Monday's Opening Thought: May 30, 2022

This week’s opening thought: Wells Fargo was recently outed by current and former employees for conducting fake job interviews with candidates of color and female and femme-identifying candidates to make their diversity hiring numbers look good on paper.

Guess who has had this done to them by Wells Fargo the most.

If you guessed Black women and female/femme-identifying candidates, please feel free to fill in that space on your Corporate White Supremacy bingo card!

If you’re a white person or non-Black person of color reading this, and you’re shocked that a large national banking corporation would approach recruiting in this manner, I’m going to need you to sit down for a spell and assess where your shock is coming from. And I’m going to need you to do that on your own, away from Black folx and far away from any Black women you know. You have a great deal of white supremacist ideology unpacking you need to do, and Black people, Black women, do not need to be around you while you do the work.

The truth is, Wells Fargo isn’t the only company with hiring practices that are this harmful and exclusionary to Black women. Companies across the United States have approached sourcing and recruiting candidates of color, Black women, with these kinds of tactics for decades. Wells Fargo isn’t alone in stringing candidates of color along throughout the recruiting process for the sake of optics.

This is why diversity hiring initiatives stink.

“Diversity” only matters to most companies when it comes to how the annual hiring numbers look on paper for people of color, Black folx, and Black women hired in the last fiscal year. Companies want the optical illusion of having a diverse workforce without doing the hard work of evolving their workplace culture and maintaining spaces for people of color, Black people, and Black women to grow and thrive. Most companies don’t care if the patriarchal, oppressive, white supremacist workplace culture they’re so reluctant to address runs people of color away and harms Black folx and Black women. And when Black people leave? They blame it on “culture fit” and not being able to find enough “qualified Black candidates.”

Black people have been telling y’all about these issues for years. Black folx, Black women, have known this is part of companies keeping up appearances for decades and have told y’all this repeatedly. It’s easier for y’all to believe an implausible narrative that somehow all Black people you hire are “the problem” than to examine that your company is racist, sexist, and toxic for non-white people. It’s easier for whiteness to blame the oppressed than the oppressor.

If Wells Fargo is doing this to Black women, what makes you think your company isn’t doing this too? Like right now? And what makes you think they’ll change if you don’t speak up and call out these actions and push for change and accountability, white “allies?”

I guess you’d rather believe in the implausible.

On Wanting an HR Robot and Not an HR Person

This morning, a large international creative agency turned me down for an HR position after over a month of interviews. Their Technical Recruiter called me to inform me of their decision. The reason why I wasn't chosen?

I wasn't transactional enough.

Seriously. They used the word transactional in our conversation —multiple times.

The recruiter told me that they felt that my approach to HR was too relational for the role they were trying to fill. They were looking for someone who could do the transactional HR work without relational components. I was told that because my approach to HR tasks is relational, I might not be a "good fit" for the HR team but that when they expand their DEI team in the future, they will keep me in mind, so they'd like to stay in touch.

Again, their words. Not me paraphrasing or reading between the lines. These are the actual words the recruiter said to me this morning.

I'm not good enough to be a part of their transactional HR team, but I'm a Black person who cares about people, so I'd be a "great fit" for the DEI team!

Geez. Oof. Foot in mouth.

Real talk, though? I was honestly quite impressed.

Someone in HR finally had the guts to say the silent part aloud.

My entire career in HR has been spent watching people with power, privilege, and positionality avoid telling me they dislike how relational I am and need me to be way less human than I am as their HR person.

I've known for some time now that I've been a stone's throw from one of these senior leaders I've worked with admitting that my HR philosophy makes them angry or uncomfortable. They want me to toe the company line, wield policies like weapons, and disregard most workplace harm. But telling me that level of truth? That also makes them uncomfortable. So instead of sitting with honesty, the conversations have always veered toward me somehow being a "problem" or needing to change "little" things about how I discuss accountability for leaders and processes. No one wants to admit that they want HR to be what HR historically has been: the workplace police, a hammer of patriarchal white supremacist workplace culture.

Yeah...that ain't me.

Honesty around wanting a transactional HR person on your staff. Well, damn. What a breath of fresh air.

What a smelly, rank, moist yet somehow dry breath of "fresh" air.

Monday's Opening Thought: May 23, 2022

Image description: Black pro wrestling legend Booker T watching white pro wrestling legends Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair hugging and having a great time at a wrestling event. Booker T has a disgusted look on his face. Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan hugging is captioned with the words “White people wishing each other a happy Juneteenth while harming Black people every day.” Booker T is captioned with the word “Me.”

This week's opening thought: When Juneteenth became a federal bank holiday in 2021, there were many Black folx who were happy. Many Black people feel that making Juneteenth a national bank holiday was a step in the right direction from a race relations perspective. They felt that by acknowledging the Black experience in this way that more U.S. Americans, more white U.S. Americans, would recognize how hard Black people in the United States have fought to get to this place in time.

No tea, no shade, but y'all should've known better than that. We're talking about white U.S. Americans here.

