Twitter's New Twit, DEI MBA, and Penn State Falls Back

[00:00:00] We've been about this work diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, shared through the voices of a white woman and a black man. We bring lived experiences. We have pursued D&I progress for most of our professional lives.

[00:00:17] We use Crazy and The King to cover news, tips from colleagues and hosts, incredible guest listeners. We count on Julie and I to transparently drive the conversation. We thank you for rocking with us. Check it, Julie kick off the show. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Crazy and The King.

[00:00:42] So listen, I really actually have to be just a tad bit quiet because those of you who are listening, you have no idea that I'm sitting in an office in New York

[00:00:54] and the people in the company, like, well they're not used to a person making a bunch of goddamn noise.

[00:01:02] They're just not used to, you know, it's kind of real boring, like the entire office, white furniture, it's almost like everything in here is, well it's black and white, but it's so quiet, Jay. Anyway, how are you? You know what? I am wonderful.

[00:01:21] I'm sitting at the new place in Portugal. I've been here, what, two weeks now? It's a dream. Living the dream, that's all I can tell you.

[00:01:32] Living the dream and you are not by yourself. A lot of folks want to have that dual citizenship and you know, spread their wings a little bit.

[00:01:42] Yeah, it's funny I was getting my eyelashes, or not my eyelashes, my eyebrows on the other day and I was talking to the lady who was doing it. She was like, my God, there's all these Americans here all of a sudden like what the hell is happening there?

[00:01:54] And I'm like, meh, let's just not talk about it. Just know that we'll come hang out, bring some money in, do that thing. So yes, there's a lot of movement. We're hearing from more and more people every day.

[00:02:08] But you know what? I'm especially thankful for you for taking our in-dem kind of thought that we've had for the last couple years and really taking it to fruition.

[00:02:22] And I don't know if it was on purpose, but you gave me pretty much the entirety of the month of October off from the mic knowing that it is the busiest month of the year for me

[00:02:37] and I'm a person with a disability. I don't know if that was in your thought process, but I appreciate you for that. And we had some great freaking content. We did. It wasn't on purpose. We did. And thank you all. So all of that.

[00:02:53] So we did have some great content and you're absolutely welcome. Nothing wrong with getting like a one month break that is unexpected, that allows you to sort of pour that energy into a different part of your professional and your personal life.

[00:03:12] And I want to just send out special thanks out to Yvette Piguis for kicking us off. I know that she was a bit nervous, but she had some incredible announcements and things that she's doing in the disability community.

[00:03:28] I want to also thank Amanda Kirby, Theo Smith from over in the UK for jumping in and hopping on that beat and giving us a little bit of that CATK love. And then last but not least, Amanda Burris.

[00:03:41] It's funny because when I was responding to Amanda Kirby, Amanda Burris popped up in my email auto pop and I'm like, this is the wrong person. And then I was thinking about somebody else with the last name Kirby over in Australia, New Zealand. I'm sorry.

[00:03:58] I was just like really bugging a little bit, but we got it all right. I think that all of them, you know, for it being their first time, not a whole lot of prep for all of them hopping on and just really contributing to the conversation last month.

[00:04:14] It was a beautiful, beautiful thing. And I'm very appreciative that you and I were able to agree that we would take a chance and do something that we had never done before.

[00:04:28] Yeah, I mean it was, I was super nervous about it. I don't know if I've said that on the air, but I was super nervous about it.

[00:04:35] And you know what? Like, I'm kind of kicking myself in the ass right now because you're 100% right. Everybody did an amazing job. It's hard to give up my seat, you know, just hanging out with you and doing our thing. So that was a little bit of it.

[00:04:51] But also what a fantastic kind of spread for our listeners to understand what disability brings to the table. Some of just the everyday people out there doing their thing, making a difference, you know, living their life with a disability, being successful and rockin' their game, whatever that is.

[00:05:13] And that's what I think, you know, as I went back and listened to all the shows, all of the guests were great. Super proud of Amanda. She did a fantastic job.

