Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Sport Institute for the Study of Sport, Society & Social Change (ISSSSC) | Sport, Society & Social Change Conference | October 21-22, 2021

DEI Terms & Common Ground

Diversity defined:

• Diversity is "the presence of socially meaningful differences among members of a dyad or group."
• Diversity "allows for exploration of differences, with a keen focus on empowering people by accepting and appreciating differences."
• Examples of diversity include, but are not limited to: Gender, Race, Religion, Disability, Age, Education.

Diversity is:

1. A construct that is greater than a single individual.
2. Concerned with differences among people.
3. Concerned with both objective and subjective differences.

Forms of Diversity:

Inclusion encompasses recognizing the Surface-level and Deep-level diversity

Surface Level

Readily observable characteristics

Deep-level

• Differences based on values, attitudes, and beliefs.
• Categorized into information diversity and value diversity.
• Information - based on knowledge and information, resulting from education, training or organizational tenure
• Value – a difference in preferences, attitudes, and beliefs

While conceptually distinct, surface and deep-level diversity are related to one another. Example: Diversity in age can also add to differences in ideology and perspective.

Consider this, when we are engaged with individuals with different lived experiences (values, knowing), we must honor their truths respectfully and acknowledge our differences. Dr. Lamont Williams states:

"We can agree to disagree, it is helpful to have the space to do so and still have value for our differences."

Equity

We are given equal access to space but there are differences in access that might warrant additional resources or opportunities to those that for so long have been denied access.

• Equality - means that all people are given equal access to opportunities and resources.
• Equity - the recognition that people come from different circumstances that warrants resources and opportunities necessary to reach an equal outcome

Inclusion

Inclusion defined:

Defined: the degree to which employees are free to express their individuated self and have a sense of workplace connectedness and belonging.

• Welcomed and equally treated.
• Make people feel respected and valued for who they are as an individual or group
• Inclusion is experienced by individuals but takes on a shared property.
• Inclusion satisfies the need to feel valued, accepted, and part of a larger group.
• Inclusion satisfies the need to be recognized for and able to express fully one’s individuated self and identities deemed important.

Professor Kevin Lynch: "Whites, we have differences in experiences and legacy with Black, Indigenous, and people of color."

BIPOC

The acronym refers to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. According to the BIPOC project, BIPOC "highlights the unique relationship to Whiteness that Indigenous and Black (African Americans) people have." For Black people, this means the legacy of Middle Passage, Black Genocide, slavery, lynchings, riots, segregation, and mass incarceration.

In the modern context, we have disproportionately higher numbers of Black people incarcerated. For example, Whites use drugs at higher rates than Black people yet, Black people are 6x more likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes.

For Indigenous people, it means genocide through the Indian Wars, the over 1,500 Anglo attacks on First Nation tribes, Trail of Tears. the breaking of treaties and the imposition of reservations.

The experience for Indigenous people was from the the doctrine of discovery settler colonialism. We have the invasion of Anglos into the land that we occupy and we have a dictate from religions from governments at that time that there are no humans living here and that as Anglos we are the humans and we have the capacity, and the will, and the power to make this land our own and evacuate, eliminate those who have are already been here. We see the genocide through the 1500 Anglo attacks on First Nation tribes down through history. We have the serial breaking of treaties, so much so that the Supreme Court supports a treaty that would keep Indigenous people in their land and Andrew Jackson willfully says No!.

"The states did not have the right to impose regulations on Native American land. Although President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the ruling." - Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2021, February 24).

Worcester v. Georgia. Encyclopedia Britannica.

Now, we have of course the imposition of the Reservation system where there we have the most poverty that we see in the Country.

Again experiences & Legacies are different

Another difference we see with Black and Indigenous people is that they are not picking a legacy and history that their ancestors chose for them. Other people of color have a history that their ancestors chose for them.

Along with what we see in the definitions is the concept of privilege and it can be a very difficult concept in terms of how we teach diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Professor Kevin Lynch says that: We are going to see resistance from some people. There is unawareness that this happened and then, there is the open rejection to see that this has taken place.

Privilege

Privilege is the unearned set of advantages, entitlements, and benefits granted only to a person or group of people exercised to the exclusion or detriment of others. Some who experience such privilege do so without being aware of the discrepancies in experiences, access, or opportunities.

Approaching privilege discussions, focus on our higher self. Ask yourself how would you like to be remembered?

Justice, courage, and love. What do those concepts mean to you? How do you apply them in your life? If you feel yourself leaving the discussion, and sometimes this happens even subconsciously, go back to the deep breaths.

