Advancing Racial Equity in the Workplace: What to do when you fear saying or doing the wrong thing.

13 Apr

Feb 17 2021, Shereen Daniels

You feel inspired to change. You want to support your Black colleagues and build a more just, equitable workplace. But you’re concerned that an inappropriate word will upset or alienate your Black colleagues, expose you and your organisation to reputational risk, possible criticism from friends and even adverse media coverage. You fear being mistaken and condemned as racist so instead choose to play safe and stay silent.

Therefore any action you do take becomes tokenistic and perpetuates more harm than good.

Doing what’s comfortable rather than what’s right.

To pick and choose the aspects of racism your organisation will engage with based on your own comfort levels is to be complicit in the racial structures you feel inspired to change. It’s an act of complacency. One steeped in privilege as, from where you stand, dismantling racism isn’t a necessity. Your career, position in society and personal safety are assured by your skin colour. So rather than act on what’s right you do what is comfortable, picking at the hem of the issue hoping you painlessly unravel the 400 years of systemic racism that are insidiously interwoven within your organisation’s systems and policies. Because you haven’t got the confidence to chance ‘getting it wrong’. In essence racial equity isn’t worth the risk.

What does this look like for your organisation.

Doing what’s comfortable means jumping into what you perceive to be the easier aspects of racism. This means at most you’ll look to organise unconscious bias training and allyship seminars, skimming over any explicit racism content justifying your organisational direction through platitudes such as, ‘Racism is all over the media so we all know about it’ without insight into your workforce’s understanding of racism. You hurdle towards solutions without knowing if you and your colleagues recognise the problem in the first place. Your fear driven action is nothing more than performative and nothing intrinsic changes.

If this is you, challenge yourself to understand whether you want your stance to be from a place of fear and therefore driven by what’s comfortable, or curiosity and guided by what’s right. If you default to what’s comfortable but looks good external, rather than what’s challenging, you and your colleagues will never set foot on the right path to dismantling racism in your workplace.

Perfectionism gets in the way of meaningful action.

Perfectionism is a flawed concern that invites an all-or-nothing approach. It inhibits learning, adapting or moving towards a specific intention. If this resonates then recognise it’s a privilege to act to dismantle racism rather than experience it. Embrace the discomfort of growth and recognise you are a work in progress.

If we do X what happens, what’s the impact?

Consider it this way. Organisations have pipelines of ideas and concepts, myriads of ‘works in progress’ in various stages of development with the specific aim to future-proof the organisation’s existence. You might have business development colleagues or an R&D department that works specifically on ideas that you hope will leave customers, shareholders and investors wanting more.

These departments are a risk. Some of the plans and ideas they’re experimenting with won’t work, or may partially work. Yet what they’re doing is testing hypothesis. Often very quickly, without all the facts and details, to see, “If we do X what happens, what’s the impact?” If their ideation and creativity works then great, a step forward is made for the organisation. If it doesn’t, they go back to the drawing board and ask why. But they keep experimenting and ideating regardless.

So why do you throw all of that creativity and experimentation out the window when it comes to dismantling systemic racism in your workplace? Why do you want to sit in fear, and think, and mull it over, and discuss, and reflect, and…everyone’s still waiting. You don’t need to be sitting for a month, or next quarter, or next year to decide that you’re going to do about systemic racism. You need to hold up a mirror and say, “what’s stopping us from properly addressing this now?’

You do not need to be an expert on the Black experience.

If your fear is driven by a misguided attempt to understanding what life is like for your Black colleagues so you can speak and act from a position of knowledge. Please stop.

When you put so much energy and effort into trying to understand somebody else’s experience in order for you to determine your next perfect move, you miss one very important aspect of the work you’re attempting to do. And it’s the ability to look at your own experiences.

Fundamentally you cannot be an expert in the Black experience, but you can be an expert in your own. For example, consider the following introspective points. How is it I don’t have to worry about being late? How is it I can get sponsored or I can find mentors really easily? Or that I can simply step into any space, and not have anybody question my presence? Even, how is it that my corporate culture, this organisation that I carry seniority within works so well for people who look like me? How is it we still, no matter how much we’ve committed to diversity and inclusion, continue to perpetuate these outcomes that are so favourable to the majority of my white colleagues, but so unfavourable for Black employees. Turn the mirror on yourself.

Black colleagues don’t need fixing.

Because the unintended consequences of overly focusing on trying to be an expert here is that you imply that Black colleagues are broken and they need fixing. It’s almost like you’re looking to see if there is something in the way Black people (collectively!) think, or the way Black people (collectively!) do things that is actually contributing to the problem. Rather than acknowledging or understanding that structural racism is the problem, your attempt at ‘expertise’ perpetuates systemic racism by considering us faulty.

Put yourself under the microscope.

This work is about gaining insights into personal experience. It is not a platform for white fragility and self-sensitivity surrounding how you treat Black colleagues. You are putting your experiences under a microscope and challenging yourself as to how those experiences came about. You ask the questions and at the back of your mind always keep thinking about your current workplace culture. What your workplace culture represents, and forever ask yourself why does your culture works so well for people who look like you.

How do you respond when you say or do the wrong thing

Such moments require you to step back and listen with grace and humility. Recognise that advancing racial equity requires you to acknowledge that you will make space for when other people call you out. That no matter how much you care about issues affecting Black colleagues, it doesn’t absolve you from taking accountability and responsibility for your own transgressions. In this space centre the person/people impacted by your wrong step. Listen and learn from them. Rather than attempt to excuse yourself with an explanation of your intent apologise for the impact caused. Stop the instance reminding yourself that you are not the injured party. And stop the pattern so this instance doesn’t happen again.

Remember you may not know the perfect thing to say and do, but you know all the things not to say. Start there because whatever your fear based intentions are they are a hindrance to dismantling racism within your organisation. Ask yourself why this fear exists for you. Analysis it. Take it apart. Find your solution. Only then will your input into advancing racial equity for your Black colleagues move from tokenism to transformative change.

Tiger Iron