SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Lisa, people, countries, happening, other countries, triathlon, global, dei, united states, diversity, di, UK, sport, governor, critical race theory, thinking, racism, podcast, race, problem

SPEAKERS

Dr. Shaunna Payne Gold, Dr. Lisa Ingarfield

So Lisa, a few months ago, I had a listener, a podcast listener actually reach out to me and send me a DM on Twitter, which I've rarely frequent. Y'all, let me just be clear, I'm usually on Facebook or LinkedIn, Twitter, I'm a fleeting pass in the night, maybe ever so often. But luckily, I was in my DMs on Twitter, and a listener reached out to me to say that she is a university professor in Australia. And she wanted to talk to me a little bit more because they were trying to create a chief diversity officer position at her university. And I remember her specifically saying, I feel like the US is further ahead on these issues than we are, even after she had done some readings and studying, trying to pull some things down. And, you know, I need to do better, Lisa, because I am very much looking at DEI from a US lens, the majority of the time, but now we're getting opportunities that are more global, which means we need to get our game together here when it comes to global perspectives on this right?

I think so. And I think, as with many things us, we tend to be a little bit self-centered and don't think about how concepts or ideas behaviours experiences do not necessarily translate in the global context. And certainly being from the UK there's a different sense of diversity, equity and inclusion over there than there is over here. So it is an interesting thought. We'd love to dig a little deeper into it.

All right, let's do it. I'm Dr. Shaunna Payne gold and I go by she her hers pronouns.

And I'm Dr. Lisa Ingarfield. And I go by she her hers.

Welcome to Un[Phased] a podcast to disrupt your normal and challenge your brain to go the distance. So Lisa, even after I talked to our podcast listener, about the potential of creating a chief diversity officer position at her institution, what I thought was really interesting, around about the same time when I was doing my own digging around, I found a really great Harvard Business Review article that talked about the question, does your global team see DEI as an American issue? And I thought that was such a profound topic to even explore because I've heard it more than once. And this is definitely not to sound elitist, because simply I don't know. But from those that I've spoken to that work with global teams, or have a global presence, it just seems to be that we have these issues quite clearly. And there seems to be a profession wrapped around handling these issues in ways that maybe the profession is not there in other countries. And I just I thought it was very interesting, you know, would you find a chief diversity officer in this country in this industry? For example? I don't know. I thought it was a great thing to kind of wrestle with.

Yeah. And I do think it's contextual around the country that you're in, right. I mean, if you're in you live in a country that is really homogeneous, racially, I don't even know that said country would even reference it that way. Right? Then diversity in terms of race or skin colour isn't going to be as prevalent, but maybe gender or sexual orientation becomes of higher importance. And so I do think then what does it mean, if we export kind of our, our being the United States, perspectives on racial justice in particular, does it really translate? Right? Does it does our industry corporate public education, you know, are they thinking about this in the same way? I mean, I'd never heard of the term first-generation college student growing up in the United Kingdom. Like it wasn't a thing. I mean, obviously, it is partly because at the time higher education was free, it isn't anymore. Still massively cheaper than it is in the US, but it's not free anymore. That didn't mean though, that they're that everyone went to college, right that everyone's parents or grandparents went to college just because the cost was covered by the government. But that's a very I focused that as being very particularly US-centric and that that's a connected concept to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Yeah, well, and you know, we've talked about that before, too. Lisa, you were the one that kind of brought it to my attention that HBCUs really don't exist in the UK. Right. So, you know, historically black colleges and universities are a distinctly American US American thing. And I've been working on my language, Lisa, about not just saying American about certain things, because there's a North American as an American. But, you know, given that that seems to be a US rooted and grounded response to the experience of black people in this country. And so given that, that's what made it really interesting to me, even working on a global project with you, Lisa. And coming to the realization that, you know, we're working with many countries, we're working in multiple regions, and even the language that we use to describe DTI here in the US. There aren't those words in certain countries, there isn't a translation in other countries. And so how can we have the discussion when even the language hasn't caught up with where we are? And, you know, I think, and this is not at all to say that, in my opinion, I don't think the US is ahead on anything, I think we may look as if we're ahead because we have a lot of problems. That may be the key, I wouldn't necessarily say that we're that far ahead. And Lisa is already giggling and laughing at me because I'm not in denial, we got some major issues. But that may be performative in that we look as if we're doing a lot and we simply have a lot to clean up. That's okay, too.

