When You Ask Me About Diversity. (Or, When I Have No Other Words to Give.)

At all times, I hold a fistful of words.

They are the words I think will sound the best. The ones that have always served me the best. The ones that, like a sword shoved into the hands of a farmhand selected by destiny – that very first, crisp phrase at the beginning of a novel – have come to an understanding with my grip and grasp of how they should be used.

Some of them look like this:

You can do it.

I know you can.

Some of them I clench my palm around until it is sweaty and white-knuckled and painful:

But…there’s a caveat here.

But...I’m not sure how you will take this.

I never feel like the right person to share those words. I've been told, repeatedly, I am qualified: by who I am, what I've lived. I do it, daily. I always keep my face forward, too tempted to constantly glance over my shoulder for the bridges I am sure I am burning in my wake. 

When you ask me about diversity, I want nothing more than to hold your hands and tell you, firmly, that I want nothing more than to tell you the exact right words, the words you need to hear most, the words that will unstopper your voice and heal hearts and open minds.

As a marginalized woman, I understand the temerity that comes with these conversations. I understand – raw and deep – the bruises, the scrapes, the eternal sense of, “No one wants to hear me. I’m not worth hearing. No one wants to read about me. I’m not worth reading about.”

When you ask me about diversity, I want to tell you, “Having this dialogue always feels like I’m holding a raw egg as I speak. My fingers are clenching, and unclenching, and sooner or later I will say the wrong thing or squeeze down too hard and I’ll find myself slick with shame and raw yolk.”

This year, I’ve spoken multiple times online, and once, in person, on diversity. I offered the words that felt right when I weighed them in my hand. I offered the words that I hoped would do no harm, that in turn would educate those who heard me to do no harm to others.

I am not sure why you ask me about diversity. I want to think it is because you are looking for someone who understands the bruises, the scrapes, the eternal sense of, “No one wants to hear me. I’m not worth hearing. No one wants to read about me. I’m not worth reading about.” 

I want to think, if you are not a marginalized voice yourself, you want me to hold your hands and tell you, firmly, that I want nothing more than to tell you the exact right words, the magic words, the words that will heal hearts and open minds and reach out to others.

I am not sure what else I can tell you that hasn’t already been said, by more qualified, more eloquent voices. I am not sure what else I can tell you that hasn’t already reached deep into my wrung out heart, made every word that came out after it seem trite and redundant and overly dramatic and not worth the telling.

Tonight, I am not sure what else to say, except that the conversation so often gets so convoluted and painful. So often, people’s words and hearts and experiences are swept away and under the rug.

When you ask me about diversity, I want you to keep asking, and keep asking, as long as the words you offer are polite and sincere and true. I want to tell you to set aside privilege, old expectations, barbed stereotypes. 

I want to tell you: I just worry that I’m not offering you the right words to keep going. 

When you ask me about diversity, I hope that my answer is enough to keep the conversation going where it needs to go, so change can follow in its wake. And hope that it is enough to satisfy the question that was asked. And hope that it will be taken the right way, that it will not wound, that it will not be used to wound me.

At all times, I hold a fistful of words.

They are the words I think will sound the best. The ones that have always served me the best.

Tonight, some of them look like this:

I am here and I am trying.

You are here and you are trying.

Do no harm.

Cut no corners.

Keep writing.

That’s all we can do.