Anti-Trans Bills, Erasure of Black History, and DEI Attacks in Florida and Nebraska

What does it take to combat the rising tide of systemic racism, bigotry, and legislative assaults on marginalized communities? 

Brace yourself for a no-holds-barred conversation with Jessie McGrath and Ashley Brundage, we scrutinize the alarming policies in states like Florida and Nebraska. From anti-trans bills to the erasure of black history and attacks on DEI initiatives, we lay bare the insidious tactics being used to undermine the rights and histories of diverse communities. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I hate to say it are somewhat racist and bigoted, but that's what their policy and their platforms are.

Speaker 2: 0:07

Yeah, I mean, I've seen it. Obviously, everyone knows that. You know, don't say gay right in Florida. And then there's trans erasure bill. There's a you know a lot of anti-trans bills. Just pick your bill that you want to focus on. We've passed a litany of all of them and I'm sure there's more that they're going to be preparing for next session.

Speaker 2: 0:32

But Florida has also been a battleground of assault against black history. I mean, literally, ron DeSantis ran on a platform of trying to say that black people benefited from slavery, which is absolutely preposterous. You know this. This is one other example of this. And then you know he, he's, he's done things to obviously take away women's rights. So it's like who's next Right, who's next on the chopping block?

Speaker 2: 0:56

And this is why it's so important that that communities stand together and stand up to this kind of rhetoric, because it makes no sense. There's no place for it, there's no place for hate in a state. We should be purposeful to make sure that we have everyone's back. You know, and it's like I think about this word diversity is like the presence of differences that make us each unique. That means that every single one of the 22 million people who live in Florida are all different and they all represent a different background, which means they all bring value to the conversation. That's my Republican friends, that's my independent friends, that's my Democratic friends. I'm friends with people who live across all the different political parties because it's so important to respect that people are different and learn from them. If we just learn from them, this would make our world so much stronger, and this is exactly one of the main reasons on why I'm running for office.

Speaker 1: 1:52

And we have that same issue in Nebraska, where they're attacking DEI and in fact, the University of Nebraska had funding cut and they have eliminated their DEI programs. Funding cut and they have eliminated their DEI programs, which are very beneficial in educating others in that system about the systemic and ingrained racism that does exist in this country. People don't want to admit it but it does exist and there's been a whole history of that, and eliminating education about that is so wrong. It's like the Holocaust deniers who want to deny that the Holocaust ever occurred, that there was somebody who killed millions of people because of their religious background. They're trying to basically eradicate history and if you don't learn from history, you're, you're, you're doomed to repeat some of those same things.

Speaker 1: 2:53

So so historical education in relationship to to what has happened in this country is something that should be celebrated and not something that should be feared. But because it attacks their history, well-being and their systems that they have set up that allows them to profit at the expense of everyone else, they they don't want that type of education to be out there to folks and and that is sad, and I assume desantis is doing the same thing as far as uh, eliminating dei and in florida oh, yeah, yeah I mean I know that, uh, many programs at universities have tried to rebrand it to be the Center for Inclusive Excellence and navigating around it that way is one way I've seen it being done.

Speaker 2: 3:47

I used to literally run a program for 60,000 employees at PNC Bank surrounding employee engagement, employee development and community active activation, and we always leveraged our differences to impact change. So that meant that if you know you were a white guy, well, guess what? You could go out to white guy connection groups, right, and build relationships there and cultivate people to come to the bank, right. Well, if you're a woman, then you go to women's groups to cultivate relationships and bring people to the bank. And this is why it's so important to have people across all the differences to be a part of your team. And then when you start to learn things about different communities that are different, then you could be the one to go and show up at the community.

Speaker 2: 4:37

I mean, I went to the Hispanic Bar Association. I wasn't a lawyer and I'm definitely not a Hispanic, but you know what? I decided to support the Hispanic Bar Association and I went there and you know, and I said you know, obviously I provide I do some work surrounding continuing legal education credits, and I do that for all different types of lawyers, not just LGBTQ lawyers or women lawyers. I do that for any lawyers right, and so this helps me open up my sphere of influence to do more business with more people, because I'm focusing on building relationships with people who are different and I'm opening up my eyes to do business with more people. This is why diversity is so freaking good for business. It's absolutely mind-blowing to think that someone wouldn't want to garner more business for their company if I go outside their normal realm.

Speaker 1: 5:31

It's crazy how some of this works sometimes. I've been for the last four years on my office's anti-racism, diversity and inclusion working group that is working with the county of Los Angeles on anti-racism, diversity and inclusion programming. We want to educate people within our offices about those differences and see that diversity is a good thing and it allows you to get different experiences and allows you to be able to relate to people on different levels, and so to take that away is so short-sighted is is so short-sighted and we, we, we, you guys got uh, a nebraskan down there running one of your at the university of florida.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Uh, our, our us senator resigned so that he could take the job down there and, I guess, continue to muck everything up and make it a lot worse. And then our governor appointed the former governor that we had to the US Senate. So we have two Senate races in Nebraska this year. But it's like the dirtiness of it of political payoffs and jobs to attack minorities that is so cruel.