Am I diverse?

Or… maybe that’s not the point

One of your company’s goals is to increase diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), or at the very least, keep it at the “pretty darn good” level it’s running at this year. It’s not just lip service to a fake initiative. Every smart company genuinely believes you get a better, healthier workforce when you have people from many races, colors, religions and ages working together in a safe and unbiased environment. Then you have internal voices asking you to “define diverse” and to question who counts as diverse and who doesn’t. It can get complicated.

Which makes me ask myself: Am I diverse? Or am I white and should I be responding “N/A” to all the other boxes?

I’m from an Irish family but my father left Ireland when he was young, moved to Kenya to be part of the expanding and exciting world that East Africa offered back then, and that’s where I was born. Soon after I arrived though, expatriates in Kenya got nervous about independence and started leaving. My father’s company joined the exodus, and we relocated to Italy, a place one of the partners called home. I went to Italian school and spoke Italian fluently all day until I went home, where I spoke English. This lasted until age 11 when our family relocated again, this time to London. That was supposed to be a no-shock culture shift, and yet it turned into a massive…