And so people say, well, it's because certain groups have more opportunity. And yes, certain groups do, but it's not about the color of their skin, maybe it’s about socioeconomic status, and there's ways to account for that. But just getting rid of all the you know, of all the metrics that we use to help put people in these places, that's not the solution. Yeah. Instead of finding ways to elevate people, we're finding ways to. I'm sorry, but dumb it all down. Yeah, it's it's absolutely insane. Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. In this episode, we're going to be revisiting the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion. However, this time we're going to look at some more specific examples and maybe some of the more controversial aspects of not only the practices of DEI, but the outcomes thereof. So lately in the news, there's been a lot of talk about, you know, on both sides again, the left and the right and not a whole lot in between as far as different companies, different corporations implementing DEI and the public response to it. The main ones that come to mind are Chik fil A, Target, Budweiser. All of these companies have implemented different either advertisements or products in their store or even policies that have caused a great deal of outrage. And I'm not going to get into the minutia of, you know, what they did, why they did it, and so on and so forth. But I think one of the challenges that arises from this is the fact that at the end of the day, people are mistaken in their outrage, in my opinion, because ultimately these companies don't care. They don't really care whether or not they're being diverse or inclusive or anything like that. It really does come down to, you know, what does the market want, what you know, what's popular right now and what's going to help their bottom line. But in creating this outrage, I think what's happening is it's creating an even further divide and an even more negative attitude towards diversity and inclusion, which, again, we'll say it again, this is another situation where good intentions have been executed poorly, and have had some pretty negative impacts and results. In our previous episode about diversity, equity and Inclusion, we talked about the fact that many companies have been hiring individuals and, implementing these policies to look a certain way. Whether or not they really care about diversity is a different story. But another aspect of this that we don't have enough data surrounding is the fact that we don't know. Are these efforts actually causing any sort of positive, first of all, positive outcome in the workplace? And secondly, what are they doing with these people once they are in the organization? Are they promoting, you know, their upward movement? Are they promoting their career or do they fail because they hired people who maybe weren't in fact, qualified for the job? Right. And you're right. If you say we don't have a lot of data, people will point to certain types of data where they'll say, for example, the ESG, I forget the environmental, social and governance. I guess that was it. You know, that's a whole scam and of itself won't go into that. But they say, well, you know, there's research showing that and, you know, critical thinkers know how to analyze research, and it might be in a field outside of your own expertise. Business is outside of my expertise. So, you know, I I've looked at some of these studies and I've questioned the reliability of it, but I can't claim to be an expert in, like I said, in economies or markets and so on. So I don't it's hard for me to know. I know what my biases tell me. Right. But I also do know, though, that there is you know, there are there are some studies, I think quite a few that are showing, in fact, that whether it's the DEI itself or something wrapped up around it and we talked about this in different episode where the problem that we see, the reason it sometimes upsets people is that it represents something else is not that problem per se, but it's another thing. And one of these things is where we talk about, let's say, sensitivity training, a training on your implicit biases and so on. And the research is quite clear. All of this implicit bias work. It's garbage. There's not one shred of evidence that any of its credible the studies, the programs or anything like that that in fact, is counter effective in most cases, because you're you're basically impugning people's values, their morals, their their actions and everything, their character, number one. Number two, you are making them do things that they don't see any value in doing. Why am I spending 20 hours of my free time or whatever, you know, doing this silly program that's not really teaching me anything or it's accusing me of doing all these things. So it makes them resentful of the system, of the, you know, of the people that they're supposed to becoming better acquainted with and so on. So it's we know it doesn't work. Yeah. So one of the challenges with this implicit bias training is that they are addressing aspects of explicit biases which aren't going to then actually impact one's implicit biases. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that they're trying to target something with something completely different. Right. Exactly. And as we've talked on another podcast, this has now become a religion, so to speak, or a cult. So you're not allowed to question it just by questioning it. Now you've proven that you're a bigot as opposed to saying, oh, maybe this person has intelligence. Maybe they're critical thinkers. Maybe they're assistants type person. And they see that this system is broken and they want to find a better system, a better way to do it, a better way to deal with these real life issues. And, yes, implicit biases, the unconscious, anyone who denies them is a fool. But unfortunately, with the way that ESG and all these programs are going, because it's a religion, they can say things. And by the way, the thing is, this is not a knock against any religion thing. When I talk about religion, I'm talking about the most zealous of adherence to these scriptures without any ability to question or like a cult is what I'm saying. Right. So the cult dictates that, for example, only certain types of people can be racist or biased or bigoted or anything like that of anything. And if you dare say, well, maybe somebody from another group, they also demonstrate the same issues. They have the same implicit and explicit biases. They're proving it by their actions and they say, no, no, that's not possible, because and then they'll give all these reasons that are all just gobbledygook. And it's is basically AI generated. You have 100 people who are fully invested in the DEI, and by