Share Their Fear, and Other Actions for Allies
Each week, Karen Catlin shares five simple actions to create a more inclusive workplace and be a better ally.
1. See the light, yet share their fear
On Tuesday, a jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd. As President Biden tweeted, the verdict “can be a giant step forward on the march towards justice in America.” While I’m hopeful that there is light ahead of us, we still have much to do. And as a white woman, here’s just one thing I’m focused on: Doing the work to understand the fear faced by Black people and others who are marginalized in America as they navigate their daily lives.
In a recent Fortune RaceAhead newsletter, Ellen McGirt provided some insight into one of the more horrific aspects of her job on the race beat: Viewing videos of people of color being shot or killed. As she wrote, “I do it because I’m obligated as a reporter to understand events and context. But I also do it to spare others from needing to watch them.”
Wow. Let that sink in for a moment. McGirt, a Black person, is watching these traumatic videos to spare her readers. Even though she dreads doing so.
She also wrote that her white husband has started watching the videos before her, just in case one of them isn’t relevant to her job. “And yet, it always is. He breaks it to me gently. ‘Hey honey, I’m sorry, but I think you’re going to need to pay attention to this.’”
By watching the videos, her husband has learned to share her fear. While he’ll never feel the same terror she does as a Black person, he doesn’t try to explain it away or diminish it.
As allies, we should be on a similar quest: to understand the pain of others and share their fear, without diminishing it in any way.
Attend the next meeting that your organization or an external professional group holds after a high-profile traumatic incident (asking first if you’d be welcome as an ally). It might be a listening session after police murdered another Black citizen. It might be about hate crimes against the AAPI community. It might be about violence against women. Or something else. By attending, we can get insight into our colleagues’ experiences and, hopefully, learn to share their fears.
2. Remove addiction-related language from daily use
After reading Better Allies, Dr. Maria Robles, an internist who works with people with substance use disorder (SUD), emailed the following:
“I just finished reading your chapter on Everyday Language, and I think a few paragraphs on some of the language around addiction would be a welcome addition. Phrases like ‘I get such a high’ need to be removed from our daily use.”
Thank you, Dr. Robles, for your suggestion. Being an ally is a journey, and I’m grateful every time I can learn from other’s perspectives and expertise.
Here are a few more common phrases Dr. Robles recommends against using conversationally. Some because they are negative or stigmatizing, others because they make intoxication seem wonderful.
- “I need a drink,” which can be hard for people in recovery to hear, but it is so common.
- “Put that in your pipe and smoke it” when telling someone to think about something.
- “What have you been smoking?” or “You’re such a crackhead” when referring to someone acting in a bizarre way.
- “I get a runner’s high” when talking about the euphoria that can come with exercise.
The English language is rich and full of alternatives. It’s easy enough to use “I want to relax” instead of emphasizing drinking. Or substitute “consider this idea” in place of smoking a pipe. You get the picture. #LanguageMatters
3. Reframe family leave as caregiving leave
In an article for the non-profit Amplify, Rachel Hands summarized research that an estimated 1% of people worldwide don’t experience sexual attraction. And that number grows to 4% for people who are 18–34. As I reflected on this data, I realized that across the Fortune 500 companies, there are millions of asexual (a.k.a. “ace”) employees. (In 2019, the Fortune 500 collectively employed 28.7 million employees). As Hands wrote, “That’s a lot of people with a point of view we hear very little about.”
She went on to share some ideas for being better allies for ace co-workers. For example, she recommends reframing family leave as caregiving leave:
“Ace people and aromantic people — and LGBTQ2IA+ people of all kinds of identities — are more likely to rely on ‘found family’ and other kinds of close community structures that don’t fit neatly into a company policy’s conception of what ‘family leave’ looks like. If I knew that I could safely take time off to care for someone primary to my life without having to claim them as a partner, or that a close friend could take time off to care for me if I got sick, that would open up more space for me to hold the kind of community that makes me better able to show up to my job clear-headed and ready to give my best at work.”
Please read the full article for more ideas for supporting ace employees in your organization.
(Many thanks to my good friend Grace Kim for bringing this article to my attention.)
4. Don’t pressure someone to identify their pronouns
Earlier this month, I wrote about the importance of adding your pronouns to email signatures, social media profiles, and on-screen video conference names. Newsletter subscriber Carol Glaser, whose spouse is non-binary, sent me the following feedback:
“I have a problem with today’s ‘add your pronouns’ item and would like to offer a different perspective. My spouse is nonbinary/butch. She finds it extremely painful when she’s pressured to identify her pronouns, and in the current allyship environment, the pressure can be pretty intense. She’s fine with she/her but also with he/him. She doesn’t feel misgendered when someone calls her ‘sir.’ How other people choose to refer to her provides information about how she’s being perceived, so being asked to identify pronouns not only puts her in an uncomfortable quandary but takes something away from her. On occasions when she’s said something like ‘pronouns for me are your choice,”’ there’s been a lot of positive response from other nonbinary people. They honestly seem to feel bullied on this issue.
So when you say sharing your pronouns ‘is helpful to genderfluid, transgender, or nonbinary folks, who can get loads of pushback on the pronoun issue overall’ . . . Could you maybe add a qualifier? E.g.: ‘This can be helpful to some gender queer folk, but please don’t pressure or judge anyone who chooses not to identify their pronouns.’”
I couldn’t agree more. Thank you, Carol, for helping me to become a better ally.
5. Be a good apple
To close out today’s newsletter, here’s a zinger of a Tweet from Mark Greene, author of Remaking Manhood: “You can’t be a good apple and be quiet about the bad ones.”
Here’s the thing. Keeping quiet when we see biased, offensive, or inappropriate behavior doesn’t make us neutral; It makes us complicit.
Does coming forward and objecting feel uncomfortable? For many of us, the answer is a resounding, “Heck yes.” But this discomfort is nothing compared to how it feels for the person whose racial group is being joked about. Or the colleague who has to endure constant commentary about her appearance or how good her English is. Or the coworker who is being excluded due to a disability.
The discomfort of allies pales in comparison to what people from marginalized groups are forced to live through on a daily basis. Be a good apple, my friends.
That’s all for this week. I wish you strength and safety as we all move forward,
— Karen Catlin, Founder and Author of Better Allies®
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