In this solo episode, I recap the latest good vibes in DEI. This week the stories are about Out athletes at the Olympics, Laila Edwards making history on Team USA, Super Bowl fans getting tactile access, and more! I also spoke about the New York Times article by Nikole Hannah-Jones, which gave me hope: What It Means to Be a White Race Traitor.
In this solo episode, I recap the latest good vibes in DEI. This week the stories are about Out athletes at the Olympics, Laila Edwards making history on Team USA, Super Bowl fans getting tactile access, and more! I also spoke about the New York Times article by Nikole Hannah-Jones, which gave me hope: What It Means to Be a White Race Traitor.
Here are this week's good vibes:
Good Vibes to Go:
Chris Simmons, the first Black Partner elected to the US Governing Board of PwC, has a new book out: NOBODY TOLD YOU: What Blacks, Asians and Latinos Must Know to Win at Work. It’s on sale on Kindle. Chris is a wise man and I’m really enjoying this book! It’s a great book for everyone.
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In this week's episode, the stories are about out athletes at the Olympics, Leila Edwards making history on Team USA, Super Bowl fans getting tactile access, and more. Folks, in the last Five Things newsletter, I wrote about how Black History Month seems quiet again this year. Second year in a row. Things pretty tapered down. I'm seeing less branded Black History Month stuff like there was a few years ago, which is kind of a good thing, I guess, because that stuff was pretty cheesy to begin with. But in general, things are pretty low key again this year.
But, of course, Black folks keep making history, like Leila Edwards who is the first Black woman on the US women's Olympic hockey team, which is now headed for the gold at the current Olympics. Very exciting and she's out there breaking ice.
Alright, so there's a little bonus good vibe for you. Read an article in the New York Times by Nikole Hannah-Jones, and the article gave me hope. It's called "What It Means to Be a White Race Trader" and I'll make sure that gets put in the show notes. But in the article, she traces the history from the eighteen hundreds to the nineteen sixties and more recently with the deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Prady today. She traces the history of those white folks whose activism led to their deaths, but because they were white, those deaths inspired other white folks to then take action, which ultimately led to progress. So, essentially, the white folks who were martyrs for progress.
So, she writes about this in the article and definitely highly recommend you checking it out, but I found it inspiring because I think it's good to be reminded that progress really requires folks who are willing to betray the status quo, the status quo of their own privilege, which reminds me that the good vibes I write about are sometimes born from the courage that it takes to be unpopular for the sake of what? Doing what's right, you know? So, sometimes, it often takes risk, the risk of being unpopular for the greater good, for doing what's right. So, for me, I don't need perfection from myself or from anyone, but I do need folks who are willing to try. I know I feel a great sense of responsibility to use my influence, my privilege, for the greater good, and to do what's right. And so, just wondering, what about you? Are you a race traitor?
Olympic Records: The first story this week comes from the Olympics, where there are at least 47 publicly out LGBTQ athletes at these current Winter Olympics, which is a record. One of them, who's US figure skater Amber Glenn, she won Olympic gold with Team USA, in the team competition. But after she sort of spoke out openly about her fears and reservations, she received a lot of anti LGBTQ backlash. So I think the lesson here is that visibility is so important. We need that representation, but we also need protection, because that visibility can increase risk.
Barriers in the Fire Department: The next story comes from New York City where there is a new commissioner of the fire department, Lillian Bonseigneur, who's the first out lesbian and the second woman to lead the agency. So she actually started as an EMT back in 1991, then was an 11/1 first responder, and made her way up through the ranks. What I think is so cool about this is, you know, breaking barriers, as a lesbian, also as a woman, and really challenging the traditional gendered hierarchy of these types of fields. I think it also is a good reminder that the decades of grit and field experience that marginalized folks can bring to the table is an amazing leadership quality.
Centering Inclusion at the Super Bowl: The next story came from the Super Bowl where Bad Bunny’s halftime show on one of the world's biggest stages. There were also guest performances by out gay man Ricky Martin. There was choreography featuring same sex and mixed gender pairings. Lopaso, Hawaii, bringing themes of colonial history into prime time entertainment. Major broadcast, major networks often treat Latino culture and queer visibility as sort of a sideshow but this performance flipped the script. It centered cultural identity, centered language, and inclusion was the headline.
Language Access: The next story also comes from the Super Bowl where Bad Bunny's halftime performance included Puerto Rican sign language interpreter, Selamar Rivera Casmay, which was the first time ever there was a Puerto Rican sign language interpreter at the Super Bowl. She's actually worked with Bad Bunny since 2022 and works to preserve this particular kind of sign language. Deaf communities are not monolithic, right? So, ASL, American Sign Language, doesn't work for everyone. Language access is cultural access and that includes community specific language. If you're planning any kind of event, especially with a large audience for any particular area, make sure you budget interpreters with those relevant language experiences.
Tactile Sports Access: The last story this week comes from the Super Bowl where some blind and low vision fans actually were able to experience the Super Bowl using a tactile device that tracks the ball, vibrates for key plays, and pairs with real time audio. Sports access has long centered sighted people, of course. That means that blind fans can't really participate or they can struggle to participate. This tactile technology allows active, independent engagement and can have really broad implications for the world, for other events, for classrooms. Build that stuff in as a default, not as an add on later.
Now let's move into this week's Good Vibe to Go: Chris Simmons, the first Black Partner elected to the US Governing Board of PwC, has a new book out: NOBODY TOLD YOU: What Blacks, Asians and Latinos Must Know to Win at Work. It’s on sale on Kindle. Chris is a wise man and I’m really enjoying this book! It’s a great book for everyone.
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