[00:05:22] And what I realized is this is where we need to see people with disabilities just like that, right? Just like that in this like, hey, everyday life, hey, doing our thing.

[00:05:34] It's not just Julie saying all the time that people with disabilities are out there rockin' the world and doing things all the time.

[00:05:41] But we are. And we had many very good examples this month on, or last month now, excuse me, November, showing what disability employment and success should look like. Absolutely, absolutely. So let's hop into just a couple of stories and then get to our conversation for the week.

[00:06:04] Number one, I think at the big, not at the big but at the top of most headlines, most newsletters, at least since last Thursday.

[00:06:14] The biggest headline happens to be that Elon took over Twitter. And I gotta tell you, well, I'm not, yeah, I am going to tell you, it was no big deal to me.

[00:06:26] Honestly, I felt like, you know, whether it's Elon or somebody different, you know, they're going to do within the organization, whatever it is they decide to do.

[00:06:35] These are building their problems. It's not my problem. I'm not trying to take over Twitter. I'm trying to use platform as I use other platforms that way to get out of message that I think is important.

[00:06:45] But one thing struck me over the weekend, I don't know exactly what day it was. It could have been Friday of last week, could have been Saturday or Sunday of the weekend or even earlier this week.

[00:06:57] But there was a rise in post around anti-Semitism, homophobia. I want to say posts that were racially charged.

[00:07:07] I don't know if they necessarily said the N word, Jay. I don't want to, I don't want to spread misinformation. But what I do remember seeing is that there was a rise in negative toxic dangerous language in the days of him taking over.

[00:07:24] How did you feel? Did you feel anything that you care?

[00:07:27] Yeah, I care. One, Twitter is the only social media that I still like. You know, we've had this talk many times. I just had to take a lot of social media breaks and I've gotten out of the habit of it for the most part.

[00:07:42] But Twitter, I really enjoy. It's like a way to connect with people who you would never otherwise have the opportunity to hear from on a really personal basis, especially the really smart people in our political world.

[00:07:59] And I honestly didn't think that the deal would go through. I don't know if you listened to the pivot podcast with Scott Galloway and... Care Swisher.

[00:08:15] Care Swisher, thank you for saving my ass as always. But they've been talking about this for months and really like what Elon did first was he manipulated the stock.

[00:08:25] So I own in mutual fund and ZX funds Twitter stock. He manipulated the price of that to his own end. He won't pay for that. That's a problem number one.

[00:08:35] Problem really number two is that he was backed financially because he had to take on debt to make this purchase happen. So he's backed financially by a Saudi prince, which means now that we have a foreign government who partially owns an American social media company that I have a problem with.

[00:08:58] And then of course the last thing that you speak of is then his sort of, I'm not going to moderate content approach. Right? So it's really just sort of a free for all of free speech, which is then resulting in what you talked about, which is the increase in anti-Semitism, LGBTQ, anti-trans language, homophobia.

[00:09:25] And I believe a dramatic increase in the use of the end word. I believe you're right about that as people who have otherwise been kicked off the platform are rejoining from far right platforms such as true social Reddit, Parler, whatever the fuck they are things.

[00:09:46] And so yeah, it's I don't know if it's that big of a deal, but it's there are things about it that like seriously pissed me off. And that this is a platform that I really, really love to use and it's going to be changing dramatically.

[00:10:05] And I don't think it's going to be changing for the best. Yeah, you know, so you raised some very, very good points. I have not listened to the podcast there. Scott McCara's podcast and quite some time, but I am very fond of both of those personalities.

[00:10:23] I will also say that I like the points that you raised around the foreign government, that government entity or individual being behind, you know, such a prominent US brand, one that we used to well actually one that's used globally.

[00:10:39] You know, I think about Eric spring and how it united meant how it supported so much of the uprising and the vocal activism, if you will, for a variety of different things.

