Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Hey listeners.
Speaker 4: This episode is a replay of one of our interviews
Speaker 4: from our live stream at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's
Speaker 4: Annual Legislative Conference. Now, if you want to listen to
Speaker 4: or watch the full stream, definitely be sure to check
Speaker 4: the links in the episode description, and you can also
Speaker 4: find a full list of all the amazing guests we interviewed.
Speaker 4: Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 5: We're a threat at this time to bring up a
Speaker 5: very very special guest, Our good friend, Melanie Parker, who
Speaker 5: is at Google and she is the chief diversity officer there,
Speaker 5: is joining us to talk about this very very special
Speaker 5: occasion and some of the great things.
Speaker 1: They have going on to make an impact in the
Speaker 1: community at Google.
Speaker 2: Hi, Melody guy, Thank you, love, Thanks beautiful, thank you.
Speaker 3: How are you feeling I'm feeling great.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about tonight, excited about all the black excellence
Speaker 2: all around us.
Speaker 3: So it's a great night. Yes, today, we're happy to
Speaker 3: have you.
Speaker 4: I think one thing, sorry, Andrew, a question I'll ask
Speaker 4: you quickly. A lot of people. We hear a chief
Speaker 4: diversity officer all the time, but I think so many
Speaker 4: people out there don't always know exactly what a chief
Speaker 4: diversity officer does. Tell us what your role is exactly
Speaker 4: tangibly at Google.
Speaker 2: So my role at Google one, I've been in my
Speaker 2: role for five years, so I know there's a meme
Speaker 2: out there five years I've been to my role at Google.
Speaker 2: But what I do I look after Google's internal workforce,
Speaker 2: and that is to make sure that people not just
Speaker 2: feel like they belong, but feel that they can bring
Speaker 2: all of who they are in the workplace.
Speaker 3: And that's not just you know, heart and head.
Speaker 2: That's really about I'm looking after how we're hiring, how
Speaker 2: we're promoting, how we're providing developmental assignments. I'm looking at
Speaker 2: who's leaving and are they leaving at you know, the
Speaker 2: same rate across communities? Are they looking at different rates?
Speaker 2: And then I'm looking after who's coming into Google over
Speaker 2: the next ten to fifteen years, and what programs do
Speaker 2: we need to have externally? What does our creator base
Speaker 2: look like, what does our user base? We have over
Speaker 2: a billion users, what does that look like? And how
Speaker 2: does that ecosystem all work together to make sure that
Speaker 2: we're meeting people just as they are where they are
Speaker 2: in that moment, and I have a global team.
Speaker 3: That helps me do that well every day.
Speaker 1: Melanie, speaking of some of the impact that you all
Speaker 1: are making, you all had fight the event recently. During
Speaker 1: this conference, change Makers talk about how important it is
Speaker 1: to invest in support some of those folks outside. You
Speaker 1: talked about your role inside, but what's your impact on
Speaker 1: the outside as well, you.
Speaker 3: Know, externally.
Speaker 2: Our goal is to build sustainable equity, not just internally,
Speaker 2: as you said, Angela, but externally as well. So change
Speaker 2: Makers allows us to give voice, often to a community
Speaker 2: that may not have voice. What we we typically find
Speaker 2: when we look at black and brown voices is that
Speaker 2: you're either hyper visible or you're invisible in between.
Speaker 3: That that's a whole lot of stress.
Speaker 2: And so we want to make we want to normalize,
Speaker 2: like elevating change makers.
Speaker 3: And we want people to know they have to feel
Speaker 3: empowered to have voice.
Speaker 2: It's when you don't have voice that we have, you know,
Speaker 2: horrible leadership that we're you know, by being silent, we're
Speaker 2: actually giving way to change that's not progressive. So that's
Speaker 2: what change Makers is really all about. So we look
Speaker 2: to curate spaces and rooms where we can bring people.
Speaker 6: Together, Melanie, A lot of them, at least as of late,
Speaker 6: there's been quite a political attack on diversity inclusion, what
Speaker 6: it means to have diverse workforces. Obviously, I don't mean
Speaker 6: for you to tell on your own company, but amongst
Speaker 6: your group of peers, could you just shine a light
Speaker 6: for us, let us, let us sit on the floor
Speaker 6: of y'all's couch, converse, say and share a little bit
Speaker 6: about what folks who are in that space are feeling experiencing.
