So before I begin today, I would like you to just take 10 seconds and look around you and say hi to the people around you. Go. Great.
Thanks for doing that. It's quite interesting actually being up here to see you all do that because it was a mix of waves, handshakes, some people were smiling and laughing. So I want to ask you one thing. What did you see? Did you notice what somebody was wearing?
Their hair color? Probably their gender. And a couple of other things.
But what did you think of them? Now, look around you again and look at that person. Don't say anything.
You don't have to tell them what you think of them. I don't want to embarrass you. But I know you're probably making decisions and conclusions about the people around you. Now, all of that was to kind of stall, to give you a chance to look at me and to make judgments about me. I know you're judging.
I would be too. I can't really see all of you clearly right now, but I'd be judging. You see, it is these things that we do that help inform how we see each other. And the conclusion of this experiment is something you probably already know. We take on average about seven seconds to make impressions to others and to take in impressions of others.
We then take those impressions to make conclusions about one another and determinations. So, you probably saw that I'm a woman. Great.
A black woman. Fantastic. Black hair color, a couple of gray streaks in there.
Can't see my eye color really from up here, but I have brown eyes. Now, I want to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in Kenya, in Nairobi, but I actually grew up in a small town outside of that.
I guess it's really not small, it's its own town, all the same, called Nyeri. I moved to Baltimore when I was 10 years old with my family, and we've been in the U.S. ever since. I've been privileged to live and work in three countries and traveled to dozens more places. You see, all of these things have influenced who I am.
I've also been fortunate to have very diverse friends. People from all walks of life, different nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds. You see, it is these things that are hard to know within the first ten seconds that you meet somebody. Now, if you look around this room again, would you know who is in this room just by looking at them in the first seven to ten seconds?
Would you have known all this about me? Probably not. You see, Throughout my life, culture and cultural diversity have been at the forefront. Again, I've been fortunate to have such a wonderful group of friends.
And through our friendships, we have taught each other about our traditions, through shared meals, celebrations, and also by just having conversations with one another. This is a picture that was taken a few years ago. at a baby welcoming ceremony that in my culture we call Anitega. And these are my friends, people who had always questioned me about what these look like, and I said one day, why don't you come and experience it?
And they did. So, this was all to show you just how diverse we all are. Now imagine your life as a jigsaw puzzle. What would be the pieces that make up who you are?
For me, It would be my faith, my family, my heritage, my travels, my favorite foods, again, I'm from Baltimore, my friends, my godson, and my love for philanthropy, education, and the arts. Now, if all these pieces make up little old me, what would the pieces that make up this room today? Imagine the pieces that would fill up this room. your workplaces, your classrooms, even your local coffee shop.
So I ask you, who are you? And what would your puzzle pieces be? You see, in today's world, we focus a lot on racial diversity and not so much on cultural diversity, not so much on really what makes up who we are.
You see, sometimes we look at people and we say, on the outside, they look alike, right? But we don't take into account that people see things very differently despite all other things looking alike. Anybody remember this phenomenon? So, how many of you saw black and blue?
And this is actually not rhetorical, right? How many of you saw white and gold? I was white and gold as well.
How many saw both? There's about five hands. The point of this experiment, which admittedly at first I had no idea what it was, was that we all have preconceptions about what others see.
And I know people who tried to convince others that they were wrong and that they should see it the way they saw it. But the fact of the matter is, everybody was right. It was actually more about biology and how your eyes and your mind interpreted this image. But it was also about the perspective of it, where your eye focused first.
For me, I looked right at the dress, because we're trained to focus on the image that's at the forefront. But for those who focused their eye on the background color, they actually saw a different color. No matter how many times I tried, I never saw black and blue. Now, now that we've covered what people see on the outside, it doesn't always mirror what we see and what we know people are on the inside. Let's go to the next topic.
Let's go to diversity. This concept is in everything and it's everywhere today. The concept of increasing diversity is all around us.
It's in mission statements and value statements at corporations. Companies even have positions that are catered to helping increase diversity. They're diversity champions, they're diversity officers, and if you're Serena Williams, you're the newest board member of SurveyMonkey, with the sole goal of increasing diversity, not just in that corporation, but also in the tech industry at large. You see, my point is not to discount diversity as a concept or belittle it.
Quite the contrary. What I want to say to you today is that we should look beyond just who people are on the outside. It's not just about hiring more women or more people of color.
