DEI per James Brown: Open up the door, I'll get it myself.
Affirmative Action babies (Skip Gates' term) contend that AA was for that generation an opportunity to enter spaces previously closed -- which they did. That there is a reaction against DEI now should not come as a surprise to those who know US history. Nor should anyone be surprised that there was half-stepping and bogus DEI. The seasons change, and now it's again "winter in America" as Gil Scott Heron put it during the Reagan years.
Thanks Michael. Affirmative action had its time. It wasn't meant to be long-term. And, for elite universities, it made them lazy--the "babies" that Skip talked about. He meant that most of those babies were children of former students at Harvard that would have and likely did get into other elite schools. Harvard didn't have an incentive to find diamonds in the rough when they were 10-11 yo, they could cherry pick from children or rich alumni who happened to be racialized as non-white.
I knew the reaction was inevitable. I didn't know that the anti-DEI folks would act like the pro-DEI folks in reverse. The most well-known from both are profiting for self, not for any meaningful shift. So, the silliness from pro may have been with good intention but without consideration of tradeoffs. The silliness from the anti crowd has been politcally expedient and while they claim wanting to get rid of it, they don't. Their whole brand is based on DEI being a caricature based on their narrative. For that reason, it needs to be released as it was formerly known because it never worked (unlike the Artist Formerly Known As Prince :-))
Yes, the doors need to be opened for people (of all ilks ready to get to work) to walk through. The JBs walked through and did the damn thing without question!
Yes! People like Hegseth have perverted anti-DEI into being highly racist, while Trump thinks destroying medical research rectifies the errors of Wokeism.
Pete Hegseth and some other cabinet members (not all, but enough of them) are the epitome of the silly phrase "DEI Hire." No qualification, no skills, no depth, no admirable quality that makes one want to root for him. . .
Thank you for the feedback. Skip Gates was attending classes at Potomac State when the doors swung open at Yale, so he was an authentic AA baby and is not ashamed of it. You make the point -- a stubborn, enduring fact -- that legacies and children of wealth get into the best schools, period. This doesn't appear likely to EVER change though some of the Ivies and well-endowed have opened up their checkbooks for children of working people.
Here is one example, a stat from a letter that appeared in this week's WaPo from a former, two-term governor of Indiana: "Harvard’s freshmen hail from all 50 states; one in five is a first-generation college student; half pay no tuition thanks to Harvard’s endowment; and 16 are military veterans." The idea that "Half pay no tuition" is a beguiling prospect ...
No mention of Harvard's racial or ethnic makeup, which across the board in academia appears to be declining for young people of color, except HBCUs, which so far continue to get regular federal infusions. That can change on a whim.
I agree that AA is for all practical purposes dead, but my hope is that there now exists a Talented Black Tenth Plus that can and will reach out and work with others of all backgrounds for a common goal to advance the human race. (On the other hand, I am an aging Boomer who sometimes is underfoot and definitely under-resourced, so what do I know?)
I think that AA’s time came and went. Justice O’Connor pretty much foreshadowed that it would.
The network of an elite school is what the golden ticket of admission is good for. And, with the economy quickly changing, perhaps more kids choose community college, build a trade at the same time, and when they want to go deeper into something (I would go with philosophy) could go back to a college while making money in their trade.
I am a Morehouse Man, and appreciate what HBCUs have done. Many of them have become more skin color diverse over the years. That’s a good thing. The talented young people racialized as black will always be there. They have parents that make that so. Usually two of them.
If we have more young people building themselves up as college grads or in jobs that are AI proof, then figuring out how they can build a life with someone and move into the investor class together, we will see that reaching out (in the same household and in those of their community) happen more and more.
Thanks Amri. I've long been a big fan of FBT and Erec Smith and many writers here. And I want to support almost all you've said. Most is dead right. We move forward together, black, white, Asian, brown etc, recognising the past, merging our traumas, recognising our mutually influencing histories - and then putting organisational capacity, which requires 'requisite diversity' (Ashby, 1957, Cybernetics) before counter-productive zero/negative-sum organisational optics.
But the one glaring omission is the fallacy of Inclusion, which I realise challenges much of your brand. An organisation, to be successful, must have Values. What's in and what's out. For you, Civility and Dignity are such non-negotiables. Therefore you are (legitimately) not Inclusive of those without these Values. So Inclusion is an oxymoron unless you have no Values at all, which is absurd. Such is the level of absurdity and language-definition we have become accustomed to in the antagonistically-named 'DEI'. I noted this when I first saw it in 2020, and it still stands to me. If we want to get to positive, clear outcomes and organisational capability, the term Inclusion has to go - it's totemic of the unclear thinking right at the core of equalities work. Prove me technically wrong by all means, but no-one has dented my argiument here to date. Just no-one has been listening! However, I agree your working definition from Roosevelt Thomas of "No one disputes that organizations need the capability—the skills and capacity—to manage the tensions and complexities that come with any mixture of similarities and differences, remains sound" - provided this Diversity is not more than Ashby's 'requisite diversity'. More diversity than that is diversity for and beyond its own sake and is counter-productive in the end to the org and society.
Hope you see the challenge in the spirit it's intended :). Would love your thoughts...
Thanks for the comment, Colin. Well, it is hard to agree or disagree with you without knowing how you define "inclusion."
As far as "values" are concerned, the idea values is broad. If you are a complete asshole and it benefits you, your values could include winning at all costs, disparaging anyone who gets in your way of winning, and only feeling a sense of purpose when you win, even if one does harm--the end justifies the means. That could constitute "values" for someone.
Values don't mean much without behaviors that adhere to or contradict them.
If the term "inclusion" goes away, what do we substitute for it? Again, it begins with the definition. If we get rid of inclusion, do we omit exclusion along with it? Do we get rid of mattering as a construct? Belongingness? What about ostracism, does it remain? Is there an opposite of it without inclusion or some variation of the word?
When coupled with diversity as it has been perpetuated, i.e., group identities, inclusion falls short.
If we think about inclusion as "actions that create the conditions for people to thrive and organizations to be generative" (my definition), perhaps we move into something that has much more weight than simply being focused on how one looks or what chromosomes they possess at birth.
Diversity is not just about people. There is diversity of myriad kinds in an organizations or any complex adaptive system. And the mixtures of such need to be considered in how we think about system parts and wholes.
Using Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, in a complex adaptive system, its management and ability to flourish come from not only the variety itself but the capabilities to deal with the variety. Diversity and adaptability of those who are influencing the system are requisite for a system to not implode on itself. . .or, like a monoculture, become extinct.
Thanks for engaging Amri, and for a good post. I define inclusion simply as in the English language and with simple logic, not as a term squeezed and bent into definitions of human behaviour. It's not difficult.
Inclusion means not excluding anything. Which means you either include everything or you are exclusive, the opposite of inclusive, which is absurd. And if you include everything you have no values, no boundaries at all, so 'anything goes'. It just doesn't make sense.
Now, it can be a partial term - eg 'inclusive of tax' - but then the domain needs to be specified. So, in social discourse, you cannot say, "I am inclusive", unless you add the limits of your scope, eg "We believe in the inclusion of people from historically marginalised groups X, Y and Z". To try to use it as a blanket term, eg as in the third letter of, "We believe in DEI", is just logical nonsense and plays into the hands of the postmodern neo-Marxists who depend on people accepting nonsensical (though seductive) inaccuracies from which they expand their irrational, illogical domain.
Well, if everything is a dictionary definition, where does organizational jargon live? Many now common descriptions of things have been squeezed and bent into definitions of human behavior. Just sayin’.
Inclusion meaning “not excluding anything” is ridiculous and I don’t know of anyone that thinks framing it as such. If you’ve seen that, call them out so that I can send them a note about the ridiculousness ;-)
If we want a more parochial definition, it is the selective choosing of certain things. There is still the element of choice. For example, I include the best chickpeas for my artisanal hummus, some don’t make it.
If we are talking semantics, we won’t go very far. If we are talking about what is and is not, we can move in a similar direction.
To me, calling it “inclusion” works for what I do. For others, it might be closer to creating the conditions for people to do their best work. It is all about actions, behaviors, and building capacity for being a bit better every day.
Ok Amri, I'm honestly just trying to be helpful and truth-seeking. I know you are heavily invested in the term so I expect the rejection and even the easy dismissal.
But stick with me...it's worth the thinking. For millions, 'inclusion' meant 'exclusion of them' - cancellation, bullying, career destruction of ordinary black conservatives, white Fortune500 graduate entrants, those who believed in safe spaces and fair competition among women etc etc.
So no, it deserves more than 'ridiculous', if 'inclusion' includes 'exclusion'. Inclusion had a lot of exclusion in it. It's not a case of doing 'inclusion' better. It's a poor and contradictory term by definition, that allowed and encouraged zealots to abuse decent people. We need a better term now.
Look, I appreciate the engagement. And, I’m not defensive of the term. I don’t care if it is dropped by some. I will use it as I use it and if a client objects we will make sense of why.
