Truths
February is a great month! It started with Black History Month, the Chinese New Year, and World Hijab Day, all on the same day. It’s this type of diversity and inclusion that elevates our society. We know representation matters, and we saw its powerful effect when a pair of 2-year-olds living worlds apart saw themselves in the Disney film Encanto.
This truth and love warm our hearts. We want to see more of it, and we want to celebrate and promote it every single day.

However, the forces threatened by equality are hard at work. We see book banning across the nation, anti-Critical Race Theory laws being passed, and HBCUs under attack. 

The same people who want to arm teachers in response to school shootings and who picket schools over COVID precautions are now alarmed about the naked mice in Art Spiegelman’s Maus, an illustrated novel that recounts the horrors of the Holocaust. America has long used its puritanical prudishness as an excuse to pass laws that have a much more nefarious purpose. McMinn County School Board pulled Maus off the shelves the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Why do we need to read Maus and similar books like it? Because children who read Maus will not grow into adults who think any minor inconvenience is comparable to the Holocaust. 

We have children read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor so they can understand how racism impacts a family in America. This classic masterpiece was removed from the Burbank (CA) Unified School District after a white parent complained about the book’s racial insensitivity. 

We see this a lot. The same people who didn’t want Vivian Malone and James Hood to enter the University of Alabama now don’t want their children to learn that they didn’t want Vivian Malone and James Hood to enter the University of Alabama. 

We know black children regularly experience racism. We also know white children can handle learning about racism. Jewish children regularly experience anti-semitism. All other children can handle learning about it. They can handle learning about the experiences of their Muslim, Asian, and indigenous classmates. If we can ask kids to stay masked and socially distant during active shooter drills, we can ask them to read about racism. 

Let’s focus on diversity. How often do our kids read about multi-cultural heroes? See films cast that way? Listen to music and see images that depict multiple archetypes? What is our role as parents and educators in ensuring that happens?
Tools
We hope we will get a DEI conversation started in schools, universities, and workplaces across the globe.

For starters, action is the tool we need. Writer Brittany King urges us: “It's not enough to recognize your privilege, you've got to use it.” If you’re white, look for ways to use our privilege for good. Here's a quick list of how you can start today to support schools and communities with your privilege.
We have tech tools for you, as well. There is no shortage of apps and programs that can boost content rooted in diverse imagery, characters, and perspectives for your students and staff.

One way to champion people of color is to support Black-owned businesses. Many apps have helped diversify the marketplace with racial parity. Check out these two:
Official Black Wall Street, is an app that can connect users to 5,000 Black-owned businesses globally. What’s unique about this app is that it alerts users when they are near a Black-owned business — using its location-based capabilities to foster further in-person connection.
EatOkra, is an app that connects consumers to nearly 3,000 Black-owned restaurants across the US where people can search by location and cuisine. The app has seen nearly a quarter of a million downloads over the last year.
Other apps/online tools help bring DEI to the workplace and classroom:
Everyday Inclusion App - Powered by Moxie Exchange, this app is designed to boost belonging in your organization through inspiration, education, action, and measurement. It provides workplace diversity scenarios, calendars, and a dictionary, tips for stopping bias, and much more. For example, it has a dictionary to educate employees on gender identity.
iThrive Games - Our friends at iThrive have an amazing library of online role-playing simulation games that deepen civic learning in high school social studies and humanities classrooms.
Triumphs
News broke this week that HBCUs were underfunded by $12.8 billion compared to their white land-grant university counterparts over the last three decades. NC A&T in Greensboro was hit the hardest, underfunded by an estimated $2.8 billion.

In light of that disturbing news, we are even more committed to our great work at WSSU’s Bight Lab Innovations. See our recent update on the excitement around Setser Group collaborating with Winston-Salem State University and a regional coalition of stakeholders assembled by the Piedmont Triad Regional Council under Chris Gergen's leadership to compete for up to $100 million in federal funding to develop and scale next-generation manufacturing for underserved communities and organizations in the region. 

In our Barriers for Breakfast Podcast with Guest Johnny Collett, we asked you to lead from where you are. Blog, speak, message, share on social media. Implement and promote DEI in the curriculum and workplace. Take action that will make the world a better place. Simply put, have a take and stand on it. What type of organization will you be? The old guard protective of its small-minded tribe? Or an inclusive, modern organization building the future of learning and work.

With your help, we know truth and love will win.
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Looking for a list of ways to use your privilege to support communities and schools? Check out this week's e-letter from Setser Group here!

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