Foundation in Faith

Oh, and welcome to People Unfiltered, powered by ideas global. I'm your host, Evelyn Espinal. The People Unfiltered podcast is creating the future of inclusion, diversity, equity, activism, and social impact. We deconstruct the myths and failures of DEI, St. Bellos en la Lenga, to evolve it or a rebirth. We go beyond surface conversations and dive into the hard truths and unspoken realities for deeper discussions with insights and advice. Hello, Anthony. This is People Unfiltered, and we are so proud to be able to have you join us today. Well, thank you for inviting me, Evelyn, to enjoy the pleasure to be with you. We're excited about this conversation because our audience is going to get so much hearing about your legacy and the way that you've approached the work that you have taken on throughout your entire career. I'm very impressed with your bio. We work together at Johnson & Johnson, where you retired in 2015 as the Chief Diversity Officer for the entire company, which I think is an incredible accomplishment. You reported directly to the CEO, and I think we're all really proud of the work that you did there. I've also learned that you'll recognize as a public relations legend by the New York City chapter of the Public Relations Society for America. That's a fantastic accomplishment. And you're also on the board of trustees of your alma mater, so wonderful accomplishments there. And now as I see behind you, the latest accomplishments is the book that you recently published. This I know, principles of the life of faith and optimism. Fantastic. I'm really excited to hear about everything across your inspiring 40-year career. But the way that we start the show is we always ask our guests to tell us their origin story. So let us know what is it that you engaged in this work? For you, it's diversity work. I think you see your impact in trying to have a positive impact on society in every single world that you've had. So I'd really love to understand more about you and your character and how you came to be the person that you are as named in this work. Well, thank you, Evelyn. That's a lot. And I'm going to do my best to respond to everything that you ask. Let's go back a little bit in history. And I'm going to be dating myself, but I won't provide dates. I'm going to be creating myself. When I look back on all the things that happened when I was young, like the Civil Rights Movement, like noticeable, I wouldn't call it discrimination, but folks who were at odds with others because of the color their skin, I couldn't comprehend all of that in elementary school. And my Catholic education went through elementary school, high school, and college. So when I graduated from elementary school, St. Anthony of Patoa in the South Bronx, I went off to St. Raymond's high school in Parkchester. And the reason why that was significant to me and my foundational sort of learning around culture, race and all that. In my junior year of high school, I entered into a program called the Archbishop's Leadership Project, which is ALP for short. But it was a program that was designed by Cardinal Cook at the time to bring more black men into the clergy. So during that, at the most, at the close or at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, we brought in these high school students. I was one of them. And so basically, our ritual was to take these lessons, read these types of books and understand more about the church, which is important. But we kind of rebelled as young black men, and these young men who were entering into this program, the ALP, were from all different high schools across the city. But again, we kind of rebelled, and I mean that sincerely. We felt that during that time, what we needed as a race and what we can do as black men has become more prominent and more engaged in work that will help our communities, doctors, lawyers, educators, business men, you name it. And we went to the Cardinal and we basically said, we think we are required to do something else other than priests. Being against priests, we're all Catholic, but we are required to serve. And in that service, we all shut down this whole concept of priests. And by the way, we have one Jesuit who came out of this program about 150 young men. But we felt that our calling was for that. And so I learned all of that in high school, like I said, we have weekly programs and all these other kinds of seminars. And we learned more about our culture. And we learned more about what it is to navigate through this complexity that we all live in. And open my eyes and lighten me to the issues that were involved. Hey, I was reading books from this program from Malcolm Mechs, Dr. King before the Mayflower, all these books which really grounded us in purpose. And so that's how I got caught up in this thing called at the time of the university. But let's just call it what's going on in our society where people can't get together. So I saw that in high school early on. That's fantastic. I love that edge of being a little bit of a rebel there. You sort of made it your own thing. But I know that you experienced the loss of your parents early on in your life. And you've written that because of that hardship, you've learned, and I love this quote, to hold deep faith and deep pain at the same time. Can you share with us some of your childhood experiences that help shape your character and your mindset? I remember when my brothers and sisters who were older than I