🛋️ Therapist and author Resmaa Menakem defined trauma not as an event, but as the body’s protective reflex to an event. He quite famously describes trauma as anything that happens “too much, too soon, or too fast” without a reparative healing experience.

🛋️ In other words, trauma isn’t the event itself but the body’s response to events that feel overwhelming or dangerous.

🛋️ What I found most liberating about this definition is that the individual has agency in determining what is “too much, too soon, or too fast” for themselves, not someone who is treating them, counseling them, guiding them, or mentoring them.

🛋️ Trauma is stored in the muscles, nerves, and brain architecture…and we know it.

🛋️ All this to say, I listened to President Obama talk with All The Smoke today about hope and how nothing we are experiencing at the moment is completely without salve or resolve. In other words, there’s nothing new under the sun. Been there, done that.

🛋️ At the same time, I feel we do have unprecedented awareness of our mental health, physical health, and more language to describe how we are uniquely affected…

🛋️ We should have unprecedented expectations about how our bodies account for the trauma of at least the last 6 - 10 years.

🛋️We should have unprecedented tools to create trauma-informed *waving around to every corner* everything.

🛋️ We should have unprecedented approaches to heal from all of it.

🛋️ Those I met as a young person recall the Great Depression, fleeing war or seeking asylum, and other unconscionable experiences? I am closer to understanding the pain you were trying to convey.

🛋️ My goal is to keep account, bolster my ecosystem around my holistic health, and ensure I’m around to give context when my grands are taking their AP History exams. I’m sure the books will leave stuff out, but I won’t. COVID wasn’t just a head cold, the president wasn’t just a vain guy, and Congress wasn’t just on a smoke break.

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Matthew 22:34-40

34: But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.

35: Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, saying,

36: Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37: Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38: This is the first and great commandment.

39: And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

40: On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Many moons ago --- I won’t tell you HOW many moons ago -- I was born near the seat of the Civil War. Altavista, Virginia. Campbell County. That part of Southern Virginia that people simply forget about. Anything other than Northern Virginia, Richmond, and the Beach just doesn’t exist unless you remind folks of who you are and who your neighbors are. The part of the state where high school mascots are named for military ranks – Colonels, Generals, Patriots, Lancers – as a daily reminder of the Union and Confederacy without ever blatantly saying who was on which side of history. Folks throw Confederate flags and “Jeff Davis Highway” around in conversation like the average person would stroll down Main Street.

I was raised there, being in the Baptist church from the womb, and situated in corners of questionable Christians. It was nothing to just randomly go to dinner with family and friends in LYNCHBURG, Virginia only to be seated next to Jerry Falwell, Sr. and his family before his death. Oh, we knew who our most famous neighbor was. Admittedly, as someone who was raised in nice-nasty Christian traditions, I was taught that being part of the LGBT community was a sin, full stop. I’m not talking about March on Washington and stop same-sex marriage opposition, but that quiet opposition that sat in judgment without ever being challenged with the Word of God. Many in my community believed (and still believe) in Falwell’s teaching and preaching. After leaving my tiny hometown and heading off to college to study for myself, I found that Jerry Falwell, this mountainous theologian said some messed up sh*t…just go do your homework.

· In 1981, his letter on the “Homosexual Revolution” claimed that gay rights groups wanted to create a quote “unisexual society” to transform America into a “modern day Sodom and Gomorrah”.

· During the AIDS Epidemic, he drew intense controversy in the 1980s by asserting that the AIDS crisis was God’s punishment not just for homosexual behavior, but for a society that tolerated it.

· In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 Attacks, Falwell appeared on the 700 Club and said that pagans, abortionist, feminists and the gays and lesbians shared the blame because their actions had angered God and caused America to lose divine protection. He later issued an apology publicly for linking the attacks to the LGBT community and other groups.

Although Jerry Falwell, Sr. had forever lost trust with many of the LGBT community and their allies in 1999, he hosted a historic forum for 200 gay and lesbian Christians and 200 of his own congregants at Liberty University maintaining that homosexuality was still a sin but urging Christians to quote “love the Sinner more than we hate the sin”. He also voiced support for basic fair treatment stating in a 2005 interview with the Human Rights Campaign that basic housing and employment protections were fundamental rights and should not be denied to anyone.

Even in death I do not trust this man his philosophies on Jesus, love, and how we as faithful people should show up in the world for our siblings, but especially our LGBTQ+ siblings.

WISDOM FROM THE SCRIPTURES. Our Wisdom from the Scriptures in Matthew 22 is the easiest HARD thing we’ll ever have to do. Speaking to Jesus, it says:

36: Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37: Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

If that wasn’t clear enough priority, he was asked for a second…

39: And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

Today’s theme is: Neighborism & the Platinum Rule

CONCEPTS. Let’s focus on 2 major constructs to lay the foundation of our love and allyship. The first is being a NEIGHBOR or specifically, NEIGHBORISM.

In January of this year, Adam Serwer wrote an article entitled, “Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong: The pushback against ICE exposed a series of mistaken assumptions.” You see, The Cold People (as I call them) assumed that being neighborly didn’t require us to get involved. We could be neighborly by simply drawing the blinds closed and peeking out to see what’s going on, but never putting our souls, minds, or bodies in the way. Serwer coined the term “neighborism” when reflecting on Minnesota’s resistance to The Cold People. He said, “If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism” – a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from.” It’s a shared conviction that motivates residents’ commitment to protecting people with whom they live side by side. Frauke Steffens – a New York based writer said, “community becomes a political concept” that “offers an alternative vision for the future than that of MAGA.”

Steffans goes on to say, “Communities are created not through socioeconomic equivalence or by excluding those who are different. Communities arise through acknowledging our differences at the same time as we work to maintain what we hold in common. When we share the sidewalk, we are able to notice one another, exchange a greeting, or sometimes have a longer conversation. It is community by choice AND community by design.”

Many moons ago, as I was detoxing myself from a hateful upbringing against the LGBT community, I had to ask myself, “Am I being a good neighbor? Am I being neighborly? Do I care about others despite the differences?” My answer was a resounding – MAYBE. I’ve got things that I need to work on to be deemed an ally, but I do vehemently care about others despite difference. It was then when I needed to get real about how I should live that out.

The second major construct that we don’t think about is the Platinum Rule. You might say, wait a minute. I’ve known about the Golden Rule since I was a little kid. Treat others the way I want to be treated. As someone who is constantly trying to find a faithful path -- that’s not always easy. Shoot, sometimes I’m not even clear on how I want to be treated. But Shaunna, now you’re calling me to a higher plane, the PLATINUM RULE?!

The Platinum Rule is this – treat people the way THEY want to be treated.

Let me give you a small example. Let’s say you’re my friend and you’re coming to dinner. I decide that I’m going to make sure you have a sumptuous meal – steak, baked potatoes, shrimp or lobster on the side, mac and cheese – some of my guilty favorites. I might even give you an adult beverage on the side. (You see I didn’t mention not one vegetable!) I’ve made this order out of love…MY love. Not your love – if you’re pescatarian, or vegetarian, or have a food allergy, or you simply don’t want what I’ve offered. I’ve prepared what I wanted, not what you desired…and we do this in our daily interactions, even with the best intentions, we have terrible outcomes.

Being a good neighbor and the Platinum rule – as fundamental as they are – are fully predicated on the example of loving ourselves.

How in the WORLD, can I love you enough to make sure your basic human needs are covered, when I haven’t prioritized that for myself?

How in the WORLD, can I love you enough to make sure that you have access to nutritious food, health care, safe neighborhoods, and a full education, if I haven’t prioritized that for myself?

How in the WORLD, can I love you enough to make sure that your mental health is supported, when I haven’t prioritized that for myself?

I would dare to say this – we say we love ourselves – individually and in community -- but our actions say something completely different. If the template of love is flawed, then the duplicate has no chance.

Questionable neighborism and no Platinum Rule in place leaves us with:

· A mass shooting at the PULSE, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016 where Omar Mateen took the lives of 49 people and wounded 58 during “Latin Night” where most victims were of Latino descent.

· The Emanuel 9, who were shot in Bible study on June 17, 2015 where Dylann Storm Roof briefly reconsidered his planned actions because of how nice they were to him. I’ve walked up the very stairs that Roof climbed, Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, the very place where President Obama sung Amazing Grace during the homegoing services for Senior Pastor & State Senator Rev. Clementa Pinckney. Roof is the first person to face the death penalty on both state and federal charges at the same time – personally saying that he wanted to start a race war – the very opposite of love.

· Juneteenth, a time of celebration of freedom that still frustrates those who are unwilling to acknowledge that they lost the fight over slavery.

· Operation Metro Surge – the continued and renewed persecution in Minnesota, even after the deaths of Renee Good in front of her wife, and Alex Pretti, a VA nurse simply attempting to be neighborly to a fallen woman.

So let me ask this:

CAN WE BE NEIGHBORS WHEN WE DON’T LOVE OURSELVES FULLY?

CAN WE BE ALLIES WHEN IT’S PREDICATED ON SELFISH LOVE RATHER THAN SELFLESS ABANDON?

CAN WE PERFECT THE PLATINUM RULE, WHEN WE’RE STILL PRACTICING THE GOLDEN RULE?

The second commandment: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” is loaded and problematic (in the best of ways). Usually, we assume that we aren’t loving our neighbors enough or even loving them at all. I boldly suggest that the only reason neighborism doesn’t work is because…THYSELF…we don’t love ourselves. How in the world, can I love my neighbor as myself if I don’t love myself, the prerequisite to allyship?

Here’s how I suggest we move forward. Do not take these sequentially but this is simultaneous work, if you will:

· Love and respect yourself. The songstress and poet Jill Scott in her song, My Petition said,

o I want fresh food, clean water, air that I don’t see

o I want the feeling of being safe on my streets

o I want my children to be smarter than me

o I wanna feel free.

o I wanna have faith in you, I really do, but you keep lying to me and it hurts.

o I believe, I believe you (THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) owe it me.

o Give it to me like you said you would

We must love and respect ourselves enough to follow through on our own promises.

· Listen, learn, and explore what our LGBT siblings want. Pay attention. Constant absorption of the true goals of our individual and collective strivings are paramount. The old saying, “Nothing about us, without us” is applicable here. As striving allies, we must be clear on what our siblings need and want so that the fight is even clearer.

· Sacrifice. Neighborism requires sacrifice. What are we willing to give up to make the world a more just place for our LGBTQ+ siblings? I know about sacrifice…

That sacrifice I made when I bought my first new car in grad school as a hall director, but because I advocated for LGBT students to have their own student organization, that fresh coat of paint was carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey with expletives.

That sacrifice I made when I was up for ordination many moons ago and had to appeal the “no” vote because I was researching LGBT students and their spirituality in graduate school. It took more time and more headache, but that dissertation wasn’t changing. It was a passion project.

That emotional sacrifice I made when one of my lesbian University of Maryland students died by suicide because she literally couldn’t take the bullying anymore. I had to make that call for final arrangements. I’ll never forget it, nor should I.

Because the reality is…Jesus spent a whole lot of time standing up to bullies. Being the neighbor. Employing the platinum rule. So, I often throw back to Captain Latanya Simms message when she mentioned being skeptical. I am skeptical of our Christian neighbors, I’m even skeptical of the Christ in me at times, but never skeptical of Christ.

You see, when we really get down to brass tacks, we realize that neighborism and the Platinum Rule are simply two sides of the same theological coin. Love. Love without reservation. Love without condition. Love when it hurts. Love when you’re confused. Love when we’ve got to give up something. Love when hate is easier. Love when hate is more popular. Love even when it looks like hate. Love when you look in the mirror. Love when you look down the street. Love even when its very nature is turned into a slur like “woke”.

