The Waging Peace Podcast

Lessons from History: A DEI Perspective

• Diana K. Oestreich • Season 2 • Episode 15

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Educator and DEI expert Jebeh Edmunds breaks down what we don't know about DEI.

You'll learn:

  • Where Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) originated.
  • How to take action when you experience or witness discrimination in your school or community.
  • Why our fight for justice, peace and equality is happening right now.

This episode delves into the historical context and contemporary relevance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), emphasizing the importance of understanding our past and actively engaging in the fight for equality. 

• DEI has historical roots dating back to the civil rights movement  
• Gender inequalities illustrate the ongoing struggle for equity 
• Emphasizes the role of personal responsibility in fighting injustice 
• Encourages listeners to speak up against discrimination  
• Draws lessons from history to inform future actions  
• DEI continues to be a relevant and necessary conversation 

About Jebeh Edmunds:

Jebeh is an energetic storyteller, full of smiles & dance moves, educator. She loves all things Multicultural and has shared her passion for educating her students and community for over 20 years. She loves good energy, her family, and all of life’s gifts and lessons. 

How to find Jebeh:

  • Instagram: @culturallyjebeh_   
  • YouTube: @mrs.edmundsculturalcorner2226     
  • Facebook: Jebeh Cultural Consulting    
  • Website: https://jebehedmunds.com/

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Diana Oestreich:

Welcome to the show, ms Jeba Edmonds. I am so excited for everyone to get to meet you, because you are one of my favorite people to be with in real life and also one of the people that I learn so much from. You are going to learn everything that you didn't know about DEI. We've been hearing it in the news right now. About DEI, we've been hearing it in the news right now. It is currently the reason why the president has frozen federal funding for tons of people in society. So some of our health clinics, our daycares, our transportations, housing just functional things are being frozen right now because the administration says that they want to eradicate and eliminate anything that is supporting diversity, equity, inclusion.

Diana Oestreich:

So since people are reading this on the news, I figured we would bring in an expert, excuse me. So Mrs Jeba Edmonds is an expert in diversity, equity and inclusion. She is the founder of her business and she also has a podcast. She has a YouTube. She is an educator at heart. Friends, I think you've been in education in elementary schools, which is very brave For over 20 years. She's an award-winning teacher, an award-winning speaker. She's working on her book, but the best thing about her is that she says that she is an educator who has dance moves. So everybody just welcome Mrs Jeba Edmonds to the show.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Thank you, diana, so happy you're here today.

Diana Oestreich:

Thank you, hey everyone. Your passion is diversity, equity and inclusion and, in fact, you're an entrepreneur and your business has been educating people, so you're the expert in the room. But what I wanted people to know is that if you come to this hearing diversity, equity, inclusion but you know what it looks like, maybe in the present tense, but you don't know where it came from, I think the history of it is a really important place for people to start.

Jebeh Edmunds:

There's so many things. Some people think diversity, equity, inclusion just came about after the murder of George Floyd, which is not true. It's been around for decades. You can bring it back to the civil rights movement in the early 1950s to 60s. But what I really want to emphasize is when you do go back and you look at the history of historically marginalized, historically disenfranchised groups of people, historically oppressed people. You are going to find movements of different names, but it means the same thing. You're going to find legislation in place, for example, the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Opportunity Act.

Jebeh Edmunds:

All of these things are rule of law, which now, in 2025, has been questioned and has been amplified as to why do we have this in place? We get that mentality of well, if you pull yourself up by the bootstraps, you'll get those same opportunities. But if we don't understand the reason why privilege in systems have been in place since the blueprint of how this country started, that's why we are where we are, and I help companies and school districts understand that, with those systems that we have in place is a reason why we are not as progressed as we have been. So having those laws in place has been paramount to shifting us to be not just equal but equitable, to be at those places where we feel that we belong. That matters to us as well, and so many of us have heard that mentality. You have to work twice as hard to get just to that level, and that's true with people from marginalized communities. We have to show our pedigree, our accomplishments, and so thinking about that in that context, I think, is really important. This is not something that is new. The foundations of having that diverse and equitable piece and inclusive piece is the keys to what we've already had, if that makes any sense.

Diana Oestreich:

Yeah. So for people who may not identify from a marginalized group, so this might not be something that they personally experience I think it's important to go back and look at it through the lens of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and desegregating schools. This was not about being polite and this was not about even being respectful. This was about dehumanizing and denying american citizens their rights. These were crimes against citizens. So if we look back and say our nation and our laws are stopping dehumanizing and taking away the rights that we're all entitled to, this is what justice and freedom is, because if your principles cannot be applied equally, then then they're not principles, they're prejudice.

