WERE Conversation for Equity: Dr. Yohuru Williams, University of St. Thomas

[Music] let me just welcome everyone who's tuning in today to our spring we conversation for Equity we're excited to bring folks together from across our Coalition for today's conversation I'm Charline um I'm the executive director of Washington employers for racial equity and I just wanted to talk a little bit about you know Center around our principles and and why we're here and sort of frame the conversation the Coalition we was formed in 2020 centered around seven key commitments um to progress that private employers believe they can impact and influence to close Equity gaps in their workforces the commitment to goals for 2030 state that member organizations will actively pursue fostering inclusive workplace cultures employe workplaces reflect the communities they operate in achieve racial pay parity increase black individual representation and management and Senior leadership positions increase internships and work embedded learning experiences for black students increase Supplier Diversity and investments in blackowned businesses and increased advancing racial equity in workplaces and within communities in this session we are choosing to discuss and clarify what diversity equity and inclusion means and how it relates to the moment we are in as we work to progress equity for people who are marginalized diversity equity and inclusion are the descriptors used in organizations to identify processes strategies and actions management may take in the interest in cultivating a varied Workforce Dei done well means that the work of inclusion and Equity applies to all groups who are often marginalized this could be by racial group and it could also be by gender sexual orientation ability or neurod Divergence in any number of states protected by EEOC laws so let's unpack diversity equity and inclusion a little more Dei means awareness of how we communicate with one another cross cultures that support equal treatment and opportunities Dei can help us learn the skills of cultivating inclusion in work teams and workplace settings Dei can also help us understand the systems that work against inclusion and belonging that contribute to disproportionately negative outcomes for people who've been historically marginalized Dei practices give us a language to engage in the challenging sometimes uncomfortable conversations and change actions needed to root out unfair Legacy practices and that make the future more equal and finally diversity equity and inclusion practices are necessary in order to disrupt static systems and processes needed to innovate and remain competitive in a diversifying world so we're Coalition members believe that all washingtonians should have the same opportunities free of the barriers of racism we believe that the private sector has a vital role to play in creating that lasting change that contributes to making Washington a place known for Vitality inclusion and a globally competitive economic future I am so excited to bring our spring spring guest speaker from the University of St Thomas Dr yaru Williams Dr Williams is a distinguished University chair and professor of history and founding director of the racial Justice initiative at the University of St Thomas he received his PhD from Howard University in 1998 Dr Williams is the author and editor of several books including rethinking the black Freedom Movement they call him jack the story of Jackie Robinson one of my personal favorite individuals and a black freedom fighter and More Than A Dream the radical March on Washington for jobs and freedom Dr Williams has appeared on a variety of local and national television and radio programs his scholarly articles have also appeared in the American Bar association's insights on Law and society and the journal for civil and human rights Dr Williams welcome thank you so much for having me um you know what I wanted to do since we have such a a um short time together and and such an opportunity for an intimate conversation is just give kind of a a broad overview of where I think we are now and share a few slides um and talk about the kind of unique but not so unique position that we find ourselves in In This Moment particularly when there's so much conversation nationally about the push back against the work of diversity equity and inclusion so what I want to do just very briefly is talk about um overcoming or what history can teach us about overcoming racism and I love this political uh Cartoon Charline because um it speaks to another moment when there was tremendous hope about the ability to overcome barriers to equity um and inclusiveness uh another moment when there was hope that we might make real progress in terms of dismanteling systemic racism and that was the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s I love this cartoon because it uh depicts Richard Nixon 1969 um confronting a young African-American girl um and she's carrying a briefcase that reads 15 years since the Supreme Court decision of course that was Brown versus Board of Education and um mocks the Court's uh dictate in that decision that schools should desegregate with all deliberate speed with the president of the United States himself standing in front of a Jim Crow School James Crow School holding a picket sign and this encapsulates in that moment what some people term the backlash against civil rights this uh conversation that was happening about uh fear that was expressed widely um among whites in that moment about the pace of civil rights being too quick too Swift and what that would um ultimately mean for the nation as a whole and so this cartoon cartoon kind of encapsulates that in a way that's very in interesting because I think part of the problem here at least in the way that we talk about our history and certainly the way we Equity is that part of the challenge for Americans is what Americans always want as a tragedy with the happy ending we have a sitcom understanding of our history we want everything wrapped up in 30 minutes or less 24 minutes with commercials and that interrupts the work necessary to do the heavy lift that will be required really to make progress in dismantling systemic racism I take that concept of a tragedy with the happy ending from a NPR program I watched or listened to excuse me about 15 years ago where the host was talking about the differences between Russian literature and American literature and he said whereas the Russians love these long Toms like War and Peace where the hero is poorly rewarded at the end Americans always want this kind of fairy tale um that interrupts our ability to be in the work for the Long Haul I share that because and I love to quote uh James Baldwin really the world changes according to the way people see it and if you can alter even by a millimeter the way people look at reality then you can change it and the work of diversity equity and inclusion is altering the way that people look at and think about Equity work think about the work longterm and its impact the return on investment for um the hard work of dismantling systemic racism and uh structures that continue to promote inequality in our society as a whole and I think it's also important and I love sharing this that sometimes people will make this par or they'll talk about this in terms of being part of a liberal or a woke agenda I always love to quote Sandra de o Conor who in 2017 in Time Magazine talked about um democracy as a practice and I love this because she said the practice of democracy is not transferred through the gene