Reconstructing Inclusion Podcast

Amri B. Johnson

The Reconstructing Inclusion Podcast goes far beyond what the host, Amri B. Johnson, considers redundant, how-to diversity, equity, and inclusion dialogues. He aims to create a space to speak the truth and examine context in DEI. This means creating a path forward for everyone to rethink and recognize the benefits of inclusion individually and collectively. Reconstructing in this sense is about creating organizational systems and networks where everyone belongs. reconstructinginclusion.substack.com

  1. Reconstructing Inclusion S3E6: Moving Beyond Legal Defenses to Build Capable Organizations

    FEB 13

    Reconstructing Inclusion S3E6: Moving Beyond Legal Defenses to Build Capable Organizations

    Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion! In this solo episode, I break down why DEI didn't collapse because of courtroom battles or political backlash. It collapsed because the field stopped evolving. While we were busy seeking legal cover and worrying about what would hold up in court, something more consequential was happening inside organizations: sense-making was deteriorating, trust was thinning, and people increasingly felt replaceable. The question now isn't whether DEI was lawful. The question is whether we're willing to evolve the field or just repackage the last 40 years of work and call it progress. 🔥 Standout Quotes: "It's not the Trump administration that took down DEI in its entirety. The Trump administration came when it was politically expedient and then basically threw gasoline on a fire that was already burning." [00:11:00] "Inclusion at its core is about sense-making. About making sense of the world, of each other, of our teams, of our organization. Understanding that the organization is all working in concert to create the conditions for everyone to do their best work and for the organization to fulfill on its mission." [00:17:00] Resources Mentioned: Reconstructing Inclusion by Amri Johnson How Equality Wins by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow Lily Zheng’s “FAIR Framework” The Emergent Inclusion Framework In This Episode: [00:02:00] The damage that's already been done [00:05:00] When sense-making declines [00:08:00] Why we asked compliance to do the work of culture and capability [00:11:00] Trump administration threw gasoline on a fire that was already burning [00:13:00] How disagreement became treated as risk rather than data [00:16:00] Introducing Emergent Inclusion [00:17:00] The four questions [00:22:00] When inclusion works... [00:23:00] The choice: defensible or functional? #Inclusion #DEI #Leadership #OrganizationalDevelopment #Diversity #Trump Let's Connect: https://inclusionwins.com/ https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    25 min
  2. Reconstructing Inclusion S3E5: Designing for the Margins: Joy Elizabeth Buckner on Neurodivergence, Education, and Mattering

    JAN 16

    Reconstructing Inclusion S3E5: Designing for the Margins: Joy Elizabeth Buckner on Neurodivergence, Education, and Mattering

    Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion! Designing for the Margins: Why Neurodivergent Thinkers Need More Than Awareness Joy Elizabeth Buckner is an educational consultant who's spent 13 years abroad working across 25+ countries to support neurodivergent learners. With dyslexia, Irlen Syndrome, and ADHD, she brings lived experience to her mission of building belonging for neurodivergent thinkers. We explore why educational systems are designed for the "middle," what happens when we build for the margins, and Joy's framework for moving beyond awareness to action: empowered, equipped, voiced, connected. Key Topics: Teaching to the middle, blind spots around neurodivergence, "penguining" and ADHD brilliance, why neurodivergent people need proof they matter, the cost of masking Timestamps: [00:12:00] From categories to lived experience [00:15:30] Why we're still teaching the same way [00:20:30] Joy's four-pillar framework [00:28:30] Systems that fail neurodivergent children [00:34:30] Neurodivergent people need extra proof [00:37:00] "Penguining" and neurodivergent brilliance Resources: "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts, The Joy of Neurodiversity Podcast, "Covering" by Kenji Yoshino 20-30% of people are neurodivergent. When we design for the margins, everyone benefits. 🔥 Standout Quotes: "If you were in my brain and you knew how hard I was trying in class, in school, in life—I was trying so hard just to try to feel normal. That's the thing that I hear again and again. We were lazy, we were defiant, we didn't try hard enough." [00:33:45] "Other people can tell you that you matter. Other people can tell you that you belong. Other people can tell you that you're valued. We need proof. Neurodivergent people need extra proof." [00:34:30] About Our Guest: Joy Buckner is an educational consultant, speaker, and host of "The Joy of Neurodiversity" podcast. She works with parents, teachers, and ministries of education to build belonging and show dignity to the brilliance of neurodivergent thinkers. Based in Dubai, she's worked across 25+ countries reshaping how we understand and support diverse minds. Let's Connect: https://inclusionwins.com/ https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    45 min
  3. Reconstructing Inclusion S3E4: Defining True Purpose in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Work

    12/12/2025

    Reconstructing Inclusion S3E4: Defining True Purpose in the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Work

    Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion! This is my last episode for 2025. If I could go back five years, what would I have changed? This solo episode is my honest accounting of where the diversity, equity, and inclusion field went wrong. The past five years transformed DEI. What started as meaningful change became performance art. Organizations treated inclusion as optics management: do just enough to deflect criticism. But it rarely touched fundamental structures. Now we're living with the consequences. The resistance has erupted. We may have contributed to the very resistance we were trying to overcome. 🔥 Standout Quotes: "Instead of enrolling people in a conversation about what organizations structurally needed to change, there was a tremendous amount of energy talking about the structural problem of systemic racism." [00:05:00] "When we see statistical disparities and immediately conclude their evidence of discrimination, without examining all these other factors, we're committing this fallacy. Disparities don't equal discrimination." [00:11:00] Resources Mentioned: Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell In This Episode: [00:05:00] When optics replaced purpose [00:07:00] Active vs. passive opposition [00:11:00] The three fallacies affecting DEI work [00:16:00] The Richard Bilkszto tragedy [00:22:00] What inclusion work should actually be [00:24:00] Building durable skills [00:27:00] Why this moment holds promise #Inclusion #DEI #Leadership #OrganizationalDevelopment #Diversity Let's Connect: https://inclusionwins.com/ https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    31 min
  4. Reconstructing Inclusion S3E3: When Empathy Becomes Optional: A Conversation with Maaria Mozaffar

    11/14/2025

    Reconstructing Inclusion S3E3: When Empathy Becomes Optional: A Conversation with Maaria Mozaffar

    Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion! When Empathy Becomes Optional: A Conversation with Maaria Mozaffar When did empathy become something we can turn on and off? When did we start deciding which children deserve protection and which ones don't? These are the uncomfortable questions Maaria Mozaffar forces us to confront. 🔥 Standout Quotes: "If you are watching that and you think it's just about legalities, should've known better, then I wanna know where your humanity is." [00:16:00] "I don't believe humans have the right to consider other humans less human... I will keep an eye on every interaction and not pass the buck." [00:34:00] "Watch your baby be crushed under buildings. We'll see if you're gonna look for someone to blame or you're gonna put on your backpack and say, let's lift this up." [00:35:00] About Our Guest: Maaria Mozaffar is an attorney, mediator, legislative drafter, and author of More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World. For over 15 years, she's been writing human-first policies that center dignity and interconnectedness. In this conversation, she argues that we've turned off our empathy and made it optional instead of essential—and that we have the power to turn it back on. Resources Mentioned: The Fox and the Hound (animated film): A story about friendship, identity, and choosing humanity over what we’re conditioned to believe. More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World by Maaria Mozaffar: A book about moving away from distractions and creating a life of substance and impact. In This Episode: - The three camps: happiness, helplessness, and hiding (and why none are serving us) - How ethnocentrism is driving immigration policy - Why we've made empathy optional and how to make it essential again - Why global education is essential for breaking through propaganda - How we've chosen to see some people as less deserving of dignity - The power of one voice and one micro decision - What it means to stop being an NPC in your own life Let's Connect: https://inclusionwins.com/ https://reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/ ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    43 min
  5. Reconstructing Inclusion S3E2: Time to Transcend the Letters: Reconstructing Inclusion Around Humanity, Not Identity Categories

    10/13/2025

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

    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] ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    31 min
  6. Reconstructing Inclusion S3E1: Ingrid Hu Dahl on Finding Belonging in a (Mixed) Racialized World

    09/12/2025

    Reconstructing Inclusion S3E1: Ingrid Hu Dahl on Finding Belonging in a (Mixed) Racialized World

    Welcome to Season Three of Reconstructing Inclusion! This season focuses on opening dialogue about who we are rather than what we ascribe to one another—shifting patterns and practices in the diversity and inclusion space with fresh eyes. In our Season Three premiere, host Amri Johnson sits down with Ingrid Hu Dahl, leadership coach, consultant, and author of a powerful memoir about identity, loss, and living boldly. Ingrid shares her journey from daily "othering" to authentic belonging, exploring how racial categorization creates artificial divisions and why true safety must come from within. 🔥 Standout Quotes: "I share that a daily experience with mine, especially growing up in Central New Jersey, in this predominantly white neighborhood, was a reminder that I was different and didn't belong." [00:14:00] "At your funeral. What does the eulogy say if you continue on this path? What are they saying about you if they couldn't read your resume?" [00:26:00] "The most poetic answer to that is after my mother died. That was a really big, big, big, big moment of an unleashing of so much." [00:20:00] About Our Guest: Ingrid Hu Dahl is an author, speaker, and leadership coach. She is the founder of a coaching and consulting business dedicated to empowering the next generation of leaders. With over two decades of experience in learning and development, she brings her expertise to a wide range of industries, from corporate and media to nonprofit and social justice organizations. A TEDx speaker and a founding member of the Willie Mae Rock Camp in Brooklyn, Ingrid has a lifelong passion for amplifying underrepresented voices. Resources Mentioned: Sun Shining on Morning Snow: A Memoir of Identity, Loss, and Living Boldly by Ingrid Hu Dahl Works of Audre Lorde - Influential in Ingrid's understanding of intersectional oppression Adrian Piper's art and writings - Particularly her piece, "Cornered" Time Stamps: Double Rejection Across Communities [00:11:00]Experiencing othering from both white and Asian communities as a child Loss as Liberation [00:20:00] How her mother's death created a massive opening for healing and authenticity Corporate Identity Crisis [00:24:00] Recognizing how titles and external validation became another limiting categorization The Funeral Question [00:26:00] What would your eulogy say if they couldn't read your resume? Global Citizen Experience [00:37:00] Finding belonging internationally where difference becomes an asset rather than othering Retiring From Race [00:36:00] Discussing Adrian Piper's decision to exist outside racial binaries ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    43 min
  7. Reconstructing Inclusion S2E12: Season Finale | The Sky Is Still Not Falling on DEI