was, my parents had 10 children. And I was the eighth child. And I wasn't quite in school yet. Neither were my baby sisters, right? So the older children were going to school and I used to cry when they went to school, right? Because I wanted to go to school. And my mother heard that and she saw that. So she would sit me in her lap and I learned my ABCs and I also learned how to write. And that was foundational because I brought that into elementary school. And I was somewhat not necessarily advanced, but I knew the curriculum and it was using those big words of elementary school. What was the most hurtful part of that is that our parents died when we were very young. My mother died when I was six, my father died when I was seven and left 10 of us and we're all separated, right? So we went to aunts and uncles and some went to neighbors who just wanted to take us in and not have us on the street or in these types of homes where we would not be together. And so as a result of that, I grew up without knowing my brothers and sisters. I grew up in a household where my grandmother was my caretaker and her husband and her two older sisters and her two daughters who became some of like my sisters. What I learned from that is I missed my family. I missed my mother and father. And so I was sort of isolated. I did have a lot of friends on my block where I grew up and we're still close today. But something was missing. So I tried to find what was missing in education. You know, when I, especially when I got out of elementary school at the high school, I started to want to discover like what am I supposed to be? I have more deficiencies and deficits than a lot of my friends. And most of that came from parents, you know, when folks go talking about, "I've got to hold a mom and dad or his mother's day or father's day," I didn't know what that felt like. So being isolated from that or not having that helped me understand who am I. And then what would my parents expect from me today? So I kind of honk it down on the best way I think I can bring me to the party, to the conversation, is first to listen and learn and absorb what I'm listening and learning for and try to put that in some sort of combination as to, "Who am I?" And from that, I learned I'm a proud black man. You know, I have some deficits, but it doesn't make me deficient, right? I have things that I can do that I study to do like writing, like journalism, like reading, that will take me out of that box of feeling uncomfortable. And that brought me to that space where despite all the hardship, despite all the pain, that makes a place for you where he is always at the center and is up to us to find that center and in that center, doesn't mean we become a holier, we become more of the children that he expects us to be of him. And then how do we serve others as a result of what he is giving to us based upon our faith? That's fantastic. I love how you were able to create something so powerful out of such a moment of isolation and pain and loneliness. Wow. I know many other people that were proud under those kinds of circumstances, but I think it just made you stronger. Well, Evelyn, yes, but it doesn't go away. It doesn't go away. So I pride myself in being a father, now a grandfather, and I adore my wife with her support as a mom and a grandma. I still feel that emptiness, right? My children never met my parents. And so from that perspective, I don't have to overly exert myself and say here's what parenting is all about, but I'm learning as I go or my children all grown now, but that process was learning and being at the center of their lives. And I have that opportunity now as they bring their children into the world to help guide them, not from an expert parental sort of thing, but what is the necessities of raising families? What are what are the important things that they need to bring to the party so to speak so that we prepare our children for some of the things that we don't even know will occur yet, right? And so additionally to being influenced by some of the hardships in your life, you are also influenced by Dr. Roosevelt Thomas, Jr. Someone that has had a big impact in my life as well. He is often talked about as one of the originators of the DEI world. There's a book that I cherish, I actually have it with me. No cover on it anymore because I use it so much, but it's called Building a House for Diversity. And there's a fantastic analogy in this book around creating a structure that allows for difference, really thinking about, you know, even if your doorway is already set, you are not letting some type of diversity and you're not being as inclusive. So how do you broaden that? Can you talk to me about Dr. Thomas a bit and share how this has really helped you in contributing to the field of diversity? Oh absolutely, I'm Dr. Roosevelt came into my life when I entered into my first job. So fast forward high school, going on to college and getting my first job. Real, I think, real professional job at Avaan products, which makes sort of an organization at the time. And I came into the program of copy writer and copy editor. And we were moving in a direction of what was called then multiculturalism. We're moving into this direction of not so much diversity, but how can we bring these disparate groups together to make us one to make us a better organization? And we hired Dr. Roosevelt Thomas to do that. And so as I progressed in my work, I took part in some of the activities that