Playing the Long Game in a Short-Term World: Consequences and Strategies for Racial Justice Work

Abstract

Given a renewed sense of urgency in matters of race and racial justice, activist organizations in particular are eager to demonstrate impact and be seen as contributing to the end of racial injustice. A sense of urgency and priority on action can unwittingly reinforce the systems of injustice such organizations aim to challenge. After locating my own cultural orientation to diversity work, I describe approaches—systemic, being, process, and development—that challenge the short-term mindset characterized by the opposite orientations of linear, action, expert, and performance and yet, paradoxically, provide demonstrable results. I conclude with dilemmas created by such positioning.