rethinking diversity

I have a two-part favor to ask:

1. Please take the time to read “Sex, Death, and Empire: The Roots of Violence Against Asian Women” by Panthea Lee, and
2. Then send it to some people you know. And, please make sure at least of them aren’t Asian or Asian-American women.

If you’re like me, the title of Lee’s article may not grab you. But please don’t relegate this to your TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) files. Please take the few minutes’ of your time to read and to share forward.

Why?

This article is an example of why we need to teach critical race theory, explicitly and unapologetically.

Lee clearly connects recent incidents of violence against people who are identified as AAPI women* with systematic, historical and enduring US policy and cultural norms that dehumanize Asian women, including through the current national dialogue that intentionally isolates one act of violence from the next, as if each exists in a raceless vacuum. How I just summarized Lee’s point does no justice to her narration of how, beginning at least in the Philippine-American War in the late 19th century through 2022, “[w]hen not a fantasy, the Asian woman is a punch line.”

Dismantling the “red herring” of the popular race-blind mental health theory about violence against people who are identified as AAPI women, Lee writes:

But mental illness is a red herring. Treating perpetrators as bizarre deviants from the norm misses the point. Mental illness operates within specific cultural contexts. The mentally ill still draw on existing cultural templates, which they may distort or act on in more extreme ways. And when it comes to Asian women, the cultural template has long been sexual denigration: three holes, rape and run, “Me so horny.” Nash and Long, among so many others, simply took these messages to fatal conclusions…

Repeatedly denying the role of race while pointing the finger at mental illness relieves the state of culpability. The message: These attacks are strange coincidences, the actions of crazy people. So let’s just lock them up, then keep on keeping on…

In the long shadow of state-sanctioned violence against Asian women—violence reinforced through culture and distorted by mental illnesses that this country stokes but refuses to treat—Asian American women are constantly told we must find individual solutions for our safety. My group texts are filled with chatter about where to buy mace and coupon codes for personal safety alarms. At rallies, workers for well-meaning nonprofits hand me flyers with self-defense strategies. I stare blankly back at them. I imagine how to teach my parents to do a palm-heel strike; the thought alone is too much to bear.

Meanwhile, authorities continue to investigate whether these recent victims, my sisters, were targeted because of their race.

While the “authorities” investigate, some of us will get on with anticipating and planning for violence. Because it would be foolish–and potentially lethal–for us to dismiss the documented evidence of risk as just an isolated incident in which “it’s not clear whether… race or ethnicity played a role” (CNN). I’ve had this conversation with my partner, and Lee describes her Plans A-C… and D.

And while we do our part, a part that is assigned out of necessity and on the basis of identity (*if you’re wondering, I’ve been writing “people who are identified as AAPI women,” not “AAPI women,” because it doesn’t seem to matter how the victims of anti-Asian female violence identify: it only matters how our attackers perceive us), our part cannot just be self-defense: relying on being better informed and more prepared as a community of people who are identified as AAPI women is giving anti-AAPI female violence a pass. We have to dismantle the systems feeding and forgiving the violence against us. And we can’t do this alone.

We need people who are not identified as AAPI women to care, to learn, to advocate and to act.

We need to stop cowing to accusations of teaching critical race theory and actually teach and implement what we learn from critical race theory. And if you disagree, please read the article first. This is critical race theory: the recognition of the fact that racism is not just a matter of a few “bad people” (in fact, CRT isn’t interested in name-calling), it’s the system that created and maintains not just the construct of race, but inequality on the basis of race.

We need to reclaim and own critical race theory. Lives depend on it.

“Of all the species in the world, however, homophobia is found in just one.”

— Lily Wakefield, PinkNews

This is from an article that struck me as so absurd (and yet, also unsurprising), sad and ultimately, I hope, ending happily for Fezco, the dog who was “dumped at an animal shelter after his owners decided they no longer wanted his because he is ‘gay.'”

Wakefield offers this reflection on the species-specificity of homophobia with the context: “Same-sex relationships have been observed in over 1,500 species, including domestic cats and dogs.”

(And it’s totally worth clicking on the hyperlink, which will take you to “Amsterdam zoo celebrates Pride with tour of ‘homosexuality in the animal kingdom.'”)

Before I share my story, I want to invite you to imagine a version of this situation happening:

• Between you and someone close to you,
• Involving an issue you care deeply about.

Ready?