We create meanings together all of the time. What term might one use? What would be its purpose? What would be better and for whom?
I use many terms, inclusion is an umbrella term for me and that is why I define it the way I do.
The term “inclusion” didn’t do the harm. Dogmatic practice by ill prepared people and orthodoxy without proper preparation and a lack of consideration of systems did.
The terms “inclusion,” “equity”, and “diversity” have no skin in the game. The interpretation and practice of people using them do even if they haven’t taken responsibility for their actions the cause and effect is real.
So I hear you but I’m not convinced that shifting terms shifts behavior. Shifting beliefs can. I’d rather us talk about how belief shifts can work to our collective benefit.
Thanks for listening Amri. I predict that in time you will stop using the term as a generic, as the weight of its internal contradiction as a blanket term, and the recognition of its utility by far-left postmoderns as a weapon, become more apparent. I hope we have a drink over it then! Keep coming back to me if you wish.
It's been fun to share thoughts and be challenged. I've learned from our chat.
As a center-left Black American, I agree wholeheartedly with the critique that modern DEI has become performative, ideological, punitive, and analytically unsound. But the problem extends beyond DEI. Some of the left have drifted into patterns of thinking that, far from being genuinely liberal, have become illogical and counterproductive.
Among some of us Black folks, there remains a lingering belief that we are still living in a pre–Civil Rights America, and that liberation depends entirely on external tools—government programs, corporate initiatives, and institutional interventions. What’s missing is any willingness to consider that many of our current challenges are rooted not in an unending racial siege, but in cultural and family breakdowns.
Yet the narrative of eternal racial crisis persists. You can still see organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center running commercials with colored water fountains and 1960s marchers, as if the only story worth telling is one of perpetual Jim Crow.
For this reason, I salute the author for his clarity of thought and for having the guts to challenge DEI thinking.
Indeed, John. The adherence to ghosts of the past creates a kind of nihilism that has only served the elites who perpetuate it for their own gain.
Government has never been the answer and there was a time when African-Americans were big on self-sufficiency and community solidarity for sustenance and development.
Keeping the Ferris wheel of the eternal racial crisis serves a small faction of societies globally. They are not just "black" people. In fact, the majority are not. They don't tell folks that "train done gone" on pimping the race game, even though they know. In fact, they confuse those with good intentions, that the train is still in the station, and that to fight for it to remain there is righteous. "Nightmare Begins Responsibility".
As Upton Sinclair wisely said, "It is hard to get people to understand something their paycheck depends on them not understanding."
The Founding Fathers don't seem to be in agreement:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
"...and there was a time when African-Americans were big on self-sufficiency and community solidarity for sustenance and development."
That was a time when African Americans were excluded from "all men" and were instead considered to be nothing more, and nothing less, than Negroes--except for purposes of taxation of course. To speak approvingly of the self-suffiency and community solidarity of that time is to tacitly agree with the racialization that actualized and perpetuated them.
Since you argue that government has never been the answer for those racialized as black but it obviously has for those racialized as white (otherwise the U.S. wouldn't exist), then it would seem that the problem isn't government itself but the administration of the functions of government, no? Otherwise, taken to its logical end, we arrive at the conclusion that government is not for those racialized as black which is extremely problematic for many reasons. The first objection that comes to mind is why should those racialized as black be without government? And if you only mean "government programs," then why should only those racialized as black be excluded from accessing what our tax dollars help fund? The argument should be for those racialized as black to be treated no differently than any other group by the government to which we give our consent to be governed and fund with our tax dollars. The "self-suffiency" days you speak of were days of pure highway robbery when our tax dollars went to support all manner of services we were prohibited from accessing and benefitting from. It's one thing for "self-suffiency" to occur when there are other options available but quite another when it occurs under severe duress due to a lack of options.
I’m not referring to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Of course, those called “black” as many of my ancestors were, were not self-sufficient in the material sense.
Many of those enslaved however, did act with greater solidarity and community than we often see in the present day with their descendants.
I was referring to the period from the late 19th to mid 20th century.
While government supported programs purported to help, many were poorly incentivized and left people (many of them racialized as black) poorer—healthwise, wealthwise, and knowledge of self-wise.
So, who has the government been the answer for?
That is, other than a small percentage who have exploited it—that which is supposed to be “for the people.”
It hasn’t been the answer for most of those racialized in any hue.
Some have benefitted from government intervention, others less so.
Most, never. And, unfortunately many who do/have, we can truthfully say, have taken advantage of government intervention or programs. Others have used the help as a bridge or a life line depending upon their circumstances.
In general, if government entitlement programs were consistently designed to get people to self-sufficiency the people and country would be better for it, at least in the long-term.
If you are speaking of constitutional changes and legislation that shifted the circumstances from pre-abolition of slavery to post, they were needed. Of course. And even in those circumstances they weren’t ideal but were the majority will of the people—even those who were not anti-slavery. They considered the other tradeoffs.
Now, name a government program, particularly entitlements, that create the conditions for people and communities to thrive.
We are not in the pre-civil rights era any longer. In fact, there were times when “black” people were doing quite well before King.
Poor people continue to struggle. Race matters less in those circumstances. If we are concerned to the extent that we create government programs for the less fortunate that don’t make them perpetually/generationally dependent, that would be a government intervention that would contradict my sentiments and I would admit as such if it comes to fruition.
The distinction between organizational purpose and organizational optics is sharp and needed. Sowell's knowledge fallacy really cuts to the heart of why top-down engineered cultures usually miss the mark; emergent systems resist blueprinting. The focus on building durable relational skills instead of performative awarness makes way more sense for creating actual organizational capability. This kind of self-critique is rare in the space.
Powerful reflectin on how optics replaced purpose in DEI work. The Sowell fallacies you highlight, especially the chess pieces one, get at something fundamental about treating statistical disparity as proof of discrimination by default. The point about building durable skills rather than engineering mindsets is critical becuase capability development actually scales, while top-down culture interventions usually dont.
Thanks for your comment. Morehouse, Spelman, and AU have helped make Atlanta a Black Mecca. Cultivating more trades and service people is helpful though it appears much of that sector these days is coming into the country as migrants starting on the bottom rung. MAGA and AI loom over us, and good home training, a solid eudcational foundation, and community role models are more important than ever. I am always thankful when I meet a young person who is a teacher, especially males. Unfortunately, as we know statistically, the carceral state constructed in the last century continues to destabilize all of our communities.
The most inclusive document is the Declaration of Independence which states:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
People who complain about the Declaration because some people had more stuff than others miss the point. Each individual has his/her own inalienable rights starting at birth. The word "equal" did not imply equality of outcome, but stopped people from arguing that some persons had more or better inalienable rights, which was an extremely popular belief in a society which still had peerage and slaves.
The Declaration stated that each and every person by virtue of being alive had the same inalienable rights. Thus, no person's liberty to pursue happiness should be stopped because of any ascriptive status, i.e. skin color, ethnicity, religion.
The declaration stated that the purpose of government is to secure those individual inalienable rights. Any government which denied a Black person education because he was Black was illegitimate. The government did not become legitimate because it forbid all qualified Black, Jewish, Irish persons of an education or a job since groups are nothing more than many individuals.
Had we concentrated on making certain that no individual's inalienable rights were infringed, we would not ended up with Identity Politics or Wokeism. Whenever we saw a Black person whose right to eat in a restaurant denied because he was Black, our society needed to develop norms where such discrimination was unacceptable. In the work place, the same was true.
EXAMPLE: When I was 20 and In VISTA, I was in St. Louis and needed quick cash. Thus, I went to a major hotel to be a day laborer as a dishwasher. Most the kitchen help were Black and obviously had years of experience and were tending to business very well. Then, some white guy shows up, who was one step above poor white trash, and the hotel made him the supervisor, a job which he was not good. I asked a Black lady, "why did they make that guy the supervisor?" The woman looked at me dumbfoundedly and asked me "Where are you from?" I replied, "New York. We make the most qualified people leaders."
Here's the irony; the dining room was filled with alumni of a Black Fraternity. Since it was 1968, all those Black professionals were not product of Affirmative Action.
I still believe that a national ethos which makes abridging any individual of his/her inalienable rights a taboo would have better served everyone. Instead, we foolishly chose Group Rights, Identity Politics, and Wokeism. We cling to proportional representation without regard to individual merit or the harm it does to individuals and to society.
Thanks for the comment, including the story, Rick. My take is that the idea of "race" has created more harm than it ever could good. It wasn't created for anything good, and if I had my way, we'd get rid of it entirely. It has created wars, genocide, division, and unceasing confusion amongst people globally since its inception.
My way isn't going to happen, but if it did, future generations would be better off.
