DEI is: Unpacking What Religion in DEI Means

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🧕🏻https://rahimehramezany.com/ | 🧕🏻Rahimeh on TikTok

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Enrico E. Manalo  00:00

This is your host and DiVerity PBC's community engagement lead Enrico E. Manalo when it comes to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, it's almost a given that we're talking about more than just race. But how does religion fit into that picture? In this episode of the "DEI is:" Podcast, special guest, multiethnic, neurodiverse, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Intercultural Practitioner Rahimeh Ramezany, sits down to talk to us about religion in DEI—specifically some of the issues that people have in including religion in DEI efforts as well as how religion plays into the dominant culture and therefore, our worldviews, including the perspectives that can lead to prejudice, discrimination and oppression. Just a reminder, if you find what we talked about on the "DEI is:" Podcast to be useful, insightful, or just plain interesting, give us a like, share it with your friends, and of course, subscribe. DEI is: Unpacking What Religion in DEI Means with Rahimeh Ramezany starts in 3 . . . 2 . . .

[Intro music plays]

Enrico E. Manalo  01:09

Hello, and welcome to the "DEI is:" Podcast. With me today is a very special guest. She is a multiethnic, neurodiverse, visibly Muslim American woman and a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Intercultural Practitioner, Rahimeh Ramezany, who has found her calling and addressing the experiences of marginalized religious, ethnic and racial communities in the United States in order to create change on individual interpersonal and institutional levels. So, Rahimeh how are you today?

Rahimeh Ramezany  01:43

Hi, I'm doing super well, thank you so much for having me. How are you doing?

Enrico E. Manalo  01:46

I'm doing great. And you know, I'm really excited about our conversation today. You know, we were just chatting before we went live about the fact that we've been able to connect a number of times and establish a rapport. And, you know, some of the most fun that I have on these, these episodes is actually the conversations that we have before we go live, like I do wish that we could broadcast [overlapping chatter]. But it's just really great to be able to connect with you in this way. And I'm just so excited to dive in. So, you know, there's this old saying that we should never discuss politics or religion in polite company. But, you know, sometimes politeness is a barrier that we have to cross to really get to know one another. And it's really clear that these days, just being polite is not going to be sufficient to address the many issues arising from our many, many differences. And in fact, it's something that holds us back from advancing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

So that's not to say that we shouldn't respect one another. But it's, you know, truly respecting and recognizing one another's humanity and involves understanding how politics and of course, religion shaped our human experiences. So, you know, one of the things that we're talking about today is understanding what religion means in DEI. So before we jump into that, I'd like to kind of pivot to our audience. And let me see here. Yes, so the first question that we've got is, what questions or concerns about incorporating religion into dei work in your organization or practice might you have for Rahimeh, then you can think about that as we're diving in here. So why talk about religion in DEI work?

Rahimeh Ramezany  03:43

So, I want to approach with how you set up this conversation with politeness.

Enrico E. Manalo  03:50

Yeah.

Rahimeh Ramezany  03:50

And this is something that I see a lot. Not just when I bring up Muslim inclusion, which is another one of my specialties, and then also advocating for discussing religion and incorporating considerations of religion within Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts in organizations is that "politeness" and like "professionalism" are usually code words for like "white fragility" and "white comfort", right? So it's not that like, there's no polite way to talk about religion there is it's just that it's uncomfortable to talk about, right. And discomfort is something that in order to do any level of any like, actual authentic diversity, equity inclusion work, and not just like, the "black square on Instagram", sort of, you know, performative actions. We have to be able to be uncomfortable and not see it as unsafe, not wanting to run away from it and not want to fight it. The whole “fight, flight, freeze, fawn” mode sort of thing.

Enrico E. Manalo  05:00

Oh yeah.

Rahimeh Ramezany  05:01

We can talk about religion in a way that is respectful to different beliefs. That's a huge part of like moving from the idea of proselytizing or like "the only way of talking about religion is to like try and convert people to your religion" or you know, I don't like being proselytized to. I know, like, other people don't like it. And in the workplace, that's completely inappropriate, right?

