History Isn't as Long Ago as We Believe

0:00:01.0 Announcer: We've been about this work. Diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, shared through the voices of a White woman, and a Black man, we bring lived experiences. We have pursued DNI progress for most of our professional lives. We use Crazy and The King to cover news, tips from colleagues, and host incredible guests. Listeners count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check it. Julie kick off the show.

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[applause]

0:00:40.3 Julie: Welcome to Crazy and The King.

0:00:44.1 Torin: I promise you, I absolutely feel incredible right now. And part of the reason why I feel so good is because the work that we do is hard, and I don't suggest it in competition with the work that anyone else is doing, I just know that the work of people building is sometimes challenging. The work of people building is challenging, especially when it's being done in the face of so much resistance. And so I feel good today. Really, really good today, J. Because I had two coaching calls earlier in the week, and on both of those coaching calls, the executives were emotional, vulnerable, present. And in one instance, it was because they finally were able... They got a breakthrough, they saw how they had been harming others in their business unintentionally, and in the other it's because I saw something in them. And both of those scenarios on the same day, that vulnerability, it just really, it reinforces why we do what it is and why I continue to wake up with that battery in my backpack like, "We're gonna get it done, we're gonna get it done." So I feel great, how are you feeling?

0:02:34.7 Julie: Well, those are the days I definitely live for. I wish I could say I've had as equally as a wonderful week as you. However, it's been a little rough here in paradise for me. I did get to experience the full Portuguese healthcare system. As you know, I'm a little klutzy. My ADD and my, in general, lack of coordination really results in usually funny stories, this one not so funny. I was on my way to dinner last week and decided that this brick would lay me out on the ground and I busted my elbow pretty bad. Long story, blah, blah, blah.

0:03:19.8 Torin: So wait a minute, wait a minute. So a brick fell from a building, like some several feet up? From several feet up?

0:03:26.1 Julie: Now, that would be a better story. No, the brick was on the ground, and I tripped over it and landed on the ground very quickly. In the water, in a puddle. It was really spectacularly awesome.

0:03:42.9 Torin: Yes. And you know someone has it on camera.

0:03:45.0 Julie: Oh God, I hope not. And my husband is like, "I wish I'd taken a picture of you laying on the ground." He did not, I think. So anyway, fast forward, I waited a couple of days and then finally, I had to go into the healthcare center here in Portugal, in the Algarve. And in an hour and 15 minutes, I saw a doctor, had some X-rays, had some prescriptions, found out that I have at least partially, if not fully, ruptured a ligament in my elbow. And here's the cool thing in this story is that it costs me zero dollars and zero Euros to have that positive socialized medical experience.

0:04:34.1 Torin: So wait a minute, is that... Because you don't carry Portuguese ID at this point, right?

0:04:40.8 Julie: Yes, that is correct.

0:04:44.0 Torin: Yes, as in no, you do not have anything with a Portugal address on it, that you are a citizen of any sort, that you or a family member were born in the country?

0:04:56.3 Julie: Yeah. I...

0:04:57.6 Torin: You don't have any of that.

0:05:00.2 Julie: I showed up with my American passport and gave them, my Airbnb address and did the whole thing. And when I left, I was like, "Hey, where do I pay you?" And they're like, "You don't pay us. You don't have a bill, there's nothing to pay for." And I was like, "But I would like to pay you."

0:05:18.4 Torin: Yeah, so let's stay there for just a second, so how does that system work? Is it... You slid it in, socialized healthcare system, so undergirded, funded just by the government. And if that's the case, do they do taxes and taxation in the same way that we do here in the States?

0:05:40.5 Julie: So taxes are higher here, but if you are... And I think it's probably fairly rare because not a lot of Americans come to Portugal, at least at this point, so everyone else has, for the most part, an EU health care card. And so they're gonna either be covered by Portuguese insurance or they're gonna be covered by their home country's insurance, because Europe has socialized medicine. And this dumb American who fell when a brick beat me was able to get healthcare and do it for free, because that's how socialized medicine works here. Now when I do live here, and I do have that income and all of those things, I will pay into the system. And there are public and private clinics and those kind of things, I found one that cared for foreigners, and went in and had an amazing experience, had a great doctor and a very nice X-ray technicians, the whole thing.

