Real Talk: Where Do White Men Fit Into the DE&I Conversation?

Welcome to Real Talk with Loeb Leadership, a safe-space webinar discussion series as part of our dedication to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In this series, we gather a panel of executive coaches, leadership development and workplace culture experts, and DE&I specialists to discuss current, relevant, and often challenging topics related to DE&I in law firms and corporate environments.

In today's discussion, our panelists discuss where the white man belongs in DE&I conversations. White men make up a huge majority of the workforce and have historically benefited from greater access to opportunity, resources, feedback, and more. As more organizations engage in conversations and initiatives supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, it’s inevitable that white men are going to show up in these spaces, too. We’ve heard varying responses from white men about these conversations: Some feel threatened by DE&I initiatives, concerned that by helping others gain, they will somehow have to lose something themselves. Others are eager to support DE&I efforts but are intimidated or unsure of the role they should play, and what amount of their involvement is appropriate. Still, others report feeling dismissed or excluded altogether. So where does this leave us? How can we dispel a scarcity mindset? How can we encourage white men to speak up when some feel they have held the microphone for too long already? How can we encourage inclusion for all; even those who have always been included? What can we all learn about each other?

Join Loeb Leadership's panel of experts as they examine these topics and offer suggestions on how to navigate through these organizational challenges!

Below is a THOUGHTFULLY Organized transcript of the discussion:

David Robert: Well, welcome, everyone, to our DE&I conversation. Most of you probably noticed that we've rebranded our discussions to Real Talk. We thought it was more appropriate and more current than Safe Space. Also, you will notice that I'm not the original moderator. Our colleague, David Sarnoff, was not able to join today, so I have stepped into his role. I hope I can do him well. We have a really, really compelling conversation today. I know that when we sent the invitation now, we got a lot of responses because I think it's a topic that is really resonating within organizations that we work with. The topic today is, where does the white guy fit into the DE&I conversation at your organization? We have an esteemed panel of experts on the call today who will be answering questions for us. I may jump in as well. I'll play the role of both moderator and contributor, but let's jump right in.

Obviously, we're here to talk about this concept of where does the white guy fit into the DE&I conversation. The first question I have for the panel, and feel free to jump in whoever wants to go first, is: is this really an issue that we should be worried about? Is this a topic that we should be spending time entertaining? Let's go to Michael. Michael, is this a topic that you think that organizations should be investing time in exploring?

• Is White Men in DE&I Conversations a topic organizations should be investing in exploring?

  Michael Burchell: Hi, everybody. My name is Michael Burchell. I'm an executive coach and consultant with Loeb Leadership. I have about 30 years of experience in organizational development and change in diversity work. My doctorate is in social justice and diversity education, and I've written a couple of different books on culture, also focus on diversity and inclusion work. A lot of my focus and emphasis is on DEI and the space. As most of you can tell, I'm fairly pale. I show up that way. I do think that there's a role for white men in the conversation and I think it's a critical role.

  For me, it's not just a passionate area of mine, but I think that the road towards social and financial justice somehow works through or touches or engages white men, and so to the degree that we can actually focus on white men and white people in general, that is an important thing. That doesn't mean that white people are leading, it doesn't mean that white people are the ones with the answers per se, but that they're part of the conversation.

  I'm reminded of Audrey Lorde, who was a black lesbian feminist who said the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. In a frame around that is, listen, what got us here in terms of issues of racism and oppression is not what it's get us out for sure, and so we have to pay attention to that. To not engage white people somehow and create allies and engage with them in a concerted effort leaves part of the answer off the table, and so we need to somehow put them back in the table, not to center them, not to reify whiteness, but to engage them appropriately in the discussion. David, I think that's my take on part of what your question was about.

  Dr. Fritz Galette: My name is Fritz Galette. I have actually a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. I come to Loeb Consulting originally as a coach and as a seminar leader, and of the last few years, I've been doing dialogue groups. I've been getting people together to talk, diverse groups of people to talk. What I do in those dialogue groups is try to elicit engagement from each member of the group. To leave anybody out of that is to severely impact the amount of impact that we can have. What we are often doing is trying to teach people how to listen to one another, how to listen and develop some deep level of connection and empathy, and so when we're doing this work and I've got white men in the room, the idea is to get everybody into the dialogue and to elicit what they're thinking and feeling so that they can contribute. This won't go anywhere unless we all work together.

David: When we sent the invitation out about this topic, it really piqued people's curiosity and we got some anecdotal feedback that some white men feel intimidated or excluded when they think about their DE&I efforts within their organization. Why do you think that is? Why do you think some white men feel that they're an outlier, they're on the margins of this work?

• Why do you think some white men feel intimidated or excluded from DE&I efforts within their organization?

  Joy Stephens: I'm Joy Stephens. I'm a diversity, equity and inclusion subject matter expert and consultant with Loeb.

  Specifically, white men have become the factory default for the other, and so every time someone is talking about who has oppressed them or discriminated them or excluded them, they become the poster child for that. Even if they are trying to be an ally or trying to learn or just confused, there's this idea of something needs to be done with them or to them, however to fix them, et cetera. There's all these things that we talk about around them and not to them, and so they feel excluded because we are, to some extent and I see this a lot in the work that I do, we are treating them as if they are a foregone conclusion.

