Amplify Accomplices Session: Anti-racist Actions for the Workplace
This post is an edited transcript of the session we presented on Friday, April 23, 2021 in response to the Derek Chauvin trial and the killing of Ma’Khia Bryant. The recording is available here.
Slide images in this post have description information in the text below.
Welcome.
Hello and welcome to a special edition of our Amplify Partners and Accomplices conversations. Thank you so much for joining us for what we feel is a really critical conversation right now.
This session was presented by Dr. Makeda Keegan and Rachel Hands. Rachel prepared the edited transcript for this post.
The agenda.
Today we’re going to talk very briefly about what Amplify is for those of you who are joining us for the first time; we’ll talk about why we need accomplices instead of allies, what we’re facing on the road ahead, actions you can take at work based on your role at your organization, and we’ll share some of our preferred resources and wrap up with some time for Q&A. Today’s focus is going to be specifically about anti-Black racism in the US, but many of the action steps here can impact other underrepresented groups intersectionally.
During the session, our Board colleague Nicole Hansen was also on the line with us monitoring the chat, so participants were able to ask questions there as we went along. The recording and this transcript represents everything up to the Q&A, to allow participants to ask questions as candidly as possible
Not the agenda.
I also want to call out a few things that you may be expecting from a presentation like this, but that won’t be part of today’s conversation. Amplify is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and we aren’t a policy organization, so we won’t be making any specific recommendations about policy or candidates. We do operate primarily in the tech space, but today we’re going to be addressing issues that aren’t specific to the tech industry. We also recognize that our perspective is a U.S. perspective, and that if you’re looking for broader international conversations today, that won’t be happening in this session.
About Amplify.
For those who aren’t familiar yet, Amplify is a nonprofit organization with a mission to empower people from underrepresented groups in tech, and those who support them, to become fearless leaders in their field. To support that mission we operate several programs, including study groups for professional certifications, mentoring circles that provide professional development support specifically designed to support the growth of underrepresented voices in tech; regional networking groups, which like everything, are currently operating online; and a forum and monthly discussion on allyship - that’s in addition to the session we’re in right now. We do these on the first Friday of every month; typically these are smaller, open conversations, so if you decide to return for future meetings, expect to participate in a discussion on topics ranging from workplace accomplice actions to bystander intervention to discussions of recent events.
Accomplices, not allies.
And with that, let’s get into it. Let’s start with some quick framing: why we’re asking for accomplices in this effort, not allies.
When we talk about allies, it’s often used as a passive identity that we claim - we say “I am an ally.” It’s a reflection of who we think we are.
When we talk about accomplices, it requires a specific action - it’s a reflection of what we do.
Claiming an ally identity is low risk; accomplices have “skin in the game.” The risk taken on by an accomplice naturally doesn’t match the risk taken on by those with underrepresented identities, in this case Black people in the U.S.; that’s expected. What’s important is that the risk that’s available to you is risk that you take.
That risk will look different depending on who you are, your level of influence and authority in different spaces, and what your superpower is. We’re asking those who want to be accomplices to use that superpower for us.
The road ahead.
We often hear the phrase “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” In fact, it’s longer than that: This is a relay ultramarathon, not a sprint, and we have a lot of ground to cover.
The reality at work right now is that Black workers have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19-related job losses, as reported in ProPublica. (You’ll see sources linked throughout this session on the images above - all links will be included in the text of this post.)
And as if the impact from job losses weren’t enough, for those who were employed, working conditions got worse in 2020.
In a recent study conducted by Project Include, 42% of Black workers reported experiencing increased race-based hostility at work between May of 2020 and February 2021.
So there’s a lot at stake here - we can be encouraged by the moment of accountability that we saw earlier this week, and we have to use that to fuel up for a long road ahead.
Accomplice actions at work.
Okay, so we know we need accomplices to take action. What are some actions you can take right now at work that can make your environment better for the Black people at your organization? (By the way, these will also make your organization a more inclusive space for all kinds of employees from underrepresented backgrounds.)
