Why white charity leaders need to talk about race
This article was commissioned as a response to Akiko Hart and Rosie Tressler’s article “How Can White Charity Leaders Tackle Racism? Sharing Learnings From a Reflective Practice Approach To Tackle Pervasive Whiteness and Increase Anti-Racist Action in Charities”. Charity So White was reimbursed for our labour, but our views below on this work are honest and independent of the authors of the original article.
By Jon Cornejo and Lena Bheeroo
As I sit here writing an article about white leaders in the charity sector coming together to talk about race and reflect on their whiteness the phrase “better late than never” comes to mind. It has taken a global pandemic, stark inequity, police brutality, and high profile global movements for racial justice to bring institutional racism in the charity sector to the agenda. Too often in these conversations about race, POC can feel the emotional drain of having to educate and guide white people through their learning and their journeys. Which is why, when we hear of a group of white CEOs in mental health charities coming together to talk about race and critically reflect on their whiteness, we have to take a moment to celebrate.
In 2020 10 CEOs of mental health charities got together to create a peer-to-peer learning space where they could openly and critically reflect on the role of whiteness within their work and within the sector. Akiko and Rosie designed and facilitated a series of sessions where the group could work together to explore the concept of white fragility and work together as they embarked on their anti-racism journeys. You can read more about their approach in their original article.
Reading through their work and process I am struck by how novel this all sounds in a sector that has routinely buried its head in the sand, when it comes to racial justice and oppression. There is a prevailing idea in the sector that because we do good work we are good people, and if we are good people we can’t be racist. This knee jerk emotive response holds back progress towards racial justice in the charity sector, it keeps us from having the frank and uncomfortable conversations that we need to have to make progress. It keeps us in a place where we are self-declared anti-racists and anti-racist organisations ,despite not doing any tangible work to dismantle the structures of oppression that maintain racism or doing anything to question our own complicity in those structures.
In their article, Rosie and Akiko speak openly of the discomfort that the group had of talking about racism as white people - with no lived experience. Of the discomfort that white people often feel talking about race when there are POC in the room, and the dreaded fear of “getting it wrong”. It is good to see these feelings of discomfort put out there so openly, because it is only by naming and understanding the discomfort that we can learn to move beyond it. The fact of the matter is that we have to get comfortable with this discomfort in order to have the deep and meaningful conversations on race that are needed. In order to get to an anti-racist future, everyone in the charity sector must be able to reflect on their own role in upholding racist systems of oppression, and we need white people to deal with their own discomfort if we are to achieve any real change.
This paralysing fear of “getting it wrong”, that so many white people in our sector seem to have, leads to the burden of anti-racist action and change falling on POC time and time again, and we are tired. We are tired of having to centre the feelings of white people and help them navigate their fragility, so we can move to real action. We are tired of having to make the case for anti-racist action and change, and at having to convince white leaders that institutional racism is a problem within their organisations. We are tired of feeling we have to do the unrecognised and unpaid labour of pushing anti-racism up the agenda because if we don’t nothing will change. And we are deeply tired of the emotional labour of facing racist oppression, whilst working to raise awareness of the problem and change it. We need white leaders to step up and take a far more active role in educating themselves and working towards creating truly anti-racist organisations. That means getting over the fear of “getting it wrong”, being open to , unlearning, relearning, being corrected, and working with POC to build an anti=racist charity sector.
“There is a gap when you see yourself as anti-racist but are not truly doing anything proactive about it, bar the odd tweet.” This line sums up broadly where we are at as a sector on anti-racism. We see ourselves as good people so we assume that we aren’t racist or upholding racism . We proudly declare ourselves anti-racist through performative public statements and tweets, a statement that lives in that moment, and that moment alone, with no substance behind it, no investment or commitment, and we feel better about ourselves. But behind the scenes POC working in the sector continue to feel the impacts of whiteness and institutional racism within their organisations and across the sector.
In the interest of moving beyond words and into action, below is our commentary on the ideas that these 10 CEOs have come up with through their reflective practice, in the hopes that this inspires further conversation and deeper reflection.
1. Ensure recruitment and HR processes are removed of bias as much as possible and commit to affirmative action, and ongoing talent development.
Removing bias from recruitment processes is a good goal, but too often we focus too much on policies and HR processes and we ignore the vital role that hiring managers play in upholding racial bias. A recruitment process cannot be truly equitable if we don’t teach all those making decisions on shortlisting and hiring how to be aware of and challenge their own biases. Because even when we strip away names and other identifying information we are still cultured to look favourably on those that have similar cultural and class background to us, those who we identify with, who feel familiar to us, which will benefit white middle class candidates because of the lack of diversity in the sector amongst those that make these decisions. Finally, it cannot be left to the sole POC on the recruitment panel to fight for the POC candidates. The burden and emotional labour of helping white people see the value in those different to them, and indeed of diversifying the sector, cannot fall on POC alone. White people must now step up.
