Intolerant of Intellectual Laziness in DEI?
Intolerant of Intellectual Laziness in DEI?
It is perhaps a personality flaw or one of my most endearing qualities. I am intolerant of intellectual shortcuts. They occur as laziness to me.
I recognize cognitive load and our general limitations of holding too many things in memory, reducing our capacity to process information beyond a certain threshold.
Undoubtedly, the social media world presents a patina that generating more content increases one's chances of winning. The algorithms are at least in part won over by the frequency of posts one produces.
And when it comes to DEI and the influence the idea of it has had on businesses, particularly over the past four years, chasing algorithms has brought us to a place where most of the conversation in the public sphere has become like a table football (aka foosball, baby foot, Tischfussball) game. The goals are to have fun and win, but mostly to win. . .
Most of what I read related to DEI (negative and positive) occurs as a game to win.
I cannot knock the lay public who would not consider themselves “practitioners” or academics who study topics adjacent to DEI.
People with less familiarity with DEI beyond what their media consumption preferences are at the will of memes and sound bites like “DEI must DIE,” “DEI is not DOA,” “DEI is poison,” “Anti-DEI Rhetoric is Poison,” etc.
If you clicked on one of the links above, notice the order of your selection. While you could have simply followed them sequentially, you might gravitate toward the one that fits the narrative you have been most strongly influenced by.
While writing Reconstructing Inclusion, I saw this trainwreck approaching as I sat in the operator booth reading social media posts igniting social capital for the sake of “social justice”. It seemed reasonable at the time—a venting of sorts.
And then, people saw gold on ‘dem tracks, and many swooped in for loot. Quite a few secured their bag and ran like Bobbie Sue in Stevie “Guitar” Miller’s song. Perhaps it was good that they did–run, that is.
This brings me back to my gastric distress when confronting the perpetual lack of nuance amongst too many people in the DEI space. I have fallen into this, too.
DEI practitioners must be beacons for dissent
My need to build my brand and business has me writing with distraction or not doing the depth of research I prefer before putting something out for consumption. The potential negative consequences are unknown, but that doesn’t mean there are none.
The reality is that my content is only moderately influential. And if I am not mindful and actively seeking disconfirmation of my ideas and those in the field, I may contribute to the collective willful blindness.
Heterodoxy allows one to source disconfirming evidence beyond simply looking for it. It means subscribing to and following people that you mostly disagree with. The critical thing is that to be heterodox is to be deeply concerned about the substance, sustenance, and sustainability of something you feel is important to you and to something bigger than yourself.
I have invested my life and career in inclusion and engaging with the dynamic tensions and complexity of difference and similarity. First, I did so in public health, focused on HIV/AIDS prevention, and then later, and still today, with companies.
These topics are more significant than me. They will outlast me. They won’t be “solved.”
However, we will progress. Our thinking about our distinctions, their tensions, and our ability to create conditions for one another to thrive will evolve.
It won’t happen without intention. We must think beyond any simplistic constructs holding us in an ideological pinch or orthodoxy. I read two articles that could be quite helpful in reconstructing a DEI practitioner or opposers’ information consumption. Consider them my contribution to your preventive measures against intellectual reductionism and laziness.
One by Zaid Jilani “Progressives Need to Stop Lecturing White Voters About Their Privilege”:
“It’s totally fine to talk about the role of race and racism in American society. It would be telling a blinkered story to ignore these factors in America’s past, present, and future.
But the problem with boiling down these discussions to all-consuming racial “privilege” that every single person of a racial category shares is that it forces you to make generalizations about large groups of people.
Sometimes, it probably does hurt me to be a Pakistani-American. When there was a bomb threat called into my student center when I was in college at UGA, I high-tailed it out of there not because I was scared of the bomb. I was scared of the cops who were flooding into the building. I fail to shave one day and I look like I’m the next #2 in Al-Qaeda.
But other times, it’s been a huge benefit. It’s fun to tell people about my heritage, it makes me stand out. I’m grateful to be from a tight culture where family looks out for you.
Am I privileged, or not-privileged, as a result of being desi in the United States? I don’t know, and I don’t care, either. It’s just not right to try to boil down people’s experiences into black and white.”
And another by Dan Williams, “There is no ‘woke mind virus’”
“The ideas you dislike—whether wokeism, religion, or misinformation—are not “mind viruses” and do not spread via contagion. This framing seeks to demonise, not understand, and poisons public discourse.”
I hope this was helpful. . . Make it a great day! ✌🏿
In this episode of the ‘Reconstructing Inclusion’ podcast, I revisit ten insightful questions from past podcast appearances: from early influences, including my father's experience with desegregation in Topeka, Kansas to my thoughts on the importance of creating conditions for sustainable representation in organizations and the need for DEI to be integrated into all aspects of organizational design.