One Way to Address the Clear Racism & Oppression in Diversity & Inclusion Programs
After Addie, Cynthia, Carole and Carol were murdered in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Alabama in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King stated:
“We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderer.”
For me, Dr. King’s statement means racist decisions and actions are not only carried out by racist people, they’re carried out by the systems that seed and support race-based decisions and actions.
In my evaluation work, I define a system as “a collection of entities, seen by someone as working together to produce something of value”.
The collection of decision-making entities in place in 1963 worked together, in a very significant way, to produce and support the behavior that resulted in the death of those four little girls.
Why am I, seemingly, interrupting all the good Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) work to inject a conversation about racist systems and behavior from 1963?
Because you can only solve a problem where it is.
Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want to Talk about Race, defines racism as…
“…any prejudice against someone because of their race when those views are reinforced by systems of power”.
This definition of racism is not about the actions of individual people. It’s about the collective decisions of the systemically “powerful”.
Ijeoma’s definition positions the present organizational behaviors, mindsets, policies and practices that call for diversity and inclusion programs within a larger system of power and decision-making that presently creates and upholds oppressively biased national laws, policies, and practices.
In other words, and similar to Dr. King’s statement in 1963:
We must be concerned not merely about the decision-makers authorizing diversity and inclusion programs, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the decision-maker.
The very clear purpose of DI&E is to maintain current systems of power…not to dismantle them.
Look at your typical diversity programs today.
- Do they infiltrate, confront, and change the systemic and structural laws, and polices that produce the current state of our housing, criminal justice and education systems?
- Do the diversity and inclusion program managers have the power, decision-making authority, and budgets to change organizational policies and procedures towards more fairness and equity?
- Do the (typically) minority executives who usually head DI&E programs have the influence and support to allocate money to review and revise the organizational processes that impact hiring, performance, training and business decisions across the enterprise?
Read Why Is the Role of Chief Diversity Officer Seen as a “Dead-End Job”?
Of course, they don’t.
This is because diversity and inclusion programs are not created to change and dismantle structurally oppressive systems.
They’re created to quiet any current and potential disruption to the status quo so those systems can stay firmly in place.
Standing up a diversity office, appointing a minority executive to head that office, offering D&I training, certifications, awards, conferences, webinars, mandatory plans, and physical offices in headquarters is the “fertilizer” that nurtures the soil of oppression that continues to uphold the ubiquitous lack of diversity and equity in the higher echelons of leadership.
Read: Latest Federal Diversity Report from OPM Shows Little or No Progress and Some Regression
This is 2022, not the Jim Crow era, but you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference when you look at the continued lack of diverse perspectives, thinking, experience, knowledge and decisions in significant positions of power and influence that determine the current and future direction of this country.
So, what can we do?
If you really want to make a difference you can, but — it’s going to hurt.
Question the Idea of “Inclusion”
In the image above, the right side is a field of naturally growing wildflowers all mixed together and positioned where they are living and thriving. The left side is a severely landscaped garden aranged so everything is where it is “supposed” to be.
Do you see where I’m headed with this?
We can start to make real change by retiring the phrase “diversity and inclusion”. Specifically, the word “inclusion”.
If you’ve read any of my books or blogs you know that I’m very big on the significance of language and the words we use.
“Inclusion” is a lie that we’ve bought in to, and this one lie is perpetuating the current problem.
Let me tell you why.
There are two primary things that I, and you, must believe before we can march and fight for inclusion:
- Belief #1: Some group has the knowledge, power, and supreme authority to devalue my personhood and EXCLUDE me from equitable rights based on their interpretation of my external differences.
- Belief #2: My knowledge of my own inherent value is not as true as the other group’s knowledge and judgment, so they are right.
- Belief #3: Their “rightness” means that the knowledge I have is flawed and I have little to no willingness and/or power to change that.
- Belief #4: It is ONLY this group with the power to exclude me, that has the power to INCLUDE me.
Inclusion is a lie and it’s going to hurt the tyrant AND the terrorized to see and admit it.
Read more about “power distance” to understand what I mean by that:
Power distance refers to the extent to which less powerful members of organizations and institutions (including the family) accept and expect unequal power distributions. This dimension is measured not only from the perspective of the leaders, who hold power, but from the followers.
When I’m convinced that I need to be and can only be included by the group that supposedly excluded me, I’m reinforcing the systemically oppressive decision-making and inequality that I’m also fighting against.
View this video to see an example of the mindset that reinforces oppression in attempts to escape it.
We don’t need to be included.
What we need as an organization, society, and world is to acknowledge the inherent value and sameness that is present before and after a human mind decides to become untimate decision-maker, judge and jury.
We need to examine why we are projecting the hate we have for ourselves onto each other.
We don’t need to create diversity and equality, we need to unleash it.
Profit in Equivalence
Instead of focusing on diversity programs let’s consider Profit in Equivalence (P.I.E) processes. Profit is the benefit and advantage gained from doing something. Equivalence is acknowledgment of the reality of inherent value…free from human judgment.
The name of the process doesn’t matter. What matters is its function.
When I design my organization to achieve benefits from equivalence, I open myself and my bottom line to a world of value, ideas, interests, perspectives, skill, ability, and capability.
With P.I.E my business growth rests on the cognitive and material value produced by a team that reflects and changes and responds to customer growth and adaptation.
The change and response are natural — and nature is naturally diverse.
In organizations with P.I.E processes, I primarily attract and share my mission with the people, functions, interests, ideas, and hearts that find meaning in the goals and work of my business.
I don’t attract races, ethnicities, and various quotas.
Oppressive actions and thinking are not a problem with profit in equivalence processes because I’m not trying to make my organization and system more diverse and inclusive.
I’m getting out of the way of collective maturity and growth by giving myself permission to see and experience what’s obviously natural and already here.
This isn’t rocket science.
Seeing and experiencing what’s obvious and natural is mature behavior that can be observed in every toddler…even while their baby teeth are coming in and they’re pooping in their diapers.
Diversity and equivalence requires only two things:
Telling the truth, then getting out of the way of human nature.
— Visit and subscribe to my YouTube Channel. You can also order my book Longing to Learn on Amazon
