DEI & Narrative Warfare
Theresa Logan & Carlos Kareem Windham
Strategy & Solidarity Collective
Portland, Oregon, USA
Explore how the word "equity" gets weaponized as a wild card to win narrative battles, and strengthen your ability to analyze and counter narrative attacks on racial & social justice efforts.
Session Description
The acronym "DEI" has been co-opted and weaponized as a racial slur and an accusation of reverse racism. This is an intentional misunderstanding and strategic abuse of the intent of legitimate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. It is also another repetition of a longstanding - and devastatingly effective - narrative warfare strategy used by conservatives to undermine, defuse and attack movements for social progress.
From Willie Horton, welfare queens and Obamacare, to social justice warriors, snowflakes and critical race theory, conservatives routinely outmaneuver progressives in controlling and manipulating the public narrative about social progress, despite overwhelming public support for the key goals and strategies of social progress.
Those continuing to work for racial and social justice in the workplace have been poorly equipped to counter the narrative assault on DEI, in part because the words diversity, equity and inclusion are themselves poorly defined buzzwords. Each of the 3 words has multiple, vague definitions that change depending on who is using the word and what they are trying to accomplish.
In this session, Strategy & Solidarity Collective co-founders, Theresa Logan & Carlos Windham, will explore lessons learned from past battles in narrative warfare, and share strategies for analyzing & responding to narrative attacks on racial justice movements.
Participants will practice analyzing narrative strategies in a variety of media excerpts focused on equity. Then they’ll test their skills for crafting strategic responses to narrative attacks on equity and racial justice.
Presenter Bios
Theresa Logan
Theresa Logan is a Portland, OR based facilitator, trainer and consultant with 20 years’ experience in community organizing, community development, public policy engagement, organizational equity, conflict resolution, and restorative justice. As a white woman, she does not ever “do equity work” alone, but recognizes that her success in this work is only possible in full partnership with her Black and Brown colleagues.
Theresa is the founder of Subduction Consulting, and co-founder of the Strategy & Solidarity Collective.
Whether coaching new leaders at state agencies, facilitating group processes for non-profits, providing racial equity analysis skills to workshop participants, or leading team-building retreats, all of her work strives to strengthen the quality of human relationships, while situating them within a structural analysis of race, class, gender and power, and moving strategically towards our collective liberation.
Carlos Kareem Windham
Multi-hyphenate, Carlos Kareem Windham, is an artist/organizer who has spent the better part of the last two decades performing for audiences and speaking with students, teachers and organizers on stages and in classrooms across the globe.
Carlos’ works are vulnerable, defiant expressions of the relationships between race, class and gender in the U.S. and abroad. Whether through the medium of storytelling, lyrics, workshop, or stand-up, Carlos takes every opportunity to speak truth to power.
Their path began as a student activist leading a movement that created the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of Colorado, Boulder, continued through touring internationally as a performing artist, evolved into designing arts education programming for youth, managing civic engagement programs and supporting community housing initiatives and private consulting.
In June 2019, Carlos founded El Porvenir Services, LLC with the mission of bringing communities into the future, and centering the voices of the most impacted in the reclamation of their power at the intersection of race, class, and gender. Through El Porvenir, Carlos works for the creation of just ecosystems where people maintain long-term relationships across difference, in the creation of outcomes that provide equitable opportunities for the most excluded.
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