{"id":7992,"date":"2020-06-16T17:47:57","date_gmt":"2020-06-16T17:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/?p=7992"},"modified":"2023-11-01T14:18:35","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T18:18:35","slug":"yes-you-must-talk-about-race-at-work-3-ways-to-get-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/safe-horizon-in-the-news\/3-ways-talk-about-race-in-workplace","title":{"rendered":"Yes, You Must Talk About Race At Work: 3 Ways To Get Started"},"content":{"rendered":"

Forbes
\nBy Eboni K. Williams
\nJune 16, 2020<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Race is the single most taboo topic in most American workplaces. People would rather discuss the polarizing topics of money, sex, or even politics, before engaging in conversation about race or racism. It\u2019s our country\u2019s oldest and most problematic system \u2014 the social construction of someone\u2019s valuation in our society based on the color of their skin.<\/p>\n

For years, many American workers were encouraged and sometimes even explicitly told\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>to discuss race on the job. Most workplaces aren\u2019t like mine. At REVOLT TV, on both REVOLT BLACK NEWS and\u00a0State of the Culture<\/em>, we publicly discuss race and related topics every week.\u00a0This current moment of national unrest, and emerging revolution, now requires us all to do so. We must finally talk about the traumatic complexity of the Black American experience. This requirement includes having uncomfortable, difficult, and triggering conversations at work. To dodge discussions of your personal feelings, your company\u2019s role of complicity, or your co-workers\u2019 experiences in this moment would be a moral and ethical failure.<\/p>\n

Tough talks can be scary. The hardest part can simply be starting the conversation. Here are three ways to start the necessary and important work of talking about race at work:<\/p>\n

1. State Your Intention:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

To create a safe space to share and receive information on a sensitive topic, like race, you must first clearly establish why you want to engage a colleague on the topic. Now is not the time for any assumptions. While many recognize this moment as a reckoning point and opportunity for growth; not everyone feels that way. Therefore, in order to start a productive and healing conversation, take time to explain your goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly stating your intention for starting the dialogue requires vulnerability and transparency. Leading with that level of openness can yield a very positive, and even transformative result.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Prepare Before You Talk:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Doing just a little bit of prep work before starting a race-based dialogue goes a long way toward establishing your positive intention and authenticity. You do not need to be a critical race theory expert. Simply reading a few basic online articles, or watching a couple of films or documentaries, can put you in a better position to have a conversation. Coming to the convo with a basic understanding of history and the modern day impact of racial dynamics in our country, will help your colleagues to trust you, and maybe bring some guards down. This quick step of pre-convo preparation can lead to an open-hearted and helpful conversation.\u00a0I\u2019ve compiled a list of resources here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Acknowledge You Don\u2019t Have All the Answers (This Applies To Everyone<\/em>)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It may be easy to think that you\u2019re the single authority on all things Black, White, Asian, Latinx, Native American or multi-racial, especially if you\u2019re the only member of your group in a workplace. The reality is that none of us are the sole expert during these conversations. We are each experts in our own personal experiences. We must make space for this personal expertise to show up in these conversations. However, none of us is above asking questions and learning as our understanding of these issues and each other continues to grow.<\/p>\n

I learned this particular lesson when I was blessed with the opportunity to hear from Racial Equity and Cultural Competence consultant, Joan Adams. Adams led an anti-racism training during a retreat for Safe Horizon\u2019s Board of Directors, which I serve on. Our board is filled with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, but the majority of our board members are White. Since the vast majority of Safe Horizon\u2019s clients and staff are people of color, we take our anti-racism work extremely seriously. Like many organizations, we\u2019ve been pushed to form committees and build other infrastructures to lead and facilitate these difficult, sometimes painful, but always important conversations. Adams helped me realize that when I asserted my personal experience and even my advanced knowledge on race issues as the \u201cgold standard,\u201d I inadvertently shutdown the very thing I wanted most, authentic engagement and exchange of feelings and ideas on the issue that worked to advance racial justice and equality.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIn the year 2020, none of us can afford to ignore race in our workplaces. When we avoid the hard stuff, our challenges fester.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opportunities for miscommunications, micro\/macro-aggressions, and discrimination are unnecessarily created when we fail to communicate about real life issues. Race is a complicated and intimidating issue for a lot of us. When we lean into these tough talks, we put ourselves in the best position to learn, reflect, and make the changes needed to create a more just and equitable society and workplace.<\/p>\n

