Promoting Inclusion, While Challenging Political Correctness

Inclusive elevates all. –Elaine Hall

Political Correctness doesn’t change us. It shuts us up. –Glenn Beck

Karith Foster is a comedian and diversity and inclusiveness advocate. Her daily pursuit is noble and complex. She pairs two seemingly different, but utterly interconnected goals.

1) challenging the handcuffs of censorship

2) building truly inclusive environments

Meeting Karith Foster and hearing her message was a beckon of hope for me. I’ve felt alone in my thinking and desire to thoughtfully merge these two outwardly oppositional goals. I spent my career at one of the nation’s leading education non-profits. We deeply believed in building diverse teams, valuing diversity, and creating inclusive environments. Promoting equity was our religion. This focus spurred tremendous benefits:

• recruiting and selecting the most diverse teacher pipeline in the country
• building a corps of more culturally competent teachers
• championing a staff of teacher coaches and other non-profit professionals who were deeply aware of their own identity and privilege and how it impacts their work
• empowering thousands of young adults to grapple with the history of systemic oppression in the U.S. and to confront racial prejudice

The focus also came with consequences:

• Teachers terrified to speak in training out of fear of being “called out” aggressively for their unconsciousness biases.
• Staff members monitoring others in meetings and hallways for microaggressions.
• Obsessing about creating a microcosm of inclusion and equity in workplace discussions and planning meetings while losing sight of the fact that conference room equity is not the ultimate goal of the organization, but a process goal in pursuit of closing the achievement gap for black and brown kids growing up in poverty.
• Talented executives and senior staff growing wary of leading in an organization where they are constantly called racists.

It’s mind-blogging to believe that when people are filled with pure intent and motivated by paradigm changing goals that both of these realities can be true at the same time. But they can be and are.

This is a challenge Karith Foster understands. And she is powerfully suited to address it as

• a black woman who as experienced prejudice first hand
• a comedian who believes our society needs humor and is wary of censorship
• an individual who knows having the humility to poke fun at oneself is an entry way into conversations about mindsets that hold us back

Each time Karith brings her C.A.R.E program to college campuses she gives students the encourage to listen, to empathize, to challenge in an highly sensitive world, and ultimately build stronger communities.

I am an avid proponent of her work and will look for ways to spotlight her and partner with her in this complex, yet important pursuit as an educator, a millennial, and a human being.

I want to live in a world where rigorous conversations and new perspectives enrich my life AND where people are embraced for their differences and similarities. Kairth is leading us there and I aspire to help her. :)