My personal theology – after being saved since the age of 12 – still stands on this Pride Month 2026 and Fathers’ Day:

I’d rather be hated for who I love than loved for who I hate. I hate no one, I wish ill on no one. I believe in mirrors. The mirror of the Platinum Rule shows us that we as Americans and faithful allies sometimes like Whiteness, straightness, and American-ness more than anything else. More than our LGBT siblings, more than women, more than children, more than Black and brown people, more than veterans, more than disabled folks, more than…the Jesus we use as a symbolic fathead poster rather than mirroring His actions. Even before I met The Open Church, my theology and my work was the work of radical, uncomfortable, and complex love, inclusion, empathy, and accountability.

Neighborism and the Platinum Rule don’t work unless YOU work it within you.

I suggest that we all get to work.

Thanks be to God.

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For organizations that care about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), this shift presents a pivotal moment. AI – like any other tool -- is not neutral. It reflects the data we feed it, the systems we build, and the values we prioritize. As a result, AI is becoming both a risk and an opportunity for advancing diversity, equity, and, inclusion. The question is no longer whether AI will intersect with equity efforts—but how intentionally organizations will shape that intersection and course-correct if needed.

How ARE We Using AI?

One of the most striking insights from The Insider: New Data on How We’re Really Using AI is that people are increasingly using AI not only for work tasks, but also for emotional support, relationships, and decision-making. This trend matters deeply for DEI. When individuals—particularly those from underrepresented or marginalized communities—turn to AI for guidance, they are placing trust in systems that do not fully reflect their lived experiences and may be built in diametric opposition to their realities.

Here’s what can happen at work:

• If AI models are trained predominantly on dominant cultural perspectives, they may reinforce bias – adding salt to an already open wound.

• If AI is used for career advice, hiring, or feedback, it can reproduce and amplify inequities already present in pathways to and through the workplace.

• If AI becomes a “work buddy,” as mentioned in the report, it may mediate how people engage with colleagues, manage conflict, or perceive belonging.

“Thinkslop” and Equity Erosion

The concept of “thinkslop”—where individuals outsource portions of their thinking to AI—raises a critical DEI concern. If people increasingly rely on AI to structure ideas, write communications, or analyze information, we risk:

• Homogenization of voices: AI-generated language may unintentionally standardize tone and perspective, erasing cultural nuance. Trust me. My 15-year-old used an AI agent to write the first draft of his student council speech. Needless to say, it sounded like any kid wrote it out of thousands at his high school. Try again, son.

• Loss of authentic storytelling: Diverse voices often challenge dominant narratives; overreliance on AI could dilute that impact. Run and watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s “The Danger of a Single Story” which explains a lot.

• Reduced cognitive ownership: Employees may defer to AI outputs even when those outputs reflect biased assumptions – solely because it’s quicker and “good enough” rather than intentional and excellent. My mentor always told me, “Expedience is the enemy of equity.”

For diversity, equity, and inclusion practitioners and strategists, this means the work is no longer just about amplifying underrepresented voices—it is also about ensuring that technology does not silence them, standardize them, or make them impotent.

In order to shape how we use AI, organizations must actively cultivate “critical AI literacy”—the ability to question, interpret, and challenge AI-generated content, especially through Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) approaches. Without this, equity efforts risk being undermined by invisible algorithmic influence that anyone with DEI experience will ironically see.

Better Business with AI

The article also notes that most business use of AI is currently producing “modest, uncontroversial wins,” rather than fundamentally transforming processes. This reality offers a window of opportunity that could create productive discomfort for us all. Because AI adoption is still evolving, organizations can build equity into systems before they consider scaling it. Consider key workplace applications:

1. Hiring and Talent Management

AI tools are increasingly used to screen resumes, assess candidates, and recommend hiring decisions. If not carefully designed, these systems can reinforce multiple forms of bias. However, when built intentionally, they can:

• Reduce human bias in initial screening

• Identify overlooked talent pools

• Standardize evaluation criteria

The difference lies in governance—who designs the system, what data it uses, and how outcomes are monitored.

2. Performance and Decision Support

AI-driven “enhanced decision-making” can empower leaders, but it can also obscure accountability. WHO is responsible when things go left…and who should we reward when things go right? For DEI, transparency becomes essential. Employees must understand:

• How decisions are influenced by AI

• What data inputs shape outcomes

• How bias is mitigated

Without this transparency, AI may deepen mistrust—particularly among employees who have historically experienced inequity in organizational systems. These very same groups of folks will never flock to use AI because they see AI as adding to their workplace headaches.

3. Career Development and Access

AI-powered career advice tools can democratize access to mentorship and guidance. For organizations, this presents an opportunity to:

• Extend support to employees who may lack informal networks

• Provide personalized development pathways

• Reduce reliance on subjective sponsorship models

However, equity depends on ensuring that recommendations lean toward multi-faceted social capital, multi-hyphenate professional, and the nuance that adds excellence to the very work we do.

Autonomous Agentic Operations

Looking ahead, one of the most transformative trends mentioned in the report is the rise of “autonomous agentic operations”—AI systems that act on behalf of users. This evolution has profound implications for DEI:

• Decision Delegation: When AI agents act independently, who is accountable for outcomes?

• Bias at Scale: Automated actions can amplify bias faster and more widely than human decisions.

• Power Shifts: Control over AI systems may concentrate influence among those who design or manage them.

For DEI leaders, this means expanding their scope. Inclusion is no longer limited to policies and culture—it must extend to the design and governance of intelligent systems. It will be crucial to embed equity in AI design, build AI literacy across the organization, prioritize transparency and trust, and if nothing else? Preserve human-centered inclusion.

The difference will not be determined by technology alone. It will be determined by leadership, values, and the willingness to ask hard questions about power, bias, and inclusion.

Let’s talk about it…leave a comment below.

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Boards succeed when they stay strategic, manage relationships deliberately, and refresh leadership for each organizational phase. Instead, due to lack of time, money, relationships, or equity – Boards end up getting too far down in the weeds, fumble through relationships with their Board colleagues and stay as long as they are allowed to obliterate term limits.

Based on my experience being on Boards, working with Boards, or liaising with Boards, here are five painful problems and practical fixes I use with boards to restore clarity, trust, and impact.

Painful Problem #1: Governance Creep into Operations: I know that nonprofit staff start to cuss when they see Board members coming. Boards are usually well-intentioned and passionate about their work; however, that same passion causes Board members to creep down into day‑to‑day management. This creates confusion, slow decisions, and demoralizes staff.

Practical Fix: Re-establish the policy/management boundary by adopting a one‑page governance charter that lists decisions reserved for the board, decisions delegated to the Executive Director / CEO, and escalation triggers that let them know when to step in (e.g., budget variances >10%). Use a standing decision-making rubric so routine operational reports are accepted without re‑litigation.

Painful Problem #2: Personality Types and Role Fit: Diverse personalities are an asset until they derail meetings. Usually the strongest personalities are the loudest…or, you may have a strong Board member demonstrate their resistance in a plethora of ways, including silence.

Practical Fix: Map role expectations to temperament during recruitment: fundraisers, connectors, and critical thinkers each need different onboarding and committee placements. Introduce a short behavioral norms agreement at the start of every meeting (two minutes) and a conflict‑resolution protocol for when debates become personal.

Painful Problem #3: Trust Deficits or Surpluses: Boards suffer both from too little trust (paralysis, micromanagement) and too much (groupthink, lack of oversight). Both can destroy a nonprofit with a wildfire misplaced trust, undeserved suspicion, and little to know execution of ideas

Practical Fix: Diagnose trust with two simple metrics: percentage of agenda items decided without dissent, and frequency of follow‑up questions or assumptions. If dissent is absent, introduce questions from different perspectives via rotation; if follow‑up is constant, strengthen committee review, internal reporting, and transparency.

Painful Problem #4. Stale Thought Leadership for a New Phase. When an organization (especially a nonprofit) moves from startup to scale, Board thinking must shift from hands‑on problem solving to systems oversight. Ironically, most Board members have successfully implemented systems in other areas of influence (which is how they got on the Board to begin with), however it is still tough to pinpoint when it’s the right moment for system installation in a growing organization. It’s like a growing child – you know their clothes will never fit perfectly, but they certainly could fit better.

Practical Fix: Run a quarterly “phase check”: one board meeting per year devoted to strategic posture—risk appetite, growth scenarios, and succession planning. Refresh board composition with at least two seats targeted for skills the next phase requires (e.g., earned‑revenue, systems ops, or policy).

Painful Problem #5. Weak Committee Structure and Accountability. Committees that exist in name only waste time and resources. Absent of a charter that clarifies their direction, such committees can rarely provide metrics of what they accomplish from year to year.

Practical Fix: Right‑size committees, give them deliverables, and sunset them when the taxes in the charter are complete. Require each committee to present a one‑page workplan and at least one measurable outcome each quarter. This turns committees into engines of governance rather than filing cabinets with performative work.

Now, I know this sounds like a lot of work. (That’s where consultants like me come in – to be your sage companion while executing on this work.) Yet here are a few action items that you can use next month on your own:

• Draft a one‑page governance charter and circulate it with the next board packet.

• Adopt a decision-making rubric and a two‑minute norms check at every meeting.

• Run a skills gap audit and recruit two directors aligned to the organization’s next phase.

• Institute a quarterly strategic policy review meeting and a committee sunset review.

No matter how you how you slice it, no Board knows everything. Great Boards often need an outside hand to help it along the way. Consider where your Board needs the most help, then reach out to us for a little help.

I find no glory in witnessing cheating or cheaters. I find the high of fulfilment the second the accountability process begins.

Social media gives us glimpses of truth when viewed in context. After my algorithm started seeing more and more confrontations between cheaters and their scorned significant others, I realized that we do the same thing when it comes to our organization-wide DEI work. Let me explain myself.

Early in my career, I didn’t even realize that I WAS USUALLY THE SIDE CHICK.

Meaning, organizations would invite me in to do really great work by way of one-off training, speaking engagements, celebratory months like Women’s History Month and the like, only to go back to their main chick – homogenous, inequitable, and exclusive protocols, policies, and procedures organization-wide. Their MAIN CHICK was “how they’d always done it”. They were married to HER, but seeing my work on the side.

So, what happens when the social media confrontation comes to life in our organizations?

What happens when your organization sends the “Happy Mothers’ Day” message out to staff, then refuses to provide equitable pay, flexible scheduling, paid FMLA, or menopause policies…and then employees hold their organization to account?

What happens when your organization brags about being an environment that fosters psychological safety, then there is no accountability for bullies, harsh work environments, bias, actionable feedback and facilitating difficult dialogues?

The cheating keeps happening because – despite espousing better intentions -- no one is being held accountable individually or collectively.

Just a few months ago, I was working with an organization that was drafting more inclusive organizational policies. The policies were some of the simplest but powerful I’ve ever seen emerge from an organization. But when I asked, “What happens when folks don’t follow the policy?” there was an “a-ha” moment for everyone in the room. It had never crossed their minds that a policy wouldn’t be followed. It follows that they had never thought about what they would do WHEN the policy wasn’t followed. In other words…

• If there is no policy, or

• If there is never the presumption that a policy will be broken

• …There is never a need to create accountability structures.

So…when an organization is caught red-handed with espoused values and no parameters for those who move outside of those values, the organization is caught with their pants down.

In today’s professional landscape, accountability is the backbone of any meaningful DEI work. Without clear values, consequences and follow-through, policies become hollow promises, and inequitable behavior festers unchecked.

Now, I realize that DEI initiatives have been under scrutiny and attack, so the backlash can chill accountability. In other words, DEI cheating has been overlooked…and damn near encouraged. Too many organizations treat policies as decorative rather than actionable, allowing violations to slide and leaving affected employees without protection or recourse. Then, your organization is left with a combination of bad morale, bad reputation, and empty roles.

Faithful Organizations

This means that we have to build faithful organizations – those that have values and behaviors that match without allowing the infidels of exclusion, bias, and -isms into our work. Building a culture that is faithful to DEI is tough; but it’s impossible with accountability structures. Accountability itself isn’t a one-time fix; it’s a culture.

