This morning when reading the morning news, I came across a story about the singer, Drake’s son bursting into tears onstage as his Dad accepted the BBMA honor, whatever that is. I have heard of Drake but couldn’t tell you one song of his, despite, as it turns out, he was receiving the Billboard award for artist not of the year, but of the DECADE. Turned out BBMA is Billboard Music Awards. Who knew? 🙂

However, knowing as I do, male, and especially Black male, acculturation in this country, I had opened the article to see how old his son was because I couldn’t imagine a Black boy of any age doing this unless he was a toddler. Turned out he was 4. Made sense.

But what struck me the most was that Drake had a heart cut into his haircut on the front side of his forehead.

What?

Instant love.

Hearts are my favorite shape in the entire universe because they symbolize my life motto, “It’s ALL about LOVE!” I have them all over my house, I do not make a quilt without them (and hand quilting is huge for me), I have a Maori-inspired heart tattooed on my chest and I even collect and/or photograph natural heart shapes in nature such as leaves, rocks, etc. (last summer I had a 3 potatoes shaped like hearts!).

If this grown Black man was willing to have a heart cut into his haircut, in the front, at probably one of, if not the, most important, media-heavy, auspicious, occasions of his life, I knew I would likely appreciate the message in his music.

Moments later, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) advocate that I am, I clicked on a story about a kid band, Linda Lindas, that had written a song, “Racist Sexist Boy,” about a boy who had teased a girl. Curious, I opened the article and, quite unexpectedly, proceeded to be blown away.

I LOVED that the songwriter was only 10! I LOVED that she wrote it after she was told by the boy that his Dad told him to stay away from Chinese people and when she told him she was Chinese, he backed away from her. I LOVE it that I was totally unprepared for the performance the band gave at the L.A. Public Library! I LOVE it that the song “became a viral pandemic-era anthem.”!! It deserves to be!

As you can see, I love this on so many levels. So much so that it brought me to tears when I thought about Drake’s haircut heart that I’d just seen and then saw how these little kids had turned what could have been just another mean, disrespectful, hateful, ignorant act into such a win! I love it that at that age, that gender, that ethnicity, they felt a sense of agency enough, felt empowered enough, to just respond in a way that made sense to them rather than just taking it and feeling hurt.

I thought about how one of the most important things about doing DEIB work is understanding how important the role of society and environment is in us being where we are as well as us creating change.

We are social creatures. It’s just part of our DNA as human beings. We do what we need to do to say within the group.

The environment the group creates is tremendously important. People don’t tell jokes they think no one will laugh at any more than they will wear clothes they think others will find totally unacceptable and subject them to public ridicule. We need to understand how important our individual role is in this equation. We choose —or not—to laugh at the joke. We choose—or not—to walk away when someone tells us who they are. The power of one is astonishing in its effectiveness.

Whether you see it at that moment or not, your decision simply not to laugh is seen and heard and no matter what others say, sends a ripple. The joke teller will think twice next time s/he gets ready to tell a joke s/he believes others will think is funny when the laughter is at the expense of unnecessarily demeaning others. Eventually s/he may stop telling such jokes altogether because s/he gets the message that it is not acceptable. We create that environment. And we can do it by saying absolutely nothing at all when the joke is told, giving the idea that it is not OK. Or we can laugh and send the message that it is.

We all know when we do wrong. We know when we have crossed over the line. We know when we have done something that demeaned someone, embarrassed someone, hurt someone, or otherwise made them feel bad. We can make the choice not to do it. Don’t allow someone else’s choice to go over the line drag you into it. If these are not your values, don’t act like they are. You thereby help solidify an environment you don’t even want. All of our acts woven together create the environment.

Drake’s heart in his haircut, Linda Lindas’ anti-hate anthem, were not done together. They were totally unrelated to each other (well, actually, both involved music made by BIPOC). But together, they create signs that the world is not OK with the way things are when we treat each other as outsiders based on irrelevant criteria and instead should return to our natural state: Love. I love that!

