(Illustration by Nyanza D)
Soon after being recruited by The Washington Post in 1992, reporter Michelle Singletary asked the newspaper’s business editor if she was hired because she was Black. Then 29 years old, Singletary had come to the job with years of reporting experience. Yet she repeatedly found herself justifying her qualifications to her colleagues. When the editor told her that her race was indeed a reason for hiring her, he confirmed her worst fears. “So, the newsroom colleagues probing how I came to get the job so fast were right after all,” she told herself, fighting back tears. According to Singletary’s recent account of the incident, the editor added, “I also hired you because you’re a woman. I hired you because you come from a low-income background and, most importantly, because you are a good reporter. I also hired you because you have enormous potential and I want to mentor you.”
I am not Black and, as a university professor and an academic leader, I have not spent a day in a newsroom. But Singletary’s story sounds painfully familiar to me. Born and raised in India, I moved to the United States to earn my doctorate and then immigrated to Canada, joining its “visible minority.” In my three-decade professional journey, I have heard many talented people I have recruited ask the same question as Singletary: Was I hired for my talent, or to check a box?
This feeling of being treated as a token, as a person whose value is minimal to the organization, is pervasive across disciplines and demographics. A 2017 report on Indigenous members serving in the Canadian Federal Public Service, for example, confirms that “participants expressed a sense of being ‘tokenized.’” They explained this feeling through experiences of having to justify themselves, their identities, and their cultures. “They felt that they must constantly defend or explain Indigenous histories and cultures to non-Indigenous colleagues,” the report explains. “Indigenous employees mentioned that senior leaders seek them out for photo opportunities. However, they did not feel they were called upon to share their Indigenous experience and knowledge when it really matters, for example, when designing a policy or program intended for Indigenous communities and peoples.”
Another practice that curtails employees’ value and contributions is by limiting their participation exclusively to specific issues about “diversity.” For example, when Dr. Namandjé Bumpus, the only Black woman to ever lead a department of pharmacology at a US medical school, declined an invitation to serve on a diversity committee, a white colleague is reported to have said, “Why did we let you in, then?” The message to Bumpus is that her knowledge and expertise are only valued in discussions about race and diversity—that her voice is not legitimate or even desired on other issues.
These experiences are examples of what can be called diversity-as-deficit thinking—the negative conceptualization of people, tokenized for their identity, which results in the systemic reduction of their full dignity, worth, and skills to their “diversity.” In this article, I examine the impact of deficit thinking on employees from underrepresented groups, how that inhibits their sense of belonging, and explore possible pathways to foster such belonging. I use the term “underrepresented” to refer to Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), but the experiences are not uncommon across other marginalized groups.
Diversity-as-Deficit Thinking
What lies beneath these behaviors is a pervasive belief that “diversity” and “merit” stand in opposition to one another. In this dichotomy, an individual’s merit comprises their ability to meet a set of “objective” criteria. A person’s success, such as securing a job or admission to a prestigious university, is perceived to be based on “merit alone,” and failure is seen as due to a lack in merit—that is, a “deficit.”
There are several fallacies at work in this idea of meritocracy. For one, it is grounded in individualism: the claim is that individuals will achieve their success alone—without any assistance or without any privilege deriving from their background, upbringing, or identity. In this framing, an individual who is unable to satisfy “objective” criteria for “merit” should not succeed in a merit-based system. This is the “correct” outcome. Now, consider the possibility that the “correct” outcomes systematically exclude certain social groups and there is a concern that such exclusion needs to be reversed. Seen from the binary merit/deficit perspective, it is not possible to reverse this exclusion unless we make “concessions,” “lower standards,” and decide to support “less meritorious” individuals.
However, when the systematically excluded individuals come from certain ethnic and racial groups, then the deficits in merit become associated with these groups as well. The consequence is that when members of these “deficit” groups are hired in positions or admitted to “merit-driven” institutions, they are then perceived to have gained entrance only because of the “diversity” that comes from their ethnic and/or racial identity. In other words, if you “succeed” and you are from an underrepresented group, the message that you repeatedly receive is that you must have been hired only because of your identity because that is the only value you can possibly bring to the institution. If it wasn’t for your identity, then another person with “more merit” would have been in your place.