  At the same time, where we say that people of color are not a monolith, LGBTQ is not a monolith, women are not a monolith, white men are not a monolith either, and I think it behooves anyone that wants to do inclusion work to make sure all voices are heard, even the voice that you think is a foregone conclusion. You need to know what they're thinking, what they're feeling, how they may have anxiety, how that may show up. They need the same consideration as everyone else, and I think because in our society there are some, we'll say, expected privileges that we assume that most white men have, we think they're fine because they have all this privilege. But they still have anxiety, they still have uncertainty, they still have a desire to see their family thrive, to wonder where their next promotion or meal or whatever it is coming from. We can't forget that, and I think very often we use them again as just a, "here's what's wrong" and that's not fair.

  Rini Fonseca-Sabune: Great to see everyone. My name is Rini Fonseca-Sabune. I'm a racial equity consultant and an attorney, like many folks on this call, and I support organizations to figure out how everyone within the organization can thrive. I think the question of how can white men come to the table, the question is, how can the organization define its strategic direction with respect to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and then how can everyone in that organization be brought along? It's not about just bringing along diverse folks and we know people are not diverse, organizations and groups are diverse. How can each person be brought along? I think it's a question of what is the work of the organization in doing DE&I. A lot of organizations are like, "Oh, we just need to bring on more diverse individuals. We need to make people feel like they are included or they fit in."

  The job is to assess where you are. A lot of organizations and law firms will start this work without knowing where they are starting from. First, figuring out where you are, whether that's a survey, a focus group, including everyone, bringing everyone to the table to figure out where you are and then figure out where you're going. The work of DE&I, of anti-racism is not simply saying, "Okay, well this is what everyone has to do." A lot of times that work is educating people. That work is letting people know what are we even talking about and what does it mean for each person in this organization to be a part of it? Whether it's white men, white women, people of color, folks who are non-binary, everyone needs to be a part of that conversation, and if anyone is feeling excluded, the first question to me is why that individual feels excluded. As Joy said, there is no one type of person of color, no one type of white person, we really need to ask the why and then we can figure out what we need to do to bring everyone to the table.

• Are Organizations hurting their DE&I efforts by delegating the responsibility of the work to a person of color?

  David: Given that, Rini, do you think that organizations are actually hurting themselves or hurting DE&I efforts by delegating the responsibility to shepherd the word to a person of color? I've worked with dozens and dozens of organizations who have pretty strategic DE&I functions, and I think maybe one or two exceptions, they're all governed by a person of color. Is that sending the wrong message? You're already marginalizing the white guy or white people. They're not pulling them into the process in the very beginning.

  Rini: Well, I think it's a complex question of who is leading this work, who is joining the effort and how is the organization, the firm, the company showing that they are invested in this work. Now, when you see recruitment, that's one way to people talk about this effort. Well, we're sending all our partners of color, associates of color to lead recruitment around to the hiring fair. Well, if you are only putting this work, first of all, it's an unfair burden on folks of color if those hours are not being counted toward their hourly expectations. But also, the message that's being sent is this is only their work. Instead of saying this is everyone's work and we see the chair of the firm involved in this, we see the chair of the management committee, who is the person who is really going to say this matters to everyone in this organization.

  Certainly, often the folks who are leading the efforts have lived experience that matters, and it is critical for the firm, the company to show that all leaders and the folks that are critical to the work of the organization are invested in moving it forward as well.

David: Well said, well said. Again, going back to, when we sent the invitation out, we got a lot of feedback, a lot of reaction, and one of the things that came out of that feedback shocked me a bit. That there were some, anecdotally, some feedback that white men in particular might feel threatened by the DE&I efforts within their firm. Any perspective in terms of why somebody might feel that way?

Dr. Fritz: That too is, that's another complex question. I know Joy is going to come right after me, but people have reactions to these things for their own subjective reasons, their own specific reasons. When I'm getting people together and we're talking about it, the idea is to, in the room with them right now, ask them, this is my psychologist training, ask them what's coming up for them. But they're not going to answer that question in an honest and genuine way unless we're able to create a safe space for, that's why we use those terms, safe space for real talk. Often, the misconception, those reactions do come from an ignorance or belief that if I allow for diversity to occur, the pie that we're all sharing in will get smaller. But I think we're using the wrong imagery, and so I've set Joy up for the right imagery.

Joy: Right. It's not like pie. If I give you some then I don't have any, and I think that mentality of scarcity is what causes anxiety in so many people. Because yeah, if there's only a discreet amount, then you are going to have those rumbles, if you will. But if you think of it more like fire than pie, if I give you some, now I've lit you up and I still have light and you can spread that light beyond your borders and everyone can have a candle in the darkness. It's bigger than any one individual and it's more than any of us could have on our own. You see this in the insect kingdom and the animal kingdom all the time. If we work together, we get more individually if we work together to support each other as a group. The idea of "I got mine, you get yours," it's so American, and I stole this from David Sarnoff, there are so many things that we do in the United States that we think are human nature and they're not, it's just an American way of doing things.

You go to another country on the other side of the world and they have no problem with some of the things that we struggle with due in large part to the fact that we all look very different from each other in this country, so that does play a factor. But I think this idea of feeling threatened comes from the idea of, is expansion of, I don't think there's enough to go around and there's plenty. We can all leave. It doesn't really require anybody to give up anything other than an old frame of mind and you can give that up for free.

“I think this idea of feeling threatened comes from an ignorance or belief that “if I allow for diversity to occur, the pie that we’re all sharing in will get smaller. If give you some, then I don’t have any.” I think that mentality of scarcity is what causes anxiety in so many people.