0:06:45.4 Julie: And I think what probably stood out to me the most, just to be serious for a second, is I put off going because I knew I didn't have insurance here. I have insurance at home, but I didn't have it here this time, which I usually carry, and I felt so scared because I kept thinking, "God, they're gonna be mean to me, they're gonna shame me, they're gonna... " And I realized as an American how programmed I am to think that access to healthcare is not my right, and that I should be ashamed of not having full coverage, and how nervous that made me. And I think of all the immigrants who come into our country and need medical care, need access to it, and are... And Americans frankly, who are bankrupted every single year by our lack of ability to provide that basic right for our citizens and for the people who frankly live in and pay taxes and do a lot of things in our country that are important. And I'd never had felt that way before, and it really kind of took me aback for a minute, I really had to sit and ponder how different it is here when it comes to those things.

0:08:03.3 Torin: And what, did you go back to the brick and have a conversation with the brick on how you had this breakthrough moment, how you were feeling programmed... Did you talk to the brick or are you hoping that somebody listening might share the pod with the brick so that the brick understand the role that they got to play in this new awakening for you in Portugal?

0:08:27.4 Julie: So I did thank the brick, because I went a couple days later...

0:08:29.5 Torin: You did?

0:08:30.5 Julie: And said, "Hey Brick, thanks for giving me that full Portuguese experience, if we could not do it again... "

0:08:34.5 Torin: That's right. That's right.

0:08:37.7 Julie: "I would be happy to not do it again." [laughter]

0:08:38.8 Torin: Absolutely. And speaking of things that don't make us happy, I gotta tell you, first of all, I'm glad that you are on the way of healing.

0:08:46.4 Julie: Thank you.

0:08:47.8 Torin: And I'm also smiling and I needed a good story like that because it has in some ways, while today I'm feeling great also in the beginning of the week, I'm just dealing with family deaths from just natural causes, age. I'm dealing with friends, a couple of friends who are experiencing some things, and so certainly there are those, I don't wanna call them dark spots, but certainly challenging spots. But I will tell you one thing that gets on my nerves. I was actually pumping gas in the buggy, I named mine Harriet. I don't know if you...

0:09:32.4 Julie: Harriet.

0:09:32.8 Torin: I don't know if your vehicle has a name, all of my vehicles have a name. So I was putting gas in Harriet, and guy pulls up and he's in a mini-van, and I'm like, "Okay, well, I'm expecting you to get out." Because if you're in a mini-van, that suggests to me that you have children and there are these big signs at the gas pump that say, "Turn off engine, don't smoke." There's a couple of things that you are encouraged to do. The big semi was refilling the fuel tanks, so we got that going on, we got Mr. In the mini-van who hops out and just starts to pump gas. And so he's looking at me as I'm looking at him and I'm like, "You don't think it's smart for you to turn off your vehicle?" And so then my man is like, "Well, it's my vehicle." Okay, you're trying to flex a little bit. Yeah, it's your vehicle, I see you, but why do you pump gas... So now I'm doing all this with a mask on, and I'm one of the only people at the gas pump with a mask and J, I pump my gas like Michael Jackson. I hop out, you know the real cheap blue mask? So I got the real cheap blue disposable mask in the door, and I got those blue latex gloves that they have at the doctor's office, and I throw one of them joints on, that's the only thing that touches the pump.

0:11:13.1 Torin: So I pump my gas like Michael Jackson, so I'm trying... I'm like, "Listen man, I ain't really trying to flex on you, but I'm just saying, why do you pump gas into a running vehicle? Where are you in that much of a hurry to get to that you are willing to put you, your children and all of us in danger?" So then he paused for a moment, he had nothing to say. So then he just kinda went on, turned around and just kind of mind his business, he didn't say nothing else after that. But that is really a pet peeve of mine, we are in that much of a hurry that we can't turn off the engine of a vehicle, follow the rule three minutes tops, hop back in and get on about your business. So I'm hoping that anyone out there, if you are a person who is accustomed to being a pet peeve for other people, kinda reconfigure how you show up. We need people to just show up a little bit differently, we are all stressing over something. Show up a little bit differently. I know you got a pet peeve.

0:12:24.3 Julie: Oh, you know I do. Probably 10. [laughter]

0:12:26.7 Torin: Just one.

