EPISODE #3.3:

Let’s Talk About the Equity in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with Nikki Lanier

Or listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts.

“I sit here with a law degree, and I’m in a senior vice president role with a nation’s central bank, and I have a great house, great vacations, etc. and I can tell you, I am not operating at my full potency. I don’t even know what that looks like, because so much of my bandwidth and my mental space has been consumed my entire life with trying to reconcile not mattering.” Nikki Lanier, senior vice president and regional executive of the Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 

Nikki is my guest for this episode.  And she asks this critical question: “Do Black people matter as we look at the future of our country and our companies?” She continues, “And I think the answer to that question has historically been no. If we were to close our eyes and this country were to say, ‘As I envision America, 2050, where are the Black people? Where are they from a critical standpoint?’ The answer to that question historically has been, ‘No, you don’t really matter.’”

How can Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts make any headway at all? Nikki has some clear advice. 

She says equity means we need to look at both how we address what we see in front of us by way of current manifestations of racism, and how do we remedy and respond to the lingering impacts of racism, such that our workforce development and our employees’ sense of security and sense of safety and opportunities are heard and addressed. 

At the Federal Reserve Bank, Nikki says DEI is not just a social justice or charitable imperative, but an economic imperative that impacts all Americans. 

By 2040, people of color will be the majority of our population in the USA. 

She says, “So it’s in your best interest to make sure that Black and brown communities and people thrive.”

Here is a snapshot of a few topics we cover in this podcast:

• How and why companies have focused on diversity rather than equity and inclusion
• Data showing that DEI has an impact on companies’ bottom lines
• Why DEI is much more than a social justice issue – it is an economic imperative that will affect all of us  
• How we undervalue the impact of our social conditioning and what we need to do now to overcome these limitations 
• The difference in fairness vs. equity and why the distinction is important  
• The importance of activating anti-racism activism and how to do it in the workplace 

More about Nikki Lanier

Nikki Lanier is senior vice president and regional executive of the Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which covers metro Louisville, southern Indiana and western Kentucky. She is also a member of the Bank’s Management Committee.

As leader of the Branch, she connects the public, business leaders, community bankers, community development organizations, and educators—the groups representing Main Street—to the Fed. The Branch hosts various convenings, where information is collected on a variety of industries in consideration of monetary policy deliberations. The two-way exchange of information allows the Branch to disseminate economic data and related information to key audiences, allowing these audiences to make more informed decisions about their organizations. She also oversees the Branch’s community development and economic education initiatives.

Prior to joining the St. Louis Fed in 2014, Ms. Lanier served as personnel cabinet secretary for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, chief human resources officer for Charter Schools USA, vice chancellor of human resources for Maricopa Community Colleges, and other positions in both the health care and legal fields. In her positions, she focused on strategic planning, community partnerships, succession planning, recruitment and retention, and labor negotiations. Ms. Lanier earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Hampton University.

Ms. Lanier is deeply involved in the Louisville community and serves on the boards of Greater Louisville Inc., the Louisville Regional Airport Authority, and the Board of Advisors of University of Louisville’s College of Business. She is the Chair of the Board of OneWest. Ms. Lanier also serves on the LEAD360 Business Development Team, is a member of the UNCF Louisville Leadership Council and is a member of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

In 2019 she was presented with the Robert C. Burks Distinguished Business and Leadership Award. In 2018 she was selected to a national list of notable financial executives, The Business Journals’ Influencers: top 100 executives having an impact on business in communities. She has also been honored as Louisville Business First’s “Woman of Influence,” one of “20 People to Know in Banking and Finance,” “Forty Under 40” and recognized as one of the “10 Most Influential Women of Louisville.” She has also authored a chapter in the book Rethinking Human Resources. 

EPISODE #3.3 TRANSCRIPT

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Welcome to the Conscious Culture Café, the podcast that explores how you can lean into your purpose, live your values, and enhance your social impact through your work. I’m your host, Kathy Miller Perkins.

