Diversity? It’s really burnout task

Today, Unity in the Community will be held at Liberty Park in southeast Spokane. The event, now in its 10th year, celebrates diversity. A year ago, at The Spokesman-Review booth, I enthusiastically handed out 36 disposable cameras to children, teens and young adults with this written assignment: “Take pictures of your world – your family, friends, pets and neighbors. And don’t forget to have someone take a picture of you, too!”

My logistical instructions were simple: By Sept. 1, return the disposable cameras to me and the newspaper will develop the film. Either drop the cameras off at the newspaper or I’ll pick them up from your home. Sept. 1 came, went. I received one camera back. One.

Each workday in September, I wrote on my to-do list a reminder to call the 35 young people who didn’t return those cameras. But I felt defeated at the thought of picking up the phone. So I never called.

I was burned out on diversity work. I felt resentment toward others and pity toward myself. Two big warning signs. Connie Bantz is head of Human Resources at the newspaper. For eight years, we have co-chaired a building-wide diversity committee. Its goal is to raise awareness about diversity internally and externally. Connie and I often run into other community people toiling away in diversity work for their organizations. Elsa. Ben. Raymond. Yvonne. Vince. Vickie. Lonnie. They are talented and dedicated human beings, but I began to feel like we were all seen as the weenies in “adult high school,” the do-gooders who made others feel guilty or crabby.

One year, during a national newspaper Time-Out-For-Diversity Day, we color-coded the newspaper with dots. Yellow for women sources, orange for people-of-color sources. We hung the decorated newspapers on a wall and someone left us an anonymous note that said: “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”

People in minority communities complained to me relentlessly about our lack of coverage of their events and even after we made great efforts, they still complained. I resented their ingratitude. You see what I mean about the self-pity. So last year, after the disappointment with the cameras at Unity, I’d had it. I decided to resign from diversity work.

Every month, I intended to resign. But we had some stuff scheduled. And I still felt responsible to Connie and our dedicated core of committee members. Emotionally, though, I let go. I stopped caring who attended our meetings and events. When people complained to me about our newspaper coverage of diversity, I said, “It would help if you said thanks sometimes instead of just bitching.” I stopped taking it personally when people from minority communities failed to return phone calls or show up as guest speakers. I grew less enthusiastic and more realistic.

And then a strange thing happened. People started showing up again at our committee meetings. New members joined. We had some amazing events with community members. For instance, one afternoon four Anuaks from Ethiopia joined us to tell the story of mass slaughter in their village far away. If we didn’t have a diversity committee, there wouldn’t have been a place here for them to tell their story.

So I didn’t resign. I felt renewed energy for the work, even though I continued to let go. Last week I called Vince Lemus, Equal Employment Opportunity officer for the city of Spokane, and confessed my diversity sins of the past year. He reassured me all the feelings were normal. This is burnout work, he said, because things won’t always turn out as hoped. And those 35 young people who failed to return their cameras? It was their responsibility, too, to make sure I got those photos, Vince said.

And another thing kept me going this year. The one person who returned the photos. Her name is Brittany Kennedy. She’ll be a freshman at Lewis and Clark High School in the fall. She sent pictures of her folks, her friends, her dog, her sports trophies. We’re meeting up at Unity today. Can’t wait to tell her thanks.