From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in January when President Trump signed executive orders seeking to cut diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

One order directs federal agencies to get rid of all Dei programs in the federal government.

The second, and I'm quoting from Politico, now requires recipients of federal grants and contracts to certify that they do not operate unlawful Dei programs, and it directs federal officials to encourage the private sector to end Dei and quote.

The orders led to challenges in court, resulting in an injunction putting the policies on hold.

But last week, a federal appeals court gave the administration the okay to enforce those orders.

To be clear, the new ruling is not a final decision on the orders.

It allows the government to move forward while courts continue to review them.

The administration's crackdown on DEA programs has received mixed feedback.

Supporters of the executive order say that policies are discriminatory or divisive.

Those who support Dei programs are, of course, pushing back.

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Letitia James led more than a dozen additional attorney general attorneys general in issuing guidance to New York schools regarding the legality and the value of Dei practices.

But what's happening in the business sector?

Part of the talk about Dei, and you'll see it argued sometimes from those who are in the Trump administration or those who have helped craft the policy, is, you know, you can't do programs that are just supporting mwb minority and women owned business enterprises.

That's discriminatory.

It's exclusionary.

Well, certainly they may be.

They'll take that to court.

But what we've seen over the years is an emphasis on trying to elevate opportunities for women in business, for minority owned business, making sure that that opportunity is available to everyone.

And we're going to talk to representatives from the upcoming Elevate Women's Business Summit and the upstate minority and women owned business enterprises.

Again, WBE that conference to explore how minority business leaders are reacting to the conversations at the national level and trying to bring more opportunities locally.

Let me welcome our guests now in studio on the far Side.

Hello to Laurie Cecil Banana, who's founder and communications consultant for Celsius and speaker and organizer at the Elevate Women's Business Summit.

Welcome back to the program.

Thank you for having me.

Nice to have you.

Marquita Ruggles is owner of Rock events LLC and a speaker at the Elevate Women's Business Summit.

Marquita, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

Thank you so much.

Right next to me.

Hello.

Constance Mitchell Jefferson, temporary purchasing agent for the City of Rochester, chair of the 2025 Upstate Mwb conference.

Welcome back to the program, to you.

And welcome to Lenora Paige, president of Rochester Specialty Contractors.

Thank you for being here as well.

Thank you.

Now, Constance, you know someone who might finally be, you know, getting out of government, retiring, hopefully later this year.

Are you getting out at the right time?

I mean, does this feel wild?

What's going on?

Or how do you feel about what's happening in government these days?

I say to people that just because I retired from the city of Rochester on June 30th does not mean that I will no longer be working.

I am still going to be working, and I'm actually opening up my own consulting business, where I will have an opportunity to work with small businesses across the board on issues regarding small business development, economic development issues, helping them navigate how to get government contracting and all of that sort of stuff.

So, I don't feel as though I'm getting out of it.

I think that I'm just taking a different approach.

Yeah, sure.

So what do you make of the national conversation led by the white House now saying you can't do this anymore?

You can't talk about it.

It is inherently exclusive to, say and mwb.

What do you think?

So I do not believe that it's an exclusive conversation.

I think that if we look at the history in this country, and we look at opportunities for business, and to own businesses, that is the foundation under which the small Business Administration, which is a federal organization, was established.

so I am on the counter side of that argument in that I believe that, yes, there were some issues around the II, but the issue of not having women and not having minorities have opportunities, is not exclusionary of white people or white males or anything of that nature.

It's just in addition to it is a way of bringing equity to the system, of business and providing opportunities for everyone.

Do you think there are people who who who do believe in good faith that this is designed to keep white men out of positions?

It was never about keeping white males out.

It was about letting black males and black women and white women into the picture.

So if they think that that is the contrary, then they don't understand the concept of of the SBA and of the Mwb legislation, which, by the way, is federal legislation.

It's not state legislation, it's federal legislation.

So I guess I would say since mwb began roughly in the late 80s, if we look at that period of time, these 20 some years, have we been doing it wrong?

I beg to differ.

I would say no, we have not been doing it wrong.

I think that there have been issues around affirmative action, and there have been.

But this is not affirmative action.

This is equity.

And equity is leveling the playing field so that people, all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity and or race, have an opportunity to take advantage of the American dream, which is to own a business and own a home.

I'm going to talk to your co panel about this in a second, and then we're going to tell you about these events that are coming up in just a couple of weeks now.

to get them on the calendar if you would like to do that.

But, Constance, the way I've been thinking about this and I want to get your take on this so.

There's two different ways of maybe interpreting or assuming what dei or what these initiatives mean.

One is we're going to make sure that this next job that it cannot be, you know, such and such racial gender category, who gets hired than it has to be ex.

And it can't be Y versus, you know, who always gets access to these positions.

You know, people who have power or advantage, typically white men.

