With thanks for your thoughtful response. A broader reading of my work will underscore that you and I are in full agreement, and your last sentence speaks precisely to where I am. The piece you reference was informed by a great many people of color close to me. I have no conceit to "convince" anyone; how you and I reach our various conclusions and beliefs is a uniquely individual journey. I've also been called privileged and racist, you name it, no matter how many years I've worked in the field of diversity. I find it fascinating that the ones hurling the insults are effectively demonstrating their own fragile nature. We are, unfortunately,generations and generations away from color blindness, for racism in all its ugly forms is deeply embedded the world over. I am writing you from Tanzania at the moment; I travel all over the world regularly, and my thoughts are informed by extensive travel, observation and intimate experience the world over, not just my own country. That said, it doesn't make me right and you wrong; it only speaks to the reference points from which I make various points. When you travel as I do, especially all over various African nations, you can see what generations upon generations of learned helplessness, racism, White is Superior training has done to huge numbers of people. It's highly instructive. I know nothing of your background or education, nor how you reach your conclusions, I can only speak to my own, which are, as they should be, constantly evolving. We are nowhere near a point where individual competence is the measure by which someone is chosen for a job; not in my lifetime nor your grandchildren's. The damage done is breathtaking. I listen to the people of color in my life as there are many and varied and from some 47 countries; those are the voices which help me understand. Not the ones accusing you or me of being fragile or racist or privileged. This is a journey of millions upon millions of steps.