiny bit of my journey, and sometimes you always have to go back and explain it.
(04:17):
Many years ago, I was sitting in a worker's comp adjuster desk.
I was managing workplace injuries for employers, and I was managing workplace injuries for one of the largest employers in Florida.
And in that process, I began to see how people were discarded from the workforce because they had a disability.
(04:43):
That's where this work started.
It didn't start at this moment here.
This work started a long time ago.
When I left that desk, I made a point to work on inclusion.
As a core fundamental part of the work I was doing, how do I get employers to realize that people with a dis disability can still continue to work? Because the system is built to exclude those who have a disability from work.
(05:15):
One of the highest unemployed unemployment rates that we have right now are people with disabilities.
And so fast forward, I wrote a book called From Workers' Comp, claimant to Valued Employee.
I wrote that book in 2008.
So not today, not last week, not since George Floyd, the book was written to incorporate a D A F M L A with retention of disabled employees in the workforce.
(05:51):
And how do I, how do we work within a system to keep disabled employees in the workforce? So that was 2008.
That book was published, and then I wrote a second book for supervisors and managers so that they can clearly understand keeping disabled ill and injured employees in the workforce.
(06:13):
I went out and I formed a week called National Return to Work Week.
That was focused around keeping ill injured and disabled employees in the workforce.
In 2009, I launched a podcast around keeping injured and ill and disabled employees in the workforce, and I went around the country and I spoke about disability inclusion and what that needed to look like.
(06:38):
Okay.
I worked then with the job accommodation network.
Brought them here to Florida to speak.
Worked on an app that they were developing to keep disabled employees in the workforce, how easy it was to allow us to accommodate disabled employees in the workforce.
(06:59):
So that was the basis of the work I'm doing now.
So I didn't come to this desk overnight.
This wasn't a overnight to today.
What's happened with me is that I've clearly found my voice because I no longer care if the planet is offended by what I say.
(07:22):
There's a difference.
There's a difference because the work that I've been doing, I've been doing this for a long time, the work has been consistent.
Okay, so earlier yesterday there was a post on LinkedIn about the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and while this is not a political show, it is still my program.
(07:51):
So I think I get talk about whatever I want to, and I'm appreciative that you're listening to me.
But Greg Abbott.
Put out a memo to all state agencies and public universities ordering them to stop applying diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in hiring.
(08:12):
The Texas Tribune is reporting this.
It was on the SHRM website.
The memo said, D E N I.
Policies violate federal and state anti-discrimination laws and hiring cannot be based on factors other than merit, according to the trivia.
That's what he said.
The memo claimed that de and I efforts favor some demographic groups while putting others at a disadvantage.
(08:40):
It doesn't specify what about the de and i programs or initiatives are so problematic.
And a professor Michael Green with Texas a and m University School of Law said, I'm not aware of any law that makes D E N I programs illegal.
Governor Abbott's statement said that policies in hiring anti-discrimination laws are likely to be challenged.
(09:06):
Texas will try to attempt to pass a law to codify his views around d e I.
Okay? And the courts have been clear in ruling that the mere presence of A D N I initiative, a program is not per se, violate title.
(09:26):
Nine.
We're title seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it doesn't violate any anti-discrimination laws that exists out there.
Okay, so Greg Abbott put out this rule on no de N I in hiring.
(09:54):
Basically at the colleges, the universities, the schools, the state agencies and so on.
So there was a wonderful gentleman on LinkedIn who put out a note on this article and said, I don't want to get down into the swamp.
(10:15):
We just need to be focusing on what we're doing, darling.
We can't focus.
We can't focus.
I asked a question to this individual.
What part of focusing are you asking us to focus on? Because if you're trying to take away the ability for someone to be hired under diversity, equity, and inclusion, basically what you're saying is the following.
(10:41):
Let me give you the following that you're saying.
And for all of you people who are non-black out there, I'm talking to you cuz maybe it is that you agree with Greg Abbott, which is why I wrote this thing today about Stop pretending.
