Speaker 1: Good morning, keeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl. Daniel Moody recording from the home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I can't express to you how fucking done I am.
Speaker 1: Like it is one of those weeks where at just Tuesday,
Speaker 1: but let me be honest with you, I was done
Speaker 1: at probably noon on Monday, when Donald Trump once again
Speaker 1: skirts the law, gets a get out of jail free
Speaker 1: card with the lowering of the bond that he has
Speaker 1: to pay in the Tiss James fraud case fraud as
Speaker 1: it pertains to his real estate from four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty four million to one hundred and seventy five million.
Speaker 1: There is no one that skirts the law, that finds
Speaker 1: the loopholes that is enabled than Donald Trump. And what
Speaker 1: I will say is what everyone has been saying on
Speaker 1: social media, is that like, I'm over it, I'm not
Speaker 1: following anymore. Do you know what I'm saying? Because these
Speaker 1: cases are never going to come to fruition. Donald Trump
Speaker 1: has been able to do this dirty dealing for the
Speaker 1: last what forty fifty years of his life, no accountability,
Speaker 1: no nothing. He is rich, he is white, and he
Speaker 1: is powerful, and every single system bows to him. And
Speaker 1: you know, for anyone who wants to say, well, oh,
Speaker 1: this is customary in these types of cases, do you
Speaker 1: know what's not customary? Donald Trump? Do you know what
Speaker 1: is not the norm? Having a fascist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic, islamophobic,
Speaker 1: confirmed guilty of sexual assault person running for president of
Speaker 1: the United States having a fifty to fifty chance of
Speaker 1: becoming president. And at this point there isn't a system
Speaker 1: that you an agency that you can point to that
Speaker 1: is not working in lockstep with Donald Trump. So whether
Speaker 1: it is just recently Roni McDaniel leaving the RNC as
Speaker 1: their head liar in chief and being able to be
Speaker 1: welcomed with open arms into mainstream media with a contract
Speaker 1: where three hundred thousand dollars with NBC, Like, it's just
Speaker 1: I'm fucking over it because I sit around, I spit facts,
Speaker 1: I yell, I'm indignant, and nothing ever changes. And so
Speaker 1: at what point do we all just decide, you know what,
Speaker 1: fuck it? You want to take this country back, take it,
Speaker 1: you want to run it into the ground, run it.
Speaker 1: You want to give tax breaks to billionaires and millionaires, great,
Speaker 1: you want to get rid of social safety nets, wonderful.
Speaker 1: You wanna you know, lock LGBTQ people up in an
Speaker 1: open air camp. Great, you want to kill all black people?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: You know, at what point do we just say fuck
Speaker 1: it and move on and get out because the constant
Speaker 1: battle to win nothing on our side. Ever, I'm exhausted,
Speaker 1: and today is yet another one of those days where
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I'm exhausted. I'm over it, And you're
Speaker 1: not gonna spin this into something being good or this
Speaker 1: is just normal, because you see, systems need to change
Speaker 1: in order to match the people that they are dealing with.
Speaker 1: I wish that Donald Trump was treated by the justice
Speaker 1: system the way that innocent black people are treated like shit, right.
Speaker 1: I wish that there was, you know, no time for appeal,
Speaker 1: no nothing you can do that from jail, even if
Speaker 1: you are innocent. Everywhere, white supremacy and wealth reign supreme.
Speaker 1: And I just am over it, you know, which is
Speaker 1: why in today's show, I took a break from just
Speaker 1: straight politics and had a conversation with a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Malia Lazoo, who has a new book out entitled From
Speaker 1: Intention to Impact, a Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity and
Speaker 1: Inclusion that came out earlier this year. Malia is an
Speaker 1: award winning tenured strategist and diversity and inclusion and a
Speaker 1: lecturer in Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management Group at
Speaker 1: MIT Sloan School of Management. She is former EVP and
Speaker 1: Regional President of Berkshire Bank and the creator of several
Speaker 1: accelerators designed to support minority owned businesses in the Boston area.
