Decolonizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Aperna Rae.mp4 - powered by Happy Scribe

Sacha Thompson is a respected and certified DEI coach. For the next 30 minutes, we'll get an exclusive look at some of her conversations with others in the field. Welcome to DEI After 5.

. Hello, everyone, and welcome to DEI After 5. I have been looking forward to this conversation for a while because anyone that's in the diversity and inclusion space knows that we cross paths with people, we hear names and just like, okay, let's get to know each other a little bit better because so many of us are doing similar things. And so my next guest is one of those people that her name has come up several times. And, hey, you need to meet this person. And this person says that you need to meet. And so we've chatted a few times and follow each other on social media. And so I'm really looking forward to this conversation. And so today, my guest is Aparna Rae. Welcome.

Hi, Sacha. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for being here. So the first question that I want to ask is how did you get into this work?

Oh, my gosh, how indeed. So I feel like I was doing Di work before it was sexy, before it was popular. My background is in education, and in 2017, I decided I wanted to get a graduate education in decolonizing pedagogy specifically. And that's what brought me out to the West Coast. I've been living and working in Chicago, and that's what I wanted to study. I was really interested in sort of the racialized dynamics in our school system, which as an immigrant, I didn't know about. So when I went into teaching, I don't even living in the US for a few years, and I didn't know the long sort of racialized history and the racial formation of the United States. And so that's what I was curious about. And I got really lucky. I ended up going to the University of British Columbia. That is a University that has kind of a long legacy of studying and teaching kind of in a way that is a lot more culturally competent. And I got to learn a lot from native faculty members while I was at UBC. DEI just has always been a part of how I work.

I also have a lot of the identities that lend themselves to this work. I'm a woman of color in America, but I'm from India. I've lived and grown up in five or six different countries. That point of view and sort of looking out for people with lots of different identities just in my DNA and then combined with research skills and adult learning skills is made for a good mix.

It's interesting because both of us kind of started in the education space around this. But I want you to talk about the decolonization piece of it because I think that that's a term that folks are starting to hear a little bit more of. It's triggering for some people because it really asked to unlearn a lot of how we have been raised, how we've been taught to think about certain things. And so can you talk about a little bit about that and what that looks like in this work?

Oh, my gosh, I think it's so hard. And I also happen to be wearing a Tshirt today. So I should be able to answer this question. Yeah. Like decolonizing. I think that when you think of the word decolonizing, I think for a lot of white folks in particular, I will say white folks in America in particular, they have distanced themselves in such a huge way from their history. Right. Like they have forgotten or maybe they never knew in the first place that the British actually came and colonized these land. Right. They did that. And why Americans struggled to wrap their head around that is kind of beyond me because I'm decidedly not American. But coming from India, our colonizers are very much in our lives like their legacy and their impact is felt today. And as somebody who's from India, the two things they left us with was English and Railways. Right. So we have that. I've always been a native English Speaker, even if it's not my mother tongue. And we have trains. But the legacy of colonialism in India runs so deep, there is a preference for light skin. So the colorism piece, which I think white folks don't know about, is huge. It's also true in the Black community because all of Africa was colonized by European Nations. Right. And it was split up so they could colonize different portions of it. Yeah. There's almost this thing. And if you will. Right. I want to bring up something that just happened in our popular culture, which is this Netflix show. I'm sure you've seen it. Love is Blind. Right. And there's just been this controversy. And I think so many people are like, I had no idea with these two characters deeply and shape.

But they're like, we've never dated an Indian person. Right. Because the internalized depression is so deep and that is a facet of colonization. When I think about decolonizing our work, what a level of deep nuanced understanding we have to have about race, which is a social construct. It's not even real of racism, which of course, affects US internalized depression, ethnicity. And within that, like the nature diasporic communities. And so what is the Indian American experience, the people whose ancestors came 100 years ago when India and Canada were part of the British Empire. Right. And they came to Canada and a lot of them sort of came down to the US and the nature of the same South Asian Indian communities after the passage of the 1965 Nationalization Act, thanks to black leaders, where that group that deals for community is wealthier. Right. Like Sacha, they are the people that you went to work with at Amazon. Their parents came into high paying jobs, and all of the ways in which they have mimicked white culture to be successful need to be understood so that as we create strategies for equity and inclusion, we have to hold the fullness of our experience in a country that is so enormously complex.

