We’ve become experts at celebrating surface-level wins. A diverse executive board here, a multicultural marketing campaign there, maybe a land acknowledgment before the meeting starts. We post the photos, update the website and call ourselves progressive.
But here’s the most dangerous lie we tell ourselves: representation equals progress.
Representation without power is just better optics. And we’ve gotten really, really good at optics.
We celebrate when marginalized people get into the room, but we never ask what happens once the door closes. Do they get to speak? Do their ideas get credited to them or quietly reassigned to someone more “palatable”? Are they mentored or merely tolerated? Can they challenge the status quo without being labeled difficult, aggressive or not a “culture fit”?
Getting invited to the table means nothing if you’re not allowed to eat. And right now, a lot of organizations and spaces are handing out invitations while keeping the menu to themselves.
The Performance of Progress
Here’s how it works: An organization recognizes it has a “diversity problem.” So they hire diverse candidates, update their imagery, maybe even create a DEI committee. The numbers start to look better. The photos are more colorful. Leadership gets to stand in front of investors, donors or the public and say, “Look at our commitment to diversity.”
Mission accomplished, right?
Except the culture hasn’t changed. The people making decisions are still the same. The pathways to leadership remain unchanged. The unspoken rules about who gets ahead and why stay firmly in place.
Diverse people are brought in, but the structure they’re entering was never designed for them. It was designed to exclude them.
When you invite people into a system built on their exclusion without fundamentally altering that system, you don’t create inclusion. You just create exhaustion. Being in the room doesn’t hold as much weight when you can’t exist in the room comfortably, or feel like you only occupy the space to help them back their claims of diversity.
The Difference Between Being There and Belonging There
Diversity is about bodies in seats. Inclusion is about whose voices get amplified. Equity is about redistributing power and resources. Belonging is about whether people can exist fully without code-switching, dimming themselves or performing palatability.
Organizations love diversity because it requires minimal disruption. Hire some people who look different, throw them in the marketing materials and watch the positive press roll in. It’s additive. It doesn’t threaten the existing order.
Inclusion, though? Inclusion means changing how decisions get made. It means examining why certain people always seem to advance while others stall out. It means listening when someone says, “This environment isn’t safe for me,” and actually restructuring rather than telling them to be more resilient.
Equity is even more uncomfortable because it requires admitting that the playing field was never level to begin with. It means some people will have to give up advantages they didn’t even realize they had. It means resources get redistributed. Opportunities get shared differently.
The people who were always comfortable might become uncomfortable for the first time.
And as far as belonging? Belonging means people don’t have to perform assimilation to survive. They don’t spend meetings calculating how much of themselves is safe to reveal. They don’t wonder if they only got the position to fill a quota. They’re not tokenized, not paraded out when it’s time to prove the organization “cares,” then promptly ignored when actual decisions get made.
Without equity, inclusion and belonging, diversity is just a head count. It’s performative. It’s checking a box. It’s the organizational equivalent of “I have a Black friend.”
Why Performative Diversity Is Worse Than No Diversity
At least when an organization is openly exclusionary, you know what you’re dealing with. Performative diversity is insidious because it lets organizations claim progressiveness while maintaining the exact power structures that necessitated “diversity efforts” in the first place.
It puts the burden on marginalized people to be grateful for access while ignoring that access without equity is just controlled entry. It creates environments where diverse employees become responsible for proving the organization isn’t problematic, often while experiencing the ways it absolutely is.
And when those employees inevitably burn out and leave, the organization doesn’t examine its culture. It just hires another diverse candidate and restarts the cycle. The diversity numbers stay intact. The structure remains unchanged. The performance continues.
What Actually Has to Change
Real commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging doesn’t happen through hiring initiatives or Instagram posts. It happens through power redistribution.
- Look at who makes decisions. If leadership lacks diversity, the organization lacks diversity, regardless of entry-level demographics. Diverse faces at the bottom while homogeneity controls the top isn’t progress. It’s a hierarchy with better branding.
- Create accountability. Diversity statements mean nothing without consequences for violating them. If someone creates hostile environments for marginalized colleagues, what actually happens? If the answer is “nothing” or “we had a conversation,” the statement is decorative.
- Examine pathways to advancement. Are they formalized or do they rely on informal networks and “tap on the shoulder” promotions? Because informal always benefits whoever already has access.
- Listen to exit interviews. If diverse employees keep leaving, if they cite culture issues, if they describe feeling isolated or unsupported, believe them. The problem isn’t that they couldn’t hack it. The problem is the environment was never designed for their success.
The Bottom Line
Diversity gets headlines because it’s easy to photograph. Inclusion requires dismantling systems that benefit the people currently in charge. Equity means redistributing power. Belonging means fundamentally reimagining who these spaces were built for and who they continue to serve.
Organizations will continue choosing diversity over inclusion as long as we let them. As long as we applaud demographic shifts without demanding structural change. As long as we accept representation as proof of equity. As long as we celebrate people getting into rooms without interrogating what happens once they’re inside.
Getting invited to the table means nothing if you’re not allowed to eat. And we’ve spent too long congratulating organizations for sending invitations while they keep the menu locked away.
The most dangerous lie we tell ourselves is that representation equals progress. And until we’re willing to demand more than just diverse faces in unchanged spaces, we’ll keep mistaking performance for transformation.
Diverse voices and perspectives deserve actual seats at actual tables making actual decisions. Not just faces in the brochure while someone else runs the meeting.