Ten Toes Down, No Flinchin’

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Organizations I support in my capacity as a DEI consultant, like organizations across the country, are struggling to remain vital and even viable in the face of irrational, unlawful, cruel, and downright thuggish pressure to stop providing inclusive services, education, and care.

I’m encouraged to see how the leaders I get to work with are trying to keep ten toes down (as one exemplary leader likes to say) - stay true to their missions, and prepare to fend off or take the hits that may come for simply and responsibly doing what their missions and anti-discrimination laws oblige them to do. I do lament, however, that some leaders are being tempted to lift a toe or two or three from a crucial steadfastness in the face of adverse forces.

Maybe, after all, some have said, some of the ways we do DEI and talk about DEI would benefit from adjustments that might coincidentally just appear to acquiescence to thuggish demands but actually just be part of doing the work better. And maybe doing it better could/should include avoiding DEI-speak since DEI has become such a lightning rod for scrutiny that it can be a distraction or impediment from doing the work (i.e., DEI work).

There’s a very important distinction to be observed in this line of thinking. The distinction is between what one does (mission, purpose, obligation), and how one does it (practice, approach methods). Yes, absolutely, to do what one does well, one must continually re-evaluate one’s methods. No, absolutely not, to change one’s identity, to cede one’s integrity, to accede to the insanity of double-speak, tarring and feathering, and blatant, self-confessed manipulations to make who you are and what you do a bad word is to lose – everything.

If you are willing to stop calling DEI DEI then are you also prepared to recognize yourself as a willing agent of a tyrannical DEI-Restrictivist* regime? There’s no in-between here. Call it “PB&J,” (Peanut Butter & Jelly), call it “AP&B” (Apple Pie & Baseball). It won’t matter. Are you willing to call education “Birth of a Nation Born Again?” Are you ready to stop recognizing the identities of some of the folks you profess to care about? If the Trump administration requires anyone involved in the arts to start calling it the “Tarts” (Trump-approved artistic expression), are you down to do that?

If you’re paying attention, then you know that the nonsense I’ve just come up with pales in comparison to what’s actually spewing out of Washington these days. Please don’t allow yourself to act as if you don’t see that. It’s hard to watch people who are truly dedicated to inclusivity in their heart suddenly finding it impossible to have that determination show up in all ten of their toes. It’s disheartening. It’s embarrassing. It’s heartbreaking. It forces me to wonder if they were ever TRULY dedicated in the first place.

May you find your way to the line, plant yourself, ten toes down, take a deep breath, and start singing.

We shall not, we shall not be moved…

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*DEI-Expansivism v DEI- Restrictivism

All social decision-making involves DEI considerations. The Trump administration is not eliminating DEI. It couldn’t if it wanted to. To be against DEI would be tantamount to being against interacting with any other humans – which itself would be a diversity stance, an extremely DEI-restrictive one but a DEI stance nonetheless. 

Trump is the DEI Commander in chief, and he is seeking to impose and enforce DEI-Restrictivism, which reserves welcome, equality, and voice for a diminishingly narrow definition of humanity. This is not neutral governance. It is an ideological imposition cloaked in the rhetoric of neutrality. It is bigotry on the march, and bigotry is the nemesis of pluralism and DEI-Expansivism, which seeks to bring about a society in which whoever you are, however you are, you are safe here.