0:12:27.8 Julie: Okay, just one. So seriously, my number one pet peeve in life is when we're in a decision making like buying a house, opening a mortgage, buying a car, anything like that, and the person who is selling us something or doing whatever the hell they're doing, talks to Chad and not to me. That has been my number one pet peeve in life for probably my entire life. I'm like, "Hey, I'm buying here too. What are we doing?" [laughter]

0:13:00.6 Torin: And why do you think they do that? Is it because when you're in there buying... Well, you know what? I heard what you just said, buying decision. So this has nothing to do with HR. This is major purchases for the home, Home Depot or you're saying they look at Chad, talk to Chad first. I don't know, I think...

0:13:27.5 Torin: I'm trying to think. Well, first of all, see, mine is a little bit different 'cause Nick and I don't go to too many places together. That's in part because I'm just going to... Hopefully she ain't listening. But she is the one who likes to spend a great deal of time navigating all of the aisles of a store, looking at all of the items on the various shelves. I'm the person who's like, "I'm going to the store for this reason." So I'm trying to make a beeline for that reason, so I can get out. I don't like to spend a lot of time in the store, whether it be a Home Depot or a clothing store or something, anything in between. I like... Even if I'm like looking for an automobile, I'm like, I know what I want before I go, and I'm out of there.

0:14:26.0 Torin: So I don't know if I'm a good example, because we really don't go to places at the same time. She just takes too long for me. So I don't know why they're talking to Chad. Maybe because they see that knot in the back of his pocket, and they're like, that's the dude that's... That's the person that's probably gonna handle the payment. I don't know. Is that what it is?

0:14:48.6 Julie: Well, you said it perfectly. It's the dude. Yeah, it simply comes down to the fallace. Like he's a man, he's the decision maker, such it is, as it is. But you just told us another one of your pet peeves and it's window shopping. Struggling in shopping.

0:15:05.2 Torin: Yeah, yeah. No. I ain't no shopping dude. I know what I want. Like I order online a lot. I don't go to stores that often. I have a tailor and I have a boutique that I go to, so I pretty much only buy from these two places publicly, maybe one, two other stores. So I really am not a dude that does a whole lot of shopping and spending time in stores. Yeah, I don't like that environment.

0:15:39.9 Julie: So let me ask you one of my other biggest pet peeves, and as much as you and I travel, I wanna know, how do you feel about bare feet on airplanes?

0:15:49.3 Torin: I think that's some nasty shit.

[laughter]

0:15:52.4 Julie: It is some nasty shit. You see those motherfuckers up there going to the bathroom with no shoes on, no socks either.

0:15:57.9 Torin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's... Let me tell you. And let me tell you why I think that's some nasty shit and this is no exaggeration. So first of all, as men, when I go into our bathrooms, I always look down on the floor and I really, really ask myself like, "I wish we had iridescent lighting," kinda like that blue light that would show you spots, drips on the floor, so you kinda knew where to walk and were to step." So without getting all that graphic, I just... I hate my shoes being in the men's bathroom. And so I imagine 50% of people, 60% of people are using bathrooms then getting on the plane. So automatically, that's a problem for me. And so to be on a plane with no shoes on, with no socks on... Yo, to be on a plane with slides on is a problem for me.

[laughter]

0:17:06.1 Torin: But at least with slides, you have something hard under your foot, that is an absolute nightmare for me. And when I see people, and occasionally, not often, J, but occasionally and when I see that, I'm looking at them with all types of side-eye. Like I know you're nasty, your baseboards in your house is probably filthy and dirty, you probably allow your cat on top of the counter when you're cooking, all types of questionable stuff. No, I don't do it. And let me tell you, if I go to a person's house and I see their animal on top of their kitchen counter, you ain't gotta offer me nothing.

[laughter]

0:17:50.1 Torin: And I love animals. I love animals. I'm telling you, I love animals, but if your pet is on the kitchen counter, I'm gonna be really, really slow to put a fork in my mouth up in your house.

0:18:07.4 Julie: So I think we can just wrap up the show right now. A full list of Torin's pet peeves on full display for our Crazy and The King audience. [laughter]

0:18:15.9 Torin: No, and let me tell you. No, let me tell you. I got more. Since you're talking about bare feet on the plane. So there's a story actually. There's a story about a pilot. Let me read you the headline, it that says, "A pilot who lied about his flying experience to secure a job with British Airways, was said to have been caught when he pressed the button that no qualified pilot would press." This dude actually falsified more than 1600 hours, training certification hours. Can you imagine being on a plane with a guy who has falsified flight time?

