Black Lives Matter: How to become a better ally

Black Lives Matter: How to become a better ally with Thomas Igeme from ServiceNow

Becoming a better black community ally in the corporate space

I'm excited that you're joining me. I'm glad that you are because I have a very important interview to share with you. This is pertaining to equality and the Black Lives Matter movement. You have been seeing all of this in the news. You've been hearing about it. Companies have been responding in different ways. If you work in talent development or big company, you are involved in the response to this which as your job already became much more important under COVID-19 and now you're thrown into how do we raise awareness? How do we create more equality, diversity, and inclusiveness in our companies? Some of you have been involved in DEI already for months or years and have been saying, “Why is it taking so long for people to wake up?”

People are waking up and these conversations are happening. There's been listening sessions and many companies all over the US took the day off for Juneteenth. The awareness is sky-high compared to where it has been in the past and it's still not enough. I want to do my part and I've been having a lot of conversations with DEI professionals. I've been getting more into this world. I've had a couple of episodes on that. I’m getting more passionate about it and increasing diversity especially inclusion in companies. I even run a program called The Inclusive Leader, that was created by my friend, Brent Snow, for companies that have been impactful.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been going on for years but when it heated up after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, I was a little bit frozen. What do I do as a white man and privileged white podcaster? I know I have a platform and a following but what can I do? I posted a couple of things on social media. I hadn't put anything on the show yet. I started doing some reading and looking for resources. One of the pieces of advice that I heard was to reach out to people in the Black Network or your black friends to find out how they're feeling. It was awkward at first, but I did that. I reached out to many of my black friends and it led to several great conversations about how they're feeling and thinking.

I learned that is difficult to do at first but it always results in a great conversation which is what we need. Number two, everybody is different, has different opinions, and different experiences so we need to dig into that. I also want it to be able to share some expertise on the show especially because this movement caused me to reflect and I went back through the list of guests that I've had on this show over the years. There have been over 160 and quite frankly, only four of them have been black. That is embarrassing for me. I know in talent development, the network is predominantly white and my network is predominantly white, but I know that we can do better. Companies are looking at this and saying, “We can do better.” I want to let you know that I am looking at this as well and saying, “I know we can do better.” I can prop up people from all different backgrounds, races, religions, and give them a platform and also share those different perspectives with you.

I'm committing to doing that and I'm starting now. I saw an article on LinkedIn by a man named Thomas Igeme, who posted about how to become a better black ally. For those of us who are white privileged, you're Asian, any other race, religion, or background, whatever it may be who have woken up during this movement to say, “I want to help. How do I become more of a black ally or a better ally to the Black Network?” He wrote an article about how to do that. I loved it. I don't know how I came across it. It showed up in my feed luckily. I sent Thomas a connection request and I asked him, “Can I interview you about this article because I need to get this information out to my network.” He accepted and we got on and did an interview live on LinkedIn, and it is fantastic.

Thomas answers all the questions that many of us have been asking especially, how do we have these conversations in our companies? I know many of you are having that now. I launched a new community for talent development professionals. On our first call, one of the subjects that we covered on our first community call was how to conduct these listening sessions in our companies because some people had already been doing it and some had not started yet. We started to share some best practices on that. I'll share that in a future episode but for now, I want to get to this interview with Thomas.

Thomas Igeme is a Manager Development lead at ServiceNow, which is a tech company based on customer service in the Bay Area. He is also a professor at Stanford University connected to the Graduate School of Business. He has been fighting this fight for a long time. He's in the corporate world and the academic world. He has a very unique perspective on all of this. I was excited to get him on and the interview delivers everything that we want to talk about from a personal and professional perspective. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Thomas Igeme on how to become a better black ally, especially in the corporate space. Enjoy.

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I am with Thomas Igeme who is Head of People Manager Development at ServiceNow and an instructor at Stanford connected with the business school there. He’s someone that I connected with on LinkedIn as this Black Lives Matter movement was getting underway. Thomas, I'm excited to have you on the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Andy.

Thank you for coming. We were getting to know each other a little bit. I already know you have an interesting background with an eclectic mix of experience. We can start there. Where are you from and what do you do now?