Speaker 1: The conversation with Malia, we get into it about the
Speaker 1: attacks on Dee and I, what it's like to do
Speaker 1: this work in this moment, and whether or not it
Speaker 1: will serve vibe Folks. I am very excited, super honored too.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is the first time
Speaker 1: or it's just been a very long time, but let's
Speaker 1: say to longtime friend Malia Lazoo, welcome to OKF Daily.
Speaker 1: Malia is an award winning tenured strategist in diversity and
Speaker 1: inclusion and a lecturer in the Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and
Speaker 1: Strategic Management Group at MIT soul In School of Management.
Speaker 1: And she is Folks, the author of the new book
Speaker 1: From Intention to Impact, a Practical Guide to Diversity, Equity
Speaker 1: and Inclusion. I could say that Wow, is this timely AF?
Speaker 1: This kind of book? Malia? Talk to us about the
Speaker 1: journey of the book, because I would argue that when
Speaker 1: you started, diversity, equity and inclusion wasn't under attack. We
Speaker 1: were in a place of expansion. How can company be better?
Speaker 1: How can schools be better? How can diversity, equity and
Speaker 1: inclusion be better integrated into our learnings and our dealings
Speaker 1: in different industries and spaces. Fast forward, your book comes
Speaker 1: out and every other headline is about Dee and I
Speaker 1: C suite folks, leaders, teachers being fired, Let go investigated.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about this precarious moment and how your
Speaker 1: book fell in it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, you're so right in, Danielle.
Speaker 3: It's so great to be on and to see you
Speaker 3: and hello, woke AF folks. I'm a woke AF folks.
Speaker 3: So it's fun to be on this side of the microphone.
Speaker 3: But you know, when I first started writing this book,
Speaker 3: we had rights to our body that we don't have now. Right,
Speaker 3: the attack wasn't as I mean, it was coming. It
Speaker 3: was inevitable, right, but it wasn't as vicious and as
Speaker 3: whole as it is now. And so you know, I
Speaker 3: feel like my book came at the right time to
Speaker 3: talk about the importance of D and I and how
Speaker 3: you get there. So even if you have to call
Speaker 3: it something else, you still have to deconstruct the white
Speaker 3: supremacy within your company. And that's really what my book
Speaker 3: aims to do. I was laughing with mit President, the publisher.
Speaker 3: I said, could we have like picked a better year
Speaker 3: right to have this conversation? And traveling around the country,
Speaker 3: it's been interesting. You know. The people in Florida wanted
Speaker 3: to talk politics, right, the people in San Francisco wanted
Speaker 3: to talk models, right. And we are in so many
Speaker 3: different places with this, but the one thing that has
Speaker 3: been steadfast is people are still really desperate to find
Speaker 3: ways to be interconnected with one another. You know, I
Speaker 3: think with the fascism and racism and sexism that's so overt, most.
Speaker 2: People are actually saying, wait, no, that's not me, right.
Speaker 3: I might not want my daughter to marry one, right,
Speaker 3: but this is all too much. And so you know,
Speaker 3: this book and these conversations have really given me a
Speaker 3: chance to intervene right with some people who think, oh,
Speaker 3: we may have to give it up, to be like, no,
Speaker 3: you just have to do this, right, You just have
Speaker 3: to get curious.
Speaker 2: You just have to get empathetic, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is that's a really important
Speaker 1: thing to state and say. And I'm really grateful for
Speaker 1: the fact that you are the one who is offering
Speaker 1: up the ways that we need to maneuver and be
Speaker 1: nimble in this moment, because I think that that is
Speaker 1: what this political climate requires, is a level of nimbleness, imagination,
Speaker 1: and curiosity that is not linear. Right. And so in
Speaker 1: your book you outline what you refer to as seven
Speaker 1: stages from intention to impact. Can you walk us through
Speaker 1: what those are and how you developed the seven stages
Speaker 1: and why? Because I talk about you know, we can
Speaker 1: both understand that people need steps and also understand that
Speaker 1: the work is not linear. So I want you to
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to speak to both of that.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that's why I did these seven stages right,
Speaker 3: because I didn't want them to be steps, right. I
Speaker 3: wanted to then be stages because at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, you can go from one to seven.
