In 2025, diversity has become a corporate and social buzzword, but does it truly translate to inclusion?
Filling boards and classrooms with more minorities may signal progress, but does it create meaningful dialogue, or does it rather address optics? Both research and experience show that being a minority amongst minorities can feel no more inclusive than being in a non-diverse space.
From a research perspective, other scholars and digital frameworks equate equity with diversity, and often, inclusion and diversity are grouped. However, I find ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ to be something of an oxymoron, frequently used interchangeably when, in reality, one exists in the absence of the other.
Definitions:
The Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia describes Inclusion as the outcome of a workplace or environment that ensures all people can be heard and is making an intentional, ongoing effort to engage with Diversity. I would also add that inclusion warrants not only the participation of diverse groups but also their participation to be accounted for, respected, and considered equally.
The Department also makes a critical differentiation between Diversity and Inclusion, being that diversity is the presence of differences, whereas inclusion is the intentional engagement.
This distinction matters because conflating diversity with inclusion overlooks how language shapes perception, participation, and bias.
This conceptual confusion is not accidental; it stems from the psychological processes that govern how we perceive and categorize differences. To understand why diversity without inclusion fails, we have to look inward, at the biases that shape perception itself. Implicit bias is the internalized stereotypes that subconsciously affect our perceptions and decisions, and they indefinitely lead to the asymmetrical treatment of others.
Implicit bias is similar to a tinted glass window; although you’re able to see right through it, it still colors everything you see.
The same applies to Affinity bias. Affinity bias describes the tendency to get along with others who are similar to you and to have a more positive evaluation of them compared to those who are different.
In contrast, explicit bias is extremely transparent to all of its bearers. Those who carry explicit bias must actively choose to act on what they believe. These individual biases do not exist in isolation; when multiplied across social or professional groups, they form echo chambers that reinforce exclusion on a collective level. There is no doubt that when two foreign minorities share similar cultural backgrounds, they are more likely to relate to one another and build connections that may not form with minorities from distant or unrelated cultures.
What this does, however, is create more echo chambers, otherwise known as confirmation bias.
Group Theories:
A Theory of Cognitive Differences by Leon Festinger emphasizes the two coping methods that are used to explain why people experience confirmation bias,
“Two primary cognitive mechanisms are used to explain why people experience the confirmation bias: Challenge avoidance, the fact that people do not want to find out that they are wrong, Reinforcement seeking, the fact that people want to find out that they are right.”
Leon explains that both behaviors result from a need for people to reduce their cognitive dissonance. When surrounded by non-diverse group members, an individual is essentially choosing to actively engage in confirmation bias. Well-intentioned groups often resist true inclusion, acknowledging that dissonant perspectives threaten their sense of coherence and self-righteousness.
The National Library of Medicine also mentions how groups interplay with the aforementioned cognitive bias because members who are excluded from the group are likely have no influence on the reality and difficulty levels of the dialogue that circulates within the group.
For example, a feminist collective might dismiss the rhetoric of a male-dominated, red-pill podcast, not out of ignorance, but because the two operate within distinct ideological echo chambers. This is not to suggest that the two groups collaborate or invite each other for permanent positions interchangeably. But it is to emphasize the types of rhetoric that could be spreading in a confirmation bias environment.
Personally, I do not believe all confirmation bias environments are negative or less impactful; However, I do believe that they cannot be all good as they propel the exclusion of diverse perspectives on a one or general topic.
Final Remarks:
In today’s interconnected world, collaboration across cultures, identities, and digital communities is not just ideal, it’s essential. By bridging differences, minority groups can challenge entrenched power structures, whether in global corporations, political systems, or online networks, ensuring that diversity moves beyond optics into true inclusion.
In the case of minorities, confirmation bias combined with affinity bias leads to the removal of other minority perspectives. If affinity and confirmation bias fragment minority communities, then collaboration across differences becomes the most radical form of resistance. Globally, such collaboration amongst minorities could disrupt the systems of colonialism in their respective national contexts. Locally, I believe that the collaboration of minorities will allow them to take up more space in the rooms where their presence often wanes.
If minorities can overcome confirmation bias and open dialogue across cultures and shades of experience, they may finally recognize that they are confronting the same sources of power, manifested differently, but rooted in the same structures of exclusion.
Delivered by Fatoumata Traore