The group identity trap has benefited elites more than anyone else, especially politicians. I don't know if we've ever been "woke" as Musa Al-Gharbi suggests. I do know that the identity politics isn't perpetuated by people who pushed the group identity DEI agenda the past five years alone. The word "woke" took a negative turn just like the symbols 'D' 'E' and 'I' have, but the perpetuation of group identity in politics is leveraged for gain by elites across the political spectrum.
Even the anti-DEI activists don't want DEI to go away. They want it to remain defined in their way, via their narrative, such that it can continue helping them prosper from it.
They will claim merit and then give opportunities to measurably unqualified actors. I am not sure if claiming merit and hiring the unqualified is any worse than the notion of proportional representation.
Proportional representation is silly for many reasons. The biggest one is experience and skill levels.
So, a lot of what I hear from you is that we need greater integrity. That is hard in the business world. It is rarely rewarded in the short term, and most of us are only focused on the now. It would be a just world if we had a "national ethos which makes abridging any individual of his/her inalienable rights a taboo"; we just haven't reached that level of collective consciousness in meaningful numbers of those in power. At least not in my lifetime.
Just love and respect one another … and have a laugh together watching the most excellent satirical documentary “Am I Racist?” from Matt Walsh. Guaranteed to break down barriers between people. ;-)
I saw it, it’s hilarious. It shows DEI as a caricature. It anchors on the Kendi and DiAngelo versions.
If the Daily Wire ever engaged with inclusion practitioners to contrast the caricature from what has evidence of ROI, returns on intangibles and investments in culture, I’d give it a 9/10.
Since they use it for political/financial gains with a target audience, often disingenuously and obviously one-sided, rather than rich satire without the political whataboutism, it gets a 6.5/10.
They are wildly successful, more power to them. And, I’d like someone who is opposed to DEI to engage more openly with someone substantive about what it has been made out to be and what it (inclusion and culture work) looks like when done with rigor and integrity.
Yes, it definitely can and has burned down houses. Now, the push back against it is having folks with DEI titles and roles lose jobs. The tradeoffs are real and unhelpful to all of us. I hope you have at least partially recovered from the shock/loss.
I see your point; as someone who's in that field, I can certainly understand how you'd feel that way. My perspective is, perhaps also understandably, a bit different. I don't think there's any role for social engineering in the workplace. I want to be able to show up and do my job without being told what I should believe or how I should get along with people. I want to be respected as a mature adult with my own set of moral principals and capable of acting appropriately. If behaviour goes off the rails, deal with individually and privately.
Part of my objection is having a different belief and value system foisted on me. I'm a Christian, which I believe provides superior guidance for human behaviour. DEI attempts to force an alternate, and conflicting, belief and values system on people such as myself who may have different religious or moral frameworks.
I believe DEI is, in part, a religious belief and formed to try to fill the vacuum left by society's rejection of Christianity as a moral framework. But it's a very poor substitute, IMO.
Anyway, thanks for the response and the chance to think this stuff through again.
Clarity about what we are collectively working to create in organizations, does.
Sports teams talk about culture a lot. They do so because “the way things are done (around here) matters.”
My experience that even with Christian values, churches still have to deal with culture because humans are flawed and have tendencies to do all sorts of things often justifying them with their faith.
The principles based on the model of Jesus Christ for example are pristine. It would be great if people acted like Christ.
It would also be great if people acted on agreed to principles in organizational life and had ways of adapting and self-correcting when they get off the mark. This is somewhat close to repentance without the guilt often attached to it because full responsibility could be encouraged and affirmed.
Friction could be much more deliberately dealt with and if things couldn’t be corrected due to lack of willingness to engage with the principles for resolve, there would be clarity about the ramifications of this.
The realities of power make this, neither simple nor easy but possible.
Individuals in their fill agency and with autonomy are acting alongside and interacting with others and that of course requires a certain amount of social contracting or sense of community—an agreement about how we treat each other and how we work through tension.
Some are better at that than others—all of us need skills in this area. There is no go it alone in organizational life. The hope is that people can self-regulate as you suggest, but the truth is, such skills are almost always imbalanced across an organization.
Some people have looked to social engineer societies based on what they claimed were Islamic, Hindu, or Judeo-Christian principles. The results are generally harmful to some and beneficial to others. Does anyone really win?
Like social justice, which can occur as quite religiously oriented as you shared, they can lead to the opposite effect of the intention, at least in the longer term.
DEI, as most know it (or perceive it from it being) done poorly) is in a zombie like state. What to do with a zombie?
Organizations unambiguously that prioritize creating conditions for people to thrive is about everyone and when done consistently is wise and about as adult-like as it comes.
It doesn’t matter what we call it, it leaves people better off at work, lets employees know they matter, and if they know that and are shown that, it positively goes a long way inside and outside of the workplace.
Sure, there have to be some standards of conduct for any organization, agreed on that. And people need to be able to work together in harmony, despite differences. In my experience and observation, I don't think DEI is successful at meeting either of those goals. I'd be interested to know what your specific recommendations or tactics are for achieving what you picture here (general statement, you certainly don't have to put that in a comment, unless you want to).
A brilliant piece by Amri Johnson which is the antidote to what has long ailed DEI. It cares more about optics than outcomes and tries to engineer complete equality of outcome in everything which is what they mean by equity, and that is impossible. Every group of people must be equally distributed in everything and that’s just not possible because different people have different interests, hopes, dreams, and goals in life. Thomas Sowell’s Social Justice Fallacies should be read by every DEI practitioner and by participants in every DEI program! The reaction against DEI was inevitable as it is a miserable failure. Now is the prefect time to retool it. DEI should instead of being diversity, equity and inclusion should be diversity, equal opportunity and inclusion. Abolish the Chess Piece Fallacy that Amri spoke of. Treat human beings as individuals with complex identities, histories, points of view, spiritual beliefs, and outlooks on life. Get rid of the zero-sum fallacy where if one group wins the other or others must lose.
End the knowledge fallacy, stop thinking you know the truth and everyone else is an idiot. You don’t know anymore than anyone else and you can’t engineer social outcomes no matter how hard you try. We can’t make it so as all demographics are in all jobs or positions equal to their portion of the population. All we can do is do our best to increase representation for everyone in all fields to the best of our ability while also giving everyone the freedom to do what they wish. For example, if the STEM field largely consists of men, we can never make it 50% female, we can only increase female representation as much as possible. Another example, NASCAR is mostly white. We can’t put quotas in place to have just as many minority drivers in proportion to their percentage of the population. We can only hope to increase minority representation among NASCAR drivers and crew chiefs as much as possible.
The DEI community needs to welcome ALL points of view. This includes ALL political views. They need to not exclude or attack anyone who has conservative, libertarian or moderate views or critiques DEI from within. The tragic death of Richard Bilkszto proved this wholeheartedly. All the durable skills listed by Mr. Johnson should be heavily pushed and taught. DEI should advocate colorblindness and universalism. DEI should also show that any group of people is capable of evil not just white people. It should also advocate that diverse political views and perspectives on the world is just as valuable as any other form of diversity and no group of people is a monolith and thinking differently doesn’t make you a traitor to your group.
You write very interesting positions. I like them but generally have an issue with your basis.
In this case the "Would have". For clarity on background. From a DEI perspective, I'm a white cis-gender gay male. I could never figure out whether I was an affected class or not. During the peak of DEI, many in the LGBTQ community did not consider me an affected class. I was just part of the white cis-gender male privilege class.
I too had and still today have dissonance with DEI. Including understanding the book "White Fragility" and "How to be an Antiracist". Yet I don't believe the DEI wave was bad.
It forced me to get up to date on the current thinking of what I traditional thought of as Affirmative Action. I was introduced to Affirmative Action in the 1980s at AT&T. I also had dissonance then on Affirmative Action yet I was involved in supporting. There was already discussion about reverse discrimination back then. Including whether it was even possible. I did acknowledge that I was programmed with racists tropes just because of not growing up in a multi-racial community.
My biggest challenge with DEI was that no one ever really came up with a business case that proved it was positive for corporations to adopt. Affirmative Action was adopted by AT&T because they were sued. The business case was to avoid getting sued again. Not the most moral high ground but it did make AT&T create programs that help me become more "racially" aware.
I still believe in the basic foundational concept of Affirmative Action. When hiring, if candidates are equally qualified, chose the candidate that increases your organizational diversity. That is great as an ideal, but requires much flushing out in practicality. But it gets to the part of DEI that I always disagreed with. The E in DEI stands for equity, not equality. Basically stating that if the statistics show a difference in racial distributions in any category, there must be a racial bias behind it.
Your article and past articles seems to align with my view that this concept is ridiculous. Should the NBA be recruiting more white males because there disproportionately too many Black males? Should a Chinese or Mexican restaurant recruit non-Chinese or non-Mexican workers to increase diversity? What should the measure be for large companies on correct distribution. The country, the state, the city, or the community? Should a factory in Sioux City Iowa have a racial distribution equal to the country or state or the city? Equity from my perspective was wishful thinking on Kendi's part for a simple measure to determine whether an organization was "racists". Regardless, the DEI phase got me up to date on the current Affirmative Action thinking. That was positive.
