diversity

Presidential party caucus day has arrived for many of us, and it brings with it a sobering reflection on how the media chooses to exercise its power to persuade. Even more sobering is the related reflection on how we choose to exercise our power to think.

My city's less-than-intellectual newspaper has been distracted through much of the pre-election season by our governor's bid for the Democratic nomination. Not that he was ever a viable candidate, but he was ours and we were treated to interminably long months of evaluating his every expression and calorie. Since he dropped out of the race, the newspaper's ability to shift gears and focus on the larger, more relevant contest has been notably impaired. If our fair citizens know anything about the other candidates, it is due to our own resourcefulness, and not because the newspaper has done an adequate job of reporting on them.

So this morning it was with some surprise that I saw pictures of Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama splashed across the front of one of the sections of the paper. What an interesting choice -- no, what an interesting series of choices -- were made in the construction of that section cover. Think of the questions that were asked and answered. Should we show the two candidates? Should we show the two spouses? Should we just show the two women? Which pictures (of the many dozens they likely have access to) should we show? Should we make them look smart? Angry? Animated? Peaceful? Should we show them with similar expressions, or different? The foundation for all of the answers to these questions is the underlying rationalization of why.

So here is my question. Why did the Albuquerque Journal choose to show Hillary and Michelle instead of Hillary and Barack? Why did the Journal show Hillary as a bit removed, composed, peaceful, hands folded in front, but Michelle as directly in your face, eyes alight, mouth wide open? What was the purpose?

The average reader may not stop to reflect that Michelle Obama has a B.A. in Sociology from Princeton, and a Harvard Law Degree. They probably don't know that she worked for a number of years in corporate law at a major Chicago intellectual property firm, and that in 1991 she embarked upon a life of public service. She was an assistant to the mayor of Chicago, and the City of Chicago's assistant commissioner for planning and development. In 1993 she became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago, a leadership training institute that helps young adults develop skills for careers in the public sector. In 1996 she joined the University of Chicago as associate dean of student services, and she developed the University's first community service program. Michelle also served as executive director of community and external affairs until 2005, when she was appointed vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She also managed the business diversity program, and fostered the University of Chicago's relationship with the surrounding community and developed the diversity program, making them both integral parts of the Medical Center's mission. Michelle Obama has been a tireless and passionate organizing force for public good in one of our nation's largest cities for nearly 20 years.

I don't expect that the Albuquerque Journal expects most of their readers to know this information or to stop and reflect on it. The reaction they likely anticipated -- indeed, counted on -- is the emotional reaction of the simple majority of white people who do not have a black female friend or colleague. Americans are not only considering the prospect of a black president, but of a black first lady. What knowledge, experience, and sensibility do we have to give this consideration its due?

Ultimately, the responsibility for our impressions lies with us -- not the newspaper, not Fox or CNN, not our spouse, or some blog. Just us. Only us. But thinking is not the same as perceiving. Thinking is powerful, evaluative, fundamentally creative. Perceiving is shackled by our emotions, our baggage, our fears and our wants. When we think with our perceptions we are not thinking at all – we're just feeling.

I hope this nation can pull it together in time. I imagine a world where a critical mass of people are amassing critical thought. If we don't take responsibility for our thinking -- soon -- we will have to take responsibility for the mess that ensues.

Today I voted for Obama. I believe that both Obama and Hillary (interesting, isn't it, that as a society we've selected the first name for one and the last name for the other? What does that mean?) can handle the presidency and do a good job, so once the caucuses are over I will support the winner with time and resources. But today I was shaken. I like to think that I am a more rational, more careful thinker than most. But perhaps today I simply benefited from a lifelong influence of strong black women. If the trigger had been something different, would I have responded with perception rather than thinking?

A reality based on thinking is bound to be better than a reality based on perception. It's time for us to think our way to a new reality, by dismantling one perception at a time.

