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The first time I ever heard the phrase, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (or DEI) came through some online discussions and articles in the SCA. When I first heard it, I’ll admit, I was not a fan. To me, it sounded more like a person-in-search-of-a-project than something that was actually needed. After all – as a gay man in the SCA, I’ve been pretty darned successful. Are things perfect? No. But they are ever improving. So why mess with the system if it was already working, right?
Well…it’s not that easy. It never is.
This is why I find it important – REALLY important – to not become complacent with my own experiences and my own perceptions. Just because (insert some negative experience) never happened to me, doesn’t mean the same for the individual across the room. And as I began to listen – really listen – to the people who were describing their negative experiences in life, it continued to open my eyes. The patterns… the subtle ways in which things were systematically designed to give advantage to some and not others… the repeated history... similar stories told over and over by different faces from different times. Around this time, I started to turn more and more towards news sources that taught history – our history – no, not the history I learned in High School – but the things that happened to the everyday average person – a person who doesn’t look like me – and the different perspective was nothing less than shocking!
There was so much I had not been taught. Heck, as a Florida high school student in the 80’s taking A.P. American History in eleventh grade, there really wasn’t a mention about Florida as far as the civil war was concerned. It seemed to be something that happened further up north. There was no mention about Seminoles, the indigenous people of Florida, and the wars. Nothing. It was all about the Europeans who came to Florida onwards. It wasn’t until MUCH later that I learned much of the dark history of where I grew up. I learned about a town – an entire TOWN – that had been burned to the ground by white people in Rosewood in the 1920s. I never knew about Marianna – the former juvenile hall where they have been unearthing skeletons (at least 55 so far) of (mostly African American) boys who went “missing” while being both physically and sexually tortured at the facility. Heck, it wasn’t until very recently that I learned about the African American cemetery that was erased and built over by a modern office complex (where I used to work, FFS!)
There is more. There is much, much more. There is more that I know. There is even more that I’m sure that I do NOT know. But it is important to keep learning, growing, and to develop empathy and the ability to listen.
If you are still on the fence as to whether or not DEI discussions are useful, ask yourself – why are the extremist right-wing politicians out there so incredibly scared of “woke” people?
Because they know that the biggest threat to their façade comes from people who are educated with the full story – not just the pretty and shiny bits. “Woke” is not a boogieman. It is truth.
Fight the façade.
Well…it’s not that easy. It never is.
This is why I find it important – REALLY important – to not become complacent with my own experiences and my own perceptions. Just because (insert some negative experience) never happened to me, doesn’t mean the same for the individual across the room. And as I began to listen – really listen – to the people who were describing their negative experiences in life, it continued to open my eyes. The patterns… the subtle ways in which things were systematically designed to give advantage to some and not others… the repeated history... similar stories told over and over by different faces from different times. Around this time, I started to turn more and more towards news sources that taught history – our history – no, not the history I learned in High School – but the things that happened to the everyday average person – a person who doesn’t look like me – and the different perspective was nothing less than shocking!
There was so much I had not been taught. Heck, as a Florida high school student in the 80’s taking A.P. American History in eleventh grade, there really wasn’t a mention about Florida as far as the civil war was concerned. It seemed to be something that happened further up north. There was no mention about Seminoles, the indigenous people of Florida, and the wars. Nothing. It was all about the Europeans who came to Florida onwards. It wasn’t until MUCH later that I learned much of the dark history of where I grew up. I learned about a town – an entire TOWN – that had been burned to the ground by white people in Rosewood in the 1920s. I never knew about Marianna – the former juvenile hall where they have been unearthing skeletons (at least 55 so far) of (mostly African American) boys who went “missing” while being both physically and sexually tortured at the facility. Heck, it wasn’t until very recently that I learned about the African American cemetery that was erased and built over by a modern office complex (where I used to work, FFS!)
There is more. There is much, much more. There is more that I know. There is even more that I’m sure that I do NOT know. But it is important to keep learning, growing, and to develop empathy and the ability to listen.
If you are still on the fence as to whether or not DEI discussions are useful, ask yourself – why are the extremist right-wing politicians out there so incredibly scared of “woke” people?
Because they know that the biggest threat to their façade comes from people who are educated with the full story – not just the pretty and shiny bits. “Woke” is not a boogieman. It is truth.
Fight the façade.
