Your DEI Book Club Will Not Save You

After the death of George Floyd, books about race and racism had a resurgence, climbing up the best seller lists (some for a second time) and selling out at bookstores all across the globe. Book lists of all the “must have” reads for folks who were awakening to the existence of racism in this country were flying around social media platforms like a quick-fix antidote. As mostly white folks, who were shocked that we weren’t in a post-racial America, scrambled to do something…anything in the midst of racial uprisings.

When the protest dust settled on the newly outraged, they landed in the most passive and safest place possible with organizations everywhere starting DEI book clubs, equity reading groups, flying in their favorite author for a drive-by talk and then quickly going back to their racism-as-usual practices. The one-off, low-hanging fruit activities gave organizations asleep at the wheel quick cover. Hey, look at us!, said corporation, We’re awake and doing things.

And here we are. Hundreds of thousands of people have read a book and perhaps they’re more enlightened about the difference between diversity and anti-racism, but collectively we are nowhere closer to undoing institutionalized racism then we were post Trayvon Martin, post Michael Brown, post Sandra Bland, post Breonna Taylor…., post……post…… post…

The thing we must reconcile is this, there is no room for safe, conflict avoidant, passive aggressive behavior in the undoing and dismantling of racism. To actually do diversity, equity and inclusion, to actually address racism in our institutions, you have to be willing to do hard, challenging, scary WORK. You have to be willing to give up some things — namely power. Sitting around a fire, navel gazing and waxing on about your revelation that white privilege is an actual thing that this country has fought to protect serves no one. Not even the people it privileges.

And hiring diverse talent — yes it’s a starting point. But unfortunately, for many organizations diversifying the talent pool is the start and the end of their efforts. Meanwhile, we never get to the root of the problem that led to the majority all white male institution in the first place. Your now beautifully diverse organization still holds racial bias in its performance, professional development and promotion processes. Staff of color still experience daily microaggressions and sometimes overt racism causing them to continue to feel unsafe bringing their whole-selves, including their strength and talents to bear on the organization. People in positions of power still largely reflect and operationalize the status quo. And so the churn continues.

Organizations that really want to commit to transform their institutions to be diverse, racially equitable, and inclusive must put in real effort. Let’s put down the lukewarm lattes, the dog-eared books about white fragility, and the hollow statements about your commitment to racial equity. It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Here’s a starter list of where you can begin this labor effort:

1. Establish an internal team responsible for driving organizational transformation and outcomes. And by team, I do not mean the one person of color in your organization who now holds the DEI title in addition to their other job. I mean a fully resourced staff team with decision making power and authority.
2. Discover and dig in on what the realities are for staff of color in your organization. Talk to all of them — new staff, old staff, former staff of color at all levels of the organization. You will need to get underneath the interpersonal, professional and personal to solve for the institutional.
3. Laser focus your solutions on those experiencing the greatest inequity and harm. If you have Black women in your organization I can 99.9% guarantee you will need to center their experience in your DREI strategies.
4. Contract an outside accountability partner. Even if you have a Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with a full staff department, none of those individuals will be in a position to name hard truths without consequence. Hire someone outside of the organization to hold the organization accountable — pay them in advance so they have the freedom to call it like they see it and push on the system as needed to move real change.

Just these four steps are enough to get an organization out of stuck to strategy. But as all things as deeply entrenched as racism this is a journey not a sprint. Organizations have to be committed to the continuous and ongoing effort of interrogating their practices, culture and policies and then undoing and dismanteling the things that create harm and do not serve true equity and inclusion.