Nonprofit Arts Organizations: All Lives Matter Only If Black Lives Matter. Brown Lives. Old Lives. Poor Lives. And More. What Changes Are You Making?
Divert. Equitize. Include.
These are the verb forms of diversity, equity, and inclusion (although, to be completely accurate, “equitize” has more to do with assets than with people — literary license allows me the prerogative to use it as a verb defined as “to make things equitable for people”). Divert resources and activities to positively affect underserved peoples. Equitize your work environment so that no culture is dominant and that “fit” does not serve as a way to exclude talent. Include discriminated peoples in your decision making, both at the employee and the board level. Do not invite people to the decision table only to tell them what to do. Instead, listen and act on what they want to do, as equals, as peers — even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.
If we have learned nothing else from the stunning movements attacking the injustice surrounding the deaths of, well, all these people…
..and Rayshard Brooks and David McAtee and Justin Howell and Sean Monterrossa and and and and and and and, we’ve learned that talking about a solution is not the same as deriving one.
In the wake of all this, your organization may have issued a manifesto of sorts. Manifestos are a good start. It’s a plan. But as Mike Tyson once said,
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
What happens when you feel the urge to produce an event that is irrelevant to that plan, even if it is an interesting project? Do you throw the plan out? Do you quit?
Mostly because public opinion compelled you to do so (and that is not a bad thing), you hired a Director of Equity and Inclusion.
Will you let them make changes? Real ones? Not just suggestions, but changes?
And what if you are the new Director of Equity and Inclusion? Are you ready to divert programming, equitize opportunities, and include every person who experiences discrimination on a regular basis? Not just Black people, who absolutely deserve a break, but every discriminated group of people?
In the United States, Black lives have to matter a hell of lot more than they ever had. They just do. In a country where most white people — even liberal ones — are confused by the question, “When did you realize your race mattered?” (try asking a white person this), a full 40% of the population is about to vote for an avid racist, misanthropic, misogynistic, narcissistic, ego-maniacal (or maybe just ordinarily maniacal), lying, cheating, pro-Nazi self-worshipper who just admitted he accelerated the deaths of almost 200,000 people because he wanted to “play it down.” That person will get 40% of the vote, just about guaranteed.
In fact, that person might well win.
To those in other countries reading this, that person may not even get the majority of the vote — after all, he did not get the majority last time. But with the help of a few choice Russian-hacked election stations and some of his wealthy racist friends, he may be elected.
So yes, Black lives absolutely matter. And Black people have every right to protest until they do.
There are other groups who have felt the oppressive thumb of discrimination as well.
In the HR world, it happens all the time. It’s totally illegal, but nothing ever happens to the guilty party. It’s like the practice of “redlining.” If no one puts it on paper, it’s very hard to prove and, in the case of employment, hard for the complainant to get hired afterward, even if proven correct. Discrimination has to stop.
(Note: this is not a call to end the fictitious practice of “reverse discrimination,” originally coined in regards to The Regents of the University of California v Bakke. Regardless of the weird decision of the Supreme Court in 1978, “Reverse Discrimination” does not exist. It is a racist meme. Regular old run-of-the-mill discrimination, however, is rampant among a few select groups. That’s what has to stop.)
In the hiring environment, a hiring manager can simply say, without penalty, that the candidate is not a good fit. In fact, taken a step further, when the candidate is asked to sit in front of the entire department, it can be worse.
Making decisions by focus group is a horrible idea. Certainly Henry Ford thought so:
“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Making hiring decisions by group interviews is much, much worse. To everyone I’ve ever put through that, on either side of the table, I apologize. I’ll never do it again. Promise.
The group interview is wholly soulless and provides almost no room for exceptional candidates who are not clones of the current staff. In most, each person uncomfortably takes turns reading pre-designed, pre-printed questions in the dullest drones imaginable. Your staff turns into a cast of Zombies in a badly-written, badly-acted play, and everyone uses the same dull inflection to every candidate.
There are four decisions: autocratic (I say), consultative (I say with your input), democratic (we vote, losers weep), consensus (we vote and everyone backs the decision).
Consensus is the ideal. As practiced, however, the group interview evolved into a group-think process. The group-think process can too often be dominated by a need to find someone who feels, sounds, thinks, and, too often, looks like they do.
“Consensus” is not unanimity. “Fairness” is irrelevant when you’re seeking great people. Group-think promises consensus but can preclude innovation.
Why would you ever choose to preclude innovation?
The most prevalent hiring issue in 2020 seems to be the ageism problem. While nonprofit organizations are no different from any other profit-making or nonprofit venture in this regard, the continued acceptance of government funding in the wake of illegal (and difficult to prove) ageism heightens the hypocrisy of the situation for the nonprofit.
And yet, the practice is widespread. This was an actual post on my LinkedIn feed:
That said, almost no one on the thread thought the person should be called out publicly for fear of the whistle-blower being fired; some wanted to refer the still-anonymous COO to a state board of ethics (Does your state have one of those?), but with “IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE!” in all caps, a reporting would probably have no effect whatsoever. One response rang true:
Which leads to the obvious question: how will you verify the results of your new diversity initiative? What are the benchmarks? Do they include older workers? Non-white, non-Black workers? Disabled workers? How will you show the receipts of your work?
And to whom will your services be directed? Surely, you cannot only present works for the pleasure of moneyed, mostly white people (aka those who donate), can you? Still? And yet, you cannot simply present one Black-created/Latino-created/homeless-created event per year and call it a day, can you?
Here’s the toughest question: if you choose to follow the leadership of your well-rounded director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, will you and your board chair (if you are, as is mostly the case, white) choose to demote yourselves, as Paul Kuhn and Jon Tracy have, or resign, as William Carden has? And, like any other hire, what if your new DEI director is not asking for changes because either a) it’s a bad hire; or b) they know that you won’t make any real change, so to keep the job, they offer less than what is actually needed?
Nonprofit arts organizations — leaders and board members alike — implore yourselves to do better, even during a pandemic. Maybe especially during a pandemic. Character is measured by acting heroically when no one is watching, not when forced to act (see San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The).
Do better. And prove how. Or risk being exposed as hypocrites and killing the company.
Receipts are being printed every day.
