S2, Ep 10: Turning the Fire Inward, Part 2 for DEI Professionals

SEASON 2, EPISODE 10

Turning the Fire Inward, Part 2 for DEI Professionals

[INTRODUCTION] 

[0:00:01] JSS: Hey, everybody. This is Joanna Shoffner Scott. You are listening to the Race in the Workplace podcast, a show for DEI organizational leaders that explores race, racism, and racial equity in the workplace. I am a racial equity consultant and founder of the Stamey Street Consulting Group, a consulting firm that specializes in partnering with organizations to help them meet their racial equity aspirations. My goal for you is to move your organization from being colorblind to equity-centered through sustainable, step-by-step changes. 

[EPISODE]

[0:00:38] JSS: Hi, it's Joanna Shoffner Scott here. I am so excited to be with you today. Thank you for allowing me to join you in your day, no matter when you're listening. This week's episode is an encouragement to those who do DEI work, regardless of title. I'd like to encourage you not to turn our passion and fire for racial justice inward in ways that burn up our industry. DEI is a relatively new field and is facing many challenges, both within our field and politically. 

I'm calling this episode, Turning the Fire Inward, Part Two. It's for folks who do DEI work because I think that there's a moment happening in our field. We can either turn our passion for racial justice toward white supremacy and lock into disrupting it in all of its forms and every type of organization everywhere it is, or we can turn that fire in on ourselves as a field and unleash that passion, that fire toward our own. What are people going to do? I don't know, but I'd to share a little bit of what I see and, ultimately, what I hope for. Let's get into it. 

I want to start by unpacking the pressure that we're under right now and that is a historical moment. I believe we're in a historical moment. That moment, or this moment rather, has our field under a pretty significant amount of pressure. There is a campaign underway to strip DEI out of higher education institutions. Legislatively, it started in Florida, but model legislation is slowly working its way around the country. 

In season two, episode eight, called Turning the Fire Inward, Part One - For Progressives, I discussed a philanthropic pullback from supporting DEI. In that episode, I talked about the struggles of progressive organizations due to their own internal race and generational dynamics and how they struggle to meet their current moment, this moment of white rage. Honestly, when I think about even using that language, I'm reminded of Carol Anderson's book entitled, White Rage. I'll link to it in the show notes. 

I'm recording this episode just one day after the Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action. All of this in my own thinking is swirling, but it certainly feels like there is an unraveling of systemic ways to address institutional harm. Our field is needed more now than — I don't want to say an ever before and be dramatic, but certainly, our field is needed for sure. 

All right. Let's talk about another challenge. Retrenchment, structural challenges, layoffs inside organizations. According to the article, Demand for Chief Diversity Officers is High. So is turn Over from the Wall Street Journal. The author writes, “The chief DEI officer role often has the smallest departments. They're often the least resource from a budget and staffing perspective. Yet, they're responsible for both influencing and creating wholesale systemic change.” The other thing the article notes is that 63% of diversity chiefs at S&P 500 companies have been in their roles less than three years. 

These are relatively new roles, but they're responsible for managing or leading large-scale change and are often the least resourced. Many of these roles have been cut since exploding in 2020. We're dealing with organizations who many of us may work in or contract with, whether there's a pullback in commitment and time and effort, resources, all that's happening too. 

I want to lift up an internal pressure. How we use others' work, particularly Tema Okun’s work on White Supremacy Culture. I have used Okun’s work naming white supremacy culture in organizations for years. So, for folks who may not be familiar, I'll link to it in the show notes, but in short, it was a list of the characteristics of white supremacy culture and how they're reflected in organizations. Recently, I was on LinkedIn in an article about white supremacy culture and Okun’s work popped up in my feed. Curious, I went to the article. I read it. I thought, “Okay, this is a solid critique.” I did a bit more searching and found, wow, there is quite a bit of critique. Some of it felt really personal, just my observation. 

Perhaps the intensity of people's feelings about Okun’s work is connected to their experiences of her work and how racialized dynamics play out in organizations. I don't know, but it's a curiosity that I hold. Once I discovered the critiques, I went digging even more, and I listened to a podcast she was on to hear her perspective. I'll link to it in the show notes. I read more articles and remain in this place of curiosity. 

I want to be really clear. I've seen Okun’s work weaponized for sure. I've seen white staff weaponize it. I've seen Black staff weaponize it. I've seen people who identify as people of color weaponize it. I've seen Okun’s work weaponized against white leaders, I've seen Okun’s work weaponized against leaders of color. I've seen her work weaponized against Black leaders, particularly Black women. Is any of that, okay? No, absolutely not. I've seen leaders absolutely devastated and tied up in knots around being accused of maintaining and perpetuating white supremacy culture in the organizations they lead, especially if they are newly hired in the ED role, using non-profits as an example. It's a hurtful accusation. 

