Whether it's writing well-meaning social media posts or spotlighting Black ERGs, employers often fall back on certain gestures during Black History Month — but this CEO firmly believes employers can and should do more.
Kike Ojo-Thompson is the founder and CEO of the Kojo Institute, a DEI and anti-racism consultancy. Through organization-wide training, data analysis and executive coaching, her company works to break down systemic barriers and biases that ultimately do not allow people of color
"We have wrongly relegated Black History, at best, to a celebration and looking at history," she says. "And while those two things are important and helpful, it's definitely a missed opportunity. Employers need to think of Black History Month as a yearly check-up and think about whether their [workers] feel safe, seen and integrated."
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Ojo-Thompson underlines how Black History Month can serve as the start of actionable
Where should employers start on their anti-racism journey?
When you think intersectionally about your data, it illuminates a path of strategies for recruitment, retention, succession and performance management. Because now you clearly see who's been promoted, who is submitting claims to human resources, who is experiencing harm and so on.
Black History Month is an opportunity to be specific, and find out what your data is telling you about Black staff and their experiences. All racialized people are not experiencing the same thing, but when we say 'BIPOC', we often just lump all non-white people together. But Black and Indigenous people are having very different experiences than the rest of the people of color.
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What we often don't see is an intersectional analysis. For example, when we look at data about women, which women am I talking about? Are they Black women? Are they queer? Do they have disabilities? Are they Muslim? The data has broadly shown that white, able-bodied, cis-gendered Christian women have been experiencing progress, which is not a bad thing, but Black and Indigenous women are not seeing that increasing representation and progress.
What role do leaders play in keeping companies on course?
Most importantly, the accountability piece is really what we need from leaders. The Kojo Institute has been in business for 24 years, and there are so many things we hear about why leaders are struggling to show up for this issue. If I am taking too long to show for racial equity, I have to begin asking questions about what powerful, unexamined ideas I have about certain groups — because that informs the degree to which leaders are to lean in and make significant demands of their organization.
For example, if I don't believe Black employees are capable of leadership because of these unexamined ideas I have about Black people, and then I don't see them in leadership in our data, I am not likely to change anything.
Addressing these unconscious biases is at the core of a lot of DEI strategies. Yet you don't think that word really encompasses these issues.
One of the reasons 'unconscious bias' is such an attractive construct in DEI work is because everybody has unconscious bias. But despite everyone having it, the outcome remains the same: the same people hold power and are experiencing positive outcomes, and the same people do not hold power and are experiencing negative outcomes.
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This term doesn't do enough to identify the way power is operating. If unconscious bias was a helpful construct, then my biases about various people should show up in the data, but it doesn't. As a construct, it erases this idea of dominance and power holder and imbalanced power relations.
Rather than unconscious bias, what's the name we should be giving these biases and behaviors?
Racism. The word 'racism' is conspicuously missing from the discourse. We make it unusual and abnormal to say 'racism.' We have to ask ourselves: who benefits from these terms? And frankly, that's what's really harming companies and leaders — we do not have the literacy for this conversation. Given the problems we are facing right now, we need people who understand how entrenched [racism] is in our systems and what systems value.
People may feel it's 'unconscious' because they don't think about it. And yes, you don't have to think about racism for it to exist and function. This is why people don't understand why five Black officers [in Memphis] beating [Tyre Nichols], a Black man, to death is part of systemic racism and white supremacy. People think that in order for it to be white supremacy white people have to be present, but it's systemic. We have to look at what their organization values. What behavior do they reward? People do what's rewarded and what they're incentivized to do in their organization.
Why do so many organizations, especially on a leadership level, struggle to talk about systemic racism?
There are four [ideologies] at play here. The first one we call the 'dominant culture trap." It is the presumption that our systems are neutral until proven otherwise. On top of that, we buy into meritocracy, or the idea that if I want something, I just need to work for it. Yet, every day we have dozens of examples of that not being true. Then there is neoliberalism, which basically tells us we exist on an even playing field, so hard work should pay off. Lastly, there is the good-bad binary — so to claim someone is racist, is to suggest they are a bad person. But good people can be racist.
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These ideologies support and intensify the systemic nature of racism because organizations can explain racism away. The thinking is along the lines of, 'Of course, it can't be racism, because I'm a good person or because this organization naturally treats everyone the same way.'
What does it look like for a company to go beyond the DEI jargon and dismantle systemic racism?
It comes down to accountability and transparency — correction and consequences. This means there is monitoring, tracking, evaluating and reporting in order to correct your course and past behavior. It's important to use transparency to hold yourself accountable too. It goes hand in hand.
To go deeper, ask yourself, 'Do you have access to the truth about your space? How are you going to hear about how Black staff is doing?' Ensure you're creating real opportunities for change inside the organization, and make it safe for employees to do so too. Actually, let's go beyond safe — let's reward it.
