Arts & Culture

Quoting Black Radicals: Angela Davis on “Diversity”

“It is often assumed that diversity is equivalent to the end of racism. Somehow or another we sought to name the process of moving towards justice, and it seems that once the word “diversity” entered into the frame it kind of colonized everything else. Now all we talk about now is diversity. And sometimes it means integrating different looking people into a process that remains the same. Sometimes it means difference that is not allowed to do its work– difference that does not make a difference. This is why diversity was so quickly taken up as a corporate strategy. ‘Don’t reorganize the exploitative character of capitalist production, just make sure that more Black people, more women, more Latinos, etc. can actually profit from that exploitation!’ I’m not saying that we can not make diversity do important work, but we have to recognize that it’s not just about diversity, it’s about justice.”

–Angela Davis (1944–) Author, academic and revolutionary