Your Identity Matters

Express Yourself

Who you are is an asset, not a liability. Inclusiveness is a strength in a productive working environment and for society.

To anybody who has ever questioned your identity ever, ever, ever, or you find yourself living in the gray spaces, I promise you this: There is indeed a place for us.- Ariana DeBose

According to the CDC, discrimination comes in many forms. They list:

• Age Discrimination
• Disability Discrimination
• Sexual Orientation
• Status as a Parent
• Religious Discrimination
• National Origin
• Pregnancy
• Sexual Harassment
• Race, Color, and Sex
• Reprisal / Retaliation

What's The Problem?

Discrimination can influence individuals' health indirectly, even when they are unaware that it has happened. Discrimination due to race, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation determine access to health care and the social determinants of health, including contact with the criminal justice system. (-healthaffiars.org Feb 2020) Discrimination is corrosive, eating away at self worth and self esteem. Discrimination leads  to resentment and hate. The result for our society is a lot of wasted potential.

There's an economic cost for this country because of discrimination. Broad groups of people are categorized and marginalized by discrimination. We lose trillions of dollars by not allowing certain groups full participation in the economy. Those trillions would be put back into the economy in jobs, and increased spending power. For example, Gender inequality costs the US economy over 6 billion dollars a year. Racial disparities and discrimination has resulted in $16 trillion in lost potential over the past 20 years. -Citigroup Sep/2020

Instead of dividing us to gain political power and wealth, as some leaders do, we should be embracing the talents of those they would marginalize.

To change this we have two choices. We can wait for somebody to take charge, to become the leader of a just cause, or we can, as a group, speak out. Activism creates leaders and leadership. We need to be raising our voices, rejoicing in our diversity to help our society reach something closer to its full potential. 

But How?

I borrow from a positioning statement the Methodists once used, “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”  If our hearts and minds are truly open, it must mean we're listening. Then, the doors will open wide. 

Discrimination is a learned behavior. Because of that, there is still the hope we can get it right.

 

Ableism

Remember this?

Trump mocking a reporter. His behavior was inappropriate. His excuse? I was just being funny. Millions in this country still think this is ok. 

A form of discrimination

From Ableism 101 by Ashley Eisenmenger, accessliving.org:

Ableism is the discrimination of and social prejudice against people with disabilities based on the belief that typical abilities are superior. At its heart, ableism is rooted in the assumption that disabled people require ‘fixing’ and defines people by their disability. Like racism and sexism, ableism classifies entire groups of people as ‘less than,’ and includes harmful stereotypes, misconceptions, and generalizations of people with disabilities.

What form does Ableism take? 

Again, from Ableism 101:

• Lack of compliance with disability rights laws like the ADA
• Segregating students with disabilities into separate schools
• The use of restraint or seclusion as a means of controlling students with disabilities
• Segregating adults and children with disabilities in institutions
• Failing to incorporate accessibility into building design plans
• Buildings without braille on signs, elevator buttons, etc.
• Building inaccessible websites
• The assumption that people with disabilities want or need to be ‘fixed’
• Using disability as a punchline, or mocking people with disabilities
• Refusing to provide reasonable accommodations
• The eugenics movement of the early 1900s
• The mass murder of disabled people in Nazi Germany

I've jumped to major aggressions with major consequences, but there are everyday micro-aggressions. Many of them are part of how we interact with people through the language we use, including people in authority.

• “That’s so lame.”
• “He/she seems retarded.”
• "Is he/she slow?"
• "Is there something off about him/her?"
• “That guy is crazy.”
• “You’re acting so bi-polar today.”
• “Are you off your meds?”
• “It’s like the blind leading the blind.”
• “My ideas fell on deaf ears.”
• “She’s such a psycho.”
• “I’m super OCD about how I clean my apartment.”
• “Can I pray for you?”
• “I don’t even think of you as disabled.”

Phrases like this imply that a disability makes a person less than, and that disability is bad, negative, a problem to be fixed, rather than a normal, inevitable part of the human experience.

Many people don’t mean to be insulting, and a lot have good intentions, but even well-meant comments and actions can take a serious toll on their recipients. (Ableism 101)

Turning Around the Micro-Aggressions

According to Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar writing for the Harvard business review in 2020, ableist language largely influences us in three ways:

1. It reveals our unconscious bias.
2. It makes us internalize harmful bias about disability. 
3. It stigmatizes already marginalize people.

Ravishankar suggests we can start with a conscious effort to improve our vocabulary.

Acknowledge the disability around us. More than one billion people worldwide, around 15% of the population, have some type of disability. People with disabilities make up a quarter of the U.S. population. Pro-tip: Don’t try to fix disability; instead fix the oppression.

Learn! Listen more than we talk. become aware of our own biases — many of which we’ve picked up from the people we’ve met, the experiences we’ve had, and the media we’ve consumed throughout our lives — is the first step to educating ourselves. Our biases are learned behavior. That means we can learn new behaviors. Pro-tip: Educate yourself, and don’t rely on others to teach you.

Don't make assumptions about someone's identity.  Focus on the fact that people with disabilities are first and foremost, just people. An example of this would be saying “a person with a disability” instead of “a disabled person.” Pro-tip: Golden rule is: When you’re unsure of someone’s identity, just ask.

When you make a mistake, genuinely apologize. Saying something like, I'm sorry if what I said may have hurt you is not an apology. Pro tip: This isn’t about your opinions; it’s about how the other person feels.