It's been a long time since I had to report to anyone at work other than my customers or a Board of Directors. But not so long that I couldn't remember being asked to fetch coffee, pick up a birthday gift for the wife, have my suggestions mocked (instead of politely declined), or simply ignored. I'm fairly thick-skinned, and that type of treatment most often inspired a wait-until-I'm-rich-and-you're-still-working-here internal response. But when I witnessed this behavior happening to others, and ultimately to my children, my response was much more emotional. What does it mean to honor an employee's dignity? For starters, it means remembering that you are not doing them a favor. The employer/employee exchange is one of parity - one works, the other pays money. These exchanges need to be in balance for dignity to be a possibility. Second, it means that the employer takes seriously his responsibility to train, guide, and communicate. People don't come into any new job automatically knowing how things work. Even the same job in a different company can be radically different than your version of that job. To bring a new employee on and then doom her to failure due to lack of structure, expectations, or instruction is to undermine her dignity. Its a bit too easy, when you're the boss, to forget that there are often many ways to arrive at a particular destination. It's your responsibility to honestly identify which paths are nonnegotiable and which have some flexibility of approach. To deny others the right to think any way but your way is to discount their value - and therefore their dignity. Unfortunately, many business owners believe that the absence of profanity or yelling means they have created a dignified workplace, but some of the most demeaning behavior I have ever witnessed was done with a smile and polite language. To respect someone's dignity is to respect his essential equality, his inherent value, and his full potential to not only contribute, but to teach you something as well. To create a workplace imbued with dignity, we must endeavor to be genuinely dignified ourselves.

Several months ago I received a personal email from a long-ago friend who is now a protestant minister. Apparently he had (finally?) learned that I am gay, and felt compelled to express to me his concerns about my choice and therefore, my soul. I was a little surprised that he felt so compelled to impose his opinions on me that way, but chose to use it as an opportunity to write the "what I would say to a minister if he out-of-the-blue decided to preach to me about my queerness" blog.

Here it is.

Thanks for your email (I guess). Not surprisingly, I have a rather different view. Men of God have powerful control to shape society and influence how people treat one another. More control even than politicians or parents. So the influence of ministers, priests, rabbis, and other spiritual leaders is of paramount concern to me as it relates to the shaping of a just and loving society.

In the times of the old testament the religious leaders determined that rape was OK if the man paid the father of the woman he raped 50 shekels and then married her and never divorced (Deuteronomy 22:28). Lucky girl, right? But society was influenced by this determination, as dictated to Men of God by God himself. Rape in that time was condoned. God's instructions (as interpreted by Men of God) on how to take a second wife are found in Exodus 21:10 - in those times polygamy was also an acceptable practice. Also in Exodus, 21:7, you can learn the rules about how to sell your daughter and what to do if she fails to please her new master. These are really old references, right? But these are excellent examples of how men interpreted for other people the Will of God - and thereby shaped the society of their times with their interpretations.

I believe that it is perfectly fine before God's eyes for blacks and whites to marry one another. But as recently as 40 years ago (and in some places, it probably continues today) preachers used the Bible to justify their position that blacks were less human than whites, and therefore intermarriage was an abomination and a sin. They relied largely on the Book of Numbers for this, though there are ample references throughout the Old Testament decrying any form of intermarriage between the Israelites and others considered to be 'lower' than them.

And now preachers use the Bible to say that being gay is a sin, and they can find a few Biblical references to support this, just as there are a few references to the acceptability of rape, polygamy, slave-keeping, and other things that we all agree are abominations today. Yet science can show that gays have existed since the earliest recorded human history. How long will it take- 40 years? 50 years? - before we look back on this time and shake our heads, just as we look in shame at the time when we kept slaves in the United States backed by numerous Old Testament references to the acceptability of keeping slaves, or at the times when blacks who married whites were punished by death or jail? Humans have used their interpretations of the Bible - primarily the Old Testament - to support our biases and fears for many centuries, and I don't expect that to change. We are champions at rationalizing our bad behavior.

