Nailing diversity without DEI or tokenism is a lost art

Delivering genuine diversity without DEI checklists has become a lost art in an identity politics-dominated world, but it doesn’t need to be.

Here’s a bit of a rundown for you before I deliver a real-life example you may be familiar with. When I started the Renegades Epic, I didn’t need a checklist or a quota. I needed characters who felt real. That’s the part DEI misses.

So don’t think for a second that my bisexual, Christian-mocking Misesian character, Liza Fury, checked off a box. I just found her that way. Or that Chronicles of Rondure checked off a box because two of the main characters are equivalents to what would be East Asian females – K-pop is awesome, so naming a character Mina Hirai just worked.

Or that most of my characters are strong female protagonists and that it’s making a ‘special statement’ or something. They’re just easier to write about, so I’ve (primarily) rolled with a more female-heavy main cast in most of my books. As for checking boxes? Give me a break.

If I wanted to join that crowd, I’d be advocating for a world government to save us from something like climate change by banning things and to crack down on alternative education. No, from Day 1, the goal was simple: Give sane, normal people something to read while the rest of the world fell into something called identity politics.

Yeah, so never mistake my work for a forced Alphabet Mafia relationship, a black man leading an institution, or an Asian girl taking on an entire empire. It’s just how I saw them and if we lived in a sane world, they really wouldn’t be a big deal. How do I know this? Let’s flash back to a time when the world was a saner place and talk about an unforgettable video game franchise.

Backyard Sports didn’t need a DEI policy to be diverse

Before corporate media turned every cast list into a checklist, before characters were written to fulfill boardroom diversity quotas, and before “inclusion” became a forced buzzword, there was Backyard Sports. Remember it?

You probably do: Backyard Baseball, Backyard Football, Backyard Hockey, Backyard Basketball—a series of PC games where a bunch of neighborhood kids played for fun. And without ever preaching or pandering, it delivered one of the most diverse, memorable rosters in video game history.

It wasn’t a lecture. It was just good design.

No tokenism. Just talent

Let’s start with the legend: Pablo Sanchez.

He didn’t speak much English, he wore a backwards cap and a too-small shirt, and he was easily the best all-around player in every sport. No one asked for a translator. No one tried to “elevate his voice.” They just respected him because he could ball. No virtue signaling. Just earned respect.

Then there was Kenny Kawaguchi, a kid in a wheelchair who still dominated. The game didn’t stop the action to explain why you should feel inspired. It didn’t wrap him in bubble wrap. He was just there, playing like everyone else, and that’s what made it powerful. You either picked him for his stats or you lost to him. Simple as that.

Keisha Phillips was strong and confident. She didn’t need anyone to “empower” her with some feminist monologue. She showed up, smacked home runs, and let her game do the talking.

Each character—Achmed and Amir Khan, Dmitri Petrovich, Maria Luna, Ernie Steele, Sally and Ronny Dobbs, Tony and Angela Delvecchio—came with distinct personalities, strengths, and flaws. They weren’t “representations.” They were people.

Inclusion without announcement

The brilliance of Backyard Sports was that it never made a big deal out of diversity. It wasn’t “Look! A disabled kid!” or “Finally, a strong black girl!” It didn’t pat itself on the back, which I strongly believe is the corporate endgame for many. There was no clunky dialogue, no identity politics, no smug self-congratulation.

The message wasn’t delivered in a press release, which isn’t the vibe I get these days. Instead, the message was the gameplay.

Everyone played together because that’s how real neighborhoods (like mine) used to work. If you could hold your own, you were in. If not, you’d be picked last or not at all. And that was okay. It was a meritocracy in the purest sense. No special treatment, no artificial boost. You either had the skills or you didn’t.

Why it still matters in the Age of Foolishness

Modern legacy media loves to brag about “DEI representation,” but most of the time it feels phony. Scripted may be a better word for it. Characters are often written around their identity instead of being written as characters. Writers inject ideology into places where it doesn’t belong. And worst of all, they act like they’re brave for doing it.

Backyard Sports didn’t have to try that hard. It was what the world actually looked like. Just different kids with different backgrounds who came together to play for the love of the game. No forced messaging, no DEI framework, and no godforsaken HR-approved sensitivity filter.

What today’s creators could learn

1. Stop writing characters to check boxes. Write them to be interesting.
   Pablo wasn’t “the Mexican kid.” He was Pablo. The same should go for any character. In my own work, Liza’s not on a pedestal because she’s bisexual; she’s half-Elemental Master, half-Witch, and 100 percent badass who masters four elements.

2. Diversity doesn’t need to be explained.
   You don’t need exposition to justify why someone’s there. Just make them competent and compelling, and audiences will love them.

3. Let merit shine.
   Kids loved Pablo because he was the best. Kenny earned his place on the team. Keisha hit bombs. That’s what people remember—not what boxes they checked.

4. Representation that’s earned is far more powerful than the kind that’s handed out.
   Backyard Sports didn’t hand out gold stars. It built a world where you had to prove yourself if you didn’t want to get stuck out in right field. That’s how it should be.

Natural, organic content mops the floor with DEI

Backyard Sports remains one of the best examples of natural, unforced inclusion in gaming. It didn’t need virtue signals or boardroom activism to connect with kids. It trusted players to recognize talent, value friendship, and enjoy competition—no matter what the characters looked like.

It reminds me that when creators respect their audience and focus on building great characters, not ideological tokens, they don’t need to preach. They just need to ball out. I also turned to Venice AI and got its take on Backyard Sports’ diversity without the need for DEI mandates. What it gave me was a flawless response:

“The series prioritized fun and accessibility for its target audience (children) rather than aligning with modern corporate diversity mandates. This approach resonated because it treated diversity as a natural part of the fictional world, not a forced agenda. While DEI policies in contemporary media often aim to correct systemic underrepresentation, Backyard Sports succeeded by designing characters first as individuals, not as symbols of demographic categories.”

That’s the way it should be. And if you’d like my critique of DEI, woke politics, the whole nine yards in a fictional world, check out The Rebellion Awakens.