Under-represented, and minoritized

According to Bloomberg, the Diversity Disclosure Initiative, a “new coalition of institutional investors and advisers overseeing more than $3 trillion in assets[,] is pushing U.S. public companies to disclose the racial makeup of their boards in a bid to increase the diversity of corporate directors.”

Bloomberg cited current statistics, as the basis for the DDI’s push:

The percentage of Black directors [of Russell 3000 Index companies] remains low among the boards of the largest U.S. companies, according to an Oct. 25 analysis from executive recruiter Russell Reynolds Associates. The percentage of directors who are Black, Asian, Hispanic or other members of other racial or ethnic minorities passed 10% for the first time last year in the Russell 3000, according to the study. Black directors were the largest group, at 4.1%. In the S&P 500, the number of Black directors rose in 2019, even as the number of companies with Black directors fell; 37% of boards lacked a Black director last year, Russell Reynolds found.

Did you catch that? Their analysis blasts past a very specific point: that among all directors who identify as other than White, “Black directors were the largest group, at 4.1%.” As if it’s inconsequential that all other groups are even more under-represented.

I, for one, want to know: how much less than 4.1% we’re talking about, if we’re going to talk about Asian, Hispanic and “other” ethnoracial groups. But apparently, that’s not worth talking about.

At least at Bloomberg, but not just at Bloomberg. Folks, we gotta talk about racism in antiracism.

Does it “cover” ethnoracial equity and inclusion to focus only on Black directors, among all directors of color? No.

Is it vital to focus on Black directors to advance ethnoracial equity and inclusion? Yes, and. The percentage of Black directors is a vital, noncomprehensive and unreliable indicator of DE&I (again, this is not multiple choice: it’s all or none). Numbers only indicate diversity, not necessarily equity or inclusion. Consider this progress noted in the article:

Many U.S. companies are for the first time disclosing the racial breakdown of their employees. As part of a push by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who also signed the letter, Amazon.com Inc., General Motors Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are among the companies that this year agreed to report workforce racial, gender and ethnicity data.

It is indeed progress that companies and communities are even tracking this data (as vital, noncomprehensive and unreliable indicators of overall “racial, gender and ethnicity” DEI). And. What matters isn’t just the overall %, but how that “racial, gender and ethnicity data” is distributed within companies. This is to say that if the % of currently under-represented groups doubles or triples… all at the bottom of the pay or decision-making scale, then that’s less impactful growth than if the tripling is occurring throughout these companies, including (and probably necessarily at higher rates) wherever the power resides. When we focus just on diversity and skip over our responsibilities to deserve to be more diverse through creating equitable and inclusive communities where under-represented groups can thrive, we put the onus of survival on under-represented groups while we pat ourselves on the backs for a job (not) well done.

Isn’t it still progress to focus at least on (just) Black directors, among all under-represented directors of color? That depends on the goal. It’s not that it’s not good enough to advance only black antiracism, it’s that that’s not antiracism. Antiracism doesn’t pick and choose among racial groups, assigning importance to some and not to others. That’s just racism v2.0. The true opposite of antiracism isn’t racism: it’s inhumanity. An inhumanity in which racial identity is all that defines us; in which anything outside of the “either/or” paradigm of “White or Black” is intolerable to acknowledge; in which, therefore, the complex intersectionalities of White and Black identities can certainly not be acknowledged. So keeping racial DEI “black and white” literally and figuratively isn’t just unjust for all of us who are neither Black nor White (or Black and also White): it’s unjust for folks who are White or Black, who are still contained by racism’s essentialist view of them.

Does it hurt ethnoracial equity and inclusion to focus only on Black directors, among all directors of color? Yes. Yet, any “success” in racial DEI that abides the minoritization of a group on the basis of their identity is just shifting optics within a racist framework. Minimizing Asian, Latina/o/x and Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Native American “and other” under-represented ethnoracial groups as “other” is still playing by racism’s rules. [This is analogous to how, in acknowledging the gender spectrum of identity, some communities have just swapped one binary for another: cisgender-transgender, instead of female-male binary. Even though both gender systems continue to have real social and mortal impacts on our lives. And notwithstanding that the spectrum is not a binary.