the way, again, we talk about this in another in the other episode, like neither of the saying that the the ostensible reasons for this are not valid. There is inequity. There are problems in the workplace and society thought that we should try to see if we can make better for more people. Right. We're not denying any of that. What we're saying is that you said earlier the way it's being executed is incredibly ineffective and incompetent and harmful, basically. Right. That's the issue. If not the thought. The premise is the is the execution. And sometimes it is the premise because again, the idea that only certain types of people, for example, could be racist. And I'm sorry to jump on that one. But but when you talk about why we actually are doing this, the reason we are doing this episode is we were talking the other day about how many of our patients are talking about how anxious they are at work or at school or as a parent with a kid going to school because they are in the middle of a cult, They don't buy into it and they're seeing the harm that's being done. They're being gaslit left, right and center, and the repercussions for not showing absolute fealty to their cult leaders and to this religion is it's this terrifying, what the consequences are. So there's a lot of anxiety and they're watching. The gaslighting is incredible because as we've talked about another podcast, their intuition is saying this doesn't make sense or this is not in my best interest or this is going to blow up in all of our faces. They see it all and everybody around them is either silent or is propagating this harmful ideology or these ideologies and agendas. And so it feels like we are the crazy one. I'm the only person who's seen this. Yeah. And there's there's silence, at least in my experience, from what I've seen for my clients, comes from fear. Again. looking at the population that I work with. I work with a number of police officers and the things that they're seeing in policing. And this isn’t exclusive to 1 police service. This is across the board that individuals are being hired who frankly wouldn't have been hired even five years ago. But because of these DEI initiatives, they are, you know, looking for the most diverse candidate, which in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. But when they're not meeting the basic criteria for the job, especially something as critical as policing, we've got some real issues. And the problem that people are finding themselves in, and I'll just say predominantly the white men, police officers that I work with, they don't know what to do because they're seeing something that they know is wrong. But if they say something, then they're racist because they belong to this group that has been labeled as a bunch of racists. Right. So what we're seeing is a lot of people feeling a lot of resentment, a lot of distrust of of either the system, the management or even their colleagues. That's like, as you're saying, as a first responder, if they know that the person who is supposed to have their back might not be capable, whether they can with their own eyes or they're even just suspecting, wait a second, this person, because they belong to this group that we know that they're trying to hire, do they really have the ability so it can be proven or just an assumption of their lack of abilities and so on? Right. And so people say, well, that's the problem with the officer or the firefighter or whatever. No, It's an intuition. Okay. Now, it could be prejudice. Somebody could see, you know, if someone is outright racist, bigoted or so on, can help that. But the majority of people are not okay to that degree. So they're seeing something with their own eyes. And and again, in these positions, in these jobs, you want to feel that your colleagues have your back and are capable of of contributing. And if you don't, that's going to affect your performance. It's going to affect your state of well-being. You're going to be anxious. And in my area, I deal with far fewer first responders than you do. But what I am seeing and I'm going to be very mindful of my words here so first of all, for confidentiality, but second, because I don't want people to think I don't want them to misconstrue what I'm saying. So what I'm going to say is this is not an attack on any particular, quote unquote, group, not about the group. It's about the process, which is basically so I'll say it vaguely and they will own it. If you tell any individual you are untouchable, you because of your historical history, because of your history of your people or because of your own personal history, or because of something about your immutable characteristics or choices that you're making your life because of these things. Either you are, you are what's right word here. You're oppressed, you have suffered so much, or you are noble, you are righteous just by dint of these things. And most importantly, you're untouchable. If you give that power to anybody. Most people are going to abuse it one way or the other. It might take time. For some people. It might be sort of it might be inadvertent. It's just because there's no consequences is what they're doing or it's outright manipulation. And I've had patients who have been working with people with that type of power and they say, again, whether they know it or not or they're just not capable of doing their job, there's no recourse if they say anything. They either have been or they've seen other people have it done to them or they're afraid of being accused of you're a racist or you're transphobic or homophobic or whatever the case may be. And you're trying they're saying, Oh, well, sorry. They don't say that. They ask. They they come to me questioning, and I'm going to be very careful here. But one of these people in particular, what I'm about to say about this one person, I've seen it play out in numerous people. Okay. But this person in particular, I'm not sure if I mentioned this person in the previous episode, but this person came to me. They were losing their mind. They were so distressed because they are. And I can tell you, having known them for quite some time and I knew about about them before because I worked with someone who knows them, okay? And they were talking about this person, a beautiful, loving, generous. And I say beautiful. I'm talking to inside. Okay. Generous, compassionate, kind person who's devoted most of their adult life to helping others, to helping others in need, to helping the marginalized. And they worked for an organization. They helped build this organization that did these things, that helped give people a leg up that, you know, And then after years of success in this in this organization and in this field, a few new people got hired and