White Women’s Roles in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with Karen Fleshman

White Women's Roles in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - powered by Happy Scribe

Welcome, everyone, to DEI After Five, the show that focuses on topics across diversity, equity, and inclusion with some of the brightest minds in the industry. Here's your hostess, inclusive culture, curator, and coach, Sacha Thompson.

Hello and welcome, everyone, to this episode of DEI After Five. This is one that I think will be a really exciting conversation to have. It's been one that I've wanted to do for a while and just could not quite figure out who I wanted to have this conversation with. And so I started really thinking about it and like, oh, I know exactly who I want to have this conversation with. And so my guest today is Karen Fleshman. Hi, Karen.

Hi, Sacha.

So it's wonderful to have you here. And one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation is because there has been discussion around how women can support each other in this space with this nuance of how can black and white women get along better, how can women of color look to white women as allies and all of those things. And so wanted to have that conversation and saw a couple of posts and have been following you for a while also, and you're always one that is like, let's just dive into the conversation. So that's exactly what I want to do. So let's start first with talk about Racy Conversations. Like, how did that even come about?

Actually, Racy Conversations came about because of black women. So I am a white woman who grew up in an almost entirely white community, but I've had kind of an unusual career path because I've always worked for global majority organizations, and almost all of my bosses have been women of color, and they have been excellent mentors role models, giving me a lot of feedback on things I needed to do better. And I've worked in the field of youth workforce development, preparing young adults of color for the workplace. And I was a mentor to many young adults of color as they began corporate careers. And it was a conversation I had in 2014 with two young black women who had graduated from the workforce development program I used to work for, have been working for tech companies for a couple of years. And they were telling me, listen, we're super grateful for our incomes and our lifestyles, but being the only black woman as far as the eye can see in our work environment, we are bombarded by toxicity, and a lot of it is coming from women who look like you. And that was that moment where I was like, oh, my goodness.

I thought I was helping young people of color, preparing them for these careers, and in a sense, I was, but I was also putting them in harm's way. And the folks who I really needed to be reaching out were my peers, white people, the dominant group in many workplaces. And I was going to stop preparing young adults of color for the workplace and start preparing the workplace for young adults of color. That is when I decided to create Racy Conversations.

I love that because the onus is not on people of color to change those environments, right. And so having that mindset shift of, okay, yes, I can do what I can to prepare them for the skills that they need in order to go into these spaces. But how do we prepare these spaces for individuals that may not look like us or have shared experiences with us? And I think that's a very interesting way to approach this because many organizations I'm trying to think of how the phrase is like if you're going to bring a new organ into a body, you have to prepare the body for that organ, right. You have to do all the things to make sure the organ won't reject I mean, the body won't reject that organ. Right. And it's the same thing with people and organizations and making sure that the organization is open and willing to accept the new body, right. The new organ that's coming in. And we do very little about that. But at the same time, we talk about inclusion all the time.

As you're talking, what's coming to mind is that excellent diagram created by a nonprofit organization in Canada. And it shows the woman of color enters the workplace. And at first the white leadership is so excited that she's there, but then it turns out she was a tokenized hire and so she's subjected to repetitive injury and microaggression. And when she points this out to the white leadership and says, hey, things need to change here, instead of listening to her and actually changing, they point the finger at her and blame her for not fitting in with them until finally she either quits of her own volition or inspired it and exits the organization. And we see this happening over and over again. So much injury to so many incredibly talented people and injury to organizations because we're not creating the kind of organizations we need to serve the current market, to serve our society in all its many dimensions. So that's what I really see Racy Conversations is doing is bridging that gap, that diagram.

I think every year or so, I repost it because I know that so well. And every single time it gets tens of thousands of likes because so many women of color, they're like, yes, that's exactly what's happening to me right now. Or I've been through that cycle and so it didn't come out of nowhere, right. That is the experience. I'm going to ask two questions. How can organizations do better in this space? But then I want to go back to something else you said after you answer that question.

