We write weekly on the issues that are top of mind for us as we do the work of driving equity, shifting culture and co-creating inclusion with our clients. To receive these posts via email, join our free weekly email series, Self-coaching for DEI advocates and leaders.
We often hear about the damaging impact of silence from staff more deeply impacted by systems of oppression within our client organizations. Silence equates to lip service, failed allyship, cowardice, lack of engagement, lack of caring, lack of commitment, lack of safety, leaving the burden of the work to those less aligned with power and more.
Read MoreSummer vacation already seems like a far away dream, but having gone into August with the intention of vacationing differently, I wanted to make sure I reported back before it receded into the distance altogether.
Read MoreA pattern that we often see with our client organizations is where those more proximate to institutional power seem to “personalize” feedback from those less proximate to power. This is a form of defensiveness where feedback from staff, usually given in good faith and not meant as an attack, although often not with frustration, pain and anger, is experienced by leadership as a personal attack.
Read MoreIt is interesting to me how defensiveness functions in an environment where the goal is to shift towards equity and inclusion. Defensiveness is a natural and human reaction, but it often functions in the exact opposite way than we intend and would like.
Perhaps within a hierarchical environment, defensiveness helps us maintain power by shutting down feedback or criticism that feels like an attack. We maintain credibility and trust by being able to shoot down other perspectives, thus proving ourselves to be “right.” In academia, you are expected to literally defend your thesis. It’s a pretty standard format in debate, courts of law, art school critiques and… well, pretty much everything.
Read MoreEvery year at Co-Creating Inclusion, we take the month of August as a break from external meetings and facilitation in order to prioritize our own strategic planning, professional development and self-care. We do the same for the last week of every month (February, April, June, October and December). We also tried to hold Wednesdays and Fridays from 9am-2pm EDT as “slack and meeting free time” although we do make exceptions when needed.
Read MoreLeaders are often “visionaries” and “change makers” by definition. They have a vision for something that is different than currently exists, and they have the drive to make that vision a reality.
Not every leader is suited to driving change towards equity and inclusion however.
Read MoreI have not historically considered myself to be a particularly anxious person. Have I always carried fear with me in ways I may not even have realized at the time? Absolutely.
But I’ve fought the socialization and expectation to stay small and quiet. Perhaps it’s the extrovert/external processor in me but the impetus to speak, and to speak the truth, has been strong.
These past few years in the pandemic, though, seem to have brought out an anxiety in me that feels superimposed and unwelcome, and I know I’m not the only one.
Read MoreRage.
Rage for me is a sense of helplessness, of banging my head against a wall, of having arguments in my head with people who are not present.
Rage for me is a kind of insanity internalized from living in a deranged world.
Rage often comes from the kind of systemic gaslighting, the hypocrisy and audacity of trying to pretend that being anti-abortion is about being pro-life. That it is about babies, or some kind of religious or moral high ground, when clearly it is not.
Read MoreMany of us, especially those who are “professionally” successful, have been trained to be perfectionists, over-achievers, and fixers.
If there is a problem, our immediate reaction is to ask - how do we fix this?
We see this all the time when we do DEI and culture work with organizations. At the end of our initial discovery phase we present our findings, and the desire to react with solutions, actions, next steps, and a resolution is so deeply engrained, it creates a palpable kind of fix-it itchiness in the room.
Read MoreA question that often comes up, especially from our non-profit clients, is on how to retain valuable BIPOC employees so they don’t leave for better paying opportunities elsewhere.
While race and class are not necessarily inextricably intertwined, the history in this country means that a huge racial wealth gap continues to be pervasive, and BIPOC folks, particularly Black people, face inter-generational systemic marginalization that means they are least likely to be able to afford being under-compensated.
What is an organization to do, particular a non-profit where funds might be tight all round?
Read MoreIn our work at CCI, we hear a lot from organizations who are very earnestly and firmly committed to DEI and racial justice as a concept but are lacking the commitment to it as a practice.
