The Daily Signal - What's True Diversity? More Than Meets the Eye

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Vivek Ramaswamy calls himself a proud father, a loyal husband, and a grateful son. His parents emigrated to America from India. A Hindu, he made his mark as a successful biotech entrepreneur. Ramaswamy has joined forces with the Philanthropy Roundtable to narrate a compelling video as part of the organization’s True Diversity campaign—pushing back against the left’s narrow and divisive view of diversity and inclusion. Debi Ghate, vice president of strategy and programs at the Philanthropy Roundtable and host of the "Can We Talk About It?" podcast, joins me on “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the real meaning of diversity. "At the Roundtable, we believe an individualized approach is better for achieving true diversity," Ghate says. "What we mean by that is looking for the strengths that each person brings to the table, their values, their passions, their experiences, their background, their skills, and even more." Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Monday, August 16th. I'm Robert Blewey. And I'm Virginia Allen. On today's show, Rob talks with Debbie Gate, a philanthropy roundtable. They discuss the group's new true diversity campaign and why it's so significant at this moment in history. We also read your letters to the editor and share a good news story about a way that you can take part in celebrating the 100th birthday of a female World War II veteran. Before we get to today's show, we want to tell you about a new story. new Heritage Foundation video series that breaks down what you need to know about government spending.

Issues like inflation, the debt ceiling, and government overspending can be complex. That's why the Heritage Foundation partnered with Senator Rick Scott of Florida to create road trip on a budget. Road trip on a budget is an animated five-part series that uses the analogy of a road trip to break down how much national debt we have, why it matters, and how the American government can begin to balance the budget. Each episode is just about two and a half minutes long. It's super fun and easy to listen to, easy to understand. You can find the five-part series on the Heritage Foundation YouTube channel, or you can just open your YouTube app and search for Heritage Foundation Road Trip on a Budget.

Now stay tuned for today's show coming up next. We are joined on the Daily Signal today by Debbie Gate, vice president of strategy and programs at the Philanthropy Roundtable and host of the Can We Talk About It podcast. She's here to share more about the organization's new initiative called True Diversity. Debbie, welcome to the show. Thank you, Rob, for having me. Glad to be here. Well, let's get started.

Tell our listeners more about True Diversity and why the Philanthropy Roundtable embarked on this project. Sure, and thank you for your interest in this. Yes, at the Philanthropy Roundtable, we have launched a new campaign called True Diversity. You can look it up at True-diversity.com. And our tagline for that campaign is, I am more than what you see. Now, why did we launch this? I mean, we really think that there is more than one way to think about diversity. In general, the sector that I work in, the philanthropic sector,

it's taking and expecting colleagues in the sector to view groups, identity through groups. So it's taking a group-based approach to supporting people and communities. they are doing the checklist approach, classifying people by race, gender, sexual orientation, et cetera, and this is increasing in volume and in quantity. The problem with this approach, of course, is that it brushes everyone with the same brush. People are stamped with one of those labels.

The reality is that people with one of those labels just don't think the same way. They don't have the same experiences. They don't share the same goals or the same values. They may not even be facing the same problems. And so one solution is not going to work for everyone. That's why at the roundtable, we believe an individualized approach is better for achieving true diversity. What we mean by that is looking for the strengths that each person brings to the table, their values, their passions, the experiences, their background, their skills, and even more.

And when we get to combine all of those ingredients together, that's how we get new and better ways to solve the complex social problems we are looking to solve for in our communities through philadelphia. philanthropy. But Rob, I want to make one thing really clear. We all want to fight racism, and I'll be honest with you. I personally have experienced racism. It is awful, and it exists. So I want to be really clear about that. But we also want everyone to have equality of opportunity. We want everyone to have the chance to flourish and thrive. And I believe we have the same important things in common with others in our sector when we think about it that way. So bottom line, is for us true diversity is important for achieving these shared goals. And my concern is that by focusing on group identities rather than on individuals, this is taking us down a road in the

philanthropic sector where we are creating new forms of discrimination. We are looking to solve longstanding problems by unfortunately creating new ones. And so that's why we launched the campaign. And I can say more about the goals of it and what we're doing. Well, Debbie, let me just say that When I first visited the website for True Diversity, I was incredibly moved by the video featuring Vivek Ramoswamy. He narrates a powerful story about America from the perspective of an entrepreneur who is grateful for the opportunities of our great country. And I'd like to play for our listeners right now a short clip from his video to give them some perspective about what he's talking about and your campaign. Terrific. According to some, you and I are each defined by the character.