We are so lucky to have some of Nikki Lanier’s time today because her time is very valuable. Nikki Lanier is a senior vice president and regional executive of the Louisville branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, where she is also a member of the management committee. As leader of the branch, she connects the public, business leaders, community bankers, community development organizations, and educators, those groups representing main street, to the Fed. 

Nikki’s a lawyer by training, and she has also worked in the field of human resources in areas such as healthcare, education, and law before joining the Fed. She is deeply involved in the Louisville community, where she serves on several boards and has won many awards and honors, including recognition as one of the 10 most influential women of Louisville. Welcome, Nikki.

Nikki Lanier:

Well, thank you so much for this opportunity to talk to your listeners today, Kathy. I do want to say that the views that I’m going to express during our talk today are mine and mine alone, and not attributable to the Federal Reserve system, the Bank of St. Louis, or the Louisville branch office.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

I’d really like to begin by hearing you say more about yourself. Could you tell me a little bit more about your background, and how you ended up with the Federal Reserve, and how you came to do what you’re doing?

Nikki Lanier:

Boy, that’s a lot to answer. I’m going to try to do it as succinctly as possible. My background actually is in law, I practiced law for a couple of years in South Florida, where I went to law school at the University of Miami, but the bulk of my career has actually been spent in human resources. And I think of myself, even to this day, as a human resources practitioner, having spent about 18 years toiling in that arena.

And I’ve worked for public sector, private sector, large, small companies, East coast, West coast, North and South, I’ve lived a bunch of different places. So I think that’s kind of given me a rich tapestry to work from as I approached the work that I do now with the Federal Reserve. I happened upon this opportunity as I moved back to Louisville, I’ve lived here twice. In 2014 I came back from a stint in South Florida and found out that the formidable Maria Hampton, who was my predecessor in this role, was retiring. And I threw my name in the hat, having had really no background in economics or banking, but very much steeped in community and very much interested in outreach and helping to distill issues and conversations that have typically been seen as a little daunting. I love helping to distill that for communities, a multitude of communities, which is my job. So there you have it. That’s how I came to find my way to the Federal Reserve.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Oh, that’s great. Your human resource background is interesting in terms of the topic that I want to pursue with you today. Not that your Federal Reserve background isn’t interesting, it is too, both are. 

What I’m focused on today really has to do with companies, with corporations. And I’m interested in your thoughts about diversity, equity, and inclusion in companies, what are they doing right, what maybe could they do to improve? And I thought maybe a good place to start, especially given the 18 years or so that you had a background in human resources, is to talk about how companies are addressing diversity, equity and inclusion.

It seems to me that there are a lot of companies over the last couple of years that are talking a great deal about their purpose, and their values, and how they stand for more than profits, and yet there seems to be a disconnect between that rhetoric around purpose and profits and values, and diversity, equity and inclusion. And I’m confused by that disconnect. Do you note that, or am I wrong about that? What are your thoughts?

Nikki Lanier:

Yeah, it’s definitely a disconnect. And you know, Kathy, my struggle professionally has always been how to discern diversity and inclusion efforts professionally versus personally, because I sit in the seat of a Black woman, and when I hear and connect with employers in the context of their diversity and inclusion pursuit, what I’m hoping for is something that looks and feels much more remedial than what often happens.

What we’ve accomplished in many organizations across the country is exactly what we set out to do. And that is diversity, which says, “If we are planting a garden, we want to make sure that we’ve got a rich panoply of plants and flowers that are included in our garden. We want to be able to pass our eyes upon the beauty of all of these wonderful species and bask in their glory.” So, we’ve done a great job in planting those flowers. 

And then we went on to say, “We have to now, within our organizations, develop master gardeners so that they know, our gardeners, our managers and supervisors, if you will, know how to care for all plants and all flowers.”

