How the Diversity Profession Has Fu*ked/Failed Black Women and Other Non-white People

Photo by Ian Kiragu on Unsplash

I am pissed off and decided to write about how Black women and other nonwhites have been fu*kedb/ failed by the Diversity profession and leadership in corporations, nonprofits, and academia. It is my up close and very personal reaction to a #LinkedIN posting. Thanks Gail Zeppo for sharing the article in Forbes Magazine; it caught my attention: “12 Ways CEOs And Companies Fail Chief Diversity Officers” by Shaun Harper.

The revelations in the Forbes article is NOT NEW! In 2016, Harvard Business Review (HBR) published “Women and Minorities are Penalized for Promoting Diversity” by Stefani K. Johnson and David R. Hekman. Seven years have now passed, and the observations and conclusions are still the same.

So, I’m pissed because only when white-centered media Forbes or Harvard Business Review publish articles that say we are being fu*ked as #ChiefDiversityLeaders, especially those of us who are minoritized, do people believe it.

Being a Minoritized DEI Professional SUCKS

Minoritized DEI professionals like myself have been saying that we lack support for decades — well before Forbes and HBR. Also, it doesn’t matter if the leadership is white, man, woman, LGBTQ, or nonwhite. The result is the same — DEI professionals, and especially if they are minoritized — rarely get support. Johnson and Hekman wrote in HBR,

For all the talk about how important diversity is within organizations, white and male executives aren’t rewarded, career-wise, for engaging in diversity-valuing behavior, and nonwhite and female executives actually get punished for it.

Seven years later, Harper observes in Forbes,

These talented DEI professionals often experience tremendous disappointment and depart with really negative feelings. An alarming number of corporate CDOs stay less than two years.

We know the truism of the above statements, because we have lived them!

As a retired #DiversitySpecialist & former #ChiefDiversityOfficer, I can tell you from personal experience that DEI jobs are akin to what I would describe as #miraclework. Unable to make miracles in a short period of time and with few resources, we get burned out, leave on our own, or are “nicely” terminated.

Harper is accurate in pointing out that regardless of how we exit the corporation or organization, we leave filled with tremendous disappointment and an utter sense of failure.

Why? Because change for us is not some action step in a beautiful laid-out diversity plan or diversity dashboard. While white DEI professionals have figured out how to commodify and profit from DEI work that is rooted in the past and current histories and lived experiences of African descendants of Enslaved People in the United States or descendants of Indigenous people, minoritized DEI professionals seek transformation .

Change for us, who live and breath oppression, is the dismantling of those structures that oppress. We go into these jobs because we also seek to educate in order to reach the hearts, minds, and behaviors of individuals who manifest microaggressions and racism.

The Economics of Minoritized Diversity Professionals

It is a fact that often the high-paying DEI jobs go to whites or non-Black #POCs who have attended the classes/workshops/speeches of #Blackthoughtleaders or #Indigenousthoughtleaders. At these events, they take copious notes, and “borrow” our materials without nary a citation (#citeblackwomen).

In the diversity consulting field, white people are making a fortune off of the intellectual and experiential labor of Black people and other nonwhites. Their “expertise” derives from reading our books, attending our conferences, extracting information from their Black and nonwhite “friends” about how it feels to be minoritized, and using that “knowledge” to build their professional careers or build a profitable consulting business.

Black and Indigenous professionals and consultants are left out in the cold. And, when we manage to get in a toe inside the door, we are thrown a crumb, and have to fight to be adequately compensated.

In the course of the commodification of DEI, it is white diversity professionals who have benefitted and established profitable certificates and training programs.

They also write articles and market their products on platforms like LinkedIN that say, if a Diversity professional does not go through the process they created, or have a certificate that they offer, then what we do is not legit! (Read my “No Diversity Through Osmosis”).

Ironically, I know minoritized Diversity professionals who go through these certifications and come out feeling cheated, because there is very little that they learn that can augment their personal experience or research they have conducted. In other words, attending such programs is a professional waste of time, and sometimes quite emotionally painful as we listen to our experiences being dissected and used to teach whites how to be better behaved when they oppress.

