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Towards the Development of Anti-Racist Institutions and Leaders

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Towards the Development of Anti-Racist Institutions and Leaders JOURNAL for NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT 2007 Beyond Diversity and Multiculturalism: Towards the Development of Anti-Racist Institutions and Leaders Mary Pender Greene, LCSW-R, Assistant Executive the Jewish community, our name, and the way that Director, Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services1 we were perceived in our local community, we saw a clear need to address diversity and multicultural- ism in order to improve our competence in serving he Jewish Board of Family and Children’s culturally diverse populations. From the onset, this Services has a century long tradition of help- effort was viewed as a long-term goal. We assumed ing New Yorkers, which began with services T that it would require years of work to truly change to poor Jewish families and immigrants and has the agency’s culture. now expanded to include more than 70,000 clients annually, from all racial, ethnic, economic and reli- Our diversity work has taken many different forms gious backgrounds. over the past years, which has sometimes meant that we met as a task force, in subcommittees, as We are a social work run organization and pride our- triads or dyads. These varied efforts created a deep selves with providing quality services. The agency bond among the members which included direc- offers a continuum of services that has been shaped tors and senior management staff who were male by the needs of its clients, from residential services and female, Jewish and Christian, Black, White to day treatment, to outpatient mental health ser- and Latino, Gay and Lesbian, old and young, psy- vices for adults, children and families. Many of our chiatrist, psychologist, and social worker. clients are people of color, and large numbers speak languages other than English, such as Spanish, Rus- We entered our multicultural work at different sian, Mandarin, Hebrew, Creole, Yiddish, and many levels and struggled with our own differences in other languages. worldview, philosophy, and experience. While we had many successes in our diversity journey espe- The staff of nearly 3,400 is also racially and cultur- cially as it related to gender and religious diversity, ally diverse and represents a range of professional we discovered that issues of race had gotten short and paraprofessional disciplines. This article shrift in our diversity effort. Each time race mat- describes the agency’s journey from diversity and ters emerged, they were quickly overshadowed by multiculturalism toward antiracism in its leader- many other legitimate issues which occur in the life ship, management and supervision. The author, an of an extremely large and complex organization. African American woman, is Assistant Executive Director of the agency and a central figure in the Hindsight has shown us that since we lacked a process of the organization’s anti-racist evolution. common language and a clear vision for address- ing structural racism, each time the organization BACKGROUND attempted to openly discuss race, experiment with new processes, programs, and ideas, and begin to Due to our increasingly diverse client population, reappraise its mission in light of race related mat- the nature of our original sectarian mission to serve ters, tensions would arise and the subject would be 1 Mary Pender Greene can be reached at [email protected] tabled in lieu of another pressing matter. 9 JOURNAL for NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT 2007 During our process, we became clear that race and ANTI-RACIST MODEL FOR racism greatly burden and impact the lives of all ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE people of color which includes both our staff and Our anti-racist model for institutional change was clients. We later came to understand that racism derived from a common understanding of struc- is race prejudice and power, and it manifests itself, tural racism as presented by the People’s Institute individually, culturally, and institutionally. This for Survival and Beyond in their Undoing Racism new understanding lead to a shift in our efforts workshop. The People’s Insti- from an individual to an insti- tute is recognized as one of the tutional focus. Thus began our ddressing structural foremost anti-racism train- clarity about the need to focus on racism is one of ing institutions in the nation. the roles of our leaders, manag- A the toughest jobs that It moves beyond a focus on ers and supervisors as it relates to any leader can face. the symptoms of racism to an policies and procedures as well as Although the reasons understanding of what racism the tone and tenor of our institu- are indeed complex, is, where it comes from, how it tional environment. the major difficulty for functions, why it persists, and us is that many white Addressing structural racism how it can be undone. staff viewed racism is one of the toughest jobs that as individual acts of All of our executive staff and any leader can face. Although