I’m grateful for the work of the Diversity Disclosure Initiative. I appreciate their focus and the accuracy of their initiative’s focus and scope. Even though diversity without equity and inclusion is consequentially unsustainable and unjust, at least the DDI isn’t claiming to be about more than what they are.

Bloomberg could take a lesson from them. Their headline reads: “Investors Overseeing $3 Trillion Push for Board Racial Diversity.” What they owe the DDI, the directors and their reading public is an accurate headline: “Investors Overseeing $3 Trillion Push for Board Black Racial Diversity.”

We need priorities, yes. And intentionality, clarity and accuracy in naming them. That is, if we actually intend progress. As long as “antiracism” and “people of color” (and even “BIPOC”) are used as if they’re intended comprehensively, but really only mean Black antiracism and Black people, we will continue to throw hurdles in the way of our own striding toward racial justice.

Remote learning: Empowering students to “control their exposure to racial microaggressions”

The title of this NY Times op-ed is a quote from Saige Aryee-Price, a black middle school student, speaking to her mother: “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m ever going back to school”:

Awo Okaikor Aryee-Price, a Black mother of two who lives in Florham Park, N.J., initially laughed off the pronouncement her 13-year-old made in March after the Covid-19 pandemic closed the state’s schools. But it became clear that her daughter, Saige, was serious. So Ms. Aryee-Price started to revisit the things she’d heard her daughter say in response to her daily “How was school?” queries.

“Whether it was other students saying that she’s too loud, or people saying she has anger-management issues, it was always something,” Ms. Aryee-Price said, describing the subtle bigotry that Saige experienced but was unable to articulate and name.

Since beginning online learning, she explained, Saige has been liberated from hearing negative tropes about Black girls in the lunchroom and hallways. For one, the eighth grader can control her exposure to racial microaggressions. When a classmate wore a “Make America Great Again” hat — attire that some people see as a symbol of racism — during a video class session, Saige simply changed her settings to view only the teacher.

“Although the violence is still there, she has the ability to maneuver in a way that she didn’t have when she was in school,” Ms. Aryee-Price explained.

As school districts across the country have grappled with whether to reopen school buildings or continue to hold classes remotely, national polling shows Black parents are the most wary of the risks to their health and the well-being of their children that come with in-person learning. Eighty-nine percent saw returning to school as a large or moderate risk, compared with 64 percent of white parents — at a time when Black and Hispanic children and teenagers account for 74 percent of Covid-19 deaths in people under the age of 21.

But one recent analysis indicates that some Black families value keeping their children at home for an entirely different reason: to protect them from racial hostility and bias. Granted, not all Black children are thriving at home. They’re overrepresented among the kids who don’t have reliable Wi-Fi or adequate equipment at home. And supervising online learning is not an option for parents who are essential workers — a group that disproportionately includes Black people. Yet for some of those for whom virtual school is viable, the current disruption has opened up a new world: education without daily anxiety about racism.

Theresa Chapple-McGruder, a Black maternal and child health epidemiologist, immediately saw positive changes in her second grader when her Washington, D.C.-area school district went all virtual. Inundated with news stories focusing on the challenges of virtual schooling, the seasoned researcher set out to determine if she was an outlier. On Sept. 2, she posed a simple question — “What do you like about virtual schools?” — in an online survey of members of the national Facebook group Conscious Parenting for the Culture. The group, which she joined as a founding member in 2017, is made up of more than 10,000 Black parents of children from prekindergarten through 12th grade.

A theme quickly emerged. The 373 parents who responded overwhelmingly said they appreciated the way virtual learning allowed them to shield their children from anti-Black bias and protect them from the school-to-prison pipeline — the well-documented link between the police in schools and the criminalization of Black youth and other students of color. As one respondent wrote, referring to school resource officers, the law enforcement officers who work in schools, “There are no S.R.O.s at home.”

More than 40 parents said they appreciated virtual schooling because it allows them to, as one put it, “hear how the teacher speaks to children.”