University of Alberta political scientist Malinda Smith has explained that this kind of biased thinking persists even when many examples show that diversity directly contributes to success. Smith explains that this dichotomy insinuates that “some individuals, by virtue of belonging to a particular social group, have less merit. This attitude and opinion meet the standard definition of a negative stereotype. This stereotype generates and reinforces diversity-as-deficit thinking. Far from promoting the death of meritocracy as some critics have suggested, the diversity-as-deficit stereotype promotes an exclusive myth of meritocracy”
A key feature of deficit thinking, as researchers Lori Patton Davis and Samuel D. Museus explain, is reflected in a tendency to victim blame. For example, if we try to understand why students of color do not perform well in standardized tests, deficit thinking will locate these reasons in the lack of capacity of the students themselves. There is, however, significant research that reveals that standardized testing has historically been informed by racial bias, thereby making it impossible for certain students to succeed.
Second, diversity-as-deficit thinking draws on complex systems of oppression. Consider, for example, the racism faced by Black, brown, and Indigenous doctors in instances when white patients refuse to be treated by them, expressing deep-seated beliefs that doctors of color are less competent. Third, in contrast to these overt acts, deficit thinking can manifest in subtle and implicit ways. This is exemplified by women of color in academia who, because of their race and/or ethnicity, are presumed incompetent. Once they enter their workspaces under this presumption, the uphill battle is so steep that some feel compelled to exit. Fourth, deficit thinking reinforces existing systems of exclusion and inequality. An example of this kind of deficit thinking is how children from certain groups are “encouraged” into certain education and career pathways and discouraged from others, which perpetuates existing societal divides through future generations.
The Emotional Tax
The subtle and overt forms of racism produced from this diversity-as-deficit thinking imposes an emotional tax on people from underrepresented groups. According to authors Dnika J. Travis and Jennifer Thorpe-Moscon, an emotional tax is “a psychological burden where one has to use one’s mental resources to stay vigilant against bias, discrimination, and exclusion.” Over time, this emotional tax causes personal and professional harm on both a person’s well-being and their career success.
Here are four prominent ways in which the emotional tax manifests:
Isolation and Marginalization | Black academic psychiatrist Lia A. Thomas describes herself as a “dark spot on a white canvas,” an expression of how she thinks she is perceived by her colleagues. As demonstrated by this account, people of color feel alone because very often they are alone within an organization, especially as they ascend the ranks. The Diversity Gap project shows the persistent lack of diversity in the topmost echelons of university leadership within Canadian academia. The gaps in representation in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors are also well documented, as are their effects on the people of color who get to inhabit these spaces.
Imposter Syndrome | This syndrome refers to persistent feelings of self-doubt despite evidence of success. Current research shows us how systemically pervasive imposter syndrome is, as well as its disproportionate effects on people of color. The concept of impostor syndrome, however, was developed without taking into account the effects of racism or other biases. Therefore, in the current context we need to acknowledge that this syndrome is socially and culturally initiated rather than an individual problem needing an individual “fix.”
Powerlessness | Institutions consists of structures of power relations. A university, for example, consists of a hierarchy in which power relations exist between different types/ranks of faculty, students, staff, and the administration. This hierarchy amplifies the effects of the other systemic forces, particularly when a racialized person is more likely the person with less power. The power imbalance between a student and professor, for example, is intensified when the student happens to be the only Black person in a classroom—leaving her feeling especially isolated, vulnerable, and reluctant to speak up. Racism also can change power relations in important ways. For example, in a student-teacher relationship we normally expect the teacher to “have power” over the student, and it is the student who is likely to face racism. While this is true, teachers also face racism that is evidenced in their teaching evaluations, revealing the many assumptions of lack of competence associated with race.