Because I'm a systems consultant, my focus is on policies, practices, and protocols. The how and where equity lives inside organizations and the surrounding culture. When I've seen that happen, I want to encourage us not to blame Okun’s work but rather to explore what's underneath the weaponization of it. Let's name the system causing the pain, and I would guess what is underneath is powerlessness, which harkens back to the way that many progressive organizations have failed over the years to move beyond naming racism. 

I talked about this explicitly in season two, episode eight of the podcast. Just for context, I'm going to play a little bit of that episode here and I'll meet you on the other side. 

Many progressive organizations tend to be white-led, not always Black, and leaders of color experience these dynamics, too. With big public missions, but inside lives all the isms that run unchecked. When you have that, there's a problem. It's complicated and nuanced, but it's still a problem. What I've found over the years I've been doing the work is that when people feel powerless, disrespected, and excluded from decision-making, it's very difficult to journey toward mission. 

What's the remedy? Let me say that I don't believe any person's work is above critique, including my own, but I do believe and encourage people to use that framework for what it is, but direct the heat of our collective fire for white supremacy, which we're all trying to disrupt. 

Let's direct our fire where it should be, in my opinion, which is directly at white supremacy. I can't say that anymore strongly. Thus, we're all trying to pull that down. We're all trying to disrupt that. We're all trying to dismantle it. Let's direct our fire there.

I got this wonderful advice from a pastor in my church before I went to graduate school. Yeah, I was so nervous about graduate school, because I was so worried that it was going to change the person that I am at my core.  My pastor said, “Joanna, you're going to hear many different things that may challenge what you believe.” He said, “Treat it like you do eating fish. You eat the fish. You toss the bones.” At my big age now, I would add interrogate all of the things and keep what's true and toss what it isn't. 

Pivoting a little bit away from Okun's work, specifically and along a similar vein, there have been so many recent articles critical of DEI. Again, no one's approach or no one's work is above critique, including the critiques. Are there problematic elements of our industry? Yes. Should those be rooted out? Yes. Has it been commodified and in some cases commercialized? Yes. Are some of us influencers and not really about the business of organizational transformation? Yes. 

I'm not one to gatekeep, just to be clear. But my question is, even in that context, does tearing down the field move us closer to disrupting white supremacy? Yes or no? I don't know.  If you have 40 consultants, chances are you'll have 40 different frameworks. That's how saturated our industry is. For me though, it's not about tearing down someone else's framework, rather it's asking myself and my prospective clients, is my framework for this particular client going to get them where they need to be in the next stage of their journey? That's what I care about. 

I want to pivot a little bit from pressure and the pressures that I just talked about, which included political pressure, structural challenges, retrenchment, and then internally how we use each other's work, particularly at Tema Okun's work. I now want to talk about the role DEI plays in the workplace. As I noticed in season two, episode eight, DEI serves an important function inside institutions. Those who hate equity know that. 

I want all of us, or rather my hope, is for all of us who do this work to not turn on the field itself, but rather stay focused on what our shared goal is, which is the disruption of white supremacy, and the way it lives in institutions, and oppresses in institutions, and demoralizes in institutions, and minimizes in institutions, and stifles voice in institutions, not just by race, but by gender, by age, by ability, by size, by name the isms, name the differences in identity in the way people show up at work. Because what that tells me is that just because we take away the function doesn't change the oppression that occurs in institutions. In fact, I would say, the opposite is true. 

One of my favorite quotes is by Victor Ray, who writes that organizations are not race-neutral. They are a microcosm of the society that we live in. I think that's so true, and it's more true, at least for me, every day. This is why our work matters so much, in my opinion. Also, why it's being targeted. 

This is a podcast that always focuses on the practical. I want to leave you with two thoughts. If you're writing an article, I want you to take a minute and look at who is your target? Is it the field or is it a white supremacy? So many of us right now are sounding the alarm, because there are fires all around. I want to encourage all of us to make sure that we're turning our own fire out and not scorching our own field. 

This podcast has been on my heart and in my mind for a really long time. I feel so strongly about the work that we do as DEI practitioners. I felt it necessary to make this episode and to encourage all of us to continue to turn our fire toward the disruption and the dismantling of white supremacy. Take the best of care, until next time.

[OUTRO]

[0:14:16] JSS: That's this week's episode of Race in the Workplace. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast, and share it with a friend who may be a DEI professional who can use these strategies in their work. My hope for the podcast is that it reaches every person who needs it. Until next time, take care

[END]