were building us to be a better place, meaning us being Avaan, a better place for diversity. And obviously, I took that foundational work that he talked about in his books and all the things he talked about in my conversations with him to kind of get an understanding of at this time in our career, what diversity really means. Now, I have this wonderful sort of passion about something he quoted. And I will never ever forget that quote, diversity is a collective mixture characterized by differences and similarities of mist, tension, and complexity. And in order to unravel that, you have to have conceptual clarity. He was all about conceptual clarity. So Evelin, that might mean, okay, what do you mean when you talk about diversity in an organization and hiring the types of employees that will round us out and make us a better engineered or business looking forward, looking organization? It basically meant that if you're not clear about what you want, then you will fail. Is it multiculturalism? Is it diversity? Is it diversity? Equity and inclusion? Or whatever you want to call it, his thing was, I'm not mad at you. I'm just helping you clarify what it is you think you want to do so that conceptual clarity leads you to solutions. And that was probably one of the many things, but the most significant things about the work of diversity that I carried into the work. And what I did because of his guidance is to try to shape it into something that looked more like business output. You may have to heard me during the days at J&J, Evelin, where I talked about business imperatives. How are we strengthening this program or project? And I don't like to call it that, but at the time, it wasn't really embedded in the organization, but how do we use a strategy behind this that makes diversity as important as any business initiative that we're trying to achieve to grow our company, right, and also make an impact on the people who we serve. That's fantastic. And I love the idea of bringing clarity, which is something that you with on your background in communications, how I recall, were really wonderful at being able to take very complex issues and making them clear and simple for people to understand and follow. You know, sometimes we feel we aren't being clear because clarity is an important thing, but we have to embrace and accept the fact that folks don't always understand to be clear. Remember, we all come from different backgrounds. We all come from different circumstances, different cultures. So one culture sharing stories about their culture with another culture, you have to take time and explain what that means. And most of that explaining from me came about my background, my history, what I had to go through as a black man. And why I'm not angry about that. You don't want necessarily angry black men, but you want an angry human being who's worth sharing the stories to find remedies and solutions that we can all celebrate, right. And so I also appreciate the fact that I talk to people who are just mad at what's going on, right. And my job is not to convert them, but to understand why. And if in any way I can explain my story and the challenges I had, maybe it might simmer some of the tension, right. I don't believe diversity necessarily immediately changes behavior, but it helps us understand what we have collectively to pursue collective goals and opportunities. Yes, that's fantastic. I happen to have a fantastic producer who does really great research. And so she notified me that you were the press secretary to New York City Mayor David Dinkins. He was our first African-American to hold that office. And I loved hearing that about you because that's so important to me. I started my career working for the Dinkins administration as well. So it would be really great to hear from you. What was your experience like? What did you do when you were in the press secretary and what were some of the challenges that came to you in that role? Great question. And very emotional. I love that man. He was a good mentor, not just a mayor. He came into my life pretty much right after I left Avan products my first job. And when I left Avan, I went into the taxi and limousine commission as the director of communications. So I was responsible for all of the communications materials and all of the different, I guess, descriptions of who we are, assessments of who we are as an entity in New York City. And after that, I guess maybe in my first second year, then Mayor Dinkins became mayor. And I said, oh my god, I'm in city government now. How can I work for this guy? How can I do this? This is like history happening here. And I was interviewed by someone who knew me in the office who I had mentioned, you know, wow, the mayor is mayor David Dinkin. Wouldn't that be wonderful if I could work there? And he brought me in for an interview. And I got the job as one of his press secretary's responsible for transportation. So taxis and subways and all of that. And if I could put all that in a nutshell, because it will take a long time in this interview to tell the story about how much passion and love I had for him, Mayor Dinkins said something that really sparked my interest and made me realize how much he loves people. He said, New York City is a gorgeous mosaic of all of God's children. And he had that as his banner for New York because of who we were and continue to be now this entity that is just so diverse, right? And I held on to that and I used that in a lot