But there is no reference to Jesus Christ saying that being gay is a sin. His entire message was to focus on our own spirituality, treat one another with love and without judgement, and to let God worry about the rest. I sometimes wonder - is God more likely to be upset with us for judging someone that He actually loves unconditionally, or would he be more upset with us for loving someone unconditionally that he ultimately judged?

So that is what I believe. Our references are probably somewhat different. As a Jew, I still love to study the Torah and other sacred texts. As a person who went entirely to Catholic schools, my Bible of choice is the New American Bible. As a protestant, I suspect you rely more on the King James. But ultimately, I'm just a spiritual human being, and I can't bear to watch the world justify hatred, bigotry, and war by searching for references in various religious texts that are more relevant to the times in which they were written than to the actual intent of God - whom we all agree is most difficult to understand given our less-than-perfect state. I can only support messages that are closest to that of Jesus himself - a message that says "love one another, be kind to one another, accept one another, don't throw the first stone, and let God worry about the rest." Because honestly, if we started feeding the poor, sharing the wealth, condemning all forms of war, and treating one another as if we could see God's face in the face of each person we looked at, the world would be a beautiful place. And the fact that some men slept with men and some women slept with women wouldn't matter at all in a world like that, would it.

Our children - and now our grandchild - have paid a certain price for having gay (grand)parents. Back in the '90s, my daughter was directly confronted, taunted, and ostracized about it. Today, our granddaughter hears gay-bashing on the bus, on the playground, in the lunchroom.

So why, our friends sometimes ask, do we choose to live in rural Wisconsin - a blue state with a lot of red rural areas, a place known for having large pockets of extremely conservative folks? We choose to live in Wisconsin because this is where my partner is from, her family is our family, and we didn't want to miss out any longer on being part of that.

Now, here's why we didn't choose not to live in Wisconsin. We didn't choose not to live in Wisconsin because of Harvey Milk. We didn't choose not to live in Wisconsin, because people fear what they don't know, and the only way to dispel that fear is to make the unfamiliar familiar. We didn't choose not to live in Wisconsin, and now we're just known as "the girls who live on the hill." We know people in the small towns around us, and they are always warm to us. Their children come over and play with our granddaughter. They come into our house for a cup of coffee and to share the local news.

We didn't choose not to live in Wisconsin, and we didn't change the world. But we became familiar to a few dozen people who may not have known any gay people before. We didn't choose not to live in Wisconsin. And we're very glad.

There are few things I have been more disastrously bad at than dating. I was the poster child for dating the wrong people, for the wrong reasons, and then continuing to date them for more of the wrong reasons. Not only was I bad at it … I was bad at it for more than a decade. It was so bad that I caused my friends considerable discomfort. So bad that there was finally an intervention.

The intervention went something like this:

BFF 1: “What are you even doing? What is it you’re looking for when you go on a date?

Me: “What do you mean what am I looking for? I’m looking for a date. How is this even a question?”

BFF 2: “No you’re not. We know you. You want to have kids. You want a family. You’re the nesty-est nester of all of us. You’re not looking for a date. You’re looking for a relationship.

Me: “Well that’s why I go on dates! How am I supposed to be finding a relationship if I don’t go on dates?”

BFF 1: “Yes, but you’re doing the dates all wrong.”

Me: “Well I’m not going home with them on the first date if that’s what you mean.”

BFF 1: “That’s not what we mean. You’re not asking the right questions. You’re not even putting them in the right setting.”

Raised by Wolves

There is an ongoing joke between my siblings and me that we were essentially raised by wolves. Case in point: How had nobody ever bothered to explain to me that there was a point to dating, and that the point was relative to what it was you were trying to accomplish? My friends went on to illustrate how each of our dating approaches were different because we each wanted something different. Who knew there was a science to dating?  (apparently, everyone but me)

The intervention landed me in dating rehab for a few months while I stopped to evaluate how I should approach dating to achieve my desired life goals. And it wasn’t long before I started applying this new lesson to everything I did.

As it turns out, most job interviewers were also raised by wolves; trained to do job interviews by people who had no training themselves in job interviews. Or, worse yet, never trained by anyone at all. And the result is a lot of disastrous dates hires, many of which go on to be relationships that are disappointing, psychologically and monetarily expensive, and hard to get out of.

