Category Archives: Race & Ethnicity

Racial and ethnic cultural differences

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity

Erasing the Tuskegee Airmen from History? – by Terry Howard

1 Comment

Nice try, but no thanks!

In case you missed it, after a strong backlash from scores of others, including military brass and descendants of the Tuskegee Airmen, the United States Air Force quickly reversed its recent move to remove videos featuring the Airmen out of its training programs.  

Okay, with that breaking news, I’m not gonna gloat – well, maybe I will. Just a little bit. I say that because here I am less than 24 hours after I received a message from “Lew,” a lifelong friend. But given that “Lew” is a 5th degree black belt in karate, I was relieved that his expletive-filled email to me wasn’t about anything I’d done or written. No, like scores of others I’d heard from once the news broke, his justifiable anger was ignited by a cockamamie decision to phase out the teaching of the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen from the U. S. Air Force training curriculum. 

Continue reading Erasing the Tuskegee Airmen from History? – by Terry Howard →

Authors A-H, PSK, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

Build a Stronger Economy: Focus on Minorities & Opportunity Zones – by Rachel Hooks

3 Comments

Everyone is familiar with Wall Street in New York where stock trades are made, but are you familiar with Black Wall Street, an area in Tulsa, Oklahoma? It’s the place where African Americans built their own economy with grocery stores, schools, homes, churches, hospitals, hotels, and other businesses. By 1921, they owned 35 square blocks of property in this community where they flourished, until one day, there was the Tulsa race massacre where this entire community was burned to the ground.

Unfortunately, this community was never the same again and very few people were able to keep their family homes that were destroyed. In a time of segregation, this type of community was necessary to carry out the law, “separate by equal”. I can recall my grandmother, Jimmie Hooks, born in 1930, before her passing this year at age 93, stating that her grandfather had a business, but could not own a home. She would say, “Ain’t that crazy”. This is no longer the case today, every man is considered equal, or are they?

Continue reading Build a Stronger Economy: Focus on Minorities & Opportunity Zones – by Rachel Hooks →

Authors R-Z, PSK, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

Letting Go of Perfectionism: an Act of Antiracism – by Janelle Villiers

1 Comment

I’ve attended the Undoing Racism Workshop offered by The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, twice. I’ve gone on to facilitate several DEI workshops and I am also  the co-creator of an Intra-Professional Antiracism Dialogue and Discourse Series (IPADDS). While preparing for and facilitating all of these workshops and IPADDS events I was always reminded of a foundational tenant of the Undoing Racism Workshop and that is “Racism de-humanizes us all.” It doesn’t matter what race, Black, White and everything in between, we are all de-humanized by racism.

Continue reading Letting Go of Perfectionism: an Act of Antiracism – by Janelle Villiers →

ADR Advisors, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues

“Mrs. Good Trouble”: Amelia Boynton Robinson – by Terry Howard

Leave a comment

civil rightsSome people are just made to cause, as the late Congressman John Lewis called it, “good trouble.” They’re contrarian by nature. It’s in their DNA. It ignites their fury. It explains their courage to put life and limb at risk for what they believe in.

Which brings us to African American History Month 2024 and to “Mrs. Good Trouble” herself, the late civil rights pioneer Amelia Boynton Robinson, inarguably the matriarch of the voting rights movement. Now if you subscribe to that familiar saying, “behind every great man is a woman,” then I’ll say, “behind every great movement is a woman.” Many of them in fact.

Continue reading “Mrs. Good Trouble”: Amelia Boynton Robinson – by Terry Howard →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H, Authors I-Q, Race & Ethnicity

Jewish Allies in African-American History – by Terry Howard

2 Comments

Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers and 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 →

Levine ADR articles, Race & Ethnicity, Religious Diversity, Social Issues

A Jewish Perspective on MLK – by Deborah Levine

2 Comments

raceIt was an honor to share my perspective as a Jew and diversity professional at Chattanooga’s MLK interfaith service commemorating The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  That event was years ago but my passion for diversity is a lifelong  legacy from my father, a US World War II military intelligence officer whose letters describing Naziism reside in Cincinnati’s American Jewish Archives. Having dedicated decades to tikkun olam, Hebrew for ‘repair of the world,’ I resonate to this day to Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s words, “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.”

Continue reading A Jewish Perspective on MLK – by Deborah Levine →

Race & Ethnicity, Sports

Diversity and Speech Part 40: Latinos in College Sports – by Carlos Cortés and Guillermo Ortega

Leave a comment

Carlos:  Guillermo, I still remember the first time we met.  You were about to start your senior year at the University of California, Riverside.    

Guillermo:  Yes, it was the summer of 2012.  

Carlos: Our friendship began when you became my research assistant.  Now you’re on your own fascinating research journey, examining the experiences of Latino college athletes.  How did you get into this topic?

Continue reading Diversity and Speech Part 40: Latinos in College Sports – by Carlos Cortés and Guillermo Ortega →

Race & Ethnicity, Religious Diversity

Yiddish Is My ‘Super Power’ – by Avi Hoffman

Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: Written prior to events in Israel, Hoffman now adds:
Please stand with Israel, the land that symbolizes the enduring strength and the promise of a safe home for the Jewish people, persecuted through the centuries and today. The land whose national anthem – ‘Hatikvah’ – literally means ‘HOPE’ – the hope to be free in our own home. Let us learn from history’s darkest moments and strive for a near future where EVERY child, regardless of their nationality, background, race or faith, can grow up without hunger or fear. Where EVERY human being can pursue their greatest dreams and fulfill their highest potential destiny.

Together, we can create a world where justice prevails, love triumphs over hatred, where acceptance vanquishes prejudice and where peace prevails over war. I still believe in the power of unity and love, and I hope you will too. In a world where so much hatred still lingers, let us unite to protect the dream of a peaceful coexistence. Not only for Jews in Israel and around the world, but for all human beings on our fragile planet regardless of race, faith or gender. When all is said and done, all we have is each other.

YiddishWith Hoffman’s message in mind, we should magnify our efforts to preserve the languages, cultures and traditions that have made our diverse world so memorable, including Yiddish.

Continue reading Yiddish Is My ‘Super Power’ – by Avi Hoffman →

Levine ADR articles, Race & Ethnicity, Social Issues, Wellness

Multicultural Healthcare and Disparities – by Deborah Levine

Leave a comment

When Dr. Joseph Betancourt spoke on “Solutions for Disparities: Delivering Quality Care to Diverse Populations” in Chattanooga several years ago, he delivered both unusual expertise and a personal model for future healthcare. Dr. Betancourt’s family came from Puerto Rico to NYC and he talked about his childhood as interpreter for his grandparents to their doctors. Today, Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, is the Senior Vice President of Equity and Community Health at Massachusetts General Hospital, the founder, senior advisor and faculty of the Disparities Solutions Center (DSC) at Mass General, Faculty at the Mongan Institute, an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing Internal Medicine physician.

Continue reading Multicultural Healthcare and Disparities – by Deborah Levine →

ADR Advisors, Authors A-H, Race & Ethnicity

Current Implications of Black History Month – by Marc Brenman

Leave a comment

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 →