The Wave

Heard of Juneteenth?

On June 19 in 1865 the Union Army, led by Major General Gordon Granger, marched onto Galveston Island, Texas to take possession of the State from the Confederates and to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation which had legally abolished slavery in the US two years earlier. When they heard the news, former slaves danced in the streets. The next year, former slaves celebrated the anniversary of their being free, creating the first Juneteenth celebration.

Here we are 144 years later and so much has changed for African Americans that it’s almost breathtaking to consider, i.e. an African American President; more African Americans in the middle and upper classes than ever before and most recently just two days ago, the US Senate – APOLOGIZING for slavery!  I’m hoping you heard about this, even if you may not know about Juneteenth.

The Senate resolution was sponsored by Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, and it "acknowledges the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery," and "apologizes to African Americans on behalf of the people of the United States for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow laws."

Wow.  We’ve come a long way baby. But please remember, we’ve got a long way to go: African American unemployment and high-school dropout rates are twice that of whites, to list just two examples.  Happy Juneteenth!

Killing Time?

Three highly visible “hate” murders of Americans by Americans in the last ten days…

1. Dr. George Tiller, who performed late abortions, shot while attending church by an extremist anti-abortionist;

2. Pvt. William A. Long, a soldier, shot while on a recruiting assignment at a Little Rock mall by a man who’d converted to Islam as a teenager and who claimed to be angered by the killing of Muslim civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and

3. Stephen T. Johns, a security guard, shot while on duty at the Holocaust Museum by a self-professed white supremacist with a long record of violent tendencies.

I will not, out of respect for those killed, promote the murderers by mentioning their names here.

Mainstream media commentators on the Left such as Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman and Judith Warner have used the murders of Dr. Tiller and Mr. Johns as just the latest examples of how right-wing media commentators – most specifically Rush Limbaugh and Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck – can incite the kind of hatred that leads to violence.

But little mention by these same commentators has been made about what precipitated Pvt. Long’s murder.  Of course, the right wing media would have us believe that Pvt. Long’s murderer was driven by a perceived “hate America first” bias they claim is being spouted by MSNBC and The New York Times.

If only either explanation were that simple.  Rather, I would argue that while the media can play a supporting role in the kind of hatred and anger that leads to murderous violence, it is not the primary driver.  Intolerance of anyone or any opinion different than our own is the driver – and we are all, on the right and the left, guilty of it.  The media – in an effort to drive ratings – merely fans the intolerance, until someone believes the time is ripe for killing.

As I see it, each of the three murdered men are symbols of ideas that some people find intolerable.  In his murderer’s mind, Dr. Tiller symbolizes abortion; Mr. Johns’ murderer was attacking a museum about the Holocaust which he considers a myth and Jewish conspiracy; and in the mind of Pvt. Long’s murderer, the US military symbolizes the killing of Muslim innocents.  Now, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t hold strong opinions on these three issues: abortion, the Holocaust and killing Muslim civilians.  But I also don’t know an American who would deliberately pick up a gun and kill another American over these issues.  If I did, I like to think I would report them to the proper authorities.

There is no question in my mind that intolerance, and violence fueled by intolerance done by Americans against Americans, is on the rise in this country.  The Government issued a warning about this trend last April.  Now, media commentators certainly do loudly underscore that intolerance. But so do poorly enforced gun control laws filled with loopholes that allow mentally unstable people to get their hands on lethal weapons.  And so do any of us who don’t call media commentators to account on their biases, lies and hate-filled speech.  It's time we started focusing on the news and the facts, rather than blowhard commentators.  (This is why you'll find me listening to NPR and watching the News Hour on PBS - they're about as down-the-middle, fact-driven media as you can possibly find. And their audience is split 50/50 on either side of the aisle.)

But, regardless of the commentator, if we just stand idly by, nodding at whichever talking head spouts intolerance that we happen to agree with, then we are part of the problem too; we're making it killing time.

The Smearing of a Nominee

If you've been watching Fox or listening to Rush, you could easily be forgiven for believing that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a "racist," "bigot," "activist," "bully," and a "terrorist."

While Republicans freely admit that they were going to oppose any of Obama's nominees, the level of hysteria, distortion and outright lies they're pushing about Judge Sotomayor is breathtaking.  Here's a brief summation of the kind of incredibly offensive and untrue things the right-wing media has been saying about her in a list compiled by Media Matters (yes, I'm aware this is a "left-wing" blog, but Rushbo, Beck, Tancredo and company said these things, MM is just reporting what they've said).

