Diversity–Can We Talk?

Jody Gold believes that it’s time for organizations to invite and demand the brilliance of all of their people. It’s time to heal so we can be free.

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I’m about to screw this up. I’m a white man writing about race, privilege, oppression, and diversity. The chance that I’m going to offend someone or sound stupid seems high.

These are two of the reasons white people avoid the conversations about race that must happen for our shared future to be better than our past. Privilege likes comfort, and privilege can choose it. By staying above the fray, I leave those who suffer or have suffered from long-standing systems of oppression to work it out on their own. By choosing to stay silent, I’m holding onto power I didn’t earn.

I’d love to find a way to explore this fraught terrain without having to feel or take any responsibility for the impact white men have had on others. I’d like to be seen as the individual I am, not as a representative of a privileged identity group. But it doesn’t work that way.

On June 17, six women and three men were murdered in a church basement in Charleston, South Carolina. They didn’t have the privilege to be seen as individuals in the eyes of their killer. They were black. That was enough to define them and end their lives.

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The Business Case

The business case for inclusion and high-functioning diversity is more about attracting talent and unleashing the creative uniqueness of individuals, than it is about changing our relationships to systems of privilege, oppression, and each other. When workgroups and teams can collectively express and harness the different strengths, ideas, and motivations of their members, they are more creative, productive, and fulfilled. When people are kept down or out; when people aren’t seen, honored, or invited to be who they actually are at work; they give less, care less, and are less than what we all know is possible.

I’m working with a technology company that is transitioning from an engineer’s culture to one that is driven by sales and customer experience. The task is not just to build and sell better technology systems. It is to grow more agile, effective, and connected teams. The CEO believes the skills of deep listening, empathy, ideation, and synthesis are required to engage, learn from, and support an ever larger and more diverse clientele. To do so, they must shift their culture from one that has elevated development skills above all others, to one that invites and values the different styles and ideas that have been marginalized in the organization.

Social Infrastructure and Diversity Training

We invest in physical infrastructure such as bridges, roads, rail, mail, the internet, etc., because unless information, goods, and services can move, there is no economy.

A lot of corporate training seems designed to avoid offending others or creating hostile work environments (especially the kind that result in lawsuits) rather than to focus on building the social infrastructure that can really transform how business operates.

Diversity training could and should be so much more. Working with diversity could raise awareness AND create authentic connection. It could pave the roads that support the kind of high-feedback, self-adapting teams that companies need. It could help us acknowledge, explore, and heal the systems of privilege and oppression that perpetuate inequality and injustice and hurt us all.

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Awakening to My Own Prejudice

Stephanie and I trained to be teachers in a small cohort at an inner city school in San Francisco. She was raised in a Spanish-speaking household in Oakland, and was an unwavering and eloquent advocate for the kids we taught.

I trusted the goodwill and resilience in our connection enough to risk telling Stephanie something I’d seen in myself as I listened to her speak one day.  I said, “I realized that instead of giving you credit for being so smart, I gave you extra credit because you speak with a Spanish accent.”

She knew I wasn’t saying that I was giving her extra points for being bilingual, which is what I hope I’d think now. It was because I’d noticed for the first time an unfair, untrue, and impactful bias I carried against a whole group of people.  Shame grows in the dark. I chose to share this with Stephanie to bring a part of me I’d rather keep hidden into the light.

Her response was to call me out on a different form of my privilege that I also hadn’t noticed.  She said, “Who are you to judge who’s smart or not?”

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I’m sorry, Stephanie.

I felt a sense of absolution for admitting this to Stephanie. But I didn’t put myself in her shoes and I didn’t apologize. It didn’t seem like it was my fault that this prejudice had grown unnoticed inside of me.

But where does my ability to distance myself as an individual from the collective impact of my privileged identity group leave Stephanie?

If I had it to do over, I’d like to say to Stephanie, “I’m not sure how it is for you, but I can imagine if I were in your shoes I’d feel trapped and angry by the way white men, or maybe native English speakers, have seen me as less smart than I am, as less than I am, because of my accent. I’m sorry for the role I’ve played putting you in that cage. I’m sorry.”

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It’s Time

Amiri Baraka eulogized James Baldwin on Dec. 8, 1987, by saying: “He was all the way live, all the way conscious, turned all the way up, receiving and broadcasting. . . . He always made us know we were dangerously intelligent and as courageous as the will to be free.” (New York Times. 2.13.15, Amiri Barak’s SOS)

It’s time to engage in our differences and diversity with curiosity and courage. It’s time for organizations to invite and demand the brilliance of all of their people. It’s time to heal so we can be free.

Please join the conversation that no one else is having. What’s preventing you from engaging across diversity in ways that can lead to real understanding, empathy, and change?

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Photo credit: Flickr/Oregon DOT