May 10
I’m a DEI practitioner that is actively being targeted and killed. Ask me anything.
“Have you ever been hated or discriminated against? I have, I’ve been protested and demonstrated against.” - Cleaning Out My Closet
(Trigger Warnings: Hate, Violence, Sexual Violence, Death)
I am perhaps the most likely DEI practitioner you will ever meet. It makes sense that I fell into the role of enhancing and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (←my professional tagline). A quick glance over my life would reveal that I live at the intersection of three diversity categories: Black, Women, and Queer. (sidenote: I prefer SGL — same gender loving, but I know the alphabet soup of LGBTQIA2S+ community can be a lot for some). So, with all that, it’s fair to say that my lived experiences influence my career significantly, daily almost, and that I belong here. But what is also true, is that these same lived experiences haven’t convinced me to believe anything that I read, say, or write about DEI on the same daily basis. I think they call that a catch-22. Here’s my big secret: essentially, I have little confidence that the work I do will keep me or my communities safe — actually, it might be killing me slowly. Let me explain.
My entire life I have known that there are people who truly hate me. There are racists who would gladly watch the life drain from my eyes, rapists who would prefer to see my body broken underneath their power, and people of faith who believe it is their god’s will to remove me from the earth. These things are commonplace for me. I wake up, get dressed, and am oppressed, protested, and demonstrated against. I know who I am, and I make ‘smart’ choices that offer the illusion of safety to get me through the day with some sanity and dignity intact. I have not only survived but have thrived in a society that wasn’t at all built to see me living unbroken. I am one of the lucky ones, or so I thought. But there is no refuge for the unwelcomed, only hiding, and hiding is a trauma all its own. I know.
I can deal okay with the racism and sexism. As an American, it’s like apple pie; it’s a staple. At this very hour, racism and sexism influences every institution and position of power in America. If these isms are the reasons why people are trying to kill you, then you have a home here. But being queer is different — that’s where the hiding comes into play for many of us. However, I have somehow transformed into more than a queer identity, but into a link that is larger than just being same gender loving or queer because I’m Black and a woman on top of being globally connected (← another professional tagline). The glaring intersectionality of my queerness has spanned across oceans and continents, time and space, reaching back to Audre Lorde and forward to Zanele Muholi. I am part of a global community with Black queer folx in Kenya and South Africa, in townships and refugee camps, in mosques and churches and their ruthless extinction makes me afraid of my own by way of a collective association with death. The rage against me and my people is like none I have ever known. If I must choose the one identity for YOU TO SAVE, please save the Queer Black Woman for my sake, please.
June 2022 will mark the 10-year anniversary of the murder of Phumeza Nkolonzi in South Africa. I was working with a small nonprofit in Cape Town when Phumeza Nkolonzi, age 22, was shot at home three times in front of her grandmother and a small child apparently because she was a lesbian. My job at the time was in human rights and supporting African LGBTQI refugees who fled to South Africa for safety and a new life. I had never met Phumeza Nkolonzi but found myself hopelessly organizing activists to attend her funeral, writing about her in reports and articles, and encouraging the others who couldn’t believe the worst had happened again to continue their demand for the right to life. For my own safety, I was not ‘out’ while I worked at this organization and advocated alongside so many brave folxs who didn’t have that choice. Though what I remember most is not feeling like an outsider at her funeral on that chilly day even though I couldn’t follow the program because of the native language, even though I was hidden amongst warriors, but what I shared with Phumeza Nkolonzi is death. I think it killed me — a little — inside, and that feeling can’t be translated into a strategic metric; it isn’t a part of any DEI framework that I’ve seen.
Last month, under the hashtag #JusticeforShelia, I learned about Shelia Lumumba, a Kenyan non-binary lesbian who was brutally gang raped, beaten, murdered and found by work colleagues several days later in their home on April 17. Sheila Lumumba was 25 years old, and they deserved a better us — a better me. Their murder follows a worldwide Queercide heightened and protected, in my opinion, most egregiously across Africa. While I’ve been professionally discussing some aspect of DEI every day since I heard about Shelia Lumumba’s murder weeks ago, I haven’t been able to say the thing I needed to say out loud — We are actively being targeted and killed. The lack of prosecutions, the lack of media attention, the lack of outrage is enough to put asunder, enough to rip us into pieces. It is with a painful certainty that I know this part of my identity will always be the minority of minorities, the insufferable of the oppressed, and it leaves me not holding my breath for change. Why would I? I should keep that precious commodity of life moving throughout my body for as long as possible. #IStillCantBreathe
Today I woke up and it is actually an important day for my work in DEI. A complicated labor of love, frustration, and desertion is finished and being released. A new body of resources and commitments to motivate the change we wish to see in the world (and all that jazz). I’ve been told that these moments are important milestones, and that the markers of accomplishment should ideally point one in the right direction or validate the place where one has settled. None of the experiences that I’ve shared in this blog will be in my talking points during today’s launch, but I’ll say it here with you — It’s not enough and it may never be. Call it DEI, anti-racism, decolonizing, social justice, gender justice, women’s empowerment, Black Lives Matter, Me Too, Gay Pride, power shift, dismantling white supremacy, intersectionality, truth and reconciliation, interfaith, accountability, so on and so forth, with the I Have a Dream Speech sprinkled on top — It’s not enough and it may never be.
So to my followers and colleagues who found me to be their source of inspiration and motivation, I imagine these words may leave you with heavy questions and that’s okay.
I’m a DEI practitioner that is actively being targeted and killed. Ask me anything.
