Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Strategist. Bestselling Author of Reconstructing DEI and DEI Deconstructed. They/Them. LinkedIn Top Voice on Racial Equity. Inquiries: lilyzheng.co.
"#Diversity, #Equity, #Inclusion...what's that?" I was just getting to know the retired construction worker who had joined me at a table outside a local coffeeshop, when he asked what I did for work and I answered. "I make workplaces fair and healthy places to work for everyone," I said. "When people aren't being treated fairly by their bosses or are being harassed by others, I go in and help make things right." He nodded, but I could see he wasn't quite satisfied. "Give me an example." "Let's see...say a US-born worker has been with a company for 12 years, doing solid work, no issues. He's been promoted 4 times and is pretty happy with his role. An immigrant worker has been with the same company for the exact same period of time, does great work, no issues—but he's only been promoted once, and has overheard racist comments from his boss on occasion." The man sitting across from me leaned forward, looking serious. "That's discrimination," he said. "I recognize it well. The number of times I saw that happen throughout my career to good people...but that must be hard to prove. I imagine you have to go through a lot of information." "Looking through the data is a big part of it," I agreed. "But a big draw of doing this kind of work is to put things in place to prevent discrimination more broadly, so we don't have to be constantly working case-by-case." His friend sitting next to him, a retired airline mechanic, gave a bark of a laugh. "Does that mean you also bust the bosses who hire their buddies who can't do the job at all? Hated those kinda guys." I grinned back. "Sure do." I relaxed a bit while I listened to him tell an animated story about an unqualified airline "mechanic" doing work that would give an airline representive a heart attack, while the first man continued looking at me in silence. Eventually, during a lull in the conversation, he surprised me. He said, "It must feel good to know that you're doing work that helps people." I wasn't expecting to hear it. Like many practitioners, I've spent the last few years constantly fending off misinformation from every angle excusing inequity and discrimination while demonizing any work to address it. And as DEI has become an increasingly easy target for talking heads on TV and anonymous faces on social media to go after, everyday conversations about it have become more fraught. It feels now like you can't go five minutes into a DEI-related conversation with a stranger off the street without getting into talk of "reverse racism" or "wokism" or the latest straw-man caricature flouted by an internet personality. But he reminded me that when we reclaim the narrative around this work and communicate about it simply and effectively, everyday people have no problem recognizing it for what it is: helping people. Helping organizations. Helping make a world that's a little more fair, respectful, and empowering for all of us than it was yesterday. It's a reminder I think we all need.
Nashika Stanbro
3mo
Thank you. It’s important to note that along with a shift in how we communicate this work, many of us are doing the work differently. Many of us are doing the work in ways that promote sustainability and focus on systems change rather than only on educating and informing. Your conversation gave some transparency to those folks while other folks are left feeling like DEI is a black box where they don’t seem understand the inputs or outputs that go this work. Sadly this has left ample space for pundits to simply make stuff up. Wokeism is a garbage word that seems to mean: you care too much about fairness and it’s making me feel scared and threatened. This reframing has helped me quite a bit, hopefully it helps someone else.
Carrie Oswald
3mo
Sometime we just have to break it down for folks so they understand the work we do is all about fairness and inclusion. Who doesn’t want to be treated fairly? Who doesn’t understand inclusion? These are concepts everyone can get behind, especially if the context makes sense.
Patrick Reynolds
3mo
The interaction you described beautifully illustrates the importance of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the workplace. It’s heartening to see individuals like the retired construction worker recognizing these issues and engaging in meaningful conversations about them. Making workplaces fairer and healthier is crucial, and it’s inspiring to hear about the positive impact you made here!
Jana S.
3mo
Thank you for this post. I’m a professional with a disability actively seeking remote employment. There have been a number of jobs for which I’ve applied, and for which I qualify or overqualify, but I receive the “moving forward with other candidates” email. I’ve switched back and forth from disclosing my disability in my cover letter and not as I want to be honest with potential employers, but feel like the hesitation supersedes employers’ willingness to get the chance to know me.
🌳 Hazel Garcia
3mo
Despite everything I’ve seen and personally experienced, I still believe the majority of people care about fairness. The only reason it seems otherwise is fear, a rational response to the environment they find themselves in built on artificial structures of competition.
Dee Grey
3mo
"Recognizing it for what it is...helping people." It's not easy helping people that actively want to harm you for doing so. But it has never not been rewarding. The relief in a client's eyes as they find a space where they can "actually talk about this?" The deeper connections that people create as they understand each other at a more human level.
Kaitlin Desselle
2mo
Yesss!! I just presented at a local SHRM conference using this exact approach—that the ingredients of DEIA and “good leadership, people management, psychology safety, fairness, etc” are so closely related! It feels like the more inflammatory DEIA is to those that want to write it off as “wokism,” the more we’re having to pivot and talk more about the impact we’re making and less about “DEI” specifically. Thanks for this post—it really affirms the agility we have to move with as things change.
Alexandria S.
3mo
Thank you for sharing this experience. It is beautiful to hear and helps refuel my hope that change is possible. It also highlights how important words are. I love how you explained what you do in a way that is really approachable, and that is exactly what DEI work is. It just seems to have gotten lost in the politics. So also, thank you for the reminder that there are different ways to talk about the same thing, and it can lead to different results.
Matthew Cahill
3mo
In the latter part of 2020, there was a concerted effort to vilify BLM. Not enough social traction. Then CRT became the bogeyman. Almost there. DEI may have been the strategic goal all along as the acronym is too often portrayed as a stand-alone thing that is somehow to blame for something it is incapable of being. Fuel for the fringes. Thanks for reframing in a practical, everyday common ground story.
Leadership & Talent Development | Organizational Development | Diversity & Inclusion | Experiential Education | Business Storytelling | Executive & Career Transition Coaching | Wellbeing | TEDx speaker
3moMathew, Pratap, Dr. Prerna Tambay, Valerie, Irshad, Vernā, Akshay: Do you also have stories like these to tell?