With 4th of July events coming up, there will be many gatherings and parties. In any type of party, whether particularly posh or just cool and casual, a set of implicit rules always exists: Don’t eat before everyone else; Don’t get drunk, and Don't talk about politics or religion. However, life for People of Color hasn't exactly been a … [Read more...]
Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing” and the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO)
This month is the 25th Anniversary of Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing. I remember seeing the film for the first and only time in 1989. The film portrayed tensions between the local residents and an Italian-American family in the Black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, on the hottest day of the summer. In a Rolling Stones interview, Lee … [Read more...]
Twitter and the Diversity Professional: 4 Things You Should Know About the Real-Time News Network
Part of the popular adage that says “Twitter is for the people you want to know” rings true for one of the most active social network with 255,000,000 monthly active users sending 500,000,000 tweets per day. Twitter’s mission is “to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers” and it does that … [Read more...]
Your Pride Is Our Pride
Last year I experienced Pride Toronto for the first time. It was festive and the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against DOMA – the Defense Against Marriage Act, a case that had intimate connections to Toronto. This year World Pride 2014 is coming to Toronto, and you can see signs of preparation all around. Businesses have transformed their displays to show … [Read more...]
A Note to Chief Diversity Officers: Be A Rainbow in the Clouds
When I heard that Dr. Maya Angelou had died on May 28, I was sad to hear she had passed away. She was such a phenomenal woman that all types of media outlets reported on her death, including Canada’s Globe and Mail. That following Sunday on Oprah’s OWN network, they broadcast several interviews that Oprah had done with Maya Angelou. For three hours I … [Read more...]