This month’s blog is titled “ABC…DE&I…Say What?”.  Ever wonder what all those letters mean?  It seems that you can’t scroll through Facebook or Instagram without seeing a post about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.  DE&I has been thrown around so much in the last few years, in all different places, on all different platforms, but what does it really mean, and more importantly what does it mean to you?  The answer to that question is both easy and very difficult because DE&I means something to everyone but may mean something different to everyone.  In this month’s blog I will share my experiences and my growth journey, but also clearly express what I don’t know, which is far more than what I think I do know.  Your DE&I journey though, really has to be your own, based on your own decisions and dedication to support diversity, treat people equally, and be inclusive. 

Growing up in rural Maine, I didn’t have a lot of exposure to diversity. Everyone I went to school with looked just like me.  We had two students in my class, of about 100, that were not white, one was Filipino and one was Korean.  I knew they looked different but didn’t really understand who they were or what made them special.  As a family, we didn’t travel a lot, so I really didn’t experience and different people or cultures until I went to college. The first time I really had any interaction with someone outside of my “bubble” was in college. In my sophomore year, I had a roommate who was Asian. While we had a great year together, I felt like I only knew her as my roommate, but I didn’t get to know much about her as a person or her cultural background.  I didn’t really know how to ask her about herself or how to broach that topic.

Upon graduation from college I moved to Youngstown, Ohio.  Have any of you ever been to Youngstown, OH?  It was not a great place for a 22 year old single female.  I moved there to work for an industrial cleaning company.  We traveled with a mobile lab to paper mills, chemical manufacturers, tire manufacturers, steel mills, all very glamorous places.  It was me and 22 men, ranging from 25-60 years old.  After about two weeks on the job, they made it very clear that I was hired because they got in trouble for not having any female employees, they actually told me I was only there because they had to hire a female!  This wasn’t just mentioned once, but quite frequently during my 6 months of employment there.  I was totally a DE&I hire.

I was so proud to get this job, it was 1994 and I was making $33,000 a year!  That was a great salary for a Chemical Engineer at that time.  I worked 7pm-7am for 6 weeks straight, no days off.  This didn’t even include travel time; we would finish a shift at 7 am and drive to the next job before we even got to sleep.   When I did the math, I was actually making about $1.33/hour!  In between jobs I was given tasks like washing the company vehicles, the bosses personal vehicles, shining tires…..none of the male employees did this, just me!  Absolutely demeaning, but I was no quitter, I stuck it out until I found another job as a process engineer back in Maine.  There was an older gentleman, everyone called him Pappy, he worked many nights with me in the lab.  He would help me search for new jobs in between testing as he knew it was no place for a 22-year-old kid, let alone a female.  We would go into steel mills, there was no women’s rest room, so one of the guys would have to escort me to the men’s bathroom and wait outside so no one would come in.  They would ask me what was taking so long, what I was doing in there, make cat calls, and so on and so on.

I actually got in an accident with a company truck, hauling bottles of oxygen and acetylene (both explosives when compressed by the way).  I had to take driving lessons with the safety officer and when I was finished, they said it was a waste of time as they shouldn’t have let a woman drive to begin with!  I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture!  It was a terrible experience, but I learned so many lessons that I have carried with me throughout my career and my life, dos and don’ts of how to treat people and how to embrace diversity.

Bottom line: Know your value and own your situation.  I was determined not to quit without having another job, I would not let them defeat me.  I found another job, moved back to Maine, and started a great career which gave me the skills I needed to eventually move into the medical device industry.  Also, looks for tools to add to your toolbox in every situation.  I took a terrible situation and made it positive by learning so many things about how to be a compassionate leader.

Fast forward to when I moved to Georgia and met one of my best friends, who is Asian American. Through her, I have learned so many things about her upbringing and her culture, and especially about the dynamic between Asian women and their moms. My relationship with her and other experiences I’ve had since, have really piqued my interest into understanding more about other cultures.  To say it quite bluntly, I was quite ignorant until I started working and traveling.

