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Singleton then asked those
in the audience to raise their hands “if you believe you
treat everyone with dignity and respect.” Far fewer hands
were raised this time.
“Therein lies the
challenge,” she said. “There is always a circumstance in
which we fail to treat everyone with dignity and respect.
How many times have we disrespected someone and not even
realized it?”
Dignity and respect are
not actually hard to understand, Singleton continued. “It is
a personal value or commitment to treat others in an
appropriate manner.”
Singleton then led the
audience through a series of exercises designed to inform
the listeners how to commit to treating others with dignity
and respect and then how to follow up on the pledge.
Singleton, a Pittsburgh
resident, was the first chief inclusion and diversity
officer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She
earned a bachelor’s degree in legal studies from the
University of California Berkeley and an MBA from Pepperdine
University. Prior to her move to Pittsburgh, Singleton led
diversity departments at Motorola and Sun Microsystems.
After the keynote address
at the YWCA Summit, two panel discussions followed. The
first panel discussed the issue of confronting community
disparities. Doni Miller, CEO of Neighborhood Health
Association, was the moderator and the panelists were: Dr.
Kent Bishop, who spoke of infant mortality and other health
disparities; Wendi Huntley, on food and nutrition; John
Jones, on corporate disparities in the board room and
beyond.
The second panel discussed
social determinants and social factors and was moderated by
Emile Avery of United Way of Greater Toledo. Panelists were
Patty Hernandez, who spoke on documented and undocumented
workers; Ward Bennett, EdD, on education disparities; Rachel
Gardner, on juvenile justice; Reem Subel, on Muslim
discrimination.
Lisa McDuffie, CEO of the
YWCA of Northwest Ohio closed the summit and issued the call
to action. |
