Nowadays, especially in the wake of last summer’s police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent global protests, you can hardly take a (virtual) step without running into some mention of DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. DEI is a kind of catchall for anything to do with addressing racial and gender inequities, especially in the workplace. There are DEI consultants, trainings, initiatives, and webinars / conferences, all aiming to tackle deep-seated injustices in our society and economy. In 2017 alone, businesses spent $8 billion on diversity trainings; it isn’t uncommon for a nonprofit with a small budget to spend $25,000 or more for a consultant to help the organization create a DEI plan, run a training, and so on. And larger companies are spending millions of dollars, not only on consultants but also on Chief Diversity Officers, marketing campaigns to tout their diversity, and more.
I take no issue whatsoever with the focus on reversing the longstanting, structural racial and gender biases which for centuries have marginalized and oppressed communities of color, women, and others. Indeed, part of the impetus for my founding Capital Good Fund was that I saw an opportunity to use financial services to right some of these wrongs. Rather, the problem I have with DEI is that it trivializes both the people it seeks to uplift and the underlying injustices it seeks to address, all while giving the appearance of taking meaningful action–without having to do so.
I recently saw this firsthand. Capital Good Fund is hiring for a new position, and it’s really important that this be a diverse hire: while the majority of our staff are non-white, the higher up the org chart you go, the more white we become. We need people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences in leadership roles, so we went searching for a recruitment firm that specializes in sourcing a diverse candidate pool. One of the first companies we came across has a name which clearly proclaims that the company is focused on diversity (I will omit their name here). In case the name didn’t get the point across, their website prominently touts that they are a minority-owned firm.
My HR Manager and I got on a call with their team to learn more, and upon joining the call we were immediately struck by the fact that a company which goes to such great lengths to brand itself as diverse sent four white people to the introductory meeting. As if to answer the unspoken question about how this jibed with their supposed attention to diversity, one of the first points they made was that they are minority-owned; apparently, bringing that up is part of their sales pitch. After the call, I went onto LinkedIn and scrolled through the company’s 400+ staff. As best I could tell, no more than a handful of the employees are non-white.
This isn’t an anomaly. So much of what people do around DEI is window-dressing. Worse, there is evidence to show that DEI can cause “unintended and lasting harm” and ignite “frustration and disappointment,” such as “when a ‘diversity hire’ ends up not working out.” DEI also makes minorities and women feel singled out and tokenized. My wife, who is Latina, has experienced this in her work in the biotech industry. After endless meetings and trainings about DEI, she finds herself exhausted by the topic. To her, it can sometimes seem as if management is going to great lengths to treat her like an exotic and delicate flower; other times, she wonders if it’s just about PR or avoiding a lawsuit. One night she said to me, “You know, instead of talking about this stuff, why don’t they just hire more women and people of color in leadership positions?”
I couldn’t agree more. One of the most importants ways to deal with racial and gender inequality is to have women and minorities in positions of power–not token roles, not “diversity hires,” but roles with real authority–and to have a legal framework that provides powerful protections against discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and more. This isn’t to say that as a nation we don’t need to deal with racism and sexism in other ways; the recent spike in hate crimes against Asian Americans is yet another example of the serious soul-searching we need to do. The question is whether, and to what extent, DEI can lead to meaningful change.
I’ve personally never taken away anything of value from the numerous DEI trainings I’ve had to sit through. Sure, I can expound upon the difference between conscious and unconscious bias, but for a Latina like my wife, and I’m sure for many other people of color and women, what matters isn’t the academic study of bias but rather the more equal distribution of power. Sadly, it seems that far too often the more a company spends on trainings, the less compelled it feels to make meaningful change–like hiring executives of color, working with minority suppliers, eliminating bias in their business practices, and delivering equitable products and services that uplift, rather than oppress or prey upon, minority communities. Anything else is either a profitable scam, an empty marketing campaign, or an elaborate distraction. As a case in point, consider the cognitive dissonance induced by the juxtaposition between Nike’s campaign in support of Colin Kaepernick and their inhumane treatment of workers of color, especially in foreign factories. (I wrote about this in an essay called Questions on Nike, Colin Kaepernick, and Corporate Social Responsibility.) Another example are the dozens of companies that have been shouting Black Lives Matter from the rooftops, all while making corporate contributions to elected officials that support stripping away voting rights from Black voters. It’s easy to put up a yard sign. It’s another thing entirely to put one’s money and heart where one’s mouth is.