pool it must be taught and learned to new by each generation of citizens I would argue that the two things that are powerful about this is that sandre de o Conor is making the case for Education teaching as opposed opposed to training and a lot of times when we talk about diversity education and inclusion you hear people talk about training the work that I do the work of hisorical recovery is really around education we educate humans we train pets we train animals and so training actually reinforces some of the problematic thinking we associate with implicit bias um those reactions that we make that are really on autopilot of the things that you know our brain automatically does that often get us into trouble because they you know resort to this kind of lazy thinking as opposed to active processing about how to create Equitable structures or to make real change in those environments where we have influence um I also love this because I'm someone who's had uh three heart procedures in the last five years and so I love that sandre de o Conor talks about the practice practice of democracy I love to tell my first year law students law is a practice um and medicine is a practice because if it wasn't I would have only had one heart procedure in the last five years and and I like that only because it emphasizes that this is something that we have to work at every day we don't achieve the work of overcoming racism we do the work we practice it every day and every every moment um and every facet of uh the way that we think about a host of issues that impact communities of color but the larger society as well so having said that I want to focus on why I spend so much time talking about historical recovery in my work and and I want to do that I think in a way that's that's interesting by sharing a story shared by Ella Baker the mother of the civil rights movement and Ella Baker I'm in 1969 was talking to a group and she was talking about to work and she said you know I used to go around making speeches and I would open up my talk by saying there was a man who had a health problem and he was finally told by the doctor that could save his sight or save his memory but they couldn't save both they asked which did he want he said save my sight because I'd rather see where I am going than remember where I've been El Baker responded to that but I'm saying as you must say too that in order to see where we're going we must understand where we've been so that history becomes very important this calls for a great deal of analytical thinking and evaluation of methods that have been used I love to tell um the organizations that I work with that history doesn't repeat itself at Echoes and those Echoes are indictments when we look back and realize that we've confronted these issues before we've come up with similar Solutions and often the um obstacles that derail the work are frighteningly familiar and I'll give you an example of that in just a second but to conclude Ella Baker says we have to begin to think in terms of where do we really want to go and how can we get there in terms of that I that concept of of um history echoing um part of this is rooted in this historical Amnesia historical Amnesia that then winds up in things like Martin Luther King's birthday being the occasion for um you know sales when Dr King spent so much time talking about equity and Justice and fair wages and so on and so forth and so that's one example or one manifestation of that um historical Amnesia but the other is this um and it is this reduction of the Civil Rights Movement to these kind of simplistic uh and problem atic um condensations of the thinking of people like Dr Martin Luther King or an Ella Baker or a poly Murray or host of other people who are making the case that at the core Civil Rights was always about inclusivity but in very very broad terms including elements of economic Justice which make people uncomfortable I want to be very clear what I mean by that because Isabelle Wilkerson talks about this in her book cast and it connects in powerful ways to what you see in these two cartoons this push back now nationally against the teaching of African-American history um you see that in in terms of this cartoon on the left and then as I mentioned earlier this kind of oversimplification of the ideas of the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King and what happens when we don't teach our history honestly and all of its complexity when we don't confront on the ugly warts that we associate with our history when we take the thinking of Dr King and and um that I Have a Dream speech and reduce it to a meme we end up doing exactly what Isabelle Wilkerson suggests in cast and she she writes about it in this way she says America is an old house we can never declare the work over wind flood drought and human upheavals batter a structure that is already fighting whatever flaws were left unattended in the original Foundation I love that because we often talk about slavery as America's original sin well baked into um this great and hopeful Enterprise of American democracy is this contradiction which Edmond Morgan talks about as the contradiction between American slavery and American Freedom we often don't frame it in this way but one of the reasons that Jefferson is able to wax so eloquently about the meaning of freedom is every day he could look out the back door of his Plantation and see what unfreedom looked like so there's this dependent relationship that we have to understand that influences the way that we think about the American Experience Wilkerson goes one step further she says when you live in an old's house you may not want to go down into the basement after a storm to see what the Reigns have brought choose not to look however at your own Peril the owner of an old house knows that whatever you're ignoring will never go away whatever is lurking will Fester whether you choose to look or not ignorance is no protection from the consequences of an action whatever you're wishing will will go away will notw at you until you gather the courage um to face it um uh and and to actually see it to face what you would rather not see it's been a few minutes talking about Wilkerson because when we read that or when we think about that it really in a way animates our contemporary moment and I want to share this report from April 26 this article that came out in the Star Tribune April 26 needed are more diversity trainings that's today obviously April 26 Friday April needed are more diversity trainings better communication and perhaps policy changes the company's growth depends on creativity of 3M employees increasing numbers of whom will be people of color its creative environment must draw strength from diversity it's a future like that if its future like that of Minneapolis may be at stake So it's talking about Minnesota the problem my friends is that this is April 26 but it's April 26 1993 in the aftermath of another moment another one of the turning points in US history and that was the verdict in the case of the officers that beat motorist Rodney King and in that moment we were having very similar conversations to the conversations that that came in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in fact I want to read a little bit more from this article from 1993 April 26 1993 that helps to make my point about how not understanding that history not going into the basement not confronting it in a meaningful way looking for that tragedy with a happy ending becomes an indictment this is what they wrote um in 1993 Minneapolis must work harder