But if you think of it more like fire than pie, if I give you some, now I’ve lit you up, and I still have light, and you can spread that light beyond your borders, and everyone can have a candle in the darkness. It’s bigger than any one individual and it’s more than any of us could have on our own.

It doesn’t really require anybody to give up anything other than an old frame of mind, and you can give that up for free.”

David: I have seen signs of this mentality around a zero-sum game type thing, that if I'm creating opportunities for others, I'm going to be denied those same opportunities, or those opportunities are diminished. What's interesting is that I went to a conference last week, and Michael was there as well, and the keynote speaker, Michael Bush was a really compelling keynote. He talked about the US economy between the years of 1960 and 2010, so a 50-year period, where we really began to diversify the workforce within America. The United States went from a $500 billion GDP to $14 trillion in that time period. He looked at the increase in salaries for certain demographics, and what was surprising is that in every demographic they looked at, black women, women in general, black men, white men; everybody's salaries increased, and nobody lost.

In fact, the demographic that actually was rewarded the most were white men. When I hear white people in particular saying or having this mindset that they're going to be giving something up if we actually are to foster a society of equity, the data does not support that mindset that we all win. In fact, I think white people in general historically have actually benefited the most. To me, it was a really compelling part of that keynote speech that Michael Bush gave last week.

Michael: There's this interesting thing, if I can jump in real fast. I'm not a big TikToker, but sometimes I do scroll and I'm on TikTok for way too long. There was this huge issue, and I think it's still on TikTok, it's still a huge issue of The Little Mermaid, representation and the reaction on the part of white people around representation, and I think this is true in our workplaces as well. Now, what we see over the course of time is representation, which matters changing. That's an important piece of this. That important part of the conversation is like, who is in the room and how do we actually make sure that everyone is represented?

What's interesting is, going back to that zero sum game, that white people and white men in particular end up saying, "Oh, if there's more representation than I get out, I get lost out." But the evidence doesn't bear that out. There's actually several studies, including one out of Harvard Business Review, some other places that actually demonstrates if you actually have four qualified candidates, one is a woman, the statistical chance of them of being hired as, the woman being hired is zero. It will almost always go to the man. If you actually have five candidates and two are people of color, the chances of one of the people of color being hired in that role is minimal.

The actual evidence doesn't bear out how men are, white men in particular are experiencing it, and I think it has to do with representation. To Joy's point, having the mindset shift that doesn't actually cost a lot to give up, an old mindset or an old mind frame, but I think it's something that, I think, white people in particular are just now trying to figure out what does this all mean for them?

Here's the other thing. The challenge, I think, for a lot of white folks is they don't know how to talk about it. They don't have the comfort right around having these kinds of conversations, and so part of the role of leaders and organizations is raising this up to say, "Listen, we need to have these conversations, and it's going to get really uncomfortable in some places, but we'll work it out. We're going to hold the space together so that we can figure this out together as a group." Leading in as white people into the uncomfortable conversations in those spaces is really, really important.

• You can get rid of white supremacy without getting rid of white people

  Joy: I'm going to say something really, really controversial. You ready? You can get rid of white supremacy without getting rid of white people. One does not have to be tied to the other. Unfortunately, there are so many people, and I'm talking in massive generalities here, there's so many people that unconsciously connect the idea of white supremacy to their own identity, their own sense of self, their own ego, that to say that any white supremacist idea is wrong, they hear, "You're wrong. You're bad," et cetera. "I'm not saying that. I'm that this idea disenfranchises other people." "Well, I've never disenfranchised anybody." You've got to separate the ideas and the concepts of white supremacy from your own identity. If you can do that, then you will find your place in this diversity discussion because you will be able to surgically remove something that is holding us all back, including you.

  I think that's something that we don't talk about in that realm of or in that way. We never say, "Let's just look at white supremacy." We talk about white people have done this, white men have done that, white women did this, blah blah blah. White supremacy as a concept is what needs to go, and we do that, I think we talk to each other in a different way.

  Michael: Joy, I think that's so right on target, and what's difficult as a white person is separating out my identity from my race and from issues of power and control. Part of the conversation that needs to happen to your point is helping white people figure out how to disentangle that, because it's true and at the same time, it's also complicated. My entire sense of myself and my being is as a white person, even though it's somewhat denied because white privilege is one of those things where I don't have to actually pay attention and see things. But if I do and I'm like, "Oh, so then, who am I if I'm not white?" That's a complicated question for white people. I think people of color has spent a lot more time thinking about that than white people have. What is my identity outside of the racial context?

  Joy: Right, and think about how much that spawns when it comes to unconscious bias, which every person on this call has had unconscious bias training, I'm assuming at some point. It talks about similarity bias, proximity bias, et cetera, et cetera. When you have that unconscious mindset of white supremacy, that's how you get statements, and I've seen this statement on a company's website. We promote diversity while not losing quality.

  There's an underlying assumption there that when you support diversity, you're naturally going to get less qualified or less capable candidates. That is a white supremacist mindset, and they're proud of that statement, because it didn't even occur to them what that might sound like. We can do this in spite of or when people argue against having a diverse leader of candidates, "Well, why can't we just hire the best person?" What makes you think the best person won't be an Asian woman or a black man? You're already assuming that the best person is default naturally going to be white. That's what I mean about separating out. You can say hire the best person. Don't be mad when that best person turns out to be Fritz, and I think that's where we got to get better.

