In this episode we continue our unpacking of some key terms and topics in diversity & inclusion: equity, BIPOC, and reparations.
Transcript: Key Terms: DEI, BIPOC, and Reparations.
Eric: What is fair to a particular person or group in that person or group's own context or position? African descended, Asian descended, European descended, Indigenous, we all should be learning each other's histories and engaged in each other's present realities. Yeah, this is the big discussion, ongoing discussion. And as, Penny, as you mentioned, a lot of people get get rankled and feathers get get ruffled over questions about reparations.
Penny: Welcome to the Diversity & Inclusion for All project supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Together, we'll listen to key perspectives, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
Diversity, equity and inclusion. So a lot of people can kind of like totally know what diversity is supposed to refer to. Right. And and inclusion, like making sure people feel maybe a sense of belonging or that we are including different voices in a conversation or that we are recruiting for a diverse labor pool inside of a company. Equity has been added lately. So, sometimes we even see the abbreviation D.E.I for “diversity, equity and inclusion.” And just really quickly, what's important to know about equity, and why that term is being added into this big term now: Diversity, equity and inclusion.
Eric: Oh, my goodness. Yes. Yeah, it's very important- equity - because it's kind of kind of contextualizing this. This is in people's language. People have used the term equality to strive for an equal society. Everyone's equal, everyone's equal opportunity, blah blah blah. Well, again, as we just talked about, when you strip some of this away and you get into the layers of legal issues, economic policies, so forth and so on. We find out that now this is …there's a lot of inequality. So when we talk about equity, we want …we're referring to what is fair to a particular person or group in that person or group's own context or position. So what would be equitable for an African-American woman would look different than for, let's say, a white woman and so forth and so on. It's not just a blanket way of looking at people in these situations.
Penny: So, I know there's an image that's that's been going around in social media, but it really helped me understand equity. It's really simple. But there's sort of three differently aged children standing at a fence trying to watch a baseball game. And it talks about equality is they’re all standing on the ground. And then the little toddler can't see over the fence and that's equal because they're all at the same… standing on the same ground. And then the other image that's always next to it --is the equity one where there's sort of crates. And the littlest guy, the little toddler guy gets to stand on the tallest crate so he, too, can see over the fence. And then the oldest child is still standing on the ground, but he can already see over the fence. So, then they're no longer on equal footing, as it were, because they're standing on different things. But it's equitable because then each one is getting what they need to be able to see over the fence and watch the game
Will: Yeah, exactly. I mean, to give a couple of examples that might make it more real world, a common example of equity would be thinking about parental leave when a when a couple has a child. So we'll assume the couple is male and female. You know, it's easy to think in terms of equality after the birth. You know, a guy has as much right as a as a woman to say six months, 12 months, whatever, whatever it is in that context, you know, to have parental leave, to care for the new child. But since it's women who carry the child, you know, there's good reason to say before the birth you would treat a prospective parent differently, that, you know, it would make sense, for example, to start parental leave a month before the birth or maybe even just two or three weeks before the birth, during the very late stages of pregnancy for the person carrying the child. But that wouldn't make sense in the same way for the person not carrying the child. So looking at their circumstances and thinking, how do we enact policies related to parental leave equitably, you would treat the person carrying the child slightly differently than the person not carrying the child.
When it comes to race, I can think of, you know, students of color at educational institutions where the vast majority of students and vast majority of faculty and staff are white and ask, well, how do we make people feel at home so that everybody feels fully welcome and some don't feel like a little more like guests even after they've been there for a couple of years rather than full members of the community. And you might say, well, we're going to work extra hard to not just be diverse, but to be effectively inclusive because of all the subtle signals we send --and we're often not aware of them-- is going to make the traditional white students of the institution feel included. That's not going to take much work at all. We're going to have to work harder to help students of color, staff of color, faculty of color to feel fully inclusive… included, not not just as guests, but full members of the community.
Penny: Another term that I've heard a lot lately, and it's in the news is we used to talk about or we still talk about persons of color? Sometimes we say P.O.C. for persons of color. But really, I just think like maybe in the last two years, the term by BIPOC B.I.P.O.C, has come up. I wonder if we can just explain that a little bit. And what are the pros and cons of using that term instead of the P.O.C or next to the P.O.C term?
