Picture of a man, facing away from the camera, with grey, short curly hair wearing a blue sweater with his hands clasped behind his head while sitting on a black coach. Photo by Coen Staal on Unsplash
Check-In:
My social media feeds are currently filled with posts calling out companies on their DEI pledges and declarations from 2020. This is happening at the same time as many of the equity officers I saw hired in 2020 leaving. They got tired of the pushback being received on the initiatives the companies SAID they wanted. This isn’t part of the great resignation or quiet quitting- this is senior-level leadership choosing comfort.
One of the characteristics of white supremacy culture as defined by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun (1999; 2021) is the ‘right to comfort’. They define it as “Our cultural assumption that I or we (or the ones in formal and informal power) have a right to comfort, which means we cannot tolerate conflict, particularly open conflict. This assumption supports the tendency to blame the person or group causing discomfort or conflict rather than addressing the issues being named.”
In my interview with Stephen, he addresses the discomfort people have seeing a Vietnamese man leading an equity initiative. In my book overview of Humanity over Comfort, I discuss the authors take on the numerous ways adults in education would rather hold on to systems of power and oppression versus engage in real systematic change.
As leaders, we are all susceptible to choosing comfort. It takes a level of consistent and conscious choice to choose something different.
#mondaymotivation: “In every age, no matter how cruel the oppression carried on by those in power, there have been those who struggled for a different world. I believe this is the genius of humankind, the thing that makes us half divine: the fact that some human beings can envision a world that has never existed.” – Anne Braden, anti-racist activist
Interview with Leader of the Global Majority:
Stephen Pham is the Managing Director, Organizational Operations, Culture, & Health at The Learning Accelerator. He has been in the role for over four years.
Mary: What have you learned and unlearned about your identity since being in this role?
Stephen: In the unlearned bucket- a lot of the values and even ways in which my family has assimilated into white supremacy culture has had to be unlearned. I come from a family of Vietnamese refugees, who came here in 1975, and very much believed in the American dream and learned how to code-switch very quickly into professional spaces and white spaces, essentially. So that was passed on to me, and I thought that was how we needed to operate to be successful.
Stephen: And I've really interrogated my identity and my upbringing, and how that affects my success in the workplace and in this role, specifically, of how to really shift my mindset to thinking about how I live authentically and really own who I am. And invite others to interrogate themselves and live authentically.
Mary: What challenges do you feel like you've faced?
Stephen: One of the questions I get is how my identities and experiences may qualify me to take on this leadership in DEI. There is also the question should there be white DEI leaders, right? It's interesting how that gets connected to the Asian-American identity. And a lot of it is rooted in the model minority and the idea that Asians are essentially white, which is very problematic. It sometimes forces us to play oppression Olympics, which is problematic and rooted in a zero-sum game.
Mary: How do you respond when somebody questions your leading DEI work?
Stephen: A quote from Aboriginal activists in Australia says, "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." That embodies my why. I'm not here just to help. I am here because I believe that our liberation is bound together, and we all need to be in this work.
You can hear more from Stephen when “Leading Within Systems of Inequity in Education: A Liberation Guide for Leaders of Color” is published in April 2023. Let me know if you would like to be interviewed and/or recommend someone to be profiled in this section.
What I’m Reading:
Humanity Over Comfort: How You Confront Systemic Racism Head On by Sharone Brinkley-Parker, Tracey L. Durant, Kendra V. Johnson, Kandice Taylor, Johari Toe, and Lisa Williams
About the authors: Six Black women educators who all have experience leading and supporting equity work in organizations.
Book Audience: Anyone working in an organization striving to become an anti-racist institution.
Book Overview:
The book is organized into 3 sections:
Part I: Beginning the Journey- The Reflecting Space (Chapters 1-3)
o The highlight for me in these chapters was the introduction and explanation of the Conscious Anti-Racist Engendering (CARE) Framework in chapter 2. This framework considers so many critical components to see organizational change. I appreciate that is it based on community-building and adult learning theory while also recognizing that the journey isn’t chronological.
Part II: Leaning Into the Learning- The Making Meaning Space (Chapters 4-5)
o Chapter 4 which breaks down power was the most interesting to me. It breaks down positional, relational, and expertise-based power and where it may show up in organizations. The chapter also goes back to the CARE Framework to provide concrete strategies for building community as an antidote to power structures.
Part III: Curating Transformation- The Doing Space (Chapters 6-9)
o Chapter 8 is insightful as it uses a scenario of a Black female teacher experiencing microaggressions and alienation and provides many ways her experience can be shifted to be one of support and inclusivity. One way introduced is the SAUCE (support, accountable, uproot, co-construct, elevate) approach which a leader can use to build a transformative culture
Other Highlights:
There are many sections of the book included to help the reader connect to the content and encourage deeper learning:
· chapter reflections; journal prompts; pause and reflects; ideas to sit with; scenarios; your lived experiences; what nobody talks about (my favorite section)
Quotes for reflection (all from ‘what nobody talks about’ sections):
· Often people of color are problematized because those with power and position are not willing to remove the practices and policies steeped in racism that are created, implemented, and followed (p51).
· Racial equity is not what you do, it’s who you are. It’s not possible to create anti-racist organizations with people not committed to anti-racism. Power needs to be distributed within organizations seeking to be anti-racist (p68).
· You are either perpetuating or interrupting. There is no middle ground. Interruption takes deliberate action and intent. Therefore, if you are unable to name how you are interrupting, you are perpetuating (p95).
· Leaders of color, like all other leaders, have invested in White supremacy. Black leaders have to mobilize when they take a set at the table to promote change (p111)
Next Book: Fighting the Good Fight: Narratives of the African American Principalship by Isaac C. Carrier and Aaron J. Griffen. You can find a full list of my book recommendations here.
Resources:
· Banned Book Week is September 18th -24th. Since 1982, libraries across the United States have observed Banned Books Week, a time to highlight titles that were targeted for removal from schools and libraries. In 2022, there has been a particularly aggressive wave of bans and challenges across America. The American Library Association, which pioneered Banned Books Week, has reported a record number of books banned in recent years—many of which center people of color and LGBTQ+ voices.
· ¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States is a 12-page guide that provides a tour of the National Museum of the American Latino’s inaugural exhibit located in the Molina Family Latino Gallery, the first gallery of the museum. The print edition explores significant themes found in the exhibit, with “Colonial Legacies,” exploring “Wars with Mexico and Spain” as well as “Immigration Stories.” The guide also highlights Latino contributions to American life in the 20th Century in “Shaping the Nation.”
If this is your first time reading, please go back and read my Introductions post.
Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think. If you like it, please share it with your network!