It must not only be about recruitment, but also about maintaining and sustaining talented POC in the sector too, if there isn’t a developmental plan in place, why not? How seriously are you taking this?
2. Stop accepting philanthropic donations from organisations found to be institutionally racist and not working on addressing it as a matter of priority.
This is the bare minimum that charities should be doing to avoid complicity in systems of oppression within the sector and across our society. But leaders must avoid tokenistic rejections or action once POC have highlighted the problematic behaviour/beliefs/actions of certain funders or philanthropists. A proper process should be in place to first acknowledge the harm done by a funder, and then to deal with the impact it may have on POC in your organisation. This work must be proactive and intentional, not simply reactive. To do these well charities need to be able to apply a racial justice lens to all the work they do, and to every decision that they make. You should be doing the research yourselves and asking the right questions to determine if a funder’s values and actions align with your own and identifying institutional racism should be a key part of that work.
3. Undertake equality impact assessments for all major decisions. The pandemic led to quick decision making in many sectors, quick recruitment or furloughing etc., and the impact on racial equality and progress has likely not been considered as it should have.
As above, it is not enough to merely add a layer at the end of a process to check how your actions impact or harm equality. We must apply an anti-racist lens to all the work that we do from the very beginning of the process. We must empower and enable staff to think critically about how systems of oppression operate in the work that they do and how they relate to the project that they are delivering. Anti-racism should be built into the very design and methodology of your work, not merely be relegated to a check mark in a decision-making process. This sort of approach could lead to lazy tweaks that will fail to truly dismantle racist systems of oppression. It cannot be an afterthought it must be embedded into your systems and processes before major decisions take place.
4. Ensure the imagery for the organisation is inclusive, but also not creating an illusion of diversity where it does not exist.
The imagery and language that we use in our public facing work plays a key role in how we, as a sector, uphold racist ideologies and systems of oppression. Too often we will use imagery that plays into stereotypes because we think that “it just works” in seeking to meet fundraising or other objectives. We intentionally stimulate emotions linked to racist ideas that portray communities of colour as helpless, because white saviourism gets our audiences to donate or act. In fact, recent studies have shown that use of negative imagery does not raise as much money as use of positive imagery. It’s not about being seen as ‘inclusive’, we must seek to show how we empower the communities we work with and are led by them. We must show that we are not just inviting diverse communities to the table, but that we are empowering them to lead.
5. Stop speaking on any conference panels where it is an all-white panel. This should be considered just as appalling as the existence of all male panels.
When doing this, ensure that the reason for not speaking on the panel is clear. Call out the problem to the event organiser and challenge them with reasoning and proactively suggest POC that could speak in that panel, recognising that those POC who you suggest may be of more junior levels to you, but yet have value that you do not. This is the only way to stamp out all-white panels.
6. Scrutinise all existing learning/ teaching tools that the charity delivers through a racial equality lens - ensuring Black writers and academics are given the profile they’ve been blocked from by a racist society.
Again, this is not just about making sure that there are enough Black or brown contributors to your teaching tools to meet a quota and be seen as ‘diverse’. It is also about ensuring that racial justice and anti-racism are explored in each of the materials, that the materials explore the impact that racist ideologies and structures in society have on the overall topic of the work.
7. Question the theories and methodologies underpinning our organisational approaches. We considered how in mental health a focus on ‘universalism’ and supporting the wellbeing of the entire population has gained political energy and no doubt helped millions, but targeted work to prevent illness or distress in minoritised communities is not given enough focus. Many leaders and charities would also benefit from a real grasp of intersectionality - too often when race is raised, people ask ‘what about this other, also deserving group’. Whilst it is understandable for this to happen when we know that many minority or excluded communities are experiencing pain and oppression, we can’t allow other topics to throw race off the table. The truth is we each have many identities that interact and this means none of us can be put into simple categorisations. If however we start with prioritising race, the addressing of other types of inequality or inclusion tend to flow from that.
We must be wary of ‘whataboutism’ in the way that we develop and deliver our work. Too often the “what about this other group” argument drives our focus away from racial justice towards something that the overwhelmingly white workforce in our sector can better relate to and understand. This does not mean that we don’t identify and meet the needs of those other groups, but that we acknowledge the complex and intersecting identities that people have – and that we don’t seek to meet the needs of POC in isolation from the many other needs they’ll have because of their other identities. We must take an intersectional approach to all of our work. Acknowledging that layers of oppression that marginalising communities face. We must build racial justice into all of our work. That means getting out of our comfort zone, it means bringing those communities to the table and giving them agency and voice over the work.