to become racism free um the 1993 version of anti-racism the alternative is the perpetuation of disparity and Injustice the alternative Also may consist of a poor economy an underutilized Workforce more poverty related crime wasted Financial Resources adverse environmental impact and increased hopelessness and violence in other words greater Minneapolis could become more like problem plagued urban areas elsewhere the warning has been given before but deserves to be heard again again that's 1993 I would suggest sherline and I could write this up tomorrow and publish this in the New York Times and people would argue that we had our fingers on the pulse of the nation in this moment when in fact all we would be doing is talking about the historical Echoes and again this is damning as an indictment but it also invites us to think about what went wrong in that moment and why do we continue to find ourselves in this Loop in terms of of taking on um these issues I also want to mention in relation to this that in that moment there was also conversation about the backlash against anti-racism in that moment which in that moment rather than anti-racism we called multiculturalism so instead of bipo the the the the byword of that moment was multiculturalism there's always one and we can put our finger on it but but I also want to be clear that in that moment in 1993 people were very conscious of this being a response to the beating of Rodney King and I think Dr King speaks to that in a way that I want to share with you today because I also want to play with these historical Echoes by going back to St Paul Minnesota Dr King speaking on April 27th 1967 so we're we're in same this is what Dr King said I think you'll find this interesting I'm going to play about a minute of this victories did very little to penetrate the lower depths of negro deprivation and so this is where we are today moving to a new phase of the struggle and it is a much more difficult phase over last 12 years we were working mainly to end legal segregation we were working mainly to establish decency many people rose up with glowing commitment and supported us all over the nation as we sought to do this I'm convinced that the vast majority of people who supported us in an Alabama or Mississippi were really more opposed to Bull Conor or to the extremist behavior of a Jim Clark in Selma than they were for genuine equality and justice I wanted to share that with you because I think if we alter Dr King's words just a little bit I would argue that in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd it appears in this moment as in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Fair versus Howard as in the wake of efforts by um Governors and legislatur across the country to end or interrupt or hamper the work of diversity equity and inclusion that more people were as Dr King put it talking about in that moment um Bull Connor who sick the the dogs and put the fire hoses on those young people in Birmingham more people were disturbed by and interested in address adding the issue of Derek schin and the violence visited on George Floyd's body then they were committed to the long-term work of dismantling structures of inequality and our broader society and our community and our corporate environments and that's the rub that we find ourselves in in our contemporary moment why this backlash is gaining such momentum and why so many people are looking for the exit ramp without naming that they're looking for the exit ramp and saying well it's the Supreme Court's decision or we can't continue to do this work or that this is is this is always um and this is a continuation of that Echo that I talked about a few minutes ago it also brings us to confront something that you see consistently in African-American literature and black literature um and themes in black history Lorraine hansbury named it in her uh Play A Raisin in the Sun where she has a SGI um uh say to uh one of the main characters Bonita then isn't there something wrong in a house in a world where all dreams good or bad must depend on the death of a man we find ourselves in a moment again and I'm saying this to you as there's been another um uh brutal killing of an African-American suspect uh by police in Canton Ohio that here we go again what are we waiting for the next George Floyd moment for the next Rodney King moment for the ne that's not sustainable and yet that's been our model in terms of tackling these issues issues that have real consequences and that produce real harm for communities of color that become matters of um you know uh political gesturing but in fact as you look at this political cartoon are impacting communities in ways that are that are deeply tangible I focus primarily on the African-American history African-American experience today with the purpose but I could also talk about this in terms of indigenous people Native Americans which of course washingtonians understand um to be as equally pressing and as equally powerful when we think think about these Echoes a group of people who have been dealing with these disparities these inequalities who are suffering from them in ways that uh slogan like I can't breathe captures it not just for criminal justice but for health care for housing for education and those who can't see or find Opportunities to kind of re re um uh return to this ignorance right not going into the basement or saying we can't confront those things and that's a big part of the problem just want to continue for another 3 minutes talking about that 1993 article and ironically when I say history echoes in that moment the global concern was over Bosnia and I just point to you this political cartoon that was published in adjacent to the article on diversity equity and inclusion no but if you wait 40 years we'll build you a nice Holocaust Museum where we can all feel guilty for not doing something at the time and then in the article that I was sharing with you earlier on diversity what's new is a report from the Minneapolis initiative Against Racism an effort begun last year in city government but now involving more than 300 people the report is available from the Minneapolis planning department it outlined several dozen possible action steps involving Economic Development efforts the media City and County government human service agencies schools churches and more particularly timely given recent suggestions for a residency requirement for new city employees is a proposal to offer police low interest or no interest loans as an incentive to move into high crime neighborhoods like it's anyway one more here um such things the report says constitute a pattern people of color systemically denied the quality of life promised to all citizens the urban Coalition for Public Policy was formed in the 1960s more recently top business executive signed an open letter to Residents in 1989 this is Echoes mirrors what happened in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd in 1990 the Anti-Defamation League Jewish community relations organized the education and media campaign called the world of difference the Minneapolis Foundation held Retreats for Community leaders and join the urban Coalition and and what came of all that why did all of that fail why did it fall apart want to read one last part of this report to you on the same day that the Minneapolis initiative Against Racism held a community meeting on its report a news story described how 300 a.m survey found a wide difference between white and minority perceptions of how minority workers are treated so it wasn't just