You have struck a nerve. It's so much to unpack. Right. It is so much to unpack. And I was having a conversation with Tara Robertson earlier this week, and she asked a question. She said something she's trying to unpack is how does white supremacy show up in a room when there is no one white in the room? Right. And I've been noodling on that for a while because exactly what you talked about. Right. It's so ingrained in how we are raised and what we're taught to see as good versus evil or what is success looks like right now. There's so much going on that we really have to kind of step back. Tv shows, things that are happening on the Hill that we have to say, okay, how much of this have we really internalized as right versus what is actually right or what is actually more natural for me because of who I am and my ancestry, if that makes sense? And so as you're doing diversity and inclusion work, one of the things that I know I run into quite often is how do you approach this work without causing sensitivities, pushing people out of their comfort zone a little bit and make progress? Because the coddling of sensitivities piece has become so critical that I think a lot of what we're seeing in this space has been a whitewashing of DEI. When I think about that and the whole lens of decolonization, those are totally opposite.

This is really hard. Right. Because coddling of white sensitivity has been legislated in the United States, and to me, it's wild. But then as I've gotten older and sort of grown in my own professional journey, what I noticed is that coding of sensitivities is built in its part and parcel of every culture where there is a dominant group that wants to be coddled, and they use that coddling to keep their power. Right. What I've realized over time is that hopefully I don't get into trouble for saying this when people say to me, oh, I just don't know. Like, I don't know better. Can you show me. Right. I really see that as white manipulation because, yes, you know, you know the consequences of not speaking up. You know, the consequences of not showing up, like, you know, the consequences of not participating in creating the future of work. You actually know all the consequences. And you continue to place the burden of proof onto women of color onto communities of color, onto people that are immigrants. In all of my kind of doing this work, I've never had a leader say to me, oh, I'm curious about what is the ROI of having my all white leadership team, not once.

Right. Not a one time. But we know the impact, I think, for women of color, for us in particular, because we have grown up to be hyper vigilant human beings. We're always watching our back. Right? You can't even walk into a Nordstrom and pick out a foundation without somebody tracking you through the store. The impact of the lack of diversity is so deeply felt. We can see it. We are watching it happen in real time with what's happening in the Supreme Court, which I don't know about you, Sacha, but I'm not even a black woman. And I can feel this anger kind of like rise up through me listening to this incredibly qualified black woman get pummeled verbally. And I feel for her. And at the same time, I'm like, wow, this is so familiar. I've just kind of watched it happen. And the reason that we're getting to watch it happen is white coddling. It's like cuddling the needs of our oppressors. And so my workaround to all of that is I basically say to people, I'm not the person to sit with you with your feelings and your emotions. I want to use a data informed approach for you to make decisions about people, Ops and DEI in your organization. And I bypass the coddling, the people pleasing the bite, fragility, all those terms, just bypass all those. I'm like, look, let's just ask people in your organization how they are being impacted. And now we're going to have kind of an objective data set to work with, and let's use that to make decisions.

Yeah. I think what's interesting, there's so much shock and awe. I think that's happening. And it started with the murder of George Floyd because people have been allowed to ignore these things for so long. But now that it's kind of front and center stage, like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this is how he was treated or she was treated. And I'm like, this happens every single day in your organization.

Yeah.

You have chosen to not to watch or seen it and chosen not to do anything. And I've been saying to people that if someone comes up to you after the fact to say, oh, I'm so sorry that that happened to you, that's a waste of breath. You might as well not say anything at all, at least to me, because I'm like, you should have said something in the moment because then I would have known you are truly an ally because you're willing to put yourself in that uncomfortable situation.

Right.And so what I'm noticing right now or what I'm starting to do right now is called people out on it. Like, this is the stuff that's happening. Guess what? This is what's happening. And watch the thread of comments.

Yeah.

Because you're going to notice like, yes, this has happened to me. Yes, this has happened to me. And there's the shocking of like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that this is still happening. Open your eyes. Right. These are the things that I think organizations need. And you talk about data, and absolutely, but this is data, right? This is absolutely data. So if you aren't doing exit surveys or if you are listening to folks and saying, okay, that's a one off. How many one offs do you have? Because if you have 25 one offs in a one month period, guess what? Now you have a trend, and if they're the same demographic, there's a problem. And so what are you doing as an organization to fix that? That leak is not something that is that individual person's problem. That's your culture. And so I'm starting to have more of those types of conversations where it's, how do we fix this culture? Because it's toxic. You may not be able to see the toxicity or it may be fine for you. I was talking to one guest, Janet Stovall, and she said people use the fish out of water analogy a lot. But if you are a freshwater fish put in salt water, you're not going to be able to breathe. So that water is not the same. The culture is not the same for everyone where everyone will thrive. And so I think those are the things that we need to continue to bring up and highlight for these organizations, because we got to get past some of these check boxes that, oh, yeah, we've done that. We've had a workshop. Like, part of me is like, I'm starting to do.

