From REP: A Tale of Two Organizations

BRJA recently concluded work with two different organizations. “Healthy Families” ended their time with us in about the same place as where they began while “Strong Communities” made significant strides in understanding their own organization and its barriers .  . . What happened?

On the surface, the two organizations and their work with us were very similar. Both organizations are relatively small. Both are white-led. Both work in the same sector. Both are located in the same state. Both organizations’ stated values lacked a clear articulation of how anti-racism relates to those values.  Both signed contracts for short Thought Partnerships with BRJA designed to explore issues intertwined with organizational workings and anti-racism anti-oppression work. Both had difficult work to do.

So why did Healthy Families remain stuck in “Groundhog Day" while Strong Communities moved forward? Here are three interrelated factors we observed:

Leadership

Leadership played very different  roles in how the organizations approached and carried out their anti-racism/anti-oppression (ARAO work. This began even with our first interactions. At Healthy Families, frontline staff led the proposal and contract process, with leadership taking a back seat. At Strong Communities, leadership reached out directly to BRJA and led proposal and contract discussions. As a result, at the beginning of the contract, Strong Communities’ leadership was fully on board in a way that Healthy Families’ was not.

Differing levels of ownership of their work with BRJA continued to impact the ways that leaders showed up during consulting sessions as difficult topics were discussed. As BRJA “held up a mirror” to each organization, pointing out inconsistencies and areas for clarity and growth, Healthy Families’s leadership used defensiveness to deflect BRJA’s observations while Strong Communities’s leadership worked through their initial defensiveness to a growing understanding of the work that lay before them.

Finally, both organizations’ leadership shaped how the next two factors (organizational culture and the ability to talk about whiteness) played out within their institutions.

Organizational Culture

As majority white, white-led organizations without an anti-racism lens or practice, both exhibited aspects of what Tema Okun calls “white supremacy culture.” Healthy Families strongly defended their culture of “positivity.” They did not accept the costs of that culture to the white staff currently employed there, who felt unable to speak honestly about organizational culture in front of the leaders. This team player mentality also placed future staff of color at special risk as they would be seen as rocking the boat if they raised any issues of exclusion. Leadership’s commitment to this value resulted in a conflict-avoidant workplace in which leadership sheltered themselves from engaging with the difficult issues blocking the organization from being more racially inclusive – and impacted their ability to retain staff of color.

Strong Communities, on the other hand, both struggled with difficult conversations and – for the most part – viewed critique and conflict as parts of a healthy organizational culture. This was more aspirational than practiced - as is appropriate for their stage of development - but that they did not immediately shut disagreement down is significant. One interesting facet of this was the way Strong Communities handled disagreement with what BRJA’s analysis showed about the organization. Whereas Healthy Families’s leadership approached their disagreement in private emails and subtle undermining during sessions, Strong Communities’s leadership and staff would announce during sessions that they felt uncomfortable, confused, or in disagreement with something being said. This allowed us all to work through what was going on – and why – and normalized disagreement as part of a healthy organization.

Ability to Talk About Whiteness

Both organizations we worked with were grappling with issues of whiteness, as we touch on above.  At Healthy Families, most of the staff and leadership struggled to name and face their organization’s whiteness, resorting to deflection, defensiveness, and silence. While whiteness practices permeated the organization, such as how team-building activities were implemented,  leadership was unwilling to discuss the ways in which the practices stemmed from and reinforced whiteness - instead defending them as neutral, sector-appropriate, and healthy organizational practices.

Strong Communities also showed a tendency to deflect from conversations about whiteness; however, they were open to returning to them. We noted that a specific concern related to white volunteers was broached repeatedly from the initial meeting throughout the consulting sessions, and yet, the conversation would veer off into questions about Black community participation and characteristics of Black communities. This tendency to focus discussions of racism exclusively onto Black people rather than onto the practices of white racism is a common deflection.

This is not an exhaustive list - having these three things in place does not guarantee that an organization will progress in their ARAO work. However, these three factors are essential to any organization’s success in their ARAO journey.

Despite all of this, our work with Healthy Families was not a waste, as seeds were planted. Leadership of this organization had not encountered challenges like this before; in fact, they considered themselves leaders in ARAO work in their sector, despite not understanding what ARAO was or how to implement it in the organization. By participating in these sessions, they were able to learn about ARAO analysis, as well as about organizational development practices required to successfully lead ARAO work within their organizations. Additionally, staff who were invested in the work learned more about applying an ARAO lens in their workplace - something they could use regardless of whether leadership was interested in using that analysis.

As you begin or continue your ARAO work, consider the following questions as opportunities for reflection:

• What roles do leaders play in your organization’s ARAO work?  

• What aspects of your organizational culture assist you in your ARAO work? Which ones are barriers?

• What do conversations about issues such as whiteness at your organization look like? Fruitful? Difficult? Nonexistent?

• What does your organization need the most in order to move forward on its ARAO journey?

This is another article from September’s Racial Equity Practices: A Monthly Newsletter for 21st Century Institutions. R.E.P., as it is known around the BRJA office,  is a monthly resource for organizations that partner with BRJA as part of their ARAO (anti-racism/anti-oppression) work.  We also offer R.E.P. to monthly sustainers as a tool to assist them in expanding and strengthening their “racial equity lens” in both their personal and collective work. If you are interested in receiving R.E.P., head to BRJA’s donation page and become a monthly sustainer of BRJA.