If Diversity & Inclusion is supposed to level the playing field, why do so many of us still feel like we’re not even allowed on it?

Diversity and Inclusion - or D&I - has become a lightning rod for opinions. According to recent polls, 36% of people think DEI initiatives have gone too far, 19% believe they haven’t gone far enough, and 31% feel things are about right. But those numbers only scratch the surface.

I’ve been on both sides of the coin. While my personal experience with intersectionality might be limited, the way D&I is structured feels far more complicated than headlines suggest.

I come from a working-class area of Wales - The Valleys. Say that out loud, and you might get your accent mimicked back to you. It’s a melodic accent - not unlike the Geordie - but it carries a load of assumptions. Around here, average salaries hover at about £32k and average house prices near £151k. Now compare that to London - where the lion’s share of UK startups are born - with average salaries around £50k and house prices north of £550k. The gap isn’t just financial. It’s about opportunity, networks, and expectations.

I’m also mixed race - Welsh, Belizean, and Vincentian - which often ticks the “diversity” box neatly. But lived experience rarely fits so cleanly into categories.

Over the last decade, D&I efforts have rightly put the spotlight on racial and gender equality. This work has been crucial and long overdue. These movements owe their roots to civil rights and feminist battles. But somewhere along the way, class quietly slipped out of the conversation - despite it being one of the biggest factors determining who advances and who gets left behind.

Look at the data: those who primarily benefit from corporate diversity programs tend to be white, middle-class women. That’s not to say they don’t face barriers - they do - but culturally and economically, they’re often closer to power’s centre, so progress is faster and more visible. Meanwhile, Black and Asian colleagues - especially women - remain underrepresented and heavily scrutinised. Yet when D&I gets criticism in public media, it’s often these same groups who take the hit.

So, the result? Some groups quietly benefit, others loudly get blamed.

But there’s a third group mostly missing from the D&I conversation: working-class men — especially white men. They’re rarely viewed as “diverse,” yet in many industries, they’re far from dominant.

Statistics tell us people from working-class backgrounds are 80% less likely to enter professional careers than their better-off peers. And when they do make it, they earn on average £6,000 less per year, regardless of performance. This isn’t just a pay gap - it’s a class ceiling.

The sad truth is that many D&I initiatives feel more like PR exercises designed to make organisations feel better about themselves — a quick pat on the back. Real change? That’s left to the individuals living exclusion every single day of the week.

Take Sainsbury’s Thrive programme, which aimed to support Black-owned brands. Over 400 applications came in. Nine were selected. By 2022, just three brands joined the incubator. Distill Ventures ran a pre-accelerator to do similar work. I was part of it. After a few rounds, it quietly shut down. One brand raised extra investment, but the programme never scaled. Meanwhile, the Forbes Family Group pitched in £20,000 for a Black-owned brand through a competition. These efforts are important — but they’re too often short-lived, underfunded, and overwhelmed.

The result? Diversity becomes a buzzword, a quick newsbite, a feel-good moment - not a sustained structural fix.

And here’s the elephant in the room: investors keep making the same safe bets. But those “safe bets” are a huge reason for the high failure rates in business. Why? Because we back the same types of founders, with similar backgrounds, who play by the same rules.

For instance, Black consumers are among the most loyal of all ethnic groups. Some reports suggest up to 65% of Black consumers return to brands that authentically reflect their culture. Yet how many brands actually reflect that culture beyond surface-level marketing? Caribbean rum is a billion-pound industry, but many brands are owned and controlled by those outside the culture. The culture is marketed - but rarely compensated.

Investment firms should be hyper-aware of what founders have been through, the grit required to get this far, and the real barriers they face - especially when looking at SEIS and EIS funds. Let’s also not forget the tax benefits involved - which means we’re often subsidising the same old safe bets.

Now, back to ripped jeans. I see D&I like the way people judge ripped jeans in a pub.

If Julia (no offence to any Julias) rocks ripped jeans, she’s stylish, confident - “breaking the rules but fair play.” If Akeem wears the same ripped jeans, just as confident and stylish, the room might go colder - a raised eyebrow, a whispered “that’s not really on, is it?” And if Sam shows up with jeans ripped from actual wear and tear - no designer label, just hard work - he’s seen as a problem, a relic, someone not fitting in.

Because it’s not the jeans we’re judging - it’s who we expect to break the rules without consequence.

D&I has to have honest conversations - not to pit groups against one another, but to recognise exclusion takes many forms. A working-class white man and a Black woman face very different challenges, but both can feel invisible, underestimated, or out of place in the same space.

This isn’t about creating a new hierarchy of struggle. It’s about recognising exclusion’s multiple entry points - and that focusing on just one door leaves everyone else out in the cold.

Inclusion shouldn’t be about guilt or quotas. It should be about building environments where people are seen, heard, and valued - without needing to swap their jeans just to fit in.

It’s time to reset. Move beyond tick-boxes and tokenism. Let’s build inclusion strategies that don’t just increase visibility but create real equity - for those who look different, sound different, live in different places, or wear the “wrong” jeans to the right meeting.

Because real inclusion means seeing people as whole humans - with value, voice, and their own version of belonging.

Laters,
Asher