Listen to the people who are directly impacted.
This will be a refrain that you’ll hear from us throughout the presentation. Any action that you take needs to start with listening to the folks who are directly impacted by that action. Ideally, you want to do this without needing to go to your closest Black colleague and asking “What can I do?” - start by seeking out information from those who are already telling their stories, on blogs, on social media, and in the resources we’ll be sharing today.
If you’re a policy maker:
If you’re in a position to influence or create policy at your organization, you have the best seat in the house when it comes to making lasting change. You have the opportunity to create policies that will outlast every well-intentioned manager at your organization and that will set the bar for future employees. You have the opportunity to create an organization that doesn’t rely on luck to cultivate an inclusive environment. All of these actions will need to rest on an environment that allows for appropriate support for inequitable impact.
Critically, when you’re making any policy change, take into consideration any feedback you’ve already gotten from Black employees past and present, and if you have a DEI committee that’s compensated for their work, you should ask for their feedback and direction on policy changes so that they can help you identify any unintended consequences of your changes. And yes: that means that when you receive negative feedback from your Black employees and not from white employees, you have to weight the feedback from your Black employees more heavily because they are feeling the impact more strongly. You also may receive conflicting feedback from among your Black employees - they’re not a monolith.
A couple of specific policies that we recommend for all kinds of organizations include creating consistent protocols for managers and employees to follow in times of crisis. When is it okay to cancel meetings because of external circumstances? When is it okay to move a deadline? Will the company stand behind a manager who decides to fire a client because they’ve said something racist to a team member? You probably don’t have to use much imagination to think about what these crises could look like. Most managers and leaders - especially those who care enough to have shown up here today - have had to make tough judgment calls in the last year for the benefit of their people; think about those tough calls and identify which ones you can codify as policy.
Another idea that has been floating around recently is to consider updating your bereavement leave policy to account for impactful global events. Even giving folks a couple of hours to process, take a walk, and get their heads back in the game can be an effective way to give people space, especially if it’s established as policy so that it doesn’t feel like they’re dropping the ball, taking advantage of an empathetic team, or just lucked into the right manager.
No matter what policies you implement, remember: your budget is a reflection of your values. If DEI is not in your budget, it is not in your values. Compensate your DEI committees, invest in recruitment tools and agencies that serve diverse communities, and ensure that you’re paying your employees equitably.
If you’re a manager:
If you’re a manager, you hold the power to establish trust on your team, to make the policies that your organization has in place work as well as possible for individuals, and in some cases to set team-level policy that goes above and beyond what your organization as a whole does. You have the power to make abstract-feeling policies feel concrete and actionable in real time.
As always, solicit and listen to the feedback you get from your Black team members. Their voice is more important than mine as you’re considering what you want to do next. If you don’t have any Black team members yet, or you aren’t yet at a point where you can have candid conversations with them, one place to start to understand what they might be up against is Minda Harts’ book The Memo.
One action you can start on today is to prepare an “emergency response” kit for your team members. This will be helpful to have on hand for family emergencies, unexpected sick leave, and lots of other circumstances - and if you make it clear that the kit is intended for use when your team is impacted by global events, it will help someone sooner than you think. Prepare some templated language for canceling meetings or pushing deadlines so that folks don’t have to think about it in times of distress. Make sure any business-critical tasks are well documented so that someone else can pick them up if the person responsible for them needs to back away.
You also need to make it both easy and expected to ask for help when it’s needed. This applies both to regular work and to needing help prioritizing, figuring out if it’s okay to shift a deadline, and where they can get extra support. Understand that for a lot of your Black team members, asking for help at work can feel riskier than it does for white team members, and you need to remove that risk.
Finally, understand that you have an outsized impact for your team. What you say gets filtered through the lens of “my boss said this so it’s important.” It’s critical that you cultivate a sense of self-awareness and understand how your actions read to your broader team. You ALSO have the power to push for policy changes beyond your team, because you have more access to senior policy makers than your team does.