Read the original article here.<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Safe Horizon supports victims of other abuse<\/a> like racial discrimination in the workplace.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Safe Horizon Board Member Eboni K. Williams explains the importance of talking about race in the workplace and creating anti-racism initiatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":{"id":9685,"alt_text":"Support children and families in domestic violence shelters","caption":"Peggy Duffy Memorial fund","description":"Support children and families in domestic violence shelters","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":512,"height":512,"file":"2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail.png","filesize":31715,"sizes":{"medium":{"file":"Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-300x300.png","width":300,"height":300,"mime-type":"image\/png","filesize":18595,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-300x300.png"},"thumbnail":{"file":"Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-150x150.png","width":150,"height":150,"mime-type":"image\/png","filesize":8008,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail-150x150.png"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":9684,"source_url":"https:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Safe-Horizon-Flower-Logo_TransparentThumbnail.png"},"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[1207,1503,1505,1115],"class_list":["post-7992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-safe-horizon-in-the-news","tag-eboni-k-williams","tag-racial-equity","tag-racial-justice","tag-racism","issue-child-abuse","issue-domestic-violence","issue-human-trafficking","issue-policy-research","issue-rape-and-sexual-assault","issue-stalking","issue-victims-of-other-abuse","issue-homeless-youth"],"acf":{"page_header_title":"","title_font_size":"42","page_header_excerpt":"","sub-headline_placement":false,"page_header_image":false,"custom_scripts":false,"show_author_bio":false,"original_url":"","related_initiative_title":"Support Safe Horizon","related_initiative_link":"\/donate","related_initiative_link_text":"Donate Today","featured_posts":[{"ID":5410,"post_author":"13","post_date":"2018-03-15 20:34:17","post_date_gmt":"2018-03-15 20:34:17","post_content":"\r\nMarch 15, 2018<\/em>\r\nBy Brian Pacheco<\/em>\r\n\r\n*Trigger & Spoiler Warning: the following articles contain\u00a0spoilers of Black Panther and shares details about violence. <\/em>\r\n\r\nAs a kid, I was more of a Catwoman kind of boy. I was never really into male Superheroes, so when I heard about Black Panther, I wasn\u2019t interested. My friend had to drag me to see the film.\r\n\r\nBut I was blown away. I was surprised by how much of my own story, and the stories of the men in my life, I saw reflected in the film. In fact, it brought back so many memories of my own childhood. Like the scenes depicted at the beginning of Black Panther, I grew up in a low-income, predominately black and Latino neighborhood. My father is Afro-Latino, and both my parents are Puerto Rican. The basketball court that Killmonger played in as a young boy looked almost identical to the one that was outside of my own apartment complex.\r\n\r\nLike Killmonger, I grew up experiencing events that would be considered \u2018traumatic\u2019 (i.e. domestic violence, child abuse and bullying) in my own life and the lives of the boys and men around me. Of course, we didn\u2019t label them that way back then. It was just my life: like so many others, full of beautiful, funny, scary, painful, and unforgettable moments.\r\n\r\nWorking at Safe Horizon, I\u2019ve learned language and concepts that have allowed me to name and move past traumatic events in my life, but not everyone has these resources.\r\n\r\nLike Killmonger, so many boys and men of color do not get to process their traumas with the same support that is available to others. Our voices and our stories are so often muted from the conversations of trauma. In fact, the very word \u201ctrauma<\/em>\u201d is not often in our vocabulary. That\u2019s why when I saw Black Panther, I was so thrilled to see how trauma was not only a central part of the movie but that the hurt and pain of boys of color (in this case, black boys) were humanized.\r\n\r\nI recently had a conversation with my colleague Paul Barrett, Jr. (also a man of color), project manager for Safe Horizon\u2019s Enhanced Service for Boys and Young Men of Color, to explore these themes further.\r\n\r\nBRIAN:<\/strong> In Black Panther, Michael B Jordan's character Erik Killmonger lost his father to homicide, which is traumatic. What is the impact on boys and young men of color when they witness violence or lose a caregiver to violence?\r\n\r\nPAUL: <\/strong>What is anyone\u2019s experience when they lose a loved one? There is grief, deep sense of loss, anger and powerlessness, to name a few. But the way that men are taught to be socialized is largely that your manhood is grounded in your ability to assert dominance over others. These messages are no different for black or white boys. What is different is that white male toxicity is normalized, while for men of color it is pathologized [seen as abnormal] and demonized.\r\n\r\nLook at when white men vandalize property and riot after a sporting event, the media frames it as a celebration. But when black men protest for their basic human rights, and if they vandalize priority, they are framed as thugs and vandals. Why is the framing different?\r\n\r\nBRIAN:<\/strong> What is the best way to address a young boy's trauma? Are there enough of these services?