There Is a Science to Interviewing

Interviewing is used in a lot of roles: Journalists conduct news interviews, scientists conduct research interviews, criminologists conduct case interviews, law enforcement officers conduct interviews of people adjacent to crimes, health care professionals conduct patient interviews … and all these professionals are trained in something called interview science. Yet when it comes to job interviews, most managers just start firing questions at candidates about whatever pops into their heads.

It's no surprise that so many hires are just another bad first date followed by a U-Haul rental.

One of my companies is a strategic HR advisory consulting firm, and it has become somewhat of a mission for me to help our clients do a better job of dating hiring, and that means doing a better job in the interview process.

The Science of Interviewing

You could spend (as I have) months of coursework and years of practice to learn the science of interviewing, but some basic knowledge goes a long way.

Interviewing is an interdisciplinary field, which means that it draws upon principles from psychology, communication studies, sociology, and data analytics to create a process that is intentional, structured, capable of delivering a specific result, and fair. Science is required  because interviewing is about understanding human motivation and how that motivation influences behavior. While we cannot perfectly predict future performance for anyone based on an understanding of their past actions, a well-structured and conducted interview can get us closer to understanding than a random collection of questions without any strategy behind them can.

And if you think you can depend on your gut for this, you’re destined for many bad marriages hires. I won’t even try to explain in this already longish blog why that’s a bad idea, but you could read this book if you want to know more. In it, Malcolm Gladwell does a fantastic job of laying out the risks of trusting one’s gut too much when it comes to assessing people.

The principle we lean on most in interview science is Behavioral Psychology. Behavioral psychology is the branch of psychology that focuses on how past behavior influences future actions. Social Psychology also plays a strong role, helping us understand group dynamics, communication patterns and — of grave importance — understanding how biases influence interview outcomes. The Communications discipline, including active listening and attending to non-verbal cues, is crucial to creating a productive interview environment.

Like most scientific disciplines, there are many theories about the best ways to use all these principles to do interviews. Some theories are more suited to some professions than others. For example, the Reid Technique is a police interrogation theory that would not be at all suitable for job interviews. Likewise, Cognitive Interviewtheory as used in forensic psychology would be deeply intrusive and inappropriate for a job interview. But there are several interview theories and practices that are applicable to the hiring process.

One of them is Competency Based Interviewing Theory, which focuses on assessing the specific skills and competencies relevant to a job. Most people who have never studied interview science would say, “Yes! That’s the theory I’m using!” But there’s way more to it than simply asking about skills and experiences. Competency Based Interviewing Theory uses structured behavioral questions to elicit detailed examples of past experiences. It provides a framework for getting past superficial knowledge and into deeper understanding of a candidate’s abilities and suitability for a given job. Competency Based Interviewing also provides the necessary framework for ensuring a fair and objective assessment across all the candidates for a given job.

Another theory used in a good hiring process is Cognitive Ability Theory, which assesses a person’s problem-solving abilities. Again, if you’ve ever asked “how would you solve such-and-such problem,” this does not mean you were using Cognitive Ability Theory. Unlike simply asking about past problem-solving experiences, this theory involves tailored assessments that delve into a candidate's innate abilities, providing a more direct evaluation of their cognitive aptitude and analytical reasoning skills. To do this, you need suitable assessment tools to provide the data necessary to analyze each candidate and formulate the right questions.

We also use Situational Judgment Theory in the hiring process, which involves presenting candidates with hypothetical scenarios to evaluate their responses and test their judgment and decision-making skills. Again, this isn’t as simple as asking “how might you …” questions. Using Situational Judgment theory, the professional interviewer studies the role thoroughly, identifies the critical competencies and scenarios relevant to the position, and then creates a set of situational questions designed to specifically assess these competencies. The questions are designed right down to the way the questions are asked, because if the questions themselves are vague, or are asked differently from candidate to candidate, the results will not be fair or reliable.

