by Herb and Valeria Stokes

Experiences that we have had since childhood can be attributed to the history of the founding of America. 1619 is the historical year when African slaves and indentured servants were brought to the shores of Virginia as the labor necessary to create a new world. A structural cultural transformation was required to dehumanize and animalize people as property that could be sold, whipped into compliance, and bred to create and sustain a system for those privileged by shared culture, ethnicity, and language. One must understand the history of the slave system to examine the consequences and the ubiquity of inequality, disparities, and racism that has been omnipresent in the life experiences the we as African Americans share.

Depending upon one’s early childhood experiences, Herb and I have experienced a variety of inequities. Herb in attending segregated schools was confined to Jim Crow laws of Whites only. I grew up in a small Kansas community that was known to be founded by freed slaves, children of the white southern masters, and homestead/farmers. This was a community that was diverse without the practice of Jim Crow, except in socialized settings: inability to swim in community pools or worship (other than Catholic faith) in protestant churches. Schooling was not segregated, even before Brown vs Topeka Board of Education. Yet, the predominant housing for Black, Latino, Native American, and low-income Whites was in a community which the White folks called “Monkey Run.” Imagine how children viewed themselves as comparison to apes. Halloween celebrations consisted of “black faced” whites.

Herb, growing up in Newark, NJ, was more explicitly aware of inequity: segregated schools and neighborhoods, Jim Crow laws and limitations in exposure to white dominant societal groups. But, as a result of the civil rights movement, he became educated as to the reality of racism. Through his surrogate father (Leroy Jones) he obtained that which I was not aware, the activism necessary to gain civil rights. His protests and participation in the civil rights movement exposed him to Martin Luther King Jr. and the leaders of civil rights movement.

Herb and our 3 sons have been stopped by police for driving while Black. Herb is two blocks from our home in Naperville and was stopped for no reason and had to prove that he was a resident (amazing that the license tag identified the car, but an assumption made was that he a black man in Naperville, driving a new car, was questionable). As a professional I was told by the chairman of the board after he became aware that I was offered and accepted a director position, that he did not want a “N” that high in a position of leadership. Our older son home from college for the weekend, returning again a few blocks from home was stopped by the Naperville police and was arrested, placed in custody, because of an outstanding moving violation ticket. We have had to address discrimination and lack of school administration and teacher’s lack of communication with us as parents and accusations that one of our sons could not have had the talent to freehand draw an art rendition. We have had to demand from the mayor to ensure that the local police would leave our sons alone. We have made an effort to take our sons to the police station so that the police knew to whom our sons belonged. We have had to document lack of teacher communication and accuracy in evaluating our children’s performance. The teacher was surprised that we did not find Cs acceptable.

Although there were advances in civil rights through laws, voting rights and affirmative action, the disease of systemic racism, continues to be an inculcated value in the cultural fabric of America. It has been manifested by unconscious bias illustrated by inequities in job opportunities, disparities in health care and access to the necessary social determinants of housing, food, finances, transportation and hiring opportunities and living wages, the overt police brutality, as well as the school to prison pipeline that targets black male youth.

Therefore, both Herb and I have focused on eliminating inequities and calling out the disparities. As an entrepreneur, Herb has dedicated his career to developing minority businesses and is in process of developing a manufacturing company that will serve to advance training and jobs in the south and west sides of Chicago. As a HR executive and Chief Diversity Officer I have sought to eliminate job discrimination in hiring and career development. There are many more examples that both of us can identify, but we learn from adverse experiences, seek to identify those with like values, and provide a platform for disenfranchised persons to participate in overcoming the dehumanization and subjectivation of people who have been historically marginalized by their ethnicity, gender, economic status, or choices in life.