Enrico E. Manalo  05:23

Yeah.

Rahimeh Ramezany  05:24

Well, we are talking about is religion as it is a part of someone's identity, the diversity of human experience, inclusion, so that folks have different identity groups—we talk about race, we talk about gender, we talk about sexual orientation (another part of identity) we talked about neurotypical versus neurodiverse, we talk about disability, so many parts of identity, all valid, all needed to be addressed. And also, most people around the world, do you identify with some faith or religious tradition. And we need to be able to have a respectful way to authentically bring this into the workplace as it affects things going on in the organization. So for instance, one of the biggest things is like holidays. But it's also like, clearly, you see, there are people—not just Muslims, other folks as well, from other religions—that dress a certain way that they wear all the time. It's not just like in their religious institutions or in their homes, are you saying then that they need to put aside their full like, not even their full identity layer, a core part of who they are for your comfort, because it makes you uncomfortable to see a Muslim woman in a headscarf or a Sikh person, a SIKH person, in a turban, or, on and on and on other examples.

Not all Muslim women (just to be clear) don't all wear a headscarf. That's not something I'm saying. But just as an example of something that you can visually see that even if I pretended, like "hid" that I did my prayers during my lunch break, so that you didn't like, feel uncomfortable that I'm like going off into a private room, I'm not doing it out in public. You know, the fact that I might hide that I'm fasting during the month of Ramadan, or otherwise Muslims do fast outside of the month of Ramadan, as well as a spiritual practice. So many other examples. And you saying (not of course, Enrico, you) that anyone who objects to this sort of thing is the idea is like, your discomfort, just, again, discomfort, not that you're unsafe, not that I'm trying to make you a part of like my religion. I'm not saying you have to agree with me, none of those things! But just your discomfort in having like me just live my identity out loud.

Enrico E. Manalo  05:24

Yeah.

Rahimeh Ramezany  05:59

Respectfully, is like, a no, no. And you would just rather I not just could you just not just don't,

Enrico E. Manalo  07:39

You know, I think there's some subtext to what you're saying as well, right? There is more complexity to religion than we often assume. Because, well, in the US, we're really very focused on Protestant, Christian and often evangelist kind of forms of Christianity, which is not the totality of Christianity at all. But my point here is that often religion intersects with ethnicity, with culture, with many other layers of identity that are not easy to disentangle.

Rahimeh Ramezany  08:17

Hmm, exactly. For sure. For sure, for sure. Like, for instance, Muslims, in general, around the world are racialized as Brown, when that is, like, that's just not the case. There are Muslims from any and every ethnic and racial group, there are Muslims who live in all parts of the world, speaking all different languages. So when you—so when someone who has the stereotypical view sees a brown person, they're like, "oh, a Muslim", when that person might not be Muslim—is very well not Muslim, right? They can also see a Black person and be like, "oh, this person is not Muslim," when that person IS Muslim. Same thing with white folks are in so many other like different identity groups that you like, "oh, I don't know you to look like the stereotype of what a person from any religion looks like. So therefore, I just like, I'm not even going to be open to the idea of learning about that as a part of your identity." Right? "I'm going to be shocked and just like microaggress you."

Enrico E. Manalo  09:20

Right, right. So you know, returning to that thread of the US, the US often kind of casts itself as "a state without a religion". But as we kind of mentioned, there are actually a lot of people who act under the assumption that it is in fact a Protestant and to be specific, an evangelical Christian nation. So if we're trying to understand how religion impacts our worldview, like, well, how can understanding that help us to better navigate our differences?

Rahimeh Ramezany  09:53

So it's going to, of course depend on who we're talking to and what their religious—if they have any religious background and upbringing, how that impacts them. For me, my religious background and Islamic identity absolutely impacts like the work that I do. I believe that Islam is an incredibly social justice oriented religion. And it drives—is a huge part of my "why" in doing DEI work, but also like, looking at the diversity of human beings as like proof of like God's creation and so on, right. But there are people—and honestly, like, in the interface work that I've done in the past, most world religions do share most of their core values, we might use different terms in different languages. But if you look at the descriptions of what the practices are, and like the values that different world religions advocate for, they are vastly similar. Not all the same. I'm never gonna be like, "Oh, we're just all believe the same thing". No, I don't I don't go that far, personally.

