Backstroke & Breakthroughs – Post #15
I didn’t need a DEI certification to know that inclusion matters.
I learned that at the dinner table.
Growing up as one of eleven kids in a blended, biracial, and adopted family on the east side of Cleveland, I got a crash course in diversity before I ever walked into a professional space. My siblings and I were different shades, different stories, different struggles. Colorism? We felt it in real time. Generational trauma? That lived in our walls. But so did love. So did wisdom. And the one person who made sure we never forgot how to respect each other, no matter what?
My grandmother.
She was our anchor. She had this way of holding space without controlling it. She taught me early on that dignity isn’t something you earn it’s something you owe to other people, simply because they exist.
And now, as I sit in meetings where “diversity” or “IDE” gets mentioned like a buzzword or a budget line, I feel a fire rise in me. Because this is not just policy—it’s people. And with public media stations collapsing under political pressures and funding cuts, I have to ask: What happens to the people public media was created for?
If we strip away the inclusive voices, the bilingual content, the spaces for rural, queer, disabled, and Black and brown communities, what’s left?
Who are we broadcasting to?
Who gets left behind?
I’ve spent the last few years building and advocating from the inside. I’ve facilitated DEI trainings. I’ve been the only voice in the room pushing for broader hiring, accessible events, real representation. And I’ve seen firsthand how much resistance still exists especially when money’s tight and leadership doesn’t reflect the audience it claims to serve.
This week’s takeaway:
Inclusion isn’t a box to check. It’s a muscle. It needs stretching. It needs repetition. And it needs heart.
Growing up, I learned how to manage conflict not from textbooks, but from living in a house where every personality clashed at least once a day. And in the middle of that chaos, we made it work. We learned how to talk to each other. How to listen. How to apologize and try again. Those skills carried into every boardroom, every webinar, every DEI session I’ve ever led.
And now I ask: How can we let our media spaces fall apart when so many of us finally started to see ourselves in them?
I don’t have every answer. But I have this: a commitment to keep trying. To keep innovating. To keep creating room for those who are constantly pushed to the edges.
Because public media was never supposed to belong to just a few.
It belongs to all of us.
Loud and unwavering,
– J.R.
Brufay 
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