What would be (versus "would have") interesting is a post DEI and post anti-racists analysis of how Kendi achieved so much interest with how to be an anti-racist and the concept of equity. That would be a good article.
Thanks @Rogue4Gay. My basis starts with the idea that it is the boxes we ascribe to people that get in the way of us fully relating to one another.
Yes, people are all the things that come with the identity categories they subscribe to.
In your case, cis-gay-racialized as white-bloke. And that is only a smidgen of who you are. If I got to know you, I would talk to you about the NBA, your time at AT&T, and what shaped your worldview, including your preferences for whom you love, but not exclusively about them.
Because DEI (the past 10 years) and diversity and affirmative actions prior to that, has anchored on ascribed group identity, we have been reductionist without acknowledging or considering the implications of being so.
There have been many business cases for diversity. Many of them co-opted from a popular company or individual. Kendi and DiAngelo are more recent but others have been at the helm. Some had conditions that made them "successful" or just popular, but their approaches might not work in another company, even one next door or across town.
Context shifts, relationships vary that pretty much goes without saying. Yet, many organizations adopted the same playbook for antiracism after May 2020 without considering the tradeoffs.
The best business case is the one that a firm develops on their own. One that allows them to build capabilities that address their challenges, that help their people develop, that create the conditons and results they desire.
The lack of depth at many firms when it came to affirmative action policies and history showed us that the predominant way of addressing the issue didn't lean toward solidarity. It created the opposite. Someone with depth would have considered the system and addressed it with as many people across the organization willing to engage a lens of the system (everyone in it, the many) not the symptoms (that were focused on the few) that seemed to be at issue.
I am willing to consider doing a Kendi popularity retrospective. And, I imagine a global pandemic with a lockdown for the majority of the world, watching a man die in front of the world on screens, analyzed and amplified by social media "influencers," along with a world of pain that went way beyond Floyd, would be at least part of the conclusion.
When the perfect storm comes it is quite difficult to predict what takes root and if it is for the good or not in the long-term, things shifted so fast and people saw opportunity for gain and jumped into to grab it even when many were grossly underqualified to do so. . . Kendi got popular due to timing more than anything. I don't see his work as particularly exceptional, just quite lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
Kendi (and DeAngelo) were apparently “right” for the time. That just brings up another question, what made that time so different? I suspect it was that so many were isolated at home with nothing else to do. Floyd was not the first Black man who died. From my perspective Breonna Taylor was an obvious case of police incompetence and likely racist bias.
That was exactly it. Isolation, repetition, manipulation, machination, exhaustion, elections, perfect storm conditions. And good luck and timing for those authors’ bank accounts.
I appreciate this essay. Many people lack the courage to put their ideas out there into the public square for hearty critique. I tip my hat to you and your creative take on things. I wanted to love your argument but I couldn't and here is why. I am a big opponent of dogmas and slogan words. "Inclusion" is simply another abstraction subject to manipulation. Inclusion could mean ten different things to ten different people. Moreover, inclusion keeps us caged in external locus of control. Inclusion strikes me as a blessing from the external world. The black Americans I most admired lived by internal locus of control, things like enterprise, ambition, high aim, engaging the larger world and the self-confidence of inner agency. Berry Gordy, John H. Johnson, Reginald Lewis, Percy Sutton, and Earl Graves come to mind.
Inclusion didn't make Lt. Governor Doug Wilder governor of Virginia. It was high ambition, drive and focus -- internal locus of control -- that made the first popularly elected black Governor in U.S. history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wilder My opinion is probably a minority view. Inclusion strikes me as an abstraction conceived in external locus of control and ripe for manipulation.
Thanks, Counselor. I have been following your work for many years now. The Twymans are an exceptional family.
You aren't the first nor the last person to talk about the problem with "inclusion" "equity" or even "diversity," even though it is accepted by people in cases when it doesn't deal with group identity or humans (e.g., biodiversity, portfolio diversity, industrial, etc.).
Semantics are what they are. We need John McWhorter to help us sort through that with aplomb.
I am not sure how you define "inclusion." In my framing, it is an umbrella term. It always has been in my practice, and it has kept the silliness of the symbols D, E, and I at bay for my clients, making it principle-oriented for business success, not an office to prop up group identity markers with "passionate" people at the helm.
Obviously, to omit it is at best difficult for my work and makes my integrity about how I've used it suspect. . ."Did he ever really mean it? Is he now trying to cover it up? Gotcha! I see you were always one of the "woke" ones!!!"
So, inclusion, as you are framing it, is not my goal nor has it ever been my intention. Creating the conditions for a Gordy, Johnson, Lewis, Sutton, Wilder, Banks, Hughes, Burns, Walker, Johnson is my intention. But not just because they are racialized as black, but because there was at least one occlusion that they all experienced that required them to build their skills (with help, as all successful people get it) and agency to get what they got.
Everyone needs the skills (beyond technical acumen alone) that these great humans and many more have developed. Few organizations are intentional about creating them. Universities and other educational paths, even less so. My approach fills that gap.
So, I am open to new phrases that capture the idea of creating the conditons for people to thrive and organizations to be generative (life giving beyond themselves, capable and adding value beyond profit.) I will consider all, as I don't have an alternative right now. This has been a big part of the organizational development profession for quite a long time. They've called it people development, but it is pretty generic and not many people are aware of it. And, right now, even those who do that work are scrutinized and penalized as a result of the political assassination of so-called DEI.
For example, there are certain things I include in my diet for health reasons, and others I exclude or avoid. Do we only use "inclusion" in this sense?
What skills and capabilities are included in a job description? Do we list these? Are so-called AI skills enough, even though what that means is a catch-all and context-dependent?
And if we want to get rid of a concept, others have been much more damaging than "inclusion" (obviously, the misuse of equity is one). Another is "race."
"Race" is a fiction (no biological basis, created for nefarious reasons) that has never been helpful since its inception. If "inclusion" didn't make racialized people (or any parts of humanity) great (rich, but not "great") as you shared (and I agree given how you it occurs you are framing it), the idea of race definitely has harmed people more.
So, I am open and would be delighted to have a forum with the nuanced thinkers on this thread. And in doing so, I hope we talk about words and concepts (and, more importantly, the actions associated with them) that have been harmful and that we adhere to even though their use and perpetuation have never been helpful to humanity, institutions, or organizations.
Thank you for an extended and well-thought out reply to my comment. You and I are on the same page. If your intention is to replicate the likes of Gordy, Johnson, Lewis, Sutton, Wilder, and all the rest, I am in alignment. I hope other writers, scholars and intellectuals are as open to new phrases that maximize agency and internal locus of control over abstractions. See generally Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victmhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power by Ian V. Rowe. I am flattered that you have followed my essays "for many years now." A writer's most fervent dream is to see, and to be seen.
I look forward to reading more of your opinions and viewpoints as we navigate the weeks, months and years ahead. And I apppreciate your investment in "inclusion." Your willingness to size up imperfections is not easy but speaks well of your introspection and depth.
I think I started following Rowe’s work and bought his book soon after it was published alongside of the stream of substantive content I read from you and Michael Bowen (mostly via the FBT podcast), and of course Glenn Loury and John McWhorter.
I wouldn’t have accused organizations of racism due to group differences and attacked divergent views as racist. Very damaging, drawing out responses that have long ago been eliminated as racist.
I really appreciate your honesty. Public intellectuals rarely admit that they should have acted differently and—rarer still—engage in the deep reflection that lead to such admissions.
Thanks, Glenn. I use this quote often and recently, after completing @Musa Al-Gharbi's book "We Have Never Been Woke" got empirical accounts that it is beyond anecdotal.
"It is hard for a man to understand something that his paycheck depends on him not understanding." Upton Sinclair
I forgot to include in my last reply that "We Have Never Been Woke" is one of my fall-time favorite books—I have my students read it and recommend it every chance I get. It so perfectly articulates my own experiences and observations that I wish I had authored it. What reminded me to reply is that I brought it up at lunch with a group of students the other day.
DEI per James Brown: Open up the door, I'll get it myself.
Affirmative Action babies (Skip Gates' term) contend that AA was for that generation an opportunity to enter spaces previously closed -- which they did. That there is a reaction against DEI now should not come as a surprise to those who know US history. Nor should anyone be surprised that there was half-stepping and bogus DEI. The seasons change, and now it's again "winter in America" as Gil Scott Heron put it during the Reagan years.
Thanks Michael. Affirmative action had its time. It wasn't meant to be long-term. And, for elite universities, it made them lazy--the "babies" that Skip talked about. He meant that most of those babies were children of former students at Harvard that would have and likely did get into other elite schools. Harvard didn't have an incentive to find diamonds in the rough when they were 10-11 yo, they could cherry pick from children or rich alumni who happened to be racialized as non-white.
