“We have heated discussions here because we care,” wrote Cheryl. “I expect members of this online community to work things out among themselves with minimal moderation. Perhaps you might seek out bias reduction training, Susana. Everyone can get better at that.”
I froze, staring at Cheryl’s black words on my white screen. A familiar chill crawled across my neck and shoulders, and crept down my arms. A green, churning nausea began swirling in my belly.
This time, I knew these sensations weren’t telling me I was shameful and wrong. I knew they were my warning system. Cheryl was no longer trustworthy, and the community was no longer a safe space.
“Ted” was the spark that ignited this conflict. I didn’t know who he was when I joined, but I quickly learned he had opinions and influence. It turned out he was somewhat well-known in a related field, so I became curious about him despite his occasionally awkward comments.
One day, his awkwardness turned into bigotry. He posted a prejudiced comment on someone’s post, and when no one called him on it, I did. He didn’t respond. Soon after, he publicly interrogated a different member on her vulnerable post about not feeling safe in the community. When she told him not to comment further, he ignored her boundary and escalated his bizarre interrogation.
A few days later, Ted posted an article link with his commentary on neurodivergence, a topic that is sensitive and personal for many of us in the community. An expert on neurodivergence responded to the post’s inaccuracies with well-informed, polite pushback. Ted reacted with the condescending suggestion she familiarize herself with “cultural humility”, then with further contempt to her measured reply. I chimed in to amplify the expert and denounce Ted’s rudeness, then alerted the moderator to his behavior.
Cheryl (not her real name) is the moderator, and her response was the above — a flaccid suggestion that community members work things out, and a recommendation I seek bias reduction. She offered no intervention, no enforcement of the group’s behavioral guidelines, and no real leadership. When I expressed my disappointment at this response and her unwillingness to curtail abuse, Cheryl — a licensed therapist — accused me of attacking her personally and professionally.
I left the community.
***
This happened last summer, but the incident haunts me in the wake of Trump’s re-election, his assault on DEI, and the devastation wrought by the lies and inhumanity of the MAGA movement. It lingers because it’s one of thousands of such incidents over many years that helped create our current moment — incidents created by liberals claiming to champion equity and inclusion. People like Cheryl.
It may feel too soon to do a post-mortem on what went wrong with DEI. It may feel disloyal to suggest that American liberals accept some responsibility for our nation’s current plight — especially as violence against our lives and livelihoods grows in our workplaces, streets, and families. But perhaps now is the perfect time to reflect, so we can learn from our mistakes and take action to slow devastation and minimize harm.
The systemic failures of DEI and American society are partially driven by two cognitive errors which reinforce dysfunctional systems. The first is false equivalences.
For context, I’m an Outsider Leftist who’s been an anti-racist advocate and activist as long as I can remember, despite being raised Christian and conservative. I completed two degrees related to race, culture, and power, and worked in what we now call DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) for almost 30 years. In fact, I rigorously studied the science of human biases, and created and delivered hundreds of unconscious bias trainings to thousands of people around the globe, including my TEDx Talk. But in late 2021, I left formal DEI work for “five awkward reasons” that are all critiques of systemic failures by both the DEI field and American society.
These systemic failures are partially driven by two cognitive errors which reinforce dysfunctional systems. The first is false equivalences.
A “false equivalence” is faulty logic where two or more things are presented as essentially the same, despite significant differences. For instance, a man hitting a woman and a woman hitting a man look like the same phenomenon. They might involve the same behavior — a fist to the other’s face, for example. Both may knock out the other’s tooth or leave a black eye. But beyond surface similarities (which are rarely the case in reality) these are very different phenomena.
The differences are about power. As a group, men hold greater physical, economic, and social power than women, and exact violence on women in very different ways than the reverse. Men are physically larger and stronger than women. Men’s violence against women is largely offensive, while women’s violence against men is usually defensive. Men’s violence against women in families and public spaces has been an epidemic for millennia. Mass male rape of females during war and colonization has raged for at least 4,000 years. Male sexual violence has been used to intimidate and control women for centuries (including today, on the internet). None of these have any female equivalent. And for thousands of years, the consequences to women’s lives and livelihoods when we hurt men have always been far more serious and lasting than the reverse.
False equivalences can look deceptively similar on the surface. What also makes them tricky is there are always individual examples that contradict collective trends (e.g., there are some women who are physically stronger than some men). But the existence of outliers doesn’t refute the general tendencies of large populations over time. So, despite superficial appearances, false equivalences aren’t the same due to power differences expressed through differing contexts, histories, and impact. Read the rest on Medium!