In short, I fear that, in the main, DEI is designed to make white people feel less guilty without giving up any of the unearned power that our whiteness affords us.
What do you think?
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7 Comments
I’m confused as to why you believe you need to hire people based on race in the first place. “Capital Good Fund is hiring for a new position, and it’s really important that this be a diverse hire” diverse in what way? I think a diversity of opinion would bring a much greater change to the business than a diversity of skin color. You also stated a “majority of the staff is non-white” as if all non-white people are now the same. Do you have sufficient Pacific Islanders working there? Why shouldn’t you hire one of them to your upper management? What about middle eastern? Please don’t tell me you don’t have enough middle easterners at your company, because it’s not like all “non-white” people are the same. Try hiring 50% republicans and you might see that you aren’t so concerned about people’s skin color anymore. Just a thought.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day in America it appears to me that we’ve become more focused on the color of our skin than the content of our character. After decades of legislation and promotion of DEI initiatives we are as divided as ever.
Real progress is founded in morality rather than in mandated DEI training and quotas which have demonstrated, according to your wife’s experience, a lack the intended results.
Just look at Federal mandates of minority contract awards (give-always). In my experience, these mandates have done little to address this issue and have actually contributed to a more divisive climate. Also look at the war on poverty via legislation and give-aways. Are we better off today than we were 60 years ago? A convincing argument can be made that we are not. We will find in time that the same can be said for the diversity, equality and inclusion programs. Unintended consequences will apply here as well. You found this out first hand.
I wholeheartedly agree with the author’s statement that there has been a longstanding racial and gender bias that has marginalized oppressed communities for centuries. But ultimately, DEI must contribute to the world-wide competitiveness of the U.S. or else it is not a good strategy. If it sustains or improves our competitiveness, great. If it reduces our competitiveness, not so great.
So far, DEI is being sold on words and theories. We need to develop a more scientific approach to measure its effectiveness.
In the past, hiring and advancement has been based mostly on merit with a little cronyism thrown in. We must make sure that DEI is a better approach.
Not sure what George Floyd dying of a fentanyl overdose while resisting arrest has to do with DEI, but hiring for merit, reinforces accountability which is the only proven way to get communities to achieve the qualifications necessary for career advancement. We’ve spent an estimated $10 Trillion dollars since the Civil Rights Act through the welfare state in an attempt to uplift minorities. It’s had marginal effectiveness and shows that affirmative action and race-based hiring does not yield a lasting cultural shift. Instead of gov’t handouts and corporate quotas, which is essentially the bigotry of low expectations, we need to treat everyone equally, encourage self-reliance, reinforce accountability by rewarding those who choose to value and pursue achievement. The playing field is level and the motivation to succeed needs to come from within, not externally, or we will stagnate as a society unwilling to inspect and adapt to what is actually sustainable for all people.
Hiring based on race is racism. No other way to put it. Promoting based on race is racism. No other way to put it. Calling a black owned business, minority owned business, etc when if it said white owned, you’d be in an uproar… Is racist. No other way to put it. Head counting the amount of whites in a room or on a board or etc, just to make it a bad thing, I’m sure escapes you and everyone else who thinks like you, but it’s racist. No other way to put it. Because if we were to mirror that behavior with black people or minorities etc… Star head counting and making it negative when there’s too many of them and not enough whites… It would be seen as racism by you and your politics no doubt. If Uber was posting “order from these White owned businesses” there would be an uproar about how it’s racist. Because it would be to a degree to try to single out or market only those businesses and because they were owned by whites. No other way to put it. Black comedians putting on what would be “white face” today, not in college 30 years ago to be canceled over, but today… Is racist. No other way to put it. Unless those rules only apply to whites. You either say we’re all human, and we will all be hired, promoted, etc according to our merit… That ALL lives matter, not just yours, not just your race… Or we keep trying to play race cards at every available opportunity to try to gain power for our own races using racism and reverse racism. If we’re playing race cards, we’re playing the game called racism. You just get to try to single out the white people in today’s game.