Do what you can to be a part of that environment that binds us together rather than divides us. Every single little bit we do matters. Many hands make light work. Each of us, doing what we can, can absolutely make the world a better, more loving, more accepting place.

Who in the world doesn’t want that?!

Yes, I am a lawyer, I am 70 years old, I’m Black, my Ancestors were enslaved in North Carolina and Alabama, I am female, and I can still say this. Pollyanna I am not. Experienced I am.

As I was walking across the floor of my basement this evening, I realized how delicious the space felt. It felt so good to have it back. After the death of my daughters’ Dad 3 years ago, my basement, both the spacious front family room section as well as the equally spacious back storage section, were taken over as storage space after my middle daughter did the sad and laborious job of clearing out and preparing for sale her Dad’s 3-story-plus basement home in DC. The things she chose to keep until her own home was built ended up totally taking over a space I loved. Not only did I very much enjoy the space itself, I realized walking through it today just how much I missed just having the open space.

I’ve lived in my house for 33 years. With my 3 daughters now off in their own spaces, I live alone, something I very much enjoy. I try to live all over my home. Though the master bedroom is on the main floor, I prefer to sleep in the cooler, darker basement. When my daughter needed to live with me with her husband and new baby after selling her home in another state and moving back to mine, I gave them the house to occupy and the basement served me quite well. It is a totally separate space with its own bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette and entrance. In its most recent use, for three years all but the bedroom and bathroom were lost to me as the other part of the space was used for storage. Relishing walking through the space now that I could, I realize I am walking through a space that may seem indulgent considering the fact that I live alone and had the rest of the house to occupy. But it was a space I was used to occupying and missed when it was used otherwise. To have it now be bright and open rather than crowded with a jumble of things covering every surface including the floor, making it seem dark and crowded made me realize how much it impacted me without my realizing it. Just having the unruly, dark, jumble of foreign possessions there had an impact I was not aware of. It made me feel like I was crowded into a dark confining space. I do not, for one second, regret allowing it to be so used by my daughter and would do it again in a heartbeat. But I was surprised at just how much a difference it made mentally and emotionally to not feel crowded in. I was surprised at how much I took in and felt without realizing it. I was surprised at how our mind can close to negatives when there is a positive purpose. But once my daughter moved into the new home she built and cleared out the space, it was as if my whole mindset changed, felt lighter, more hopeful, more upbeat. No one was more surprised than I.

Walking across the spacious floor and thinking about how good it felt to be able to access the space once again, I thought about a news story I’d read the day before during a long wait at Lowe’s to place my order for a new appliance.

The news, which delighted me, was that Black farmers had begun receiving messages from the USDA that they would soon be receiving notice of payments and loan forgiveness as part of the most recent COVID recovery legislation.

Ten years before, my textbook, The Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Environment in a Diverse Society, commissioned by McGraw-Hill Publishing, had been published. A first-of-its kind textbook in the Business Law discipline, it was a great book, but ahead of it’s time. It was cancelled after the first edition did not meet sales projections. It was a move I understood, but still believed made little sense considering the way the country was headed. 

Turns out I was right. Imagine having a professor who did not know I’d written the book, during a call to ask if I would be on a panel on creating an anti-racist curriculum in colleges of business for the annual meeting of our national organization, say that Business Law professors needed a Legal Environment book that addresses diversity and inclusion (D&I). She said she and some colleagues were thinking of writing one. She was stunned when I told her that not only had I already written one, but that when the book was cancelled, my co-author and I obtained a reversion of rights from the publisher and she and her colleagues were welcome to use the book to create a new one. What mattered to me was getting the information to students, not royalties. But it further solidified my notion that the publisher should have just waited it out as they had volunteered to do when they agreed to publish my Employment Law for Business textbook. Another first-of-its kind text, the book, now in its 10th edition, is the leading text in its discipline and has been for the nearly 30 years it has been in existence.

