All posts by Editor-in-Chief

Deborah Levine founded the American Diversity Report in 2006. She is a Forbes Magazine top "Trailblazer" and award-winning author of 20 books. Her published articles span decades including: American Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Public Management & Social Policy, The Bermudian Magazine, The Harvard Divinity School Bulletin.
DL Opinion columns

Why Diabetics need to vote – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

It’s amazing that Medicare recipients just gained a cap on insulin prices. It’s truly incredible considering the pharmaceutical industry lobbying efforts against any price controls or negotiations. Spearheaded by The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, often known as Pharma, those efforts have been ongoing for years. And in September 2021, it was reported byThe Hill, a media company based in Washington, D.C., that Pharma was launching a seven-figure ad campaign against the proposals moving through Congress to allow negotiation of drug  prices. 

Continue reading Why Diabetics need to vote – by Deborah Levine →

About Us

ADR TESTIMONIALS – 2022

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THANK YOU!

LotteryMany thanks to all of you who participated in writing 2022 testimonials! We are delighted to quote you and share your thoughts with our readers around the world. If you’d like to add your testimonial, please do so in the Comments section.

  • Heidi McCarthy – Winner
    The lack of diversity and understanding in the corporate environment is crippling creative, thoughtful individuals from success in their careers; leaders must be credentialed in understanding the bias that accompanies diverse populations in the workplace. Deborah Levine- you have been my mentor – as well as a source of inspiration and hope since graduate school at Vanderbilt University; you helped me understand how my cultural background as the first American born daughter of a Yugoslav alien post WWII shaped my ethics , worldview and life path through your books and articles.💙🎶🙏🎹
  • Venita R. Thomas – Winner
    As a Veteran (U.S. Army) with a disability, I’ve learned from ADR the much-needed importance of DEI. Lessons I’ve learned and will teach; the “E” is not just for “equity”, but for “endurance”, and diversity is not just for the theory of acceptance, but for appreciation.
  • William Hicks – Winner
    As a kid growing up, one of my very favorite television programs (when television was in its early adolescence…yes I am that old!) was “Superman” starring George Reeves. At the very outset of the show, with the ‘Superman’ march playing in the background, was the superhero’s statement of purpose: Superman fought for “truth, justice and the American way!” Deborah Levine today stands in the place of the fictional “Superman” and fights for truth and justice in the American Diversity Report (ADR). Entries to the monthly American Diversity Report are vetted as to accuracy of fact and documentation of source materials cited. ADR addresses the important issues confronting us with integrity and with respect for their complexity.
    Ms. Levine, founder and editor, an award-winning author in her own right, provides a forum for writers with integrity, the highest of moral and scholastic standards and skill to share their sense of justice and truth with others towards the betterment of the human condition. While the fictional “Superman” leapt “tall buildings in a single bound” in pursuit of his crusade against crimes against the “American way”, the American Diversity Report cuts through the tangled webs of deception and confusion to present us with food for thought about pathways to a better human interaction in such diverse areas as education, politics, art and religion. I highly recommend the American Diversity Report for those interested in “truth, justice and integrity of thought.”
  • Isowo Smart. G – Winner
    Thank you once again Deborah for all you are doing in the humanitarian world. The priceless impact you are making in the lives of inmates in and outside of the correctional facility walls speaks volume. We have followed your work keenly, and at this point we must say you remain not only as a beacon of Hope to the inmates but also as a role model to our NGO as well.
    We at CENPRIR (now Impact One Plus Foundation) are deeply appreciative of your impactful work.

Continue reading ADR TESTIMONIALS – 2022 →

Go Green, Levine articles

Going Green is Tough Public Policy — by Deborah Levine

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Editor’s note: Written 8 years ago but timely as ever.

Environmentalists may not be happy with some of the solutions to climate change.  In a recent article in Wired Magazine, “Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green”, the top 10 ways to save the planet are likely to drive environmentalists crazy. Calling for Greens to unite around the issue of greenhouse gasses, the article makes the case for public policies that favor nuclear energy and urban density. The outcry from readers was memorable as they criticized the single mindedness of the article, its lack of supporting data, its in-your-face sensationalism, and overall creepiness.   Yet, the discussion of climate change and public policy does and should raise these most difficult issues as new reports show irreversible damage.

Continue reading Going Green is Tough Public Policy — by Deborah Levine →

Editor-in-Chief, Uncategorized

“Domestic Infant Suppliers” buckle up – by Deborah Levine

originally published in  The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Writing about abortion is like leaping into a tornado, but here goes. I’ve always hated the idea of abortion, the term evokes pain and suffering as well as sorrow and mourning, whether you’re pro or anti-abortion. But I’ve advocated for giving women choice over their bodies since joining the many Jewish women involved in the first Women’s Liberation March in Manhattan in 1970.

While the protests of the seventies were a revolution, touching multiple area of our lives in the workplace and community,  anti-abortionists saw us as irrational, unattractive feminist shrews. They called us “anti-family,” “angry battle-axes” and “radical Commie lesbians.” The “Domestic Infant Supply” language in the current supreme Court draft doesn’t just echo those sentiments, it magnifies them.
Continue reading “Domestic Infant Suppliers” buckle up – by Deborah Levine →

Workplace Strategies Podcasts

Everett Harper Podcast: DEI Decision Making

DEI Decision Making Everett Harper is an entrepreneur, strategist, and the CEO and Co-Founder of Truss, a technology infrastructure company.  In his new book, “Move to the Edge, Declare it Center,” Harper shares effective methods for decision making in situations where there may be a lack of complete information, ways to sustain teams during uncertain and stressful periods, and effective techniques for managing personal anxiety—a crucial leadership skill.
Hear Everett discuss:

  1. Does being a Black CEO influence how you lead, solve problems and build teams?
  2. Why is diversity, equity and inclusion important for companies?
  3. Advice  to companies that aren’t currently diverse, but want to start addressing the issue?
  4. How to create measurable and sustainable diversity, equity and inclusion processes – and how companies can begin to adopt them to achieve their business goals.
  5. Navigating tragedy and the unknown, and how leaders can apply these life lessons to their organizations.