of the speeches I wrote for him. I used that a lot when I talked about this this gorgeous mosaic of New York City. And he coined that expression at a time when we were not like this. If you remember the crown height situation. And what happened there, it basically didn't give him enough support to have another term. But Mayor Dinkins was the kind of person where I took on the responsibility as that one press secretary who was really focused on him and wanted him to be successful. And I know it's going to sound interesting, but it's going to be honest because he was our first black mayor. Two examples, Evelyn, the Amsterdam news, right? Big, a black African-American newspaper New York City did not have a seat, a desk in Room 9, which is the room for all reporters. New York Post, New York Daily News, you named them. And I went to Mayor Dinkins, I said, Mr. Mayor, the Amsterdam news does not have a desk in our Room 9, the reporter's room. And he looked at me and said, fix it. He didn't say why you bringing this to me. I'm the president. He's in the fix it. And we were able to get the Amsterdam news into the press room. And that was so significant. The other time, the relationship with that I had with him, that I could talk with him from my heart, Evelyn. And one time, there was this thing that typically happens across our country when there's a sporting event and a significant like a football game, the Mayor of One City talks to the Mayor of the other city and they hedge a bet, right? So at this particular time in our lives, we had this game going on, I believe, is with the Chicago Bears and it may just been a playoff game. And the mayor of Chicago at the time and the mayor, Dinkins got on television to talk about who's the best team. Mayor Dinkins was kind of late coming to City Hall, not City Hall, Gracie Manchin, I was waiting for him. And I said, you know, Mr. Mayor, you go on in a couple of minutes and he says, you know, my schedule's so packed, you tighten up my schedule so tight, I can't get a chance to do, I said okay, Mr. Mayor, I'll call the studio, make sure that they slow it down a bit. So we got them on the next morning and I'm somewhat proud, but I shouldn't have to do this as a press secretary. When did the office got in early and I saw his scheduling stat? Mayor was late, we were able to get him on to the television program. Everybody started cracking up. Oh, he's always late, he's always late for these different things. And my face was not smiling, I just said, you know, this is the mayor of New York City, your job is schedulers to make sure he's always on time. I said in the most graceful kind way and I walked away, well, he heard about that later on and he thanked me, why do I tell you that, Evelyn? Because I saw it as my role as the only black press secretary there and then a black mayor, the commonalities of when you're late, you know, care or you're never on time, I want to make sure he would never be in that category of mayors and it cleaned out the schedule so well. So all the things and all the speeches I wrote for all these other things, those were I think the two most significant things that I will always hold in my heart. - And I think in those stories, it reflects what you said earlier of you being a proud black man and growing up that way. I'd really love to hear some of the ways in which you experienced being a black man while you would climb into the top tiers of corporate leadership. As we said, you were reporting directly to the CEO of Johnson and Johnson. Can you share with us what that experience was through the lens of a black man? - Well, I appreciate the questions, a very good question. In the spirit of true candor, I never allowed that to block me for what I thought I deserved. I thought I was a pretty good copy editor, pretty good copy writer and I thought that if I did things right according to what was expected of me, I can move throughout an organization. And so I happened to be in another very lucky situation very fortunate. When I moved into the corporate communications department at Avon, right at Avon, I started to absorb myself in different kinds of experiences. Like I wanted to do this, I wanted to do that because those things weren't being done. Like something, as most people think, insignificant as the purchase orders that Avon representatives used to clock their accounts. It wasn't automated back then. It was a piece of paper that I edited and made sure every product that was in that campaign was aligned with the book that sold the product. So when the representatives went out, everything was there. I did that very tedious work because I wanted to know more about the business, but I also wanted to step into something that people thought, "Mm-hmm, that's not the kind of work you want to do," but that was the foundation of Avon. People caught that. And when they caught that, they realized not this guy is hungry, but he wants to do things according to the right way. And to make us more robust in our work, then comes Randy Cameron, who was the director of Public Affairs, a black man. And he took me into his office, said, "I want you to come into corporate communications, "we're taking you off of that platform." And he guided me and probably was my first corporate executive, not probably was, to help me keep God at the center, and to pursue those things that I should do because of who I am, not because of the color of my skin, and show brilliance all the time, and he's to always