Wednesday, May 19, 2021 • 21min
Special Edition: MAKERS: Keep Going - Microaggressions and How to Stop Them
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This special, six-part series, done in collaboration with MAKERS, features conversations about fostering diversity, equality and inclusion in the workplace. Guest hosted by Amena Brown—poet, author and host of the podcast HER with Amena Brown—today's episode features a talk by Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder in Residence, PolicyLink, followed by a conversation with Vernā Myers, founder of The Vernā Myers Company and Vice President, Inclusion Strategy, at Netflix.
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Vernā Myers
Amena Brown
Angela Glover Blackwell
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Kim Azzarelli
02:30
I'm Kim Azzarelli and you're listening to Seneca's Conversations on Power and Purpose. I am so delighted to partner with MAKERS on the special six part series called Keep Going. In this series, we listen to incredible conversations from MAKERS Conference with a special focus on DEI. The goal is to use these podcasts as a jumping off point for conversations about DEU in your own organization.
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02:57
I want to give a special thanks to the 2021 MAKERS Conference sponsors
P&G
PricewaterhouseCoopers
and official wellness sponsor, Lulu Lemon. Now, we launched the Seneca Women Podcast Network about a year ago, with founding partner PNG
and IHeart Radio
, with the goal of amplifying the voices of women around the world.Share
03:16
You probably know that podcasting is a fast-growing industry with over 50% of podcast audience being women. But what you may not know is that only 20% of top podcasts are hosted by women. We want to change that, so we are launching dozens of women-focused and women-led podcasts. So if you have a show or you want to collaborate on a show, reach out to us at info@senecawomen. com.
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03:42
Now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our guest host for the Keep Going series, Amena Brown. Amena is a spoken-word poet, author and host of the podcast HER with Amena Brown on the Seneca Women Podcast Network. Amena, thanks so much for joining us.
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Amena Brown
03:59
Thank you, Kim. I'm so excited to be the guest host of this special series in collaboration with MAKERS, and we have been doing some really good learning here, and I hope that you have been following along with us today. We're going to hear an excerpt from a talk given by
Angela Glover Blackwell
, founder and resident at PolicyLink
, and her topic: microaggressions.Share
04:21
This talk took place at MAKERS Conference, and I am still processing so much of what
Angela
is bringing to the table here. Following Angela's
talk, I'll be joined by the amazing Vernā Myers. Vernā is founder of the Vernā Myers Company and Vice President Inclusion Strategy at Netflix.
Vernā and I are going to discuss what we're hearing from Angela
and Vernā is going to give us some practical suggestions that we can all bring back into the workplace. Here's Angela Glover Blackwell
, and I'll be back right after.Share
Angela Glover Blackwell
04:54
Microaggressions: they stand in the way. They stand in the way every day, all the time, and we have some urgent business to attend to. I remember years ago, many years ago when I was first beginning to practice law, I joined a very prestigious public interest law firm. They didn't really hire people out of law school, but I had gotten a temporary job there right out of law school to help to get ready for a trial.
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05:22
People were so excited about what I was bringing. They quickly developed a program that would allow me to be able to join the firm, but as a fellow. I joined the fellowship program, it was their way to bring me in. But within six months they said, "Oh just let that go, just come, be one of our partners", and I did.
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05:39
But there was a woman there who had been what they called legal secretary then. I don't suspect they used that language anymore, I haven't practiced law in 20 years. But she was smart as a whip, she understood the law, but she wasn't a lawyer.
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05:54
One day I had gone to work, not expecting to have to go into court, dressed very, very casually. And something happened, and my case was up, and I had to go to court. Went into the women's room with a couple of other women who were there, borrowed a skirt from somebody, got a blouse from somebody else, somebody else had a jacket.
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06:12
Looked at myself, I looked pretty good, looked in the mirror and said, "Does anybody have any lipstick? I think I need to add a little color". And this woman who had, smart as a whip, knew everything about the law, but not a lawyer, white woman said, "I thought that's why we brought you in. "
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06:31
I was so taken aback. I mean, I had been friendly with her. She had helped me out on a couple of cases. And I thought, not. She didn't hurt me. What she did is she exposed herself. I thought, I didn't know you were in that kind of pain. I could see it, but I didn't know it.
