Tag: Discrimination

A Point of View: “High Value” People and Discrimination Within Our Communities

Facets of discrimination are deeply ingrained into our social system. Our cultural labeling of people as “high value” is built upon how much you make, whether society considers you attractive, or your social status within society. We are judging the value of other human beings based on criteria set by the very same system meant to oppress us. Why is this? Why are we willing participants in oppressing each other if we are of a certain weight, too dark, have features not commonly considered attractive, or are otherwise at the bottom of the “social ladder?”  

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A Point of View: We Cannot Look Away From Inequities and Discrimination in Healthcare

I tell this story to give a face to the idea of medical discrimination. I honestly can’t say that the doctors didn’t take me seriously because I was a woman or a Black woman. But I can say that the medical professionals didn’t believe me. I can say that had that nurse not said what she said, I may not have returned. My son could have died. I could’ve died. As bizarre as it sounds, I have had Black women say that medical professionals told them that Black women couldn’t feel pain. Why wouldn’t we be able to feel pain as human beings? 

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A Point of View: We Still Wear the Mask: On Facing Racism In A Virtual Workplace

In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask,” and then, in Maya Angelou’s expounded version “The Mask,” we read about the phenomenon many BIPOC endure: we must shelter our authentic selves as a means of survival in a white world. Smiling to mask pain or laughing when we feel like crying, have been knee-jerk reactions to the trauma and violence of racism. As Dunbar and Angelou so eloquently describe, we so often choke down the pain in our realities for fear of white rage — as though revealing that we no longer want to be oppressed is cause for visceral attack.

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Managing the Toll of DEI Work: Reclaiming “Resilience” & Moving from Paradox to Progress

Resilience. The wellness buzzword. At first glance, it sounds great—and in theory, it can be. However, the key to why resilience is the current buzzword of the wellness space is also its ultimate downfall: institutions have claimed resilience as an individual behavior modification, something you should be able to learn once given the tools, often ignoring the conditions, policies, practices, and history that affects how we ultimately cope with stresses that are within and beyond our job descriptions.

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Unpacking the Conversations that Matter: “It’s just a joke! Why are you so upset?”

During my first day at an internship I once held, each of us was asked to tell a joke as part of our introduction to the staff and the rest of the intern cohort. This fun activity proceeded as planned… until the last intern told a hurtful, racist “joke” about poverty and food in another culture. It was followed by an awkward silence during which we all winced and looked around, uncertain how to respond. One of the staff eventually said, “Wow. Well. Let’s continue with our agenda.” 

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A Point of View: The Culture Can’t Be Silenced #DontMuteDC

I remember that shop…that sound…the culture so vividly while a student at Howard University. That shop was a telephone and communications vendor on the corner of Georgia and Florida Ave NW, on a strip otherwise known as Chuck Brown Way. You see, Chuck Brown was, in part, responsible for that sound—The Godfather is what they called him.

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Racial Justice at Work: Practical Solutions for Systemic Change

Racial Justice at Work book cover

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We Can’t Talk About That At Work! (Second Edition)

Cover of the book We Can't Talk about That at Work (Second Edition) by Mary-Frances Winters and Mareisha N Reese

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