\r\n\r\nPAUL:<\/strong> Take the best of what we do for everyone else and do that for boys and young men of color. We need to funnel more resources to communities of color. One of the feelings I left the movie with was that Killmonger would not have become Killmonger if King T-Chaka had brought him to Wakanda. He was left to deal with a traumatic event [death of his father] on his own.\r\n\r\nFor service providers, if a young man of color comes to you after getting robbed, it isn\u2019t just \u201cFill out this compensation form.<\/em>\u201d It\u2019s humanizing this scary experience and asking, \u201cHow are you doing?<\/em>\u201d So often, these questions aren\u2019t asked because society doesn\u2019t see men, boys of color, as people who experience trauma. We blame them for the hurt that has come to them. Any agency that works directly with or interacts with young people needs to move past \u2018What materials resources do you need?\u2019 and dig into \u2018How are you doing?\u2019\r\n\r\nBRIAN:<\/strong> The film explored the effects of structural racism, such as poverty and lack of resources in communities of color in the U.S. How does structural racism affect boys and young men of color?\r\n\r\nPAUL:<\/strong> Therapeutic resources, social services, financial resources that can direct a person away from risky behavior and exposure to harm is readily available in most white communities. Yes, there are still poor white communities, but at a disproportionate rate, these resources are not as accessible to communities of color. When you look at the intersection of class and race, people of color are more likely\u2014even if they are not poor\u2014 to live in less resourced communities than white people.\r\n\r\nBRIAN:<\/strong> Erik Killmonger ended up as the antagonist in the film because he wanted to avenge his father's death. Do boys with unaddressed trauma go on to harm others?\r\n\r\nPAUL:<\/strong> Let me be clear: not all people who experience violence or trauma go on to harm others\u2014many don\u2019t. Trauma affects functionality. Unaddressed trauma can lead to self-harm, harming others, being hyper-vigilant and sensitive, as examples. There is a real need to address the effects of trauma after it happens. Even then, it really should be as simple as responding to the trauma of boys and young men of color because they are human beings. You can be the toughest, hardest, dude around and you still want to get stuff off your chest. We need to normalize sharing feelings.\r\n\r\nBRIAN:<\/strong> The theme of fathers and sons was an important one in the movie, and resonated with so many black men who watched the movie. Why do you think that is?\r\n\r\nPAUL:<\/strong> It exists because in many ways in the black community we have been taught to believe fathers are the solution to the trauma that boys are experiencing. \u2018If their dad was around, all this would be solved.\u2019\r\n\r\nI do not want to hate on the need for fathers to be in a child\u2019s life. I just became a father myself, but if all black men came out of prison then underlying issues such as white supremacy, structural racism, and toxic masculinity would still exist. And these are the root causes of what is pushing forward much of the trauma boys and young men of color experience.\r\n\r\nOf course, it is important to note that many many black men are great fathers to their children and the absence of black fathers is not specifically because they are incarcerated.\r\n\r\nBRIAN:<\/strong> Safe Horizon is strengthening our services for boys and young men of color. What can we learn from Black Panther?\r\n\r\nPAUL:<\/strong> We look at boys and young men of color as this distinct species. What I love about this movie was that it was a human a** movie. There were funny scenes, tension, nuance\u2014people changed over time.\r\n\r\nIt also humanized the trauma of loss\u2014whether that is losing a family member to homicide or generational\/historical trauma for black communities that we are still grappling with. So many of us are searching for home and our roots. Few white people have to grapple with this. For example, my last name is Barrett\u2014that is a slave name.\r\n\r\nBut what I really took away was this: The representation of Killmonger was very human. His rage is totally understandable. To me, he represents a subset of black people who are validly angry, both at injustices of white supremacy and inaction of certain people within the black community. Yet, his rage is not effectively channeled.\r\n\r\nSo many people who saw the film said: \u201cI was rocking with him.<\/em>\u201d This reads like so many black men I know. Unfortunately, the direction he was trying to move his anger in won\u2019t help him or \u2018us.\u2019 But, Killmonger has experienced traumatic events. His response is fueled by hurt. And how do we respond to that?","post_title":"Black Panther, Killmonger and The Boys Of Color Who Experience Trauma","post_excerpt":"We explore the themes of trauma in Black Panther as the movie humanizes the hurt and pain of boys of color.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","post_password":"","post_name":"black-panther-killmonger-boys-color-trauma","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2025-06-10 13:47:01","post_modified_gmt":"2025-06-10 17:47:01","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/www.safehorizon.org\/?p=5410","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":9657,"post_author":"16","post_date":"2022-06-03 13:15:57","post_date_gmt":"2022-06-03 17:15:57","post_content":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n