- According to a recent report, Black workers continue to face significant gaps in the labor market when it comes to promotion, pay and opportunity, costing the US economy trillions of dollars.

If the Black wage, education, housing and investment gaps had been closed 20 years ago it would have added an estimated $16 trillion to the economy.

Today, Black workers are overrepresented in low wage and entry-level jobs and underrepresented in senior leader and executive roles.

in the US private sector, Black workers make up 12% of the entry-level workforce and just 7% of the managerial workforce, according to recent reports.

The higher you go, the fewer Black and minority professionals you see.

At the senior manager and VP level, Black workers make up just 5% of the workforce and at the SVP level, just 4%.

At the very top, only around 1% of Fortune 500 CEO spots are held by Black leaders.

If the current trajectory continues, according to McKinsey and Company, they estimate that it would take 95 years before Black employees reach parity at all levels in the private sector.

Today on Courageous Conversations, we'll discuss racism and prejudice in the workplace and how to address it.

Joining me today to discuss creating an anti-racist workforce and creating an environment of equity and inclusion for all are Bart Bailey, owner and principal at Courage to Care LLC.

Allison Manswell, founder and chief results officer at Path Forward Consulting, author of Listen Up: Critical Conversations on Race in the Workforce.

She was recently named to the HR Tech Outlook's Top Ten Diversity and Inclusion Firms List.

Welcome to Courageous Conversations.

Don't go anywhere.

We'll be right back.

Bart, thank you for joining us.

Allison, thank you for joining us as well.

So excited to have this Courageous Conversation.

And I really want to jump right in because we don't have a lot of time and you all are both such a wealth of knowledge.

So I'm just going to allow you all to talk and share and hopefully inform our viewing audience on issues of race and justice.

Now, Allison, you've written a book called Listen Up.

And can you talk a little bit about the book and maybe even why you chose to write a fiction book that tells a story versus, you know, what a lot of folks in the DEI space do?

They give you a bunch of facts and a bunch of numbers and so on.

But you chose to go a different way.

Can you talk about that and why critical conversations are so important?

- Yes, sure.

Thank you, first, thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here, and certainly joining with Bart, we know each other from this work and he's a tremendous professional as well.

- Wonderful.

First and foremost, I almost didn't write Listen In.

The reason was I knew that there was some degree of career risk because I wanted to write a real book on race.

And so I actually chose a novel.

I chose a fictional story so that it would give me two things - literary license to be able to tell the real deal on race.

And then specifically, I wanted to engage people.

And to be honest with you, facts don't change people's minds.

- Wow.

- So by writing a story and being able to engage people and help them get to know characters that they otherwise may not come into contact with, it was...it turned out to be a wonderful tool to be able to achieve the outcome that I wanted, which is to have people listen to a perspective that wasn't their own.

- Did you just...as you're writing the book, are you utilizing scenarios that you've engaged with in the corporate space?

Because I think you use five different characters and their journeys in the work world.

What was the motivation behind that?

Was it just to paint scenarios and paint pictures that people could connect to and could see as real world examples?

- Yes, absolutely.

The reason that there are five specifically African-American characters is because I wanted to show the diversity in who we are.

And so each one of them had a specific profile that represent an experience base that is different from the others.

All of them have pieces and parts of myself, and they all have experiences that either I have experienced or I've talked to others or someone's auntie or cousin has told me about that.

And so the end result is that you feel like these are your friends.

- Yeah.

Almost lived experiences, right?

Those are the best because I think you connect with the humanity.

We were talking a couple of weeks ago about this big settlement that just happened, $1.2 billion settlement, right, that the government finally admitted that they had been discriminating against Black farmers.

- Yeah.

- And this $1.2 billion settlement, but I wasn't so much focused on the $1.2 dollars.

I was focused on the trauma of going and applying for a loan and then being denied and knowing you're denied because you're Black.

But the moment you say that, then they say you're playing the race card.

But now I got to go home and tell my wife we don't have the money to run our farm.

We don't have the dollars to send our child to school.

Our farm is going to fail.

And the impact of the trauma and the reality of the human story to me was more important than at 1.2 billion.

And Bart, now we're dealing with something, you more so than I, in one of our local school districts where this teacher is reading out of a book Of Mice and Men, and the N-word is used multiple times.

