(Un)Civil Discourse

A couple of weeks ago, a group of philanthropic leaders penned an op-ed piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy about philanthropy’s “essential role in shaping the marketplace of ideas.” They outlined a set of guiding principles for discourse, all in service of philanthropic pluralism. Vu Le and Edgar Villanueva thoroughly address the original op-ed’s revision of philanthropy’s origins and purpose, as well as the danger inherent in the sector’s inability to name and address the fact that people are actively doing harm under the philanthropic cloak.

I have written before about my experiences within philanthropy and my hopes that those within the sector can make the sector live up to its root meaning – love of humanity. The original op-ed highlights a dynamic that I believe will continue to trip philanthropy up on its path towards advancing love of humanity, which is its leaders’ emphasis on ideas and intellect being the pathway to justice, healing, and liberation, as opposed to embodying justice, healing, and liberation, and the shutting down of discourse that highlights that disconnect.

To illustrate, I was doing work that was intended to advance equity and inclusion. Early on, it became clear that while the lead on this work had a command of the equity and inclusion rhetoric, their practices did not follow suit. I don’t often mince words, especially when it comes to things that are not aligned with my values, so I pushed back – hard. Despite my objections, the lead chose not to consider my perspective and concerns. When I circled back to address what transpired, they dismissed me and focused their energy instead on how I engaged with them, saying (I’m paraphrasing), “We should be able to have principled debate without emotion coming into the conversation.”

Let’s break this down. First, their statement dislodges the work of equity and inclusion from concrete action and reframes it as a pure intellectual exercise. Second, as an intellectual exercise, they relegate equity and inclusion solely to the domain of opinion. Without question, there are multiple ways to advance equity and inclusion and we all have different opinions about which approaches best position us to move the needle. One thing I know for certain, however, is that decision-making that disregards expertise and perpetuates a status quo steeped in oppressive ways of being is not one of those approaches. Last, by shifting attention from the actual offense – dismissing my perspective and concerns – to my response to the offense, they circumvent reflection and accountability to any of the points I raised and the harm they caused by rendering me invisible; harm which fueled my emotions [1].

The ubiquity with which I have seen “difference of opinion” used in philanthropy to cover harmful behavior that perpetuates the very thing the sector says it wants to undo is toxic. It’s demoralizing to be in a space where simply by virtue of position, someone has total veto power on course and direction. Without question, tough calls must be made. Philanthropy sits on a finite set of resources to address what often feels like an infinite set of problems. However, the tough calls are not where I have seen harm committed. Harm has most often come when decisions are made that go against recommendations with no explanation given to back them up. When these types of decisions are made, they are often accompanied by a range of responses that fall between total silence to “trust us.” But, as James Baldwin famously wrote:

“I can’t believe what you say,” the song goes, “because I see what you do.”

As you think about your time in philanthropy, when has civil discourse been used against you? What does philanthropy need to do differently to create space for discourse that advances love? What does philanthropy need to do differently to address the gap between rhetoric and action?

[1] In a future post, I’ll dive into my experiences with tone policing in philanthropy.