that we inherited on the day we were born. For example, I'm a man, not a woman. I'm brown, not white. I'm straight, not gay. For proponents of this view, we are each defined by the innate and immutable, by the visible and the superficial. My status as a free agent in the world is an illusion. I'm reduced to attributes like the color of my skin,

my gender, and my sexual orientation. When you look at me, you're expected to see not an American, but an Indian American. When I look at my neighbor, I'm expected to see not just my neighbor, but my black neighbor, and to anticipate something about his worldview and his lived experience based on his skin color. That narrative of identity is quietly becoming dominant in our country's psyche. But I reject that narrative, and I think every American bears a responsibility to sound liver. rejected too. So with true diversity, you mentioned that you really want to celebrate the identities and characteristics of every individual. In many ways, it reminds me of Martin Luther King's

famous speech where he talked about judging people by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. But in today's society, it seems that we're moving in that opposite direction. How has the campaign been received by the philanthropic sector and what's some of the reaction you've had since launching? So honestly, when we put up the campaign, there are five principles that you'll see there, and I'm happy to talk about those. We thought these must be principles that most people can get behind. The reaction has been interesting.

Within the sector, there have been some strong reactions against what we have described as being true diversity, but we have also had a lot of support. The reality is that many people are reaching out to us to express their agreement. to share their concerns, to thank us for starting the campaign, and we know we're actually not alone in our viewpoint within the sector. And this includes people who have been longstanding progressives, who are finding that suddenly within the sector, they themselves are being shut out after being longtime proponents of progressive approaches.

So here's the thing. They're also all afraid to speak up, and they are feeling discouraged. So the reason they contact us quietly is because of that, that fear. Now, we want to help these people in our sector find their voices. And so one of our goals is to help amplify voices in the sector who are raising the question of, is diversity something we can see? And we want to help create a vibrant community that welcomes those different perspectives. So I would say the reaction has been mixed, but we have definitely heard from many, many more people in support, but it has been quiet. Well, and you're obviously able to do that

through your own podcast, which we're more than happy to promote and link to on our show notes and the transcript. But before we talk about some of that, I do want you to cover some of the principles, as you refer to them, the five principles of true diversity. Can you walk us through the five and why you identified them? Yes, absolutely, because we really believe that the heart of true diversity is in these five principles. And they're pretty simple. The first is to value each person, each individual, get to know them. You are unique, Rob, I'm unique. We are all unique. Second, in our sector, nonprofits operate on missions. You work at a nonprofit. It operates on a mission. We need to appreciate those missions and the problems they are looking to solve and the communities

that they help. Those are the people who knows how best to solve those problems and this is how we get the best results. So appreciate the missions. The third is we really do need diverse perspective. We need multiple takes on a problem. We need to bring those different backgrounds to the table so that we can identify new ways of solving old long-standing problems. Fourth, we really need to embrace conversation and discussion. This tendency for us to be quiet about it is something that we hope people will overcome. We need to embrace conversations so we can seek those better solutions. And then finally, and this is really core to what the roundtable believes in, we believe, we believe we need to help foster self-reliance, and that is ultimately what will help uplift communities.

So those are the five principles, Rob, and we're excited to stand by them, and we hope that people, that they resonate with people, and that others can identify with our principles for true diversity. That's fantastic. We recently had your president and CEO, Elise Westoff, not only at the Heritage Foundation's Resource Bank meeting, but also on the Daily Signal podcast, and she talked about personal responsibility and some of the other principles that go into the mission of the Philanthropy Roundtable.

We're so appreciative of the work that you're doing to connect that to the philanthropic sector. Let's delve a little bit deeper into some of these initiatives. We live at a time when it seems that so many individuals or opportunists in some cases are attempting to advance this divisive agenda based on identity-based approaches

to so many aspects of our life. What are some of the ways that you mentioned in the principle number four encouraging debate and discussion, what are some of the ways you're looking to get the philanthropic sector engaged in that conversation in a way that can be open and encouraging as opposed to people having to quietly whisper about these things behind the scenes? That's such a great question, Rob. And I wish I could say we had it all figured out, but we don't. We're working on it. first I'll say that it's important to remember that this has been an issue that has been in the philanthropic sector for decades. One of your colleagues, Mike Gonzalez, has done a great job of explaining the relationship between philanthropy and group identity politics. And Mike has been a great source of information for me to help me make that connection in the sector. So the other thing is to remember that philanthropy actually affects many other sectors, business, arts, education, etc. It's very influential.