Practical Steps to Put Accountability into Action

1. Modeling. Embed accountability in leadership roles. Leaders must visibly champion DEI and be held to the same standards as their teams. IT SHOULD LITERALLY BE WRITTEN IN TO THEIR JOB DESCRIPTION, WITH METRICS. Now, this one can be slippery, especially due to power dynamics and the plethora of DEI education that makes it easy to say one thing and do another. Having a board, outside consultant, or audit that is not beholding to the same power dynamics can give an honest perspective on how “faithful” leaders are to this work in practice.

2. Clear Reporting. Yes, I’ve literally been asked to work with organizations that had no mechanism for reporting bad behavior toward the end game of accountability. Implement clear, accessible reporting mechanisms. Employees need safe ways to report exclusive or inequitable behavior so that organizations can be held accountable for doing something about it.

3. Data is Your Friend. Use data-driven insights. Tools like pulse checks, surveys, and regularly scheduled organizational health audits provide actionable feedback to identify problem areas and track progress.

4. Training. Train managers and teams by giving them a standard of behavior to model, expect, and maintain. Ongoing education on unconscious bias and inclusive leadership strengthens daily practice.

5. Execute Accountability. Follow through with consequences. Consistent, fair responses to violations are essential.

6. Foster ongoing dialogue. Open conversations about inclusion to keep DEI front and center. Identity and human relationships are malleable and moveable. Given this, we must stay in relationship to hold ourselves accountable for learning, growth, and professional standards of equity and inclusion.

Accountability is not a one-time jump off but a continuous covenant commitment. Organizations that ignore this risk not only long-term damage to culture but also lose trust and talent essential to the success of the very organization they think they are protecting.

Shameless plug? Gold Enterprises, LLC does this all the time. We are the DEI version of “Cheaters” – as professional DEI strategists, we identify where espoused values are not aligning with daily practice – and what to do about it.

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There’s a moment at every lacrosse tournament — usually during warmups, when the kids are buzzing with adrenaline and the parents are settling into their sideline chairs — when I scan the field and feel that familiar tug in my chest. It’s the awareness that my child and our family are part of a tiny minority in this space. Not unwelcome, not unsafe, but undeniably underrepresented. Just open your eyes and look.

Most of the kids are unrecognizable, especially with helmets on and jersey numbers not yet committed to memory. Yet, when I scan the field and only see the pair of brown legs that I literally baked and birthed, the lack of representation hits differently.

Being a youth sports mom already comes with a full emotional backpack: pride, stress, logistics, snacks, more snacks, stinky uniforms, and the occasional existential crisis about whether any of this is worth the gas money and the cleats. But when you add the layer of being racially underrepresented in the sport, the experience becomes something more complex — a mix of joy, vigilance, community‑building, and quiet resilience.

My son is underrepresented in one sport and well-presented in another. In fact, we are the only Black family (and have been for 3 years running now!) on my son’s lacrosse teams (plural), but one family of almost a totally African American football team. The whiplash between Sunday lacrosse practices and weekday football drills in the fall made this even more pronounced.

This is my attempt to walk through the pros and cons of that reality, not just for myself but for any parent who has ever felt both deeply invested and fully aware on the sidelines – despite every parent’s money being green.

There is so much that makes this positioning worthwhile…

1. It’s literally representation in motion. One of the most powerful parts of this journey is watching my child take up space in a sport where kids who look like them are rarely centered. Every practice, every game, every moment they step onto the field is a form of representation — not symbolic, but lived. It’s not necessary about being a trailblazer for the sake of it – shoot, he’s only 12. It’s about my child seeing themselves as fully belonging in any space they choose. He belongs everywhere he plants his feet.

2. A broader worldview. Being in an underrepresented environment exposes my guy to a wide range of people, backgrounds, and communication styles. When it comes to lacrosse, it belongs to our Native American siblings – we, as North American lacrosse players and families simply borrow it. This almost forces my son to learn early how to navigate difference, ownership, and play with confidence and empathy. He learns that diversity isn’t just something you talk about — it’s something you practice. And honestly, I am learning right alongside him.

3. Community in unexpected places. Even when you’re one of the few, you often find the most meaningful connections in the most unexpected corners. The parent who always saves you a seat. (The moms that always pour you a drink…you know who you are, dear. 😊) The coach who sees your child’s potential without bias. The teammate who always texts to debrief the practice. These relationships feel earned, not assumed. They’re built on shared effort, shared weekends, shared weather disasters, and shared belief in our athletes.

4. Motivation and visibility. When your child is underrepresented, their presence alone can inspire others — younger siblings, cousins, kids in the neighborhood. (I can’t tell you how many times a kid pointed at Kendrick’s lacrosse stick in my hometown and asked, “What is that?! It’s cool!) You become aware that your family’s participation might open doors for someone else down the line. It’s not a responsibility we asked for, but it’s one we carry with pride.

Now here’s what can make it complicated…

5. The subtle vigilance. Let’s be honest: being underrepresented means you’re always scanning — not for danger, but for nuance. For tone. For fairness. For whether your child is being coached, challenged, and celebrated the same way as everyone else. Our kiddo is a defender, which means there is always the awareness that usually Black men are used for their brawn rather than their brains; so I’m always scanned for the nuance of using both this mind muscle and his physical ones. Most days, everything is fine. But the vigilance is still there, humming quietly in the background.

6. The pressure to “represent”. When your child is one of the few, it can feel like their performance reflects on more than just them. A missed shot isn’t just a missed shot — it’s a worry that someone might generalize it. A great play isn’t just a great play — it’s a relief that they’re proving themselves. It’s an invisible weight that other families may never have to consider.

7. The cultural disconnects. Unlike his football team with which we share identity, it’s easier to have those disconnects between players, parents, and families. Sometimes it’s small things: the jokes parents make, the music at team events, the assumptions about your background, and how you make a living. Other times it’s bigger: differing expectations around communication, discipline, or family involvement. You learn to navigate these moments gracefully, but they can still leave you feeling like you’re translating between worlds.

8. The loneliness of the sideline. Even in friendly environments, there are days when you feel the absence of people who share your lived experience. Days when you wish you didn’t have to explain certain things. Days when you crave the shorthand that comes from cultural familiarity. It’s not isolation — but it is a kind of solitude.

Given all of this, I am sure that the human development isn’t just happening for the young athletes; it’s happening for us as sports parents. We are literally learning as we go as well, so here’s some of the best lessons my son’s sports career has taught me thus far:

9. Your presence matters more than you think. Not just to your child, but to the ecosystem of the sport. Diversity doesn’t grow by accident — it grows because families like yours show up, stay, and thrive. You would not believe how many parents I’ve connected with on social media and otherwise who are the “only” on their team. Facebook groups, Instagram tags…you name it. We’ve formed a familiar community within the larger ecosystem that looks less like us.

10. Advocacy is a muscle. You learn when to speak up for clarification or advocacy, when to observe as camouflage or perspective, and when to ask questions for more information or to determine someone else’s point of view. You learn that advocating for your child doesn’t make you “that parent” — it makes you a good one.

11. Belonging is built, not granted. Over time, you just belong. I’m so proud that other than tryouts, my son NEVER moved as if he didn’t belong. He moved as if he always belonged and they had the privilege of discovering him. That’s a major accomplishment for a man of African American descent. You create your own sense of home within the sport — through relationships, consistency, and showing up authentically.

12. Your child is watching. They see how you navigate discomfort. They see how you handle difference. They see how you advocate, how you connect, how you carry yourself. And they learn from it. As a family, we’ve always moved as if he belongs, yet knowing historical contexts that might try to tell him otherwise. We worked hard and made sacrifices of 1,000 types to ensure he had what he needed to not only feel like part of the team, but feel like he belongs in whatever uniform he puts on and on whatever field he finds under his feet.

Yet, the pros and cons don’t cancel each other out — they coexist. They shape us. They stretch us. They remind us that parenting is never just about logistics; it’s about identity, community, and the kind of world we want our kids to inherit or in our case -- create.

I keep on keepin’ on because my child loves sports. I stay because he’s growing — not just as an athlete, but as a person. I stay because I believe in expanding the spaces where our kids can thrive. And I stay because every time my child steps onto that field, he is unknowingly rewriting what “normal” looks like in this sport. They’re making more room for the next kid who looks like them. They’re proving that belonging isn’t about numbers — it’s about presence and taking up space unapologetically.

If you’re a parent navigating a similar path, know this: you’re not alone. Your experience is valid. Your perspective is needed. And your child’s joy and lessons learned are worth every complicated, beautiful moment.

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😒 SEEM. Black folks love to celebrate our people when we get degrees. In fact, commencement coordinators try to create policies to keep us quiet on our days of jubilee. I dare ya'll to tag someone who attended her Doctoral Hooding. I can tag at least 30 who attended minezzzz, plus Jesus and the Holy Ghost to vouch alongside my family. Witnesses.

😒 6. Not all doctorates are the same regarding course work and dissertation requirements, but ALL of them are documented through Proquest, University of Michigan, the Library of Congress, or your respective University's archives. Longgggg receipts.

😒 v. Transcripts are real out in these streets. I graduated from JMU in 1999, EMU in 2005, and GW in 2010 and I have both official hard copies, official electronic copies, and unofficial electronic copies in a fireproof box with EVERY COURSE AND EVERY GRADE including dual enrollment from high school at CVCC. When I am gone on with the Lord, my 10th-great grandchildren can STILL see what I did. Transcripts.

😒 quattro. Everybody's mama has their Vacation Bible School certificates, ear-piercing certificates, baptismal certificates...hell, their Guppie Swim Licenses. So how her Mama doesn't have at least a grainy picture on her mo-BILE phone of her baby's highest academic achievement makes me question everything. Mama's archives.

😒 trois. Doctoral Defenses are usually scheduled and published amongst your department, your graduate school, and possibly beyond. There was an email sent to all of them with date, time, location, and how to attend. SOMEBODY GOT SOMETHING, no?

😒 2. What did Argosy do to her? My timeline is full of my doctoral colleagues GRINNING with their degree, regalia, and published hard copy of the dissertation IN HAND from the same University. Argosy.

😒 UNO. Dr. Vee Kativhu made headlines in early 2026 for breaking her university record by having over 3,200 people from 46 countries registered to watch her virtual PhD dissertation defense live. I DARE you to find me one person, dead or alive, in-person or virtual who attended Cheyenne's proposal defense OR final defense.

😒 Extra Credit: At one point in time, it was illegal for enslaved Black folks to READ. So, we take our degrees and such seriously when it was once problematic for us to obtain knowledge. MISS LADY, please go have several seats and let the academic doctors do what we do!!!!

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Not a “funeral”.

A “FUNE”, a homegoing, a celebration of life. But the Voting Rights Act as we know it, has been stricken – and a proper Black and Brown “fune” seems most appropriate for where we are in the United States.

If you want blunt: the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder didn’t just tinker with legal technicalities – it pulled the umbrella off a storm that was still raining on marginalized voters. The Court struck down Section 4’s coverage formula, effectively disabling the preclearance mechanism that forced jurisdictions with histories of discrimination to get federal sign-off before changing voting rules. The Court made a nullity of Section 5, enabling the DOJ to review and block new voting rules including redistricting in jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression. That’s the legal pivot that opened the door to a wave of restrictive laws.

But let’s go back…The Fifteenth Amendment was established in 1870, then Jim Crow, and finally in 1965, the Voting Rights Act provided a remedy for a generation of voting discrimination and exclusion. In 2013 and beyond, this had been reauthorized several times, including during the last George W. Bush administration.

So, here we are staring down the Louisiana v. Callais case, which put VRA on life support.