Rini: I just want to build upon what Joy and Michael just shared, that often, these very hastily put together DE&I efforts are part of the problem and perpetuate white supremacy within those efforts themselves, and to Michael's point of are people feeling excluded or this whole question, if the effort is put together hastily, if the leader and the folks included are only people of color or only folks from historically marginalized groups and it is not created in such a way that it includes everyone in the organization, then it perpetuates that exclusion. Often, the reason people feel excluded is because they have been. They may have had an experience where they were told or got the feeling that DE&I was only for certain folks and that they were being left behind. It's really the intentionality, the thoughtfulness around creating these safe spaces, owning these uncomfortable conversations, bringing folks to the table in a way where everyone can feel included, that will inherently create efforts that include everyone.

It's like a chicken and an egg situation, but it really does mean taking the time to pause and to say, "This is important enough that we're not going to rush it." I know, particularly after 2020, everybody was jumping on the bandwagon, putting their statement on the website and that often came from a really well-meaning place. However, if you don't pause to do this strategically in the same way your organization does their strategic plan, thinks about what the five year plan is for the whole organization, diversity, equity and inclusion, anti-racism need to be an inherent part of that. It cannot be siloed and excluded and, "Well, this is what those people do on Wednesday at lunch." No, it has to be a part of the whole effort of the organization and that takes time, it takes energy, it takes money.

If you're not willing to really do that, do that work, it's going to feel cheap and it's going to feel like, "Oh, that's for them. I'm not a part of it and I'm just going to wait till this month or that month is over and move on." It really takes the extra effort to do it in a way that is going to include everybody

Dr. Fritz: Just want to make a comment on what it takes to take those strategies and do all those things in a more meaningful way, because when we stop to think about it, again, bringing in my background in psychology, we have to feel about it and we have to ask ourselves the meaning about it. We do a lot of things out of reaction. Back in 2020 when everybody was jumping on the bandwagon and doing what they were doing, a lot of that was coming from anxiety, and we still experience that anxiety when we're working with clients today, and we've got to actually calm things down and invite people to not only think about what they're doing but feel about what it means. When we think about what whiteness is, we think about what identity is, it's not something that we do very quickly, we have to practice it.

Now, the point is these uncomfortable conversations that we talk about, I do them every day. They're often uncomfortable and I do them every day, but they get easier to do when you do them every day. They get easier to do when the people you're doing them with you're developing relationships with, that I can have a conversation with anybody on this panel where they would say something to me and only take it positively because I have positive relationships with them where we have slowly but surely gone into things in a more deep way. But you can't necessarily take any of these directives and then all of a sudden just go do them. That's why we often are working with clients to help them build that safety, build that trust, build a high trust culture environment, so that when you have these conversations, they're not just conversations that are debates or discussions, but they might actually have elements of dialogue where you then truly more deeply understand what the others are sharing.

• Change Moves at the Speed of Trust

  David: I love this concept of trust. I heard somebody say the other day that, "When I think about DE& I think about culture change." Essentially, if we're going to do it right, we really do want to shift the culture within the organization to make it more inclusive so people have a sense of belonging. We all know, as practitioners of change and culture, that change can be very difficult. Somebody once said to me that change moves at the speed of trust. If I'm leading a DE&I effort or I want to find out how to get more involved, I would actually start at that level. It's really hard to have those uncomfortable conversations in a meaningful way if there's a lack of trust between people within the firm.

  Again, from a culture perspective, if you find yourself at your organization getting frustrated at the speed of change and you're seeing barriers more often than not, to me, it leads to a trust conversation. What's going on with our relationships that we're not able to be honest and direct with each other and have those necessary uncomfortable conversations in a non-threatening way. I just thought that was a really profound statement that change moves at the speed of trust and it really, it's so true, so true. I wanted to use, go ahead.

  Joy: I was just going to say and to add to that, trust is overlooked as a necessary thing. When you're onboarding person to your firm, "Here's your computer, here's your office, here's the break room, et cetera, good luck." We don't really focus on cultivating trust in new employees or transitioning employees regardless of the level. There's a story in a book by Dr. Steve Robbins, the book is called "What If?" The first story is called Creating the Right Environment. In it, he gives a bunch of anecdotes, but in a nutshell, if you don't set the environment correctly before you introduce all the different people, demographics, et cetera, you're going to fail, and that's a given. You will fail, and I think we've seen that to varying degrees as people put the cart before the horse, to mix all my metaphors and everything. I think that goes right to what you're saying around building trust. If you don't build trust and bring people in under the umbrella of trust, you're going to have these pockets of resistance, pockets of anxiety, even sabotage when you're trying to change culture.

  David: Absolutely. Thank you for that, Joy

David: I want to spend the next half an hour or so talking a bit about what can organizations do to make sure that the DE&I efforts that they're committing to are more inclusive, that everybody plays a role in it. I have some thoughts on this too, but I'll hold my thoughts until the panel weighs in. What can organizations do? Speak directly to white men:

What can white men begin doing to make sure that they are actively supporting the DE&I efforts within their organization?

• Joy Stephens

  Step one, be vocal. Talk about it. Tell everybody what your intentions are, what you want to do, what you want to see and stand with that. Don't let it be just something you do in February for Black History month, in June for Pride month, and then you forget about it the rest of the year. Let it be something that you start off every meeting. Let's talk about how we are bringing in new people. Let's talk about psychological safety. I want to talk about these things. I want to make sure that my firm or my territory, et cetera, is functioning in this way. Be as intentional about that discussion as you are about billable hours.