say, "Excuse expression, "don't take crap from anybody." And I learned that, but it's almost like a suit of armor to be protected. And the thing he always said, "You don't take your armor off until you get back home." So that was, I know a lot of people don't look like me, don't come to work with that prescription, right? Being protective all the time. I had to be that way because it was a century that that was the way in which you raise your profile, or you get more work, and you start to shine in such a light when people see you as an asset, whether in someone they would want to ignore. - Very powerful. And I love the story of a black man helping a black man, something that you always look for, right? Making sure that you're opening more doors for the people in your community. - And you know, yes. And the good thing about that, the confidence that was instilled in me, that I was able to let others see that, who have more influence and responsibility than I had, and those are the folks who brought me under the tent. And they didn't look like me, but they trusted me. So the Mayor Dinkins of the World, the Randy Camers of the World, prepared me for what I didn't even know yet. And then as I moved throughout corporate America, and you know the work we did at J&J, I was comfortable in position because I knew people were counting on me to do, I've learned to do, and to do it well. - As a man of faith, and I loved it in your book, you helped me realize something that I hadn't really thought about before, that being a black person in a Catholic church, you're a minority. So can you talk to us a bit about that? What was your experience with the Catholic church as a black man? - Oh boy, in elementary school, when I became an altar boy, I was very excited about it. The mass was in Latin, and here these young kids looked like me studying the mass in Latin ed intro, "He va a tardy de ama, dea un colectifica, "you've been through to Mayo." And I'm like, I'm a big shot. What was I about? - Well, 13. - And that kind of gave me a purpose. I became close to my faith. But the irony of that was, it never really made me feel like a belong to those diverse communities in the Catholic church that didn't accept, or let's say we're not aware of folks like me. And that experience came out one day, I was visiting a friend with the church in a northern part of the Bronx, and I remember this sign we had when the priest comes down to aisle, shakes your hand, let us offer each other sign of priest, and I'm a little kid, I'm out there, waving my head, and the priest passes me by. And it broke my heart, and I said, what's wrong with this? Slowly but surely, I grew out of it with the Christian brothers, you know, I had one Christian brother who was to say, today is the first day of the rest of your life, do it well, right? And then in college, I had Jesuit who said to me, you will always know Jesuit priests will say this, that God is at the center of everything. So taking those things, kind of setting back and erasing the things that upset me, I felt that I belonged in the Catholic church. I felt that it was time for me to showcase the faith I have, and I also realized that marrying my wife, who was a devout Catholic, helped to strengthen my faith. So with that said, there were no misconceptions from me around Catholicism. It was my, I think, I guess, position to demonstrate what faith is. And I did that in all kinds of ways. I was an elect, I was in a music ministry, I was Knights of Columbus, and I didn't do that to just get involved, but to understand what I can present as a black man to those who don't know much about who I am. - Thank you for sharing that. I think it's such a, I love how you walk with your faith. And when you talked about that student of armor that you had, I'm sure that, you know, aspects of that armor is also your belief in society and the Lord. And I think that that's just such a beautiful thing for you to advocate on. - Oh my, my armor was getting dense. They were coming out. - Yeah, yeah, I'm just getting shot. How is serving on the different boards that you've been a part of and advocating for diversity and inclusion? How has that been important to you? What did that look like? - Well, the place where I advocated for that most and any of my board experience has been for the university where I'm on executive committee there on the board of trustees and I chair the mission and social justice committee. So our mission is always under the guidance of St. Ignatius Loyola and he is the founder of the Jesuit order. And we being a Jesuit Catholic university is important to understand our mission, right? Our mission is always to see God at the center and curate personalities, which means caring for the whole person or I like to say caring for the whole soul. So that experience going forward, I guess really enabled me to understand what the purpose of my existence was. It wasn't an easy sort of existence, but being on a university board made me realize that in effect, I am working to set an environment for students to come to the school to get a fine education to learn things they never knew, but to also understand the importance of our mission, which in essence enables us to understand how we get along together. and how we must do things together to make all of this a brighter place in which we live. Sounds esoteric, sounds like something all the while, this guy's, you know, going off the rocker here, but it's true in terms of our faith. So