A few years after starting at CR Bard, I got a promotion to my first managerial role.  I actually had direct reports; I was so excited.  I had an opening, went through the interview process, and hired an engineer from India who was in the US on an H1 Visa.  I didn’t really know what that meant, but knew that whatever company he was working for had to sponsor him for him to stay in the US.  During the transfer of his Visa from one company to the next something fell through the cracks, and long story short he would have to return to India for a period of time while it was sorted out and he could legally return to the US.  I was mortified to have to have this conversation.  I did everything wrong that I could have possibly done wrong.  I posed it like we were paying for him to return to India on a vacation while we sorted everything out.  I was ignorant to the fact that he would be worried that he might not get to come back, that he was leaving behind a life and friends that he had made here, and I was jeopardizing his livelihood.  I made assumptions about his family.  I said, your parents will be excited to see you.  As it turns out, both of his parents had passed away in an accident a few years prior.  While he was in India, there were unprecedented floods and his home became flooded and damaged leaving his essentially homeless.  It was a disaster and I was a horrible manager, completely insensitive to his situation and his needs.  Silver lining – he made it back to the US, became a US citizen, and has had an amazing career since!  I went home that day and made a Melt In Your Mouth Blueberry Cake!

The last thing I want is to turn this into a political topic but I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss the most recent presidential election, and a few prior to that.  Since that first job I took in Ohio, I have never wanted a position or an opportunity because I was female.  I want everything I have because I earned it and because I was the best candidate for a role.  I heard, and read, so many people saying they were voting for Kamala Harris because she was female, and because she would be the first female President of the United States.  Did we vote for her vagina or did we vote for her brain, heart, and ethics?  While it would be amazing to have a female president, don’t we first and foremost want leaders that are qualified, share our values, and will take us to the next level, whatever that might be.  I would hope to hear, and read, that people were excited to vote for Kamala Harris because they were excited about her platforms, or her visions.  It was the same when Hillary Clinton ran for President, or when Sarah Palin was on the ticket as Vice President.  Did you vote for them because you believed in their policies or because they were female?  The same could be said for Barack Obama, did we vote for him because we agreed with his vision or because he was Black?  We should 100% celebrate that fact that we elected a black person to the office, barriers were certainly broken down, but shouldn’t that be secondary to the fact that he was the right person for the job?  In my opinion, I would find it demeaning, and did find it demeaning, to get hired because I was a female, not because I was the most qualified candidate and earned the position.

Let’s completely change the topic to Super Bowl LIX, specifically the halftime show.  I didn’t get it.  It went right over my head.  While I enjoyed the showmanship of it, and the entertainment value, I was completely lost to the meaning.  Because of that I immediately didn’t like it.  Was it geared to me as a viewer, a middle age white woman, I don’t know?  Was I supposed to “get it”, I don’t know that either? After the game, I started to read many articles and discussions about the show and the meaning, what was Kendrick Lamar really trying to say?  Why was Samuel L Jackson there?  Was it all really just a dis on Drake or was there more?  This is an excerpt from the best explanation that I found, source unnamed:

It started with an American flag built out of Black bodies – symbolizing how America itself was built on our backs.

The Real Message:

It wasn’t just about race.  It was about the people who control the media and the music industry – the ones who create division for profit.

Let’s Break It Down:

The Opening Beat: A nod to Dead Prez’s “Bigger Than Hip-Hop”

First Song: “When I Hear Music, It Makes me Dance” but the dancing wasn’t just for fun.  It symbolized how we’ve been conditioned to perform rather than reflect.

Uncle Sam: Setting the stage with “the rules of the game” – the same rules that historically stacked the deck against us.

The “Too Many Black Folks On The Corner Narrative”: When we gather, they see a threat.  So they divide us – through violence, systems, and media narratives.

Squid Games Symbolism: The rich exploiting the poor for entertainment.  Sound familiar?  Think about rappers beefing, dying, and the media profiting off the spectacle.

The System’s Distractions: Drake’s fame helps push artists like Sexxy Redd to entertain while diluting culture.

Dancers in Red, White, & Blue: A living American Flag.  We’ve been dancing to THEIR drumbeat for generations – valuing entertainment over education.

The Stage as a Giant PlayStation: Because the system is just a game to them – one to keep us distracted, divided, and imprisoned (literally & mentally).

Protecting Black Women: A subtle callout, especially considering how figures like Serena Williams have been disrespected by the very system that Kendrick critiques.

The Bottom Line: It’s not about Drake.  It’s about what he represents: the commercialization of Black culture to serve systems that don’t serve us back.

WOW, just wow.  I think I was the targeted audience and I am just not in tune enough to realize it. 

My bottom line: Open your eyes and pay attention to the world around you, there’s a lot going on out there and just because you don’t understand something at first glance, don’t pass judgement, do your homework!

