Shapeshifting The Panel - A Post that Set Me on a Trajectory for Racial Justice
/A huge part of me has been rejoicing in gratitude that the pandemic caused us to ask really hard and existential questions about our lives and the critical needs for social justice became somewhat of a normalized conversation in this country. Because for such a long part of my career I thought I was the only one pushing for real change to happen. Back in the early 2000’s and 2010’s I felt like my radical voice was usually the loudest in a room full of crickets. Now that we’ve come to a point of no return of the status quo, I look back and remember what shifts I made and what beautiful things unfolded because of them. These are the moments I have to remind myself of why I go hard on making my points, why I choose the words I choose, and what purpose I serve to make this world a better place than I found it. I hope to share this particular story of the harm caused by diversity panels with my community of fierce game changers who love nature and call for social justice in the same room. I hope it serves as an example that WE CAN recover from harmful requests to be tokenized or put on the spot if we shift our focus to impact those that matter the most; our diverse communities instead of the white dominant landscape.
This was the last and final diversity panel I would participate in where I set my own intention to vocalize how harmful creating panels like this are to the efforts of DEIJ and all other efforts. It was held, organized, and moderated by Bay Area Wilderness Training (BAWT) instructors in 2014.
In 2013 I had already been in the industry of science and environmental education for about 15 years. I was in and out of small grassroots organizations, passionate and desperate to find a community of like minded disruptors to commiserate with and cause the wall of white supremacy in the field to fall. I didn’t fit any mold or mission of a particular agency and my ideas and opinions were often acknowledged as “courageous” and “glad you said that”, with an undertone of “but I wouldn’t be so bold myself, thanks for taking one for the team!”.
I have to say, I felt like I had created a small pocket of a following back then (without Instagram or Twitter), but nothing really supported this insatiable appetite I had to say what needed to be said. Some young leaders found me inspirational, some steered clear not knowing how to move forward with the ideas and questions I had presented in conversations about diversifying in the outdoors.
By 2014 I found myself needing to carve out my own voice. I didn’t want to give up and shut up. I knew I had something valuable to say! So I asked myself how can I express my beliefs in ways that others can understand what’s required for true social justice without compromising who I am? What ended up happening was me branching off into my own brand, my own consulting firm to push my radical messages through autonomously. But before my business became my livelihood, I created a blog called, The D Word. No longer active, this blog was a space for me to unleash my frustrations around the lack of diverse voices and stories by highlighting diverse professionals in the sciences and the outdoor industry, documenting deep and frank conversations about, well… “The D-word”, or diversity.
Then when my friends and colleagues at BAWT (Bay Area Wilderness Training) asked me to join a panel of other heavy-hitter POC professionals in the industry, I rolled my eyes and took a deep sigh of “ugh…here we go again…” and I accepted. I accepted because I took a quick pause in that breathe and asked myself, how can I take this opportunity and say what I really needed to say and end this form of harm to me and others like me? Also, I accepted because I had a few friends on the panel with me, including Jose Gonzalez, Founder of Latino Outdoors, Zoe Polk, then one of the Bay Areas first Outdoor Afro Leaders, Kim Bailey, and Ashanti Branch, Founder of Ever Forward Club. But despite it being a party of friends and respected colleagues on the same side as me, I was tired of the performance. I also had nothing to lose being unaffiliated with any specific agency. So, I said f-it! Let’s see what happens!
With a personal intention to have this be my last and final panel participation I went in. I played the part, answered questions as I would always and even mentioned that I was at a point in my career where I knew that working towards answering “the audience’s” (meaning mostly white people) questions and fulfilling their needs wasn’t benefitting me. I told the audience that I made a conscious decision to now put my efforts into supporting my fellow POC professionals (as I gestured to my folks seated on my left and right). That me supporting my own community and their needs was where my work was going. I continued on with an anger boiling up inside me, knowing this was just another show and pony. I needed to write out my thoughts and opinions on the matter.
So I went home heated but determined to speak my mind on paper. But a bigger challenge to myself was to not fall into a camp of disgruntled activists calling out and ascribing to the toxic cancel culture (it wasn’t called this back then). So I had to think really long and hard about creating a post that
(1) came from my own voice instead of blaming or shaming anyone else of the “industry at large”
(2) give solutions and recommendations to my readers instead of an open-ended, “so what are you going to do about it now?” cliff hanger
What I would write below in 2014 was my way of processing the many years of disappointment, heartbreak, fierce determination, and allow the healing of my wounds to show up in a way that was healthier for me and my readers. I won’t lie or sugar coat this, but it took me so much restraint and calming of my angry beating heart so I can come off on higher ground with this one. What saved me were the breathing exercises, the sitting with my anger, and the intuitive digging into my bank of knowledge and toolkit to respond to the hurt that I felt. The gist; it took a lot out of me to hold back my reaction to transform my anger into the proactive words in this piece.
Below is an expert from a previous blog site I created back in 2013 called, The D Word.
There is no epic report, online article, or twitter hash tag that can capture the true essence of this diversity crisis. Nor can they suggest solutions towards a more even participation of our increasingly diverse country. The only way to really understand what’s going on and gain insights on what you can do about it is to RECOGNIZE DIVERSITY AS A LIVED EXPERIENCE.
The very first interview posted on this blog back in April 2013 was with scientist, Yasmin Lucero. She mentioned, “I grew up in Oakland, one of the most diverse places in the world. And that diversity is very front and center and you have to deal with it. It really influences this issue of, “How do you deal with conflict? How do you deal with a difference in opinions? How do you think about it, feel about it, and how do you take care of relationships when people are different from you?”No tool kit, diversity training, or podcast can get you to a place of genuine understanding and ownership of your place in the spectrum of diversity in the environmental movement; you have to live through it.