There's an African-American student in the class who becomes upset because the teacher is using the word.

She asks her to not use the word, but she continues to use the word - like, what's that all about?

And where is the level of sensitivity to a tenth grader?

And, you know, Parkland is predominantly a white school district.

So now there's a minority of a minority, only a few blacks in the class, and now this person is being introduced to this trauma.

Like, what's that all about?

- Yeah, you know, we're still trying to figure out what's happening with that.

But one of the things I will share with you is similar to what Allison is talking about.

Her book itself is around the stories.

And sometimes we fail to connect with our deeper humanity through stories, right?

So no-one is saying to ban the book.

- Right.

- But the use of the word has generational harm.

And most of these school districts in the Valley, we know they have to go through trauma-informed training.

- Right.

- So literally, this student is saying, can you not say the complete word, but use the N-word instead, right?

And so the teacher's consciously saying, well, I'm still going to say it.

- Right.

And it wasn't just one student, but there were several students that were impacted by that.

One of the other things I think that's important is, is the conversation you have with the students - not just the students of color.

Because I, I would feel certain that a conscious student, even as young, knows that there's some harm being done.

So what's the environment?

Because a lot of schools are citing these cultural environments, that they're trying to ascribe to, what's the environment that this teacher is creating for these students?

And I guarantee you, many of them felt not just discomfort, but harm.

Right?

There's nothing wrong...

I don't think there's anything wrong with discomfort, as long as we're learning and going through.

But if you cause harm and I'm now stuck in that harm, you're violating what you say you're supposed to be doing as a teacher.

- And with the culture and the climate as it is, you know, they should be more aware of the harm that they are doing because that's a lasting legacy of trauma as a 10th grader, right?

You're going to carry that for the rest of your life.

These students will remember that forever.

- Absolutely.

- Right?

Not just... Everybody that was in that class will remember that.

And then all the parents that are now engaged in what's happening are going to remember that.

And for some, you're allowing students to feel a certain kind of way that it's OK, because there's other things that have gone on in that school district that are not positive.

- Yeah.

And I think students feel emboldened to do those things because, hey, well, the teacher is causing harm.

Why can't I do the same thing?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so many schools have signed this anti-racist, you know, agreement that this is the motto of our district now.

Now, I want to I want to come back to Allison.

Allison, in your work that is stated in diversity, you know, it stated that in the upper echelons of many of our corporations and companies, there is a lack of diversity and a lack of, you know, equality as it relates to minority candidates.

How do you as an advocate really begin to help dismantle that and bring some systemic change to organizations?

- So it's actually a multilayered process, right?

First, there has to be some level of awakening.

I'm still wrestling with what George Floyd's killing means to me, because on the one hand, there's the normal trauma of watching a Black man be tortured and then killed.

On the other hand, there is this opportunity to use this moment as the grand awakening that we have all been waiting for.

- Right.

- And so my concern about, you know, summer of 2020 is, how sustainable is it?

Guilt only lasts for a very short time.

But guilt that actually is informed to new behavior has sustaining value.

I shouldn't really say guilt, but true action.

And that, I think, is the difference between being... whether you are calling yourself not a racist or anti-racist, or have you really been moved to sustainable action beyond last summer?

- Thank you.

Thank you for that, Alison.

Bart, when you think about this whole idea of anti-racist, the mantra that we're hearing out there, what seems to be some of the challenges behind that change actually happening or that transformation happening with institutions and organizations?

- Yeah, so to I'm going to follow what Allison was saying and add a little bit to that, right?

And so we have this moment in history that has actually... That has shown up a couple different times, if you look at our history.

But what we're asking organizations to do and individuals to do, and I think what is hard for large organizations is, one, that senior leadership level has to own their own impact and how they have shown up in communities.

And that means how they serve people, how they hire people, how it shows up in their C suite.

And so it's not about blame, shame.

It really is, how do I own... - Yeah.

..how I'm showing up in these communities, because you can have a corporation as big as it is, it's only going to go as far as the leadership is willing to go.

So most often they have to do their own inner work to allow space for true, you know, awakening to this moment in time.

- Sure.

- Right?

Because you can have all the writing in the world on the wall, but if you don't do that work and I now get hired and I'm in that organization and I don't feel like I belong, I'm going to leave.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

- So... - Yeah, you know, Allentown has just lost one of its leaders, just a superintendent just left.