Diana Oestreich:

Mm-hmm Very much so, and that ain't free, that's corrupt. So for people who may not have been around in 1960, I'm just going to spin through a few things that women in 1960 legally could not do. So women were not allowed to work in certain jobs. They couldn't be in medicine, they couldn't be a doctor, they couldn't be a lawyer, they couldn't be a police officer or a bus driver. So they could always be homemakers, maids, nurses, people who cleaned up after people, but they couldn't be in the higher professionals.

Diana Oestreich:

People who cleaned up after people, but they couldn't be in the higher professionals. They were not allowed to attend Ivy League schools and married women had no property rights. Also, pregnancy was a fireable offense. Women were not allowed to serve on juries. Women were not allowed to get a loan or a mortgage without a husband co-signing. Women were not allowed to rent an apartment without a male co-signer and women were not allowed to get car insurance if they were divorced. So we're looking at a country that says equality and we believe in freedom and justice for all, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, but 51% of our own citizens were denied equal rights just you know, human rights. So I think people forget that this is truly about how our country was committing crimes against our own people, and so this is what freedom looks like, and I don't think that for many of us, if we didn't live, then we don't recognize that DEI is how we're actually living up to having equality.

Diana Oestreich:

Because, if everybody doesn't have it, then none of us have it.

Jebeh Edmunds:

I also think, too, a lot of us tend to think, well, that was the past, and I would teach my students. It's like we need to learn from our past in order to figure out where we are in the present so we can move on in the future. And we always used to hear that adage of well, if we don't know it, we will repeat it. And that's something where so many of us, especially as educators we fought to have curriculum there for our students so they understood. Yeah, you know, when we go back into our past and there's things we're not proud of, we understand that. But we have to know about it. We have to know the wrongs that happen to our people so we can correct it.

Jebeh Edmunds:

But again, so many of the people in place are trying trying to erase, trying to deny and dismiss that those past wrongdoings ever happened, and a lot of us who are descendants of the people that were here around that time and even predating to slavery and the movement of manifest destiny, you want to call it. There's so many timelines in our history where we can go back and see and go yep, that happened, but look where we are now. But we still have to talk about what happened. So many of us know that timeline is like, no, we don't want to go there, we don't want to talk about it. We want to teach it because it's going to make our group look bad. It's like, despite thinking about optics or your PR of, oh well, that makes our group look bad. So we don't want to teach our kid about Ruby Bridges, because Ruby Bridges just turned. I think she's early 70s, so this is not a long time ago that she was in first grade.

Diana Oestreich:

And this meant that this is our mothers and our fathers, yes, who grew up in this time. Yeah, so it's not that long, is our mothers and our fathers?

Jebeh Edmunds:

and our grandmas, yes, who grew up in this time. Yeah, so it's not that long.

Diana Oestreich:

No, and just recognizing that we, the people, have to make our aspirational values of freedom and justice and fairness and equality. We have to work for those we do, because human nature is just greedy and human nature is pretty corrupt. That says, if you give one person power, if they don't have to share it, they won't.

Diana Oestreich:

If we deny the dignity of the person next to us, all it does is deny our own dignity, and so this is how we have principles and this is how we put them into practice, Because what we continue to see is that we defend discrimination instead of leveling up. I joined the army when I was 17. And my mom when she wanted to join the army. Women weren't allowed to join the military because somehow my kind would take away from the real soldiers. So if you think about how very short that is my mother, it was.

Diana Oestreich:

A segregated army wouldn't allow women, and then her daughter could. And then the military said that they were going to stop discriminating against women and allow them to have any job that a male could have in the military, including a combat role. So in 2013, Congress finally said that we're stopping this discrimination. But the kicker is, I was in combat in 2003 in the Iraq war, so I just couldn't get credit. I mean, they were willing to let my body be cannon fodder. The very first prisoner of war of the Iraq war was private Jessica Lynch.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Yes, I remember that.

