Work-Around Language
What you can try now that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are "dirty words"
Well…this is fucking infuriating. And also stupid. And definitely a distraction - having to fiddle around with three little words just so we can do our work. But alas alack, here we are.
(please visualize me doing the biggest eye roll you can imagine)
Deep breath. In 1-2-3. Out 1-2-3.
I feel like I want to admit that the last couple of days have been rough for my heart, my spirit, and my sleep. Knowing this bullshit was all coming is still different than feeling it as the waves of cruelty crash through the news and into my brain.
I’m trying to keep the phone out of my bed, but my success rate is 50/50 at best since January 20th. I’ve been struggling a lot with what I can possibly do to add value during this overwhelming onslaught of a time period.
There are political and sociological and historical thought-leaders I trust already sharing their takes (thank God!). And there are lawyers, righteous litigators who are wading through hundreds of pages of legalese, rising to this very shitty occasion, using their training and their networks to do everything they can to protect us.
So what can I do? What’s arising for me this week is that I feel called to make an offering around language.
I have clients calling and emailing who, as of this week, are having to strip DEI out of their titles, their programs, their budget line items, their websites - everywhere.
Being told that they (the opposition) are gunning for us directly (DEI practitioners, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants) is a strange feeling. It’s like they’ve drawn up a map and we are X marks the spot.
When I can find moments to laugh about how alternative universe and Handmaid’s Tale-esque this is all feeling, I am able to notice, “They are obsessed with us!” They think about us constantly and know that we are actually so powerful and attractive and amazing that if they don’t try to quiet us down, everyone will want to be near our joy and liberation.”
In the bad moments, I’m wondering if, for the first time in 26 years, I’m going to have to be consciously closeted. Not really - I mean, not all the time. But right now, I obfuscate questions about what I do for a living and who I’m dating only when I’m in a situation where my life is in someone else’s hands (for example, in a Lyft, at a bank, at a hospital).
For better or worse, I was born with a rebellious spirit. I have always had a lot of - genuine - questions about who the hell is in charge and why. My mom likes to tell the story of me at 3 years old, asking her because I truly wanted to understand, “Who made you the boss of me?” I suppose I’ve been a handful ever since.
I share all of this potentially unnecessary preamble because I believe context might help.
I have always been interested in language. Ensorcelled, really.
In college, I fell in love with my classes on rhetorical criticism and rhetorical theory. I read historic speeches - for fun. I continue to find it endlessly fascinating how words and phrases and frames and lexicon influence whole religions, regions, and nation-states.
I am not interested in choosing language carefully as a mechanism for emotional manipulation. I am interested in choosing language carefully in order to connect, clarify, and move the needle on that which I care about.
DJT’s slew of right-out-of-the-gate Exec Orders, I believe, grossly underestimates multi-decade movements for justice.
Being trans, nonbinary, Two Spirit, and gender non-conforming is a millennia-long reality that many cultures, especially People of Color, not just recognize but also revere as special - and even holy.
Immigrants, migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers are all part of the backbone of the American economy. For far too many of us white Americans, we laud our own family lineage immigration stories as tales of heroism, hard work, and adventure. But as soon as “we” got here, we decided other people should “follow the rules” and that their reasons and methods for arriving are somehow less moral, less legal, and less worthwhile than our own. It’s a glaring double standard with dehumanizing consequences.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion marks an evolution in how the popular imagination has grappled with the reality of being a heterogeneous population of workers, students, and families. I’ve been alive for eras when the language centered around “it takes a village,” and “siyahamba” was a song we sang as part of our middle school choir concerts, even if a Black kid was nowhere in sight.
We have gotten it “right” from time-to-time. And upon reflection, we have also gotten language way wrong from time-to-time.
When Alfonso and I wrote Hiring Revolution: A Guide to Disrupt Racism and Sexism in Hiring, we put a glossary of keywords up front on page 15. Alfonso brilliantly wrote the handful of paragraphs that came before the list of definitions. It feels helpful to share that now, as many of us must prepare to shift from the words diversity, equity, and inclusion to something else for fear of being hunted down, fired, and/or defunded.
