I help people understand what makes
belonging
actually work.

So what does a middle-aged White guy know about diversity?

It’s a fair question. And for most of my life, the honest answer would have been: not much.

I grew up in a homogeneous White conservative bubble. I wasn’t overtly racist — but I knew nothing about systemic racism, had never had to think about it, and had done nothing to work against it. I barely knew any Black people, let alone counted them as close friends. Diversity was something that happened to other people, in other places. I moved through a world full of it without ever really seeing it.

That changed — suddenly and permanently — when my wife and I became parents to Black sons.

Becoming their father forced me to see things I had spent decades not seeing. Which rooms felt easy for our family, and which ones didn’t. Who was present in every space we entered — and who was conspicuously absent. What it actually costs people to walk into communities that weren’t built with them in mind.

That discomfort didn’t go away. It turned into questions. The questions turned into years of research. The research turned into a doctoral dissertation at Berkeley School of Theology — examining what makes diverse, intercultural communities actually work, what the most effective leaders do differently, and what it really takes to build a space where everyone genuinely belongs.

I’m not the obvious person to be doing this work. I know that. But I’ve come to believe that might actually be part of the point. I have access to rooms and conversations that diverse leaders sometimes don’t — and a responsibility to use that access well.

So — what does a middle-aged White guy know about diversity?

More than he used to. Enough to know how much he still has to learn. And just enough, he hopes, to be useful.