• David Robert

  I would be more provocative. I know you shared some controversy a couple of minutes ago, I'll do the same. I think that, again, this is more of a general statement, but I think that white people need to have an honest conversation with themselves about whether they think those who are asking for their help are worthy of the help. I'm being honest. I think it's hard to get somebody to be an ally if they have this internal feeling that the person who's asking for help is not worthy of the help. I think that we have to start there. I know, Joy, you and I had this conversation that there are probably are people who are like, "Listen, I'm not against DE&I but let them figure it out." Or, it's honestly came to really clear for me after George Floyd's murder, that there were people, even in our own network, of people who said, "Why are we getting all riled up about this? The guy was a thug," and missing the more important part that we're all deserving of living a free true life.

  If we don't believe that, then it's going to be really hard, I think, to get people to be seen as allies. Again, that's my initial take on it because I think there probably are some people who, whether it's intentional or not, may not think that those who are asking for support are worthy of the support, an initial conversation, I think, white people have to have with themselves. My second piece of advice is I would encourage everybody on the call today to go onto Netflix and watch this documentary called "Who We Are." It really blew me away, it changed my life. I'm embarrassed to say that, because I'm formally educated and there is things in that documentary about the history of racism in our country that I never really understood. I wasn't aware of. It was really, I thought, an eye opener for me. "Who We Are" on Netflix, it's an important thing I think to watch.

  The third thing I would say is, and I think it goes to what Joy said is, I think it's one thing to support whether financially or by participating on your DE&I community, but I think that white people need to be way more active and visible in championing some of the efforts that are coming out of these committees. It's one thing just to say, "Yeah, I approve that or I support that," but I think there has to be a visible perspective that you are visibly supporting the work around diversity, equity, and inclusion rather than just stamping things, stamp of approval. Again, I can't really say what that would look like within each organization or if it's different, but I think people have to see you actively involved in moving this work forward.

• Rini Fonseca-Sabune

  If I could just build upon that, David. I think, I'm going to say two things that are kind of intention and then bring them together. One thing is organizations need to meet people where they are. You cannot assume that everybody needs the same thing, it is not a one size fits all. Often, there are very big generational gaps in what people need or what they expect around diversity, equity, and inclusion, so you need to really do that work of assessment, figuring out where people are and what they need. If you are doing a webinar for people who already have a base level of knowledge and investment but the majority of the people in your firm that have that base level of knowledge or even a minority of people in the firm don't have that, those folks are getting left behind.

  You really have to figure out where people are and how to meet them and have that. I'm a former educator. I was a high school social studies teacher and they called that education differentiated instruction. You cannot just throw one set of things at people and say, "Well, why aren't they getting it? Why are these people not participating?" Because that content may not be meeting them. That's meet them where they are.

  The second part is hold them accountable. After you have done that work of assessing where people are giving them the opportunity to come to the table, if people are not willing to engage with it, are not getting with the program and supporting the strategic direction of your organization's work, then that's a question of, is that reflected in their performance evaluations? When people do supervisory management evaluations and you're looking at it, are you asking about inclusive leadership? Are you asking whether those folks, folks of any color, white, black, brown, are they supporting the mentorship of historically underrepresented people in your organization? That needs to be in the performance evaluation.

  Once people know that they're being held accountable, they can change up real quick. They know, "Hey, this is something that I'm being evaluated. My bonus is based upon that and I'm going to do it." I think it's really a question of meeting people where they are, but also holding them accountable and doing both. If you're holding folks accountable but you haven't given them that scaffolding to get where they need to be, then people feel confused and they feel that they're being left behind. "Hey, I'm supposed to do this, but I don't even know what that looks like." But if you are giving people the support to get there and they're still not doing it, then there's a question about whether those folks support the strategic direction of your organization, and with anything, if there are people who do not support the strategic direction of the organization, then that might not be the right place for them, and that's a hard conversation, but it's an essential conversation if the culture of the organization is going to be moved in this positive direction. It's the both end.

  The last thing I'll say is that, if people have not had that conversation about why this is critical to this company, to this law firm, to this organization, and it's just, "Oh, because everybody else is doing it. Oh, it's important because of George Floyd," but they haven't really dug deep and said, "Hey, this is important because the future of the profession, the future of the work is based upon being able to grow with diversity, that diverse teams do better work." If you haven't answered the why for your organization, then it's just window dressing. Then, people aren't really doing it because they know it doesn't really matter to you, so really taking that time for intentionality, meeting people where they are and then holding folks accountable.

  That's not a six-month conversation. That is a multi-year plan and you're really looking to the future and figuring out what does it really look like to make this embedded within the company. There's a few pieces to it, it's not easy work, but if people are really invested in doing it, that's what that trajectory looks like.

• Michael Burchell

  If I can jump in, just tease out a couple things that Rini mentioned, which I think you are spot on. One of the things is that, around meeting people where they are, and I want to talk about white people in particular, this idea that not all white people are the same… not about ‘culturally where do they come from’ or ‘what their mindset is’ or ‘what their behaviors are,’ but if you think about white identity development (and for folks who are on the call, they may not be familiar with this idea around white identity development), but; there are different ways in which people think of themselves as white people, and how you intervene with white people matters based upon where they are in terms of their identity development.

  Probably Fritz knows as a psychologist much better than I do. But if you're in active resistance, those are the folks that are out there and they are with the picket signs and they're trying to march and do all this stuff because they're trying to resist being white. They're actively resisting. There are other folks who are acceptance. I've accepted the culture the way it is. I'm a white person. They don't even think about themselves as white, but they just are. David, your video that you mentioned before from Netflix would just be way over their head versus integration. Somebody who's been thinking about this for a while, they see themselves as a white ally, they understand their role and their positionality within the context of the organization.

