Transcript of Episode 11 Season 2
David Pérez: it’s no longer a nice to have. It’s something that we must have. In society and in business and in churches and in religious organizations across the world. And in any place that we are, because families are diverse now. It’s not like it is something foreign. People know diversity because it’s out there, it’s in their doorstep it’s, inclusion is necessary.
LaMondre Pough: Welcome to 3DVU one conversation, three different perspectives. I’m Lamonde Pough.
David Pérez: I am David Pérez.
Richard Streitz: And I’m Richard Streitz. Thank you for joining us.
David Pérez: Hello everyone. Welcome back to another 3DVU. Last episode, we were going through why inclusion is important and what it means. And today we wanted to go a little deeper into inclusion and understand more how it impacts the world right now in the modern world in actually 2021. So we are going to go through how the world has changed and then we’re going to go through what that means for being inclusive and how inclusion could look like in the future or how the future could look like if we were inclusive. So let’s get right into it with how the world has changed. How has it changed for you guys?
Richard Streitz: I think it’s interesting how, from a historical perspective our connectivity and how information moves back and forth has controlled a lot, or has provided control of how people think and the perception of inclusion. So what do before we had cell phones and I know that may be hard to even think back to then we had things like TV and the news reports on TV that most people absorbed their information in the evening after they had gone work and then they would react to what they heard about that night the next day when they’re at work or when they’re with their friends or what have you, and have discussions and form opinions based on what they heard the night before.
The idea and concept of that. And then, the further back you go in time that the same thing happened. That was basically the same model of going back to when, we started having movable type and, instead of news it was just printed, the page, but it was always the same thing.
An individual would digest the information that was given to them. However, it was curated at the moment that it was printed or taped or what have you. And then people reacted to it and then had a discussion based on what they digested the, I think one of the large paradigm shifts that occurred.
That has occurred as a result of just technology in general is the fact that now we have these devices that provide absolute instant input and digestion of information at any period of time instantly. And that I think has an effect on creating micro pools of informations that people now.
And you would think that would have broadened everything, but what that’s done is because there’s so much information out there, people have pulled in. And have now circled around little micro collections of information and decided I’m only gonna decide to get my information from these couple sources because they’re the sources that think the way I do.
And and that I think can create problems. And I think we’ve seen manifest over time, but anyway, I, I think historically based on how we make decisions and how information was disseminated and ultimately how inclusiveness was digested by a society has changed in the ways that I just, you know, that I just discussed.
David Pérez: Yeah, that’s real interesting because information has certainly shifted immensely in the last, what, 10, 20 years, or a little more, because I’m thinking about the nineties, if it was yesterday, but since the nineties information flow has completely shifted and that of course is going to change perceptions and how people actually live and react to things and understand life.
So, yeah that’s really interesting, Richard.
LaMondre Pough: Absolutely. And it just to ride right into that and because the way that we consume information and the way that information is presented, the world has gotten so much smaller, but yet the opinions and the ability to share those opinions have become so diverse before, as Richard was pointing out before things were really centralized and you would get it, you would get information from some very institutionalized sources that were in some way, shape and form vetted through their processes. But now I can present my beliefs, my ideas, my understandings to the world, and have an audience built into it without vetting, without going through a process of understanding whether or not these things are true, whether they’re verified or, or even if, even if they go against the grain of what is considered to be the quote ‘norm’ unquote. And the truth is now because of that, there’s also no way to check it. There is no way to put the genie back in the bottle because that’s out there now. And so what does that do? It does several things.
One of the first things that it does is great because now very so many other opinions can be represented. So many different positions can be represented, but the issue that comes up with that is that it’s awfully hard to know what’s true. It’s awfully hard to know what’s valid. It’s awfully hard to know.
And when I say, what is truth, I’m not just saying, is it a lie or is it the truth, but can I trust it? Can I trust this? Even in society, when we look at some of the things that have happened just in the past year with the with the pandemic, there were so much misinformation out there about it. So many conspiracies that even now, while we have some pretty effective vaccines out there, there are a lot of people who still won’t get it because of mistrust.
And their citing sources that seemed to have a huge platform, but none of it has been verified, but still yet the trust is what we’re looking at. So when we think about how the world has changed when we think about what that means in terms of inclusion. I think that the need for inclusion is obvious and the fact that so many people are now carrying the banner of that.
