Join Marsha Thornton, Vice President + Director, Supplier Diversity at Fifth Third Bank & Philishea Everage, Director of Curated Experience at WISe Wellness Guild for an important discussion on names and individuality in black culture.

A person’s name is the greatest connection to their own identity and individuality. Our names were hand-selected for us to oftentimes reflect our heritage, our culture and our lineage. But oftentimes women of color- black women specifically- change their names to be more digestible in settings of where the environment is dominated by white cisgender culture.

We'll discuss the challenge head-on, discussing the importance of requesting preference in name and pronoun, tackling tactics on how to ask for the pronunciation of someone's name and empowering womxn to support each other in correcting someone in the moment.

While we can collectively chuckle at Key & Peele's substitute teacher skit, our modern-day America is ripe for awakening. Our recently elected Vice President Kamala Harris is pronounced “comma-la,” - "it means ‘lotus flower,’ which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture,” she writes. “A lotus grows underwater, its flower rising above the surface while its roots are planted firmly in the river bottom.”

WNBA’s Washington Mystics guard Aerial Powers told Andre Iguodala to “put some respect” on her name after his tweets about her amazing performance only referenced her jersey number and not her name.

There are stories aplenty- join us if you’re interested in learning, sharing and supporting.