But what we're going to do is we're going to make sure that we cast the widest net possible because we know there are qualified people who don't happen to be white men.

And that's all we want is for everybody to have a chance to know that this exists and to have the opportunity to get there.

That's exactly.

Is that a yes?

That's exactly it.

It's not to exclude anyone, but it's to include everyone.

It does not purposely intentional and and I think if even if you look at the WBE legislation that is passed down through New York State, 70% of any job goes to whomever that prime contractor is, and mostly those prime contractors are non non minority firms.

30% of that contract is split between women and people of color.

So to say that we're excluding, them, I guess if I were a person and I am a person of color, I'm looking at that.

I'm saying, well, as a woman, I can only get 15% of the pie.

And as a minority, I can only get 15% of the pie.

Who's getting the other 70% of the pie?

You know, and so but you've not heard no complaints on the flip side of it.

But on the other side of it, you know, because now they feel as though they're being coerced into doing this.

They're not being coerced into doing this.

Again, this was a federal law.

It was federal law that is administered on a statewide basis.

So basically, the legislature has been doing what it was set out to do for some 20 some years.

Laurie, what do you make of this debate that we've been seeing in the last couple of months here and understanding who's impacted?

Well, I wanted to quote Rasmussen, Downie, who posted earlier today, and I think this is this sums up exactly what Constance was saying.

It says, quote, there seems to be mass confusion about what diversity, equity, inclusion actually means versus the kind of dei that this administration is trying to go after.

It is clear that this administration is trying to impede the progress of women and people of color.

And then she goes on to say, what do I mean by that?

For starters, they want to shut down pipeline programs.

Exactly what Constance was just talking about.

And so I think just ding ding ding.

They do know they want they want to shut down pipeline programs.

Yeah.

Like me putting my boobs.

Small business.

I think all of that being able to say you can't have women's conferences if if it comes to that.

Right.

Because they're going to they're probably going to argue in court that, well, we should shut down those pipeline programs because they are, by definition exclusionary.

They're for women.

Where are the men?

You can't just do that.

They're going to say, that's exclusionary, I think.

And just for the record, we aren't conference while it says women is open to everyone and same thing with ours.

Yeah.

And say it doesn't mean that it's not open to all small businesses.

And that's exactly what we say.

So why do you think this is happening now, Lori?

What do you think is going on?

Yeah.

Have a couple hours.

I think we want to turn back.

We not we at this table.

But if the General Administration wants to turn back the clock on a lot of things, and I think it was in the 1980s that a woman could get a loan with a without a credit card, couldn't get a loan.

Yeah.

And so being able to turn that back is impacting all of these programs.

It's impacting half the population if not more.

And it's devastating.

To be honest.

I mean, that's all this progress has just gone into a shredder.

All right.

Well, let's talk a little bit about what is is coming up here.

and it starts on March 31st, the upstate Mwb conference.

March 31st through April 2nd.

March 31st is a Monday.

So Monday through Wednesday, just a couple of weeks now located at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center.

You want to tell us a little bit more about that?

So yes, this is the third year that the city of Rochester has embarked on this conference.

actually, I was the brainchild behind this conference in that, I used to go to Albany for conferences for Mwb.

And one of the things that I recognized was that there was not a lot of representation from the upstate New York area.

Those conferences, pretty much the discussion centered around I felt, anyone that was in that tri state area of New York, new Jersey, Connecticut, it really did not put a lot of emphasis on upstate New York.

So I kept going.

And every year I was encouraging more people to go with me.

And so we pretty much had a contingency of people from upstate New York that would go.

And then when I came back, one of the things I realized was that the conversations that were being had downstate were also the conversations that were kind of going on individually within upstate New York.

And so I started the Mwb consortium, which was a group of people who could get together and talk about what were the issues in upstate New York when it came to government contracting and opportunities.

And so this conference was kind of an offshoot of that.

It was saying, you don't have to travel to New York City, pay all that money to come and hear great speakers and hear from great facilitators and learn from each other.

You can come, you know, 30 minutes down the road, an hour down the road, an hour and a half down the road, because we take the four upstate regions upstate, has four regions western New York, central New York, Finger Lakes and Southern Tier.

Bring them to Rochester for a three day conference.

The first night is an awards dinner, and this year's speaker is Senator James Sanders, who happens to be the, senator who is tasked with the Mwb task force for the state of New York.

He's also the commissioner of banking for the state of New York.

So he's worried about the economic development perspective of small businesses in New York State.

We have a luncheon, the second day workshops, and on the final day, we have an expo where we bring all the people that have contracts for, any type of work and whether it be construction and professional services, whatever, together.

And they, you know, have our people have opportunity to sign up and say, yes, I'm interested in this job or I'm interested in doing business with you or your service organization.

So some networking.

Yes, it's excellent networking.

Three days of it.

So networking.

Learning.