The difficulty in that is trusting how we move forward and trusting the information that’s given, especially the information that we’re learning about groups and individuals and organizations that are not necessarily what we are accustomed to. While it’s a brave new world and while it’s strong and all those kinds of things it’s also the kind of world where trust seems to be diminishing.
David Pérez: Yeah. That’s, that’s absolutely true. That’s something I’ve heard, not only from you guys, but I think that’s the general sentiment. People feel like they can’t trust things now, and that’s not only from people that necessarily believe those conspiracy theories about the vaccines.
It’s true about everyone. Everyone is a little scared about the vaccines solely because that information is out there and that happens with a lot of topics and a lot of different things. But more than the flow of information. I’m really interested, especially, LaMondre, on your perspective of how have you seen inclusion change for you through the years being a black man and a person with a disability in the United States of America?
LaMondre Pough: Yeah it certainly, things have, here’s what’s interesting. I think what we’ve seen now is that more people outside of the community outside of the African-American community are now starting to speak against the injustices are now starting to speak out in terms of protecting the rights of people.
Because before you know it, it’s amazing. So when George Floyd was murdered on TV, pretty much. People were shocked. People were shocked because they said it’s the first time they’d ever seen this. And, you know, how is this a thing? How could this happen? And, so it, so it’s now, oh, now the alarms are going off.
The truth is that had been happening that had been happening for a long time. There are countless people that I personally know that have lost their lives at the hands of police brutality that never made the news. That it was never publicized and think about it. And then we saw what happened to George Floyd and how he was murdered, but we also saw that same video tape back in the nineties with Rodney King.
It just so happens that he did not die from it, but it was brutal. And here’s the thing with that, what we recognized was that while things are changing, the truth is: things are still very much the same and we’re still fighting. We’re still fighting. So while the, while it’s being publicized more, and while we have people who are standing up and they’re making changes, we’re still dealing with, we’re still dealing with, how do we get that knife out of our back?
We’re still dealing with, how do we really make it something that’s long-term and sustainable and not just for, oh, this is the instance that’s happening right now? So that is an important key. That is an important differentiator in terms of where we were then and where we are now. And I believe that while we have made significant progress in that, that we’ve got a long way to go a long way to go.
Richard Streitz: Yeah. You it’s interesting because I think certainly how people are digesting the information and the broader general awareness to these issues. Cause like you said, the issues aren’t anything new. I think what’s happened is a lot broader amount of individuals have suddenly become hyper more aware of them.
And again, a lot of that has to do with the cell phones, with the fact that there were the these homemade videos, the cell phone videos of the incident, and it wasn’t a controlled distilled version of those events through a controlled outlet of a television station or a news agency or the police agency.
Directing how the events transpired because there was no video of it when it was as stark as seeing the the live video the unfiltered, the unedited video of those events. I think that’s a major tipping point to convincing people that, wow, this is just horribly wrong. This is inhuman.
Even though to your point, these are events and activities that have been going on for a long time. It was just how I think they were presented and distilled also with everything that was going on with with what the divisiveness of the country and the environment that was happening.
So all of these things mixing and creating the absolute right environment that created this horrible outrage for it that should have always been there, but for all the reasons that we talked about before weren’t necessarily there and creating this movement, now that, to your point about sustainability, I think it hit a tipping point.
I think it was on the trajectory of being a typical news cycle. Like we’ve seen in the past on some of these events when they get reported to on locally, but never hit the national circuits. And then, it, it just follows the typical, however horrible that is that it follows the typical news cycle.
And then, every, everyone moves on. I think the tipping point was that as this movement moved at the global level it’s not going to go away so easily and it hasn’t the the and that I think is, goes back to how things are so different now than they were then where all of these all individuals have the ability to be able to present their viewpoints, present their opinions, present their, the video that they shot of XYZ event and create produce a narrative that doesn’t need to be distilled. Everyone that’s watching it can see and make their own an unfettered decision about what’s happening and the injustice of what’s happening.
And that I think is what is what’s so important about now compared to in, in the past and why inclusion has been affected by us as we move into these this new this new time.
LaMondre Pough: Yeah. And I was, and let me add this too, because I think that this, this is so important.