But then the chief diversity individual just resigned as well.

If the environment is not set to... of inclusion and the idea that you're welcome here and they feel that love and support from the leadership, it's not going to be a long-term relationship.

Allison, so then how do you deal directly with, let's say, CEOs, CFOs, hiring managers, those folks, when you're invited in, your firm and Bart's firm as well are doing this type of work.

How do you address that?

Do you begin with the upper echelon?

Do you review their vision and their mission?

How does that work for an organization like yours?

- Yeah, no, Bart is absolutely right.

We always recommend that we cascade the approach from the senior leaders first.

And that's for two reasons.

Strategically, they have to know in advance what we're going to be teaching, sharing and putting others through.

And exactly as Bart said, they have to be willing to do their own personal work and be realistic about the switch that needs to happen for them personally.

And I want to say there are some leaders who have actually been attempting to do this work, but maybe didn't know how to cascade it throughout the organization.

So I don't want to assume that everyone is on the same journey or at the same place, but definitely beginning with the senior leaders and then showing them how they serve as role models, and a support system for leaders throughout the organization, and then finally to employees.

- Yeah, it's interesting because I came under a little bit of fire, someone...

I mentioned, a good ol' boy network, right?

And that is historical.

It's real.

And anyone with any common sense knows that certain individuals play golf together, they play bridge together, they play poker together.

They got poker nights.

They're hiring nephews, cousins and people who look like them and may even be related to them.

And it came off in someone's mind as not a good terminology, but it's a real terminology.

So there's a level of truth that has to be spoken because the good ol' boys network has been running America from its inception.

And so now we're talking about sharing power, equality, equity, and there's a level of implicit bias kind of built in to that whole thing.

Can you talk a little bit about that, Bart?

- So I gotta...

I gotta response to what you said.

And one of the things that...

There's a there's a couple of thread lines between Allison and myself.

And so we both came through utility companies.

- OK. - And if you know anything about utility companies, it's a history of hiring people who look like you.

- Yeah.

- It's a history of hiring your relatives.

And it's just, that's just the way it is, right?

And so if we know that that's part of the organization, how do you disrupt that?

And you said a few things.

And so one is knowing that there is this notion that we need to deal with racial equity and justice.

We need to deal with distribution of power.

And then the last thing is holding people accountable.

- Right.

So just to follow, after we do the work with that C suite and we start cascading, there are certain behaviors that you will be held accountable for.

Now, we don't do that out the gate.

- Right.

- And depending on what firm you work with, some of us say, you know what, we're going to do a year of working with these leaders, because think about it.

You know, I'm a little overweight, right?

And so if my doctor says, hey, Bart, I need you to lose some weight, it's not going to happen tomorrow.

And so these behaviors that are part of us, when we talk about implicit bias, we've learned it from our parents.

Right?

There are things that I have learned that I...

The way I grew up that show up that I'm not even close to being conscious of.

- Absolutely.

- And if I need to have the courage to disrupt it, I need to own it first and say, you know what?

These are some things that show up in ways that are unhealthy in terms of me appreciating someone else's humanity.

I need to work on it.

And it's not going to change overnight.

Right?

And so sometimes we have to offer some folks some grace.

But at the end of the day, at some point, you're going to be held accountable to be a better human being.

- That's exciting.

You know, when you think about that, I was reading on LinkedIn the other day about a hospital who brought an individual in to do DEI, right, and he began to utilize accountability and they fired him.

All right?

So, we want you to come in, but don't hold us accountable for what we brought you in to do, right?

And so, and so, Allison, how do you deal with that pushback?

I mean, you all, the both of you have to be very skilled at dealing with this idea that we're going to maintain homeostasis.

We're going to keep things the way they are, don't buck the system, but we really want change.

And sometimes I think it's just checking a box to say we have this, but we're really not serious about really implementing the necessary change.

How do you dismantle that?

How do you combat that?

- Yeah, I was chuckling to myself because I read that same story that you were thinking of.

And I'll just tell you, we're sitting in a situation like that, we just won't work with a client that appears to be checking a box and wasting our time.

- OK.

I'm very comfortable with saying we're not the firm for you.

I thought we were, but we might not be.

So I think that's the first thing.

And the performative behaviors, again, we understand that sometimes that's the starting place.

