Part of learning how to talk about race in the workplace is unlearning what you may have been taught and realising which workplace practices you may have come to accept as normal.
In recent days, employees working in media and retail have called out the status quo of racism happening within their own institutions while these same companies are championing Black Lives Matter on social media.
Itâs time to interrogate how your own thinking could contribute toward making your colleagues of colour feel unwelcome. You may have internalised common lies about workplace diversity regarding race that you need to know are not true.
1. The enduring meritocracy myth
One enduring harmful belief about career advancement is that if Black, Indigenous and other people of colour just work hard enough, they will have the same career outcomes in the workplace as their white counterparts.
But dismal stats about the representation of people of colour in professions and in senior management show this isnât true. There are only four Black CEOs in the Fortune 500, and only 8% of Black professionals hold white-collar jobs. Among employed adults with a bachelorâs degree or higher, Black workers represent just 7% and Latinx workers are only 6% of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce, according to the Pew Research Center.
For the few people of colour who do get hired in fields where they are the minority, they may also face the assumption that they hold a racial advantage.
âThe thing that becomes most toxic is when white people assume that African Americans and other people of colour are somehow at an advantage in fields in which theyâre pretty much excluded,â said Pamela Newkirk, a journalist and author of âDiversity, Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business.â
âThere is this underlying assumption that if you are white, youâre there due to merit, or if youâre Black or of colour, you got your job because of your race, which is ludicrous, but that is a perception that is prevalent among many whites,â Newkirk said. Newkirk has experienced this perception herself in a newsroom where she was the only Black staffer and was told that the only reason she got the job was because she was Black.
Far from being an advantage, being the only one of your racial identity group comes with its own psychological burden. Fifty percent of Black women reported feeling especially on guard and closely watched when they were the only woman and only person of their race in the room at work, according to a 2019 LeanIn.Org and McKinsey report.
2. The Race Card
âThe only race card that has ever been institutionalized in our country is white supremacy.â
When co-workers say their colleagues are âplaying the race cardâ or âbeing divisiveâ by calling out workplace discrimination and mistreatment due to race, they are minimising lived experiences.
âThe only race card that has ever been institutionalised in our country is white supremacy,â said Crystal Fleming, associate professor of sociology and Africana studies at Stony Brook University and author of âHow to Be Less Stupid About Race: On Racism, White Supremacy and the Racial Divide.â Fleming said that white supremacist racism is giving privileges, advantages and resources to people on the basis of them being socially defined as white.
âEven the term âplaying a cardâ â this is a way of minimising the massive harm of racism,â Fleming said. âAnyone that has actually been systemically or structurally targeted by racism knows itâs not a game; itâs a matter of life or death, itâs a matter of having access to resources or not.â
Invalidating co-workersâ lived experiences with race can be done out of defensiveness. One common characteristic of how white supremacy shows up in organisations is through defensiveness, according to âDismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups,â by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun. âCriticism of those with power is viewed as threatening and inappropriate (or rude),â they write.
Antidotes to this criticism mean that you need to work on naming defensiveness in yourself to understand âthe link between defensiveness and fear (of losing power, losing face, losing comfort, losing privilege),â Jones and Okun write.
3. The Post-Race Myth
âOnce you admit that there is inequality and bias, then the onus is on you to do what you can to combat it.â
In conversations with co-workers, you may hear that âracism is dying outâ or that âwe are a post-race society,â a phrase that was often repeated after the election of Barack Obama as the nationâs first Black president.
But race has always played a role in our society, including the workplace. âWe werenât a post-race society before Obama, during his administration or after. Weâve never been a post-race society because weâve always had these perverse disparities that weâve allowed to continue,â Newkirk said.
When you say you think your workplace doesnât see race, you are also saying that you choose to ignore workplace racial inequalities that could be taking place within your meetings, between your teams and in your boardroom.
âOnce you admit that there is inequality and bias, then the onus is on you to do what you can to combat it,â Newkirk said about the post-racial beliefs. âItâs easier to say it doesnât exist, and thatâs a way of ensuring the status quo, protecting the status quo.â
4. The Belief That âEveryone Is Diverseâ
Fleming said this âeveryone is diverseâ language falls under the âall lives matterâ framing of diversity.
âPart of what happens with diversity and inclusion language is that it gets co-opted by institutions and corporations and universities in ways that avoid addressing systemic racism and inequality and discriminatory practices within our institutions,â Fleming said.
5. The Belief That Promoting Racial Diversity Ends Once You Hire Someone Or Take A Workshop
Improving racial diversity does not end once you hire diverse talent. Itâs also about fostering an environment that they want to stay and grow in.
Minda Harts, founder of The Memo LLC, a career development company for women of colour, noted that a lot of Black employees leave because they lack the opportunities to advance.
âI think a lot of companies focus on the pipeline. They say, âWe gotta get them in the pipeline,â but actually thereâs a lot of talented Black employees that are not being retained,â Harts said.
Harts recommended that companies identify the Black talent they already have within their company within the next 60 to 90 days and ask themselves, âWhat are the succession plans to make sure that theyâre advancing up the ladder?â
The work also doesnât end when you take a workshop on racial biases or diversity. Fleming said one of the major misconceptions about diversity is that itâs a box you can check off after you attend a workshop or a training session.
âIt allows organisations and institutions to avoid structural change because if you just tell people that all you need to do is this workshop and problem solved, then you donât have to take a hard look at who is excluded from the C-suite, what is the pay gap between people who are white and people who are Black, and people of colour, or also gender pay disparities,â Fleming said.
Looking beyond racial diversity in hiring also means critically interrogating the relationship between your company and communities of colour. There can be a disconnect between the progressive words projected by brands and the way their businesses operate.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, for example, recently kneeled with staff in the pose that former quarterback Colin Kaepernick popularized to call out police brutality against Black people, but in 2017, JPMorgan Chase paid $55 million to settle a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit accusing it of discriminating against Black and Latinx borrowers.
âThe solution is not to just diversify hiring, you also have to look at the politics of whatever is occurring within the organisation,â Fleming said. âWe have to be serious about not letting our institutions get away with statements that are superficial and that donât go to the root of problematic and harmful practices.â