So, someone very close to me who shares my enjoyment of Wordle, shared with me that they attempted to enter “c-h-i-n-k,” and the word was rejected or, rather, simply not accepted, which is what Wordle does with nonsense words, and, since The NY Times purchased the game, with additional categories of words that are “obscure… insensitive or offensive.”

Now, first of all we both knew about this change. And, while we’re both puzzled over the rationale that a word like “pupal” was officially struck (for being too similar to “pupil”?) we differ in our viewpoints about words that are (1) “just” five letter words, and (2) used or known principally as slurs – for example, “b*tch.”

So, I was taken aback and puzzled (pun unintended, but there you go) that this person decided to try a word that, yes, is a five letter word (meaning a narrow crack), which they are aware is also deployed as slur for East Asian people. And further puzzled that they were annoyed that Wordle wouldn’t accept their entry.

My response was to point out what they already knew, to which they responded: “No, the slur is ‘chinc’ – because it’s derived from ‘Chinese.’” (This makes no sense, as Chinese isn’t spelled Chinece, but let’s put a pin in that for the moment…)

Now, I’ve never seen the slur written with a second “c,” and I’ve never bothered to ask for clarification (“Hey, could you spell that?”) when people have used the slur at or around me. And I didn’t know that at least one etymology of the slur traces this spelling back to… you got it, ch*nk. But I did know that the slur is also spelled with a “k.”

I was then told not to womansplain to them about this slur, and they were sorry they even brought it up (presumably because I was being unreasonable or touchy).

Which added an entire additional level of microaggression to this conversation. Because I am a woman: an East Asian American woman (and while my family comes from Korea, let’s be clear that racists typically don’t bother with ethnic accuracy when hurling racist slurs), and this person, to whom I am close, is a white man.

So. I had to take a break.

Here’s the thing. There is not, for me, an “I’m done with them” option. I choose to remain engaged, to care about them and to continue building our relationship.

And. This is not something I can paper over. I’m hurt personally. I’m outraged socially and politically. And I expect better, frankly. Which is highly interconnected with taking their casual racism personally, as if it’s a reflection on my character.

So. What to do now?

1. I reaffirmed that I am opting to lock this relationship in, not out. (Thank you, Rosalind Wiseman, for making this critical decision explicit. Because my options if I am “done” with this person are different from my options if we are still in relationship.)
2. I recognized all the things I have issue with. I’m listing them here. Why? Because…
3. I want to focus on what matters. Not everything I heard (although it all feels significant when I isolate one detail or another), but understanding. I want to understand what I reflexively reacted to. Why? Because…
4. I am committed to my values, including respect for myself, in relationship with those I care about. So I can’t just not hear the racist thing a family member said, or the homophobic thing a friend joked about, or the sexist trope repeated by the colleague whom I respect. They are not defined by one comment, nor is our relationship. Although it will leave a mark on our relationship, and cause us to bend, one way or another.

So. Here’s the question I am going to ask: What does it mean to you to get to guess “c-h-i-n-k” in Wordle? What does it mean to you, or what is like for you, not to be able to type the word?

And I’ll ask if we can refrain from repeating the word in our conversation. Because I really want to hear their response about what’s going on with them. (I’m actually super-curious because I can say with confidence that I believe this person would never say the word intentionally as a slur. Even so, I don’t need to keep hearing the word “technically not as a slur” while I’m trying to open my head and heart.)

In past conversations like this, I sometimes experience a bounce-back reply that focuses on me: Alison, you shouldn’t take this so personally. Everything isn’t always about race, you know.

But I already know what I think, how I’m taking this, and that it is both personal and impersonal. What I really don’t understand, and want to strive to understand, is how this is not personal for them, and how, when something is also about race, and also racist, that can be incidental or inconsequential for them.   

And I want not to “agree to disagree,” which so often sounds like code for just burying our heads in the sand, but to agree on how to respect ourselves and each other when our positionalities evidence the distance between us, even in our proximity.

I want to agree not to take cheap shots at each other, for each of us to own what we don’t know and be curious (instead of posturing certainty), and to acknowledge our own and each other’s feelings and beliefs, because we can’t logic our way to rightness about the c-word, or in our relationship.

So. Here I go…

There’s a discussion on Nextdoor among our neighbors about removing racist housing covenants from the deeds of our houses.

