Category Archives: About Us

About the American Diversity Report

Authors A-H, Generational

Diversity and Speech Part 20: Communicating across Generations – by Carlos E. Cortés

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

In those memorable opening lines of his novel, The Go-Between, writer L. P. Hartley captured many dilemmas.  The dilemma of memory.  The dilemma of change.   The dilemma of misunderstanding.

It also captured the dilemma of generations, particularly conversations across generations.  We did things differently then.  They do things differently now.   How are we going to help them understand what we experienced?  How are they going to help us understand what they are experiencing?
Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 20: Communicating across Generations – by Carlos E. Cortés →

Authors A-H, Make a Difference, Politics, Social Issues

How I’m Trying to Make a Positive Difference – by Marc Brenman

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I’m trying to make a positive difference in American political life by investigating whether and how it’s possible to draw some Trump voters toward the political center. In November 2020, about 48% of American voters voted for Trump. Voting for Trump is a proxy measure for rightwing feelings and beliefs. Many of these beliefs are extreme. None contribute to the American Dream of fairness, equity, opportunity, equality, and compassion, or the Good Society. Do we want to live in a permanently ideologically divided country, with the risk of civil war?
Continue reading How I’m Trying to Make a Positive Difference – by Marc Brenman →

Authors I-Q, Make a Difference, Trends 2021

How Will You Toast The 2020s? – by Martin Kimeldorf

Cocktail party discussions in the rambunctious boom years of the 1960s often ended in dark pronouncements for the next century. Upward trending population growth graphs collided with downward bar charts displaying resource depletion. A few brave souls uttered dark prophecies for the 2020s. They whispered about a world landscape filled with economic and environmental collapse. They claimed this would create a breeding ground for pandemics that would challenge our very survival.

America loves to terrorize and confine itself with a bipolar view of the world.  The Ozzie-and-Harriet voices in our heads droned on with happy-talk. In George Jetson cartoons, we imagined escaping traffic gridlock in our flying cars.  At the same time a Civil Defense doomsday voice commanded us to “duck and cover” beneath atomic mushroom clouds. Eventually Twilight Zone voices questioned these comedic survival tactics.
Continue reading How Will You Toast The 2020s? – by Martin Kimeldorf →

Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

Voices of Asian American Women – by Terry Howard

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Reports are that there are over 23 million Asian Americans living in the United States. Other reports are that over the past year, there are at least 4000 reports of various forms of harassment, including assaults, directed against Asian Americans in the United States. And tragically, during recent shootings in Georgia, eight lives were snuffed out, among them six Asian women. These are the facts.

So I begin this by introducing you to incredible Asian American women – Wei Wei Jeang and Lisa Ong – long-time friends of mine during the years I lived in Texas. Not only did I want to check in on the well-being of Wei Wei and Lisa, both outspoken and strong advocates of equality and fairness, I wanted to get their thoughts on what’s been happening to Asian Americans over recent years. I’ll begin with a little bit about their backgrounds.
Continue reading Voices of Asian American Women – by Terry Howard →

Authors A-H

Make Healing a Priority – by Dr. Temika Edwards, Dr. Cynthia R. Jackson

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Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, our physical, emotional, and mental stamina has been challenged to accommodate our ever-changing environment. To adapt to this change, we must incorporate inner and outer healing. Healing is a process that restores the whole person, mentally, physically, and emotionally, but also includes personal beliefs and values, sense of identity, and community of support. How we receive and respond to uncertainties can directly impact our inner and outer being.

Our inner being involves our spirit, emotions, and mind, while the outer being is our surrounding and social interactions. Both the inner and outer being are strongly connected, and we cannot have one exist without the other. For instance, the outcomes we create in the outer environment are motivated by what goes on inside ourselves. Although we all have our own temperaments concerning one side versus the other, we flourish best when the complexities maturing in each direction synchronize with each other. Everyone has an innate healing ability. With minor adjustments in our daily lives, we can improve the capability of our bodies to heal. We can also implement that same healing ability in the workplace, school, and community, which is why healing must be a priority in our lives to accomplish an optimal, balanced inner and outer being. Continue reading Make Healing a Priority – by Dr. Temika Edwards, Dr. Cynthia R. Jackson →

Authors I-Q, Of Women, Social Issues

My Salute to Women Overcoming Challenges – by Soumaya Khalifa

Resilience, Determination, Support and Hard Work

This Women’s History Month I am thankful for the many women who paved the way for me. These amazing women include my mother, sister, daughter, mentors, friends, colleagues, managers and too many others to list.  With these women as guides and companions, my path has been smooth yet challenging, steady yet adventurous.  For all of those women, I am deeply grateful.