Speaker 2: You don't have to.
Speaker 3: Do two, three, four, five, six if you just want
Speaker 3: to work on equity, right, And so you know, these
Speaker 3: steps were deed and stages were developed watching and working
Speaker 3: with companies and seeing what it actually took to go
Speaker 3: from an intention to an outcome, to an impact, to
Speaker 3: a higher to a policy change, right to a higher.
Speaker 2: Ring, whatever whatever that goal might be.
Speaker 3: And you know, you see these themes and a lot
Speaker 3: of companies stay in the first three four stages right
Speaker 3: in the first three stages are the honeymoon phase, right
Speaker 3: that you realize, you know, first stage, you can do
Speaker 3: something about the problem.
Speaker 2: We can sign a pledge, right, we can make a donation. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: look at us.
Speaker 3: Go, so we sign that pledge. Well, now we have
Speaker 3: to do trainings, right, because we're going to make this work.
Speaker 3: We're excited. So now we start doing trainings.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Then we decide we can take action on low hanging fruit.
Speaker 3: We're making a higher we should make that person diverse, right,
Speaker 3: And then you start taking action on low hanging fruit.
Speaker 3: And that's when you start seeing substantial pushback, right. And
Speaker 3: stage four is what I like to call devil's advocate, right,
Speaker 3: like this idea that I'm pushing back, but it's for
Speaker 3: the good of the company. It's not you know, it's
Speaker 3: not bad. It's not because I disagree with equity. I
Speaker 3: just don't know if we can get this through compliance,
Speaker 3: all right, And five is so you get it, you know,
Speaker 3: you answer compliance questions, but they're still pushback, right, like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not sure if this is a real
Speaker 3: cultural fit, right, I'm not sure if we have the
Speaker 3: time right. And at that stage is when you have
Speaker 3: to start wondering is this pushback legitimate, right, and you
Speaker 3: start seeing it might not be right, this might this
Speaker 3: actually might be all deliberate speed right, this actually might be.
Speaker 2: Slowing down of the process. And stage six is naming
Speaker 2: it and.
Speaker 3: Saying, I think that this pushback is actually racist, bias, sexist,
Speaker 3: whatever it might be. And I think there's no problem
Speaker 3: with hanging a sign on a bathroom that says everybody.
Speaker 2: I don't actually think we have to go through compliance.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 3: I think I just have to buy a sign, and
Speaker 3: I think I just have to put it on the
Speaker 3: bathroom and then everyone will know they're welcome in this bathroom. Right,
Speaker 3: you have to actually name and then get to stage Sepman,
Speaker 3: which is you just buy the sign, right, you just
Speaker 3: make the higher you you know, you just decide that
Speaker 3: you're going to act with integrity, and that's when you
Speaker 3: can actually have impact. But often most businesses do one
Speaker 3: through for they get the pushback. They don't want to
Speaker 3: go through the pushback, so they wait until four years later,
Speaker 3: there's another George Floyd, they make another commitment. There's another
Speaker 3: Pulse Nightclub, they make another commitment, right, And and that's
Speaker 3: how the cycle of equity for a lot of companies
Speaker 3: and corporations are. And so I wanted to be able
Speaker 3: to say these stages so that people could see what
Speaker 3: they were getting.
Speaker 2: Hung up on.
Speaker 3: And I also wanted to delegitimize the pushback because what
Speaker 3: I have found with these companies is the pushback oftentime
Speaker 3: is culture not legal. We make it legal right because
Speaker 3: we you know, we don't actually want to push it
Speaker 3: back right. We don't actually want to maybe get an
Speaker 3: outside council to look at it right. We don't want
Speaker 3: to do those extra steps. So it's just easier to
Speaker 3: cover your ass and just you know, wait till you
Speaker 3: have to go to stage one again and just let
Speaker 3: things down in stage four.
