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Darren keeps it brief tonight — he's got an early morning, a bag already packed for the office, and a to-do list that needs to be done before bed. Labor Day weekend did not go the way he planned. A migraine hit Friday night and didn't fully let go until Monday afternoon — two full days in bed, light sensitivity that started the whole thing, and a suspicion about monk fruit and stevia sweeteners that turned out to be a hydration problem instead. Still not fully clear on how the light sensitivity kicked it off. That's a question for the neurologist. Speaking of which — the health schedule is stacking up. Eye appointment tomorrow for contacts. Neurology on the 16th, almost a full year since his last visit. Therapy the following week. And then the second medial branch block on the 22nd — the follow-up to the first RFA step that gave him real but partial relief. He's hoping round two is more complete. He's also dealing with a flash drive that his computer refuses to read, a second IBJ article about Indiana's entrepreneurial ecosystem he wants to dig into properly before commenting on, and the ongoing reality that the state keeps putting itself before its citizens. Thursday and next week are where the real substance lands. Tonight he's just checking in. After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, migraine, Labor Day weekend, light sensitivity, hydration, monk fruit, stevia, eye appointment, contacts, neurology appointment, medial branch block, RFA round two, therapy, back pain, lumbar arthritis, Indianapolis Business Journal, Indiana entrepreneurship, flash drive, health schedule, real talk, Black podcast, September 2026, checking in, early morning, keeping it brief,

Twenty states into this series. Twenty consecutive times Anti-Black bias has led the cumulative hate crime data. Massachusetts makes it twenty — at 673 incidents, the highest raw Anti-Black count the series has documented in any state. But the number that defines Massachusetts above everything else is Anti-Jewish at 492. The previous series record was Illinois at 233. Maryland at 199. Massachusetts is 492 — more than double either. The federal case file explains it: four bias-motivated fires at Jewish community centers across Greater Boston, a homemade bomb placed at the entrance of Ruth's House — a Jewish senior living facility in Longmeadow — discovered before it detonated, a man who fled to Sweden with his brother's electronic devices to obstruct the federal investigation and was sentenced to more than three years in March 2025, and a Massachusetts man who called two synagogues and a Jewish organization on a single morning in January 2024 threatening to kill Jewish children and bomb their places of worship. This episode also covers the full cumulative data — 2,424 total bias incidents, nearly double Maryland's count — plus a 2023 spike from 477 to 630 incidents, one of the sharpest single-year increases in the series. Destruction and Vandalism leads at 902, the series high. Aggravated Assault at 369, the series high. School-Elementary/Secondary at 171, the new series high. School-College/University at 145, also the series high. Church, Synagogue, Temple, or Mosque at 118, the series high. Combined educational settings: 345 documented hate crimes. Four additional federal cases: a man sentenced to seven and a half years for threatening an interracial couple, a man who drove his car into a Vietnamese father in front of his three children, a California man who threatened to bomb Merriam-Webster's Springfield offices over dictionary definitions of "woman," and a Texas man who threatened a Boston Children's Hospital doctor for caring for transgender patients. Twenty states. The pattern has not broken once. Timestamps00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:46 - The Thesis04:32 - The Opening06:52 - The Background09:22 - The Data17:01 - Personal Thoughts19:44 - Closing Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you. Massachusetts hate crimes 2024, anti-Black hate crimes Massachusetts, anti-Jewish hate crimes Massachusetts, Boston area Jewish arson hate crime, Ruth's House bomb Longmeadow, Massachusetts synagogue threats, hate crimes through 2024 series, Massachusetts school hate crimes, Asian American hate crime Massachusetts, Afternoon Coffee Break Darren Watts,