As a woman of color working in the environmental movement, I am taking a stand against the harmful diversity practices that serve to “educate the majority” rather than “support the minority”. I want us to kill this idea that minorities serve as a resource for mostly white organizations to check their "diversity box" or to strategize a plan of action that might bring more color to their staff and participants. I'm calling for a shift the way panels are conducted and and an end to diversity trainings.
In the 15+ years that I’ve been involved in the sciences and environmental movement, I’ve been asked more than a handful of times to sit on diversity panels or contribute to some symposium on a diversity topic. And each time I find that there are similar questions and almost completely predictable outcomes. The questions often being about, “How did you get involved, what keeps you motivated to stay, and best of all, “How do we get more people like you into our programs/orgs?” The big RECRUITMENT question! One predictable outcome for me was feeling important in some way, having to exemplify myself as a ‘leader’, which in reality just translated into “look! I’m surviving the culture shock of being in a mostly white organization”. Another result was that I relived my academic/organizational journey to an audience of mostly white people because they asked me to. And last, there was nothing more that helped push my environmental career further by participating on these panels. I just kept the hamster wheel of a conversation going.
After all these years of “diversifying” my career field, I realized I was harming myself by sitting on these panels. Now I realize this practice is harmful for allpeople of color. Sure, it seems empowering and a good networking gig to be up there, but in general, I see these panels put together as resources that predominantly white organizations need in order to do at least one of the following: show examples of how they are reaching their “target audience”, gain insights from us on how to do “community outreach”, or prove to others that there are people of color out there doing work, see? How exactly does this serve to directly support our career success?
In a last ditch effort to find some sort of benefit to diversity panels, I participated in one (and final) earlier this year for a wilderness exposure organization. I was recommended by a friend to participate. He too sat at the table with me. I thought, let’s just see where this can go. Perhaps there might be something different that can come out of this one. Plus, I had some good friends up there with me. Sure enough, predictable outcomes. But one thing I did do differently was I took that stance at the end to shapeshift the panel. After the prescription-like questions were asked and somewhat remedied by our responses I chimed in one last time. I stated, that panels are a difficult position to place people of color in; to ask us to sit on and to testify our careers as successful participation and that we have some sort of knowledge on how to get you to be a more diverse organization. This is tokenizing, I reminded the crowd. I went on to say that being a person of color is a lived experience, as is working in a more diverse workplace. I expressed, that earlier in my career I would do my diversity work as a panelist talking to a mostly white audience. Then, there came a point where I realized that I needed to work in diversity, within my community(with the panelists) because that’s what supports me. I further encouraged the people of color in the audience to keep building relationships with each other and that our alliances are what’s going to count in the long run. Recognize that there are good allies to work with and bad allies to be cautious of. But we have to find a way to work that truly supports us.
And as far as diversity trainings go, I’ve organized enough of them with environmental organizations to know that these must die as well. I now realize that my impetus to organize trainings and workshops was to cope with the oppression and disappointments I experienced as a woman of color trying to conform to the majority. I felt I needed to do something about the disparities; to help the white people realize their impact and dominance on people like me. That was working to diversify; that was working with an expectation that other people can change their attitudes towards people of color in just a few activities addressing white privilege and oppression. Often times it just caused a defensive tone towards me or instilled white guilt in the form of comments given to me afterwards.
To work in diversity means I’m working within my diverse community and supporting the work of other people of color to bring our participation to a norm. I find areas for collaboration with other leaders of color and support and mentor younger folks that are passionate. The idea and resource sharing, even program development happens in the context of including cultural aspects and celebrating diversity rather than approaching it with a “lack of” mentality (which often leads back to "checking the diversity box"). Good allies play an important role in supporting people of color with similar intention and cultural awareness.
There are plenty of people of color out there doing great work and have been for many years. We don't need to resort to organizing panel discussions or diversity trainings to help us cope through this reality of a homogenous workplace. We have each other. The stories and interviews on this blog are meant to relate to, get to know, and build relationships with others so that we’re supporting each other through those tough times of disappointments, oppressive behaviors, and amongst other things, avoiding the route of having to educate the dominant culture.”
After getting this piece down and publishing it, the amount of levity that came from my body surprised me. I guess in today’s trauma informed language it may be called somatic healing. I’m no expert, but all I knew was that I was proud of myself for not being reactive towards my anger but finding a way forward that would benefit my well being and purpose as an advocate for inclusion and equity.
How do I know going in this direction of sharing my story and opinion benefitted me? Well, for one I wasn’t met with backlash or trolling. Instead, after several months of this blog post being published I was sent an email from someone in the US Forest Service, requesting my participation in an upcoming project that would involve many diverse constituents across the North and Pacific Northwest states. After the vetting process I would be appointed as an Advisory Council Member for the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail (PNNST). For the next couple of years I would serve and travel to different parts of the only National Scenic Trail that ran East to West, across the United States borders. And from this project I was also recruited to be on the Board of High Country News, which I still sit on today, in my 6th year of service.
Now, if this story serves any purpose for you, I hope you can see that voicing your ‘radical’ thoughts and ideas about something you’re passionate about can really work out for you in the long run. I don’t really wonder what would have happened had I not written that blog or said the things I said on the panel because I know what I have to say is worth whatever comes next. It’s just that sometimes It takes practice and a willingness to pause to reflect first before reacting with the next step.
Think about what your purpose means to you based on who you are and who you are fighting for. How will your ideas benefit us all in the long run?
In your mind, play all of the possible scenes over and over again in your mind, thinking about all of the possible outcomes from the steps you want to take after you speak your mind. Who will it benefit?
And last, remember what’s at stake with respect to the change you fight so hard for in this world. If you don’t create change and challenge the status quo, we’ll all be doing the same thing tomorrow.
