Tag: affirmative action

On Leveling the Playing Field

I ask you: How long will we need to be leveling the playing field in order for the field to be totally leveled? Is it simply impossible to do the right things every single time?

In 1999 in a management course in graduate school the class had to join an electronic messaging group and contribute to the discussion threads. Back then I wrote that I thought affirmative action was necessary to level the playing field. In those exact words.

That’s going on 30 years ago and I would hope things have changed. Have they? What hasn’t changed is that even when BIPOC individuals have equal access to getting jobs this isn’t the issue. The fact is management treats ALL staff equally dismally.

It’s why I’ve recommended saving up our coins so that we can retire by the time we’re 65 not 70.

If the fact is that the playing field still hasn’t been leveled have our efforts been futile? Was the action taken not the right action to garner the intended result?

This begs for examining A Better Way. And like I alluded to before It Starts With Us. And in how we treat each other. No Harvard degree needed.

Because in a world where White men professors work at Harvard they mistake Black students as catering staff at events. No kidding. Even recently.

What is the solution? My biggest hope is that individuals can go into business for ourselves and succeed. Then hire and employ a diverse crowd of staff.

Barring becoming entrepreneurs I say like I have before to band together across the color spectrum as coworkers who should be allies not enemies.

At the library a management book talked about how staff at a company should go from thinking solely of Me and embrace the We.

No backstabbing. No cutthroat competing to get ahead or promoted. No remaining a silent bystander to injustice in the workplace.

Because really with these habits in place once BIPOC individuals get the jobs they’ll keep the jobs. And they and us will have optimal mental and physical health wherever we toil from 9 to 5.

The Truth About Lower Standards

Lower standards are given everyone it appears and this has a historical precedent:

In college in the 1980s an English professor told me that the term paper topic I chose was too hard. He had me pick an easier one. This discouraged me. Luckily I got a B in the course not a C.

High school students are given no motivation to do their best either today. A White female public school teacher told her Black students: “It’s OK to just get a 75 grade.”

Skill sets for Black White and every other person have to be modeled and taught to kids as early as kindergarten. Why do you think public libraries host story times where children’s librarians read books to babies and toddlers and encourage their parents to read to kids as soon as the child is born?

Makes sense right.

Today there are college graduates who can’t compose a proper English sentence let alone create an effective LinkedIn profile. Some of them have master’s degrees. No kidding.

The solution is NOT to throw the DEI baby out with the bath water to use that expression. I still think the judicious use of affirmative action and DEI workplace policies should be mandated.

Happier healthier workers will be more productive and help their companies generate increased sales. Again I might refer followers to read the book Emotion by Design by Nike’s former Chief Marketing Officer Greg Hoffman. He started as a Biracial art intern at Nike and rose up to be the CMO.

No kidding. If your employees look like your customers and share your fan base’s culture that’s a win-win every time right out of the starting gate.

This is a true sstory.