Maybe you agree with Greg Abbott, but let me give you how this works.
You're a woman, a white woman, you're in the D E N I category.
(11:01):
You have a autistic child who's a high functioning autistic child who you wanna get into college, and there's no office of equity like our governor here in Florida has removed the office of equity from the college campuses.
How does your child with a disability get to navigate the functional spaces that are built for able bodies when those able bodies don't have to make an accommodation for your child? If you have a, if you are an individual who's in a wheelchair, who is blind, who is deaf, who has a able-bodied issue, a body, an issue that prevents you from functioning the way everybody else does, if you are, if there is no office of equity and there's no de and i in any part of the hiring process, that involves you too.
(11:57):
If you are a person who is senior, And you're trying to maintain your job or you're trying to get hired over age 55, d e I and I includes you too.
De and I is not a black person thing.
Black people fought for the rights, for the civil rights, but the people who benefit from civil rights are not black people.
(12:23):
They're everybody else.
They're everyone else.
There was a time when a child who had a disability could not go into mainstream colleges.
They were not required to create a safe, inclusive space for people with disabilities.
(12:48):
They were not required to do it.
They had no reason to do it.
So for all of you who are sitting back and pretending like this law means something to only black people, I have a little message for you.
(13:11):
The laws that are being put into place in Florida and Texas and any other governor who wants to pick on diversity, equity, and inclusion involves every single person in the United States.
When I was doing the work of inclusion based on your disability, what I said to everyone then is the following, every person is one banana peel away from having a disability.
(13:40):
You can fall down, you can have an accident you can beat.
You can go from able to disabled in a matter of seconds.
So if there is no diversity, equity, and inclusion, Across the board, what happens to the people who don't fit the black category? Because see, these folks want to make de e n I the boogie person.
(14:08):
They wanna make de e n I the boogie person, right? That is the goal to make De and I the Boogie person, right? The challenge here is, Diversity, equity and inclusion is not just for people of color.
It's not just for people of color.
(14:31):
There is a misconception that de and I is only for black people.
Diversity and the, and the process of creating inclusion includes people who aren't white males.
It includes white women.
(14:52):
So if you don't wanna hire based on de and I, that means that white women are at risk of being hired as well.
So you get to say, I hired that white man based on equity or merits, and they will find a reason not to hire you or I am.
(15:18):
I have a, a disability, but it's easily accommodated.
And because the employer is no longer able to look at how they include me in the process, they can only look at my merit.
Then I get excluded.
And so what we end up with is another homogenous group of rein entrenched men in organizations.
(15:45):
So my question is, when can we stop pretending? That is the question, when can we stop pretending? When can we stop pretending? When can we stop pretending that if you follow the rules, you'll get promoted as a person of color? When can we stop pretending that? When can we stop pretending that we absolutely like each other? That we like each other beyond? Hi, Margaret.
(16:20):
How you doing? When can we stop pretending that inclusion includes everyone? Because obviously right now inclusion doesn't include everyone.
And the process of Reen entrenching diversity and inclusion is happening right before our eyes, and I don't see anyone waking up and saying, wait a second, this doesn't sound too right.
(16:51):
See, many of you allies got out there and you protested after George Floyd.
And, and guess what? The people who were doing this saw you joining Arm and Arm with us to protest injustice and they got scared, which is why they are creating all of these laws to Reen entrench us.
(17:13):
But here's the thing that I want everyone to understand.
This is what I want you to understand.
This process is not new.
For those of you who are just doing the work of diversity and inclusion, this process is not new.
This has been occurring for a long time.
(17:38):
This has been happening for a long time.
Let me, let me hit on a subject here and the reason why I brought this forward.
Right, it is because I want us to stop pretending so we can have a level set discussion about where we go from here.
(17:59):
I wanna have a level set discussion about where we go from here, what's, what's our next opportunity and our next option beyond right here.
What does that look like for all of us? So let me, it's Black History Month, and so I'm gonna unpack a little black history for everybody.