I think that one of the things, and I know we’re going to talk more about information right now, but I think one of the things that was so important and why this is so interconnected to inclusion is because everything that happens local is now global.
Richard Streitz: Yes.
LaMondre Pough: From, even though it happened on my street, on my corner is beamed throughout the world.
And when it’s bamed throughout the world, if people can see themselves in that, that changes how we respond to it. So one of the things about information being readily available, the way that it is now, is it allowes, it allows people to see themselves in my situation, or allows me to see myself in your situation.
For example, the thing that we’re doing right now, so everyone is in their own particular home offices. And other than this technology being available, I would have no idea what David’s world is like other than what he presented over a phone call or in an email. But now I’m actually looking at Richard’s background.
I’m actually seeing the map of the world. I’m actually, David is a coffee drinker, but I wouldn’t know that if we were just conversing, but I always see his coffee cup. And so I know that he really loves coffee. And so what I’m getting are glimpses of his world that really makes him more human to me.
He is not just the guy over in Costa Rica that, a colleague that I work with, but I see a part of David’s world. And I think that is how the world has changed. Technology has allowed inclusion to become more at the forefront because it allows us to tap instantaneously into each other’s world.
Therefore making us all more human.
David Pérez: Yeah. And there are good sides of every story, right?
LaMondre Pough: Absolutely.
David Pérez: I think that’s absolutely what we need to realize that the changes that we see are sometimes they are there for good, because even though the world has become a lot more complex, thanks to all of these advancements and the technology and the conspiracy theories and everything.
There’s also like a bigger opportunity for change. It’s it’s, it’s beautiful because yeah, globalization is a thing now. I remember when I was in fourth grade, I don’t know why I have this memory of being in fourth grade and doing a group project. And they separated us in groups and we had to do something, in big letters and they were talking to us about globalization as the thing that was going to change the world.
Because the world was going to be interconnected and whatnot. And this is I think, 1998 or something like that. And having grown in that, I have really seen the world change. Like I have seen how the world has changed absolutely. Conversations have shifted. Things are no longer the same because it, we had to look at the world from a different lens.
Now everything is close. Everything is near. And that means that everything affects us. And with that, I think that, that the conversation about inclusion, as you were saying, has grown matured in a way that
so that’s what I want to explore now, how inclusion, it’s no longer something that you can just use as a buzzword or, and do nothing about for 10 years. Now, people are demanding action.
So what do you think about that?
Richard Streitz: I think to your point and I think the younger generations is this is the absolute driving point behind this because they’re the consumers that are coming up. And because as you, I love the story that you said you’re, there you were in fourth grade and globalization was something that was being discussed and talked about at that level, which means that through your entire educational career and now that was something that was pertinent and important.
That was a discussion that wasn’t that I wasn’t hearing until I was 25, 30. So I have 25 years of baggage of sort of an other mentality that I was brought up through that didn’t necessarily include those level of conversations, which means that as I’m hearing them as a, as an older individual getting 25 and 30 years old, That I had to filter what I was hearing through the baggage of all the other information that I had been weaned through as I was growing up to that point.
Those are very different types of processes that are happening in one’s head and what’s subconsciously happening as a result. And so how that affects the decision making process forward and why corporations are interested in why this is such an important thing for the sustainability of companies is that they realize that as the generations are transitioning and the consumer, the large portion of the consumership of consumer dollars is coming from now, your age group, right?
That’s. I’m on the sunset part of the generational, fiscal benefit to corporations. But you’re not right. You’re, what’s happening now. You’re what’s coming up. So you’re the target group now and that generation is far more interested, far more conscious, far more aware and are making decisions that affect corporations, whether it’s an investment, whether it’s buying products, whether it’s buying a car whatever buying groceries, it doesn’t matter.
You’re making decisions. Based on how that organization, how that company is posturing and positioning itself in this sort of larger global inclusiveness world that we’re in and making, buying decisions, purchasing decisions on that is a huge deal for companies. And so I think that makes that makes a huge difference in, in our more modern times now, compared to previous times, and why inclusion matters to, to companies and organization.
LaMondre Pough: Yeah, I tell you I was probably say middle school, high school when I first started hearing about globalization and really started to understand what that actually meant.