Speaker 6: Are they feeling like the best approach for survivalists to
Speaker 6: step back in the work and maybe make it more
Speaker 6: I guess you'd say for everybody, and not just for
Speaker 6: or directed toward a particular group of employees.
Speaker 2: So let me start with the incredible work that you know,
Speaker 2: we have long standing at Google. You know, so we've
Speaker 2: you know, long been commuted committed to diversity, equity and inclusion,
Speaker 2: and we're leaders and we're learners, and we do both transparently.
Speaker 2: We just published our eleventh Diversity Annual Report in the spring,
Speaker 2: and in the back of that when we talk about
Speaker 2: our progress, which includes you know, just historic levels of
Speaker 2: bringing underrepresented communities, which are women.
Speaker 3: People with disabilities.
Speaker 2: We look across minority communities as well, but we put
Speaker 2: that in an appendix. So we have the largest publicly
Speaker 2: available DEI data set, and we use big Query to
Speaker 2: open source it, so you're you know, there's no mystery
Speaker 2: in what our numbers are. You can look at them
Speaker 2: year over year, and we put it in a very
Speaker 2: easy format because we want you not just to you know,
Speaker 2: look at where we lead, but look at where we're
Speaker 2: learning and the opportunity space for all of us. I
Speaker 2: love that.
Speaker 1: We have witnessed this massive pulling back of DEI efforts.
Speaker 1: And here we are at this Congressional Black Hawkice Foundation.
Speaker 1: You look out here, you see all this a c
Speaker 1: of beautiful blackness. But for some reason, our blackness is
Speaker 1: treated as inherently violent and criminal on the outside. So
Speaker 1: we got this pushed forward in twenty twenty and this
Speaker 1: severe retraction since then. How have you been able personally
Speaker 1: and professionally building because you are You're such a leader.
Speaker 1: You are always a shiny example even today, like you
Speaker 1: have this glow that's her all the time.
Speaker 3: It's not makeup, y'all.
Speaker 1: This is literally her, I want you to talk briefly
Speaker 1: about how you were able to sustain and in fact
Speaker 1: grow through that retraction.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm not surprised by some of the
Speaker 2: things that we see because whenever we have progress, we
Speaker 2: have people who are looking at how do you get
Speaker 2: to that progress?
Speaker 3: You know, And so that's what we see.
Speaker 2: How I stay focused and how I encourage others look
Speaker 2: at the data.
Speaker 3: What is your data?
Speaker 2: Say, like we're data informed. And one of the things
Speaker 2: I say is like I exist and my organization exists
Speaker 2: to close gaps, and how am I going to find
Speaker 2: those gaps?
Speaker 3: I'm going to look at the data.
Speaker 2: So I'm not disheartened by looking to my left or
Speaker 2: my right. I'm really looking forward and where do I
Speaker 2: need to continue to like close those gaps, make that
Speaker 2: progress and really meet people where they are and people
Speaker 2: really need us to continue to create safe spaces to
Speaker 2: bring them together.
Speaker 4: Melody, I'm interrupting Retu, Mama and Papa Rye that Paples
Speaker 4: here at the Congressional to give your ticket legislative commerce
Speaker 4: and they're looking for their tickets for dinner. So we
Speaker 4: will be remaining if we did not have Papa Rye
Speaker 4: come by, come by and get on the mic.
Speaker 3: Papa Rye, he wants you. This is what he said.
Speaker 3: I want you to know. This is what my dad
Speaker 3: was going to do. This way in front of the camera.
Speaker 3: This way, would you leg.
Speaker 4: As beautiful, Mom, Mama, Rai and Papa Rye are here
Speaker 4: your own cameras.
Speaker 3: You look beautiful, You look so beautiful, gorgeous. We're in
Speaker 3: the middle of an Interviewers Live and we love you.
Speaker 4: So we wanted to have a cameo from Mama and
Speaker 4: Papa Rye say hi to everybody.
Speaker 2: We can't go back.
Speaker 6: That's right, that's.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: I want to want to remind everyone that this is
Speaker 1: a nonpartisan conference.
Speaker 3: We're not going.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 1: In case anybody wanted to know why, I'm so hard headed.