As with any decision, committing to it is only the first step. In fact, it shouldn’t even really be the first step if you don’t actually have any idea what you are committed to DOING.
Read MoreIn 1705, a Virginia law was passed requiring masters to provide white male servants whose indentured time was up with 50 acres of land, 30 shillings,10 bushels of corn and a musket.
Whose land were they given? Why was a musket deemed a necessary part of the deal?
Read MoreAbortion rights under attack, a formula shortage, covid rates rising again with almost 1 million dead in the US, and this past weekend, another deadly racist massacre by a white supremacist domestic terrorist... all differing outcomes of similar systemic root causes. Knowing it's the system working exactly as designed doesn't make it hit any less hard though.
I’ve been catching up with Brene Brown podcast episodes from the past few months and one thing she keeps saying is “people are not ok.” I appreciate that framing. I don’t think I’m any more or less ok than anyone else. Which is to say that I’m more ok than some and less ok than others.
I think that collectively we are not ok.
Read MoreThe messy middle is… messy.
And it’s uncomfortable.
We’re generally not used to letting things sit unresolved. We are socialized to fix things. We are rewarded for fixing things. But sometimes, rushing in to fix things doesn’t actually fix things. Sometimes it is when we are in urgency or scarcity that we cause the most harm.
Read MoreI’ve had this blog post brewing in my head for a while, since before I read Ijeoma Oluo’s piece “We have the right to not be annoyed” where this passage hit home:
Y’all (the white people out of pocket in my comments and DMs) keep thinking that this is all for you.
The books, the talks, the work - all of it is for you. You are sure that I and others who write and speak on race wake up every day and think, “how can I help white people today?” I’m not being facetious. You really do view us, in our anti-racist work and in our very existence, as “the help.”
Oooof, yeah this hit home.
Read MoreA friend shared some wisdom a coach had shared with her once - some wounds are not ours to heal.
This stuck with me because for the longest time, I thought ALL wounds were mine to heal.
I’ve become very conscious of how women of color, and especially Black women, are socialized to taken on everyone’s emotional burdens and healing except our own, when really the only wounds that are ours to heal are our own.
Read MoreTrauma is everywhere, both “big T” and “little t” trauma, much of which has been exacerbated these past two years of a global pandemic.
I do believe some of the shifts have also created opportunities for healing. In my experience, the exacerbation of certain trauma means that we have been forced to confront and address it rather than continuing to white knuckle our way through it.
And yet there is still so much unhealed trauma, and new trauma layered daily at the systemic, institutional, interpersonal as well as internalized level.
Part of the work of diversity, equity and inclusion is to heal ourselves so that in our trauma, we are not causing further harm to ourselves or others.
Read MoreWe know that feedback can be hard to hear.
It is perhaps one of the hardest things we ask leaders and others who align with power and privilege within their identities and their organizations to do when we do DEI work.
However, it’s the organizations that can work through the tough process of hearing difficult feedback that often make the most progress in shifting workplace culture to better serve their mission. We do a lot of scaffolding so leaders understand that feedback is a gift, even if you don’t like the wrapping paper, that it isn’t personal, that systems of oppression, although they manifest differently, show up in every organization, and that in order to change something, you first have to be able to name it.
Read MoreWhite people self-righteously declaring that “violence is never the answer” is… not a good look. The utter hypocrisy when white culture and white American culture was FOUNDED on violence is entirely predictable yet exhausting just the same. The ENTIRE PREMISE of whiteness is violence. Whiteness was created explicitly and purposefully to justify and perpetuate violence.
So yeah.
Read MoreOf all the pieces I’ve read about Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings, this article by Elie Mystal hit particularly hard: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Long Pause Explained Racism and Sexism in America.
The article nails so much, from describing Ted Cruz as “the office manager who never learned how to use PowerPoint” to “the small-minded and condescending white people arrayed against her” on the Senate Judiciary Committee and the experience of watching her being put through “crucible of white approval.”
Oooof.
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