I have no problem with the Senate, the American public and the media scrutinizing a nominee's record, papers and decisions - but making up stuff out of thin air and repeating it over and over as if it were true, come on.

Now, before you start saying that the left did the same thing when Anita Hill made things up about Clarence Thomas, you'd better check your facts - turns out that after Thomas was confirmed, the folks who had defended him and smeared Hill admitted that he had in fact done what she accused him of doing as reported in "Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas" by two Wall Street Journal reporters.

In any event, smearing and lying is smearing and lying - no matter which side of the aisle is doing it.  The real question then becomes - should we just repeat this kind of stuff when considering a nominee or should we look into the facts?  I believe the latter is certainly preferable, but not very common.

They Do Serve Us Well

DURING the past two years, while teaching courses on performance management, I’ve had the privilege of visiting many different Army, Navy and Marine Corps bases across the country. I call it a privilege because even though some of the training rooms I’ve taught in have been…let’s say somewhat “Spartan,” the trainees – many of them active duty military – have been outstanding examples of Americans humbly serving their country.  And as far as gender, race and ethnicity they are an incredibly diverse group.

While I can’t say that every one of them eagerly attended my course and hung on my every word, I noticed a common commitment to wanting to understand the material and to execute the management system I am teaching as best they can.  Quite simply, every time I lead the course I am struck by the professionalism and humble, no-nonsense attitude of our men and women in uniform.

And as I look out over my classrooms, I am constantly reminded of my father, a former Marine combat correspondent who fought in the South Pacific during WWII.  When I was a youngster, avidly watching John Wayne and Audie Murphy movies from my dad’s lap, I would often turn to him and ask “Was that what it was really like?”  And he would pause and without taking his eyes from the TV say, “no, not really.”  But, like so many of his generation who served, he would never offer any clarification.

One day, when I was a teenager, a large parcel addressed to my father arrived at our Long Island home.  We opened it together and inside was a two volume History of the US Marine Corps.  My father explained that he’d been asked to write the chapter on the Battle for Tarawa atoll. “Now will you tell me what it was like?” I asked.  The abruptness of his reply surprised me. “No,” he said, “just read the chapter.”

Although every Marine I’ve ever met knows the story of that battle, many other Americans do not.  To call it “bloody,” with “devastating losses on both sides,” would be understatements.  The assault on the beaches began at low tide, forcing the Marines to wade hundreds of yards over razor sharp coral while being mowed down by Japanese machine gun emplacements.  Many never made it to shore.  If they did, they faced an enemy who was determined to fight to the death.  Victory came after three incredibly difficult days. The Marines suffered nearly 3,000 casualties, and of the 4,700 Japanese defenders, only 17 survived.

After reading the chapter, I wept for my father and the Marines who died on Tarawa and I realized for the first time how serious the commitment to serve in America’s armed forces really is. I have never forgotten, and I hope I never do. So, it seems to me that this Memorial Day, in fact every Memorial Day, the least we can do is to honor that commitment by thanking those who serve and have served.

To all of America’s men and women in uniform, thank you.  

Obama Steps in the DIVERSITY POOP

When someone unintentionally says or does something dumb and offensive - like President Obama did on Jay Leno’s show recently when he compared his bad bowling score to something out of the Special Olympics - I call it “stepping in the diversity poop.”  We all do this from time to time – we open our mouths and say something (usually trying to be funny) about race, gender, disability or one of a thousand other diversity issues, without thinking about who might be offended.  It’s a very common mistake, and in most cases, the offense caused is completely unintentional.

Now, obviously, the President didn’t mean to offend anyone. And apparently, he called the Chair of the Special Olympics to apologize even before the show aired.  Good for him.

Apologizing is the right move when you step in the diversity poop; it’s the appropriate “clean up” of a mess of your own making. I’ve been recommending “apologies” to my clients and audiences for many years:  partly because there’s some serious data out there on emotional intelligence that indicates that people who apologize for their own mistakes are usually held in higher esteem by others; and also because apologizing is simply the right thing to do.  There’s even more data around corporate apologies, in other words when a company takes responsibility for a screw-up, its stock – both tangible (Wall St) and intangible (media and investor/consumer confidence) – goes back up.

