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Human Rights
Building a Culture of Accountability
Advancing racial equity within your organization requires making accountability a cultural norm.
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Health
Tackling Systemic Racism in Maternity Care
A Brazilian health collaborative uses improvement science and the concept of “liberatory consciousness” to address racism in maternity care.
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Human Rights
Union Construction’s Racial Equity and Inclusion Charade
White men have taken extraordinary measures to keep construction unions white and have designed their unions to frustrate and intimidate prospective Black members.
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Human Rights
The Office Door
How white supremacy materializes at this threshold of workplace relations and power dynamics.
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Human Rights
The Racism of the ‘Hard-to-Find’ Qualified Black Candidate Trope
Stereotypes and racial bias in hiring and promotion are damaging at personal, career, and organizational levels.
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Human Rights
The Emotional Tax of Deficit Thinking
A pervasive fallacy imposes a heavy emotional toll on employees from underrepresented groups.
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Nonprofits & NGOs
Nonprofits Must Listen With Their Ears, Not With Their Eyes
Social sector leaders who “speak for” marginalized groups engage in harmful behavior that excludes marginalized communities from making decisions that affect their lives.
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Human Rights
The Concrete Ceiling
Despite increased dialogue around racial and gender bias and discrimination, women of color struggle to advance in their careers due to the rigidity of unjust systems.
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Human Rights
The ‘Not Here’ Syndrome
Racism denial, workplace inequity, and the futility of speaking out.
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Human Rights
Dignity Is the Bedrock for Workplace Belonging
A new framework identifies racial harms and other forms of discrimination in order to create work environments where everyone feels they belong. Part of an in-depth series that explains how racism operates within organizations.
This Is What Racism Looks Like
SSIR’s second DEI series has one goal: To explain how racism operates within organizations.
Racial bias and discrimination permeate all aspects of our society. And while we at SSIR are focused on producing cross-sector, evidence-based solutions for our audience, we realize that there are complications in overlooking or glossing over the problems in order to home in on solutions.
Namely, there is often little buy-in or investment by the very people who need to change—who need to see, in order to understand, that racial bias and discrimination exist in many forms. If white people do not believe that racism is their problem, then they do not understand that they need to give their time and energy to figuring out the best solutions—not the simple or easy or comfortable solutions. Not the solutions that work for them or that maintain the status quo.
To figure out the best, most effective solutions to addressing and eradicating systemic racism, we need to first see—really see and understand—what racism looks like and how it manifests through organizational policies, practices, and cultures. So, instead of putting the cart before the horse, instead of zeroing in on what can often be superficial “DEI” solutions, it is time to show our readers the many ways that racism exists within organizations and the workplace. Making these stories visible is the first step to seeing and then taking responsibility for the history of racism entrenched in the systems and institutions in which we live and work.
This series of 10 articles, funded by a generous grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, includes original illustrations by the brilliant visual artist Nyanza D.
It is our privilege and honor at SSIR to generate ideas and create conversation about racial justice, dignity, and belonging through the work of the contributors who wrote these articles. We thank them for their generous contributions, vulnerable storytelling, and thoughtful research and analysis.