Monday's Opening Thought: January 24, 2022

This week’s opening thought, for Black folx and folx of color leading active anti-racism and equity work in organizations: for the sake of your mental, emotional, and physical health, you must fight the nagging internal and external pushes for urgency placed upon you.

Fight the calls for urgency from your white-centered senior leadership teams who want you to “quick fix” racism, exclusion, and inequity. Fight the calls for urgency in yourself as those around you and the society we live in make you feel like you are failing or not working hard enough because dismantling white supremacy “isn’t happening quick enough.” You are one person. Give yourself some grace. It’s going to take centuries to dismantle the centuries of oppressive mindsets and oppressive systems with foundations built on the original sins of whiteness on unceded land. It’s taken at least two centuries to get us to where we are now, where we have rights and opportunities that we have to fight to keep constantly. Just because whiteness wants their systems of racism and white supremacy (and the benefits said systems provide) to exist but for you to not “force” them to change themselves or sit with discomfort doesn’t mean it’s your job to give them that.

Our ancestors fought for us to get to this moment. We owe it to them, ourselves, and future generations to not carry the weight of dismantling white people’s ideology of classification and oppression by ourselves. We owe it to our ancestors, ourselves, and future generations to lead by example, establishing boundaries to ensure that this heavy work does not overtake our hearts, minds, and souls and sap us of joy. We owe it to our ancestors, ourselves, and future generations to not allow sink into the frantic urgency of white U.S. Americans who expect the people their systems have oppressed to alleviate their discomfort and “fix the problem.”

Breathe. You have time. It may not always feel like you do, but you have time. Our ancestors understood the urgency of the moment they were in yet realized change would not happen overnight or even in their lifetimes. So they took time to live and thrive as they could in the face of hate. You deserve that same time. You deserve mental and emotional peace. You deserve the time to live, to love, to embrace joy. We all do. Do not let these white systems and fearful white supremacists deprive you of this.

Breathe. You have time. 

On Acronyms, Action, and Schoolhouse Rock

(Not so) hot take: legitimate equity and inclusion an acronym or committee does not make.

All of the BJEDI, JEDI, IDEA, DEI, EDI, and other assorted acronyms you can come up with will not replace action and initiatives that gradually build stronger and more sustainable workplace cultures. Acronyms don't matter if you aren't putting in the work. Acronyms are just words. Those words are nouns until you make them verbs and just verbs until you decide to put in the hard work that makes them action verbs.

Schoolhouse Rock taught a whole generation that but you wouldn’t know it by lookin’ at that generation running victory laps with their acronyms and committees.

On Popping Champagne, "Firsts", and Clout Chasing

Image Description: A small group of people are popping a bottle of champagne. The champagne is flowing out of the bottle, frothing. The people are laughing and all share gleeful expressions. The group is all white except for one token Black woman.

If your company, organization, or institution is 60+ years old and you’re popping champagne and celebrating having “firsts” - first female Vice President, first Black Executive Director, first trans Department Lead, first Black female CEO - and these “firsts” are being brought into your company, organization, or institution without support systems and co-conspirators to make transformational and sustainable culture change happen you aren’t “progressive” or “focused on equity and inclusion.”

You’re a tokenizer and clout chaser.

Hope you’re enjoying that champagne, though. I hear the bubbles can tickle your nose, so keep an eye out for that.