Sure. How can organizations do better? Prepare to have, as you were just saying, prepare the body for the new organ and do the self reflection, raise the self awareness. There's so many great resources you can turn to mind the memo or write within so many blogs and just so much information out there about the workplace experiences of women of color. So read that stuff and actually reflect, what do I need to do? How do I need to change in order for this person to be able to thrive in this workplace? And I think also we spend a lot of time focusing on these interpersonal behaviors. But from an organizational standpoint, the organization needs to be tracking the data to really understand what teams and managers have particular challenges in this area, what teams and managers are doing well, how long do women of color remain in a position, how quickly do they advance in comparison to their peers, et cetera. So I think there's both an interpersonal component and a data component, and we need to be working on both of them.

I love that last piece, especially because it's all about the data, right? Especially tech is all about being data driven. But then, of course, when you ask for these numbers, they're like, oh, we don't capture these numbers. Yeah, you do. How do you just capture the data that you have? Right?

Then they claim that we are an entity that fails fast and we love to take risks, but, oh, if we were to track our demographic data, that would be too risky and open us up to legal liability.

But I want to go back to something you said in the beginning because I think this is a topic that is difficult for a lot of people to have, and it is the role of white women in these spaces. And I'll go back to some conversations that I've had where especially when we're talking about diversity and inclusion, prepanddemic, pre George Floyd, pre racial unrest. For so many organizations, diversity equal gender. And in doing so, many of the voices were the majority of gender, which were white women. And so women of color, women with disabilities, women with any other intersectional, identity was not necessarily captured in what organizations were doing. And so when I think back and I look and I see my path through that chart that you mentioned, the times where I hit challenges wasn't necessarily with the job that I was doing. It was never anything about my skill or my experience or the knowledge that I brought to the organization. It was a cultural disconnect of me challenging or what was I told that I did not respect authority. Yeah, that I had an attitude, all of the things. And so those were all white women that have said that to me.

I cannot think of times where my challenges that have impacted my career have been at the hands of white men and so just want to talk about that, because I think for many women of color, that's the experience. Very rarely is it the white men that are part of the problem. And so, as you're talking about the two students that you had, that kind of came to you very parallel to my experience as well too. And so what role can white women play in starting to bridge some of these gaps?

First of all, I'm just so sorry that you had those experiences. And I would add I've had those experiences too. I talk about it all the time from white men in the workplace. I experienced concrete ceiling wage gap and sexual harassment. But the most harmful experiences I had in the workplace came from white women who were senior to me within the organization and perceived me as a threat to their proximity to wipe out in power. And so they would do things like take things that I had shared with them. They would approach me as like a mentor, right? So I would open up and share things with them and then they would take what I shared with them and use it against me and do all these workplace gossip to undermine me. And it caused so much psychological harm, I had to go to therapy for a couple of years to get over what this one white woman did to me in the workplace. So I think that the role of white women in this conversation, we have a lot of healing to do and a lot of unconditioning. And I've come to this, I'm very much influenced by Resma menacum in my grandmother's hands and the whole intergenerational trauma that he speaks about not only black bodies and bodies of culture having, but also white bodies.

And in particular, thinking about why white women behave the way we do today is really rooted in 1000 years of violence that was inflicted by white men to white women in Europe before we even came to this country. And then when we got to this country, the way the laws were structured, we literally became our husband upon marriage. And we were brought here to have white hairs and to police the plantation so that the white man could be off engaged in writing the Constitution and fighting the Revolutionary War, et cetera. And when you add all that up together, it starts to make sense to me the way white women behave in the workplace today. I'm not trying to excuse us. I'm not trying to say that what we do is justified. What I am trying to say is that I honestly urge all white women to read Resma's book and to really think about do the exercises. How can we let go of our conditioning of our intergenerational trauma so that we can be the true women we're supposed to be and to be true siblings with women of color so that we can transform our society for everyone freedom, safety and liberation.