The grants they make make possible to work in other sectors. So in a way, it all starts with philanthropy because of spillover to those other sectors. So that's why we think it's very, very important to start the conversation within the philanthropic sector. It's not a complicated strategy, honestly. We are having conversations. You may have noticed that the roundtable is speaking up more. We have been visible in the media. We have been visible through programming.

We do a number of webinars and we host conversations. We also, as you mentioned, have a podcast called Can We Talk About It? Ultimately, all of these efforts are to help raise the question about whether there are other ways of thinking about diversity. And if so, let's talk about it. So we have had many discussions with colleagues in the sector, some of whom have very different perspectives from ours. Some of those conversations go well. some of those conversations go less well. I think ultimately there are people in our sector who genuinely want to understand our perspective and we genuinely want to understand theirs.

And that's where the conversation has been. And all you need is a starting point, right, Rob? That's right. So we have started there. Well, you've talked about the importance of having that conversation. Yet we live in a time when it seems that whether it be the news media, whether it be government, institutions, schools, so many factors in all of our lives are driving us more toward identity politics or critical race theory. And it's encouraging to see so many Americans educating themselves and learning more about these topics. One of the things that's really struck me in a comment that you made earlier was about equality, a quality of opportunity. We've heard the phrase

equity a lot lately in so many different contexts. Can you explain why you value that a quality of opportunity so much when it comes to all aspects of American life? Sure. So I do believe in the power of individuals and that communities are made up of individuals. I also believe that we are lucky enough to live in a country that has a legal framework and a set of founding principles that allow for the promise of every individual to be reached. Are we perfect? Absolutely not. I don't think anyone says we are perfect. But we have the framework that allows for individuals to actually flourish if we can fully realize that framework. Where philanthropy comes in is philanthropy is seeking to help communities go from where they are now to where we think communities can be, which is in a much better place

and flourishing. Philanthropy naturally has different ways of approaching that problem. For us, we want to look at what are the barriers that are in the way of people who may not, you know, that are keeping them from actually accessing the opportunities that are in front of them. In a lot of cases, those are government-created barriers. And so we, one of the things that we think is very important is to focus on pathways to opportunity, to find where those government-created barriers are, and to help get those out of the way. At the same time, though, we believe in strong communities with neighbor helping neighbor. It's not enough to just have the pathways.

We have to have strong communities on the ground. And so philanthropy also comes alongside individuals in those communities and helps them, provides the resources to help them solve problems on the ground that they are facing. And so those are two ways that philanthropy and equality of opportunity intersect. And it ultimately comes from a belief that individuals can flourish and that we have a framework that if we could realize the promise of, we'd be in an amazing free society. You mentioned earlier in the conversation that some organizations take a checklist approach,

and we've all seen that. What do you think is driving that, and how do we move away from that model? Do you think it's just a fad that we're in right now, or are there other factors influencing these philanthropic organizations to move in that direction? So I don't think it's just a fad that started right now. In a sense, if you think about it, there have been some reasons why the checklist approach started. I was recently in a webinar with some business school professors, and one of the points that they made is that there are some legal requirements and some grant-related requirements when you're receiving money from the government that requires them to actually access this information,

demographic information. So some of this started with some of the legal environment and legal requirements that people had. Now, from there, you layer on this very well-motivated and well-intentioned desire to help more people realize their potential. Okay, so now you're starting to take what was a legal environment and what seemed like a way to combat racism and you're running wild with it. And so some of the checklist stuff actually started because of affirmative action efforts and some of the requirements that ran alongside those. So I don't think it's quite a lot of. quite a fad. Now, I think where we are today is that people are realizing the checklist approach isn't working. There are a lot of people that just don't fit into the boxes that are on the list.

