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Photo credits: (1) Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, (2) Christian Petersen/Getty Images North America, (3) U.S. Sports – Stripes

Please see links to several of my other resources and my blogs about sports and diversity at the bottom of this page.

It is no secret that I enjoy sports, including writing about the intersection of sports and my professional field of diversity consulting. And even in my own life, I started my journey, against all odds, of training as an adult competitive figure skater at the tender age of 59! (You can read all about this journey on my figure skating page.)

Recently (Sunday, April 29th) my spirit was uplifted by 3 wonderful stories in our Raleigh News and Observer sports section that prominently included diversity aspects. The three stories included a football star with a missing hand, a WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) star experiencing new motherhood with her wife, and an immigrant African girl routinely beaten and growing up in poverty coming to America and becoming a college track star.

Here is a short look at these three wonderful stories:

1) Overcoming a disability. Linebacker Shaquem Griffin, after four years of playing on the University of Central Florida’s football team, was recently drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, where he will join his twin brother Shaquill. This one handed young man, with great speed, a knack for the ball, and an infectious enthusiasm, overcame the disability of a missing hand to become the American Athletic Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year, and the first one-handed player to be drafted by the NFL. Link to full Orlando Sentinel Story.

2) LGBT Acceptance. WNBA star Diana Taurasi’s wife Penny Taylor recently gave birth to a son on March 1st. Heartwarming stories of star athletes becoming parents for the first time are quite common as “human interest” stories in the news, but societal progress toward acceptance of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) people into mainstream society is demonstrated by the simple “matter of fact” “no big deal” way this story of the lesbians moms is portrayed. Link to full Associated Press Story.

3) An immigrant growing up with abuse and poverty. As a young girl in Ghana after her mother died, Amanda Agana was raised by an aunt who routinely beat her, smasher her fingers with rocks, and singed her skins with a smoldering end of a stick. When she was eleven, Amanda was adopted and brought to the United States by Carol Meadows, a nurse-practitioner from Arkansas. During the long emotional and physical healing process, Amanda’s skill of running away to avoid constant beatings was channeled into winning races on her high school track team. Now Amanda is attending the US Naval Academy, where she is an emerging college track star. Link to Washington Post story.

These three stories illustrate how determination can help people overcome disabilities, societal stigma, prejudice, poverty and physical challenges to become empowered people achieving great things and a fulfilling life.

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Link to Resource: Breaking Barriers: Strategies for Inclusivity in Sports

Links to some my other blogs featuring diversity and sports

A blog about Bridge II Sports, a local non-profit with a robust series of athletic programs for people with disabilities.

Five Key Messages on The Importance of Out Gay Olympic Athletes, which also includes links to two blogs featuring a series of fabulous out gay figure skaters.

Fortunate is the NFL Team that Drafts Out Gay Football Standout Michael Sam!

Football, Bullying and LGBT Diversity – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Five Important Ramifications of NBA Pro Basketball Player Jason Collins’ Coming Out

And finally, a link to my whole series of “Get Up” Blogs inspired by US Figure Skating’s “Get Up” campaign, with the theme, that, in all aspects of our lives, like in figure skating, we may fall, but the more times we get up and persevere, the stronger we become.

I thank Zainab Baloch for her excellent assistance with this blog (see short bio at the end of the post.)

NOTE: Stan Kimer is a retired IBM executive and successful DEIB entrepreneur / consultant who is now seeking paid board positions with large or medium size companies. Link to a blog about my credentials.

About four years ago, I read a blog called “5 Things to Never Say to a Black Person” and that inspired me to write “5 Things to Never Say to a Gay Person” which was my first blog to go viral. I thought – wow, how cool! So, I later followed with “5 Common Misconceptions about Gay People” and “5 Things to Never Say to Transgender People”.

Then two years later my Hispanic colleague Elsa Maria Jimenez Salgado wrote “5 Things to Never Say to an Hispanic Person” and “Five Misconceptions about Hispanic People.”

Now my next series is about the often misunderstood and demonized group in the USA – Muslims. Here is Part 2 of this series, “Five Misconceptions of Muslims in the USA.” And do read Part 1, “Five Things to Never Say to a Muslim.”

For this two blog series, I have collaborated with Zainab Baloch, a young local Muslim woman here in Raleigh, NC who ran for Raleigh City Council and got close to winning, and one of her friends who I recently met, Desire Clemons. I thank both of them, and additional information about Zainab is at the end of this blog.

1) They do not believe in God and hate all Jews and Christians. Actually, Islam is one of the three Abrahamic faiths and shares many of the same tenants as Judaism and Christianity. Muslims do believe in the Old Testament (Torah) and the New Testament and Jesus. They believe there is one God and call Him “Allah.”

2) They are all terrorists. Just as an extremely small percentage of Christians are radical extremists condoning violence, the percentage of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims (23% of the earth’s population) who are terrorists is infinitesimal. Honestly, if even 1% of the world’s Muslim were terrorists, we would all be dead by now. Most Muslims are peace loving people integrated within all our communities and serve as our teachers, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, social workers, etc.

3) Most Muslims in the USA immigrated here and many are undocumented immigrants. Actually, according to Pew Forum Research, over 40% of the Muslims in the USA were born here, and over half of those are third generation Americans. And a vast majority of those Muslim who immigrated to the US are well educated and documented.

4) All Muslims are Arabs. Although Islam is often associated with the Arab world and the Middle East, fewer than 15% of Muslims are Arab. By far, the largest populations of Muslims live in Southeast Asia. And of the Muslims in the USA, about a quarter of them are Arab and a quarter are African-American.

5) Muslim women have no rights; they are the property of their fathers and husbands. Actually, a vast majority of Muslim women are viewed as equal human beings with men and have key leadership roles and professional lives. Certainly there is a small percentage of the Muslim population who practice their faith in such a way that the male patriarchy controls women, and some of the gender issues in the Muslim community are the same as facing the world in general.

I would encourage all readers of this blog to familiarize themselves with Islam, make some friends with Muslim people and perhaps attend a community or educational event held by your local mosque, and help shatter these crazy stereotypes.

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A little about Zainab Baloch

Zainab is a Raleigh native, first generation American, and ran for Raleigh City Council in 2017. She is an advocate for issues facing our city and has a long-standing foundation of community service in various leadership positions. She is the third vice chair of the Wake County Democrat Party, and serves on various boards including WakeUP Wake County, The Islamic Association of Raleigh (link) Board, etc. She works in quality management for the Divison of Mental Health and is almost done with her Masters in Public Administration from UNC-CH (she’s a die hard wolfpack fan though).

Website: votebaloch.com
Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/Snapchat: @votebaloch

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Three earlier blogs I have written about Islam and Muslims:

Islamaphobia – a Growing US Diversity Issue

Workforce Diversity – Islam (Muslims) in the American Workplace

The Intersection of Islam and LGBT