I am 100% behind the truth that our culture has excluded certain races, genders and religions. It’s an unfortunate reptilian brain thing that humans do. We want to be around what we know so that we feel safe.
However, I think the invention of DEI is an unfortunately fake and poor solution.
I am a white woman. I have benefited from affirmative action probably more than I know. I know I was admitted to a high end university because I was a woman from a rural area. Without that cultural awareness, I would not have had the opportunity to graduate magma cum laude from a top school. So I know awareness of human tendencies to create a homogeneous environment is a necessity so we can start functioning from our higher brain.
And. The concept of diversity, equity and inclusion is a huge red herring created by pompous white people with white guilt to get ahead of an important cultural shift rightly demanding equity. Here is my personal experience of DEI: I was strung along by an organization run by white women that offered me multiple layers of interviews just to be told in my rejection letter I am “highly qualified and will be included in future searches but right now we are looking for more diversity.” Here’s the translation: “we interviewed you just in case our diverse applicants didn’t work out. But since they did, we cannot hire you because you are white.”
Come on, really? All that response did was make me feel excluded based on the color of my skin. That is exclusion and racism hidden by a righteous white DEI agenda. The worst for me was that I’m a woman who has also fought to be respected and heard and now that I’ve made it after 45 years of hard work and push back in a male dominated society, I’m being told I’m not good enough for what I’ve earned because I am white— and by white women no less! Ugh. For real? No wonder we have more division now that ever.
DEI is splitting our country in half- those who agree that white privilege is a real, bad thing and those who don’t. Not only that, but you can pretend to agree with DEI and not take action at the same time, sparing your elitist reputation by hiding the fact that sure, you know there is certainly a degree of “white privilege”, but is that the actual problem here? But don’t admit that because you will be fired! All we are doing is reinforcing and creating more stereotypes and shamming a different population for being who they are -white men being one and white women who are now smashed between their own minority fight and being “white shammed”.
DEI doesn’t work to put more people of color in leadership because it’s creating more white resistance than it’s solving.
DEI is not inclusion like affirmative action was, it’s exclusion. DEI excludes anyone who is not BIPOC by putting blame and shame on them for excluding BIPOC. Is that the right move here? Is shoving back against white privilege really helpful? No, it doesn’t make significant change and is pissing people off and diving us into secret, and even violent, camps. Is that the result we white privileged women mean to aim for? I highly doubt that was the intent, but is certainly a horrific unintended consequence. So let’s try a different approach.
Let’s instead raise the consciousness of our culture and forget about white guilt rhetoric and instead form a truly inclusive movement founded on the kindergarten principle: “treat others the way you want to be treated”. The “office of inclusion” should be about inclusion regardless of BIPOC. Inclusion and equity applies to EVERYONE. I want to be respected and listened to as a white women because I also have a valid experience. But if I try to share my painful experience as a female minority in a pro DEI community, I get white shamed because my life couldn’t possibly be as hard as a person of color. I want to understand and support my black friend’s experience and goals, but if I do, I am making him my “token black friend”. My white husband wants acknowledgment and praise for his hard labor and to not be gaslighted by a nasty woman he works with who won’t get fired for her behavior because she is black. DEI is actually making me MORE uncomfortable with inclusion than in the past. We are all on this planet together and if we want to survive, we have to stop singling people out because they are different from “us” no matter how positive the intent. Being white is just as much a part of my heritage as being Jewish or black or Asian is for someone else.
