NirvanaFunClub

‘Hi, as you all know we have done a lot already. We are pretty divers, but the work is never over.’

‘I would like to hear and discus what inclusivity means.’

‘I would like to explore the sensitivity of a subject and what I can do as a privileged white woman that does not want to offend anyone.’

‘Yeah I know what you mean, just 7 years ago I have made a note ‘include a black person in the community’ which is cringe now, of course, but at the time…’

was also cringe

‘For me, is the question of hearing your experiences and learning something. I have tried to organise the Open Calls and addressing the diverse communities, but they just do not apply. I cannot attract them.’

‘Well, that is not your problem nor a problem you can solve, it is systemic, similar to women in tech, since girls are not encouraged to work in tech there is not enough educated female experts to hire.’

‘Ok, let’s start, please answer the questions:
– Why does my organisation want to work on inclusivity?
– What can my organisation offer as tools to the diversity programme?
– What are the subjects we want to cover when it comes to diversity?’

‘Excuse me, I do not think I can answer those questions. Can we please talk on a side?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Two people left the round table filled with white young faces.

‘Maybe I am an asshole, I am definitely an asshole, but I do not see how this is acceptable. Inclusivity and diversity are systemic problems, and this feels like we are planning to push our agenda on people that have never expressed a desire to be included. If we talk about immigrants in Europe they have bigger issues than being a part of an independent cultural association designed and led by white people.’

‘I agree, yes, but we must do something.’

‘Yes, but this is not it because first you need to label them, I hate this shit, I am not a women I am a person and I hate being labeled as women to play a role.’

‘Ok, but you are a woman and pretending you are not will not solve anything. I am an old white man and I can see the privileges it brings to me in the DJ music industry so I just want to acknowledge that. I am also gay and hearing impaired.’

I would like to womit now

‘What is this: Show me yours I’ll show you mine? If we agree that the inclusivity and diversity are systemic problems we, here, cannot solve and those people have different interests when coming to Europe isn’t this what we are doing around this table just some fucked up theatre?’ to make us feel better

‘NO, I do not agree!’

Old white British gay man with the hearing aid has stomped away and sat on his place at the round table.

‘So, are we done? We can go around to hear your answers.’

‘Ok I will start, so as I said we have done a lot to include various people in our organisation so at the moment we have a lot of experience in that, but the work is never done.’

Blond white girl dressed in atleisure with the glowing skin and forced smile from Berlin was trying to get out of her skin from the eagerness to help.

‘We use communication and asking people to join, we try to make ourselves approachable but what I wanted to underline is that when those people enter the community you need to be prepared to also accommodate their stories, their experiences, their very different backgrounds. That is very important. They come with their stories and experience and we need to have the patience to listen. What I think we can work on is inviting more people, and being more open, organise maybe something special to invite them in.’

‘Excuse me, it is me again, and like I said I am definitely an asshole so please correct me if I am wrong but why do we try to impose our own agenda, why don’t we ask those people what do they need? What do they already have and then include that in OUR programmes.’

‘Because this is the dominant culture and we need to push to change the status quo.’

‘Funny you mentioned that, I actually did get in contact with the Artistic black community association and they send me the list of questions to ask our members so they can define where to go to find diversity and one of the questions was Why do you need diversity?‘

‘Sure, exactly, we need them, which is very problematic if you ask me.’

‘Ok, let’s move on.’

‘So I wrote that I want to include their stories…’

People were politely repeating the same sentences and apologetically looking at their notes while the others nodded their heads in unison.

‘But people, it is also not the same based on the country we come from, in some areas diversity exists and co-exists and in other countries people are so poor, white, black, yellow whatever that none of them care for anything other than survival. I come from that kind of a country, for example.’

‘Ok, yes, good point, we will take that into consideration, but we really must continue. Final remarks?’

‘We need to keep pushing the agenda and be open, keep searching.’

‘Good, good, also we must be realistic.’

Unison head nodding

‘Ok, thank you all and I hope we learned something, we will share the poll with the questions we raised today and the notes, if you do not mind giving us your answers on the sticky notes? Thank you.’

‘Btw I am sorry if I offended you, you seam like a person with the most experience and I was the person with the least amount of experience.’

‘No, you haven’t. There was nothing to be offended about.’

Blond atleaisure girl looked like her eyes are going to pop out of her head and jump into my ignorant lap.

IGNORANCE IS BLISS

(The most dangerous people are the ones that believe they are on the right side of history, no questions asked. I prefer assholes.)