0:18:58.0 Julie: No. I mean, this story literally gave... I'm just like sweating and kinda pulling on my shirt when I was reading it, because I probably never told you this, but 10 years ago, I was so afraid to fly that you had to like drug me to get me on a plane. It was like a Xanax and a double screwdriver to get on the plane, period. And I'm talking like a short whole flight to Atlanta or something like that little 30-minute jumper. Yeah, this guy... So he falsified 1600 hours of flying time and training certifications, and got a job at one of the biggest airlines in the world, British Airways. How does that happen?

0:19:43.0 Torin: And let me tell you, that caused me a pause because I purchased my ticket this week for RecFest. And what airline am I flying on from the States? British Airways. Now, again, they go into the story, first of all, it was a smaller airline. It was a subsidiary of British Airways. They said that no passengers were in danger ever. Apparently, this guy is a certified pilot but he still falsified some of his training and experience and time, I guess, in the cockpit, if you will. But it caused me a bit of pause when I purchased... And by the way, I'ma let you in on a little secret, I purchased my first first class... I'm sorry, first business class trip ever...

0:20:38.1 Julie: Ever.

0:20:38.4 Torin: I've never ever purchased a business... And I said, "You know what? This time, I'ma just treat myself when I go over."

0:20:49.0 Julie: Yeah. I...

0:20:50.3 Torin: But then I read this story and I was like...

[laughter]

0:20:58.4 Julie: Yeah, you gonna need all of the champagne. [chuckle]

0:20:58.5 Torin: I was like, I said... I said, "You guys gonna have to do a whole lot more than just kinda like give me a fluffy pillow and a blanket. We gonna need to make sure... We gonna have to ask some questions about some people's qualifications." So I don't know why we missed this because I know we talked a little bit about Los Angeles, not so much so Los Angeles, Julie, but we did talk about California when they passed that law a couple of years ago around corporate boards having to be diversified. And I don't even know why we didn't project it because I actually went back and did some listening and neither one of us said that we thought that it would be struck down. We were absolutely in affirmation, we were in agreement with it. And this is a little bit different than when the prior administration came up with the whole no diversity training in federal spaces, and we said, "Trust me, corporations are going to latch on it." We missed this one, we missed it and LA, Los Angeles, is like, "Nah, that whole corporate boards need to be diverse, that ain't really constitutional," so they struck it down.

0:22:14.3 Julie: Yeah, and so... What passed in what 2020? Said that California companies where their main office was in California, at least one member of the board had to be Asian, Black, Latino, LGBTQ, Native American or Pacific Islanders by the end of 2021 by either filling a vacant seat or creating a new one. And I agree. I actually... I remember when this popped out and thinking that is certainly gonna get challenged in the court and California is known to do that but I kinda thought... I thought it would take a lot longer than 2022 to get that challenge. So it did move fairly quickly and Los Angeles court is gonna be a lower state court. It didn't even take that long to get overturned. I'm not sure how I understand that it's unconstitutional because it's private companies who are making that requirement, so I don't quite understand the ruling but I'm not a constitutional lawyer either.

0:23:21.5 Torin: Yeah, neither am I and there actually was a diversity on boards report issued by the Secretary of the State and what they found was that 300 out of 700 corporations had complied. 300 out of 700 corporations had complied but what the report also goes on to say is a very, very large number chose not to respond. When the questionnaire or survey or the query hit their organization's email, they just went deaf on them, they went blank and ghosted them and didn't even contribute. I'm assuming that there's probably... I don't know, I think that the numbers are a little bit worse than what we are looking at right here.

0:24:10.8 Julie: Yeah, and I popped into the report you put into our show notes and I did notice... Well, of course, noticed before this that, of course, disability is not required. No people with disabilities representation is required, same old bullshit, different story there. But I was also surprised by the lack of success of the... They have a separate law that's around female board member requirements and of those that reported, roughly half had met that requirement versus the 300-ish that had met the other under-represented communities requirement.

0:24:51.5 Torin: Yeah, yeah. And our last story up top is, it's a fun one, we started the show a little bit fun and I wanted to kinda end this segment a bit fun. Are you familiar with PFLAG?

0:25:04.8 Julie: Oh yes, yup. I am a member in Columbus.

