I ordered 6 books on Black Americans and I have been reading daily for two weeks now. I have been doing anti-racist work and multicultural leadership development for 2 decades, including interethnic relations leadership development intensive training with Asian American Justice in Los Angeles, formerly Asian Pacific American Legal Center for several years.
When I managed a multicultural staff in a state public health agency, I trained all, with my talented and equally anti-racist team of supervisors who reported to me, using a theme of
“We are leaders, We are learners, We are teachers.”
It presupposes we can all learn from one another but it also carried a responsibility that we are all accountable to one another to grow ourselves so we can teach others in the team. It was my best days in life.
What my multicultural staff did not know was how I was victimized by a toxic management propagated by white male supremacists who stacked advantages of training and opportunities for whites. My darkest periods put me in a hospital from internal bleeding for 3 months, mediation with my white bosses and a Latino boss, with skilled civil rights facilitators, a white male and an Asian female.
I succeeded in getting middle management and upper management trained in hate crimes prevention and sexual harassment prevention training. An 8-hour training did not produce miraculous conversions of hearts but I had a full year of peace to complete training of my entire staff before retirement. No monetary damages, I simply wanted folks to be promoted on merit and without racial favorites of white males and white female preferences over more qualified folks of color.
How long ago was that? Since 1992 to 2004.
In the meantime, community folks pushed me to new experiences, one of which was Vagina Monologues directed by Jon Lawrence Rivera and produced by Ted Benito. Little did they know they were helping me heal from the ravages of white male supremacy.
To this day, most of the community folks I have worked with donot know the full measure of harm and toxicity I experienced. My family did, as they supported me. Documenting daily what I experience is part of healing my soul.