If you haven’t been paying attention to recent news, SCOTUS’s conservative majority says that attempts to comply with VRA are racial gerrymandering (that sweet science of fiddling with district maps to favor one party or group) instead being interpretedas as a long-overdue course correction. The stark results of this decision? From 12 – 17 Democrat and/or Black Republican seats may be lost in a year when all 4 Black Republican Congresspeople are heading out. In other words – NOBODY — there will be NO Black Congressional Republicans as of January 2027 if there are no more elected.

Furthermore, some think that states are unlikely to go back to the highly discriminatory election practices that were common before VRA — but, shit. In this unprecedented presidential administration, I trust nothing. If such practices did re-emerge, the new interpretation of Section 2 of the VRA eliminates one — if not the only — main legal tool for redressing this type of discrimination.

Now, we can always depend on Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson to hold the line for EVERYBODY even when it’s unappreciated.

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Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent was longer than the majority opinion and may be one of the strongest and most consequential in her time on the bench. In my opinion of her opinion, here are the most notable quotables:

• “A minority community that is cohesive in its geography and politics alike, and that faces continued adversity from racial division, is split – “cracked” is the usual term – so that it loses all electoral influence. Members of the racial minority can still go to the polls and cast a ballot. But given [a] State’s racially polarized voting, they cannot hope – in the way the State’s White citizens can – to elect a person whom they think will well represent their interests. Their votes matter less than others’ do; they translate into less political voice.”

• “The Voting Rights Act was meant as corrective.”

• “I dissent. The Voting Rights Act is – or, now more accurately, was – “one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our Nation’s history.” (Shelby County, 570 U.S., at 562 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil right marchers. It ushered in awe-inspiring change, bringing this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. And it has been repeatedly, and overwhelmingly reauthorized by the people’s representatives in Congress. Only they have the right to say it is no longer needed – not the Members of this Court. I dissent, then, from this latest chapter in the majority’s now-completed demolition of the Voting Rights Act.”

As devasted as many of us are (and should be) by this fune and homegoing, Kagan herself says, “The point [of this dissent] is not to deliver a eulogy for the law – though, in truth, the Court’s step-by-step slaying of voting rights now makes one appropriate.” Yet, there are some connections from the slaying of the VRA to mission-driven organizations, especially in the way of protecting basic operating environments for civic participation, accountability, and the communities you serve—when those protections are weakened, your mission gets harder, not easier. Here’s why this matters to mission-driven organizations in very practical ways:

• Access equals program viability. If the people you serve can’t reliably access the ballot, your advocacy, service design, and community engagement become reactive and fragile. The VRA’s preclearance was a preventive tool; without it, discriminatory changes can be implemented before anyone has time to litigate.

• Data-driven risk to operations. After Shelby, jurisdictions previously subject to preclearance moved quickly to enact voter ID laws, redistricting, and polling changes that courts later found discriminatory. That’s not hypothetical — it’s documented and measurable. Your outreach budgets, volunteer deployment, and voter education plans must now account for sudden, local rule changes.

• Reputational and legal exposure. Mission-driven groups that work on civic engagement or partner with local governments can be dragged into legal fights or public controversies when voting rules change. Knowing the legal landscape isn’t optional; it’s a risk-management function.

• Strategic leverage is gone — so build new leverage. Preclearance was leverage: it forced transparency and review. With it weakened, organizations must invest in rapid-response legal capacity, local monitoring networks, and stronger coalitions to spot and counter harmful changes before they calcify. This is practical work: train staff, fund litigation reserves, and map local election officials.

Justice Ginsburg warned that tossing preclearance was like throwing away an umbrella in a rainstorm — a line that’s both moral and operational. If your mission is to serve people who are already marginalized, you don’t get to be idealistic about “progress” while ignoring the mechanisms that keep progress intact.

Concrete next steps for mission-driven organizations (do these now):

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• Audit vulnerability: Identify which service areas and communities are most affected by voting access changes.

• Build a rapid-response playbook: Legal contacts, media lines, fund allocation triggers.

• Invest in local monitoring: Train or partner with volunteer organizations to track polling changes, ID enforcement, and registration barriers.

• Partner strategically: Align with civil-rights legal groups and local organizers who have on-the-ground intelligence.

• Budget for litigation and education: Treat this as core infrastructure, not optional advocacy.

If you want to keep doing meaningful work in communities that depend on fair access to power, stop treating voting rights as someone else’s problem. It’s a structural condition of your mission.

The Supreme Court's Voting Rights Ruling Explained - Everything Policy - Briefs

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf

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Watching home cooks, professional chefs, and competition cooking was always relaxing and artistically stimulating to me. The methodology of assembling a recipe was soothing. Yet, the creativity that was required across multiple chefs’ minds to make completely different dishes with the same comparable ingredients continues to blow my mind to this day.

Even as I watched a plethora of chefs come and go on my favorite networks, Black chefs didn’t seem to come to the mainstage until the last 10 – 15 years — and that’s being generous. Even then, Black culinary minds seemed to be on the competition shows to mimic “French technique” rather than uncolonized recognizable food that was simply taken to a fine dining table. In fact, I saw more non-Black chefs take Black genius and the Michelin stars that came with them. A familiar, jealous behavior when it comes to Black brilliance in any form — taken and unappreciated with no attribution.

…and then, I started to see more Black chefs on tv, including Kwame Onwuachi with his painted nails and kente-clothed appearances on Top Chef and later as a judge. You know him, the culinary genius with the painted nails from his ORLY collaboration in shades of “Chef’s Kiss”, “Sauté”, and “Eggplant”. I RAN (not walked) to his Instagram page and saw that his skills in the kitchen were more than a notion. (Pick up his masterpiece, the book “My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef.”

Later, I met Chef Martel Stone on the small screen as he made his rounds of appearances – bringing in the curious suya spice from Northern Nigeria, only to have another non-Black contestant bite his/our flavor and use it, too.

So, when I discovered that they were teaming up to at Ms. Sheila Johnson’s Black woman owned Salamander DC hotel to open Dōgon, I knew it would be almost impossible to get even one mouthful of anything on their menu. Last night, the impossible became possible.

Dōgon by Kwame Onwuachi is a triumphant, layered return to Washington, D.C., where bold Afro‑Caribbean flavors meet a deliberate reckoning with Black history and place. The meal is as much about lineage and storytelling as it is about Chef Kwame’s technique and seasoning.

Walking into Dōgon, tucked inside the Salamander DC on the Southwest waterfront, feels like entering a conversation between continents, centuries, and celebrations. Chef Kwame Onwuachi has built a menu that threads his Nigerian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, and Creole roots through the lived geography of the District — a project that explicitly nods to Benjamin Banneker who helped established the original borders of Washington and the West African Dōgon people as conceptual anchors for the restaurant’s identity.

The service model encourages sharing, and the plates arrive with confident restraint: hoe crab with plantain cake and a curry branzino balanced coconut and callaloo in a way that feels both familiar and newly precise. These dishes are not pastiche; they are the work of a kitchen translating diasporic memory into contemporary fine dining language. Trust me – I sat at a high-top table close enough to watch the brigade’s flawless choreography. The menu and tasting rhythm reflect a chef who understands that Black culinary traditions are a living archive and inherently fine dining.

What makes Dōgon resonate beyond flavor is its insistence on context. By invoking Banneker, the restaurant ties the food to the very mapping of the capital — a reminder that the land and its stories are inseparable from the people who fed and built it. Naming the project after the Dogon people signals a lineage that stretches beautifully across the horrific Atlantic experience, reframing the meal as a site of cultural cartography where recipes become maps and spices become coordinates. This is a politics of taste: food as memory, reclamation, and undeniable confidence.

The dining room itself is polished but warm; cocktails and a thoughtful nonalcoholic program complement the plates without overshadowing them. Critics and guides have taken notice: Dōgon has been recognized on several best‑of lists and earned attention from national outlets, reflecting how Onwuachi’s return to D.C. was read as both a personal comeback and a broader cultural moment.

Eating at Dōgon is to witness the art of Black culinarians operating at full confidence — chefs who translate ancestral techniques into contemporary forms without flattening complexity. The kitchen’s command of fire, acid, and smoke, and its willingness to let bold seasonings sing, makes each course feel like a stacked argument: that Black food IS sophisticated, historically rooted, and central to American culinary identity.

I’d been waiting since Dōgon opened on September 9, 2024 to finally get a seat a table where I belonged. Wearing a purple dress to feel like royalty was actually unnecessary – kings and queens eat there. I was so grateful to take part in a toast with Chef Martel, a core memory that I shall never forget. If you go, book ahead — reservations are managed through Resy — and come ready to share. The meal asks for your attention: to taste, to listen, and to consider how a single dinner can hold histories of displacement, ingenuity, and belonging all at once.

In other words, if you are Black – be prepared to examine the map and the destination of your own luxurious culinary home.

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For the last bit of time, folks have been enamored with Stefon Diggs’ relationship with Cardi B (even as it overlapped with other relationships). Stefon Diggs is both a high‑performing NFL talent and a public brand, so this recent legal turmoil shows how quickly reputation and legacy can be tested. I am no ESPN analyst, but what I do know is that this man balled out during the 2025 season for the New England Patriots. He had 85 receptions, 1,013 receiving yards, and 4 touchdowns in 17 games following his triumphant return from the previous year’s ACL injury. So, we know he’s got the goods.

Yet despite his one and only Super Bowl appearance on February 8, 2026 in Super Bowl LX, the brother had a lot going on. Good and bad. In February alone, he lost the Super Bowl and had a public break up with a global superstar, the mother to one of his children. Then in March, Stefon was released by the Patriots due to what has been mentioned as cap considerations and a legal situation for which he was recently acquitted.

Stefon built a career that reads like a blueprint for turning talent into value: from a fifth‑round pick to a perennial top receiver, his production across multiple teams made him a marketable asset on and off the field. His NFL résumé includes over 900 receptions and more than 11,000 receiving yards, numbers that translate directly into salary, endorsements, and long‑term brand equity.

Treating any career as a business means recognizing that performance is only one line item on a balance sheet. Reputation, relationships, and risk management are equally material. Contracts, endorsements, and post‑career opportunities hinge on how the public and partners perceive you — and perception is shaped by the people around you and how crises are handled.

On May 5, 2026, a Massachusetts jury found Stefon Diggs not guilty of all charges related to allegations that he assaulted his personal chef. I won’t go into the specific counts from the alleged December 2025 incident at his home -- police reports and media coverage documented the accusations and the legal process. Those are the public facts; the rest is consequence. Even an acquittal does not erase the reputational damage, the League’s separate conduct review, or the human cost to everyone involved. Organizations and brands often make decisions on perceived risk, not just legal outcomes.

There are three hard realities that must coexist:

• False accusations do happen and they can ruin careers and lives.

• Domestic violence and abuse are real and pervasive, and survivors deserve belief, and support.

• Everybody involved deserves due process.

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Public conversations must avoid binary thinking. When allegations arise, the system should protect the rights of the accused while centering care and resources for survivors. Media coverage and legal processes should be rigorous, transparent, and trauma‑informed – yet they rarely are. So here’s how I suggest a businessperson protecting their value and their legacy in the face of imperfect experiences like these:

1. Keep your nose clean. Remember I said that Stefon was the perfect imperfect example. Apparently, he was sleeping with his accuser, yet simultaneously did right by his accuser as his employee. Given this, just do the right thing on all fronts. Neither of them should have gotten their honey where they get their money.

2. Build a professional infrastructure. Based on the case, Stefon’s bookkeeper did not find the appropriate paperwork in place to treat his accuser as an employee. The bookkeeper also found the overpayment to the accuser and documented discrepancies. The bookkeeper might have saved his behind. Treat your financial, PR, and legal advisors as core business partners, not optional extras. Contracts, NDAs, payroll transparency, and clear HR practices reduce friction with staff and limit disputes. In this case, it saved his behind.

