A Department of Army initiative has been to encourage, endorse, and employ diversity in the civilian workplace. All DA agencies have been delegated to ensure that personnel be diverse in organizations and directorates across the board. During my internship, I have not only been exposed to a line of work, but also to getting along with co-workers and learning about who they are as individuals.

Our senior HR specialist in the CPAC and I represent the diversity in our office. I am the only male and she is a female African American. I recently had conversations with her about how race has affected her in the workplace and her answers to my questions surprised me.

Here is a profile of Lona Smith and a brief documentation of our dialogue:

Lona Smith is a 41-year-old African American female. She is a human resources specialist for Department of Army, and is retired from military service. Lona is married to her husband, Calvin Smith. Together, they have one son, Justin. Growing up, Lona had two brothers and two sisters. Her mother now lives in Colorado and her father is recently deceased. She currently considers home to be McAlester, Okla.

Born in East St. Louis, Ill., Lona’s two best friends growing up were Sharon Diggs and Leslie Howard. Lona commented that she did not have any close friends of another race. She lived in a predominately black neighborhood throughout her childhood.

In her spare time, Lona enjoys roller-skating and fishing. She is a very confident, direct person and says that there is nothing and no one who limits her from enjoying her hobbies.

When asked to describe herself physically, Lona chose the words young and beautiful. As a confident woman, she feels secure about who she is and how she perceives herself. When asked to describe herself without making reference to physical appearance, Lona chose inward qualities of her personality: kind, caring, sharing, intelligent, professional, successful woman.

Lona believes that at home, others perceive her as smart, fun, and loving. In the workplace, she thinks she is perceived as intelligent, personable, hardworking, and dedicated.

Lona regards her career with the utmost regard, and strives to be a professional exuding excellence. She says she honestly has no idea what people on the street think of her. She says there is no way to gauge people’s thoughts and she has never asked a stranger before.

When questioned about her perception of her own power in society, she said she has never thought about it. She said she believes that even the smallest person can change the course of the future and that she has the ability to make a difference in the world around her. She perceives limitations to be corrupt people, racists, bigots, and closed-minded people who do not have a love for humanity.

Lona then answered the question, what are you thoughts feelings, and behaviors relating to race and ethnicity. She simply replied, “We are all created equal.” When asked about how she chooses to identify herself, she said, “I am a child of God.”

When Lona was asked what she thinks about race and what makes that happen, she replied, “I don’t think about it.” At first, she said she had never thought about how her life might be different had she been a male, but she then commented that she believes discipline in her house as a child would have been different in that as a male, things would have been slightly easy on her. She says her parents let her brothers get away with more things and that her mother and father were very protective of the girls in the family.

I then asked Lona about the hardest thing about race for her to talk about. She claims that she does not have one and that she tries not to think along those lines. What I gathered from this interview is that Lona Smith has completely eliminated the barriers of race and ethnicity from her thoughts, feelings, and words. “I don’t see color,” she said at the end of the interview. We laughed about how outrageous some might see this method of approach, but she told me that when it comes to race, she prefers to be colorblind.