Share
06:54
That was a long time ago for me, lots of things have happened. As I thought of what story I was going to tell you, I had to flip through hundreds, okay? But I lifted that one up because it was a clear example that it was really about her. It wasn't about me at all. But many women in my same position - black, new attorney, wondering how are you doing - could have been deeply wounded by it.
Share
07:19
We all know about these situations. I want you to just stop. Just take 30 seconds and turn to somebody and say: it happened to me, I heard about it., I was the one who misstepped, misspoke. Just take a minute and bring this reality into this room, into all of our lives right now. Just a few seconds. Turn to the person next to you.
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07:44
It took you a second, but you know what I'm talking about. You absolutely know what I'm talking about, and you also know how to fix it.
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Amena Brown
07:52
Uh! My, my. This is going to be a good conversation today. I am delighted to welcome Vernā Myers, Vice President Inclusion Strategy at
Netflix
and founder of the Vernā Myers Company. Vernā, welcome.Share
Vernā Myers
08:07
Thank you, Amena. Happy to be here with you.
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Amena Brown
08:11
Okay, let's get into it because the way my neck whipped around in the middle of
Angela's
story just now! Okay, let me start with this, Vernā: for black women, specifically, and bipoc folks in general, how do you know when or if you should respond or address a microaggression? Because we're not getting to hear, in Angela's
story, if she addressed this woman directly.Share
08:38
And I know I have had sometimes, I've experienced a microaggression, and sometimes it almost stunted me, shocked me. I shouldn't say shock, really, but surprised me in a moment that I didn't know what to do, and sometimes I was afraid of how to respond, depending on who did the microaggression. What are your thoughts on that?
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Vernā Myers
08:59
Whoa! You! I was like, ouch! So, one of the things that I think you have to do, is you have to do something. The most important thing is that we do not internalize these kinds of acts or behavior, because then we're the only ones in pain. I thought
Angela
was amazing by just saying "Oh, I'm so sorry, you're in so much pain. " That is an evolved perspective.Share
09:26
I think some of the smallest things you can do because, yes, that is sort of one of the issues around micro inequities, they come from nowhere. They may even be unintentional, or they might be purposeful, but they have the impact as if someone purposely walked up to you and select your face, basically. And so the only response is to register some response.
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09:54
Sometimes I might just say "Ouch! ". Sometimes it's about, I just look at people, or make a, or make a face. I learned this from my kid, my kid does things like, "Awkward, that's just awkward, right? " Or sometimes people like, "Oh no, you need to catch up on that, I don't think that's the right language. " So the main thing I want to say is that you don't have to go into a big, you know, workshop, this is something that I've learned. You basically need to register a response.
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10:28
Now, when I say "need to", if you can't in that moment, you can come back later and you can say, maybe you don't want to be in the audience, maybe you're a little worried about repercussions. You can still call a person and say, hey, because in this case they work together, so she was like, "You know what, after can we have a conversation? I was shocked when you said blah, blah, blah because I thought this or that. "
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10:53
The upside of doing that, for example, is you might hear more from that person about what they meant. But the main reason why, and I know some people say, "Look, I am too tired. I should not have to fix these people's ignorance. " I totally get all of that, and yet unless someone does it, and that's why we like allies, because if someone was in that ring and they heard that, that would have been an ally's shift move right there to be like "What did you just say? "
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11:23
Sometimes all you have to do is ask the question, because ultimately you're not trying to teach the person, you're not trying to do a workshop, take them to school. What you're trying to do is you're trying to interrupt it, so all the pain doesn't fall on you. And so that person can take a beat and think about what they said.
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Amena Brown
11:43
I love this advice. I love this advice because there is a middle ground right there where, if you are the person that is receiving this microaggression, it's not on you to now open up your large briefcase of the workshop, all of the education to this person. But there is a way you can respond so that you are not taking in, sort of the stinger, the dagger in this case.