People are pretty freaked out about using the “right” words when it comes to talking about racism and sexism. No one wants to “get it wrong.” But it also feels like words and phrases are changing so rapidly! How is a person supposed to keep up?
Here’s the truth: words are important; words are meaningful; and words and phrases related to culture and identity are in constant flux. Their meanings live in impermanence. Our approach here is not to define words in the English language once and for all. Rather, we want to create shared meaning between you and us. How we use language changes often, even from day to day, and members of different groups, or even members of the same group, may not agree on word choice.
…The language and definitions we share here are both imperfect and specific: these are the words and phrases we need access to in order to spark the Hiring Revolution.
So, for those of you that are feeling the need to shift your language, your job title, the way you talk about your programs, your sub-committees, and more in order to stay safe, stay funded, stay together - here are some imperfect offerings you are welcome to use.
(And again, I want to say that it is so infuriating that some of us have to make these changes - I understand that as I offer potentially viable alternatives).
DIVERSITY - what is the essence? what are we trying to communicate? What other words, phrases, or frames could we try?
who is present? who is absent? (who is here, and who is missing? which perspectives are we receiving, and which perspectives have we not been receiving?)
mix across meaningful lines of difference (how are we homogenous? heterogeneous?)
how have you been talked about and treated based on the body you’re in?
how is your lived experience informing your approach to this problem/project/product?
where are there barriers and patterns that are getting in the way of some of our colleagues’ success?
who is telling us they currently feel safe? and unsafe?
EQUITY - what is the essence? what are we trying to communicate? What other words, phrases, or frames could we try?
how are we meeting people with the resources they need to be successful?
recognizing we all approach work (and/or school) from our own vantage point, what does this group need in order for everyone to have access/be able to participate fully?
where is the opportunity to graduate from the “Golden Rule” (do unto others as you would have done unto you) to the “Platinum Rule” (do unto others as they want done to them?
are we exercising curiosity consistently? or are we regularly making assumptions about what other people need and want?
how do we want to responsibly prepare for this project/event/process knowing that we will be working with a wide range of people?
INCLUSION - what is the essence? what are we trying to communicate? What other words, phrases, or frames could we try?
who is sharing with us that they are regularly feeling listened to, understood, and their expertise valued and respected? who is not?
how are we adapting when we are gifted with new information?
are we clinging to myopic thinking that there is “only one right way” when there is actually a sea of possibilities?
what assumptions are we making about a person’s readiness, capacity, and leadership potential?
in what circumstances are we consciously following someone else’s lead because their experience is more relevant here than our own?
Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. Think of it as a sort of DEI thesaurus. Shifting how we talk about who we are and what we care about will likely not come easily. It will take message testing, message tweaking, and then message discipline.
We do not know yet what will work depending on our audiences and the new creative constraints being put on how we speak and write. If, for some reason, DEI linguistic work-arounds need to be part of your future, I am curious if and how any of the above offerings land for you. Let me know.
One quick story of hope.
In 2002, I was taught how to door-to-door canvass. Five days per week, I would head out into a big van with my colleagues to work through one zip code at a time in Washington State.
Dropped off between 4 and 5 pm with your canvassing buddy for the night, one of you would take even sides of the street (addresses), and one would take odd.
We would fold up our little section of the photo-copied map we were given when we got to the office and work the blocks demarcated in neon highlighter. Our job was to work as much of our “turf” as we could by 9 pm local, knowing that our other colleagues were working the adjacent sections of our same map.
To this day, I can remember one night of canvassing with particular clarity.
I remember it being dark out. There were streetlights and houselights but we didn’t yet have iPhones that came with their own flashlights. Every couple of houses I would step underneath some light to take notes on my clipboard.
It was between 8:30pm and 9. I know this, even 20+ years later, because I know I hadn’t yet met my nightly quota ($140 raised per night, $700 raised per week), and I was panicking.
Given the time it takes to walk up and down driveways, knock on the door, and wait to talk to someone, I knew we were on the last block for that particular night.