People who don’t want to apologize after stepping in the diversity poop usually say that an apology is unnecessary, that “it’s no big deal,” or “people are too sensitive,” or they’re sick and tired of everyone being so “politically correct.”  This is just excuse-making.  In reality, they’re embarrassed, and  like a teenager who blames everyone but themselves, they lack the maturity to “own” their mistakes. So, they compound the problem by refusing to clean up their poop, pissing others off as a result. Not good.

The trick to apologizing, of course, is how you do it.  An insincere apology – where the person may say the words “I’m sorry,” but clearly doesn’t mean it, will only make matters worse.  You can spot this “false apology” from a great distance.  Usually, the word “but” will be very prominent, such as “I’m sorry you we’re offended by my joke, BUT I was just trying to lighten the mood around here.”  Like the person who says everyone is too politically correct, the false apologizer usually wants to ascribe what they consider to be a reasonable justification for their offensive behavior; or s/he attempts to make the case that their good “intention” was misunderstood.

A true apology has three steps, and each one involves a high degree of “ownership.”  Step 1. “owning” the mistake without equivocation, as in “I screwed up.” Step 2. Owning the impact of the mistake, in other words “What I said/did was offensive/hurtful, etc.” and lastly, Step 3: owning the solution, i.e. “I’m going to make sure I don’t say/do something like that again.”  In most cases, this three step apology is all that is needed when cleaning up the diversity poop.  Usually, the response you’ll get is “Don’t worry about it,” or “Thanks for the apology.”  Forgiveness is not something one should expect, although it often is given after a sincere apology.

I’m pretty sure President Obama’s apology to Tim Shriver, the Chair of the Special Olympics, followed the three step “ownership” model.  I’m not sure what Shriver said in response, but I’m guessing it was something like “thank you for the apology.”  That’s about all anyone – including the President of the United States – can and should hope for when they step in the diversity poop.

When Irish Eyes AREN'T Smiling

We’ve all heard joke after joke, usually referring to a drunken Irishman saying or doing something that makes him appear to be stupid, sexist, racist or violent.  In fact, we’ve heard these stereotypical jokes about almost every nationality – but mostly about the at-one-time poor western and eastern Europeans: Irish, Polish, Italians, etc.

No doubt most of these jokes were result of then longer-standing Americans denigrating the huge waves of European immigrants that came to the US a very long time ago.  These days, the jokes may have faded away, but the stereotypes surely haven’t.  The myth of the drunken Irishman continues to thrive.  And almost everyone I know, including my Irish friends, use St. Patrick’s Day celebrations as an excuse to get completely smashed and parade about in Kelly green plastic garb making loud, obnoxious fools of themselves.  (Full disclosure – I’m a quarter Irish myself, and in my younger days I did my fair share of drinking, parading and “obnixicating.”)

So, what’s my point? I like a good pint as much as anyone – but isn’t it time we de-couple public drunkenness and idiotic behavior from the one American holiday we have that celebrates the cultural heritage of another nation from which many of us can trace our lineage?

At this point, some readers may be saying “get over it,” or “it’s no big deal.”  Maybe it’s not; but every time I mention to someone that I have Irish ancestors, a remark is made about drinking or drunkenness.  It’s just bloody tiresome and unnecessary, that’s all.  Besides, those jokes aren’t even funny anymore.

Stereotypes die hard; and the myth of the drunken Irishman is one that I wish had started pushing up daisies a long, long time ago.  Still, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Are We Past This Race Thing Yet?

As I relax this Presidents’ Day weekend, I recall that a good friend of mine – a highly educated, politically savvy, conservative, straight white guy around my age – looked me in the eye last September and declared with total confidence that “America isn’t ready for a black President.” Obviously, he was wrong.  But I’m sure there were plenty of Americans – on both sides of the aisle - who were saying the same thing back then.

And when I saw him again a few days ago, I reminded him of his declaration and he cheerfully admitted he’d read the tea leaves incorrectly.  “The best candidate won,” he said with equal confidence.  And then he added, “Perhaps our country is finally past this 'race thing'.”  I think he’s wrong again.

One look at the statistics will tell you why.  Even though they comprise only 12% of the US population, according to the latest US Department of Justice statistics, blacks are almost three times more likely than Hispanics and five times more likely than whites to be in jail. Black unemployment is twice that of whites.

