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LeadershipCommentary

raceAhead: A Harvard MBA Will Not Get Black Women Into The C-Suite

Ellen McGirt
By
Ellen McGirt
Ellen McGirt
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Ellen McGirt
By
Ellen McGirt
Ellen McGirt
Down Arrow Button Icon
February 23, 2018, 3:18 PM ET

Your week in review, in haiku.

 

1.

From the halls of high

school to the halls of power:

Stoneman standing strong.

 

2.

Olympic trials and

tricks: More spins than medals; one

super dope curler

 

3.

Wanted: Governor,

Missouri resident. A

little less “show me.”

 

4.

“Please add R. Kelly

to the ‘Wakanda No-Fly

List!’ Thank you, The World”

 

5.

Joss Wheedon cancels

himself. Bat Girl whispers, “Not

all heroes wear capes.”

On Point

Even a Harvard MBA isn’t helping black womenThe case for grit gets even stronger, as traditional markers of achievement continue to fail black women. In a new analysis, only 13 percent of black female Harvard MBAs over the past 40 years have reached the senior-most executive ranks. That's compared with 40 percent of non-African American Harvard MBA degree holders who reach those top ranks overall.Chicago Tribune

The Golden State Warriors didn’t want to go to the White House anyway
After President Trump withdrew an invitation for the NBA champs to visit the White House, the team has decided to make other plans. The players have selected a venue where they can hang with local students, and have made the visit private and closed to media. No other details have been shared. "I want the players to have a good day and to do something positive and to enjoy what they're doing," said coach Steve Kerr.
ESPN

A novel argument for not paying student-athletes
The ongoing debate on how to think about the student-athletes who drive the multi-billion enterprise that is college athletics has a new wrinkle.  In response to a lawsuit filed by a former NCAA athlete which says that scholarship students who play sports are employees who should be paid, the NCAA has used a citation (Vanskike v. Peters) that relies on the 13th amendment for its argument. The amendment, which ended slavery, had an important caveat – unpaid labor could be legal if the laborers had been convicted of a crime. The legal back and forth has gotten particularly ugly. “Defense Counsel’s insistence that Vanskike be applied here is not only legally frivolous, but also deeply offensive to all Scholarship Athletes – and particularly to African-Americans,” says the rebuttal.
The Intercept

Kapor Capital welcomes a new partner
Uriridiakoghene “Ulili” Onovakpuri came up the ranks at Kapor, signing on before the storied Oakland-based firm adopted their social impact focus. While her focus is on digital health and medical technology, at the heart of her focus is people. The Long Beach, Calif. native describes contracting malaria during a scholarship trip to Ghana, her parents couldn’t afford her treatment. “When I invest, I think, ‘Is this going to change people’s lives, make lives better?’” she says. “It’s important to have individuals with different backgrounds and experiences because they will see products differently.”
Mercury News

The Woke Leader

Creating the Asian American identity
The 1960s were a complicated time for Asian Americans in search of their own American story. With the voting and civil rights movements at the forefront of identity conversations and the Viet Nam War looming large, a group of Asian American students at UCLA began to publish a magazine designed to help them explore their identities as next-generation immigrants. Led by a Japanese American engineering student named Mike Marase, the students began to lobby for an ethnic study program and ultimately for Gidra, a printed newspaper named for one of Godzilla’s archenemies. They were not messing around: The first issue profiled an organization devoted to eradicating systemic racism, denounced the subjugation of Asian women and ran an essay called “Yellow Power!” about a forgotten lynching of Chinese people in 1871.
Topic

The secret student group that stood up to the Nazis
In yet another reminder that students have always been at the forefront of important movements, Smithsonian Magazine reminds us of the student-led White Rose, a small group of students from the University of Munich who used graffiti and printed pamphlets to share information about the horrors of the Nazi regime. Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst started out as proud supporters of the state and participated in Nazi youth groups; but it was Hans Scholl, who went into the army as a medic, who first saw the reality of the Nazi ideology in practice. Returning home, he apparently persuaded the small group to contribute to the underground resistance movement. It ends badly for the students - this week marks the 75th anniversary of their execution, but they left a legacy.
Smithsonian

A round-up of videos for Black History Month
The team at Retro Report have become adept at creating short documentaries that dig a little deeper into the stories behind the headlines. For Black History Month, they’ve put together a playlist of their greatest, blackest hits, one more illuminating than the other. They tackle everything from busing to housing policy the role of the black athlete has historically played in social protest. In about a half hour, you’ll be up to speed and ready to march.
Retro Report

Quote

Sometimes people make it seem like you have to have certain prerequisites or a crazy life story in order to be successful in this world. But the truth is you really don’t. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what you have or don’t have, what you lack or what you have too much of, but all you need to have is faith in God, an undying passion for what you do and what you choose to do in this life, and a relentless drive and the will to do whatever it takes to be successful in whatever you put your mind to.”
Stephen Curry
About the Author
Ellen McGirt
By Ellen McGirt
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