After the News Cycle Ends, We’re Still Black
While the injustice that black people suffer is most visible when police brutality dominates news headlines, a more insidious iteration of it presents itself everyday in American professional life.
The black people you encounter in professional settings are already adept at navigating spaces and institutions not built for us. When we break into spaces that were once denied to previous generations, we are faced with the jarring realities on the other side of the narrow gaps we squeezed through.
The weight of blackness is not suspended in the workplace, but we have been expected to operate as though it is. When the latest black death is playing in a loop on the evening news, we’re still expected at work in the morning - and for too long, there has been no room to bring our grief, our fear, and our anger along with us. For a time, the micro-aggressions we endure sting more sharply, the inequities we navigate feel more acute, and the world outside casts a longer shadow. Still, we are often the primary audience for our white counterparts who are contending with the realities of racism for the first time in their lives, while we are forced to live it for the rest of ours. When the moment passes and life moves on, it is us who remain sitting with our discontent, with limited avenues to vocalize it and even fewer to act upon it.
The groundswell of protest has spurred a national reckoning from which American business has not been spared. The age of Black Lives Matter has made way for greater demands and higher standards for antiracism in the workplace. It is no longer enough to purge overt racism while remaining complacent with more covert vestiges of racism. It is no longer enough to profess the merits of diversity and inclusion but remain content with tokenism. It is no longer enough to invite our presence but treat our voices as expendable once we arrive.
The era of Black Lives Matter presents both opportunity and peril in equal measure. Businesses that make an earnest effort to create room at the table for black voices and capitalize on the talent of black professionals will thrive, while those that do not will falter in the glare of growing awareness and heightened accountability. Public affairs firms will need to wrestle with these tough questions before we are equipped to advise clients on how to navigate these new realities themselves. It is only by doing the work internally that we become equipped to inform the messages and campaigns for diverse audiences.
It is imperative that professionals at all levels of our industry start by asking themselves whether they are making space for black people to begin with. According to McKinsey, black people make up 14 percent of the US private sector overall, our share of the workforce drops to 7 percent of managerial positions, and it continues to fall the higher up the ladder one goes. It is crucial for each of us to be advocates for representation and be critical of the lack thereof, rather than offload the responsibility to others around and above us. Campaigns and messaging always reflect their architects and authors, and the absence of black voices within decision-making structures will only grow more conspicuous in this era.
“Firms need to recognize that the diversity in their structures doesn’t just validate the values they espouse - it informs the products they deliver. ”
While hiring is a critical first step, it is incomplete on its own. The next question all professionals must ask is whether they are creating conscious spaces or simply imposing undue expectations on the black professionals around them. It is particularly important to lean on black talent to inform practices within the office and the work product that comes out of it where race is concerned. A common error, however, is to overextend that practice by either pigeonholing black professionals to race issues or burdening them with added uncompensated labor that their white counterparts are unencumbered by. For example, a black employee is not a substitute for a Diversity and Inclusion officer. While many black professionals are ready to use their experiences as an asset in the work process, it can be frustrating for it to eclipse the other talents they have to offer. All black professionals must be allowed, not expected, to utilize their experiences in the roles that they play. Anything outside of a black professional’s standard role is not recognized as valuable if it is treated simply as free labor.
Finally, it is important to reflect on whether efforts to create space for black people are sustained earnestly and consistently, or if they are primarily animated by the headlines of the day. If black employees are only called to the frontlines on issues of race, this is a disservice to both those employees and the firm. The firms that do the work on the front end to invest in their black professionals will navigate crises more successfully. The growing awareness of the public means that there will be heightened scrutiny to how firms and clients respond to these crises. As many major corporations that have faced public criticism on race have come to learn, the repercussions for performative measures are steep, and they will only get steeper. The firms most successful in navigating these crises will be the ones that build a deep bench of diverse talent and learn how to use them meaningfully before the crisis hits.
In conclusion, antiracism cannot singularly be a PR strategy. It has to be a value system that is weaved through every facet of any office or organization. When it is anything less, that is immediately apparent to your audience or consumers. Firms have been quick to issue statements in support of Movement for Black Lives, but that language needs to be backed up by action. Public pronouncements must come hand in hand with legitimate reforms. Evolutions in attitude must be reflected in reforms to policy. That means prioritizing the recruitment of black professionals, investing in them and giving them the tools they need to be successful. The industry players that embrace this moment will prime themselves for an exciting new chapter and add momentum to the pursuit of a more equitable future for the nation. If firms can transform to meet this moment, then there is hope for a greater transformation in American life that has remained out of reach — up until now.