Yeah. I mean, that's a great way to think about it. Because I definitely, I mean, I can only speak from my limited and now distant UK experience. But obviously, I still do have contacts over there. And they kind of look to the US is, I mean, like aghast. Like, what the hell is happening over there, you know, like it's there. But it is also a little bit of you are so messed up in the United States, we don't have any problems. Right? It's that there's a little bit of that going on, when it comes to diversity and inclusion, because from their perspective, it's so egregious, like the racism is so egregious in the United States, that it's really hard to compare the UK experience to that, however, that can lead them down a road that racism doesn't exist in the UK, because it doesn't exist like that. Right? Well, you know, that is absolutely not true. And certainly, racism has a very long history in Europe. So I think that is fascinating if you're thinking about hosting a race or a training or a conference, or you have international coaching clients, right? how that translates into your

work. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. Because, you know, some of them, the companies that we may race with or work with, or partner with, are what Harvard Business Review calls Glocal, you know, they're a mix of global and local, right. So they have a global worldwide network, but yet, they still want things to feel a little more local in their adaptation of how we do what we do. So for example, as I talked about with our podcast listener, in Australia, well, a chief diversity officer here in the United States may handle many different identity groups, whereas in Australia or other very distinct locations, a chief diversity officer may also deal with multiple identities, but they may need a deeper focus on indigenous populations, because there has been a major disenfranchisement of indigenous groups, populations, tribes, etc. And so it's a parallel concept. I would say there are parallel concepts, whether it's a chief diversity officer or language, or being aware of religious diversity, and so forth. All of that, to me, feels like very parallel ways to do something globally, on a local with a local adaptation, as Harvard Business Review suggests, and so I do think we have to adapt everything right. It's not going to be plug-and-play or one size fits all or everyone can do it this way. It definitely will never be that way. I don't think Lisa.

Yeah, I do think there are some commonalities, particularly in countries with a history of racial exclusion, in that white supremacy, right. So Australia would be one obviously, France most likely Germany, obviously. You know, There's while the manifestation of bias looks different, the terminology might be different, and they're all at various stages of kind of naming the problem and addressing the problem, whether that's through chief diversity officers or you know, bias training, or, you know, kind of reckoning with the history of colonization. There's still that fundamental white supremacist set of systems, that privilege white people over folks of colour. You know, you strip it all away, and that's still there. But in places where there isn't an abundance of white people, and white people are not responsible for developing systems and white people haven't colonized the place. Right, which I mean, if we knew our history that might not be that many countries. But, you know, I think that there's, that might look different, but with Australia, or sure, right, you've got the same kind of those same pieces around young kids, Aboriginal kids being stripped from their families and taken to schools. And in the same way that young Native American children were here. Right, exactly as parents. That's white supremacy. Right.

Right. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and with that, I mean, that's where I think, you know, a number of things we can do in regards to making sure that we're not just dismissing diversity, equity inclusion work as a US thing, it's going to take a little more mind-melding, if you will, if you will, when it comes to, how do we make sure that we're applying this and using similar understanding? So, for example, you know, going back to that whole language thing that you were mentioning before, even when it comes to white supremacy? Well, we don't even know if the language white supremacy exists in other countries. And so how would we then describe it? If there was not a close equivalent? Then how would we describe it? What examples would we use of white supremacy that you gave some great ones there? And so given that, how will we do that with many terms, so for example, if you are a relatively frequent listener to this podcast, we know that you have at least heard many words like wokeness, or gaslighting or allyship mansplaining, you know, those types of words. Those words may not exist in other countries. And so, therefore, we don't want to let people off the hook, if you will, by saying, Oh, well, that word doesn't exist in my home country. So, therefore, the concept doesn't exist, the concept may very well exist, the language just may not have caught up to explaining it, because that's why it's called Emerging language. Language emerges, or it's created as the lived experience occurs. So given that, you know, I just don't want to let people off the hook, Lisa, because we, we might not have found the word to describe certain things in certain places. And so that requires us to do a bit more work, you know?