As context for the excerpt above, every school I work with is clear about the kids needing to get back to school, missing community, suffering from the emotional and social toll of isolation.

I agree with them and ask, all of the students? And even if all of the students are struggling on some level (whether or not they say so), how may remote learning also be benefiting some of them?

My advice to leaders is never to generalize about “the good of the community,” but rather to presume diversity and consider, when assessing your community or making a decision for the community:

• Which groups may benefit or be advantaged [in these circumstances/by this decision]?
• Which groups may be immune from any impacts, and not even notice?
• Which groups may be disadvantaged, slightly or even significantly?

I offer these caveats: There’s no need to stereotype. This is a wondering exercise, in which we’re exploring possibilities within a community of more than one person. And something can be simultaneously beneficial and costly to the same person.

Even though I’ve been having this conversation for a couple months, it still makes me feel sick in my stomach to read about yet another black student’s “liberation” from everyday racist microaggressions when they don’t have to go to school.

That everyday degradation isn’t the promise of “community” that so many schools offer.

So as I watch all the posts about “getting through remote learning” and “getting back to normal,” I hope we do, and don’t.

Which?

I read “How one teacher’s Black Lives Matter lesson divided a small Wisconsin town” this morning, and want to know which.

As in:

A parent had posted photos of the worksheet [4th grade teachers Melissa] Statz used and slammed it as an attempt to “indoctrinate our kids.” Like-minded community members were outraged and demanded that the school district discipline Statz.

The arguments on social media spilled into a heated school board meeting in September, racial slurs were graffitied on Burlington’s school campuses and a deluge of harassing messages were directed at Statz accusing her of sowing division in the small town.

Which parents and community members? Names would be nice. If you’re going to participate in discourse as a community (and here, I don’t mean voting, but discussion), I think it’s reasonable to ask, unless your safety is at risk, that we practice owning our perspectives, including our racist slurs.

But I’m less interested in individual names than the demographics of this group that’s going after a teacher whose 4th grade students asked her “if she knew what was going on in Kenosha, which is a half-hour drive from Burlington.” That’s right: she taught them because they wanted to learn.

The article does note that the school is located in “a town of 11,000 that is 89 percent white.” So we can surmise who the parents are who are concerned about “indoctrination,” but that would require stereotyping. I would rather not.

I’d like to know whether the folks who are hurling accusations are demographically representative: that is, if about 89% of the dissenters are white, and people of color comprise the remaining 11%.

Why?

Because it matters if the community skews in its disagreements. It matters who is represented in all sides of a situation. For instance, how would it change my or your understanding of this controversy if we found out that the people who are angry about teaching about BLM in the elementary school were all or predominantly black?

And if the folks slinging slurs while accusing the teacher of “sowing division” are predominantly or all white, we need to name that. We cannot continue to say “people” when we mean white people, or heterosexual people, or middle class people, or cisgender people. “People” should by default include all people. And when it doesn’t, let’s be clear about which people.

Because children’s and adults’ well-being and lives are on the line.

Tyler Kingkade, who wrote this article, notes that Darnisha Garbade “a Black mother [in the school district] was frustrated with her own family’s experience at school.” Kingkade then writes:

Garbade, 40, said children repeatedly made derogatory remarks about Black people to her daughters, particularly her youngest, who is 12. Over the past two years, Garbade said, white children spit at her daughter, punched her and pushed her down the stairs at school. One boy threatened to kill her, according to school documents.

Garbade repeatedly chastised administrators in emails, reviewed by NBC News, for not doing more to protect her daughter. She believes the harassment was changing how her daughter behaved.

“I could see the hurt in her eyes, and I told her I didn’t want her to allow them to determine her character,” Garbade said.

An attorney hired by the district to review Garbade’s concerns concluded that the harassment and school responses had nothing to do with race, and that school officials acted reasonably. The state Department of Public Instruction is reviewing a complaint from Garbade to look into any potential racial bias.

“When situations like this arise, we take it seriously as we want all students to feel safe and free from harassment in school,” Julie Thomas, the district’s communication coordinator, said in a statement.

Which students were physically attacking Garbade’s children? Which administrators and attorneys are concluding that that violence “has nothing to do with race”?

