Issue Ten: Within
Preposition: inside (something).
Check-In:
The Miseducation of Lauren Hill is one of my favorite albums of ALL time. When it came out in 1998, I played the full album (including the interludes) non-stop. In my opinion- an instant classic! I was delighted when my 16-year-old told me recently that she too enjoyed the album (this is years after me trying to get her to listen to it...)
It is difficult for me to pick a favorite song from the album but one of my favorite lines comes from, Doo Wop (That Thing). It’s “How you gon' win when you ain't right within.”
When I first heard the line I was chasing success. Being busy and producing was the goal. Nothing was a greater insult than being called ‘lazy.’ I remember my mother quoting to me what she had accomplished before my teenage self got out of bed. I have stopped myself from saying the same thing to my own kids. I remember when I was a principal I didn’t look forward to holidays because that was when I got sick- like the rest was signaling to my body to break down versus to rejuvenate.
For those of us who are equity officers, our life span averages only 2-3 years (less than a school system superintendent) so pushing to meet outcomes when the outcomes are not just heart work but systems work, can push one to not stop. Our field has also become crowded in the past two years and in a profession with no standards or degree, we can get caught in the “busy” before ensuring we are right within and have a clear outcomes-based plan. In my interview with Tracie, she talks about how she had to set expectations for herself and others. In DEI Deconstructed, Lily Zheng pushes DEI practitioners to set and lead toward clear outcomes in their work.
Today, Hill’s line hits differently. When I look back at what I experienced in 2022, I know that I’m still standing because of the time I’ve spent thinking about what it means to be a Black woman leader and what I need within myself to be effective within an institution.
I have the privilege of not working for the next two weeks. In these last few days of the year, I will continue to reflect on who I am as a leader of the global majority, and how my practice will evolve in 2023. I will also be reading, writing, running, sleeping in, daydreaming, and yes, listening to some Lauren Hill.
How do you know if you are right within?
#mondaymotivation: “How you gon' win when you ain't right within.” -Lauren Hill, Doo Wop (That Thing)
Interview with a Leader of the Global Majority:
Tracie Jones was the Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the Harvard Graduate School of Education for over 2 years. She is currently the Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
Mary: What are some of the challenges that you have faced in this work?
Tracie: I realized I need to set expectations. I don't have a magic wand and you're not going to just ‘checkbox’ this off. You have to be committed to what this looks like.
Tracie: Before I heard, "You're supposed to solve everything. Why are you not solving it?"
Now, I respond, “That's not realistic. I can't. I can create containers, I can create opportunities, but I can’t solve."
Mary: You mentioned the fact of being a Black woman, so I'm curious how this experience is for you being in a white institution and how have you managed that.
Tracie: I feel this work for Black women is hard. They look to us to save everybody, to nurture, and to mother.
Tracie: Having a support system of Black women who are like, "No, you're not crazy." Talking to them about how to approach certain people because you know you're not crazy and you know they're shutting you down has been critical.
Tracie: When I was at Harvard, one of the things that I learned and took note of was my dean who was a Black woman, and how people respond to a Black woman as a leader. She told me I needed to figure out how I’m going to manage because pushback isn't going to stop. She said, "You have to do what works for you. What works for me may not work for you."
You can hear more from Tracie 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: DEI Deconstructed: Your No-Nonsense Guide to Doing the Work and Doing It Right by Lily Zheng.
About the author(s): Lily Zheng is a leading DEI consultant who has worked for and with a variety of companies across the country. They have also published many articles and thought pieces.
Book Audience: For any DEI practitioner
Book Overview:
DEI Deconstructed is broken into 3 parts. In Part 1: Foundation, Lily Zheng takes incredible time and effort to tell what some of us DEI practitioners do not want to hear- we need to have hard outcomes and what we have been doing isn’t getting us the outcomes we need. I have heard myself say, “heart work can’t be measured” which I still agree with; however, if we are not changing the experiences and outcomes for the companies and employees we are working for, is there really any point?
Although Zheng’s examples to make this claim come from the corporate/government sector, I didn’t have any problems making connections to the K12/non-profit sector. As DEI practitioners, we do not have standards, degrees, or a certification exam that says we have the skills to lead organizational transformation. Many of us have lived experiences that we lean on heavily for our work. We often use diversity data as our primary outcome but that doesn’t automatically lead to more just, inclusive, and liberated experiences for students and staff.
“Strategy, structure, and culture are the trifecta that collectively explains how organizations get from intentions to outcomes,” (p. 129). This line perfectly summarizes, Part 2: Pillars. Zheng gives us definitions and examples of power, structure, and culture as well as assessments for us to be able to dive into our own organizations to understand where each piece’s role is currently and how they can be leveraged to create outcomes. As you identify how to make a systemic impact in these areas you need to think about the role you play and how your intersectional identity is a part of that role. There are 7 types of roles Zheng presents that are necessary for movements to be impactful- advocate, educator, organizer, strategist, backer, builder, and reformer. In the last chapter of this section, Zheng dives into levels of trust and how this impacts the types of DEI strategies that will be effective.
Once you have a deep level of understanding of the organization and the issue you are trying to solve, you’re ready for Part 3: Toolbox. I appreciate Zheng’s understanding that each organization is different so they give us 4 levels of achieving DEI with concrete strategies embedded in each level. I used this section as a self-assessment of my own organization and approaches to see where we can continue to stretch and grow.
Personally, I appreciated the conclusion chapter where Zheng names that DEI challenges cannot be addressed by one practitioner or consulting firm so hiring organizations and DEI practitioners need to be clear about what they need and the skillsets they are able to provide. Reflecting on my practice and seeing if I’m an educator, integrator or advisor was another helpful exercise.
Overall, Zheng’s book is an important read. As our field gets crowded with new practitioners and online courses, those of us who are invested in seeing our organizations reach tangible, positive outcomes should welcome the bar Zheng sets for us. We shouldn’t want anything less.
Next Book: Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching by Jarvis R. Givens. You can find a full list of my book recommendations here.
Resources:
In Building Resilient Organizations: Toward Joy and Durable Power in a Time of Crisis author Maurice Mitchell provides detailed causes of why an organization may be struggling to fulfill its mission to become an equitable organization and provides ways to combat the causes using four dimensions—structural, ideological, strategic and emotional.
Tone-Policing and the Assertion of Authority by Alice MacLachlan breaks down why the practice of tone-policing is problematic and what type of authority is connected to the practice.
This EdWeek article does a good job of chronicling the Anti-CRT movement over the past few years and the Teaching Texas podcast gives us deeply investigated insight into how we got here.
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!
I am so excited about your book!