What’s a racist housing covenant? It’s a restriction, based on race, about who may purchase or occupy the property. For example, this clause:

“That the [owner] shall not at any time sell, lease or rent, or in any way convey said property to any person or persons of the African, Mongolian or other Asiatic Race.”

While not currently enforceable (this deed dates back to 1924, and is literally rubber-stamped at the top with a statement that it’s illegal under federal law to discriminate on the basis of race, among other social identifiers), racist covenants persist because they are part of the legal record of a property and must be disclosed when ownership of that property transfers.

Back to the discussion online… Our neighbors in our very predominantly white neighborhood – at least those who have posted on this topic – are shocked, outraged, concerned that their own house might have a racist covenant (the odds are pretty good if you live in a historically white neighborhood, and if your home was built in the early to mid-20^th century), grateful to know they can take action and uniformly in favor of removing the covenants.

I have to admit that my first question was: why remove the covenants? how will that make our town less racist?

Removing these covenants would eliminate the experience of confronting this aspect of historical racism from the home-buying process today, which might be enough reason in and of itself to do so. The racist covenant I quoted above? It’s from the records of the house I’m writing from. My home. When that rubber-stamped page rose to the top of the stack of disclosures that my partner and I were signing one evening, I felt like I’d been slammed into a wall. On one side of the wall, I was a prospective home-buyer, doing my due diligence and learning about the impact of the house’s construction on the environment; on the other side of the wall, I was a person of “other Asiatic Race” who would never set foot inside, if the original owner had anything to say about it. It was dehumanizing to read, and even more so to experience the bafflement of the white realtor and even my partner as I questioned why, if this former deed was, in fact, void and illegal, did I had to sign off on it? What was signing this racist declaration supposed to signal?

The argument for removing these obsolete covenants has its merits, and not just for prospective property buyers. A significant impetus among my neighbors was wanting to remove the taint of racism from their own home.

Which is all about the personal experience of racism: what happened to me, how you feel, whether my house or yours has a racist restriction in its history. That matters. But I don’t just want to feel better personally or amend the record of my house. And I don’t want to whitewash the housing history – and current reality – of this town. I want us to become the antiracist (not just not racist) town we could have been, and could still be. And that will require us doing more than taking things personally, doing more than reacting to what we don’t like about the past, doing more than removing the explicit evidence of racism (because consider the racist covenant that blankets most of the houses across the US, whether or not it’s been spelled out in property deeds: the one that asserted that White, not Indigenous, people owned all of the land).

I’m not against removing racist covenants. I’m glad that my neighbors care to know about the homes we occupy. I’m grateful if people of color don’t have to suffer another humiliating indignity in what can already be a dehumanizing process of “qualifying” to own a home. I may, in fact, exercise my right to remove the racist covenant from my own home, although I’ll also still keep the copy of the original deed that I have framed in my office.

I just want more. If we’re going to have a voice in our history, our contribution should be more than redactions. I want to see explicitly, audaciously antiracist covenants written into deeds. I want to see changes in the zoning regulations that allow for more multi-unit development. I want this town to wrestle with the racism of the very environmental policies we champion, and innovate 21^st century antiracist conservation. I want the removal of racist covenants to be part of a larger, systemic design toward a future in which housing is a right, and equity and inclusion are how we build community.

From my colleague Candace Chen:

“DEI work is about it being meaningful enough that even when you’re wrong you continue to do it.”

In “Bloated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Staffs Explode Cost of Higher Education,” The Daily Signal cites a study by The Heritage Foundation (which funds The DS, in an apparent circle of affirmation), which found that:

“’the average university has 45.1 people tasked with promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ and that at some schools, the number is much higher. They found that the University of Michigan, for instance, has 163 diversity, equity, and inclusion personnel and that many other schools had similarly high numbers.”

It’s a first, but I’m actually in agreement with The DS that 45.1, 163 and “similarly high numbers” are totally wrong.

How many people should promote diversity, equity and inclusion in a school (or any organization)? What is enough and not too much?

Whatever the total numbers of employees is.

I cannot think of someone who works with – and, in the case of schools, for other people: namely students and families – who shouldn’t be tasked with co-creating a workplace and a community that is mutually safe, and in which every individual experiences dignity and belonging and is able to thrive. Not. a. one.

Oh, and add volunteers. For sure, the board of trustees/board of regents should be counted as DEI staff.