March 7th, 1965: six hundred marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, met with clubs and tear gas. Five months later, the Voting Rights Act became law — ninety-five years after the Fifteenth Amendment had already promised the same thing on paper. Sixty years later, this past April, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in a case that guts the last major enforcement tool that law had left. This episode traces the throughline: the legal toolkit Southern states built after 1870 to get around the Fifteenth Amendment — poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, all-white primaries — and how the Voting Rights Act dismantled most of it within a year of passage. Then we follow the modern rollback: Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, the honest (and genuinely contested) research on voter ID laws and turnout, and this April's Louisiana v. Callais decision, which already forced Louisiana to suspend an in-progress primary and redraw its congressional map. This show doesn't tell you who to vote for. It tells you what's actually at stake, and why a fight that started at Selma is still being decided in 2026. Hate Crimes Through 2024 continues every Monday, same as always. TIMESTAMPS00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:37 - The Thesis04:13 - Opening05:36 - The Background07:12 - The Data10:23 - Personal Thoughts11:52 - Closing Follow Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts wherever you get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts, a rating and review helps new listeners find this conversation. Election Day is November 3rd. Whatever you decide to do with that day — decide it on purpose. The Midterms podcast, voting rights history, Voting Rights Act 1965, Selma Bloody Sunday, Shelby County v Holder, Louisiana v Callais, Section 2 Voting Rights Act, poll tax literacy test grandfather clause, voter ID laws research, Afternoon Coffee Break Darren Watts, 2026 midterm elections,

Darren finally found that Indianapolis Business Journal he lost weeks ago — and the article inside it was worth the wait. A July 3rd piece on Roche Diagnostics expanding their diabetes care focus includes a quote that cuts straight to the heart of the fight he's been in since June 10th: continuous glucose monitors track trends, not just single-point-in-time readings. Every five minutes. Real time. And that's exactly what finger sticking cannot do. CIGNA denied him twice — once for the Dexcom, once for the Freestyle — citing that he's not on insulin as the reason. Darren breaks down why that reasoning is gatekeeping dressed up as medical policy. The medical necessity for a CGM is type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Full stop. The insulin requirement is something insurance companies added to protect their bottom line, not their patients. He's been building his case since June. Seventy pages of documentation, case notes, and evidence went to the Independent Review Organization — certified mail, delivered September 2nd, received September 3rd at 6:06 in the morning. Almost three months of fighting. He also shares what happened when he skipped Mounjaro for his RFA procedure — gained 20 pounds in one week without it, which tells him everything about what his body is doing and why he needs to track those trends in real time rather than guessing. His weight is back down but the blackouts remain unexplained after tilt table tests, two heart monitors, a coronary artery scan, two EKGs, two echocardiograms, and everything coming back normal. Something isn't right. He knows it. And he's fighting for the tool that might finally help him figure out what. Between 50 and 65% of people who take their insurance denial all the way to the IRO win. Darren did the work. Now he waits. After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, continuous glucose monitor, CGM, Dexcom, Freestyle, CIGNA, insurance denial, IRO, internal review organization, type 2 diabetes, finger sticking, trends, Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis Business Journal, Mounjaro, weight fluctuation, blackouts, dysautonomia, POTS, tilt table test, heart monitor, echocardiogram, patient advocacy, healthcare gatekeeping, fight for your healthcare, Tony Stevens, real talk, Black podcast, September 2026, 70 pages, certified mail, stop saying no,

Darren opens with Tedrick Washington Jr. — a 23-year-old former Division I basketball player who was pulled by his dreadlocks and punched through a shattered car window by Arkansas State Trooper Theodore Henderson during a traffic stop on August 19th. Washington was a backseat passenger. He was unarmed. The trooper claimed he "postured up" as justification. As of September 1st, no disciplinary action has been taken. Ben Crump is involved. Darren connects it to a separate August 1st incident where an Arkansas trooper tackled and punched an 18-year-old Black woman in the face — and to the pattern of lynchings that keep getting quietly covered up or underreported. He says plainly what he believes: Black people do not hang themselves. Pay attention. He also follows up on Gary, Indiana — finally getting power back after over two weeks, while still being billed by NIPSCO during the outage. Some Indiana counties did receive FEMA approval, but Darren stands by what he said before: he doesn't believe Gary is going to get what it needs, and the speed of the response said everything about how much that predominantly Black city is valued. Then he gets into the week he's had. Three hours of sleep before the procedure. Therapy first, then the radiofrequency ablation on August 27th — his most serious medical procedure to date. He walks through all of it: the prep, the lights that hurt his eyes, the anesthesia, waking up hungry after 12-plus hours without food, Nicole waiting in the recovery room, immediate relief in his back on the ride home, and then straight to bed with his books and journals for days. He's still recovering. The second round is coming next week or the week after. He's paying attention to the data his body is giving him and calling it what it is — they found the right nerves. This is working. After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Tedrick Washington Jr., Arkansas State Police, Trooper Henderson, Ben Crump, traffic stop, dreadlocks, police brutality, unarmed, lynching, Elisa Hackett, Arkansas, racial violence, Gary Indiana, NIPSCO, FEMA, Indiana flooding, radiofrequency ablation, RFA, medial branch block, spine procedure, back pain, lumbar arthritis, anesthesia, Nicole Watts, recovery, reading, long COVID, real talk, Black podcast, September 2026, coming back, paying attention,

