DEI Shouldn’t Be a Fight...

I often find myself wishing that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) wasn’t something we needed to fight for. In an ideal world, fairness, human decency, and inclusivity would be the norm—not something we have to legislate, advocate for, or write yet another think piece about. But we don’t live in that world. Instead, we exist in a reality where people have to be compelled to do what should come naturally: to respect, include, and treat others with dignity.

And here we are, yet again, having to defend DEI, even in environments where we know that meritocracy is little more than a relic for the archives. The irony is painful: the very systems that claim to champion fairness are the same ones that continue to reinforce exclusion. And now, in a time when a convicted felon is in power and actively dismantling DEI initiatives, it’s even clearer that fairness isn’t guaranteed—it has to be demanded.

But let’s strip DEI of all its buzzwords. Let’s forget about race, gender, skin color, and corporate jargon for a moment and talk about inclusion in its simplest form—a basic human right that too many are still denied.

I remember over 10 odd years ago when I first came face to face with exclusion in the work place, for having a different accent, speaking too fast with sprinkles of stuttering here and there. The awful details I do not care to recall or bore anyone with.

While I won my case at the tribunal. I didn't see anything worth celebrating? My victory was an anomaly—a rare case in a sea of thousands of people who continue to face the same exclusion, discrimination, and silent erasure. My case was merely a drop in the ocean, a symptom of a much larger issue that persists despite countless policies and so-called commitments to inclusion.

And then there’s intersectionality—the reality that identity is layered and complex. I’ve seen colleagues who are white but not British, navigating a different but equally painful form of exclusion. An Italian coworker, for example, wasn’t British enough to be considered an equal. Black colleagues viewed them differently, British colleagues gave them the side-eye. Where do you belong when you don’t fit into the neat categories people have constructed?

The Hard Truth:

This is why DEI matters. Not because it’s trendy. Not because organisations want to tick a box. But because without it, fairness is never guaranteed. Without it, too many people will continue to be silenced, underestimated, and denied opportunities—not because they aren’t capable, but because the system isn’t designed to recognize their worth.

So here I am, writing yet another piece about why DEI matters. Not because I want to, but because I have to. Because until we live in a world where fairness is the default, the fight must continue.