  Different people who are white have different ways of framing things in their mindsets, so understanding how you intervene is really, really, really important. That then leads into this larger conversation about how current white leaders and others role model the kind of behaviors you want to see in the organization, that's really critical how they teach and how they educate white people.

  What would it look like to have all the white folks come together and have a conversation about what does it mean to be white in this organization? To facilitate it, why are we actually always looking to people of color to teach us about what it means to be working in this organization in a racially conscious, anti-racist way? Think about that in a very specific way. Then, there's the systems approach that Rini talked about, and then there's also just ongoing communications. How do we communicate out? If we're doing the role modeling, we're communicating the right way, we have the systems approach and we're doing the learning development phase, then we actually have a whole system around culture change that will really matter for people of color, for white people as we really engage in this project.

Dr. Fritz: Ultimately, what is the impact of that system that wraps around everything? We can do a lot of panel discussions like this, people can attend them, and I think a lot of people are intellectually getting what we're talking about. If you allow that intellect now to seep into the deeper recesses of your neurology, you tend to then start to feel it, and that's a lot of the work that we have to construct. This takes time and repetition, because a lot of us get it intellectually, we know socially appropriate ways to talk about this subject, some of us don't, but then what do people do is somebody who's worked in behavioral change for 30 years, people don't change just because they think differently, they change because they feel differently. We're constantly having to think about strategically what we do, so not only that it touches the minds of the people we're trying to get to, but the hearts.

That involves everything from doing the work, reading the books, watching the movies. But I can tell you, one of the most powerful examples I've seen of this was working with a CEO of a company who walked the talk through and through. He was the walking embodiment of a transformational leader. It was a white man. That had more power and impact than anything anybody else was doing there, and so we need those examples, but those leaders need also the support of others who can bring the expertise, bring the information, and help move the needle.

• Conversations white people can have with themselves

  David: I'm wondering if it's not a step back that has to happen. Going back to that "Who We Are" video again, because again, it blew my mind. Actually, I had mentioned before, it was embarrassing for me because I'm formally educated, I tend to see myself as fairly sophisticated from a culture perspective, but there were things that I was just not aware of. I think a couple things. One is, I think, speaking as a white person, I often get uncomfortable having racial conversations because I don't want to look stupid or seem stupid. I might say something that might be offensive to a black person as an example. How do we actually enter those conversations in a way maybe where we can give people the benefit of the doubt, so that maybe we're going to be clumsy in the early stages because it's new for us, and maybe let us describe how we're feeling in our best way knowing that we're not trying to be hurtful.

  I've heard for myself too, but I've heard people say that they're afraid to have these conversations because they're afraid of looking stupid or coming up as some somewhat ignorant or they're afraid of saying something that might be deemed insensitive to somebody else. Dr. Fritz, I know that you have a lot of expertise framing these conversations, so that people can get their perspective, verbally articulate it in a way that doesn't become threatening. But I'm wondering if there isn't a conversation that white people have to have where they acknowledge and accept that our institutions are biased and they're biased by design. It's intentional, and because the bias is there intentionally, it will require intentionality to resolve it, to fix it.

  It goes back to what Rini said a few minutes ago, but the intentionality piece is really important. I had this conversation with a friend the other day, a white woman. She's not really a huge believer on DE&I stuff because she thinks it makes people feel defensive and her position was mind-boggling to me, because she's like, "Listen, I had a hard life. My parents were poor. I had to work for everything I had, so I don't understand why we're focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion, everybody's got a challenge. Life is hard for everybody." I think she missed the point that she may not have benefited from her privilege. She may not have seized those opportunities that were afforded to her, but those opportunities were still there and they're not there for everyone.

  I think she missed the whole point around white people have tough lives too. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about instilling equity, that the opportunities that I've been afforded in my life are available to other people as well. I'm wondering if that's not something that white people have to figure out for themselves to accept that bias exists and it's there by design and therefore it's going to take an intentional effort to back that out.

Joy: It's going to take an intentional effort and it's going to take changing several laws or eradicating laws that are still on the books, recognizing laws that were created, traditions that we have in our legal processes, the whole school-to-prison pipeline. It's a thing. It's a real thing. It exists and there are now currently judges, lawyers, school officials, et cetera, that are paying the price for their hand in putting people, young children in that pipeline specifically. I won't get into it because I don't have the details of the case, but understanding that, when we talk about structural discrimination, systemic racism, structural exclusion, it's more than just money. Very often, I'll hear people when they talk about, "I didn't have any privilege, both my parents had to work."

"Yes, I know both your parents had to work, but your parents also did not get chased with dogs in the 60s. Your parents can go through any town in the United States and not worry about being shot by the police and never found again or shot by a random person and never found again. Your parents could go into any store and touch stuff and not be accused of stealing." There's all of these non-money related ways that people have been forced to shrink themselves into what's comfortable for the white majority. That's a lot of the parts of privilege.

I remember having a discussion, and this was after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson a decade ago almost. It was a white woman I was talking to, we were really good friends and she made the offhand comment. She goes, "Yeah, who cares if he was shoplifting? Everybody's shoplifting. You shoplifted, haven't you?", and I was like, "No." She goes, "Oh, come on. I know you probably stole something when you were like 12 or 13." "No, I've never stolen anything from a store," because I knew based on my experience, that if I touched anything in the store and it came up missing, I was going to be in a lot of trouble, not just with my parents, but with potentially the police. I didn't know what was going to happen to me. It was instilled in me from a very age, never steal anything because it's going to follow you for the rest of your life. Here she was like, "Oh, we used to shoplift all the time."