A well-structured interview process involves all these practices and sometimes a few more, depending on the professional requirements of the role. All candidates should be asked the same set of questions to ensure fairness, though the questions asked during the probing of cognitive ability are likely to be different from candidate to candidate based on their differing attributes, qualifications, skills and experiences. The key is to strike a balance between consistency and customization to gain insight into each candidate’s qualifications and potential.

Since all humans have biases, it is also essential to provide bias awareness training, to include diverse interview panels, and to make use of good data for the assessment, interviewing and decision-making process. Efforts to mitigate the effects of bias will produce more equitable — and higher quality! — hiring outcomes (see new section on the use of AI in hiring, added on 10/30/2023 as an addendum at the end of this article)

If you are getting the impression that you must interview someone 32 times to understand if they are the right candidate, that would be wrong. In fact, the majority of good hiring decisions can be made with just two interviews … as long as those two interviews are well-structured.

What Skills and Experience Won’t Tell You

Of course, a candidate can have all the skills and experience in the world, and still be a douchecanoe that gives you a chronic headache and makes all your other employees want to quit. Most skills can be trained on the job, but you cannot train someone to have character, to be kind, to care about others’ needs and opinions, or to be disciplined. These are all attributes that each interviewee has already been born with, raised to, or chosen, and nothing you do in onboarding or training will change those fundamental characteristics.

There are simply some personality and behavioral traits that make candidates a better employee, and you must uncover those in the interview as well. You can use a combination of Behavioral and Situational Judgment interviewing techniques to uncover these issues. But again, I  caution: Simply asking the question “You discover a colleague engaging in unethical behavior. What steps would you take, and how would you balance your loyalty to your colleague with your commitment to the company’s ethical standards?” will not give you the insight you need, because everyone knows how to answer that question “correctly.” You must also employ Depth Interviewing skills to ask the right follow-up questions in the right way to encourage candidates to provide more detailed, specific,and … eventually … genuine responses.

The Interview Sequence

I prefer a two-interview strategy for most hires. I say for most, because for leadership positions and other roles with great strategic impact, two interviews are rarely sufficient. But the majority of hiring activity is for the rest of the roles, and two interviews can work very well if you structure them properly.

In my experience interviews are best done with more than one interviewer, which helps balance out preconceptions and biases and allows you to take advantage of differences in perception and interpretation. But if there will be multiple interviewers, it is important to have the whole group follow the same script and to train the group on how to interview together.

The first interview is to get at the questions of character, personal discipline, and orientation to others. This can be a short interview (20-30 minutes). In the first interview, I only probe skills and experiences as a mechanism for exploring character, discipline, and behavioral or communication issues. No matter how smart or experienced a candidate is, if I see warning bells on issues of character and behavior, there’s no second interview. Why bother? A less skilled candidate with better behavioral attributes will serve the company better in the long term, so there’s no risk when it comes to passing on people that come with a behavioral warning label.

Besides, most of what you need to know in the first interview should have been visible from the resume and/or your job application. Where they worked, what they did, skills required to do the job … these are all things you should review before the first interview is even scheduled. If you don’t receive sufficient insight on the resume, send them your job application (which should ask for sufficient insight) before scheduling the first interview.

For those candidates we deem interesting enough to do a second interview, we schedule them for a pre-employment assessment first. We administer the 16 Personality Factors Comprehensive Insights assessment by Talogy, because it gives us the greatest insight for developing further interview questions, and it benefits from greater peer review and anti-bias development than any other assessment we’ve researched (which is not to say there’s any such thing as a personality or performance assessment that is completely without bias, but that’s another article).

The second interview typically lasts an hour and includes a selection of questions designed to deliver insight into all the candidates’ skills, experience, abilities, behaviors, and motivations, plus individual questions derived from our analysis of the pre-employment assessment.

It is important to group the first and second interviews together as much as possible. This helps to remember candidates more clearly relative to one another and can also help to reduce personal biases and filters from interfering with good hiring decisions. In most cases we have enough insight to choose from among the candidates after second interviews are complete.

