DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right by Lily ZhengMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I let this book sit for far too long on my shelf. I've long admired Lily Zheng for their posts on social media (I follow them via LinkedIn). While Zheng has since introduced a new approach to DEI: the FAIR Framework (Fairness Access Inclusion Representation), it is essentially the outcome-driven approach she advocates in this book. While the current governmental attack on DEI has not that much to do with the weaknesses described in this book (at least politically), their advice is sound and certainly would have/would strengthen DEI initiatives at all sorts of institutions: companies, higher ed, etc. It is truly "no-nonsense" -- very "tell it like it is" without unnecessary abrasiveness or grandstanding. They really want to help us all do better. Chapter 2, where Zheng "reformulate[s] the key terms and concepts of the DEI space away from their feel-good buzzword roots and toward operationalized and tangible outcomes" is particularly useful.
There were several "mic-drop" moments for me, such as:
"Identity isn't morality. Being privileged or marginalized on one or more dimensions of identity doesn't make us any better or worse as people; it simply positions us differently and offers us different advantages and disadvantages within broader systems. It changes the power we have access to and our ability to understand experiences similar to and different from our own." (165)
It doesn't get much more "no-nonsense" than that.
What is really helpful is that Zheng's approach can help ANYONE first, identify their stakeholder role (as well as their relationships to other roles), and then provides helpful reflections and exercises to make those things a reality within our varied spheres of influence.
Really essential reading for anyone doing work in the "DEI" sphere -- even if the acronym has changed, it is worth thinking about the pitfalls because they can easily occur no matter the abbreviation we use.
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FTL2025 5B challenge DEI Deconstructed---->Demian (Hesse)
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