Proximity Absolvement

The other day, another Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) practitioner and I were chatting on the phone as we often do. He said to me, “Rye, we need a phrase for when someone pulls the “But I have a Black friend” card or something like that. You know? Like one phrase for that.”

I was totally on board with this because, in any space but especially in DEI, naming is the first step. And also having something slightly more digestible than the cumbersome “You know that thing when people say something like ‘But I have a Black friend’ to excuse themselves from any responsibility or shield them from accusations of racism?” is pretty necessary. (One that I’ve heard used is “But I had a Black bridesmaid”)

I thought about it for a second and suggested the phrase “proximity absolvement” for this concept. To expand and concretely define this term:

This is the belief that your close proximity to diversity rids you of the need to take further action to dismantle white supremacy and oppression, or that your closeness shields you from accusations of racism, misogyny, homophobia, your complicity in white supremacy culture, etc.

To put it more colloquially, this is the act of giving yourself too many pats on the back for having diversity in your life. This can manifest itself through verbal remarks (as demonstrated previously), or more insidiously, through the belief that you are a great ally or accomplice merely because you have a wide variety of friends, family, coworkers, etc. from numerous backgrounds and marginalized groups. The latter can be even more problematic because it’s a belief that is never verbalized, therefore never confronted or discussed. This proximity absolvement is dangerous because it removes the need to self-critique and take actionable steps to break down systems of inequity.

This can be experienced by people who are married to certain marginalized folks, or have a sibling, cousin, uncle, etc. who is part of a group (maybe you have a guncle…or a gousin). Or even people that live or work in a diverse neighborhood or setting. I’ve heard “I can’t be sexist because I am a registered Democrat” or people declaring that they should be recognized as a straight ally in an LGBTQ+-centered organization. I can go on and on to provide one million examples.

I feel compelled to speak on this because I’ve, of course, been guilty of this and I think this may resonate with others. There is no need to feel shame if you’ve experienced this. Let’s skip the steps of shame, wallowing, and self-doubt because these feelings are, though understandable, unproductive and distracting from the task at hand. There is power in identifying a phenomenon to better understand ourselves and combat shortcomings.

Now that we’ve named it, what do we do? We can start by engaging in this conversation with yourself and your sphere of influence: “Do I/we participate in proximity absolvement? Do I/we pat myself/ourselves on the back a little too much much?” There are so many roles that we can take as accomplices and allies (as demonstrated in this fantastic infographic). There is absolutely no expectation that everyone needs to do everything simultaneously.

I want to clarify that there is also power in proximity (as demonstrated in this fantastic article from Cisco about leveraging that power). Having a diverse and varied group of friends is an incredibly crucial part of being an accomplice. It is necessary to have buy-in from impacted communities when drafting laws, policies, programs, etc. that affect those communities.

At the risk of appearing like I am playing Devil’s Advocate with myself (though many DEI practitioners may argue that the best DEI practitioners could do that all day long), I want to jump to another point; one that humankind may not be ready for (but we can dream):

Empathy should not be a crutch to rely on to fight and advocate for a group. I do yearn for a world in which we can fight for a group of people that we have no relation or connection to at all. Simply being able to think or say “This human exists on this Earth and they are being unjustly targeted and I will fight for them” should be enough.

The idealistic part of me wants to believe we can all embrace two truths: That proximity can both harm and hurt. The most important thing is that we understand ourselves, our intentions, and the impact that is having.