(18:27):
Just unpack a little black history and I live again, as I said in the state of Florida and in the state of Florida and across the us.
They're banning books written by black people, written by LGBTQ plus people, written by Jewish people.
(18:49):
They're, they're, they've even banned in our state books on Martin Luther King.
So if you think that this is just some, oh, we are just gonna sing and everything's gonna be okay, and we need to create a policy that looks a little bit different than it does right now.
No, these folks that are.
Hell Ben on undoing de and I right in front of our eyes.
(19:12):
And for all of us who stay silent because we don't think it belongs to us.
We think that this is not our problem are mistaken because this is your problem.
This is your problem.
It's not a black problem.
We are the current Highlighted targeted group with the LGBTQ plus community.
(19:38):
But it is an everybody problem.
It's an everyone problem.
Let me, let me go back in history a a little bit for you.
The book The book Banning that is going on right now where we're pretending that we don't see the book banning going on out there.
(19:59):
The first time a book was banned was in 1650 in the United States.
The earliest book ban occurred in the United States in 1650.
I got this information from the national Archives.
(20:20):
I went into the history part, and I searched on book banning Mark Twain, Harriet Beretto, Judy Bloom, William Shakespeare were banned from school curriculums in the early days, not 2023.
(20:43):
20, 21, 20 19.
The first book that was banned in the United States was called a meritorious piece of our redemption.
It was a pamphlet that argued that anyone obedient to God and followed Christian teaching on Earth can get to heaven.
Imagine that many of you are on the Christian, right, or Christian folks think, God, could we ban that now? They did.
(21:08):
In 1650 it was banned.
Fast forward in 1850, uncle Tom's cabin was banned, which is Harriet Becher Stove's book in 1851.
The book was banned, right in 1860.
(21:30):
There was an antislavery book that was banned right in 1873.
There was an act passed called the Comstack Act that basically made it illegal, obscene, and illegal to possess obscene in a moral text and articles, right? The law was designed to ban content about birth, about sexuality.
(22:07):
About anything to do with anything around women.
Right? In 1836, we had another ban.
In 1920 Boston, the city of Boston had the most notorious book banning process in the entire country.
(22:31):
19 60, 19 20.
1954, they banned the rabbit wedding and children's books by Garth Williams who depicted a white rabbit marrying a black rabbit.
(22:52):
This was not even people, this was just some rabbits marrying each other.
The book was banned, right? 1950.
Huckleberry Finn, catcher on the Rye to Kill a Mockingbird and Canterbury Tales were banned under MacArthur era era 1969.
(23:18):
The Supreme Court said, y'all can read whatever you wanna read, more or less, right? So, In 1982, New York Liberal, New York decided to ban a bunch of anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic books, including Langston Hughes.
(23:45):
See the Playbook to Dismantle Diversity and Inclusion Didn't start today.
The playbook to dismantle diversity and inclusion did not start today.
This is a playbook that is well oiled, that is well tuned, that is easily deployed, that just gets new buzzwords added to it and deployed again.
(24:12):
The problem here is many of us pretend that this is not happening.
We go about our business, setting up our programs, doing what we think is what needs to be done apparently.
And we think that that is going to overcome the burden that we are being, that is being placed on us to prove that diversity and inclusion is actually important because that's the burden that's being put on us right now.
(24:45):
And so I wanna stop pretending.
That any of this is, okay, let me, let me give another class today cuz today is a, is a teaching day.
In 1996.
I spoke at the SHM conference on diversity equity inclusion in two in nine, in 2006 16.
(25:13):
I spoke at the Charm Diversity Conference, I meant to say.
And at the SHRM Diversity Conference, I talked about a couple things and I went back today in preparing for this show to look at my PowerPoint that I presented back then, and I talked about the journey of diversity and inclusion, the journey of diversity and inclusion.
(25:36):
I from 1916 to 1970 DE and I was affirmative action.
Until that word got to be so bad that no one today even says it.
And when somebody says affirmative action, I even cringe at the word affirmative action.