Diana Oestreich:

So for them saying they're not allowing the credit and the honor to be in combat. They were obviously putting women in combat, because you can't be the first POW if you're not in combat. So there's one group that only wants to have the honor and the access. But they'll certainly let other people get used, they'll certainly let them do the work. They're just not going to let them have the position. They won't share the position and they won't share the power of that of justice and fairness and equality or we're going to collaborate with defending discrimination and that takes away from us all. That is no kind of legacy that I want any of my children to see a whole bunch of adults who defended discrimination because they wouldn't speak up.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Yeah, and that's it. Complicity can also be a part of the problem as well, but I feel, when it comes to this new era of speaking up, this is kind of like the time is yours is right to do, and so we've had so many opportunities, so many spotlights of decisions that we had in the past, of these movements that come up and get to the surface and we still see, by looking at the past, what happened to move us forward. This is a now spotlight moment. I always say that, and what we're going to do about it is up to us as a nation, as a society, because our future generations are watching to see what actions that we will take, and I think that's a really big piece. I feel that our parents' generation, grandparents' generation they did a lot of work either for or against.

Diana Oestreich:

I come from northern Minnesota Scandinavians not a single person of color in my community. The only people we had were Ojibwe folks and indigenous people. So I grew up hearing these things like slavery was a long time ago. There's no racism, because I've never owned a slave and in reality there are just no black people. So it's pretty easy to have a room of white people saying that something doesn't exist instead of sharing that conversation and sharing that reality thing.

Diana Oestreich:

As Switzerland, Nobody is neutral Like if you look back at the atrocities, and I've been boots on the ground in two places where a genocide has been committed. The thing that I noticed that was most bone chilling to me about it was the faces of the people who did it, because there's pictures, and then also the Rwandan genocide, and so what I kept noticing was that the people who were doing it, they believed that they were doing something good.

Jebeh Edmunds:

And Diana. It started with division. All of it started with division, us versus them, good versus so-called evil, and that is what has had those atrocities around the world. You know I'm an immigrant from Liberia and I was born four months after a horrible coup d'etat. But it all started with division, us versus them, and finding that enemy. You know, I was watching the movie Wicked. I love that Broadway play. My husband and I went on our honeymoon.

Jebeh Edmunds:

There's so many underlying sayings and conversations where you can kind of pinpoint what makes somebody wicked. There always is, and I think Oz said it. The wizard said you always have to find somebody to blame. And when you make it convincing enough for somebody to blame, then everybody gets on board. So changing that narrative, that perception of others, fuels that motivation of wow, there must be something wrong.

Jebeh Edmunds:

And with that misinformation, the more misinformation that we have fed to us, the more that motivation to have those things. So when we're talking about diversity, equity, inclusion, let's blame this acronym and add more misinformation. Oh, she's a DEI hire, or this person didn't earn it. They try to change that to didn't earn it. But when you see the person that has earned it tenfold in their own struggles not saying people from the majority culture don't have struggles. We're in the human experience, we're all struggling, struggling. But to show that because of somebody that is of my identity, gets into a position to look at that person and say, oh, you didn't earn it. How insulting, you know. And that, to me, really shows you how far are we willing to entertain that negative perception of others because we don't want to be that one?

Diana Oestreich:

that's the perceived group right, and I wonder too about us versus them, because we are born into a family that is familiar to us and then we're born into a culture that's familiar to us, and so, yes, there will be an us that feels most familiar, most understood, and what we know most we tend to value the most and see the most good in, only because that's what we're actually.

Diana Oestreich:

Like you said, we have the most information about ourselves and our own group. So I think there is a reality that has an us versus them. But I wonder if it's not the natural difference that causes us to become corrupt in our values and dehumanize someone else as much, as it is a, like you said, blame. And then I also think there's a scarcity, but I think there's this blame thing that it's too hard to just that. Those people are somehow taking what we need Like they're the problem. So we have made somebody a problem instead of addressing the issue, made somebody a problem instead of addressing the issue, and I think that is that horrifically dangerous thing.

Diana Oestreich:

I was in the Roman ghetto, but it's last year around October 7th. It's the place where Rome only allowed Jewish people to live. So they picked the worst place and it was a swamp, a lot of sickness, and they were like, oh no, you don't get to choose jobs and live in certain places. That is our big red flag that we are doing something that takes away from our values, from our principles, from our own integrity. That's what I continue to see in Rwanda. It was the majority had gotten sick of the minority ruling them.

Diana Oestreich:

But, instead of just changing that, they convinced and coerced all their neighbors to say we need to eliminate them. And that is again what we saw in World War II and the Holocaust. It wasn't like, oh man, they're other, it was they're the problem. And for us to do well, we need to eliminate them. And I think that is continuing with this DEI. If things aren't going well for me, I need to solve. I need somebody to blame instead of addressing the issue.