[00:10:56] So it is a platform that I to appreciate. I don't see Twitter as like an Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, I do see it as being a very different platform.

[00:11:09] So I can appreciate the balance that you give to my statement of whatever. I still feel whatever, but I also embrace and feel the points that you've raised and what I think is going to happen in this, you know, whether or not it's Elon firing a number of high ranking executives and others,

[00:11:29] whether he continues to throttle employees access to content moderation tools, whether he replatforms some of the individuals that have been kicked off. I believe in the end and I don't know what the end looks like, but I believe over the next 12 to 18 months.

[00:11:48] A lot is going to be revealed to those of us who care about the platform use the platform. And I think that 18 month mark or so.

[00:11:58] We might see the rise of a couple of competing platforms, not any of the ones that you mentioned, but some very new interest into the marketplace. So what I think is going to happen is good.

[00:12:14] So the most important question related to Twitter is, and listeners if you do not know my podcast partner is Blue Check Verified kind of a badass. Will you pay to keep it? Is it important enough for you to spend that 240 bucks a year?

[00:12:32] No, not 240, not 60, not 24. I would even make $2 a month to be verified. The only way that I would pay to be verified, and I mean this sincerely, I would actually pay to be verified. And this is actually, this is going to roll into our next story.

[00:12:51] I would pay to be verified if Twitter had a verification policy for every single profile on the platform. If they were collecting driver's license and identifying information, you know, like I had to go through to get Blue Check Verified so that I knew that it wasn't a bot and it was a person

[00:13:15] and that they can be verified and in some ways pinpointed for some of their nefarious behavior. I would pay all day to be Blue Check Verified. I'd pay 240, I'd pay 360. You know, I would pay but until they get rid of some of the bots and the fake accounts, no, I'm not paying for it.

[00:13:37] There you go. You heard it here first, Elon.

[00:13:40] So it actually brings, it goes into the story we have around Texas and facial recognition becoming a way of life. And I'm not going to go into the full story part in part because I'm working on a laptop and that limited Windows page.

[00:13:57] But it's an infest company. You can look at the article. Here's the reason why I shared the article. There were people that were talking about in the article, Julie, that were against facial recognition becoming so prominently used in everyday life.

[00:14:18] In this instance in the beginning it was a person or couple trying to rent an apartment and the apartment complex wanted them to take a picture on their phone and look, they just weren't feeling it. Here's my question.

[00:14:35] I believe we can't stop that trend. So do you feel like this facial recognition journey that is really like just looming over the mountain? Like it literally is looming over the mountain. Do you feel like this, this technology is going to have positive or more negative impact on our daily lives?

[00:15:07] You know, I go back and forth. I mean, you know, I think you're like after, I'm going to say this from an American purview first and then try to give it a more global perspective is after 9 11, we put the Patriot Act into law in which we created and I think not fully as a citizen who lived it as you did not fully recognizing

[00:15:36] that we were in fact allowing at least the gateway for the creation of a surveillance state. Now is a surveilled state good or bad? You know, if we look at London, if we look at, you know, different parts of Europe that have heavy use of like CCTV and those kind of things where crime is lower than it is here, maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing.

[00:15:59] I don't know. What I know is as Americans we have we've created a power vacuum in which that kind of technology and that kind of surveillance is going to be able to thrive. And when you pair that with really unfettered capitalism that we have in this country, and the conveniences that that surveillance state is going to create.

[00:16:27] Yeah, I think that ship has sailed. I think that you know, I like to look at my phone and have it see me. I like to get on the plane with my clear and my biometric scan, you know, all of those things. And do I really think about very often? Anything other than giving my DNA away to like a 23 of me, which I will never do.

[00:16:51] The rest has just sort of just happened. You know, yeah, I did I signed up like you for clear and then when the pandemic hit.

[00:17:07] I started to see the efficacy of clear beyond the airport and then, lo and behold, they started to accept it at some of the conference and in person events that I was attending and or attended by others. And so I.