Making Juneteenth a federal holiday was never about learning, reflection, or supporting Black communities for white people. Juneteenth is a bank holiday because the white people who make decisions in this country wanted to feel good about themselves after the murder of George Floyd. Juneteenth, in their eyes, was the low-hanging fruit they needed to "make it right." So they swiftly signed it into law.

And in doing so, they swiftly opened the door for white people to make more money off of Black bodies while continuing the disrespect of Black people in the United States.

Here we are, in the year of somebody's lord, 2022, and Walmart is flush with Juneteenth party decorations, party favors, bingo cards, and "special edition" ice cream flavors. None of these items are made by Black people, of course. White people have put together whites-only Juneteenth parties at swank venues and country clubs and have gotten angry when called out about it. Major publications have been writing how-to guides for white people for two years now, instructing white folx how they should celebrate Juneteenth. These articles are tone-deaf and white-centered, but no one reading this should be surprised. They map out how white people can be performative allies and pat themselves on the back for Juneteenth. White companies are having Juneteenth parties in the workplace. The same companies that complain about "not being enough qualified Black candidates" are subjecting the 10 Black employees on their payroll to a "party" space with their white co-workers. If you're Black, you find yourself in a "party space" with the same white co-workers who hand out microaggressions like Juneteenth party favors every day "celebrating" the enslavement of your ancestors with red velvet cake and a Black speaker hired to "teach" about Black lives.

Real talk?

Juneteenth ain't for you, white people. It's not for you. It's not for you to enjoy. It's not for you to make a profit. Stop it.

Your people have profited from Black bodies for long enough. You don't need another opportunity to do so.

Only white people are callous enough to celebrate lying to Black bodies about the end of their forced enslavement after enslaving them, sexually assaulting them, and traumatizing them for 400+ years. Only white people are callous enough to make money off of the enslavement of Black people at the hands of white people hundreds of years after kidnapping and enslaving Black people.

Y'all really out here making your enslavement of Black bodies a federal day off for white people? Are y'all really making ice cream and party décor and t-shirts to sell to Black people and other white people with none of the funds going to Black communities? Y'all are seriously about two years away from Juneteenth sales at furniture stores, and it's harmful and tasteless.

SIGH.

I'm not going to give you tips or advice about how you should "celebrate" Juneteenth, white people. I'm not going to provide you with book or documentary recommendations. Nah, nix that. I've got one tip for you.

Just don't.

It ain't your emancipation.

You don't get to "celebrate" Black enslavement while calling the police on your Black neighbor or teaching your children "not to see color." You don't get to "celebrate" Black enslavement while treating Black women in the workplace like Juneteenth party favors: fun for a few moments but easily discarded and disregarded.

Juneteenth ain't for you. It ain't your emancipation.

Just leave Black people alone on June 19, white people. Let us celebrate in our way while we continue healing from the ongoing trauma you create.

God, I just had an image of a special edition Juneteenth strawberry Kool-Aid pop into my head.

If y'all do that, I'm leaving the country.

On "Multiple Truths," White Supremacist Workplace Culture, and the Right to Comfort

I used to have a white supervisor who hired me to do equity and anti-racism work. I would tell them the findings of my investigations into incidents of racism and white supremacy. I told them about my conversations with employees and the discomfort that many white employees, especially senior leadership, had with discussing the topics of racism and white supremacy. This supervisor, the organization's CEO, regularly tried their damndest to explain why this was the case. When I wouldn't allow them to blame me for the discomfort of their white leaders or place the blame on other factors (including placing responsibility on the few employees of color they had), they opted to try a tactic as old as time: gaslighting. Not only gaslighting, mind you, but a very particular kind of gaslighting intended to remove responsibility from the shoulders of white leaders.

This CEO told me that what I was sharing with them was one of "many truths" about what was going on in their workplace.

They said there were "multiple truths" at play and that we needed to consider the "truths" of the white people in the organization. They began trying to push the narrative that the organization needed me to center the "psychological comfort" of white senior leaders so that they could "speak their truth" and "be heard."

Yeah...no.

Hell no.

I shut that nonsense down quicker than a hiccup.

My time with that organization didn't last much longer past that moment.

Listen here, white "professionals": there is no such thing as "multiple truths" if your employees and colleagues that are part of the Global Majority are harmed by your white supremacist workplace culture and white people with power in your organization. There are no "multiple truths" at play if you are called in or called out for being racist. No " truth " will absolve you from being responsible for your toxicity. The only "truth" we should be talking about is that you don't want accountability for your racist beliefs, actions, and company policies and procedures. You don't get to decide that your narrative of your racism, and upholding white supremacy should be viewed on the same level as the truth shared by those you harm.

I don't deal in "multiple truths" or "alternative truths."

That's harmful people sh--.

That's harmful white people who don't want to be held accountable for their toxicity sh--. I don't support that nonsense, regardless of salary.

Your "truth" when it comes to racism and upholding white comfort is invalid because your "truth" is a good/bad binary white supremacist fairytale, white “professionals.”

And that's the truth, ruth.