(26:00):
Right? I had a client say to me this week that they don't wanna call their diversity and inclusion program de and I anymore.
They wanna find a new word for it.
Okay, go.
Go for it.
Find a new word.
But this is where we are.
Back in 1970, affirmative action was the word.
(26:21):
Find me a person right now that doesn't think affirmative action is the biggest F word in the planet.
Right? By the time we got to 1980, it was equal employment.
Find me a person that can say equal employment out loud and not get swatted down because you said equal employment.
(26:52):
Find me that person.
Right.
By 19 83, 84, we got to diversity.
The field of diversity was formed.
And there were early pioneers in this field.
Howard Ross, Lenore Billings Shirley Davis, these early folks has been doing the actual work of the E N I for years coming forward.
(27:23):
Who set the foundation for the rest of us to walk on? Right? And.
By the 1990s is when we, we first got the first inkling of reverse discrimination.
1990 is when reverse discrimination became a thing.
(27:47):
That's when it became a thing.
So what we are seeing today with Greg Abbott, And Rhon, DeSantis and others who want to dismantle the word diversity, equity, and inclusion, and who want to dismantle the entire process of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and who are no longer pretending that that's not what they wanna do.
(28:10):
See, they stop pretending.
See, many of us think, oh no, that's not really what they're doing.
No, they're not pretending anymore.
They're saying it out loud.
They're issuing memos, they're passing laws.
And then to codify it here in Florida, they passed a law that they could run us over with a car if we go protest.
(28:30):
So there ain't a lot of us running out there to go protest in the street because we could get run over by a car.
Right.
So I wanna stop pretending all of you doing the work of diversity and inclusion.
I want you to stop pretending.
That the work you're doing in your organization is going to stop the work that is happening outside to dismantle every part of what you're doing.
(28:57):
When the tech giants laid off recently, they laid off whole swats of their diversity and inclusion department.
Their diversity recruiters got laid off.
The, the, the money that they were spending under the covers of George Floyd's murder, they don't wanna spend that anymore.
People are scaling back their De N I processes and programs.
(29:20):
They're eliminating the de and I leaders from the table.
They're reconfiguring the table so we don't have a voice there.
So exactly what are we getting today in the diversity process? In the early two thousands, people started.
(29:43):
To talk about the business case for diversity and inclusion, and so the business case became the thing that drove what we are doing right now.
The business case became the thing that we, that drives what we're doing, but the business case is not enough because people are still pretending that they want diversity and inclusion and they don't want it.
(30:09):
Because if you're, if you are even thinking that you don't want to use the word anymore.
We are technically back for those of you who want the history on D E N I, right? We're technically back at 1980 when the word affirmative action was a dirty word and they made it a dirty word till the point where nobody wanted to use it anymore.
(30:35):
Right.
And then, Fast forward to 1987 when they made equal employment a dirty word to the point where nobody wanted to use it anymore.
See, when the field of diversity was born in nineteen eighty three, eighty four, eighty five, in that region the dominant groups didn't wanna hear the word diversity either.
(31:03):
We have not evolved.
In this landscape that we are a part of, and I want all of you to stop pretending that we are evolving from the landscape.
The playbook is being rewritten for the current timeline, and we are pretending that everything is okay.
(31:29):
When I, when I talked to the group at shrm, In 2016, I said there are five parts of this process.
There are seven factors to social change that many of us don't understand.
(31:51):
The first factor is consciousness.
We gained consciousness about anit.
So during George Floyd's murder and during the pandemic, people became conscious for the first time, many that black people had a problem.
So they got conscious, they made a commitment to the process of fixing it.
(32:19):
So imagine a winding road that goes up and down.
And this is the analogy that I used when I presented this charm at the beginning of the curve.
The first curve is consciousness, and we make the curve to consciousness, and then we make the curve to commitment.
And then we make the curve to collaboration and we curve into collaboration.
(32:45):
And I'm gonna collaborate with you.
And boy, this work is hard.
And the next curve is courage.
And we make the curve to courage.