[00:17:27] I tend to not be a person who is reticent about embracing new technology.

[00:17:36] I don't know. I think if we can, if we can get this facial recognition to like, for instance, this camera that saw my laptop right now, I purchased it for one reason or one reason only so that I wouldn't have to hook up the audio and video equipment that's in my office.

[00:17:54] I'm trying to, you know, just put it there and leave it there and not moving around. Put it on planes and all that other stuff. But this camera is actually supposed to follow me now.

[00:18:05] I don't know if it's following me because I haven't done anything, but on your side is it moving? Oh yeah, it's moving. Oh yeah. So see, I couldn't even tell on my side is doing what it's supposed to do.

[00:18:17] So I think that we personally, I like to embrace new technology when I think that it will advance efficiency. It will advance efficacy.

[00:18:29] It advance connection in humanity. So even though the ship is sale, I'm happy to be on the ship. I just want to make sure that we are. As as individuals not afraid to govern when governing needs to be done.

[00:18:45] That if in fact we can tell that these organizations, these companies, these enterprises, if they're misusing our data, they're misusing this deploying technology that we step in and we step in immediately.

[00:18:59] We don't allow it to become something erected tool in our day to day life where it's hard for us to strip it out and we can't move forward. Kind of like the two big to fail. Remember that whole conversation around too big to fail.

[00:19:17] Any technology being stood up in a way that if we pull it out or that if we try to now regulate or do something that is for the better good, for the greater good, that it disrupts our lives. That I want us to try to avoid.

[00:19:33] Yeah, I think that's a good like kind of one of the pieces I took away from the article is just it's the ability to opt out.

[00:19:40] And I think that's like that's one of my big problems is if I opt in, I choose to use clear I choose to give that information to the clear company. But you know, I don't I shouldn't have to use it to be able to purchase an apartment.

[00:19:58] There should be other ways of verifying my identity which we've done for you know how many ever dozens and dozens of years. And we should be allowed to opt out of that kind of data collection.

[00:20:12] And not only should we be have the ability to opt out but we should have sort of first right of refusal in terms of like when it pops up.

[00:20:21] You can opt in, you can opt out not I have to go find a thing and opt out and do all that kind of stuff. And the other pieces is certainly around facial recognition around, you know, the criminal justice system.

[00:20:33] That is proven again and again to be problematic and we don't have anything close to the type of accuracy that we need to make that even remotely doable at this point.

[00:20:47] Yeah, and the last story that we have before we go to our break it's just a really quick mention but I am really, really excited that the Wharton School of well it looks like the management department.

[00:20:59] I don't want to say the Wharton School of Business but the Wharton management department is going to offer in the academic school year of 2023-2024 they're going to offer an MBA in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion major.

[00:21:13] It's a major major major academic announcement for me which really will connect us to part of what we're going to talk about after the break.

[00:21:22] But I thought that this was beautiful. Love that Wharton and all of its prominence and glory around building B school students and propelling people to Wall Street and power corridors.

[00:21:37] That they said we have to do even more around diversity and inclusion. Stephanie Currie who has been awesome, she's been a great friend. Just to know that even with her presence the work that she's doing, others are doing that the school said we have to do even more.

[00:21:57] Yeah, it's good fun. It's interesting. I'll be very interested to see how it plays out and if other schools adopt.

[00:22:04] And we will go over a break but what I want you all to know before we do the break is why do Julie and I talk about Twitter and Elon Musk and content moderation?

[00:22:14] And why do we talk about facial recognition and criminal justice system and how it impacts our personal and professional lives? And why do we highlight Wharton starting an academic major around DNI because they're all important.

[00:22:29] We have grown in how we put our stories together that we're not only talking about DNI specific stories because we know that indirectly these stories impact how we pursue DNI and our personal and professional lives. So stick with us, we'll be right back.

[00:22:46] Do you love news about LinkedIn, Indeed, Google and just about every other recruitment tech company out there? Hell yeah. I'm Chad. I'm Cheese. Here's the Chad and Cheese podcast. All the latest recruiting news and insights are on our show. Dripping in snark and attitude.