[Aside: This outrage over a “bloated” focus on DEI made me wonder about the size of the athletics staff at these universities. I’m guessing that some are well over 45.1 and even 163 employees. This is, of course, comparing soil to apples – e.g. it is not a thing. DEI is the soil; athletics is one of the hopefully thriving and healthy things that can grow in it.]

Removing my tongue from my cheek, what strikes me about the foundation’s outrage over this many – or quite likely, any – DEI staff is how familiar it is. There’s a prevalent attitude, conscious or not, among predominantly white, predominantly male and predominantly wealthy organizations (which, to be clear, are predominantly so by design, not by accident) that a DEI office comprising a director (sometimes with administrative support) is sufficient. To, you know, oversee DEI in all aspects and at all levels of the organization.

And this is because of a root belief (again, conscious or not) that the Office of DEI is like a complaint center.

Which is problematic because this belief:

• Personalizes inequity and exclusion, as if injustice is just something Alison is upset about, so how do we make it better for her/make her go away?
• Localizes injustice in specific, isolated incidents, in just another version of the “bad apples” theory.
• Minimizes reports of exclusion and inequity by suggesting they are just “complaints,” as opposed to very real threats to individual and collective lives and well-being.

This “complaint center” notion of DEI is also inaccurate. DEI is not just reactive. Yes, any DEI commitment comprises reaction and response to injury and issues, as well as proaction and strategy. Because DEI isn’t personal or local. It’s systemic and cultural.

So what I believe we need to do in organizations that are striving toward justice is: yes, have dedicated DEI staff (especially given the current status of DEI in most organizations, which is that DEI is not part of the design, and DEI fluency is uneven or low across staff and leadership), and ensure that DEI is embedded in the responsibilities of every employee and volunteer. Because everyone has to own DEI in what they do. It is the one office that exists solely in service of every office.

I keynoted Khan Lab Schools’ Summer Institute two-day workshop: Embedding Social-emotional Learning & Executive Skills In Your Curriculum this AM. (shout out to KLS!) My topic was “What it means to practice transformative education: A culture and systems perspective,” which I’m sharing notes from here:

What it means to practice transformative education: A culture and systems perspective

7.20.21

How did we (education in the 21^st century) get here: needing a special, optional workshop in July about embedding social-emotional learning (SEL) and executive skills (ES) into curricula?

There’s a paradox:

“Children aren’t born with these skills—they are born with the potential to develop them” (Harvard Center on the Developing Child).

And yet, while these skills are considered important to develop…

Here we are at an optional summer workshop (that requires your personal-professional commitment and additional funding). That’s not accidental. That’s by design.

Let’s talk about this additive model of education.

Right now, (some) educators and schools are adding, integrating, embedding SEL, ES…

What else are you striving to include/integrate/embed in your curricula and pedagogy?

• mastery-based learning
• media literacy skills
• restorative justice
• …

This additive model is exhausting, and again, by design.

• There’s always more (more, more…) in addition to what’s “core” in curricula
• We’re not adding to a core that is welcoming or even “neutral” regarding SEL and ES. We’re adding to core curricula that was designed against SEL and ES.

Against? yes.

“Budget speaks values” (Obama). So does the allocation of any limited resource – like curricula and class time.

SEL has historically not been part of the program, and ES has been diminished.

SEL in particular is still too often cast in conflict with academic rigor. Thus any time for SEL “takes away from” rigor.

This is true because it’s a set-up. When we buy into the additive model, something has to be subtracted.

This is also false. Consider the costs of not explicitly teaching and learning SEL and ES as an integral part of academics. Too many students are still concluding (early on!) that they’re just “good” or “bad” at a subject (ex. Math) and may subjectively report and stress about “how much time” they spend on homework. The stopgap of schools providing estimated amounts of time students should allot for homework tells them what to perform, without always teaching them how to self-monitor “effort” and effort.

Which of these is not a critical skillset for learning any subject at a rigorous level (i.e. when it gets tough)? self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (CASEL)

Note: SEL and ES, like DEI fluency, aren’t standalone understandings and skills. They are always practiced when doing “other” things. They are about how we learn to write, how we learn to love, how we show up for our first day at school/work, how we play on a sports team, how we assign or receive grades…

Because SEL and ES aren’t already part of the design, we need some “radical analysis” and redesign.

“Radical analysis is about systems and structures; in this case, systems that perpetuate injustice. To personalize that which is systemic, to shift focus to individuals, is to bury the lede and lose the benefits of a structural framework” (Tim Wise).