external it What was it was what was happening within corporations at that time dealing with and addressing a lot of the issues that mirror what we're seeing in corporate diversity Equity inclusion efforts today interestingly they note here um most white workers thought that minorities were treated fairly a majority of blacks disagreed a third of women employees cited sexual harassment as a problem the survey was a wake-up call that other companies might hear as well if they subjected themselves to the same critical look if they went into the basement if they were honest about the work to be done and weren't looking for that tragedy with the happy ending that quick fix I'm going to conclude with three slides here the the penultimate paragraph of this piece people are tired of reports that don't seem to produce change was the response from Community fortunately corporate and Foundation financial support will continue um they argued in that moment but that idea that people are tired of reports that don't produce change always comes up against the backlash and if we were talking about the 1950s and 1960s that's the word that you saw the backlash the Civil Rights Nina Simone sang about it in a song called Mississippi godamn and and Mr backlash which was the lyrics adapted from a Langston Hughes poem about this push back uh by whites being made uncomfortable by efforts to make the society live up to the aspirational language of its Founders and to the Democratic principles that animate the way that we think about not only American democracy but corporate fairness and ethical practice and so on and so forth today that's being framed as or or critical race Theory and calling this wokeism and so on and so forth but it's just the backlash if you don't believe me I just want to share with you very quickly that again not only is this not new I love sharing this with Minnesota audiences if anti-racism is something new then explain Hubert Humphrey's pledge for American from 1948 which contains many of the tenants that we would associate with anti-racism today but more importantly put that up against do king talking about the backlash again St Paul Minnesota April 27th 1967 I'm going to play this for you quickly and then Charline and I are going to be involved in conversation but I think you'll find this interesting so for those of you that are practitioners are involved in work of diversity equity and inclusion Dr King is speaking directly to you and kind of helping all of us understand that what we Face In This Moment In terms of the push back against the work is not new um it has historical roots and if I had more time with you today I could go to other moments like this um that would illustrate this point but Dr King will do a good job of encapsulating that for us in this short piece the problem is that we see backlashing all along in civil rights legislation States will pass laws and do nothing to implement them or en force them and put teeth in them the need is for legislation strongly enforced now we have a Civil Rights bill again before Congress one aspect of it deals with Mal administration of justice now everybody knows that we need this in the state of Mississippi alone since 1963 some 48 negro Gros and white civil rights workers have been brutally murdered and not a single person has been convicted for these dastardly crimes and there are still areas where the murder of Negros and white persons of goodwi is a popular Pastime and there need for federal legislation to rectify the jewelry systems and to make these kinds of crimes Federal and go all out to make for adequate and proper administration of justice now the other aspect of this leg now King winds up talking about criminal justice there but I'm hoping that everyone picked up on that first part where he's talking about this push back this backlash so on and so forth which is critical at least in terms of understanding the work that we do and why at this point more than at any point in this struggle we have to dig deep like this isn't a moment for retreat this isn't a moment for watering down this is a moment for kind of looking at these historical Echoes to really then think about how we reimagine the work not to find ourselves in that familiar Echo and again I don't like repeat history doesn't repeat itself at Echoes slightly different but the Echoes are indictments Dr King talked about this in his final book Where Do We Go From Here chaos or Community when he said first the line of progress is never straight for a period of movement may follow a straight line then it encounters obstacles and the path bends it it's like a curving around the mountain when you're approaching a city often it feels as though you're moving backwards and you lose sight of your goal but in fact you're moving ahead and soon you will see the city again Closer by in previous Echoes when those obstacles presented themselves people took that mountain to be immovable and the work stopped and in this moment in particular we can't allow that to be the model we have to continue to push forward we have to understand that the progress that we've made in this work to this point has not been easy but it's certainly not in vain and using that history as a way of thinking concretely about how we move forward we have to understand that the backlash is normal we can't allow that to disrupt the work that really In This Moment the backlash is a clear indication that we're winning that we're succeeding otherwise there'd be no backlash this is what we can learn from his one of the things that we can take away is that that's a good indication that we must be doing something right um we must be working to dismantle those systems otherwise no one would care what we were digging up from our our um our our flooded basement so that's what I wanted to share with you um in general and and I'm excited to be in conversation with sherline about some of the uh broader issues um in our contemporary moment wow I was feverishly taking notes I felt like I was just like back to school so wow um you know I I think my kind of three takeaways from what I heard you um talk about is you know that the black the backlash is not new right there's evidence through the Arc of history that there's these moments of like inflection and reflection and then there's action but there's always the the just as much as there are echoes of these injustices there are echoes of of backlash in in previous attempts so that's not new um the work is still critical and Central for economic and moral and and other uh imperatives right that that's it's it's it resonates to me so fiercely that all of these luminaries who came before us who were pointing at this and shining the light on this um that it's never more critical for us to understand and get the message um and take action on that um and of course we have to continue to invest in ourselves and each other and being able to see we must be able to see and that is something that I think we struggle with people sort of go into what you talked about about this sort of Amnesia moment and people want to act like watching a man get murdered on a camera is something new um it's not new right and we need to be able to see that and and connect the dots across systems um so very very very powerful a big part of your work Charline and something I appreciated about our conversation yesterday and even as you are kind of articulating that I think and and I'd love your perspective on this as as you've encountered it um these efforts to kind of create different language for the same phenomena um in our contemporary