Preface: Language and communication matter. As a transactional model, communication is sending and receiving messages between two or more parties: a dyad or a group. Messages include noise, sounds, utterances, media channels, verbal speech/signing, nonverbal body language, and expressions (Beebe, Mottet, & Roach, 2013).
Research Review: Diversity statements, University brochures, higher education marketing campaigns, and the creation of national public radio communicate to society that an institution accepts and supports minoritized groups in a white-dominant system (Ahmed, 2007; Garbes, 2021; Holland & Ford, 2021). These messages do not necessarily deploy reparative social justice practices (Ahmed, 2007). The "diversity" messaging systems utilize an appealing term for equity warriors and neoliberal white-dominant institutions of power and privilege, which Garbes calls white racialized organizations (Ahmed, 2007; Garbes, 2021). Garbes has generated and employed the term isomorphic pressures to equal racialized norms that shape the standards and praxis across organizations (2021). White institutional isomorphism is a mouthful; one Garbes takes to challenge the lip service white racialized organizations dish out with claims of diversity policies without challenging the systemic oppression of racialized groups (2021).
Race inequality is a product of the social construction of race as a bio-identifier.
Race is used as a structuring force in society to perpetuate white privilege and power systems. Race inequality is a product of the social construction of race as a bio-identifier. White dominance in public radio can be seen as a product of organizational theories of coercive, normative, and mimetic pressure (Garbes, 2021). Garbes shares that members of an organization can share the organization through cultural action (2021). At the formation of National Public Radio, less than 2 percent of stations were non-white. Those stations were entertainment-based, unlike the educational and debate-based stations for white production companies (Garbes, 2021). NPR catered to the white habitus cultural dominance of white-protestant-colonial ideals, claiming the audience was interested in white voices and white stories when the habitus is created and co-created by the actors/members of a group/play. Alienating non-white community members who were part of the public sector and whose tax dollars supported the government. Yet, programs were not designed for or by "them" for over a decade following the creation of NPR (Garbes, 2021).
We give up our culture of origin to maintain individual agency and grasp a ring to secure a spot in the white-dominated circus act.
According to Garbes, white habitus facilitates white ignorance and assimilation of non-white-cultured groups who conform to white habitus as a means of survival (2021). In contemporary language, we call this white-washing and cultural loss. We give up our culture of origin to maintain individual agency and grasp a ring to secure a spot in the white-dominated circus we call American capitalistic society. Mass media upholds and perpetuates cycles of white-washing as whiteness is considered flexible and has morphed to incorporate additional groups who were once non-white as these groups assimilated into white habitus.
How can Higher Education, National Public Radio, and the Americans with Disabilities Act manifest social reparative social justice action?
So, societal actors and organization members ask, can we earn admission to whiteness through assimilation? Can we gain power and privilege by adopting this white habitus as a survival technique? If history can show us what happened to Indigenous North Americans as they attempted to appease white settlers through assimilation, we saw mass genocide of an entire ethnic group.
Michael Jackson is a strong example. He changed his outward appearance from dark skin with prominent black-male features to a small, high-fashioned nose and skin as white as snow (Brackett, 2012). Jackson's entire life was dedicated to adopting white habitus while becoming the most well-known musician in the world, an icon, an idol, and the "King of Pop," yet he was still not offered the safety net of whiteness (Brackett, 2012). White supremacy is a hungry beast that will never accept membership of those who give up their entire identity to take on ideals that whiteness is the supreme race. So, we must take back all cultural norms and values to our communities of origin and dismantle white supremacy by refusing to assimilate and wear the white-washed culture or white habitus( Garbes, 2021).
Whiteness is an arbitrary category that is mutable and moving
Whiteness is an arbitrary category that is mutable and moving, incorporating once-outed groups into the power-dominant category as actors/members mute their cultures and habitus of origin to implement and wear the habitus of white supremacy to blur the lines (Brackett, 2012; Garbes, 2021). Crossing racial categories may seem like the goal if the goal is survival and preservation of self; however, equity and liberation are the goals while staying true to one’s culture (Garbes, 2021). Relational constructs influence organizational institutions; these relationships and the conflict between organizational groups can transform into post-racial subjects (Garbes, 2021). There is no valid, stable racial identity. Socially constructed institutions uphold racial boundaries and power systems (Ahmed, 2007). The King of Pop’s physical-body transformation worked to blur the lines of race and gender binaries. Still, he did not convince the public, and instead, it led to the mass pathologizing of his identity (Brackett, 2012).
Diversity programs are intended to be a way to take back white privilege systems and affirm all human identities as worthy and valid
Diversity initiatives are ideally meant to be a group of services offered to the public and private sectors to ensure compliance with non-discrimination goals, laws, and policies. The diversity action plans are meant to affirm group membership to all non-white, non-male non-colonial heteronormative able-bodied, telling all humans, regardless of racialized, disabled, or ethnic categorization systems, they are welcome. Diversity programs are intended to be a way to take back the white privilege systems established and upheld by British imperialism and white settler colonials that created white supremacy and stole agency from others. But we see time and time again that these programs are about gaining financial support from stakeholders and federal investors rather than seeking social equality and equity through reparative justice action where all are liberated, all voices heard and respected, and all bodies humanized (Holland, & Ford, 2021).
Contingent inclusion is standard in diversity initiatives across sectors (Ahmed, 2007; Garbes, 2021; Holland & Ford, 2021). Black, brown, and indigenous racialized body-minds are often included as a means to an end; in higher education, the means is financial gain and marketing for stakeholders/future students; in NPR and other media channels, BIPOC racialized body-minds are included to drive political agendas; in disability campaigns, BIPOC bodies are used as a marker of successful application as policies and programs are meant to pull marginalized groups out of lower-ranks and into positions of increased power access.
References:
Beebe, S. A., Mottet, T. P., & Roach, K. D. (2013). Training and
Development: Communication for success (2nded.). Boston, MA: Pearson
Brackett. (2012). Black or White? Michael Jackson and the Idea of Crossover. Popular Music and Society, 35(2), 169–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2011.616301
Garbes, L. (2021). When the ‘Blank Slate’ Is a White One: White Institutional Isomorphism in the Birth of National Public Radio. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 8(1), 79–94. doi: 10.1177/2332649221994619
Holland, & Ford, K. S. (2021). Legitimating Prestige through Diversity:
How Higher Education Institutions Represent Ethno-Racial Diversity across Levels of Selectivity. The Journal of Higher Education (Columbus), 92(1), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2020.1740532
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