8. Ensure all members of staff, trustees and volunteers are educated and trained in ‘white fragility’, the effect of pervasiveness of ‘niceness’ in the sector, allyship, the traumatic impact of racism, and the impact of microaggressions. One of our colleagues shared a helpful reflection that they’ve realised many people who are considered ‘nice’ are probably just fortunate enough to be privileged, and sometimes people that are not characterised as ‘nice’ or ‘polite’ are being considered this way due to ingrained racism. Black Lives Matter was a movement not fully adopted by our sector until it became unfashionable to not use the hashtag - too many boards saw it as too political, too radical or mission drift pre 2020. All of us across the charity need a sophisticated understanding of what is needed – this relates to recruitment, retention, progression and all that we do.
The important words here are that charities ‘need a sophisticated understanding of what is needed’ and what the problem is, and why it exists. The Black Lives Matter worldwide movement spotlighted what thousands of POC had been experiencing for years. Now that this has been brought into the ‘mainstream’ where you don’t want to be ‘unfashionable’ by not engaging in this issue, you must do so meaningfully and with intention. The problem of racism structures will not go away over night, but it can be dismantled, and it can be addressed first and foremost by those white senior leaders in our sector who hold power. Educate yourselves, commit publicly, invite accountability and take action, include the POC in your organisation and hear them.
9. Commit financially with a clear budget to support affirmative action and anti-racist and inclusion work in the organisation.
The ideologies and structures that underpin the charity sector as a whole, trace their lineage back to colonialism and white saviourism. The very cultures and power structures within our society ultimately trace back to those ideas. The work of becoming an anti-racist organisation is transformative and challenges the very core of our ideals as organisations. We are not going to dismantle hundreds of years of colonial oppression overnight, and this work cannot be done by a single under resourced EDI Manager. It will take every single person in the organisation doing deep soul-searching work to achieve the cultural change that is needed, and it will take a lot of time to do that emotional labour. So, when thinking of resourcing and budgeting this work make sure that you think about it from this perspective and give the work the weight that it needs to cut through competing priorities and move beyond something we’re doing to be trendy. Take into account how tired you are on your journey and times that by 50 to get to the level of tiredness that an EDI Manager or POC in your organisation will be feeling. This emotional labour must be adequately supported through investment as well.
10. Collect data on all of your staff, board, volunteers and beneficiaries - really look at the service usage and publish it and reflect on where you’re failing and what you’ll do to address it. Accountability starts with transparency.
Transparency is key to this work, but we also need to be transparent about our failings and the journeys that we are on. Too often as a sector we keep our cards close to our chest until we have some solution or product to announce. We prefer to pat ourselves on the back for the work we’ve done to solve a problem than openly reflects on what has gone wrong and hold ourselves to account. We are all human and as such we all have weaknesses, so we must normalise those and the weaknesses of our organisations, in order to truly to this work.
11. Support members of your team to organise through an anti-racist or EDI group.
We must ensure that staff are adequately resourced to do this work, that the significant additional emotional labour of anti-racism work does not fall only on POC to do around their day jobs, and that this work is celebrated and valued. We must also be prepared to listen to these groups and allow staff to take us on deep journeys of self-reflection and to lead deeply uncomfortable conversations on who we are as an organisation. Too often the emotional labour of this work falls on women of colour within organisations, and we must ensure that this work is equally shared out throughout the workforce and that adequate support is there to enable this.
12. Ensure the Chair and board of the charity make this a regular board agenda item and are actively involved in embedding this into every workstream and strategy, so that inclusion and impact of exclusion is as normal as drinking water. It’s not an addition: it’s about leaders saying it so often that racial equality becomes a given part of the culture.
Too often the roles of boards are forgotten about in conversations on anti-racism and diversity. We must remember the reality that across the sector our boards are deeply unrepresentative of the diversity of this country and of the communities that we work with as organisations. All the soul searching and deeply reflective work that we have discussed above applies to boards. Board members must recognise and acknowledge their role is imperative in this work, as they are responsible for the governance of the organisation. An anti-racist lens must be applied to every topic discussed within board meetings. Scrutiny based on how the actions of the organisation dismantle racist systems of oppression must be normalised. Finally, white middle-class board members need to give up their seats and enable POC and those representing the communities you work with, to take up those spaces – this is key to truly transforming organisational cultures. White middle-class board members recognising when it is time to step down will be key to this.
