Thanks for sharing and for your service. Love this. Does the company have any structure to help facilitate people socializing outside their comfort zone?
Totally. Diversity and inclusion can end up feeling like and being a box to check versus a genuine effort to create change.
Process changes take time and can get easily derailed. I think about the small changes that can make a difference. Sharing resources written by black people, looking at your website to see if people of color are represented and giving solution oriented feedback if it isn't, asking for/demanding unconscious bias training for all team members...no act of inclusivity is too small. They all plant seeds of change.
Re: furthering the divide, it's interesting to look beyond the gestures of Fortune 500 companies esp to think about how their mission and model hurts or helps people of color broadly.
It's great to hear that there are structured channels for communication about racism and bias.
Your message is in conflict with itself though; you're saying there is no racism but that it is consistently addressed internally - racism and more broadly unconscious bias is everywhere. One of the things this time is reminding me of is that fixing this problem is not some one else's job, it's all of our jobs. Believing racism doesn't exist in our own networks/companies keeps us silent about the problem and slows the honesty and understanding required to make change happen.
I feel like step 1 is helping people care enough to slow down and understand what it is to be able to identify it in themselves, their networks and their organizations.
I look at the amazing team I'm surrounded by that is largely void of people of color and think about our hiring practices, our exposure to communities outside of the majority and our customer base as well and see the direct and indirect ripples of systemic racism.
it took me about a year to figure out that my boss wasn't out to get me. now, i'm trying to save others some of the anxiety of working really hard (to the point of burnout) and not really getting anywhere.