And when we get courage, after consciousness and commitment and collaboration and courage, we find courage, then we get to common purpose.
(33:11):
And when we get to common purpose, it's right about the time that we start backpedaling back to unconsciousness.
It is the moment that we backpedal to unconsciousness.
And so the history, so let me give you one more history lesson.
(33:33):
In 1933, there was a young black history teacher.
Her name was Tessie McGee and she wanted to share a book in her classroom, and the book was called The Fugitive Pedagogy, Carter g Woodson, and The Art of Black Teaching was the book that she wanted to share in her classroom.
(34:01):
This was 1933.
And she was teaching at the only black secondary school in Parish, Louisiana.
Ms.
McGee, like other teachers, had been instructed by Louisiana's all-White Department of Education and the parish school Board to only teach the approved learning objective and to keep the approved outline visible on her desk.
(34:31):
The state approved textbook showed not only you're not only not supposed to talk about the black race, but you're not supposed to talk about blackness as a civilized group of individuals, and so she defied.
(34:55):
The process and she wanted to teach the Negro is our history, which she held in her lap.
When the principal entered the room, she would teach from the approved outline and book, but when the principal left, she would return to the book in her lap, right? This is what happened to her.
(35:23):
This is what happened to her.
She returned to teach from the book, hidden in her lap because she wasn't allowed to teach the history of black Americans.
So she hid, she put on her lap the book she wanted to teach from, which was the true history of African Americans, and instead she taught.
(35:51):
From this Pedagogie book that she was given, 1933, can we stop pretending that the playbook isn't being used against us again? Can we stop pretending that the playbook is not being used against us again? See, I went out and I looked for this history.
(36:27):
I looked up history on reconstruction.
I looked up the playbook on reconstruction, and I asked myself, are we pretending that we want diversity, equity, and inclusion today? Because we're running the same playbook and the world is silent as the playbook is being run.
(36:51):
And those of you doing the work of diversity and inclusion, like the gentleman who told me, oh, we just need to do talent acquisition a little bit differently, how do you do talent acquisition a little bit differently if you have, if you are unable to use diversity as a means of hiring someone, if you're not able to say, I want a diverse slate of candidates who are qualified.
(37:17):
How do you do diversity differently if you can't say that? Tell me.
Cuz.
I'm trying to figure this out.
So I'm gonna pretend with everyone that we all want diversity and inclusion, but I know in my heart of hearts, That not everybody wants this.
(37:39):
And so for all of us doing this work, for all of us doing this work, we have to ask ourself a single question.
Have we been given a winnable role? Have we been given a winnable role in the organizations that we work for? Is the role that you are occupying as a diversity leader, is that role winnable? Does the organization at its core, believe in the censorship of books, believe in the dismantling of education around African American history? Does the organization support this? And it's financing of processes like campaigns.
(38:40):
But physically, you get to say, I support the D N I program for my employees.
But the reality is I support the people who want to bring this in as the law of the land.
Because here's the thing, we doing this work.
For standing on the backs of our ancestors need to understand that we have not crossed the river fully.
(39:08):
We haven't seen the mountaintop fully.
We are still climbing the mountain and we are still crossing the river.
We've not been given a winnable roll, but here's the lens that I wanna leave you all bit.
I wanna leave you with this.
Because we have to care.
(39:28):
If we fail at doing this work, we have to care.
If we fail, we have to care.
If this work fails, because if this work fails, if the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion fails, it fails for everyone.
It fails for women, all women.
(39:48):
It fails for people who have a disability, all people.
It fails for young people.
It fails for people who don't meet the criteria.
The folks who have tattoos, the folks who have curly hair.
It fails for those people if we don't do this work effectively.
(40:10):
And if we don't go back and look at the history of the work we're doing, then we fail the whole process.
We fail the entire process.
We've gotta really be conscious about what we are doing.
As we do the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion, this is a winding road.
(40:35):
This is a winding road.
You know, when I presented this program to the SHRM group in 2016, what I said was a quote that Nelson Mandela had, which is after climbing a great hill, one only finds out.