Darren does something he doesn't usually do — he plays back Monday's recording for himself and for his listeners, and lets them hear exactly what daily life looks like inside his head when he's trying to process too many things at once. The FEMA angle, the Indiana flooding, Gary still without power, the NOAA cuts, the $5,000 disaster grants that don't come close to covering what people lost — it's all in there, circling, losing the thread, finding it again, losing it again. That's not a bad episode. That's an honest portrait of what it costs to think this hard about this much when your brain is already running on empty. Tuesday he comes back calmer and gets to the point. Indiana voted for a governor and a president who campaigned on gutting FEMA and NOAA — the exact systems that exist for moments like this flooding disaster — and now the state has its hand out to the federal government. Darren can't square that circle. He doesn't pretend to. On the personal side — the RFA procedure is Thursday the 27th. Therapy first, then the procedure, then bed and books for the rest of the day. He's already thinking about what recovery looks like and whether to take Friday off. The neurologist is September 16th. The ADHD and autism therapist is October. The CGM case is almost out of his hands. And one more thing he's being honest about — a strong urge to smoke cigars or Black and Milds that showed up and won't leave. He knows what it would do to his health. He almost asked Darrell to get him some. He didn't. He's bringing it to therapy Thursday and looking for ways through it. After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Indiana flooding, FEMA, NOAA, Gary Indiana, Governor Braun, Trump, disaster relief, $5000 grant, radiofrequency ablation, RFA, medial branch block, back pain, lumbar arthritis, CGM case, therapy, neurologist, ADHD, autism, cigar urge, smoking urge, health discipline, discombobulated, real talk, Black podcast, August 2026, Tuesday August 25th, doing it anyway,

Nineteen states into this series. Nineteen consecutive times Anti-Black bias has led the cumulative hate crime data. Maryland makes it nineteen — at 463 incidents, the highest raw Anti-Black count the series has documented in any state. But the number that opens this episode is not 463. It's 144. That is the count of documented hate crimes at elementary and secondary schools in Maryland — more than double Kentucky's 65, which was the highest the series had seen. 144 children, in classrooms and hallways and on playgrounds, experiencing documented bias-motivated harassment or violence in the place they are supposed to be protected. Maryland is the most racially diverse state this series has covered outside of Hawaii — roughly 31% Black, 41% white, 11% Hispanic, 7% Asian — and that diversity reshapes what the data looks like. For the first time in nineteen states, Highway or Sidewalk nearly ties Residence or Home as the top hate crime location, 270 to 269. Destruction and Vandalism leads the offense types at 540, edging Simple Assault at 517 — the first time property destruction has outpaced direct assault in any state this series has covered. Black offenders appear at 345, the highest in the series, consistent with a 31% Black population in a dense, diverse state. Anti-Jewish bias sits at 199 — second only to Illinois in the series — tied to large Jewish communities in Montgomery County and the Baltimore suburbs. The federal case file includes three connected cases involving a Maryland man who threatened to kill members of an LGBTQI+ advocacy group and elected delegates who supported transgender rights — sentenced to two years in January 2024. And a white supremacist conspiracy to destroy Baltimore's regional power grid, driven by racial ideology — the Maryland woman involved pleaded guilty in May 2024, and the white supremacist leader connected to the plot was convicted in February 2025. Timestamps00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:43 - The Thesis04:32 - Opening06:17 - The Background08:45 - The Data14:13 - Personal Thoughts16:40 - Closing Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you. Maryland hate crimes 2024, anti-Black hate crimes Maryland, anti-Jewish hate crimes Maryland, Maryland power grid white supremacist plot, Maryland school hate crimes, LGBTQ hate crimes Maryland, hate crimes through 2024 series, Maryland hate crime statistics, Baltimore hate crimes, Afternoon Coffee Break Darren Watts,