But I think what I have longed for, and I think what this moment is now calling for, is a recognition that not all flowers and plants, even as beautiful as they all are unto themselves, they each need different environments in which to thrive. Some do better closer to sunlight, some need to be in cooler environments. Some need to be planted in ground that is tilled differently. Some need more water, some need less, some need different fertilizers. 

I think this idea of, we tend to as a society focus on what’s fair, the fairness of it all, and fairness to us means same.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Good point.

Nikki Lanier:

Fairness and same don’t really equate to equity at all. And so we scratching our heads thinking, “Why aren’t we reaching greater results? Why aren’t we having greater efficacy with our diversity initiatives?” But actually we are. I mean, we’ve done what we said we wanted to do with diversity, but what we really want, hopefully, is more of an equity lens, more recognition that each of these wonderful blooming flowers in this garden, actually have very different needs. They’re starting from very different places and they need different kinds of attention.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

That’s wonderful. I’m a gardener myself, I love that metaphor. That’s a perfect metaphor for what we’ve done and how we’ve fallen short, I think. If a company says that they have a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, it sounds to me like what you’re saying is really their commitment is to diversity, and they haven’t really thought through the equity and the inclusion part of it. Would that be a good take on your metaphor?

Nikki Lanier:

I think so. To the extent that they have, many of these companies might have thought that they have engaged in some discussion on equity and inclusion specifically. They’ve done them through a somewhat limited lens, that doesn’t account for the metaphor that I just talked about. It doesn’t account for the realities, that there are very, very different starting points and need sets and barriers in place. I mean, there’s just some, going back to this metaphor, there are some flowers and plants that just cannot grow in certain soil. And the soil that you have them planted in is not conducive to their growth to begin with. In fact, it kills them.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right, right. Absolutely, as a gardener I know that, I’ve had that happen. So the same thing happens, I guess it sounds like a lot of companies have some faulty assumptions: that we’re all alike, we all thrive in the same way, and so forth. And when that’s not really the case, those assumptions are misplaced, and we’ll never get there with faulty assumptions. Would that be your take on it?

Nikki Lanier:

Absolutely. I would say that I think that too many of our organizations have lulled themselves into the false security that somehow, because we have an EEO policy and a diversity posture, that we have either little, minimal, or no discrimination, prejudice, bias, and stereotype in our workplace. And if we do, somehow these policies that we have constructed minimize the potency of them, when the reality is quite the opposite.

I always argue, there’s no such thing as a neutral organization. It either has lots of racism or excessive amounts of racism. And that’s just because they are a microcosm of the country. It’s not an indictment of the organization, or the efforts, or the hearts and minds of the managers that are at work in those buildings. It’s just a matter of the fact that we exist in a larger society that is just saturated with racism in every aspect of the way that we maneuver our lives, so that we bring all of that, those structures and assumptions and presumptions, to the workplace.

So in my mind, Kathy, I would love to see a diverse, if we’re just talking about diversity, I would love to see a diversity statement and a company that said something like, “We at XYZ company take diversity and inclusion and equity very seriously, so much so that we are segmenting out our diversity programs and initiatives focusing by race and gender sequentially, and not simultaneously.”

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Ah, that’s interesting.

Nikki Lanier:

“And in so doing, we will do everything we can to unearth and address and remedy the belief systems, the structures, and the behaviors that are already at work in our workplace that compromise our diversity initiatives.”

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Wow. Do you know any companies that have taken that strong a stand?

Nikki Lanier:

No.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

I don’t either, unfortunately. And in fact, what I have been hearing over the last few weeks, and as our listeners are well aware, and as you’re well aware, we’ve had our problems in Louisville over the last couple of months, as well as over the country, there’s been a lot of conversation among corporate leaders that, “Well, gee, we have this DEI, or diversity equity and inclusion commitment, so that means we’re taking a stand against racism.” But they’re not.

