Equity without inclusion is still oppression
2020 was the year where centuries old inequities that are baked into our systems and culture became exacerbated by a global pandemic.
The cracks were already there in the systems that were duct-taped together and barely functioning even as some in the US enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. It meant that the pandemic had a devastating impact for some communities, in many cases Black and brown communities, more than others.
Same storm, different boats.
Privilege, both social and economic, made it easier for some of us to build sturdier and more luxurious boats than others.
Early on in the pandemic, the team at Co-Creating Inclusion found ourselves faced with the question - what does diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in a pandemic look like?
As company after company "put DEI on the back burner" we wondered, what was our role? Where would we be most needed?
I was never willing to accept the idea that DEI should be put on the back burner. That made no sense when it seemed obvious from the start that inequities would be exacerbated, and that it would be easy for organizations to default to oppressive behaviors that would be even more harmful during this time.
Nothing that has happened in the nine months since caused me to rethink any of this, not the continued state-sanctioned murder by police of Black and brown people, not the subsequent protests and "woke wave," not 20 million cases of coronavirus in the US while we close in on 350,000 deaths at time of writing.
Remember when 100,000 deaths seemed untenable?
And yet, here we are.
Some of our lowest paid and least valued workers (often women or people of color or both) in healthcare, education, working our food supply chain or in sanitation, to name just a few, became our "essential workers" - but without the systemic support or financial resources to match. Meanwhile, our mega-billionaires flourished, making money off the pandemic while so many suffered.
I needn't go on. Suffice it to say that none of this is ending any time soon.
I remember a moment early in the pandemic where, in frustration, I made the intentional decision that we would not focus on pleading the "business case" for DEI to white lead organizations. It's not that I didn't think this was important and necessary, but I just didn't have the heart or energy for it. There are times when I can say things that might be harder or cost more for my Black colleagues to say. And there are times when I need my white or other colleagues to do some of the work.
What I know about myself is that I am more energized and can have a greater impact when working directly with or able to directly impact and support leaders and staff of color within organizations.
The irony of this is that of course, after the murder of George Floyd amongst so many others that touched off the protests of the summer, this became mostly moot, at least for the moment. White lead organizations have flooded us with inquiries and requests. It was perhaps the biggest plot twist of the year, in some ways more psychologically and emotionally disorienting than the pandemic.
As a Black woman at one of my client organizations said, "I’m so used to injustice and the pain of racism that I was wondering, “Why are you reaching out now? This isn’t new! This is our lives.”
And of course, the "woke wave" has inevitably receded, but not without some lasting impact that comes with each wave. I do think that it is a different landscape now, maybe not as radically different as we might have hoped yet never dared expect. In fact, Trump NOT getting re-elected is America exceeding the expectations that I have come to have, through better understanding the pervasive way that white supremacy has been embedded since the founding of this country and before, including in the white liberal progressive spaces within which I mostly live and work.
Which is a very long way (I have never claimed to be succinct!) of getting to my point, which is that, as we've seen at some of our client organizations as well as the communities we are part of, well-intentioned progress towards making decisions that are grounded in equity fall short when there is a continued reliance on top-down hierarchies, paternalism and lack of transparency that still doesn't include those most impacted.
Equity without inclusion is still oppression.
And what often ends up happening is that you end up with even more people not feeling heard.
Those who are aligned with power and privilege feel confused and threatened because a different kind of decision making is taking place that doesn't center them, but has not been explained - this often weaponizes equity as the reason no one gets what they need.
And those whose needs are supposedly being prioritized don't experience it that way either, because they weren't given a voice in the process, and they have no reason to trust that their needs are being considered at all.
There are many dangers in this, but two in particular come to mind.
Without the necessary transparency and scaffolding, you lose people, particularly those most impacted (often early career Black women) who spoke up in the first place, often at quite a cost. Their fears of not being heard have come true - even if you heard them, it doesn't land that way for them. You can then lose them both literally as they can no longer tolerate being in the organization and they leave, or you lose the small window of opportunity to nurture their willingness to engage and invest in the process.