It matters if the harassing children and leadership are predominantly or all white. We should not stereotype, and we need to know. Because if anything is going to change, you need to understand the problem, and this article replicates the problem that Statz and the Garbade family are facing: whiteness gets to act violently, unrelentingly and consequentially without ever being named, which is just the first step of accountability.

Quote of the day

“Justice requires listening to people who are hurt.”

– Maura Healey, Attorney General of Massachusetts

Healey wrote this in the context of her Washington Post opinion piece: “The Justice Department failed to do its job in settling with the Sackler family.”

Is it “folx” (now) instead of “folks”?

A colleagues recently asked me about the word “folx,” and whether “folks” is now incorrect.

Here’s my response:

I too discovered folx, recently! In my understanding, yes the x is indeed like that in Latinx. (I’m linking an article from the site x. for folx sake here.) While folx is intended to be more gender inclusive, the argument doesn’t seem to be that folks is specifically or particularly gender-exclusive (like, for instance, “guys”), but that our dominant culture is. So, to be inclusive of the gender spectrum requires additional intention in our everyday systems, practices and language, and “folx” is (in my opinion) a high-usage, phonic opportunity.

Myself, I’m adding folx to my vocab, but have not replaced “folks” (as wrong) with “folx” (as right). I typically still write “folks,” although now more consciously (not as in: to make a point, but as in: with an opportunity to reflect).

Assuredly, you will find folx and folks who have other opinions.

And this goes beyond your question, but in the realm of ever-evolving lexicon, and my discernment of what’s “right”/”wrong” versus how else I may say something in my ongoing growth:

* I have consciously committed to not using “crazy” and other formerly mental health-describing words in contexts like: that meeting was crazy

* I took longer to digest the critique that “blind spot” is able-ist language. After many conversations, in one of which I posed myself the question: could I communicate “blind spot” in other words just as clearly, without invoking able-ism? I’m piloting “invisible spot” now.

* “Cultural competency” has been critiqued and replaced with other frameworks (including cultural humility, equity literacy…) and I ultimately developed my concept of DEI fluency, which is a hybrid of definitions of cultural competency, cultural humility and equity literacy. But in the evolution of all these words (which share some elements, even as they also signify differences with each other), I have continued to use “cultural competency” to help folks bridge to the concept of DEI fluency that I anchor my work in. .

If I may ask: What are you deciding (for now)?

Update on that email:

• In my initial response, I elided over an additional dimension of “folx” shared in that article:

The reason we need “folx” in addition to the gender-neutral “folks” is to indicate inclusion of other marginalized groups including people of color (POCs) and trans people [underline added].

This was news to me, and it’s not universally “confirmed” that folx was originated or intended, or is experienced as inclusive of POC. Even in this post, “the origin of folx and why we should all use it.”

The point being, folx is a great example of something you may want to get “right.” And there’s no clear, one “right” meaning for it (as with BIPOC, and even “indigenous people.”) I’m all for speaking from a reasonably informed basis, so let’s keep learning about language. But this isn’t a research project. It’s real-life inclusion and equity. And people’s lives depend on it.

Let’s reserve “right” and “wrong” thinking for language that is clearly, exclusively or primarily hateful, demeaning and dehumanizing.

For other language (ex. “folks,” for which there does seem to consensus that the word isn’t itself any more gender-exclusive than the culture in which it’s used) let’s recognize when we have options and opportunities and practice.

Let’s be prepared to learn and acknowledge when our words aid and abet oppression that we oppose.

Let’s allow time to discern and grow. Keeping up with what other people say you “should” say is exhausting, disempowering and ultimately not helpful. We’ve got to own the words we use and what they mean.

Science may be “inherently rational and self-correcting,” but scientists are human

In Scientific American this month, Naomi Oreskes refutes “scientists [who refuse] to acknowledge that a problem [with racism and sexism in STEM] could even exist. Science, they argue, is inherently rational and self-correcting,” pointing out:

The history of science is rife with well-documented cases of misogyny, prejudice and bias. For centuries biologists promoted false theories of female inferiority, and scientific institutions typically barred women’s participation… Racial bias has been at least as pernicious as gender bias; it was scientists, after all, who codified the concept of race as a biological category that was not simply descriptive but also hierarchical.

