To Call or Not to Call...?

#whitesupremacyculture #leadershipdevelopment #BIPOCled #biracialforlife #DEI

I am so new to this blog-thing. I am not even sure how to use this platform exactly. But I have something I want to share with you all. I have been thinking about it for years and I just want to put it out there. No expectations. Just my experience and my thoughts. Maybe others have thought about this, or things like this, too?

I have worked with organizations, mainly nonprofit organizations, for many years, and I would say I am fluent in nonprofit governance, operations, compliance, finance, revenue generation, programming, DEI and philanthropy. During this time, I worked under numerous executive directors, all making their way to leadership on a different-than-traditional path. If I had to quantify it, I'd say half of the organizations were Black-led and half were white-led. All of the organizations I worked for were professional, dedicated, hard-working, caring, and making huge differences in the community. I am proud to have represented every single one of them!

What was challenging for me, well, it was the switching. Let me explain for those who may not know: "Switching" is actually a gift, once you learn how to use it. Until then-at least for me-it was definitely a curse. Switching entails the ability to see and identify the intimate parts of more than one way of being, and to be able to go back and forth between the two as if bi-lingual , but instead, bi-cultural. Both equally exist at the same time as an appropriate way of being. I might even go as far as to say this is probably unique to people of mixed-race.

I was able to get into most organizations because I 'fit in' to both the Black and white realities that were inherently embedded within the cultures of the organizations. The ways of doing things at the Black-led organizations were similar as other Black-led organizations; and similarly, the ways of doing things at the white-led organizations were similar as other white-led organizations. And, of course, there were similarities across all organizations of the ways of doing things, as well.

I remember my first job at a nonprofit organization was at a prominent Black-led organization with many years of success and service to the community. I learned a lot about Black culture and what it meant to be a Black woman when I worked there. The way we engaged with each other as staff was similar to what it would be like for me going home south to a family reunion and hanging out and having a good time with family and friends: barbequing and playing cards, fishing and Stepping, and dominos! Yes, in the workplace. One of the worksites had a kitchen, and we would cook up greens and roast and spaghetti and cornbread and whatever we wanted to eat on a weekly basis. Some folks brought their own food, but most of us ate together when we cooked. Having children at work was tolerated and sometimes even common, and most children knew how to sit down and behave. We prayed together at work. and cried together at work. We didn't use a lot of technology, like emails and calendars, to communicate. When something came up, we called someone right away. We might have been in the car or in the barber chair or at the store or at home cooking dinner. A lot of the communication also happened outside of regular business hours. Even for the directors and other executives, who did use technology with external stakeholders, internal communications were not always handled that way. When I left this organization I had been the director of fundraising and administration for three or more years.

After leaving that organization, and many organizations later, I got another director role at a white-led organization. Many white-led organizations that I worked at used technology a lot. Emails were expected for most communications. If an email came through, many times there was an expectation that it would be handled almost immediately, or at least responded to no more than 24-hours after receiving it. Phone calls were becoming a thing of the past, taken over by emails and inner-office chat platforms. Receiving work-related calls or texts before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m. were common complaints by my co-workers. We also used a lot of forms to document and track progress. Staff shared meals together at the quarterly or holiday potluck. People brought their own lunches or ordered/picked-up something and ate together during their lunch breaks. Children were generally not tolerated in the workplace, and even frowned-upon. We didn't talk about religion or laugh loudly. Staff retreats were in lovely locations, filled with agendas and lectures and scheduled breaks. Being different from status quo was taboo.

This is the interesting part: at this white-led organization my boss, the executive director, called me into their office after about two months and told me they were disappointed because I wasn't using my Outlook calendar as much as they would have expected for someone who had previous roles as a director on their resume. "Oh. Ok." That's what I was thinking. Well, I will use my Outlook calendar much more now. Unfortunately, I had already been tainted as unprofessional or lazy or unprepared or a liar or whatever, and so the role did end quite shortly after that when I found a new position elsewhere. Why didn't you just tell me this expectation from the beginning?

My point is that both ways the different organizations operating in the realm of communication were correct, just different. As I said earlier, all the organizations I worked for had standards and values, operated professionally and did outstanding work. Yet, because it was unfamiliar, it was seen as negative. Not just different. Literally, it was seen so negatively that it created many 'performance' problems. And vice versa when I was in a Black-led organization, if I sent too many emails or created too many spreadsheets or implemented too many forms or tried to train too many people, I was the know-it-all who looked down on people and thought I was better than everyone.

Definitely, I can say today, that this 'Switching' thing has been the cornerstone of my passion for and ability to be successful in DEI efforts. I have run into this in so many capacities that I just want to be alone a lot of the time. Seriously. Because it's like I live my life trying to prove that there is not just one right way, and that we are all the same, just differently (I coined this concept Differently the Same). I was neither a liar nor a know-it-all nor lazy nor unprofessional nor a micromanager nor trying to be better than anyone else. I was simply bringing together the best of both worlds, or so I thought.

Silly me.

A little nugget: What might blow your mind is that both kinds of organizations - Black-led or white-led - operated heavily in an underlying foundation rooted white supremacy culture. Yes. I said that. Look for this post on another day...