Karen, thank you so much because you hit on a couple of things there that I think are critical in this conversation. Right one was proximity to power. And I think in modern day, how you laid out the historical context of that is very tied to it. Right. So proximity to power in there's, this mindset of, okay, if there's one woman at the top, there could only be one at the top, and how do we protect that? And I think that speaks to the experience that you've had. And there's a little bit of victimhood in that, too, in that historically, particularly, white men are very protective of white women. And so when you have this play of power and you have someone that is already in that position, but they see it being threatened by anybody, right. They know how to put protection around them very quickly so that they become the victim and not the oppressor.

100%. And white women tears in order to accountability. Right. One thing I want to talk about is there is a difference between white women tears of, oh, look at me, I pity me, I rescue me. Oh, that bad black woman over there made me feel bad. And white woman tears of genuine grief, of realizing, oh, my God, I have caused so much harm, and I have been taught so many things that are false, and I genuinely grieve for that. So I want to move white women through a process of unlearning these things and learning new patterns of behavior, learning to see who our real allies are.

Yeah. And I like that you differentiate it between the two. Right. Because for many women of color and I'll just say it in this way, it's difficult to ascertain which is which, because it's used so frequently and it's weaponized, right? Yes. And so I've had experiences where I now can based on the relationship that I have with the person, I can tell, okay, these are genuine tears. These are tears of anger. These are tears of concern. These are tears that want to move mountains so that everything is equitable versus tiers, that know I have proximity to power, and if I cry to the right person, they're going to protect me 100%.

And I want to encourage often when white women are crying, those genuine tears of grief, let's cry them with each other. Let's cry them with other white women, okay? Let's not ask Sacha to pat us on the back and say, oh, I'm so sorry that you're experiencing this compared to what you have experienced. It's just totally, totally disproportionate and just plain immoral to ask you to comfort me as I go through this realization process. I do think there is a very important time for us to come together and to heal our relationship with each other. But I want to encourage white women to work on ourselves substantially before we start to do that so that in our coming together, we don't cause more harm and injury.

And actually, that was a perfect segue into my next question, because when you look at, especially in the last few years, the demographics of who's coming into DEIwork. Right. A good majority are white women. And so as I talk to people, as I'm coaching people, as I'm consulting with folks that are interested in coming into this career path, one of the first questions that I say is, have you done your internal work? Right? It's great that you have passion. Love it. I love decorating my house. I'm not going to be on HGTV. I know my limitations. Right. I asked people, what internal work have you done? What biases do you hold? What are you doing to kind of unpack that? What are the things that make you uncomfortable and why? And really trying to dig deep? Because I think once you start sitting in that discomfort within yourself, then you realize exactly what you said, which is, I now know if I'm going to be in community with someone else, how much space I should take up. Right. Where do I get my comfort from or where should I go when I'm having this moment?

And if this moment is about me, then do I need to bring a woman of color or a trans woman into this to comfort me? Right. And I think that's a lot of what happened. And so I appreciate what you said, and where do you need to take that hold onto that trauma?

Yes. Thank you so much. I agree with you. What internal work have you done and what internal work are you continuing to do?

Yes.

It's not like we hit them and then we're good. I'm still screwing up left and right and learning, and things are also constantly changing. So I think it's really important to remain engaged. I hear a lot of voices saying, should white people even be doing this work? Personally, I think this change is so large that we need as many hands as possible, and we have to make sure that all hands are being accountable to and centering the most marginalized people. And that the change that we need to work toward is our collective change. Not just our individual change, but our collective change. So what does that look like for me? That looks like collaboration. That looks like partnership. That looks like mentors. I have an incredible constellation of mentors who, like Adrienne Marie Brown, calls her Woes, working on excellence. They will hold me to account. They will push me. When I come across a dilemma, I can call them, and they will help me figure it out. It's just an excellent, excellent resource. It's also about me having mentees and bringing people along in this journey and supporting their advancement as well. And also, it's financial.

So about, I would say 80% of the people who hire me are black women, and I give them a 10% referral fee for all the business that they send my way, because where did I learn this stuff? I learned it from black women. So I need to make sure that I am not just resource hoarding and capitalizing on the intellectual property of black women, but adding my unique perspective to it. The reason why they hire me is because they say, listen, I've been trying to get this message across for a very long time, and I know that somehow they will be able to hear you in a way that they can't hear me. So can you come in and deliver this message? And then they coach me. Oh, my goodness. We go over everything in utmost detail several times before I deliver it because they know exactly how to calibrate it to their workplace.

