Excellent article on
www.counterpunch.org yesterday, April 19
The Diversity Dead End: Inclusiveness Without Accountability by Robert Jensen. Jensen's piece is a response to a comment he received after speaking at a diversity conference on racism and other illegitimate hierarchies. Someone asked him why he thought it was necessary to focus on the divisiveness of language instead of just accepting differences and asked if he wasn't being part of the problem instead of the solution of bringing people together. Jensen writes a thoughtful and courageous letter in response. It is a call for accountability from white people on the privilege they receive from the unfair systems and power structures in place that they are born into. He writes, "Those who inflict injuries, or turn away when they see others inflicting injuries must be held accountable for their behavior." Accountability is the base from which real social change becomes possible. People working to bring people of difference together be it based on race, gender, or class, must be honest about their place in these constructs, their privilege in them, and the unfair way that society is structured to keep some more powerful than others. If they are not, then this "bringing together" is the sham. Jensen also addresses the fact that dignity, solidarity, and equality require honesty. "People in the United States are divided by patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism." If we are not honest about these things and about the history that has brought them about and kept them in place, then we are not really invested in dignity, solidarity, and equality. Then we are turning away from the injury that is being inflicted on others. "None of us gets to choose the world into which we are born. All we get to choose is how we respond to it."