And according to the US Census Bureau, in 2007 black households had the lowest median income - $33,916 - while non-Hispanic white households had a median income of $54,920. Interestingly, Asian households had the highest median income ($66,103). All of these numbers are trending to worse under this economy.

It seems to me that although we are more than willing to accept a black man as President, and blacks have made significant gains in every part of our society, we are still very much a country divided along lines separating blacks and whites.  Why is this?

Well, part of it has to do with simply being human; it's a tribal thing.  Despite our technological advancement in social networking, and despite television shows and commercials depicting people of all races interacting without racial tension, humans still do tend to congregate along racial lines.  Whites hang out with whites and blacks hang out with blacks, even in very diverse environments like universities.

In his book, “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama attributed this very human tendency to a kind of mental exhaustion – a need to relax and “stop worrying” about what whites were thinking about them - by black students at Occidental College where he spent a year and a half as an undergraduate.  My sense is that that need to take a break from worrying what other races are thinking about each other is never going to go away.

As a white guy, I admit that sometimes when I am hanging out with people of color, I have to check myself; I think a little more carefully before I speak lest I say something that might be interpreted by them as offensive.  This takes effort, no question about it. Now, I like to think blacks do this self-regulation too, making sure they don’t spout something offensive about whites in front of me.  But somehow, perhaps because I am aware of America’s history of slavery, segregation and racial injustice wrought by whites upon blacks, it feels like the burden is much more on whites to clean up our proverbial act than it is on blacks.

I wonder what our greatest Presidents – Washington, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, would make of the current state of racial play in America.  Perhaps they would be shocked. Or perhaps they would say, “What took you so long to elect a black man President?” But I don’t think they’d be surprised by the continuing racial income, judicial and societal disparities that are still very much with us.

So, are we past this “race thing” yet?  Not by a long shot. But the good news is that by electing a black man President, we’ve made a very substantial leap forward.  And that’s something very positive to think about this President’s Day weekend during one of the most serious downturns in our economy ever.  We could sure use it.  So, happy Presidents’ Day!

Fair is Fair

When President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law last week, which essentially restores a woman’s right to challenge unequal pay, a whole lot of people muttered “It’s about time.”

Demographers had been tracking the disparity since the 1960’s. Early surveys showed that women earned 71 cents for every dollar earned by a man in the same job. Then it went up to somewhere around 80 cents under Clinton and then back down under “W”.  Ledbetter, who worked for Goodyear Tire and Rubber, sued her employer for back pay and had her case go all the way to the Supreme Court.

Dominated by a Republican "rules-are-rules" majority, they ruled against her on a technicality –because she’d filed her claim too late, not because they disagreed with a lower court’s finding that she was indeed wrongfully discriminated against by Goodyear.  Jeesh! This is like your newspaper editor saying he won’t run your exclusive story finally naming who killed Jimmy Hoffa because you didn’t submit your copy on time.

In any event, my sense is that this is somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory. I don’t imagine in today’s crappy economy that the nation’s employers are going to dive into wholesale compensation and benefits analysis to root out inequality just because of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.  I think we’re going to have pay disparity for a long, long time to come.

But, I do think that the Act will have a subtle educational impact on our society in general. Ordinary people who finally heard about it on the news last week probably grunted, “Jeeze, I didn’t know that women got paid less than men for the same work.  Hell, that’s not fair.”  And they’d be right.  But for too long it was only the National Organization for Women who was banging the drum on this.  And because of its perceived left-wing tilt, many of these same ordinary folks probably discounted the notion, chalking it up to “femi-nazi” rabble-rousing or some communist plot.

But it’s not; it’s just fair.  And as everyone knows, fair is fair, meaning paying women the same for the same job looks good and is good. I’m pretty sure everyone in the vast middle of American politics will get on board with that.

Diversity Is Here To Stay, All Over Again

During the civil rights movement, the country used legislation, the courts, the police and military to change American society, to push through the barriers to equality for women and people of color.  It was a tough, bloody fight and almost everyone came out of it battered and bruised.

    Then, during the 1980’s as the composition of our workforce began to shift noticeably, corporate America began to take on board diversity from a moral and “right-thing-to-do” angle.  The changes that resulted were less riotous, more subtle, and took a very long time, but the focus on breaking down barriers remained the same.  Of course, some people resisted and denigrated the effort, but most said either “finally,” or “OK, whatever: as long as I don’t lose my job.”

