We’ve spent the last two and a half years (!!) together imagining an inclusive workforce in which every person of every background can thrive and grow; where employees better reflect their customers; and where diverse teams can develop new products and services that leave the world better than they found it.
Janet Stovall is an inclusion expert and corporate speechwriter at UPS, and she represents a wonderful part of this collective hivemind. For one thing, she understands that if big business masters inclusion, it will make a better world.
She begins her short TED Talk with a funny but important early success, her quest to integrate Davidson College, in Davidson, North Carolina. It was 1984, she was a junior, and was sick of getting used to the indignities of living in a predominantly white space:
Now, Davidson is a little-bitty town, Southern town, split by railroad tracks, with white Davidson on one side, black Davidson on the other side, and, as black students living on the white side of the tracks, we got used to being stopped in downtown and asked for ID, until the police memorized our faces. But fortunately, that didn’t take too long, because out of 1,200 students, only 52 of us were black. There was one black professor and one black assistant dean. Things weren’t a lot better on campus.
Now, Davidson is a little-bitty town, Southern town, split by railroad tracks, with white Davidson on one side, black Davidson on the other side, and, as black students living on the white side of the tracks, we got used to being stopped in downtown and asked for ID, until the police memorized our faces. But fortunately, that didn’t take too long, because out of 1,200 students, only 52 of us were black. There was one black professor and one black assistant dean. Things weren’t a lot better on campus.
Stovall is a single-minded type of person, so she wrote a report that blossomed into a controversial manifesto called Project ’87. Her demand was simple: By 1987, the school should enroll 100 black students, hire 10 black professors, create five Black Studies classes and hire one black dean, or face public wrath. “Real problems, real numbers, real consequences,” she likes to say.
Spoiler alert: It worked, eventually. And it stuck.
Stovall’s call to action for business is a familiar one to the raceAhead crowd, which makes it perfect for sharing with others on the fence about committing to diversity initiatives. But it’s also a validation of the work you all do. Business can dismantle racism, she says. For one, we have a large and attentive audience. “There are 162 million people in the US workforce alone — people of all races, united in the spirit of wanting a paycheck and having to show up to get it,” she says.
Now, I’m aware that diversity is bigger than race, and racism is bigger than America. But racial discrimination is the most prominent form, and Lord knows America is the absolute best at it. So what if, though, what if we worked in diverse and inclusive environments that we had something to do something with? And since we spend one-third of our lives at work, what if we did that with people who didn’t look like us? I think the world would be a totally different place outside of work. That can happen if business gets single-minded about racism. But the question is: How is that supposed to happen?
Now, I’m aware that diversity is bigger than race, and racism is bigger than America. But racial discrimination is the most prominent form, and Lord knows America is the absolute best at it. So what if, though, what if we worked in diverse and inclusive environments that we had something to do something with? And since we spend one-third of our lives at work, what if we did that with people who didn’t look like us? I think the world would be a totally different place outside of work. That can happen if business gets single-minded about racism. But the question is: How is that supposed to happen?
Problems, numbers, consequences, yes, I’ll have some more of that, please. But what she’s too humble to say outright, is that a big part of the answer will come from the sweat equity invested by committed people who are not afraid to use their single-minded, persistent, outdoor voice when necessary. I bet she writes good speeches, too.
Enjoy.