Black History Month: Moments to Momentum

This is Becoming Inclusive from The Kaleidoscope Group, where we’re thinking differently about diversity, equity, and inclusion. For more empowered people at work. We’re committed to real change and that begins with real conversations. Welcome in.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Katherine Potts  

This is your host Kat Potts. Welcome back to Becoming Inclusive. Today I’m joined by Master facilitator and Senior Consultant, Mitch Brown. How are you doing, Mitch? Glad to have you back.

Mitch Brown  

Doing good. 

Katherine Potts  

We are also joined by Miss Sue O’Halloran, also a Master Facilitator and Senior Consultant. How are you, Sue? 

Sue O’Halloran

Good Kat. Hi, Mitch. 

Katherine Potts  

So let’s rock and roll. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation, over the weekend about Black History Month. So this has been pretty, you know, heavy on my mind and heavy on my heart. And I really kind of want to talk about this month and how we’ve treated it leading up to 2022. And, kind of this concept more and you said it best you around victors and not victims when it comes to celebrating black history, as well as just the black community.

Sue O’Halloran 

I think we really take advantage. I think the point we all know, is we want this fully integrated, we just don’t want a week, we don’t just want a month, this is an everyday kind of thing that we need to be celebrating people’s achievements. So we take this opportunity to look at black achievements and movements that have really created real change in our life. So I want to know the history. And I want to know how it affects the present and into the future.

Katherine Potts  

Yeah, that’s really awesome. Mitch, any thoughts on that?

Mitch Brown  

I echo those thoughts. I think part of what the charge is as well is to understand that there’s a lot of legacies around, you know, black history. And it is something that is also, you know, American history. So it’s something that I think, in some ways, right? We don’t appreciate in the same space, so much about what this is trying to do, is to grow an appreciation for that American story, and also do what we can, in light of that story. Continue to drive equity, and, you know, the American ideals through our modern-day lives, right. And to me, you know, that’s that’s what we’re after.

Sue O’Halloran  

And let’s face it, it can be a balancing act, because you don’t only want to tout achievements, but you don’t only want to detail trauma. Right, right. And so it’s recognizing really hard truths and their relevancy to today. And then how do you empower people with that kind of pride with that understanding everyone’s humanity. So it’s not just sound bites tokenism. But that it really empowers people to create the hopefully fair systems we’re trying to create today.

Katherine Potts  

And I love that point you brought up Sue around tokenism, right? Because it’s like sometimes in a workplace environment, this month comes around and you feel like all eyes on me, right? And it’s true. It’s kind of bizarre. It’s like we’re in 2022. And it’s not that we want to, like, negate, you know, that this is an important month, and people really want to experience our people’s feelings towards it. We don’t want it to go away. But it’s also it’s a little bit much sometimes being in a workplace environment and feeling like, oh, now I have this month, you know, all eyes on me, what do I what am I supposed to do with that?

Sue O’Halloran  

Alright, I think we can, you know, just appreciate the pressure that can be on our employees of color, when these special months come up until it is truly integrated. It’s like celebrating on cue, you know, take advantage of the nation’s paying attention, despite your exhaustion, despite your anger, just fast forward through that pain. So because people are listening this month. So I again, I think taking the lead from your special interest groups, in your company that they really take the lead, ask how can we support? What are we understanding? What might we be missing? It’s complicated. Even when we celebrate the first black anything. Why does it have to be the first because people weren’t let in? So you have to own that reality. And what hasn’t still changed at the same time, we’re celebrating progress. But it’s kind of weird that we’re making a cry for personhood. So if we can just understand the complexities involved as we celebrate, but we also validate people’s day to day experiences.

Katherine Potts  

Right. And I think that kind of brings up to that idea around equity match that you’ve you’ve kind of been touching on how do we use this opportunity to actually drive that right.