Thirty-eight million more people voted for president in 2020 than voted in the midterms two years later. Same country. Same power up for grabs. The only thing that changed was who showed up — and the people who did are the ones who now draw your congressional district, decide whether the hate crime down your street gets prosecuted, and decide whether your polling place stays open. This episode breaks down what's actually happening in the 2026 midterms and why the election everyone calls "boring" usually decides the most. We cover the real turnout numbers (66% in 2020 down to 46.8% in 2022), everything on this year's ballot beyond the House and Senate headlines — 36 governorships, 26 secretary of state seats, 30 attorney general seats, roughly 300 state executive offices in total — and the live redistricting fight playing out in Texas, California, Ohio, Utah, Virginia, and right here in Indiana. This show doesn't tell you who to vote for. It tells you what you're voting on, and why the years everyone skips are the years that decide the most. Hate Crimes Through 2024 continues every Monday, same as always. TIMESTAMPS00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:43 - The Thesis04:48 - Opening07:00 - The Background08:55 - The Data11:28 - Personal Thoughts13:26 - Closing Follow Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts wherever you get your podcasts. If you're on Apple Podcasts, a rating and review helps new listeners find this conversation. Because of you, this podcast on GoodPods ranks #17 Cult All Time, #33 Business News All Time Election Day is November 3rd. Whatever you decide to do with that day — decide it on purpose.

Darren opens with something that isn't getting nearly enough coverage — Gary, Indiana is over a week without power following last week's storms, and the news cycle has largely moved on. He sees it. He hears the people talking about it. And he's saying it out loud even on a day when he barely has the energy to say anything at all. Because today was one of those days. A draining meeting, unnecessary urgency at work, a brain that wants to shut down, and a body that's already tired. He's not here to make an impactful statement tonight — he says so himself. He's here to say a few words and go to bed. But in between he gets honest about something that's been sitting with him: imposter syndrome. The question of how someone who gets drained by group conversations and social media is going to build a career in independent journalism. He doesn't have the answer yet. He's sitting in the question. One piece of good news though — insurance approved the radiofrequency ablation without a fight. The three-step process starts next week. Step one of the medial branch block is coming, and depending on how his body responds, he's already thinking about adjusting the After The Brew schedule around recovery. He's hoping this is the beginning of getting his back — and eventually his ability to walk and run again — back under him. After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Gary Indiana, power outage, storm coverage, media bias, imposter syndrome, independent journalism, social media fatigue, mental exhaustion, radiofrequency ablation, RFA, medial branch block, lumbar arthritis, back pain, insurance approval, CPAP, workout, dumbbell, real talk, Black podcast, August 2026, recovery, walking again, running again, doing it anyway,

Darren sits down for a lunch break recording with a plan — read the Indianapolis Business Journal, record After The Brew, get through the day. The plan immediately runs into one problem: he can't find the newspaper he was reading. It was right there. Now it isn't. And if you know anything about how his brain works, you know that nothing else is happening until it's found. But in between searching, he pulls out what he remembers from two articles that mattered. A piece on Roche Diagnostics opening a new facility in Castleton caught his eye — because buried in the coverage was language about continuous glucose monitors that connects directly to the insurance battle he's currently in the middle of. The definition of what a CGM is supposed to do says nothing about insulin requirements. Nothing about the gatekeeping conditions insurance companies invented to avoid paying for it. Type 1 or Type 2 diabetic — the medical necessity is there. The insurance company just added layers of bureaucratic obstruction and assumed nobody would push back. Wrong person to assume that about. He's got the denial documentation in hand now. The appeal is being built. And the question he keeps coming back to — would a white counterpart with the same profile have to fight this hard — is one the studies are already answering for him. After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, continuous glucose monitor, CGM, insurance appeal, type 2 diabetes, Roche Diagnostics, Indianapolis Business Journal, Castleton, medical gatekeeping, racial health disparities, blackouts, dizziness, cardiologist, echocardiogram, ADHD, lost the newspaper, lunch break, patient advocacy, real talk, Black podcast, August 2026, fighting for answers, health equity,

