Michele: 

So welcome everybody. This is Michele Heyward, and KC Atha and today we are talking about why your company C suite isn’t fighting racism. And really this came about as and you know what, out Alec KC talk about how this topic came about.

KC:

Okay So Michelle and I chat each week as you can imagine we try and stay up to date with what’s happening in the world, the pandemic and the revolution that we’re living through right now. And what we’re seeing are a lot of things that we do like which are like Ben and Jerry’s statement, we broke it down in the whole LinkedIn live show, and we like to see the money and the support being given to organizations that are supporting anti racism. And that is wonderful. What we are also seeing and hearing from folks is about their organizations doing those things. And then the folks inside feeling deeply confused, deeply hurt, and unsure about why or where those statements are coming from, because that’s not how they are experiencing their organization. An organization may say, we stand with black lives, Black Lives Matter, yet, there is a black person in the organization saying I feel like they don’t really care about my life, though. So what is what is up with that disconnect? What’s going on? And that’s what Michelle and I are going to talk about today. Michelle is coming in hot with the top five reasons why organizations are openly being anti racist in their external communications. But what’s going on? Why aren’t they doing that internally?

Michele: 

Well, they’re not even Let’s be honest. They aren’t being anti racist. Even with their external messaging, they feel like we’re donating. Yeah.

KC: 
They’re resourcing organizations.

Michele: 

Yeah, money. Yeah. So Exactly. So that’s externally they might be doing something internally. We, we, you know, we don’t always know, I might hear some stuff my DMS might be on and poppin about what you’re not really doing. So, I will put it to you that way. So, number one, not number one, number five. So number five. Your C suite does doesn’t want to be held accountable for the plans that they share. So they’re like, well, we want to do something. So we got to write a check because that’s the easiest thing and it is cash and, and and in the nonprofit they donate it is still working right. But if they come out with an action plan, that Has milestones and dates, they do not want to be held accountable for not sticking to it, not funding it not giving staff support having staff or not or whether it’s external consultants, internal employees, they do not want to be held accountable to creating a plan and following through with it. Hey David so definitely definitely definitely have to start with accountable that’s not what they want to do. It’s like I have other stuff to do Why do I want to be held accountable to this and and in that accountability is also they they don’t know what’s going to happen so they’re like, this isn’t going to be good or bad. And and having that accountability following them tracking on your tracking them. What does that look like? It may because there’s so many unknowns and they’re so they don’t want to be held accountable. at all. Okay, what do you have to add? KC?

KC: 

I think that’s true. And so that was my intro as well, just highlighting the fact that if you take a stand internally and say we are going to address this, you’ve basically said, We are committing to this, we care about this. And when folks see that your actions don’t align with what you’re saying. You are rightfully so going to feel uncomfortable and going to feel like you made a mistake or didn’t do something appropriately, like communicating out what you truly were doing internally. So there’s a number of reasons or a number of ways that accountability is causing here or barrier to actually doing anti racism work internally.
So that was number five, number four, so
yeah, I’m gonna go.

Michele:

Number four is bad. for business, they’re saying that becoming an anti to fight racism become anti racist is going to be bad for business. They’re going to see a loss of talent, right? They’re going to see a loss of partners and a loss of business. And I absolutely disagree with this. in your organization. If you have talented people who are racist, who are racist, you’re already losing black talent. You’re losing brown talent, right? So in actuality, you already lost talent, but you are okay and comfortable with losing talent. That’s black and brown. Right. And so now you need to become comfortable well looking talent that’s not black and brown. When you create an anti racist organization, partners, if you have partners that are that are racist. Why are you doing business with them anyway? If you knowingly know they’re racist, So now, what is happening is your ethics and morals are coming into play you like, you know what is bad for business for us to partner with somebody who does not value black lives. And business? Well, let’s talk about the buying power of black people. How many billions of dollars is that? If you’re the only one or one a few in your niche with those products and services, and black people know that you’re actively fighting for their lives, you’re creating a place that is anti racist, right from the C suite down and you’re actively doing it, you’ve made a commitment to it. Guess what I’m about to snap all my money. Guess what I’m about to tell my friends and family and spend all their money is with you. Because your guess what? be held accountable. And you understand that it’s it is to your betterment for not just that organization, but to The world to become an anti racist company. So it’s better for business, you’re going to retain your diverse talent, right? And you’re going to come with better partners that are also creating an anti racist organization. So to me, it’s, it’s the best thing you could absolutely due for business. So, KC, was that what you got?

