How will businesses address racism for future generations
Transcriber: Amanda Zhu
Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Byron Burkhalter: There’s a generation
or two down there -
and I struggle to see
exactly where they’re at,
I just know I’m not among them -
and they are not having your neutrality,
they are not having your claims about
a lack of intent or lack of education.
They are actively asking
why they’ve been given
whitewashed education,
why they haven’t been told
their actual history.
And what I would say to corporate America
is that’s the upcoming demographic
that’s going to be buying
some of your products,
and they are going to look
at your statements of neutrality
and your claims of being
behind “Black Lives Matters,”
and they’re going to check out
your board rooms,
they’re going to look
at your leadership teams,
and if all of your hiring
is down at the lower level,
they’re going to notice.
In case you haven’t been able to see,
they are taking this quite seriously.
And so I think that there are
good bottom-line reasons
for some corporations
to start to think about
how they are going to adjust their vision
for a multi-racial United States
that may already be here
but is certainly on its way.
Phil Klein: And so to think
about what companies are doing
to release the tenacious staying power -
some would argue, I think I would argue -
that has been a hallmark of this kind
of white supremacy and white power,
what do you see companies doing
that is loosening that grip
and flowing towards and in the direction?
And what are some companies doing right?
What’s slowing them down
that doesn’t need to?
BB: So, what I would say
is slowing down some companies
that I’ve had more direct experience with
is that their customers
are …
35 to 55,
and they’ve been on this track
with those customers,
and those customers are …
largely within whiteness,
and many of those customers
are not aware of all that is going on.
And so there is still
a revenue spigot open,
and that spigot is producing dollars,
and it’s very hard to sort of
risk turning down that spigot
for the promise that “Hey,
there’s another spigot to open
that’s going to keep you viable
for the next generation.”
And so I think it’s very hard to turn away
from the branding that we’ve had,
which has sort of a clinical,
medicalized, thin, white aesthetic,
in order to broaden out of that aesthetic.
And I think this is constantly a problem.
It was a problem
when the internet comes around
and everybody could see
“Yes, it’s a big deal,”
but we’re making money off the desktop,
and so, you know, these things
are very difficult to do in that sense.
What I think companies
are trying to do now
is make public statements of support
and try to find ways of putting money
and sometimes actual capital,
really large amounts of money,
behind programs
that can provide a pipeline
for them to recruit from,
that can provide a pipeline of services
to deal with the structural inequality.
And I have seen programs like this
that are helping.
I’ve seen companies
invest in compensating racial ERGs
within their company,
paying people for the work
of community that they’re doing,
starting to value those things.
I’ve seen companies that are starting
to evaluate their leadership teams
based on their ability to promote.
In general what I see that’s successful
is active anti-racist policies.
So just to take you back a little bit.
There was a time of affirmative action.
I myself am a product
of that sort of golden era
between, say, ‘75 and ‘85,
not to date myself too much.
But those affirmative action programs
were taken out from
the psychological model, which says,
“If you have race in mind,
you are a racist.”
It didn’t say, “It depends
upon your effects”;
it said, “If you are intentionally
counting people by race,
you’re a racist,” right?
So now what’s being done by some companies
is an effect on affirmative action,
which is “We are going to have
a less racist organization.
We are going to fight
for this country and this company
to be less racist.
We are going to have race
in mind as we do it.”
Now, as those companies
move to those anti-racist strategies,
many of them are going to have success.
Those things will bear fruit.
PK: Yes, I can see that.
I could see how this leads
in a direction
out of the incoherence
of not understanding one’s own history.
In my experience,
many white people really don’t understand
how things got to be the way they are.
You know, there’s been
this blindness to that,
this willing unlooking.
And that’s been convenient,
but it’s also been costly
from the point of view
of not allowing deep relationships
to grow across racial lines
to tap the, you know,
intercultural interfaces
of people with really
different backgrounds,
who have so much heart and soul
and learning and value
and, you know, bottom-line contribution
to make across those artificial lines.
So to capture some of what I’ve heard,
you’re encouraging us to see
from the sociological point of view,
see how groups integrate
in a powerful way
rather than only looking
at the impairments
that happen at a psychological level.