Learning the ropes.

and I know in a moment we'll talk about the kinds of stories that you've seen come out of this.

But for people who might still be thinking about attending, who are the kinds of people, the kinds of maybe small businesses or people with ideas about how to do this.

We have people should be there, like Lenore.

Lenore, here is a duly certified Mwb has been so for almost 20 years.

had started a business with three people, now has a staff of 30 plus people.

has her own brick and mortar and has been very successful.

She has grown her company to being a company that was making maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year to over millions of dollars a year.

So, I think that she is here.

She's the type of person that you'll see there.

she and others like her, you'll also see, people from within the New York State arena coming in and talking to people about the services that are available, whether it be funding opportunities, whether it be contracting opportunities, whether it be certification, you'll have people coming in from the county, the city, to talk about the opportunities and the programs that we have available for small businesses across the board.

and then you'll have people coming in from different organizations around the city that work with the small business arena.

Again, like I said, this is a small business conference.

It's not an mwb conference, even though we put it as that, because the audience that we are mostly interested in inviting to this conference is mwb businesses from the upstate New York area.

And that was the premise under which we founded this, conference.

And there's still room to attend.

There is registration does not end until this Sunday.

And we're telling everybody to go head on and get registered if they want to.

Right now, we have over 200 people that are planning on attendance, so we're happy about that.

All right.

So we'll have a link in our show notes to both these events coming up.

If you listeners are interested.

That's the upstate Mwb conference.

Again.

It's happening in Rochester at the Riverside Convention Center in a couple of Mondays through Wednesday, March 31st through April 2nd.

the elevate women's business of it happens the next day.

That would be a Thursday, April 3rd.

And that's happening at Arbor Midtown.

I'm going to give you both the floor.

If you want to tell us about what's going on there.

So Elevate Women Business Summit is this is the second year.

It is a summit that is focused on mostly women entrepreneurs.

And but we also include students, things of that nature.

But it is open to everyone.

the big tagline is fun women change the world.

Because sometimes you go to these, different summits and it's this is kind of like our golf course.

That's what I say, because when you go on a golf course, it's mostly white men connecting, networking things of that nature.

But when you come to summits like this, it's women who understand each other, mothers who all go through the same or the same things, and they are pushing each other to the next level.

Networks, funding are offering those opportunities.

So, this is the reverse golf course.

The reverse.

That's kind of a that's kind of amazing.

I mean, when you come into this, it's like, feminine and dominant.

I always and like a center for me.

But that's our theme this year.

And it's like fun women, feminine, just having fun.

Some of the brand activations that we have going on, it's all about learning, having a good time and making connections so that you can be uplifted to move forward in business and move forward in life.

Marquita, why do you think this event is still necessary in 2025?

I think it's it's like just what I said.

We need our places where we can go and be able to connect because, like Laurie said, the clock is being taken back with the removal of these programs.

And as far as myself, I know that I was not able to get a lot of the connections that I have now just going to any summit, because there's oftentimes it's intimidating when you walk in and there was a bunch of men who already know each other, they already are doing business together.

And you are just like a newbie, right?

Nobody kind of really gives you a chance.

But when you walk into a room that's a little more like you, you get those chances, you get those ideas, you get that support from people who are going to the same way you're going.

You want to add to that?

Yeah.

One of the, areas that we have pushed last year and this year is it's not only open to everyone, but we offer scholarship tickets as well.

and we've been doing a really big student push because some of the, conferences that are in Rochester might be focused on more corporate.

And this makes it feel like a easier barrier or a lower barrier to entry to start networking when it's a younger generation that might not be as used to it.

Covid prevented a lot of that for students and they don't know how.

and then the, other exciting, piece is that our keynote this year is the Vitus Speyer, who is the, creator of Under the Desk News, which has the viewers on this program.

I now, yeah, under the desk news, by the way, what, 3.3 million followers on TikTok.

Amazing story.

Yeah they're incredible.

And I think that we're so lucky to have them in Rochester.

Right.

That this is hometown you know big deal.

Yeah.

And hometown keynote which is really nice as well.

Yeah.

So we especially kind of blew up after January 6th and becomes this kind of, really influential.

And I mean that in not the news fluence or, but, like, truly, someone doing the work of, collating and doing journalism and doing interviews and, and then distilling it.

And a lot of people are like, oh, visa Rochester.

Yeah, that's a cool thing.

So it's a good get for you.

Yeah.

So many people.

And another great get is on Wednesday we're doing, Community Day first ever.

So you don't need to have tickets to come on Thursday.

We've got, coffee at Winter Swan.

There's a spin class at spoke.

there's going to be, chocolate tasting at Laugh and Go.

And, at 7:00 on Wednesday night is a screening the first ever screening in Rochester of Show Her the Money, which is all about the power of funding women entrepreneurs.

And that is free to attend.

You don't need tickets for Thursday and that's at 7:00.

