CORAOPOLIS, Pa. –
When people hear about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives there is often a lot of eye rolling. There are a couple reasons for that. The first is that people, for reasons ranging from naïve to malicious, want to discredit the whole thing as tokenism. Many immediately see DEI as something that pushes aside qualified people in order to be politically correct. We need to challenge that notion from the get go. If we wish to be excellent in all we do, we need to tap the full potential of all of our members and that includes people we might have overlooked for any number of reasons. Involving, promoting and investing in a wider array of people is not tokenism. It is, it should be, meritocracy at its finest. We should recommit to developing the best within each Airman, not out of tokenism but because we want to be excellent.
The second problem is that DEI coming from the top down feels like a smack on the hand. People often feel as though someone is trying to make them feel guilty. They push back and discredit the whole initiative as some sort of reverse racism. We need to disabuse any notion of guilt. DEI for this base is not about grievance, it is not about guilt, and it’s not even about fixing larger social issues or commenting on history. DEI is the current catchword for taking a hard look at all of our people and work hard to train, guide and promote the best of us as we should want to do in order to be mission effective.
The unique qualities we carry, our various ethnicities or other identities add texture to our shops. Different outlooks on life elevate us all with many prosocial benefits. These things speak to our souls and we are fortunate that the Air National Guard gives us a chance to learn from others. DEI is about our work and our mission. It is not about fixing society. It is a path to recognize the excellence in all of our people to be excellent in all that we do.