Diversity Industrial Complex

the DEI candidate cares about empathy. she wants to learn from you. she’s genuinely curious. she asks why you’re using the term emotional labor. in her old job, she invited a white teacher and a black teacher to stay after work for three hours so the white teacher could learn about the black teacher’s reality. she was being relational. most people are grateful for the opportunity to share their lived experiences with someone who has harmed them, she explains. her voice is gentle, firm. she looks appropriately solemn. she’s dressed in all black, a pant suit. she believes in critical conversations. she believes in safe spaces. she believes in individuals working things out. systemic issues are systemic issues, she says with furrowed brows, but we are here as individuals, and individuals can reconcile their differences. you think to yourself, some of us are more individual than others. the world is never not going to be flawed, she tells you. it’s good for our marginalized students and colleagues to cultivate resilience. you’re wearing ripped jeans and a shirt that says genocide joe. she wants to know you why you believe a genocide is happening. you did not know that genocide, like god, was a matter of faith. she is being rational. her eyes are sharp and quick. she is soft-spoken. she leans forward to show she’s listening deeply. she’s here to empower the diverse and the voiceless, and you appear to be both. she has a deliberate way of smiling, as if invisible fingers are pulling the muscles in her face toward the ceiling. she reminds you of a bird. you wonder if disliking her makes you a misogynist or maybe a racist. oh did you think the new DEI person was white? no she’s asian. she’s the same kind of asian that you are. she spent the last five years in the same city your parents grew up in, where all your relatives still live. when you look at her, you think, she could be my aunt cousin sister. you almost want to give her a hug. instead you retreat to the breastfeeding room, where you write a withering review. she gets hired anyway and when she does she greets you with a smile that says sister, says girls supporting girls, says, above all, kindness, as if kindness wasn’t the colonizer’s sweetest bribe for compliance. the muscles in your face smile back