Muse International Core Value: Inclusivity

The more perspectives, the better. This is how we ensure fairness, equality, that everyone has a seat at the table, and that humanity is at the center of every conversation.

A Call to Action: May The Reclamation of Belonging Be A Revolution

What if inclusivity were not an afterthought, but the beginning of everything? Not a correction to exclusion, but the condition before it.

To start from inclusion means to build communities where mercy transcends politics. In families, it looks like teaching children that difference is not something to just tolerate, but something to expect and cherish. In friendship, it means staying open even when discomfort creeps in. In leadership, it means setting the table before the guests arrive — not waiting to add chairs once the meal has begun. When inclusion is the baseline, masks lose their purpose. No one needs to

hide what makes them different to be accepted. As Shel Silverstein wrote in the poem titled “Masks,” from his posthumous collection Every Thing On It:

“She had blue skin,

And so did he.

He kept it hid,

And so did she.

They searched for blue

Their whole life through,

Then passed right by —

And never knew.”

When inclusion is absent, this is what happens — people brushing past each other in silence, sameness mistaken for safety. Exclusion begins quietly: in assumptions, omissions, invisible hierarchies. The antidote is not guilt or grand statements, but gentle noticing. Listening to what’s missing. Creating new habits that welcome. When inclusion doesn’t start from the beginning, it must be rebuilt — brick by brick — through empathy and courage. Research calls this

psychological safety: the ability to speak without fear of ridicule or reprisal. In environments where it exists, people innovate more, stay longer, trust deeper. Without it, even the most talented get small.

Rebuilding inclusion asks for humility: to admit when we’ve missed someone, to make amends without defensiveness, to lead as learners instead of authorities. It asks for artfulness — not to perfect systems, but to make space for imperfection, for human texture, for color. And when we return to inclusion — when we make it our native tongue again — something larger awakens— A quiet revolution of belonging:

• A teacher learning the names no one pronounces correctly.

• A manager making room for silence before decisions.

• A friend staying curious when their worldview is challenged.

• A family where apology is not shame, but love in practice.

Belonging is the soft architecture of a world that remembers we are, at the core, connected. It is not sameness; it is inclusivity.

As JRR Tolkien’s character, Elrond, observed in The Fellowship of The Rings, “Such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.” This is one of Tolkien’s most quietly powerful observations on humility, agency, and the unseen forces that shape history.

Tolkien is saying that true change often begins in ordinary hands, unnoticed by those in power. The “wheels of the world” — the great movements of fate or history — are set in motion not by the mighty or the famous, but by those who act quietly and necessarily, out of duty or love rather than glory.

• “Small hands do them because they must” — ordinary people take on impossible tasks, not

• for recognition, but because conscience or circumstance demands it.

• “The eyes of the great are elsewhere” — those consumed by status, politics, or pride often miss the true turning points of history.

In the context of inclusivity or leadership, it mirrors the same truth: the quiet choices, the unseen kindnesses, the acts of inclusion that rarely make headlines are often what actually change cultures. Inclusivity, practiced daily, is one of those small deeds. It begins in us, and through us, ripples outward — until belonging is not a prize to be earned, but the air we all breathe.

We are living in a time that tests the soul of our humanity. Division has been engineered into daily life — posted through social media, amplified through fear, normalized through power. But belonging is not naïve. It is not the soft answer to a hard world; it is the strong, steady pulse of what makes us human. It asks us to look again — past ideology, past ego, past the noise — and remember that inclusion is not partisan.

~ Belonging begins when we decide that decency is not up for debate. ~

This is a call to action for a just and shared future for all people, all children. When we choose to see, to include, to restore what cruelty erodes. When we remember that inclusion and mercy are not acts of charity, but of courage and human decency — the courage to love what we fear, to stand where others divide, to listen long enough for several truths to emerge, even when we disagree. To stop waving signs for one side or another and shouting at each other like we are at a

sports event, and start listening, start leading with civility. We are in the midst of a global crisis where humanity and mercy are at stake.

May belonging be a revolution of compassion — a moral and human re-centering. May it remind us that to belong is not to agree, but to care. And that caring — even now, especially now — is the most radical act of all.