Enrico E. Manalo  11:00

Yeah.

Rahimeh Ramezany  11:01

Um, you know, then that starts getting into like, you know, "oh, I don't just, you know, I don't just don't advocate for one race of human" (like, in talking about racial justice) "I just love the human race", right? Like, there's like, okay, now, like, people are unique, and they need to have their authentic identities respected for their uniqueness, but at the same time, like, we're not like, literally different species, right. So balancing that at the same time. So the idea with the United States history, right, is that, as we know, whiteness has been at the top of the racial hierarchy, with Brown people in the middle, and Black folks and Indigenous folks at the bottom. However, what's tied to that, of course, is also like being a man is at the top, and there's a hierarchy around gender. And then, of course, religion is something that we don't talk about a lot. The folks who came and colonized the United States. Were Christian, right? And they used Christianity as proof as to why they were able to do the things that they did. Now, I will say, and I have to say this, so, please, please, please hear me when I say this! Especially if you are Christian, listening to this, and thank you for even being open to having this conversation. However, just like we distinguish in DEI and social justice spaces between white people that's just existing and Whiteness, White Supremacy, I am distinguishing between Christianity, the religion, which especially as a Muslim, like Muslims, very much see, Christians as like cousins, like a cousin faith, right? We have, again, we believe a lot of a lot of the same things. So I'm not—and anyway—it is not talking about the religion of Christianity, it is talking about Christian supremacy, and how Christianity, just as Muslims also understand very much how our religion and values of justice and kindness and mercy and so on, have been taken by people who want to do horrendous actions, to justify whatever it is that they want to do. And it's not just Islam, it's not just Christianity. It's like any faith, non-faith, any ideology, there are people who are truly evil people who are going to use whatever, they can to just justify what they want to do. Right? And then they're going to do that. So separating that with Christianity, I'm not talking about Christianity, like the true sense of the religion,

Enrico E. Manalo  13:28

The values, for example.

Rahimeh Ramezany  13:29

The different, like the values, like the actual. Yeah. It's about the supremacy aspect, that if we in the United States say that we believe in the freedom of religion, Christianity is not the official religion of the United States, and never has been.

Enrico E. Manalo  13:44

Or the default for that matter, right?

Rahimeh Ramezany  13:46

[Sighs] It technically should not be

Enrico E. Manalo  13:50

"Technically should not be."

Rahimeh Ramezany  13:51

But in practice it is. But if we agree that like it is codified in our laws in the Bill of Rights, and maybe not, yes, the Bill of Rights, I need to reread the Constitution. But it is a part of our founding documents the freedom of religion, then that means that there should be an even playing field that Christians have a chance and opportunity to practice their religion and have their values respected, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Jains,

Enrico E. Manalo  13:55

Right

Rahimeh Ramezany  13:56

On and on, like all the religions of the world should have a respectful way to practice their religion and it's specifically speaking in the workplace as that relates to their day to day life while they're at work. Most people spend most of their time, their waking hours at work. Right. So a lot of that is going to come into that.

Enrico E. Manalo  14:41

Yeah, and you know, it's been really interesting. So my parents are, are very Catholic, and I

Rahimeh Ramezany  14:48

I love how you say "they're very Catholic."

Enrico E. Manalo  14:50

They're very Catholic. And many Filipino families are, of course, not all, but I hadn't been to church in a while. I'm not a practicing Catholic myself. And I was surprised that they'd changed some of the language or the Catholic church had. So rather than describing their members as, as "Christians", there was a shift where they were describing their followers as Christ-like. And now this is not to say that the Catholic Church doesn't also have its its problems, I mean, famously so. But digging into it, apparently, that was motivated as a reaction to what the Catholic Church saw as kind of a "hijacking of the Christian narrative". So I just think that speaks kind of directly to what you're saying. And I do also feel like, many people understand the freedom of religion to be like, "well, if I'm a Christian person, then I can practice my religion, and I should not be made to feel uncomfortable at any time by other religions"

Rahimeh Ramezany  15:53

Being made to feel uncomfortable, like, that's not, no, no, like,

Enrico E. Manalo  15:57

That's not even a thing, that's your discomfort. It's not somebody else saying, "Oh, I have this bag of discomfort and I'm gonna foist it on to you!"