[00:23:04] Subscribe today wherever you listen to your podcasts. We out. So this week in a flash, the feds propose rate height and ace per signal that a downturn is inevitable. And the CEO of Red Fed says that home prices are falling faster than they did in 2008.

[00:23:25] Apparently we have Airbnb Joe's and Joe's that's institutional investors and I buyers to blame all companies are posting record profits early voting is up way, way up and a man in southern China is considering his 30 million dollar lottery jackpot from his wife and his child.

[00:23:44] Fearing Jane that the winnings will make both of them lazy. I don't know if you caught it or our jackpot here last week was $1 billion over at the Supreme Court.

[00:23:56] Some justices press for an end to race conscious university admissions as they heard challenges to affirmative action early in the week. And I think some of the members of the Supreme Court should probably enroll in that class for a war in 2023 2024.

[00:24:15] And finally, if that isn't enough to ponder, apparently there is now a thing called the pink tax. The pink tax is a return to office tax where women also face paying more for clothes, makeup and dry cleaning pain more than for the women.

[00:24:34] Then that's this week's in a flash. All right, so I just have to question question from in a flash, which I love by the way, did you just learn about the pink tax or did you were you just updating the pink tax?

[00:24:51] So I thought about that, you know, it's so interesting that you asked me that because I said, did we talk about that before? And I didn't do a quick, you know, Google Drive search like I would normally do.

[00:25:04] But I said, but then the immediate question after that was, but have women always paid more money for clothes, for makeup, for hair than men have? Like, why is there a need for, you know what I think it is, Jay?

[00:25:21] I just think that people, I think that there are more people working hard to trend, go viral. So let's come up with this new phrase like whoever created the war for town 1996 or something.

[00:25:37] Whoever created the Great Resignation or the Great Reset or people, I think people are always searching for something that allows them to get a bit of notoriety.

[00:25:47] So I know about the pink tax. I mean, I'm calling it the pink tax, but women in my life have always paid more for these things than I did.

[00:25:56] Yes, we pay a higher tax many times on female goods like tampons, you know, all of those things we pay a higher tax for or a higher price for pink razors, women's razors versus men's razors.

[00:26:10] So all of those things have existed. And now as we do your turn to work and have to revamp those wardrobes, all of those things are still more expensive for us to do. So excellent call out.

[00:26:23] So this week, well, last week there was a tweet that caught my attention that I'm going to actually read the tweet. It was regarding Penn State. The Penn State University is scrapping plans to open up a center for racial justice.

[00:26:40] The plan was actually announced in 2021 in response to of course, George Floyd the summer uprising and some of the other things that were happening. But it was to highlight how the school has failed to hire and retain black faculty members.

[00:27:00] The tweet was from an individual by the name of Wyatt Massey. He's at news for Mass on Twitter. News the number four mass on Twitter. He says Penn State has followed these crap plans to establish a center for racial justice, a key proposal in the wake of 2020 protests.

[00:27:21] This this morning, the morning that the truth was sent out president Ben Ben the poody told the group searching for the centers director that Penn State would not fund the effort. Now we'll get back to that. So my question.

[00:27:44] How do you feel when academic institutions, corporations, nonprofit entities, people who have made a demonstrative stand that de an eyes important racial social social justice is important? How do you feel when when they backtrack on those decorative statements, those demonstrative positions?

[00:28:16] And just to be fair, let me not tease out the audience. What the president said is that they're going to take those allocated funds and reinvest them in existing work that it's already being done with an asset. That's my asterisk not yours. That's not at all last year.

[00:28:34] Well, how do you feel when they backtrack from those demonstrative statements and positions? I mean it immediately when when you were reading the tweet and we were prepping for the show.