Personally, I don't fit into a lot of the boxes when I'm confronted with the list. And people are realizing that that kind of diversity just isn't enough. And so what I'm encouraged by is that however the checklist started, people are realizing it's limitations and there is an interest to go beyond the checklist and into the complexity. And that's a positive. Fantastic. You mentioned the website earlier. I'll give it to our listeners. Again, it's true hyphen diversity.com. On the website, you have a resource center. Can you share with our listeners some of the information that you've pulled together to help them as they may have questions that need to be answered or other concerns that you're helping them address? Sure. So yes,

one of the things we are doing is collecting resources. There are a lot of people actually talking about this question publicly, as scared as we are to do that. There are teachers who are developing curriculum on, for example, how to have the moral courage to address these issues. There are people who are actually fighting some of these cases through litigation. There are also people who are wanting to tackle this at a cultural level and who are discussing the philosophical ideas that are behind what got us here and where we might want to go. What we were doing is amplifying those voices, collecting that information in one place. So whether it's litigation, education, the academy, or the culture. You'll find commentary. You'll find video. You'll find

other resources on our website. And this is a constant scan for us. And we're just thrilled that there are so many people who are actually addressing these issues. By putting it in one place, we hope it makes it easier for people to realize they're not alone. It's fantastic. Thank you for aggregating all of that content. I also want to talk about your own podcast, what you do on a weekly basis. Can we talk about it? Tell us about your goal with that and some of the guests who you have on to take part in these discussions. Absolutely. Thank you, Rob. So it actually starts with an inspiration that some people may have forgotten this story. There was a filmmaker named Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam, and he was murdered for making a film that was based on the

writings of Ayan Hercili, who was basically talking about women's rights. Now, as he was being murdered in the streets of Amsterdam, the last words that he uttered were, can't we talk about this? Now, that has always stuck with me, that the answer should always be, shouldn't it always be, yes, we can talk about this? It should not be to the point where we have one human being, murdering another human being in the street for their ideas. And so that's been the inspiration. of the podcast and to help illustrate that, yes, we can talk about it. We've had a number of guests come from all different kinds of places, from professors who are experiencing challenges in their classrooms and who have to have to actually take on litigation to keep their jobs, to people who

are thinking about whether they want to live in communities that are with people who look like them and whether that is the best solution for their kids, to people who are, you know, whether or not diversity is something that you see. And so we've had a number of guests from journalists to thought leaders to even the sister of someone who was murdered in prison and the story of what happened there. So you'll find a lot of different perspectives there. Our goal is, honestly, is just to talk about the things that people are finding it hard to talk about. Fantastic. And Debbie, for our listeners who may have missed the interview with Elise Westoff, your president and CEO, share with them about the Philanthropy Roundtable, what your mission is and

what you go about doing on a daily basis? Sure. We are an organization that works with donors who are committed to advancing liberty, opportunity, and personal responsibility. We work to strengthen our free society through philanthropy, and our goal is to help create a vibrant movement of philanthropists to do just that. Fantastic. Well, thank you again for all the work that you're doing to,

advance true diversity. Again, the website is true-difference.com. We appreciate it and we'll make sure we include a link for anybody who wants to get more information. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners before we let you go today? I just want to thank you all for the work that you are doing because the Heritage Foundation does a lot of incredible work to help make sure that we know what stories are happening out there and your scholars are doing wonderful work that we read every day. So thank you for all the work you're doing too. Well, that's one. of our goals at The Daily Signal is to make sure that a growing audience can be kept in the know and informed about all of these things that are happening because so often we don't hear

about it from some of the traditional sources in the media. So we strive to do that, Debbie, and we thank you for being a part of the show today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at Letters at DailySignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday we feature our favorites on this show. Virginia, who's up first?

In response to Lindsay Burke's piece, unions double down on inserting critical race theory and education. Susan C. Wright of Santa Fe, New Mexico writes, these teachers who belong to the union and teach critical race theory as Lindsay Burke writes about in her commentary, should be banned from every classroom. This is not teaching. This is brainwashing.

Parents in Louding County, Virginia, are doing the right thing by standing up for their children's rights to be taught history as it happened. Not as someone decided it should have happened. And in response to Virginia's podcast interview with Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lemmas, Wade Wadsworth of Lingo Wyoming writes, Senator Lummis has certainly been a faithful conservative and has been an excellent representative, both in the House and Senate of Wyoming.

I really enjoyed your interview with her. I also want to say how much I appreciate you and everyone at the Daily Signal. You produce so many excellent articles on such high quality. The Heritage Foundation really helps one to be proud to be an American with so many negatives going on. Thank you so much for all the great work. Your letter can be featured on next week's show, so send us an email at Letters at DailySignal.com.