Yeah, I mean, we say this a lot, right, that getting DEI, quote-unquote, right, or at least, you know, kind of on the right path involves labour, and you have to do it. And if you care about it, then this global lens that we're talking about today also matters. I mean, you think about Ironman or challenge, you know, the Olympics, other massive sports organizations that span multiple, multiple countries? What work are they doing, really, to think about how to translate it? I mean, Ironman in particular because it's so US-centric. And they resist here a couple of years ago, you know, reluctantly announced their diversity and inclusion initiative. But what does that really look like in Brazil? Right? What does that look like in China? What does that look like in South Africa? Right, they each have their own independent and separate history is related to inclusion and exclusion in sport, and, you know, all they making adaptations to their program to encourage historically marginalized people in those global contexts to participate in the sport, right? Because that not going to ook the same as it looks like in the United States,

not at all, not at all. And you know, some of the things I was thinking about, because, you know, we've talked about this multiple times, and we brought up George Floyd's murder. One of the things I think we also need to kind of put the dots closer together as far as the connections. So, Lisa, you're making my brain go there when it comes to how does endurance sport really interpret this and apply this understanding to in a global context? Well, let's say, for example, the majority of the United States and of course, all over the world, was very aware of what happened to George Floyd. Right. There were protests worldwide. I, you know, it was it really was kind of easy to say, wait a minute, we're in a pandemic, we're watching the news, all these different things. So people are paying attention to the responses to the George Floyd murder, without knowing that some of that was connected in other countries. So, for example, at a metro era, who was murdered in police custody right before George Floyd, and therefore, persuasions were really pissed off about this. Part of it is contextual because there are a lot of black and Arab communities in France that are directly affected by police brutality and lots of different contextual concerns. But if you happen to be a black presenting individual who's racing in France, for example, and part of the racecourse goes through a rural or suburban area and someone reads your presents as being black in France, not a US citizen as an African American. What does that mean for that athlete? Yeah, yeah. I don't think that's a far stretch. I mean, am I overthinking it? I don't think so. No, no, not at all.

I mean, even when you went to the London triathlon, right, and you said, your friends, basically it in terms of black presenting African American athletes,

we could literally I mean, yeah, we did not. I don't think we hit double digits on people who were African American presenting or of African descent presenting with darker skin colours. No, it wasn't that many at all.

Yeah, I mean, and, you know, London is actually a pretty diverse city. And comparatively, right, yeah. And so I think that also says a lot about the sport of triathlon, you're hosting a triathlon in a fairly diverse city. And there are less than 10 people of colour who, you know, appear with darker skin, you know, like, that doesn't mean that you were the only people of colour there I suppose. But that is, you know, so what does that mean in London for the London triathlon and their work on diversity and inclusion? Are they even thinking about that?

