(This post is unedited and incomplete – To Be Completed Later Because I Got Bored With It)

June is Pride Month, a wonderful time to celebrate the diversity of sexual and gender identities and expressions. It is an opportunity to show support for those brave enough to honestly display their pride in who they really are. Pride events also demonstrate support for inclusivity and equity, that all people should be equal members of society. These are ideals that fly as high as the flags, and they should promote positivity and unity. However, like all human endeavors, it is imperfect and has its hypocracies and its own disingenousness, and this is what I would like to address in this post.

Let’s first get out of the way the acknowledgement of the evils of patriarchy. Building a society that systemically centralizes white, heterosexual, cis-gendered, middle-aged men to positions of power and wealth is not a good thing. The patriarchy wears meritocracy’s clothing, but it is a system that is rigged to promote people of a certain race, sex, age, gender and sexual preference to the head of the line. Imagine a 100m sprint competition that we are all forced to compete in, where we don’t all start at the same position on the race track, with a select few starting well ahead of the rest of the pack and much closer to the finish line. White? Move forward 10 metres. All white men move forward another 10 metres. Is your gender that of what you were assigned at birth? Move forward 10 metres. Of that group, the straight men move forward another 10 metres. Young and old, you stay where you are: any of you between the ages of 35 and 55 may move forward another 10 metres. Of the let’s say 100 randomly selected competitors in the group, a handful of runners are half-way to the finish line. Of that handful of these select contestants, the one or two who come from wealthy families can move all the way up to 10 metres before the 100m mark, with only a few easy strides to the finish line. Sure, every one of us is required to run this race, but a minority of us don’t have to work as hard to get to the finish line, let alone win the race.

This illustration of the unfairness of the above-described competition is a simple illustration of the need for diversity-equity-inclusion policies in a race with different starting lines closer to the finish line for those who meet the requirements that have nothing to do with being a good sprinter. In a true meritocracy, everyone starts at the same starting line and those good at sprinting will win the race, proving they are the best person for the job. Never mind that someone who is good at sprinting gets to start closer to the finish line, there are plenty of people who are pushed forward who are not better sprinters than those all stuck at the 0m mark. The patriarchy is decidedly unfair, and for those who are pre-selected for an easy run are invested in keeping the game rigged to their benefit. A meritocracy is the fair competition we all want to participate in, and prove our skill and talents regardless of our race, sex, gender, sexual preference and age. Your starting position is a race is not set by birthright. This is the point of DEI policies, not to punish white men.

On a side note, the patriarchy is not particularly concerned about religious, ideological or philosophical affiliations, as these are conscious choices and not pre-determined. You can change or lie about spirituality, philosophy and ideology to your heart’s content. The whole point of the entitlement to preferential treatment is to set discrimination policies by characteristics determined at birth. Blame God, I guess.

Now, coming back to DEI policies, there is a certain church picnic phoneyness to its adherence. We like the idea of including everyone regardless of who they are and giving them a chance to prove themselves, but we can’t help but finding ourselves being a little fake with each other and making up our own little hierarchies. Jesus may have said to be kind to each other and that we should examine our own imperfections before criticizing others, but our human nature makes that almost impossible to put into practice. It’s good that we try, but behind the smiles and politeness there are a lot of pettiness and disagreements going on. It’s almost like our true selves wish privilege to be assigned unfairly, and that we are better than someone else based on things that we have no control over. If you are going to accept diversity, be prepared to embrace the weird and awkward. If you are going to uphold equity, learn to drop your prejudices about what is better or worse for society. If you are going to allow everyone to participate, get ready for accepting those you disagree with or test your patience. DEI is complicated and not easy to follow if you are not a perfect person; patriarchy is stupidly simple and mindless and feeds into all your base emotions and needs.

Indeed, one of the sayings in the Gospel of Thomas attributed to Jesus describes this struggle to be a good person:

“Blessed is the lion that is eaten by a human and then becomes human, but how awful for the human who is eaten by a lion, and the lion becomes human.” (Saying 7)

We should examine our prejudices, fears and hatreds and learn from them, because if we live by these base emotions unexamined, we will not gain anything from them. These feelings are natural (ie. the lion) and wisdom is gained by examining them (ie. consuming the lion.). If we let these feelings run our lives, we will not find the wisdom to govern our lives. And so it is with examining the societal rules that elevate white middle-aged cis-gendered heterosexual middle-aged males. There is nothing peculiar about this subset of humanity, the problem is with the unexamined elevation of this group of individuals. This is what makes enacting DEI policies so difficult and the lion in our gut is giving us indigestion. What is special about being white? How is a man better than a woman? What makes gender expression match the sex so important? Is middle-age advantagious over youth and elderly? Where does sexual attraction translate play into productivity and morality? By exploring these uncomfortable questions, we can learn something about what it means to be human and what our place in the world should be.