Flash Drive Diversity

Flash Drive Diversity

“Fish are the last to be aware of the presence of water”

Several years ago, I was attending a Black History month event sponsored by the Jesse Owens Foundation where Ken Burns, the brilliant and prolific producer of such films as Baseball, Jazz, Prohibition and Civil War was the keynote speaker.  Burns is a small, wiry and intense man with a palpable charm. His speaking style is simple and direct. Nothing he says seems outrageous or contrived. On this night, Burns talked about his documentary on Jazz. He spoke admiringly about Louis ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong or ‘Pops’ as he referred to him. Pops, according to Burns, contrary to popular opinion, was a proud and dignified Black man who demanded respect. Burns recalled that his standard reply to the question, “How’s it going?” was “White man still winning." He shared with the audience many of the unheralded and unknown protests and positions that Armstrong took to advance the cause of Black people in America.

 I was riveted by Mr. Burns’s storytelling and straightforward discussion of the many cultural contributions African Americans have made to this country. And, as Burns put it, recognition of these amazing contributions is celebrated every year in February—"the shortest and coldest month of the year."

While Black History month has lost a lot of its historical and educational value, it has gained in commercial appeal. Fortune 500 companies routinely recognize the month in their print, radio and television advertising. ESPN, the giant and ubiquitous sports network , sprinkles its broadcasts with references and vignettes of  Black sports firsts –from grainy old photographs of men in leather helmets to cloudy black and white film of Jackie Robinson  to faded color video of Hank Aaron. Schools have contests for kids delivering Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech and quizzes on Black scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs like Madam CJ Walker and her hair straightening concoction.

Most predictable are the many corporate entities that transform their corridors with black art exhibits and alter the menus in the employee cafeteria to include soul food—usually fried chicken, corn bread, down home macaroni & cheese along with some collard greens and, of course, the obligatory ‘red velvet cake’ for dessert. The corporate headquarters recognizes, at least for 28 or 29 days, that African Americans are an integral part of American society. Everybody is culturally sensitive for a month. Yet, this behavior is dissociative from the reality of how Blacks are actually viewed, treated and valued as part of the day to day business enterprise.

The best description I have every heard of how corporate America handles Black History month came from the brilliant and incisive  Dr. Samuel Betances, a lecturer, consultant and thought leader on diversity in the workplace. Dr. Betances is a bi-racial Puerto Rican who calls it like he sees it. During a Black History month lecture at my company, he told the audience how impressed he was with the pictures and posters that lined the corridors and were arranged on easels in our corporate headquarters--during February.

Betances went on to say that at close of business on the last day of February, the custodial staff would be busy taking the pictures off easels and posters off the wall. The building would quickly return to its normal ambiance. He added that he would be surprised if those pictures and posters were still up on March 1st.

He called the process of sprucing the building up for Black History month floppy disk diversity.  As I stated earlier, Betances shared this observation several years ago. Today, I would call it flash drive diversity.  Betances felt that how a building was artistically decorated or initially appointed represented the hard drive of the culture that built it. 

The dominant culture always defines the ambiance. Portraits of stately and mustached old white men abound. Beautiful oil paintings of dewy-eyed, youthful white girls in pastoral settings with handsome horses gently nibbling on verdant carpet of grass are prominent in conference rooms and on executive floors.  These images constitute the hard drive reality that contradicts the "value diversity" theme that Black History month was supposed to underscore and promote.

Betances felt that until you change the hard drive, all other inclusion celebrations, attempting to value diversity, were cosmetic, at best. It is easy to take a preloaded flash drive and put it into the USB port to do a diversity slideshow. What is challenging is to do an audit of the artwork and portraits that remain on the building’s hard drive—and make the hard drive more diverse. 

Understanding the impact of never seeing images of you is difficult for both people of color and others to see. It is difficult because we have become so used to mentally not seeing ourselves. Images of Jesus Christ are Nordic looking—despite the fact that he was from Africa or, if you will, the Middle East. Our minds play a trick on us, and we see-but really don't see-our  omission from reality. What non-people of color see is normal and logical. What they see looks like them. Yet what they see denies the very existence of others who work alongside, with and for them.