they happened to belong to certain groups. And they were told, you know, that, you know, again, that you've been suffering your whole entire life and everything. Now it's your turn. And, you know, anyway, and they were being called a racist, this person. And and they were even questioning it. So I said earlier, well, people are going, but wait, I'm not a racist. This person was actually wondering, am I a racist? Because they started buying into the narrative because that was what they were. You know, that was what was brought into the organization that day. Training and your own your white supremacy and your blah, blah, blah. And so they originally, because they're a team player, this person always put everybody else before them, including whatever system they were part of, in this case, their organization. And they were such a team player. They bought into it. They read it with good in good faith and they started questioning themselves. And then afterwards they realized what every time they're being called a racist and stuff like that, it was because the other person just didn't like what they were doing or what they were being asked to do. So this person, you know, you can't just not show up to meetings. You can't leave 2 hours early, you can't ABC and you can't be you can't be abusive. What if I were a white male? You wouldn't call me abusive. Well, actually, guess what? Okay. So. Right. And again, and this person truly their mental health was deteriorating so much. And when when we worked out and everything like that, in the end, they end up leaving the job, something that they helped create, something that they devoted so much of their time to. Now, on the one hand, it we had we had a sort of like a metaphoric funeral for that because they had to give up all of them. But on the other hand, and I heard, you know, confirmation from other people that this person they started and I spoke with them as well, they started living again. They started being themselves. They started coming into themselves. After years and years of being gaslit, they still weren't 100% certain because when you've been gaslit for so many years, it's, you know, and by the way, gaslighting usually happens one on one, someone isolates you. In this case, they were gaslit by the entire system. It was even more devastating. So they didn't question, they were questioning. They didn't trust their reality, their grasp on reality. So they're doing much better now, even though they had to give up something that they loved. And and again, this is one particular story, but I've heard it play out with so many people. And again, it's not about I'm not saying certain groups are bad or evil, whatever I'm saying, if you give them this power and help that narrative, what else would you expect from anybody? Well, and what a heartbreaking example and not to make light of it, but I'll share a funny kind of example or more lighthearted example, at least relating directly to this podcast. So, you know, especially with our first episode about DEI it's almost comical that people came at you for saying things because you're a privileged white man, but no one said shit about me because I belong to three protected classes. I'm a woman, I'm a person of color, and I'm blind. Meanwhile, we're having a discussion about the exact same thing we are aligned in our values on the matter, and yet you're being attacked. And not that I want to be attacked, but no one says anything about me. Actually, they did, because one person commented. There's this bunch of white supremacists. All right. Yeah, right. Right. This is how mindless people are. This is what happens when you join a cult, right? You see one sign of something and you jump all over it without stepping back. Like, wait a second, Is that actually a sign of what I'm being told it is? And is there more to it? Yeah. So people said that it was hilarious. I mean, it would be hilarious if it wasn't so, you know, damning. And it's such a sad indictment of where we're going. Absolutely. Yeah. And as far as, you know, I it saddens me to hear that people would abuse those powers, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it. And I should say and to echo something you said earlier, obviously we think that DEI initiatives have potential for being positive. I you know, in my free time, I volunteer a lot of my time and skill and expertise to DEI initiatives in my community and to different organizations. So certainly there is value in it, but I cannot fathom how and I know I know how it happens, but why people would abuse those powers and let that excuse their terrible behavior. It's it's really saddening. This saddening and it's sad, sadly predictable. And they're just all they're doing is they're just parroting or mirroring. Ibram X Kendi, one of the worst race grifters out there. What he said about the only thing how he said it, the only cure to past discriminations is current discriminations by you discriminate against the power, you know the powers that be. And we said this in other podcast, but I think it's really worth repeating over and over and over. If you believe that Canada is a blah, blah, blah, take your pick. Whether it's patriarchy, whether it's colonial, whether it's racist, whatever you want to call it. Okay, If you believe that. Well, a look at other countries which are far, far, far worse. Okay. And recognize that when people come here from those countries, because Canada is much better than those countries, they are taking offense We're hearing more and more people, you know, on Canada Day or these other times where people are saying this is what you guys are describing is not the Canada that I know right now. It's not that I was fed a lie. They came in. They didn't know. I've lived in the land of opportunity is obviously right. So can Canada be better? Of course again, everyone can. But a look at other countries which are far, far worse. Right. And B, the most important thing, even if it were okay and people don't like this. But, you know, again, I'm compared to other countries, when you want to talk about patriarchy, there's not one law in Canada that discriminates against women more than it discriminates against men. I go outside with my hair uncovered, my shoulders exposed, and there's no problem with that. That's not allowed other places in our world. Exactly. So it doesn't always play out fairly? No. Do women get the short end of the stick? In many cases, yes. Do men get the short end of the stick? In many cases, yes. Right. So nobody has a monopoly on the grievances. Right. But the point is this. Even if it were patriarchal or the again, to the degree that it's in these other places for any individual man, for any white, straight, non trans man, the average person does not derive