Embodying diversity: problems and paradoxes for Black feminists

TLDR

The paper draws on bell hooks and Audre Lorde to argue for reclaiming the angry Black feminist, rejecting the expectation to be a happy, compliant object within organizations. It examines the problems and paradoxes of embodying diversity for organizations. Using interviews with diversity practitioners and the author's experience as a Black feminist in universities, it explores how diversity becomes a commitment that demands expressions of happiness and gratitude. The study finds that entry into organizations is treated as proof of the disappearance of whiteness, yet embodying diversity pressures Black feminists to refrain from speaking about racism, as such discussions are perceived to generate negative emotions within the organization.

Abstract

This paper examines some of the problems and paradoxes of embodying diversity for organisations. With reference to a research project based on interviews with diversity practitioners, as well as personal experience of working within universities as a Black feminist, this paper explores how diversity becomes a commitment that requires that those who embody that diversity express happiness and gratitude. Our very arrival into organisations is used as evidence that the whiteness of which we speak no longer exists. Most importantly to embody diversity can mean to be under pressure not to speak about racism. The very talk about racism is seen as introducing bad feeling into organisations. Drawing on the work of bell hooks and Audre Lorde, the paper argues that we need to reclaim the figure of the angry Black feminist, and that we need to refuse the injunction to be happy objects for the organisation, which means being willing to cause trouble and being prepared to stay as sore as our points.