I mean, it’s easy enough to say that, but I don’t hear them talking about their belief systems and examining their belief system. So what would it take? How would we deal with that in corporations or even in the broader community, Nikki?

Nikki Lanier:

Okay. So I think the very first question, Kathy, we have to ask ourselves is, “Do Black people matter as we look at the future of our country and our companies?” And I think the answer to that question has historically been “no.” 

While we can probably think of a few Blacks that have mattered, and some exceptions to that, certain people that we found our way to mattering within certain context, I think as a race, if we were to close our eyes And this country were to say, “As I envision America, 2050, where are the Black people? Where are they from a critical standpoint?” The answer to that question historically has been, “No, you don’t really matter.”

And so, then we have to determine, okay, well now do we matter? So is there anything about this particular awakening, these set of circumstances over the last couple of months, that has awakened any particular epiphanies around how much our mattering matters to the larger economic foothold in this country, and for that matter, the larger national security state?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes, right.

Nikki Lanier:

So, if the question is that yes, we matter, I would suspect that then companies would be compelled to say, “Okay, then diversity and inclusion isn’t necessarily our respite. Equity is.” And equity means we have to look at both how we address what we see in front of us by way of current manifestations of racism, but how do we remedy and respond to the lingering impacts of racism, such that our workforce development and our employees’ sense of security and sense of safety and opportunities to be heard. All of that is now compromised. And it impacts not just our bottom line, but the quality of the employment experience for those Black employees.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Absolutely.

Nikki Lanier:

Which ultimately impacts the bottom line, because you can’t get, even for me, as I sit here with a law degree, and I’m in a senior vice president role with a nation’s central bank, and I have a great house, great home, great vacations, blah, blah, blah, I can tell you, I am not operating at my full potency. I don’t even know what that looks like, because so much of my bandwidth and my mental space has been consumed my entire life with trying to reconcile not mattering. There’s a piece of that that I think we’ve got to recognize makes us a little bit more hapless as a country, because we’re not recognizing and utilizing the fullness of our brethren.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Oh, absolutely. But you said that it’s the equity piece of DEI that really is important, and I get that. What about the inclusion piece? What is the difference between equity and inclusion, in your opinion?

Nikki Lanier:

So, yeah, and this is absolutely my opinion. So I don’t know that if you were to Google this if this would reconcile, but –

Kathy Miller Perkins:

It doesn’t matter. I’m asking for your opinion.

Nikki Lanier:

There you go, Kathy. I love it. When I think about equity, I’m thinking about remedy. I’m thinking about remediating past wrongs, accelerated programs, initiatives, investments, resource allocation, specifically designed to amplify and accelerate closing the gap between Black people and fill in the blank. And the blank could be wealth, income equality, could be housing shortages, educational attainment, could be access to healthcare, promotional opportunities at work. So that’s what I think about. And it feels, I recognize that when I talk about it in that construct, what is, I think, abhorrent to a lot of employers is that when I talk about it it feels a little affirmative actiony, a little set asidey, a little like quotas.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, so what’s wrong with that?

Nikki Lanier:

Kathy, don’t get me started. Nobody wants to hear it, because then it becomes, it feels unfair. And we, for some reason, have aversion, this repulsive reaction to unfair, especially if it unfairly benefits Black people.

So it becomes entangled into those conversations. But that’s what I mean when I say equity. Inclusion is more like – I think to me inclusion kind of happens organically. If you have a solid equity plan in place, meaning how other people feel about their sense of belonging in a place, and what does that belonging have to do with activating and unleashing the best of me in this setting?

That’s the inclusion piece. So the diversity gets me in the door, inclusion helps assure that I am comfortable enough, seen and heard enough, valued enough to have the best of me activated and actualized. 

