DEI by accident
Confession time: I didn’t end up in DEI work on purpose, and I’m not a trained DEI professional.
I didn’t study organizational psychology or development; I don’t have one of those certificates from a university that started teaching online DEI trainings in 2020. I didn’t learn survey design and evaluation for inclusion and belonging, I didn’t practice facilitating diversity workshops, and I am certainly not an employment lawyer versed in the legal intricacies of the ADA.
I landed here by accident. It took me a medical leave turned sabbatical to look back at the stretch of my career (and, frankly, my life) and realize – oh. I’ve been here the whole time.
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It turns out that I learned how to advocate for accessibility needs by rolling into my eighth grade math class in a wheelchair. I learned how to coach executive leadership by calling out state government officials on their relationships with Tribal nations, and having federal government workers mark that moment as a turning point years later.
I learned how to teach the consequences of implicit bias by figuring out how to get funding to undocumented workers and COVID tests to incarcerated people during the pandemic. I learned to facilitate across stark power differentials and to practice trust and relational repair by leading a maternal mortality review committee made up of white clinicians and Black community members.
I learned the pain of an inequitable workplace when I faced retaliation from white leadership, when my chronic illness flares were caused by inaccessible policies, when I was passed over for a promotion. I learned how to radically and profoundly nourish myself and others in community – everywhere from group texts and yoga circles and community gardens to working groups and task forces and committees.
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When I teach DEI, I am – spoiler alert! – actually practicing health equity. I teach an expansive definition of health, as given by the WHO and the UN Declaration of Human Rights:
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.
Shifting systems so that people can enjoy the highest attainable standard of health – our basic human right – includes healthy communities, neighborhoods, and workplaces. It demands racial justice and economic justice and disability justice and reproductive justice.
So – no, I’m not a trained DEI professional. But I am a queer and disabled brown woman, and a health equity practitioner. I have everything I need to do this work well – and you do, too.
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But of course – we cannot do this work alone. I have just three coaching spots left this fall – maybe one is for you? Equity coaching is a three-month container for the burnt out changemaker – public health workers deployed to a politicized pandemic, birthworkers fighting a crush of systemic racism within and without, people who confront mortality and natality on a regular basis, BIPOC and queer and disabled leaders in organizations that riddle them with micro- and macro-aggressive papercuts.
If you want to transform your relationship to power, privilege, and trauma, equity coaching is for you. Learn more and set up a free inquiry call here.