I am glad DEI is being dismantled. I hope all the attempts to soft-pedal systemic racism in this country without calling its name will be dismantled.
Many people have found ways to water down this work, which is a part of the reason so much of it is so ineffective. Presenters use words like “multicultural,” “cross cultural,” “beloved community,” “belonging,” “reconciliation” and other words designed to make sure everyone who participates in their work can be reasonably sure there will be nothing said or done to offend them. Many times, there is a serious preoccupation with finding ways to do the work without offending white people.
Catherine Meeks
While I have no interest in offending anyone, I believe compassionate truth-telling is not intentionally designed to offend. If it offends a person, it is generally because there is some inner untruth being disturbed in them and that is the point of the work. Truth can be unsettling while being liberating.
In addition to that flawed perspective of cleaning up the presentations so whites will not be offended is the problem with the work being done as a “side hustle.” This causes a lack of commitment to the work. And its purpose is to work to find ways to create space for deep transformative healing to occur.
When I was a young college student activist, we characterized the folks who handled efforts to address and dismantle poverty in this manner “poverty pimps,” and unfortunately we can identify a similar dynamic when it comes to race. The way this is managed requires just enough to be said about race to give the appearance there is some degree of seriousness about doing something about the racial divide in this country, which is not true. The commitment is to other agendas designed to lead them to some new place as an influencer instead of seeking to accomplish racial healing.
This process works because so many of the people engaging in this type of race relations practice are quite good at gaslighting, and so many folks are happy to engage with them because the real work of racial healing offers more challenges than they are ready to engage.
“The type of truth telling that is necessary cannot be negotiated and reduced to some kind of feel-good day of playing with the truth.”
As a 50-year veteran engaging in racial healing work, I am weary from seeing this dynamic thriving and being touted as valid and in some cases made to seem credible and viable. The effort to explore, name and dismantle systemic racism is challenging, uncomfortable and at times painful. The type of truth-telling that is necessary cannot be negotiated and reduced to some kind of feel-good day of playing with the truth by using a lot of sweet watered-down language in ways that don’t challenge racism at all. While sessions presented in this way might be helpful in some way, they have nothing to do with racial healing.
The notion that white folks and some people of color do not want to talk about race these days is ludicrous and should not be allowed to determine the way in which the work is going to be done. This is especially true as we read reports of young Black men and poor white men being lynched, watch our Latinx neighbors and friends be treated violently by ICE and others, along with seeing the assault on people without shelter and the poor in general.
The outrage from this and all the other expressions of dehumanization on the basis of skin color makes it untenable to worry about white people declaring racial fatigue. Those who are being oppressed have oppression fatigue from being abused, and theirs is more urgent.
We cannot afford to have this work diminished as it often is and to continue to act as if we do not see or know the truth. The truth can be hard and often unwanted by all of us for a variety of reasons, but Jesus did not lie, it will make space for freedom to emerge. It will set us free.
Perhaps the attack on DEI and other pseudo efforts to address systemic racism will lead to deep questioning by those who are serious about this work and lead to a new commitment to truth-telling, compassionate and thoughtful confrontation with systemic racism in all of its renditions and a willingness to let that process move us forward into more healing spaces. We hope. We can work to that end.
Let’s be brave enough to do it and to accept nothing less.
Catherine Meeks was given the President Joseph R. Biden Lifetime Achievement and Service Award in August 2022; was listed by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the 500 women to watch in Georgia in 2022; retired as the Clara Carter Acree Distinguished Professor of Socio-Cultural Studies at Mercer University; is a community and wellness activist and midwife to the soul; and the author of The Night Is Long, But Light Comes In The Morning, Meditations on Racial Healing, She previously served as founding executive director of Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing and currently serves as founder and executive director of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing. She lives in Atlanta.