AMERICAN THEATRE: The first time I heard the phrase ED&I, I was sitting in a session at the 2016 Theatre Communications Group National Conference in Washington, D.C. I didn’t know what it meant and was grateful when another attendee asked for the acronym to be defined. “Equity, diversity, and inclusion,” responded the facilitator.
3 comments:
This article puts into words something that I consider quite frequently when dealing with the idea of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Whenever you hear news of what seems like a step forward it is almost immediately followed with the hope that the step is one that is well intentioned and not just trying to meet standards that are now placed in front of the companies. This article address the need for a true shift in mentality in order to have real change and progression occur. As the author said this means that their needs to be many uncomfortable conversations that though may not be desirable they are absolutely necessary to uncover the real issues that are plaguing the industry. In my opinion it is an issue that you can see in our own community here at CMU. I think we are in a transition period where people are just beginning to be open to having these uncomfortable discussions to achieve what (hopefully) everyone is trying to achieve. Also noted in the article, the ideal can’t be reached in one conversation or change but it is time for action so we can become a better industry.
Like Lauren, I agree that CMU is at this point where difficult conversations have to be had. I think something that complicates this school and our industry is the turnover of people. This article writes very eloquently why the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion are obsolete. I think a perfect example of this is when people put an EDI statement on their job postings and either the shortlist turns out to be all white cis-gendered middle-aged people or they do hire that diverse candidate and tokenize them. This is what the article calls “performative wokeness” that happens all too often, sadly. This article puts its perfectly how the EDI movement tries to put too many minorities together and thus makes it ineffective to some extent. One of the surprising lines from this article was that the author didn’t know what EDI was in 2016 and now three years later is claiming it to be obsolete. It is fascinating to see how quickly things now are being changed. I wonder what I will be calling obsolete in three years.
Though inclusion of underrepresented groups is important in theater and the performance/production industry as a whole, the phrase Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion immediately makes me picture a kind of checklist of minorities. The graphic presented with the article highlights this point even though the article itself doesn't really discuss it directly, but I think that mentality is the root of the issues with EDI as a concept because even though their intentions may be good, people who aren't within a minority often subconsciously think of initiatives related to EDI as a system quota anyways. As the article says, "decentering whiteness" is an important step towards making the concept of forced diversity unthinkable. Coming from New Hampshire, I have had a lot of experiences (more in the side of casting, but also in management) in which minorities were specifically sought out so that the organizations could say that they had involvement from a diverse community, which always disgusted me and I hope that my community, along with the greater theater community can move towards a point where we don't even have to consider how different groups are represented because diversity will be natural.
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