And they say it again Wednesday.

Oh, did I say Wednesday?

Said Thursday.

Oh my gosh.

On Wednesday Wednesdays community they don't need tickets for that.

Show her the money is at the strong is at the strong at Paychex Theater at 7:00 7:00.

Okay.

So again, if you want information on what's going on with either of these events, the upstate Mwb conference, the Elevate Women's Business Summit, both the event on April 3rd Thursday and their Community Day, April 2nd.

We'll have all the information in our show notes so you can get the calendar.

You can choose to attend, sign up if you like.

So it's all going to be there in a moment.

We're going to talk to Lenora, about Lenora story, but let me grab a phone call from Bob and Mendon who's been waiting to jump in.

Hey, Bob, go ahead.

All right.

Good afternoon.

I have to point out the hypocrisy of the administration.

everybody who would be considered for Dei or more than qualified, they're just looking for a level playing ground, as it was mentioned.

but then you look at who, the administration is putting into top, government jobs.

None of them are qualified.

the only thing they, can have is an accomplishment in most cases is, they are 2020 election deniers, and they kiss the ring of the president and the.

I find it truly difficult to understand the position of the administration with the eye when that's going on in the background.

Bob, I appreciate the phone call.

I mean, I do think it's fair to say that not every DEA program is the same in every place.

Different universities do it differently.

maybe you've been involved with the DTI training in your workplace, and not all trainings are the same.

They're not all equally effective.

I mean, it's not always the same thing.

And I think that does bear mentioning here.

But I do want to mention, to Bob's point, a little bit of, a little bit of data that just came out yesterday.

So NBC news and The Hill published this survey, which was conducted by Heart Research.

And here's what they find.

And opinions now used to be the DTI a few years ago was generally viewed pretty favorably.

And now with everything that's happened, it's a lot tighter.

49% of registered voters say DEA efforts should be terminated in the workplace because they create division and inefficiencies by putting too much emphasis on race and other social factors over merit, skill and experience.

But 48% almost it's almost a tie there say DTI programs should be preserved because diverse perspectives reflect our country, create innovative ideas and solutions, encourage unity, and make our workplaces fair and inclusive.

1% of respondents did not agree or were unsure of Dei, so I mean Dei is much more in the news now.

More than half of the respondents 51%, said there is too much political correctness in our society today, too much pressure on people to limit what they can do or say to avoid offending other people.

While 45% of American Survey said there's too much prejudice in society and people need to be more respectful of others.

So, you know, it's trending against Dei, probably because of all of the weighted the the momentum of what the current administration is saying and doing.

it might be because people have had positive or negative experience with Dei, but let me just ask our guests and I'll go around the table here and just say, you know, what stands out is this idea about factors like merit, skill, experience.

So the people who are against Dei have apparently become convinced that Dei means you're going to hire somebody to fill a quota, and they will not be qualified.

And, Lori, what do you what do you make of that assumption that people have?

I think if somebody hire somebody that's not qualified, that person would get fired pretty quickly because you're hiring for merit and, experience.

so I, I just, I think that there's such a disconnect in terms of that and concerns said earlier, it's not about excluding people, it's about making sure that women and people of color are able to be in these rooms.

Right.

That's it's not about exclusion.

It's about inclusion.

And it's about ensuring that.

And I would say even a lot of people look at the word diversity when they say Dei.

There are three words there.

There's diversity, equity and inclusion.

So it's not about diversity, but everyone seems to be making this about diversity.

And then they define diversity as this black white issue.

This is not about a black white issue or a brown black white issue.

This is about opportunity.

This is about inclusion.

And this is about equity.

It's more about equity than it is about inclusion and or even diversity.

It's to say we want everyone to have the opportunity to have a level playing field where they can get their foot in the door.

So if you look at the offense and you have three people standing on the fence and one person is, then the fence is six feet tall, the person that six foot or more get on their tippy toes and look over the fence.

But the person that's like five foot five needs to have a little bit of a box to stand on so that they can look over the fence.

And the person that four foot five needs to have maybe 3 or 4 steps that they're going to have to stand on.

That's what equity is.

It's saying we're all going to be able to look over that fence, and we're all going to be able to see the same thing, and we're all going to be able to have that same opportunity.

It's just that the way that I get to look over that fence might be different than the way that you look at that fence, how you're looking over that fence.

So that's exactly what this is all about.

And I think that this administration is doing our country injustice in the fact that it is saying this is about diversity, this is about exclusion.

When the whole concept around I was inclusion and opportunity.

So the point about merit, which is what this administration keeps talking about.

And now it's reflected in these polls, these surveys.

The point about merit that I'm hearing is you want opportunity for everybody, and then you're going to hire people who are qualified and you will find them people who are white, people who are black people who are brown men, women.

You will find them across categories because there are, in most situations, qualified people across categories.

You got to make sure that you cast a wide net to find enough people.

