Can we stop using an “equity lens”?
“Equity lens” has become the avocado toast of nonprofit-speak: it’s everywhere, it looks good, but it’s surprisingly unrevolutionary. We’d argue that using and promoting an “equity lens” centers whiteness and the white experience, while perpetuating the othering of folks of color.
Don’t get us wrong: evaluating your work, policy, and the world through an equity framework is an amazing thing and we need more of it.Our problem is with “equity lens” specifically.
This “lens” business bolsters the temporary application of fundamental anti-racist concepts. It allows white folks to take anti-racist frameworks on and off like a pair of glasses. It’s the epitome of Seattle nonprofits; it’s well intentioned but steeped in privilege.
Looking at things through an “equity lens” has a short-term, optional, one-of-many quality about it. It advocates the practice of employing a new value system rooted in social justice, but only for a short time, and only when it’s useful.
When you clock out at 5pm, or your funder doesn’t require a racial impact analysis, then the “equity lens” gets tossed to the side, and racism and white supremacy are permitted to continue uninterrupted.
The fact that the “equity lens” can be used or neglected, turned on or turned off, misses the point completely. Looking at who’s in the room, who’s making decisions, who’s getting left out of the conversation doesn’t stop being important when you’re not paying attention to them. They actually become more important the less you’re looking at them.
The people who can choose when to use an “equity lens” also tend to be the people who choose when to think about and act against racism. They tend to be the people who work for racial justice, but don’t have to worry about being pulled over or deported.
We need people to get ditch the lens, and get equity lasik. We want folks looking through an equity framework all the time, not just when it’s convenient or popular or political.