Wait… injustice?

How does the marginalization of SEL and ES in education perpetuate injustice? FLIP: How could SEL and ES embedded in education realize justice?

Because SEL and ES center humanity as curricula. Curricula isn’t just materials: it’s the interaction among teachers, materials and students.

But any old SEL and ES education are not necessarily just. Justice is possible in the experience and outcomes…

… when SEL and ES development are grounded in (1) the presumption of diversity – that at a group level, there are differences of identity that correlate with disparities of status, access to resources and systemically activated privileges and disadvantages (Blink) – and, therefore, (2) the commitment to empower all, not just some, students to thrive

… and if SEL and ES don’t just equip students to survive-thrive in the social systems and expectations that exist, but to scaffold their capacity to continue redesigning those systems, for personal and collective thriving

We need not just add, but to radically analyze our systems to discern what’s helpful to maintain, add, integrate and radically transform.

These aren’t either/or actions – e.g. you can embed sporadically without transforming the system and culture, and you can strategically maintain some aspects of a system while transforming it.

What’s the culture driving and perpetuating the sidelining of SEL and ES? Why aren’t these understandings, skills, habits and tools already systemically integrated?

• progress is bigger, more
• either/or thinking
• individualism
• fear of feelings (Okun)

… taken to the extreme (see “either/or thinking”)

To transform our schools, classrooms and interactions with students, we need to recognize how we’re systemically and culturally designed against SEL and ES… including our “go to” methods (like: “just add more”).

How not to take on the self-defeating task of “doing it all”? Go to the heart of your work (Tesha Poe): e.g. curricula (and pedagogy)… and then within our curricula, identify: what is core and vital there?

A challenge for today and tomorrow: focus on what’s core in your curricula and “not the place” for SEL, what’s core and “not about” ES. Try embedding SEL and ES in core curricula that has somehow been immune to or exempt from SEL and ES, because this is where the growth edge is. This is where we learn whether SEL and ES are, in fact, essential or nice to have (here and there, where it’s convenient, and as long as it doesn’t really change anything in the curricula, classroom or students’ learning experiences and outcomes).

When we talk about transformation, there is a perception that: maintaining (requires the least effort) < adding < embedding < transforming (requires maximal effort). I would argue, though, that individually and institutionally, stasis can require more effort than transforming.

What makes change additionally effortful is taking the “whack-a-mole” approach: constantly reacting and trying to adapt each and every way. What makes change not easy but less unnecessarily hard is having a sense of where “all of this” is going, and, along the way, how it’s going.

For schools to advance SEL and ES systemically and radically, you’ll need your PHILOSOPHY of SEL and ES (your why) that includes why SEL and ES are a priority, and what their relationship is to “all the other things” (hopefully, not just “and… etc.” on a list of everything else).

Wayfinder’s SEL framework provides an example of emergent prioritization and connection: “DEI + SEL + Trauma Informed.”

Taking it further, I would assert that diversity is a fact, which requires SEL grounded in principles and practices of equity and inclusion, because SEL is not-one-size-fits-all, as if, as a critical example, everyone is trauma-free (which we are not: this is diversity). This is an example of how we need to own our priorities: as a list, they can be useful, but as a molecule they are stronger building blocks.

In addition to your “why” SEL and ES, you’ll need your VISION (your aspirational “toward what”) to define MISSION (your current “what” in practice) and a STRATEGY to arc audaciously toward what you envision for your students, yourself, your school and the world. Vision and mission empower you and your students to prioritize your focus and efforts, and assess progress and impacts formatively, over the lifelong process of not just learning, but practicing SEL and ES in ever-changing arenas of life.

I recommend reading Tim Wise’s “Performative Rage is Not Activism.”

Honestly, I read the title but not the author when I dove in, and I was struck by what felt like the performative rage of lines like this:

The system will not bend, let alone break, because some stupid-ass white kids in Eugene smashed restaurant windows, even as Black activists begged them not to because they knew Black folks would get blamed (and they were right). 

I just assumed that the author couldn’t possibly be a white person, given the thesis, which is not just about performative rage, but white performative rage.

I was wrong.

So why, you may be wondering, do I recommend this article?

Because, still.