Since the Legal Environment book addressing diversity and inclusion issues was a first-of-its-kind, my co-author and I were free to craft it in whatever way we thought best served its purpose. We said in the introduction that we would only include D&I where it was relevant as we were not trying to force the issue because of an “agenda” but simply wanted the relevant information to be provided to students. Present textbooks generally just present the law. However, we understood that the law is not created by legislators in a vacuum, executed by those in power in a vacuum, nor interpreted by courts in a vacuum. Students needed to realize that. After all, they may one day be in one of those positions and we wanted to make sure they understood the landscape. The law is not simply the law, totally detached from the ideas we hold as human beings in a society.

During his administration, Trump demonstrated this on a daily basis in each of the three branches of our tripartite system of government (legislative, executive and judicial) by pushing extreme legislation, helping elect extremely conservative legislators and castigating those who took positions varying from his (legislative), appointing conservative judges whose most important qualification seemed to be a willingness to uphold his views and berating decisions and judges when they did not (judicial), and by arbitrarily using his power as chief executive to do all sorts of inappropriate, detrimental and self-serving things and appointing embarrassingly unqualified leaders in executive branch positions that wreaked havoc on everything from the environment to civil rights (executive). Unfortunately, as a textbook author whose subject matter deals with a lot of the havoc he was wreaking, I did not have the choice to turn away from it. With the 10th edition of my Employment Law text coming out in January of 2021, each and every day, several times a day, I had to check the news to see what he was doing now that could impact the text. It was a depressing time (thus my absence from blogging. But that’s another post…)

Our textbook not only provided the law, but gave context and meaning to it regarding issues of diversity and inclusion. In designing the book, our thought was that some areas lent themselves to D&I concerns more than others and we would never try to insert D&I where it did not belong. One area we didn’t think there would have very much was administrative law, the area of law that deals with administrative agencies. Generally thought of (certainly by me and my classmates in law school in the Washington, DC, the heart of administrative agencies) as dry as dust and boring, to boot, my co-author and I were pretty shocked when our research showed otherwise. In fact, very much so. 

The two situations that stuck out most in my mind were the Black farmers’ loss of their lands due to admitted discrimination by the USDA, and Native Americans and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) discrimination resulting in the loss of billions of dollars in leasing revenue that should have gone to Native Americans. Both situations had been in years of litigation and both had won. Both had also not had Congress approve the payment of damages despite the determination by a court of the agency’s liability. It was nothing less than disgustingly disappointing. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how frustrating that must have been for the claimants involved. To have won your case, have clear evidence of discrimination, and still not be able to collect your damages.

Now, ten years after our textbook was published, the Black farmers, who had lost over 12 million acres, 85% of their lands, according to Census data, mainly due to discrimination by the very agency that was supposed to protect their interests, were finally getting a payday. Roughly 98% of farmers are now white. Now, $4 billion of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act was set aside for debt relief for Black, Hispanic and other underserved farmers and ranchers to help with the impact of COVID and “to remedy centuries of government discrimination.” Between 11,000 and 13,000 Back, Hispanic, Native American, Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander farmers, will benefit by having their entire loans paid off and eligible farmers will receive an additional 20% of that loan as a cash payment sent to them to cover the tax burden that comes with such large debt relief. It would not bring back their land, but at least they were no longer being ignored as they had been for so long. The the head of the agency itself, Tom Vilsack, said he was determined to do something about the discrimination the agency had imposed. He said the agency was committed to “ending discrimination wherever it exists at USDA and working like never before to gain the trust and confidence of America’s farmers and ranchers.”