KC: 

Well, I like to use this analogy for folks with the risk or loss of talent or whatever fear you may have a lot of folks say, Oh, well, you know, white men are really feeling like there’s reverse racism, which is not real Google that. So with that risk that people are feeling the fear the C suite, they don’t want to shake things up. But what I would say is, if you were a host, and you’re hosting a dinner party or a party at your home, how do you set that table? How do you set the climate? How do you welcome your guests and if you have a guest in the Your home or at your party that is offending or harming other guests? Wouldn’t you want to remove that person who is causing harm? Or wouldn’t you want them to feel uncomfortable so that they just leave because they’re now sensing that what they’re saying and doing is not the way we, as a culture in this location are going to behave? So if you think about that, as the C suite person, how are you setting your table? How are you setting the climate when you invite folks into your home into your little mini Society of your organizational culture? Who is it comfortable for? And who is it uncomfortable for? Yeah, you can see the outcomes. Look at your organization, when things pop up. Also, this is a big one that I asked folks to say to to challenge themselves. When there’s an incident Do you automatically blame the person or do you think Hmm, how what could have led to this? What is the bigger picture? Not just The incident for broaden your view, what are the policies around this? How could this have been interrupted in different ways? before it got here? So I would say just dig deeper and and really ground yourself in like, Who are you as an organization? Who are you as the C suite? Who are you hosting in your organization? Are you centering like, safety? Are you valuing safety? Are you valuing certain people’s comfort? And that’s including your own? Are you willing to be uncomfortable in the C suite? Are you willing to say, Hey, I’m not that great at this stuff, but I’m going to learn and I’m going to be bad at the beginning, but I but I’m doing this because I care about being anti racist.

Michele: 

Yes. And that rolls into number three. Change takes effort, and like you just said, they have to say, I’m not good at this. I’m gonna get better at it. And they’re sitting there at the top of these organizations, reach regional, national, international and say I will get better at But they know is going to take consistent work and effort. They have to do it. And so they don’t want to that’s where the policy changes them literally educating themselves on reading books, right? If does it look like they need to go about bringing in consultants like, what does it take? When it comes to making that change, doing that work making that effort in that organization? And they have to do it, they have to do what I call is number four. But before I go to number four, I’m gonna let you talk number three about them. It takes effort change takes effort, because you had more because I talked about policies. Oh, did I get ahead?

KC: 
Huh? Did I jump ahead?

Michele: 

No, no, you roll right number three, but before I roll into number four, I want you to talk on number three.

KC:

Okay, well, I’m getting confused by the numbers but we talked about accountability, which was number five, we’re actually trying to go backwards. And then now we’ve talked about risk Which I pushed back on the risk. I think it’s riskier to stay racist than it is to move into anti racist than that the other one we’re talking about is the hard work that it takes. And the hard work that it takes is true, it is absolutely hard. Why? Because we don’t have a lot of systems in place that teach us how to be anti racist in our organizations. And so therefore, we have to reach out and get help and get people to walk the path with us to walk the path out of racism that produces the outcomes that we see in our organizations, whether it’s a wage gap, whether it’s lack of diversity, all sorts of issues that are happening, that doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. And so, yes, it’s hard work. And it’s even harder because our systems and our culture in our society isn’t built to support creating anti racist organizations. But that’s what we’re called to do as leaders as C suite people as CEO. is on. It is our job to do that hard work. And it’s our job to model that it that hard work is starting from the top.

