Progress is bigger and more part 4
As I close out some thoughts about progress is bigger and more, I’m thinking about how this applies to equity and the overlap of sense of urgency, perfectionism, and more. With EDI efforts, we are constantly working towards long delayed justice. This is frustrating to those that have dealt with the injustice for centuries and have to hear repeated denials of the issues and reasons why solutions are going too fast and too far. We conflate white supremacy characteristics with being only white people. We get fixated on the notion that to be anti-racist is a fixed and permanent status. So we look to measure success in bigger and more terms and get frustrated that things “have not changed”.
What if part of our issue in measuring success in EDI efforts is that we take too much of an either/or and perfectionism approach to the work? If we expect people to instantly eradicate use of racist behaviors and tactics in a short amount of time, we may never feel like we have achieved success. If we seek to change policies, but do so without addressing racist ideas to begin with, wouldn’t we likely end up of more continued racist policies because the effort to shift to anti-racist ideas never occurred? If we don’t actually agree with the goal and definition of what we are trying to do, how can we possibly see progress?
Diversity efforts will often help us answer the question, “how much did we do?” Inclusion efforts will often help us answer the question, “how well did we do?” Equity efforts will often help us answer the question, “is anyone better off?” Just looking to measure one or two of these won’t help us get the full picture while answering all three will help us get a better understanding of justice.
We have to remember that we need to measure process, relationships, impacts, and more to get a full picture. There is individual work that has to happen and that isn’t always easily measured. Getting success in EDI is not the same as having surgery for something like appendicitis. Addressing oppression is an adaptive challenge and needs to have adaptive measures and efforts. What works for one person may not work for another person. We won’t be perfect so making a mistake or continuing harm with certain behaviors does not mean no work has been done. It means in that moment they fell back on racist ideas and actions.
