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Raise Your Innovation IQ: 21 Ways to Think Differently During Times of Change

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Leena Patel

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“I believe in the radical equality of all human beings. No human is of greater or lesser value than anyone else. The word “radical” has in its beginnings the word “root,” meaning what is foundational. I believe the commitment to radical equality is the root, or foundation, of inclusive meeting practices and fair facilitation.”

DiversityEqualityInclusivenessEquity And Justice
Book:Thrive: The Facilitator's Guide to Radically Inclusive Meetings
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“Even if there is no connection between diversity and international influence, some people would argue that immigration brings cultural enrichment. This may seem to be an attractive argument, but the culture of Americans remains almost completely untouched by millions of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. They may have heard of Cinco de Mayo or Chinese New Year, but unless they have lived abroad or have studied foreign affairs, the white inhabitants of Los Angeles are likely to have only the most superficial knowledge of Mexico or China despite the presence of many foreigners. Nor is it immigrants who introduce us to Cervantes, Puccini, Alexander Dumas, or Octavio Paz. Real high culture crosses borders by itself, not in the back pockets of tomato pickers, refugees, or even the most accomplished immigrants. What has Yo-Yo Ma taught Americans about China? What have we learned from Seiji Ozawa or Ichiro about Japan? Immigration and the transmission of culture are hardly the same thing. Nearly every good-sized American city has an opera company, but that does not require Italian immigrants. Miami is now nearly 70 percent Hispanic, but what, in the way of authentic culture enrichment, has this brought the city? Are the art galleries, concerts, museums, and literature of Los Angeles improved by diversity? Has the culture of Detroit benefited from a majority-black population? If immigration and diversity bring cultural enrichment, why do whites move out of those very parts of the country that are being “enriched”? It is true that Latin American immigration has inspired more American school children to study Spanish, but fewer now study French, German, or Latin. If anything, Hispanic immigration reduces what little linguistic diversity is to be found among native-born Americans. [...] [M]any people study Spanish, not because they love Hispanic culture or Spanish literature but for fear they may not be able to work in America unless they speak the language of Mexico. Another argument in favor of diversity is that it is good for people—especially young people —to come into contact with people unlike themselves because they will come to understand and appreciate each other. Stereotyped and uncomplimentary views about other races or cultures are supposed to crumble upon contact. This, of course, is just another version of the “contact theory” that was supposed to justify school integration. Do ex-cons and the graduates—and numerous dropouts—of Los Angeles high schools come away with a deep appreciation of people of other races? More than half a century ago, George Orwell noted that: 'During the war of 1914-18 the English working class were in contact with foreigners to an extent that is rarely possible. The sole result was that they brought back a hatred of all Europeans, except the Germans, whose courage they admired.”

CultureRaceDiversityImmigrationIntegrationContact TheoryCultural Enrichment
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“Many kinds of animal behavior can be explained by genetic similarity theory. Animals have a preference for close kin, and study after study has shown that they have a remarkable ability to tell kin from strangers. Frogs lay eggs in bunches, but they can be separated and left to hatch individually. When tadpoles are then put into a tank, brothers and sisters somehow recognize each other and cluster together rather than mix with tadpoles from different mothers. Female Belding’s ground squirrels may mate with more than one male before they give birth, so a litter can be a mix of full siblings and half siblings. Like tadpoles, they can tell each other apart. Full siblings cooperate more with each other than with half-siblings, fight less, and are less likely to run each other out of the territory when they grow up. Even bees know who their relatives are. In one experiment, bees were bred for 14 different degrees of relatedness—sisters, cousins, second cousins, etc.—to bees in a particular hive. When the bees were then released near the hive, guard bees had to decide which ones to let in. They distinguished between degrees of kinship with almost perfect accuracy, letting in the closest relatives and chasing away more distant kin. The correlation between relatedness and likelihood of being admitted was a remarkable 0.93. Ants are famous for cooperation and willingness to sacrifice for the colony. This is due to a quirk in ant reproduction that means worker ants are 70 percent genetically identical to each other. But even among ants, there can be greater or less genetic diversity, and the most closely related groups of ants appear to cooperate best. Linepithema humile is a tiny ant that originated in Argentina but migrated to the United States. Many ants died during the trip, and the species lost much of its genetic diversity. This made the northern branch of Linepithema humile more cooperative than the one left in Argentina, where different colonies quarrel and compete with each other. This new level of cooperation has helped the invaders link nests into supercolonies and overwhelm local species of ants. American entomologists want to protect American ants by introducing genetic diversity so as to make the newcomers more quarrelsome. Even plants cooperate with close kin and compete with strangers. Normally, when two plants are put in the same pot, they grow bigger root systems, trying to crowd each other out and get the most nutrients. A wild flower called the Sea Rocket, which grows on beaches, does not do that if the two plants come from the same “mother” plant. They recognize each others’ root secretions and avoid wasteful competition.”

