“Art doesn’t just educate—it awakens. And in the world of diversity training, we need less instruction and more ignition.”
Let’s be honest. Most diversity training is designed to inform, not transform. It checks compliance boxes. It teaches the right words. It avoids the wrong ones. But when the Zoom call ends or the slideshow fades, what’s left?
Information alone rarely shifts behavior. But expression? Expression has the power to move the immovable.
That’s why I believe deeply in the role of artistic expression—spoken word, music, theater, visual art—as a vital force in DEI education. Because when we engage the heart, we awaken the mind. And that’s where lasting change begins.
Art bypasses resistance. You don’t argue with a poem—you feel it. You don’t debate a performance—you absorb it. Art delivers the message beneath the message, revealing what policy can’t touch: the human experience behind diversity.
I’ve watched it unfold.
A room full of corporate professionals holding back tears as a spoken word piece captures the quiet pain of being overlooked. A line of verse unearthing memories of microaggressions no handbook ever covered. A poem about pride, about difference, about resilience—suddenly making space safer, fuller, more alive.
This isn’t soft. It’s seismic.
Art pushes past politeness and lands where real growth happens—inside the discomfort. Inside the empathy. Inside the shift from knowing about people to actually knowing people.
If your diversity training isn’t moving people, maybe it’s not artistic enough.
Because artistic expression doesn’t just make DEI more engaging. It makes it real.
It makes it stick.
It makes it stir.
And most importantly—it makes it matter.