No more workshops.

Yeah. It's like I don't do one off workshops anyway. But I'm really getting to a point where I'm like, okay, I know I'm not going to be your check box. And there are organizations out there that have found that without changing culture, it's just a good way to bring in some money for their organization. No, because you're causing more damage than good. So let's do a little bit of a Pivot and talk about. So as you are doing this work, what are some of the AHA moments that some of the leaders you've worked with have had?

Oh, AHA moments for leaders? I will say I feel really lucky because of the lane that we're in, we end up working with people that are sort of naturally farther along. A lot of times we'll go into an organization that's already been doing work in advancing gender equity, and now they want to intentionally advance race equity. Right. Because of our engagement approach. Also, I'm not walking into organizations and training people or doing workshops or coaching people. I'm coming in, and they're typically starting with an assessment and using that data to drive decisions. So I feel like my window into leader behavior is, I think, a little bit better than the average practitioners experience. But some of the things that I'm noticing is we don't need to coddle leaders. They are grownup people and they can actually handle real talk and they can actually handle data into their company's data. A lot of times, what happens? And I don't know, Sacha, I'm sure you've had this experience a gazillion times. Right. Where as an external consultant, you're walking into an organization and one of the gatekeeping behaviors is so and so doesn't have time. Right. Or so and so doesn't need ten slides.

Can you put everything in two slides? Right. And that is gatekeeping calling behavior. But leaders, if you're going to make decisions about running a billion dollar company, you can look at ten slides. You can spend an hour really thinking about what is happening inside your organization and draw the true line to the business impact. You can do that. So that's one. The second is and maybe slightly controversial is like companies, the way in which they set up their ERGs is so exploitative. The work lies. Like, who created racism? Not me. The work lies with senior leaders, the work wise people, managers, the work wise with white identifying, white adjacent folks, including rice, South Asians. We occupy a lot of these white adjacent spaces. We behave a lot like white people when it serves us. And that's where the work lies. And so asking moms in your company or black people in your company or just pick the most marginalized identity and you're like, hey, can you please teach us for free? Please pick this for free. Oh, and also, by the way, we have this diversity hiring goal. And like, you are the source of 100% of the referrals.

That is insane. You know, that is in healthy organizations. They're not looking at their ERGs to learn. They're looking at their ERGs to build a better, stronger culture for people. Right. Like, we are looking at ERGs as spaces that are empowering for those groups. They're not fishbowl environments. Right. In healthy organizations, ERG work is not a fishbowl. Ergs are like where I get my strength, where I get my community, because there's an understanding that my experience is different than the majority experience. And I need that time and space with my peers. Yeah. The other thing that I'm noticing about the healthiest organizations and like the AHA moment with leaders is that the leaders that most care about it are the least in front talking about it. They're not. And that's kind of what I think overall, even with just great leaders in general. I remember this moment maybe 15 years ago when I discovered Indra Nooyi and I was like, there's an Indian woman who's at head. She's the CEO of Pepsi. How have I not known about her? Right. In my early 20s, I didn't know about her because she wasn't some big influencer. She wasn't in my news feed. And that's what I think about the leaders that are leading on DEI inside of their organizations. Most of them are doing the work. They're getting their data, and they're not out talking about it until they have something to show for it. Right?

Yes, you said that. And two people immediately came to mind. And I'm not going to name names or companies, but those that know no one organization I worked with, the CTO was actually he started DEI work within the organization before the organization, did things with his engineering team around diversity and inclusion. Looking at the data, I discovered that. And I'm like, how can I partner with you? Because this is something that I've never seen before. Right. It didn't come out of HR. It didn't come out of any of those other teams. It was out of engineering, where their diversity efforts started another organization.

Exactly. To your point, a VP who loves being on stage talking about diversity and inclusion. But this particular VP, diversity equal white women. So anything beyond white women she didn't care about. Right. And my interactions with that person with her showed me, okay, that's the only demographic you care about. Because as a woman, even though you're talking about women, I got treated like crap.

Yeah.

Because I was a black woman. Right. So it's like that intersection. But yet this person is known and has gone out and spoken and been quoted in all kinds of media about her love and support of diversity and inclusion. Yet ask anyone that works under her. And they'll say, yeah, no, not so much.

