Federal Ban on Diversity Training

Our president has banned diversity training claiming it is anti-American propaganda. This ban is seriously dangerous. Over the last two months I have done training for 6 nonprofits and organizations on institutional racism, white privilege, and racial bias. It is encouraging that institutions have been seeking professionals to help provide these much needed trainings. Most of us have had extremely skewed versions of history and politics taught in schools. Most of us of color aren’t properly taught to maneuver these predominantly white institutions. Most white people aren’t taught how to cohabitate with people outside of their white cultural norm. This creates such a toxic living experience for most of us that are of color and have a culture that is not the American white norm. From the inception of this country we as people of color were not included in the vision of the “American Dream”. We were systematically and intentionally shut out and excluded from opportunities that could have provided equality for our ancestors and their descendants. The crimes of slavery, Black codes, and Jim crow eras have not been made right. The information we need to learn as American people so we can understand the TRUTH about the systems we all live in, have been purposely omitted and taught to us in half truths. We need these diversity trainings! I created the CT BIPOC Mental Health & Wellness Initiative to help provide a place where people of color can get support and validation for their experiences living in a country that has never fully embraced them. I plan on continuing my fight through education about the truth of our Nation, promoting my fellow colleagues, and providing spaces where the BIPOC community and our allies can continue to process our traumas and emotions. #Blacklivesmatter