I knew the reaction was inevitable. I didn't know that the anti-DEI folks would act like the pro-DEI folks in reverse. The most well-known from both are profiting for self, not for any meaningful shift. So, the silliness from pro may have been with good intention but without consideration of tradeoffs. The silliness from the anti crowd has been politcally expedient and while they claim wanting to get rid of it, they don't. Their whole brand is based on DEI being a caricature based on their narrative. For that reason, it needs to be released as it was formerly known because it never worked (unlike the Artist Formerly Known As Prince :-))
Yes, the doors need to be opened for people (of all ilks ready to get to work) to walk through. The JBs walked through and did the damn thing without question!
Yes! People like Hegseth have perverted anti-DEI into being highly racist, while Trump thinks destroying medical research rectifies the errors of Wokeism.
Pete Hegseth and some other cabinet members (not all, but enough of them) are the epitome of the silly phrase "DEI Hire." No qualification, no skills, no depth, no admirable quality that makes one want to root for him. . .
Be anti-DEI, fine. Don't be pro-Vapidness.
Thank you for the feedback. Skip Gates was attending classes at Potomac State when the doors swung open at Yale, so he was an authentic AA baby and is not ashamed of it. You make the point -- a stubborn, enduring fact -- that legacies and children of wealth get into the best schools, period. This doesn't appear likely to EVER change though some of the Ivies and well-endowed have opened up their checkbooks for children of working people.
Here is one example, a stat from a letter that appeared in this week's WaPo from a former, two-term governor of Indiana: "Harvard’s freshmen hail from all 50 states; one in five is a first-generation college student; half pay no tuition thanks to Harvard’s endowment; and 16 are military veterans." The idea that "Half pay no tuition" is a beguiling prospect ...
No mention of Harvard's racial or ethnic makeup, which across the board in academia appears to be declining for young people of color, except HBCUs, which so far continue to get regular federal infusions. That can change on a whim.
I agree that AA is for all practical purposes dead, but my hope is that there now exists a Talented Black Tenth Plus that can and will reach out and work with others of all backgrounds for a common goal to advance the human race. (On the other hand, I am an aging Boomer who sometimes is underfoot and definitely under-resourced, so what do I know?)
I think that AA’s time came and went. Justice O’Connor pretty much foreshadowed that it would.
The network of an elite school is what the golden ticket of admission is good for. And, with the economy quickly changing, perhaps more kids choose community college, build a trade at the same time, and when they want to go deeper into something (I would go with philosophy) could go back to a college while making money in their trade.
I am a Morehouse Man, and appreciate what HBCUs have done. Many of them have become more skin color diverse over the years. That’s a good thing. The talented young people racialized as black will always be there. They have parents that make that so. Usually two of them.
If we have more young people building themselves up as college grads or in jobs that are AI proof, then figuring out how they can build a life with someone and move into the investor class together, we will see that reaching out (in the same household and in those of their community) happen more and more.
Thanks Amri. I've long been a big fan of FBT and Erec Smith and many writers here. And I want to support almost all you've said. Most is dead right. We move forward together, black, white, Asian, brown etc, recognising the past, merging our traumas, recognising our mutually influencing histories - and then putting organisational capacity, which requires 'requisite diversity' (Ashby, 1957, Cybernetics) before counter-productive zero/negative-sum organisational optics.
But the one glaring omission is the fallacy of Inclusion, which I realise challenges much of your brand. An organisation, to be successful, must have Values. What's in and what's out. For you, Civility and Dignity are such non-negotiables. Therefore you are (legitimately) not Inclusive of those without these Values. So Inclusion is an oxymoron unless you have no Values at all, which is absurd. Such is the level of absurdity and language-definition we have become accustomed to in the antagonistically-named 'DEI'. I noted this when I first saw it in 2020, and it still stands to me. If we want to get to positive, clear outcomes and organisational capability, the term Inclusion has to go - it's totemic of the unclear thinking right at the core of equalities work. Prove me technically wrong by all means, but no-one has dented my argiument here to date. Just no-one has been listening! However, I agree your working definition from Roosevelt Thomas of "No one disputes that organizations need the capability—the skills and capacity—to manage the tensions and complexities that come with any mixture of similarities and differences, remains sound" - provided this Diversity is not more than Ashby's 'requisite diversity'. More diversity than that is diversity for and beyond its own sake and is counter-productive in the end to the org and society.
Hope you see the challenge in the spirit it's intended :). Would love your thoughts...
Thanks for the comment, Colin. Well, it is hard to agree or disagree with you without knowing how you define "inclusion."
As far as "values" are concerned, the idea values is broad. If you are a complete asshole and it benefits you, your values could include winning at all costs, disparaging anyone who gets in your way of winning, and only feeling a sense of purpose when you win, even if one does harm--the end justifies the means. That could constitute "values" for someone.
Values don't mean much without behaviors that adhere to or contradict them.
If the term "inclusion" goes away, what do we substitute for it? Again, it begins with the definition. If we get rid of inclusion, do we omit exclusion along with it? Do we get rid of mattering as a construct? Belongingness? What about ostracism, does it remain? Is there an opposite of it without inclusion or some variation of the word?
When coupled with diversity as it has been perpetuated, i.e., group identities, inclusion falls short.
If we think about inclusion as "actions that create the conditions for people to thrive and organizations to be generative" (my definition), perhaps we move into something that has much more weight than simply being focused on how one looks or what chromosomes they possess at birth.
Diversity is not just about people. There is diversity of myriad kinds in an organizations or any complex adaptive system. And the mixtures of such need to be considered in how we think about system parts and wholes.
Using Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety, in a complex adaptive system, its management and ability to flourish come from not only the variety itself but the capabilities to deal with the variety. Diversity and adaptability of those who are influencing the system are requisite for a system to not implode on itself. . .or, like a monoculture, become extinct.
Thanks for engaging Amri, and for a good post. I define inclusion simply as in the English language and with simple logic, not as a term squeezed and bent into definitions of human behaviour. It's not difficult.
Inclusion means not excluding anything. Which means you either include everything or you are exclusive, the opposite of inclusive, which is absurd. And if you include everything you have no values, no boundaries at all, so 'anything goes'. It just doesn't make sense.
Now, it can be a partial term - eg 'inclusive of tax' - but then the domain needs to be specified. So, in social discourse, you cannot say, "I am inclusive", unless you add the limits of your scope, eg "We believe in the inclusion of people from historically marginalised groups X, Y and Z". To try to use it as a blanket term, eg as in the third letter of, "We believe in DEI", is just logical nonsense and plays into the hands of the postmodern neo-Marxists who depend on people accepting nonsensical (though seductive) inaccuracies from which they expand their irrational, illogical domain.
Well, if everything is a dictionary definition, where does organizational jargon live? Many now common descriptions of things have been squeezed and bent into definitions of human behavior. Just sayin’.
Inclusion meaning “not excluding anything” is ridiculous and I don’t know of anyone that thinks framing it as such. If you’ve seen that, call them out so that I can send them a note about the ridiculousness ;-)
If we want a more parochial definition, it is the selective choosing of certain things. There is still the element of choice. For example, I include the best chickpeas for my artisanal hummus, some don’t make it.
If we are talking semantics, we won’t go very far. If we are talking about what is and is not, we can move in a similar direction.
To me, calling it “inclusion” works for what I do. For others, it might be closer to creating the conditions for people to do their best work. It is all about actions, behaviors, and building capacity for being a bit better every day.
Ok Amri, I'm honestly just trying to be helpful and truth-seeking. I know you are heavily invested in the term so I expect the rejection and even the easy dismissal.
But stick with me...it's worth the thinking. For millions, 'inclusion' meant 'exclusion of them' - cancellation, bullying, career destruction of ordinary black conservatives, white Fortune500 graduate entrants, those who believed in safe spaces and fair competition among women etc etc.
So no, it deserves more than 'ridiculous', if 'inclusion' includes 'exclusion'. Inclusion had a lot of exclusion in it. It's not a case of doing 'inclusion' better. It's a poor and contradictory term by definition, that allowed and encouraged zealots to abuse decent people. We need a better term now.
Look, I appreciate the engagement. And, I’m not defensive of the term. I don’t care if it is dropped by some. I will use it as I use it and if a client objects we will make sense of why.
We create meanings together all of the time. What term might one use? What would be its purpose? What would be better and for whom?
I use many terms, inclusion is an umbrella term for me and that is why I define it the way I do.
The term “inclusion” didn’t do the harm. Dogmatic practice by ill prepared people and orthodoxy without proper preparation and a lack of consideration of systems did.
The terms “inclusion,” “equity”, and “diversity” have no skin in the game. The interpretation and practice of people using them do even if they haven’t taken responsibility for their actions the cause and effect is real.
So I hear you but I’m not convinced that shifting terms shifts behavior. Shifting beliefs can. I’d rather us talk about how belief shifts can work to our collective benefit.