However, by the time you get to the place of hiring a consultant, paying for the service, you ought to be also ready to say we're going to stop doing the things we used to do before.

And I think that the "stop do" list is so powerful.

We overlook it.

And to be honest with you, it also has some very cost-effective utility value.

I can recommend five or six things that you could stop doing that would save you a lot of money in consulting down the road, but you have to actually be willing to not do those things any more.

- So changing behavior, you're saying I can come in and save you money, right?

When you start talking about saving folks money and someone said that, you know, diverse companies are profitable companies.

Right?

When you bring the collective experience and skills of different individuals to the table, it's going to increase your bottom line in many ways.

- I mean, you think about it, right?

So if it's an organization that that uses power to minimize people... - Right, right.

If I don't feel like I belong, so I self censor.

And if the very little thing you want to do is bring five people into the room to problem solve, and I choose not to bring my voice in because I don't feel like I belong, you're not leveraging the best of me, right?

I'm fitting in.

I'm assimilating and I'm putting my head down and just moving forward.

And I will tell you, some of the organizations we work with that, you know, my organization work with, you have senior level folks that have done that.

And they said, I've moved up and I've lost myself.

Right?

And so how do we make sure that people are not self-censoring, bringing their best selves?

So now when we problem solve, you're getting the best of everybody's ideas, right?

- Right.

- And typically, it affects the bottom line.

Right?

So... - You're not bringing your creativity, you're not bringing your skill, you're not bringing your full self into the space.

There's a level of anxiety.

I've been in those rooms.

I've been in corporate.

I've been in retail, you know, pretty much done it all.

But you don't break because you almost feel that you have to fit in to a model that is not truly who you are as a person.

So you're limiting what you can do and even your ideas that you want to bring.

Allison, I felt like you wanted to say something there.

- I wanted to follow up on the point you were making about the business case.

- Yes.

- Because I feel like we've turned a corner with that, or maybe I personally have.

And this is part of my transition and the personal work I did last year.

I no longer bring business slides to go to a client any more.

And I have been really clear I'm not bringing any business case slides because my experience has been... ..that racism is stronger than greed.

And we have more than enough lived examples that show, even in the pursuit of finances and money and increased profits, our propensity towards racism, white supremacy, privilege will supersede our greed.

- That's powerful.

- So the basis for which we used to purport this business case for diversity has shifted.

You know, I have personal examples where I go into a store, I walk into any department store, and the predominant thought on my mind is Allison, limit your spending.

Come in for the one thing you came for.

I'm trying to monitor myself so I don't buy too much.

But someone is following me and suspecting that I might shoplift.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

- So now I'm upset and I'm going to leave and I'm not going to buy anything.

- Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

- So the business case that you could have gotten from me, from my potential profit if you had treated me well... You could probably upsell me too many things!

Now you've lost it because you allowed your bias of me to upset me.

- What a powerful statement that says that racism supersedes or is stronger than greed.

I've never looked at it from that perspective.

Go ahead, Bart, you feel like you want to chime in there.

Go ahead, bro.

- It shows up in so many ways.

You know, it's the normative behavior.

You know, one of the things that I have some folks consider doing is a 28 Days of Journaling by Layla Saad.

And her book is Me and White Supremacy.

And I've done the 28 days.

- OK. - There are things that we do that are part of the greater normative behavior that is part of growing up in North America that actually causes harm.

- Yeah.

- And sometimes in our own communities we do it to each other, and in some ways we say, oh, this is part of our culture.

This is the way we treat each other, which actually we are passing down.... - Yeah.

- ..trauma.

Right?

And so that shows up in many ways.

And it is true what Allison is saying in terms of white supremacy and racism will supersede our greed because we see it now in many areas of our country right now.

Right?

Folks are refusing to do things that will help them from a health perspective because they don't want to be attributed to or connected to a certain community.

- Right, right.

- I'm going to stick here because it gives me a sense of power, even though I'm dying.

Right?

And I will do that to my grave versus being connected to a broader humanity.

And so it's an interesting study about how we want to be apart from versus a part of.

- That's interesting.

You know, I was I was doing some research on EEOC's website, and all you have to do is read through the settlements that have happened through EEOC to see how much this discrimination, racism and mistreatment of minorities is being affirmed by... And there's a whole process you got to go through to get EEOC to settle.