what I was hoping, particularly on that board, is that I could lead the university and our committee into understanding our mission, and understanding social justice, and for me it's a process of service and servicity. Yeah, you wrote in your book that diversity isn't a challenge to overcome. It's the very design of God and the strength that makes us more whole. Can you elaborate a bit more on that beautiful statement? You know, hearing you say it, that's the statement, right? That's what it means. Let me just say this to you and your audience will hear this. When I wrote the book, this I know, I didn't know it would be written in such a faith foundational sort of experience. I knew that my faith was strong, but with the help of Loyola Press, which is a Catholic Jesuit publication, or at least a publicity of publishing company, I found myself relying on what I believed. And I found myself writing things that had accumulated over time. And as I've read these things and then compiled them for what I sent to our editor, my editor, I realized that perhaps I saw deeper into the meaning of where God is at the center. And so that helped me highlight the things that I wanted people to know about faith and optimism. I shared with your Evelyn circumstances in my life, losing my parents, separated from my brothers and sisters, having challenges in the workplace, having to express who I am despite what I look like. And I really think that I became more centered, not so much on what I had to advocate for, but what I had to leave open for others to accept and to be courageous enough to be a recipient of what it is that we share or at least need to understand the exchange process. I don't know if that gets directly into the question you asked, but for me, the power of faith. And again, I didn't have this. I got to Forty University and was in a theology class. And I wasn't happy about the subject. I said, "I don't like these sort of things and all this you're talking about." So the professor sent me to his office and he said to me, "Why are you so negative on God?" So, "Well, God took my parents away and I can't quite understand why." And I'm a freshman in college now. And he had an inspecial booth in his office. He said, "I want a little confession." I said, "Father, no, I do not want my confession to affect my grade." I don't know that. That's just my DNA, so to speak. Your influence in DEI is really no-worthy. And I know we're all looking at the demise of DEI to some extent, which has been attacked for so many different reasons. One of the things, as you mentioned earlier, it was diversity, then diversity and inclusion, then diversity, equity and inclusion, diversity and inclusion of the longing. It was constantly trying to find the right moment pleasure, but what you really needed was to be able to make the right incoming impacts and have the right outcome from the work that we were doing. So I'd love to hear your views as a practitioner in the field of what you think is happening now. And what do you think that people need to be doing differently in order to continue to push in that diversity space? You know, diversity is who we are. It's how we live and play together. It's the excitement we have when we share differences with others. It makes us stronger. It makes us more informative. It makes us more sharing. We make it more descriptive of who we are. And we listen to others are. We combine that into this gorgeous mosaic that Maya Dinkins used to talk about. For me, as I observed diversity while we were doing it at J&J, it was, I think, concise. And I'm not suggesting that anything after this has not been, but it was diversity. It morphed into that from multiculturalism, affirmative action. And when diversity came, it was a pure description without even having to agonize yourself about what it meant. It's a diversity. It's a perspective that we all bring that's different. And it also, when done, right, makes us better, right? Over time, and we saw some of this happening right up to the George Floyd issue, right? We saw that we were trying to make diversity more pragmatic in a good way, but really more able, making us able to comprehend it. Right? So when we started talking about inclusion, that was powerful because folks who look like us, Ellen, were not accepted into the circles where we could advance. Right? Yes. And then so that inclusion hold on to that. And then the equity fact, some of the things just happening to us, and I'm being specifically biased here, happening to us, we're not fair. We just were not fair. I mean, I had the same credentials. I had the same experience. And this person got the job over me because they look different, or because I didn't have enough, but I know I had enough. And then this sense of belonging, well, we needed that belonging because we were on, no matter who says it, on an island in any corporate environment. That's why there were ERGs, right, within these different corporations. Right? As I looked at that over time, and especially with the current administration, even the first four years earlier on in his term, and now currently what we live in, these have been defined as these efforts by organizations to exclude people who don't look like us. Right? But in essence, if we're honest with ourselves, we had to balance the scales. Because when we balance the scales in terms of people who are efficient in the work they do, and the work they do affects organizations, affects customers or patients