Mitch Brown  

Well, you know, equity is an interesting topic, because when it comes to the work that we do, equity is a big component. And what we’re talking about here specifically, is how this applies to race. And that is for sure connected to the historical framing of, you know, African Americans, black Americans in this country and in the corporate space. So equity is where we talk about, your prior question. There may be some angst or I may feel the need to say, Hey, I’m not focused on me, you know, how do I move it from being performative to being something that’s substantive? And I think organizations are uniquely situated to, at least from an equity standpoint, to drive equity, with regards to where there has been inequity based upon race. In the past, and one of the places I tell clients to go look all the time is, look at your data, look at your trends, look at, you know, promotions, look at hires look at pay, right, there are certain things and you can go and see we even within your own organization, and what I will talk about here today is also you have to localize what this means, for your own constituency. So there is a piece of black history that we want to tell from a ceremonious or traditional standpoint, or, you know, from a macro sense, all that is very important. And again, it’s part of that legacy I spoke about earlier. But I think that that everybody, every company, every organization, has the opportunity to really try to understand, you know, where inequity exists, and what can they do to go about creating fairness, and opportunities for everybody based upon, again, this charge that we’re really talking about, today and right now, what they might be.

Sue O’Halloran  

And that’s why Mitch, I think Black History Month can be such an opportunity, because we all have these very truncated versions of history. You know, it’s like, we overcame slavery, Martin Luther King brought civil rights, we have a black president, it’s all better now. You know, obviously, people know, there’s still a lot going on. But, even when it’s battled whether we should study, Little Rock Nine, it’s that little rocks were continual, and the legal winds versus compliance or the fact that we’ve returned to segregation now in our schools and many of our neighborhoods, without acknowledging past truths, it justifies and reinforces the status quo. So if we are really going to view each other differently, and create a stronger democracy and fairness in this equity and inclusion in our companies, we really have to understand this socio-political context, I really think companies have a chance here to give their employees the language and context to understand the world in which they are doing business to reach customers to engage their employees. And again, it’s never about blaming or shaming white people, somebody is identified as white. I just think that instead of having that let’s all get along kind of race talk, if we can really leverage we’re learning when we learn history, whether it’s about environmental racism, or food, or how redlining in our communities created the wealth gap, to just understand the world, different worlds we can be living in so we can reach across those divides, to talk about the kind of companies and world that we do want to create. And achievements are a big part of that. Because I know I never learned about, black history when I was at school. But it’s so much more than that, in terms of understanding that there always was resistance and celebration and joy. And it’s like telling that whole story, I think can really change how we view one another and therefore treat one another.

Katherine Potts  

Yeah. And you know, you bring up a great point too, because, you know, even when I was in school learning about, Black History Month, it was a lot of just kind of the heavy hitters, right, the people that everybody knew about, and that’s not only so relatable for everyone, or how can I feel like I can be a part of this movement, right? How can I be a part of this when I’m trying to compare myself to some of these individuals like MLK, Rosa Parks, that’s what we’re seeing. But it’s like day to day, regardless of what level you’re at. You can also contribute to that right, you can contribute to making people around you, help people around, you better understand.

Sue O’Halloran  

We have a real truncated version of the big hitters too, I mean, Martin Luther King, you know, we don’t often like. I was reading testimony about his despair before the poor people’s march, you know, or we take that one piece of I have a dream and people say, well, then we should be colorblind. He says a lot about being very intentional about recognizing race. He’s not all about colorblindness and that negative sense. I know the positive sense of what people mean about paying attention to character, but he was saying we got to pay attention. He was considered a dangerous man. Rosa Parks was 42 in the civil rights movement, there are all these pictures of this elderly lady who was so tired, she had to sit down. This woman was involved in this movement. And there were many women who came before her on the buses. She was also very involved in fighting sexual abuse against women. So even with the heavy hand hitters, I think we’ve got it wrong. But one of the biggest things we get wrong about some of the people we celebrate is they came from communities. They came from whole movements. You know, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was happening when Rosa made hers, and I think we don’t realize that we don’t see what you say, we all have a part to play, maybe you’re not going to be the leader. But who is Martin Luther King without the movement, who is Rosa Parks without the movement? And there are so many other people to celebrate, teachers and scientists, whatever, that we’re not just accomplishing great things. And it’s important to talk about their contributions, but they were part of bettering their whole communities, and also the way that they reached across other communities of color and other intersections with other diversity elements. I think that needs to be part of the story, too. So we do see that everybody has a place in making change.