0:25:07.7 Torin: Alright, awesome. Oreo and PFLAG continue their partnership and this was cool for me because I actually thought when I saw this video this week, earlier this week, I actually thought it was something new but then I dug in a little bit and they've been doing and releasing these videos in this relationship since, I wanna say June of 2020. The partnership actually kicked off almost two years ago at this point, and again, I missed it but I thought that this was a wonderful short film released by Alice Wu, it's called The Note.

0:25:46.0 Julie: Yup, I watched it. I swear to God, those videos get me every time. As you know, I am a proud parent and a lifelong ally to my baby boy and this one especially struck home as I know that he has suffered from not being accepted by some of our family and this is really what that one is related to. And I know how impactful that is for a young man, a young person who is in the LGBTQI community. I applaud Oreo, I think it's fantastic and we'll share the video widely.

0:26:21.4 Torin: Again, it's called The Note. You can find it out on Twitter and if you'd like to get some more information on what PFLAG is doing, you can use the hashtag ProudParent or you can also use the hashtag LifelongAlly. And again, it'll take you to a number of posts that include PFLAG and Oreo and the work that they are doing. That'll do it for J and I this week's small talk. Quick commercial break and I promise we'll be right back.

0:26:52.0 Torin: This week in a flash, Black Californians who can prove a direct lineage to enslaved ancestors will be eligible for reparations. This first in the nation ruling was agreed to last week by the state's Reparations Task Force, let's see how this unfolds. And apparently the smell of good home cooking and tenacious patience netted some current and former Amazonians the right to organize, not nationwide but up at JFK8 for now led by Derrick Palmer and Christian Smalls. They led the effort, they even set up some signs that said free weed and food. I promise I'm not making this up. The funniest thing that you might hear this week is that all-male boards at publicly traded companies have been nearly eradicated in US private companies. That was a little bit of a tongue twister but it's funny because in 2021, women held 14% of board seats up from 11% while women of color had just 3% in US private companies.

0:28:04.5 Torin: Some might say that's a free market thing, I'm willing to bet that it is an absolute intentional representation thing. Kinda connects to the story about California. And speaking of women, they now count towards the Rooney Rule in the NFL. Now, I don't know if you can see a side-eye in my voice but just know that I got a side-eye in my voice.

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0:28:37.1 Julie: Alright, a little bit of a history lesson that we put together for our listeners this week.

0:28:45.2 Torin: I do have a bag of popcorn, should I take that... Should I get this popcorn 'cause you're about to take them on a little journey? 'Cause you know there are some folks out there that... See Crazy and The King, this episode could fall in the hands of a person who's anti-CRT. And there might be this petition started to get Crazy and The King pulled from the various podcast distribution platforms. Sometimes Julie, that's when we pray for the negative to happen. I really would love for someone listening raise a ruckus and wanna have our podcast pulled from the listening platforms but you go ahead, right on ahead and continue.

0:29:25.9 Julie: Yeah, and as long as you don't eat that popcorn with your mouth open, I think we'll be fine. [chuckle]

0:29:31.4 Torin: Absolutely.

0:29:33.3 Julie: I think that we had some pretty important things that are happening and have happened in the last week or so in the United States. And as a White person, I have to kind of take that moment and remind myself why it's so important that we recognize these moments of progress. And remind myself that progress is also really fucking slow and savor those wins like you talked about earlier a little more every single day. And the other thing that I think is critically important for us to all remember is that when we go down these little rabbit holes of history lessons, that history is really not that long ago. It is really recent in our lives and in history of this country that we had and continue to have bad acts by racist players throughout our history. So I thought I'd pull together a little... Just a little history as we walk through and then celebrate a couple of the good things that we know are happening in 2022.

0:30:41.2 Julie: So I saw an incredible thread and this is really what got me on this story is, on Twitter, African Archives. African Archives is a repository of African and Black history and they shared the story from 1904 of Ota Benga, a married father of two from the Congo who is kidnapped from his village and taken hostage by slavers who were in the rubber trade. And during this time on the other side of the world, a man named Samuel Verner was planning exhibits for the 1904 World's Fair. And his exhibit was showing "the progress of mankind" and I've got air quotes there. And with the permission of King Leopold of Belgium, who had colonized and owned the Congo at that time and with a hefty budget, Samuel Verner sailed to the Congo to purchase specimens for the exhibit he called the Human Zoo. After the fair where the members of the Human Zoo were paraded around, abused and made to put on acts depicting them as cannibals and warriors which they were not. What do you do with a human being that you have kidnapped, enslaved and now no longer have a use for?