Oreskes’ argument relies on the basic and critical distinction that science (a methodology) is different from scientists (the people who apply the method). The same argument holds for other things people claim “aren’t -ist…” like the pandemic: covid-19 isn’t racist, ageist or classist itself, but it is realizing racist, ageist and classist impacts because it’s filtered through human systems and constructs. So, no, we are not all at equal risk for contracting and dying from the coronavirus.

Then Oreskes makes the case that STEM needs to own the exclusions and inequities in its fields, in order for science’s “inherent rationality and self-correction” to be realized:

Fortunately, the objectivity of scientific knowledge does not depend on the objectivity of individual scientists. Rather it depends on strategies for identifying, acknowledging and correcting bias and error. As I point out in my 2019 book, Why Trust Science, scientific knowledge begins as claims advanced by individual scientists, teams or laboratories that are then closely scrutinized by others, who may bring forward additional proof to sustain them—or to modify or reject them. What emerges as a scientific fact or established theory is rarely if ever the same as the starting claim; it has been adjusted in light of evidence and argumentation. Science is a collective effort, and it works best when scientific communities are diverse. The reason is simple: heterogeneous communities are more likely than homogeneous ones to be able to identify blind spots and correct them. Science does not correct itself; scientists correct one another through critical interrogation. And that means being willing to interrogate not just claims about the external world but claims about our own practices and processes as well [emphasis added].

* Thanks to AIP for the article.

“Why there’s no such thing as white pride”

This is writer/director Michael McWhorter explaining “why there’s no such thing as white pride.”

[Watch from 0:25 to 1:25 for the actual post; the rest is commentary about it. You can also watch the post here.]

Yes.

And, McWhorter uses the term “culture” pretty elastically to suggest that all Asian people have a common culture and that all Latina/o/x people have a common culture. This is not true. There is actually an element of truth in common for Black US Americans and these groups, in that Asian-Americans have a similar US American experience, as do Latinas/os/x, based on race (see, for example, how xenophobic discrimination against Asians and the US’ hyper-selective criteria for immigrants under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 creates a perception of Asians being racially privileged in the US, which furthers anti-Asian sentiment).

That over-dichotomization notwthstanding, yes to McWhorter’s refusal to answer rhetorically posed questions or to make false equivalents. And gratitude.

“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

After years of having to say I didn’t know the source for this quote, a colleague helped me out! It’s Leonard Franklin.

* Thank you, EB. And MDE.

Got 2 mins?

This is the best explanation I’ve seen/heard in a while about why racism is bad for everyone (not just POC).

Shout out and gratitude to the Mosaic Project.

“Lowell isn’t going to adapt to you. You adapt to Lowell, and if you can’t handle it, that’s on you.” – Student

In the process of determining how Lowell HS in San Francisco (an “elite” public school that traditionally operates outside of the district’s lottery system) will conduct admissions for 2021-22, this really struck me:

The announcement [of the board’s proposal to put Lowell into the lottery system next year] was also met with some push-back by the current student body. One junior, quoted anonymously in the Lowell High student paper, said “not everyone is capable of handling the stress” of the school. “Lowell isn’t going to adapt to you,” the student said. “You adapt to Lowell, and if you can’t handle it, that’s on you.”

It’s not the student’s opinion on this issue that gets me: it’s the conviction that if you struggle or fail, that’s “on you” (implied) alone. As if the work of education isn’t fundamentally about serving kids. As if learning isn’t a collaborative process, in which yes, the student is a critical, active partner (not just a passive recipient of knowledge), as are: the educator, pedagogy, skills (consider the difference between teaching study skills and leaving students to do whatever they can figure out for themselves) access and opportunity. As if academic “excellence” and “success” are solely the achievement of the individual with no external facilitation, support or help from anyone else.

This seems like an obvious “both and” to me. You know, “it takes a village.”

So as I read this, I had to wonder: what are we teaching students?