like in our work, right? Then you got to bring those differences in thought, perspective, ideas, right? And it comes from a variety of people. That's why it's called diversity. So inclusion, let's talk about the nomenclature. People harped on who I believe were adverse or non-receptive to folks like us coming to the organization. That inclusion factor was level like I don't feel included because you're bringing in all these folks. I don't adhere to that definition, but that's what's out there, right? Okay, equity. It's not fair what's going on. Well, equity balances things, creates the fairness that we all work together in this sphere, in this arena, and in a sense of belonging, well, we were some of the most folks you can put on a chart that didn't feel like we belonged. So I think those words and more that have entered into the nomenclature have caused people to be able to harp on easily, but the arguments against those things are not balanced. And I don't believe they're grounded in any comprehensible way to look at fairness, right? So that's the battle that I think diversity is going through right now. Diversity was taught to me by Dr. Roosevelt Thomas, right? It was how you do this amidst tension and differences and similarities and complexities, right? And we have that today and those tensions and those types of complexities or or all the things that are in the way those barriers are preventing us to be the the I don't want to say world of the country, but wherever we are in our particular spheres, our experiences, it helps us to be even better because we embrace the differences. Now they are set up as potential targets and we see the impact of that and we see not so much losing numbers, losing people are so talented. We can't promote what DE and I means because people will attack it. But guess what, Evelyn? The people attacking it are part of that nomenclature. They are those differences and that makes the beauty again of this gorgeous mosaic more profound. Um, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you about the way that organizations have been behaving. Post-Storage Floyd, you have organizations that immediately signed up to give thousands of dollars to diversity, right? Without a real outcome driven approach of what impact they were trying to have. Can you help us understand sort of how people can get into this performative nature of DEI versus actually doing things that are concretely going to make a difference? I think it's even bigger than that. Yeah. I think it's a rebellion, right? I think it's the grabbing of power and influence. I think it's a denial of what can happen to make us better when people who look differently can contribute to that. We're going back to a state where where many years back we didn't matter because we were not looked to be recipients of any kind of goodness that could help contribute to positive and productive outcomes. I believe we're in an environment right now where it needs to be disrupted. Right? It needs to be shaken. And when we look at the current environment, that's going to cost more attention. We have to sometimes go through attention to get to some sort of smooth pavement or some smooth pathway. And I think as we look at that, we have to also embrace the fact that what has been destroyed must be corrected, but the steps to correcting is going to require everyone, even those who broke it. And I don't know if we're there now. And I do know being optimistic, hey, I wrote a book on optimism, right? But I do know being optimistic that it's repairable. We can fix it. But it's going to take a long time. It's a mess. I mean, there's no other way to say the environment in which we live in coming out of George Floyd, listening to folks who change the structure to your pertinent point about your question is that we are almost having to hide what made us better employers and better businessmen and women. Because when you step out and say, well, we have ERGs or we're doing a celebration of this event across every cultural spectrum, people look at it, okay, ready to attack. It doesn't include everybody. Well, yes, it does. So companies that are still doing diversity, and I know that they have toned it down. They toned it down to such a place where, well, if I get caught, you all know what's going on. You can't tell. Oh, by the way, I wouldn't say we have achieved diversity. I said, but we have some managing these elements that are important to us moving our business forward before you didn't have to have all of that information to disguise the work that's being done. You were the chief diversity officer. You were belonging with the DE&I. That was your passion, your work, and that's what you did. Today, the companies that had to abandon, I feel abandoned it because they want to keep their business flowing. I'm not offering that as a good excuse because anything other than that, we have the government coming after that. Same thing in colleges and universities. I think it's unfortunate. I think that's where the real battle is. And I use that word strongly, but strongly because that's what we're going to have to fight and push forward. So right now, there's an imbalance. And I don't know if I truly understand why companies are, you know, reversing, but those who appear to be, there's a good percentage of those who are still in it that just not promoting it. And I've spoken to a couple of CEOs. We're doing this work. They said, yeah, we're doing it. We do it under another banner. We