although I fully support the theory behind Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), I see in it the same flaw I witnessed in over forty years of Gay advocacy. It is too often not applied the way those to whom it applies know it should be, but it is applied according to how the applicator thinks it should even if it actuall doesn’t. Looking from an outside point of view, they do not see how it affects the target who usually gets short changed as the person applying DEI is convinced, since it is more than they have done before, is sufficient when the object knows i is no even close.
During my years of student advocacy, I often was corrected by straight people who claimed I was off the mark if I expected to gain what they had, and as they had the rights I was fighting for, they obviously knew how to get what had been bestowed upon them my the Creator. They often treated me as if I was not bilingual enough to speak Straight and needed the interpreters who very happily got what they claimed I wanted when it clearly was not. They too often spoke for as opposed along with, and both sides, having arrived at an agreement they thought met their understanding left me having to make up for lost time later as their satisfaction had to wane before any attempt at course-correction could begin.
The end result being given a cupcake you are old you actual wanted without actually realizing it while having to go without the medicine our were asking for. Although you weren’t hungry, they are pleased to have met your need for food.
Worse, too often what the person is actually saying from their experiential point of view is discounted or ignored because it is not part of the other person’s paradigm.
Sometimes, the obvious is missed and opportunities lost while a lesser object is reached and, being seen, has more value than what actually should be valued.
For the first few years I volunteered at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, there was a small painting in what is referred to as the Treasures Gallery on the second floor of the bank building section of the museum that housed the original when it was donated to the Old Dartmouth Historic Society for that purpose. It wasn’t very prominent at about 14”X18”, is dated “circa 1894”,whose major subject is a baseball game being played on the tundra at Herschel Island.
When writing of the discovery of the February 11, 1895 log entry in which Mr Scott, the steward, had been sent forward for Onanism and Sodomy on this blog site, I have mentioned the many references to the captain working the lathe at the end of the day without mentioning why. The ships were iced in, immobile, and unused, so the work was not to address any wear and tear to the vessel.
In the log of the Jesse H Freeman, also present at the Island that year, Sophie Porter the keeper of the log and wife of the ship’s captain, William S. Porter, written in great detail as she was not bound by the format a captain follows when keeping a ship log which allowed her the freedom to include anything she found interesting we find the first answer to the lathe’s usage in replacing the baseball bats broken in the games she wrote about among which was the possibly the game in the painting.
“1895, 04, 22. Mon Cloudy with fresh wind, p.m. fine and bright. Exciting game of baseball between the captains and mates, 6 innings played, 26 to 9 in favor of the captains.”
The baseball games were also mentioned in other logs such as that of the Mary D Hume.
1895, 04, 24. Wed. Scraping ice off inside of house. Herschels and Arctics played a game of ball. Kiser came in…with eight deer.
From Sophie Porter’s log entries we read,
“1894, 09,30. Sun Fine, beautiful warm weather.There is a little snow on the ground. This is the first Sunday that all the work aboard ship is suspended. In the afternoon, all the ladies with their escorts went on shore, where about three hundred men were playing and watching a game of baseball. A good many others were in attendance at a native dance outside one of the tents.”
“1895, 02, 09. Sat. The captains played their first game of “Ball” and the ladies among the spectators.”
A number of log entries in the Newport ending with“Working the lathe” were during the times Sophie Porter mentions baseball, although the Newport log does not say what the lathe was being used for.
But there is this Newport entry:
“ Monday Feb. 25th A moderate breeze from the E.Cloudy and misty. Bar.29.66. Ther. -22. Made 5 bats for the Ball League.”
The lathe was getting used to replace broken baseball bats.
In the painting of the baseball game, there are women and men watching the game, so, not only does the museum have a visual recording of the baseball game, but, having details about the spectators in various log entries, the ones above being examples, an industrious person might be able to count up the spectators, separate the men from the women, and get an idea who is who even in a most broad way.
But here is where the DEI fuzziness comes in and an example of how something may not properly occur as something important to the person claiming to exercise DEI while the person who sees the important details is ignored.
When I was transcribing the log book of the Newport, wintering on Herschel Island 1894-1895, although the keeper of this log and others may have mentioned many names, they never seemed to mentioned them individually by name, but did occasionally refer to the “Mexicans”. Where and when they joined the crew is not mentioned, nor is “Mexican” define, just that they were there and among the ships there were a good number, usually mentioned in a quick pass-by.
As happy as people at the museum may be about connecting the painting to the logs on Herschel Island 1895, and in spite of occasional references to the Mexicans, at the bottom of the painting, although there are more people playing the game as opposed to watching it, there is a game of soccer taking place that goes unmentioned in the log books or any contemporary summation of the picture.
No only has here been a clear record of the baseball game in the painting and logs, which excited people, but there is also another game taking place that was noted enough by the artist to include but not enough to be mentioned by anyone else, clear evidence of the multi-racial make up of the community that year that, besides the caucasian employees of the steam whale ship company but to the other people attesting to the normal diversity of the whaling industry, Hawai’ian (the Kanakas), the Indigenous people ofNorthern Canada, Men, women, Mexicans, and Mr. Scott,the possible Gay whaler.
The presence and recording of it of the Mexican would appear to be somewhat important to the historical record especially when it is realized that as long as the museum had the picture and it had hung on display, the only detail mentioned about the painting is the baseball game while the soccer game and those involved have gone historically ignored.
This detail when presented to the museum leadership, verbally and in emails, has left the Mexicans playing soccer out of the story and the picture, instead of having attention brought to it was removed for another picture and has been placed in storage.
Someone from an ignored and erased group of people discovers his people in the historic record when it came to Mr. Scott and the Mexicans seems to have been ignored because, perhaps, although happy with the degree to which they applied DEI, leadership is not actually sure what it involves beyond just their feelings toward it and the self-congratulations when a crumb is presented like it were a feast.
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