So can I see a controversial thing?

Go for it.

I don't even think it's controversial for women of color, but I think for any of your white identifying white women listeners in particular. We live in a country specifically where up until 30, 40 years ago, women of color were the help. And it didn't matter what race or ethnicity you had as a woman of color, you were the household, you were the nanny. And I think in the psyche of white folks, but in particular, white women coming from plantation days down, they have been leaning down hard into women of color. And it shows up in the corporate world because a lot of times white leaders who are leaders in DEI, which, Sacha, how crazy is it that even though companies have been hiring a lot of people of color into DEI roles, still more than 50% of them are held by white women. And we know that HR is predominantly white women, and they're of an age where they grew up with people that look like you and I, we were the help. And it's just so deeply embedded. And it shows up in the policies and processes that are designed and how any time you say, hey, but that's not my experience as a woman of color or that's not my experience as a black woman, they're going to come back and say, well, I pulled myself up by bootstraps.

I was raised in a time where I couldn't have a credit card. And you're like, okay, but now we're in a time where we can all have credit cards and here are things that are not working for my demographic inside of this company. And they're in disbelief. They're in absolute disbelief.

Yeah. Oh, there's so much to unpack with that Lord have mercy. Yeah. I mean, it's dumbfounding to some extent, but again, I think we're in this space in this age where it's now super visible. Right. And people are calling it out, and it's a time of reflection. It's a time of before saying, oh, no, not everyone. Think about it.

Don't even say it. Think about and reflect on the times that you've done it and not even realize that you've done it. And I think those are the moments that are happening right now, because it's tough, it's a tough pill to swallow that you have benefited from this unjust, unfair, unequitable system for so long that was not necessarily based on your merit, but your proximity to power.

Yeah.

I can name a few folks that have gotten jobs that have zero experience in that space, but it was their proximity to power. Yet you feel that it was merit? Not so much.

Don't you have this moment? I feel like I have this moment every single day where I'm like, how did you get that job literally, if I had a T shirt? Because you say, how did you get that job? I would wear it every single day because I run across somebody every single day where they say or do something or I ask them a question and they just show me that they definitely got their job through connections, proximity of power, nepotism stake in it. All the things it kind of makes me feel so sad because there's so many smart people in my life who I see struggling to advance in their career because they are like the wrong skin color, they have the wrong accent. They didn't go to some Shishy fancy University. They went to a state school. They don't have a seat at the table where their experience and their book, Formal Education and Informal Education could really be impactful for their employer.

Yeah, I'll do a little bit of a pivot. So when we've talked about this before, but this works. You're always learning, you're always growing. It takes a lot out of you. And you're feeding and putting into other people. And so what is it that you do to fill your cup to take care of yourself as you're feeding other folks?

Yeah, great question. Well, I think if you'd asked me this question maybe three years ago, I would have said, I do nothing. And I'm always exhausted where I've evolved one thing, and I'm going to offer this to any DEI practitioner is like, just don't forget to take it personally. Right. If you're working with somebody, you're working with a client, they're not advancing, they're not growing. They're kind of being petty and mean, don't take it personally and it's a hard thing to learn to do, but you got to put on your rain jacket because the rain is not going to stop. But it's important that you stay dry so that you don't get sick. So I really found my rain jacket and don't I take a lot of it personally but really what fills my cup is I've become like a true Pacific northwest girl. I love me a hike. I've got all the gear. I've got my 30 jackets for the 30 different variations of weather and I truly love being outdoors. I love my kale salad but I think more than anything else I just love a good snuggle and staying on the couch with my partner that really does more than anything else fill me up.

Love it, love it. And so if people wanted to get in contact with you, what is the best way for them to do that?

Yeah, connect with me on LinkedIn or shoot me an email. That's my email address apart at movingbeyond co. Yeah, I mean enter my DMs I guess slide into them. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Email or LinkedIn? I want to say that I am very responsive on any other platform but that's just simply not true.

All right. Thank you so much, Aparna. This has been a fabulous conversation. Oh, my gosh. There's just so many little Nuggets out of this that I'm like. Yeah, and another thing. So thank you so much for that and thank you to everyone for watching us today. I hope that you were able to gather some things or there were some comments that were made that will cause you to pause and question because that's what this work is about. It's about being reflective and doing some of that internal work as well, too. So be sure to watch the next episode of DEI After 5 on Tuesdays at 515 PM Eastern. You can catch us on YouTube or follow us on your favorite podcast station. We'll see you later. Next time. Have a good one.