Speaker 1: You know, I think too, where the struggle comes is
Speaker 1: honestly that nobody wants to struggle, right, Because what I
Speaker 1: realize about getting woke about reaching a level of consciousness
Speaker 1: is that that requires work. Right, it is much easier
Speaker 1: to just hire within my network of people who look
Speaker 1: like me, pray like me, you know, love like me,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. Right, and the easier
Speaker 1: that things can be made, that is always going to
Speaker 1: be the default that corporations, organizations revert to. So now
Speaker 1: basically where we are politically is that the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has made it easier once again to discriminate. Right, they
Speaker 1: have said, oh, you know, all that work you've been
Speaker 1: doing over the last forty somemighty years, fuck it. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't really need to to do it, so just
Speaker 1: you know, wash your hands of the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, if you even have the
Speaker 1: word dee n I together, right, we're coming after you.
Speaker 1: This is the plan of the right wing.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, whether it's a black woman's VC company, right, knowing
Speaker 1: that black women get zero point one percent of VC funding,
Speaker 1: so they come up with a fund that can fund
Speaker 1: black women entrepreneurs, and now they're being sued by white
Speaker 1: supremacists for being racist. The cat is out of the bag.
Speaker 1: So if now it's been now legalized, discrimination is back
Speaker 1: in vogue. How do you even begin to incentivize people
Speaker 1: who were already lazy to begin with in their work
Speaker 1: around consciousness.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, Danielle. And you know the worst part
Speaker 3: about everything you said, besides it being true, all right,
Speaker 3: is that the Supreme Court case was only about education.
Speaker 2: Right, And we were so we meaning.
Speaker 3: The US, not we as an individuals, but as a country,
Speaker 3: we were so ready to cast this into the garbage
Speaker 3: right that we didn't even need to work through the
Speaker 3: nuance because the right was ready, you know, the I
Speaker 3: mean the left, we're reeling off a book ba right
Speaker 3: off of the fifty ways they're doing this right now.
Speaker 3: And companies, as you said, a lot of them don't
Speaker 3: want this smooth, right. A lot of them feel as
Speaker 3: straight white men, am I becoming irrelevant? But this is
Speaker 3: where you know, I think it's important for us to
Speaker 3: sit in facts, science, and even their own data, right,
Speaker 3: because at the end of the day, when we're talking
Speaker 3: about DEI, we're talking about the way I like to
Speaker 3: call it is it's civil rights for corporations, all right,
Speaker 3: Like that's basically.
Speaker 4: What DEI is, and what people are understanding is that
Speaker 4: it's not about it's nice to do it's about it's profitable, right,
Speaker 4: And in business, none of us show up to business
Speaker 4: to not get paid, right, So I don't need people
Speaker 4: in business to like me to whatever.
Speaker 3: Right. I need to bring in my value and I
Speaker 3: need to get a return on that value that I
Speaker 3: bring into a company. And what we know is that
Speaker 3: diverse teams are thirty four percent more profitable.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: What we know is that women led teams get twenty
Speaker 3: one percent more patents in Silicon Valley. And what we
Speaker 3: also know and smart CEOs know this, right. And I'm
Speaker 3: not just saying the ones who hire me, but there
Speaker 3: are other ones I talk about in this book. What
Speaker 3: they know is that right now, politics, employees and consumers
Speaker 3: are very different groups of people. And if you're going
Speaker 3: to say that, well, our country is fifty to fifty
Speaker 3: because you're looking at voting, what you're not understanding And
Speaker 3: you and I know this, and you know a lot
Speaker 3: of your listeners know this. Right. We're talking about half
Speaker 3: of the half of a half of the American population, yep. Right.