And I don't know any business or should I say any government.

So I'm going to speak from a government perspective since I work for government, I don't know any government.

Today that should not be embracing Dei, because Dei is what makes up your constituency base.

The people that pay taxes to your city.

So when you exclude those programs, you're basically telling your population of taxpaying citizens that we have no opportunity for you here.

And because we don't buy into equity, we don't buy into inclusion.

Do you agree with Laurie's point, though, that if this led to a rash of hiring of unqualified people, it would fall on its face because you can't have unqualified people?

Right.

And I think it's the I think in this administration, it's the pushback against women.

You can't even use the term small business.

You have to say business now, you know, it's you have to it's it's everything is equated to two.

If I could say this, a white male perspective on business and and the community and our society and so, you know, what does that say for people of color?

What does that say for women that want to have opportunities and want to be business owners?

Well, let me get Lenore and and market and Eleonora is the president of Rochester Specialty Contractors.

For how long now?

Since when?

I've been, president CEO for 12 years.

For 12 years?

Yeah.

And how much growth has the company had?

we were, named the fastest growing mwb in nine counties in 2024. so we have grown.

We grew a a lot over the last, 3 or 4 years.

So, and even just from beginning to now, we started with three people.

We have, you know, 20 plus employees, started out a couple hundred thousand a year.

Now we're well over, 3 million a year.

And, you know, continuing to grow.

So when I, when I look at, this event coming up here and you hear constant say, you know, well, when our page is going to be there, what a great story.

What a great success story.

the naysayers would say, well, you don't need to be there because like you, you've made it on your own.

You didn't need mwb.

You don't need events like this.

You don't need you know, you've done it.

What would you say to them?

I would say to them, that's not true.

Because you can continue to learn.

And as you learn, you also help others learn.

So it's not just about being there for myself, but also being there for others.

And one of the things that we're doing this year, two as well, is we've reached out to, some students, juniors and seniors, in high school.

And they're not only going to be they'll be participants in the conference, but they're also going to be volunteers.

So they get to see the behind the scenes of putting this together.

And they also get a chance to see how, you know, the businesses work and how you what what you need to do to start a business.

You know, what agencies are available.

So they're excited to be there and we're excited to have them there.

So it's just not just about what can I do for me, but what can also do to help others along the way.

How did and how long has it taken to get to the point where you knew you were growing?

You knew that this was working?

it took several years.

It took a lot.

There's there's been a battle.

you you have to, it's about relationships.

So you develop relationship with, general contractors, agencies that are really trying to help your business grow or help businesses grow.

And that's who you connect with, and that's who you, continue to work with.

And then you also work within your own company to, you know, to make sure that.

So when we go on a job site that we're qualified to do that what we said we're coming here to do, you know, and that's what we really strive to do is to to be qualified so that when we leave the place, we leave it better than when we found it.

You know, I always tell the guys, I said, we start, we're already going in with two strikes because I got my two strikes already.

I'm a woman and I'm a minority.

So going in with two strikes, I have to make sure that we we exceed the expectations of what people are thinking that we can do when we know we can do that, and more.

I'm trying to think of the, the, the non clumsy way to follow that point, because it's a pretty profound point.

Feeling like you got two strikes already.

Have you had anybody question the work because of your identity.

Well sure.

Yeah.

Yes.

You know they're just they're going in saying that.

Well since she's not going to succeed they can't do it you know.

So can we go in and prove them wrong.

And then they've had to have had some turnaround at the end to say, you know we weren't sure how this was going to work out.

We were really concerned, you know, because you know, they don't come out and say, well, because you're a black female.

Well, you know, we were really concerned because, you know, we were kind of, you know, we had to meet our, you know, our percentage.

So, you know, we we did the contract, but we really weren't sure if it was going to work out.

And they're like, we're.

And then at the end they're saying, we are thankful that we met you.

We are we are appreciative of the work that we've come in and done.

And then every time, every corner that we turn or situation we had, we worked it out.

We got through it and the job was a success.

And I think the thing that you said was that, you know, the conversation across, you know, certain audiences of our community have been, oh, they're not qualified.

Oh, they're, you know, again, that is somewhat racist and somewhat sexist to say that a female company is not qualified or a minority company is not qualified.

You don't know them.

You don't know what their work ethic is.

You've never had a conversation with them.

You're making a blanket statement.

So to me, I find that to be just as wrong as as saying that Dei is all these things, that it's not I don't think it's somewhat racist.

I mean, so oh, well, I mean, like when well, some people don't come from a point of racism.

So even so, you can't say it's always race.

No, no, sometimes it's from a point of being sexist.

Sometimes it's from a point of being conservative, you know?

Well, not totally fair.

No, I'm just for me.

My mind went straight to and we've talked about it on this program.

What?

the commentator Charlie Kirk said recently when he said, if I got in an airplane and I see that the pilot is black, my first thought is, boy, I hope you can do this.

