an open letter to diversity coordinators everywhere

Uprooting Racism at Amazon.com

Thank you for all you do, even though some people think it's irrelevant, boring, and a waste of time.  It must be hard with all your experience, training and hard work to spend time going over basic sensitivity training year after year.  Thank you for that, because each session reaches some people, some time.  And each one of those times is totally worth it if it opens someone's eyes.

Some of us have learned from those sessions, and gone on to change the way we do our everyday work.  We try not to reproduce unjust systems by our words and actions.   We'd like to do more, but we're not quite ready to be on the team that plans the anti-racism 101 sessions.  In short, we'd like some differentiated diversity workshops.

There are those of us who have investigated a little more, we've read a little more, we've followed a few blogs that focus on issues of diversity and justice in the world around us.  And we're ready for some discussions about the very hard work of being an ally to those around us who are not in our particular affinity group.  We're looking for something in between the eye-opening lecture and the difficult work you do of observing the life and interactions of an entire organization.    But we need your help to do it, because you do have all that great insight from knowing our community so well.

So please, let us help you do your job by helping us further your cause and our cause.  Let's have some next step workshops, cause I feel a little lost along the path sometimes.