Maine is approximately 93 percent white. Black Americans make up about 1.7 percent of the state's population. And Anti-Black bias still leads the cumulative hate crime data at 107 — the eighteenth consecutive state in this series where that is true. When a community is small enough to stand out, that visibility becomes a target. Maine's federal case file makes that concrete: Maurice Diggins and his nephew Dusty Leo drove across Portland in a single night and broke the jaws of two Black men in separate attacks — then did it again an hour later in Biddeford. A Maine man drove to Springfield, Massachusetts and burned the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Presbyterian Church, a predominantly Black congregation, with a message on his phone calling to "eliminate all N-words." Two separate men — one in 2023, one in 2024 — threatened to kill their Black neighbors in their own homes. A fifth man posted online he was going to kill Jewish people with his AR-15 the next day; the FBI found the weapon hidden in the woods behind his house along with 1,700 rounds of ammunition. This episode also covers the number that defines Maine's 2023 data above everything else: Sexual Orientation accounted for 40.7 percent of all documented hate crimes that year — the highest single-year LGBTQ targeting percentage this series has documented in any state. In the cumulative data, LGBTQ-targeted incidents sit at 101, six behind Anti-Black at 107 — the closest parity between any two bias categories in any state this series has covered. White offenders account for 86 percent of identified cases — also the highest proportion in the series. Anti-White sits at just 11 — the lowest in the series. The demographics of the state explain both numbers. What they don't explain away is who keeps getting targeted. Timestamps00:00 - Disclaimer01:01 - Introduction02:54 - The Thesis05:00 - Opening06:53 - The Background09:05 - The Data15:15 - Personal Thoughts17:17 - Closing Afternoon Coffee Break with Darren Watts. Follow the show wherever you listen. Rate and review on Apple Podcasts — thirty seconds, it matters. Number 17 Cult All Time. Number 33 Business News All Time on Goodpods — because of you. Maine hate crimes 2024, anti-Black hate crimes Maine, Maine LGBTQ hate crimes, MLK church arson Springfield Massachusetts, Maurice Diggins hate crime Maine, anti-Jewish hate crime Maine, hate crimes through 2024 series, Maine racist skinhead arrest, Maine hate crime neighbor threats, Afternoon Coffee Break Darren Watts,

With early voting already underway ahead of Florida's August 18th primary, Digital Democracy Project Executive Director Ramon Perez returns to Afternoon Coffee Break to talk about the first congressional campaign built entirely on direct democracy. Dan Williams, a technology professor running in the Democratic primary for Florida's 11th Congressional District — covering Sumter County (The Villages), and parts of Lake, Orange, and Polk counties, including Clermont, Leesburg, Groveland, Minneola, Mascotte, and Fruitland Park — is pledging to vote in Congress however his district decides, using DDP's mobile voting platform. Ramon and I go deep on how the technology actually works, the security history behind the Voatz voting app, whether a small pool of verified voters can really speak for a whole district, and what happens to the idea of a representative's own judgment if this model spreads. If you live in FL-11 and want your voice counted directly on legislation — not just this race, but going forward — Ramon walks through exactly how to get verified on the app before you vote. Early voting is open now. The primary is August 18, 2026. Learn more / take action: Digital Democracy Project: digitaldemocracyproject.orgVote on legislation + app security info: digitaldemocracyproject.org/voteFL-11 2026 race, full candidate list: BallotpediaOrange County early voting & sample ballots: voteorangefl.govLake County (Clermont, Leesburg, Groveland, Minneola) voter info: lakevotes.govSumter County (The Villages) voter info: elections.sumtercountyfl.govPolk County voter info: polkelections.gov FL-11, Florida's 11th Congressional District, Sumter County Florida, The Villages Florida, Lake County Florida, Orange County Florida, Polk County Florida, Clermont FL, Leesburg FL, Groveland FL, Central Florida politics, Dan Williams for Congress, Direct Democracy, Digital Democracy Project, Voatz, Ramon Perez, Florida Democratic primary 2026, August 18 primary, 2026 congressional election, civic tech, participatory democracy, Afternoon Coffee Break,