Rahimeh Ramezany  16:04

"You therefore need to just like make yourself as small as humanly possible, if preferably, they just don't exist, like just be here in my space because I'm uncomfortable." Like, that's not that's not okay. Right. And that's the thing like, so when I do these kinds of—when I have these kinds of conversations, it's with organizations and people who are already said, like, "yes, we want diversity, we respect diversity, we see it as a beautiful reflection of the human experience, we want to include people, we want everyone, everyone to have equitable access to opportunities, and to live as authentically as they want in our organization and spaces." Right, like not forcing people, like show us who you like, like respecting boundaries, as well.

But hopefully, if you set up a psychologically safe environment, there will be people, not everyone, but there will be people who will share happily about their identities, including their religious identity. I've had many people that I've worked with (non-Muslims), who've asked me sincere, respectful questions, because they really were interested. And I'm more than happy to share. And I know many Muslims who are, it's just a matter of when you are trying to confirm like a stereotype that you have about my group, or a bias that you have, or you're asking, like, a really rude or intrusive question. You know, a lot of Muslims in the last, you know, 20 years, what do you think about Al-Qaeda? What do you think about the Taliban? What do you think about ISIS? What do you think? Like? "What do you mean, what do you think about that? Right? Like,

Enrico E. Manalo  17:41

What answer are they expecting like,

Rahimeh Ramezany  17:43

Yeah

Enrico E. Manalo  17:43

I am, I am pro, whatever, like,

Rahimeh Ramezany  17:46

Yeah, and I mean, September 11 just passed. And to this day, it still hurts a lot that like, as an American, I'm born and raised in the United States, I very much do identify as being an American. Of course 9/11 tears in my heart, as an Amer—as a human being honestly, like, even if it were in another country, like seeing such a horrendous act. And so many people dying in such a horrendous way, like, of course, that touches my soul and affects me and I want to speak on it. But I never do because I feel like me, especially like visibly being Muslim with the name that I have, and so on. Like, of course, now, like I talk so publicly about being Muslim. Like, people, I don't want people to equate that like, "Oh, see, like, this Muslim is apologizing because right, she feels that Muslims or Muslims in general need to apologize for something like we had nothing to do with we don't believe and we stand against that kind of behavior. It is disgusting. It is against our religious values," and so on. But even then, I still like I still can't bring myself to say anything on September 11th, to commemorate something that of course, I want to recognize just like we recognize other atrocities that have happened throughout history, and in modern day.

But because there's such a tied, like narrative between "Oh," like "Muslims need to apologize for like something that other Muslims have done." Right? I know, this is something that we talk a lot, a lot about, like, for people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds. If you see someone from an racial background, like an Asian person, a Black person, an Indian person, what have you, a lot of the times that that pers—individual acts badly or is perceived to act badly, their behavior—and this is something that I was taught growing up—growing up, like, I put on my hijab when I was 11. I was told so many times growing up, like "anytime you do anything in public, because you are visibly identifiable as Muslim, your actions are going to affect how the people around you think of all Muslims around the world" like so. Just like and like, that's a lot of weight for like,

Enrico E. Manalo  20:02

Yeah for anybody [overlapping chatter]

Rahimeh Ramezany  20:04

a 12 year old 11 year old to carry, and throughout my whole life. And I think that that really does affect a lot of the work that I do today

Enrico E. Manalo  20:12

I could understand that. And you know, it is striking to me that for a nation—for a culture that is so hyper-individualistic. In a second, we will say "that individual represents an entire group."