I know a beautiful five year-old named Samira.  At birth, she was diagnosed with a rare genetic mutation that doctors thought would keep her from seeing, speaking, walking, running and living her life like any typical child.  Of course, her family was devastated: they wanted only the best for their newborn daughter.  Samira’s mother, however, immediately jumped into action.  She sought doctors who specialized in Samira’s condition and found the physical, occupational, speech and other therapies that she needed to thrive.  Samira’s mom fought the doctors, therapists and insurance companies to make sure her daughter received the best treatments and support.

Continue reading My Salute to Women Overcoming Challenges – by Soumaya Khalifa →

Levine articles, Make a Difference

The DEI Future: Old, New and Maybe – by Deborah Levine

A Diversity Futurist’s Perspective

DEBORAH LEVINE
Editor-in-Chief Deborah J. Levine

In my more than half a century dealing with diversity, I have seen multiple changes in the field of training, coaching, and consulting.  COVID presents an unprecedented mountain of changes in the DEI field that merit an overview of  the past, present and future.  As much as I appreciate some of you  giving me the title of Diversity Futurist, Diva, Matriarch and Fairy Godmother, I’m well aware of the many experts reading the American Diversity Report and welcome your comments on the future of diversity.

Continue reading The DEI Future: Old, New and Maybe – by Deborah Levine →

Authors I-Q, Pandemic

A Post-Pandemic Recovery Playbook for Women  – by Cathy Light

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As vaccines roll out, we turn our attention toward economic recovery. The traditional stimulus measures of the past, dominated by investment in infrastructure and construction, will not be effective in our post-pandemic world. Those sectors are male-majority employers, and COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on women.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in one month (September 2020), more than 1 million Americans over the age of 20 left the U.S. workforce. Roughly 80% – over 865,000 of them – were women. There are now nearly 2.2 million fewer women in the labor force than there were in February 2020 before the pandemic. In October 2020, the U.S. retail trade sector gained 103,700 jobs. Women accounted for only 11.4% of those gains, despite making up 48.4% of the retail trade workforce. We must do better.
Continue reading A Post-Pandemic Recovery Playbook for Women  – by Cathy Light →

Authors I-Q, Education, Of Women, Pandemic

Maybe Some Silver Linings – by Gay Morgan Moore

The world will long remember the past year!  We were thrust into circumstances that will forever change us individually and globally. We know the results – over 530,000 dead in the United States alone, millions sickened, an economy in free fall struggling to recover, a severely challenged health care system, new medicines, new disease conditions, and trillions of dollars in government spending attempting to ameliorate the effects of this global pandemic. The list of negative consequences goes on. But are there some “silver linings?” Is there some good coming from this daunting and often frightening global challenge?
Continue reading Maybe Some Silver Linings – by Gay Morgan Moore →

About Deborah Levine, Black-Jewish Dialogue

Black-Jewish Dialogue at Harvard – March 2021

March 2021  Black-Jewish Dialogue
Women’s History Month

Women creating change as Harvard freshmen
in the 1960s and today.
Dianne Irvine Fleet: Former chief legal officer/ U. Of Louisiana system. Former Supervisory Attorney/US Dept. of Ed. Office for Civil Rights. Former Sr. Attorney/Harvard U.
Deborah J. Levine: Award-winning author. Founder/American Diversity Report. Former American Jewish Committee Executive/Chicago. Former Jewish Federation Executive: Rockford, Tulsa. Chattanooga.
Host: Rabbi Craig Lewis
The Jewish Federation, Mizpah Congregation and the American Diversity Report co-sponsor these monthly dialogs.

CLICK for MARCH HARVARD DIALOGUE 

Dialogue Partners:
American Diversity Report,  Chattanooga News Chronicle, Mizpah Congregation, Jewish Federation of Greater Chattanooga, C.U.R.B. – Citizens Uprooting Racism in Bermuda.

CLICK FOR BLACK-JEWISH DIALOGUES AND PODCASTS