You know, I mean, that's a wild thing to say.

A wild thing to say.

Lauries face.

If you hadn't heard that one, Yeah.

I mean, like, that's an I. I'm not, I'm not, kind of playing around with that quote.

That's what he said.

And it's a wild thing to say in an industry that has been as safe as it been.

And there are black pilots and we don't have plane crashes.

I mean, lately we've had more than others.

But I mean, overall, it's not the pilot's error.

No, it's I mean, the manufacturer works.

Well sometimes it is.

And.

Right.

And it's an unbelievably safe industry.

And yet he still saying, if I see a black pilot, I'm going to assume that they might not be qualified.

That's racist to me.

That's as opposed to I have evidence that let's just say in a hypothetical situation, you need to catch a cab and you find out that the cab company said, we're going to hire 100%.

This category doesn't matter if they have any qualification, doesn't matter if they even have a driver's license.

We'll hire them as long as we fit that quota.

And then you go, I don't know if I want to get in that cab.

I get that that's not what he was saying.

It's not.

That is not what he was a country.

That's right.

That's not what's going on.

That's the assumption.

That's part of what people are trying to say that is of what they accept.

Correct.

And again, that is a very wrong perception to have because it has it's it's not substantiated.

It's not proven.

It's it's, you know, let me grab a phone call from Joel who wants to jump in.

Joel in Rochester.

Hey, Joel.

Go ahead.

Hey, what seems to me is that hasn't been said much in the media is the fact that from the top position as president, all the way down through the cabinet, this is a whole bunch of very unqualified people who lack merit.

so whether we're talking about heads south as the Department of Defense secretary or the recent guy de, Dan Kaine, that they've nominated to be the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

We'll need a waiver from the president because he doesn't have the regular criteria in order to hold that position.

you have a bunch of people who are highly unqualified.

Kennedy running the Health and Human Services.

The list goes on.

They have no merit to be running or in those positions, just like the president has no merit and or student, position.

In fact, his whole life has had no merit in which to, to base his career on.

And and yet these are the same people that are arguing that we should really be focused on merit.

We should really be, you know, giving it to the person who's the most qualified, who's this or that?

Joe.

Joe.

Right.

Joe.

Question, though.

Let me ask you a question.

I mean, are you making the claim that if we searched under every rock and we had to look far and wide, that we might be able to find at least one person more qualified than Pete Hegseth to run?

Is that what your claim is?

There's more than one file I've got.

I've got students in my classroom that are all right, that are more qualified to run any number of the problem than the people that have been put forward and tapped to lead various departments that in our federal government.

And it's really just disgusting on so many levels like that comes out.

And he says as inspiring, I think it was Mark Milley.

He says, well, I don't know if you got his position because of the color of his skin.

And then you wonder, well, how did you get the position that you're in because of the color of your skin and so this is just highly insulting.

It's highly enraging.

We should all be just completely mortified.

But we should also be figuring out ways in which to resist, this stuff you see, in the last 24 hours, they've scrubbed Jackie Robinson from Department of Defense websites.

They've taken Colin Powell.

the plaque out of the Arlington National Cemetery.

They removed the plaques that, discussed, so the women's, battalion that basically handled all the mail to the U.S. military during World War two.

I mean, the list goes on.

And I haven't even gotten to talking about native peoples.

And so there's an effort there to, you know, take land to, really take away and diminish sovereignty.

And, you know, that's a discussion that really hasn't even percolated.

It hasn't even come up.

so we need to be addressing these issues and really talking about this and really putting the pressure back on the people that are doing this because, you know, even if you said, oh, this is not a D-I thing, this is just, historical erasure thing.

This is, time this thing.

It's it's just unbelievable.

So, again, my problem is we need to push back because this is the most merit whacking group of crooks, in my opinion, that we've ever seen in charge of the US government.

Joel, thank you for the phone call.

and I think what I'll do is I'll let that speak for itself, and I will, since we're late for our only break, we'll take the break.

Now, I've got a little bit more feedback to share.

We're going to make sure before the hour's up here that you know exactly what's going on.

And these upcoming events, and we're glad to have our guests in studio talking about these events.

coming up, the Elevate Women's Business Summit.

But before that, the, upstate Mwb conference, and it's a chance for you to get involved and learn more.

And our guests are talking a little bit about what's going on at the national level, too.

So short break.

We're right back on connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Thursday on the next connections, a conversation in our first hour about what we are seeing in the energy sector.

The president talking about drill, baby drill.

What does that mean for solar and other forms of energy in this country?

Then in our second hour, if you've seen Hot Ones, the show on YouTube that focuses on hot sauce and conversation with celebrities, you might have heard of karma.

That's a local hot sauce that's gone national, and we're going to have our own little taste test.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from the Climate Solutions Accelerator, hosting a two day interactive summit focused on co-creating a regenerative future for the Genesee Finger Lakes region.

