by WOCinTech Chat, used under CC BY 2.0
For me coaching isn’t only about making a ton of money… $10K months and multiple six-figure years.
It’s about social change. It’s about people taking their power back, standing up for what the believe in, speaking up for what isn’t right and then DOING what it takes to create change.
And, yes, some of this is about making more money, because money is a source of influence – let’s not pretend it isn’t. It’s how we use that influence that’s important.
So, last night a friend asked me to look over her website images.
One of the things I was immediately struck by in her images was the lack of diversity. Everyone more or less looked white. If you used your imagination someone could have been Latin or mixed. And, diversity is a part of her brand.
There was no one Black/African, east Asian, south Asian, or obviously Latin. I fully admit there are many more colors, nationalities, and backgrounds I’ve missed here but that’s a super long list and I hope you will extrapolate.
Actually, I’d love if you’d share a picture and your nationality (combined nationalities if you’re mixed) below so we can truly get sense of the diversity in this world.
Back to my story. My friend’s branding involves diversity so she replied to my note saying, “I hear you” and went hunting.
More than 6 hours later she got back to me with, “I’ve searched and searched and I think I’ve found 4 options.” Four options?
I immediately thought, she’s looking at the wrong websites, and did my own mini-search. I have some pretty good resources. And whoa!! Pictures showing diversity were really hard to find.
Well, they were there, but the majority of images were only available if you paid for them.
Diversity is not an upsell. Diversity exists and we, especially those of us who want to be fairly represented and believe in fair representation in the online community, need to say and do something about it.
We can take images of diverse people, share more diverse images, and speak about this topic.
I believe the coaching community is about personal AND social change and we have to start taking action to make it more meaningful and about more than just money.
The money will come but I hope that’s not the ONLY reason we do ANYTHING.
Vivian Ngai has provided an awesome resource for Women of Color in Tech on her blog. However, that’s not enough. We need more images of men and women of color available in stock photos – even the free ones.
If you agree share this message on your own blog and start a dialogue somewhere… anywhere. Start taking and sharing more pictures showing diversity and tagging them #diversityinstockphotos.
I’m not a photographer but I’ll do whatever else I can as an Indo Canadian woman. Please join me!