Eric: I've just begun using that term BIPOC, and I feel it is helpful. Because it does identify, at least in this case in this acronym, two groups of people. So it's black and not necessarily African-American, because in the U.S. context, you can be black and your parents, you can be from the Caribbean, your parents can be from the Caribbean, or you can be black and you or your parents are from somewhere on the continent. So it includes every person of African descent. At least this is how I understand how the term is used. And then “I” stands for indigenous. Because yeah, I mean, in the old term, we love the term person of color. But … it's a little vague and, you know, is someone from Asia, well, the South Asia, East Asia or Southeast Asia, are they included in in person of color or are indigenous people and Native Americans included in person of color? So this just gives a little bit more concrete language, a little less vague. But still, I think overall, when we talk about BIPOC, a person of color, we're talking about people who do not necessarily identify as people of European descent. So, it’s everybody except European descended persons, especially in this in this context. So to use the term Latino, LatinX, LatinE. And then assume that everyone who checks that box is black or brown will be will be incorrect because there are people who who who would say, yeah, I'm European descent, but I'm also a Latino or Latino or LatinX. So it's useful in the sense that you know the term and understand what people are coming from, but at the same time, it's still it's still clumsy.
Will: I see it as a way to try to recognize that in the American context, in particular, two groups that are included under people of color--So indigenous people or Native Americans and African-Americans and other black folk who are just to the eye indistinguishable from from African-Americans--, that they carry particular histories as people of color, African-Americans because of the institution of slavery in the United States, and indigenous people because they were the first nations, the first inhabitants and whose land was taken by conquest and by force, by intimidation, and so on. And so they have particular histories and particular legacies that they bear that stand out. And as Eric suggested, the more fine-grained you get, you start to see distinctions while Latinos, particularly people of Mexican descent, you know, they have their own particular history. So it's so it's it's an imperfect, awkward effort to try and say that the stories of people of color are not all the same, that some, and this term, I think, distinguishes indigenous people and African-Americans as having peculiar stories of slavery and conquest in the United States that others, immigrant groups don't experience in the same way or didn't experience.
Penny: So as an Asian-American, when I heard BIPOC. initially, I thought, what are you trying to do with that term? But I think over the last year or two, I've come to embrace the term a little more, because I see it as indicating that black, which is both African-American and other black-identifying people and the indigenous people have suffered and are dealing with the repercussions and have consequences of that today of significantly, qualitatively different group experiences. So for the blacks, it was slavery for the African-Americans. For many of them, it was slavery, not all of them. And for many of our indigenous peoples, it was genocide and dispossession of the land and territories that they called home. And although I am Asian-American and there's also, you know, terrible things that have happened to Asians and Asian-Americans in our country's history, including exclusion and internment, right, in camps and a denying of the right to become naturalized citizens or the privilege of becoming naturalized citizens, just based on the fact that we are labeled as coming from a certain country. I think those types of group experiences are still sort of qualitatively different. And so I've come to see BIPOC as a as using that term as kind of a way to recognize that.
Will: Again, when you get more and more fine-grained, some indigenous scholars and activists have said that their goals and their rights, what they're seeking is not simply diversity and inclusion in the same way, because as you said, Penny, their history includes having land taken away from them and genocidal policies applied to them. And so inclusion for them means restoring something of the kind of land rights and and distinctive sovereignty that Native American groups signed in their treaties with the federal government. So, persons of color all share something, but they do have distinctive, as you say, group legacies and histories that stand out, particularly for indigenous and African-Americans.