3. Vet and manage your inner circle. Oooo wee, I cannot stress this enough. You will not get this perfect, however, agents, assistants, and staff are extensions of Stefon’s brand. This will be the case for you, even if not as high profile. Background checks, written agreements, and clear codes of conduct protect everyone – both you and them.

4. Communicate with discipline. In crisis, measured transparency preserves credibility. I remember the evidential text messages that were sent between Stefon and the accuser. She tried to delete some of them for a reason, yet they all showed up in court proving exactly who intended what. So shall the same be for you. Avoid text and social‑media fights; let counsel and a calibrated communications plan lead with logic, not emotion.

5. Invest in culture and accountability. Create environments where the people around you (staff, confidants, mentors, mentees) can raise concerns safely and where misconduct is addressed promptly. That protects you, your employees and colleagues’ reputation.

6. Support survivors and due process simultaneously. Public figures can fund or partner with survivor services while insisting on fair legal procedures; these are not mutually exclusive.

The legacy for a professional in any industry is earned on the field and defended off it. Stefon Diggs was no angel, but he certainly hasn’t been a demon either. Treat your career as a business and staff it like one. Treat your life like a treasure to protect and surround yourself with trustworthy friends and associates. Why? Because the people you hire, the friends you enjoy, the systems you build, and the way you position yourself will determine whether your value becomes a legacy. The stakes are human and financial: protect both.

Run with the lessons that Stefon gave us – some perfect, imperfect game that we can all use to win.

Maybe this is your first time hearing about Stefon Diggs’ journey. What stands out to you that you can apply to your professional work?

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Over the two-hour wait, we got to participate in one our favorite pastimes – people watching. Our parking space was almost IN the front door, so we didn’t miss a lick on anyone going or coming. The daytime DJ swapped out while the evening DJ swooped in. Each time the door opened, the playlist got better and better. Despite the floor to ceiling windows, all we could see were bodies packed in the restaurant, waiting for what one woman said was “forever” to be seated by a hostess. Having been here several times before, we knew the wait would be worth it.

Yet, the funniest people we watched were, who? The older white folx. Maybe it’s the American myopia — naw, because there were plenty of African American and Latinx American siblings enjoying the night. Maybe it’s the celebratory oblivion – naw, because there were young white folx coming in and out to hit up the bar, stay for a while, or grab food to go. Maybe it’s the --- naw, let me stop looking for an excuse and be direct:

BLACK, BROWN, AND IMMIGRANT JOY literally waved some WHITE FOLX BACK TO THEIR CARS.

Without even asking for a wait time from the hostess, we saw countless older white folx open the door, hear the joyful music, see the food, witness the overflowing bar, dancing, and fun, and decide – “Naw, this ain’t for me.” You’re right – it AIN’T for you.

Yes, it’s wildly ironic that Americans have broadly turned a localized Mexican military commemoration into a nationalized fiesta of margaritas and sombrero-adjacent joy. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the Battle of Puebla (May 5, 1862), not Mexican Independence Day. To pinpoint a major event in Puebla, Mexico, but not a Mexican federal holiday is an obscure reminder that the United States will commercialize any-damn-thing. Later the holiday gained popularity through 19^th-century Mexican-American communities and later corporate marketing machines that saw this as an easy way to sell sell sell inauthentic products and services to ignorant Americans. Black, Brown, and immigrant folks finding joy on a day that meant to exploit many of us just gives me a different kind of justice-joy.

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I’m here for it. Last night, I witnessed what I would consider one of the most respectful celebrations that was much more than cheap tequila and cliches. Money was flowing into a Mexican-owned restaurant with authentic Mexican bites. Black, Brown, Caribbean, and all manner of music was in the air. Basketball and futbol were on the big screens. Sophisticated Mexican food was on our plates. Margaritas and distinctly-Maryland crushes got us a little loose. All for a commercialized holiday that actually belongs to precious few of us and meant to exploit most of us was auspiciously reclaimed.

Check out the evolving history. Cinco de Mayo became a U.S. phenomenon long before it became a commercialized holiday. Mexican communities in California marked the victory as early as 1862, using it as a rallying point for identity and resistance during the U.S. Civil War era. Fast forward a century, and the day was repurposed by marketing campaigns — especially alcohol brands — into a springtime sales bonanza. The result: a holiday that means one thing in Puebla and another thing in an American suburban bar with neon cacti. Now, it can mean yet another thing – BLACK, BROWN, AND IMMIGRANT JOY AS RESISTANCE IN A TR*MP AMERICA.

Whether you take sugar, salt, or tajin on the rim of your glass, I’m heavy on the non-white joy. (Critical thinkers know that doesn’t mean I’m anti-white joy — it just ain’t my priority when it is so normalized, taken for granted, and assumed at the pain of other demographics.) Let me be clear – I AM FOR NON-WHITE JOY ANYWHERE, EVERYWHERE, AND AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE. (Yes, I’m shouting.)

I’m shouting because despite the commercialized American takeover of a non-U.S. holiday, I’m specifically okay with Black, Brown, and immigrant people using any excuse to experience even momentary joy given the current world within which we function.

I imagine that some folx got off work and rushed to get on the hostess’ list. Some folks may have been at work and decided to get Mexican food for lunch…and “forgot” to go back to the office. Some folks may not have even known it was Cinco de Mayo, but a happenstance dinner with friends or family turned into its own core memory of joy.

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You want irony? Here it is, served on a salt‑rimmed glass —-

Irony #1: Americans Columbused a non-U.S. holiday. Colonizer-minded folx make Columbusing a way of life.

Irony #2: Americans have elevated a single, symbolic battlefield victory into a nationwide excuse for discounted margaritas, taco‑themed décor, and a cultural buffet that often forgets the people it’s supposed to honor.

Irony #3: At the same time, Black and Brown folks, as well as our immigrant siblings deserve joy regardless of when it falls on the calendar.

Here’s my spicy rules for future Cinco de Mayo celebrations:

• Learn one fact about the holiday before you drink one margarita. Google Puebla, 1862, Ignacio Zaragoza if you’re feeling fancy.

• Support Mexican‑owned businesses and artists rather than chain restaurants running “Cinco deals.”

• Avoid costumes and caricatures. Opt for authentic music, food, and storytelling instead.

• If you are Black, Brown, or an immigrant? Enjoy yourself, no matter who it makes uncomfortable.

The triple irony isn’t just amusing — it’s instructive. A holiday that began as a symbol of resistance has been repackaged into a consumer ritual that often erases the very people whose history it commemorates.

What’s the bottom line? If you’re a non-Mexican, celebrate with context. If you are white, celebrate with tons of context. If you are Black, Brown or an immigrant, celebrate with unbridled joy, regardless of the calendar date.

Did you celebrate Cinco de Mayo? If so, how? Moving forward, will you make changes to how you celebrate May 5th?

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It’s at these very moments when we need friends and we also need to be a bit more friendLY. It ain’t easy. We’re thinking about doing the job to the best of our ability, while thinking about keeping the job, getting to and from the job, and the relentless responsibilities that seem to get bigger and bigger while paychecks and resources stagnate. To be honest with you --- I don’t want NO NEW FRIENDS. Friendship is a responsibility when you do it right. However, it’s not about what I want, it’s actually about what I need. We need a healthy level of work friendship, collegiality, and associations to get through the weight of each day in the ecosystems of our little loud lives.

When stress is high, authenticity doesn’t require grand gestures — it needs consistency, clarity, and small acts that signal safety. Research links authenticity at work to better motivation, engagement, and well‑being. Those benefits depend on relational fit and supportive contexts (so tell your bosses to do better!) Being in healthy relationship to others at work results in motivating self and motivating others. Engaging and collaborating across teams, offices, and divisions. Authenticity reduces hidden emotional labor and increases intrinsic motivation, which helps people stay engaged rather than burn out. Teams with high‑quality relationships report lower job stress and better performance, especially when leaders and peers model this genuine behavior, too.

Friendship, collegiality, and associations at work help us to chase the work-place well-being that the U.S. Surgeon General plainly connected to tenets of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Let’s get down to the brass tacks of how to foster those healthy connections, especially when you and those around you are frazzled with stress:

• Two‑minute check‑ins. Start meetings with a one‑sentence status that mixes task and feeling (e.g., “On the report; feeling stretched today”). Short, routine sharing lowers the barrier to honesty and keeps signals frequent without adding time.

• Signal boundaries with clarity. Say what you can and cannot take on this week. Clear limits are an authentic gift to colleagues because they reduce guessing and resentment. Boundaries protect trust by making behavior predictable.

• Normalize low‑risk vulnerability. Leaders and peers can model small admissions (“I’m behind; can we reassign this?”). When vulnerability is normalized in small doses, it becomes safe to escalate to bigger conversations later.

• Use “if‑then” language for stress moments. Example: “If I’m quiet after lunch, then I’m heads‑down on the deadline; ping me for urgent items.” This preserves relationships by explaining behavior rather than leaving it to interpretation.

• Create micro‑rituals for appreciation. A two‑line Slack shoutout or a weekly 60‑second gratitude round builds relational capital that buffers stress. Small, consistent rituals compound into psychological safety. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Now, I just told you to tell your bosses to DO BETTER. Here are some suggestions for supervisors and managers to lead when it comes to being relational at work:

Use scripts and prompts to maintain consistence and be more predictable with your teams and direct reports:

• Check‑in prompt: “One sentence on progress; one word on how you’re doing.”

• Boundary script: “I can take X this week; for Y I’ll need help or a later deadline.”

• Urgency prompt: “Here’s what’s most important to me this week. After that, we’ll prioritize next steps.”

• Vulnerability model: Leader says, “I’m juggling priorities and missed a deadline last week; here’s how I’ll adjust.”

These short scripts reduce cognitive load and make authenticity actionable even when energy is low.

Now, we know that even a good thing can turn bad when it becomes too much. Let’s address some of the most troublesome aspects of fostering relationships at work:

• Oversharing: Keep vulnerability proportional and work‑focused. You get to determine what you want to share by weighing what makes you feel human and what help everyone to execute on their work.

• Token gestures: Rituals must be consistent; sporadic honesty without follow‑through erodes trust. In other words, don’t write a check that you can’t cash – figuratively and literally.

• Cultural mismatch: Tailor office practices to team norms; authenticity looks different across roles and cultures.

Authenticity from leaders matters, but mismatch between leader and employee authenticity can increase anxiety; alignment and predictable norms matter more than raw “openness.” As a leadership, supervisor, or manager, be authentic in ways that match team norms and to set clear expectations about when and how to be vulnerable.

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I usually say, “No new friends” when it comes to my personal and sometimes professional life. I’ve met and fostered relationships with limited colleagues after working since the tender age of 16. Now, my tune has changed. “No…NEW FRIENDS!” Authentic relationships at work aren’t a luxury reserved for calm times — they’re a resilience strategy for in the toughest times. Small, repeatable practices (brief check‑ins, clear boundaries, modeled vulnerability, and appreciation rituals) create predictable safety that lets people be real without adding emotional labor of managing the realities of being human at work. Start with one micro‑habit this week and let it compound into steadier, more humane connections.

You can build more authentic relationships at work even when stressed by using small, repeatable practices. What are you going to start as a micro-habit?

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Chile, when I read that someone conducted a study regarding loneliness among men, all I could envision was a disheveled guy on his “mancave” basement couch falling asleep with a video game controller in one hand, Cheetos in the other, and no one around to disrupt the slothful chaos as “red” Kool-Aid drips down from a tipped glass on an end table. Ironically, the data complicates the vision I had in my mind.

There’s been a lot of breathless talk about a “male loneliness epidemic,” and some of that alarm is warranted. Recent national surveys find that men and women report similar overall rates of loneliness, yet men are less likely to reach out for help, report fewer close friends, and are more likely to feel they don’t belong to a group or community.