EvolutionDiversityTerritoryCooperationGeneticsGenetic Similarity Theory
Author:Jared Taylor
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“Inmates would overwhelmingly welcome segregation. As Lexy Good, a white prisoner in San Quentin State Prison explained, “I’d rather hang out with white people, and blacks would rather hang out with people of their own race.” He said it was the same outside of prison: “Look at suburbia. . . . People in society self-segregate.” Another white man, using the pen name John Doe, wrote that jail time in Texas had turned him against blacks: '[B]ecause of my prison experiences, I cannot stand being in the presence of blacks. I can’t even listen to my old, favorite Motown music anymore. The barbarous and/or retarded blacks in prison have ruined it for me. The black prison guards who comprise half the staff and who flaunt the dominance of African-American culture in prison and give favored treatment to their “brothers” have ruined it for me.' He went on: '[I]n the aftermath of the Byrd murder [the 1998 dragging death in Jasper, Texas] I read one commentator’s opinion in which he expressed disappointment that ex-cons could come out of prison with unresolved racial problems “despite the racial integration of the prisons.” Despite? Buddy, do I have news for you! How about because of racial integration?' (emphasis in the original) A man who served four years in a California prison wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times called “Why Prisons Can’t Integrate.” “California prisons separate blacks, whites, Latinos and ‘others’ because the truth is that mixing races and ethnic groups in cells would be extremely dangerous for inmates,” he wrote. He added that segregation “is looked on by no one—of any race—as oppressive or as a way of promoting racism.” He offered “Rule No. 1” for survival: “The various races and ethnic groups stick together.” There were no other rules. He added that racial taboos are so complex that only a person of the same race can be an effective guide.”

RaceDiversityPrisonIntegrationSociologySegregationMarxismRehabilitation
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“Even what are considered the accomplishments of diversity are admissions of its failure. All across America, public organizations such as fire departments and police forces congratulate themselves when they manage to hire more than a token number of blacks or Hispanics. They promise that this will greatly improve service. And yet, is this not an admission of how difficult the multi-racial enterprise really is? If all across America it has been shown that whites cannot provide effective police protection for blacks or Hispanics, it only proves that diversity is an insoluble problem. If blacks want black officers and Hispanics want Hispanic officers, they are certainly not expressing support for diversity. A mixed-race force—touted as an example of the benefits of diversity—becomes necessary only because of the tensions that arise between officers of one race and citizens of another. The diversity we celebrate is necessary only because of the intractable problems of diversity. Likewise, if Hispanic judges and prosecutors must be recruited for the justice system, does this mean whites cannot dispense dispassionate justice? If non-white teachers are necessary role models for non-white children, does this mean inspiration cannot cross racial lines? If newspapers must hire non-white reporters in order to satisfy non-white readers, does this mean whites cannot write acceptable news for non-whites? If blacks demand black newscasters and weathermen on television, does it mean they prefer to get their information from people of their own race? If majority-minority voting districts must be established so that non-whites can elect representatives of their own race, does this mean democracy itself divides Americans along racial lines? All such efforts at diversity are not expressions of the strength of multi-racialism; they are desperate efforts to counteract its weaknesses. They do not bridge gaps; they institutionalize them.”

ProblemRaceDemocracyFailureDiversityTensions
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“Trust in the familiar seems to be matched by wariness of the unfamiliar. Jennifer Richeson of Northwestern University has conducted experiments in which white subjects had to interact in some way with a white or a black man before taking a mental test. Those who dealt with the black man got lower scores on the test, and their brain scans showed what Prof. Richeson called “heightened activity in areas of the brain associated with regulating our thoughts and emotions.” She interpreted this to mean that white subjects were struggling with the “awkwardness” or “exhaustion” of dealing with a black man, and that this interfered with their ability to take the mental test. Researchers at Harvard and New York University had white and black subjects look repeatedly at a series of photographs of black and white faces, all with neutral expressions. Every time the subjects looked at one particular black face and one particular white face they got a mild electric shock. Lie detector-type devices showed that subjects would sweat—a typical stress reaction—when they saw the two faces they associated with the shocks. The researchers showed the photo series several times again, but without the shocks. White subjects quickly stopped sweating when they saw the white face formerly associated with the shock, but continued to sweat when they saw the black face. Black subjects had the opposite reaction, continuing to sweat when they saw the white but not the black face. Mahzarin Banaji, the study’s leader, concluded that this was a sign of natural human wariness of unfamiliar groups.”

RaceEvolutionDiversityGenetics
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“I could watch him do this until morning — never asking questions and never interrupting his work. I worship quietly — his intense focus and attention to detail and then, out of no where, I realize the inconvenient, inappropriate truth: ‘I love this man… and it has swallowed me.”