any special benefits that other people around him do not get right for an individual. Now, if you take 100 people, maybe you'll find an average. What about for the individual? So when people attack the individual, there's no research that says and by the way, the people are going to try to claim this research. I'll talk on the second. But there's no research that says that any random white man, a white, straight, non trans man is is going to be more or less susceptible to psychological harm if he's being attacked, if he's being maligned, if he's being othered, and so on. There's no evidence to say that he is more powerful psychologically. Anything then somehow. Immune to it. Right. Exactly. I mean, that in itself is sexist or racist to think that what people would say is, okay, but what about minority stress, this idea that being a minority in, you know, in a certain context does make people more susceptible to all these harms. And the reality is a lot of research to come out these days, which is questioning when they look at all these models, they're saying you assumed minority stress was the reason that we're seeing these phenomena, whether poor mental health or whatever else. And by the way, intuitively, it makes sense if you are but a minority. Isolated in and of itself. No. Right. Okay. There's other there's other factors that contribute to it. There are other factors. And and again, there are places where I can see that anybody walking out on the street, if they are of the wrong sex or wrong color of skin or wrong religion or anything, I can see that the truly yeah, there would be like constant stresses and so on. But the reality is it doesn't play out that way in most cases. And again, there are even within Canada, there are some context where you could say yes, especially if you're a small town and you're not the right type. Oh, for sure. Again, nobody would know. One of intelligence would deny that this happens. But to assume a that it happens to all these different people just because they have these checkmarks or be that, you know, that similar things can't happen, similar unfairness and oppression and so on can happen to somebody else Just because they happen to be a white male or something is wrong. Yeah. And the crazy thing I'll add to that is so again, using myself as an example, a person of color who has a disability and I'm a woman, blah, blah, blah, all of that said, I still live a life of immense privilege. I'm, you know, very successful. I've had great opportunities that a lot of people don't have. But if I say that I've been accused of internalized white supremacy or internalized patriarchy or internalized able ism, like it's such hogwash that it's not possible that I overcame these things or, you know, perhaps, for example, and I've said this before, I know that my disability is, you know, has presented more obstacles than my race. But if I don't acknowledge that my race plays a role, that means that something is inherently wrong with my perception. No, I don't need someone telling me what oppression I did and did not experience. right. And the fact that again, once again, none of this is neither denying that these factors are there and that some people more than others. Okay. But the fact is, as psychologists, psychotherapists, as mental health professionals, as educators, I think even lawmakers, they know that if you focus excessively on something that either can't be changed or that can only be changed minimally, which in this case saying, well, if you focus on the color of your skin or your gender or your sex, gender identity or sex or whatever, if you focus excessively on it and you're told A somehow that makes you inferior or a victim or something like that, there's nothing you can do about it. And see, there's a lot of people who hate you because of this. If you're being told this constantly and you know you won't be able to succeed because of all this stuff, especially again, you and I have talked about this in other podcasts. We're always focusing on the children of the young people, right? If that's what they're hearing and they are hearing this, or conversely, you're told that you, your ancestors and just the color of your skin makes you evil or a white supremacist. What kind of divisiveness, what kind of mistrust, hatred are we sowing in these people? And once again, so many people come to Canada, go, No, I came to Canada because I would be looked at not because of the color of my skin or whatever, just because of the human being. If I do the right things by act the right way, etc., etc., I will be I'll have a chance to be respected in society, to advancement in society to get my needs met. And so on. And once again, for some people they can do all those things. And still, because of certain factors, maybe they won't succeed as much as other people would for sure. Some people have unfair advantage, no doubt, but to say because they have unfair advantages that you shouldn't even try or you should be resentful and bitter of them. No, be inspired, fired by them. And I said this before. We talked about this before. We need better role models for all quote unquote groups. And to say, again, it's not denying that they had hardships or obstacles to overcome or something like that, but somehow they did. And what was it about them? What common factors help people succeed? Yeah, and back to the point that you made as far as the message that's being sent, like if if kids grow up thinking, well, I belong to this this class of people, a group of people who are, you know, fill in the blanks. X, Y, and Z, it's a basic principle of cognitive behavioral therapy, what you think is what you feel. So if your thoughts are full of all of these negative messages, you're going to feel terrible and you're going to grow up feeling that you are all of these things that you're thinking. Exactly. And it's so disempowering and it fuels resentment. And I talked about that in other podcast that when you carry resentment, it's toxic, eats away at you and it ruins whatever system that you're in because you feel resentful toward those people or this system or my lot in life. And if you're resentful toward your own heritage, I mean, it's like, why were they born this way? How can you your progress in a healthy way? Yeah, and we spoke about this before. As far as, you know, my experience in terms of buying into some of the feminist narratives and I was also earlier in my life, I would say in my early twenties, guilty of falling for that stuff because that was the message that was put out to me like, Oh, well, maybe I didn't get this opportunity because they were discriminating against me. And yes, I have truly experienced real discrimination and you know, in years of experiencing it, I know what it