Innovative Spaces must be Anti-Racist Spaces

The call to dismantle racism in the business community

Think about your business’ first strategic planning session for the year of 2020. Visualize it. Some of you will be picturing a group of executives sitting around a glass table in a boardroom. Others will be imagining little more than a goal-setting exercise or a New Year’s resolution. Whether you’re steering a multinational corporation or a young sole proprietorship, I bet that the goal of accelerating social change wasn’t as high up on the priority list as it needed to be to journey gracefully through this second quarter. I also suspect that even many of those who manage companies and organizations with overt social justice goals are feeling ill-equipped to lead in this moment. It is humbling to be someone who leads in the area of innovation and positive change, and to feel so woefully unprepared to bring in a new—and more just—era within our business communities.

But, those who choose to sit in the uncomfortable feelings of inadequacy rather than the uncomfortable feelings of anti-racist learning and action can’t truly call themselves innovators. We can’t welcome a new and exciting future without being willing to dismantle systemic inequality and oppression. The future of work, of technology, of industry cannot be built on the backs of oppressed peoples, whether these are the backs of black or brown folks, people of marginalized genders, people with disabilities, people who practice non-dominant religions where they live or any other group that has been systemically disadvantaged in the business world. 

And please understand this: If we’re unable to support equality-based work in our workplaces, our employees and colleagues will push us in the right direction—or they may move to push us out. In Employee Activism in the Age of Purpose, researchers found that employee activism is on the rise.  

Employees are not merely speaking out; they’re also walking out. Last week, roughly 400 Facebook employees participated in a virtual walk-out, protesting the company’s decision not to remove content by Donald Trump which threatened Black Lives Matter demonstrators. On June 1, online therapy service Talkspace pulled out of a lucrative partnership with Facebook, citing a climate of racism, violence and lies.

So, where do we go from here? As a Jewish Israeli person born with white skin, it is my job to reach my community and my audience and point them toward resources developed by Black and Indigenous Peoples/People of Colour (BIPOC) and their allies. I have to both refuse to be silent in the face of injustice, and to refuse to speak over the people whose lived experiences make them the experts in anti-racism. I also have to make sure that there is anti-racist accountability in the areas where I hold influence. As a founder of an innovation firm UNFOLD, and a leadership development institute, the Academy of Tomorrow, my space is business, innovation and technology. 

Here are some resources assembled by BIPOC and allies that may be helpful to you in that space. After all, it’s our duty to ensure that our teams feel safe and encouraged to do their best work. It’s also important that some of their best work includes dismantling racism, whether that’s part of the business’ core mandate or not.  

Online resources:

●      Honeybook’s Antiracist Resources for Small Businesses (Rising Tide)

●      This list of statements by leading tech organizations on racial justice, Black Lives Matter and George Floyd

●      Rachel Cargle’s template for holding a business accountable on racial justice issues

●      This list of anti-racism resources curated specifically for white people at the beginning of their anti-racism journey

●      A research-based approach for how white managers can respond to Anti-Black violence

●      This 2005 document, Building a Multi-Ethnic, Inclusive and Antiracist Organization (including a glossary of common antiracist terminology)

Books:

●      How to be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi

●      So, You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

●      Biased by Jennifer Eberhardt

●      White Fragility by Robyn DiAngelo

●      The Person you Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias by Dolly Chugh

As Martin Luther King, Jr. put it: “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” The silence of our colleagues, managers, directors, executives, co-founders and teammates will also be memorable when this issue is no longer under the media spotlight. I’m committed to being one of the outspoken, and I hope you’ll join me.