Making Inclusion the Default

Do the people shown in this mix of images represent the wide variety of people who swim in the U.S. and around the world? 

[a collage of 5 images clockwise starting top left: 1. 2 young women wearing 2-piece swimsuits next to a laughing embracing couple - a young woman and a young man  2. a young woman wearing a 2-piece swimsuit while lying on a mesh lounger; she's holding an open book over her face  3. 2 young women wearing 1-piece swimsuits and 2 young men wearing swim trunks sanding together and talking in a locker room  4. 4 young adults - a man and a woman to the right and to the left - with a "Labor Day SALE" logo between the two pairings  5. six young adults standing in a circle with their arms around each other’s shoulders as they look down] 

On Friday's CBS Mornings segment with Fearless Fund's Arian Simone, News Anchor Gayle King asked, "What should we do?" about the persistent investment funding imbalance that negatively impacts Black and Brown female inventors and business founders. 

My first thought: Identify and investigate and decode obvious patterns of exclusion as embodied in this collage of images from the homepage of the U.S. website for an international brand that's synonymous with swimming and aquatics. Marketing content that excludes more kinds of people than it includes indicates a fundamental blind spot (or narrow intention?) in branding strategy. 

My second: Don't spend where we're not represented. 

My third: Create what's needed yet not currently available. 

And that returns full circle to the challenges of access to sufficient funds for ideas, services, and products created by and for people whose identities and needs and wants are marginalized, ignored, dismissed. 

Last week's therapeutic breakdown helped me to rest and regroup. Seeing someone's post about Mary Kenner, inventor of the sanitary belt, also encouraged me because it took her 30 years from idea to issued patent. (This is my glass-half-full attitude in focusing on the fact that she endured until she succeeded, not that the journey took decades.) My utility patent already exists and my belief is that my best fit product development collaborator/s is/are waiting for me to find them. 

My countdown to marketplace availability for Swim Mission Swim Cap has been reset to outdoor swim season 2025. 

Wishing you strength and faith as we all pursue our ultimate ethical purpose for existing.