moment so it's like it's the same thing it's just a different frame for the push back yes sir and you know and that was why we were as sort of asking I the I I'll bring up the question we asked um last night at dinner and that was okay so is right now different is there a way to actually actually effectively Advance this work and progress this without naming what it is that we're doing here and who it is that we're doing this for um and and I just thought it was really fascinating how everyone around the table from different lived experiences and exposure to this we all unanimously agreed so would you mind recapping for the benefit of the group or yeah sure I mean I thought it was such a great question and I agree with you it was kind of interesting that we got um similar responses from everyone who was at the table um vice president for human resources and diversity Equity inclusion uh officers um and then people who are involved in this work organically in in various ways that we can't be um lukewarm in the work we have to name it and that means making people uncomfortable in ways that um hasn't been productive or some people don't see as productive because they want comfort in this they want they they deeply desire um that tragedy with the happy ending they want to feel like we did something we we checked the Box we did our implicit bias training let's move on um we got this piece of legislation passed or this person elected or we hired for this office and the work exists there and is not shared throughout the organization or throughout the community or throughout the nation whatever it may be and that's always been um the downfall in this work because people see it as kind of being segmented um and not shared across an organization it isn't um deeply embedded or framed as part of mission or critical to the identity of the organization and then I think the other part of it is and we talked a lot about this last night um that desire not to make people uncomfortable um to really kind of frame this work in ways that uh the parties that need to be named right don't want the discomfort of hearing certain Concepts that they feel um challenge their goodness uh often end up putting us in a position where we can't make real progress that they want to um kind of embrace the work at a distance and embrace means checking the box or um and and I love this one too because we saw it in in Minnesota the aftermath of the conviction of dererk chovin the mayor of uh Minneapolis Jacob fry a great person very good person came out and said you know um this murder trial has animated our community for the last 11 months and the jury didn't look away and we convicted the bad guy and so now and two weeks later they cleared George Floyd square and I was like this is mistake like this is the problem we don't need to clear the square we need to focus on the other challenges inequalities disparities that the George Floyd murder exposed it wasn't just about the the the killing of George Floyd it was about all the other things that came together I think uh Charline and one witness who got overlooked in that entire trial and that was um the young girl who worked at the service station across from George Floyd here's a girl who dropped out of school in the 11th grade who is doing a regular work at the um uh G service station across from the cup food and in her testimony she goes you know um in addition to all the problems that people at 38th in Chicago were dealing with it she said the worst of it is when the police come and I'm quoting her she says try not to curse messing with people end quote well she was indicating there are other things that were happening there including the fact that at cup food a box of cereal cost three times what it would cost in the in the the suburbs at cup food um there are there isn't healthy food that are available to the people that live in that community at cup food the police see the people that they are there to Serve and Protect as the enemy I and so the beating of George Floyd is kind of the least of what we need to focus on and yet in that corporate response often what we find people saying is we issued our statement on that and so we've done our good deed and and now we get to push back from the table and that's somebody else's problem when in fact it's shared AC Ross the board um those better decisions that'll be made about policy um about access about how we think about um you know a host of issues that help to contribute to the tragedy of 38th in Chicago are solved in corporate structures in boardrooms um in uh individuals who are are in a sea suite and so corporations don't get to walk away from that work they really have to be part of the process of reimagining absolutely and so I I you know I just wonder about you know when when we have sort of time bound Equity commitments such as those in and we right is it possible to I mean are we what are we missing with this I mean we were like okay for 10 years we're actually really going to be very intentional about learning to see about interrupting those systems about setting forth the process of improving policies to the benefit of you know those inclusion goals um what do you think organizations like the companies who've made these commitments um should be thinking about and are we missing anything from your perspective we're missing a lot and I do not you know I've been pretty adamant about this uh the time bound is a mistake it's a huge mistake um you know just from a historical standpoint it's took us 400 years to find ourselves in this position so the idea that we could dismantle this in 10 years is ambitious at best and 10 years is actually better than what I've seen in some places where they're like you know this is our three-year commitment or our five-year commitment um to tackling disparities and then again looking for the exit ramp along that process and not understanding that these are deeply embedded policies practices and procedures that continue to Echo and reverberate in ways that simple remedial step won't address do one very quickly um the wealth Gap is deep because of uh redlining and residential segregation patterns and and segregation in schools you're not going to undo that in 10 years you're not going to undo that through a process of promotion within um a corporate structure those things help and they certainly shouldn't be avoided but putting a 10-year um stamp on that actually hurts the work because really what it becomes is a search for and a hunt for for false metrics right so then how do we evaluate progress and and and then um how do we think about that in a very limited context of the ticking clock as opposed to the long-term change that we want to see in community for me um if you're going to make an investment for example in K12 education you're talking about a 30-y year not a 10y year if you're going to talk about an investment in structures and community in terms of addressing housing or health disparities you're talking about a 50-year not a 10year you're talking about a Generation Um and that type of approach I think is much more prod productive in what we haven't seen yet we've often seen historically these time limit time limited time bound you know we're going to do this in three years um that's great in terms of rolling out a new line that's not going to undo um in some cases what you're talking about even if we just go back to py versus Ferguson it's not going to do undo more than a century of economic disparity and and and uh racial Injustice which we can name um loved working with my uh Partners over at