is and what it isn't. And to your point, as far as equipping kids with the proper skills of of understanding and navigating all of this, that's a big part of it, is knowing what it is and knowing what it isn't. Right. And look, that's we talk with another podcast. That's a parent's job to help children, to be able to filter and to understand that and not to take this all the time, not to take an extreme black and white approach. If I say no, that's not discrimination, well, it would be ridiculous for me to say, therefore, there's no discrimination. No, in this context, maybe it's not. And I say this to my kids as well. You know, my kids are multiracial and, you know, and I see them embrace it. Love all. Ask yourself and everything. And I say and some people will see that as an advantage. Some we'll see it as a disadvantage. But their beliefs do not dictate your reality. Right. And I try to help them. Don't let that over. You know, don't let that ever overwhelm you. You're going to overcome that. And I've said this before, I'll say it again. If anyone ever hurt me in every single one of my discussions with my three daughters, three daughters, 20, almost 26, they're almost 14. If anyone ever heard me talk to them, it's like every single conversation we ever had, they would never know unless it's a specific discussion. They would never know that it was. I was talking to a daughter rather than a son, because to me it's the same principles when it comes to being a self loving, strong, self efficacious, you know, advocate for yourself, be a good person and so on. Right. That transcends sex. Yeah. So to tie together what you just said there and my previous point in terms of confusing messaging and narratives that are out there, I'm reminded of something funny but poignant that my son said. So my son is also biracial and he hears a lot of the messaging out there about, you know, white supremacy and oppression of people of color. And he's like, well, is one side of me colonizing the other. Like, I really don't understand what I'm supposed to make of this right. Kudos to him. Well, you know, like, really? And that's again, even though you're saying this with a smile, the fact is kids are getting these messages and and we're talking about adults not being able to challenge the orthodoxy, not being able to, you know, to be heretics and question this stuff. Well, that's adults are terrified of doing this or they're terrified because they know the consequences or they're simple minded and they think they think they're goodhearted. And so they're just saying, well, it's the right thing to do. So they don't you know, again, I might I don't mean to sound too insulting, but let's just say they don't have, you know, many critical thinking skills. So they need just say if that's if I'm being told that this is the right thing to do and this is what a good person does and everything, they just blindly do that, right? That's adults. So what do we expect of kids and teens? And we do know there are many stories in the news of teenagers, something that even kids who they recognize. Wait a second, this isn't right. Whether it's a white kid saying don't blame me for the sins of, you know, like my ancestors or the black kid saying, don't tell me that I can't succeed just because I'm black, Right? Yeah. Or tell me that I'm oppressed, you know? Hey, I've got two parents who are lawyers, and they went to, you know, Ivy League schools and everything like that. I live in a mansion. Don't, you know, don't just automatically assume these things about me, Right? Well, yeah. And one of the other confusing pieces of it, too, as you're saying this, it brings to mind, you know the double standard, though, right? So there's people of color and we have to assume that people of color are oppressed, but only in certain circumstances. And math and sciences is one of those examples. Right. So and I won't deny that there are there likely are individuals who belong to certain groups who are struggling in these areas of academics. But again, we can't look at that in isolation. There are other mitigating factors, for example, like socioeconomic status and access to opportunities and so on and so forth that inhibit one's ability to succeed in a topic like math. But we don't talk about Asian students, and I feel comfortable saying that because of my heritage. Historically speaking, Asian students do tend to perform well academically for a number of cultural factors, right? That has nothing to do with race. Again, it has to do with other mitigating factors that that, you know, contribute to that. So we can't talk about that because it's positive, but we can focus on the negative aspects of how people of color are doing poorly academically. But we don't look at the other factors involved in that. Right. And just add to what I was saying was saying about the kids speaking up and everything, right? What I was going to say was that these kids, the ones who are most being affected by what you and I are talking about right now, are the ones who speak up, even though more and more speaking up. The fact is they're still the anomalies because most kids, they don't don't have critical thinking capacity. They're just being fed all this. So like you're saying, adults, they can't even fight back either because they are afraid or they just don't have the wherewithal. Why would we expect kids to despite the anomalies. Right. And then what you said about. So everything that we're seeing play out in front of us, if we just change the narrative slightly, we can deal with the same problems, but in a healthier way. That doesn't make some kids either feel guilty or insecure or inferior or anything like that. And but instead of doing that, what do what do they do? The people in charge of DEI or ESG or any of these things, what they do is they just change the language. So now Asian people say you're just white adjacent, you've just internalized white colonialism. Right? That's what they do when the prime minister of Canada does the exact same things, when the prime minister of and not mention the president of the states, vice president, when they themselves are promulgating the same divisive, hateful rhetoric that's nonsensical. Like, yeah, what standard are they setting? So and by the way, again, when you say about cultural things, if we look at all the research in the States and in Canada, we find that if if white supremacists are, you know, if white supremacy rules these two countries well. And stay in with the UK, Right. Well, guess white supremacist done a pretty shitty job because when you look at the different you know, social statuses, level of income, education and so on, white people are not at the top, not even second, they're pretty much down there because