It seems in this blog I have successfully pointed out how ignorant I am, and that’s ok, I am self-confident enough to use myself and my lack of knowledge to bring awareness to the topic.  One way that I have been able to curb my ignorance is to find great friends, that I trust, and that trust me, that I can ask stupid questions to.  They know they are coming from a true place in my heart and with pure intentions, I just really don’t know and want to expand my knowledge.  These 3-4 people have been a huge part of my growth journey.  They also trust me enough to call me out when I do something insensitive or inappropriate, so I don’t make the same mistake twice.  Again, I have built the kind of relationship with these friends that we can be open and honest with each other.

Do any of you watch Survivor?  I will admit, Survivor and the Amazing Race are my guilty pleasures.  I love these shows.  Greg and I would be great for ratings on the Amazing Race, but that’s an entirely different topic.  On last week’s episode of Survivor, there was an amazing discussion that was had between Jeff, the host, and one of the castaways, Mitch.   Mitch developed a stutter when he was in kindergarten, and it has impacted him throughout his life.  The way Jeff asks him how he prefers to interact with others shows true compassion and a desire to answer a question he just doesn’t know the answer to.  One might be nervous to ask, or one might feel driven to finish his sentences for him, but Jeff asked, and the outcome is amazing. Take a moment and watch the video.

Survivor 48 episode 2 sneak peek 2: Humble Traits – YouTube

If DE&I is so important why are many large companies disbanding their DE&I initiatives and even removing DE&I from their corporate goals?  What I think of as socially forward, progressive companies such as Google, Meta, and Amazon are among those that have eliminated programs.  Target, McDonalds, and Ford have also eliminated DE&I programs.  While at a previous company I had the honor of being the Executive sponsor for our IlluminASIAN employee resource group (ERG).  While the core group of members was amazing it was difficult to get participation from other employees.  The company also had ERGs focused on LGBTQ+, women, Latinx, veterans, and new parents.  It seemed at times that all of these groups were competing for event time and members.  While I enjoyed many of the events, at times it seemed like it was being forced, and you were being judged based on whether or not you participated.  I wonder if it was like this at other companies?  Respecting people and the diversity of people, to me, should be just something we do naturally, not something that we have to do to meet our year end goals.  That’s not very authentic.  But I do feel its important to highlight and celebrate our differences, how to do that is the question!

I have stated in many of my blogs before this one that I am relationship driven.  I live my life, all aspects of my life, by building relationships.  Some of those relationships are more challenging than others to start and to maintain.  All of my relationships are on different levels and built on different shared experiences.  Those relationships are not different based on age, race, sex, color, stature, or gender, they are based on what we have in common.  How do people learn to discriminate?  It has to be learned, right, we are not born with preconceived notions or hatred?  I truly believe there is an element of fear as well.  People fear, or automatically dislike, what they don’t know or understand.  Experiences shape our beliefs.  I have been wronged by both men and women.  I have been wronged by black people, brown people, and white people.  I have been wronged by heterosexuals and homosexuals.  I also have men, women, black people, brown people, white people, heterosexuals, and homosexuals in my circle of very close friends, my village.  Diversity goes way beyond the few folks I have just mentioned but you get my point.

Bottom line:  Be kind.  Keep an open mind.  Hire based on qualifications, the best person for the job.  Find a confidant, or a few, to help you with your journey.  DE&I should just be, it should just happen, it shouldn’t be a quota.  I guess we have to talk about it so much, because it isn’t happening.  There is so much prejudice.  Take a moment and reflect on yourself and your actions, then make a plan as to what you are going to do to drive change! TAKE ACTION AND DO BETTER!

Melt in Your Mouth Blueberry Cake Recipe

Note: It has fruit, have two pieces, its good for you 😊

4 eggs, separated

2 C sugar

1 C shortening

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp salt

3 C flour

2 tsp baking powder

2/3 C milk

3 C blueberries

Preheat oven to 350

Beat egg whites until stiff, then fold in ½ C sugar and set aside

Dust blueberries with 1 T flour and set aside

Cream shortening, add salt, vanilla and remainder of the sugar 

Add egg yolks and beat until creamy

Add dry ingredients to the batter, alternately with milk

Fold in beaten egg whites and blueberries

Turn batter into a greased 9X13 in pan and sprinkle the top with sugar

Bake for 55 mins until golden brown