TEDx Portland 2019 —Paloma Medina — How Equity Tops Diversity as a Core Human Need

Awkward silence greeted the first few minutes of Paloma Medina’s talk at the Keller Auditorium in Portland, Oregon on Saturday, April 27, 2019. She had just told the audience of this uber hip, liberal town that 99.9ish% of them had “some level of ethno-centrism or some other kind of unconscious prejudice towards people who are different than us.”

A kind of a hush fell over the room as everyone looked at his or her neighbor and thought, “Not me!” “Yes, you,” said Paloma, “but, just wait, there is no judgement.” “Whew,” thought the audience. An expert in psychology and the workplace, Ms. Medina went on to blame the limbic system of the human brain. The limbic system is our older, less logical brain, housing elements of action, reaction, emotion, survival skills, and autonomic functions, like breathing. Never mind that we are sophisticated, well-educated, well-traveled, and committed to a world that works for everybody. The limbic system, notoriously behind the times, is still worried about survival. As a result, when our ancestors saw someone who looked different or who grunted in a different accent, they were wary. Their very survival depended on knowing and understanding their territory and everything in it, because what a cave dweller didn’t know could be fatal!