Jebeh Edmunds:

And I think too, diana, when you talked about cultures of familiarity, they love that safe space, they love that like-mindedness group and anybody else that has a different perspective, different lived experience, then all of a sudden they have the shame of who they are. And when we talk about DEI, it's not to spotlight per se the shame, but to say there's different thinking, there's different thoughts. You don't have to look like me, be like me, believe like me, but I have the right to be seen. I have the right to be valued and respected, just like you. But also I also need to be in a place where I feel safe, where my family feels safe, and that we all feel like we belong.

Jebeh Edmunds:

You don't have to agree with me, but you have to at least acknowledge that I'm here for dignity and respect. That doesn't infringe on my right of happiness, liberty and all of those. So that's the thing that we're seeing. When you talked about those red flags, we have red flags, we've had red flags around us for a long time, and so how many flags are we going to just let fester up before we start working as a society? To say this doesn't feel right, and if you have that visceral reaction of something isn't feeling right. I don't like how we're moving as a society. That's your intuition telling you, yeah, something isn't right and Coretta.

Diana Oestreich:

Scott King says that we win or we lose our freedoms in every single generation.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Yes.

Diana Oestreich:

And I always allow her to kick me in the pants and say, diana, it's not somebody else, it's me. You know, Because I also really, really believe that action is the antidote to despair.

Diana Oestreich:

So we're given so much information or misinformation but, I think that, being the same on the inside as the outside, if I believe that people should have equality, that means that if I have something and then the person next to me does not, it is my work to open the door to lift them ahead. Why? Because that's how I keep myself in this place of committed to my own integrity, and I truly do believe that we can't thrive if we are not showing up for each other.

Diana Oestreich:

Yes that's so true? I just don't. I have not seen that to be true at all. And Carter Scott King also reminds us that denying a school child food is violence. Denying a working man a living wage is violence. Denying health care to the sick is violence. So I will always say that violence is the enemy, because violence is what harms our dignity, our souls, our spirits. That's the harm, and so we need to call out the violence of discrimination that DEI is actually fixing.

Diana Oestreich:

So we call out the violence and we call in our people and say, no, you're better than that. No, this is what we really want. But you got to take that stick of discrimination out of your hand because we don't allow that here up. Then they won't know what our values are. They won't know what's fighting for and they won't even know that they are worth fighting for, yeah, that's a generation ahead, always moving.

Jebeh Edmunds:

I feel like, too, we're overwhelmed by even what is DE&I. I always say think of it as what you want as a collective. Who do you want sticking up for you in your time of need? Because there has been so many things through our legal system of all kinds of groups that their life was on the line for a law to be passed. Their life was on the line for a law to be passed. Their life was on the line for the Supreme Court to even rule in their favor for their safety and well-being. And so, looking at those groups, when people think, oh, dei is just people of color, no, white women benefited the most from DEI. All kinds of people benefited, people with invisible disabilities and invisible disabilities. There's so many facets. When we talk about our diverse country, you know that was the benefactors of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Opportunity Act, affirmative action and these things have been struck down. And so, again, like I always say, the time is yours to do. What is that? You see, what you think this country should be? And if that was our aspirations, of our founding fathers, the time is now.

Jebeh Edmunds:

There's so many times we have stumbled, so many times we have climbed the mountains to justice and liberty for all and we're just climbing again, and so many of our people, of those historically marginalized groups, historically oppressed groups, to this day our ancestors have built us to do this.

Jebeh Edmunds:

So a lot of us, when we hear this is freezing and this and that, and people are asking well, why aren't you upset, why aren't you shocked? I said I'm all of those things, but I'm not surprised. And this is the thing that I can do to move my people in my country forward. It might not look like your way, but it's still movement. And there's so many lanes and a highway honey, we still get to that same destination. So just because my lane is one way doesn't mean it is not valuable. And so a lot of people are in this stuckness and shock and awe. I feel a lot of the people in power want us to have that shock and that freeze, but we can't be frozen. We have to be awake, we have to keep moving forward. So that's my best advice.

Diana Oestreich:

Amen, and let's do it because there is this reality that DEI is putting into practice the laws of our land. That's it. The Civil Rights Act was when women got to have even just close to citizenship and equality with other folks. The fact that we didn't allow people to vote that's so undemocratic. So this is the process where our country has the things that we didn't allow people to vote. That's so undemocratic. So this is the process where our country has the things that we preach and then we have to do the hard work of actually practicing them.