    08/01/2025

    Reconstructing Inclusion S2E12: Season Finale | The Sky Is Still Not Falling on DEI

    In this episode, host Amri Johnson delivers a powerful season finale reflecting on Season 2's groundbreaking conversations, Johnson challenges core assumptions about diversity work and introduces controversial perspectives on why focusing on racial differences may be counterproductive to anti-racism goals. Key Discussion Points: - Move from cataloging differences to reducing distance between humans - Racialization may perpetuate the foundation of racism itself - Both DEI advocates and opponents use vague rhetoric preventing real dialogue - Practitioners need accountability ("skin in the game") for integrity - Current challenges represent evolution, not rejection of inclusion 🔥 Standout Quotes: "The focus we've had on anti-racism in the Kendi and DiAngelo sense wasn't resonating with me for quite some time." [00:07:00] "I have almost 25 years of skin in this game. Skin in the game is about having something to lose when you're wrong." [00:23:00] ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of DEI. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    30 min
  8. Reconstructing Inclusion S2E11: Why Ending Race is the Future of Antiracism: Dr. Sheena Mason's Breakthrough Approach to Race/ism

    06/13/2025

    Reconstructing Inclusion S2E11: Why Ending Race is the Future of Antiracism: Dr. Sheena Mason's Breakthrough Approach to Race/ism

    In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Sheena Mason, author of "The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race is the Future of Antiracism," for a conversation that challenged everything I thought I knew about racial justice. Sheena presents her revolutionary "Togetherness Wayfinder" framework—a practical roadmap beyond traditional antiracist thinking toward what she calls "raceless antiracism." This isn't just academic theory. It's a fundamental reimagining of how we approach inclusion, justice, and human liberation that could transform organizations, communities, and individual relationships. 🔥 Standout Quotes: "The fiction of race is the dehumanizing apparatus that gets attached to human beings that then allows us to be broken into false hierarchies. And in that way, it's a thoroughly pernicious category and a thoroughly pernicious practice." [00:13:00] "In that shift, the idea is I'm centering the human right. I'm recentering the human. A person, right? A human who gets racialized as... I'm highlighting the external factors that exists in a particular context." [00:17:30] "To my mind, racelessness is synonymous with limitlessness and there are two ways that limits get placed onto us. We internalize limits and then place limitations on ourselves." [00:57:00] About Our Guest: Dr. Sheena Michele Mason is an influential scholar, educator, and advocate for antirace/ism. As an Assistant Professor of English at SUNY Oneonta, she has dedicated her career to dismantling racism through innovative approaches. Sheena holds a Ph.D. in English with distinction from Howard University, specializing in African American, American, and Caribbean Literatures. She is the innovator of the "Togetherness Wayfinder" approach and has authored significant works including "The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race is the Future of Antiracism" (2024) and "Theory of Racelessness: A Case for Philosophies of Antirace(ism)" (2022). Resources Mentioned: "The Raceless Antiracist: Why Ending Race is the Future of Antiracism" by Dr. Sheena Mason The Togetherness Wayfinder framework Time Stamps: [00:07:00] - Introduction to Dr. Sheena Mason and her work [00:11:00] - Her journey from trauma to literature as liberation and life's mission [00:13:00] - Core thesis: Race as a "dehumanizing apparatus" that creates false hierarchies [00:17:30] - Revolutionary language: From "Black person" to "person racialized as Black" [00:20:30] - The Scooby Doo metaphor: How race masks five real categories [00:23:00] - Creolization theory and the controversy over the new Pope's race [00:28:00] - Deconstructing crime statistics and racialized data collection [00:32:00] - Shocking reality: Only 3% of people racialized as Black commit violent crimes [00:43:00] - Historical analysis: Why reconstruction of race has failed since Douglass [00:48:00] - Centering whiteness in the abolition conversation [00:52:00] - Why reform-based antiracism feels "safe" to those in power [00:57:00] - Vision of raceless futures: "Racelessness is synonymous with limitlessness" [01:00:00] - Parenting without racial categories and creating new possibilities ➡️ Subscribe to Reconstructing Inclusion for more unfiltered conversations about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reconstructinginclusion.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 3m
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About

The Reconstructing Inclusion Podcast goes far beyond what the host, Amri B. Johnson, considers redundant, how-to diversity, equity, and inclusion dialogues. He aims to create a space to speak the truth and examine context in DEI. This means creating a path forward for everyone to rethink and recognize the benefits of inclusion individually and collectively. Reconstructing in this sense is about creating organizational systems and networks where everyone belongs. reconstructinginclusion.substack.com

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