We Can Change… the DEI backlash

This isn’t about Texas. It’s about you and me.

Today is Juneteenth in the U.S., a holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865. In that state, the order abolishing slavery came nearly three years after Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862.

This week, Texas governor Greg Abbott signed a bill that closes DEI offices on college campuses throughout the state and rolls back policies and programs designed to support equitable access to education for all. (Again, the timing makes the point.)

His rationale? That the DEI offices have “failed to make progress advancing or increasing diversity.” You don’t say.

But this post isn’t about Texas. It’s about you and me.

There’s a DEI backlash happening in organizations everywhere right now. Inclusive intentions, diversity commitments and equitable aspirations professed by businesses and institutions in 2020 are being back-burnered, shelved or forgotten. Executives blame the economy, pressure to cut costs or, like Abbott, a lack of progress.

But let’s be clear: this is backlash, a reaction to a disruption of the status quo. Clearly there has in fact been progress. Backlash only happens in response to progress.

We can also recognize that backlash isn’t always seen that way by the individuals participating in it. For many, it’s simply a passive slide back into the flow of a system doing what all systems do: reasserting itself as a way to protect and perpetuate itself.

Abbott isn’t the root of the problem in Texas, and neither is your CEO. They’re only symptoms. Blaming them, we risk distracting ourselves from the real work at hand, which is transforming the systems we live and work within.

The truth is that DEI leaders are making progress, shifting paradigms and shaping systemic change every single day. But they can’t do it alone.

That’s where we come in. We don’t need to have a particular role or remit to have impact. And it can be so much simpler than we might think.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

—Arthur Ashe

Let’s use Mr. Ashe’s wisdom to guide us:

Start where you are.

• What diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are underway in my organization?

• Where are they meeting resistance? Where is there backlash?

• What do they (and the people leading them) need? What support can I offer?

Use what you have.

• What power do I have, in my role or position in the organization, to champion this work?

• What types of unearned privilege do I benefit from, simply by virtue of my own identity, that can be used to level the playing field?

• What message does my enthusiastic support of DEI work send to to the organization / my team / my peers?

Do what you can.

• What are my worries or fears around saying the wrong thing or not doing enough?

• What would starting small look like? What’s one conversation I can have tomorrow?

• How might this be an invitation to do less? To shift out of “I have to solve it all myself” mode and into collective co-creation? How does it feel to be a part of something greater than myself?

I’ll close with one last question, one which Gov. Abbott will probably never consider:

In what ways does a more diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace benefit absolutely everyone, including me?

If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

—Lilla Watson