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Vernā Myers
12:11
We've got to stop taking it in. We spend too much time taking it in, and it ruins us inside. It sometimes makes us bitter, it makes us um skeptical when we should be faithful. We actually cut ourselves off from certain relationships because we haven't actually said to that person, you know, the way you talk about... when you say things like you, you're, you've done so well!
Share
12:36
I mean, especially as a mother, but you know, now with that fourth child, do you think you're going to be able to do this? I mean, feigning concern, or maybe they really are concerned but deeply in artful and haven't gone to the bias workshop, right? But you have to be able to say, because now here's the other thing: sometimes microacts they hit on a sore spot for us.
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13:01
It's a sore spot because we're worried about it, or it's a sore spot because it's been said over and over again. So you feel like "Haven't I proved myself yet? I gotta keep proving myself over and over again? " Or you're at the height of something and someone said something to take you down a notch.
Share
13:18
I had a friend who had just gotten the board, she had just started as the executive director of this nonprofit, and she was being introduced to the full board. And they shared her resume and as an introduction, in all of her accolades. And then, she's a black woman, a white man turned to her on the board and said, "Wow you've done a lot. If you never do another thing as a black girl, you should be happy! "
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13:49
Uh.
Share
13:51
Right? Doesn't it still hurt? Like, you've just gotta pause on that. Now, she's in front of her board, the whole board for the first time. She's taking on the ED role. What do you do in that situation? Because she said like "My instinct was to say, you know, as a white guy, you really haven't achieved a lot. "
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Amena Brown
14:09
Okay!
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Vernā Myers
14:12
"I'm not that impressed with you. " But she like, that's not, I can't do that in that situation. So she did nothing. And this is why we can't continue this way because we swallow too much. But it then allows people to continue to make conversation, make comments like that, right? Or going up to a trans person and asking them about their body. You'd never do that with a cis person, right?
Share
14:40
Somebody's got to say, why are you asking me that question. Again, interrupt the bias. If you go to touch our hair, someone needs to say, like, if someone tries to put their hands on your hair, as a black woman, or any other woman whose hair somehow people are fascinated by the texture, you need to say "I don't know if you know that but that's actually not allowed. "
Share
15:04
When people commit these atrocities over and over again. You know, we call it micro, but it's not micro, the impact isn't micro, right? The slight might be, but it's like the point about microaggressions or inequities is that they're happening over and over again, and they're happening with different people over and over again.
Share
15:30
So like, you know, my Asian colleagues from the US, people are constantly complimenting them on their English. And they're like, "Well, thank you, I grew up in
Kansas
. Appreciate the compliment. " But that's how people are thinking of them, foreign, different, whatever. People don't have as much relationship and as much networking with people who are different from themselves. So they don't understand the impact, what impact this has on people's ability to show up, to believe, to performance.Share
16:08
Sometimes people will say things to you, you go back to your office, you waste a whole hour trying to figure out what the person said, why would they have said something like that, what you did wrong? Then some of us are on the phone with our mothers and we're telling them, you know what I'm saying? That's a loss of energy, that's a loss of of of productivity. So the impact is big.
Share
16:31
We've got to get away from the innocence, no more innocence. Either you don't know and you open your heart to be told and see it as a gift, or you go and learn and spend some time trying to be empathetic and putting yourself in the shoes of others. If someone had said that to you, someone is questioning your competency over and over again, how would that feel? Because most people don't want to do this intentionally, some people do, not gonna lie, some people do. But a lot of this falls in the unintentional but nevertheless harmful space.
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Amena Brown
17:09
Let me ask you one more follow up question here, because microaggressions is a thing we experience individually, which means it's also a thing that can be addressed individually. But how in the workplace, for people who are listening that are in the C-suite, they are in a position where they are overseeing quite a few people, you know, in a work team.
Share
17:35
How can you create an environment where microaggressions are either not welcome or where microaggressions can be more easily addressed? Because some of how microaggressions live is that we haven't really given the proper space in our work environment on how we address that. So I wanted to close with getting just an answer from you on that.