But equity, oh my gosh, equity is like you, employer, recognize that there have been systems and policies and practices in place that have been designed, not just to assure that I am somehow muted and diminished in my life to include my work life, but so was my mother, and my father, and my grandparents, and their grandparents. And because of that, even with my academic credentialing and with my pedigree and whatever else I’m bringing, I still am operating at a disadvantage that you, employer, feel compelled to help close.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

You talked about this unassessed type of white privilege as part of the problem. It’s almost unintentional. I mean, it may also be intentional, but what are you talking about when you’re talking about the unassessed type of white privilege, and is that part of the problem?

Nikki Lanier:

We underestimate, undervalue how deeply we have been conditioned to fear, dislike, bemoan, assign lesser value to Black skin. And that would include Black people. I mean, we’ve all been conditioned.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Really?

Nikki Lanier:

Yeah. I mean, this country teaches us Black doesn’t matter as much.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Right.

Nikki Lanier:

And Black people fall victim to that as well. And so what the opposite of that does is it’s, if Black is not as good, as good as white, there’s this presumed betterness, Oh my God, is that even a word, better?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Who cares?

Nikki Lanier:

Presumed better that comes that’s a birthright for whites. And so it’s almost passed in utero, so there’s this unassessed assumption that white values and white norms and rituals and presumptions of intellect and right and wrong win the day. I think a lot of white people don’t understand how much Black people have to understand that in order to maneuver in our daily lives.

We have to know, I have to know how white people value Friday and Saturday nights. What kind of beer do you like to drink? What kind of bars do you like to go to? What kind of music do you like to listen to? What rituals do you honor by way of Thanksgiving and Christmas? How do you bury the dead in the white community? Those are the things that I have to know because I have to be conversant in them in order to have the small talk that matters in terms of my career growth. So I have to be able to talk about that at the dinner table, dinner conversations, and the receptions and those kinds of things. But when I talk about, for me, things like pledging allegiance is hard for me, but that’s a white cultural norm, and it’s just kind of an unassessed thing. Of course, people pledge allegiance.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

You mean to the country, to the flag?

Nikki Lanier:

Yeah. I never really figured out how to believe that fully, given my experience. And then other silly stuff, like things that we eat for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and things that we do with our repass over after we have a funeral in our community, and the role that dancing and singing and play is a part of our ritual and our expressiveness. Black people are very, very expressive with our hands and with our mouths and our eyes and our bodies, and that was met with a fair amount of cynicism and fear with the white community. So there’s just this kind of benign presumption that the white dominant culture has been able to maneuver in their entire existence, the entire time that we have been Americans, the culture has been kind of deciding what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s palatable, what’s not, and what’s socially acceptable and what’s not, in an unassessed way.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Do you think that that’s changing? Do you see any signs that white people are reassessing? What about business leaders, what role do they play in all of this? Or are they playing?

Nikki Lanier:

Yeah, Kathy, I don’t know. I think this has been a jarring time.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes, definitely.

Nikki Lanier:

I mean, I’m sitting here recording this podcast with you, and I have to admit I’m a little jaded. I’m equal parts, hopeful and jaded.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, me too.

Nikki Lanier:

Right, and the confliction that that kind of coexisting brings. So I just don’t know. I’m not sure what we’re reacting to sometimes. While I’m on some social media platforms and I see some white allies coming to the aid and to the defense of Black Lives Matter, and speaking quite eloquently and emphatically about the plight that the Black people have had to face, and are still facing, and I’ve watched the reactions that they are getting, lots of venomous reactions, and they’re staying the course. So on one hand, I’m like, “Wow, this is interesting.” So I’ve just never felt defended and protected in this way, at least from social media, Facebook posts. But on the other hand, I’m also reminded that I’m not sure with how many of us this is about an internal introspective reawakening, or how many of it is it just we don’t want any more bricks thrown through the window.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, right. I’m also skeptical, and hopeful at the same time, because I keep thinking people are having conversations they haven’t had before. That’s a good thing. Within companies, within our communities. But how far beyond the conversations will we go? Where do we go next? Is it just going to be conversations? Is it just going to be, “Okay, now I understand a little bit better.” Well understanding is a step, but it doesn’t change things. So what’s next?

