Defining DEIA(IA) - A "101" Guide

DEIA(IA) - diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, intersectionality, and accountability

People have been shouting these words (or should be) from the rooftops to reach people who are on the fence or simply ignorant to the realities of forcibly marginalized groups. However, not everyone knows what they mean nor the implications of each terms.

Here, I will attempt to define these terms as I see them and offer some insight on how these concepts can be practically used for fighting homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, ableism, classism, xenophobia, fatphobia, and other -isms not mentioned here.

DIVERSITY:

It is a buzzword that people often think they can “do” once, and they’ve achieved “it”. For instance, bringing in Black and other people of Color/the Global Majority; gender marginalized people; disabled or chronically ill people; and poor or working-class people into situations and institutions where there was not any prior thought, action, nor tangible change made to accommodate these people's complex wholeness.

Diversity is not bringing forcibly marginalized people in a burning building of sorts and asking them to survive, let alone thrive. Diversity is a noun that needs continuous, thoughtful action behind it to be achieved. Diversity is seeing you, your communities, and your lived experiences in media and society in ways that aim to tell your histories, truths, and lived experiences as well as those of people different than you and yours.

Diversity seeks to empower people through seeing, holding, and uplifting one's wholeness and the multitudes with that.

EQUITY

Some people don't think "equity" is a sufficient term for what we need to achieve. We've already nixed "equality" as a proper term because material disparities like homelessness, food access, education, and freedom from the prison industrial complex aren't equally distributed between people and communities. These material disparities can affect anyone but disproportionately affect different specific groups, and those groups need more support (in certain ways) than others.

We contain multitudes, regarding many things, including marginalized and privileged identities, and that adjusts the resources we need to access different things. Equity is the distribution of resources that allows individuals and communities to access things like medical care, education, food and water, housing, and other needed things to thrive in societies and situations relative to their means, needs, and wants in society.

In my opinion, any liberation of justice models you see that work are the long-term, sustainable implementation of equity measures, which makes the difference between the two (liberation and justice, that is) somewhat arbitrary, as we should implement IIDEAA measures forever and always.

We will always have to readjust our equity measures as we progress in societies due to human error and the mindset of systems that do not want to change to benefit all people and communities. Equity requires us to be vigilant in our love, support, and fight for each other’s well being and livelihood. Equality is not the goal: equity, liberation and justice are.

INCLUSION

Inclusion means to radically reimagine who is important, crucial, and necessary in societies. Everyone has a role in a society, and anyone can be a part of the conversations that directly impact them and learn and grow into the ones that don't.

Conversations, situations, and actions that we take individually and collectively in society must have nuance, of course. For instance, abled people don't get to make a monolith of the disabled and or chronically ill experience then force their opinions and projections on them. Inclusion is the active bringing-in of people, communities, and institutions - that societies have historically and actively ignored, marginalized, penalized, or dehumanized - and readjusting the way people take up space in society. The "mic" must be shared, and people must be free to explain their own experiences of identity in the world in critical, compassionate, and thoughtful ways that don’t just tick a box on a list. We are all people and communities that have interesting and complex histories, stories, thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants so we each deserve to be included that empower us and develop empathy and critical thinking. It goes hand in hand with accessibility (we can’t be included if we cannot physically, emotionally, or literally access the information, spaces, and institutions . We deserve to see ourselves in "mirrors" to reflect our experiences and have "windows" into other people's lives.

ACCESSIBILITY

Accessibility is often diminished to just “ADA-compliance” in regard to physical and "mental" disability, whether perceived or materially indicated. This is an incorrect definition, as the ADA is not fully fleshed out nor is it a comprehensive series of laws. People break or find ways to subvert the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) on a regular basis. Wheelchairs, service animals, masking, and other mobility or emotional aids should be accessible in buildings; transportation systems, and other in-person spaces. The ADA requires a minimum amount of "access" and is not enough for physically, emotionally, or mentally disabled people who need to be able to walk into any given situation and know how they will be able to access that situation to thrive. Accessibility, to me, means that anyone can access a physical or online space in ways that are humane, dignified, and helpful. Marketing the actual access capabilities of your institution or online space will effectively start us towards this goal.