Katherine Potts  

Definitely. Definitely. Mitch, I’d love to hear some thoughts on this from you.

Mitch Brown  

I think that you know, it’s I think, the bigger stories. Not the words that we use to characterize, but the stories that are more in that place of we’ve heard it, or legacy or big traditional, I think it is, you have to understand also that their new generations come in behind me even right. So are you right to that story, maybe a new story, right? And I think that it is very important to have some continuity there. And I totally agree with Sue to say, hey, listen, there is so much, you know, that goes unsaid or goes unnoticed, based upon who was supporting those individuals who stood them up, right. And again, I think that is continually a part of what the ecosystem has to look like now. And to me, you know, again, I think I challenge some of our listeners to not only think about this as individuals, but can think about your prior question, right? You might want to think about what does this mean for organizations and entities, right? We want to think about what this means, obviously, from a standpoint of we live in a society where, you know, from a political standpoint, the government or, everybody is can play a role, right? And the idea of driving us forward, we talk a lot about unity, right? And the idea of unity just means that to get to where we want to be, it’s going to take us all. So I do agree with Sue, when we say this in this portrayal of where we’ve been, there’s an important story and narratives that detail, but to not get lost in this place. Well, because of the players who were part of that narrative, that it’s some kind of way of a condemnation, or a limiting factor on who we can be in our potential. There’s so much there. And it’s so important, again, very comprehensive, that you think about what Black History means and what it can accomplish, you know, going forward and in terms of who we are. So those are just a couple of thoughts based upon what you just shared, but I do think you know, that all of it is is definitely important, for sure.

Katherine Potts  

Definitely. And now, I’m going to challenge you both for a second. So what do we do about the individuals out there who truly believe and say, the African American community, you get a whole month, you get a whole month? What, that’s not enough, you get a whole month, you know, I don’t get a whole month. What’s your reaction to that?

Sue O’Halloran  

Well, depending upon who’s saying it, it might be you get a whole year, I care for my other folks who are identified as white. Just think if you were growing up in school, and you had European Americans, Europeans, one month to celebrate everything that they’ve ever done. Back to the Roman Empire, everything in that one month, you’d be like, what? How can you? Well, that’s true for any community. I mean, some of the new programmings I’d like to see people do is even talking about before slavery on this continent, you know, what were Africans up to? You know, do you know about Mali or burning empires or the black Roman Empire’s? How imperialism changed, and there’s just so much you couldn’t even fit in a month, the whole African diaspora about how cultural ties are going across the world black people in Asia and Australia, not just Africa, the West? I mean, how could you possibly fit it in a month, let alone that! That’s too much.

Becoming Inclusive is presented by The Kaleidoscope Group, your full-service Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion partner serving clients worldwide. We can help you develop organizational change that actively engages everybody in your organization, turning resistance into energy and motivation for change. Let’s talk about where you’d like to go and how to get there. Start with a visit to
kgdiversity.com.

