Somber Days in our Country

These are dark days in my country, the United States. Between having the highest death rate of any country from the corona virus -- over 100,000 so far -- and seeing racism rear its ugly head one more time, while facing a beaten down economy with 40 million unemployed, Americans are reeling. At some point, however, there will be a vaccine for the corona virus, and some people, if not all, will return to work. Unfortunately, there is no vaccine for racism. There are no short-term solutions for what took decades to embed in cultural attitudes. You've all seen videos of what triggered recent protests and riots in several US cities -- a handcuffed African-American man on the ground with a policeman's knee on his neck that led to his death -- a senseless act I found difficult to watch let alone justify. What angers many people is that this death follows a string of other men killed solely on the basis of behavioral assumptions that go with black skin. Experts in race relations have a litany of policies and programs that government and business leaders at every level must pay attention to and implement if we are to address racism fully.

But change will happen only if each and everyone of us sees the human being that lies underneath all colors of skin and different contours of eyes and faces. CHANGE happens when all of us make that special effort, because it is an effort. All of us harbor prejudices handed down to us through the ages, so embracing and accepting diverse people requires work. One of the reasons I've tried hard to bring the Global Summit of Women to every corner of the world, no matter how difficult that is to do, is because I hope for the Summit to be a platform through which we break stereotypes about each other. Global is diversity writ large, and solutions will come from all of us ignoring borders and nationalities to see the common human problems underneath, then linking arms to find solutions.