Reimagine Inclusion

MYTH 3It's Time to Have Some Courageous Conversations on Race. Let's Ask Our Employees of Color to Lead Them.

“Let's get the Black Employee Resource Group to share how they are feeling with our senior leadership team,” a former leader said. “Let's get them to share their personal stories. Let's ask them to lead the conversations. Go ahead and get it scheduled.”

I sat there in silence. I was hesitant, and, honestly, unable to articulate why we shouldn't do this.

“Don't you think this will make our Black colleagues uncomfortable?” I blurted out, as this leader got up from his desk and started to make his way to the door. “If we ask them to do this …”

“Why would this be uncomfortable? For who?” He said, raising his voice.

“I just think there may be another way, what if we …”

“Just watch, senior leadership is going to love this,” he had snapped at me. “This will be moving and powerful. I know what I am doing, I have a good instinct for these things. Call it Courageous Conversations on Race.”

It was the summer of 2016. Alton Sterling has been shot and killed by police officers on July 5, 2016. Philando Castile had been shot and killed by police officers on July 6, 2016. Our Black colleagues, rightfully so, had wondered why most of leadership had stayed silent when it came to the killing of these two Black men. The leader, who was white, had a very common reaction to our Black colleagues wanting an all‐white leadership team to acknowledge the killings of Sterling and Castile: put ...