FOUNDER #EMERGELEADERSHIP - DIVERSITY BEST PRACTICES

FOUNDER

#EmERGeLeadership

Changing The World As We Know It!

§ “Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.”
§ ― Ludwig van Beethoven

§   Those that want to inspire change, spend their lives defying odds so
    that others don’t have to struggle the same way. Pay It Forward!

                                                              #EmERGeLeadership

The Warm Up!
§ Born with a severely profound hearing loss, diagnosed at the
  age of 2.
§ Outfitted with hearing aids and no knowledge of sign language

  from the age of 2
§ A strong support system goes a long way in building resilience,

  character and an internal feeling of loving yourself instead of
  going down the wrong paths looking for love.

                                                   #EmERGeLeadership

§   I GREW UP IN TEXAS, MISSISSIPPI & GEORGIA, WHILE
    CONSTANTLY TRAVELING THANKS TO MY MOTHER WORKING FOR
    AMERICAN AIRLINES AND WANTING TO EXPOSE ME TO AS MUCH
    OF THE WORLD AS SHE COULD.
§   LACK OF HEARING LED TO A LOVE FOR READING, I COULD
    NEVER UNDERSTAND FULLY WHAT WAS GOING ON AROUND ME
    LIKE I COULD WITH A BOOK.
§   GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL WITH A PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARSHIP
    TO GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY, WHICH I CHOSE IN EFFORTS TO
    LEARN MORE ABOUT MY DEAF IDENTITY.

                                         #EmERGeLeadership

IMAGINE THIS: YOU’RE GOING TO COLLEGE, NEW EXPERIENCE, NEW LOCATION,
NEW URBAN CULTURE, NEW SOCIAL CULTURE, AND LEARN A NEW LANGUAGE AT
                             THE SAME TIME.

HOW DO YOU REACT WHEN THE SOCIAL CULTURE REJECTS YOU AND LEARNING
            A NEW LANGUAGE IS NOT EASY, YET MANDATORY?

                           PERSEVERANCE.

                                               #EmERGeLeadership

HAVE YOU EVER HIRED AN AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE WITH A HEARING LOSS?
 BEING A DOUBLE MINORITY IS SIMILAR TO HAVING TWO STRIKES BEFORE YOU
                     EVEN STEP UP TO THE PLATE.
 EQUALITY WAS A CONCEPT I BELIEVED TO BE REAL, BUT SOON I FOUND ONLY
                    EXISTED IN THE NOVELS I READ.
RACISM WAS A THING OF THE PAST BASED ON WHAT SCHOOL TAUGHT ME, YET
                    REALITY TOLD ME OTHERWISE.

  PRACTICE FAIRNESS AND EQUALITY, AND WATCH AS YOU AND THE PEOPLE
YOU’RE SURROUNDED BY ALL BECOME BETTER HUMAN BEINGS BECAUSE OF IT.

#EmERGeLeadership

AT THE END OF THE DAY….. I STILL LOVE YOU AND I LOVE LIFE.

                         #EmERGeLeadership

THE BLOW UP!
§   Pigeons & Planes
§   Complex Magazine                             § The Evolution!
    GQ Magazine
                                                 § https://www.youtube.com/watc
§

§   Worldstar Hip Hop
§

§
    Reddit
    Cole Haan
                                                   h?v=YFPUIeOmD7M
§   MTV VMA’s                                    § https://www.youtube.com/watc
§

§
    NowThis News
    Tour with Chance The Rapper
                                                   h?v=S-wm3Top2b8
                                                 § https://www.youtube.com/watc
§   CNN’s Great Big Story
    Rise Up
                                                   h?v=xvBYG1OhGDQ
§

§   Deaf Awareness Night with Windy City Bulls
§   And countless more!

                                                                    #EmERGeLeadership

The More You Know…
§   Stereotypes & Stigmas                               §   Facts & Cultural Opinions
§   Hip Hop is too vulgar.                              §   Hip Hop is now the number one music genre
§   There’s not enough deaf people for businesses to        worldwide. What would you consider more vulgar,
    spend money on interpreting services or                 hip hop or Howard Stern?
    marketing.                                          §   Around 466 million people worldwide have
§   If we do an event, promo, or provide services           disabling hearing loss (1), and 34 million of these
    once, that will gain us more customers.                 are children. (World Health Organization)
§   We did an event before and didn’t have a big        §   Similar concept to supporting communities of
    turnout.                                                different races, sexual preferences, learning
                                                            abilities and more, consistency becomes key, and
                                                            communities now rebel against businesses
                                                            profiting off of their lives.
                                                        §   If you go your entire life having to fight for
                                                            services, accessibility, and acceptance into a
                                                            mainstream society, would you still feel like going
                                                            out to events?
#EmERGeLeadership

FREESTYLE TIME

• Caption Your Videos!
• Improved Indexing and Searching: Use closed captions, transcripts, and descriptions
  as meta data to make your video text-searchable, and to make web-embedded video
  search engine friendly.
• Viewer Flexibility: With the increasing popularity of mobile devices, viewers may be in
  environments where access to the audio or video is limited. Closed captioning allows
  people to view content whether they are in the library, at a concert or on a noisy bus,
  and similarly audio description allows people to listen to content in podcast form while
  walking or driving.
• Improved Accessibility for ESL Viewers: There are more viewers with English as a
  second language than there are with English as a first language — closed captioning
  helps your message reach larger audiences.
  (https://www.automaticsync.com/captionsync/learn/closed-captioning-benefits/
                                   #EmERGeLeadership

(And hopefully you’ll become DEAFinitely Dope in the process too!)

                           #EmERGeLeadership