where the words diversity, equity and inclusion are our love language
by Austin Channing Brown
Footnotes
Keep your coffee dates.
Anti-racism is not about friendship.
Photo by Anushka Sharma via Unsplash
Back when we were still regularly talking about DEI in public spaces, I would often spend an hour to an hour and a half talking about the pursuit of racial justice to folks who really wanted to get it right. They were aware of racial injustices and chose to sit in a room with me to learn more. I would walk back and forth, telling stories, answering questions, occasionally eliciting a laugh or two. And at the end, without fail, a white person would decide that their first step toward being more antiracist would be to invite their one Black co-worker to coffee.
Truth be told, I understand the reaction. For years and years, the freedom work we all feel we have been called to has been framed as "friendship" or a lack thereof. When you first learned about segregation, I'll bet it was framed something like this: and back then, a white person and a Black person couldn't even be friends. You couldn't sit in the same classroom. You couldn't play together. You couldn't even drink from the same water fountain.
And not only was the history of segregation framed this way, but the solution was, too. By cherry-picking a single line from one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's speeches, "little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers," the entirety of the Civil Rights Movement was boiled down to friendship.
Read the rest of the speech, and it's easy to see that King was clear about the economic, spiritual, and material ways America needed to change to bring about justice, but it's so much easier to leave all of that information out.
While friendships are nice, and can often become a significant part of our racial justice journey, to frame our work in this way is deeply problematic.
The work we have been called to is to correct systems of injustice. We do that through efforts called inclusion, equality, or equity. And we don't have to hang out in one another's homes to do this work. Instead, we have to be willing to take risks with our careers, our social circles, and whatever power or influence we enjoy.
The engine behind our freedom work cannot be based on who we like, or who we are friends with... mostly because Black women (and other marginalized folks) are not suffering from a loneliness epidemic. We are suffering from systems and policies that make it impossible for us to experience inclusion, equality, or equity. We don't need a coffee date off campus. We need someone willing to raise their hand in the board meeting and say, "we cannot erase this program, this department, this budget, this scholarship, this policy, this center, this committee, this strategy, this position because doing so would violate our commitment to correcting historical erasure and moving toward a more equitable framework to ensure we are representative of the country in which we live."
See the difference?
Recommitting ourselves to this work—the work of creating justice—is growing increasingly important as the current administration weaponizes its own power to crush the efforts we have spent years building. Now is not the time to give up. Now is the time to begin again.
That might mean dreaming up some new language. That might mean creating a new budget or program. That might mean pushing back against another closure. That might mean organizing. That might mean fundraising. I don't know what it means in your specific context. I just know that it's going to require more of you than a private conversation that makes you personally feel better, but does nothing to confront the system.
Now is the time for creativity, because Black women are being erased- from government positions, from campus DEI programs, from corporate DEI programs, from libraries (where our books are being quietly banned), from speaking engagements (where our invitations to this work are no more). The system is purging Black women. And I need you to see that because more coffee dates aren't going to solve this. But I welcome you to bring coffee to the next organizing meeting. We're going to need it.
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Book List
In this remarkable book—winner of the Nobel Peace Prize—Dr. King recounts the story of Birmingham in vivid detail, tracing the history of the struggle for civil rights back to its beginnings three centuries ago and looking to the future, assessing the work to be done beyond Birmingham to bring about full equality for African Americans. Above all, Dr. King offers an eloquent and penetrating analysis of the events and pressures that propelled the Civil Rights movement from lunch counter sit-ins and prayer marches to the forefront of American consciousness.
On April 16, 1923, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., responded to an open letter written and published by eight white clergyman admonishing the civil rights demonstrations happening in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King drafted his seminal response on scraps of paper smuggled into jail. King criticizes his detractors for caring more about order than justice, defends nonviolent protests, and argues for the moral responsibility to obey just laws while disobeying unjust ones.
In 1967, Dr. Martin th no telephone, and labored over his final manuscript. In this significantly prophetic work, we find King’s acute analysis of American race relations and the state of the movement after a decade of civil rights efforts. Here he lays out his thoughts, plans, and dreams for America’s future, including the need for better jobs, higher wages, decent housing, and quality education. With a universal message of hope that continues to resonate, King demanded an end to global suffering, powerfully asserting that humankind—for the first time—has the resources and technology to eradicate poverty.
Halloween is around the corner and for my boys, this is the biggest holiday of the year (other than Christmas, of course). They have commenced with the scary movies, and soon my lawn will be covered in tombstones, skeletons and spider
webs. Recently I talked about our love of Halloween online (first mistake) and the Christians came for me, honey. I got everything from: "see, this is why women shouldn't be pastors" all the way to "one day you'll learn not to shake hands with wickedness" or something like that. It was a lot. It's always surprising to me that the same folks who are so faith-filled dont believe that God is powerful enough to overcome my foam tombstones. But what they also dont know is that I am no longer interested in the holiness game. I readily admit my loss right from the start. So if any of you are in need of a recipe for making blood this season, I got you.
Austin Channing Brown is the author of NYT Bestseller and Reese Book Club pick, Im Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness. Her newest book, Full of Myself is already a USA Today bestseller but she's waiting to be placed on your bookshelf.