Eric: Terms have changed. We using, some some are of the using BIPOC today and tomorrow might be something else. But I think the crux of the matter is that we all, whether black, white, brown, what have you … African descended, Asian descended Europeans and indigenous… we all should be learning each other's histories and engaged in each other's present realities. But with a term like BIPOC, as you just stated, I think people in this country have to pay particular attention to the histories of folk who were not who are not European descended. Those separate histories and often intertwined histories, the more the more I study this, more I read, I see African-American history and Native American history as intertwined. Stolen land for one group. Stolen labor for the other group. And when one group, for instance, African-Americans become federal soldiers like the Buffalo Soldiers right after the Civil War, and they're being used in the American West. To fight in the, quote, unquote, Indian wars, and some of them are having some real issues with that, that’s stuff that we really have to bring to light, that even even in the use of those African-American infantry units that there was a racial component to it and it was intentional by the United States Army to do that.
Penny: Yeah, I think Colson Whitehead -- I might be wrong but I think that's right-- has this great quote. He basically said America was basically stolen land worked by stolen bodies. Yeah. And that's that's how we got our start. Yay. Yay, us.
Reparations. When some people hear this term, they think that's the most ridiculous idea ever. Never going to happen, and when other people hear the term, they think this is something that has to happen. I'm wondering if we can just briefly state what reparations are. And maybe some helpful ways to think about how they could be useful for us in our current moment.
Eric: Reparations, yes, yes, yes. As someone as someone who teaches African-American history, reparations and that principle of reparations, it reverberates throughout basically the entirety of African-American history. Goes all the way back to the…actually goes back to the middle of the 18th century where a formerly enslaved woman petitioned to be remunerated because of her labor. And because, as an enslaved person, you didn't get anything. I mean, that's that's that's that's the principal, that that's what reparations are: giving me what is rightfully mine that I have that that have not received, that's been stolen from me, that's been withheld from me. So you see you see petitions like that in the 18th century here in the United States. Well, what becomes the United States. Right after the Civil War, Jordan Anderson, who was a formerly enslaved person, I believe in Tennessee, writes this letter to his former master because his master wants him to come back. And he writes, well, I'll come back. If you pay me what you owe me. And he gave him he and his wife, he and he gave him figures, I think, like eleven thousand dollars for himself, and I think like ten thousand dollars for his wife. So, yes, it's that and that carried over to … we’re talking about 40 acres and a mule. After the Civil War. And even African-American Christian folks in the Episcopal Church in the late 1960s put together a petition saying that the church, not the country, but the church: you owe us. You owe black folks at least two hundred million dollars. So this isn't anything new that that's just it's going on. It's just a really hot discussion right now, as well it should be.
Penny: One thing that helps me think about reparations a little bit is this metaphor of playing the game Monopoly. Right. And we like to think it's a fair playing field. If you work hard, you'll get ahead, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Those kind of things. Whether whether you buy into that or not, that is some of the thinking that happens in the United States. But if you think about the game of Monopoly, at the start of the game, you divvy up some money. So everyone starts the game with some money and then you roll the dice and you play the cards. And assuming if you're rolling the same dice and drawing from the same shuffled… randomly shuffle deck of cards, that the game is fair. But what what really is the case for our different citizens now in our country is that some people start the game with so much more money and possibly even already owning some of the properties on the board. And other people are starting with almost no money or even a deficit of money and no property. So even though we're using the same dice and pulling from the same randomized, you know, deck of cards to play the game, the game isn't fair. And so for me, sometimes helpful way for me to think of reparations is not: we're going to give a bunch of money to people and not to other people. And that feels unfair. Right. But actually, we're going to try to do some things that will make the whole game of life a little fairer for people.
Will: Yeah, what comes to mind for me is that a person might say, well, that enslaved or formerly enslaved person in 1866 asking for land. Well, that's a living person who was enslaved. And that's different from someone asking, you know, one hundred and fifty or more years later for reparations for slavery. And OK, yeah, there's a real difference there. But let's let's frame the example differently. A white American, his or her ancestors benefited in the 1840, excuse me, the 1940’s, 50’’s, and 60’s from GI Bill loans to buy houses and to go to school and things like that in a way that African-Americans and often Mexican Americans and Native American veterans did not. And that help in the nineteen forties, fifties and sixties created generational wealth for that white soldier’s descendants. You know, generational wealth that a white person today would have. The descendants of the African-American or maybe the Mexican-American veteran don't have that. So reparations, you could say it's not only worth considering them in relation to slavery, but also in relation to more recent inequities, like how the GI Bill played out. And so if we're paying or making cheaper loans or some other kind of support for buying homes for African-Americans today, it's not African-Americans getting something that white folks didn't. It's just African-Americans getting something that white folks got a couple of generations before. It's so easy for people in this case, white people to take for granted generational wealth where something they benefit from is not something they did as individuals, but something that their parents or grandparents or great grandparents got. We don't notice it when we get it. We notice it when other people get it right.
