Saviourism, Storytelling and the Glass Cliff in DEI

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Hello friends,

Earlier this year I did a presentation to some students who were hoping to advocate for DEI as part of their roles in the medical profession. As part of that, I answered several questions. Here are some of my responses.

Pitfalls for Black people in DEI Work

Black people being placed in the forefront of DEI work, in some cases, plays into the mammy stereotype, that idea that Black people are there to be of service. And it also puts Black people in the frame if things don't go according to plan.

I feel sometimes there's an idea from leadership racialised as white of "Let's put them out there to lead this thing, but then let's not give them any support so that when things don't go well, we can say, 'Oh, well, they were, they were crap anyway'“, right? There's definitely a glass cliff effect sometimes.

I've talked to a lot of DEI professionals and one of the big problems is not getting support at leadership level for the things that they want to put in place. If you're in a situation where the people who are benefiting most from a white supremacist paradigm are in mostly in the leadership and upper management positions, many of them have no incentive to change anything, and so it's going to be hard.

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