Title: Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning? - The New York Times
Headings: Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning?
Has ‘Diversity’ Lost Its Meaning?
Content: Over the past few years, numerous editors have reached out to me asking for help in finding writers and editors of color, as if I had special access to the hundreds of talented people writing and thinking on- and offline. I know they mean well, but I am often appalled by the ease with which they shunt the work of cultivating a bigger variety of voices onto others, and I get the sense that for them, diversity is an end — a box to check off — rather than a starting point from which a more inte­grated, textured world is brought into being. I’m not the only one to sense that there’s a feeling of obligation, rather than excitement, behind the idea. DuVernay herself hinted at this when she, too, admitted that she hates the word. ‘‘ It feels like medicine,’’ she said in her speech. ‘‘ ‘Diversity’ is like, ‘Ugh, I have to do diversity.’ I recognize and celebrate what it is, but that word, to me, is a disconnect. There’s an emotional disconnect. ‘ Inclusion’ feels closer; ‘ belonging’ is even closer.’’