Episode 303 | Author: Emilie Aries | Feb. 4, 2021

2020 was a tumultuous one for many reasons, not the least of which was the long-overdue attention that the Black Lives Matter movement garnered in response to systemic police brutality and abuse that was made evermore obvious by the egregious killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Philando Castille, and far too many more. This violence, of course, is nothing new. The attention they received, however, and resulting record-breaking protests, was new, and it became more difficult than ever for the rest of the nation - white America in particular - to ignore.

As a part of our response to 2020’s racial justice movement, we here at Bossed Up put together our first-ever Diversity, Inclusion, and Active Anti-Racism Justice Plan. We published it publicly, emailed all our subscribers about it, and shared it on social media to solicit feedback.

Today I want to report back on what we’ve learned about active allyship and racial justice since then.

1. Anti-racism starts in-house.

February is Black History Month, which can invite a certain type of optical allyship that can be more harmful than helpful. Latham Thomas, author of Own Your Glow, coined the term optical allyship, which she defines as “allyship that only serves at the surface level to platform the ‘ally.’” She explains, “It makes a statement but doesn’t go beneath the surface and is not aimed at breaking away from the systems of power that oppress.”

It’s performative, superficial, and centers around the ally showing off how “woke” they are, instead of actually getting to the heart of the matter. This can create a false sense of progress on the part of the ally, who has, in fact, done nothing substantive to advance social justice.

To go beyond this superficiality, it’s imperative that organizations and individuals start by first focusing their attention inwards. Here are two examples that have worked well for us:

We instituted an internal anti-racism learning & development plan.

This looks like quarterly self-education efforts that include reading books and articles, listening to podcasts, and watching documentaries, followed by thoughtful lunch n’ learn conversations to review what we each took away and how we may be able to apply those learnings to our work and lives. If my scrappy little small business can do this, there’s no excuse to not be doing this low-cost, incredibly educational work with your team.

We re-assessed and adjusted our hiring policies.

Systematic racism in hiring is a proven reality. So how does your company systematically combat this? That was the question we asked ourselves when assessing our own policies, and found ourselves coming up short. In the world of small business especially, it’s easy for hiring processes to lack structure and lean towards the informal. But this is problematic for leveling the playing field. We made a variety of adjustments, which I plan to expand upon in greater detail in an upcoming post, which includes always hitting a threshold of 25% people of color candidates in our application pool - at every stage of the interview process. We also now use hiring rubrics tailored to the role to rate candidates throughout the interview process so that we’re less reliant on subjective matters like perceived “likeability” and “culture fit,” which can also leave candidates of color at a disadvantage.

By starting with an internal audit and creating regular opportunities for analysis, improvement, and learning, our anti-racism efforts can focus less on optics and more on our everyday business practices.

2. You’ve gotta put your money where your mouth is.

How do you quantify the debt you owe to communities of color? This was a difficult, imperative question we asked ourselves last year, especially as an organization so seeped in Black culture and history (after all, “bossed up” is a hip hop term - more on that in an upcoming post soon).

As a for-profit entity that has profited in no small part thanks to Black culture, we knew we had to do more than simply pay homage verbally and give credit where credit is due. So we built in a new give-back strategy directly into our business model. Now, to be completely honest: we’re a very low-profit business, and surviving 2020 was miraculous in it’s own right, given the fact that at this time last year 100% of our business operations hinged on in-person events.

That said, I’m a big believer that everyone can give at some level. So I started with a realistic commitment for us: 5% of our quarterly profits go to a charitable organization focused on communities of color, as voted on by our most engaged community members in the Bossed Up Courage Community on Facebook. Knowing that not every quarter of our business is profitable, I committed us to a minimum donation of $100 for every quarter when we were in the negative. Three quarters into this program, and we’ve already donated $478.23 to the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, The Therapy Fund for Black Women and Girls, and GirlTrek. We’re just getting started, and I look forward to continuing to magnify our impact as our business grows.

Of course, giving back through business is just one way to systematically contribute. I encourage everyone, again no matter your budget, to decide what you can afford to give, and set up recurring donations. I’ve had luck using ActBlue.com to fund a recurring contribution from my personal budget to a combination of funds devoted to anti-racism action, and recommend checking those options out, or giving directly to an organization that speaks to you.