As an almost 50, jaded, divorced, and co-parenting Black woman, I can certainly see why. When I look at many communities, I see that much of what is required to cultivate relationships (whether they are platonic friendships, collegial relationships, or romantic ones) is mocked within male culture. Communicating clearly and regularly with someone is considered oversharing. Attending to a potential romantic partner’s needs is considered subjugation and “simp-ish” behavior. Spending quality time with someone that goes deeper than just jokes, fly-bys, and hook ups is considered “bothering” them.

Shit, BOTHER ME into a relationship. Frankly, what may be labeled as bothersome might be the exact elixir that lonely men need to sip.

That gap between feeling lonely and seeking connection to resolve the loneliness matters. Men are more likely to rely on partners rather than broader networks for emotional support – and this causes the partner to crumble under the weight of his needs and their own. Men are less likely to contact friends, family, or mental health professionals when they’re struggling – and this causes those very same friends and family to experience sincere shock when some of the men closest to them have more severe issues than they knew of. That pattern—fewer bridges to support—helps explain why loneliness can have more lethal consequences for men, even when raw loneliness data look similar across genders.

That pattern also indicates that instead of building bridges to support; men are doing the exact opposite. They are simply walking over emotional cliffs, leaving themselves and others around them unsafe.

At the same time, a quieter cultural shift is underway: more women are choosing to delay or forgo traditional romantic relationships, marriage, and parenthood, and some are explicitly stepping back from dating men. Commentators and advocacy groups have flagged this as a social trend with ripple effects for dating markets and household formation.

This isn’t a single cause-and-effect story. Women’s choices are shaped by economic pressures, changing gender norms, and a reassessment of what relationships should provide. I’m not sure which feminism wave we’re on now, but the result is a dating and relationship landscape where expectations, bargaining power, and emotional labor are being renegotiated—and where some men who relied on conventional pathways to intimacy find themselves adrift and alone.

The shift is less about blame and more about structural change: social scripts that once guided how people met, committed, and supported one another are fraying.

Loneliness is a public-health issue: it correlates with worse mental and physical outcomes and has been labeled an epidemic by public health leaders. But the drivers are complex—age, income, education, and life stage often matter more than gender alone. Young adults and middle-aged people show particularly high rates in some studies, and economic insecurity amplifies isolation. Like seriously – can you financially afford to date or be dated by someone? Some would give you a very loud “NO”.

Framing the problem of loneliness as a gender war misses the point. When men don’t have or don’t cultivate the social skills or networks to seek help, and when women are re-evaluating the costs and benefits of romantic entanglement (see what I did there?), the result is a social ecology that produces more loneliness for many people. The solution can’t be moralizing; it has to be structural and cultural.

There’s so much to normalize and I won’t think of them all, but here’s a running start:

• Normalize help-seeking for men: public campaigns, workplace norms, and male-focused community spaces can lower the stigma around emotional vulnerability.

• Rebuild mixed social infrastructure: clubs, civic groups, and neighborhood institutions that aren’t centered on romance can create durable ties.

• Practice dialogue and communication. I know I shouldn’t completely blame this on technology, but put the phones and screens down and PRACTICE communicating with another human being in ways that help both people share more profoundly and hear more deeply.

• Rethink dating and partnership norms: honest conversations about expectations, consent, and emotional labor could reduce friction and make relationships less transactional.

• Don’t be an exploitative workplace. Some people who are lonely use the workplace as a second and/or preferable home. Given this, don’t abuse this status if you think someone is lonely. There can be other ways for the workplace to be supportive that don’t require draining productivity out of a lonely colleague. Affinity groups, after hours activities, or professional organization affiliations may help one to feel less lonely and isolated.

Loneliness is not a simple story of gender wars. It’s a symptom of social change—economic, cultural, and technological—that requires collective responses, not finger-pointing. If we want fewer people to feel invisible, we need to build places and practices at home and at work that make reaching out easier, not harder.

Is there someone in your life — at home or at work — who is experiencing loneliness? How can we support them?

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I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Organizations leap to the assumption that a Black woman needs coaching in order to supervise her team; yet, that assumption is rarely turned on its head so that we can see the reality of teams who are ill-equipped to follow Black women in leadership. In other words, usually the tokenized Black woman is “required” to get coaching when in reality she may not be the one who needs it.

Workplace in general are ill-equipped for Black women in leadership. Usually, they are steeped with stereotypes about us, oblivious to power dynamics swirling around us, and have no accountability to ensure that Black women in leadership are not gaslit, sidelined, or punished for showing up as leaders.

We see this all the time in our day-to-day spaces:

A Black woman is labeled as “angry” if she’s not smiling like she’s auditioning for a toothpaste commercial.

A Black woman is deemed “power-wielding” when she communicates with direct, unfiltered, and un-sugarcoated professional language.

A Black woman is deemed “difficult” because she calls for accountability – provoking deep and long-lasting kindness through changed behaviors rather than the niceness of just letting bad behavior pass.

It is constantly a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation for Black women at work. So, instead of trying to “change” Black women who are simply existing at work, what would it look like for us to change and improve workplaces to Black women can lead, flourish, and contributed in peace and excellence.

Let’s do that, shall we? Yet, my colleague’s question was “How?” How do we coach, train, and prepare organizations to be ready for the Black women they espouse that they want? They do in practical, mandatory, and measured ways.

What workplaces actually need to learn

Let’s be blunt: many organizations think they’re inclusive because they ran a one-off unconscious-bias slide deck. That’s not coaching and training — it’s theater. Real coaching and training prepare people to follow Black female leadership by addressing the specific biases and structural failures that undermine those leaders’ authority, evaluations, and retention. Recent research shows Black women face worse promotion and retention outcomes when they start on whiter teams, and they’re more likely to be labeled low performers despite equal work. I suggested the following core coaching and training modules that can help organizations to take their work environments to a higher level of excellence:

• Stereotype literacy and consequence mapping. Teach what the “angry Black woman” stereotype looks like in meetings, performance reviews, and assignment decisions — and show concrete consequences for careers and team outcomes.

• Power-aware coaching and evaluation training. Coach and train managers, peers, and direct reports to separate tone from competence. Document objective criteria and use calibrated rubrics so subjective labels don’t derail the work in real time.

• Stop expecting Black women to do unpaid inclusion work. If you want someone to do DEI work, hire a competent expert (like myself!) but you don’t get double work from one person. (Besides, DEI work is a profession, not an add-on task for someone who is not professionally trained in this area). Train leaders to sponsor, amplify, and compensate those who advocate or lead DEI efforts. Data show Black women shoulder disproportionate inclusion labor and receive less support.

• Bystander intervention for microaggressions. Teach colleagues how to interrupt, document, and escalate microaggressions in real time — not later, not in private, and not with “intent” as the only metric.

• Embed accountability. I am a firm believer that people treat Black women the way they do because WE LET THEM. Systems allow folks to perpetuated bad behavior and the only person that seems to pay for it is the person who was simply a Black woman while working. “Not upsetting folks” is the exact type of productive confrontation that organizations need to set the tone and ensure that the Black women we say we want in leader get to do with without headache.

Now, with any performance, we do it for an audience, but we know it’s not real. Folks are playing temporary characters that bring entertainment and satisfaction, but not much more. Here’s how organizations can avoid being performative in this work.

1. Mandatory education, not optional one-off. Make training part of promotion and performance cycles, among other already existing systems in your organization.

2. Mixed-methods learning. Combine scenario-based role plays, real-case audits, and lessons learned from past experiences in your organization or others and facilitated panels with Black women leaders. Practice beats theory.

3. Measure outcomes, not attendance. Track performance, satisfaction, and other patterns by race and gender (at least but feel free to track other demographics). Tie leader bonuses to improvement.

4. Create safe remediation pathways. When problems are identified by Black women and for Black women, there must be transparent correction: re-evaluate ratings, reassign sponsorship, and repair reputational harm that does not implicate the innocent Black woman.

Final Note

If your org wants Black women to lead, stop treating leadership as a favor they must earn by being twice as good and twice as pleasant. Leadership is followed, not tolerated. Invest in coaching and training that changes behavior, rewires systems, and holds people accountable for the very bad behavior that the experienced Black professional woman can see a mile away. Anything less is just optics — and Black women already know what that looks like. In fact, she’s spent her entire professional career seeing that for exactly what it is.

What type of coaching does your organization need to ensure that Black women in leadership can do the job they were hired to do with less friction, more support, and exponential impact? Let us know how Gold Enterprises can help.

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We’re celebrating Gold Enterprises’ 10th anniversary and we didn’t want cake and speeches. We wanted to give you something that actually moves the needle. So, we have been working for months on a package just for you.

Golden Years: 10 Business Lessons in 10 Years is a compact, punchy package of the lessons I wish someone had handed me when I started.

You’ve read my origin story of waiting for a VistaPrint coupon to come across my desk to purchase a box of business cards for my then-new venture. You’ve heard the humblebrags and the “how I did it” highlights with YEARS of weekly recaps.

Now it’s time for the real stuff: the tactical, the emotional, and the slightly ridiculous truths that will save you time, money, and some semblance of dignity. I’ve cooked up something for new-ish entrepreneurs, WANTrepreneurs, side-hustlers, and anyone who’s ready for the next step.

Ten years of running a business teaches you two things fast:

1) Most advice is either too vague or too shiny, and

2) The right lesson at the right time can change everything.

Golden Years is not a manifesto but it IS a toolkit — short, sharp, and built for action. Each lesson is a mini-lesson plan: what to do, what to avoid, and action items you should start immediately.

Here’s a sneak peek of each lesson and why they matter.

Lesson 1: Small Beginnings
Start where you are. Scale from competence, not from ego. Tiny wins compound.

Lesson 2: Get Clear on Your Avatar
Stop selling to “everyone.” Know one person so well you can finish their sentences.

Lesson 3: For the Love of Money
Profit is a tool, not a sin. Learn pricing, margins, and how to ask for what you’re worth.

Lesson 4: Systems and Structures
If it’s repeatable, systematize it. Systems free your headspace for strategy.

Lesson 5: Business Besties
As Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch brilliantly said, “We’re a crew.” Build a crew. Advisors, peers, and honest friends are your secret weapons.

Lesson 6: Don’t Be Intimidated
Nobody knows everything. Confidence is practice, not pretense.

Lesson 7: Stormy Weather
Prepare for downturns. Cash runways and contingency plans are non-negotiable.

Lesson 8: Olivia Pope It
Own your narrative. When things go sideways, lead with clarity and accountability.

Lesson 9: Take Care of Yourself
You are the engine. Fuel it. Rest is not optional; it’s strategic.

Lesson 10: Document Your Journey
Write it down. The messy notes, audio clips, and videos become your future playbook and your brand’s story.

We want to invite you to access starting May 3 — the beginning of National Small Business Week. Here’s what the package includes…

• 10 concise lesson modules — each with an information rich blog, action items, and a video

• A 90-minute private strategy session with me – We’ll map out your distinct next steps to get going

No fluff. No jargon. Just the stuff you can use on Monday. This package includes:

• People who don’t feel ready for a business program, fellowship, or incubator.

• First-time founders who need a map.

• Solopreneurs ready to stop guessing.

• Side-hustlers who want to go full-time without burning out.

• Anyone who’s tired of vague advice and wants a practical action items.

We’re launching the Golden Years package soon and you can be first in line. Sign up for the early FLASH SALE with $100 off. Your investment in your business is $910…

…and let me tell you, that’s a drop in the bucket of what I’ve earned, lost, and had to earn back again. I’ve paid for $10,000 entrepreneurship programs. I’ve paid hundreds of dollars in books, online courses, and database access for potential opportunities. I’ve paid for $300 an hour business coaching. Had I known the lessons that you’ll learn here…let’s just say, my finances and my freedom would have looked much different EARLIER.

Just scan the QR code below and get going!

Ten years taught me that the right choice, made consistently, beats frantic effort every time. Golden Years is the set of choices I wish I’d had on day one. It’s practical, it’s honest, and it’s built for people who want to build something that lasts.