Thanks for listening Amri. I predict that in time you will stop using the term as a generic, as the weight of its internal contradiction as a blanket term, and the recognition of its utility by far-left postmoderns as a weapon, become more apparent. I hope we have a drink over it then! Keep coming back to me if you wish.
It's been fun to share thoughts and be challenged. I've learned from our chat.
#fbt
(from a white UK guy 😀).
"Actions that create the conditions for people to thrive and organizations to be generative" is a great concept. I might call that "leadership"?
As a center-left Black American, I agree wholeheartedly with the critique that modern DEI has become performative, ideological, punitive, and analytically unsound. But the problem extends beyond DEI. Some of the left have drifted into patterns of thinking that, far from being genuinely liberal, have become illogical and counterproductive.
Among some of us Black folks, there remains a lingering belief that we are still living in a pre–Civil Rights America, and that liberation depends entirely on external tools—government programs, corporate initiatives, and institutional interventions. What’s missing is any willingness to consider that many of our current challenges are rooted not in an unending racial siege, but in cultural and family breakdowns.
Yet the narrative of eternal racial crisis persists. You can still see organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center running commercials with colored water fountains and 1960s marchers, as if the only story worth telling is one of perpetual Jim Crow.
For this reason, I salute the author for his clarity of thought and for having the guts to challenge DEI thinking.
Indeed, John. The adherence to ghosts of the past creates a kind of nihilism that has only served the elites who perpetuate it for their own gain.
Government has never been the answer and there was a time when African-Americans were big on self-sufficiency and community solidarity for sustenance and development.
Keeping the Ferris wheel of the eternal racial crisis serves a small faction of societies globally. They are not just "black" people. In fact, the majority are not. They don't tell folks that "train done gone" on pimping the race game, even though they know. In fact, they confuse those with good intentions, that the train is still in the station, and that to fight for it to remain there is righteous. "Nightmare Begins Responsibility".
As Upton Sinclair wisely said, "It is hard to get people to understand something their paycheck depends on them not understanding."
"Government has never been the answer..."
The Founding Fathers don't seem to be in agreement:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
"...and there was a time when African-Americans were big on self-sufficiency and community solidarity for sustenance and development."
That was a time when African Americans were excluded from "all men" and were instead considered to be nothing more, and nothing less, than Negroes--except for purposes of taxation of course. To speak approvingly of the self-suffiency and community solidarity of that time is to tacitly agree with the racialization that actualized and perpetuated them.
Since you argue that government has never been the answer for those racialized as black but it obviously has for those racialized as white (otherwise the U.S. wouldn't exist), then it would seem that the problem isn't government itself but the administration of the functions of government, no? Otherwise, taken to its logical end, we arrive at the conclusion that government is not for those racialized as black which is extremely problematic for many reasons. The first objection that comes to mind is why should those racialized as black be without government? And if you only mean "government programs," then why should only those racialized as black be excluded from accessing what our tax dollars help fund? The argument should be for those racialized as black to be treated no differently than any other group by the government to which we give our consent to be governed and fund with our tax dollars. The "self-suffiency" days you speak of were days of pure highway robbery when our tax dollars went to support all manner of services we were prohibited from accessing and benefitting from. It's one thing for "self-suffiency" to occur when there are other options available but quite another when it occurs under severe duress due to a lack of options.
What time are you referring to?
I’m not referring to the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Of course, those called “black” as many of my ancestors were, were not self-sufficient in the material sense.
Many of those enslaved however, did act with greater solidarity and community than we often see in the present day with their descendants.
I was referring to the period from the late 19th to mid 20th century.
While government supported programs purported to help, many were poorly incentivized and left people (many of them racialized as black) poorer—healthwise, wealthwise, and knowledge of self-wise.
So, who has the government been the answer for?
That is, other than a small percentage who have exploited it—that which is supposed to be “for the people.”
It hasn’t been the answer for most of those racialized in any hue.
Some have benefitted from government intervention, others less so.
Most, never. And, unfortunately many who do/have, we can truthfully say, have taken advantage of government intervention or programs. Others have used the help as a bridge or a life line depending upon their circumstances.
In general, if government entitlement programs were consistently designed to get people to self-sufficiency the people and country would be better for it, at least in the long-term.
If you are speaking of constitutional changes and legislation that shifted the circumstances from pre-abolition of slavery to post, they were needed. Of course. And even in those circumstances they weren’t ideal but were the majority will of the people—even those who were not anti-slavery. They considered the other tradeoffs.
Now, name a government program, particularly entitlements, that create the conditions for people and communities to thrive.
We are not in the pre-civil rights era any longer. In fact, there were times when “black” people were doing quite well before King.
Poor people continue to struggle. Race matters less in those circumstances. If we are concerned to the extent that we create government programs for the less fortunate that don’t make them perpetually/generationally dependent, that would be a government intervention that would contradict my sentiments and I would admit as such if it comes to fruition.
The distinction between organizational purpose and organizational optics is sharp and needed. Sowell's knowledge fallacy really cuts to the heart of why top-down engineered cultures usually miss the mark; emergent systems resist blueprinting. The focus on building durable relational skills instead of performative awarness makes way more sense for creating actual organizational capability. This kind of self-critique is rare in the space.
Powerful reflectin on how optics replaced purpose in DEI work. The Sowell fallacies you highlight, especially the chess pieces one, get at something fundamental about treating statistical disparity as proof of discrimination by default. The point about building durable skills rather than engineering mindsets is critical becuase capability development actually scales, while top-down culture interventions usually dont.
Thanks for your comment. Morehouse, Spelman, and AU have helped make Atlanta a Black Mecca. Cultivating more trades and service people is helpful though it appears much of that sector these days is coming into the country as migrants starting on the bottom rung. MAGA and AI loom over us, and good home training, a solid eudcational foundation, and community role models are more important than ever. I am always thankful when I meet a young person who is a teacher, especially males. Unfortunately, as we know statistically, the carceral state constructed in the last century continues to destabilize all of our communities.
The most inclusive document is the Declaration of Independence which states:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
People who complain about the Declaration because some people had more stuff than others miss the point. Each individual has his/her own inalienable rights starting at birth. The word "equal" did not imply equality of outcome, but stopped people from arguing that some persons had more or better inalienable rights, which was an extremely popular belief in a society which still had peerage and slaves.
The Declaration stated that each and every person by virtue of being alive had the same inalienable rights. Thus, no person's liberty to pursue happiness should be stopped because of any ascriptive status, i.e. skin color, ethnicity, religion.
The declaration stated that the purpose of government is to secure those individual inalienable rights. Any government which denied a Black person education because he was Black was illegitimate. The government did not become legitimate because it forbid all qualified Black, Jewish, Irish persons of an education or a job since groups are nothing more than many individuals.
Had we concentrated on making certain that no individual's inalienable rights were infringed, we would not ended up with Identity Politics or Wokeism. Whenever we saw a Black person whose right to eat in a restaurant denied because he was Black, our society needed to develop norms where such discrimination was unacceptable. In the work place, the same was true.
EXAMPLE: When I was 20 and In VISTA, I was in St. Louis and needed quick cash. Thus, I went to a major hotel to be a day laborer as a dishwasher. Most the kitchen help were Black and obviously had years of experience and were tending to business very well. Then, some white guy shows up, who was one step above poor white trash, and the hotel made him the supervisor, a job which he was not good. I asked a Black lady, "why did they make that guy the supervisor?" The woman looked at me dumbfoundedly and asked me "Where are you from?" I replied, "New York. We make the most qualified people leaders."
Here's the irony; the dining room was filled with alumni of a Black Fraternity. Since it was 1968, all those Black professionals were not product of Affirmative Action.
I still believe that a national ethos which makes abridging any individual of his/her inalienable rights a taboo would have better served everyone. Instead, we foolishly chose Group Rights, Identity Politics, and Wokeism. We cling to proportional representation without regard to individual merit or the harm it does to individuals and to society.
Thanks for the comment, including the story, Rick. My take is that the idea of "race" has created more harm than it ever could good. It wasn't created for anything good, and if I had my way, we'd get rid of it entirely. It has created wars, genocide, division, and unceasing confusion amongst people globally since its inception.
My way isn't going to happen, but if it did, future generations would be better off.
The group identity trap has benefited elites more than anyone else, especially politicians. I don't know if we've ever been "woke" as Musa Al-Gharbi suggests. I do know that the identity politics isn't perpetuated by people who pushed the group identity DEI agenda the past five years alone. The word "woke" took a negative turn just like the symbols 'D' 'E' and 'I' have, but the perpetuation of group identity in politics is leveraged for gain by elites across the political spectrum.
Even the anti-DEI activists don't want DEI to go away. They want it to remain defined in their way, via their narrative, such that it can continue helping them prosper from it.
They will claim merit and then give opportunities to measurably unqualified actors. I am not sure if claiming merit and hiring the unqualified is any worse than the notion of proportional representation.
Proportional representation is silly for many reasons. The biggest one is experience and skill levels.