Speaker 3: If you're running a company, you care about who can
Speaker 3: buy and who can work. Yet it's a very different
Speaker 3: demographic then who goes out and votes on the first
Speaker 3: Tuesday of November, and I think the smarter companies and
Speaker 3: what we're going to see just like the smarter states. Right,
Speaker 3: what we see is, you know, countries and states that
Speaker 3: are more progressive have higher GDPs. Right, this is a
Speaker 3: UN study, Right. What we're going to see is these
Speaker 3: companies aren't going to be able to keep up and
Speaker 3: they're not going to be able to compete in a
Speaker 3: global economy where a majority of a country is brown
Speaker 3: and non English speaking unless they actually have people who
Speaker 3: don't only come to work black, but be at work
Speaker 3: black and bring that. You know, they don't only come
Speaker 3: to work bround, but they be brown when they're at work.
Speaker 3: That's how you're going to get the products, services, and
Speaker 3: top notch talent to maintain. You know, a competitive edge technology.
Speaker 3: AI is not going to save you the people who
Speaker 3: help you know how to use AI so that you
Speaker 3: can sell something there. You're cutting edge there, your competitive advantage.
Speaker 1: You know. I want to go down what I often
Speaker 1: do here and forgive me a dark path for a moment,
Speaker 1: which is that I'm not so sure that the right
Speaker 1: wing I'm just staying on politics for a minute, actually
Speaker 1: give a damn about anyone being profitable outside of their donors.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if what is appealing to us as
Speaker 1: both consumers and workers, which is to be in a
Speaker 1: place of diversity, equity and inclusion, right, Like what do
Speaker 1: they say about gen Z right and you know the
Speaker 1: numbers that.
Speaker 2: You know they take a pay cut, they'll.
Speaker 1: Take a pay cut to work and a place that
Speaker 1: is mission aligned, right that they will they'll make less
Speaker 1: because they already know they're not buying the house like
Speaker 1: their like their parents did, because they can't afford it, right,
Speaker 1: So their their values are very different than what gen X,
Speaker 1: the boomers and up you know, were I wonder, however,
Speaker 1: with the policy decisions that we're seeing rolled out in
Speaker 1: these red right wing states and the attacks that we're seeing,
Speaker 1: if they are still all about money even though that
Speaker 1: they're white supremact Like, it doesn't make sense. So help
Speaker 1: me make it make sense. Because what I have been
Speaker 1: talking about here on this show and others is America
Speaker 1: is about to experience a brain drain, that's right. And
Speaker 1: I want you to be able to talk about hip
Speaker 1: us to why this doesn't seem to necessarily register with
Speaker 1: the people who are on the attack, who require workers
Speaker 1: in order to make the wealth that allows them to
Speaker 1: fly high.
Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Right. So I have a section in my book that
Speaker 3: asked the question, are we greedy or are we racist?
Speaker 2: Right? Because we're told as capital isn't in both the
Speaker 2: d right.
Speaker 3: Because we're told right, Well, the thing about capitalism is
Speaker 3: just about greed. It's about the almighty dollar, right, da
Speaker 3: da da da da. Well, if that's the case, then
Speaker 3: you should want women led teams. Right. If that's the case,
Speaker 3: If it is just about your greed, because that's what
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 2: You don't worry about race, sex or whatever.
Speaker 3: Men, you should start worrying about race or sex because
Speaker 3: that actually helps your greed.
Speaker 2: Right now, is greed good? We can have that conversation
Speaker 2: on another time. Right.
Speaker 3: But what we're seeing right is this break with the
Speaker 3: right and business. Right, Bob Iger never thought in a
Speaker 3: million years that he was going to have the governor
Speaker 3: of Florida come for him.
Speaker 2: Right, he bought that man.
Speaker 3: Probably right, I'm sure we could go back and look
Speaker 3: at the checks and right. These are politicians that had
Speaker 3: already been bought and sold, and now they're pushing back
Speaker 3: on things that are bad for business. Disney can't become homophobic.
