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.