Conclusion

The science of interviewing integrates psychology, communications, social sciences, and ethical considerations to deliver a systematic approach for evaluating candidates. Does that sound like a lot of work? Well, it’s not so much a lot of work as it is a lot of learning and study. These days I can prepare for a good interview process in an hour or two, but it’s taken me 30 years of study and practice to get to this point. Is it worth it? Most definitely. Understanding human behavior and using best practices improves the accuracy and the fairness of hiring, which leads to making better choices and, ultimately, to running better companies.

Which brings us back to dating. After what I lovingly refer to as the “Big BFF Intervention, or BBI” my dating took a turn for the better, and it wasn’t long after that I found the relationship that would turn into the love of my life and (at the time I write this) nearly 25 years of commitment. Though I do appreciate the mistakes I made before the BBI, I’m also quite relieved that I was able to stop making them. After all, dating is fun … for a while. But what you really want to do is get on with your life, and when it comes to the quality of life … and business! … the decisions we make really matter.

 

 

Addendum: AI in the Interview Process

The following addendum added on 10/30/2023 to reflect accelerating use of AI in the hiring process.

The fact that HR departments — and companies that have no formal HR process at all — are increasingly integrating AI tools into the hiring process is concerning on many levels. It is hard enough to get human beings past their biases, poor listening skills, and vague communications; though producing structured interviews and providing training can at least help with that. But the algorithms powering AI tools are opaque, and we have no idea if they have been meticulously designed to avoid biases.

AI systems learn from historical data, and if that data contains biases, AI will perpetuate those biases and cause discriminatory outcomes. To date there is very little transparency regarding the data used for AI decision-making. You need to understand and be able to explain how AI systems make recommendations (download our e-book to understand the evaluation process you should use when implementing AI in any business process).

Of equal concern, the lack of human empathy and understanding in AI systems could lead to misinterpretation of candidate responses. Human emotions and contextual cues are vital for successful interviewing, and AI cannot respond to them the way a trained human interviewer would. If an initial video interview is conducted using AI, only to be skimmed watched by a hiring manager after-the-fact, there’s no opportunity to further probe candidate responses. This can lead to failure to understand a candidate’s suitability for a role. Additionally, reliance on AI hiring tools might result in a loss of the personal touch needed to effectively evaluate a candidate’s soft skills, emotional intelligence, and cultural fit within an organization.

AI is being used to increase hiring efficiency, but it should be used sparingly. Concerns about fairness, unbiased evaluation, and privacy protection are important, but perhaps most important is that AI still does not have the ability to use psychology, sociology, and communication sciences sufficiently to improve HR outcomes. The result for most companies will likely be making all the same hiring mistakes they make now … only faster.

Dear White People,

I’m glad we’re discussing race. As the heirs & beneficiaries of the systems that limit people of color, it’s our job to end institutional racism. We must examine our attitudes, prejudices, behaviors, and fears, and understand how they contribute to stereotyping, exclusion, and violence. Yes, we need to talk.

Honestly, it should be largely a white conversation. We’re not talking to Black people – they already know more about racism than any of us could ever handle. We’re not talking for Black people. They speak eloquently and profoundly for themselves. In fact, there are several things that are happening that really, really, need to stop.

Don’t use Black icons to defend your fears and opinions. Saying, “I can’t imagine what Martin Luther King would think about this rioting;” and posting Black leaders’ or celebrities’ quotes to support your anti-BLM or anti-protesting position is wrong. And you're right - you really can't imagine.

What you're actually saying when you do this is, “See! Black people agree with me on this!” But they don’t. They really don’t. Using Black voices to promote a white perspective is a form of appropriation and an act of privilege. If you don’t understand this, read this paragraph over and over again until you do.

Don’t say, “I’m (gay, female, fat, short, etc.), so I understand.” Not the same. All discrimination is bad, and we must eliminate all of it. But it’s not all the same. The sooner we realize we don’t understand, the sooner we will begin to.