Rahimeh Ramezany  20:27

Yeah, 1.8 billion people, every single person agrees, and it acts exactly like this one person that I saw

Enrico E. Manalo  20:34

When it comes to directing anger and hate, we are collectivist. But when it comes to "freedom and the American way and American values" we are we're all individuals. Yeah, you know, "Don't lump me in with other people." Which is patently ridiculous. So to pivot to our audience quickly, if we could fast forward to a year from now, what would you like the practitioners and organizational decision makers to better understand about religion as part of DEI? And while those—I guess I'll leave that up as the some some responses come in—so for you, what are some of the biggest objections that you've encountered to incorporating religion into DEI work?

Rahimeh Ramezany  21:21

Sorry, I was reading comments. Can you say that again? [Laughing]

Enrico E. Manalo  21:25

Yeah, sure. So what are the biggest objections to incorporating religion into the artwork?

Rahimeh Ramezany  21:31

So definitely, just overcoming—yeah, I was reading the comment.

Enrico E. Manalo  21:38

Thank you very much, Sara

Rahimeh Ramezany  21:39

I feel bad. LinkedIn doesn't like—when I go back, after the fact to look through people's comments, because I was like, really want to appreciate how much like people engage, like, LinkedIn doesn't show it to me. So anyway, that's my excuse. So the objections that folks have to talking about religion in the workplace and in DEI work in general, is like, generally again, like one, there's a lot of discomfort, we have been SO conditioned to just not EVER talk about religion like "to talk about religion publicly is to be impolite". [Stammers] "also it must mean that you are proselytizing and trying to convert people". Which, honestly, yeah, IS the case, a lot of the time that people only bring up because again, it's only polite to talk about religion, or it's never polite to talk about religion. The only time people like really push against that is because they have an agenda. Okay?

Enrico E. Manalo  22:34

Often yeah

Rahimeh Ramezany  22:35

Yeah. And again, even as someone who identifies with a religion, I really don't like when I feel that someone is trying to, like, convert me or like, is asking questions about my religion so they can go like, "Aha, I got you!" right,

Enrico E. Manalo  22:49

Yeah

Rahimeh Ramezany  22:49

And then like, one up me with their, you know, rhetoric, and so on. And a lot of times, it hasn't even occurred to people, right? Those listening might be surprised. As I've been talking and bringing awareness to the idea of bringing religion more into DEI work, I'm getting a lot of PRIVATE (key: private) messages and conversations where people bring up like, "actually, my religious identity is a really big part of who I am and I would love to talk about it more," or "I would love to have space to live my religious identity at work or in public, but I feel like there's such a stigma or so much judgment," or especially like with intersectional identities, that they have so much bias and stereotypes for other identities that they are—that is more obvious that it would feel like they're adding now another layer of like, "discrimination" for themselves, right? So there's interest from people to want to be able to live this way out loud. It's just again, like the idea with people saying it to me so quietly and privately is because it is so stigmatized, right? So there are a lot of—those are like the main buckets of objections.

The idea being again, like we can dis—my point with getting away from proselytizing is like, I'm not—and I don't ever talk about Islam, for instance, like in my case, right? To try and—excuse me try and "persuade" anyone. The key is that I'm describing it in a way, like "this is what Muslims believe, this is my understanding of Islam." And of course, like there are many sects of Islam there are many different ways of practicing, I don't know every single way that every single Muslim around the world practices, so knowing that I'm giving you generalizations knowing that and anyone that you hear about their identity group from them knowing that they are not going to know everything that there is to know about that identity group.

So knowing that you've learned generalizations and then when you meet someone in your workplace, a neighbor, whatever, you meet a new person from this identity group, you can then show that you've done the basics of learning something about their group. It's amazing, right? Like, it's not just like, "hey, I literally know nothing. I'm not taking the time to google it, I've not done any work or the labor to, like, educate myself, I just want you, random new person that I just met, to educate me on your group, and you don't know if I'm gonna, like hate on you or discriminate against you if based on what you say." So like, you can show that you've done some learning and then ask for like, okay, but you as an individual, you as your way of practicing, or living this identity, how do you want to be respected?

