Creating justice-centered organizations is the next frontier in DEI. This book shows how to go beyond compliance to address harm, share power, and create equity.
Traditional DEI work has not succeeded at dismantling systems that perpetuate harm and exclude BIPOC groups. Proponents of DEI have put too much focus on HR solutions, such as increasing representation, and not enough emphasis on changing the deeper organizational systems that perpetuate inequities—in other words, on justice. DEIJ work diverges from traditional metrics-driven DEI work and requires a new approach to effectively dismantle power structures.
This thought-provoking, solutions-oriented book offers strategic advice on how to adopt a justice mindset, anticipate and address resistance, shift power dynamics, and create a psychologically safe organizational culture. Individual chapters provide pragmatic how-to guides to implementing justice-centered practices in recruitment and hiring, data collection and analysis, learning and development, marketing and advertising, procurement, philanthropy, and more.
DEIJ pioneer Mary-Frances Winters and her coauthors address some of the most significant aspects of adding a justice focus to diversity work, showing how to create a workplace culture where equity is not a checklist of performative actions but a lived reality.
Purchase Racial Justice at Work on Amazon
Read an Excerpt
Have you ever heard the saying “closed mouths don’t get fed,” possibly in a song or film or quoted by your favorite entertainer? There may be different interpretations of what this means, but this idiom was instilled in my family based on the common understanding being “if you don’t speak up, you will not get what you want.”
Another common phrase is “silence is golden,” or how about the opposite, “say what you mean and mean what you say.” While these expressions may seem like universal advice that applies equally to everyone, they do not. Silence is not golden for BIPOC and other marginalized groups who continue to face injustices, but silence often feels safer. These groups have too often not been afforded the safety in the workplace to “say what you mean and mean what you say.” Too often, BIPOC voices, true personalities, and vernacular are not welcome in workplace environments. They are minimized, stigmatized, and or misunderstood.
Silence will not lead to justice. Only when we are able to authentically, respectfully and without repercussions say what we mean and mean what we say will we move closer to equity and justice. We must enhance our understanding of why silence often feels like the only option in the workplace. Whether it be not speaking up for ourselves or not speaking up for others, we must build our awareness and understanding of the injustices around us and overcome the fear often associated with speaking up. A speak-up culture actually leads to a more engaged and productive workplace.
According to research, a speak-up culture is a workplace culture that values and encourages employees to express their fears, provide feedback, ask questions, raise concerns, and make suggestions without fear of retaliation or any other kind of harm. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go to actualize such a culture, especially for BIPOC.
Understand the History of Silence
Dominant groups that held power over others have forced marginalized people into silence as a mechanism for survival. Enslaved Blacks were beaten or worse for saying anything that might be interpreted by their master as disrespectful. These fears continued through the Jim Crow era, where even a look could lead to lynching. The infamous Emmitt Till lynching occurred because Carolyn Bryant Donham accused the fourteen-year-old boy of whistling at her, which is what led to his murder. Thus, “silence is golden” really meant silence is “survival.” There was and still is a huge risk in speaking up, but because closed mouths don’t get fed, many courageous advocates for justice did speak up, and many paid the price with their lives. During the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s and ’70s, a number of civil rights leaders were killed because of their demands for equality and justice, with the most famous being Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Even in the midst of these risks and sacrifices, speaking up has and does lead to change. All of the legislation aimed at creating a just society was passed because people spoke up.
So why would silence still be needed for survival in many workplaces? This history has embedded intergenerational fear and fatigue into the psyches of many marginalized groups. And the repercussion of speaking up is not just in the past but continues in many workplace cultures. Research shows that BIPOC have a greater fear of speaking up. In a 2015 Forbes article, a woman of Indian heritage lamented that she was only perceived as “good” if she did not speak up. When Black women speak up, they are often labeled as “angry.” A study showed that when people of color advocated for diversity and equity in the workplace, managers saw them as less competent. BIPOC often “minimize” their identities in noninclusive workplaces and use a strategy of “going along to get along” and simply concur with dominant group perspectives. In Mary-Frances Winters’s book We Can’t Talk About That at Work: How to Talk About Race, Religion, Politics and Other Polarizing Topics,1 she points out that we have been taught not to talk about topics that might be considered polarizing. The racial justice challenge is to increase awareness of workplace inequities and provide employees with the skills to speak up so all can be “fed.”
About the Author:
Mary-Frances Winters is the founder and CEO of the Winters Group Inc. She was named a top ten diversity trailblazer by Forbes and a diversity pioneer by Profiles in Diversity Journal, and she is the recipient of the prestigious ATHENA Award as well as the Winds of Change Award conferred by the Forum on Workplace Inclusion. Winters is also the author of We Can’t Talk about That at Work, Inclusive Conversations, and Black Fatigue.
The Winters Group Team contributors are Kevin A. Carter, Megan Ellinghausen, Scott Ferry, Gabrielle Gayagoy Gonzalez, Dr. Terrence Harewood, Tami Jackson, Dr. Megan Larson, Leigh Morrison, Katelyn Peterson, Mareisha N. Reese, Thamara Subramanian, and Rochelle Younan-Montgomery.
Connect with Mary-Frances Winters
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3 comments:
Thanks for hosting!
This sounds like a good book
The book sounds very insteresting. Thanks!
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