Get over the “I have Black friends/I’m not racist” false equivalence. If you do have Black friends – as in, the kind of friends who would lean on you in a crisis like family – then you wouldn’t even use this defense. Most likely, you have Black acquaintances. One can certainly be a racist while playing nice in a meeting room or at the gym.

“I don’t see color” is not a thing. Of course you do. We all see color. Our ability, as white people, to ignore color is part of our privilege. Those arrogant, angry, white McCloskeys pointing a pistol and semiautomatic at peaceful protestors in St. Louis last week are alive now because they are white. Everyone sees color.

When you defend confederate monuments, you’re not defending history. What you’re really saying is, “I don’t know why they have to be offended about glorifying racists and why I have to care.” Here is a parallel for you to consider: The devil is an important part of Christian teaching. The lessons are regularly taught, and remembered. But you won’t find monuments to Satan in Christian churches. We can teach about evil without aggrandizing it.

Don’t use any Black person — ever — to make your point. If you’re offended by looting and rioting, don’t use looted Black store owner to suggest that “his Black life didn’t matter.” You don’t get to speak for — or assume to understand — Black people who suffered losses during the riots.

We don't get to point out conflict between Black liberals and Black conservatives and say, "I guess Black conservatives' lives don't matter." This is just a cynical, appropriating way of using Black people to support being offended by Black Lives Matter. 

We don't get to suggest Black cops are hurt by Black Lives Matter. Do you even KNOW any Black cops? People in the Black Lives Matter movement (including cops — Black and white) don’t see it as “Black vs. Blue.” That’s a white construct. Stop it. It’s not real.

We don’t get to complain about how tired we are of all the stress and confusion and angst. You know who’s tired? Talk to any Black mother. She’s fucking tired. Of asking, and praying, and giving the talk, and kneeling, and watching her loved ones suffer. And go to jail. And die. All the dying. Black moms are all so tired.

If you mean well and you’re committed to change, but you've just made some rookie white ally mistakes, then OK. You can learn and do better. We all can. If I’ve offended you so far, then I have news for you. You’re not a white ally. You’re just posing as a white ally. Does this surprise or hurt your feelings? Then do better! We have lifetimes of deprogramming to do. Let's start now.

Now let’s talk about what we should do. First, we should listen to Black voices, even when it’s uncomfortable, even though it hurts. If you feel defensive, that’s human, but not useful. So let’s do the hard work, open our hearts, and hear and try to feel the pain.

We can be accountable for our reactions and feelings. Why did the protests scare you if you didn’t live anywhere near them? Why does the phrase Black Lives Matter make you squirm? What impulse makes you insist All Lives Matter when you hear Black Lives Matter? Why do you feel tense when you approach a group of young black men? Why do you wonder to yourself if the Black mom in the supermarket checkout line is about to use a WIC card (pro tip here — white families account for the vast majority of food stamps dollars in the US)? What assumptions and biases and beliefs are you clinging to that perpetuate the problem? Dig deep.

We can be brave and say something. Don’t let any small or large racist comment or action go without challenging it. If white people object to racism and racial stereotyping every time we see it or hear it, we can end it. Silence in the face of tyranny is . . . tyranny.

We can rethink what we’ve been taught and study what we don’t know. Study the Black Panthers, read the New York Times “1619 Project,” “White Fragility” by Robin Diangelo, or “Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White.” Watch “13th,” “Teach Us All,” or “Malcolm X.” There's more! Explore the websites Racial Equity Tools, or Not in Our Town. Yes, do this even if you already have Black friends . . .

There’s so much more. Vote. Organize. Support. Join. Make change happen. Yes, let’s talk about racism. Let’s have a big old white conversation, informed by Black history, perspectives and voices. Let’s take responsibility for a 500-year-old problem. Let’s fix what’s broken. Let’s own it.

I am simply weary of people using sacred texts to justify cruelty, bigotry, and small-mindedness. I know that a lot of people feel the same way, so this video from the VLOG Brothers, tackling religion, marriage, and gay marriage, delights me.