Turns out, this is America, so, of course there were detractors. The predictable opposition was made, with whites saying it discriminates against them. Unbelievable. You discriminate against me and I sue you and you have to pay and someone who was not discriminated against and therefore is not entitled to payment says this is unfair? I am so confused. Did our court system undergo a change I am not aware of? But then, given what Americans had witnessed their former president doing when he did not like court decisions, this made perfect sense. Lawsuits have been filed and other actions in opposition, including an announcement by Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) to introduce the Agricultural Civil Rights and Equality Act, prohibiting USDA from discriminating or providing preferential treatment to any person on the basis of race, color, national origin or sex.

When you have been at the work of D&I for as long as I have, have worked at the White House and Capitol Hill, this sort of opposition is to be expected. As undesirable as it is, it’s just all part of how we roll in America.

Then I looked at the comments section in the Washington Post article dated 5/22/2021 (the link to the article above is to an open source as my experience has been that the Washington Post links are usually inaccessible without you paying to view them), something I rarely do. Why invite negativity into your life? It’s bad enough to live in a society that you know has people who don’t even think you should exist for one reason or another, without actually looking at what they have to say and giving energy to their ridiculousness.

But I did.

And what a stark reminder it was. Sitting there reading the comments in the appliance section of Lowe’s, with tears burning in my eyes, I remembered why I rarely read the comments section. 

There is so much work to do.

The comments reflected such a lack of knowledge, no idea what they were talking about. Yes, I know there are many who would call it racism. But for 40 years I’ve been in the business of dealing with providing information that turns people on a dime from the nonsense I was seeing in the comments to an informed passionate D&I advocate—surprising even themselves— so I knew that all statements like the ones I was viewing, as bad as they were, did not deserve that label and neither did their authors. That’s not said to protect them, it is just a reflection of 40 years of experience. I am absolutely aware that there are those who would be perfectly happy to see every non-white leave the country.  In 40 years of dealing with thousands upon thousands of whites in the D&I context, and even longer in life, tells me it is not every one of them. But I digress. 

The comments that truly caught my eye were the ones about how this money should not be given to Blacks because of who Blacks are and how they behave. Higher incarceration and murder rates, lack of education and decent communities, etc.

It was clear that the authors had no idea that each and every thing they mentioned was the result of the systemic and individual racism to which Blacks had been subjected since landing in the shores.

All of it. 

• View Richard Rothstein’s “Segregated by Design” from his book, The Color of Law.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN40H5ztRqg

I thought about this as I walked across the floor of my basement this evening. I thought about how much of an impact it made on my mental state to see the space taken up with a plethora of random home furnishings and minutia gathered over a lifetime versus how it felt to have it back to normal as a spacious, relaxing, cozy, light-filled comfortable space. This, despite the fact that right up the steps is the first floor of my home with its living room, family room, sunroom, dining room, kitchen, sewing room and bathroom. Then there is the floor above that with spacious bedrooms and a bath. Imagine what it would be like if the crowded, dark, stuff-filled basement was all I had.

If just having that basement family room space with my wall-to-wall bookshelves, Christmas closet, quilt closet, wrap-around desk, faux fireplace, come back to its own could impact my mental state so much, how must it be for Black folks confined pretty much forever to communities that are overcrowded, lack well-funded schools, libraries, parks, grocery and other reputable stores that respect their patrons?  What mindset does it create to live with that day in and day out?  To feel like there is no way out? To feel the wrath of the world face you each and every time you venture out of that space, the looks of disdain on people’s faces simply because of who you are or where you live?

Then to have someone with no idea of why things are the way they are use it as an excuse for thinking you’re like an animal and should be treated as such? 

Makes me want to scream. 

