On Point
Now, there's a doll for them too Imagine being the parent of a gender neutral or gender fluid child. Through your eyes, the stores of the world are only filled with things designed to make your kid feel like an 'other': Pink and blue themed toys, gendered supermodel dolls, camo-colored soldiers, and the like. Mattel debuts a new option today for those kids and also the rest of us, a gender-neutral doll that can be male, female, both, or neither, complete with accessories—tutus and camo pants!—that fit the fashion mood of the adolescent moment. Mattel is going all in. The new Creatable World series is perfect for kids who use any pronouns—him, her, them, xem, and boasts an inspiring tagline: "A doll line designed to keep labels out and invite everyone in."
Time
When will we achieve true diversity on conference panels? This is the question posed by author and inclusion strategy expert Ruchika Tulshyan, who gives us the good news/bad news on conferences. Yes, gender diversity seems to be becoming more mainstream. But true intersectional gender diversity—race, ethnicity, ability—is not. She begins by challenging the assumption that polished (male) showboats are the only type of speaker that audiences will accept, and cautions that true subject matter experts may not have important-sounding titles. Click through for her excellent tips, many of which include opportunities for allies to make a stand. "Refuse to speak at or attend an event with a homogenous lineup," she says. "The more high-profile you are, the more impact you're likely to make when you take this action."
HBR
A new 2019 MacArthur Fellow charts 'the afterlife of slavery in American life' There's always something for everyone in the annual list of grantees, all dedicated creatives who are poised for a breakthrough. This year's list offers much fodder for the inclusion crowd. Here's just one: Saidiya Hartman. The Columbia University professor has developed an impressive body of scholarship that offers deep insights into the experience of enslavement in America, and the legacy of that experience in the lives of people who would otherwise remain overlooked. "Hartman defies the conventions of academic scholarship and employs a speculative method of writing history, which she terms 'critical fabulation,' to interrogate the authority of historical archives as the singular source of credible information about the past." One book about the trans-Atlantic slave trade combines research and memoir as she travels to the Ghanian origin point of the diaspora; another uses sociological surveys, archival photographs, and legal records to explore acts of organized resistance among Black women during the height of the Great Migration. Please put her on a panel immediately.
MacArthur Foundation
Chinese vloggers offer an uncensored view of their lives in Africa While there has been significant Chinese investment across Africa, most of the state-run media present a biased view of the continent. Beijing-born video producer, Fyjo Molly , moved to Johannesburg three years ago and became determined to rebut the negative stereotypes perpetuated by Chinese and Western media. She joins a small group of video creators, mostly women, who have taken to social media to spread their unfiltered and enthusiastic view of the art, culture, food, music, and spirit they find in their new lives and travels. While they've built a fan base of young, aspirational people back home, they're also finding that their videos do double duty. "While the average Chinese person might have absorbed a lot of negative stereotypes about Africa, the average African knows very little about China," says Molly. Enjoy.
Quartz Africa
On Background
White Mississippians abandon their racist roots Speaking of allies, this extraordinary piece from The Guardian does triple duty. First, it sketches out a roadmap for having difficult conversations, in this case, about the legacy of slavery and oppression in Mississippi. It also helps explain how deep certain beliefs go, and how alternative histories allow otherwise good people to justify terrible things. And finally, it will give you hope: It is possible to reconsider one's position and come out stronger for it.
The Guardian
Poor white people are often written out of history Keri Leigh Merritt is a historian and author who focuses on race, inequality, and poverty. In this Q&A about her book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South , she describes how poor white people were forced to compete for work in a pre-Civil War economy with "brutalized, unpaid enslaved people." The population was both encouraged to believe in the fiction of white exceptionalism, yet systematically denied opportunity by white Southern elites. Desperately poor and working-class white workers banded together in "associations" in the mid-1800s, looking to protect their jobs and wages. "I argue that this push from poor and working-class whites essentially created a three-front battle for enslavers: not only were they defending the institution from Northern abolitionists and the enslaved themselves, but also from lower-class Southern whites," she says. What the elites feared then (and some would say now) was that enslaved people and poor white workers would join forces. "Slaveholders had little chance but to secede to preserve slavery."
Jacobin
Can corporations really help solve pressing social ills? Author and Columbia law professor Tim Wu makes the case for optimism that large and medium-sized corporations, who employ the majority of Americans, can successfully re-orient from shareholder value to a culture of "corporate virtue." Only then can they address issues from climate change to gun control. Clearly the government isn't going to do it. "I happen to be in favor of many such legal reforms, but to imagine that they alone will suffice is a liberal fantasy," he says. But when Wall Street spurs on a culture of "profit-squeezing," a reset is in order. "It is essential to dispel the myth that chief executives have a legal duty to maximize short-term profit and are therefore powerless to act responsibly," he says. It's time to reframe the role of leadership. "The running of a business is a test of character, rich in intellectual, practical and moral challenges. A better future depends on meeting that test, not pretending that it does not exist."
New York Times
Tamara El-Waylly helps write and produce raceAhead.
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The Support of Her Company
How a company supports employees through the pivotal moments in their lives matters. ThriveXM Index focuses on five key experiences (Career, Family, Health, Financial, and Time). Here, SAP SuccessFactors CMO Kirsten Allegri Williams shares how she reintegrated back to work after beating cancer.
Watch the video
Quote
"It makes me feel like I can't screw up."
—Rosalind Brewer on her many "firsts" as a Black woman in corporate life
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