There was, you know, 2019, $752,000 settled for diversified maintenance system.

Retailers agreed to a $6 million settlement for mistreatment of African-Americans.

Folks in trade unions in Florida, just young Black guys trying to get into a union, they settled and had to walk through a process.

This is prolific in America.

And now companies are saying it's so important.

I've never seen so many DEI vice presidents... And, you know, vice president of diversity and equity and inclusion.

I've never seen so many in my life.

But the question becomes, how do we move the conversation forward for organizations and institutions?

Let me come back to you, Allison.

And can you give us... We've only got five minutes left.

Can you give us some... Maybe there's a CEO or hiring manager or someone who's watching who you can enlighten.

Can you give us some things that they may be able to do right now?

And don't give away all of your stuff for free!

I heard you say it earlier, but just consider it as a gift to someone.

Maybe you can help someone find a job.

- Yeah.

- Oh, absolutely, and I'm actually so, so open to give away this information cos the greater good is more important.

This is a daring task.

- Yeah.

- And you remember when you were young and someone could get you to do something ridiculous by just saying, I dare you?

- Yes.

- That is almost the type of tenacity that we're going to need to solve this problem.

And so I use that as a way to say, we have to decide, we have to just make a decision that we are going to do better.

And I actually think that there are some organizations that have not truly decided that they're going to do something better.

They might be willing to hire VP of DEI, but they have not really decided in their mind and then be willing to hold people accountable.

- Yes.

Yes.

That accountability... Yeah, go ahead.

You said a review, - And continue to evaluate.

So D-A-R-E.

Decide, hold people Accountable, Review what you've done, and continue to Evaluate and make changes along the way.

- Wow.

That's very powerful.

Thank you very much.

How about you, Bart?

- You know, I would say the same.

One thing that is important, there are a lot of positions opening up.

Right?

And one of the things I would hope that these organizations truly step into - it is not the role of that DEI professional to be responsible for the entire container.

It is literally the responsibility of everybody in our organization.

I guarantee you any website I go to and we pull up somebody's values, their values already speak to inclusion.

They already speak to belonging.

But do I... Can I videotape them actually performing in that way, actually showing up in that way?

Holding meetings in that way that you hear different voices versus the same voices.

And so one of the things I would say and I would kind of level, you know, look at it from a lens of when we talk about allyship, right?

And so if you bring that lens inside your organization, meaning number one, doing your own self reflection, that means of the organization.

What's your reflection around doing good work that is inclusive?

Have you done it or not?

And we know it.

I know if I'm an inclusive person or not.

Right?

So the self reflection piece.

Understanding the history.

Do you understand the history of how people have applied for this organization, how they fared inside your organization?

What's the turnover rate and why are they leaving?

Are you doing exit interviews?

Are you doing entry interviews?

Right?

I was hired for this job and it is meeting the needs or it's not, right?

- Right.

- And then understand the language that people want you to use when you're referring to them.

so that you're honoring them.

We know that there are people who are causing harm, just like the school we talked about.

Right?

And so using certain words, it's harmful.

And then the next one is, you know, really owning your impact as an organization, own the impact that you've had inside these communities when you're hiring people.

It's always interesting when somebody say, I can't find somebody from that community.

Are you volunteering in those communities?

Right?

Are you... - Investing your resources.

Are you a farmer or are you actually hunting for people?

Farming means I'm now in the middle school presenting and showing up in those spaces.

And then the one, own your impact.

It's not about blame, shame or guilt.

Own it.

Right?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Thank you for that, Bart.

- Yeah.

- You know, I think it's important to have these conversations and people, you know, always say, oh, you playing the race card, you know, but you know, you haven't had this conversation before, so we can't have it enough until there is parity and until there is equity, until there is justice, you know, across the board.

And so let me just say thank you for bringing your whole self here, brother.

And Allison, for you as well.

You both are such a gift to our community to help to have conversations that are critical and conversations that are courageous.

And we hope that, you know, you only continue to grow in what you're doing.

Thank you both for joining me.

And to our audience, thank you for taking the time to watch this Courageous Conversations.

On behalf of everyone here at PBS, God bless.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa and happy holidays.

I hope I got everybody in there, but make sure you come back and see us again.

Keep being courageous.

We'll see you soon.