[00:28:49] I thought of Tim Sackett who joined us earlier this year, and we asked him, you know, our company's backsliding in their DNA commitments. Now that we are two plus years out from the murder of George Floyd, and his answer was an unequivocal and loud yes they are.

[00:29:12] And I think, you know, that's my that's my first gut reaction is you know we've we things are bad and something terrible happens and we take action and we have that gut.

[00:29:25] But when it comes time to put your money where your mouth is that money is reallocated reprioritized in a potentially and again I'm just sort of talking out loud less than transparent way than a center for. racial justice would have been on Penn State's campus.

[00:29:46] Now, with that being said, I think that we do a lot of. I think there's a lot of academic work that gets done around social justice racial justice.

[00:30:03] And we have a lot of very, very smart people. So if we're going to use the money for making sure that we are actually.

[00:30:12] You know, creating more diverse scholarship programs initiatives, making sure that we're retaining and paying black and brown talent at the level that is equitable to their, their white peers that we are creating more accessible buildings on campus that were using creating more accessible technology.

[00:30:31] More accessible learning, you know, mediums for students and faculty for disabilities. Like that to me is a really good use of that money. And so, you know, maybe next time. When we start thinking about those commitments, we can see sort of the.

[00:30:52] The reality of being reactive versus proactive does Penn State have a good. D I B strategy from its top to its bottom right or when things happen like the murder of George Floyd did they all of a sudden wake up and go oh shit we haven't done anything.

[00:31:12] Let's make this really big promise that we then don't keep instead of having, you know, D and I that moves and lives and is a part of everything that Penn State does, which again.

[00:31:24] At least at my gut would be probably a much better use of the money than sort of the high profile building, you know, downtown and making that that move for additional academic work.

[00:31:37] I don't know. I literally just thought of that while I was talking at state. It could be all wrong. Well, so I teased in the 10 bit while I shared, you know, that Penn State had been operating or leases last year operating at about 100 million dollar deficit.

[00:31:54] I've seen a few different numbers and some of the articles that I researched were read prior to our recording. But the point is all of the articles suggested that Penn State is they are cash deficient at this particular point.

[00:32:11] So the piece that that sort of stood out for me you touched on it is are we being transparent?

[00:32:20] So I try to be fair because I said, you know, when I go in and consult and work with an organization, I always tell them I have to start with the discovery.

[00:32:29] I need to see where you are so that we can baseline how we decide to stand up programming and efforts to move forward. We have that some degree of measurement and revelation, then we can begin to journey towards better.

[00:32:48] What most of these are said to me, Jay was that they were going to some say we're going to double down on our efforts and we'll take the money that we were going to allocate,

[00:33:00] which is some of the two one three million dollars for this new center will take that one and three million and forward into existing program.

[00:33:10] But then I read one article and I said is one enough for me to put the red flag up? Yeah, it is one article I read it said. Well, we have to we have to uncover what we are doing. And I said as the president of the institution.

[00:33:32] How is it that either you can be quoted as saying we have to uncover what we are doing behind the decision being made to say we're just going to scrap the center for racial justice.

[00:33:47] If I'm going to get out and say I'm backtracking off of this declaration that we made, I'm going to backtrack and we're going to put our money where we I need to already know what we already do.

[00:34:02] It just it logically didn't make any sense, which is the reason why I think people like Bernice King, Chief Executive of Martin Luther King Center says, you know, listen, we got a problem with this diversity efforts are not the same as working to end races.

[00:34:18] I think it's a reason why black faculty members at Penn State are complaining last year. I believe that the report says that African Americans accounted for about 3.1% of faculty in 2020 3.1%. I will tell you something else that I can't really elaborate on because it's not my story.

[00:34:41] I heard the story riding around in the city a couple of weeks ago, but a former or a Penn alumn talked about when they were attending the university.

[00:34:55] There was the depth of at least one black person, a body found on the campus and how the campus just pretty much tried to sweep it upon the drug.

[00:35:08] In the context of that was around Penn State has a longer history of not doing what needs to be done around equity and inclusion and representation. This is not a newer history. It's a longer history.