I have done an exercise I found in a book once, in my classes, where students are divide into three groups and the goal of each group is to build a town with the resources provided. A “sheriff” is appointed who has a toy water gun. There is also a Supply Manager in charge of sitting at a table and handing out the resources as group members ask for them. What they don’t know is that the Supply Manager has been told to give group A whatever it asks for, group B pretty much of what it asks for and group C very little of what it asks for, to do it slowly, and to do it with a negative attitude and imposing requirements not imposed on the other groups. C is also to be randomly mildly accosted by the sheriff hanging around them more, interrupting their work supposedly on official business, and hassling them when they become upset. Everyone starts out eager and hopeful, confident they can build a great city. It eventually dawns on C that they are not being given what they need, while they see A getting whatever it asks for and more without restrictions, B getting lots of resources and C not only getting hassled when they ask, but not getting much at all. They see the other cities rising and realize they are nowhere near being able to accomplish the assigned task. It doesn’t take long before these perfectly pleasant classmates and friends begin getting angry with each other, C stealing things from A and C and eventually knocking down the work of the other two groups out of frustration. When time is called and the exercise explained, everyone is absolutely flabbergasted at what has taken place. This was in classes with virtually all white students.

It is such a good demonstration of real life. What happens in Black and other non-white communities subjected to what America has systemically built into the system is not based on inherent attributes of a particular racial. It’s based on deprivation, exclusion, marginalization. It just so happens that in this country, based on its history, that tends to be Blacks who suffer.

A few years ago my elementary school art teacher daughter who teaches in a Title I school (i.e., 40% or more of the students qualify for free lunch because they meet the government criteria for poverty) brought a group of students over to bake Christmas cookies. The way my house is set up, they came in and were soon in the kitchen without passing through much else of the house. When the cookies were finally in the oven, they drifted off towards the fireplace (this one real) while my daughter and I cleaned up. All of a sudden we heard screams and ran toward them. As a lawyer, my first thought was of my liability for someone’s hurt child. Turns out no one was hurt. They had simply walked into the sunroom and had seen not only the 9 ft. Christmas tree there, but they were screaming that there was a back yard. A back yard! I live on a corner, so it’s a pretty big yard. I promise you, even though there is a gazebo and hot tub and a wooden potting shed,  I do NOT live in a fancy, upscale home in an exclusive neighborhood. But to them, it may as well have been. I felt so, as kids nowadays say,  some kind of way. Ashamed?  Even tho there was nothing to be ashamed of?  Guilty?  Even tho I had worked hard for what I had and done nothing wrong?  Responsible? Even tho I was not the one who was responsible for them?  Whatever I was feeling did not feel good. And it was clear they felt blessed just to see what they were seeing, to know it existed and was possible in the world. 

It broke my heart to see their reaction. To know it reflected the plight of so many. To know it was through a history of depriving Blacks of opportunities that would give them an even shot at living their dream. Minimum wage and union laws intentionally designed by southern legislators to leave most of them out when created, a GI Bill that powerful southern legislators demanded be written such that it would not disturb their Jim Crow world and permit them to discriminate on the basis of race (when my sister was in the Navy and stationed in Jacksonville, FL tried to use the GI Bill that paid for service member and veterans’ education to take classes at Jacksonville University, the admissions office told her that she could not attend the University because they did not allow “coloreds.”), and federal home lending laws that created redlining and virtually excluded Blacks from home ownership except in what the government deemed undesirable areas, that in turn led to withdrawal of normal services like trash collection, libraries, etc.

That people did not realize this and instead blamed the plight of Blacks on the inherent attributes of the skin color of the very people suffering under the deprivation was maddening.

That the federal government is now facing up to their responsibility it owes Black and other non-white farmers is heartening. It is so little but something so long overdue. That there are those otherwise of good will who simply do not have enough knowledge to understand this is why I do what I do in the world as a D&I consultant, author and advocate, and will until I no longer can. When they understand, when they see how it leads to the tremendously different lives of children like those visiting my home to bake Christmas cookies that cold December day, it will have been worth my while.

It never occurred to me that being able to walk across my uncrowded basement family room floor once again would make me think of how crowded conditions effect those confined to those spaces and how the payments to Black farmers intersects with that and lead me to that insight. 

But I’m not surprised.