3. You’re not going to get it right every time.

Publishing our internal plans for active anti-racism meant being honest with our goals and our shortcomings with our community. The reality is, no one gets it right 100% of the time. But that cannot serve as an excuse for inaction.

So to model that, I’d like to share two components of our plan that we simply haven’t figured out yet. In other words, here’s where we’ve failed:

We tried scholarship programs - and failed.

We’re a business that is only sustainable because we charge market rate for our training programs AND give a ton of resources away for free - like our Negotiation Guide, Job Search Guide, the bi-weekly podcast, our public webinars, and more. So when we attempted to create scholarship or fellowship programs for our paid services, tailored specially to include women of color, it felt like it was an afterthought.

Which women of color should we waive the cost of our programs for? Because we have many women of color who pay full price. How would we recruit women in need of financial support? What if those women weren’t women of color? These big ethical ambiguities cropped up in the midst of our small business pivot, as we were rolling out new programs and offerings and trying to figure out how to make ends meet. We as a small business were simply not equipped to execute them thoughtfully. So when we did deploy a nomination process to identify women of color in need, we had extremely low engagement, and then welcome women into our program for free who didn’t really want or need it. We know this because participation from our fellows - who joined the program at no cost - dropped off significantly. So we’re back to square one on this front, exploring how we might partner with more experienced nonprofit organizations with existing constituencies who need the programs we have to offer. Nonprofit program management is not something we’re experts in, so we’re really seeking out meaningful partnerships now as a way to move forward with this initiative.

We set an ambitious podcast guest of color quota - 40% - and failed to meet it.

We had 58 guests on the podcast last year and 21 of them were people of color. That’s 36.2%. Did we come close? Yea, we did. But we still failed to do what we aimed to do, despite diligent and consistent efforts.

In light of our failure to reach this particular goal, we’ve actually decided to lower our target to 35%, which seems more realistic and attainable. This is something we’re checking in on quarterly and hoping to hit or exceed this year, especially considering that we have a lot of room to improve with non-Black guests of color. We have had a distinct lack of Latino and Asian guests on the show and would like to focus on solving for that blind spot this year.

4. Be grateful for feedback in any form.

I was reminded as I spoke with Dr. Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, on a recent podcast episode that’ll come out next week, that as a white person, it’s especially important to remember that feedback on race and racism in any form is a gift. This can be difficult, of course, to remember in real time when you’re being called out for something, as it’s perfectly natural to instinctively respond with defensiveness. But truly, folks of color don’t owe white people the benefit of creating a teachable moment by providing feedback at all. Consider how risky it must feel to share feedback with someone who’s perpetuating white supremacy, knowing how defensive and dramatic white fragility can be.

So over the course of the last six months, as we at Bossed Up have become more vocal and public with our anti-racism efforts, it makes sense that we’ve received more email, comments, and DMs, from our audience in response. No matter how stressful it can feel to be called out or called in, I’ve really tried to model gratitude in the face of feedback by chronicling the feedback we’ve received on our anti-racism plan in the bottom of the plan itself, since that’s the working document the team and I use to review our progress quarterly. Feedback is documented, discussed, and more often than not, acted upon. And I encourage any organization who's venturing into these waters publicly for the first time to be prepared and have a plan for what you’ll do with the feedback - good, bad, and everything in between - that you’ll inevitably get in response.

As the Obamas are known to say often: we have more work to do.

I hope these learnings will not only shed light on what’s happening here, but inspire you to take practical, actionable steps towards crafting your own anti-racism plans at work and at home as well.

And if you’re in an organization that all of a sudden last summer got loud and proud about social justice issues, this is your reminder to loop back and see how they’re measuring up. Intentions are one thing, but impact is what matters.

As we continue to move forward here at Bossed Up, I welcome your feedback on how we can continue to evolve and improve. Please feel free to drop me an email anytime at emilie@bossedup.org with your thoughts, feedback, or suggestions.

Got a career conundrum you want Emilie to cover on the podcast? Call and leave us a voicemail NOW at 910-668-BOSS(2677).

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