Nikki Lanier:

So let me push on that a little bit. So I think the conversations and the understanding is really critical, only because we have so much to unlearn. So this isn’t about new skills, lobbing our new skills and our new understandings on top of the old ones, it’s about emptying out that bucket altogether and relearning this idea of mattering and importance and contextual relevance that’s been assigned to some people and not others. So that’s important work, so these conversations, this is really critical. But as critical is the work, as you’ve shared, in dismantling the systems that have been built based on what we know we need to unlearn, if that makes sense.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes, it does.

Nikki Lanier:

So it’s hard to dismantle, and when people talk about defunding police, and dismantling this system and that system, it’s hard to hear that, because you’re hearing it through a lens from the old learning.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Good point.

Nikki Lanier:

So that’s why that the learning piece of it, I don’t know that we can spend enough time on that, because we’ve had 400 years to learn the way we’ve learned.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

That’s right. Good point.

Nikki Lanier:

You figured out how this rhythm works and these patterns. Yeah, so I think the conversations are important, but at the same time there’s a sense of urgency around investment. And when I’m talking about investment, I’m talking about all those resources: time, energy, money, attention, heart, mind, all that kind of resource investment pointed to Black people, Black initiatives, Black communities, Black businesses, Black neighborhoods, Black serving and Black led organizations in particular.

I’m happy to see that there’s a little bit of a proliferation in the patronage of Black businesses. I mean, that’s critical. I’m seeing that there are more corporations across the country that are segmenting out resources, funding resources for Black initiatives and Black communities. Netflix just announced something, National PNC bank just announced something, I think JP Morgan Chase announced a similar initiative. I’d love to see more of Louisville local companies, especially given that we’re in the hot seat, we’re ground zero with Breonna’s case here.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

We are, yes we are.

Nikki Lanier:

I’m a little disappointed in what’s I haven’t seen in some of the corporate structures with our private sector businesses here, in terms of significant set-asides and allocation funds specifically for Black causes, so I’m hoping that we’ll get that together. So those are some of the things that I would suggest.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

You and I have talked about, briefly, the importance of discussing these social issues at work, back to the conversation piece of it, and the importance of the conversation. And yet it seems that many managers, especially middle managers, let’s say, and probably executives too in many companies, aren’t really equipped to lead those conversations. So what do we do about that? Who leads those conversations? How do we get those conversations to be the right conversations, meaningful conversations?

Nikki Lanier:

Yeah. We can definitely end up tripping all over ourselves as we’re trying to move through this. I think that that may be all right. So there’s a lot of discomfort and a lot of worry and consternation about saying the right thing, and not offending, and so much so that we stall I think what could be very rich conversations around how each other feels, and what each other has been taught to think about the other. It could get very volatile, but at the same time it could be incredibly poignant. And so you’re right, I mean to a certain extent the facilitation will matter, but I think just the boldness and the courage to want to sit down knee to knee, holding hands with somebody at work and saying, “I just don’t understand what the deal is with your concern about white, or you’re concerned about Black,” and there’s something very powerful in that.

At the Fed, I’m happy to say, I’m so pleased with everything that we have been doing to try to unearth and unpack these issues of late. We’ve struggled, and struggled through the struggle in trying to figure out how do we better utilize our ERG, which is our Employee Resource Group, specifically our African American Employee Resource Group, and we leveraged that organization in helping us understand the plight of the Black lived experience in our employment constructs. So that’s really bold and interesting, and leveraging them more in kind of a consultative capacity, so some employers maybe can think about how they could do that. A lot of employers already have these groups in place, so you can think about them in a more kind of consultative capacity.

We spent hours combing the internet and other organizations trying to get referrals for some companies that may do well in this facilitation space. Coming up a little short, I mean, there’s maybe a handful out there, but this is a little bit unchartered territory for these kind of direct conversations.