Mitch Brown  

To me, to me that that question comes from a place in my opinion of bliss, where it could be willful or just, it could be intentional, but it comes from a place of just not really recognizing that there are different realities for others, right. And it begs the question instead of why a month, you know, to me, I would ask, you know, what caused the need for, you know, maybe the month to be created in the first place, right? And if you answer that question, you can really understand, right? Why a month, you might even challenge and say, Hey, maybe a month is not enough. Or maybe the idea that we have to, you know, again, highlight, you know, the contributions made by Americans that, you know, look like me, you know, we have to, you know, do something in the face of what may have been before then. Right, a very equitable environment. So that’s, that’s, that answers the question to me, or that at least that approach can tell that person. That’s why. And then I think a lot of times a second part, implicit in what you asked, Is the sustainable element, Will, why do we still need it? Right. And I think that in itself, going back to what we I’ve been talking about, you know, around even how we show up around Black History Month, there’s an element of, resolution and resolving issues where I think you focus on what we call weighted input, and simply put what I mean by that is, you have to, if you want to provide a solution to somebody, a lot of us are good natured people. Sometimes we do it in a unilateral way. Right? You tell me I’m not welcoming, bringing me some doughnuts. You say, Mitch, I hate doughnuts. But if I were to ask you, you know, what you see as welcoming or what that looks like to you, then the resolution I put forward would be more spot on. So I think before we can say, hey, it’s no, no need for this anymore. Why do we still have this? Why do we have it in the first place? I think the answer lies with a lot of your, peers who are of African American identity descent, that’s where that reality of the of the, of the charge, or for the need for the the month, or the activities that come or of of the month, right, that’s where it really exists. And, I think, again, removing yourself out of bliss is saying two things. I want to be proximate and understand and seek to understand what that means, right? And I’m going to do something, in the interest of addressing whatever that, that reality might be right. So, to me, less about what I say to that person, but more about, understanding, what’s behind the question, and helping people really see that.

Katherine Potts  

I love that. I love that, Mitch, because it’s really getting down to the core, right? How are we able to answer and help people get to a different level of understanding? And I’m also hearing you say it’s that education piece? Because yes, we have talked about education in this conversation. But in context of like, you’re in school, you’re learning about the basics, there’s so much more education, so you’ve hit on it, too, that is so impactful, but it gets completely overlooked, which, in some ways is impacting how people are digesting this month, right?

Sue O’Halloran  

Yeah. And again, because of racism, looked like a few bad apples on a personal and interpersonal level. And let people under the systemic nature, the structural nature, it is very hard sometimes so well, that in the past, we don’t understand how the past is showing up in the present, right? In our workplaces, policies, and practices that seem race-neutral are not, it’s hard for people to understand. But when you get the thread, from history to the present, and how it can create a different future, then we have a real chance of, First of all, crossing the divide with each other. And so, you know, employees need to feel seen and heard and understood, everybody needs that. And part of that is to know my lived experience. And so I really hope that companies use this time to give people the language and the context to understand how people are living their lives. So we can see how do we make it more inclusive? Because I just had this weekend some to say, why are we going to pass that’s all in the past. We just be getting on with it. We can’t get on with it. If you don’t see what’s happening right under your nose. And I think we like I said we’ve been miseducated about this. So while I wish we didn’t have to have a month I wish there was no need for it because all of our histories were so integrated. I really like taking this time of going beyond heroes Some holidays and really understanding the racialized nature of our society. I think that’s gonna make the future different.