are giving money to organizations that we used to under different banner. It's scary, but it's still needed. Well, I think our audience is very curious about the banner behind you. Right? I'd love to hear your views on your book. What was the impetus to it? You know, what got you started in writing and what do you really want people to know through the writing that you have in the book? I was very effective with it. I thought, I've got my copy here. I can see if I can get you to photograph it the next time you see each other. But it would be really great to have you talk a bit about, you know, what was the impetus for this book and what is the hope that you have for it? What impact do you want it to have? So first of all, thank you for showcasing the book. But most importantly, thank you for reading it. There's a lot I always say packed in that compact book. So it's a lot in there. I was a journalism major and I came out doing work that had me writing when I retired from J&J. All right, so all the things I did, I never had an idea of a book on my mind, but I know people did that when they retired, right? So I had three goals. My first goal was to spend more time with my wife and my family. Travel a bit, right? I wanted to do that because, you know, you get tied up in your day to day, you can't do all that stuff and you're always on a roll, you know, oh, my son is now how old? You know, and I wanted to write a book. But here's the catch, Evelyn. I've seen a lot of people write some very successful books. So being 11 years in retirement now, I thought I could write a book and I thought that book would be about, okay, how do you navigate the corporate environment? How do you move up the corporate ladder? How do you do this to build, you know, relationships in corporate America? And I felt that being out, well, I started this book three years ago. So being out seven years, I no longer had that connection to what's going on other than people I talked about. But I couldn't come back to how it was when I was in the office because people not in the office today, how it was the climate ladder. Well, there's somebody steps now with different titles that to get to the top, right? And so what I thought was, what can I give back in my writing to expose what I believe that's true about what I tried to do? And how I got that help from people who gave me the direction, provided the direction to do the things that I did. And for some miraculous ways, as we're on a topic of faith, loyal to press reach out. And it was through the work of a mentor, my mom used to be the corporate communications head at Merck, who took my manuscript to loyal and they read it. And as I worked with my incredible editor, the more a post and she's just so good, she helped me shape those things in alignment with who I am, how I lived and my faith. So it wasn't accidental. It was exposure to something that was deeply inside of me that I believed when I wrote this that it would have an impact on on folks. And I'm glad that I did it because it grounded me more in my faith. So I can have a conversation with anyone of any of background, meaning their faith and be confident in what I say. I don't know every word in the Bible, but I believe in what I was taught to believe. And that has helped me in our conversation today to isolate those things that I find just apparent, shouldn't be in our pathway. But I can address it in such a way that we all own that. And if we want to make this place a better place, we have to believe faith. Right? And we have to see things in a bright way, optimism. And some people might put that all together and say, well, that's so esoteric. Come on. I just apple pie and all that stuff. No, it's not. I think all of us can say when we treat it to someone with respect and share in our love and our faith and our heart, we see that come back. And I think that's only done in such a way where we have to believe it. The book was hard. It was one of the most difficult things that I've ever did. I am now exposed. You know, and I am happy about that. And the responses I've been getting and the tears that people have been shedding as a result of that book made me realize without any restrictions, without any definitions around D&I, without people saying this black writer did that right. I wrote from here. And if people don't understand it, I wrote it under the guidance of God and my experiences. That is so powerful. And it's an incredible, powerful book. Thank you so much for putting your knowledge out into the world. And thank you for joining us and being so candid and forthright. Experience and your view on the world and what we're trying to do with D&I. I have to say, you speak softly and have such a powerful impact. There is so much in such richness in your point of view and the way that you bring things to light. So thank you for bringing that to our audience. We usually have an expression in Spanish that's called "seen velos en la lengua" without any hair on your tongue. And it literally means being 100% candid and just speaking your truth. And I think you've done that for us today. So Anthony, thank you so much for being a part of people and filter. It's me and the world to need to be able to have you on as our guest. Evelyn, thank you and thank you to Maria as well. You're a venue, this experience enables us to know more about who we are and you have taken on a great world to do that. I appreciate you. Thank you, Anthony. You're welcome. Take care.