Facebook Publication Date: 8/8/2020 10:08

Okay.

This came across my feed.

I invite you all to go there and read the comments; unless you are a friend, you can’t comment yourself (which is a pity, because I truly feel you all would definitely elevate the conversation), so put your comments here.

Let’s talk about D&I and equity trainings and the like, and how they either complement or are antithetical to the work we do here. How does race in your own individual workplaces show up, and how it is addressed, and did anything D&I move the needle for you in your own praxis?

This was my opening response, though I am going to go back and answer people’s comments individually:

I am back. I am going to take some time to respond to some of these comments, but I also wanted to add my own thoughts here.

First though, I need to state my deep, and I do mean deep, unease at having so many white D&I people in one place.

I know that might be incendiary to most of you. But there are some things that must be named.

First, there is not a white person on the planet who will go as far as is needed for true equity and parity/mutuality without deep internal work; the sort of work that is eschewed by corporate/nonprofit/academic/governmental settings.

So this means that more than the base minimum is required. This demands making the space as safe as possible for–wait for it–Black women.

Why Black women? Because Black women are Ground Zero when it comes to racial justice. It is absolutely crucial that a safe space, a truly safe space, be crafted with the benefit of Black women foremost in your mind. Everything else flows from that.

Before norms are even discussed though, shared goals/mission need to be addressed. This needs to be named. Because if the goal is, for example, lessening and mitigating harm endured by Black and brown people, perpetuated by white people, including the org in question and the people populating it, as opposed to crisis management or optics.

The default is always the latter goal–which means that when we talk about safety, the ‘person’ who gets primacy is always the entity itself. Which means the space will never be safe for the people most directly and negatively affected by the culture and norms *already established*, regardless of how unspoken they are. Those need to be named too.

Before anyone clutches their pearls, this must also be named: the reason for D&I is tacit admission that the entity/org/board/whatever is inherently, and often violently, unsafe for the people that need protecting. This means that there *is* a deep culture that you are working in and around and through and against. This means that, despite a comment I saw upthread that one *cannot* assume good intentions from either the entity or of individuals on the power side of any given slash. Everyone you are addressing is coming in with some deep baggage that, before the first bagel is eaten or the first cup of java is poured, is, from jump, harmful for Black and brown people. This also needs to be named. I have more thoughts, but I will stop here.

Paul C. Gorski, on my Page, I am going to use a variant of your prompt, and include my responses here. We have very different cohorts and I teach from a very different perspective. This should be interesting.

*** as always, new Norms apply. Absolutely no reacts.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10163872041495534&id=843260533

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