Importance of Inclusive DEI Work | 0:04:04 – 0:05:41 (97 Seconds)
0:04:04
And for me me that’s an important thing to know and understand that the work that I’ve grown and built and created for myself and in turn, engaging with people that I facilitate with has never been rooted in divisiveness or isolationism or telling people that they are anything other than a human being who’s trying to do the best that they can. And this push to legislate, especially to legislate from fear, without a clear understanding of what DEI work is and what its possibilities are, I think we’re being really short-sighted and we’re just operating from an emotionally triggered space and then making a decision and that’s not a great place to make a decision from and rooting it in fear from either side fear that it’s going to be taken away or fear that it’s going to be limited. Either one feels the same and both parties are doing the same thing to each other and then to us, and I just think it’s time to speak up to this, because I don’t hear a counter narrative in our country talking about the importance of this approach when done with fidelity.
Dei as Political Tool | 0:09:51 – 0:10:48 (57 Seconds)
0:09:51
Dei has become a political tool, and fear is the way that it’s being driven, people are being socialized to believe you should be afraid of this work and again, I’m talking about my own perspective after facilitating this for 20 years. And so when I say the work, I mean the work of becoming more aware of the impact that my language and my behavior has on other people, and other people I mean being able to own my actions and to apologize or make amends if I have a misstep, to be able to create a connection with somebody, whether they look like me or think like me or act like me, that I can find some way to connect and that we lead with relationships.
Navigating Societal Division and Connection | 0:15:05 – 0:17:27 (142 Seconds)
0:15:05
And so part of this, in part of my desire and sharing this with you, is to not only allow for you to get a different narrative, also to think about a different approach to this work, because, let’s admit it, folks, we live in the most divisive time ever that I’ve experienced in my years on the planet. The whole world is imploding, and if you’re not seeing it, then I’m not sure where you are or what you’re doing. Our leaders are not collaborating, people are hurting and killing other people, our children are traumatized and we’re spending all of our energy talking about the legislation of diversity, equity, inclusion work, when the people in your families, in your community, in your organizations all need support. And so I think we’re at this interesting time in our evolution as a society where we have to decide what’s the value of my neighbor? What’s the value of my neighbor, what’s the value of connection, what’s the value of community Outside of me, only having community and connection with people who look like me, think like me or act like me? To me that’s a pretty boring world, because I would never hear any dissenting opinions, I would never have a counter narrative that I could talk about, and so, as we approach this conversation, all I’m here to do is to ask you to think about this stuff. Like I said, everybody who’s listening and watching, like I said, everybody who’s listening and watching, y’all have to decide what you want to do. I’ve chosen that I can either get into this fear base and put up a battle, or have a fight with everybody, or I can figure out a way to make a connection with you, and that’s what I’ve chosen to do. So I’m going to share one more thought and then I’m going to read another piece of this article.
The Impact of Fear in Politics | 0:18:45 – 0:21:15 (150 Seconds)
0:18:45
So the idea of fear is going to challenge us all to shift our mindset and start to think about what might the impact be if we weren’t being socialized to being afraid about this. So let me find another quote here. So this one says Democrats have filed about two dozen bills in 11 states that would require or promote diversity initiatives covering a broad spectrum, including measures to reverse certain bans in certain states and require other states to consider things in their curriculum, for instance. And so what we’re doing now are and putting through legislation that we think counters the Republican opponent, saying the programs are discriminatory and promote left-wing ideology. And so the political structures are pitting us against each other and I’m not sure to what end. There’s some political gain for them, without ever understanding what the impact is of diversity, equity, inclusion work, how connecting it can be, how creation of community it could be. Maybe there’s a fear that we won’t be divided anymore. There’s a whole structure around the politics of division. If we’re fighting with each other, we never come together to work with the politicians to create legislation that might actually have an impact. And so, when I think about all of this DEI work, both sides of the political aisle are creating fear and false narratives, telling people things that are not real, and so both sides are looking at this and wanting to meet this window, as some have called it, of DEI with a policy agenda window, as some have called it, of DEI with a policy agenda, and it’s all rooted in don’t do this, don’t talk about race, don’t talk about bias, don’t talk about pick any topic, don’t say anything that might hurt somebody’s feelings.
Impacts of Race and Success | 0:24:24 – 0:25:31 (68 Seconds)
0:24:24
Even white people are affected by race, and so what we need to do is talk about what are the impacts of these identities in having differentiated outcomes that lead to success, and success is defined as achieving your goals, whether that is for quality health care or housing that you can afford, or quality food choices or parks or whatever it is, recreation. Everybody has different desires, and so that’s what we need to talk about, and we are spending a lot of time talking about DEI and getting rid of DEI versus what are ways that we can do it really well. So, and I’m not even sure when I hear this phrase of promoting a left-wing ideology. Someone has to define that for me, because I need to understand it, because we’re presuming that anybody with that title, which is a judgment and a stereotype, so I’m not sure who that label actually fits. I’m even more unclear about what does it mean and who can tell me specifically. And if I ask 10 people, will they all give me the same answer? Because if they all give me a different answer, then all I’m hearing is a perspective of what left-wing ideology is.
Importance of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion | 0:28:36 – 0:30:12 (96 Seconds)
0:28:36
So if you want to know because it’s taking something that I believed in pretty much my whole life, that I’ve practiced personally my whole life, that I’ve practiced and shared professionally for maybe half my life and it’s being wrapped around this stereotype that there’s something wrong with it. There’s something wrong with it. There’s something wrong with talking about diversity, equity and inclusion. There’s nothing wrong with talking about diversity, equity and inclusion. There are really ineffective ways to facilitate that conversation and those practitioners are out there. I think right now and I’m being a little bit conservative, this is the DEI space has grown into a $10 billion business, and internationally it’s even more. And when I first got into it it was very, very small, and so my goal here is to ask you to think more about the messages that you’re taking in about diversity, equity and inclusion. Just find out more information, and I’m going to continue to share my perspective over my podcast, because I think it’s important for us to talk about it. Oh, another quote was not everyone on either party Republicans or Democrats are united about which governmental approach is best suited to eliminate DEI.
The Emotional Rewards of DEI | 0:33:52 – 0:35:34 (102 Seconds)
0:33:52
I don’t think we’ve gotten the human approach about the connections I’ve seen people make, the different people who thought they had nothing in common that found out they have so much more in common. And so you know all of these approaches that someone else referred to DEI as they’d only just begun to remove cancerous DEI practices. That’s pretty extreme, and yet I still agree that there are a lot of people who are doing a lot of damage to people through the way that they approach DEI work. So I do agree with that. I don’t think they’re cancerous. I do think that there are some people who should never be doing this work because they want to blame, shame and judge people and they don’t know how to handle emotional energy when it gets riled up, which, as a facilitator, you have to be really comfortable with other people’s emotions. I have to ask myself constantly how comfortable am I today sitting in the fire of somebody else’s emotion? Because I know that wherever I’m at, I’m asking people to dip into being vulnerable and truly. Dei work is connecting. It’s vulnerable, it’s emotional, it’s challenging and it’s some of the most rewarding work I’ve ever done, and I’ve seen people who disliked each other in the morning and in the afternoon they had made so many connections.