One of the other ramifications of that is, when you have not been held accountable for small infractions like that, then when you hear someone has a criminal record, you think it must be atrocious. They must have done murder or something else not, ‘stole a loaf of bread,’ because for you, stealing a loaf of bread isn't even a crime. It's not anything that people really get punished for, but again, that's the blindness that a lot of white people have to how other people live.

It's not just around theft and crime, it's around getting a loan. I had a person tell me that they didn't feel scholarships were fair because they had to get a loan. I was like, "Well, what if you can't get a loan?", and they were like, "What do you mean?" I was like, "Do you understand that a lot of people of color struggle with even qualifying for a loan?" "Oh, that's not a real thing." The ignoring and the discounting of someone else's lived experience is what I see more and more often from white people who are choosing not to understand. I say it that way because I'm there in the moment trying to explain it to them and they're blowing it off like, "Oh, that doesn't happen. Oh, that's not real. That's not true. That's not how I've seen it." "I know, that's why I'm telling you how it is for other people."

I want more people to be able to recognize your life has been different. It's not always about whether you had a silver spoon in your mouth or a silver golf club, whatever you want to call it. You could have two parents that work really hard to send you to school to give you a better life. And you still would've had it better than a trans person or a person of color or a person with neurological differences. Their lives have been different and to discount that because, "Well, all lives are different," that's very much All Lives Matter to me. It stops us from having the kind of conversations, David, that you're talking about because we pretend there's nothing to talk about. You see what I mean?

Michael:  Joy, if I can jump in real fast and just underline what you said, because that in itself is white privilege. My ability to actually not pay attention to the pain of people of color and other underrepresented groups is itself white privilege. David, to your friend who was talking about this, the very fact that they were like, "Well, all lives matter. I was treated, we all have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps." In itself, it is reaffirming the issue of white privilege.

Organizations, part of being an anti-racist organization is actually getting to a place where white people have to understand their positionality in that space, and to Dr. Fritz' point, feel their ways out of this, because it's an emotional conversation. But if you're not doing that, if you're not engaged in the work both intellectually and emotionally, then you're not going to get yourself out of it, and so therefore, that's why organizations continue to operate the way they do. I think it's really, really important.

“The ability to actually not pay attention to the pain of people of color and other underrepresented groups is white privilege. People who say, “Well, all lives matter. I was poor, I had it rough, we all have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,” reaffirms the issue of white privilege.

Part of being an anti-racist organization is actually getting to a place where white people have to understand their positionality in that space, and FEEL their way out of this, because it’s an emotional conversation. But if you’re not doing that, if you’re not engaged in the work both intellectually and emotionally, then you’re not going to get yourself out of it, and so organizations continue to operate the way they do. ”

• Looking in the mirror

  David: Joy, as you were talking, I was remembering back to an engagement that you and Fritz and I were on recently and we had a group of partners who were expected to work together, build trust, and they didn't know each other. We had a very simple exercise where each person did a 15-minute "How I got here?" If you recall, the feedback after that session was incredible. People were blown away about the life experience and the journey that each of their peers undertook to get to where they were at that firm.

  It's a simple exercise. I would encourage everybody to participate in that kind of an exercise, have your peers share their life journey. I think that, not only did that create some high-trust vulnerability, but it also gives you insight and perspective in terms of the challenges and the barriers and the lived experience of those who you're expected to collaborate with and to work with. That would be another suggestion that I would have too, is that to engage, and don't do it as a one-off exercise, keep that conversation going. It was a really powerful exercise for the client, but I think it's an accessible exercise as well, and I think folks can engage in that for sure.

  Dr. Fritz: The work is to engage in processes that not only give you intellectual information, but to allow yourself to feel. One of the things I experience in this work is, especially, let's say I'm working with Joy. Well, Joy will tell stories. She'll tell you about something and you'll get it intellectually, but then she'll tell you a story. Similar to the movie that you're suggesting, David, when you watch a movie, read a book or hear an anecdote or have somebody who shares with you and you allow yourself to not only intellectually hear and perceive what they're saying, but you allow yourselves to feel it, shifts can occur. This is a process. It takes time, it's uncomfortable, we need to do it on a regular basis. We're a culture that is very transactional. We're a culture that's very debate-oriented and discussion-oriented, but I will always be talking about what I've done for the last 30 years, which is getting people to go into a place where they can feel and sense also the lived experiences of the people around them.

  But how can you, because I'm going to go back to you, David, in terms of asking people to look in the mirror, a lot of people don't know what they don't know. They have no clue. We've got to, in our workspaces and places, be active and anti-racist and intentional about creating opportunities to get those, what I call mind bombs, these anecdotes, which when you hear them, sharing the fire, you can't unhear that. Once you think about it that way, now, you'll never look at the pie the same way, so that's the idea. It's why we do what we do. I do what I do too, so I'm trying to get people to go from just this thinking place where they're stuck in behaviors that were pre-programmed in their societies to being able to shift intentionally to new behaviors of enlightenment.