Speaker 3: Thank you all so much for being here. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1: You're gonna stay on set, okay, perfect.
Speaker 3: And father r We love you. We'll see you inside
Speaker 3: at the dinner.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 4: We had to, you know, she had to get her
Speaker 4: parents their tickets.
Speaker 2: So we have generations of women that live in my house.
Speaker 2: Well one and a half your old granddaughter to my
Speaker 2: eighty seven year old mother.
Speaker 3: This is like being grandmother welcome. This is you know, like,
Speaker 3: what are the rules right?
Speaker 4: But it's funny you say that because you you know,
Speaker 4: you look gorgeous, and we have beautiful grandmothers.
Speaker 3: In our community, of course.
Speaker 4: But I'm always bringing up when Donald Trump said, well,
Speaker 4: I thought he was talking about Vice President Harris. I
Speaker 4: thought she was a lot younger. Turns out she's sixty.
Speaker 4: Like he's gonna learn a whole lot about how black
Speaker 4: women show up in this country physically and literally. I
Speaker 4: want to jump in and ask a quick policy question
Speaker 4: if I could, because something that we are well that
Speaker 4: I have a personal interest in is AI and I'm
Speaker 4: curious how Google might navigate the changing AI, particularly through
Speaker 4: the lens of diversity when it comes to black folks.
Speaker 4: And I know we've got some other guests way to buy,
Speaker 4: so and I know you got to get to the dinner.
Speaker 4: So that's a quick question before we let you go.
Speaker 2: So really, you know, our goal here is to build
Speaker 2: sustainable equity.
Speaker 3: That's the same thing that we want to do with AI.
Speaker 2: And so you know, we want to move responsibly, and
Speaker 2: sometimes that means you don't move as fast as you're
Speaker 2: looking at that responsibly and we're looking particularly when you
Speaker 2: look at like black community and brown communities and other
Speaker 2: underrepresented groups.
Speaker 3: We know there are two sides to a coin.
Speaker 2: One do no harm and the other side of that
Speaker 2: is leave no community behind. So we've developed a set
Speaker 2: of AI principles.
Speaker 3: A part of those principles.
Speaker 2: Is ensuring you know, the ethical responsibility that we have
Speaker 2: and some of the work like I lead a HBC
Speaker 2: President's Council and with Howard University, we have our research
Speaker 2: AI research project with them where they own all the
Speaker 2: licensing rights, and it's called Project Elevate Black Voices because
Speaker 2: our own research and external research shows that automatic speech
Speaker 2: recognition doesn't recognize all the dialects that exists.
Speaker 3: In the black culture.
Speaker 2: And so Howard is seeking to you know, with their
Speaker 2: own student body and our researchers, they are getting first
Speaker 2: hand experience and how to develop the research that will
Speaker 2: support the technology recognizing.
Speaker 3: The dialect a little bit better.
Speaker 2: We have a five million dollar grant we put at Spelman.
Speaker 2: Doctor Gail will be at our Google table today, so
Speaker 2: come give her a shout out.
Speaker 3: But those are the types of.
Speaker 2: Things that we're doing on that front. And lastly, I'll
Speaker 2: say we worked with the Divine Nine, the Links Incorporated
Speaker 2: and Dress for Success to really train one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: black women. But of course our community we've now trained
Speaker 2: over two hundred.
Speaker 3: Thous black women. We're still going strong.
Speaker 2: Delta Sigma Theda has been out in front really, you know,
Speaker 2: embracing and taking this technology like out to the communities
Speaker 2: that they served, and so we're really proud of the effort.
Speaker 3: You love it. Thank you so much. You are so
Speaker 3: grateful to have you. Enjoy the dinner. This is my
Speaker 3: favorite time of the year.
Speaker 1: I always tell people my favorite moment is when the
Speaker 1: members walk across it.
Speaker 3: That's my favorite.
Speaker 2: And last night I saw representative of Jasmine Crockett and
Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to be so excited to see
Speaker 2: you and the other freshman representatives walk across the stage.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Thank you, thank you for
Speaker 1: partnering with this.
Speaker 4: All right, thanks for listening to you guys. Please please
Speaker 4: please remember to rate, review, subscribe, and tune into our
Speaker 4: regular episode on Thursdays, We Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
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