We’ve talked through
how white culture has,
as a political group,
retained power and maintained a -
I mean, I’ll use my word -
a sort of a stranglehold
on economy and business systems,
and how companies and organizations
have often had a very limited view
of what diversity, equity
and inclusion can mean
by developing programs that in a sense,
may even reinforce the problem
that they’re superficially
seeking to address,
and that it’s critical
to take this deeper look
that involves change from within
for those who are in power,
who benefit from white supremacy
in its presence, its history,
and its pervasiveness,
and make room as well as begin to catalyze
some of the potential business
and personal and professional value
of having an integrated multi-racial,
multicultural company and organization,
which will be more able
to not only tap future and present markets
but be better equipped
for the American future
that in some ways we’ve already seen
has developed success in some companies
but also in the military
that you started out with
in terms of its ability to integrate
and to create a better force
through integration
that’s done in that systemic manner.
There’s so much in what you have to offer
that I wanted to try
and consolidate it for myself.
Was there, you know,
anything really critical
in what you’re sharing
about doing that hard work
that you think deserves
additional attention?
BB: Let me put a little bit
of a finer point on it
and do it from
maybe a little less
code-switch position.
And going back to your question
about what organizations are doing
that they’re successful with.
So it operates like this.
George Floyd is murdered
and we’re all against that,
but there are people
in Minneapolis neighborhoods
paying for the police
that are crushing those neighborhoods.
And they’re really nice people,
and they don’t mean anything, right?
So now, if we take it away from there
and we go to, say, the west coast,
where we are,
you have companies,
where they exist
in completely segregated neighborhoods,
where we could list
the people within whiteness,
the identities within whiteness
that they really allow
into their organization,
into their neighborhoods,
into their schools.
They live these completely
isolated existences, right?
and all the while seeing themselves
as not racist at all.
So the thing about it is
the way racism happens
has always been institutional,
and the way that whiteness operates
is by always making it psychological,
so you put all this money
into DEI programs,
specifically designed not to see
how it is you’re actually carrying on
the work of white supremacy,
and then there’ll be complaints like,
“Wow, it’s not really working.
We’ve put however many billions
of dollars into it,
and it hasn’t happened.”
You know the thing is
it hasn’t happened
in your neighborhood either,
but you haven’t left.
It didn’t happen in your schools,
but you haven’t left your schools.
You’re still going into those meetings,
and where are the black women
in those meetings exactly?
But you don’t walk out of those meetings
and you don’t say anything,
but you want to put all of this money
into DEI resources.
The problem’s not those resources;
the problem is you.
You have to change.
That’s the thing about it.
And even if we get past the notion
of doing it for altruistic reasons,
even if you don’t buy my idea
that there’s a coming demographic
that will require it,
there’s also a split here for those of you
who looked at George Floyd and thought,
“That is inhuman, awful.
That has to be stopped.”
For those people, with whom will you
politically combine to stop it?
Because there is another part of whiteness
that has already shown
it will do whatever is necessary
in order to maintain that power,
and you can’t combine with them.
It’s becoming more and more distasteful.
So who will you combine with?
Well, you would need to combine
with the very people
you have segregated yourself from
and have no practice
actually connecting to.
Until you come out of your privilege,
you cannot make the connections
that will allow you to create the country
that you actually want.
Celie taught us this
in “The Color Purple,” right? -
“Until you do right by me,
everything you even think about
is going to crumble.”
As right now we see
what is going on in this country,
as we see democracy
crumbling in front of us,
your ability to connect
with Black and brown people,
with people across gender identities
and across sexual orientations,
that ability to connect
is really the foundation
of all of your organizations.
It’s the foundation of your neighborhoods.
It’s the foundation of all the privilege
that you’ve had so far.
And it is crumbling
before our eyes right now.
It is time to come out of that privilege.
Connect to your actual history,
embrace your actual culture,
and do this good work.
But it starts with seeing it
as your work to do in the first place.
So “Out of Privilege” does work
in corporate environments.
We also do individual workshops
or group workshops
with individuals who are
just trying to do this work
because this work, we think,
is vital work.
We can’t have nice things
until this work is done,
and the clock is ticking.
PK: Wow, that’s a powerful, compelling
case that you’re building here and making.
You know, you called out at the beginning
that this is hard work,
and I think for many people,
it’s very uncomfortable work,
but for you to point out
that it’s also good work,
I think that should really
not be lost on anyone.