0:32:10.5 Julie: Well, in Ota's case, he was put on display at the Bronx Zoo. Ota was encaged and put on permanent exhibit, portrayed as a cannibal and a savage. In fact, they threw bones and carcasses into his exhibit area to portray him as a cannibal which he was not. And in 1916, Ota Benga stole a revolver from a security guard and committed suicide in the Bronx Zoo.

0:32:45.2 Torin: Let me just... Let me just jump in for a moment and I don't want to interrupt your cadence, your contribution, your frequency in any way except for to say as much as I know about the history of slavery, as much as I yearn to learn even more about not only the history of slavery but the Holocaust and so many other events that are happening. I never get to walk away, or I rarely get to walk away feeling unmoved by what it is that I'm experiencing. So as I'm listening to you and I'm looking at these images in this thread, maimed, mutilated, looking at the context of the word. And this is not something that I knew. So I'm really digesting it as you are talking. I rarely walk away from these experiences unmoved in some way. I am always, always emotionally attached to these stories. Continue, I'm sorry.

0:34:21.7 Julie: Yeah. And I'm not doing it full justice, go read the full thread over at African Archives, including the visuals. It's stunning. So we fast-forward from 1916 to 1955, a story that we are all probably familiar with: The murder, the abduction, torture and murder of Emmett Till in the state of Alabama. A teenager at the time, 14 years old, who was accused of whistling at a White woman and who became the face of the Civil Rights Movement after his mother required an open casket so they could see what was done to her boy. So let's hear from Emmett Till's cousin who was with him the night he was abducted.

[music]

0:35:15.9 Speaker 3: Yes. It's kinda hard to understand what it was like in Mississippi at that time if you didn't live there and experience it. It just seemed unreal. After the incident at the store, the whistle was on a Wednesday, early Sunday morning about 2:30, I heard that people talking about what happened at the store. And so you got two guys here from Chicago and wanted to talk to the fat boy that did the talk at the store. And right away, having been raised... My formative years were spent in the South and I was well entrenched in the ways and worries of the South. I started praying. I said, "God, we getting ready to die. These people are finna kill us." I know people that have been killed before, people that have been hung down the street from where my uncle lived. My daddy had to sleep with his gun overnight, nobody came. Nothing came of it. I knew where I was and I just said, "I'm getting ready to die." And so I just started praying. And when death is imminent, you just think of all the bad things you ever done and I knew I was not in good standing with God so I just started saying, "God, if you just let me live, I'm gonna do right."

0:36:30.9 Speaker 3: I didn't call my grandfather. I knew he could not help me in Mississippi in 1955. So they didn't know what room I was in. It was as dark as a thousand midnights. You couldn't see your hand before your face. And it was a large landowner's home, former landowner's home. And then I hear them him coming... I heard them coming my way and then they walked with a pistol in one hand and a flash light in the other. I'm shaking like a leaf on the tree. And I closed my eyes just saying, "This is it. I'm gonna be shot." And of course, they went by me and I woke up, they were passing by me and they went to the third room. They found Emmett in bed with my uncle Simeon, who was 12 years old. And they aroused him up and I think he went to put his socks on, it was just pure hell in that room and the atmosphere was just thick with terror and fear. I think he finally got his shoes on and they left with him. My grandmother tried to pay them and my grandfather begged them not to take him and that was last time we saw him alive.

0:37:43.9 Julie: And finally, in 1998, we have James Byrd Jr, a Black man who was tied to a truck bumper and dragged until he was both dead and decapitated by three White men in Jasper, Texas, prompting the expansion of the Federal Hate Crimes Act in the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Act in 2010. So that's a lot of heavy history that I wanted to just spend a little bit of time with our audience as a reminder that when things like what happened last week, when the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act was signed into law after a 3 year hiatus by president Joseph Biden last week, it's a big deal. It's not symbolic. It matters. In 1998, in 1955, in 1906, thousands of other instances we could have spent our time talking about and that's the little bit of progress that we have. And we know next month as well, based on the announcements of three Republican senators yesterday, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be sworn in as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court of the United States with a bipartisan support.