again, it's the culture within its race is it's the teachings within the families and within the cultures. And we know and it once again, it's not to be ignorant to say, so why don't you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps? No, we understand there are certain factors that make it harder, but it doesn't make it impossible. So why don't we emulate those things? And by the way, once again, so what do people do? The people in charge and we talked about this, if anyone looks that Woke Redux, we talk about why these systems are so broken because the people in charge are functioning at the level of a, you know, junior high school student or high school student, quite frankly, psychologically, emotionally, and sometimes, you know, developmentally, cognitively. But the fact is they just change the system. So instead of trying to lift people up and help them to get to a better, you know, that level of of ambition and outcome, instead they go, well, just get rid of tests. We'll get rid of standards, we'll get rid of the SATs, you get rid of the GRE All these different you just get rid of it. And in schools, we know that this is actually happening in Toronto, schools where there was competition, whether it was for music or theater or some of these all these different specialties. Right. They just make it a lottery as opposed to the best people will get into these programs. So people who deserve to go into those programs, you know, they're not going to get it. And so people say, well, it's because certain groups have more opportunity. And yes, certain groups do, but it's not about the color of their skin, maybe it’s about socioeconomic status, and there's ways to account for that. But just getting rid of all the you know, of all the metrics that we use to help put people in these places, that's not the solution. Yeah. Instead of finding ways to elevate people, we're finding ways to. I'm sorry, but dumb it all down. Yeah, it's it's absolutely insane. And as you're talking with it, it reminds me of the topic of de-streaming of math. There's a perfect example again, we can acknowledge the fact that there are certain demographics that, you know, that do more poorly in math than others. Fine. But rather than addressing the actual root cause and the root issue instead. Well, everyone, we're all just subscribed to the lowest common denominator and that's that. And I realize how offensive what I'm saying may be to some people. I, in fact, got into a little bit of trouble saying this in a in a public setting once, but that's the fact, right? I'm not denying the fact that there's a problem, but this isn't the proper solution because then what about the people who do well, you know, I look at again, I'm talking about my son a lot here, but he is quite adept in mathematics and he has expressed concern, well, when I go to grade nine, so I just take the same math as everyone else. Yeah, you do. You don't get advanced opportunities. Right. And and here's the thing. So there's a reason that other countries are doing better in these areas because they didn't just dumb it down now once again. And so over and over, we don't go black and white. We don't want to go to the point that kids are committing suicide because they're not able to live up to an unrealistically high standard. I've got lots of patients and students who come from those backgrounds. So instead of, you know, so we can either say, well, we're going to push them to really kill themselves, or we say, because it's so dangerous, we're going to take it out completely, you know, and have no standards, no somewhere in the middle and the people in charge, the people who are supposed to be you know, the people who are supposed to be in charge have fallen asleep at the wheel hence our podcast. Hey, And again, they take the most simplistic it's simplistic, some quote unquote solutions to these problems. And once again, I hope people will watch the Woke Redux podcast that we did, because I really do explain the psychology behind why those people are so stunted and why they just don't try harder to find realistic solutions. And by the way, we've talked about this before, even with words have Meaning, Another podcast, which is when people start saying math is racist, okay? When they say that science are racist or it's a white supremacist, whatever. Well, there's a lot of people from ancient cultures that weren't white. They go, whoa, whoa, didn't we sort of start this mathematical principle or didn't we throw the science Like that in of itself is not only racist but ignorant and stupid, yet people are. Everything okay, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's absolutely irresponsible. It's shortsighted. And I'm sadly, hesitantly curious to see what the end result or long term result of this is going to be. And I can I can surmise it's not going to be good. But we actually do have some data on what these, you know, midterm two long term consequences are. We are seeing that achievement scores in most areas, whether in Canada or in the states, are dropping. We're seeing kids are not reading or doing math or writing at levels of proficiency that they had just a few years ago. Now, here's the great thing. What do people say? Oh, it was COVID. Well, yeah, COVID was part of the problem for sure. And I'm sure it did set kids back. And maybe we'll be able to course correct. But that's only one thing. And to be able to look at that and go, yeah, you see, it was COVID that basically absolves the people who are responsible of any responsibility. And they really you know, I'm not looking for blood here. What I'm saying is people have to be able to look at these problems, look at the proposed solutions, look at the people proposing them and recognize that, you know what? Maybe because of DTI, maybe because of nepotism, maybe because of a broken system, who knows? But the fact is, the best people are not on the job when it comes to trying to, you know, to fix these problems. And if we look at this, I mean, remember we talked about this before with DTI, but the fact is, if we look at universities, the cost of universities have gone up exponentially, but have gone up dramatically because of all of these departments dealing with DEI like so many, But they can't hire good professors, they can't give more scholarships, they can't, you know, have more grad students come in, but they can hire these guys, the experts, you know, who have to look at their credit credentials, look at, you know, listen to them talk. And you you're it's rare that you see somebody where you go, wow, this person is extremely intelligent. They have critical thinking and they have good solutions. What we hear is a person with a bunch of baffled gab where again, it's air generated. If you look at