[00:35:26] And so for the current president to scrap it, but then say we need to do a discovery to see what we're doing. I think that's a little bit of a quick and car before the hopes.

[00:35:41] Yeah, I mean it shows the disingenuousness of the center in the first place because if you don't know what's wrong and you haven't spent the time to figure that out.

[00:35:59] This is what you and I do for a living on the regular is figure out what's broken and then build systems to correct that. And so, you know, now to say, oh, we're going to go back and we're going to study and discover what is broken.

[00:36:16] Well, you know, you've got 100 years of history in two years since the death of George Floyd to have been working on that before you made this decision to cut the center.

[00:36:26] I will say though, I would like to get your opinion a little bit more on the Bernie's King statement. Diversity efforts are not as the same as working to end racism, which I 100% agree with. They're not the same. But sometimes I feel like statements like that discourage good.

[00:36:46] They discourage TA leaders, DEI leaders, HR leaders, CEOs from taking action because it's not enough.

[00:36:57] And what we really need is people who are who are willing to do what's necessary to build into the systems that they control, but they can influence just start to increase diversity, which will work towards ending racism.

[00:37:10] And so I sometimes I find that kind of language a little bit discouraging and not disrespectful obviously to Mrs. King in any shape or form.

[00:37:20] But it just sort of lands oddly with me when we think about the work that has to be done and how it has to be systematic. And that has to be, you know, there have to be diversity efforts to actually end racism. I think.

[00:37:35] So what's your question to me though? Because I hear your position. So what's your question to me? I don't know if there's a question so much as I guess I just made a statement and wondering, you know, serve your gut, your reaction to it.

[00:37:50] Yeah. So, you know, when I read the statement, when I read statements of that sort, I tend to think about the trouble that I cannot remember her name.

[00:38:08] She's the former DMI officer for Apple. I think it's to be young Smith, if I'm not mistaken, back in like 2015 or 16 something like that. She was in Brazil and she made a statement around 14 or so white men being in the room and that really is diversity and inclusion.

[00:38:30] I'm not mistaken. I'm paraphrasing. And I felt like that was problematic around this is a black woman saying that 14 men being in a room is diversity and inclusion.

[00:38:43] I felt like that was problematic because I felt like it gave cover and grace to individuals not willing to push hard enough to increase diversity, to increase inclusion of representation.

[00:38:59] And so when I hear a statement like Denise King's, I hear it the same way that I read Denise. The same thing.

[00:39:09] I feel like we sometimes can flirt with diversity and think that we are making progress when we are not tearing down and trying to deconstruct these systems of oppression and prejudice and just these barriers that prevent us from really making true progress.

[00:39:39] So personally, I didn't see an issue in the statement. However, I can embrace, I can sit with what you were saying as well because here's the beauty in that.

[00:39:52] The beauty and there are so many times that people that are younger than you and I, Jed, not excluding you from that youngness if you will.

[00:40:02] But there are times when people will put stuff up on social media and they're like calling it out like this is the problem. And I have, I sit, I literally will sit there and read it for two, three, four minutes.

[00:40:15] Like, I don't see what's wrong. Like, I don't see the issue. And it'll be a long thread of people commenting. And I'm trying not necessarily trying to agree if you will.

[00:40:28] I'm literally just trying to see what is the issue. So I can live with your observation around the sentiment of how sometimes a statement like that might push people away from really participating and being a part of how we are created by the journey.

[00:40:46] Thank you for that. And what I will say is that Penn State, do better. Yes.

[00:40:51] Penn State just simply do better. We need you to, you are a well-recognized academic institution. And like Wharton earlier in this episode, you and the statement that would have been made by standing up that Center for Racial Justice, Penn State, I need you to do better.

[00:41:15] Yep. Yep. Transparently better. Transparently.

[00:41:19] And just as we close out this segment before we go to her voice, didn't want to miss your call out in a flash about the arguments that are happening this week in front of the Supreme Court about ending affirmative action at the university level with cases against both Harvard and University of Carolina.

