Changes & Changing
January 19, 2024 - Interruptrr turns 10! 🥳 And time to turn DEI towards success
Happy birthday Fariba and Mark!
Enormes felicidades to Ivana - she got her Green Card!
Happy New Year dear reader. I hope that you had a restful and restorative holiday, at a time when things are hardly either.
We’ll be back next week with the regular roundup — and more commentary on what’s happening on the world. This week, as we kick off 2024, I wanted to preview a few things we’re planning for Interruptrr. One of the big takeaways from the survey this past summer was that you see this as a community. I was thrilled to hear it and I’m excited to dive deeper into building that out. It’s hard to believe, but this newsletter is 10 years old. 🎂🥳 Towards that end, I’m looking to change up a few things.
Links you Love: I want to hear from you. The Interruptrr team is turning “Links We Loved” into “Links You Love.” Please send in your recommendations for a book, music, podcast, movie and tell us why. (Just respond to this post). We’ll feature someone from the community each week. Please submit only if you want to be mentioned. And, yes, you can totally self-promote. Send me recs for next week!
Under the Radar: Many of you suggested including topics that don’t get highlighted otherwise. We’re adding an “Under the Radar” section to include whatever it is we should pay attention to, but aren’t.
Curating links: As we add “Under the Radar” we’ll be more judicious about the number of links in the roundup and the length of the blurbs. We are not cutting any sections. (Or the girl on the globe. She’s my fav.)
Pitch me your op-ed: This newsletter was born in order to highlight female expertise. While I will keep my regular column and analysis, I’m eager to share the space with someone who is eager to get bylined. Bonus: I will pay you for your effort. (Don’t get excited, it’s only $100 👀). This will not be regular and I will be discerning on what gets published. I will keep this feature to all subscribers to start, but plan to put it behind a paywall later on. So if you’ve got a unique argument or perspective, can punch it out between 500-700 words, and have been struggling to get it placed, I’d be excited to hand over my proverbial pen to you. I will give preference to women who have never been published. Again, email me: endeavoringe@gmail.com or respond to this post.
Yes, I will work on bringing back events, not only in NYC but in DC and Boston. If you’re interested in putting together an Interruptrr meetup in your area, let me know. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on diversity. It’s not “foreign policy” but it is about progress, something that we desperately lack right now.
On that note, Dr. Seema Jilani recently returned from Gaza where she was part of a medical team assisting amid the horrific Israeli bombardment. She spoke about what she saw on PBS Newshour last night. (It starts at 31:30) It’s chilling and a reminder that without humanity, we are nothing.
Back next week. Stay warm! — Elmira
Changing
2024 - Year of the election. Over four billion people, half the world’s population, will go to the polls this year. The one everyone has their eyes on: the United States.
This past week, despite the indictments against him, his blatant racism, sexism, and toxic masculinity, — and his role in the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol, Donald Trump came out on top at the Iowa Caucus. This came as no surprise. But not for the multitude of largely political reasons that have been making the rounds this week. It all comes down to the fact that Trump is a white man.
Just two weeks ago, Claudine Gay resigned as Harvard’s president. It followed a two-month campaign calling for her removal, following a disastrous appearance before Congress where she and two other university presidents failed to outright reject anti-semitism. Though Harvard initially stood by her, plagiarism accusations pushed Harvard’s board to withdraw its support for the first Black woman to lead the storied institution.
Institution is the key here. Harvard may have patted itself on the back for appointing Claudine Gay as the first Black woman as president (and most of us applauded), but it (and we) failed to realize that Harvard’s president operates in a world shaped by, of, and for the white patriarchy. It’s that world that needs to change.
In 2019, leading up to the 2020 Democratic primaries, Rebecca Traister wrote about how despite the diverse field of candidates, which included six women and six people of color, the white male pundits covering them remained the same. It was no surprise that Joe Biden won the nomination.
Biden, like many of the most prominent men covering him, was born into a world in which every system was set up to help him build and preserve his own power, even — in fact by definition — at the expense of others.
DEI has come under fire of late. Rightly so. Most colleges, universities, businesses, and institutions that have embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion have done so performatively rather than meaningfully. They’ve focused on appointing individuals who have traditionally stood on the margins — women, people of color, the disabled. Add a woman or a person of color and show how progressive/hip you are!
DEI needs to go deeper. At my own academic institution, Bard College, there is a sincere effort to embrace diversity and work towards inclusion. As far as I can tell, it does a great job on that on the student level. At a professional level, it is tone-deaf and completely blind to the challenges and the unconscious bias that women and people of color face and the microaggressions we’re subjected to.
Change regularly comes up at election time. Yet, the politicians that invoke it and the voters that embrace it aren't really interested in making something different. They’re eager to make things better. Most people don’t want change. Change, as the ever-wise Greta Cowen has pointed out, inevitably involves loss. No one wants to lose something.
That’s what’s so appealing about Donald Trump. He not only channels the anger of the many who feel like they’re not making progress and that their lives are not better, but he is the ideal messenger for an intricate and ingrained system that is toxically male and that doesn’t want to lose its power. That’s why, despite indictments, impeachments, and incompetence, he wins (and, I’m afraid, will continue to do so). And why a bad showing in front of Congress and plagiarism accusations against a tremendously accomplished Black woman are enough for a downfall and why we’re now seeing missives calling DEI racist and sexist. 🙄
Diversity in and of itself is an overall positive. It is how and why the United States came to be the superpower that it is. (I wrote an entire book about entrepreneurship and did a study for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs about how immigrant entrepreneurs are America’s backbone.) The goal with diversity can’t simply be to make a few appointments. It has to dig into changing mindsets and behaviors so that those on the margins are truly included (and stop wasting energy on microaggressions and unconscious bias) and contribute. More importantly, it has to focus on upending entrenched networks. Diversity doesn’t work when it’s selective and performative. It will work when we recognize it’s how it underpins and is indispensable to progress — all of our progress. — Elmira
Editorial Team
Elmira Bayrasli - Editor-in-Chief
Editors:
Pin-Shan Lai
Catherine Lovizio
Emily Smith