Where I’m from is a very interesting question. I was not born in the United States. I was born in Kenya. This will come up a little bit more important in my story but is helpful to know. I grew up quite poor when I was in Kenya and I'm also gay. Both of those are going to be important. Growing up, there were not too many opportunities. Coming to the United States and seeking a better life was as much about survival for me and my family as it was about self-actualization. At eighteen, I came to this country with exactly $273 to my name. I was able to teach myself to take the SATs. I ended up being able to earn a diversity scholarship to Stanford. It is one of the things that had come out of the Civil Rights Movement in the ‘70s and that opportunity changed my life forever.

[bctt tweet="Being a great ally is about centering on the experience of the marginalized person." via="no"]

My relationship with America and to race in America then tends to have these dual pieces. I live as a black person in this country with some of the day-to-day challenges that have come to light and with all of that but I'm also a recipient of the Civil Rights Movement and the beneficiary. If it was not for those who've gone before and fought for equal access and racial justice, I would not have access to what I have now. My energy and passion to support the black community, America and the American dream as we feel born out of what it has given me and my desire for it to give that to all Americans.

It sounds a very healthy mix of gratitude for what's already been accomplished and the opportunities that have been presented to you with also the desire to make things better with the knowledge that we can do better in this country.

We can do a lot better.

You work as a People Development Manager at ServiceNow as well as teaching at Stanford. Can you tell me a little bit more about what you do there professionally?

I'm responsible for how we build great people managers at ServiceNow. There's been a recognition across the talent development industry and ServiceNow is very different and that the role of the people manager is critically important. It's probably the most important role in organizational success. This is true all the way from your frontline manager right up to your CEO. Very often, the role of a people manager is quite frankly is an afterthought. We promote people into the role because they were great at being individuals. We don't pay much attention to them until we're thinking of them as executives and leadership. Often the role of what it takes to pull together a team, to invest in them, to make sure they feel cared for, to make sure that they're working optimally is underinvested in. ServiceNow does not want to under-invest there. My job is to pull together a strategy and help execute with an incredible team, how we define what great is, and dive that all the way through.

Dear Newly Activated Black Ally

It's so interesting that what you talked about is what I talk about a lot of the biggest challenge in talent development which is people being promoted because they're good at their job without any training on how to become a manager, but we're not talking about that. I've had that topic covered many times on my show. We're going to talk about something that is much more relevant to the times and quite frankly, an awkward topic for a lot of people. This all started because I saw an article that you posted on LinkedIn titled Dear Newly Activated Black Ally. I read this article and I felt like you were talking to me because I'm someone who is I like to think raised with the idea that everybody is equal. We give love and generosity to everybody. I was lucky to have great parents who were open-minded like that and yet, I'm still someone who lives a very privileged life. I have not spent too much time thinking about, “How can I help the underprivileged, the minority groups in this country or my black friends who may not have the same opportunities that I do?” Can you tell me why did you decide to write that article?

It was a labor of love. I did have a number of people reach out to me and ask exactly what you articulated, Andy. I've never thought of myself as racist. I desired to live in a fair world but I recognize that I could be doing more. I want to do more, what should I do and recognizing the difficulty of that conversation. It’s naming a couple of things that made that conversation hard on either end. For a lot of people, there's a sense of guilt as they felt that, “I feel bad for the fact that I have not been as engaged as I did before. I didn't understand it.” I'll be honest on my end. There was a sense of fatigue with how many times am I going to be able to answer this question?

There's also some of the pain because there are a lot of people and I'm one of the activists who have been crying about this for years. It is not a new movement. There's a bit of a sense of, “Why did it take so long?” In these moments, we always have an opportunity. What I wanted to do was clearly articulate first for myself and then for anybody else who might be helped out by the emotional labor of articulating out there. What I felt is a clear opportunity for us was. There are many things I talk about in the article, but the biggest one is this is an opportunity to commit in a new way and stick around for the long haul for the welfare of anti-racism. You call that something that is important in this work if we truly are going to make a difference.

We tend to be a very individualistic society here in America. When we think about racism, the first thought that comes to mind is my own thoughts and beliefs, “Do I like people who are different from me? Do I believe in a fair world?” Those are important. Recognizing our biases, pulling through, and doing that work is important, but that is not the fight that we're up against. When we think about the killing of black people on mass by the police, when we think about mass incarceration, when we think about systemic underinvestment in education, those things are much bigger than any one individual. It isn’t all that affected by how you feel about the person who's next to you. Those are systemic changes that are going to require all of us to get activated to push our ground.

