In recent years, it seems like conflicts surrounding race have intensified. Incidents that occurred at Charlottesville, Starbucks, Yale University, and Charleston, to name a few, reiterate the necessity for racial dialogue, but having discussion around race can be tricky. Race is often the pink elephant in the room; others notice it but would rather pretend they do not. In order to foster environments that are equitable and inclusive, it is necessary to have uncomfortable conversations around topics like race. Karen Fleshman is on a mission to do just that. Her goal is to inspire the first antiracist generation in America. Fleshman, who is an attorney, activist and nationally recognized expert on racism, created Racy Conversations, with a mission to “build and support a community of people committed to love, learning, accountability, and action on race in America.” She conducts workshops on topics that range from how to talk with kids about race to strategies for White women to dismantle White supremacy. Fleshman sat down to discuss how productive racial dialogue can take place within the workplace.
Janice Gassam: I’m really interested in learning more about what sparked your interest in diversity and inclusion?
Karen Fleshman: I grew up in an all-White community…I’ve always been really interested in other cultures and other people…the early part of my career was in the immigrant rights movement. I was a cofounder of a service in New York City, that helped 50,000 New Yorkers apply for their citizenship. Reports came out that said 50% of Black men in New York City don’t have a job and we have 200,000 young adults…almost entirely Black and Latinx not in school, not working…coming from the immigrant rights movement it was just like…what? How is that possible? No one even really seemed to care…I thought the answer was job training, and internships, and connections to employers. I did that work for about 10 years. Preparing young adults who don’t have a college degree for corporate careers in technology…and through that, that’s when I really had to come to terms with my own racism…and learned my understanding of racism is completely wrong…In 2014, two young Black women who were graduates of the job training program that I used to work for…had been working in tech for a couple years, and they told me they were being microaggressed non-stop…At that point, I was doing student outreach and recruitment and I realized I cannot go out in the community and encourage young people to go work in harmful environments…so what can I do to change these environments? I think there’s a lot of people like me…well-intentioned, highly educated White people who grew up in all-White communities…and we just have no experience or understanding of how to relate with people of color…as equals.
Gassam: Why do you think there is so much uncomfortable-ness around conversations around race?
Fleshman: I think it has to do with how White people understand racial inequality in our society. Growing up, if I asked ‘why is there so much racial inequality in our society?’ The story I would get back is “we used to have terrible racism in our society…then there was a Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. King…and now opportunities are distributed equally. Some families like ours choose to seize these opportunities and work really hard and that’s why we’re in the situation we’re in…and other families choose not to, and that’s why they’re in the situation they’re in.” Had I not spent all that time building relationships with young people of color, I think that would still be my understanding of racial inequality. I think how that comes about in the workplace is that White people don’t want to be perceived as racist…we think racism is terrible. Yet we believe everything we have attained is through our own hard work and merit and that people of color, if they would just…go get a job…would be just fine. So, we’re angry that about affirmative action or diversity…we view it as not having the same merit-based playing field that we’re playing on...not recognizing at all the role that racism plays in setting us up for success and harming people of color and preventing them from accessing the same opportunities. So, we’re really threatened.
Gassam: How do you overcome this uncomfortable-ness surrounding conversations around race? How do you deal with the defensiveness that comes with conversations around race and diversity?
Fleshman: I teach not only about the science of unconscious bias, and how our brains are wired in a certain way but I also teach about how and why racism was created, and I talk about my own family story…there is poverty in the White community too…but you cannot deny all of these different race-based policies…red-lining, sun-down towns…all kinds of things that have set White people up for success…the forty acres and a mule lasted for a couple years then they went back in and took it all back…there was share-cropping, Jim Crow, drugs…it’s like this unending cycle of oppression…mass incarceration and police brutality…we spend much of the workshop focusing on the unlearning racism part.
Gassam: What are some of the ways that Racy Conversations helps to facilitate conversations around race?
Fleshman: Everything I do is very conversational…I get everyone in the room talking one on one and answering questions...I’m against this whole idea of ‘expert’…we are all experts in our lived experiences. I want people to really open up and talk about these things and get to know each other. People tell me that the workshop was a real team builder because it got them talking with their team members in a way that they’ve never done before about these vulnerable things…and I think that’s really how to learn.
Gassam: I think part of the challenge is, people care about things that are directly related to them. How do we get someone who is not a woman, or a person of color, or not part of the LGBTQ community to care about these issues?
Fleshman: That’s the ultimate expression of privilege. ‘This is not a problem because it doesn’t impact me.’ But I do a lot of education around the changing demographics in the United States and how 43% of U.S. millennials identify as people of color, 47% of Generation Z identify as people of color…so companies are going to become irrelevant…basically, the market is changing, the workforce is changing and if they don’t know how to engage with young people of color, they’re going to become irrelevant...I think it is of interest to everybody to learn how to do this better…wouldn’t you want to be that White male manager who did a fantastic job at this…10 years from now…to say “one of the things I did was make my team really diverse and equitable”…10 years from now when you’re looking for another job, how much easier will it be to find that job?
Gassam: How do you think each of us can use our voice to dismantle systems of racism in our workplaces?
Fleshman: I always say…racism will not end from the top down but from the bottom up…everybody has a sphere of influence that we can work on…a big place is the workplace. The first step towards anything is acknowledging that racism is a problem and that I am part of the problem…and then working on unlearning it and uprooting it from myself…and speaking out whenever you see injustice…all of that stuff about recruiting and hiring is important but you also have to really work on the culture within the organization so that once people are there, they don’t feel harmed…and that they’re not made to be the representative of the Black community or the Latinx community…I think a lot of it is learning the nuances…That’s how it’s going to end…by making it a priority…by seizing these daily opportunities…by building empathy…the way that we fix this is by initiating and strengthening relationships with the people against whom we are biased. The more we get to know them, the more this whole thing is going to come crashing down.
This is why allies are so important. The allies speak up. There is still risk when allies speak up but there is less risk, because we have more power and privilege in the workplace. We need to recognize and speak out to our peers…call them out publicly if needed…call them out privately when we can, but keep working on our peers and getting them to change. The burden should not be on people of color to speak out on their behalf…we need allies to recognize what’s going on and take that on…when you’re the person being harmed, it’s really hard to speak out on your behalf…this works the best if the CEO, C-Suite leaders, and the grassroots people are aligned that this needs to change, and then we meet in the middle.
This piece has been lightly edited for clarity.