So, a lot of what I hear from you is that we need greater integrity. That is hard in the business world. It is rarely rewarded in the short term, and most of us are only focused on the now. It would be a just world if we had a "national ethos which makes abridging any individual of his/her inalienable rights a taboo"; we just haven't reached that level of collective consciousness in meaningful numbers of those in power. At least not in my lifetime.
Just love and respect one another … and have a laugh together watching the most excellent satirical documentary “Am I Racist?” from Matt Walsh. Guaranteed to break down barriers between people. ;-)
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt33034103/
I saw it, it’s hilarious. It shows DEI as a caricature. It anchors on the Kendi and DiAngelo versions.
If the Daily Wire ever engaged with inclusion practitioners to contrast the caricature from what has evidence of ROI, returns on intangibles and investments in culture, I’d give it a 9/10.
Since they use it for political/financial gains with a target audience, often disingenuously and obviously one-sided, rather than rich satire without the political whataboutism, it gets a 6.5/10.
They are wildly successful, more power to them. And, I’d like someone who is opposed to DEI to engage more openly with someone substantive about what it has been made out to be and what it (inclusion and culture work) looks like when done with rigor and integrity.
"civility and dignity are non-negotiable" I totally agree as they define 'respect'.
A job to me however is not required to make me feel anything, only to reward me on a regular basis with a paycheck.
As an employee I have to understand (and perhaps even told) that I am being used to make a profit for the organization.
I make a decision every day to accept or reject those rewards.
You are rare. A lot of people’s identity is tied in with their work, the company brand, its reputation.
They want to make a profit, a name for themselves, and thus have status inside and outside of the work ecosystem.
So, we don’t have to be part of anything extra to be impacting the company culture. For some, that’s a transaction for others a way of life.
Excellent essay
Much appreciated.
"They’re like incense that smells good but eventually burns out."
As someone on the receiving end of DEI bullying, who lost a job because of it, I'd amend that to "...but eventually burns the house down."
Yes, it definitely can and has burned down houses. Now, the push back against it is having folks with DEI titles and roles lose jobs. The tradeoffs are real and unhelpful to all of us. I hope you have at least partially recovered from the shock/loss.
Thanks. I believe in God's justice, which helps.
I see your point; as someone who's in that field, I can certainly understand how you'd feel that way. My perspective is, perhaps also understandably, a bit different. I don't think there's any role for social engineering in the workplace. I want to be able to show up and do my job without being told what I should believe or how I should get along with people. I want to be respected as a mature adult with my own set of moral principals and capable of acting appropriately. If behaviour goes off the rails, deal with individually and privately.
Part of my objection is having a different belief and value system foisted on me. I'm a Christian, which I believe provides superior guidance for human behaviour. DEI attempts to force an alternate, and conflicting, belief and values system on people such as myself who may have different religious or moral frameworks.
I believe DEI is, in part, a religious belief and formed to try to fill the vacuum left by society's rejection of Christianity as a moral framework. But it's a very poor substitute, IMO.
Anyway, thanks for the response and the chance to think this stuff through again.
Social engineering never works. 100% agree.
Clarity about what we are collectively working to create in organizations, does.
Sports teams talk about culture a lot. They do so because “the way things are done (around here) matters.”
My experience that even with Christian values, churches still have to deal with culture because humans are flawed and have tendencies to do all sorts of things often justifying them with their faith.
The principles based on the model of Jesus Christ for example are pristine. It would be great if people acted like Christ.
It would also be great if people acted on agreed to principles in organizational life and had ways of adapting and self-correcting when they get off the mark. This is somewhat close to repentance without the guilt often attached to it because full responsibility could be encouraged and affirmed.
Friction could be much more deliberately dealt with and if things couldn’t be corrected due to lack of willingness to engage with the principles for resolve, there would be clarity about the ramifications of this.
The realities of power make this, neither simple nor easy but possible.
Individuals in their fill agency and with autonomy are acting alongside and interacting with others and that of course requires a certain amount of social contracting or sense of community—an agreement about how we treat each other and how we work through tension.
Some are better at that than others—all of us need skills in this area. There is no go it alone in organizational life. The hope is that people can self-regulate as you suggest, but the truth is, such skills are almost always imbalanced across an organization.
Some people have looked to social engineer societies based on what they claimed were Islamic, Hindu, or Judeo-Christian principles. The results are generally harmful to some and beneficial to others. Does anyone really win?
Like social justice, which can occur as quite religiously oriented as you shared, they can lead to the opposite effect of the intention, at least in the longer term.
DEI, as most know it (or perceive it from it being) done poorly) is in a zombie like state. What to do with a zombie?
Organizations unambiguously that prioritize creating conditions for people to thrive is about everyone and when done consistently is wise and about as adult-like as it comes.
It doesn’t matter what we call it, it leaves people better off at work, lets employees know they matter, and if they know that and are shown that, it positively goes a long way inside and outside of the workplace.
Sure, there have to be some standards of conduct for any organization, agreed on that. And people need to be able to work together in harmony, despite differences. In my experience and observation, I don't think DEI is successful at meeting either of those goals. I'd be interested to know what your specific recommendations or tactics are for achieving what you picture here (general statement, you certainly don't have to put that in a comment, unless you want to).
A brilliant piece by Amri Johnson which is the antidote to what has long ailed DEI. It cares more about optics than outcomes and tries to engineer complete equality of outcome in everything which is what they mean by equity, and that is impossible. Every group of people must be equally distributed in everything and that’s just not possible because different people have different interests, hopes, dreams, and goals in life. Thomas Sowell’s Social Justice Fallacies should be read by every DEI practitioner and by participants in every DEI program! The reaction against DEI was inevitable as it is a miserable failure. Now is the prefect time to retool it. DEI should instead of being diversity, equity and inclusion should be diversity, equal opportunity and inclusion. Abolish the Chess Piece Fallacy that Amri spoke of. Treat human beings as individuals with complex identities, histories, points of view, spiritual beliefs, and outlooks on life. Get rid of the zero-sum fallacy where if one group wins the other or others must lose.
End the knowledge fallacy, stop thinking you know the truth and everyone else is an idiot. You don’t know anymore than anyone else and you can’t engineer social outcomes no matter how hard you try. We can’t make it so as all demographics are in all jobs or positions equal to their portion of the population. All we can do is do our best to increase representation for everyone in all fields to the best of our ability while also giving everyone the freedom to do what they wish. For example, if the STEM field largely consists of men, we can never make it 50% female, we can only increase female representation as much as possible. Another example, NASCAR is mostly white. We can’t put quotas in place to have just as many minority drivers in proportion to their percentage of the population. We can only hope to increase minority representation among NASCAR drivers and crew chiefs as much as possible.
The DEI community needs to welcome ALL points of view. This includes ALL political views. They need to not exclude or attack anyone who has conservative, libertarian or moderate views or critiques DEI from within. The tragic death of Richard Bilkszto proved this wholeheartedly. All the durable skills listed by Mr. Johnson should be heavily pushed and taught. DEI should advocate colorblindness and universalism. DEI should also show that any group of people is capable of evil not just white people. It should also advocate that diverse political views and perspectives on the world is just as valuable as any other form of diversity and no group of people is a monolith and thinking differently doesn’t make you a traitor to your group.
Thanks, Noah. It is hard to welcome all views when one doesn't have to depth to navigate them.
If inclusion, as I see it, is to persist, we need to develop system-thinking skills to address the complexity you allude to.
Evil is raceless, just like, in truth, we are. So is compassion, and truth, and light.
You write very interesting positions. I like them but generally have an issue with your basis.
In this case the "Would have". For clarity on background. From a DEI perspective, I'm a white cis-gender gay male. I could never figure out whether I was an affected class or not. During the peak of DEI, many in the LGBTQ community did not consider me an affected class. I was just part of the white cis-gender male privilege class.
I too had and still today have dissonance with DEI. Including understanding the book "White Fragility" and "How to be an Antiracist". Yet I don't believe the DEI wave was bad.
It forced me to get up to date on the current thinking of what I traditional thought of as Affirmative Action. I was introduced to Affirmative Action in the 1980s at AT&T. I also had dissonance then on Affirmative Action yet I was involved in supporting. There was already discussion about reverse discrimination back then. Including whether it was even possible. I did acknowledge that I was programmed with racists tropes just because of not growing up in a multi-racial community.
My biggest challenge with DEI was that no one ever really came up with a business case that proved it was positive for corporations to adopt. Affirmative Action was adopted by AT&T because they were sued. The business case was to avoid getting sued again. Not the most moral high ground but it did make AT&T create programs that help me become more "racially" aware.
I still believe in the basic foundational concept of Affirmative Action. When hiring, if candidates are equally qualified, chose the candidate that increases your organizational diversity. That is great as an ideal, but requires much flushing out in practicality. But it gets to the part of DEI that I always disagreed with. The E in DEI stands for equity, not equality. Basically stating that if the statistics show a difference in racial distributions in any category, there must be a racial bias behind it.
