Reconstructing Inclusion S3E2: Time to Transcend the Letters: Reconstructing Inclusion Around Humanity, Not Identity Categories

Reconstructing Inclusion Podcast

Welcome to Season Three of The Reconstructing Inclusion Podcast!

In this episode, Amri Johnson argues that D-E-I as symbols must go, not the principles, but the letters themselves that have become hollow ammunition in a culture war serving no one.

Fresh from the LEAD 2025 conference in Milan, he'd been seeing traction emerge from the wreckage, but it looks radically different from what came before. It's less about representation metrics and identity categories, more about humanity and systems change.

He opens with a story about his 6-year-old son telling him, "this is just a dream"—a moment connecting to Daoist philosophy that forced him to consider how DEI practitioners have been co-creating the very conditions they now face. The question isn't whether DEI should exist, but whether we're brave enough to wake up from the dream we've been living and create something better.

🔥 Standout Quotes:

"D, E, and I are not the essence. The essence has been stuffed into these three letters, and it's like writing the word pizza on paper and handing it to you. That's not pizza." [00:06:00]

"If social capital isn't present, the floors of businesses are hollow and the ceilings are capped. The only change is downward." [00:14:00]

"When we care for the so-called other to help them fulfill their highest potential, that's how we fulfill our own highest potential." [00:20:00]

Resources Mentioned:

LEAD Network Conference 2025: We’re All In

Subscribe to Geoff Marlow on Substack

Cultural Intelligence Center - Since 2004, has helped leaders and teams confidently navigate cultural complexity, leading to stronger collaboration, sharper innovation, and more impactful leadership.

Atlas at Cultural Infusion - delivers world-first missing data, and empowers teams with an innovative, engaging experience.

Time Stamps:

Why both anti-DEI and pro-DEI camps have a stake in keeping the letters alive [00:06:00]

The "pizza metaphor": How we've been arguing about words on paper while everyone goes hungry [00:06:00]

Why social capital trumps financial capital—and what happens when it's absent [00:12:00]

The five fundamental shifts redefining inclusion work over the next 12-18 months [00:15:00]

Moving from racialization/gender/sexuality as organizing principles to centering humanity [00:16:00]

Cultural intelligence as the foundation everyone can build [00:19:00]

Care, openness, safety, and trust as relational infrastructure [00:20:00]

Sense-making as the organizational superpower AI can't replace [00:22:00]

Networks and cognitive diversity as critical survival skills [00:24:00]

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