Reactions are for Suckers

For years I have told my friends and my 18 year old niece that:

“Reactions are for suckers.” (#reactionsR4suckers)

Unless you are competing in sports or in a discipline that requires quick reflexes, reacting is generally driven by an external force. It most often occurs when one actor doesn’t share values or recognize the value of the so-called other (actor).

So, why do we react? Generally, because we are programmed to do so. Despite our evolution the brain remains partly primitive, in that every situation, circumstance, place, person, or thing — to the brain — is a friend or a foe. With all of our so-called first world “problems” we remain worried about our survival.

Being in the so-called D&I space for a while, I feel like the work we do in our organizations and in response to societal dynamics is increasingly reactive. Let me re-phrase that, the way most people engage in conversations regarding identity (usually single-identities like blackness or woman-ness or LGBT-ness, or name your favorite single in or out group to rant about-ness) are increasingly reactive.

That could be fine and even somewhat useful in the short-term. However, it does not seem to be moving the needle where representation (or an enabling culture) is concerned. In some cases, it may be making it worse. It is rife with the resistance of Us vs Them. In the end no one wins.

Whenever a company or an athlete or a president or a Kanye says something or does something (in many cases clearly aware of the potential backlash), us “diversity supporters” react as do the “diversity-phobic” (or as Rob Jones has coined them as “diversiphiles” opposites to “diversiphobes”) exactly how their predictive algorithms expect us to.

We are always on our heels or on our toes around these issues. And with reaction-oriented content about single identity diversity growing exponentially due to its volatile and thus, highly profitable nature, we will grow increasingly ungrounded as our reaction-orientation keeps us in a Sisyphus-like state of disequilibrium.

The past year it has been reactions to #MeToo, Deloitte’s ERGs, Google and James Damore, Tech’s lack of whatever they might lack in the wheel of diversity, Dreamers, Starbucks, Kim Ks makeup, etc and those are just the things that I am recalling off the top of my head. If I really did any research for this post, the list would be endless. We’ve beat the drum, we’ve sounded the horn, we have sung the hymn, we have worn the shield, and unsheathed the sword. To what end?

“Reactions are for suckers.”

Those of us opposed to and those of us in support of this stuff we call “Diversity” are at the will of a notion, weighted in a reality, that leaves us feeling stuck.

Feeling stuck with one another rather than being clear about the indisputable truth that we cannot be separated due to ideas like race, class, and status. These fleeting ideas make us believe that our interdependence is non-existent, when in fact it is all there is.

If we believe and accept that We (and this means all of “We”) co-created this reality, a way forward is eminent and bright.

Even in days like this, I remain affirmed in the space of transformation. It is more than a simple notion to me.

When you start getting pulled into the vortex of sucker-dom, #Dontbelievethehype its a sequel.

Hold on to the possibility of transformation.

I choose to hold on steadfastly and indefinitely to this stance. I simply see only this way forward. Join me.