And you know, I really hope we can -
So there’s a refrain
which might be something like
“Yeah, I get it.”
And there’s a difference
between “I get it” as a white person
and getting it,
and it involves more honestly
looking at history
and letting go of some of its -
well, it’s a combination.
There’s a history to see,
and then there’s a history
to be honest about,
and then there’s a history to accept,
and then there’s a history
to indicate “I do not have to be …” -
I’ll just simplify and say -
“I do not have to be
all things that my father was
or that my great-grandfather was,”
and we can consciously acculturate,
as opposed to unconsciously acculturating,
at least to some degrees.
And unless and until we do that,
we’re going to just continue to repeat
and follow along in the channels
that have been laid down before us.
I want to ask, you know,
when you see white people
taking the actions
that you think will have
significant results,
what does that look like when you see it?
BB: So, in the workshops that we do
and then in the work groups that we do,
usually the first inklings of it
will be someone saying,
“Oh, I heard this,”
or as we go through things,
“Oh, I realize I said this at that point,”
like there’s all these revelations
within your own life
of things that were
passed over, glossed over -
because that’s the work
of maintaining privilege,
and you begin to see things
that you never saw before,
like you recognize what they are,
and they’re really fun,
like I know the work is hard
and I know that sometimes it’s like
“Oh, if I have to take on
all of white history.”
That sounds like
“Uh, I don’t want to do that,” you know,
but the truth is
Black history is yours too,
you know?
The immigrant history is yours too.
It’s not just mine.
I don’t own it by some
biological means or whatever.
So your fathers are much more varied
than you are right now allowed to think.
But usually it just starts with starting
to peel off these little layers,
and as it goes farther,
you begin to hear race
being done by white people
around you more and more -
and again, this is whiteness
as a political party,
not just phenotypically white people -
and then sometimes
you get a little bit irritated
at people who are doing it
and not seeing it,
as every new student does:
you know, you have that one psych class,
and all of the sudden,
you’re critiquing norms
all over the place.
And so those things happen.
But we also have people that have decided
to live in a different neighborhood,
to have a different set of experiences,
to actually go find Black and brown spaces
to spend time in,
churches and things like this.
Now, keep in mind Black and brown people
may not want you around -
you know, there is a history -
but you can see people
opening up their lives
as they see, almost in a way,
what has been denied to them,
although it’s them doing the denying.
This is an opening up
of your world, you know?
It can really be fun.
And the work groups themselves
are places where I’ve really seen
friendships grow,
where actual connections are made.
A lot of the work is lovely.
PK: So you see and believe in a world
that is out of privilege.
BB: I do, I am.
You know, I have to.
I just have to.
I can’t make a case for it
based on the history
of the country necessarily;
however, we have had multi-racial
coalitions all over the place,
like now they’ve been
violently crushed usually,
but they are there.
I mean, they have put highways
through multiracial neighborhoods.
They have paved them over.
I’m in San Francisco right now.
There was a place
called the Western Addition,
which was a beautiful
multi-racial environment,
where people were just kicked out,
and it was laid barren
for a decade or two,
and so you have fewer Black people
in San Francisco, right?
So there’s been this conscious work
to keep these multi-racial groups apart
because we are so powerful when we come
together across these identities.
If we can establish trust
and live with each other,
we can have the organizations,
the schools, the neighborhoods,
the country that we want.
I do believe it.
PK: Thank you.
And thank you so much for the patience
and courage and active engagement
that you’ve offered us
in the way that you’re helping us
through the discomfort
to see how so much of the hard work
really is good work, necessary work,
and work that it’s time to do now
and that many people are ready to do.
So thank you so much, Byron.
I really appreciate you taking the time.
BB: And I want to thank you
and Zia and TEDxSeattle
for allowing me this forum.
I’m really appreciative.
PK: Yeah, is there anything else
that you want to leave us with
sort of in closing?
BB: Just that the first entanglement
that you’ll come across
is always the same.
You’ll want to point at others,
you’ll want to point at the knee
on George Floyd’s neck,
you’ll want to point at those men
murdering the Georgia jogger
or to Breonna Taylor’s
still unarrested killers.
The first step is always pointing at you
in your racial context.
Find that first; the rest’ll follow.
PK: Thank you.