Trauma is like having a broken arm, except it’s invisible so it’s a lot harder to identify and treat. If your trauma is never healed, you may be able to get by, but it’s not the same as it was before - things feel harder and take more effort. Conversations and activities which used to be easy and fun now feel unbearable. You may be limited in your capacity for how long you can handle stressors before exploding in anger or collapsing in depression.

Trauma can be overt (war) or covert (racism).

Companies who profess to support mental health AND diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) for their employees, but who silo their efforts or treat them as unrelated initiatives, are missing yet another intersectional aspect of DEI. The abusive, power-imbalanced, transactional relationship between employers-employees that is foundational to capitalism is emotionally toxic to our human natures that crave connection, affirmation, and mutuality.

Capitalism: when we treat property better than we treat people. There was a time when businesses wanted women to have babies. They recognized that when women staff become mothers, it’s good for the economy because every newborn adds to the workforce of the future. In fact, women were encouraged to get pregnant and have as many babies as possible. When was this liberal, open-minded time in our history? The U.S. Antebellum Period, noted for the thriving wealth of the U.S. South - and SLAVERY.

How Bias, Abundance and Scarcity Affect Performance This article isn’t about Queen Elizabeth II (“QEII”). It’s not about the British monarchy and their legacy of colonization, imperialism, classism, acquisition, destruction, and so on. It is, but it isn’t. It's about how we (the societal “we”) evaluate people with privilege vs. people without, and how we’ve enabled and endorsed inequity as a result.

Friend, how do you feel about who you are? It’s a question I thought a lot about this past weekend during the Pride celebrations in my home town of Toronto.

On Sunday, the opposite of Pride was Shame. In the parade, I saw people who wanted to be fully seen and loved as they actually are. I saw people who refused to conform to what society, or their loved ones, demanded they be. I saw human beings who refused to believe that what made them "different" also made them unworthy.

They weren’t eating the food I love in appreciation. They were eating it as a gross-out challenge. Eating foods from different cultures is not an obstacle to overcome. It’s an experience to be had.

I thought this whole thing was ridiculous and offensive. This organization had a toxic work environment, so I didn’t dare object. But it is a problem, because it reflects a colonial and discriminatory mindset that impacts how the company views and treats its employees. Who has the power? Who is important? Who bows to whom?

Folks, racism can’t be “educated out” of people. No coaching certification course can give a white coach the experiences of a racialized person. Yes, knowing about racism and bias is a good thing. No, it does not mean you understand what it’s like.

Race matters. Racialized experience matters. We need racial equity. We need the lived experience of just how much racism pervade all aspects of work and life.

Just because something isn’t technically illegal, doesn’t mean it’s legal – and it definitely doesn’t mean it’s ethical. Discriminating against a black person because of their hair is racist. But until 2019, it wasn’t recognized as such by the U.S. courts.

Almost every country outside of Europe and Great Britain has been colonized at one point; and the impacts are ongoing. Some impacts are public and obvious – like in Canada, where so-called residential “schools” were used to “kill the Indian in the child”. Some are less well-known, like the link between Rwanda’s genocide and Belgium’s racial assignments. And some are so subtle and socially normalized that they’re almost invisible. Here are some ways I’ve experienced colonial impact in my life.

“Sometimes People of Colour feel the need to change their name to make it easier for White people to pronounce. e.g. you often see Chinese people anglicizing their names.”

I don’t feel that I’ve compromised my ethnicity by having an “English” name. But I have definitely felt discrimination against my Chinese name.

If we want change, we can't stay silent.

It was supposed to be just another corporate seminar. NOT the place you’d expect to engage in a #MeToo confrontation with a misogynistic, sexist man. But if you think about it...

Life is easier when the world is made to fit you. When systems are built around your demographic.

If you’re not sure if systemic racism, discrimination and exclusion exists, or how to define it – it’s probably because the system was built for you.