Advisory Council
I left the store and headed to my bright red car. About ten feet away, I tapped the silver button on my key to open the door. Humm, it didn’t open.
So, I put my bag on the ground and pushed the key into the door to open it manually. Again, nothing.
Befuddled, when I looked away thinking about my options, (AAA, calling wife) I noticed a red car, same color as mine, parked next to me.
Oh, oh!
Having worked in the US for the last 40 some years, I was once a target of character assassination (CA). That experience prompted me to write this article to raise awareness that being a member of a minoritized group can put us at an additional risk of being targeted. This article explores the association between stereotype and character assassination.
Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice defines stereotype as an exaggerated belief associated with a category (i.e. a social group). Whether positive or negative, it is when one applies the group characteristics to a member of the group while ignoring the uniqueness of the specific member. This article focuses on the use of negative stereotype of a social group to attack the character of a member of the same group. Many times, this baseless accusation can have serious negative consequences on the victim, especially when it is turned into an act of CA.
Continue reading Stereotype and Character Assassination – by Julia Wai-Yin So
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. But it’s one thing to believe we can make a difference and another thing to actually make a difference.
Joe: Agreed.
Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press
Have we time-traveled back a century when child labor was a thing? That’s what I first thought when I heard that a food sanitation company was being sued for illegally employing over 100 children ages 13 – 17. The kids cleaned razor-sharp saws with caustic chemicals while working overnight shifts at 13 meat processing facilities in eight states including Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas.
Continue reading Child labor making a come back – by Deborah Levine
When asked about the women who inspire them, our ADR Advisors share a range of iconic women and personal inspirations. Some of the Advisors have chosen personal mentors, others have opted for historic figures and some chose both. My own choice is Margaret Mead, (see quote above) a pioneer in cultural anthropology also known for her research on sexual conventions in Western society.
Reading about the various influencers, I have no doubt that you’ll begin to generate a list of women who shaped your own lives. Feel free to share in the Comments!
Continue reading ADR Advisors: Influential Women in our Lives and Work
As a Black woman, whose family moved up from the Chicago slums to ‘the projects’, I was navigating the intersectionality of race, gender, and poverty in the USA. A historical iconic woman that inspired me would be Harriet Tubman, born a slave. I admire her because not only did she believe in human dignity and rights, but she also acted on her beliefs and principles.
Harriet Tubman understood that she and the others who were enslaved were human beings and not chattel. I had the honor to visit the Harriet Tubman House in Auburn, NY. Her modest home gives witness to her tremendous courage. She had seizures and narcolepsy, i.e., traumatic brain injury, from being hit in the head when an overseer threw a heavy metal weight at a slave. Harriet Tubman could be recognized during Women’s History Month, Disability Pride and Heritage Month and Black History Month.
Continue reading Two Iconic Women Who Inspire Me – by Dr. Deborah Ashton
Psst, readers, please read my quote and let it sink in before we start this narrative:
“One of the most difficult challenges in having a disability, or being of a certain age, race, gender, religion, etc., is that too often people see it and not you!”
Admit it or not, we all hold unconscious biases, including yours truly. We’re hard-wired that way. However, among the perspective altering vicissitudes in life are those instances that unearth our unhidden biases sometimes – correction, most of the time – to our discomfort.
Continue reading Stay in the race! – by Leslie Nelson and Terry Howard
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 first started working together, we used the term gender to distinguish women from men. Now we recognize greater complexities and fluidity, with terms like gender identity and non-binary.
My three granddaughters are, respectively, age 12, 5 and 3. They are also Black and beautiful. I start with that as a link that to what I’m about to write about; something personal, very personal.
You see, I’m ticked off to report that we have still another addition to the umpteenth volume of our “You can’t make this stuff up folks” collection, our chronicles of the asinine. Our latest entry comes from Caldwell, New Jersey courtesy of some “racially nearsighted” dude by the name of Gordon Lawshe.
Continue reading Chronicles of the asinine: new entry – by Terry Howard
In 1926, Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, an African-American historian, writer, and educator, created Negro History Week to honor the contributions of people of African descent in the U.S. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro (now African-American) Life and History in 1915 and the Journal of Negro History in 1916. Born in 1875 to former enslaved people in New Canton, Virginia, the Harvard-educated Woodson chose February for Negro History Week because the birthdays of abolitionist Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln fall then. He wrote, “What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race, hate, and religious prejudice.” Dr. Woodson contributed to our understanding that a better knowledge of history is critical for people in the African diaspora to achieve greater pride, self-determination and collective progress. Negro History Week itself changed. About fifty years later, near the close of the Black Power period (early 1970s), the celebration was renamed Black History Week and later expanded to Black History Month in 1976.
Continue reading Current Implications of Black History Month – by Marc Brenman