In some ways, it's counterintuitive. The question of, “Am I a racist?” as a binary yes or no isn’t the true important question. The question is, “What am I doing with the resources that I have to fight against the racism that has been present in my world?” That's what it means to be anti-racist versus a non-racist. It's taking a step up and saying, “I'm going to do my part to fight the fight.” What I love about that framework is it doesn't matter where you are on the journey, you have a role to play. For some people, it is about beginning to get engaged but there's always more that we can do. When I take a look at my own life and I think, “What more could I do leveraging my position, my power, my access to help create a more just and less racist world?” There's always a step more for each of us.

I'm glad you clarified that because there's a tendency for many of us and I'll speak for my peers in the white community to say, “I'm open-minded. I don't think I'm racist so I'm not part of the problem.” We can talk about whether that's being silent and going on your way is still a part of the problem or not but when you're talking about the difference between not being a racist and being anti-racist. I don't know why I thought of this analogy. You can tell me if this is terrible or this is relevant, but I was thinking that sometimes if I have a couple of drinks or two, I self-reflect and think like, “Am I an alcoholic? I can stop this.” Whether I'm drinking too much or not is very different from whether I'm actively helping my friends live a better life or helping other people get over those problems because there are many alcoholics out there who are dealing with a lot of struggles. I know that's very different from racism and systemic racism and things like that but I'm trying to sometimes put things in perspective for people to think about, how should I be thinking about this thing?

Black Lives Matter Ally: The danger of talking about racism being systemic is it's easy for us to forget that these are real people's lives that we're talking about.

I love that analogy in terms of what it calls out in terms of this idea of this spectrum and how by sometimes centering ourselves, we can lose sight of what the problem is. I think similarly and you called out something else that is very helpful here, that I'm seeing more and more in our conversation around racism that is important as we think about what it means to be a great ally. Once again, this is hard for all of us, but being a great ally is about centering the experience of somebody else of the marginalized person. The real core question and I'm repeating what I said but in a different way. It isn’t, “Am I racist or not?” but rather, “Is the marginalized person experiencing racism or not?”

Bringing in the fight not until I feel like I've exercised my own demons but until they're getting a fair shot. The truth is that's a longer fight. That is a lifelong fight in many ways and that is going to involve and call on us to make us uncomfortable in ways that we may not think. There are so many ways that if we truly embrace in to this, we end up taking risks like having conversations or trying things. I call this out in my article many times with the best of intentions offending the people who we are trying to help. I loved your analogy, but you could've come up with an analogy that I thought was awful. I'm still grateful that you try it because if you're not able to try, we're not able to grow. The only way you have the energy to do that is by choosing not to center yourself, but rather the problem that we are all united in addressing.

As a content creator myself, I'm always interested in the personal side of this and we'll get back into the anti-racism stuff. When you post that article, were you nervous about that?

I was. I shared it with one or two people and I got a bunch of feedback. Are you sure you should say this and was I going to make people uncomfortable? This is a fear for a lot of people in this work, “Would I run the risk of turning off people who are trying to get engaged but might leave feeling too uncomfortable to push forward?” That being said, what I realized is we all need to do in this work is get over our prioritizing of comfort over adjustment. We all are going to be uncomfortable on this journey as for what we share and the mistakes that we're going to make. The big part of me is like, “I'm not going to get this perfectly right. At some point, it needs to be more important to me to speak the truth than it is for me to make other people comfortable and make myself comfortable.”

I was floored. I did not expect to get the response that I did. I was hoping to speak to my immediate network. I've been so encouraged not by the re-shares and the views, but by the personal notes that I've received from people. One of my core asks when I wrote it was the recognition. I'll give you a spoiler alert for those of us who's been in the fight for a longer time. This will tire you out. There's a lot of energy and excitement now, but we are trying to unwind a 400-year-old problem. When you think about what that takes, there's going to be many days where you're not sure that you still have what it takes to go forward or where the distractions of life coming your way.

