Wow - Intersectionality

Today I had the opportunity to listen in on the Reed Smith 2020 Virtual Diversity Summit. It is great when you attend or listen in on these summits and learn something new. Today I learned a new term – Intersectionality. This was addressed in one of their breakout sessions titled Inclusion of Mixed-Visible and non-Visible Diversity.

I found an article that pretty much describes what the meaning is and what they were referring to. https://www.ywboston.org/2017/03/what-is-intersectionality-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-me/

I had always felt this was an issue but hadn’t realized that there was a name attached to it.

This is especially relevant to ERGs. How? Suppose there is a black female wanting to join an ERG. Does she choose the African American/Black ERG, or does she join the Women’s ERG or maybe both? Let’s take it to a more complicated level. Latino gay female. Which ERG. Hispanic ERG? LGBQTA+ ERG, women’s ERG? This applies to males as well. Black or Hispanic gay male veteran? You see my point?

This intersectionality is something that can add another layer to the whole diversity, equity, and inclusion quotient.

How do you apply this now to Bi-racial individuals or groups? This is one of the reasons why I am an advocate for a Multi-Cultural ERG. This would help eliminate some of the decision.

I have struggled with this myself being Multi-racial. Where will I feel most comfortable? The bi-racial or multi-racial population is growing and will need to feel comfortable in whatever organization they work for.

This is something a lot more people are going to have to struggle with that have not had to think about it yet. When I look at my Ancetry.com or 23andme.com trees and DNA connections. I am not really surprised with the racial mixture on the trees. However, there are probably a lot of people that, when they look at their trees and DNA connections, are surprised to see 3rd to 5th cousin that just don’t fit the family picture and when they look at their DNA makeup and it says there is some DNA makeup in there that they had no idea, it finally sinks in. I am who I am, but I am not who I thought I was.

I love learning new stuff dealing with Diversity, Inclusion, and Genealogy. What an awesome experience to learn new things that takes me to a deeper thought pattern about myself and the diversity in me!

#diversity #Inclusion #diversityinme #intersectionality

What Is My Choice?

Recently I was talking with my son concerning what responses he should make on job applications when they ask you what your ethnicity is. Specifically, as a mixed-race person, how do you answer the question. Plus, this led to another question of what do you consider yourself? First off, let us start with identifying what our DNA results are from 23andMe.com. My make-up is 49.0% Sub-Saharan African (mostly West African), 48.7% European (mostly Northwestern European), 1.1% Trace Ancestry (mostly Native American), and Unassigned 1.2%. My son’s makeup is 75.5% European (mostly Northwestern European), 23.5% Sub-Saharan African (mostly West African), 0.75% Trace Ancestry (mostly Native American) and 0.3% Unassigned. My Ancestry.com numbers are close to the 23andMe numbers.

So, with me sitting at about 50% African American and white and my son at ¾ white and ¼ African American the question is what are we and what do we identify with?

Being such a mixed culture, I have never really thought about it. With a last name that is of Mexican decent I really have had a hard time trying to relate with one group or another. Our family has always joked that we are Heinz 57 – a mixture of just about everything. No one group is better than any other and just respect and treat everyone like you would want to be treated.

When we look at our family tree, current and past, we have a diverse family of a variety of ethnicities and cultures. To try and categorize ourselves as one ethnicity or another would be doing an injustice to our heritage – African American, White, Latino and Native American. Do I really need to pick one to identify with?

Our conclusion is that we will pick “2 or more races”. That way we are sure to include our whole heritage and we can be who we are.

#diversity #inclusion #diversityinme

Unconscious Bias in the DNA

About a week ago I had to present a brief on Unconscious Bias. It was a short briefing, only about 20 mins but I talked about what unconscious bias is, how we get it and some tips on how to deal with it.

It got me to wondering when I was at the part about how we get it. Research mentioned that we get the unconscious bias from an early age. From our surroundings, television, family and friends, movies and books we read. There is so much information we get that consciously there is no way for us to handle it all so our unconscious brain retains and bins it for us so we can make quick decisions.

I wonder if somehow, we don’t inherit some of our unconscious bias from our ancestors. Is it possible that some of our prejudices, likes and dislikes are passed down through our DNA? That would be a great reason why we cannot get rid of racial and religious prejudices and why there are always wars.

As long as man has existed there has been conflicts of some sort. Whether it is in country, one tribe fighting another, for land and slaves or whether it is one country fighting another country to gain control of an area.

Prejudice is the same. One tribe in the region hated people of another tribe for no reason other than they lived close by, had different thoughts and beliefs or just dressed differently. One country not liking people from another country for various reason for hundreds of years. For reasons no one even knows why any longer.

Hatred, bias, likes, dislikes – all passed down thru our ancestral DNA!

Can we eliminate this trait in our DNA? Not for a long time and not completely. I think in our technological world as we gather and communicate around the world at speeds that were not thought of 20 years ago, we may be able to alter the DNA thought process significantly. As we mix with a large variety of races, religions, beliefs and thoughts, most of us will learn to better understand each other and hence, be able to get along with each other. However, if our DNA contains knowledge and information from centuries of ancestors – trying to change that will not be an overnight endeavor or perhaps, not even a lifetime endeavor. Hopefully, we change enough in our lifetime that our portion of the DNA gets passed along to better the lives of our family to come.

#diversity #inclusion #diversityinme #unconsciousbias