Mm-hmm. Well, you know, so that kind of begs the question of at least two things going on. Are the discussions happening? Maybe, maybe not. We're leaning towards probably not. And is there a nice fill-in-the-blank rampid? In the UK or elsewhere? For example, you know, going back to Robin D'Angelo is a follow-up book to white fragility, nice racism. Is there nice racism going on there? Is there nice sexism going on there? Is there nice fill-in-the-blank things? Because I do think, you know, I've talked about this before. I despise that trade-off between niceness and kindness, right. niceness being, oh, let's get along versus the kindness of let's talk about what's happening to black men, or black presenting men in rural Paris because this is important to us. And so to me, I think that's a little bit of a battle too, is that everything in the UK isn't all touristy? You know, where we're not just there to see Big Ben, there are other things going on. And it kind of reminds me of that, you know, that whole ostrich kind of visual that we talked about before, just because you put your head in the sand, that doesn't mean that things aren't going on and that major disenfranchisement isn't happening all around us. And so, you know, Lisa, this gets me to a question that I can't answer at this moment, which is, you know, are we yet again, in a precarious place where we are possibly seen as the radical, overly liberal over the top US di people who are making a mountain out of a molehill. When I'm thinking to myself, there are mountains everywhere. And just because you don't acknowledge it doesn't mean that it is there. I don't know, I could see people outside of the US interpreting us as pretty radical in our views. But that's only if you choose to see them there. You know, you can't call out a problem unless you acknowledge it.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, all right, Lisa, so buckle up, go with me on this one. All right. So given this, and I'm not completely trying to make it seem as if the United States is a victim, let me not, I'm not going that far. But what I think could happen is that for those of us in the US who understand DEI concepts in a very deep way, or we're striving to understand them in a very deep way, what if there's literally like global gaslighting going on? Right? Where? Okay, US citizens, Y’all are just overreacting to everything. It's not that big of a deal. You know, you just gotta execute Did from that meaning that doesn't mean that there's a microaggression or, you know, Someone touched your hair, that doesn't mean abuse, or it could literally go there were other countries that obviously don't have the same history, as the United States may say, Hey, y'all overdoing this shit? Yeah, too much, your team too much. You're doing too much with it, you've created an entire profession around diversity, equity and inclusion. Is it really that big of a deal? That I don't know. I'm just wondering if that could be the case, sometimes, because the very people in other countries that say, okay, US DEI people, it's not that big of a deal, are also turning their heads away from what's going on in their own countries, and not to measure, you know, what it occurs. It occurs everywhere. It occurs in different ways, but it occurs everywhere. So are some countries convincing others that, oh, that doesn't happen here? Ah, I would challenge that.

Yeah, I think it might be less gaslighting and more scapegoating around this, you both look to the US as well, they're a leader, but they need to be a leader because their history is so effed up, right? And we don't have that here part. And then the US becomes this poster child for how not to do it. And, like, right, other countries are looking at the US, you know, in horror and saying, well, at least that's not how it is here, which we know is probably not true. But therefore, so it's Yeah, less gaslighting or more like, you've got your own thing going on. And we don't want anything to do with it. Because we don't have those issues, right, because we don't have slavery or we don't have the inequality in terms of income that you have. And poverty, we don't have that to the same degree. And it enables these other countries around the world to just kind of walk away from the issue, because we're not that bad. You know,

oh, my goodness, isn’t that terrible, y'all we are looked at as the outlier, the ones that are the worst off. But, you know, it's it goes back to, you know, all of the rhetoric, the United States rhetoric around the great experiment. You know, right now, I, of course, my descendants were not invited here. But there were many people who weren't striving to be here, and the immigrants that I honor, that wanted to have a better life and a better experience for their descendants. And so this great experience that, you know, used to be called the melting pot. Now, it's called the salad bowl, you know, they keep changing the language around it. But why would you expect harmony when you have a purposefully heterogeneous society? Why would you expect all this harmony? It's not going to be that way.

You mean, as in someone coming to the United States? Why would they expect harmony or like, well, I know that white people wanted or expected harmony, they wanted people to get in line, right?

