Every year Sinclair celebrates Black History Month by hosting events, films, and much more. This year, the school’s diversity office invited special guest Heather McGhee to speak during the seventh annual Black Unity Conference; she was one of many speakers during the two-day conference. McGhee is known by many titles, but her newest is author of a new book titled “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper.” She also has a law degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree.
‘‘Heather is an educator and she is an attorney,” said Michael Carter, Chief Diversity Officer at Sinclair and currently running the “Our American Journey: The Black Experience in America” exhibit in the library. “She [MeGhee] got her law degree at the University of Berkley and got her Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale. Above all the accolades, she is passionate about racial and social justice, and provides people with tools and talking points of what that is and looks like.’’
For the conference , McGhee and Sinclair professor Crystal Echols, plan to talk about racism and how it affects everyone, including white people, and discuss other topics too, such as systemic racism.
“Many whites don’t realize racism costs them too. This allows people on a large scale to understand this,’’ Carter said.
Carter hopes to achieve a lot with McGhee’s speech.
‘‘We continue our efforts in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space and continue to provide a space for diversity cultural equity,” he said. “We want people to have a deep knowledge of these issues. We are living in a time where proponents of social justice and equity are being more vocal, and we must be against this foolishness, and this is a tool that will fight against it.”
For Carter, McGhee’s talk is important for Black History Month.
‘‘It is a great way to kick it off, we got our Black Unity Conference to kick off Black History Month. Our goal is – we do this 365 days a year, so we want people to talk about these things,” Carter said. “Doing it virtually allows for people who may typically not participate to do that.’’
If students are looking for information regarding McGhee’s speech, Carter says to visit the diversity office’s website, sinclair.edu/diversity; the site also has a calendar of all upcoming events.
Jamario Brown-Tolliver
Intern