Facing White Supremacy, Facing Ourselves
“We are controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know, and the American dream has therefore become something much more closely resembling a nightmare… We cannot afford to lose any more time. It is time now to turn and face each other and begin to assess ourselves honestly.” - James Baldwin
I've been reflecting on the challenge of helping people face things they do not want to face. I think about my own efforts to help clients grapple with white supremacy and the ways it undermines our workplaces and keeps us caught in dysfunctional dynamics.
Looking back, I wonder if I could have been more courageous and pushed harder on the need for us to confront this in ourselves and in our culture. At TCDG, we help people build awareness and capacity for positive change. Yet perhaps we don't always go deep enough to help people see how organizational patterns are connected to the larger violence and exclusion playing out around us.
White supremacy culture fosters distrust and dysfunction in organizations. The underlying ideology is also visible in the cruelty of ICE arrests, detentions, and deportations, in the erosion of voting rights, and on the international stage.
None of this should be shocking, yet for many of us it is. Current conditions can leave us feeling paralyzed. Yet when we turn our attention to our organizations, workplaces, and communities, we can still cultivate the courage and skill needed to engage difficult truths. This is the painstaking work of meeting people where they are, finding effective entry points, and creating tangible opportunities for change.
We can help organizations lower urgency and reactivity, listen sooner and more deeply to voices that are often excluded, and create spaces that are more relational and less transactional.
I don’t always get the entry point right. Sometimes I push too hard and people shut down. Sometimes I don’t push hard enough and people remain comfortably unaware of the power of white supremacy ideology to create harm in our workplaces and violence in our society.
During this time of upheaval, it seems important to keep trying to cultivate patience and compassion as people take small steps forward, and to help deepen awareness of how this ideology shapes our lives.
Naming these dynamics plainly helps us understand why things are the way they are. It sharpens our vision, improves life closer to home, and strengthens our capacity to meet this larger moment with courage. The future of our workplaces, our organizations, our communities, and our democracy depends on it.
Co-Founder, The Creative Discourse Group