Oh, of course, no. Well, and that's the thing harmony is a non-issue with white people because there's the power that white people carry means that, oh, well, if you don't want to harmonize, you get out, or you come under our rule, but there's not an option for you to harmonize or not, you're going to get with this program or get out. So you know that to me, I think it's I don't know, it may be that the power dynamic doesn't want to acknowledge that, oh, people can have different perspectives. And people are going to have different backgrounds and people are going to show up in different ways. It just doesn't cross people's minds until it happens, that someone can do things in a different way. I mean, that's one of the things we didn't get to talk about it a lot today. But over the Easter weekend, I went down to Nashville, Tennessee to do a lot of things as far as the cultural scene there. But I was fortunate enough to go to national to the National African American Music Museum. And what was really cool about that was exactly what we're talking about here, where there was an expectation that there was going to be a certain type of music in certain regions of the United States. But every form of music was infused with some type of African influence, whether it was country music, whether it was jazz, whether it was you know, any classical music, for example, Aretha Franklin sang opera. Okay, let's be clear on that. And so you know, given that it doesn't cross your mind until you're the person that wrote the opera and you're like, Oh, my God, a black woman who sings gospel that I thought didn't have the range actually sung this song the way she wanted to sing it. How dare she, because I wrote it one way, she's thinking in a different way. It doesn't even cross your mind that someone's not going to do it your way, because you only know your way. And you're only interested or invested in your way. Yeah, and maybe that's the case for many countries when it comes to global diversity. It's a reactionary process. It's not an issue until it's an issue.

I think that's really insightful in the way of thinking, you know, lifting out and thinking about that globally. And then I'd also add that the US has got a long history of like muscling in on other countries' ways of doing things and thinking that they're the best. Right. So there's also a resistance to engaging in DEI conversations within a US lens, because sorry, yeah. Barking in the background, of course.

That's all right. You know,

so I just I'm also reminded of, you know, how the US exports democracy or exports feminism, right, as though this is the way to do it. So it's exporting DEI, because the US is the only place that knows how to do it properly.

Oh, now, that's no, that's interesting. That might be the case for us. You know, we're the only ones that know how to do it properly. And, again, that comes from the roots of we're, we're the country that has had to do it at such depths because we have had such challenges. It's such depths, you know, and so, given that, of course, we're great divers, because we've had to go deeper than everybody else, you know, or we've had to go deeper than a lot of countries. So, you know, given that I think, I think you're onto something there where? Yeah, you may What's that phrase, I'll have to look up that quote, but I'll slaughter it and just basically say that, you know, a skilled sailor doesn't happen on smooth seas, right? You don't become skillful unless you deal with the challenges. And I hope we're skillful. I would never profess myself to be skillful. I just feel like we are well versed as di professionals here on this podcast with facing things head-on and not avoiding things even as messy as they can be. But yeah, I don't know if we're a global leader in di I just think that we are. We're like a global show Intel of yeah, all the crap that we've been through. Here are a few things about what to do. But here's a whole lot of shit of what not to do. Hey, take it for whatever it's worth Take, take this buffet for whatever it's worth. But yeah, we got a lot of things to show people in both directions. Right. Yeah.

I think that there are definitely some different perceptions out there about the US and the reason why DEI is so important. And whether that's good, bad, ugly, or indifferent. Right. So I think, you know, even though we've kind of gone around and around and up and down and left and right here, I think for sports organizations that are looking at global expansion, already do have connections in other countries and DEI is of importance to you. You do need to put in some thought about what that looks like in those international contexts to have the biggest impact that you can have.

Absolutely, absolutely. So Lisa, it sounds like we have a strong Hell yeah. And a hell nah. This week.

Hell yeah.

Hell no. Yeah, so what's going on? So I kind of heard about the books, the beat the books and so forth. But I'm like, What's going on with math? People are upset with math books. What's up with that? Florida. Oh, here we go. Here we go.

34:06

I feel like that's all I need to say. Right, Florida.

