Things I have Heard on DEIB that I Want to Delete from My Brain (Oops, Did I Think That Out Loud #1)

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own. I apologize for any cringing that may happen while you read this.

This is what I feel like sometimes when I—a first generation Canadian immigrant who did not speak a word of English till I was 11, Asian, Millennial, Female, who is in an interracial marriage with an Indian man and spends her time between Canada, India and the US—feel when I hear how some leaders talk about DEIB:

OK, I’m glad we got that out of the way.

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Here is the highlight reel of my thoughts to some comments I have heard in the professional setting, from someone in what would typically be considered a leadership role, and where more than one person was in the audience. Everything has been paraphrased for anonymity (and yes, the originators are of various gender, orientation, ethnicity, age, etc.; so please don’t generalize or assume upon reading):

• “Wow, you look so young in person! You’re Asian; I can never tell how old you guys are…you could be 24 or 46. You all look the same”: WHERE DO I BEGIN?! I’d be happy to give you my extensive skincare routine if you’d like, but that’s not going to fix what’s ugly on the inside. Also, that’s not what you are saying is it? What you are doing is questioning if I have the qualifications / experience / tenure to be in this room. You are giving me the CLASSIC backhanded “compliment” (if we can even call it that) because you are too much of a coward to ask about my background and experience, you want me to jump into the defensive and share all the information you need to know without ever having to ask, and you have too much pride and ego to see someone who looks like me arrive in the room. I will take my seat in the room now thank you very much, because that 3 seconds comment tells me more than I will ever need to know about you, and I don’t need that kind of energy in my life. Also, that attitude is going to get you and your company sued someday. Good luck, I hope you have a good Legal department. ?
• “[Insert ethnicity here] are VERY hardworking, and they band together with a really strong community. So, if you get one of them, the rest of them will just gravitate towards this”: I mean at least you’re thinking about how to optimize your talent pipeline? Who am I kidding? Stop this and stop this now; you sound like nails on a chalkboard to me and I can’t hold my facial expression anymore to not stare at you in disgust in a very public setting. For the love of all things: STOP GENERALIZING! This is like saying “Asians are good at math” (don’t get me on a soapbox about this one; you’ll never hear the end of it). You are reducing the person, their values, their motivations, their experience, their context, etc. down to JUST their ethnicity. It is not fair to the candidate, the culture, and holds no value whatsoever to what you are trying to accomplish in recruiting. There is no empirical evidence ANYWHERE supporting your claims. You are risking spending A LOT of money, setting a lot of wrong expectations, and sending your recruiters on a VERY VERY wrong path. Just stop.
• “Let’s powwow this one out; we’ll figure out a solution”: First of all, I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that the word was never meant to be used as a verb with present, past and future tenses. Second, WHAT ERA DO YOU LIVE IN?! And is it under a rock? Because I have a hard time believing that none of the current events pertaining to First Nations and Indigenous Peoples made it to your news feed that you are obsessively scrolling and annoyingly quoting from on an hourly basis. The English word “Meet” is perfectly suited for this situation, and I’m certain the thesaurus could offer you many more options. This issue at hand here is a non-issue, so let’s not try to make it more “exciting” with a variety of other words used out of context.
• “I was skeptical at first, but for someone who is [insert age here], it is AMAZING they were able to do [insert skillset that is really not age relevant here]”: age has nothing to do with ability. Let me say it one more time and louder for those in the back: AGE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ABILITY. By categorizing the person with their age group and skillset, you are effectively discrediting the work they have put into honing the skillset, setting unfair expectations of others in the room in a different age group who may not have the skillset and making them feel terrible, and just being a judgmental [insert non-LinkedIn appropriate word here of your choice]. You are of a certain generation group and I am sure that you wouldn’t speak about yourself in this form, so how is it appropriate for you to talk about others like that? Please stop talking, because I really don’t want to sit through an investigation.
• “Let’s just give [insert Employee Resource Group with a few hundred members here] $5,000 for events the year. That should help make them feel included and stop the noise”: Wow, gee, thanks. $5,000 solves generational trauma, effects of diaspora, discrimination in the workplace, constant code switching, the company not making a public statement when a huge social event happened and when it mattered, etc. You’re brilliant…you’ve nailed the whole purpose of DEIB and solved it for everyone. I don’t even know where to start on this one because it is so bloody exhausting to have to put in the emotional labor of need to explain to you what is wrong with this. You want to feel like you’ve done something, but you don’t want to commit to anything, so you are throwing money at the problem (and pennies at that). I’m going to exit this conversation now and scream in silence somewhere.

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For those who may be wondering:

• Did I speak up in all of these situations? Only if I was in the room and when I can interrupt the conversation. The problem with these comments is that they sometimes roll of the tongue so naturally, and get normalized by the room so quickly, that it’s really hard to stop the conversation at hand to address these issues. Where I couldn’t address it in the room, I did pull the person aside later to share my perspective and feedback about their comments in a respectful and productive manner
• Did I change behavior? I’m not sure. I know they stopped doing it with me in the room. Only they will know if I changed their thinking
• Why did I choose this topic to write about? Because I believe there is good in the world, and I assume positive intent. I don’t think any of the comments above were made from a place of ill-intent—ignorance perhaps, but not ill intent. Even if this article just makes ONE person out there pause and reflect, or ONE person feel that they are not alone, then it has served its purpose.