Eric: Right. Yeah. I mean, you make a great point in terms of the whole discussion of reparations. And for the sake of discussion, the whole future policy of reparations toward African-Americans goes beyond slavery, because, as you said, you have you have these incidents where you have the imbalance and inequity in terms of the GI GI Bill, those loans for war veterans to to purchase houses. Even in the 1970s, there were there African-Americans who were calling for reparations, saying that, no, we shouldn't just concentrate on slavery. We have to look beyond slavery because slavery didn't make everything right in this country for African-Americans. And so so at the heart of reparations, we have the principle of repairing a wrong. And nowadays even some folk have shot and have just dismissed racial reconciliation, especially among Christians, saying that racial reconciliation can only go so far. And racial reconciliation actually assuages white guilt, but it doesn't do anything on the ground. So let's get beyond racial reconciliation. That's good. Let's go beyond it. And the next step is reparation, repairing the wrongs and looking at the church and how the church was complicit and even active in in in in in furthering racial oppression …toward … against against African-Americans. So, yeah, this this is a big discussions, ongoing discussion. And as Penny, as you mentioned, a lot of people get get rankled and their feathers get ruffled over questions about reparations. I understand where people are coming from in terms of their discomfort with the whole topic. I will… I can hear someone say right now: Well, I wasn't there. So this is like the counterpoint. For Will's example: I wasn't there. I …my grandparents came here in 1910, slavery was over with. But the rejoinder would be or a rejoining question would be, well, how did your grandparents benefit from what was the system that was already in place? Compare your grandparents situation with the situation of African-Americans. You know, that's hard work. But conversations like this hopefully will lead people to do that hard work. And for the people to understand, going back to what we already talked about, that this doesn't… this isn’t to say that, no, your parents or grandparents stole what what what they got, but your grandparents came into a situation in which they could really rise up from from having nothing to having something quicker than someone who's parents or grandparents were enslaved.
Will: When the Great Depression hit, fathers, the patriarchs in the family found themselves unemployed often, you know, a quarter of the population in their area, sometimes a third of the population in their area was unemployed. And they realized, I can't do this on my own. I can't feed my family, take care of myself on my own. I need help. And they embraced the Roosevelt New Deal and, you know, back to work projects and policies designed to help families struggling and all of that. And then postwar policies like the G.I. Bill and, you know, more government spending for education and health care and all of that kind of stuff, reflecting their needs. And then a generation later, their children inherit the wealth in the 1960’s. And many of them don't notice the privilege – the inherited wealth. They don't notice they just took for granted the way government programs from the nineteen thirties to the nineteen sixties had aided their families for for 30 years. They didn't notice that. They just took it for granted. And they became increasingly conservative. They ended up voting for Ronald Reagan and shifted from the Democratic to the Republican Party. And the way the story is told, it's that people forget all the help they get, whether it's from family or community. They're more likely to remember that. But that's often taken for granted, too. But they certainly forgot the help they got through New Deal policies and postwar policies that continued elements of the New Deal-- policies supported by both the Democratic and Republican parties in the 1950s, it's important to add. African-American families north and south did not benefit as much as white families from the New Deal, New Deal policies that locally discriminated against black families and individuals. And the same was true with the postwar things like the GI Bill. Once again, African-American families and individuals experienced discrimination. They didn't benefit from supposedly racist-neutral policies. The policies were enacted in discriminatory ways.
Penny: It's kind of difficult to unpack all the different terms and how they get used. But hopefully with just a little bit of introduction to some of these big ideas and terms, we're in a slightly better place to continue the conversation, right? To continue learning, to continue exploring and having more nuanced and informed ideas about how to move forward together in our in our world.
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