Why Minoritized Diversity Professionals are Perceived as Failing When the Fault is with Top Leadership

There are numerous mistakes that corporate and nonprofit leadership make when they hire a Black or Indigenous person to do #diversitywork. But make no mistakes, despite the perception that the fault is ours, these are a failure of their leadership. Below is my small list of the real leadership failures based on my professional experiences that can be added to Harper’s list:

1. Leadership fails to recognize that doing #DEI for a #minoritized person is not just work — it’s Personal.
2. Leadership sets unrealistic expectations. Organization wants minoritized DEI professionals to perform a #diversitymiracle, while white DEI professionals are given a pass and the grace to have a learning curve — because it’s not their history or their experience.
3. Leadership often pays minoritized DEI professionals less than our white counterparts and almost never has them report directly to the CEO or Executive Director. This means their input is always filtered.
4. Leadership too often does not give minoritized DEI professionals sufficient staff. They are either the “only one” or provided limited staff to “fix” every #diversitybreach or #diversitycrisis that emerges. Under such circumstances, we spend our time putting out organizational fires and rarely get the time to deal with real systemic barriers to achieve #authenticdiversity. As a result, we must take work home and work over-overtime just to keep from sinking. Limited budgets don’t allow us to hire consultants who might provide some relief.
5. Leadership’s lack of staffing and financial support suggests they only want #foofoodiversity. This is the case, even when the leader is a #POC. Disappointing, but true. Foofoo diversity is about performing diversity — having a #diversitystrategicplan and nice #diversitygraphics or #diversitydashboards for show.
6. Leadership is not receptive to critiques or analysis that point out pernicious organizational policies and practices — like promoting whites who are failed leaders, but offering NO support to Black or Indigenous leaders who struggle. Instead the latter are too often terminated with those fatal words “it’s not a good fit!”
7. Leadership uses downsizing to have pink slips go to the most vocal #diversitycritics of the organization. This is a convenient “no fault” way of getting rid of the proverbial messenger without having to make any substantive changes. New people are hired and the cycle begins again.
8. Leadership continuously hires new people (revolving diversity door), while structural racism (in for form of hiring and promotion practices) remains intact and white staff resistant to diversity are allowed to stay in place or moved to another part of the organization. This is a #performancediversity rather than actualized diversity.
9. Leadership believes that making #diversitymatter is like a #touchdown. Once you have the person, the plan, and some minor concessions like affinity groups, it is done. They ignore also ignore white resistance to diversity strategies.

Dismantling Business as Usual — Not There Yet!

How is it that almost 30 years after diversity replaced “multiculturalism” as a strategy to change corporations, nonprofits, and academic institutions, that we are still not there yet??!!

At the end of the day, authentic #diversitychange demands a serious dismantling of #businessasusual. Change must occur in hiring and promotion practices. Change also means getting rid of those #whiteresisters. If they are not in tune with a new direction that values diversity, why should they remain?

White resisters are those who find any way to always center their #whiteprivilege as a priority. They embody an ethos and promote a culture of “what about me?” Their logic is this: you have done so much for these #POCs, but what about us #whitepeople. We now know this tactic as #whitefragility; I called it #vulnerablewhiteness years before Robin DiAngelo’s book was published — no one (especially leadership) wanted to hear such a term.

When Your Ally is Your Enemy

And the most egregious of #whiteresisters are those who consider themselves to be #whiteallies. They have read books, attended conferences, received #unlearningracism certifications, and now consider themselves #diversityexperts. It is their arrogance that gets in the way of progress. At the end of the day, their own implicit bias that presumes white superiority is a barrier to real change.

All of the 12 points mentioned by Shaun Harper are true! And my list is intended to augment his.

Are there remedies? Absolutely — with top leadership support and financial investment, diversity is possible. Will I share them with you? Hell NO!

Pay me! The time for #Diversityfreebies is OVER.

©Irma McClaurin

Irma McClaurin (https://linktr.ee/dr.irma ) is an activist anthropologist and academic entrepreneur. She is a recipient of the 2021 American Anthropological Association’s Engaged Anthropology Award and is an award-winning writer, Ms. Magazine author, as well as a former Fulbright Specialist. She is also the Culture and Education Editor, columnist and commentator for Insight News and in 2015 was named “Best in the Nation Columnist” by the Black Press of America. Her collection of essays, JustSpeak: Reflections on Race, Culture & Politics in America, is forthcoming in 2023 and she is working on a book-length manuscript on Zora Neale Hurston entitled “Lifting Zora Neale Hurston from the Shadow of Anthropology.”