Delta Dental we talk we're talking about Healthcare disparities shared yesterday um the hospital construction Act of 1946 which created you know we're supposed to place hospitals in areas of high need it placed those hospitals in predominantly white areas reify Jim Crow and so the health outcomes that we see in communities of color today are a direct direct result not only of that policy but an earlier report 1910 the flexer report where there were only seven medical schools that educated black and brown people black doctors um they closed five of those seven schools and only left two so when we talk about a shortage in doctors today of doctors of color African-American doctors in particular the reverberations The Echoes of those policies and practices and procedures continue to reverberate 10 years not going to solve that you're talking about a 50-year a 100-year commitment and then people really making a deep investment by saying we're not just going to talk about this we're going to rethink and rewrite our mission statement so that this is specific to who we are and our identity we're going to rethink Our Community Partnerships so that what we're saying as a community is we are going to take on this Collective lift and our metrics won't be in these three four year increments they'll be longterm um what does our Workforce look like in 20 years we don't get that cartoon that I showed in the very beginning of the young girl with the 15 years since Brown versus Board of Education and people are still litigating whether it was a good decision or not we made the decision we embedded in our in our mission statement our identity now the question is how do we get there absolutely and I I I respect and appreciate as someone who has a background in kind of change management and project management and and in those ways and that it it feels feels sort of like a natural thing to say okay we're going to start with some kind of time frame but as you really start to interrogate what actually needs to be transformed and change it you do get to a place of saying okay there isn't a done right but there are things that we can do to build systems in place to open our eyes to see and to able to spot these things and to use our Collective um emotional and cognitive um muscles to actually start to dismantle some of those systems and and and also being able to recognize that some of the things that we're facing today are essentially consequences of not using those muscles right of not being willing to see of um of in some cases seeing but ignoring on purpose um the things that we are able to see um so I value your um your very candid response um to my question um so you know we talked a lot to CEOs about how they as Leaders Define company cultures I mean that's sort of the essence of how we got started we were talking to CEOs about what can you how can you affect change what can you do and when do you want to do it by and how do we want to measure it right and so big component of the Coalition is around periodically spot checking and doing progress report reports and and being a mirror and reflecting back that that progress that they've that organizations have made um we ask our CEOs to make Unapologetic commitments to protect and to prioritize diversity equity and inclusion what are some specific demonstrations that you from your perspective are seeing um as you are moving about the country that show you that that that there's authentic work that's happening there that there's progress that's being made what gives you hope it's such a great question um charine and I think the the first thing is what I'm seeing here with a a partner like Delta Dental of Washington where four years later they're still doing the work and they're doing the work around education so they're educating their employee base about disparities and thinking about that in relationship to Mission so um it's true also of my partner Delta denel of Minnesota or their um Mantra is Healthy Smiles make healthy communities but if there anyone in our community who doesn't have access to um oral health care then that's contributing to a lack of the thing that we've committed ourselves to I love that so it's so deeply embedded in in terms of who they are and it's also very true of the work here that's continuing in education so it's not you know we gave money to scholarships for this is who we are and this is how we think about what's happening in community and that's the work that we do so I love that I love um and have worked with a couple of corporations that have said and and this is something that I was a big proponent of instead of trying to and I've heard this language used you know CEOs who have shared I feel like trying to tackle tackle racism is like trying to boil the ocean I'm not asking you to boil the ocean what I'm asking you to think about is what is your primary business because racial disparity is death by a Thousand Cuts so worked with a organization that's involved in solid waste management and they were saying CEO said look I gave $5 million to Minneapolis public schools and the test scores didn't go up and so I feel like that investment um was a failure and we're I said wait a minute you're in Solid Waste Management so I want to be clear if you want to be in this work long term that work has to be measurable I respect that sustainable authentic to you who you are and give you the opportunity not and your successors not to walk away there are a host of disparity issues that are directly related to hygiene clean water so make your investment there because you may not think about it in this way but I gave them an ex him an example from the Civil Rights Movement Pest Control huge civil rights issue during the 1950s and 1960s huge in in Washington DC Mary and bar partly gets elected on saying that he's going to deal with the rat problem in Southeast DC um as a civil rights organizer he understood that that was kind of a a bread and butter issue for people in that Community but it was actually a real Health concern for people who are living in southeast Washington DC and that helped to elevate him to power not from the standpoint of politics but I thought what if he had a partner who said you know we can't do it all but one of the ways that we know that we could do this is we're going to offer low cost or we're going to do training or education or investment in this particular area and our metric is going to be we're going to hang our hat on this is the way that we tackle disparity it's authentic authentic to our who we are it's sustainable it doesn't require us to stretch now again I encourage you do more than that but when I think about this in terms of if you could get a partnership of corporate uh bodies that were thinking in ways that they could all contribute in a sustainable and meaningful way to tackling issue of disparity that's meaningful we've got a couple of Partners who've said we we see the sensibility of that and the other thing that I've mentioned a couple times today I think is very important is you got to rewrite your mission statement to me that's the biggest indicator of how committed you are if that then Finds Its way in a meaningful way and and one of the uh corporate entities that I work with but they were already doing this work that I love best bu it's exactly what Corey Barry has done so we we've Rewritten ourmission statement so this is who we are um if we deviate from this then it means that we're not fulfilling our mission I love that because then what it does is it reduces this um push back that you get where people go well this