•Center yourself in the ideals of justice, courage, and love. What do you want your friends, family, and associates to say about you concerning these concepts?

• How do you meditate, negotiate and incorporate those ideas in your everyday routines?

Privilege and Power

• Privilege keeps structural inequality intact .

• Structural inequality is an interconnected, interactive, and dynamic system that advantages whites over BIPOC in education, criminal justice, health care, housing, sport, and many other North American Institutions.

• Maintains itself by focusing on individual bad and/or exceptional behavior but leaves the overall hierarchical authority and power untouched.

"Now we are getting more of 'Cancel Culture' often we are preocupy with where we are in the racism spectrum. And because we grew up in a racist society we are all racist. In order move past that we need to go more to systems, to address the systematic inequalities and what we see in Sport and Education." -Professor Kevin Lynch

Example - NFL head coaches

Typically three out of 32 coaches are of color every year. Why? 31 out of 32 owners are white. Most general managers and team presidents are white.

Top broadcast teams are white: Fox (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman), CBS (Jim Nance and Tony Romo), NBC (Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth).

"Removing an individual does not get us more funding for schools and more people playing sports." - Kevin Lynch

"It is not the job of the oppressed to Educate us." - Dr. Patience Bryant

To educate ourselves is DEI work.

Terms that you should become aware of as part of the work in DEI:

Microaggressions:

Microaggressions as "commonplace verbal or behavioral indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative discriminatory slights and insults." Experience at the interpersonal and everyday level. Derald W. Sue et al. "Racial Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Implication for Clinical Practice" American Psychologist (2007:278)

How are microaggressions like mosquitoes? "At camp, we always put on our bug spray because we know that mosquitoes can be annoying and even dangerous. Microaggressions are very similar - they are annoying, can hurt the people who hear them, and can be dangerous."

Reactions to Microaggressions and Other Forms of Exclusion are NOT a Last Straw Moment But ARE a Systemic Discrimination Moment

• Triangulation of experiences for one’s own group and other groups.
• Entire context of interactions
• Microaggressions communicate unconscious bias
• The impacts are at the unconscious, subconscious, and conscious levels for most people who make them and for those who are targets
• They happen in the classroom
• They happen in advising
• They happen among students, among faculty, among staff and administrators.

Individual Racism vs. Systemic Racism

• Racism is often defined as individual prejudice
• Systemic racism exists in the advantages and disadvantages imprinted in cultural artifacts, ideological discourse, and institutional policies and practices that distribute resources and power that work together with individual biases.
• Racism is embedded in our everyday worlds.
• We maintain racialized contexts in everyday action through our preferences and selections,
• We inhabit cultural worlds that, in turn, promote racialized ways of seeing, being in, and acting in the world.

Anti-Black Racism, Anti-Indigenous Settler Colonialisms and Racisms Against People of Color

• The term BIPOC--Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
• Distinguishes that Black and Indigenous people have been subject to systemic racism and colonialism based in genocide and slavery which is different than that for other people of color. This difference still has an impact in the severity and nature of state and institutional violence against Black and Indigenous peoples.
• People of Color are also subject to systemic racism and discrimination.
• BIPOC is being misused in a way that erases the specificity and interrogation of anti-Black racism and Black spaces.

Microaggressions

Psychologist Derald Wing Sue and colleagues defined three types of microaggression:

• Microassaults: A microassault is when a person intentionally behaves in a discriminatory way while not intending to be offensive. An example of a microassault is a person telling a racist joke then, saying, “I was just joking.”
• Microinsults: A microinsult is a comment or action that is unintentionally discriminatory. For example, this could be a person saying to an Asian Indian doctor, “Your people must be so proud.”
• Microinvalidations: A microinvalidation is when a person’s comment invalidates or undermines the experiences of a certain group of people. An example of a microinvalidation would be a white person telling a Black person that “racism does not exist in today’s society.” or “I know that person, he is a nice person and would never hurt anyone, maybe you should talk to him.”

Microaggressions (Words mean something)

• Systematic Racism. Are we creating more barriers? Systems create advantages and disadvantages
• Privilege "It is not the job of the oppressed to educate us"
• Pronounce respect them and show up for people that don't have the privilege

Why should we care?

• Produces hostile and invalidating societal climate in employment, education, and health care
• Loss of institutional respect and cohesion among team
• Psychological distress: anxiety, trauma, depression
• Loss of employee productivity
• Negative effects on institutional reputation

Blackfoot Nations Values and perspectives informed Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Western worldview and the views of First Nations, Dr. Cindy Blackstock (2011)