Michele: 

We have a comment. Racism is in every conceivable aspect of American life. Jobs K through 12 education higher education Corporation’s medical Oh my god. So medical. We could be here, each one of those on so many different levels. We’re talking about corporate but you’re right. It is truly ingrained. Last week. Friday was Juneteenth. I did a very short live stream because well my internet connection what out but on that live stream, I was telling them how black history is a month because it’s cut out of all of history and really helped my mother instill and taught to myself for myself. What black history is what we truly have committed and done to in this country. So we have a whole set of books in our den, you know, before Google, right, you had encyclopedias. But she has sets of books that focus specifically on black history, African American contributions, and what we truly created in this country, and the impact that we truly have had in this country, from inventing things to the economy, right from designing cities, building cities, and how it is not included in our history. And she told me how when she learned about our real history, she had one professor in college at HBCU. She attended here in South Carolina, who taught that and so my mother graduate from college from education, she taught geography she said she included geography, in black history into teaching geography. She said if students in my mother graduate, college and 19 69 So, so imagine that so she finally went to a school system that had just integrated, they would integrate the first year, they integrated the second year, the superintendent was a white man. My mother gave his daughter her only B plus she ever got in school. She got all A’s except for my mother’s class. And my mom because she taught about black history. And because it was not documented, because it was it was documented. But it wasn’t included in public libraries, especially here in the south. Where was the young girl going to go to get that information? There were no computers she could use right. So she couldn’t she couldn’t make an A on something you could not find because it was not tied. And so it was really important to my mother that she included as an educator in the south, the great things we have done and achieved in the country. So she made an effort truly, to create that opportunity to educate and it costs her money as an educator to buy those books. Right, to educate herself and get that degree and pass that along. So CEOs need to understand CCTV, so understand, you’re going to have to invest time money and and put in the work in order to create an anti racist organization. So be like my mother, go educate, get educated, go through to educate other people, but understand you have to do it, you have to make number two, the commitment. You have to be committed to this. So that commitment comes through a number one change in yourself Committed to changing yourself and understanding what you have done that is racist or what you do that is racist. Number two, it comes in educating yourself on a regular basis. And number three, and that part of that commitment is changing your own behavior. So that you now are making those changes also within your organization that you are at the top of managing. Okay, I’m gonna breeze down on Lake KC

KC: 

I love number two, actually, I like talking about the commitment to the long term change. So it is really important and I try to stress this every time I talk to a CEO or board member, anyone who has positions where they make decisions about moral documents, which is the Budget and Policy. Okay, so whenever you’re looking at your moral documents of your organization, budget policy, what and how are those wielded to support foster cultivate an organization that is anti racist? And how are those resources put into other initiatives of the organization? Is there parody? Are you valuing it equally? Or not? Are you thinking okay, this is what we’re going to commit to this year, or for six months or for two years. any length of time that you constrain it to I think is too much is it you shouldn’t even do that because This is about an evolution culture is constantly happening, and you can’t it’s a practice. And so this is a journey. And yes, we need to build those muscles and get a personal trainer to help us build new muscles and get new tools and get comfortable using those new tools. But eventually, we hope to bake it in just the way we were baked in the racism was baked into us, well, then we need to bake in the anti racism practices and the new tools so that we don’t have to keep fighting this we need it to be part of the way we operate and the way that we think and work. So the reason it’s hard and the reason it takes long term commitment is because we have to both learn and unlearn. So that’s double. We’re doing double work here, folks. And that’s why long term commitments also require resting, reflecting and not letting yourself get burnt out and, and knowing that okay, this is the infinite game. This isn’t just about me, this isn’t just about this quarter or this three year strategic plan. This is about the history. of this organization. This is about the history of our community and of our of our country and in our globe, right. So we’re International. So this is way bigger than us and we are we going to support that moving in that direction. Are we not?