I had only a few more houses to try, and I really wanted to make my goal.
At the time, I was working for a grassroots organization called Washington Citizen Action. We were talking to everyone we could about how we were working to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Along with a broad coalition, we had a bill in front of the state legislature, and we were out collecting handwritten letters to share with our target elected officials, pledges of calls for support, and money to run the campaign.
My organization deemed healthcare a “majoritarian issue,” meaning it impacted most people. It wasn’t partisan. It was comminity-wide. Therefore, rather than cherry-pick voters, we spoke to everyone because everyone was impacted and had a reason to weigh in.
That night, I walked up to a door that was well-lit, and I could see lights on in the living room and back further in the house as well - all good signs that someone might be home and might even answer the door. (fingers-crossed)
I knocked and rang the doorbell - my regular move to make sure wherever they might be in the house, they could hear me. And I started to smile, just in case they peered through the curtains to see who was there.
I first heard footsteps. Then someone opened the door.
“Hello?” they said.
“Hi!” I said, still smiling. “I’m Trina, with Washington Citizen Action, and tonight we’re out talking to people about lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Here, take a look!” I handed over my clipboard with some info and a signup sheet on top.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, just past the left hip of this person who was a stranger to me, I saw on their front hall credenza an 8 and a half by 11 inch framed photo of George W. and Laura Bush dancing at his inauguration in pride of place.
I started to sweat.
Number one, I’m not really one for memorabilia. I did not grow up in a family that collected commemorative coins or other religious or stars and stripes-type artifacts. So, at first, it just struck me as funny that people would have a large framed photo of people they never met in their house. Additionally, there was something about this photo being purposefully by the front door that felt like, “check this out!”
Number two, I remember my heart sinking and the feeling of being cold after being outside for three and half hours, but also now suddenly warm in certain crevices throughout my body.
“Oh shit,” I thought. (which thank God I didn’t say out loud!) “These people love George W. Bush.”
These initial thoughts then followed quickly by, “I still need to raise 24 more dollars tonight to meet my goal!”
I steadied myself while this homeowner gave a cursory look at the paperwork on my clipboard.
Luckily, I had been trained well. In my program, it was part of our schedule to practice every single day. We practiced what we were going to say, how we were going to say it, and how we might respond when people had questions, push-back, or concerns.
Like an athlete hoping that my training would kick in when I needed it during a big game, I went on to ask what I always did.
“Do you currently have anyone in your life struggling with the cost of prescription drugs?”
I waited.
“Um…yes, I do.”
“I do as well. Right now I have a grandparent in an assisted living facility and my parents are trying to put me and my sister through college. How about you?”
“For me it’s…”
The details get fuzzy at this point. Twenty-two years since that night, I cannot remember exactly the back-and-forth word-for-word sharing that happened. But I do know this. I was invited inside. I sat down on a tan-colored suede ottoman. This family signed up in support and wrote me a $24 check towards our collective cause.
I remember, with that photo of the dancing, Bushes seared into my brain, that I was very careful as I spoke. Not cagey. But careful.
I did not say “universal health care.” I did not say “Medicare for all.” I did not say “single payer” plan.
And in truth, that was fine. Because the piece of legislation we were working to move through at the state level would not have resulted in any of those things. It was one step of many towards putting up a fight with the for-profit trillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies so they could not price gouge and make needed drugs cost-prohibitive.
That night I understood my goals - talk to everyone, and garner support where I could. That night I also understood my audience, and was therefore mindful of my message.
That presidential photo alone was not enough for me to guess what the difference in our values might be. That evening, I was there to talk about healthcare and its impact on our families, and together, we did that.
I know Donald J. Trump is a whole different beast. I know it is 2025 and not 2002. But I also know that we can and always have found ways to talk about that which matters to us and get our points across in the process.
Let me know what you try as you feel forced and/or called to shift the language you use with certain people in the coming days, weeks, and months.
I am bummed we are fighting about words when so many lives are at stake. But if words are one place we have to innovate and get creative, then so be it. Begrudgingly, I’m going to try some new words out. I’ll report back and tell you how it goes!