Wise makes a clarifying point about the difference between advising white activists to not just scream and “tone policing”:

… contrary to fashionable thinking among some, this is not “tone policing.” To say that one should carefully consider the words one uses or the signs one carries is only tone policing in the way that telling you not to go to work on Monday and scream at your boss or co-workers is tone policing. In other words, it’s pretty decent life advice. Being asked to think before you rage for the sake of personal catharsis is not oppression. It’s strategy. No social movement in the history of the world has succeeded without it, and there has never been even one that accomplished its goals while operating on the assumption that its participants should say whatever is on their minds, whenever they feel like it, without regard to consequence.

Note: as well, tone policing is typically directed at under-represented and marginalized groups. So to suggest that white people are being “tone policed” is to subtract privilege from the authority and impact of the policing.

Wise also challenges the stereotype that it’s people of color (and women, I’d add) who are inappropriately or excessively emotional and rage-y, while white people (specifically cis, hetero men) are objective:

Working-class and poor folk of color are some of the most strategic people I’ve ever known. They have to be. You don’t survive broke and Black in America unless you strategize, hustle, and figure out how to work the angles. To suggest that such persons operate from unfiltered emotion is an insult, not to mention wrong. 

Btw, once I realized Wise wrote this piece, I re-read passages like this, hearing what was the same and different for me, first inferring that the author was a POC (and specifically Black) and then knowing the author is a white man.

Wise brings also tears into sloganeering as a practice of white performative rage (his analysis of “ACAB”: All Cops are Bastards is spot on – it’s inaccurate, and perpetuates the belief that racism is located in individuals, not systems) and offers this:

Radical analysis is about systems and structures; in this case, systems that perpetuate injustice. To personalize that which is systemic, to shift focus to individuals, is to bury the lede and lose the benefits of a structural framework.

… the system won’t be transformed by misanthropic anarchist wanna-bes setting fires at the federal building and breaking windows at a Boys and Girl’s Club in Portland. That is not activism. That is theatre. It’s not Paris, 1789. It’s Les Miz, circa 1988.

But this is not entertainment. This is people’s lives.

And for those lives to finally matter in the eyes of the system, we will have to remain focused on that system. Yes, systems are maintained by individuals, so when officers like Derek Chauvin murder under cover of law they must be held accountable. A systemic focus doesn’t let individual killers and abusers off the hook for their actions. But such a focus does recognize how even those individuals are shaped and misshapen by the machinery of which they are a part. If we take our wrath out on the machine’s operators while leaving the conveyor belt in place, we can trust that someone else will come along to crank the gears or push the buttons necessary for its perpetuation.

Yes, we can trust that.

… which got me thinking about another performative rage: the rage of the “anti-CRT” (critical race theory) campaign. One of the most frustrating – and effective – aspects of the pushback on “critical race theory” (which I place in air quotes because most of the pushback is directed at any DEI work, not specifically or even accurately Bell et al.’s framework) is how personally its detractors are taking systemic issues.

I understand that people take it personally when they’re confronted with the racism of something they did or said. Of course, what they may be missing is that it’s not just about them: it’s about their participation in systemic injustice. So it’s personal, and not.

However, taking personally that systems reproduce racist inequalities at a mass level that can’t be explained otherwise (unless you accept the idea that some groups are superior or inferior in intellect, drive, capacity, ability on the basis of race… which is, yes, racist)?

It’s frustrating because it’s not personal. Yes, systems are built, maintained, defended and reinvented (or not) by people. Each of us plays a role in the system of racism. But the fact of racism (I still have a hard time saying “systemic racism” because, well, systemic is indicated in the –ism, isn’t it?) and the act of naming racism is not a criticism of anyone’s character. Yes, it’s a criticism. Offered, if you think about it, because people believe enough in the US and in people to bother bringing it up. Because we believe we can build a better system.

But this performative rage doesn’t heel to logic. It doesn’t need to. The performance of rage is really all it needs to be effective, just like the performative rage of Wise’s “performative revolutionaries.” Effective at what? Keeping the system, and us, in place.

In “Elite Track, Are You Okay?” journalist Megan DiTrolio writes about the disqualifications of several elite female track and field athletes from competition in recent years, including Sha’Carri Richardson, for testing positive for marijuana; Brianna McNeal, for changing the date of a mandatory drug test, while recovering from a medical procedure; and Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi, for having natural testosterone levels that are too high. That’s right: natural testosterone levels.

According to DiTrolio, “World Athletics’ policy on Athletes with Differences of Sex Development (DSD)… requires all women competitors’ testosterone levels to fall under a certain level if they are competing in certain events. This rule does not extend to male athletes.”