what they say and you see what if you read it seriously, you can predict very easily what's going to be said. It's all from the exact same playbook. And what speaks more to being a cult than that when you're all reading from the same hymns? Yeah, and I was about to ask a question and that I answered it in my own thought process here. As far as you know, you mentioned that the the best people for the job in terms of setting out these policies, procedures, looking at it more critically, aren't doing it. And my thought was, well, well, why not? And not to toot my own horn, but I think between my lived experiences and my professional experience, I've got a great deal of expertise in this area and practical expertise. But I've been I've told you some stories. I've been I've been shut out of meetings. I've been shut out of committees altogether, because when I bring forth logic or critical questions, nobody wants to hear it. So am I the absolute best person to consult? Maybe not, but I think that I would bring a lot to the table. But my voice is you're not interested in it because I'm not playing into the same narrative. Or at least the preferred narrative. Exactly. And once again, I keep saying this. I'll say it over and over, and I know other people say it, and it might sound like it's getting to be a cliche, but I think it has to be said, which is when people, people who know about these things are saying this is true, the behavior and, you know, of a cult, it really is. And once again, once again, when you bring in facts that they don't like, instead of acknowledging them, instead of stepping back and questioning everything, they just distort reality and go, well, you must be against internalized racism or sexism or something like that, or, you know, are you just a bigot or something like that? Right? Or they might be nicer about it when they say it. But that's that's how they sleep at night saying, oh, thank goodness. We you know, we didn't allow ourselves to be influenced and brainwashed by this horrible person. It is cult like behavior. It literally is. Yeah. And it's cult like behavior. And I think it's in part laziness as well. Right. They in many cases have to check a box. And it's it's tricky and it's challenging to have a different discussion that doesn't, you know, kind of follow the that the form letter that they they want to go through. They think that's a piece of it as well. And I'm telling you, I've said this in other podcasts that this is one of the reasons I believe that certain patients, a certain proportion of patients come to therapy because they are seeing something that just feels wrong. It doesn't jibe with their understanding of reality of humans about truth, of their values. And yet everyone around them, it seems, is all. They're all saying the same stuff. So they're questioning, Am I the crazy one? Am I the asshole? Am I? You know, my wrong. And I really it's destabilizing them. And so we're seeing some of the best and brightest, smartest, best minded, best hearted people feeling, you know, let's say, insecure feeling, mentally unstable and psychologically unstable. So it's sad. So we always say, you know, we always say, what can we do about this? So I'm going to toss it to you, make you do the first one. What can people do to help deal with this ongoing situation? I think like so many things in life, it's about balance. And again, drawing on my own experiences, I think back to my undergraduate career where, you know, DEI wasn't at the forefront at all and as a result, I had a hell of a time getting any accommodations in place. They went through most of my studies with no accommodations at all for for silly reasons. Basically, I didn't have a diagnosis, so sorry, too bad. I mean, that that obviously wasn't a good thing. But now we've kind of moved in the complete opposite direction where at the first mention of any sort of difference, everybody is, you know, rushing to to change everything up and, you know, tell you what you need and so on and so forth. So there's a shift in a proper direction, but I think it's gone way too far. So as far as what I mean, in terms of of balance and what we can do here. So for the person who is recipient of this DTA stuff, I'm speaking generally here, I think it's incredibly important for people to know what it is that they in fact need, because I think that one of the results of all of this is that policies are being made and then people are in turn being told what they need, what they don't need, what's oppressing them and what's not oppressing them. They're developing really strong self advocacy skills that comes from knowing yourself, knowing what your needs are, knowing what they are not, and being able to clearly and properly articulate that it's difficult to do. And again, speaking from my own experience, it took a hell of a lot of practice, a lot of tears, quite frankly, and not being able to properly stand up for myself. But it's a really important skill and I think a vital skill within this space. And as always, again, there are certain principles that you and I discuss in solutions to different issues because these are fundamental, they're foundational. So knowing yourself, having being able to advocate for yourself, knowing your needs and so on, and going back to knowing yourself again, if you know that you're a good person, if you know that you're not a bigot or a racist or something like that, not allowing other people's proclamations to determine or dictate your reality is very important. And one way to do that is since social animals, as I always say, you find like minded people, if they're not within whatever organization you're in, then you join an anonymous group. And so I know you have to be careful because these anonymous groups can push you into the margins and then you can actually become you can find people who are truly these terrible people and hateful, whatever. So you have to always be mindful. Any group that you go to, any group, there's always the risk that there's going to be radicals who are, you know, or unhealthy. Right. Radical and of itself is not necessarily bad. But when they take radical beliefs and respect and approaches and so on, it can be unhealthy. So you have to be mindful of that. But even if they're going to be in any group, right, and within that group, you might have to find a few people that, again, are more or less aligned with your values and reasonable thinking and so on. Right. So whether it's those anonymous groups, whether it's your family, whether it's within your organization, whatever, finding that because otherwise you are going to be susceptible to the effects of gaslighting. I always tell patients, when is gaslighting not gaslighting? When you know what's happening. Okay, so again, if