Uncertainty | When rules of engagement are not clear, people’s roles and responsibilities remain vague and open to interpretation. For example, what happens if one calls out an act of racism? While employees are urged to do so by the leaders of their institutions, it is not clear what the consequences may be. Will there be retaliation? Recourse? Will there be understanding? Does the identity of the person who is calling out matter? Does a Black or Indigenous person receive a different response than a white person calling out an act of racism? Rarely do institutions provide clear answers to such questions. This is particularly striking when it comes to the rules of engagement that an organization's committees follow. Committees make important decisions, and, in most institutions, the composition of a committee is designated through guidelines or policies. The purpose of committees is to provide all stakeholders an opportunity to participate in decision-making. But committees operate within matrices of power relations, which impose limits on how meaningfully all members can participate. Feeling marginalized or silenced in committees where people enter with the hope to influence decisions has a demoralizing effect. It further deepens the feelings of powerlessness I described above. These feelings are very difficult to overcome and cause one to permanently withdraw from the life of the organization.
Three Steps to Belonging
Diversity-as-deficit thinking produces an emotional tax that prevents people of color from establishing a sense of belonging in their organization. But organizations can—and must—take intentional actions to eradicate the practices and cultures that feed into this tax. These actions must go beyond simplistic HR measures or unconscious bias trainings and scrutinize institutional policies and practices. Here are four suggestions for how organizations can begin this work:
Stop treating microaggressions as isolated events. Organizations can identify specific types of microaggressions that unleash the toxic spiral of self-doubt and can make concerted efforts to eliminate them. We need to stop treating complaints of microaggressions as one-time events to be dealt with as an employee’s problem. Instead, they should view these as symptomatic of a larger pattern in the organization (and society) as a whole. The same can be said about impostor syndrome. As medical researchers Samyukta Mullangi and Reshma Jagsi point out in a recent article, “Imposter syndrome is but a symptom; inequity is the disease.” Understanding these as instances of racism as part of a systemic disposition toward deficit thinking is essential for creating an organizational culture of belonging.
Enable meaningful participation. Meaningful participation by all members of the organization is critical to developing an authentic sense of belonging. But members from underrepresented groups often feel excluded from participation—or, even worse, feel their participation is solicited merely as an act of tokenism. As I mentioned above, of particular importance here is the engagement in committees through which important organizational decisions are taken. Organizations must clarify the rules of engagement in committees, keeping in mind the power dynamics and the omnipresence of deficit thinking.
Abandon diversity-as-deficit thinking. Anti-racist researchers like Davis and Museus urge us to abandon deficit thinking and instead embrace an anti-deficit perspective. An anti-deficit perspective rejects the view that underrepresented groups have certain “deficits” that will not satisfy “objective” criteria of “merit.” Math educator Aditya Adiredja explains this in his article on the so-called “low achievement” of students of color in mathematics:
An anti-deficit perspective begins with the assumption that students of color are capable of reasoning mathematically and that they bring productive resources for learning mathematics. Challenging deficit perspectives about mathematical sense making, anti-deficit perspectives recognize the productivity of the knowledge that students of color gain from their experiences in and out of the classroom.
This is the core proposition of anti-deficit thinking—that we acknowledge that people from underrepresented groups are not “deficient.” Rather, by virtue of their lived experiences and the systemic barriers they face and overcome, they bring valuable and unique perspectives.
Take Indigenous knowledge about health, for example. As Nadine Caron, Canada’s first female Indigenous general surgeon explains, if Indigenous knowledge about health is valued, then one day Indigenous people “can be leaders in health, not just in Indigenous health, but in health overall.” Envisioned here is a fundamental transition in thinking about Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous peoples; it focuses on the wealth of what they can contribute rather than their “deficits.” In a world that embraces such anti-deficit thinking, experts like Singletary would not have to wonder why they were hired.
These shifts will not occur easily. Listening to one another, ruthless self-reflection, and the humility to acknowledge the significance of changes that are needed should be our starting points. I believe we have begun. And, even though institutions are at different stages in their change process, I am not afraid to hope.
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Read more stories by Ananya Mukherjee Reed.