Enrico E. Manalo  25:42

Right, and showing up without doing any learning on your own is naive at the very least (at the most benign) and incredibly arrogant, you know [overlapping chatter]. Yeah,  Yeah, there's a lot to dig into there. But I am being mindful of our time. Yeah, for sure. I do want to ask you, so in—what world are we aspiring to create by incorporating considerations of religion into like, an organization's DEI efforts or like the DEI push as a whole?

Rahimeh Ramezany  25:56

Yeah.  Yeah. So the idea at its core, is that rather than focusing on issues—in Muslim's case, of Islamophobia, antisemitism, like discrimination based off of religious identity, which by the way, is like a nationally protected identity group as well, so like, it has that as well is that we're moving away from like, "Oh, someone is going to HR to complain about religious discrimination. And now you have a lawsuit on your hands" to actively promoting inclusion as a part of your company culture. And so that when people come into your organization—they're hired and onboarded—they know as a part of that process, that they are coming into an inclusive environment. So if they themselves have issues with a certain identity group, and in this case, a religious group, they can do what they need to do to either learn more—deal with like managing their negative perceptions and stepping into that environment, knowing that the culture, the norm, the expectation is that "this is what inclusion looks like".

And hopefully, the idea being is that people who are not going to be inclusive of different identities are not going to want to apply for your, you know, to work for you so that you are actively weeding out people who want to be discriminatory, and then you know, put you and your organization at risk, right, then you then have to deal with someone who you've hired, who causes lawsuits, who causes harm, who potentially the employees that are being discriminated against by this person, clients and customers, who were getting a bad experience with your company based off of this person's to discriminate—discriminatory behavior, right? All of that is prevented, right by putting your values up at the front of your organization at the front of the onboarding and hiring process, so that people self-select out. And then the people you want to have in your organization, are people who are going to be attracted to those values.

So for instance, like in Muslim's cases, especially like Muslim women's cases, I will say, who wear a head covering, there have been people who I have spoken with, and I've heard testimony from where they have had their scarf pulled off of them at work, people who have had, like, straight up like sexual harassment, shared, but in like a religious, racialized way based off of like, religious ID—yeah, it's just like bizarre, right? Um, and if you have a company culture, where inclusion of religious identity is so deeply ingrained, that the people who are already in the organization know that this behavior is not going to be put up with and it's not just like, "oh, just don't be racist, or just don't be Islamophobic, just don't be" like, like, "no, no, no, we're actively making space for it". Right, that sets up a place of psychological safety for your community in general.

Enrico E. Manalo  29:36

Yeah, and people talk about psychological safety a lot these days, but I think it bears repeating that when we are not feeling psychologically safe, that really influences our our actions, our thoughts, you know, and not always on a conscious level. So it's really important to—like the brain does amazing things and we're just really starting to learn much more about that in the past few years. And so making sure that we are in a space where our brain can do the things that we want and need it to do is super important. Because if we are fighting against our biology, well, we're going to lose more often than not.

Rahimeh Ramezany  30:19

Yeah. And as company leadership, right, if you have gone out of your way to hire and onboard and bring in people who you believe are very smart, who have amazing skills and expertise, and especially like part of at least the business case, for DEI—which I don't love bringing up all the time, but it is true right—is that if you have diverse experiences at the table, you're going to have much more innovative products and services like that is shown, but only if the people with these diverse experiences, have the safety to put out and offer those perspectives without being like, "no, that's not 'the norm'," which again, it's just like white supremacy like, culture, and like white comfort.

"That's not the norm. We don't like it, and now we're gonna penalize you for it."

"Okay, then I'm just gonna keep it to myself. And you're not gonna benefit from all of the amazing ideas and innovations that I could contribute" and like your team in general could contribute to each other, and create, that's just "poof", gone.

Enrico E. Manalo  31:24

Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, Organizational Silence is something that I'm deeply interested in. But that is perhaps a topic for another day—

Rahimeh Ramezany  31:32

We'll switch, we'll switch, I'll ask you!

Enrico E. Manalo  31:35

Well, Rahimeh, thank you so so much for joining us today. Really, really excited to have you on. Any kind of closing thoughts here? Or things that you're excited about that you want people to, to know? Or to check out? Or?

