I write this blog post as a Black woman who is on the verge of rejecting everything and leaving society behind...again, possibly for the third or fourth time in my life. Melissa Perry Harris' research on the crooked room captures the fluid framework necessary to begin understanding this experience.

As an African American woman with roots tied to the Deep South and potential European and/or Indigenous ancestry, I have a recurring yearning and longing to find home. I don’t know where that home is. My family, my ancestors, and I are from here, but I often feel as though I don’t belong or that it’s just a matter of time until the gig is up.

DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They say to bring your whole self to work and that this is a safe space. I have been a prime example of how those statements can be fallacious. Erving Goffman’s research discusses a sociological concept called “pulling back the curtain,” which examines how society perceives life as a theater—a performance that can be very performative. Greater American organizations and corporations have co-opted this idea without fully realizing it; however, one could argue that the system is functioning exactly as it was designed.

In my History of Technology course, we explored how humans shape technology, and how race, class, and gender all influence our experiences in multidimensional ways—both in ways we are aware of and in ways we are not. There exists a dwelling intelligence, a force in the background driving our conscious and unconscious thoughts and patterns.

When we say to bring your whole self to work but fail to provide a solid infrastructure to support this, it begins to cause harm or re-traumatization to racialized and gendered bodies. Michelle Cassandra Johnson’s research indicates that a place can be diverse yet lack inclusivity—inclusivity is about allowing the culture of a space to shift.

Allowing the culture of a space to shift is a labor-intensive process, especially when there is a desire for change but a lack of tools or working knowledge to invite such shifts. In the worst-case scenario, this can end up harming and pushing out truly great individuals who, with the right support, could exceed the ceiling of standard expectations.