Notice this not an “Athletes who Identify as Transgender or Nonbinary” policy. This is a policy about differences of sex development, which, just to be clear, you can find between any two people. Because sex development has patterns, and is unique.

Of course, this policy is concerned with differences of sex development beyond a range deemed typical by… (I’m not sure whom: World Athletics? The “medical community” (which is not unified regarding the gender spectrum of identity and development)?

Whatever this acceptable range – in this case, of testosterone – is, the premise is that athletes must fall within it, for competition to be fair.

But only for women. “For men competing, higher-than-average, naturally occurring testosterone is a competitive advantage. For women? It threatens their professional career.”

I had to read this a few times for it to sink in.

It is totally acceptable for men with natural “higher-than-average” testosterone levels to compete against men with average or below average testosterone levels, while it is a disqualifier for women because…

Men are immune to differences in levels of testosterone? (No.)

And so, I appreciate DiTrolio’s question to elite track, which is where it seems the issue is: not with Mboma’s, Masilingi’s, McNeal’s or Richardson’s “unique challenges,” but with the system making the rules.

Rules may be rules (Biden), but when rules are also sexist, racist, classist and transphobic, we have to ask ourselves if we’re OK with that.

Obviously, I had to click on this headline today: “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is tired of ignorant bullsh*t from people who don’t like to read.”

The article is about General Mark Milley’s response to a question about critical race theory (CRT) being taught at West Point and the US Military Academy, during a Defense Dept budget hearing. If you haven’t yet seen this video, please watch and listen. [If you only have a couple of minutes, start at 5:15, when Representative Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) invites Milley to respond to the question, which was actually directed at Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.]

I just need to pause here and state the obvious: this is a masterclass in leadership (in two-and-a-quarter minutes!) So let’s break it down. What Milley models is:

• Baseline literacy: He’s not talking about critical race theory without having developed a basic, relevant and accurate explanation of critical race theory that he can share to level-set the conversation. Even as he acknowledges that he “will obviously have to get much smarter on whatever the theory is,” he doesn’t use that as an excuse to not engage. In fact, it’s through engagement (application, including dialogue) as we continue to learn that we actually “get smarter.”
• Preparation: See “baseline literacy.” Milley recognizes the need to know enough to have this conversation: not just facts about CRT, but also an understanding of context in which it’s being brought up. He’s prepared for the gamut of assumptions, outright ignorance and mis- and disinformation about critical race theory that all too frequently get to frame and drive any mention of it.
• Ownership: Milley knows his “why critical race theory.” He’s not getting thrown by illogical red herrings (see: learning = indoctrination, as if military students can’t be trusted to actually think, so we better be sure we don’t expose them to any, you know, ideas.) He grounds his “why CRT” in “why military education,” which is very much grounded in the military’s responsibility to serve: “… what is wrong with understanding — having some situational understanding about the country that we are here to defend?”
• Active antidiscrimination in real-time: That the question about CRT was addressed to Secretary Austin, the first Black secretary of defense, and that interrupting Austin while he is trying to answer is apparently a pattern of engagement with him among white male senators and representatives (see the clip above from the beginning, and this questioning from two weeks ago) are not for debate about whether “this is about racism,” but for reflection on how racism is being enacted (regardless of intent or consciousness). That said, whether or not Milley notices the dynamic with Austin, he leverages his identity and his privilege to respond to the underlying, misleading and racist idea that CRT is against white people, and therefore, that white people should be against anyone even learning about the theory: ” I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it. What is it that that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that?”
• Communicating – not just implying – respect: He does this when he says, “I respect your service and you and I are both Green Berets” to one of the questioning representatives. He does this when he thanks Representative Houlahan for sharing her allotted time. He does this when he says, “I personally find it offensive that we are accusing the United States military, our general officers, our commissioned and noncommissioned officers of being ‘woke’ or something else because we’re studying some theories that are out there.” (In contrast, watch the first part of the clip to hear Representative Gaetz’s response when Austin points to the appreciation within the military for critical conversations about race: Gaetz suggests that any positive feedback is just an attempt to please the boss. The assumption that our military are unintelligent, unthinking and lacking in basic integrity is in direct contradiction to Milley’s belief in our troops.) Finally, I honestly think Milley communicates respects in all the moments when he conveys his irritation with the campaign against CRT in military education because he disagrees without demeaning his questioners.