Diana Oestreich:

So segregation was legally outlawed in 1954. And in 1964, 10 years later, the people of the land were refusing to actually practice the law. We were refusing to do that, and so there has to be this change. And so I think DEI is how we actually practice what we preach. We have these laws. We know what equality is. If it's not fair, it's just greeting corruption, and we cannot, we don't want to live like that, we don't want our country to be like that, and DI is how we practice these things in our everyday life. Otherwise it can be a law on paper and it can still be absolute discrimination, bigotry and prejudice every day long.

Diana Oestreich:

To check them for that law as well is if you see that you have to make that movement and say no, this is the rule of law, because the last school that was segregated that law enforcement had to bring in to say you cannot still be segregated was 2016 in Mississippi, and they had had a lawsuit since 1954 brought by a fourth grader saying it was illegal that it was segregated. So the resistance to people to doing the right thing is so strong. So I see DEI as this light in the dark that says guess what? We are going to do the hard work of practicing what we preach.

Diana Oestreich:

We want to actually become people of justice and freedom, and when we use our power to hold somebody else back and take it from them, then we become the very thing that we fought to get free from. So that whole thing of like if we have freedom, then we're meant to free the next person, and if we don't, that's something we got to look in the mirror about.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Yeah, a lot of self-reflection. We have a lot of self-reflecting to do.

Diana Oestreich:

So you and I, our children, go to school in the same city and yet two different schools and both of our kids are kids of color, and so when obvious things that are completely against the rules happen I guess we've been through it together on how hard it is and how people just want to act like the rules aren't the rules why? Because they would actually have to do the right thing is a mom or a community member. What is maybe your super simple steps for how they can speak up when they see something that isn't right and how they can call the people who are in charge and in power in our situations. They were principals and they were school board members and we know the laws on our side. So how can people be someone who maybe has never done it before? How do they raise their voice and call the people in charge to doing their job and protecting kids when there's discrimination?

Jebeh Edmunds:

Yeah, that's a very good question, diana. I feel like a lot of the times when it happens, usually we have a lot of bystanders in those incidents and the bystanders also need to have that collective innocence saying. I witnessed that as well, I saw it, I spoke up. Even if your voice shakes, say something, call out the joke, call out the bullying and say, hey, that's not welcomed here. So many of us we were trained to say it's not tolerated. The person that is the offender will go. Well, what will you tolerate? Let me keep trying doing this way. How about this way? But when you say it's not welcomed here, there's just some gravity to that word welcome. We want to be a welcoming space. So when you flip it and say no, no, no, no, that joke isn't welcomed here, that activity, that bullying is not welcomed here, that really puts that person in check.

Jebeh Edmunds:

And when it is the receiving end of somebody who has lived in harm you know that's happened to me personally you are in that shock. You are in I can't believe this just happened. So for somebody else in that room to say in a firm that it did happen, they ask you Jeb, do you need help or action? I will tell you I've got this or you know what, let's go to that supervisor, let's go to that educator, let's go to that school board. Member Document, document, document is my other advice for you. There's always a pattern when it comes to harm, and so when you have seen or witnessed something by an individual or a group of people, document when it happened, where it happened, the time. We always have our phones on us. Put it on your notes app, send it to your personal email, not your work one, so you have a backup of that. That's another big thing as well. So many times when harm has been done and you go to administration and they can't have a case is because the witnesses around there did not back you up. And that is the biggest thing power in numbers. So I always tell students, I always tell adults when I'm doing trainings be that upstander, don't be that bystander. You know you saw it. You don't just pretend you didn't see it. You know you saw it. You don't just pretend you didn't see it. You know you had that shock of look in your eye too when you heard it. Don't pretend, don't text me and say I can't believe. That person just called you, that you can use your phone and document it. You can record if you need to. That's my best advice is you have more power than you think you do and again, with that power of numbers, when more people speak up and say this is not okay, we can overcome what has been happening to us.

Jebeh Edmunds:

And when that harm has been done, a lot of us feel like, oh, harm's done, moving on. We have a lot of repairing to do. We have to repair the harm that has been caused. There's a lot of trauma when it comes to discrimination and violence towards people in those marginalized groups. So we need a lot of repair. We can't just go oh, we had the consequence, now we need to move on. No, as a collective, we need to come back and repair. There's several countries in on. No, as a collective, we need to come back and repair. There's several countries in the world that have had a truth and reconciliation body in their government and we still have a lot of truth and reconciliation that we need to do.