Toxic productivity is the compulsive need to be productive at all costs—where self-worth is tied to output and rest is punished. It’s not ambition; it’s anxiety dressed up as hustle. People trapped in this loop feel like every minute not spent producing is a moral failure, and that mindset eats joy, creativity, and long-term performance.

This isn’t just an individual problem. Organizations that reward constant availability, celebrate “always-on” heroes, and treat rest as optional create cultures that normalize harm. The result: people burn out, teams fracture, and the company loses the very talent it claims to value.

So, what are the signs that your workplace is feeding toxic productivity?

• Perpetual busyness as a badge of honor. Meetings scheduled during PTO, Slack pings at midnight, and “quick” asks that aren’t quick.

• Emotional exhaustion masked as resilience. People show up but they’re checked out; cynicism replaces curiosity.

• Invisible overwork. A handful of employees—often from underrepresented groups—do the extra labor that keeps the place afloat: mentoring, translating culture, moderating microaggressions. This work isn’t acknowledged until those individuals depart.

• Performance tied to presence, not impact. Hours logged beat outcomes measured.

• Silence in meetings. When people stop speaking up, it’s not apathy; it’s survival.

If you see these, you don’t have a productivity problem—you have a culture problem.

Let’s be blunt: invisible labor and invisible overwork are unpaid emotional and cognitive work that keeps organizations functioning but never shows up on org charts or our paychecks. It’s the Black employee who explains racial context in a meeting; the woman who mentors junior staff on unpaid time; the queer person who moderates a hostile comment thread. This labor is disproportionately carried by underrepresented groups and is rarely recognized, rewarded, or counted toward promotion or other forms of compensation and benefits. The emotional toll is real, and it compounds with every “small” ask. Forbes

When organizations celebrate hustle without accounting for who’s doing the extra work, they institutionalize, codify, and maintain inequality. That’s not just unfair—it’s unsustainable.

Capacity is not a feeling. It’s a set of measurable inputs and outputs. If you want to stop burning people out, you need to map capacity like you map budgets.

How to do it:

1. Inventory tasks and owners. List recurring tasks, who does them, and how long they take. Include mentoring, diversity, equity and inclusion work, and emotional labor.

2. Measure real time. Use time audits (short, anonymized) to understand where hours go.

3. Identify single points of failure. Who holds institutional knowledge? Who is the only person doing X? Those are risk nodes.

4. Set realistic throughput. Translate capacity into deliverables per sprint or quarter, not heroic all-nighters.

5. Build buffers. Resource slack is not inefficiency; it’s resilience.

This is not micromanagement. It’s a healthy form of stewardship.

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Leaders set the tone. Transformational leadership—leaders who model recovery, delegate, and prioritize psychological safety—reduces burnout and improves recovery experiences. If your leadership style is “be on or be out,” expect turnover and quiet quitting. If it’s “we care, but only performatively,” expect the same. Real change requires structural shifts, not wellness theater. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Authentic leadership must:

• Stop rewarding presence over impact.

• Normalize boundaries: for example, no Slack after hours, protected focus time, and enforced PTO.

• Compensate invisible labor: count it in performance reviews and promotions.

• Model rest publicly. If leaders brag about skipping vacations, don’t be surprised when the rest of the org follows.

Here’s what I’d suggest that you do this quarter:

• Run a 2-week time audit. Anonymize it and publish aggregated findings.

• Create an invisible-labor ledger. Track mentoring, DEI work, and extra emotional labor; assign credit and compensation.

• Institute “no-meeting” blocks. Protect deep work and mental bandwidth.

• Mandate manager training on microaggressions and workload equity. Awareness without skilled action is gaslighting.

• Set measurable capacity limits. No one should be assigned more than X% of their time to reactive tasks.

• Offer recovery experiences. Paid sabbaticals, mental health days, and flexible schedules that actually mean flexible.

If your organization REALLY wants to get fancy, do this:

1. Transparent workload audits every quarter.

2. Compensation for invisible labor (bonus, promotion credit, or reduced task load).

3. Mandatory boundary policies (no after-hours expectations; enforced PTO).

4. Capacity-based staffing (hire to fill real gaps, not to chase growth metrics).

5. Psychological safety training for managers and leaders.

6. Public accountability report on burnout metrics and retention by demographic.

Toxic productivity is a culture choice, not an inevitability. You can keep worshipping hustle and watch your people leave in slow motion, or you can treat capacity, invisible labor, burnout, and quiet quitting as governance issues that deserve budgets, metrics, and consequences. If you want a resilient organization, start by believing that people are more than their output. Measure what matters, compensate what’s invisible, and stop pretending that exhaustion is a competitive advantage.

If you’re ready to stop the slow bleed, would you consider running a two-week time audit and publish the results? Transparency is the first step toward justice.

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Art is not neutral. It’s a tool, a sermon, a protest sign, a mirror, and sometimes a mask. It can make the invisible visible — the cruelty of a policy, the dignity of a community, the absurdity of a lie. But it can also be used to varnish power, to turn charisma into sanctimony, and to replace accountability with spectacle.

I never really stopped to think about this angle of artistic power until my oldest son applied for a multimedia art fellowship that encourages high school artists to think, workshop, and display art that can create societal change. (Out of generosity -- I’m grateful that the organization has planted seeds for this type of work early in their lives. Out of selfishness -- next time, please accept my guy!)

The AI image of the current U.S. President (whom I shall not name, EVER, for the algorithm) depicted in Christ-like garb — a leader posed as healer, hand glowing over a sick man — did more than provoke outrage. It taught a lesson about how images shortcut moral reasoning and how organizations should steward their visual language if they want to be healthy, honest, and resilient.

Symbols do heavy lifting. A halo, a robe, a gesture — these are compressed moral arguments. They don’t need footnotes. They land in the gut before the brain has time to check facts, purity of motive, or logic in display. Symbols, such as the most recent one, hijack brains, emotions, and personal ethos, in such a way that heart reaction usurped head logic That’s why religious iconography is so potent: it borrows centuries of moral authority and deposits it into a single frame. When a political figure is visually aligned with those symbols, the image does more than flatter; it reframes the leader’s legitimacy.

That reframing is the danger. An image can imply sanctification where not a drop of it exists. It can make policy choices feel ordained rather than debated and properly vetted. It can turn dissent into sacrilege. And, in the case of visual depiction of a white, blond haired, and blue-eyed Jesus the Christ, it can turn centuries of fiction into unquestioned truth. The AI depiction in question forced institutions and communities to respond to a symbol rather than to the policies and actions that actually matter. The master manipulation characteristics of such images are distraction, offense, shock, and inflated power over the already oppressed. If you’ve seen the visual, you’ll know exactly what I mean…

You can’t pretend to be The Healer symbolically when practically you’re decreasing the ability for Americans to be healed.

You can’t pretend to revere the Statute of Liberty when practically it is clear that you don’t care who is – in fact – “yearning to be free”.

You can’t pretend to be a Commander in Chief when practically you’re callous about putting Americans in harm’s way unnecessarily.

You can’t hold light when practically the entire globe can attest to the intentional, unbothered, “I don’t give a damn” darkness created in relationship to other countries, including allies.

Given all the hullabaloo about being “woke” – trust, it is not the slur that folks want it to be. In fact, why would one trust sleeping through any overstepped authority in any organization – the United States of America OR your business?!

There are two honest ways art functions in public life to wake us up:

• Liberatory art exposes, humanizes, and demands change. It centers the marginalized and makes power uncomfortable. (We can see this through all of the counterpoint AI images over the last few days.)

• Legitimizing art naturalizes power. It dresses authority in metaphors of destiny, virtue, or divine favor. (We can HEAR this by man of the same folks who would tear a church up for depicting the Black Jesus they want to deny but are silent about depicting the orange…never mind.)

The difference is not just aesthetic; it’s structural. Who funds the artwork? – this tells us a lot. Who controls distribution of the art? – this also tells us a lot. Who benefits from the narrative? --- this tells us even more. When art is used to legitimize power, it becomes a tool of governance rather than a check on it.

AI makes images cheap, fast, and eerily convincing. That’s a boon for artists and activists who lack resources. It’s also a boon for those who want to manufacture consent and propaganda. Synthetic images can be posted, amplified, and then disavowed with plausible deniability. The result is a new theater of politics – in ANY organization -- where authenticity is optional and symbolism is weaponized.

If your organization treats imagery as mere decoration, you’re playing with fire. The moment an image is used to represent leadership or mission, it becomes a statement about values. If that statement is misleading, the fallout is reputational and moral.

Concrete Lessons for Healthier Organizations

If you run a business, nonprofit, or political operation, treat this moment like a risk audit. Here are six non-negotiable policies to adopt immediately:

1. Content Ethics Policy — Define what symbolic associations are off-limits, especially appropriation of religious or marginalized identities for promotional gain. Publish it.

2. Provenance and Disclosure — Require labels for synthetic media. If an image is AI-generated, say so. If it’s metaphorical, explain the metaphor. Transparency preserves trust.

3. Stakeholder Review — Before amplifying imagery that touches on faith, race, or trauma, consult the communities represented. Tokenism is not consultation.

4. Rapid Response Protocol — Create a clear chain of command for review, removal, and apology. Speed matters, but sincerity matters more.

5. Artist and Activist Partnerships — Fund and invite critical artists into your strategy conversations. Critique is data; it’s not an attack.

6. Visual Language Audit — Regularly review your brand’s symbolic vocabulary. Ask: what moral claims are our images making? Do they match our actions?

These are not PR tricks. They are governance practices. They force organizations to align imagery with behavior, and to treat symbolism as a matter of ethics rather than aesthetics.

Art’s healthiest role in public life is as a mirror and a prod. Satire that punctures hubris, portraits that reveal contradiction, installations that make policy consequences visible — these are the kinds of art that keep institutions honest. Organizations that welcome this scrutiny are stronger for it. Those that fear it are brittle.

Invite artists to interrogate your sector. Fund public-interest art that examines your industry’s harms. Treat critique as feedback, not as a threat. If you can’t tolerate being seen clearly, you’re not ready to lead.

I don’t believe the President’s image misfired; I think it did exactly what it was intended to do. However, as it pertains to your organization, if and when an image misfires unintentionally, deletion is not enough. A scripted takedown looks like damage control. Real repair requires three steps: acknowledgment, explanation, and change. Acknowledge the harm. Explain how it happened. Then change the systems that allowed it. That’s how trust is rebuilt.

Art can be a clarion call for justice or a velvet glove for domination. The difference is intent, context, and accountability. If your organization cares about legitimacy, steward your visual language with the same rigor you apply to budgets and compliance. Be deliberate about symbolism, transparent about methods, and humble about the limits of imagery.

How will your organization use art to illuminate, not to sanctify? How will your organization use it to question, not to crown? And when your organization makes a mistake — because you will — how will you own it, learn from it, and change your practices so the next image you release builds trust instead of burning it?

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10. If you witnessed the Challenger as a young person, the relief of splashdown hit differently. I didn’t just cry, I WEPT. It was like a deep breathe after holding for days…

Nueve. If you are American, witnessing overwhelming, unconscionable competence in multiple areas was a soothing balm of Gilead.

Ate. Jeremy, our Canadian Play Cousin paying homage to indigenous understandings of the moon and her womanly presence just made me wanna go study something. Oh, and he flipped over to French flawlessly.

Seemmm. The immense lack of ego amongst four people who are some of the most accomplished humans in the universe is noteworthy.

6. Now, we know that funding was just cut for NASA exploration while Artemis II was up there being great. Ya’ll write a congressperson or do SUMTHIN.

🖐🏾 I mean…….who calculated that splashdown to the MINUTE? 8:07 pm EDT. We need NASA to provide a Time Management certificate program. At least 8 CEUs if you can get through it — on time.