What I ask people to do is whatever you can do to bottle up and somehow notes the energy that you're feeling in this moment, and my clear ask was write a letter to itself for those moments. Call out and articulate why this is so important to you now and why you feel this is urgent so that you can keep coming back to it when you inevitably feel low on energy resources. I was so hearkened, not the people who read it but the people who did that and shared some of their messages with me. It ended up being what I was not at all writing this for incredibly healing to hear people acknowledge their previous racism and that they wanted to do better. To hear people make commitments to what they were going to do, not for themselves but for the families they were committed to raising. I will say that you're finding me tired and in many ways deeply exhausted on this but more hopeful for a lasting change than I ever have been.

When you put stuff out there that is potentially a little controversial, it's always going to make you a little nervous, but that's also how we make a change. That's also how we influence people. That's how we get conversations started. If you hadn't done that, you and I wouldn't know each other, we wouldn't be talking now and sharing this conversation. I'm sure you've had many others. I've dealt with that too because after the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, I started reading, “What can I do? How to become a better black ally?” One of the pieces of advice was to reach out to your black friends and people in the Black Network and ask how you can support them. At the same time, every time I go to craft that message and ask somebody for a phone call or an interview like this, I feel like, “Just because they're black, somebody could be offended by this,” but at the same time if I don't do it, then no conversations happen.

How To Become A Better Ally

I decided that we need to have these conversations. I started sending invites out and I've had a lot of great conversations as a result. My point in that and to encourage other people is there's always going to be a risk. This is a new territory. You're probably going to screw it up no matter what side you're on. If you don't take a chance and don't start that conversation, don't talk to people, don't have a thought to try to do something, then nothing changes, nothing happens. We do have to take action even when it's uncomfortable. You've already given some great tips on how to be a great black ally and the fact that this is a movement, not a moment so it's going to take a while. What other tips or advice would you give particularly to those of us, the people in my network, who are mostly white and privileged? Let's say a lot of them are like me who want deeply to be an ally, but never thought about it before now. I don't want to sit around feeling guilty. I would rather take action and do something to help.

I like to think of the actions that you can take. I'm a recovering management consultant, so I enlist. I'll use my simple list. There are lots of amazing ones out there and it's listen, learn, act and reflect. The first piece starts with exactly what you called out which is taking a moment to go out and listen. Listen to the stories of people different from you prioritizing marginalized voices. Some of this is reaching out to the people in your network. I will say, and you call this out, many of them may be tired and exhausted from having those conversations. There are lots of amazing resources out there with personal stories. I started by talking about how this is systemic and the power of recognizing this is systemic is it helps us understand that everybody needs to get engaged.

The danger with talking about it being systemic is it's easy for us to forget that these are real people's lives that we're talking about. The more that we are connected to real people and understand these as real experience, the better we are. I always encourage you to start off with listening. There are a number of wonderful podcasts out there and then ask yourself, “On a weekly basis, when am I hearing the stories of people who are different from me,” and figure out ways to build that into your system. The second piece is to learn. There's long and unfortunately painful history. Racism in general and anti-black racism in particular in America. It behooves anyone who's going on this allyship journey to learn. Learn about it, learn about the context, and learn what people have been trying, what works, and what doesn’t.

The good news is that while we are waking up to this in a new way as a nation, there are activists and people who have been crying this song for generations who have tried and proven ways of doing this. We don't need to start from scratch so leverage that and go out. A lot of people find the book, White Fragility, a great place to start as they're coming into their journey. For those of you who have Netflix, I recommend the documentary, 13th by Ava DuVernay, but literally a simple Google search. The Smithsonian has a great article on how to talk about race. It’s an online resource that will walk you through. Take a moment to educate yourself. Part of that is about doing the work. The second part of that is it's a huge amount of care. When you reach out to the people, black, indigenous, or people of color in your network, knowing that you have done some research on your own is a huge way to make the commitment that you're not asking them to do the work for you but you are taking the time to do it yourself.

[bctt tweet="Try and avoid the paralysis of guilt that is so focused on trying to figure out the right thing to do." via="no"]

I was having a conversation with my wife. One of the things we were debating was this whole idea of reaching out to black people in our network. She had been listening to these podcasts and stories about all of these black people who were frankly annoyed with all the white people that we're reaching out to them. When we talked about it, it sounded like the difference was, and it's all in the approach of people reaching out and saying, “Educate me on this movement.” When you're now putting the onus on them asking them to do all the work versus what you're saying is coming in educated, “I've been educating myself. I want to hear your personal story and how I can support you.”