April 4th and fifth at the Convention Center registration at climate gfl.org.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson, so, let me read a quote from a Cornell professor, William Jacobson, who has been outspoken in against the IEA.

Here's what he said recently.

Quote, there is no good that can come in our universities or our society by making people focus on their skin color and their ethnicity, and by doling out particularly government funded benefits based on race or ethnicity or ethnicity.

And then he went on to say, I think it's setting people against each other, and it is not advancing us.

That's one piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

That's Cornell professor William H. Jacobson.

I would love to know.

Constance, what you would say if you had had a conversation with the professor.

I would like to ask him if he can close his eyes and imagine being me for a day.

I am a woman and I am a black woman, so I would ask him to sit in my shoes and then make that same statement applicable to him in my shoes, because I think that a lot of times when people say, oh, there's this is not necessary, that's not necessary.

They're thinking about it from their own myopic perspective.

They're not thinking about it from a broad perspective of individuals.

And how does an individual who is a person of color and a woman feel that if they are trying to get their foot in the door, or if they're trying to, get their opportunity to start a business and they're getting, you know, or even education and they're getting that pushback, because you're saying that there's no room in here for Dei, but yet and still, if you would give me the opportunity just based upon who I am as an individual, you say that it's supposed to be based upon merit.

Well, okay.

You know, I graduated from you know, if you look at people, they say, okay, I graduated from high school with a 4.0 GPA.

You know, I took all AP courses.

And I have, you know, 20, 20 hours of college credits under my belt.

So why shouldn't I have an opportunity to go to a Cornell or to an Ivy League?

Because you're saying I'm qualified.

Why?

Why I'm qualified.

So if you base it on qualifications, then why?

And this is where I think this is where I think we often hear invoked the comments made by then candidate Joe Biden that he would choose a black woman as a running mate.

And now you've got people who oppose Dei saying, see, it was instantly exclusionary.

He wasn't choosing the best candidate.

He made it about identity.

And what Biden was actually saying was the reason we've never had a person on the ticket from that demographic is not because they're not qualified or there aren't qualified people from that demographic.

It's because of how exclusionary our society has been.

And I will be intentional about choosing a person from that demo, because I know there are qualified people, and that is something that the then candidate said and constant that made some voters uncomfortable.

Him saying, well, it's going to be a black woman because I know I can find a qualified black woman.

And it's long past time you had people saying that forecloses too much of the population.

Again, when I am the candidate and I am choosing my running mate, I'm going to choose someone that I want regardless of what everybody else thinks.

I thank him saying that, you know, was very brave of him because he wasn't even elected.

And he said, this is what he was going to do.

and so that could have turned off a whole bunch of voters that would have voted for him, but will not vote for him, because now they think that he's making a racist statement.

It's not about making a racist statement, it's about preference.

It's about who he preferred to have as his running mate and why.

And did he do a good job of explaining?

Yeah, I'm doing this because this group has been excluded and I think that there are qualified people in it.

No, he didn't, but I think that was implied.

and so you know, again, everybody always wants to go to the negative side of things instead of looking at why is the reason that he's saying this, you know, could you ask me for clarification if you need it or whatever, you know, but I automatically assume it's because he's being racist or he's being he's choosing someone.

And as far as the statement he made of her not being qualified, I would say if you looked at the two candidates for this presidency, she would be more qualified.

So because she has the background, she has the experience and all of that sort of stuff.

Does she have the leadership of running a country?

No, she didn't have that.

But she's ran a state and she's she's run, you know, a government agencies and things of that nature, unlike the person that's currently in the white House.

So I don't think that, you know, this is about merit.

I don't think this is about qualifications.

I think it's about a her being a woman and b her being a person of color.

That was the reason why the the comments and the negativity was out there.

The two strikes, two strikes against her.

The two strikes.

You just go Yeah.

You have to be 1,000,000% better when you have those two strikes against you.

You have to show up to the job that you're doing with the mindset of if someone did it on this straight line, I have to do it on that straight line, but I have to double that line.

You have felt the two strikes as well, so you have to show up with the mindset of leaving it.

As Linares said, you have to leave it better than it was when you came, because if you leave it just how it was, or you come and you do your job and it looks exactly the way it did when you leave, you're not going to get any, any accolades accolades for that, right?

So we have to show up because there are two strikes against us, and we have to leave it better than it was when we got there.

So again, in the spirit of clumsy questions, let me follow that up by asking you to, you have a way of kind of distilling that and accepting that as the reality that you see.

But clearly that is not a just reality.

It is not a just reality.

If it's true that black women are treated to the standard that says you start with two strikes and that zero strikes, how close are we to or maybe how close were I where we or I don't know, is there a future that you can imagine where it doesn't feel like there's two strikes against you at the start of every job?

