Educator’s Diversity Statement
An Interview With Sean
What are your values and philosophy related to diversity or critical ethnic studies?
Diversity works, If we work on it. The issues are about delivery and support. Popular methods for Diversity training alienate participants and make people feel bad. So they don’t want to do it. Shame and blame triggers fragility, and the honest open conversation everyone keeps advocating for is impeded rather than enabled. That’s why we are here. Unconscious Bias training often backfires, priming the participants with a different set of biasles in the training it is intended to interrupt. We know what the problems are, and we need to help people understand why. It’s not just social and cultural programming, its the History of how prejudices became institutionalized forms of discrimination. If we look at how it happened, we have a chance to change the circumstances which created a sense of scarcity and the Zero sum gain mentality that promotes hoarding which enabled it.
Race-caste systems were invented in America. Racism wasn’t our idea but in yet another example of American exceptionalism we pushed it to the next level, one as of yet unimagined in other places. We created a rac- legislated caste system which mediated the difference between slavery and freedom and left vast swaths of the public disenfranchised, under educated, and less likely to be able to compete in the marketplace. This created the racialized class system we’ve inherited.
We built this system to sustain social hierarchies. We can tear it down and build something else. That’s the focus of my work in education. Deconstructing the foundational myths of this system and finding new narratives which are inclusive of differing perspectives, instead of reinforcing the stereotypes which lead to discrimination. Even firms and organizations working in the Diversity space rarely include Native voices or guidance. Lectures and presentations about diversity, inclusivity and equity are not going to change the future. A real analysis of the institutionalization of systemic prejudice is a better start. Reintroducing indigenous systems, ideas, and philosophies to this land in which they evolved prior to contact with the West affirms the sacred bond between humans and our environment.
Native ideas (like native plants) will thrive if we give them environment, space and opportunity. It is the most sustainable path forward.
What does DEI mean to you and why do you think it’s important
The failure of affirmative action programs does not take away the issue it was meant to address- systemic racism. Diversity, inclusivity, and equity are better goals as they are issues that can be solved for. Creating evaluative tools and implementing better strategies increases our opportunity to actualize the world we want to inhabit.
Explain your experience working with diverse populations...
I am a Black Indian. I come from the land, and I come from the hood. My people are from the center and from the borders which crossed us. I am America, Red, White, Black and brown all around. The effects and impacts of marginalization on my communities are innumerable and my first hand experience dealing with and navigating those obstacles gives me an expertise and a commitment that others might not share. It instills compassion in me for those who are othered and marginalized, and sympathy for the underprivileged. We have more in common than we have in difference.
Have you done any service work with underrepresented or marginalized populations?
I have taught at all levels, from the youth to the elders; on a variety of topics, subjects, and disciplines. I’ve taught and worked with people of differing abilities, capacities and assets- in After school programs for at risk youth, and in elementary, secondary, high schools. I teach in private and public colleges and have worked in the public and private sectors. In working with such diverse populations under a variety of different circumstances, I have learned more about myself. My racial appearance is familiar but uncommon, and I have been fortunate to be of assistance to many differing communities. I represent the Bay Area- I’m from the town and from the city. I have people in San Jose and all through the bay, up and down the coast and inland. I am the product of one of the most integrated areas in California, America, and the world. My responsibility to advocate for the diverse environment which has enabled my existence is inherent, and serving the multicultural audience which has sustained my career is my passion.
Everyone has experience being an outlier at some point in their lives. In what ways are you an outlier?
My intersectionality as an African-American and a Native American affords me a certain outsider status. This liability has also yielded the privilege of some objectivity. I’m a person of color, and I have white ancestors. Some were Anglo immigrants that mixed with populations in defiance of their own cultural inclination toward homogeneity and toward an investment in the American experiment called the “melting pot”. Some of their relatives did not. I have ancestors who have farmed this land and labored in its cities. I have enjoyed the privileges of racial ambiguity (living on the West Coast) but I have felt what it means to be the only person in a room of my ethnicity (having lived in the Midwest); I have different biases than the dominant culture but in facing those I gain valuable perspective I can apply to this work.
How has your experience as an outlier influenced your professional development and your relationship to this work?
As someone who sees from the margins and lives in the overlap, my intersectionality has taught me what it means to be partially included and excluded simultaneously. I have cultivated a perspective which enables me to better see many sides to a story. My work in Indigenous storytelling traditions has aided me. Because I see many sides,iImpacts and effects on all parties involved are personal to me. I use these skills to help others dismantle the forces of bullying and othering that accompany homogenous work, social, and educational environments. To protect minority concerns is in the spirit of our social contract as Natives, Americans, and World Citizens.
What are your future plans related to diversity, to increase equity in your chosen field?
I’m in development of a program with my closest peers and allies in hopes of creating tools to help dismantle this systemically discriminatory system and create frameworks to replace it. I believe if people better understand themselves, their culture, and their history then they can better appreciate the impact of those factors in the formation of identity. Once the flaws of a system can be illuminated, then new systems can be built with the goal of producing a more inclusive American identity. That is a goal worth working toward, for the next seven generations.