If you’re an individual contributor:
Even if you don’t have any formal authority within your organization, you have the capacity to create a better working environment for your underrepresented colleagues.
As always - listen to them; don’t assume that you know what kind of assistance would be best for the people around you. You’ll have a different kind of access to what your colleagues are experiencing than your managers or policy makers do, and you can support them in different ways. You should not grill them about their feelings, but you can do things like check in with them after a tense meeting and ask if they’d like to debrief with you in a way that is less pressure than a manager doing the same thing. This is an opportunity for you to ask what they need from you without it coming from nowhere – and chances are good that that opportunity will show up.
You can, of course, propose some of these ideas to your manager or to HR. I recommend bringing those things up in a 1:1 meeting - it makes it easier for them to hear you out. It may feel risky, but if you aren’t Black, it’s probably less risky for you than for your Black colleagues.
If you’ve had a positive experience collaborating with a Black colleague, share your recognition of their good work with their manager. Make sure to focus on the impact of their work, rather than praising their personal qualities, when you’re sharing that recognition - that can help you steer clear of unintended microaggressions and really underscore the value of your colleague’s expertise for your team.
Speaking of microaggressions… learn to identify them in the wild, and practice what you’ll say in response to shut them down - I really mean practice with a mirror, with friends, or in one of our regular monthly Town Halls.
By the way - we’re using the term “microaggression” even though we don’t agree with it, because it’s a commonly used phrase and it highlights how difficult it can be to identify when that’s happening. We prefer to think of these as regular old aggressions.
We want structural change.
Finally, remember: the change that we ultimately want to effect is structural. It feels good to help one individual succeed; it’s better to remove obstacles for many people. As you’re listening to people’s stories and requests, pay special attention to where they’re pointing out systemic issues. Although - again - we are not here to advocate for any specific candidates, we do recommend that you vote and advocate for candidates who will help address those systemic issues in local and national elections. If you’re in a position to set company policy, give performance reviews, or make hiring decisions, identify the systemic issues in your processes and work to remove them. Many of you reading this blog work in tech, and some of you work in developing AI - if you have a hand in creating automated systems or algorithms, make sure that you’re taking the time and focus to identify and eliminate bias in your systems and training data.
Resources.
We’ve curated a number of resources on various topics related to equity and inclusion at weareamplify.org/resources; some of these are specific to the tech industry and some are related to identity issues other than race. Here you’ll also find links to resources on understanding microaggressions and on apologizing well, an important skill for any aspiring accomplice.
There’s a list that’s been circulating since last summer with tons of antiracism resources across all kinds of media, and we’re linking to that as well. If you haven’t taken a pass through that list recently, I recommend doing so now.
I also want to particularly highlight a few blog posts, starting with one from Culture Amp that goes into detail about a number of ways that you can support Black colleagues, especially from a management or policy-setting level. We’ve also highlighted an article from Buzzfeed that goes into detail about why we should resist the urge to ask our impacted friends and colleagues what to do, and a collection of resources and concrete actions specifically aimed at managers from the folks at the Management Center.
We’ve highlighted some books at these links - consider purchasing them from a Black-owned bookstore. If you do, please remember that these are often small businesses with slower fulfillment times than you might be used to, particularly as more folks get inspired to learn about these issues and support Black-owned businesses. Be patient with them and remember that the books will still be relevant when they get to you.
Get involved:
We’d also love for you to get involved with Amplify directly! You can follow us on Twitter at AmplifyNGO; whether you’re part of an underrepresented group, or consider yourself exclusively an accomplice, you can become a member and get invited to our Slack workspace by registering at weareamplify.org/become-a-member.
You can volunteer or attend one of our free events - keep an eye on weareamplify.org/events to learn more.
And lastly, we want to thank you for taking the time to read this. As I mentioned earlier, we’re a nonprofit organization, and we’re committed to be presenting this and our other programming free of charge in service to all. If you found today’s session valuable or useful, and if your financial situation allows, please consider making a donation of any size at weareamplify.org/donate to help us continue this work.