Michele: 

Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. Number one, the number one reason why your C suite is not fighting racism. It exposes your C suite as racist in their racist behaviors. So what what’s you’re saying what they’re saying is, oh my god, they know they’re racist. They know they have racist behaviors. They do not want that spotlight on them. Let me tell you, we already know we, we already see this. We never want to see it in your your EEOC complaints. lawsuits that come become public. Your lack of hiring your turnover among your Black employees. And when they go out and they share that information publicly now remember a few years ago, and I can’t remember Leslie’s last name, he was in management at Twitter. And he refused to take the severance package from Twitter, so he could talk about how he was treated. Wow, man. So often too often they use a severance package to solace employees. And oftentimes black employees are not in a position to be able to walk away from that money. because number one, it takes us longer to find jobs well, because of racism, right? Number two, well, most of us, a lot of my friends aren’t white. So my network isn’t the same people white, a lot of white people will have access to especially being an engineer. So that adds even more time to it, right? So if I have somebody who’s a VP I can be in the door in less than 30 days as opposed to Oh, you have to submit that online. No submit no job online, no resume online, whatever. So it is your racist tendencies. Trust me, we already know. But what happens when you as the C suite says, Hey, we’re gonna fight racism. I understand that I have racist behaviors, racist beliefs, so I’m starting with myself. So you need to own your own ish from the beginning. When you make that statement, let the spotlight be on you and the things that you have to do for yourself as you do it internal to your organization, right. And you need to own it because when you own what you are, who you are and the changes that you need to make so so crystal, you said it’s baked in baked in as a chemical reaction that cannot be undone.

KC: 
Okay, maybe Yeah,

Michele: 

yeah, you can be become anti racist. Right. You Yeah, so, so it’s not baked in. You have to make a conscious effort, you have to be committed. And at the C suite, you’re going to be held accountable. Because at the end of the day, it is still going to be profitable for your business, but you need to own who you are what you are, and go back, make that plan, be committed to it, publicize it, be held accountable for it and be open to it. Because remember, you took this role in the C suite, you’re held accountable to shareholder stockholders, you’re going to be held accountable by black people for becoming anti racists, right? Because we already we already know we already looking at you. Like, yeah, we know you’re racist to say nothing new. We already talked about you. You’re the only person unconscious to your racism as somebody who’s actually in a hospital unconscious, rest of the world already knows you’re not hiding. So I’ll let you go from there. Crystal

KC:

All right. So with that said, I would just like to highlight the fact that there really is no middle ground or neutral. And folks who felt that, well, we’re just a business and we focus on whatever widget, I’m doing nothing about racism is being racist. And so if you don’t want to be in that category, then jump on over with us into the anti racist category and fight against racism. And that means fighting against racism within yourself, within within your sphere of influence, which is your organization, your company, your family, your friends, any spaces where you are, and you can speak up and say, Nope, that is not okay. Here. That is not the way we operate. And now we are interrupting racism, not just avoiding ignoring, hoping and praying and thoughts and prayers and all that stuff. We’re not doing that anymore. We are now actively anti racist, and if we’re not actively anti racists, Then we are racist. Just be anti, just join us, we know that we have these things going on inside. And so what we’re doing over at my organization, some BrahMos. We have a book club that is joining on July 7, and we’re reading how to be an anti racist by Abraham Kennedy. It is a wonderful book, I’m already about chapter six out of 19, it’s about 10 hours to listen to, I couldn’t get a hard copy because they were all sold out, which makes me happy, I hope people are reading it. And will be joining the movement that we are all a part of, once we decide to be anti racist, and that is just a decision that you can make and need to continue to make each moment of our lives. It’s about being mindful in each moment and understanding a lot of the things that are going to be talked about in this book and a lot of the topics that Michelle and I talked about as well. So it’s a constant practice that never ends and we’re just excited to finally Have a lot of organizations waking up and saying, Yes, we want to do this journey. Yes, this is what we’re about. We know that there’s going to be accountability. We know that it’s going to be hard. We know that it’s long term. And we know that we have some racism stuff going on in our company, because the outcomes tell us so we are having wage gaps. We are having lack of diversity, we’re having all sorts of things that tell us this is not bad apples. This is bad racist policy and procedures that are happening, and we could build skills to facilitate doing better. So that is a great list. Michelle, thanks for bringing those five. And I hope that folks will join us for the book club. And thank you, everyone for joining. We are here each Thursday talking about different topics. And hopefully, we can continue this conversation with folks in the comments if you have experience with your organization, shifting or picking towards being more anti racist. I would love to hear about that Michelle and I are always interested in hearing about your experiences out there, and what your organization is doing to shift and to keep going, knowing that this is long term. Share your strategies with us. Let us know what’s going on on your end.
I’m cracking up myself. window, you closed us out.
Well, I was just inviting folks to the book club and inviting folks to share their experiences because we know a lot of stuff’s going on out in your organizations and your cultures are shifting or questioning or reflecting and, you know, we’d like to know what strategies are working or what is making you feel like yes, the tide is shifting, because we don’t only want to complain, we also want to highlight what we do want to experience what we do want to feel what we do want to see. So let’s not just stay in what’s broken, but let’s envision the future and the world and the workplace that we deserve.