Diana Oestreich:

Rwanda had a truth and reconciliation, and then South Africa. I think it was South Africa.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Yeah, and then South Africa also did.

Diana Oestreich:

One of the cool stories that came out of the truth and reconciliation in Rwanda was because these were neighbors.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Oh yeah, Ethnic groups.

Diana Oestreich:

And this is like with machetes, in like a short amount of days like these were neighbors and neighbors, and so what they said is sometimes they would bring the person into the circle and say you have to come back to yourself. People didn't get exiled from their communities. They got held accountable and the repair was that they were always going to be in this community. But they had to come back to their true selves. Come back to their true selves. What you did, that is outside of who you are. That's outside of who we are, and we're going to hold you to account and you have to let that go. But you belong and we're here for you and we're going to wait until you can say that that wasn't your true self and come back to us, and I think people need to know that. There is something to come back to. Two stories I want to end with. One is when my kids were in elementary school. They had a big anti-bullying campaign.

Jebeh Edmunds:

So I was hearing about the kids coming home.

Diana Oestreich:

you know, like I think we're oftentimes willing to teach our kids when they're little to do good, be their best, and when kids get older and adults now, we just let them, like, talk with their mouth full and do awful things and have no manners. I'm just horrified by this.

Diana Oestreich:

But the thing that I remember to this day about that bullying campaign is that they were teaching kindergartners through fifth graders, not to be bystanders and they were charging them with saying three words, because if these three words are spoken, 90% of bullying incidences end in under five minutes. Three words, hey, stop that. And I was like man, if we can put it on kindergartens, through fifth graders to not be bystanders and to commit to saying hey, stop that. Then I remember making a promise saying Diana, if you see something that isn't right, if you see someone getting talked to badly, you see someone being intimidated, you know where your eyes pop. You're like I can't believe this is happening. I am promising myself and I am forcing myself to say those three words. Come hell or high water, I will say those three words.

Diana Oestreich:

The other story is about when a woman corrected me from something that I was doing Horribly embarrassing, like I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm going to say it because I'm going to tell the truth of myself.

Diana Oestreich:

I had my elementary school kids in my car and I am texting while I'm driving and this car comes by me with this elderly woman in it and then she kind of looks at me and is like stop that. And I'm like, oh, like she saw me, I'm embarrassed, I like I, I know I'm doing wrong. But the worst thing is I was turning left and she was turning right and we got stuck at the stoplight together together. She gets out of her car, she walks over to my car, she knocks on my driver's side window and she looks at me and says oh honey, you cannot be texting and driving because those kids in the back are so precious and I know you want to keep them safe, but you're shooketh. Precious and I know you want to keep them safe, but you were shooketh. Oh, worst mother of the year. And at the same time I am so grateful for her because she held me.

Jebeh Edmunds:

I was looking out for you.

Diana Oestreich:

I want my highest self, my better self. She saw what I was doing and pointed me to come back to the thing that I really am, which is yeah, I'm a good mom. Yeah, I want to be safe. Yeah, I want to do the right thing, but in that moment I wasn't and she cared enough about my kids.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Stop her car and tell you yeah.

Diana Oestreich:

Yes, and so I am so grateful for her. She was ballsy. I was like I don't think I'd care about someone else's kids safety enough to like waddle myself out of my car and knock on somebody's window. I still think about her and I think, man well, I care enough to call someone to be who they really want to be and not who they just might be slumming it for the minute.

Jebeh Edmunds:

I wasn't living up to my principles.

Diana Oestreich:

I wasn't doing my best. I want to be like that because I needed that. It did the right thing for me and my kids and it was sacrificial.

Jebeh Edmunds:

It left an imprint. Yeah, and again we need to be able to care enough for our fellow neighbor and community member to stop and say I care about our generation coming up, I care about us, and we need to again rally together and move for the greater good. I think that is really important. I want people to, when they're listening to this, to think that DEI is never going to go away. It hasn't gone away. It's nothing to be fearful of.

Jebeh Edmunds:

If you are curious, I've got lots of things on my website, jebaedminscom, that has mini workshops that you can learn more about, and I also want you to know if we change the name or acronym to something else, it'll always be the same principles, it will always be that rule of law, because that's what our people of all walks have lived for, died for, and we cannot give up on what they sacrificed for us to be here for.