I remember mom saying, "Watch what you say," and "Keep a civil tongue in your head." The rebukes may have stung a little, but she was right. I hope part of what she was trying to teach me stuck.

Discrimination Has a Price

Cost Of Racism: U.S. Economy Lost $16 Trillion Because Of Discrimination

A Waste of Human Potential / A drag on Economic Growth

Whenever we exclude people and their potential, it comes at a cost to all of us. Discrimination comes in many forms. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, and retaliation for reporting, participating in, and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.

Whenever we discriminate there is a cost in lost potential. Two thirds of the US economy is based on consumer spending. By holding people  from participating in the economy, we're hold back potential for economic growth.

Citigroup did some research on the issue. The study found that over the past 20 years the US economy lost $16 trillion to racial discrimination against African Americans alone. Ending discrimination would give a $5 trillion boost to the economy over the next five years.

Specifically, the study came up with $16 trillion in lost GDP by noting four key racial gaps between African Americans and whites:

• $13 trillion lost in potential business revenue because of discriminatory lending to African American entrepreneurs, with an estimated 6.1 million jobs not generated as a result
• $2.7 trillion in income lost because of disparities in wages suffered by African Americans
• $218 billion lost over the past two decades because of discrimination in providing housing credit
• And $90 billion to $113 billion in lifetime income lost from discrimination in accessing higher education

This is only the beginning when it comes to lost potential. The GDP is adversely affected by all forms of discrimination. Two more examples:

• Age Discrimination $850 billion per year (AARP)
• Gender Inequality $2 trillion per year (Katica Roy - Fast Company)

Minorities Have Positive Economic Impacts

It is reported that the LGBT community currently contributes over $1.7 trillion to the U.S. economy. The findings from this research have strengthened the LGBT community’s leverage for inclusion. (asae Research Foundation) Imagine the boost to the economy without discrimination.

It's not just the money

How does discrimination impact social inclusion?

Discrimination affects people’s opportunities, their well-being, and their sense of agency. Persistent exposure to discrimination can lead individuals to internalize the prejudice or stigma that is directed against them, manifesting in shame, low self-esteem, fear and stress, as well as poor health. A survey regarding HIV-related stigma and discrimination among people living with HIV in Asia and the Pacific, for example, found that half to three-quarters of respondents felt either shame, guilt and/or low self-esteem. -UN

When US News and World Report looks at the best places to live in the world, it looks beyond broad access to food and housing. They look to quality education and health care, to employment that will sustain us, quality of life may also include intangibles such as job security, political stability, individual freedom and environmental quality.

What social scientists do agree on is that material wealth is not the most important factor in assessing a life lived well. The results of the Quality of Life sub-ranking survey reflect that sensibility.

Canada is ranked on top for the fifth straight year. Survey respondents view the North American country as No. 1 for being politically stable, No. 4 for having a well-developed public education system, and No. 2 for having a good job market, a perception supported by independent research. The North American country is seen as possessing the most well-developed public health care system.(Quality of Life Rankings). Seven European countries made the list.

In a society that functions optimally, those who can should naturally want to provide for those who can't. That's how it's designed to work. I truly believe we're here to take care of one another.

- LeVar Burton

Workplace Bullying

 

Should I stay, or should I go?

I found some advice on ToughNickle.com on the subject of workplace bullies. It's something I wish I had found years ago. Knowing I was being bullied, and knowing it was not my fault was not enough. I'm sharing in the hope that you can be more proactive than I was. Sticking around had it's rewards, but I really question if it was worth it.

How Long Is Too Long to Stay at a Job Where You're Being Bullied?

According to Marianne Worthington, the founder of Work Warrior, a business that helps companies build healthy workplaces, "Three to six months. If the target is documenting appropriately, that timeframe should allow them to see if management or HR is going to act on their complaint." But if management is the bully in your case, then she recommends looking for another job as soon as possible.

Deb Falzoi, who educates employees, employers, and therapists about the dynamics of workplace bullying, "Workplace bullying works like domestic abuse—targets often don't see the abuse until their self-esteem and health have already begun to deteriorate, since abusers often convince targets they're the problem. So once targets realize they've been bullied, they have already been in the job too long. At that point, the goal is to preserve their health."

Framing Health Care Debate As Battle Of Sexes

Here's another reminder that health care reform is about affordable health care. It is not about illegal aliens, or death panels, or the communist plot to fluoridate the water, or who can shout the loudest.This story from NPR covers the disparity in the cost of health insurance between men and women.Recently I've been asked to participate in a dialog about the rise in racism and how to make more people aware of how destructive and dangerous racism is in our society. Hand-in-hand with racism is discrimination.Are the dramatically higher premiums for women's healthcare insurance a case of discrimination? The term used by the insurance companies is called "gender indexing" according to Liz Halloran's story on NPR. Gender indexing is used by insurance companies to set premiums. Halloran explains, "Historically, it has disproportionately affected women who buy plans in the individual insurance market, and, to a lesser degree, those who participate in some group plans." Perhaps this is not direct discrimination, but it may be indirect discrimination according to a definition at Equality Diversity Services a company committed to providing training in the workplace and developing a change in organization culture in the UK. According to their definition, "This includes practices which might look fair but which have discriminatory side effects. It applies when an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice disadvantages members of a specified group relative to others." Charging 86% more for Women's health insurance would seem to put younger women at a disadvantage.