I hardly label myself when talking about politics, but I'm scared. Very scared.
I am strongly in favor of "diversity equity inclusion" stuff, but my horrible sensation is that we are being USED by both parties: left side for a propaganda, right side for the other. I feel like both are pulling my feet, and causing me pain.
To explain it better, even not approving the choice, I perfectly understand why many LGBT, people with disabilities, black, and so on... prefer to address themselves toward conservatives rather than the opposite. It's the paradox of choosing someone who use hate for propaganda and then in the end might not even care about us, rather than voting for someone who uses us, says a lot of good words, then sit down and change nothing (or change things slowly, wasting time discussing).
I was just talking about this with a friend who is totally blind. We were talking about tech related topics, the eternal debate "open and closed, free or paid, AI or not AI". It's endless.
And my friend reported that they find too many "left-oriented" folks saying "let's fill AI with fake news and make it useless so people stops polluting and wasting water for that bullshit. Let's boycott blah blah blah" but I have seen it with my eyes, how AI tech and "big tech" in general, give quick help to people with disabilities.
So my friend said "how could I trust 'free-oriented' people if they then give me fewer help? I won't because I reason differently but my instinct would bring me to vote to the right where I have the illusion they do something".
I personally don't hate DEI policies, I hate how they are adopted!
No sense in selling pride-related gadgets in June, sending social network posts, hashtags and webinars all around, if then the gay/poz/whatever person is bullied at work for some reason. Useless to create a women-friendly policy when men look at the woman's butt when she bends down to pick up a product from the vending machine.
Inclusion is not made by inventing the stories about thousands of queer characters where they have basically nothing to do with the plot, or having a black woman interpreting the role of a Caucasian character. Or worse, "just gay actors can play the role of gay characters".
I'm a writer, a damned amateur writer. I'm sighted, HIV positive, attracted by men. Someone should explain why despite being sighted I couldn't write about blind. Or being HIV poz I couldn't impersonate a neg character, or talking about a man-woman affair, despite being partnered to a man.
I never choose to enter the commercial circle because I don't want my own creativity to be ruled. Because inclusion and equity for me is a deeper battle, intersectional. And real intersectionalism can't be made by marketing and propaganda. It need empathy with no doubt, but empathy is useless without culture, awareness and education.
Human rights are not a card to play and to bet on.
My 2 cents.
P.S. - to make what i mean a little clearer, I bring up an example based on entertainment. Netflix Spanish tv show "Breathless", based on medical plots.
There are 4 LGBT characters, two men and two women; in Spain it's 18 years they have same sex marriage and families so, we could say, "they would be treated like other families".
NO.
Spoilers...
The two gays meet in a chems related party, one is a doctor and the other is addicted to substances and has contracted all possible sti's in this world, HIV included.
The two women, one is pregnant and her partner then leaves her just before birth. And then kidnaps her newborn baby...
Many LGBT folks feel represented by this kind of stories, and I don't.
It's surreal. It seems that to satisfy a large public, they feed representation and stereotypes at the same time!
So they cause extreme reactions "better nothing than this".
And in more serious matters the risk is the same, and it's just behind the corner.