I feel honored to be included in this recent, and excellent book by Shari Dunn, an award-winning journalist, CEO, educator and author. It’s about one of my favorite topics: the importance of reality, aka diversity, in all facets of professional and public life.
I could tell that “Qualified: How Competency Checking and Race Collide at Work” (2025) would be deeply insightful with much-needed perspective, just from the questions Dunn asked me during the interview she conducted with me many months ago.
As a longtime media executive and journalist, I usually ask the questions and I was extremely impressed with her research and thoughtful approach. I am but a small part of this journey, but again, excited to be included and hopeful that shared experiences and hard-hitting statistics will prevail during a critical time in our country. Speaking of timing: This book is a must read for anyone in business, and is gratifying for women of color, and me as a Black woman, who all too often find ourselves on the very edge of glass cliffs.
You’ll be struck by Dunn’s engaging and enlightening use of historic and contemporary anecdotes, including a U.S. soldier coming home triumphant to be immediately faced with Jim Crow laws that emboldened a bus driver to call him a “boy” and instigate a devastating, debilitating attack by racist police.
She delves into her own history where she was part of a competency check… at birth. A nurse at the hospital in which she was born misspelled her name on her birth certificate after doubting, and overriding, Dunn’s own mother’s decision.
Sigh.
I can’t do the full work justice with a few sentences. Buy the book HERE and if you want to have a book club discussion, let me know, I’m in.