I thought possibly, maybe.

But now I feel like we are going backwards.

So what do we do?

It's going to be hard to even be seen now.

Like, constant.

So with the with the hurt, example of the fence, it's like if someone's 55 next to a person, that's 61, you, the person on the other side of the fence can't even see the person that's 55, because we're not going to have anything to stand on.

If the current administration keeps going with the way that they're going, we're not going to have anything to even just be seen.

What do you make of this professor who says, well, you know, just turns people and turns groups against groups, and we shouldn't do that.

No.

Like.

D helps.

Not only does it help us be seen, but it helps us open doors to our next generations who didn't have anybody like, I didn't have anybody in my field when I was younger, there was no person of color.

There was an event planner that was successful.

I didn't even think it could be a job.

And then I created my own lane.

So with that, I now even I teach teenagers, teaching them how to start businesses, teaching them how to do event planning from beginning to end, which is helping them start careers right out of high school versus having to wait.

And if I didn't have that, the platform of like elevate allowing me to do the whole event as a woman of color, people are walking in like, oh my goodness.

And if I didn't have the students or the young girls there that could see that, they wouldn't even know that that was possible.

So if we have all of this stuff taken away, where people who are qualified to be there can't even be seen, then we're going to have what we have right now, which is a bunch of people that have no merit doing the jobs that people who have merit could have been hired for anything to add.

Laurie.

So going back to the fence example, one of the, I give talks around the country about communicating and who are you?

Might you unknowingly be excluding?

And one of the examples that I always give that always resonates is curb cuts.

So curb cuts were initially made for people in wheelchairs to be able to get onto the street.

It benefits people who have wagons, strollers.

It benefits people with suitcases, bicyclists.

It bad knees it makes it makes a place where you can cross safely.

And so when D is under attack, that's what's leveling the playing field.

And the other piece of that is, you know, family bathrooms, you know, being able to, have magnified text when you go on a website like all of that is leveling the playing field.

And I think it's getting lost because like Constance said earlier, it's so focused on the D that what about all the strides that you made for D?

I in terms of that, you know, pumping rooms, nursing rooms like things like that?

And I would even say, you know, and this is to, to you know, I know that we have three black women in conversations here today, but I would say that, you know, white women are not faring any better than black women in that, you know, in this whole issue either.

Yes, they, you know, walk in the room and they're going to be accepted because they're white women, white, but they're women then.

And that's the whole thing is that, you know, if you look at this equity thing across the board, it's also, you know, affecting white women.

It's, you know, it's affecting black women, it's affecting all women, it's affecting regardless of color, and it's affecting Ada and all these other issues that I don't think this administration thought of as a part of Dei, because to them, Dei is about black and white.

It's not about all of these other areas.

Sometimes you see Dia for accessibility as well for, for belonging.

and so, as we reached the end here of this conversation, let me just read one more email and then I'll ask our guest to let you know how you can get involved in what's coming up here.

Tina writes to say great show today.

My work is called Diversity Theater, which uses diverse media to present stories such as film, theater, music, dance, playback theater.

Let's not vilify the word diversity.

The pendulum is swinging.

Regarding reaching equity in the USA.

Programs like this help us achieve the beloved community that the late Congressperson John Lewis and the late civil rights leader Doctor King envisioned.

That's that's from Tina.

So in order, the upstate Mwb conference, if you're interested, starts March 31st.

That's two Mondays from now.

Goes through Wednesday, April 2nd at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center.

Spots still open.

Constance.

Definitely.

And we also are in collaboration with our sisters with the Elevate Conference.

And that anyone that's already registered for the Elevate conference can feel free to come to our conference, as well as to come through and participate in the Expo on the final day, so that they can market themselves to all the companies that will be there.

And the Elevate Women's Business Summit has a community day on April 2nd.

And then the event, the summit is April 3rd at Arbor Midtown.

Again, still space available?

Yes.

Yes, there are still tickets available.

All right.

So all the information is going to be in the show notes that we'll post as part of this program.

And you're all set if you want to attend.

And I want to thank our guests for being here for a spirited conversation this hour.

Once again, it is nice, as always, to see Constance Mitchell Jefferson from the city of Rochester for a little while longer, but still doing plenty of work is, Constance says and chair of the upcoming conference.

Thank you for being with us.

Thank you, Lenora Paige, president of Rochester Specialty Contractors.

12 years of great work and growth in this community.

Congratulations on all success.

Thanks for telling your story today.

Thank you.

Our thanks to Marquita Douglas, owner of Rock events LLC and the Elevate Women's Business Summit.

Thank you for being here as well.

Thank you for having me.

And Laurie Cecil Banana, founder, Communication consultant for Lois, speaker and organizer for the Elevate Women's Business Summer.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you from all of us at connections.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you for watching on the YouTube page for Sky news.

We are back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without express written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link.

At WXXI news.

Org.