New ways of thinking Quotes by Louis Yako

“It is not a secret that most American and Western institutions and workplaces are very much like mountains: the higher one climbs, the whiter they become. But this whiteness at the top should not be seen as representative of all white people. We must distinguish between the white people who are as marginalized, silenced, and impoverished just like many other…

— Louis Yako

“In the end, we are left with this painful conundrum: we only need DEI initiatives because we don’t truly have a society that values diversity, we don’t have equitable workplaces and communities, and we don’t practice inclusion in the deep sense of the word. The day we have them weaved into the fabric of our human awareness is the day…

— Louis Yako

“Arabs & Garbage" Strange is the Arab story with garbage— who told them, who taught them to toss waste carelessly, wherever and however they please? When will Arabs understand that putting garbage in its proper place could solve half of their environmental and societal woes? And the other half? That too would vanish if they stopped casting away their human…

— Louis Yako

“The Triumph of Goodness" If only the reality was like cartoons like teenager books and stories or like the countless movies and soap operas produced specially for the naïve in which goodness triumphs at the end… Anyone who follows the reality of the world closely and deeply, shall find that the triumph of goodness is nothing but a myth a…

— Louis Yako

“Political correctness was never supposed to happen. Ever. The problem with politically correct language is already in the term itself: it corrects the language, and in doing so, it politicizes it through such imposed corrections. The problem with political correctness is that it corrects the language without correcting the conditions that produce and enable that language. In doing so, we…

— Louis Yako

“Oh, my friends, the first wish I have for the new year is to change the worn-out greeting: 'happy new year'. There is no happiness, only fleeting moments of joy. There is nothing new under the sun, only new ways of looking at the same eternal challenges and unresolved questions. There is no point in wishing for a perfect health…

— Louis Yako

“Another dangerous neoliberal word circulating everywhere that is worth zooming in on is the word ‘resilience’. On the surface, I think many people won’t object to the idea that it is good and beneficial for us to be resilient to withstand the difficulties and challenges of life. As a person who lived through the atrocities of wars and sanctions in…

— Louis Yako

“The first problem with the word “diversity” is the word itself. Who is diverse in relation to whom? The way diversity is often framed in institutional domains implies that some people are diverse in relation to others. That some need to learn diversity while others have it and bring it to the table. This framing, I argue, has from the…

— Louis Yako