is a woke agenda no Best Buy saying diversity is a strength we need to build diverse um uh talent pool we need to build pipelines we want to encourage um and be able to appeal to diverse audiences we recognize that as a strength and so we're embedding that in a way that we can't run away from it and our board can't run away from it and anything that's happening external to us doesn't get to dictate that you know we're going to move away from that they not saying that organizations like that don't have challenges but at least it makes it something that that um embeds it in a way that's much more firm so I'm a big fan of of of those types of models and approaches those folks that are creative in this moment because we really all if we're being honest have to be very creative in the way that we do this work the push back is real and that suns setting that you and I talked about for a lot of organizations the the time is the running out um and so kind of reimagining the work becomes critical absolutely well and what's interesting to me like more you know this will be my last question I'll ask you and then I I I will just give um folks if they want to drop um questions in the chat please do so at this time and I'll feed those up to Dr Williams before we get to the bottom of the hour um and you know there's the level of the organization that's our CEOs and and they're making these commitments and they're doing the work work to um to adjust their mission statements they're really being sort of ve very front center and vocal about being somewhat un Unapologetic about their commitments to do this work and by and large the majority of our our signatories are so there in consistent with that commitment and I'm excited about that where I think sometimes there's a little bit of a struggle is is at the implementation level and so I hear executive leader below the CEO level bring up all the time about how they are feeling resistance um either coming from their workforces or perhaps coming from other you know external stakeholders and and this is a very confusing and difficult time for them what say you about that implementation level in the organization um how do we move from CEO Vision um to the execution and implementation within organizations it's a great question again I think it it has to be something where that education has to extend down from the CEO and the board to the managers and so a manager level ongoing education and opportunity to kind of rethink Mission um owning that at that next level down so implementation strategies that move beyond what the entity says and how each part of the organization is going to live that mission right authentic in the same way that we ask um CEOs to be authentic in terms of the mission of the the whole that each part has to think about if I'm an it we well diversity Equity inclusion that's not our you know what do we have to do with that we're gonna watch this little thing called coded bias and we're going to spend some time talking about how you could rethink and reimagine your work to be work that meets the goals of creating a diverse and Equitable Workforce and um being more responsive to community understanding the ways in which Tech so there are ways to do that where you're kind of moving down to that next level and inviting that shared um appreciation and understanding of the work that then um moves it out of the realm of and I think this is important too when you get that and it happens a lot like I hear this a lot well you know our folks don't understand they're watching what's happening in other places and they're saying why is what does this have to do with business what does this have to do with who we are and what we do that's where those managers actually can be very strong Advocates and kind of being Educators um and drivers of that work but through this shared understanding and through this lens of you know this isn't Equity work this is the work um we have to stop labeling it in a way that it now again that's um not saying we shouldn't name it it just says that you name it along with kind of investing people in this idea that the work you know in in in terms of how they're framing it has to be addressed in that way give you one last example of this that Shing one of my favorite um uh stories is is from Stephen King the horror writer and he wrote this great piece in the 1980s called Why We crave horror films and he said the if an American horror film when horror films work they work on on multiple levels so when you're seven what scares the hell out of you is that there's a monster in the closet and you tell your parents there's a monster in the closet and they don't believe you and they send you to bed and the monster's in the closet going we're going to have a great time tonight because your parents don't believe you but Stephen King said he was watching the amville horror movie and when he realized it was going to a hit he was sitting behind this young couple and as the green stuff was oozing out of the plumbing the wife turned to the husband and said oh my God the bills so when you're 34 what scares the hell out of you is you've invested your life savings in a home and now the Plumbing's not working the home seems to be eating your money and the worst of it is that your child won't go to sleep and you feel like the whole thing is imploding that shared responsibility means no one Bears the responsibility of the totality of that work alone that everybody within that house within that structure is making sure that it feels less like a horror movie and more like a a Reclamation project that everyone has a stake in um and that can be something as simple as putting that light on in the kids' room or thinking about differently about how you invested your resources to begin with and and tackling the other problems that present themselves in the basement excellent wow I mean such a powerful example and metaphor of really around this is whole housework and everybody in the house has a stake in the maintenance and Improvement um effort and um and and I it's one of the things that I also talk about with folks I'm like this is everybody's work this is all of our work right um so wow that's really powerful you know I I love that you started this conversation I'm just going to backtrack a tiny bit and last night at dinner you told this really powerful story about you and your wife in a car in a rental car on your way to an engagement and you were pulled over would you mind sh relling that story sure you know I last summer my um Alma Mo was um recognizing me as a distinguished Alum and my wife and I picked up our car from lardi and we're driving out to um Scranton Pennsylvania to receive that award and that was pulled over by New Jersey state trooper who then proceeded you know I was going you know I I joke last night I'm the poster child for the safe driver so I was going below the speed limit and you know he got behind me my wife was on a zoom and I I said to her he's going to pull us over and indeed he did and it from the moment that he approached my vehicle it was an exchange where he was anticipating that he was dealing with and dealing with me in a way that um Deni my Humanity uh no honorifics in addressing me he asked me you know where where was I going um uh did I know why he stopped me where was I going I said well I'm going to get this distinguished Alum award where you coming from um where's your luggage who she is how he addressed um my wife who is my passenger un fortunately she videotaped all this so I had all this on tape and um diverse issues in higher education