We will never stop talking about DEI
All opinions expressed here belong only to me and are not intended to represent Harbor.
It’s hard to narrow down one single worst thing from the shit show that is Week 1 of this new presidential administration. It’s just been a barrage of terrible executive orders, quotes, appointments, and dismissals. If I had to pick one thing, sorry I can’t do it. But the most ridiculous stunt so far might be the outlawing of all DEI words across the government.
A federal employee shared a memo with me that ordered a department to eliminate all uses of words like diversity, equity, inclusion, marginalized, and even underserved. You might wonder how some government programs can even function at all without factoring in these realities. And I think that’s the point—the new administration doesn’t want government programs to function if they are designed to help marginalized and underserved groups of people.
Entire government websites have disappeared overnight, because the sites need to be re-created (if possible) without those words. I’m not going to sugarcoat it. The US government is in really bad shape right now. In one week, it feels like it took about 900 steps backward.
On the plus side, despite the wishes of Christian nationalists, there is still a decent amount of separation between church and state in this country. Okay, the amount of separation is debatable, BUT the government can’t tell churches what they are allowed to say (as long as churches don’t engage in campaign activity).
With that in mind:
Harbor strives to be a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community. We yearn for justice in all its forms (environmental, racial, etc.), so that flourishing might be realized among those who have been marginalized, personally or systemically. We have special concern for those who experience disparities because they are underserved by the very social programs created to help them. Um, also accessibility and gender identity.
Okay I ran out of steam, but yeah all those bolded words were banned in the memo I saw.
And we won’t stop talking about them. How could we, as we explore what it means to follow the way of Jesus? Jesus time and again moved toward those who were marginalized. Touching them, humanizing them, making them the protagonists of his stories.
The systems of Jesus’ day were not equitable, and so the gospels are populated by poor widows and unwanted lepers and hated Samaritans. Just as our cities and towns are populated by poor single moms and unwanted drag queens and hated immigrants.
The heroes of Jesus’ ongoing stories.