meanness and viewed managers were required to the reasons are indeed complex, any discussion of racism attend the Peoples’ Institute’s the major difficulty for us is that in our institution as a two and one half day undoing many white staff viewed racism personal affront. racism training workshop in as individual acts of meanness order to create a common lan- and viewed any discussion of racism in our institu- guage and to lay the foundation for our agency’s tion as a personal affront. They saw the agency and anti-racist organizational plan. themselves as culture carriers of the agency as dedi- cated to doing good, a value that was inconsistent Through the Undoing Racism workshop we learned with a view of either as incorporating racism. They that structural racism refers to practices, policies, saw racism as being individual and intentional procedures and – most important – the social cul- instead of structural and systemic. ture of institutions. In a society set up to support white-skin privilege, the inherent social culture Since we pride ourselves on being a learning insti- of that society’s institutions will naturally reflect tution, we were clear that we needed additional knowledge to move forward. We knew from past Psychology, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ; Ronald Chisom, experiences that any major institutional culture David Billings, Margery Freeman, Monica Walker, Barbara Major, Monica Dennis, Shadia Alvarez, People’s Institute for Survival change requires top down buy in. Thus, we sought and Beyond, New Orleans, LA and New York, NY; Phyllis Frank, some of this country’s best minds on race and race Volunteer Counseling Services Community Change Project, Rock- matters for their consultation on this process all of land County, NY; Gail Golden, MSW, Ed.D, Volunteer Counseling Services, Rockland County, NY; Anthony Porter, A Call to Men whom helped us in ultimately formulating our anti- NY; Robert P. Carter, Ph.D, Columbia University, New York, NY; racist organizational development plan that began Janet Helms, Ph.D, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA; Samuel with our leaders, managers and supervisors.2 P. Johnson, Ph.D, Baruch College, New York, N Y; Elaine Pender- hughes, Ph.D, Boston College School of Social Work, Boston; MA; Kathleen Pogue-White PHD, William Alanson White Institute, 2 Those consulted included: David Thomas, Ph.D, Harvard NY; Monica McGoldrick, Ph.D, Multicultural Family Institute, Business School, Boston, MA; Cheryl Franks, Ph.D, Columbia Highland Park, NJ; Ken Hardy, Ph.D, Syracuse University, Syra- University, New York, NY; Sandra Bernabei, LCSW, Anti Racist cuse, N Y; Sola Winley, LMSW, MBA, MA - President, ProVision Alliance, New York, NY; A.J. Franklin, Ph.D, City College and Consulting, New York, NY. Graduate School of the City University of New York; Nancy Boyd- Franklin, Ph.D, Graduate School of Applied and Professional 10 JOURNAL for NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT 2007 bias unless there is deliberate action to counteract NThe trainers should have a power analysis. that bias. In institutions where there is little or no This means that they need to go consciousness of racial bias, the social culture of beyond racism just as prejudice based unconscious racism will influence basic policies on skin color. and practices. Unfortunately, even in institutions NThey must also teach that what we under- that have a fairly high degree of awareness of race stand as racism requires that those who bias, unconscious or unexamined aspects of the hold prejudice based on skin color also institution’s social culture can unintentionally rein- have power, and control access to power force dynamics that continue to privilege people based on skin color. with white skin. It is in this manner that American NThe trainers must emphasize systemic, institutions remain dominated by practices which organizational and institutional produce racial inequalities (Better, 1998). manifestations of racism rather than Structural racism requires institutional support emphasizing racism as manifested in and cultural nurturing. The core of anti-racist interpersonal relationships. work is to seek to recognize institutional bias and NThe trainers should teach extensively to to make structural changes that are supported by the phenomenon of white culture and its policies and procedures that are accountable with manifestations in organizations. outcomes of equity. Leaders, managers and supervi- sors must be taught to recognize that contemporary NTrainers need to be able to teach to the forms of racism exist and become familiar with the link between racism and poverty. various forms that it takes in the lives of all staff NTrainers should have a global understand- and clients. They must become vigilant in learning ing of racism. and identifying what those issues are and how they are perpetuated in the organization’s policies, prac- These workshops offered opportunities for manag- tices and procedures. The goal of anti-racist work is ers to practice race dialogues, learn new techniques, to widen the circle of power and opportunity.
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