Virginia Allen here, I want to tell you all about what? of my favorite podcasts. Heritage Explains is a weekly podcast that breaks down all the policy issues we hear about in the news at a 101 level. Host Michelle Cordero and Tim Desher, nixen news clips and music to tell a story, but also bring in heritage experts to help break down complex issues. Heritage Explains offers quick 10 to 50 minute explainers that bring you up to speed in an entertaining way. You can find them on Apple Podcasts. Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast. We even put the full episode on

YouTube. Virginia, you have a good news story to share with us today. Over to you. Thanks so much, Rob. Celebrating a 100th birthday is a big deal. Celebrating the 100th birthday of a World War II veteran is an even bigger deal. And friend of the show and motivational speaker, Janine Stang, is making sure the celebration is done right. For our longtime listeners, you will remember. that Janine has joined us a number of times on the Daily Signal podcast to talk about the Medal of Honor Mail Call and the other initiatives she leads to honor American veterans. She regularly organizes letter writing campaigns to thank veterans for their service. Janine has already helped two veterans celebrate their birthdays this month by collecting

cards for Americans all over the nation. And in just over a week, she is honoring a female World War II veteran and a Rosie the Riveter, who will both be celebrating their 100th birthdays on August 29th in Florida. Janine says each of these women served their nation with pride, so it's special to now be able to serve them in this simple way. They both live in Florida, August 29th, they both turned 100. One is a World War II Navy veteran. Her name is Pat Rudd.

And get this, she was one of the first, she was in the first. group that were sent over to Pearl Harbor after the bombing. That's pretty impressive. And then we have another woman. So Pat Rudd is 100 on August 29th. And the other woman is Anne Nally. And she is one of the Rosie the Riveters. She was a Rosie the Riveter from 1941 to 1945.

So both of these women, obviously, same age, they served around the same time, doing different things, but serving our country during a time. I mean, if we didn't have them, I don't know where we would be. For Janine, celebrating these women and so many other veterans is her way to say thank you for their incredible sacrifice. We always hear about these funerals for veterans who hundreds of people turn out. You know, sometimes you'll see it on the news. But I think that's important. But I think also what's so important is to show them this honor and respect while they're here with us.

You know, and this is a really important thing to be able to do because it shows that we respect what they've done and the sacrifices that they've made. And their families love it too because, you know, I've heard sometimes there have been veterans that pass on after we've done these missions for them and their family keep those cards because it means a lot to see how this country really reached out to them to give them one last big, huge ovation. If you want to join Janine in honoring these ladies, you can write them a letter yourself to say thank you and wish them a happy birthday. You can even send them a little gift if you want. Sending a letter is easy. All you have to do is text USA to 33777. And you will receive all of the information in a text that tells you what you need to do in order to get involved and send a letter again. Just text USA to 33777.

Or you can also visit Janine's website, National Anthemgirl.org. You'll also be able to find all of the information that you need there about how you can participate. Just be sure that you have your letter in the mail by August 20th. That's this Friday. Janine says that for veterans like Pat Rudd and Anne Malley, receiving thank you cards is such a powerful way for them to be reminded that they're not forgotten and that we truly are blessed today by the sacrifice that they made. many years ago. What it means to them is to see maybe they don't like to bring attention to the

fact that they served or maybe they've just kind of forgotten about it. It has been a long time since 1945. Some of them have finished at that point. They may have forgotten about it and this brings memories to them. This brings a closeness to them. This makes them see that this is really not such a huge world that we all are one family. Again, if you want to get involved, just text USA, 3377. And you'll receive all of the information that you need, but be sure to have your card in the mail by this Friday. A huge, happy birthday to Pat Rudd and Anne Malley. Thank you so much to all of our veterans for your service and your sacrifice. Well, let me extend the birthday wishes as well. And thank Janine for doing this. Virginia, we first featured Janine on the Daily Signal way back

in 2014. And it's really encouraging for all of the things she's done in the year since. We really appreciate the effort that she's made to celebrate those Americans and all the great things we can be proud of. Absolutely. It really is incredible. For those of you who don't know, she has an impressive singing career. She sang the national anthem in all 50 states and has a documentary about it. I encourage you to check that out. But truly an American patriot and exciting to see her continue to honor our veterans. You bet. We are going to leave it there for today. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on the Rikishay Audio Network.

All of our shows are available at DailySignal.com. slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcast app. And be sure to listen every weekday by adding the Daily Signal podcast as part of your Alexa Flash briefing. If you like what you hear, please leave us a review and a five-star rating. It means a lot to us and helps us spread the word to other listeners. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the Daily Signal News. Have a great week. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive producer. by Rob Blewey and Virginia Allen. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geiney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.