LoveLifeArtSoulInspirationTruthTimeUniverseHopeWishStarsPrayerHealingDestinyGrowing UpLearningFateGrowingFriendsSelf LoveLoversDepressionAnxietyOceanBeachGirlsComing Of AgePraySelf AcceptanceTeensTeenagersSelf ReflectionSoul MatesConstellationsBorn ReadyJennifer ElisabethCape CodRed ThreadRed Thread Of DestinyRed Thread Of Fate
Author:Jennifer Elisabeth
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“MRI testing again shows what may be the underlying brain mechanism. The amygdalae are two small lobes in the brain associated with fear, arousal, and emotions. When they are active, it is thought to be a sign of vigilance, meaning that the brain is wary and wants more information. A study at Massachusetts General Hospital found that when subjects looked at photographs of faces—half were white, half were black—MRI scans found high amygdala activity. This was considered to be a normal reaction to unfamiliar faces. When the subjects looked at the photographs a second time the faces were more familiar; only the other-race faces continued to provoke high amygdala activity. This was true for both blacks and whites, suggesting that encounters with people of different races keep the brain at a higher level of watchfulness. Amygdalae notice race even when a person does not. William A. Cunningham of Ohio State University showed white subjects pictures of faces for only 30 milliseconds—not long enough for the subjects to be conscious of them—but black faces triggered greater amygdala activity than white faces. When he showed faces for a half a second—long enough for people to notice race—he found that black faces prompted greater activity in the pre-frontal areas, a part of the brain associated with detecting internal conflicts and controlling conscious behavior. This suggested the subjects were trying to suppress certain feelings about blacks. Steven Neuberg of Arizona State University attributes instinctive bias to evolution during our hunter-gatherer past. “By nature, people are group-living animals—a strategy that enhances individual survival and leads to what we might call a ‘tribal psychology’, ” he says. “It was adaptive for our ancestors to be attuned to those outside the group who posed threats such as to physical security, health or economic resources.”

RaceEvolutionDiversitySurvivalGenetics
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“What are the implications of ethnic identity for multi-racial and multi-ethnic societies? Tatu Vanhanen of the University of Tampere, Finland, has probably researched the effects of ethnic diversity more systematically than anyone else. In a massive, book-length study, he measured ethnic diversity and levels of conflict in 148 countries, and found correlations in the 0.5 to 0.9 range for the two variables, depending on how the variables were defined and measured. Homogeneous countries like Japan and Iceland show very low levels of conflict, while highly diverse countries like Lebanon and Sudan are wracked with strife. Prof. Vanhanen found tension in all multi-ethnic societies: “Interest conflicts between ethnic groups are inevitable because ethnic groups are genetic kinship groups and because the struggle for existence concerns the survival of our own genes through our own and our relatives’ descendants.” Prof. Vanhanen also found that economic and political institutions make no difference; wealthy, democratic countries suffer from sectarian strife as much as poor, authoritarian ones: “Ethnic nepotism belongs to human nature and . . . it is independent from the level of socioeconomic development (modernization) and also from the degree of democratization.” Others have argued that democracy is particularly vulnerable to ethnic tensions while authoritarian regimes like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Tito’s Yugoslavia can give the impression of holding it in check. One expert writing in Foreign Affairs explained that for democracy to work “the party or group that loses has to trust the new majority and believe that its basic interests will still be protected and that there is nothing to fear from a change in power.” He wrote that this was much less likely when opposing parties represent different races or ethnicities. The United Nations found that from 1989 to 1992 there were 82 conflicts that had resulted in at least 1,000 deaths each. Of these, no fewer than 79, or 96 percent, were ethnic or religious conflicts that took place within the borders of recognized states. Only three were cross-border conflicts. Wars between nations are usually ethnic conflicts as well. Internal ethnic conflict has very serious consequences. As J. Philippe Rushton has argued, “The politics of ethnic identity are increasingly replacing the politics of class as the major threat to the stability of nations.” One must question the wisdom of then-president Bill Clinton’s explanation for the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia: “[T]he principle we and our allies have been fighting for in the Balkans is the principle of multi-ethnic, tolerant, inclusive democracy. We have been fighting against the idea that statehood must be based entirely on ethnicity.” That same year, the American supreme commander of NATO, Wesley Clark, was even more direct: “There is no place in modern Europe for ethnically pure states. That’s a 19th century idea and we are trying to transition into the 21st century, and we are going to do it with multi-ethnic states.”

RaceConflictDiversityGeneticsHomogeneitySocieties
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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“Schools have tried just about anything to try to calm racial tensions: professional mediation, multi-cultural training, diversity celebrations, anger-management classes, and a host of other interventions. In 2004, the Murrieta Valley Unified School District, in Riverside County, California, even considered a rule that would have forbidden any student to “form or openly participate in groups that tend to exclude, or create the impression of the exclusion of, other students.” The school board narrowly rejected the proposal when it was pointed out that the ban would have prohibited membership in the Hispanic group, La Raza, and could have been read to forbid playing rap music around white students. Absurd measures like this show how desperate schools are to solve the race problem. A 2003 survey found that 5.4 percent of high-school students had stayed home at least once during the previous month because they were physically afraid. This was an increase over 4.4 percent ten years earlier. Racial violence was undoubtedly an important factor. The circumstances under which some of our least advantaged citizens must try to get an education are nothing short of scandalous. Is it a wonder their test scores are low, that many drop out, that they fail to see the value of an education? How many times must school race riots be put down by SWAT teams before school authorities realize that this may be a problem that will not be cured with sensitivity training? The purpose of schools is to educate, not to force on children integration of a kind their parents do not even practice.”

RaceEducationDiversityIntegrationSociologyMarxism
Book:White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
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