7: Life in Two Worlds with Ron Everett
This conversation with Senior Vice President Ron Everett, a Black leader both at home and work, delves into his professional perspective on diversity, cultural inclusion, banking, and even his wisdom around parenting.
Main Ideas
Parenting by example
- The impact of witnessing his teenage mother’s success in college
- Bypassing the negative in his neighborhood without losing his connection
- Having the safety talk with his daughter and her dates
How do we get better at not being judgmental
- Expand your circle of influence
- Get to know people that don’t look like you
- Getting to know more people that have a different background
What Ron Loves about being black
- His hair
- His culture
- Code-Switching
- The resilience of the black community and the optimism
KEY Thoughts
23’17” I have a lot of thoughts about things that are annoying, but I think I think black people in general have become very used to microaggressions.
25’30 When I think about what people can do, I think there is this foundational thing that people can do that will eliminate a whole lot of problems. It begins with expanding your circles of influence, expanding your circle of friends, if more people had diverse groups of friends, then you’d see less responses to people based on stereotypes.
31’24” After George Ford, I heard people say literally, “I had no idea this type of stuff happens.” I thought to myself, Eric Garner Tamira Rice, Fernando Castille, Walter Scott, Alton Sterling. I could name them all, like John Crawford and I could keep going.
45’04” Juneteenth is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of slavery, but it’s based on when the last slaves were freed.
52’01” While Black people are not a monolithic group, there are a lot of shared experiences that we can relate to. And I think we really coalesce around different struggles very well with each other.
I wish more people would have these types of conversations. It doesn’t have to be a podcast, but it should happen in friendships where there’s an exchange, where people are learning more about each other.
Links
Hamilton Think Tank: https://www.hamiltonthinktank.com