  Joy: One other thing I want to mention since the title of today is where do white men fit in, and Fritz, you're talking about you have to feel. Specifically, if you look at the leadership in a lot of firms, in a lot of firms, academics, medical, create, what am I trying to say? Manufacturing, all of that, you have a lot of older white men who are empowering a majority of those places, and they were raised not to show those emotions, not to talk about how they feel. Any expression of anything other than anger was going to be,"Oh, you're soft. Oh, you're weak. Oh, you're not fit," et cetera. Not only are we asking them to do something they've been trained over maybe 40, 50 years not to do, we're asking them to do it in front of people that report to them, and it's extremely uncomfortable to the point of, "I'd rather quit than do this."

  I think that's something else we ought to be cognizant of or at least be mindful of when we're asking anyone in power, but specifically men in power to share how they feel. Like you said, they don't even know how to do it because when have they been allowed to do that?

  You see it even in some of the younger generations where they are more open about having therapy or about how they feel or about wanting to have emotional connections and getting called soft by the older generations, who ironically need to be able to share those types of things. There's a lot of intricate work, it's almost at a deprogramming level that needs to happen. I don't know that any particular firm is ready to do that on their own, which is why they need people like you, Fritz, to come in and help them through that, help them understand how they're feeling so they can articulate it and have more of a connection with the rest of the people that work with them. That does take time, that is years in the making. But if you don't start, you're never going to finish, so you have to start that.

David: We have a few minutes left, so I thought we could do a round robin, maybe one closing thought or suggestion that you want to leave the attendees with before we close. I will say for those on the call today, if you do have questions for the panel, feel free to drop them in the chat box, I'll be monitoring that for the next few minutes. Everybody will get a recording of this webinar probably tomorrow. We'll send a thank you email with an attachment to the video, so you have that as a resource as well. Closing thoughts?

Joy:  Don't be afraid to not know something. It is okay to not know, to not to put your foot in your mouth to make a mistake. The strength is in telling someone, "I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm trying my best. I'm not going to get this right, but I really want to help." That is so much more powerful than some curated and sterilized statement that means nothing to you or anybody else. Speak from the heart and know that you're doing the right thing when you do it.

Dr. Fritz: I'll say, if you are afraid, notice that you are afraid and whatever other emotions that you have, and don't let those emotions stop you from having a seat at the table and participating in all of this.

Rini: I'll jump in. I will just build upon what Joy and Dr. Fritz have shared. Show up. People are afraid to come, "Oh, that's not for me. Is that a space for me?" Attend. Show up. Use the power of your body, the power of your presence, the power of your privilege to be there. When you get there, listen. If you show up and then you're talking and taking up all the space, that's going to be challenging, but if you show up and you listen and you say, "I'm here to listen. I'm here to learn," then you can't go wrong. The last thing I'll say is, using that growth mindset, if you don't know what that is, Google it, but the growth mindset is a way of learning and saying, "I'm not perfect. I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to acknowledge those mistakes and keep learning," because if you are going to do the work of being anti-racist, of being a real ally, that work requires you to stumble and fall, all of us.

If we are going to do that work in a real way, we're going to make mistakes, and so to really say, "I'm going to bring my full authentic self to this space and I'm going to show up and I'm going to mess up." I use another word sometimes, I won't use that today, "I'm going to mess up and I'm going to still keep coming back and keep showing up." It's not easy work, but if we keep bringing our full selves, we can make progress and improve.

Michael: I would say, and I intentionally was mindful of saying, "Okay, so Joy, Dr. Fritz, Rini go first in this conversation, to round this out, because on the one hand, it's attention. We don't want to put people of color into the role of having to teach us as white people. That's super, super important. They're invited in the conversation, they play an important leadership role in helping us get out of where we are. At the same time, for white people, we have a responsibility to actually not take up the space that we need just mentioned, to not overtake the process as well. I've seen way too many efforts where white people come in and then they overtake it and they're there to save the day and it just ... that's not useful either. To listen, to pay attention, to ask good questions, to be open, to explore what's going on in the head and the heart and then helping other people by role modeling as white men and we're white people, how to do that effectively in an organization is really, really important.

It's a relationship between everyone and that's why it's about equity, inclusion and belonging. Belonging is about everybody, so I think that there's an important role that white people and white men in particularly have to play, but just be mindful about what that role is versus what that role is not.

David: Very well said. I would close with just, again, I have so many thoughts in my mind right now. I would suggest, and it goes back to the conference last week, Michael, the Great Place to Work conference. Michael Bush, the CEO, he really is big on creating a compelling workplace for all. Not for some, for all. I guess I would encourage people to have the mindset that no one wins if we don't win together. It takes everyone involved. I think Rini was spot on. It's to use the power of our privilege and our presence to visibly support these efforts. I would even cringe sometimes when I hear efforts or initiative. It really should be the essence of who we are and what we do, that everything we do is in the spirit of inclusion and belonging, that it's not this add-on that we're pursuing. Because if you think about it that way, then there's always going to be a beginning and an end and this is continuous work. It has to be embedded into everything we do. I would encourage people to think about that, creating a compelling workplace for everyone.

Well, thank you, panelists, for taking time out to share your insights. I know I learned a lot over the last hour. Again, for those who are on the call, we will follow up with a link to the recorded broadcast, you have that as a resource. Again, if anybody has questions or wants us to elaborate, you'll have an email sent out to you tomorrow. You can respond to that and we're happy to check in with you. Thanks again for your time today. I promise you next time David Sarnoff will be back in the moderator role. We miss him today, but the best to everybody, today. Thank you very much.

Michael: Thanks, colleagues. Thanks, everybody.