On today's show, Zach and Ade discuss and expand on last week's D&I episode featuring Chris Moreland. They relate some interesting statistics and share a list of five important things to know to actually have an effective diversity and inclusion strategy.




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TRANSCRIPT

Zach: Oh, man. What's going on, y'all? It is Zach.




Ade: And Ade.




Zach: And you're listening to Living Corporate.




Ade: Sho are.




Zach: [laughs] Yes, they are. Now, listen. It's funny. You know, we've been around for over a year, and--[both laugh] we've yet to explicitly talk about diversity and inclusion. I mean, our podcast is about--essentially about diversity and inclusion, right? But we've yet to talk about it, like, explicitly on this podcast, like, as a subject, and I find that kind of--kind of weird.




Ade: Super weird. Super odd.




Zach: Okay. Yeah, it's kind of odd. I mean, you would think it's kind of low-hanging fruit. It's, like, right there, you know? You know, we start off with these concepts and, you know, every-man topics, and we didn't really, like, go straight at it, you know? I don't know why we are just now getting into this. I don't know. Anyway, diversity and inclusion. Ade, what is--what is diversity and inclusion? Like, when we use the words "diversity and inclusion," like, what do we typically think of? Like, what are we--what are we talking about?




Ade: We're talking about an actual effort by an organization, big or small, to ensure that their workplace, their groups, their team members, are representative of the world at large, that their spaces are not these homogeneous microcosms, and that they are really and truly including everybody in their missions. I think that would be my personal definition of diversity and inclusion.




Zach: Well, you know, it's fire because you said homogeneous and microcosms back to back.




Ade: Bloop. Get at me.




Zach: Bars. [both laugh] No, I agree with that. You know, it's funny though, because often times I do believe that's the definition in theory, but a lot of times the term "diversity and inclusion" is just kind of used to make sure that folks don't get sued, right? Like, "We're not racist and we don't discriminate against people, so we're gonna use the term diversity and inclusion." You know what I'm saying? Like, if you look--I've seen some organizations--listen, I can't go into all of the details, but I've walked into a variety of companies, okay? And organizations can be as homogeneous as a pot of peas, okay?




Ade: As a pot of peas...




Zach: As a pot of peas. They all look the same. Everybody looks the same. [laughs] That's right. I'm country. I said it. A pot of peas. But on their website, oh, boy... boy, they got all the--all the jargon, all the lingo.




Ade: Every stock photo of every [?] you can imagine.




Zach: I see the same five black people in all of these diversity and inclusion photos.




Ade: I mean, at least they have the common sense to actually have photos of people that they actually employ on their website. I have seen some egregious cases of literally stock photos on these websites.




Zach: That's what I'm saying. That's what I've seen. I've seen the same--oh, I see what you--you thought I was saying the same black people on one website. No. Well, I've seen that too, but I'm saying I've seen the same stock photo images across multiple companies.




Ade: Wow. Like, have you no shame? Have you no decency?




Zach: [laughs] My goodness. There's millions of us out here. My gosh.




Ade: There's literally billions, but I think the additional point, though, is that, like, it tells me what you value as an organization when you're willing to put more time and effort into planning your happy hours than you are into truly representing, not just racially but with the gender diversity makeup, the disability diversity makeup, with--like, there's so much that goes into thinking through what it means to have a diverse organization, and y'all will blow your HR budget on beer. And not even good beer.




Zach: Not even good beer, lowkey.




Ade: It drives me nuts that the conversation that we have about diversity and inclusion is about making it more palatable for everybody else as opposed to being like, "No, let's center this on what the truth of the matter is and what reality is as opposed to let's center this on what makes people comfortable."




Zach: That's real. You're kind of jumping the gun a little bit, but I feel you. I feel you.




Ade: My bad.




Zach: No, you're good. You're good. I'm excited. I mean, like, now I'm activated, you know what I'm saying? I'm here. Let's go. [both laugh]




Ade: Get active.