Jebeh Edmunds:

So that's something I want us to understand that the noise has always been the noise, even in civil rights era, even in all the things in our history, in our timeline. Like I said, there's always been noise. So don't let that discourage you, but I really want your listeners to understand knowledge is power, and so get the resources from people of those lived experiences, listen to their podcasts, read their books, because that is the knowledge you're going to understand why we have laws in place for this. And that's when a lot of people are questioning. It's like but if you knew the backstory of the laws, if you knew the groups of people that lived, if you knew the groups of people that lived, prayed and died for that law to become in fruition, you would also understand why so many people want to disrupt, dismantle and dismiss it. And without knowing the backstory, that's also dangerous as well.

Diana Oestreich:

Right and it's inviting people into being a good ancestor. This can be our heritage. When we stand up for each other and we stand up for fairness and equality and we demand it, we get to join this worldwide group of people who have always echoed that human dignity and respect is essential to life. They say that unarmed truth and unconditional love is the most powerful weapon, and I think, unarmed truth and unconditional love. That is what DEI is in practice.

Diana Oestreich:

It's saying we want to be the people who are putting the best out there when anybody doesn't get full access to a job, to dignity, to a profession, to education, healthcare. That takes away from all of us. So we get to be part of something good if we decide to be a champion for it. There's a good thing that we get to invite our kids to doing Like the struggle might not be done, but if we don't struggle, we are collaborating with something. Because I think in every moment you've ever been in, the bystander is the one who really broke my heart, really betrayed me, the person who's doing it there's a jerk. Every other day they're picking on me. I'm five feet tall and I'm a woman this is not news to me but the bystanders, that's the ones that really robbed me of my faith in humanity.

Diana Oestreich:

It was the people who turned away instead of taking responsibility and helping speak up. So I thank you so much for doing your work, jeba. Thank you for the things that are seen that you do, and then a thousand things that are unseen.

Jebeh Edmunds:

Thanks a lot.

Diana Oestreich:

Also want to tell everybody that Jeba was the emcee for the first ever Inaugural Duluth Peace Hero Awards and I'm telling you like it was a moment about what peace can do and the people that we're honoring, and I just want everybody to know that Miss Jeba brings it. So at the end of every podcast we wrap up with these three rapid fire questions. So don't overthink it, there's no right or wrong, it is just straight from the hip. The first question is what's your superpower?

Jebeh Edmunds:

My superpower is oh, I'm a good observer. When I walk into a space, I can feel if I really do belong here, and if I don't belong here, I make it make myself known that, oh, you didn't want me in this space, but me and my people are in this space, so you have to see me, you know. So that's my superpower, that hyper observant.

Diana Oestreich:

So number two how do you play?

Jebeh Edmunds:

Oh, I love to dance. Growing up, you know I'm an African woman, so we dance in joy, we dance in sadness, we dance through grief, we dance through new life, and so that's my play. I love dancing. I grew up dancing in a professional studio from fifth grade to twelfth grade, and also was on the collegiate level on our collegiate dance team, so we were one of the first to make it to nationals. So go Bulldogs. So dance is my play. It's my first love yeah.

Diana Oestreich:

Last one. What's your purpose?

Jebeh Edmunds:

My purpose in life. In life, you know. I remember my grandmother. When I graduated from umd, she asked me, you know?

Jebeh Edmunds:

oh what is your degree. My child and I'm like communication and she would just tease like you got your degree to talk, but she goes. But you are meant to teach the children and I ended up being a television broadcast producer. Then I went back to school and became a classroom teacher for 10 plus years. So I feel that my purpose is to talk and share culture and multicultural education. That's my passion, but also to teach to teach who will listen. With this business, I've been very successful teaching over 80 companies and multiple school districts and teaching teachers all over the country how to show up for their BIPOC students, and that is my purpose.

Diana Oestreich:

Thank you, jeba, for living into your purpose. Thank you for sharing your expertise. I will put in the show notes where everybody can hire you. They can learn from you. You're the educator that is a dream to learn from. Thank you and your perspective. You've just put so much hope and practice into this, so I'm ready to rock and listeners, do the three things that she said. I'm going to do it and then put in your pocket today and this week, if you see something that isn't okay and when I say that I mean if you wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it just say those three words hey, stop that.

Diana Oestreich:

So thank you so much, Ms Jeba.

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Diana K Oestreich

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