April is Celebrate Diversity Month

Each April, Celebrate Diversity Month offers a chance to recognize, honor, and learning about diverse customs, cultures, and experiences. This international observance established in 2004 “to recognize and honor the diversity surrounding us all.” The goal is to gain a greater awareness of and appreciation for the unique backgrounds and identities of others to better leverage diverse perspectives for greater innovation, problem-solving, productivity, and collaboration.

Diversity comes in many forms, including gender identity, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, generation, disability, age, nationality, ancestry, regional identity, veteran status, economic status, social class origin, language, dialect, and more that deserve recognition. To get started, view the program guide created by The Diversity Movement here.

Here are a few books, movies, shows, and podcasts to learn about and honor diversity during Celebrate Diversity Month and all year long.

Read

• “How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram Kendi –A memoir and social commentary that discussions concepts of racism and anti-racist actions to create systemic changes.
• “We Can’t Talk about That at Work! How to Talk about Race, Religion, Politics, and other Polarizing Topics” by Mary Frances Winters – A guide that lay the groundwork for having bold, inclusive conversations in the workplace.
• “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini – The story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father’s servant, caught in the tragic sweep of history that transports readers to Afghanistan at a tense and crucial moment of change and destruction.
• “Brown Girls” by Daphne Palasi Andreades – A poetic love letter to a modern generation of brown girls that explores the lives of a group of friends and their immigrant families from Queens, New York.
• “Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning” by Cathy Park Hong – A collection of essays that blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America.
  

Watch

• Just Mercy – World-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner.
• Milk – The story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California’s first openly gay elected official.
• Wonder – Based on the New York Times bestseller, this movie tells the incredibly inspiring and heartwarming story of August Pullman, a boy with facial differences who enters the fifth grade, attending a mainstream elementary school for the first time.
• Minari – A Korean American family’s move from California to an Arkansas farm in the 1980s and their quest for stability and success amid arising challenges
• Coco – Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family’s ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer.
• The Invisible War – An investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape of soldiers within the US military.
  

Listen

• Untapped – Features movers and shakers in the diversity and inclusion space who talk about ways to make the workplace more equitable for the untapped talent that may have been overlooked in the past.
• Code Switch – Stories about intersectionality and how it impacts every area of people’s lives, from the home to the workplace and everywhere in between.
• Women at Work – Discuss the various challenges women face in the workplace. Topics discussed include the wage gap, gender discrimination, productivity, and dealing with workplace stress.
• Diversity Beyond the Checkbox –DEI leaders discuss what diversity means to them and the steps they take to go beyond the checkbox to grow their organizations. Recent episodes address transgender issues in the workplace, inclusion and representation in law enforcement, and diversity in entrepreneurship.
• Undistracted with Brittany Packnett Cunningham – From the latest headlines to deep-dives with today’s most fascinating changemakers, this activist, educator, and popular TV commentator focus on the most pressing issues of our time through the lens of intersectional feminism.