One of the things that it also brings up and that is worth repeating at this moment is that everyone's story is going to be different. That's the value of listening. Everyone is going to be in a different place. I like to say that there are moments where I'm aware and saddened by the people who haven't reached out to me. There are also moments where I feel exhausted by the people who have and I'm the same circle. How do you figure that out? You've got to go out there, ask, making that time and recognize that the answer is going to be different and that black people like any group are not a monolith. I love that. Thank you for calling that out.

My last two things where act and reflect. It’s so important to take an act no matter how small on the path to anti-racism. For you maybe, it is a post on social media, a conversation in your home, a conversation with your team at work, or it is making a donation to an organization like the NAACP or the Black Lives Matter movement that has been in this work. You'll figure out what's right for you. One of the things that we like to say is there are lots of tracks to take on this journey. There is no right way to act. When something is systemic, the good news is we need to hit it from every single angle. That is okay. If you feel like your role is going out and peacefully protesting. We'd love and welcome you. If you feel like your role is going out and having deep intimate conversations with your family, please do that too.

Try and avoid the paralysis of guilt that is so focused on trying to figure out the right thing to do that you don’t do anything at all. That goes to my last piece which is to reflect. You and I have said it. None of us are perfectly anti-racist. We are all on this journey. What does that mean? It means that anytime we try and act, we're going to do some things right and we're going to do some things wrong. The best way to address that is merely to build that into our ecosystem. Other than asking, “Did I do that right? Did I do that wrong? Was that good? Was that bad? What did I learn from what I acted on? What do I wish? What could I do better at that time?” That lens allows us to all take on the growth mindset that we need to go on this journey or marathon together.

You mentioned the actions within companies as well. You have a unique perspective on this being that you are in the corporate world, you're also in academia, and you see all sides of this. Many of my readers are in the corporate world and we see companies taking action like never before. A lot of companies have paid lip service to this or have DEI Departments if there are 1 or 2 people who say, “We need to have more inclusion here.” Things are changing fast. June 19th, also known as Juneteenth, is a holiday that has been around for 150 years since 1865, yet most people had not heard of it before this week and it's not been celebrated. Now, many companies have the day off or giving people the day off. You told me where you work at ServiceNow, people have the day off to learn and reflect, which I love. It's fantastic. My question is, especially for those in talent development, leadership positions and influential positions, what can we do to be doing within our companies to further this movement, to be an ally, to create more not only diversity but inclusion and equity or equality?

Thank you so much for that question because I've been actively thinking through it as someone who wears that hat as well. One of the first things that are important as we remember this work is that at its core, the work of anti-black racism, diversity of inclusion of equity, and talent development go hand-in-hand. Being a great leader in a diverse world is being an inclusive leader. Ultimately, while this moment is going to cause us to use our skills in some intense, sometimes uncomfortable ways, what I liken it to is all you're doing is you're taking your leadership development course at PhD level rather than at undergrad level. The core skills that this is pulling up on us, skills of leading with empathy, skills of learning how to listen, skills of learning how to lead and build consensus, skills of learning how to lead when there isn't consensus, and you still need to set a vision and go forward.

Those are the core of what we as talent development folks are trying to instill in our organizations all the time. The more we and our organizations can understand this as a core part of the job rather than an additional addendum to the job, the more successful that we're going to be. When I think through what the right strategy at this moment in time is my advice to moment officials is I think to your org and your strategy in terms of how are you going to support at this moment in time your black employees specifically and then how are you going to support the rest of your organizations as allies and advocates?

Those are very different journeys. By the way, this structure works for any marginalized group. I want to acknowledge that this is the month of pride. The same thing would be true if you were thinking about supporting your LGBTQ+ individuals versus the rest of your org as allies. How do you think about what the unique needs are of that group in time? How do you communicate to the marginalized people to the one that you care? How do you take time to listen to what their experiences are in your organization? How do you build up a talent development strategy that comes and pinpoint the things that feel most important? As you think about taking through your allies and advocates or the specific org on the journey, it's much the same structure that leads to different things first.