(40:57):
That there are many more hills to climb.
Nelson Mandela, let me say that again.
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
We haven't started climbing this hill yet.
(41:20):
This hill is not built yet.
It's still being built in real time.
Every day and every day we get up.
And those of you who think that these guys are making headline news and they wanna be in the news, that's why they're trying to dismantle de n I.
No, they're dismantling de n I for everyone that is not a white male.
(41:44):
That's what they're doing.
Let's be real.
But there are white men who don't agree with this, who don't want this.
Who recognize that they want their daughters, their sons, their nieces and nephews to walk into a world that is diverse, that is homogenous, that is not homogenous, that is expansive for all, that allows this unity to be created.
(42:12):
But we need your voice at the table.
You can't be quiet.
We as black people can't be the only ones protesting against the dismantling of d e i.
It is not our issue only, we are not the only ones who are going to be affected when de and I is dismantled at the university level, at the college level, at the high school level, at the elementary school level.
(42:41):
At the daycare level, we black people are not gonna be the only ones who are at the back of the dismantling of DE and I because De and I, dismantlement is coming for all of us.
It's coming for all of us because if you have an autistic child, you want a department of equity at a college that your child is going to.
(43:06):
If you are not cited, you wanna make sure that there's equity on the campus so that you can get a full education.
You can get hired based on not fitting the merit goal, but fitting the equity goal, the inclusion goal, that even if I don't look like everyone else, I will be included.
So if we are all okay with the dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion, go for it.
(43:31):
But let's not pretend that we want something different.
If we don't really want something different, I'm gonna stick to the Nelson Mandela theme.
I'm gonna climb this hill, and I'm gonna recognize that there's more hill to climb, and every day I'm gonna climb this hill recognizing there's more hill to climb.
(43:53):
And I'm gonna be back next Friday to talk about this again and again and again because now I'm fired up.
Now I'm fired up.
Because the work I started doing around inclusion is now full circle, being dismantled under the guise of getting rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
(44:14):
So I thank you all for listening to me and those of you who are gonna listen to the recording on your favorite podcast app, thank you for joining me on Friday.
This is a tough sub subject, but I think.
If we're going to talk about diversity and inclusion, we need to have a level set discussion about what this means for all of us.
(44:39):
We need to have a level set discussion.
What does diversity, equity, and inclusion mean for me? If I am not a diverse person, and let's level set it so that we don't all pretend that this is what we want when we don't really want it.
If you don't want it, And you want the thing to be rolled back, have at it.
(45:02):
I'm good with that because I know I might, 20 years from now, somebody will find this podcast and remind you that you made the decision not to support De and I fully and all of you doing the work of De and I pull out the history books and go back and look at the playbook that is being run right now because that playbook is coming to an organization near you.
(45:29):
That playbook is coming to an organization near you.
So thank you guys for joining me today.
Thank you Terrence for your wonderful comments.
I posted that this is Black History Month.
I'm not celebrating black history.
I am honoring Black history.
I'm honoring our history.
(45:51):
I was told this week by someone that they needed a speaker who could talk more about black history than I could, but that's okay.
Margaret's good.
Ah, the things we go through when we're doing this work.
So I thank you all for joining me.
I'll see you again next Friday.
Not sure what we're gonna talk about next Friday, the last week of Black History Month, but I'm coming with it.
(46:15):
I think I'm gonna talk a little bit about reconstruction and how the effects of reconstruction are hitting us right now in corporate America.
So let's tune in.
I'll see you all again next week, and thank you for joining me.
Have a wonderful week and end.
And week ahead.
You're like a circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound, and when a fall you tied a rope to me.
(46:47):
You, me, every day I was down with an illusion like Sparrow with broken wings, but now shine.
Will your reflection on.
Take care everyone.
Have a good weekend.
See you next week, and tune in on your favorite podcast app, download like it, share it help my podcast gain more, more viewers and listeners, and invite a friend next Friday.
(47:14):
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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