Zach: But no, you're absolutely right, and it's interesting because--so I had, like, a crazy idea, right? So we know that companies actively--you know, like, when you look at black and brown unemployment, disabled unemployment, it is drastically higher, right, than majority unemployment. It would be dope though if companies, when they interviewed people and, like, they know--you know you're not about to hire that black or brown person, so you say, "Hey, listen, I'm not gonna hire you, but I'd love to take your picture for some of our diversity and inclusion stock photos."




Ade: Excuse me? First of all, lawsuit. I'm not even gonna say anything. I'll just nod, smile, and, like, put Voice Memo on on my phone and just--




Zach: [laughing] I couldn't even say that with a straight face, but it's--but you know what, though? There's some money in there somewhere, man. There's some business in there somewhere.




Ade: All right. If you're done being ridiculous, let's focus.




Zach: No, I'm not--listen, I'm not really being ridiculous, because as an--as an aside, y'all, I just read some article at random about this little 12-year-old white kid who was getting six-figure deals to create dances for rap songs, and then people buy the dances, and then, like, they pay him. But he's not doing--he's not doing new dances though.




Ade: These dances he's creating are a compilation of dances that black people came up with.




Zach: Black dances. Yes, yes.




Ade: I just also--I think this is a separate conversation actually, but I wanted to have a conversation about what it means to monetize blackness divorced of black people.




Zach: I'm here for it. Well, this is--so I feel like I'm--




Ade: We're going down this rabbit hole.




Zach: [laughs] We are, but no, seriously though, the reason I was being--I was, like, making a joke--it's kind of a joke, it's kind of not--is like, people are out here monetizing and getting bread off of this, off of the concept of D&I, without actually doing any D&I, right? And so I'm just saying, like, at least if you did that, you--at least some of these black people who are unemployed that have a little bit more money in their pocket while they look for their next job. I mean, something--I don't know. There's something there, but anyway. Okay, cool. So we've talked a little bit about what we think D&I is. We've done some research, right?




Ade: Oh, actually, I also want to have another example of this.




Zach: Yes, keep going.




Ade: Did you see recently that Twitter Detroit posted a picture of their office space? And all white people. Every single person in that photo.




Zach: Mm-mm, did not see that.




Ade: Yeah, every single person in that photo was white. Now, I think it later came out that the--all of the black people that they had employed at Twitter Detroit was at NSBE, although I don't quite--I don't quite know the truth of that statement, but it was just a really striking photo, that you are in Detroit, a city that is 84 or 85% black...




Zach: Detroit is black black.




Ade: Blackity-black as hell.




Zach: Detroit's the kind of black that makes other people, you know, kind of uncomfortable. [laughs] Like, it's black. It's a lot of black people.




Ade: Kind of. Detroit--up until, like, three, four years ago, Detroit was the kind of black that these type of white people were not going into.




Zach: I mean, to be--to be honest, that's true. That's true.




Ade: Anyway, I say all of that--




Zach: So they said all of the black people was at NSBE?




Ade: I don't know if--again, this is not something that I did a ton of research into, because they posted an apology tweet attached to that first image... and I can read the tweet to you actually. It says, "We hear you on the lack of diversity. We're committed to making our company reflect the people we serve, and that includes here in Detroit. We've got a lot more work to do. We have a team at NSBE now, and we look forward to connecting with the amazing people there." I just have two questions. The first is there are three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine maybe people in here, all of whom are white-presenting. There are a couple of people who are out of the photo or they have their backs turned, so I don't know necessarily how true that is, but it's incredible to me the--because I was able to see that photo, and obviously a lot of people were able to see that photo, and immediately see the problem, but what does it say of your organizations that you are so deeply homogeneous that you don't recognize right off the bat that, "Hey, we're in Detroit. Every single one of us in here is white. What does that say about this organization?




Zach: Well, you know what they're gonna say. They're gonna say it's about diversity of thought, Ade. Diversity of thought.




Ade: That's cute.




Zach: [laughs]




Ade: And let me not poo-poo that idea out the gate. Let us treat that as a serious, intellectual argument. Okay, so you were saying that diversity of thought is more impo