Rahimeh Ramezany  31:50

Yeah, no, thank you. As a closing thought, before I do my ministerial, thank you all, please stick around for that. But the like closing thought is just that if you are feeling—especially if you are in DEI—but in general, people need to have the level of self awareness to recognize when they're feeling discomfort bubble up in them, right. So before you start yelling at people like "fight mode, flight mode, you just literally run away, you quit your job run" or, you know, block people on social media, or what have you for making you uncomfortable, right? Not like trolls, or anything like that, that's different.

You need to be able to have grown your emotional intelligence to the point that you can recognize this feeling of discomfort is bubbling up in you and sit with, "okay, what is this feeling, communicating to me about my boundaries and my biases and my understanding of the world that is potentially being challenged? Is my identity being challenged and disrespected? Or is it just that I have never heard this perspective before? I haven't learned to be inclusive in this way." And that's fine. Like I, Rahimeh doing this con—having this conversation absolutely had to do this work, right? So I understand how uncomfortable it is.

And I know from other people criticizing other parts of my identity, and me feeling like "oh, I want to fight them", or "oh, I don't like what they said, or oh, they're like a bad person" or whatever. And having to learn to sit with the discomfort of "what they said was valid and my closeness and identifying with this part of who I am, this culture, cultural part of who I am, is not something I need to abandon because it's not perfect." Right?

Enrico E. Manalo  33:43

Yeah.

Rahimeh Ramezany  33:43

So just learning to get comfortable—not comfortable, less uncomfortable—in sustaining the conversation and engagement through feeling discomfort, especially—and even if you have other marginalized identities. And I say "even" because a lot of the time the focus in DEI spaces is if you have majority privileged identities, and if you are white, right, and that is valid and important, and we have those conversations already. What I personally am coming up against is folks with other marginalized identities, who have not dealt with having to sit with discomfort in this area of privilege that they have, they're used to talking about their areas of marginalization, they're not used to talking about their areas of privilege. And so for them, they have a low tolerance for talking about their own privilege, right. So that's my last thought.

If you are interested in having further conversations, bringing me to speak, consult, train around this topic, or around Muslim inclusion and equitable access in predominantly non-Muslim spaces specifically, either of those topics, please feel free to look me up on my website RahimehRamazany.com. Yes, unfortunately, I'm sorry, you will have to learn how to spell my name. Uh, but I have all the information there, you can find me on most social media platforms as well. I am an active content creator as a way to educate people on this—on these topics who don't have the ability to hire me on for speaking, consulting training. So yeah, reach out to me on any of those platforms.

Enrico E. Manalo  35:18

Yeah, I'm just gonna chime in here. Rahimeh is an incredible content creator. And so like, do yourself a favor and follow her on TikTok.

Rahimeh Ramezany  35:27

Thank you. I genuinely enjoy it, it's like really fun and also like, finding the creation process. But also, I really do love that in some tiny, small, humble way like, I feel like I am helping make the world a better place. And that is incredibly, incredibly meaningful.

Enrico E. Manalo  35:45

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you once again, so much for coming on today to join us. Thank you as well to the DiVerity Network. And for full transparency here. Rahimeh is one of our Network Consultants and we are so glad to have her. We will see you in a couple of weeks, bringing you more great content with another one of our Network Consultants. And so until then, I hope you'll be well this is Enrico E. Manalo with the "DEI is:" Podcast. Bye.

Rahimeh Ramezany  36:16

Bye all, thank you!

Enrico E. Manalo  36:17

Enrico here. Thanks so much for tuning in to the "DEI is:" Podcast. If you're walking away from this episode, feeling like you've learned something, saw something from another angle, or if you just enjoyed it and give us a like, share it with your friends and please subscribe. More people tuning in means that it's more likely that DiVerity will catch the interest of investors which is crucial for us to take things to the next level in addressing the inequities that DEI Practitioners face under the current norms, standards and practices of DEI consulting. Building a diverse equitable and inclusive organization is hard but finding DEI expertise and services shouldn't be. If you're looking you know where to find us. 'Til next time, this is Enrico E. Manalo. See you soon!