actually did a write up on it because I shared the video with them and and kind of my experience but my point in kind of bringing that up last night and kind of sharing that with people more broadly is it makes two parallel points that I think it's difficult for sometimes for the audiences that we speak to and de and I work to understand that this is real for us in a way that it seems like an an exercise and kind of intellectualism or something for other people we live this experience and so my safety and my sanity depend on my ability to navigate spaces where there's hostility and I understood that encounter could have got very wrong if I behave differently in the way that I was interacting with that trooper I also understand that that's a legacy in the New Jersey State Police that goes back decades Christy Todd whitmann was governor um in the 1990s and they were talking about racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike so this is an old story an old wound that I'm still living The Echoes of and then also um importantly um because you know we think about this in terms of just en count with police but also the ways in which individuals um when we talk about diversity equity and inclusion don't appreciate that the training Remains the Same the protocols the the the the the uh very way that we think about law enforcement as opposed to Public Safety which are two very different conversations folks I think in healthcare understand this but when we talk about law enforcement then we look at an entity like the Minneapolis Police they're formed in 1867 I sometimes have to remind audiences and Minnesota that the raison Detra that it's in their Charter the Minneapolis Police were about policing black and brown bodies it was about determining where people of color could be I mean that's it commissioners of Public Safety in the South we think about someone like a Eugene Bull Conor that that Martin Luther King mentioned Commissioner of Public Safety was all about enforcing segregation but in our contemporary Mo moment if we move to a model of Public Safety what are the police out there to do um prevent crime or make sure that drivers get to their destination safely and that would change the way that they engage public and so on so forth so it was just one of those moments where as as someone who does this work became this powerful way that I could share it but then also share I was angry and I couldn't express my full human Humanity in that moment for fear that if I express myself in a particular way I'm simply and and that was the story of Sandra Bland and so many other uh people of color who are good Earnest hardworking people who understand this wound I often say this wounds produce narratives and so when people encounter this what they perceive to be anger or hostility and there's this misunderstanding understand it comes from a very real place that if you don't educate yourself around you'll never see and you'll never understand right yeah thank you and I felt I was so moved by your story I was like let me see if I can squeeze that in so we have a question in the chat um from one of our members and me who where she says she mentions that she heard the term institutional courage this morning related to the me too movement and I think I understand what that's connected to can you share what institutional courage might look like in an an an anti-racism work so you know what's your wisdom on this what how do we translate some of these things that we're that we're seeing parallels um in other across other topics so it's probably the uh best question I've ever gotten I love that and and there are parallels here in fact when we talk about those Echoes the women's movement has always been tied to civil rights going back to Civil War reconstruction um women don't get the right to vote by virtue of the 15th Amendment it only U INF franchises or says you can't discriminate based on race color previous doesn't extend that to women and so you need a 19th Amendment so on so forth so they've always been linked but institutional courage to answer the question more directly would mean having the intestinal fortitude to stand up to stand for something rather than to stand against it and I want to be very clear what I mean by that it's what king talked about in that piece that I played where he said more people were responding to in the way that I updated it Derek chovin and police brutality rather than for Equity institutional courage would mean we stand for equity and these are the ways that we mean to pursue that irrespective of or regardless of what's Happening elsewhere and we're going to stand on that and state that in a way that it makes it difficult for people to see us from that moment forward is anything other than an organization committed to equity um to justice as opposed to what we have now which is um a lot of and and and I don't want to you know sometimes people get very upset with me for saying it this way but I think it has to be said in this way performative which is look at our range of e Equity work that we're doing across the organization and these are the ways that we're committed but it doesn't produce life and there's no in institutional um fortitude behind that because when the winds come those programs disappear those individuals in those positions are are let go you see those um Innovative programs called into question and Boards run and CEOs run and um you know Human Resources people start trying to read the tea leaves in terms of what's going to happen with the Supreme institutional fortitude says this is who we are we stay the course wow I think that is a very very powerful um final just you know point to put on what I think has just been a dynamic conversation in dialogue and um very compelling um just to wrap up I just want to say we are so grateful for the opportunity to talk with you today Dr Williams and really grateful for um you know our our partners at Delta Dental who whose great wisdom and idea and and vision for this conversation series really helped to to breathe life into this dialogue and this conversation today thank you Dr Williams again for your time for sharing your wisdom um to benefit our Coalition members sponsor stakeholders and allies we Endeavor to bring content um and and forward that we think really resonates with where our organizations are some of them are different you know spaces and phases on their Journey um towards their Equity goals and and commitments and we're hoping that you found something in here that inspired you um that re-energized your efforts help you think creatively about some of the challenges and the opportunities of progressing these movements forward so thank you so much from the bottom of my heart again to those who took the time to jump on this call and to stay a little extra while we wrapped up um thank you to um our sponsors to our executive committee um our executive committee um represents a number of we member organizations that way so grateful to have their leadership and Trust In This Way um and we are also grateful for our member organizations who contribute um to making this this possible thank you so much again we're going to wrap up for this time follow us on our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for more and we'll see you the next conversation thank you so much and have a great day [Music]

Channel: Washington Employers for Racial Equity

Views: 29

Keywords: equity, inclusion, diversity, workplace dei, DEIB

Id: ynHpxyPGlz0

Length: 64min 57sec (3897 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2024