5 Things / community
This week my friend Rhodes Perry invited me to join in conversation with his Belonging Membership Community. Rhodes is a fellow DEI consultant who's built an incredible community of DEI practitioners (internal and external) who learn together, share with each other, and uplift one another. It was wonderful to spend an hour with that community, and a reminder for me that this work cannot be done alone. Changing the world can sometimes feel lonely.
I've been reflecting on community lately because it's been a beautiful and humbling experience for me to bring a book into the world with so many supporters behind me. Community is everything, and I'll never take that for granted again.
If you find yourself lonely in this work, consider joining Rhodes' community, and always know that you can email me and get a real response.
Here are some of the good vibes I learned this week:
October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month here in the U.S., and it's fitting I had a great conversation this week with John Samuel, founder of Ablr, a disability inclusion consulting firm. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about disability inclusion. I loved learning about Ablr's free program to train visually impaired and blind people in tech jobs--specifically to be digital accessibility analysts. This matters because it's led to well-paying jobs at companies like McDonald's and CVS, and yes, it also increases diversity in the workforce.
The law firm, Baker Botts, has pledged to link practice group leader and partner compensation to diversity, equity, and inclusion. They are one firm of 50 to commit to Diversity Lab's "Do Something Hard" initiative, which asks firms (among other things) to include at least 50% lawyers from historically marginalized groups, share equal origination credit with these partners, and retain "diverse" lawyers and non-diverse lawyers equally. This matters because these public commitments lead to accountability and this structure provides resources to support the success of the programs.
In 1924, the Bruce family owned a popular beach resort in Manhattan Beach, California, that was a popular spot for Black residents. That year, the property was taken away by eminent domain, supposedly to build a park that wasn't built for 30 years. This week California Governor Newsom returned the beach to the Bruce family. This matters because the county taking the land had a devastating effect on the Black people in the area. To this day, less than 1% of the population in Manhattan Beach is Black. This law is one small attempt to make up for a legacy of the U.S. government taking away land from people of color.
WNBA players will now receive fertility support as a benefit. The program aims to break the assumption that women athletes can’t have kids until they retire. This matters because it is one way to "normalize" parenthood among these athletes, who shouldn't have to make a difficult choice of family vs. career.
Finally, Canada has made repeated, intentional misgendering of transgender and non-binary employees a human rights violation. This matters because it further legitimizes the importance of pronouns and correct name usage, and sets an important precedent that protects people who may feel disrespected and dehumanized when misgendered.
Image by Joel Muniz