0:39:13.2 Torin: Yeah, and to that point of the Anti-lynching Act, the Emmett Till Anti-lynching act, for those that are unaware, that was raised for a vote more than 100 times. So you would ask yourself, Why is it that our politicians on an issue that has nothing to do with economics, on an issue that has nothing to do with getting people out to vote per se, on an issue that has everything to do with how a crime is committed. Period. That's it. We are not... They considered George Floyd to be a modern day lynching. That's what it was said, and I appreciate you're putting in James Byrd, 1998. Vividly remember that incident, hearing about the truck, where I was, where I lived. I vividly remember all of that because I could not believe that in 1998 people were willing to chain a man to the back of a vehicle, drive and dismember his body bouncing behind a vehicle on a road. Parts of his body sprawn over a mile and a half area, if you will. Three mile area, if you will. George Floyd was considered a modern day lynching, and it took more than 100 attempts to get them to pass this legislation.

0:41:08.0 Torin: You have to ask yourself, what person is going to stand in the way of a bill that does what it's supposed to be doing. So I appreciate you're taking us through history and connecting 1904 and before to 2022. So I thank you tremendously for that, enough so that we should take a quick break.

0:41:46.8 Torin: So our her voice segment is where we amplify women that are making moves, who are absolutely in. And you know, quite frankly, the show is still positive, but we'll end on an even more positive note. First up, Michele Bullock is now Deputy Governor of Australia's Reserve Bank, putting her in line to likely be the first woman to run that institution. So shout out to you, Ms. Bullock, from us over here.

0:42:15.1 Julie: And a collective drop goes to the Women's Tennis Association for partnering with San Francisco-based start-up Modern Health to address mental health challenges among athletes. Under the partnership, athletes will have access to mental health coaches and therapists in Modern Health's network. And a Women's Tennis Association sponsored video series featuring testimonials from some of the top players in tennis on the importance of prioritizing good mental health.

0:42:44.0 Torin: And we wanted to also shout out Dawn Godbolt. That's spelled G-O-D-B-O-L-T. Dawn Godbolt, she was appointed Director of Health Equity at Maven Clinic. Shout out to you, Dawn.

0:42:58.5 Julie: And finally, the US Navy will name a ship after the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "The USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg is meant to honor the legacy of the justice left for women, including women of all backgrounds, experiences and talents, serving within the Navy rank side by side with their male sailor and marine counterparts. The Secretary of the Navy, Carlos Del Toro."

0:43:25.2 Torin: Found that story over on NPR and well, well-deserved for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Our quote this week is, "I love the fact that there are so many different cultures and people from all over the world, and I think that makes Anchorage a very rich city. A very rich city." That was said by Heather Barber, a lawyer and leader in the local Muslim community. She's talking about Anchorage, Alaska, and I bring that up because Ramadan started on April 1st, and if you missed it, there's still time to absolutely ask about employees inside of your organization that may celebrate Ramadan, that may participate in what happens during that, I wanna say month, a little more than month-long festivity.

0:44:17.7 Torin: And I actually put up a LinkedIn post, and it wasn't mine, it was from Asif Sadik. But I reposted it on my LinkedIn, and he said some inclusive language during the month of Ramadan. So one of the things that you can do instead of saying, "You poor thing. It must be so difficult for you." You could try saying something like, "I have so much admiration for your commitment to your faith." There's a variety of ways for us to say things, like instead of saying, "It's going to be difficult to accommodate time off for you." You might consider saying, "I know how important it is for you to have this time off. I will try my very best to accommodate."

0:44:58.6 Torin: So we'll share the full link in the show notes, but make sure you help celebrate those in your organization that are celebrating Ramadan. And another resource before we get out of here is, Dr. Tana Sessions. She has a course over on LinkedIn. It's free, free, free until April 29. It focuses on the various biases, the bias spectrum. I peeked at it, I kinda darted in, one course might be two minutes and 33 seconds, another one is like three minutes and 10 seconds. The introduction is 27 seconds. So go over there and take a look at it. It's free, we'll put the link in the show notes. Dr. Tana Sessions looking at the various biases that can show up in our hiring and or leadership practices.

0:45:52.8 Julie: So no name drops this week. So I'm going to close reminding each and every one of you to share the pod with your digital tribe. Find your voice, be a better fucking human and let's create better cultures, teams and work places. For now, Torin and I are ghost.

0:46:10.2 Torin: See ya.

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