Speaker 3: Bob Iger knows that, right. And what Bob Bieger also
Speaker 3: knows is that Ron DeSantis can't afford to build a
Speaker 3: jail next to the most magical spot on Earth.
Speaker 2: Right. And so folks CEOs.
Speaker 3: Like Bob Iger right, who are who are getting attacked.
Speaker 3: The ones who come out most successfully are the ones
Speaker 3: who are standing up.
Speaker 2: To those right wing politicians. Right.
Speaker 3: You know, you look at Budweiser, right, they decided to capitulate,
Speaker 3: and what happened They got all of us mad. Right.
Speaker 3: At first you just had the homophobe was mad, but
Speaker 3: then you decided to capitulate, So then we all had
Speaker 3: to get mad at you and backup Dylan right, and
Speaker 3: again this separation. You know a lot of CEOs that
Speaker 3: I know, yeah, they're you know, they like to say
Speaker 3: they're fiscally conservative, right, they're not fascist, right, and they
Speaker 3: don't want to be. They don't want their daughters out
Speaker 3: or sons asking them why they're fascist.
Speaker 2: And those are the CEOs.
Speaker 3: That are going to succeed, right, Those are the CEOs
Speaker 3: that are going to keep running their companies. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, your point is such an important one because
Speaker 3: we remember in the civil rights movement, right, rather than integrating,
Speaker 3: they burnt down.
Speaker 2: The place, yep.
Speaker 3: And that's what they're doing with the country now, right,
Speaker 3: Yah got elected and they're like burned down the whole thing.
Speaker 3: But I don't know if everyone's going to let them
Speaker 3: do that, right, And I don't know if business is
Speaker 3: going to business has a lot invested in America as
Speaker 3: a country.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if they're going to.
Speaker 3: Allow our economy to become a pivotal economy, to become
Speaker 3: a regional economy like Russia. Right.
Speaker 2: You know, they're already calling us a pivotal power.
Speaker 3: Right. Businesses don't like that, right, And so now finding
Speaker 3: that journey is going to be hard because they're not
Speaker 3: well practiced.
Speaker 2: Right, What do they know of liberation?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: They don't right, right, But what they know is.
Speaker 3: That there's more Spanish and French speaking people in this
Speaker 3: world than there are straight white men, and that those
Speaker 3: people need to wear sneakers and need you know, and
Speaker 3: are making choices about what dis showed to buy, right,
Speaker 3: And and so that struggle is real.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the examples that I talk about in my book,
Speaker 3: and actually, Danielle, you and I I think we're working,
Speaker 3: you know, working together. At the time was all these
Speaker 3: business folks started responding for George Floyd like we have
Speaker 3: never seen that, right, Oscar Grant, Michael bron Like.
Speaker 2: It was a state civic people.
Speaker 3: Conversation, right, and businesses sort of just minded their business.
Speaker 3: But when George Floyd happened, we had no government support, right.
Speaker 3: There was like I mean even Reagan came out during
Speaker 3: Rodney King, right, but instead we had a president who
Speaker 3: came out and both sided the issue. And business understood
Speaker 3: at that point that they had to be the adult
Speaker 3: in the room, right, that they were the power. So
Speaker 3: now you have Jamie Diamond taking a knee, putting his
Speaker 3: fists up in the air, right, and then three weeks
Speaker 3: later he's going to tell his shareholders to vote against
Speaker 3: the Civil rights on it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: But they knew at that moment that they had to
Speaker 3: stop the burning, and they would have preferred government to
Speaker 3: do it, but government wasn't doing it. But they couldn't
Speaker 3: have natives be restless. And I think that are that's
Speaker 3: what we have to That's an opening for us. It's
Speaker 3: an opportunity because whether they believe it or not, from
Speaker 3: the minute they decided we were chattel, we were inextrictedly
Speaker 3: linked to their economy.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this last question because I think
Speaker 1: that we're in a in a quandary, right, We're in
Speaker 1: a we're in a moment, right. And you you have
Speaker 1: work shoulder to shoulder with civil rights leaders, you have
Speaker 1: built movements and social accelerators, and now you are, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at the future, looking at the present space that
Speaker 1: D and I is in, but also looking to the future.