Quattro. I wonder if Mr. Victor took a Phi Beta Sigma flag on board? I recall Dr. Mae Jemison carrying our AKA flag on her mission to represent us. 🩷💚

3. Every little Black girl need a piece of that heat shield 🔥 to go over our ears when we get our hair pressed the night before Easter Sunday, homecoming, and Pastor’s Anniversary.

ii. I now have at least an associates degree in astronomy, a Masters in physics, a certificate in math, and 2 credits in geometry after all this Youtube and Google research I’ve done regarding this mission.

UNO. If you caught the Holy Ghost, screamed THANK YOU JESUS, or otherwise clapped, hooted, and hollered when you saw those parachutes deploy, just know that was completely NORMAL behavior.

Extra Credit: It’s ok to have JOY in this dark period of American life for 10 days. In fact, it’s a survival strategy and a patented form of resistance.

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Way to go, NASA Artemis and anyone who had a hand in this successful mission. We love ya’ll to the moon and back - literally.

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Now, I realize that I probably more emotion than logic in this article. Why? Because I’m one of those Challenger kids who is living through in my estimation both the BEST scientific phase in history AND the worst political administration in history --- simultaneously. Given this intersection of trauma, awe, and frustration, you can see why I’ve been crying like a baby every time an Artemis II post hits my socials.

Why Head and Heart Matter Equally

Technical competence is the obvious requirement for a mission like Artemis II: propulsion, life support, navigation, and systems redundancy must all perform under unforgiving conditions. But the mission’s success also depends on less quantifiable capacities: empathy, communication, and the ability to hold one another accountable without eroding trust. The crew’s training and rehearsals, the ground teams’ simulations, and the months of cross-disciplinary coordination are exercises in both skill and relational intelligence. Reporting on launch day emphasized the minute-by-minute choreography and the long, disciplined days the crew and teams endured—an operational ballet that depends on both precise knowledge and steady human connection.

When engineers and flight controllers practice emergency scenarios, they are not only validating algorithms; they are rehearsing how to speak calmly, how to surface dissent, and how to make decisions that preserve life and mission. Those are soft skills with hard consequences. Treating them as optional is a strategic mistake.

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Knowledge and Skill as Living Things

Knowledge in aerospace is not static. It is a living, evolving body of practice that grows when people teach, document, and—critically—listen. Artemis II is a bridge between eras: it inherits Apollo-era lessons, leverages decades of robotic and ISS experience, and integrates new technologies and international partnerships. The mission’s objectives—validating Orion’s systems, testing life support in deep space, and exercising human-in-the-loop operations—are deliberately conservative because they are meant to preserve the crew while expanding capability. That conservatism is not timidity; it is respect for the craft.

Skill is cultivated through repetition and reflection. The people who teach those skills—mentors, technicians, program managers—are the living archive of what worked and what failed. When organizations treat knowledge as a commodity to be hoarded or a checklist to be ticked, they lose the nuance that keeps missions safe while also hijacking their decades-long impact.

Empathy Collaboration and the Architecture of Trust

Complex missions require distributed expertise: propulsion specialists, avionics engineers, human factors psychologists, mission planners, and international partners. Collaboration across those boundaries demands empathy—the capacity to understand constraints and priorities that are not your own. Empathy is not sentimental; it is strategic. It reduces friction, surfaces hidden risks, and accelerates problem solving…and if nothing else, it reiterates what is a machine and who is not.

Artemis II’s flight profile—free-return trajectories, staged orbits, and manual control checks—creates moments where human judgment must complement automation. The crew and ground teams must trust each other’s competence and intentions. That trust is built by small acts: clear handoffs, honest after-action reviews, and the humility to say “I don’t know” and then learn. Coverage of the mission’s preparations and launch highlighted how rehearsals and cross-checks are as much about relationships as they are about procedures.

Don’t Throw Away Gen X The Experienced Well

Now let’s talk about the crew – Victor, Christina, Reid, and Jeremy – all of which are ages 47 – 50 at the time of this mission. There is a cultural tendency to fetishize novelty and undervalue experience. Gen X—professionals who matured in the analog-digital transition—sits at a sweet spot: they remember how to fix things with duct tape and logic, and they also speak fluent software. They are the people who can translate between the old and the new, who can read a vacuum tube schematic and a systems integration report with equal fluency. To discard the cohort that just took us around the moon and back is to discard a living well of tacit knowledge: the heuristics, the war stories, the institutional instincts that only time and failure can teach.

Artemis II is a reminder that experience matters. The mission’s success depends on people who have seen anomalies, who know how to prioritize under pressure, and who can mentor and partner with younger engineers without condescension. Programs that invest in cross-generational mentorship, that create roles for experienced hands to teach and to advise, will be safer and more innovative. The alternative is brittle systems staffed by people who know the theory but not the practice AND those who practice with no theory to street into new possibilities.

A Case for Kindness as Strategy

Kindness is not a soft add-on; it is an operational multiplier. Teams that practice kindness—clear communication, generous assumptions, and deliberate inclusion—create psychological safety. We saw it for ourselves – the kindness displayed between the Artemis II crew and Mission Control, between the crew and the ISS crew, and amongst a crew with a widower as a commander. Psychological safety allows people to speak up about anomalies, to challenge assumptions, and to escalate concerns without fear. It also allows possibly inhumane conditions to translate into very human activity like fixing a broken toilet in Integrity, using an iPhone as a mirror to shave one’s face, and sending emails home from literally loving them “to the moon and back”. In high-stakes environments, that translates directly into lives saved, missions preserved, and inescapable memories.

By The Time You Read This

By the time you read this, Artemis II will be very close to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego, with the U.S. Navy and amphibious transport dock ship USS John P. Murtha waiting for Orion with great anticipation. I plan to be fully glue to the live footage, sobbing uncontrollably. Not because I haven’t seen one before – I HAVE.

The tear flow because DAMN. This mission is happening at the most opportune time to remind us what humanity SHOULD look like, not just what it COULD look like. Major feats executed safely with people being better after the mission than they were before. Collaboration that is stepped in accountability without flexing power like consummate assholes. Competence of the highest degree (just read their resumes!) wrapped in the humility of saints. All I can say is, the tears will flow as I’m simultaneously grateful for their safe journey, hopefully that the crew’s model of human-ness can be replicated, and pissed off that our current circumstances are farther from my ideal vision than the earth is from the moon.

Let me know if you’ve seen splashdown and your experience over the last ten days of the Artemis II mission!

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Yet, my business partner and podcast cohort brought Amanda Montell’s book Cultish to my text messages…and now? After reading it? I haven’t been right since! Although we will touch upon the book in several [un]phased unedited podcast episodes, let me just say that the book maps the words, phrases, and rhetorical moves that turn curiosity into compliance. It literally throws icy cold water on any signs that your brain may be warming up to do its job. The author shows how the same verbal tools that built Jonestown and Heaven’s Gate now scaffold fitness brands, MLMs, and influencer tribes. The danger isn’t always dramatic; it’s banal, catchy, and deceptively comforting, which is why I’m so grateful that we have her work as a warning.

“Self-care”. This is an example of thought-terminating cliche that I’ve been frustrated by for years. Not only is it a quick and catchy phrase that we can remember, but it serves as a two-word virus that makes us shut down with the presumption that we are individually sick due to overwhelm. Actually, our contexts, social structures, and systems are sick and re-contaminating us with over-exertion and mechanistic expectations unfit for humans. This is just one of countless examples…and I haven’t even gotten to the good ole gospel ones yet!

A thought‑terminating cliché is a tidy phrase that ends a conversation and closes a mind. It’s the verbal equivalent of a fast‑forward button: it skips nuance, muffles doubt, and signals that further inquiry is unnecessary. Montell names how they function as social glue—until they don’t. They’re not exotic; they’re efficient. They make people feel safe, and safety is a powerful sedative.

I’ll keep saying like Hillary Clinton “until the cows come home”: Language shapes reality. When a group adopts a shorthand—mantras, insider jargon, or moral absolutes—people start to think in that shorthand and therefore function in controlled ways. That’s how identity hardens into orthodoxy. Montell traces this from classic cults to modern communities: the same rhetorical architecture appears in spiritual movements, corporate cultures, and online fandoms. The pattern is consistent: thought‑terminating clichés freeze critique. The result is not always violence; sometimes it’s just a slow erosion of judgment.

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Let me give you another example that I discovered in my consulting work: “capacity”. In a professional setting, capacity can refer to determining if one has the time to dedicate to a project, task, or program. But what happens when capacity shuts down strategy? So, “I don’t have capacity” to take on a project that I don’t want to take on…but I DO have capacity if it’s my passion. It kinda reminds me of myself at a restaurant – my stomach is full from the entrée, but I can always make room for dessert. Pickin up what I’m putting down?

You don’t need to be in a headline cult to hear cultish language. It shows up as:

• Mantras that shut down nuance: “Trust the process,” “It’s all part of the plan,” “We’re family.”

• Insider jargon that signals belonging and excludes outsiders, like overused acronyms, historical references, and industry-specific language.

• Moral absolutes that make disagreement feel like betrayal like, “You’re not a team player” by declining on a project or activity that is optional.

These phrases are sticky because they solve social friction that we actually need to sit with. They make decisions faster when we probably need to slow some of them down. They also make dissent socially costly. Montell’s point is simple and sharp: the tools of fanaticism are transferrable wherever humans are. They travel from communes to corporate retreats to comment threads.

The book alludes to three mechanics to watch for:

1. Emotional priming. Language that signals identity and belonging that reduces the space for critique.

2. Ritual reinforcement. Repetition turns phrases into reflexes without intentionality. Saying becomes believing.

3. Social policing. Clichés become enforcement tools; questioning them marks you as disloyal.

Montell illustrates these mechanics with case studies ranging from Jonestown to modern fitness cults. The throughline is the same: language creates a reality where the leader’s frame is the only frame.

I don’t think the book is asking us to become paranoid; itself, she’s asking you to think long about short language. A few practical habits protect curiosity:

• Translate the phrase. When you hear a mantra, restate it in plain language. If “trust the process” means “don’t ask for evidence,” call it that.

• Ask for specifics. Clichés thrive on vagueness. Demand concrete steps, data, or timelines.

• Track escalation. Notice when language shifts from inclusive to isolating. That’s a red flag.

• Value dissent. Make disagreement a diagnostic tool, not a threat.

These are small moves with outsized returns. They don’t require heroics—just a refusal to let language do your thinking for you.

Montell’s real point is civic and one that we need to consider in both the micro-levels of our lives and the macro-levels of our world: the same linguistic shortcuts that enable cults also erode public reasoning. In workplaces, they calcify into corporate slogans that mask poor strategy and low visibility. Online, they become tribal refrains that drown out evidence. In politics, they turn policy debates into catechisms. The stakes are structural: when thought is outsourced to catchphrases, institutions become brittle.

Montell’s book is diagnostic and practical. Here’s what keeps curiosity alive without turning every conversation into a debate:

• Name the move. Call out when language is being used to shut down thought. Naming reduces its power.

• Normalize nuance. Reward people who complicate the story. Make “I don’t know” a respectable answer.

• Institutionalize critique. Create rituals for dissent: anonymous feedback and structured after‑action debriefs.

• Teach rhetorical literacy. Language is a tool; teach people how it’s used and abused.

These aren’t feel‑good gestures. They’re resilience measures. They make organizations less fragile and communities less susceptible to charismatic shortcuts.

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Amanda Montell’s Cultish is a primer in linguistic hygiene. It’s about the everyday phrases that quietly reroute our thinking. Thought‑terminating clichés are seductive because they save effort and soothe anxiety. The antidote is not constant suspicion but disciplined curiosity: the habit of translating slogans into questions, of preferring specifics to slogans, and of treating dissent as a resource.

If you want to keep your mind yours, treat language like a tool that needs sharpening. Call out the clichés. Ask for the work behind the words.

What thought‑terminating clichés do you hear in your circles on a regular basis?

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