Since George Floyd…
Over the past 8 months I have spent 100+ hours learning my ASS off about race and racism in America. Last week I met with one of my favorite clients of all time, who happens to be a white man, approximately age 55, in tech, who I have worked with on and off for the past 16 years. He asked what I was up to (it had been a while since we had caught up) and I shared a bit about the platform I am building to help companies measure and improve their results in DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion). I told him that I had never seen more urgency or commitment across my client groups, or within myself, to “do more”.
There is still a fair amount of skepticism and cynicism around this work, depending on who you are talking to, so I found myself wondering if this statement would be a conversation killer. I wondered…is he a leader, a learner, or a lager?
While I know him well, we had never directly discussed his views on DEI, outside of his commitment to women in tech.
I can usually size people up into one of those three categories (leader, learner, or lagger) within about 90 seconds of embarking on a conversation related to Diversity. (side note: Thank you to my friend & colleague, Chuck Shelton, who coined these terms).
I was delighted to hear my client take my lead and jump headfirst into this conversation. Instead of silence or avoidance (which I have been conditioned to expect when it comes to conversations related to race & racism), he shared some of the things he and his team have been learning & doing since the murder of George Floyd. As he spoke, he was oozing with authenticity and passion. From a thorough review of their promotion data & practices (to sniff out and correct inequity), to reading and discussing White Fragility & how racism shows up across corporate America, to advocating for more headcount and holding themselves accountable to reach deeper into communities of color to find (and hire) stellar tech talent.
I sometimes get discouraged that not enough people are committed to change or that even the ones who are committed often do not have the first clue about what to do next. This conversation, and the many I have had since the murder of George Floyd, gave me hope. It reminded me that there are more leaders and learners appearing every day. People in positions of power and influence who are working hard to correct inequities and hungry to grow. It reminded me that companies & the leaders within them, no longer see DEI as the thing they will do someday. It is table stakes.
This same client sent me an email a couple days later, sharing some of the books and articles that have impacted him, and asked me for some ideas about other resources he could read/watch/listen to. It occurred to me that I should share that email here (my side of if anyway — names removed for anonymity) in case some of you might benefit from these resources as well.
Tomorrow marks the beginning of Black History month. I will be more vocal this month about the things I am learning, the things my clients are learning, and the actions we are taking as a result. I hope you will join me in doing the same.
— — — — — — — — The email to my client — — — — — — — — — — —
Hi____
I’m so glad you asked.
For starters, a friend and I created a group I lovingly refer to as the “anti-racism group”. There are six of us (all white) who have been meeting weekly since early July to learn together.
We started by reading Me and White Supremacy and discussed 1–2 “days” per week in our discussions. The book is organized into 28 days of learning with journal prompts, which makes it ideal for personal reflection and discussion. Once we finished that, we started picking a different movie, article or TED talk per week and rotating the facilitation of the group. So far, we have watched the documentary 13th, watched MLK’s The Other America speech at Stanford from 1967, The Central Park 5 movie about the five black teens who were wrongly convicted and then exonerated for the rape of a central park jogger, and read The State of Black Women in Corporate America published by Lean In and McKinsey. That last one contains so much data and advice — it should be required reading for all corporate professionals. Another great HBR article is Dear White Boss, which I now send out to all of my clients. And this next version written since, What has and hasn’t changed since Dear White Boss, published in Sept 2020. And so much more…
Let’s keep trading resources. I’ve read White Fragility and listened to several of Robin DiAngelo’s talks but haven’t watched Black Wall Street yet. Thanks for the recommendation. I want to read The Black Tax, which was recently recommended to me by another client. Their entire org read it and said it was powerful. I also embarked on a project interviewing black professionals about their experiences of race and racism in corporate America. It has been eye-opening and profound to talk to people about race and it’s rocked my world. At some point, once I have collected the themes and my thoughts/feelings, I plan to write a paper on what I learned. Thinking of calling it “Racism for Dummies; one white ladies’ journey to better understand race and racism across corporate America.” Or something like that. My intent is to help educate other white people to take the burden off the shoulders of black people to always be the educators….like you talked about with your close colleagues.
I’ve learned SO much this year. It has changed my life and my level of commitment to equity.
Talk soon!
Mitch
Mitch Shepard
CEO | Chief Truth Teller
