It's Deeper Than DEI And I Hope When the Table Finally Turns, It Burns

Traditional DEI is merely performance when it avoids transparency and truth about power. Equity isn’t a policy. It’s practice, a process, and a demand for justice and accountability.

Last year this 3-letter acronym was demonized and dismissed by many people who don’t even know what each letter stands for, let alone what it means or why it was historically implemented in the first place. They were loud and wrong, but effective because... well, THIS IS AMERICA. Transparently, I've never fully believed in the way traditional DEI was applied in institutions anyway but that doesn’t mean we didn’t need the guardrails it lightly provided.

My lack of faith in its use isn’t because equity efforts don’t matter, but because too much of what gets labeled "DEI" becomes performative and perpetuates the very power imbalance and conditions it claims to challenge. When Equity is squeezed into the Box of Bureaucracy- or forced to operate within the confines of white supremacy culture- it becomes more about organizational comfort and control, than collective change and community.

I’ve experienced this not only as an employee across multiple types of organizations, but also as a consultant, coach, and facilitator brought in to support institutions on their equity, anti-racism, and transformation journeys. I recognize the patterns. Language gets elevated, optics get polished, and initiatives get launched. Yet, the deeper work gets pushback and/or remains untouched. Why? Because deeper work requires honesty. And the truth sets us free.

When we don’t explicitly name race and racism, Diversity becomes a diversion.

If we cannot be honest about race and (anti-Black) racism, Diversity often turns into a distraction because Equity cannot be achieved until we acknowledge that inequity is rooted in injustice. Injustice isn’t an accident. It’s a deliverable of an intentional design.

Equity needs more than representation. It requires repair and resistance. Reparation and resisting anti-human systems and culture demands that we tell the truth about power. Be clear, representation without transformation will never lead us to liberation. 

Equity is not just an outcome. It’s a process. It requires more of us than training.

When Equity is treated as a destination, an end-of-year metric, a set of training hours, a report, or a slogan, we miss what it actually is calling for us to do. Equity, as a process, requires shifting and sharing power and asking questions institutions (and their leaders) often avoid:

• Who has decision-making power and who doesn’t? Why is this the case? 

• Whose harm is treated as “feedback” instead of evidence? We have the data.

• Whose discomfort gets prioritized in the name of “culture”? If we listen, we learn.

• What policies and practices invisibly preserve “power-over”? Who's responsible?

If power doesn’t shift, people from diverse backgrounds can be present and still not be/feel safe. They can be hired and still not valued, "included" and still be diminished. 

Equity is the bridge in the middle.

I often say it plainly. Equity is the bridge connecting the D and the I. Without Equity, Diversity becomes a headcount and Inclusion is just a meeting invite. Equity is what makes DEI real. It’s what turns participation into power and advances progress. If we're willing to be honest. 

Inclusion doesn’t automatically translate to belonging.

We say “inclusion” like it’s automatically good. The intention sounds great in a report. The impact often falls short. Inclusion is complicated when we remember the truth. This country was built on exclusion. Disconnection from land, ourselves and one another, dehumanization as part of the process, and continued division, on purpose.

Inclusion cannot simply mean, “Come join what we already built.” It has to mean, “We will transform what we built because it’s never worked for us.”

Why “a seat at the table” is a flawed metaphor.

Just because you "get a seat" (included), doesn’t mean you "get to eat" (belonging). Belonging requires more than access. It necessitates dignity, safety, voice, agency...POWER.

We repeat and remix the phrase “a seat at the table.” But the table itself is rarely questioned. To me, the table is the structure, the institution, the hierarchy. It’s the system that decides whose voice and contributions matter. And it's oppressive. 

The table will never hold us all...and when it turns, I hope it burns.

The table encourages assimilation for participation. It teaches scarcity, trains us to compete for legitimacy, and it implies there is limited room…because there is. 

If DEI is only about helping a few more people squeeze in at the table… box-checking without course-correcting… we are not transforming, we’re simply rearranging without ever changing. The same people seemingly benefit, and the same people are absolutely burdened. 

Equity means justice. Justice requires freedom.

This is where I land, every time: Equity means justice. Justice means freedom. And “nobody is free until everyone is free (Fannie Lou Hamer).” 

If we are not building toward freedom, then we are not advancing equity. We may be building better branding, language, and training decks (and event that's questionable). But not better systems or a better world. Not liberation or true belonging. 

Our collective amnesia (and miseducation/misinformation) is part of the problem.

We often skip over, or never learn, the roots behind the very policies and frameworks we cite: Equal Employment Opportunity. Affirmative Action. Non-discrimination. Anti-harassment. Equity. Social justice. If we don’t understand the “why,” the “how” will always be inadequate.

Too often, institutions (and leaders) don’t hold up a mirror to themselves. They don’t recognize they are part of the problem. They don’t examine how their website's words don’t align with their willful ways. How they consistently perpetuate inequity through oppressive norms: honoring production, profit, and power-over (anti-human and transactional) instead of people and power-with (human-centered and transformational).

What I’ve learned from the zip codes burdened by inequity.

For more than half of my career, I’ve lived and worked in communities most burdened by well-documented racial inequities that create and perpetuate disparities, caused by government-sanctioned policies. Inequities that show up across every system, sector, and social determinants as historically patterned social, political, and economic power imbalance.

That’s why I believe this work requires disruption from within and pressure from beyond.

I’ve educated, advocated, and facilitated both inside and outside of institutions because I understand we need internal change led by mentally liberated leaders across systemic levels willing to disrupt dominant culture and challenge “the way we’ve always done it.” We are extensions of the communities we serve. Operating within an “us versus them” paradigm that upholds “one right/white way” is not only harmful, it's unethical and unjust.

We deserve leaders who want to reimagine and redesign policies, practices, procedures, and programs that persistently produce harm from the inside-out. Leaders who move us from transactional “inclusion” to transformational impact. It's been time for something different. 

We deserve leaders who want to reimagine and redesign policies, practices, procedures, and programs that persistently produce harm from the inside-out. Leaders who move us from transactional “inclusion” to transformational impact. It's been time for something different.

PHREEEDOM, LLC "It's Deeper Than DEI" version of the systems change model. “There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures.” -bell hooks

It’s deeper than “DEI.” I said it, I mean it, and not everyone will like it.

I’m not surprised with the lack of change and progress DEI has produced, nor with the viral pullback among corporations and organizations last year. Because I know what "DEI" actually means, why it’s important, and what it should/could/would be if it were done in a way that prioritized impact over intent. Which is exactly why it’s never been fully realized, and also why many entities swiftly abandoned their commitments the first chance they got. When that table finally turns around, I hope it burns down to the ground. Let it fall. Seats and all.

True transformation happens at the deepest depths of systems change. It means we have to get uncomfortable and unlearn. It won't happen without truth, transparency, and trust. We must pay attention to the patterns of power (imbalance) and center people instead of "production" to envision more possibilities. We must honor humanity, humility, and healing over hierarchy through real relationships which call for us to shift our hearts, decolonize our minds, and expand our analogies/metaphors beyond a table with limited chairs.