And I think you’re right, the middle management role is a hard one. It’s a hard one. I know for a lot of employers, many of whom I used to work with, that’s where the stop gap tends to happen. That’s where messages tend to get little bit more muddled, and where commitment seems to break down. And I don’t want to besmirch that layer of leadership.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

That’s a tough job, middle management.

Nikki Lanier:

There’s a lot coming at them. And then you must reconcile your own belief systems and so forth against whatever message you’re trying to carry. So it is, it’s hard, but I think employers, particularly top level managers, top level senior C suite managers, have got to be more in tune with what’s happening with their frontline leaders and what messages are getting lost, particularly on the issue of diversity. I know there’s some employers that are already struggling with how to get their middle and frontline leaders aligned to diversity messages, and so their heads is probably going to blow off their neck if you ask them to align to it.

But that’s the work. That’s the work.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

That’s the work.

Nikki Lanier:

And so much like employers are always pretty emphatic and dogmatic about what they stand for, mission, vision values is not negotiable, our output, and our commitment to our customers, and our commitment to the workplace, that is an employer choice, that’s usually not negotiable. So at the same time, do we have the backbone and the courage to say, “Our posture on equity and our desire to be a part of the ecosystem that’s going to right historic wrongs is who we are now about. That’s not negotiable.”

What a lot of employers are worried about, I think they see some value in segmenting out, compartmentalizing a diversity strategy that says, “Okay, first we’re going to focus on the most marginalized group in our country, that is African-Americans. And we’re going to plan for and design equity programs that will address that level of marginalization.” And whatever that design is and that plan is will then help the next most marginalized group, and the next most marginalized groups. So if you plan for the broad swath, you’re going to really help remedy many of the ills that beset minority communities in general.

But a lot of people are concerned or really worried about, how do I answer the question to the white male employee that says, “What about me?”

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah, right.

Nikki Lanier:

Or, “What about white people?” And, “This isn’t fair.” And that is a horrifying experience for many employers to think about. They just don’t know how to answer it. And they don’t know how to answer it, because we are using our old thinking. The thinking that we talked about in terms of what we need to unlearn, and this unassessed white deal suggests that anything that is for a minority group is defacto offensive to the majority group.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes, yes. Right. That whole unassessed white supremacy issue that we talked about previously. Yeah, interesting. So what’s the answer? How do employers handle that? How do employers answer that question to the white male who says, “This isn’t fair to me”?

Nikki Lanier:

So, my initial response was, “Well, it’s not designed to be fair to you.”

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Well true, that’s very true.

Nikki Lanier:

That is the answer. And so then how do you make them okay with it? I don’t know.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes, good point. Yes.

Nikki Lanier:

But I think one of the things that I’m really happy about is that the Fed, in our role as central bank overseer of monetary policy, what we are reckoning with is how can we help amplify and talk about racism as an economic imperative.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Good one.

Nikki Lanier:

Not just a social justice or charitable imperative, but as economic imperative that impacts all Americans. So it will take a while, but I think one of the arguments that you could pose, one of the responses, let me not say arguments, that you can pose to white males who’ve might feel left out of equity initiatives is that if we cannot reconcile and remedy how we have treated, we collectively en mass in this country, how we have treated Black people, specifically Black, and Brown more generally, we have been able to move through the last 400 years with some sort of economic stronghold dominating in the world, we can’t continue to do it. At some point this sun sets. This honeymoon, sun sets.

If we are continually underutilizing, undervaluing, criminalizing, and dismissing the value of Black people, we all lose as a country. And that in part is because by 2040 minorities will be the majority, and we cannot as a stronghold, as a country, maintain our footing with a majority of our citizens not having had real interaction with or exposure to the American dream.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes. Oh, that’s an excellent point.

