In the shadow of the national reckoning that swept the United States after the murder of George Floyd, the Walmart Product Organization Leadership required each team to dedicate a portion of their regularly scheduled staff meetings to cover Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) learning and development topics and materials. Within the Product Org, the Strategy & Governance Office (SGO) landed on 20 minutes in every other bi-weekly meeting to cover DEI topics self-selected by the presenters.

In March of 2022, I was asked to gather the content for that month's DEI spotlight. As a writer and storyteller, I pride myself on being attuned to language, both written and spoken. Microaggressions take many forms, but one that we are frequently unaware of is the language we use day-to-day to express ourselves and to describe our work. Similar to the emergence of Accessibility as a priority, I believe that ensuring the words we use both internally with associates and externally with our customers are free of the aggression that is so prevalent in the language we have (literally) inherited.

As the Subject Matter Expert representing the SGO's Center of Excellence in the area of Communications, Engagement and Change Management I researched the topic of Inclusive Language, found examples of words our team commonly used, (examples: "Brown Bag Session" and "Grandfathering"), and lead the 21 members of the senior SGO team through a discussion on the topic. After explaining the theory of Inclusive Language and providing examples, I polled the team through quizzes to make the presentation interactive and enriching. After my presentation, I led the team through a lively discussion that resulted in a degree of relfection most team members articuated that they had never had before.

Please find my presentation slides below, and I urge you as a viewer to examine your use of language and how you may be employing non-inclusive language in your communcations. And feel free to download the PDF and repurpose this document for your own exploration of Inclusive Language in a future team meeting!

The presentation led to an engaged conversation on the subject of Inclusive Language and the words we take for granted as commonplace, but are actually frequently weighed down by privilege and at times microaggression. Personally, I felt as though this presentation and discussion, momentary as they were, is an example of the necessary work I must do individually as an anti-racist and ally of marginalized people.