Differing Definitions of Diversity

We black folk are funny sometimes.

For the most part, we define ‘diversity’ as meaning “the inclusion of black folk”. In the beginning of the diversity process (i.e. the “colorization of structural America”), this worked since we were the only ones who colorized America.

Then other folks started colorizing America too. Latino people and Asian people (among others) started showing up on the street and in the workplace, giving the country even more color than what had been previously imagined. This was good for all Americans, as it gave everyone a chance to experience the benefits of multiculturalism.

However, it also gave white America a chance to diversify the definition of diversity…in a manner disadvantageous to black folk.

Now white people could look outside black America when they needed to fill quotas or pat themselves on the back regarding diversity-related efforts. They could pull from the international ranks, in academia or the actual workplace. While it makes economic (not financial, although that could be true too) sense, it gave them the added bonus of leaving black folk out in the cold.

(I’m going to hope everyone understands that last point. If not, keep reading.)

Black folk and white folk have had a contentious relationship in this country for as long as the country has existed…and almost 200 years before that. If white people can do something good without helping black people, they’ll line up by the hundreds.

(If you haven’t figured this out yet, I’m talking about the aggregate: of which there is more than a sufficient percentage to push the entire group in the direction of which I speak.)

This is in no way meant to impugn the efforts or talents of my other-colored family: they should absolutely take every advantage of every opportunity that they can. I’d do it. I would just ask them to understand that the struggle belongs to us all, and that we paved many of the roads they walk down.

Digressing a bit, this skate-around is how you see an office, a board room, a post-baccalaureate classroom...with no black people be called ‘diverse’ by one group and the complete opposite by another. This is why we need to get everyone on the same page as far as what diversity is and the fact that everyone – including us – needs to be included in its operationalization.

We black folk also bear the responsibility of realizing that while our inclusion is a necessary condition of diversity, it is not a sufficient condition thereof. It wasn’t right when the country first started to diversify, and it’s not right now. Our inclusion has to be part of the bigger picture. If it’s not, then we’re as guilty as everyone else has been throughout history.

And therein lies the rub, the difference between theory and reality: diversity is defined as ‘everyone having a seat at the table’. Diversity, at its optimum, is practiced as everyone making sure there are seats for everyone else at the table.