[00:41:42] Yep, UNC. Thank you. And very, very likely then later this next year, you and I will be talking about the Obertarian Affirmative Action by SCOTUS.

[00:41:53] And that probably deserves its own historical Crazy and the King episode as we lead up to those. But if you haven't followed those arguments, check them out. Justice Kintajee Brown Jackson is making some compelling statements and you're starting to hear really where the other side sits and we're likely to lose that regulation mid next year.

[00:42:17] You got it. We'll be right back. The Jim Stroud podcast explores the discoveries and trends forming the future of our lives brain to brain communication, robot bosses, microchip implants for workers and artificial intelligence replacing human workers are all happening now.

[00:42:41] If you want to know what's happening next, subscribe now to the Jim Stroud podcast. Her voice that is where we have five women that are making moves. So this week up first we have Amber Coleman Mortall. She is the director of innovation at the female bullshit.

[00:43:06] FQ is an equality services company that provides thought leadership platforms for women and develops solutions for organizations committed to closing the gender gap in the workplace.

[00:43:20] And we also have 35 year old canva founder Melanie Perkins, who got rejected by 100 BC's. Now her 26 billion design startup which canvas kind of a competitor to like an Adobe design is ready to take on Microsoft and Google Perkins who's Australian founded the design platform with zero Silicon Silicon Valley connections and it's now the world's most valuable startup founded and led by a woman.

[00:43:50] And finally the NBA hired Paramount plus senior VP of consumer marketing and streaming this Tammy Hennot as their chief marketing officer and Laura Kavanaugh will be the first woman to lead the New York City Fire Department shout out to all of the women that this week made into our her voice segment.

[00:44:16] And we gotta move real quick to disability Twitter. I think we have some interesting ones this week. You first. Yeah, I love this first one. So it's being me for 20. And it's a picture that says I'm too clumsy to be around fragile masculinity as a coffee cup which we all need.

[00:44:34] And it says this is absolutely perfect. Hashtag HEDS hashtag disability Twitter hashtag ADHD.

[00:44:43] Yeah, and this one here is not so much of a mystery. But you know we understand that people in this building community are not employed in numbers that we can brag about. But we actually found a story this week around employment in the disability community.

[00:45:01] It was a story dropped by Andrew Paul rang a N. R. E. W. Paul P. L. R. A. N. G. I'm sorry Andrew Paul rang he dropped the story of forms title why is the important gap to people with disabilities so consistently why the one thing that I want to mention in that is that there is a tiny more so the news in the article, the uptick in employment within the community.

[00:45:30] There's a little bit higher over the last month or so and so that we want to apply.

[00:45:35] Yes, absolutely. Andrew is amazing founder of the crypto vote hashtag. In fact, last but not least we have slikers at slikers eight SL y K E. R. S. eight number eight love out to all the humans in constant chronic pain.

[00:45:51] Most people have no idea of a mental and emotional discipline. It takes to live like this. I love you. I see you. I honor you and your pain and your survival hashtag disability Twitter marching towards the holiday season.

[00:46:04] We have just a few more weeks and all of our listeners just know that Julie and I have curated some really good interviews to end the year.

[00:46:13] But we'll be back next week live and direct. We close your mouth and one of you to share the pod with your digital tribe and find your voice. You've got a human that's free. But a culture team in workplaces now J and I are. See ya.

[00:46:32] How much do you understand the future of finance? I'm Jim Maruz, a top 10 banking influencer and host of the podcast Banking Transform where we dive deeply into the rapidly evolving world of banking and financial technology.

[00:47:00] Join me as I interview industry experts, thought leaders and innovators as they unravel the latest banking trends disruptions and game changing technologies reshaping the world of finance.

[00:47:12] Redefine your understanding of the banking ecosystem. Subscribe now to Banking Transform available wherever you get your podcast and now available on YouTube.