Your article and past articles seems to align with my view that this concept is ridiculous. Should the NBA be recruiting more white males because there disproportionately too many Black males? Should a Chinese or Mexican restaurant recruit non-Chinese or non-Mexican workers to increase diversity? What should the measure be for large companies on correct distribution. The country, the state, the city, or the community? Should a factory in Sioux City Iowa have a racial distribution equal to the country or state or the city? Equity from my perspective was wishful thinking on Kendi's part for a simple measure to determine whether an organization was "racists". Regardless, the DEI phase got me up to date on the current Affirmative Action thinking. That was positive.
What would be (versus "would have") interesting is a post DEI and post anti-racists analysis of how Kendi achieved so much interest with how to be an anti-racist and the concept of equity. That would be a good article.
Thanks @Rogue4Gay. My basis starts with the idea that it is the boxes we ascribe to people that get in the way of us fully relating to one another.
Yes, people are all the things that come with the identity categories they subscribe to.
In your case, cis-gay-racialized as white-bloke. And that is only a smidgen of who you are. If I got to know you, I would talk to you about the NBA, your time at AT&T, and what shaped your worldview, including your preferences for whom you love, but not exclusively about them.
Because DEI (the past 10 years) and diversity and affirmative actions prior to that, has anchored on ascribed group identity, we have been reductionist without acknowledging or considering the implications of being so.
There have been many business cases for diversity. Many of them co-opted from a popular company or individual. Kendi and DiAngelo are more recent but others have been at the helm. Some had conditions that made them "successful" or just popular, but their approaches might not work in another company, even one next door or across town.
Context shifts, relationships vary that pretty much goes without saying. Yet, many organizations adopted the same playbook for antiracism after May 2020 without considering the tradeoffs.
The best business case is the one that a firm develops on their own. One that allows them to build capabilities that address their challenges, that help their people develop, that create the conditons and results they desire.
The lack of depth at many firms when it came to affirmative action policies and history showed us that the predominant way of addressing the issue didn't lean toward solidarity. It created the opposite. Someone with depth would have considered the system and addressed it with as many people across the organization willing to engage a lens of the system (everyone in it, the many) not the symptoms (that were focused on the few) that seemed to be at issue.
I am willing to consider doing a Kendi popularity retrospective. And, I imagine a global pandemic with a lockdown for the majority of the world, watching a man die in front of the world on screens, analyzed and amplified by social media "influencers," along with a world of pain that went way beyond Floyd, would be at least part of the conclusion.
When the perfect storm comes it is quite difficult to predict what takes root and if it is for the good or not in the long-term, things shifted so fast and people saw opportunity for gain and jumped into to grab it even when many were grossly underqualified to do so. . . Kendi got popular due to timing more than anything. I don't see his work as particularly exceptional, just quite lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
Kendi (and DeAngelo) were apparently “right” for the time. That just brings up another question, what made that time so different? I suspect it was that so many were isolated at home with nothing else to do. Floyd was not the first Black man who died. From my perspective Breonna Taylor was an obvious case of police incompetence and likely racist bias.
That was exactly it. Isolation, repetition, manipulation, machination, exhaustion, elections, perfect storm conditions. And good luck and timing for those authors’ bank accounts.
I appreciate this essay. Many people lack the courage to put their ideas out there into the public square for hearty critique. I tip my hat to you and your creative take on things. I wanted to love your argument but I couldn't and here is why. I am a big opponent of dogmas and slogan words. "Inclusion" is simply another abstraction subject to manipulation. Inclusion could mean ten different things to ten different people. Moreover, inclusion keeps us caged in external locus of control. Inclusion strikes me as a blessing from the external world. The black Americans I most admired lived by internal locus of control, things like enterprise, ambition, high aim, engaging the larger world and the self-confidence of inner agency. Berry Gordy, John H. Johnson, Reginald Lewis, Percy Sutton, and Earl Graves come to mind.
Inclusion didn't make Lt. Governor Doug Wilder governor of Virginia. It was high ambition, drive and focus -- internal locus of control -- that made the first popularly elected black Governor in U.S. history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wilder My opinion is probably a minority view. Inclusion strikes me as an abstraction conceived in external locus of control and ripe for manipulation.
Best,
Thanks, Counselor. I have been following your work for many years now. The Twymans are an exceptional family.
You aren't the first nor the last person to talk about the problem with "inclusion" "equity" or even "diversity," even though it is accepted by people in cases when it doesn't deal with group identity or humans (e.g., biodiversity, portfolio diversity, industrial, etc.).
Semantics are what they are. We need John McWhorter to help us sort through that with aplomb.
I am not sure how you define "inclusion." In my framing, it is an umbrella term. It always has been in my practice, and it has kept the silliness of the symbols D, E, and I at bay for my clients, making it principle-oriented for business success, not an office to prop up group identity markers with "passionate" people at the helm.
Obviously, to omit it is at best difficult for my work and makes my integrity about how I've used it suspect. . ."Did he ever really mean it? Is he now trying to cover it up? Gotcha! I see you were always one of the "woke" ones!!!"
So, inclusion, as you are framing it, is not my goal nor has it ever been my intention. Creating the conditions for a Gordy, Johnson, Lewis, Sutton, Wilder, Banks, Hughes, Burns, Walker, Johnson is my intention. But not just because they are racialized as black, but because there was at least one occlusion that they all experienced that required them to build their skills (with help, as all successful people get it) and agency to get what they got.
Everyone needs the skills (beyond technical acumen alone) that these great humans and many more have developed. Few organizations are intentional about creating them. Universities and other educational paths, even less so. My approach fills that gap.
So, I am open to new phrases that capture the idea of creating the conditons for people to thrive and organizations to be generative (life giving beyond themselves, capable and adding value beyond profit.) I will consider all, as I don't have an alternative right now. This has been a big part of the organizational development profession for quite a long time. They've called it people development, but it is pretty generic and not many people are aware of it. And, right now, even those who do that work are scrutinized and penalized as a result of the political assassination of so-called DEI.
For example, there are certain things I include in my diet for health reasons, and others I exclude or avoid. Do we only use "inclusion" in this sense?
What skills and capabilities are included in a job description? Do we list these? Are so-called AI skills enough, even though what that means is a catch-all and context-dependent?
And if we want to get rid of a concept, others have been much more damaging than "inclusion" (obviously, the misuse of equity is one). Another is "race."
"Race" is a fiction (no biological basis, created for nefarious reasons) that has never been helpful since its inception. If "inclusion" didn't make racialized people (or any parts of humanity) great (rich, but not "great") as you shared (and I agree given how you it occurs you are framing it), the idea of race definitely has harmed people more.
So, I am open and would be delighted to have a forum with the nuanced thinkers on this thread. And in doing so, I hope we talk about words and concepts (and, more importantly, the actions associated with them) that have been harmful and that we adhere to even though their use and perpetuation have never been helpful to humanity, institutions, or organizations.
Thank you for an extended and well-thought out reply to my comment. You and I are on the same page. If your intention is to replicate the likes of Gordy, Johnson, Lewis, Sutton, Wilder, and all the rest, I am in alignment. I hope other writers, scholars and intellectuals are as open to new phrases that maximize agency and internal locus of control over abstractions. See generally Agency: The Four Point Plan (F.R.E.E.) for ALL Children to Overcome the Victmhood Narrative and Discover Their Pathway to Power by Ian V. Rowe. I am flattered that you have followed my essays "for many years now." A writer's most fervent dream is to see, and to be seen.
I look forward to reading more of your opinions and viewpoints as we navigate the weeks, months and years ahead. And I apppreciate your investment in "inclusion." Your willingness to size up imperfections is not easy but speaks well of your introspection and depth.
Best,
I think I started following Rowe’s work and bought his book soon after it was published alongside of the stream of substantive content I read from you and Michael Bowen (mostly via the FBT podcast), and of course Glenn Loury and John McWhorter.
I wouldn’t have accused organizations of racism due to group differences and attacked divergent views as racist. Very damaging, drawing out responses that have long ago been eliminated as racist.
Disparity ≠ Discrimination
I really appreciate your honesty. Public intellectuals rarely admit that they should have acted differently and—rarer still—engage in the deep reflection that lead to such admissions.
Thanks, Glenn. I use this quote often and recently, after completing @Musa Al-Gharbi's book "We Have Never Been Woke" got empirical accounts that it is beyond anecdotal.
"It is hard for a man to understand something that his paycheck depends on him not understanding." Upton Sinclair
I forgot to include in my last reply that "We Have Never Been Woke" is one of my fall-time favorite books—I have my students read it and recommend it every chance I get. It so perfectly articulates my own experiences and observations that I wish I had authored it. What reminded me to reply is that I brought it up at lunch with a group of students the other day.
You're welcome—and I just read the Sinclair quote elsewhere yesterday!