Those who align with power are also at risk of throwing their hands in the air and giving up because it's too uncomfortable and difficult. DEI efforts get characterized as "divisive" and the organization defaults back to the comfortable status quo of conventional oppression that prioritizes the comfort of those in charge.
How can this be avoided?
There is no silver bullet or easy answer - we can only report back on what we've seen empirically in our work and our lives.
It's not enough to have diversity. It's not enough to have equity. And it's not enough to have inclusion. You need all three working in concert with one another, and in many ways, if anything, it is often most helpful to start with a focus on inclusion.
As we like to say - we believe that the process of creating inclusion has to itself be inclusive.
It doesn't work to just listen to people at the beginning or at certain points along the way where you create a space for people to speak up or, as is often the case, you are forced to because of an interpersonal, organizational or cultural crisis.
Inclusion as well as equity needs to be operationalized into every aspect of what an organization does, including policies, procedures, practices, culture, skills and behaviors.
This doesn't mean shifting to an equally toxic "decision making by committee" kind of approach either.
What it can mean instead is designing a consent-based process, getting input and feedback along the way, focusing on needs rather than asking those who are most impacted to create solutions and bear the burden of the work, being transparent about how decisions will be made and implemented, and following through. It means being willing to adjust course to respond to feedback, results, new data and changing conditions. It means being willing to share things that are imperfect and in progress. It means being able to admit to not knowing, but committing to learning.
The other piece that we have found can really accelerate progress is having an organization communicate its DEI vision, commitments and strategic goals. I know this can sound like a bit of a snoozer, but I think that's because it can be easy and is so prevalent for organizations to default to publishing statements that are either grandiose aspirations that are not backed up by a plan of action, or a list of DEI initiatives that sound good and can be "measured" and checked off a list but don't actually speak to the real need for a shift in culture or land as having authentically involved those who these initiatives seek to "help."
DEI is not ultimately a "check the box" kind of activity so presenting it as such, even inadvertently, is NOT going to land well with folks or create the shift in culture towards equity and inclusion that the most frustrated, dismissed and devalued staff within your organization so desperately need and that your entire organization will benefit from. In addition, seeking to do this work externally without also acknowledging your internal issues, as organizations so often do, is going to read as hypocritical at best and can create real harm - this hypocrisy can be one of the most damaging forms of gaslighting and abuse.
We have found that an effective DEI strategic plan needs to articulate a vision and commitments not just to initiatives but also to the shifts in behavior and culture than can never be checked off on a list as complete, but can be measured as progress in the right direction.
It should acknowledge complicity and responsibility for harm, otherwise it not just sounds but IS disingenuous.
It should also ideally be "evidence-based" - a term I usually hate but use here to illustrate the point that an effective DEI strategic plan grows out of an inclusive process that has invited input and feedback - in other words, qualitative evidence or data - from across the organization and its community.
When a clear vision and framework is articulated along with a path forward, and when an organization has been provided with tools to bridge from knowledge to action, what we've found is that actions, initiatives and shifts in behavior start to take on a life of their own, gaining unprecedented momentum often after literally decades of paralysis, exceeding even our own aspirations or expectations.
A good DEI strategic plan can bridge the gap between good intentions and tangible actions and results.
And we've found that with a good DEI strategic plan in place, clients don’t need to rely on us to make recommendations about everything. Instead, we start to see them making decisions and taking actions that progress DEI and antiracism by themselves
So, as we move into 2021 and a time of year when a lot of us are thinking about setting goals, both personally and for our teams and organizations, we invite you to think about how you can integrate not just equity but inclusion into every aspect of your work, how you can articulate and commit to not just the "what" but the "why" of what you're doing, and how you can do the difficult work of modeling transparency and a focus on needs at every step of the way.
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Banner photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash. Additional photos by Karimi Kara, Brina Blum, Fabio Santaniello Bruun, and Nathalie Stimpfl. Also published on LinkedIn.