D&I: it's not political, it's human (and tips on how to talk about it with civility)

All major religions, while using different approaches, share certain teachings – even a cursory exploration of comparative religion demonstrates this.

One of the most important of these shared teachings is the idea that within every being burns the spark of the divine – the creator, the source.?It is this concept that, when fully incorporated into our moment-to-moment thoughts and actions, allows us to move our center of energy above the physical concerns (fear, lust, blind obedience, power, so forth) and into the realm of the heart – compassion, understanding, and love.?Knowing that we are an integral part of the incomprehensible plan and process of life lifts our eyes higher than the ground before us and allows us to rise above the maxims of the lower realms such as “might makes right” and “the majority rules”.

Even for those who focus on the physical world alone, it is plain to see that we are, each of us, quite literally made of stardust and the residue of comets – the same process that created the unfathomable enormity of the cosmos is at work on this very planet, and resulted in you – and, to the point, the person next to you.

I have seen people attempting to cast diversity and inclusion efforts in a negative light for being political, and it immediately struck me because I am interested in politics and the idea did not sit well in my mind.?(For those who are curious – I am most accurately pigeon-holed as a classical anarchist in the individualist mode.?In other words, I don’t trust government and would be happy if it were so minimal as to be unnoticeable in our lives.?Local governments and private citizen organizations are where it’s at for me.?This makes me what is known as a highly politically conservative person, but you know how that goes – hard to fit me into a labeled jar).

To address this idea that D&I is somehow political, it is necessary to distinguish between the idea of a diverse and inclusive culture and the methods of realizing that vision.

I don’t believe I need to spend much time justifying the idea. Diversity is about strength and adaptability and is desirable in almost any circumstance, from building teams of humans to ensuring the long-term stability of rice or corn harvests.?I recall an article in National Geographic a while ago – something about the science of human attraction – that cited some studies indicating that the quest for diversity even strongly influences who we find physically attractive.?Armies must be adaptable to different circumstances in conflict – the examples go on and on, and it is difficult to argue against the benefits of diversity.

It is not diversity, but rather inclusion that is the reason I opened this article the way I did – inclusion is about compassion, empathy, and understanding.?What human being – regardless of political beliefs – would say “it is good that people feel excluded and marginalized”??How – recognizing the divine or cosmic beauty of all humans, could anyone knowingly seek to diminish others??Very few people actually do - regardless of what you may hear on <fill in the news source>.

This is where we come back to the difference between values and methods.?Humans share certain common values but differ in their beliefs in how to achieve outcomes that reflect those values.?In America, at least, our political leaders and the media establishment that supports them have come to conflate values and methods, diminishing our collective ability to discuss matters with civility.?Here are examples from either side.

A political conservative may object to the existence of the Department of Education at the federal level.?People with an opposing view may accuse them of not caring about education, or children, or the poor.?But political conservatives do care about those things – they just feel the federal government should not have a hand in education.?(And of course, having just read about where I sit politically, you can guess that I feel that the best way to mess up education is to put it in the hands of the federal government ??).

A liberal person may object to the existence of capital punishment.?People with an opposing view may accuse them of supporting crime and violence and wishing to put criminals on the streets to perform all manner of nefarious acts upon the unsuspecting suburban populace - they will have blood on their hands as if they had done the crime themselves.?But political liberals do not wish those things to happen and do not favor crime – they just feel that there is always hope for people no matter how far they’ve gone astray (that’s the lesson of Star Wars, isn’t it?) and/or that the government should not have the right to take the lives of its own citizens under any circumstance.

We all share these values – we want people to be educated, to lift up the poor, to provide a better world for the next generation, to reduce/eliminate crime, and…we all want those around us to feel welcome and valued – we want those around us to succeed and be happy.

Diversity and inclusion is about shared values, not politics.?But…I’m not na?ve – it does get political a bit when you start talking about methods.?Let’s look at an example of that, using the scenario that our management level staff does not accurately represent the population at large, nor even our workforce.

A quick way to fix that would be to simply ensure that the next x number of management hires/promotions come from under-represented groups.?Voila!?You’ve achieved the vision, but with a cost.?I’m citing this example because I’ve seen it in the past – an organization that committed to doing just this.?It had side effects – folks from the already-well-represented group decided not to apply for management positions at all (were well-qualified candidates then missed?), and folks from the under-represented groups also refrained from applying because they couldn’t be sure if they would be getting the position on merit (again – were well-qualified candidates then missed?).

A slower approach would be to ensure that the pool of candidates with merit for managerial positions is more accurately representative of the population/workforce – focusing recruiting efforts in different areas than had been done previously, making targeted investments in education and development, so forth.?But this may result in progress deemed too slow.

Meritocracy is sometimes cited as an impediment to D&I, and I can see very well how that can be so (who defines merit?), but it doesn’t have to be – you can have your meritocracy and your D&I, too.?It’s all about ensuring that “merit” may be achieved by anyone.?That is a downstream effort that takes time to yield results.

I like to think of the National Football League (NFL) in this regard.?The “Rooney Rule” is essentially a rule that states that minority candidates must be interviewed for head coaching positions in the NFL.?This is well and good, but what is being done downstream??NFL coaches of all stripes often come from colleges – diversifying the ranks of college football coaches would naturally yield a more diverse (and thus stronger) pool of NFL coaching candidates.

So – in summary – D&I is anything but political – it’s just basic human values that are shared and agreeable to nearly everyone on this planet.?It’s a vision – how we get there can cross into the realm of “politics” (do we impose things from the top down or create things from the bottom up?), but please don’t conflate the values with the methods – understand that there is a very good chance that your values are shared by others with whom you disagree about methods – be civil.