Category Archives: ADR Advisors

American Diversity Report Team: ADR Advisors

If you’re like me and get what seems like 7 million reminders to do things better, you know that this is a self-improvement month .My inbox is full of suggestions for getting in shape, losing weight, eating better …you name it. Watch the news and you’ll see reporters give tips on what diets to follow to help you live longer and healthier. Ironically, those reports are interspersed with ads for the Ultra-processed food” (UPF) you’re being told to avoid. The processed food industry is spending big bucks to promote their UPF yummies containing high levels of saturated fat, salt and sugar. Having learned long ago that UPFs contributes to my chronic inflammation, I’m determined to counteract the 14 billions of dollars spent annually marketing this crap.

Did you know that about 73% of our country’s food supply is ultra-processed and are about 52% cheaper than less processed alternatives. Further, of all the advertisements related to food or drink, almost 80 % were junk food ads. We’re being played!

Continue reading Let’s bag the ultra-processed food industry – by Deborah Levine →

Newspaper Opinion Columns

Combining Reason and Empathy in 2024 – by Deborah Levine

February 4, 2024 Editor-in-Chief Leave a comment

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Whether you resolve to get more exercise, learn new skills, or avoid doing stupid stuff, January has us thinking about the future. I began 2024 with good works, donating piles of clothing at Goodwill in Eastgate Mall. Driving there, I realized that the process begins with gratitude and humanity. That means being grateful for those who have come before us, who gave us life. We remember that we’re not only their beneficiaries, but also their legacy of how they made a difference.

Continue reading Combining Reason and Empathy in 2024 – by Deborah Levine →

ADR Advisors, Trends 2024: Divisive World

2024 Trends, Predictions, Actions We Must Take – by Mauricio Velásquez.

February 4, 2024 Mauricio Velasquez Leave a comment

2024 is going to be a very tumultuous year. It is an election year, divisiveness, hate, polarized manipulation will be the name of the game. Pitting people, groups against each other will be attempted, fight these forces. Take the high road – call for calm, unity, understanding, and Peace.

As a global backdrop, a constant reminder of division and hate – Ukraine-Russia, and the Israel-Hamas wars will be a contributing factor in the churning of hate. Hate opportunists will take advantage of these wars as a backdrop to foment division, suspicion, and outright hate and violence. Watch the hate on social media and call it out. I am constantly “Calling for Respect, Dignity, Understanding for All.”

Continue reading 2024 Trends, Predictions, Actions We Must Take – by Mauricio Velásquez. →

ADR Advisors

Diversity & Speech Part 43: How 3 College Presidents Flunked Their Speech Midterm Exam – by Carlos Cortés

January 29, 2024 Dr. Carlos E. Cortés Leave a comment

Since Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the world has been convulsed by the carnage emanating from the Middle East. That convulsion has migrated to the United States, where it is expressed daily in protests, demands, threats, and moral-grandstanding often reeking of dehumanizing language.

The carnage has claimed the lives of thousands in Gaza and Israel. It has also claimed other kinds of victims in the United States. This includes three college presidents, whose December 5, 2023, testimony before the Education and Workforce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives brought them instant public infamy because of the way that they positioned themselves in regard to speech.

Continue reading Diversity & Speech Part 43: How 3 College Presidents Flunked Their Speech Midterm Exam – by Carlos Cortés →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H, Black-Jewish Dialogue

Jewish Allies in African-American History – by Terry Howard

January 25, 2024 Terry Howard 2 Comments

Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Medgar Eversand Fannie Lou Hamer are some of the many leaders who paved the way through the rocky history of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. But the movement would not have succeeded without the contributions of people from all races, among them philanthropist Julius P. Rosenwald, whose name is associated with hundreds of schools for Black students throughout the south.

But first, we should remember the many largely unreported Black/Jewish American partnerships in that history. Case in point is the relationship between Dr. King and close friend and advisor Stanley Levinson, a Jewish American.

Continue reading Jewish Allies in African-American History – by Terry Howard →

Academic Articles, ADR Advisors, Authors A-H, Religious Diversity

DEI, Religion, and Hate Crimes – by Deborah Ashton, Ph.D.

January 16, 2024 Dr. Deborah Ashton Leave a comment

Introduction

Deborah Levine requested that I join her group on Black and Jewish Dialogue in 2021. Given today’s atmosphere, dialogue is crucial. Levine is the editor-in-chief of the American Diversity Report (ADR). She is a Holocaust documentarian (Courter, 2023; Levine, Untold Stories of a World War II Liberator, 2023), whom I am sure when she launched ADR never anticipated that diversity and DEI would be equated with anti-Semitism. Yet the cry has been aimed at academia and business (Cohen, 2023; Notheis, 2024) I am baffled by the cry to silence and dismantle DEI.

Through my DEI journey and practice since 1991 in corporate America, DEI has been inclusive and provides respect and dignity to all across religion, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, physical and mental ability, and other demographics. I will provide some examples later in the article.

Continue reading DEI, Religion, and Hate Crimes – by Deborah Ashton, Ph.D. →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H

The Power of Words: the “said” and the “unsaid” – by Terry Howard

January 15, 2024 Terry Howard Leave a comment

I came across the following quote in the Writers & Poets magazine recently:
“Where words prevail not, violence prevails.”

Please pause and sit on that one momentarily. In case you’re wondering, it’s a phrase from Thomas Kyd, a playwright and contemporary of William Shakespeare.

I then squared that quote against another familiar one, “words have power,” meaning that words have energy and power with the ability to help, motivate, demotivate, heal, harm, humiliate and devastate.

With all that said, I also thought about the title of this narrative and its message about the undeniable power of words within the context of the dangers of silence and how silence is sometimes complicit in the spread of hate and violence.

Continue reading The Power of Words: the “said” and the “unsaid” – by Terry Howard →

American Diversity Report: QUANTUM * INCLUSION

Category Archives: ADR Advisors

Let’s bag the ultra-processed food industry – by Deborah Levine