Michele:

Yeah, Okay, I love this. I know this was, this is a harder topic for a lot of people. Um, but it is truly important that organizations from the top down become anti racist. And they’re they’re making a commitment. They are being held accountable. They put they’re putting in the work, and it takes it for too long black people and brown people have been running, that that change and with some wet white allies Don’t get me wrong. But what we are not seeing is the commitment at higher enough levels to make it to break down systemic racism. And that is really what this current movement is about. It has to be more than government policies. It has to be more it has to be in every aspect of what we encounter here in the US. So what like one of the viewers said it isn’t all our jobs. It is in K through Well, it is in higher ed. It is incorporations it is even in prisons. So when you look at how laws are written, it is okay to be in slave in prison and get free labor. And when you look at the predominance of who’s in prison, slavery still exists. So it is so ingrained in this country to it has to be anti racism has to be fought on every single front, including medical because I left that out right, including medical and what does that mean? And and I literally talk to my friends I remember I was like, I gone to the doctor. And they said, Oh, your blood pressure is really good. And I text one of my friends who’s a nurse and she’s not black. She goes, What’s your blood pressure? She’s like, don’t listen it out today. Like, oh, for a black person, your blood pressure is good. But in actuality, where you need to be it’s not. So she’s like, just ask me just asked me. So it’s to the point she like, I know you can’t. And that’s why you see directories that are for black and brown medical professionals, because a lot of what medicine is built on is racist. Right? A lot of medical things that are created here in the US were based on enslave black people being tortured, and tested on even during slavery and post slavery. So we talked about this Tuskegee syphilis experiment, right? They even had a cure for syphilis, but he’s, they kept testing to people. So it really is ingrained in every aspect of this country. And it has to be addressed and become anti racist at every single aspect. So that’s one reason why crystal who runs some BrahMos status, Abramov. She wants to do this book club so that we’re helping people get educated every single month on what it looks like to become anti racist, and to help you start doing that work on yourself. Um, we have founders that have reached out to us who are who have their own startups, who are like, you know, what is just me or myself and two or three other people. This is what I want. This is what I have to have. How do I do it? Can you help me? And we’re hearing that we’re addressing them, we’re answering them. I love all these other emails and phone calls that are coming through as well. Because we understand it is imperative that this work is done on so many different levels from corporations with 100,000 employees that are global to startups that have a single founder, who’s like, I have to do this work starting with me starting now. They are not waiting and they’re literally putting into work, looking to be held accountable. And they want to make it happen right now. Or starting right now start doing the work. So is that be sure to click on the link, put it in the comments. You could always message us You’re on LinkedIn. And we look forward to having you join us again next week for another discussion on anti-racism. everybody. Have a great week and we will see you next week. Thursday. Bye.