I think we should really think long and hard about who we are excluding with our “inclusiveness and equity” policies.

Anecdotally, some of the most self-described compassionate people I know have been the most discriminatory. The most self-described tolerant, intolerant. But the question is discriminatory and intolerant to who? To the right people, we answer.

In our book, it’s okay to be intolerant towards people who perpetuate bigotry. In abstract, this sounds reasonable. But in particulars, it gets complicated. What constitutes bigotry?

Similarly, the people we are presenting as bigots think of us as bigots. We clearly have societies with a diversity of values, both between and within. Both groups think “diversity of values” is an insulting way of describing bigotry.

If you tell pro- and anti-abortion groups that they constitute a society with diverse values, they would equally feel as though diversity would be a misnomer. Instead, they constitute a society of people who are right and people are wrong. But who is who? Depends who you ask.

Back to my original statement. So who are we excluding from our “inclusiveness and equity” policies and beliefs? Usually people who disagree with and violate our understanding of inclusiveness and equity. What if these people fall under our target equity groups?

This gets tricky. Here we see terms like “false consciousness” emerge, “internalized X” where X can be misogyny, racism, or colonialism. The way that I see is that this is where this particular ideology breaks down. Because of this, there is no self-correcting mechanism.

There is no situation in which one might learn that they are wrong. If people you are committed to saving are being harmed or censored by you, this is a wake up call.

This is a very messy thread that I will hopefully re-write more eloquently in the future, but I just needed to put these thoughts out there.