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Vernā Myers
17:58
So for right now where we are, it's unlikely that you're not going to experience micro inequities, because like I said, a lot of people don't have heterogeneous kind of relationships and exposure. So some people are gonna say the wrong thing, right? Somebody is going to be surprised that the woman is in charge, and come in the room and still be looking around for the leader, right? And the person is like "I'm here, thank you very much. "
Share
18:24
Especially like, the black woman, or the, whatever, the Latino. You're like: okay. So I don't even think it makes sense right now for us to be like "we're going to eliminate all micro inequities", because a lot of it is just how our brains work and bias and we're going through categories and schemas, and we come up with the wrong thing.
Share
18:41
So what I think we need to do is have leaders who model the vulnerability around this. Leaders step in it all the time, but how many leaders do we see and they go, "Oh man, I think I just used the wrong word, I think I just may have insulted someone, let me change that. " Right?
Share
19:01
That, watching a leader do that, is powerful. Because what it means is that we're not after perfection, but we are perfecting. And that is important for all of us. The other thing is, absolutely, workshops where you get to break down what was the intent, what was the impact, what can an ally do, what can an individual do who is the recipient of that um comment or that act or behavior.
Share
19:29
It's only not only comments, it's not being asked your opinion, it's like it never being called on, it's giving people furtive glances and weird sort of expressions when they speak. It's like complimenting people as if they didn't go and get their master's, "Wow, that's really amazing. "
Share
19:47
So, there are so many things that happen. And basically, if you go to any group of people, and that's another thing you can do, you can go to your ERGs, you can go to folks who you think are in underrepresented groups or historically excluded folks and say, "What are your pet peeves? What are the main things that you are hearing people say that you would like people to no longer say? " You can create a document around, that you can create a conversation around that.
Share
20:17
And as I said, all of us fall. Like, none of us who have got it all correct. And so you might actually use your own experience with your teams to talk about what you've noticed and where you've tried to go and grow, because that gives the space.
Share
20:35
A lot of this is about you know, and I appreciate the compassion and the kind of empathy that we need to create the environment we want. We're not there yet. We've got to give people good feedback. We can try to do it without blame, shame and attack. We also need to accept that feedback and change.
Share
20:58
I don't want to hear like, "Oh I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry", but you don't change, or you don't go read more about why you were misinformed, you know. People going, "Oh you live in that neighborhood, is that safe? "Now, you have just moved your entire family to that neighborhood from another state or country. "Oh, I didn't know they had skyscrapers in that country. " Really? Right.
Share
21:22
There are just so many things that it's a community project, is what I would say. This isn't about one person being better than another. I mean, some of us are much better because we've been in the recipient seat, and so we know what we don't want to hear, and so we work on it. But we need more people to work on it. It will not come because you're good. I mean, enough of the good people. We need people who really want to be their best selves.
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Amena Brown
21:51
Yeah. Vernā thank you so much for joining us. So much good stuff, y'all. Thank you.
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Vernā Myers
21:58
Oh, I wish I could spend more time. I super appreciate being here, Amena, and take good care of yourself.
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Amena Brown
22:06
Wow, Vernā. Thank you so much. Vernā shared so many excellent points with us. Let's review. Ask yourself three questions that can lead to a more equitable workplace. If you're on the receiving end of a microaggression, what conversations, boundaries or self-care practices do you need to ensure you don't internalize microaggressions when they happen?
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22:34
If you are in leadership, how can you model the vulnerability it takes to admit where you are wrong, when you have said or done the wrong thing? And accept feedback and accountability. And this is for any of us: When you watch microaggressions happen, how can you demonstrate allyship by using your voice and speaking up?
Share
22:58
I love what Vernā reminded us of today: that the work of diversity, equity and inclusion is a community project. It's something we all can work on in our own lives, and that means there is something we can all do to make things better. So let's continue to learn together, and let's continue to take action to make our workplaces more equitable.
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Amena Brown
Kim Azzarelli
Angela Glover Blackwell
Vernā Myers