Mitch Brown  

Definitely. Kat really quickly, I think we’d be remiss if we’re having this particular conversation, to, not acknowledged that the landscape, corporate landscape, even. This conversation really changed two years ago with the murder of Mr. Floyd. And what we saw, at least in this space in our industry, was a uptick in the interest around how can we be more racially equitable, right? Or what can I learn about in this space? And what I will come in, you know, you know, everyone on is I’ve seen some sustainable momentum in that in that interest still to that to this day. But a new question kind of, arose out of that, to me, that, and it was more in this place of what Sue just mentioned, sometimes, I think there could be such an indirect correlation for people between where we’ve been, and where we’re currently at, right. And in even if there is a more direct correlation, or at least, you know, being able to dot the I’s and, and make that connection. Sometimes we lose the sense of culpability, which again, has nothing to do with personal culpability invested litmus test, right, then, none of us, right, we could do, we could just walk away and say, Hey, we’re all done with this, because none of us, particularly, in most cases, were around or had things to do with things that we talked about in a in a past. But I want to challenge you, you asked about what can organizations do? And what can we do as individuals is to understand that, like, your opportunity to create fairness and opportunity and equity for others, doesn’t really just exist based upon the basis of you being culpable for, you know, the way things are. But it does say that I acknowledge. And, you know, again, I’m into but the different realities, others, and I take how I’m uniquely situated, right, as a charge to in this situation. Back to your question, if I was a company, and I lived in a community, where when Sue talked about that redlining, and I know that that was significant, that’s one of the variables that have contributed to a significant wealth gap in the racial divide in the community operate and do business. Well, you know, what, there may be an opportunity for you to think creatively. But how do you upskill a community where they may have been disenfranchised education for generations? How do you empower a community with financial literacy, when they may have been disenfranchised at from generation after generation of home ownership? Those are some of the things we think about when we talk about what can we do? And why do we need to do it too, right? Those are just some of the things that I see that people who are really taking the charge from a serious component, really step out there and do.

Sue O’Halloran  

Yeah, so all the special programming goes on, and companies during this month are wonderful, of course. And again, I think we could expand it. We could talk more about liberation movements, we could talk more about resiliency and resistance and joy, there’s, we could expand beyond achievements, which are important. But back it up with your actions inside, who are you sponsoring? Who are you mentoring? How are you going outside your usual channels to attract people to your company? And then in your community? How are you supporting the school system to be more excellent? COVID is so made the medical disparities based on race more apparent, how are you involved in public health initiatives, etc. You know, walking that talk, being a really good community member shows that you’re not just like, interested in, including history, it’s like no, its history is right now and we’re making it. So what kind of history are you making? You know, four or 5 or 10 years from now? Is your company going to be one that people talk about making real positive change? And that’s something for all of us to think about what that legacy is going to be?

Katherine Potts  

Right. Mitch, Sue, I was about to ask you for two final golden nuggets. But you both just gave them to me already. This has been such an amazing conversation. And I’d love to go on and on and on, because it’s so deep, and there’s so many directions that we can take it. But we are out of time. Are there any last words of either review you again, you just gave me two amazing golden nuggets. But before before we got to wrap it up, I just want to know is there anything else? Anything any final words…

Mitch Brown  

I would say localize and modernize what this moment means. I think, again, there is examples, Black History happening every day. There are examples to stand up around, you know, impact powering individuals and very, very influential individuals that are, again, day in and day out. If we think about the ideals in that are exemplary, right, that we that we espouse from a lot of these examples that we look to in the past, find out who’s doing that in your organization. Find out who’s doing that right now, under the guise of something that may be new, like technology. We talked about the metaphysics and virtue of VR, right? There are opportunities, I guess, what I’m trying to share with folks around what we can do going forward again, my philosophy is that, you know, going forward together in a unified way that we can accomplish anything that we desire to and that’s the beautiful thing about tomorrow, isn’t it? That you can always show up a lot better.

Sue O’Halloran  

My last word would just be to listen, take responsibility, educate yourself, read, read, and watch films. Were so lucky. You can you can learn anything these days, and just listen to each other. Take the lead from your employees of color. Listen.

Katherine Potts  

Yes. Thank you both so much, you know, We are Better Together, right? That’s the underlying, underlying message here is we are We are Better Together and unity is is the answer. So again, thank you, Mitch. Thank you, Sue. It’s been a pleasure looking forward to having you both back on. Again. This is Kat Potts, your host and this is Becoming Inclusive.

Thanks for joining us, and a special thanks to our subscribers. Consider becoming one today. Becoming inclusive is presented by The Kaleidoscope Group, your full-service Diversity, Equity and Inclusion partner serving clients worldwide. Learn more and continue the conversation at
kg diversity.com