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We are not,
nor have we ever been, a color-blind or
gender-blind society, despite claims made to
the contrary. In this country, there are
identifiable groups of people who have been,
in actuality, historically discriminated
against, and where effects extending from
such discrimination continue to oppress
those groups.
In the name
of equalizing opportunity for groups
affected by discrimination, using
color-blind politics cannot be effective
because it fails to name and effectively
ignores the very problem it seeks to
alleviate in a fatally contradictory
fashion. Equality of opportunity becomes
abstracted from its goal - what is it that
we seek to equalize if we are blind to it?
It becomes a disease with no name and no
cure that festers silently beneath the skin,
but because we cannot see it, we cannot be
accountable for its effects.
We cannot
transcend oppressive and hegemonic practices
by simply ignoring that such issues exist or
by pretending that they have been
neutralized. To remedy these societal ills,
to equalize opportunity, and to help each
other understand how some have benefited and
others have suffered because of their daily
interactions with poverty, racism, sexism,
and classism – those –isms that have had
irreparable impact on their communities - we
have in place this system of, this
commitment to diversifying ourselves.
While writing this speech, I had to reflect
on what diversity meant to me and to larger
society. It seems that, diversity promises
much on its face. It promises to benefit and
enrich all by having an amalgam of
experiences, ones informed by our cultures,
races, ethnicities, genders, centralized in
one location.
Diversity is
taking our identifiable differences and
translating our experiences with those
differences to a broader community.
Diversity is a means of re-conceptualizing
those same differences and using it to
facilitate greater understanding and
knowledge of each other in a way that we
were not able to do previously because of
the scourge of bias and prejudice.
Particularly
in the public interest sector, it is
important for any number of reasons to have
a diverse team of attorneys, because many of
the clients that we serve stand at the
intersections of race, gender, and class in
ways that relegate them to the bottom of the
social hierarchy. In recognizing that our
clients are heterogeneous, diversity in the
law allows us to cut across barriers that
have been put in place as a result of
historical prejudices.
Diversity is
recognizing the value of group identity, the
value of community, the value of multiple
cultures and ethnicities, and what can we
learn from each other as a result of our
multiplicities. For me, diversity has given
me access and opportunity of a different
sort then that we typically think of for our
clients.
I recognize
that I am here because someone decided that
faces like my own were rare in this field,
but that these faces vital and necessary
because people who look like me and identify
as I do have a particular insight into the
social ills plaguing the community with
which I identify. It is the hope that with
my foreknowledge, I will dedicate myself to
resolving issues in my community in a way
that perhaps someone else who is detached
from my experiences would not otherwise do.
Diversity
also provides the opportunity for those who
have been historically invisible to be seen
– for example, more females and people of
color in professional careers gives children
something to aspire to when they see that it
is a possibility, a reality to be a
successful professional of color, or when
they see that women can be doctors, lawyers,
scientists too. This is how I have come to
conceptualize diversity.
However, I believe that diversity is not
enough. While making the decision to commit
to diversity, we should, at the same time,
be making a conscious choice to attempt to
transcend our social constructions, our
prejudices, and our biases. We should be
recognizing these social constructs for what
they are - mere inventions used as a means
to further separate us - and we should be
giving them less qualification so that we
may see each other’s commonalities as human
beings, our commonalities in our human
experiences, finding those truths agreed
upon, recognizing that we all see the same
sun and moon and stars each evening, even if
we see it from different vantage points and
sets of eyes.
Diversity
should not be empty rhetoric used to fulfill
quotas, used as a business tactic, nor used
to give an image of sensitivity to race
relations. Diversity should instead be used
as a vehicle to discover the ways that we
are similar in spite of our differences, a
vehicle to find common ground in the face of
those differences.
Too often, to
speak of diversity is to speak of the ways
in which someone’s very personal experiences
of being Black, of being poor, of being
female can contribute to their career, and
while these experiences are very real for
the individual and will effect how they do
their job, I believe we stop short of asking
why it is okay in the first place to use
someone’s race or gender as a way to
diversify, as though their race and gender
determines what they have to offer or what
they can bring to the table. Being Black
alone doesn’t define me, it merely
contributes to how I experience my life in
the larger world. But for the color of my
skin, would my experiences be so much
different than someone who is not black?
Too often we
take these social constructions and we use
it as a qualifier to come to conclusions
about who we are as individuals, when we
should be moving beyond that to understand
the ways in which we are humans outside of
our social constructions. Therefore, it is
my personal hope that diversity is merely a
starting point, that it is used to open up
the sort of dialogue that will bridge the
gap of differences.
Diversity
philosophy should be embraced in full - it
is not simply enough to give the appearance
of diversity by adding color to your office,
but we must take diversity and consciously
use whatever differences we have to teach
other, communicate with each other, gain
empathy and understanding for each other. We
are not hiring this man or woman because
they fit into a diversity prototype, we are
not pairing this client with this lawyer
because they are of the same race and only
that lawyer can empathize with that client.
We are doing it because that lawyer can
extract from themselves the qualities that
give them their humanity, using it to inform
their practice and to connect with the
humanity within others.
Whether we be
sheathed in white skin, black skin, brown
skin, red skin, it is still our duty, as a
part of our humanity, as a part of our
accepting our positions as social engineers
and gatekeepers, to ensure that access to a
justice system that we uphold and protect is
not afforded to some and denied to others
merely on the basis of characteristics
beyond their control.
I would like
to end with a quote that I find particularly
applicable to the topic of discussion here
today - “We declare our right on this earth
to be a human being, to be respected as a
human being, to be given the rights of a
human being in this society, on this earth,
in this day, which we intend to bring into
existence by any means necessary” spoken by
Malcolm X. |
