The Problem with Cultural Competency, DEI, and Leadership — Part One: Nothing Changes When Nothing Changes
Inspired by the Radical Notions of Grasping at Our Roots
I remember distinctly a time in my professional career when cultural competency and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) were too radical for my workplace, that the extent of multiculturalism was food fairs and performances, and that diversity meant geography — look at all the different ZIP codes we come from! — without ever looking at how the ZIP codes signified redlining, housing discrimination, police occupation, food apartheid, and the unforgettable legacies of structural racism and violence designed into cityscape maps.
Looking back now on the five years I spent at a predominantly white institution (PWI) as the founding Director of Inclusivity and Equity, I wonder two things: 1) how did I ever survive those years, and 2) why did I spend such energy trying to convince white people that diversity mattered? Forget about equity and anti-racism, ’cause #whitefragility. Those five years held me captive, my spirit shriveling year after year as a Southeast Asian woman who grew up dancing to the soundtrack of refugee resilience and critical race theory.
And now, seeing DEI become mainstream in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by white supremacist actors and systems only confirms what I’ve always known but ignored (’cause #paycheck): That it’s not enough. DEI and cultural competency have never been enough, and will never be enough.
Cultural competency, a primary tool under the umbrella of DEI, is a framework that facilitates inclusion in the context of diversity. In other words, tips and tricks for navigating differences.
Yet the nature of cultural competency is assimilationist, performative, and static in reconfiguring power hierarchies rooted in systems of oppression — neither it nor DEI seeks justice and liberation. As a framework focused on navigating difference, cultural competency’s acceptance into mainstream society leaves me suspicious. I think of all that’s missing when we focus on “differences” without deep historical and sociopolitical deconstructions and a power analysis rooted in anti-oppression and anti-racism.
Learning about and engaging people different from us doesn’t shift the baseline from which we begin. Meaning: Our starting place remains white supremacy standards because there hasn’t been a real shift in power dynamics through the reckoning with historical-structural oppression. Cultural competency positions individuals as experts — as cultural sages, brokers, or translators — empowered to be conduits for those who are different, which is another way of identifying the “other” and labeling those without access to power.
This leaves me wondering: Is cultural competency another performative guise pandering to white allyship and guilt? Who gets to be culturally competent? Or more importantly, who needs to be culturally competent to better understand the “other”?
As a society, we’re suspicious of being radical, which is curious because, as Angela Davis says, being radical is simply grasping at the roots. Without a radical lens, we’re left with fragile frameworks that fall apart when faced with the complexities of layered, dynamic systems of oppression. It’s no wonder we’re still having the same conversations in 2020 that we already had decades, even centuries before.
A simple comparison to structural competency illustrates the limits of cultural competency: shifting from navigating differences to navigating inequities.
Originating in the medical field, structural competency dips its toes into institutional and systemic oppression that generate inequitable health outcomes. And yes, the dipping-toes metaphor is intentional because structural competency navigates but does not dismantle. Whether structural competency itself goes far enough seems dependent on the practitioner, which still leaves a lot up to chance, and we know that “luck” never cared for equity.
Another way to grasp the problem with cultural competency is through how leadership is defined, even in movement spaces.
It’s 2021 and still predominantly white and male at the top, and because of this, leadership is fundamentally seen through individualism, charisma, and linearity (follow path A to B to C to get to the top). This positions leaders who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color as martyrs sacrificed for the cause and white leaders as monuments to be lionized. In fact, leadership in this view often replicates the very oppressive dynamics and hierarchies that “culturally competent” leaders seek to dismantle.
What would it look like if we defied this white supremacist setup of leadership and reconfigured it through a liberatory frame where leadership is actually about practice, not expertise; interdependence and mutuality, not individualism and linearity; and windows of vulnerability, instead of charisma and charm?
Rather than navigating differences as an expert, liberatory leaders facilitate balance, connection, and possibilities — the art of making it easier for people to be together, work together, dream together. This frames leadership as a way of facilitating how people experience ease without the harmful friction generated by power hoarding and scarcity.
Rather than toxic individualism, liberatory leadership is rooted in interdependence and mutuality as a kind of future-building: knowing that we can meet each other’s needs and truly lean on each other while decentralizing ideas of where and who accountability, repair, and ownership come from. Interdependence actualizes collaboration over competition, intersectionality over universality (which is whiteness in disguise), and abundance over scarcity. This means we can all stand in knowing each other’s power and multitudes without feeling threatened, erased, or marginalized.
And rather than (patriarchal) charisma, liberatory leadership can be openings, little windows of vulnerability for when we feel uncertain, anxious, or fearful. Rather than hiding our shadows — defined by Gayle Williams as the parts of ourselves and organizations that are hard to look at — how can we shine a light by opening windows of vulnerability, trusting that the people we’re surrounded by and serving will hold space for us and for each other? This is a deeply connected process: The more windows we open, the more we strengthen by making it safe to be radically human together. This is the essence of leading by example.
There’s also some neuroscience here. Without a power analysis that centers the why and who in systems of oppression beyond mere differences, we are literally decreasing our ability to be empathetic. The more powerful we become as leaders and individuals, the harder it is for us to build bridges, not only because of our own oppressive tendencies but also because we have rewired our brains.
Herein lies the problem: Cultural competency and DEI disconnect the affective and cognitive, the emotions from strategy, and the heart and mind.
As with many DEI frameworks, cultural competency focuses on strategy — ways of thinking and understanding the world through multiple perspectives and multiculturalism, much of which live in the cognitive domain. If we only intellectualize justice work, we are missing whole terrains of the human condition where systems of oppression have forced the valuing of cognition and thinking above feelings and emotions, dismissing how feelings and emotions are, in fact, the building blocks for belonging, safety, and empathy.
For true liberation to work, we must start by understanding and accepting how trauma from oppression lives in all of us, that we are all — yes, men and white folks too — hurting from every system of oppression. The trauma for people in the dominant culture is different, but it is still trauma. There is still pain; there is still loss. The question to ask is whether we’ve worked through our own traumas; because if we haven’t, they will show up as oppressive tendencies in how we lead, serve, and be together.
So, where do we go from here?
Part Two: An Invitation.
B The Change gathers and shares the voices from within the movement of people using business as a force for good and the community of Certified B Corporations. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the nonprofit B Lab.