We can and should honor EVERYONE, but that takes a higher consciousness. It requires dropping righteous attitudes that create division and instead focus on real inclusion by creating open communication, mutual respect and authentic care for one another no matter who we are. Because yes, ALL lives SHOULD matter—no matter what.
I feel strongly that “Whiteness” does not exist. In my observations, it’s a pejorative to be hurled at people who believe in competency-based hierarchies, and used for the purpose of desecrating the contributions gifted to us by people working within that framework. It’s an attempt at re-casting that competency-based power structure as an identity-based hierarchy with people of European descent at its precipice (white supremacy).
The prescription? Well, the only way to correct for the damage wrought by an identity-based hierarchy with people of European descent on top is to quite deliberately manufacture a new one with people of European descent at the bottom. By super-imposing this new hierarchy on our culture, we can finally hope to cancel out the years of oppression and marginalization unjustly suffered by people markedly not of that identity.
I have considered this synopsis and prescription carefully. Are people who bring attention to so-called “white supremacy” on to something? Is it really true that our society puts “white people” on top for no good reason? The history of 70+ years ago says yes. But more recent history is much less clear. Note that, conflating the past with the present has become ubiquitous as of late. When asking someone, “Where does systemic racism exist today?” many people will lumber forward with an answer of “red lining,” as if you didn’t say “today” when you asked.
If it is true, how do we know that supplanting this “white supremacy” with a new “white inferiority” matrix will work for correcting anything? Is there some part of the world where this has been tried with great success? I’ve looked, the answer is no. Indeed, this approach has only ever made things worse.
If it is not true (and I’m right that it’s a recasting of our competency based hierarchy), why would anyone seek to misrepresent it?
Well, a charitable answer to that is, “They’re not misrepresenting it. They’re just misidentifying it.” Perhaps.
But if you want power in a society, one well-trotted-upon path to get there is to cast those who have the power you crave as villains, and yourself as their victim. If you succeed, the moral impulse of society might then be to uplift you and diminish them. If you want an identity-based power hierarchy with you on top, you would do well to convince everyone that you’re simply correcting for a hierarchy that heretofore has unjustly placed you at its bottom.
I believe all the words/terms (whiteness, historical marginalization, BIPOC, systemic racism, equity, diversity, etc.) that are swimming around in the lexicon with us today were put there by people who wish to supplant competency-based hierarchies with racial supremacy. Vile, injustice-breeding racial supremacy. And the racial supremacy they believe in is not white supremacy.
If you are of primarily European descent and you harken to these new racial supremacists and their alarmingly mature rhetoric, you might believe that your only way forward is via obsequious, sycophantic submission. “Capitalize the ‘B’ in ‘Black.’ The ‘w’ in ‘white?’ That stays lower case.” Like children vying for the favor of an abusive, narcissistic parent, you may find yourself acting as a foot soldier for these new racial supremacists, using aggressive tactics to subjugate others and, if your methods do not have the desired effect, banishing any nonconformists who seem immune. Let’s brand them “right-wingers.” That should limit their influence nicely.
Into this whole mess comes the new industry of DEI training, which is a con, a grift, a parasitic career that seeks to extract money from the aforementioned suckers, each desperate for approval. “Do our course and, when we’re done and I’m paid (AND I’M PAID), I’ll give you the stamp of approval that you’re on the right side here – an ally, an accomplice, or whatever LARPy drivel-based name you find yourself unfortunate enough to take seriously.
Don’t fall for it. And, if you did, don’t waste anymore time on it. America has half the world’s black billionaires. Black Americans are on average the wealthiest black people on Earth. White people aren’t on top here. Asians outperform them in our system because – quite simply – they’re usually more competent than them. This country is safer for people of different identities than almost any other country on Earth, for the history of countries on Earth. But that’s changing. If we keep agitating ourselves with efforts to impose identity-based hierarchies, we’re going to unravel everything good we’ve built here.