First, how do you take a moment to set a clear standard on where you as an organization stand? That is absolutely critical. While everyone is on a journey, what your people need from you is to know where you would have them be. What is their worth? The next stage is listen to them. Where are we at on that journey? What are we doing well? What are we not? What help do they need? The third part is being there to encourage these conversations at a manager and team level. Part of this work, because it so long, it requires deep trust. One of the mistakes that I've seen many talent development organizations make is by pulling up and making this an enterprise conversation, we never get to the level of trust and safety that's required for people to ask the hard questions.

It's one of the reasons why your people managers and supporting them at this moment is so critical because they have the so important and the tough job of having this conversation at the locus where it matters. Ultimately, how people feel on the job is much more influenced by what is going to happen on that team than what your corporate statement says about diversity and inclusion? If you can't figure out a way on to help that unit have the right conversation, figure out where they're going and what works for them, all of this stuff you do at the top is going to be for naught.

It's so important to remember that these things happen on the micro-level. They're happening on the team level, whether we're talking about racism or any type of cultural issues. I run leadership development programs for a living and I've had a conversation in companies where they say, “How do I be a great leader and support my people in a toxic culture?” My answer is always the same, “It starts with you and your team. You're not going to change the entire organization. Start where you can with what you can control and then you can start to influence out from there. Don't rely on an organization. How can you start to take action, do these things for your team, the people around you, and expand that?”

What And What Not To Say

I'm hearing about more organizations having these listening sessions. I mentioned to you I hosted a community call right before this for Talent Development Leaders. My friend, Larry McAlister for NetApp was telling me about the listening sessions they've been doing there with small groups, making sure that everybody gets a chance to speak up. Related to that, we've got a question, “How do we help inform employees on language? What is triggering language? A lot of folks struggling with what and what not to say which is why some folks are afraid to have the conversation or say anything.”

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

It is true for many of us. I would say the two pieces of advice I would give is first is Google is your best friend and let's set up rules of engagement around the conversation. There are a lot of great articles around Google about key phrases or language that can be triggering. We talked about the importance of taking personal and spiritual responsibility for going out and doing some of your own learning. I would encourage everyone to do a quick Google search on how to have an effective conversation about race before you dive in there that will deeply help as you come in. With that being said, nothing is going to be one size fits all and let’s be real.

Something that I might deeply appreciate, you're going to run right down the street and Thomas tells you it was perfect, you'll try it with the next person you see who is black, and they're going to be deeply offended. You're going to be like, “What the hell? Thomas advised me that that was okay.” That's real because not everyone is the same in much the same way I'm sure there are things that you find deeply uncomfortable or offensive that other people may not. I like to talk about rules of engagement whenever we open conversations about race. Naming the fact that it is uncomfortable for all of us, but that we are together choosing to prioritize justice and progress over discomfort is something that we can all come together on. Because trust me, just like people are struggling with whether to say the right thing, they are struggling to even be in the conversation if they're in the marginalized group.

The three rules of engagement that I encourage are the first is care and respect with everything you're saying and asking yourself. “How can I show that I care about the person I'm chatting with and then I respect them?” Sometimes you'll say it, “I care for you. I respect you. I'm a little afraid about asking this or phrasing it this way, but here's my secret.” The next part is honesty and safety on both sides. It is important to be honest about where you're at. There is no need to pretend to understand things that you don't understand. There is no need to feel a need to pretend to be at some point in the journey that you are not. It's why the concept of a journey is so important. When we think that this is binary, racist, or not racist, that all of a sudden gets hairy. When we think of us as all learning how to be born anti-racist with our lives, there are things we all get and the things we all don't understand and we're going on there. The last part is a commitment to being open and curious.

When you do and notice that you offended someone, your amygdala is going to go off. That is a very human response. Your fight or flight is going to go in. You might feel yourself getting hot, you feel yourself getting tense, and everything in you is going to want to be either defensive about what your intent was because you didn't want to do it or to run away from the conversation, fight or flight. I want to encourage you to choose curiosity, “I’m sorry, that was not my intent. Could you let me know a little bit more about why you found that offensive?” I promise you that few people get asked that question. That conversation is generally a more healing one than not having a conversation at all. I can say that certainly for myself. I am more than open to having conversations that offend me if people are willing to be curious about why I was offended and show that they care because I need the same grace as well.

