Not For Me...

Why DEI Matters.

Last night the Super Bowl halftime show showed again the depth of divides in the nation. You have some pretty clear delineation in the demographics of the respondents online, and the most common response I see from people whose demographic I at least partially share is some derivation of — I didn’t get it.

Well, it wasn’t meant for me/us.

I am a white, middle-class, cisgendered, hetero male in his mid-50s. I’ve spent most of my life being the “target audience” for the culture. It is exactly what Samuel L. Jackson’s character in this halftime drama was conveying…”too loud, too reckless, too ghetto!” And, listen, I get it. It is uncomfortable not being the focal point. It is disturbing to have language being used that you don’t “get.” It is disconcerting to feel like you are on the “outside” of something.

But I’d also ask people who look like me to consider something. That is likely exactly how someone who is not part of the majority feels every single day.

This is why DEI efforts have been so important. It isn’t because they are trying to hire or promote unqualified people, but instead to work on representation in our systems to help expand everyone’s understanding.

DEI is being torn down now, brick-by-brick, in an intentional drive to squash such efforts, to return to the time in which one demographic never has to do any translating, or educate itself, or see anything beyond its already well-established lens that it calls, “normal.”

Last night some of us had to confront that in ourselves, because that stain is on all of us, even those of us who affirm the important role of DEI education and structure. We don’t hardly know where the tender places are until we push on them. And, just like with deep-tissue work, we can’t work those knots out until we find them. Some have chosen to ignore those pains, to push through the spasms and tightness and dysfunction to walk in the direction that is comfortable, even if it isn’t functional.

I hope that we’ll find a way to grow more comfortable with being uncomfortable, and to accept that not everything has to be for us to be for us.