The seven most common myths about racial equity
Opinion by Randal Pinkett Fri July 24, 2020
Randal Pinkett, PhD, is
the Chairman and CEO of BCT Partners, a research, consulting, training,
technology and analytics firm that provides insights about diverse people
that can lead to more equity.
The
opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.
(CNN)
I've had the honor of hosting almost a dozen town halls,
forums and "listen and learn" sessions over the past few months --
both within my company and also with several corporations, nonprofit
organizations and academic institutions. Some were quite small -- with as few as
eight participants -- while others had over 800 people. I've heard the honest, transparent and,
sometimes, raw feelings and frustrations of employees. I've had one-on-one conversations with
managers, executives and leaders, including global CEOs, as they have
prepared for courageous conversations. I've also been inspired by NFL star Emmanuel
Acho's, "Uncomfortable
Conversations with a Black Man," so, in deference to
him, let's consider this a candid conversation with a Black businessman.
As we are deep into
this moment of civil unrest over systemic racism, everyone in the business
world from individual contributors to managers to executives has asked
"Where do we go from here?" That's a common question after a business
releases a "statement" (or debates whether to release a statement),
holds a town hall or articulates its commitment to racial equity.
The answer is companies
are going to have to do continuous work if they truly want to achieve
tangible and lasting change. My advice
on how they can do this begins with dispelling the seven most common myths
about racial equity that I've heard over the past few months:
Myth
#1: It's better to remain silent out of fear of saying the wrong thing, being
judged or being labelled a racist, than to speak out in this moment. I've primarily heard this myth from my private
conversations with White people; less so within large groups. This is a time when your voice is needed
more than ever. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. once said, "We will not remember the words of our enemies but the
silence of our friends." Don't be
the silent friend. Educate yourself on
the basic language of racial equity: non-racist vs. anti-racist; equal vs.
equitable; White privilege and White fragility; and the differences between
diversity equity, inclusion and belonging. Then find your voice. You must find your voice. It's OK to make mistakes and you can decide
how vocal you want to be in this moment, but this is not the moment to be
silent and let fear paralyze you.
Myth #2: White privilege doesn't exist.
Interestingly, I have seldom heard this from anyone directly. I've more often heard this from people in a
forum who say they've heard it from other people. So, let's first define what we mean by
privilege:
A good analogy of
privilege is a fish in a stream. For
White people, you are going with the stream. It's not that you aren't working hard,
facing certain obstacles, experiencing certain challenges but, at the end of
the day, the stream helps you swim faster. For Black people, we are going against the
stream. Just like White people, we're
working hard, we're facing certain obstacles, we're experiencing certain
challenges, but the stream makes it more difficult for us to swim. Much like it is difficult for a fish to be
aware of its stream, it is difficult to acknowledge privilege when you are
the beneficiary.
In other words, privilege gives certain
groups unearned advantages of which they may be unaware. If you're White, male, Christian, straight,
and able-bodied, then you are quintupling down on privilege. I enjoy certain advantages as a man and yet
I endure certain disadvantages as a Black man. That's not a complaint; it is simply my
reality.
If you're willing to
acknowledge that privilege exists, then it doesn't necessarily mean you
should give up your advantages, but it does suggest you have the opportunity
to help those who are disadvantaged. That
could mean mentorship, sponsorship or advocacy on behalf of a Black employee
to help them overcome certain obstacles when they are in -- and out of -- the
room. It could also mean going as far
as Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, who stepped
down from the board of Reddit and urged the board to fill his seat with a
Black candidate.
To focus your efforts,
you must look across your organization's entire lifecycle from recruitment to
hiring to development to retention to advancement in order to determine
exactly where advantage and disadvantage are at play.
Myth
#3: If I focus my company's efforts specifically on Black people in America,
then it is to the exclusion of other groups. I have found this
to be a challenge for leaders and a particular challenge for global leaders,
given the differences in how race unfolds across cultures internationally. This question of whether to focus on Black
people or focus on other groups is not an either/or proposition; it's an
"and." Black people are the
canary in the coal mine. We are often
hit earlier and harder than everybody else. A good analogy is ramps for people with
disabilities. By focusing on people
with disabilities, ramps make life better for many other groups such as
parents with strollers, cyclists and children. By focusing on Black people, the most
oppressed group, you are helping all groups. John Powell, a professor of law and African
American studies at UC Berkeley, defines this concept as "targeted
universalism," which means setting universal goals pursued
by targeted strategies for specific groups in order to achieve those goals.
Myth #4: The source of the problem is racist community
policing. Racist community policing is a symptom, not
the source. The source is racism and
there are several other symptoms of the source. Just look at the lack of representation in
Corporate America. There are
only four Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and they are
all men.
That is a symptom. To address the symptoms in your
organization, you must begin to address the source of the problem: racism. You must help shift employee behaviors and
shift your organization's cultures from being non-racist to anti-racist and
that means a culture that is not passive on matters of racism, but rather, is
actively seeking to dismantle racism. This
leads to Myth #5 ...
Myth
#5: Individuals are the problem. Before we point out specific people, we need to
address the racist cultures, racist laws, and racist policies, that produce
racist individuals.
There are four
dimensions of racism:
You can't reduce these problems to
individuals because you otherwise ignore the complexities of race; you obscure
the four dimensions of racism. If you
are an executive or a CEO, you have the opportunity to influence and
dismantle racism across all four of these dimensions.
Myth #6: A plan that commits to spending money on Black
issues but does not also commit to spending money with Black businesses is a
complete plan. Spending money on Black issues addresses the
social components of the problem but not the economics of the problem. In addition to workforce diversity and
workplace diversity, you also need supplier
diversity, which means diversifying the ownership of the companies you do
business with.
Most companies do not
have supplier diversity programs, much less, a specific
focus on increasing the amount of money they spend with Black-owned
businesses. While African-Americans, according to the 2010 census, represent 13.6% of the US
population and make up as much as 38% of a state's population (in Washington
DC, it's 52%), a report released in 2016 analyzing 2012 data on minority
business ownership showed that the percentage of sales flowing to Black-owned
businesses nationally was only 1.3%.
This is the time for
you to get serious about supporting both Black issues and Black businesses.
Myth #7: Being colorblind is the gold standard for
seeing other people. I hear this one
quite often. And the danger of this
myth is that it can also lead you to thinking that the workplace is a pure
meritocracy and that your company only hires the best and the brightest when
the data shows that Black people are underrepresented at many levels, and
especially on boards and in the C-suite. I want you to see my color. The gold standard is not to be colorblind
but, in the words of Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments, to be "color
brave" -- to have candid conversations about race, to
fully see color, and to still treat people fairly.
You must build your
cultural competence, which means four things: increasing your cultural
awareness; expanding your cultural knowledge; building your cultural skills,
and fostering greater cultural encounters.
So those are the seven
myths, but I'll give you a final bonus myth and it's this: that discomfort is
a bad thing. I want you to know that
discomfort is not even a good thing; it is a great thing. I want you to feel discomfort.
Why? Because discomfort and growth must co-exist.
You can't have one without the other. So, get comfortable with being
uncomfortable. Lean into the
discomfort because it is in those moments that you know you are growing and,
I would argue, growing into a better person tomorrow than the one you are
today.
If you desire to change
the culture of your organization to be more diverse, more equitable and more
inclusive, then it begins with you ... and it won't come easy.
Making a statement may
have been hard, but doing the work will be harder.
Let's change this
moment into a movement so we are never in this moment again. We can do this ... together.
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