Everett CLICK to hear podcast

Book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3we0h8I
Book on Barnes and Noble: https://bit.ly/37I5Z9y
Book for ordering via Independent booksellers on Indiebound: https://bit.ly/3LhP9fs
Author and speaker site: https://everettharper.com
International Podcasts, Transformation Podcasts

Giselle Roeder Podcast: Surviving Tyranny

Giselle Born prior to WWII Giselle Roeder spent her early life in the relatively tranquil setting of a rural village in Pomerania, the most eastern part of Germany ceded to Poland in 1945. The bloody trauma of the fighting between the advancing Russians and the retreating German army in her neighborhood meant that thousands of people, including her family became displaced persons. l

Giselle lived in 3 Germanys: 1) 10 years under Nazi rule, 2) 10 years under Communist restrictions and 3) 10 years in the capitalistic West Germany. Giselle learnt early not to talk about anything she heard at home. After the Russian invasion witness to rapes, gruesome acts of murder; evicted and part of the ‘wall to nowhere’ next to the Russian war machinery on their way to Berlin & Victory. Starving, sleeping under the stars, against all odds she grew up and always found a way to save herself and her family. Escaping East Germany, and in a way, also West Germany , she married an unknown pen friend from Canada.

Be inspired, especially given current events in Ukraine, by her determination to stay alive and her courage to tell the stories that nobody wants to talk about.

CLICK for Podcast PART 1

 

GiselleSee Giselle’s website  for her books::
“Healing with Water” – Kneipp Hydrotherapy at Home
“Sauna” – The Hottest Way to Good Health
“Forget Me Not” – Bouquet of Stories
“Ein Mensch von Gestern” – German Poems
“Flight into the Unknown” – Part 2 of “The Nine Lives of Gila”.

 

 

Holocaust/antisemitism, Levine articles, Religious Diversity

Reflections on the Holocaust — by Deborah Levine

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As my radio theater play, UNTOLD: Stories of a World War II Liberator, is in preparation for broadcast, I am reminded of the 1st time that I agreed to serve on the local Holocaust Remembrance Day Committee was painful, even after almost seventy years since the end of World War II.  I agreed to assist in promoting the event beyond our Jewish community and I agreed to participate in the reading of the names of the victims.  And I resigned myself to being an usher at the event, not my favorite thing.  What I didn’t bargain for was a seat on the stage when I offhandedly shared that I was helping in memory of my father who was a U. S. military intelligence officer during World War II.  Aaron Levine was an army translator of German and French.  And by the way, he was a liberator of a labor camp.

Continue reading Reflections on the Holocaust — by Deborah Levine →

Artists, DL Opinion columns

Culture Wars: Can artists win? – by Deborah Levine

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press   

Why do we now say Kyiv instead of Kiev? It’s because Kyiv is the Ukrainian pronunciation and Russia’s invasion is a culture war.  Their disputes are old-as-dirt and Ukrainian Nikita Khrushchev tried to enable a Ukrainian revival with the transfer of Crimea from Russia. But, Soviet repression went beyond land and sovereignty.

With the USSR dissolution, Ukraine established a new government with its own national anthem in Ukrainian, not Russian. It’s no accident that Putin’s treaty demands include protection for the Russian language. It may seem trivial, but imagine if England suddenly tried to re-establish British control over America and insisted that we revert to British English. If England were like Putin, you might go to jail if you refused to spell “color” as “colour”, the original, British version. Or what about our patriotic song, “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”? That melody was originally an unofficial national anthem of England. We wouldn’t tolerate going back to its original title: “God Save the Queen”. We’d fight a new War of Independence.

Continue reading Culture Wars: Can artists win? – by Deborah Levine →

Being Diverse, Native American

Deb Hunter Podcast – History of the Cherokee Nation

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Cherokee

Deb Hunter was a USA Today best selling author, historian & podcaster.  A former executive director of the World Chamber of Commerce, she was active in Atlanta’s British-American Business Council.

Her journey with the Cherokee Nation began in 2021 when she contacted them for permission to explore their history for a Civil War discussion. That lead to numerous conversations.

The revelation by Secretary Deb Haaland of the Indian Boarding School Initiative is synergistic as the report includes a Cherokee School in Chattanooga TN – the Brainerd Mission – (Deb was originally from Chattanooga).
Note: She worked with a historian from the Cherokee Nation to verify this information.

Continue reading Deb Hunter Podcast – History of the Cherokee Nation →

Books, The Arts

WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZES REVEAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY RECIPIENTS

WINDHAM-CAMPBELL

“I am receiving this award with wide open arms, humbling crumbling with gratitude – calling the names of those on whose shoulders I stand, those that have loved and guided me, those known and unknown who are my champions.”

(l-r: Sharon Bridgforth, Emmanuel Iduma, Margo Jefferson, Wong May, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Tsitsi Dangaremba, Winsome Pinnock and Zaffar Kunial)

Continue reading WINDHAM-CAMPBELL PRIZES REVEAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY RECIPIENTS →