Darren opens with a study he hasn't fully read yet but needs to flag — Black people going broke under Trump's second term. He'll dig into it properly before covering it on a future episode, but the headline alone connects to everything else he's watching right now. Then he gets into Damon Darling. Darren loves what he's doing — buying groceries for people, combining generosity with comedy, showing up for the community. But Walmart hit him with a lifetime ban, citing policy violations they refuse to name or explain. No filling in the pinwheel. Just the crust. And Darren has a message: don't ask for a second chance from a place that has made it abundantly clear they don't want you there. Boycott them. Call them out. And go where you are actually wanted — because people who genuinely support you exist, and they're not at Walmart. You cannot grow where you are toxic to. That's not pessimism. That's direction. He closes with something he almost forgot entirely — the flooding across the eastern half of Indiana, one of the worst flooding events the state has seen in years. People lost homes. People lost cars. Darren waited nearly 20 minutes before driving home through what felt like driving through a war zone of rain. If you're near floodwater, don't drive through it. It's not worth it After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, Damon Darling, Walmart lifetime ban, boycott Walmart, Black entrepreneurs, racial discrimination, Black going broke, Trump second term, DEI, Target, corporate racism, advocacy, go where you are wanted, Indiana flooding, eastern Indiana, storm damage, flood safety, Ramon Perez, digital democracy, real talk, Black podcast, August 2026, op ed, community, calling it out,

Darren opens with something he's earned the right to say — advocating for yourself is exhausting, it's never easy, and it never has been. From civil rights activists to MLK to the unnamed people fighting battles nobody sees, the work of demanding what you need takes a toll. And it took Darren two years and three physicals to finally get one. The answer came from his spine appointment. Arthritis in the lower lumbar spine — L2 through L5 — with fluid buildup and inflammation radiating down into his legs. The next steps are a three-stage process: two rounds of medial branch block injections two weeks apart to confirm which nerves are causing the pain, followed by a radiofrequency ablation procedure that uses a heated needle to block those pain signals for anywhere from six months to two years. He breaks down each step clearly, connects the inflammation to his post-COVID history, and says plainly what he believes — this has been building since long before the diagnosis, and COVID made it worse. He's still in the fight for the continuous glucose monitor. Still fighting for an official ADHD and autism diagnosis. Still fighting for long COVID to be recognized on his record. Four battles at once, all requiring documentation, patience, and the refusal to give up just because it isn't coming easy. He won one this week. He's not stopping. After The Brew, Darren Watts, Afternoon Coffee Break, self advocacy, spine appointment, lumbar arthritis, L2 L3 L4 L5, medial branch block, radiofrequency ablation, RFA, chronic pain, inflammation, long COVID, ADHD, autism, AuDHD, continuous glucose monitor, CGM, insurance battle, Mounjaro, patient advocacy, civil rights, MLK, investigative journalism, forensic accounting, Unsolved Case Files, Veronica Falcone, real talk, Black podcast, August 2026, two years for an answer, keep fighting,

Darren Watts sits down with Celeste Warren — former Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at Merck, author of The Truth About Equity, and founder of Destination STEM, Inc. — for an honest, direct conversation about what equity actually means, and what it costs us when systems stay still. Celeste unpacks the difference between equity and equality using her rocks-and-fence framework, explains why meritocracy without equity is a myth, and shares the story of her father — the first Black teacher and principal in Western Pennsylvania — teaching gym class in a parking lot while parents sat in their cars watching. She also revisits the moment at Carnegie Mellon when a classmate challenged her right to be there, and reflects on what she'd say to him today. Plus: what real DEI commitment looks like inside a corporation versus performative box-checking, why transparent talent management is where most companies still have quicksand, and why equity is simply Leadership 101, Management 101, and Business 101. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, DEI, Workplace Equity, Celeste Warren, The Truth About Equity, Corporate DEI, Systemic Racism, Equal Opportunity, Leadership, Organizational Change, Racial Justice, Merck, STEM Education, Destination STEM, Civic Equity, Social Justice, Career Development, Workplace Culture, Black Leadership,