Allison

“My call to action goes well beyond asking you to pressure your recruiting team to hire a couple of token employees. That's easy and you've been doing that for years.

My call to action is that you dig deeper and place focus on making the work environment sustainable for the minorities you introduce to your team. I'm challenging you to refrain from the habitual practice of listening only to the jaded opinions of people that you are more familiar with.

Consider that, although you may be under the impression that your employees have strong ethics, morals and values, there is a possibility that they mat not be telling you the entire truth when speaking about the performance or demeanor of minorities.

Furthermore, I challenge you to accept that racism, ageism, ableism, classism, sizeism, homophobia, etc., are real and shaping the semblance of your organization.

Accepting that fact does not mean that people you work with and trust are bad people. It simply means that many of them are naïve, fearful, and more comfortable with pointing fingers at the innocent than they are with facing and addressing their own unconscious and damaging biases.”
― Talisa Lavarry, Confessions From Your Token Black Colleague: True Stories & Candid Conversations About Equity & Inclusion In The Workplace

“The substance of patriotism matters more than the symbols.”
― Barack Obama

“Just as a single rainstorm can erode the banks and change the course of a river, so can a single circumstance of a girl’s life erase who she was before.”
― Shelley Read, Go as a River

“Fabric" and "fabricate "share a common Latin root: fabrica "something skillfully produced". Text and textile are similarly related, from the verb texere, "to weave", which in turn derives...from the Indo-European word *teḱs̱  , meaning "to weave".  "Order" comes from the Latin word for setting the warp threads, [ordinare], as does the French word for computer, ordinateur. The French word metier, meaning "trade" or "craft" is also the word for "loom".  

Such associations aren't uniquely European.  In the K'iche' Mayan language, the terms for weaving designs and writing hieroglyphics both use the root tz'ibia.  The Sanskrit word sutra, which now refers to a literary aphorism or religious scripture, originally denoted "string" or "thread". The word tantra which refers to a Hindu or Buddhist religious text, is from the Sanskrit tantrum, meaning "warp" or "loom".  The Chinese word Zǔzhī” 组织 meaning "organization" or "arrange" is also the word for "weave", while Chéngjiù 成就 meaning "achievement" or "result" originally meant "twisting fibers together".  ”
― Virginia Postrel, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World