Category: Diversity & Inclusion

Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.  Last year, I summarized Annette Gordon-Reed’s book On Juneteenth. 

This year, I’m taking a different angle.  Ten years ago when I was Deputy HR Director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, we were exploring ways to improve diversity & inclusion. After benchmarking with some leaders in diversity training—including Lockheed-Martin and Georgia Power—we focused on two organizations:  White Men as Full Diversity Partners (whose approach is summarized here) and Chuck Shelton’s GreatHeart Consulting.  In fact, Shelton conducted a 1-day class on “Engaging the Majority Culture” that was very enlightening.

While we ultimately went with White Men as Full Diversity Partners (refer to my Diversity & Inclusion Incompetency for some additional history), I was intrigued by Chuck Shelton and his approach.

Click here for a summary of Shelton’s book Leadership 101 for White Men: How to Work Successfully with Black Colleagues & Customers

In her book Waking Up White & Finding Myself in the Story of Race, Debby Irving explains how she thought being a racist meant not liking people of color or being a name-calling bigot. For years, she struggled silently to understand race and racism and had no way to make sense of debates in the media about whether the white guy was “being a racist” or the black guy was “playing the race card.”

This widespread phenomenon of white people wanting to guard themselves against appearing stupid, racist, or radical has resulted in an epidemic of silence from people who care deeply about justice and love for their fellow human beings.

Irving realized, “If I, a middle-aged white woman raised in the suburbs, can wake up to my whiteness, any white person can. Waking up white has been an unexpected journey that’s required me to dig back into childhood memories to recall when, how, and why I developed such distorted ideas about race, racism, and the dominant culture in which I soaked. Never before have I been so keenly aware of how individual our cultural experiences and perspectives are. That said, all Americans live within the context of one dominant culture, the one brought to this country by white Anglo settlers.”

There has been no bigger misstep in American history than the invention and perpetuation of the idea of white superiority. It allows white children to believe they are exceptional and entitled while allowing children of color to believe they are inferior and less deserving. Neither is true; both distort and stunt development.

Irving goes on to explain, “No one alive today created this mess, but everyone alive today has the power to work on undoing it. People are not born racist. Racism is taught, and racism is learned.”

Click here to continue