However, accessibility is not just literal physical or emotional access, but financial access as well. Financial accessibility asks questions like:

1) Does it cost money at any point in time?

2) Is there a barrier to said access based on -isms in society?

3) Do you need specific education, prior resources or achievements to access the space, and is that warranted?

4) Does the space require you to be somewhere specific (online or in-person)? How it is accessible (only accessible by boat, by foot, by car, password-protected, etc.)?

Accessibility, at its most inclusive, is how we create spaces that are open to anyone as they are and get the treatment, information, and resources they need.

INTERSECTIONALITY

“Intersectionality” or “intersectional” have become buzzwords in postmodern conversations about anti -ism work to fight things like racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. Coined in 1989 by Black American critical legal race scholar, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, this theoretical framework seeks to acknowledge and debunk racial and other systemic -ism-based mythologies that dictate which identity/identities are most crucial to our understanding of the world, negating the complex wholeness of any one person, especially in regards to privilege and marginalizations.

One can argue Dr. W.E.B. Dubois touched on this concept when discussing how Black men were both men and Black ('double consciousness"). While acknowledging how complex and distorted as the history of this speech is, one can say that Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman” speech is one of the earliest known speeches discussing what we now call “intersectionality": discussing Black women’s dehumanization in regard to race, class, and gender. This framework is essentially asking us to name the problems; see how they overlap for people, communities, and systems in regard to both privilege and marginalization; and to move forward with policies, mindsets, cultural re-imaginings, and structural shifts that dismantle the hierarchies across identities and lived experience.

ACCOUNTABILITY

Accountability is apology and atonement combined in action. Accountability is a victims’-consideration-first apology that names the harm as well as the specific changed behavior the harm-doer will enact to change for the betterment of themselves, the collective, and potentially (should they want it) the victim. Accountability is as much for the people and systems who cause harm as it is for the people harmed. Changed behavior is the only way to heal ourselves and the systems created around us.

Interpersonally, it can be something like “I apologize for causing you distress and harming you. These are the actions I’m going to take to be better [list the actions]. Despite my intent or where this behavior came from, I need to do better, and I will.” The survivor; the victims; or the people and communities harmed can say “no” to an apology because that is their prerogative; the harm may be irrevocable for some or all. Nevertheless, we have a duty to be accountable to our actions and change when called upon. It can be an invitation to do better, with or without the victims being present. It can be restorative (the victim(s) and the harm doer maintaining some sort of relationship) or transformative (the victim(s) don't maintain interpersonal proximity, but there is a shift in the way the harm-doer interacts with communities and institutions at-large), depending on the given circumstances for the harm.

Accountability for gender marginalized people on a systemic level in the USA might be financial and legislative restitution and policies for transgender and gender expansive communities who are under attack by White nationalist cis-hetero-normative patriarchal laws being enacted everyday. It might be changing K-12 curriculum to include age-appropriate gender, sexuality, and consent lessons that teach LGBTQ history, sexual health beyond the cisheteronormative, and queer and trans culture as well as how to empathize with cis women and trans and gender expansive folks. It might be guaranteeing housing and gender-inclusive healthcare for all people, regardless of gender or sexuality. Accountability isn’t punishment though, for those with many privileged identities or who feel especially sensitive about telling accurate history regardless of how it makes them feel, accountability (and the other terms mentioned above) feel like punishment, "reverse -isms" (like "reverse racism"), or otherwise impossible to enact without giving up comfort, privilege, or "freedom". This is not a Thing because everyone in this scenario would have access to these things like healthcare, education, food, and housing; some people's rights to these access points would just be codified because they were not originally thought about when the Constitution or other laws were originally created.

I believe in me, in you, in us. Let's get into this work!

-Artemis

ALL OPINIONS ARE MY OWN.