I’m no artist. Never have been. I’ve always enjoyed viewing art, but I can’t draw or paint a lick. I even finished at the bottom of last December’s family cookie decorating contest. Thankfully, the Riverside (California) Art Museum didn’t know about my failings when it asked me to become the consulting humanist for its new … Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 38: Conversations at The Cheech – by Carlos Cortés
Carlos: Joe, from the first time we had lunch together, I’ve been struck by one thing: like me, you really believe that you can make the world a better place. Am I right? Joe: I plead guilty to that one. Carlos: Maybe that’s one reason we hit it off so well from the beginning. … Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 37: Building a More Inclusive Democracy – by Carlos E. Cortés, Joseph Kahne
A Co-Authored Interview Carlos: Angela, we’ve been friends and diversity colleagues for thirty-five years. It will be interesting to reflect on how the conversation about gender has changed over those decades. Angela: Yes, but today we’ll only be able to look at a tiny slice of that huge topic. Let’s begin with language. When we … Continue reading Diversity and Speech #36: Gender and Generations, An Evolving Conversation – by Carlos E. Cortés, Angela Antenore
Carlos: Tell me, Teri. How did you come up with the idea of teaching history through rock and roll music? Teri: I’ve always loved music. From the time I became a history teacher in 1998, I thought of music whenever we reached the twentieth century. Then it hit me. Why not help students reconsider U.S. … Continue reading Diversity and Speech No. 35: Rockin’ Diversity – by Carlos E. Cortés and Teri Gerent
Diversity language seems to wander through a series of predictable phases. First, someone comes up with a new term like micro-aggressions, or retrofits an old dictionary word like violence. A few terms catch on and become diversity specialist standard fare, then enter public lingo, sometimes celebrated, sometimes mocked. Finally, after the heat dies down and … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 34: Revisiting Privilege – by Carlos E. Cortés
Brotherly Perspectives on Religious Experiences A co-authored Interview Carlos: Last year I wrote a column about the tribulations of Growing up Bi-Religious in our religiously-mixed household in Kansas City, Missouri: Dad a Catholic with a Mexican immigrant father – Mom, a Reform Jew with a Ukrainian immigrant father and an Austrian immigrant mother. I had to … Continue reading Diversity and Speech #33: Bi-Religious – by Carlos Cortés, Gary Cortés
Most public surveys about free speech and the First Amendment go something like this. “Do you believe in the idea of free speech?” Overwhelmingly yes. “Should group slurs be allowed?” Overwhelmingly no.. “Do you support the First Amendment?” Overwhelmingly yes. “Should hate speech be permitted?” Overwhelmingly no. What gives? Aren’t these positions inconsistent? Yes, in … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 32: Language Tensions of Speech and Social Justice – by Carlos E. Cortés
Keynote Address for Unidos: 2022 National Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration of the U.S. Dept. of Energy Thank you for inviting me to join you for Hispanic Heritage Month. And thank you for providing me the opportunity to reflect upon a very important idea: inclusivity. ________________________ In 1999, Mayor Ronald Loveridge of my hometown — Riverside, … Continue reading From Conditional to Equitable Inclusion: Inclusivity for a Stronger Nation – by Carlos Cortés
In July, 2020, the two of us met for the first time as inaugural co-directors of the University of California, Riverside, School of Medicine’s new Health Equity, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism (HESJAR) curricular initiative. Beginning with our initial conversations it became clear that addressing speech — physician speech, patient speech, medical school speech — … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 31: Health Equity – by Carlos Cortés and Adwoa Osei
Woke people don’t stereotype, right? And, of course, white men can’t jump. Hm. Consider the following. For relaxation, my wife Laurel and I attend a bi-weekly creative writing workshop. For a recent assignment, our instructor Jo Scott-Coe asked us to write about chocolate. Each of the other participants wrote about food. Not me. … Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 30: The Strange Odyssey of Racial Sports Metaphors – by Carlos Cortés
