“We've got to get to a place where the conversations are deeper at a heart level.” — Melvin Gravely
This week's guest is Melvin Gravely, entrepreneur and author of Dear White Friend. Melvin is CEO of TriVersity, a black-owned construction company in Cincinnati that was founded and continues to run under the principle that diversity brings power. He has also written several other books, on entrepreneurship and race.
Melvin credits his successes with "disruptions" that steered him on a different path than many of his peers growing up. He was intentionally placed in a different middle school. He was given opportunities through programs for minorities that helped him go to college and get a job at IBM. He excelled in sales at IBM, the first company he worked at, and moved on to work in various other entrepreneurial projects as well as earning a PhD in business administration. While Melvin believes in hard work and doing due diligence, these types of programs often help offset the severe inequities that so black people in America continue to face.
Melvin wrote Dear White Friend in response to the current discussions people in this country, including his white friends, are having about race in America. A prolific writer, Melvin says that he turns to writing for relaxation and to help him understand and make sense of the world. Melvin's main premise is that the root cause of racial inequities in the U.S. is slavery. He explains why and how African Americans are at the bottom and white people are at the top, with everyone else is in between. He points out that almost half of the black population lives in poverty, a consequence of their ancestors being slaves.
Melvin says the first step for everyone is to acknowledge the reality of the racial construct in our nation. The next step after acknowledgement is deciding to act with intention. If we all work in our own spheres of influence, then reach out to other spheres, Melvin explains, we can start to build a better, more equitable world.
In this episode of Leading with Genuine Care, you’ll also learn:
- Steps white people can take to start to build momentum to make change
- How asking the question "why is it this way" can be a powerful tool for insight and empathy
- How a professor used the game of Monopoly to illustrate racial inequities
- How intentional acts can help disrupt the path many people are given
- What Melvin thinks about the statue debate
- What he thinks about reparations and why he changed his mind about them
- How and why his company makes diversity one of their core values
Connect With Melvin Gravely
Website
Note: You can also download a free discussion guide at www.dearwhitefriend.com/discussiongroups.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melvin-gravely-45934a2/
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