“Latinx” and “DEI”…no longer jargon, and popping up everywhere…
2021 is now well underway, and if you are in a leadership role, it’s expected that you integrate Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion platforms into your organizational leadership and understand a plethora of politically correct words, phrases, and acronyms. If you are nodding as sweat beads around your forehead, don’t worry—you’re not alone.
Benevolent Vision has your back! We’ve compiled a list of 8 important terms you need to know in order to keep up with the times. We’ll have you confidently using “neurodiverse” in a sentence in no time!
1) DEI
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (also known as “DEI”, DE&I” and “D&I”), is a phrase that has evolved rapidly over the last decade. No longer reduced to racial diversity, it has expanded to include age, class, ethnicity, gender, health, physical ability, mental ability, race, sexual orientation, religion, physical size, educational level and achievement, job, personality traits, idea/value/perspective variation and more.
DEI is actionable commitment from an organization to bring diversity to the table, treat everyone fairly, and actively make attempts to identify and eliminate barriers and inequities between different groups, all executed in such a way that everyone involved feels included, visible, and heard. DEI sets up a culture of open communication, understanding, respect, and appreciation for differences in order to create an equitable environment. DEI requires constant learning about others and expanding organizational and individual capacity for communication and empathy, and bringing these desires and capacities at an individual, interpersonal, organization, and institutional level.
If DEI is new to you, here are some helpful key terms often used in DEI discussions to get you started. Please note, to fully define each term and its social significance, we would require much more space than one blog post allows. Still, we have done our best to bring you the annotated version of fundamental DEI concepts.
2) Unconscious Bias / Implicit Bias
Good people have cognitive blind spots. Unconscious and implicit biases are the negative attitudes, prejudices, and stereotypes that we unconsciously carry when assessing a situation or making a decision. Harvard University’s Project Implicit famously offers an Implicit Associations Test (IAT), which gauges your unconscious beliefs about race, gender, age, sexual orientation, weight, and disability. Awareness of one’s own (and an organization’s systematized) implicit biases is the starting point to formulating cognitive, environmental, and institutional interventions that can bring about more equitable results for all groups.
3) Ableism
The belief that a person is “normal” if they are able-bodied, and that persons in other states need to be “fixed.” Instead of being celebrated for their individuality, persons with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities are (sometimes unintentionally) discriminated against and devalued.
4) Allyship
The constant act of a privileged group being in solidarity with nonprivileged groups. The ally uses their privilege to challenge the status quo and therefore help lift up the nonprivileged group so they are not alone in carrying their burden.
5) BIPOC (pronounced “by pock”; “Pock” like in pocket)
Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. This is meant to be a generally inclusive term to uplift voices that had not previously been considered, namely those of black and indigenous groups. Previously, “POC” was the umbrella term referring to all people of color. This term is not meant to be used towards an individual, but rather to recognize these specific groups’ collective experience of systematic racism.
6) Gender pronouns: He/him/his, she/her/hers, they/them/their
It is not uncommon for people to make immediate assumptions based on appearance about gender identity. However, not everyone identifies as strictly male or strictly female. A person may identify as gender non-conforming or transgender. An individual may include in their signature “he/him/his”, “she/her/hers” or “them/them/their” so that you know how to respectfully refer to them, removing the need for you to make assumptions. “They/them/their” is considered gender neutral. This takes the guesswork out of the equation.
7) Latinx (pronounced “Latin”, like the language + “Ex”)
The recent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) application may have caught your attention with the addition of the “Hispanic and Latinx” category. “Latinx” is a gender-neutral and non-binary version of the term Latino (male) and Latina (female). In order to know when to use “Latinx”, it may be helpful to review when the term “Latino/a” is appropriate over the term “Hispanic.” Generally, Latino means from Latin America (and sharing a history of colonization). Hispanic means from a country whose main language is Spanish. However, keep in mind that there are exceptions and that people in different areas may prefer one term over another (e.g., mainstream populations in rural areas in southwestern states like Texas and New Mexico prefer to use “Hispanic” over “Latinx”). Additionally, some people in the Latin community see the “X” as a Western imposition. As usual, consult with the individual and ask how they prefer to self-identify.
8) Neurodiversity
A framework in which neurological differences are acknowledged and respected as human differences, and not as problems that need resolution, nor as devaluing conditions. These neurological differences can include the Autistic Spectrum, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyslexia and other differences.
In the coming weeks, join us to learn how you can bring Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to your board and other leadership. For tangible, actionable strategies for your organization, or for further discussion and explanation on DEI’s evolution, contact: clientsupport@benevolentvision.com
