Diversity Inverted
The Second Step Guide
This booklet is not meant to be an instrument for degrading or dehumanizing any race of beings.
Quite the opposite, the desire is to expand the awareness of the unique struggles each community may be facing, and so cultivate a deeper compassion for the unique struggles of each; more so for the bi-racial children who must navigate multiple identities.
Second, this is a booklet; an introduction spawned by a need to publish something, though I seek to expand on these conversations, as reasonable/necessary, and as time allows.
Thank you.
Basic Axioms
Not rules, but rather a series of middle paths that can help guide us through difficult conversations. They provide a stable mean measure for comparison even when inaccurate.
Crime is a product of poverty - pick your pain, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or financial; often a combination. The lack, or perceived lack, compels the action which is interpreted as a crime.
And in this we must be careful, have compassion and humility; a perceived lack is as real as any other deficiency.
And perhaps if we are able to see differently, clearly, we are being given an opportunity to help the other realize the opportunity seemingly hidden from them.
This will take effort, and courage on our part; because helping anyone realize anything is a lofty task, one only accomplished with sincerity and perseverance.
Goals are not destinations - they are guideposts. They can change. They can grow. They can be modified.
Perfectionism, trophy collecting, none of this matters at the end of the day; what does matter is your individual sense of value, possibility and wonder.
And how you define these things can and should evolve as well; in this way, we make more room for ourselves and others.
And in this way, we open up more possibilities and opportunities, tilling the soil in the garden of innovation, if you will. Because goals are not destinations.
Solutions won't even get you half way there - we need to know our desired outcome, and why this is our desired outcome.
Solutions serve no purpose until those two parts are clearly defined.
Like goals, the solutions can change; and that’s what makes them solutions, they are ever-evolving; and are dynamic enough to be useful in a variety of scenarios.
The purpose in comprehending the desired outcome, and the reasons for it, makes them better waypoints from which to measure trajectory and deviations.
whiteness is a product of disconnectionBlackness is a product of connection
Proximity to Blackness yields statusProximity to whiteness yields resources
Performative Identities
Drake is to hip-hop what Kamala Harris is to politics.
Donald Trump is to Christianity what Elon Musk is to innovation.
Charlie Kirk was a living hyperbole of irrational white Christian nationalist double-speak.
Full stop.
We need to realize that we are all performing our identities to a certain degree, and we are all navigating the line between what is socially acceptable, and what is authentic, to us.
Oftentimes our ideals are anchored in ideas that we’ve been spoon-fed through the media.
Though some may have more cause, or more desire, than others, to assimilate, and neglect their authentic self; due to the deficits they feel they need to make up for elsewhere, or just out of a need to survive
We have created a world that demands people perform arguably unnatural roles in order to provide themselves with a minimal amount of food and shelter, barely enough to survive.
Diversity of Thought
The refusal of accountability has led to the term diversity of thought being used as a placeholder for racial diversity.
While racial diversity can also be an incomplete indicator of diversity; George Bush had Condoleezza Rice, which isn’t to dismiss her career, but rather to put her career in light of her life, and the statistical uniqueness of that life.
Racial desegregation has navigated a road that has made much room for tokenization.
So much so that racial, and perhaps even gender, diversity is not a complete, nor sufficient singular metric for diversity, any longer.
When we put together the benefits of tokenization with the possibility of performative identities; we can better attune our discernment to these nuances..
What we’re seeing in the political, and commercial, arenas with the backtracking of “diversity initiatives” is because whiteness is realizing that its only chance of survival is to do what it has forced everyone else to do for the last 500 years … assimilate.
And it is fighting the inevitable transformation tooth-and-nail.
My hope is that this work can help quell concerns about what’s on the other side of that transformation; there is hope, joy and freedom.
When we are all able to be equals, resource distribution isn’t seen as a burden, nor a responsibility or an obligation.
It is simply the best way to maintain the highest quality of life for us all.
Thanks for readin’!
peaces, c.
dreamfreely.org