Thread by @usnehal

This does not surprise BIPOC. We live it daily. The rest of you often deny our lived reality or assume it is exaggerated. Then you are shocked and ask “what happened to my country”

what happened: is you insisting on keeping your head in the sand & shutting down truth tellers

https://twitter.com/business/status/1329378145229803520

Most liberal/progressive types who get super excited by data... data that are incomplete, flawed, or based on people lying in polls due to social acceptability bias. But many liberal intellectuals are

Very little has changed since this was written by MLK. Very little has changed since my grandfather was training in England in Colonial times (there he was considered “black” and black/brown more similar as BAME) as a highly skilled surgeon (ophthalmologist) but sub-human.

I know some disagree with BAME but it really *does* come down to “white” and “not white” (human vs sub-human).

At an esteemed top tier institution’s executive coaching program I was confused with a woman from Mozambique x 2 by the coach

I’m not Black.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-531943…

Just goes to show

this “coach” whose salary is paid by tuition dollars

don’t “see” us
is relying on some categorization in her head

Such that:
Pakistani-American with American accent = Mozambique woman with Mozambique accent

We are not individuals even in “executive coaching”

It matches things I’ve heard as a not white woman in “elite” or executive spaces. 2x a CEO in a conversation on hiring me to be a CMO with accountability on my medical license and professional reputation it took 2 decades of training & work to build referenced “arranged marriage”

matches time a well placed exec friend was doing #HeforShe: asked me to join him & his boss after hours

First the boss weirdly wanted to drive my car (a simple A3) & later the boss emailed me that he’d never seen an *ss my color naked before

This exec coach tho sees me the same

An exec coach who only sees “not white woman” yet is the one teaching the class on implicit bias is not going to empower BIPOC

She’s incentivized to deny & minimize to retain her unqualified position paid by tuition💰

she will add injury upon injury to BIPOC

#blackintheivory

I increasingly see why people say “those who can’t do, teach” - I & my peers take educational standards extremely seriously but we also bring a wealth of real world experience. Others find a cushy academic job away from real world or corporate accountability & may even harm

We cannot make progress this way - “progressive” label is false then

Esteemed institutions of learning need to do better - else MLK’s words will remain right that the (Northern) intellectual is a greater danger than the KKK

Your ignorance & cultural chauvinism harms BIPOC

When Twitter & other forms of media are awash with yet another esteemed institution perpetuating #BlackintheIvory

When institutional responses are to hire marketers to buff image rather than dismantle structures or tackle problems within

We waste precious resources & harm

We can publish this but is #liberalarts & #STEM institutions creating intellectuals that perpetuate systemic racism & teach cultural chauvinism

Own your part in the problem
Own when you are the problem
Then fix it
Improve yourself
Do the hard work

scientificamerican.com/article/too-ma…

Similar thing in UK

In the U.S., Black “race” has an unique position of having been enslaved and labeled subhuman by skin color as a proxy for race

In UK, history of global Colonization did not differentiate between Black & brown in the same stark way

bbc.com/news/uk-522190…

This is partly why we stopped flying British Airways, in fact. We experienced what Black people in America experience on airlines. My mom always framed it as the ignorance of certain people (cultures). Some people are too brainwashed to see your humanity or worth. Their problem.

Except, as a pediatrician, this *is* my problem when my profession, my peers, my training delivers these results to Black babies and Black families.

Am I doing this too?

And frankly it is a loss to all of society when lives are destroyed in this way.

sciencenews.org/article/black-…

I must have been part of the problem because it took to mid-career for me to start to notice, see, then as I questioned generated friction, then experienced passive aggressive forms of retaliation.

Early career I was too “lean in”, trying to “make it”

go.beckershospitalreview.com/scott-becker-i…

In a pandemic & budget cuts is a great time to clean house

The “those who can’t do, teach” incompetent types..

hiding in the ivory tower from the real world (where BIPOC are dying)?

Get them out ASAP

Employ only those who deliver quality including dismantling #BlackintheIvory

It sounds harsh and mean, but why isn’t Black babies dying considered harsh and mean? Zero excuses is the only way to make progress, not calling yourself a “progressive.” Healthcare has been doing pay for performance for years. I’ve been the insurance executive taking money back.

Sadly, academia is so political is not qualifications, merit, quality, or ethics that secures one’s salary. So tho would love to “don’t let a crisis go to waste” to work, in fact instead of cleaning house there’s a “pass the trash” culture in #education

npr.org/sections/ed/20…

I don’t like to dehumanize anyone by using “trash” for humans, no matter how flawed or how much harm they cause (is the phrase used) We need accountability, quality, and safety in both public and private institutions shaping the minds of future leaders insidehighered.com/quicktakes/201…

If the ivory tower had knowledge of reality then maybe people would not be so shocked by...reality rearing it’s ugly head. If the supposed learned elites would not deny, hide, shut down uncomfortable truths, there would not be surprises.

Live in reality.
Listen to Black women.

https://twitter.com/usnehal/status/1329379376023171072

@threadreaderapp please unroll