    And finally during the late 90’s and into our current time, organizations of every stripe started to wake up to the fact that there’s a lot of bottom line benefit from valuing and leveraging diversity.  And so, once again, our leading organizations are breaking down barriers to equality; trying to create inclusive, respectful workplaces where everyone can be themselves, help capture diverse and elusive customers, and still have a shot at the brass ring.

    Of course, not every company is on board with these ideas – in fact, from what I can see, the smaller the company, the less likely they are to value and leverage diversity (unless they’re minority-owned firms going after government set-aside contracts; cynicism intended).  Still, if we look closely enough, we can all see the clear business case for diversity –breaking down barriers has a measureable financial upside.

And here we are: about to swear in our first black President.

  Holy Cow.  The last redoubt of straight, white, male dominance – the US Presidency - has been surmounted and won by the ongoing march of diversity!  And, almost everyone agrees that on the face of it this is a good thing.  And the only naysayers to the idea of a black President are racists or extremist nut-jobs.

    So, everything’s fixed, right?  All the barriers are down, right? We can all pat ourselves on the back and say “look what we did!,” right?  Hmmmm.  Don’t think so.

    If I’ve realized just one thing over the 15 years I’ve been working in diversity, it’s that this learning and changing and growing ourselves on diversity are ongoing efforts – it never ends. Sorry.  We can’t just assume that just because we won a big battle, or even a number of really big battles, that we have won the proverbial war.  No, this diversity thing is a big, amorphous, living, breathing ball of complexity rolling right through the 21st century, and it’s still rigged to explode if conditions are right (or wrong as the case may be).

    But sure. This is, like…dude… a totally good time to celebrate: let’s pop some champagne, dance at the inaugural ball, hug and kiss and congratulate one another for a great American achievement.  But, then let’s get back to work, and refocus our efforts once again on the barriers to equality that still remain - for there are many yet to be torn down.

Racial Politics

The whole race argument around Governor Blagojevitch’s  appointment of Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to the US Senate is tiresome and unfounded.  Even Burris himself was quoted by Senator Harry Reid as saying “Hey, this is nothing racial. Do you understand that?”

So, why is there this mist of racial politics hanging around this thing?

Well first of all, part of this has to do with the media, which are always looking at news through the lens of racial conflict which tends to draw eyeballs whenever mentioned.  I’ve bitched and moaned about this media bias ever since I was a freelancer for the BBC and British newspapers in the late 1980’s.  But rational arguments on behalf of balanced coverage be damned – “if it bleeds, it leads” as newspaper editors like to say.  And nothing bleeds like racial conflict.

It’s also really easy for cable news talking heads to ask the question “is there a racial component to this problem?” and punt it around with grave seriousness for a few news cycles without any definitive yes or no conclusion.

But, the question of the Senate having a racial bias against Burris also has a hell of a lot to do with who brought it up in the first place; none other than Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush, who used the racial hot-button codeword “lynching” in Burris’ press conference.

(email continues here...) Now, I have nothing against Rush at all and apparently he’s been serving his constituents in Chicago’s South Side – which has a higher percentage of African Americans than any other congressional district in the nation – very well. Hell, they’ve been returning him to Congress every two years since 1993.

But, we should also take note that Rush was co-founder of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and very active in the civil rights movement.  And, right before the Burris appointment, he also made it abundantly clear that an African American – not just any old qualified candidate, but specifically an African American - should fill Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

Basically, what I’m saying is that Rush, like each of us, looks at life through a number of different lenses – one of which is most certainly about how African Americans have gotten the proverbial shaft every which way to Sunday since the founding of this great country.  And the fact the nation’s most exclusive club, the US Senate, could really benefit from more diversity, adds some fuel to this fire. Fair enough.

But, on his own merits, and according to everyone who knows anything about these things, Roland Burris is eminently qualified to replace Barack Obama in the Senate.  If Gov. Blagojevitch wasn’t such a fool (see my previous post: Stickier and Stickier Fools) then we wouldn’t be discussing Burris’ appointment at all.  It would have been a done deal last year and we’d be on to other nonsense.

So, if we’re going to ask “Who’s behind the racial debate around the Burris appointment?” it’s just really important for us all to bear in mind that old saying… “Consider the source.”  In this case, it’s the media and Congressman Bobby Rush.