Speaker 1: So tell us, in your view, right, what does the
Speaker 1: future of D and I look like? You know, can
Speaker 1: you paint a picture for us? And not only what
Speaker 1: does it look like, but what does it feel like?
Speaker 1: Because right now it does not feel good or possible.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: And you know I think so DEI for me is inevitable, right.
Speaker 3: And the reason why I say that is because that's
Speaker 3: just how how we're making babies right now, all right,
Speaker 3: It's how we're achieving as black women right now.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: If you you know, if you want to only hire
Speaker 3: people with college degrees, we'll guess what the most educated
Speaker 3: demographic are black women. So you're going to have to
Speaker 3: hire us, right, And does that mean that America makes
Speaker 3: it through right that those are our larger you know, conversations.
Speaker 3: But as far as DEI, women aren't going anywhere in
Speaker 3: the workplace, Black people aren't going anywhere in the workplace.
Speaker 2: You know, we are going to we may call it
Speaker 2: something different.
Speaker 3: Right. When I started this work, it was called affirmative action, right,
Speaker 3: and then it was called diversity, and then it was
Speaker 3: called diversity inclusion, and now it's de I b A
Speaker 3: blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: Right, the same journey as LGBTQ.
Speaker 1: Right, we become more and more precise right about, right.
Speaker 2: About what we mean. And that's important.
Speaker 3: And you know, we may have to call it wink wink, nudge, nudge, right,
Speaker 3: but whatever we're going to call it, we're gonna call
Speaker 3: it that. And we're going to continue to fight for
Speaker 3: our value to be seen in this in this country
Speaker 3: that we build. You know, I want to say, you know,
Speaker 3: to your point about the brain drain, I want us
Speaker 3: to lean into that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I want part of d E and I to be
Speaker 3: us being you know, h a privileged diaspora. How we
Speaker 3: go out and help other diasporas humbly, right and with
Speaker 3: humility in finding our own liberation through leaving right. But
Speaker 3: you know, Marcus Garvey wasn't able to sell out. Neither
Speaker 3: was Harriet Tubman. So I don't know if that's a
Speaker 3: realistic journey for us as a people, but I do
Speaker 3: think it's a realistic journey for us as individuals, and
Speaker 3: we should think about that, you know, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't think we need to use our resiliency for Jim
Speaker 3: pro fascism, come on, right, So you know, I I
Speaker 3: don't want us, you know, us to have to mammy
Speaker 3: this country to.
Speaker 2: You know, back to health.
Speaker 3: But I do think that this country will inevitably be brown,
Speaker 3: will be more Spanish, right, be more Asian, and will
Speaker 3: be more progressive. And whether it does that with or
Speaker 3: without the government, you know, we have many examples, right,
Speaker 3: whether that's Russia or you know, South Africa, right, we
Speaker 3: have examples of countries deciding to change and not to change, right,
Speaker 3: And that really is going, you know, is going to
Speaker 3: be up to these young people, which is really what
Speaker 3: I'm happy for, because God knows they have a better
Speaker 3: grasp on liberation than anything we're putting forth right.
Speaker 1: Now, Lord Jesus, Well, my friend Malia Lazou, let me
Speaker 1: tell you something. It has been far too long since
Speaker 1: we've been in conversation. I'm always grateful for you, but
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful for this book, this work, this conversation
Speaker 1: that you are having, Folks. It is from intention to impact,
Speaker 1: a practical guide to diversity, equity and inclusion. And if
Speaker 1: you were looking for a way, if you were in
Speaker 1: this field, if you're in any field and you're looking
Speaker 1: for a way to navigate this moment, this is the
Speaker 1: book for you, Malia. Thank you, and I hope that
Speaker 1: it will not be years until you join us again.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends, on wokef
Speaker 1: as always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.