Yeah. Unfortunately, that's what so many women of color in this space have to do, right. Because we know leadership isn't going to necessarily take it from us. Yeah. There are a couple of folks that I know that I'm like, hey, I have this thing that I need you to present it for me. And I had to do that when I was even working in corporate. Right. Like, I had a white male colleague that anytime something controversial would come up that I was like, if I say something, all the red flags are going to come out for me. But if you say it, you'll get props. So here's the thing to say. And he would do it, but at the same time, he'd be so angry that that was the case. He was like, It shouldn't be that way. They should listen to you. And I'm like, well, this is the system that we're in, right? And so how do we leverage using each other kind of in this space? I think that was a lesson that I had to learn very quickly in the corporate space, but see the benefit of it as well, too, because as you said, we're all kind of trying to move this thing forward together.

And I would also say white women in this space, we have to be very conscious of not using our voices to white comfort. Right. We should be the ones risking and being bold and taking on that direct message and dealing with the consequences of that instead of swaggying, oh, look, we're doing this diversity effort and we're such a good company, and now we're going to post our black square on Instagram and put up our blog post and call it a day. No, we cannot be the ones validating that we have to be pushing companies to be bolder.

I love that. Yes. And it reminds me, I tend to not do stuff around allyship, because my question for allies, especially those that are kind of in the diversity space, is what are you willing to risk for me? Right. And it's a different mindset because it's one thing to say, oh, yeah, I'm an ally and I'm going to do this thing and I do diversity work. But if you're not risking anything to support those that are the most marginalized, then are you really doing this work 100%?

Yes. And I'm constantly holding myself to account to that, too, because it's very easy to get into this, oh, I have done enough, or I'm outspoken enough or I've proved myself in this way. No, it's a daily practice and you need to just keep on taking more, not less.

Love it. So, Karen, I'm going to ask we're going to do a little pivot because we've talked about this work is not always pretty. And so what do you do to take care of yourself? What do you do to fill your cup? Make sure that you are taken care of.

Thank you for asking that. My favorite thing is zumba. Oh, yes. I'm very blessed to live in San Francisco where we have outdoor zumba classes. And for me, it's everything. It's the community who comes to it. It's almost entirely women of color and I would say our median age is probably around 50 or 60. It is being outside and getting the vitamin D. It's the music which I love so much. I moved to San Francisco from New York City where you hear salsa, moringa reggae tone all the time when you're walking down the street, but you don't hear that in San Francisco. So I love hearing that music again and moving my body. And it's that whole combination that just makes me feel so much better because this work is heavy, so heavy sometimes. And sometimes you feel like I'm working as hard as I can. Am I doing enough? Because things are not changing. It just seems to be getting worse. And I hear a lot of us saying those things. And so anyone who's feeling that way, huge hug to you. You are enough. Don't get discouraged. We have to keep going, but don't feel like you're not doing enough or you're doing all of this on your shoulders.

Agreed. And I think it goes back to what you said even about zumba. Right. It's about community and how do you stay connected to folks that are doing this work. And I think that that's so critical. And that's something I'm always talking about is who's in your community, who's in your circle of support? And I absolutely love the zumba thing. It is cold here, so we can't do zumba outside, but as soon as it warms up, that's where I will be because I absolutely love it. But yeah, it's those types of things that get your adrenaline pumping and you excited and yes, now I got to get it humming.

I'm always humming as I leave. Singing in public and embarrassing my kids.

I love it. Well, Karen, thank you so much for taking the time today. This has been an amazing conversation and it's probably one of many to come because I think this is a space where we just have to have some of these Racy Conversations, some of these uncomfortable conversations, particularly amongst women. Because if we can come together, how many mountains can we move?

100%?

So much for this. And I just want to thank everyone for taking the time and listening to us today. And of course, please remember to subscribe to this channel, follow us here on YouTube or any of your favorite podcasts platform and we will see you next time. Have a good one.