I'm so sorry to our Florida listeners. But Goodness gracious help them out. Help us help you. This Oh,

I guess I'm in a recent review of math textbooks for like K through 12 education, there was something like 130 math textbooks that were reviewed and a whopping 41%, which is about 50 by 54 books got removed, because they mentioned or covered issues that were inappropriate, including critical race theory, including social-emotional learning, and some other areas. So you know, this is math, right? Um, I saw some joke online. It was a tweet. And it was something like, Well, gosh, you know, Ron DeSantis, who's the governor of flow? is gonna, you know, have a cow when he finds out that math is, you know, deals with non-binary or something like that. Some silly isn't funny now me retelling it but would have been if you had read the actual tweet. So yeah, it's just unbelievable. Really, when you think about math, and you know, math certainly has bias in it, obviously. And we're not going to get into that here. But because of that low as

well, and I'm still not convinced that critical race theory is showing up in K through 12 books. Now, what they might perceive as critical race theory, maybe. But again, I'm still not convinced that critical race theory is showing up in K through 12 books ever, because that is a legal education concept, not a K through 12 Education concept. So I'm not even convinced about that. I wonder if they're misinterpreting critical race theory as or mistakingly, conflating critical race theory with just di concepts in general?

Oh, yeah. I don't think I don't think they're mistaken. I think they're they're going on purpose. Like I think it's well thought out, you know, like, oh, good race mentioned here. Let's throw out the entire textbook.

Oh, the entire textbook. Exactly.

They're trying to address stress and stress and young people because of COVID. And how they can do better with their math homework. Let's throw out the entire book. Because yeah, part of the curriculum.

Anyhow, that's incredible. No,

Florida once again, hell

no, hell no. Well, look, let me give you the Hell yeah because it is coming from a surprising source, let me say. So the Hell yeah, for this week comes from the Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, who vetoed a bill banning trans children from sports on there based on gender. And not only did he do this, but let's be clear, he wrote an entire five pages as to why. And I'm so impressed. Now. Let me be clear, Lisa. I think on almost every podcast, I throw my own home state under the bus. The governor went to law school at Washington Lee, which is in Lexington, Virginia. We know the history of Lexington in the Civil War. We know my home state of Virginia that I often bash on this podcast. So that makes it even more surprising to me once again. But as I skimmed over the letter, and I cannot wait to dive in a little bit further. But you know, Lisa and I are data people. And that's one of the things that was used to make the governor's case that 75,000 high school kids participating in high school sports are in Utah for transgender kids playing high school sports in Utah. Currently, one trans student playing girl sports 86% of trans youth are reporting suicidality. 56% of trans youth, have attempted suicide, y'all. So to me, I laugh, joke and Kiki about a lot of things. But these data points are critical and crucial and not funny at all. They are extremely serious to me, and I would say for Lisa as well. And so given that, we just applaud Governor Cox for bringing this up, and being very real and face forward about how easy it would have been for the governor to just go ahead and sign the bill. But, you know, he recognized how the political fallout may occur. He admitted that sometimes he doesn't get things right. But he wanted to provide a case as to why he did not agree. And hopefully, it lands in a place where people can understand even if they don't agree, but I just applaud what he did, pulling out the data points, and caring about youth and their livelihood, and especially their mental health. Lisa, so impressive. Governor Cox mpressive.

Yeah. And we do have a number of Republican governors who have vetoed similar bills, but they haven't gone to the extent to justify why in such a meaningful and thoughtful way, I think. Right. So that's one apart, but I think in all cases, the state legislature has overridden the governor's veto. And I might be wrong on that. I feel like Shaunna, we just say stuff on this podcast. And then we're like, Well, you might want to fact check.

Well, you never know we might, we might have somebody that's a fact checker that listens to us, please go ahead. Because we always stayed open to be corrected, of course, but this one sounds like a solid one. And so to Governor Cox, well done on that explanation, and we appreciate you caring about transgender people. For more broadly transgender youth transgender kids in sport, so thank you for being a leader and a voice around this issue, absolutely.

Unphased, a podcast produced by Live feisty media and supported by the outspoken women in triathlons Summit.

Edited and produced by the fabulous Amelia Perry.

Email us at info at unphasedpodcast.com and find us on social @tritodefi @doctorgoldspeaks or @outspokenwomenintri. I'm Lisa.

I'm Shaunna thanks for listening. Stay Unphased, folks. See you next time.