In the last twenty years many individuals and companies have embarked on brave attempts at
addressing diversity issues in the workplace and communities. More recently, unless there was a
compelling diversity crisis demanding attention, many organizations have become reluctant to
continue attending to diversity. Diversity has lost its flavour of the month status, and many
believed the work was ‘done’. Comments such as ‘in this company we do not see colour’ is regularly
heard, often accompanied by cringing racist jokes to prove how ‘over it’ colleagues from diverse
cultural backgrounds are.
Recently however, Mmusi Maimane became the public figure who officialy brought us full circle and
declared the work is never done when he asserted ‘if you don’t see my skin, you don’t see me’. He
stated what we all secretly knew, but hoped could go away.
WORKING INWARDS FROM THE DIVERSITY EPIDERMIS
Noting the pun, diversity work is comparable to the layers of the human skin; we have attended to
the epidermis, what is underneath and waiting to be addressed, is the dermis where the nerve ends
are located.
Amongst other matters, hegemony begs our attention at the level of the diversity dermis.
It is the hegemonist dynamic which represents a world view that disguises relations of power and
privilege. By its very nature hegemony is often not recognised because it is commonly held by all,
both priviledged and underpriviledged, oppressor and oppressed.
World views are difficult to put in a box and examine, but a story may illustrate its presence and
impact;
As an example of a subtle, and not so subtle, hegemonistic world view that white / West is
better, a young black graduate, newly appointed as a financial consultant reports on her
experience at the hands of an older black female customer asking for a short term loan.
When she gets up to ask a colleague about the procedure, the client rages that the
consultant was wasting her time, was stupid, and that she should have asked for a white
consultant to serve her. The altercation escalated from this point onwards to an unhappy
ending.
The client – finding herself in a compromised financial position – projected some of her own
humiliation onto the young consultant by calling on the hegemonic view they both shared;
black consultants are never as competent as their white counterparts.
WHAT DOES DEEPENING DIVERSITY WORK LOOK LIKE?
Doing deepening diversity work implies recognizing the following;
Getting the BBB-EE score card right does not represent deepened diversity work
It is accepting it as a process, never complete, recognising the symbolic and real value of
hegemonic identities such as whiteness, heterosexuality, masculinity, able bodiedness,
etcetera,
It is contradictory and ambigous and demands courage and resilience from all concerned,
requiring us to stand in the tension of the diverse space,
It requires us to relinquish our desire for innocence and accept the burden of consciousness,
Above all, it is a conversation aimed at creating real relationships.