My earliest religious teaching - from my mom and dad - emphasized the importance of taking the Bible as a whole, because understood in pieces it lost context. This continued through my teen years, when Father Larkin was adamant that we understood the Bible as both an inspired document AND a product of its times and the people who wrote/interpreted it. My Jewish mother reminded us that the Old Testament was a history book, and my Lutheran father interpreted the New Testament as an advisory to have a direct, personal, and responsible relationship with God. So when people pull a chapter here and a verse there to support their bigotry and fear, it doesn't feel like religion at all to me. It just feels like human failing in its smallest, saddest form. Happy Sunday to all. It's a good day to reflect on the big themes of the Book - responsibility, community, integrity, family, charity, humility, and love- always love.

This year Pope Francis washed the feet of women, the disabled, prisoners, and non-Catholics. A symbolic and archaic act to be sure, but no less radical now than it was 2,000 years ago. To wash someone's feet is to submit yourself before them; to say that you are no more important than they are. I am not a Catholic, but this act of humility speaks to me; it inspires me.

I spent the past week in Las Vegas at a trade show. I saw many acts of kindness, friendship, and even love. Trade shows can be such an exciting time as friends and business associates across an industry gather together for what may be the only time each year. But trade shows are also a microcosm of the world we live in, and if you are aware, you will see many instances of jockeying for power and position.

The most obvious is the behavior with service people. Sure, if you were gentry in the Victorian era, it would have been considered untoward to be thanking and greeting your 'staff'. But seriously? We don't have royal or noble classes in America, and those Victorian rules don't apply. So when I see people treating service staff as if they are invisible, it makes me cringe. These people aren't serving us because they owe it to us, they are serving us because they need a job and the hotel/restaurant is providing an experience. Plus, it would be disruptive if all of us were running to the kitchen for glasses and flatware. Not only do guests in these environments fail to say please and thank you, many of them speak to service staff with disdain and disrespect. What, they didn't anticipate your need for more ice in your water or fetch you a new fork fast enough? Put on your big girl panties and ask nicely.

I have also grown weary of the false power paradigms in place in business settings. The boss power paradigm I won't even go into here (though my friends are encouraging me to write a book entitled "How to be a Boss Without Being an AssHat"). The Buyer Power Paradigm is the one we see in abundance at trade shows. Ah, the buyer, the person who holds the purse strings. He knows he has power and the vendor does too. The truth is, the buyer needs the vendor and the vendor needs the buyer. That sounds pretty equal to me. But purse strings mean a lot in our society, and that simple truth plays out in the most basic of our interactions.

And of course in many industries (particularly small ones) the adults also form and protect hierarchies. Isn't there always a cool group, an in-clique? It looks a lot like high school, when our teenage brains were still a hot mess of hormones and social confusion. Sorting people into castes creates a sense of order to the chaotic adolescent mind. But, at least theoretically, we're all adults now and we've sorted out that we're all people with gifts differing but value the same.

We continue to be part of a world in which women and people of color are paid less than white men, in which people of various religions hold that their own religions are better than the religions of others, in which brown boys suffer dramatically shorter lifespans than all other boys, in which children of poverty aren't even aware of the opportunities that children of the middle class take for granted. Most of the people reading this blog post have the vantage of looking at all that tragedy as outside themselves. But is it? Or is it part of a much larger problem? Isn't that behavior just part of a world in which people feel more important than their servers, discount others who think or believe different things than they themselves believe, or even look down on someone for her fashion choices and body type?

The truest truth is that none of us is more important than another. The saddest truth is that philosophers and prophets have been saying the same thing since time immemorial and yet the compulsion to elevate ourselves at the expense of others seems to have a biological grip. And maybe it is biological, but if it is, it's no more valid in these modern days than an appendix or a gall bladder.

There is a Buddhist belief that we must try to see the face of God in everyone we meet. Perhaps we should also try to see our own face in everyone we meet. The ability to see someone else as "other than" is the ability to see ourselves as "better than." And crazy optimist that I am, I do believe we are all capable of being better than that.