everyone around you is acting a certain way, you might start questioning, Well, how do I know that this is not real? That's why you need those tethers to reality. And here's the saddest thing though, because normally right now I normally try to find positivity. And so I don't have a great answer to this. But you know, I've worked with so many people, I say, look, you can't get some recourse at this level. You go to the next level, you go to the next. So I think we've talked about another podcast, but you find ways to get justice, to protect yourself, to make sure that, you know, these things don't fall on you. If something is unfair, if it's if it doesn't make sense, you make sure that it doesn't harm you directly or you try to mitigate the damage. Unfortunately, with many of these organizations, you keep going higher and higher and you realize that each person is toeing the line. They're toeing the party line, not necessarily because they believe in it, although sometimes they do, but because their job is dependent on that. Right. Some people because of cognitive dissonance I've talked about and other things, they have to double down. Maybe they didn't believe it at beginning, but when they saw that they were ruining people's lives, when they're going after where they're canceling, whether, you know, getting people fired or causing people to have stress leave because of their actions, either they say, wow, I've you know, unfortunately for my own selfish needs, I've enforced these policies that are harmful or they say, no, I'm doing good. And if this person can't handle it, well, good riddance to that. Right. The average person will take the latter path. They're going to distort reality to help themselves sleep at night. So whatever the reason, the fact is the higher ups we're finding now, especially with the implementation of ESG and the consequences of this, people who are better or are, well, more well versed at this than I am, they've been talking about this, the implications about companies being taken off of the stock exchange or the S&P and so on. If they don't adhere to the ESG DNA. Right. So from the very top, right, it's from its top down where they're being told you have to toe the line, that's crazy. Even if it's hurting our bottom line, even it's hurting our profits. The fact is our jobs are dependent on this. So the sad thing is it's really hard sometimes to get recourse and sometimes you to decide, I've got to leave this job and find another place that is less hateful or harmful and maybe more sane or and I have to be careful on this. And I know some lawyers are going to be saying this, but if it's legal to do so in your jurisdiction, you carry a recorder everywhere you go. Now, I know people hate that because they're going, well, what about your violating trust? You're not doing this for any nefarious purposes. You're not going to, you know, put some put it on Reddit or, you know, on TikTok or something. You know, for your own protection. Or your A for your own protection. So that if someone accused you of something that didn't happen, you have proof and B, for your own sanity because you can go back and listen to it and go, yeah, I thought they said that they they said two plus two equals five, I could swap but really No. And it used to Yeah they really did say that. And then you realize yeah they're the crazy one or the bad one or the, you know, the deceptive one, not me. So I say to people always carried around. I had one patient just, you know, I came off, I said it before, but they told me, they said I'd recommend it to them to do this in their situation. And they said, Doctor Amity, they said, Tell all your patients, get these these places, because this person said that A, it saved their job because something was claimed that didn't happen and they were able to prove it. And B, they said, even if if I didn't have that, they said walking in with into work every day with this, it's like having either a gun and, you know, under your jacket or a coat of armor because it just felt a level of protection because no longer he said she said, great, I have the if I need it and I hope I don't have to use it. But if I do, just having that there give that peace of mind. Yeah. And how crazy that we're we're in a world where we have to think that way. But, you know, to the point that we're we're about here that sometimes is necessary. But something I want to add here as far as what people can do, this seems like such a huge insurmountable issue in many ways. So oftentimes in therapy with clients, when I say we're looking at these big world issues, you got to bring it down to the macro level as far as, okay, well, what in my individual life can I do about this or how can I look at it differently or whatever the case may be. So I really want to caution people to to think critically view critically what's happening with the DEI space because in theory, it's great. You know, again, being the recipient of some of these changes across only my professional life, but my academic life, it's great to be able to, you know, get what I need. Fine. But what I'm also noticing is that there is this great divisiveness and we kind of touched on this throughout the episode, but this great divisiveness that's existing or developing as a result of this, and it's in fact doing the quite opposite. It's pitting different people against one another and really highlighting the differences rather than I think what the initial goal was was to make us all feel more equal and more the same. But it's doing quite the opposite. So really be aware individuals of the way that you're perceiving this and maybe the negative attitudes that you're developing about this. Right. So long story short view it very critically and B keep your eyes open to what's actually happening out there with this. Exactly. And on that note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel. As much as we love listening to ourselves speak, especially me, we would love to hear from you as well. So our emails are in the description below. If you would, please write to us with your questions, feedback, comments, topics that you'd like us to cover. We can do this together. The two of us, but it's much better if we do it together. So we look forward to hearing from you. And we are going to have a segment called Roundtable where we're going to discuss the the feedback and the questions and so on from our audience. And we will we will take it to the next level. We're going to help you be able to deal with some of these issues that you might be bringing us or it's going to be a topic for us to explore together. And we really look forward to building a community, a community of like minded people who want to do right by others, not just for themselves.