It's about hiring people who have a diverse background, diversity of perspectives. We should ask more about what people go through by the time they come to a certain point in their life, their adversities, the triumphs and tragedies that they have experienced. It is these things that really make up the true identity of who we are.
It's quite easy to just say, yes, you're a woman, yes, you're a man, yes, you're this or yes, you're that. But we should move beyond just strengths and weaknesses and really ask those deep questions. So I want you to think back again to the puzzle pieces that make up your life. Think about your work and your classrooms. Think about wherever it is that you spend most of your time.
Do you know the people in those places? I mean, really know them? Do you know the pieces that make up their lives? You see, in this day and age again, we make such quick determinations about one another without really giving much thought. as to who people are.
We've stopped having deep conversations with one another, all in favor of 140-character chats. Now, you see people frequently calling each other friends and best friends on Facebook and celebrating anniversaries for things, but truly, people don't know who we are. And that can only come by us sharing our experiences.
A lot of times when we do ask these questions, people think we're prying or we're just trying to get too close. Well, my challenge to you today is that you should get close. You should pry, respectfully and genuinely, because there's nothing worse than prying disingenuously. Get to know one another.
You really will find that you have a lot in common with people that you otherwise might not even give a second glance to. That quick hello you did today? might even blossom into something more, a friendship.
So please do take time after this to say hello to one another, not just in 10 seconds, but ask something else. This brings me to my next point. So as the person who introduced me mentioned, I come from a policymaking background.
And throughout my experiences in this process, I noticed that culture really didn't play a whole lot into this. And I often wondered why. Not a lot of times is there a cultural argument for or against a certain policy, but there are times when it's warranted. And this usually surfaces in health policy, because health care, more than anything else, serves at the heart of who we are.
And it does affect us directly. You see, health policy is not just black or white, or as I like to call it, chicken or beef. If anything, it's more like a soup, because once it's said and done, The things that factor in are more, and we cannot even separate them afterwards. Can't take out the ingredients afterwards.
So I'll give you another example. So early on in my career, I worked for a health care nonprofit that catered to Hispanic and Latino communities. And my job was to work with other minority organizations to make sure that these groups were represented. And our chief job was to educate lawmakers, not just on these communities and their needs, but on the why. why would a certain policy or law disproportionately or negatively affect these communities?
But the biggest education was not in teaching these lawmakers that. It was the education that I got. Not only did I learn how similar my culture was to the people that I served, but as well, I learned that I don't have to be from these cultures or to be from these communities to understand them. to empathize with them, to be sensitive to them, and ultimately, to represent them in discourse.
So what does this have to do with you? In this lovely nation of ours, we all have a voice. But that voice, in order for it to be heard, you must be willing to share.
You must be willing to speak your experiences. You must be willing to listen to other people's experiences. You must be able to ask the questions that elicit those experiences. You see, today, policy is everywhere around us. Every day and every night, we are surrounded by decisions, we're surrounded by news about policies, about laws, about debates happening in Congress, or even here in our own home states.
We all have a part to play in this. Like I said, lawmakers are not experts, and they too have to be educated on things. And a lot of that happens only if we share our stories and our experiences.
So, if you imagine again the voices that are in this room, if we all brought our perspectives to the table, imagine what a beautiful and complete picture we could all paint about the experiences of this room today, of our communities, and our world at large. So again, I tell you to take advantage of all the diverse places that you... walk through, that you live in, that you work in, and that you go to school in.
Because you just might find out again just how much in common you have with people. You see, I took for granted, just a little bit, not for most of my college career, but just what a wonderful experience it was to be with people from all walks of life, with all different experiences. And as soon as I noticed that, I started to take advantage more of the people around me. And I encourage you to do the same. You see, the biggest lesson that I have learned so far in my young life, I'm not going to say how old I am, but anyway, is that as I walk through life, I don't walk it alone.
I don't just simply walk it as myself. You see, I walk it as me, as a daughter, a sister, a Kenyan and an American, a black woman, a lawyer. A philanthropist, a godmother, can you tell I'm a proud godmother, and a friend. You see, these are the puzzle pieces that make up my life.
These are the people and things that make up the salad of who I am. They make me a rich individual, and they influence what I do in my life and how I react to events. So yet again, I ask you, what makes you up?
You see, we all have a unique identity, a unique perspective, and we all have a voice to lend to make this world a better place. So, the last missing piece, again, can only be answered by the question, who are you? Kind of like that CSI song, who are you? Well, I'm Hilda Mwangi, and I'm the sum of all my parts.
Thank you. Thank you.