And certainly at the when we first had the first Gulf war those conversations really became really intense. And starting to think about, wait a minute. So what does that mean for us? How does that change us? And honestly, we had no idea, there was so much fear that was wrapped around that because it was the concept of us that we would lose who we were, that we would lose the very essence of what it meant to be XYZ because it’s all global now.
And so there was a lot of fear. There was a lot of fear moving into that. But once we started really looking at it from the perspective of what that means, particularly when the internet took off, and we realized that, wait a minute, we can connect with people. Wait a minute.
You mean in my house, I can connect with someone in Botswana? You know that was that’s when, that’s when we started realizing potential in terms of just everyday individual people. And of course, when business started to thrive from that when small companies and small businesses started looking just like large corporations and people, all of a sudden realize the entrepreneurial legs that the internet provided and what that meant for people’s lives.
And that I didn’t just have to be a hit in my local town, but I could be a hit in other places as well, and really make a living off of this. That’s when I believe I really began to embrace the concept of what it meant to be global and why diversity was so important. Because growing up with a disability, particularly in South Carolina, it was either you were either you were an attorney, you were high up in the educational system or you were at home and you didn’t contribute very much.
So there was very little in the middle in terms of what was available. And I, and to be honest with you, I’ve even seen situations where people had their PhDs and were told that they were going to die at a nursing home because, because the world simply was not ready for them, even though they had all the qualities, even though it had the qualifications and everything, that was the reality.
But once things like the internet came around and we could connect and we could, share our expertise and passions and desires and skills, all of that changed all of that changed. But the other thing that changed was the fact that if you wanted access to that kind of expertise. If you wanted that access to that kind of skill, that you had to be willing to embrace inclusion.
You had to be willing to embrace that diversity. And that’s when we started learning that there was strength in our diversity that the idea was not to assimilate that the idea was not to be like what already existed or to work towards a medium. But to really live in the truth of who you are and what you are, and it was important.
It was important. And yeah, that’s how I see it has changed from a nice to have to a must have.
David Pérez: Yeah, it really is now that must have, and I agree completely with you guys. And one thing that I always like to bring to this conversation is that it’s a must have, because it’s costing us not to be inclusive.
Only excluding the community of people with disabilities, which is estimated to be around 15% of the population of the world is costing 7% of the time world’s GDP. That’s an amount of money that I can’t even name, let alone write. It’s incredible what we’re losing by not including everyone in conversations about economic growth, about social development about human development in general. So this is the fact that when we embrace inclusivity, diversity, pluralism, multiculturalism, everything in, in all its forms, we can thrive. And that’s what we’re going to be looking at in futures. Really quickly before, before we run out of time.
I really want to hear from you guys how you think inclusion can impact the future.
Richard Streitz: Wow. I think inclusion in the future in my thinking is bright. Is we are going to be looking at a world that has a lot less of these issues and challenges that we see right now, the diviciveness will, will melt away.
And that may be simply just a matter of pure attrition. But but certainly I think the world itself is going to be a much better place because of the individuals that are coming up. The younger generation that are that automatically have this idea of inclusion and universality as just part of the fabric of how they think. As opposed to being something that’s layered on top of old thinking that I think is a huge game changer and makes the future very bright.
LaMondre Pough: Yeah. I believe inclusion is the future. I think that, that without inclusion, there, there is no future because once again, once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s awfully hard to put that genie back in and I believe that we will continue to see more opportunities open up. I believe that we’ll see I believe that we’ll see diversity in systems that come about because of the inclusion. And I really think that communities that have been marginalized will begin to move from the margins. And we’ll redefine what is mainstream we’ll redefine what it means to be a part of the mass.
And so I believe the future is bright and also I am so thankful for the younger generations that are coming up behind us that are leading in that. So thank you.
David Pérez: Yeah. No, this is such a rich conversation. It’s incredible what inclusion can do for, for society, as it will bring better answers to all the problems that we have. Because people that have been excluded could have the answers to the problems that have plied society for forever, for generations.
So inclusion is just going to make the world a better place, not only for them, but for everyone. And I think that’s beautiful and that’s something that we need to fight for as much as we can from our corner of the world. Thank you for listening and thank you for joining us in this conversation, we would love to hear from you on Facebook or wherever you can reach us.
Have a great day.
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