Individual and Collective Responsibility for Inclusion – Elizabeth Williams-Riley on The Empowerment Show

As I was working on this show and post, a Sly & The Family Stone song came on the radio There is a blue one who can’t accept the green one For living with a fat one, trying to be a skinny one And different strokes for different folks At the same time I was alerted to an anti-Gay Christian group who is refusing letter with the Harvey Milk stamp. Ah, we still have so much to learn about inclusion and diversity. Check out this informative interview with Elizabeth Williams-Riley the President and CEO of the American Conference on Diversity. In this discussion we explore how implicit bias affects the way we relate to others and how our self-work on removing our prejudice can create a ripple effect in our community. There are so many messages coming to us every day with blatant and subtle bias and assumptions about those who are different than us. It does not matter if the different is nationality, regionality, gender, sexual preference, disability, or socio-economic status there are implicit biases we all have consciously or unconsciously which affect how we act and react to others. By becoming aware of our implicit biases and how they affect our relationships we can decide if we want to keep them or if we want to learn a new way of being together. Technology is also helping us as a society to become aware of our implicit biases. A recent instance of this is the Instagram post and audio recording of the racial remarks made by the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling. In the past comments such of these may have been made between a few individuals who have the same beliefs. Now the comments can be broadcast, commented on by people around the world, and hopefully used to help educate us as a society about our implicit biases. Elizabeth says, "We've come a long way as far as people being disenfranchised, but we're not dealing with implicit bias." Listen in to learn how you can work on your own implicit bias, help the collective responsibility to make changes to our biases, and support school, community, and business programs which empower individuals to make changes around them. You can learn more about these programs and become involved at www.AmericanConferenceonDiversity.org or by calling 732-745-9330 Together we can recover from bias and racism and learn to truly embrace our unique social identities while accepting those of others.