Nikki Lanier:

We all want to retire at some point, and it’s going to be difficult if we don’t have a robust middle-class on which to rely. Who’s going to make up the middle class if Black people, Black and Brown people haven’t been able to penetrate those ranks? You’re not going to be able to retire. How about that?

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yeah. There’s some really practical arguments. That’s good.

Nikki Lanier:

So it’s in your best interest to make sure that Black and Brown communities and people thrive.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

I wanted to talk just briefly about activism, and in some previous work that you’ve done you talked about, there are those who are actively racist, and those who are actively fighting racism. And yet you say the numbers and impact may not be equal. Can you say more about that for our listeners? And specifically, can you give some advice to our listeners about how to become more effective and active in fighting racism?

Nikki Lanier:

So what we need and what we haven’t had in our country’s history, really, is a concerted movement of anti-racism. And so that means actively, not passively, working against systems, structures, beliefs, ideology that promotes racist structures, systems, beliefs, ideology, belief systems, versus people who just say, “Well, I’m not racist.”

 Not being racist is different than being anti-racist. So you cannot be racist and still be ineffectual, completely ineffectual, because you’re sitting there quiet in your room, in your house, and never advocating. So this is as much about the advocacy push. Because quiet non-racist aren’t necessarily helpful.

We must figure out how to activate those voices and activate activism. So not everybody’s going to be protesting in the streets or yelling at people on LinkedIn. That’s not your path. But if you have an apparatus, a mechanism at your disposal, however you choose to demonstrate your belief system in your personal life and professional life, then do that in the context of anti-racism, as a champion of anti-racism. I think we think that if we just sit and do nothing America’s idle state, the non-racist environment, the opposite is true. America’s idle, state is a racist environment. And so we have to actively work against that, because doing nothing will perpetuate the racism.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Each listener I’m sure has some means by which they can become anti-racist. Whether it’s a platform that they have, whether it’s within their own families, whether it’s speaking out, there are some way that every person, at least this is what I’m interpreting you’re saying, there’s some way that everybody can become actively anti-racist, rather than just plain not racist.

Nikki Lanier:

Yes. And let’s be honest, Kathy, then there’s also people who are just racist.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Well, yeah, absolutely. Yes, indeed. Too many.

Nikki Lanier:

There may be some folks listening to this podcast who are just like, “I ain’t doing any of that.” That’s just their reality.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

So what do we do about that?

Nikki Lanier:

I don’t have much time or energy really to spend on racist people. What I’d rather do is focus more on the folks that we just talked about. Those that are either non racist, not racist, or maybe not as effectual in their anti-racism. With the hope that at some point those that have belief either know themselves to be racist or are racist and don’t know it, both of which are equally as damaging. There could be seeds that will be planted in those hearts and minds that perhaps then can be watered by someone else and fertilized by somebody.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

I like that. I like going back to the garden.

Nikki Lanier:

We may not be able to watch that seed bear fruit, but there could be something that may be planted in that heart and mind that could help the next generation. But for now, that’s just not how I choose to spend my energy and time

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Yes. Well, it sounds like it’s more productive, what you’re doing is more productive than spending your energy and time on the racists.

Nikki Lanier:

And it helps preserve my sanity.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Absolutely. Yes, indeed. And we all need some of that right now, don’t we, to preserve that? Nikki, thank you so much for this really energizing conversation. I appreciate it so much, and I know the listeners are going to really not only enjoy, but take away a lot of value from what you had to say. I certainly am. And I thank you for your time.

Nikki Lanier:

Kathy, thank you. Really appreciated the opportunity.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

Good. We’ll get together again and talk more about this in five months to see where we are there then.

Nikki Lanier:

That’d be great. That would be great.

Kathy Miller Perkins:

All right, Nikki, thanks. Thanks for listening to the Conscious Culture Café. If you liked what you heard, connect with us at millerconsultants.com. You can access the show notes and receive our free materials. See you next episode.