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Posts published in “The Oppy Allyship Series”

The Next Step: How the Stern EMBA experience changed our lives

The Oppy is proud to continue ‘The Next Step,’ a new monthly series that will feature recent graduates who’ve made exciting moves after Stern. We hope that their stories will inspire you and excite you about what’s next.  

By Mambu Sherman, Christian McKenzie, Jay Freeman, Broderick Johnson, Matthew C. Meade, Allix Wright, Veronique Hutchinson, Michael Serwadda

Our Journey

The average percentage of Black students in a United States MBA program lingers around 8%. For context, it’s 5% at Harvard. The most recent cohort to graduate from NYU Stern was a record 20% Black. While top business schools and corporations struggle to recruit and retain Black talent, these nine recent NYU Executive MBA graduates reflect on the face of today’s Executive MBA: young, talented, and Black.…

Make Room

My inbox has been flooded with hordes of hollow buzzwords and claims of solidarity to form a vague “we.” Not to fight for, and stand with, our black brothers and sisters, but to strengthen the brand. To sell a product. Jarrett Lucas, Executive Director of the Stonewall Community Foundation, said it best: “Informed by doctrines of capitalism and white supremacy, [we] expect good leaders to set themselves aside, to offer an objective yet discernibly human voice when representing an organization.”

We claim to be empathizing. We claim to be “with the cause,” but so many of us are caught up in the petty nuances of protest that we fail to make space and let these voices be heard.…

In the Fight: Community-Led Change in North Brooklyn

In the Fight North Brooklyn is a community activism group that began in 2019. Tobi and Chelsea, two of its founding members, joined the Oppy for a conversation on effective political engagement, protests in NYC, difficult conversations, and more. To learn more about In the Fight, check them out at https://linktr.ee/inthefightnbk or on social media @inthefightNBK.

Listen to the interview in its entirety below.


Mattia: Tell me about yourself!

Chelsea: Definitely, I can start. My name is Chelsea, obviously. I’ve been in New York City for about three years, currently located in Bushwick. I am originally from Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve been involved in politics in different ways for a while.…

The Urgency of Redefining Sustainability to Include Racial Equality at Reformation

By Christine Tan

By now you might have seen this meme circulating on Twitter and Instagram, comically poking fun at the hollowness of messages on behalf of brands claiming to support the Black community. 

What has transpired since early June has been the “outing” of brands and CEOs that claim to support the Black community, but have failed to own up to their own shortcomings in anti-racist efforts within their own ranks. In other words, these companies are virtue signaling — showing support for a cause via a black Instagram tile without doing any internal work. Employees have been speaking up to decry not only a failure of diversity and inclusion programs, but toxic racist cultures and their leaderships’ attempts to subordinate Black talent at those companies. …

Learning from the LGBTQ Movement

By Bryan Huang

What worked? What did we learn? How can we apply these answers to the Black Lives Matter movement?

To my LGBTQ+ family:

As Pride month kicks off, I find myself reflecting on the journey of the LGBTQ+ movement set against the backdrop of current events — the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the subsequent ongoing protests that have sprung up around the world. New York hosted World Pride last year (June 2019), marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the riots that started our movement.

To mark this momentous occasion, during the first half of 2019, social media was flooded with countless articles recounting the story of Stonewall.…

If McKinsey Truly Wants Racial Equity, It Must Start with Itself

By Kathleen Dillon

In recent weeks, inboxes and social media feeds have been flooded with corporate responses to the death of George Floyd. Management consulting giant McKinsey & Company has been part of this outpouring of support for the Black community. On June 1, the company released a statement regarding the death of George Floyd, emphasizing its commitment to racial equality. Then on June 12, McKinsey outlined ten concrete actions it will take to address issues of racial injustice. While these actions should certainly be lauded, the firm’s ongoing work in the prison industry remains problematic and stands in blunt opposition to its stated commitment to racial equity.  …

It Would Never be Me

By Raechel Shaw

There was a time I thought that it would never be me; could never be me. I have, after all, navigated this unfair world, unscathed by the horrors of racism. That is to say that I have never been pulled over (I rarely drive), followed while shopping (that I can recall) or called the n-word (to my face). That white lie, no pun intended, that I told myself — that it would never be me — ensured my survival.  I have flourished in white spaces (be it the prestigious K-12 or Ivy League undergraduate institutions that I attended or the large companies I have worked for), amassed white friends, and succeeded in colluding so as not to give any of them a reason to feel threatened by me.…

Lets Do Better – Recommended Reading

Many of us find it difficult to act or speak out, out of fear of doing or saying something ignorant. But all action, including inaction, can lead to unintended consequences. To bridge the gap between the two, we’ve collected a baker’s dozen of recommended reads from various genres to help us all understand the current state of affairs and be more informed allies and citizens of the world. Thank you to all of those who provided recommendations and for the conversations that came about through making this list. Many of these books are available as e-books through NYU libraries website, however we highly recommend buying these books to support these incredible authors. …

The Model Minority Myth: The Silence it Breeds, The Privilege it Enables, and its Impact on Social Activism

by Hugh and Douglas Mo

Over the last week or so, we have all been outraged, saddened, and dismayed. The unconscionable deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and the countless others at the hands of police brutality have prompted us to reflect on our own experiences as Asian Americans. We have a moral obligation to speak up and stand in solidarity with the Black community. We realized that to become better allies, we have to first examine our unwitting internalization of the model minority myth. As Asian Americans, we have both benefited from the model minority myth, a pernicious trope that we expound below.…

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