You go through life, you have a lot of conversations, and you’re going to offend people. How or why people are offended? It's because something doesn't align with their personal values, whatever they may be. It may have nothing to do with race. It could be something else, “We don't talk about this. I can't believe you're bringing this up.” It could be sex or anything else or things that you might talk about. The only thing you mentioned there that is interesting, it came together in my mind, is that this whole thing has caused a shift in how we have these conversations. From my understanding, looking at it as my own personal experience and reading about it, for a long time, the “answer” to anti-racism was to pretend that race didn't exist.

You and I can be friends. We never bring this up. If we pretend there are no racial differences, then it doesn't exist. We pretend that we live in this idyllic world where everything is fine therefore those conversations didn't happen. I have had black friends, but we never specifically talked about the fact that we're different races. Now, what this is stimulating is that we do have those conversations. It's okay to say, “Thomas, you are black and I am white. We can be friends. We have different backgrounds. Let's talk about our personal experiences. What you're feeling about all this, what I'm feeling about this, and how can we support each other.” It's awkward at first, but it feels a breath of fresh air in the long-term that we can be open and talk much like with sexuality and everything else. Instead of sweeping things under the rug, have a conversation about it.

You called out what the promise or value is for all of us is if we can have a conversation and be real about something as challenging as race like us, how much easier this conversation about different learning styles? Introversion versus extroversion and meetings, for example, that are feeling difficult for some people. How much good does that sound? How much good does it sound to have conversations about managing kids at home? I saw somebody make a comment about it. That is a very real reality that is affecting people in very different ways. If we can have that conversation like, “I'm sorry, I can't do 12:00 to 2:00 because I have childcare.” That feels easy. We're going to be able to sit in here. What we're all trying to do is recognize that if we can create a world where we can all show up as authentic selves, we can recognize the different stressors that we're all facing and come together to support each other in them, we all win way beyond racism.

Conversation About Race With Kids

One of the silver linings from COVID-19 with everybody working from home and all these video calls are a lot more authenticity and a bit of inclusiveness of understanding who people are. We've talked a long time about bringing your whole self to work and that's all we're doing now. Sabina Sulat have a question that I also put out on Facebook and asked some of my friends which is, “How do we have this conversation about race with our kids?” I tell you going into this, it was the same thing where I thought if we pretend that we're in a perfect world, they have some black friends at school. We never call out that there are racial differences and issues, they'll then never see color and everything will be great. I have learned that the answer is a little bit different from that. We do need to have these conversations and talk about what's going on in the world so that they can help not try to avoid being biased or racist, but to also be an anti-racist, be part of the solution, and the movement later on instead of part of the problem.

There's this idea that this stuff is too complicated for kids to understand. There are amazing resources out there for how to have age-appropriate conversations about this, but it is never too early to begin to express all values that are important to you and why they matter. One thing I often encourage parents on this is your kids will pay much more attention to what you do than what they do. One part of it is having the conversation but the more you choose to live in anti-racist life and interpret for them why you're doing it, “Here's why we're choosing to donate in this way.” Inviting them into that. They could use a bit of their allowance into that process. “Here's why it's important for mom and dad, dad and dad, mom and mom, to have friends who are different from them. That's something we actively try. Here's why we're doing this.” It is much easier for your kids, all of our kids to understand from what you are choosing to do and how you are choosing to live than even it is for them to understand conceptually from the ideas that we're conveying.

We've had those conversations at least with my older child, my daughter, about men can marry men and women can marry women and that's normal. Having those conversations about things being normal and talking about differences is helpful. You mentioned at the beginning of this conversation that you are gay as well as black. I couldn't help but notice that someone who pays attention to DEI and everything else that all of this went down leading into Pride Month. Is there a feeling of the awkwardness or tension that this takes away from the Gay Pride Movement or the awareness that's going on in that community? Is there as most of the feeling of, “We've had our time. Lend this over to the black community right now to stand up for the things that are going on and we'll continue our conversation later?”

This is a wonderful moment to take a breath on intersectionality. Very unfortunate for a lot of people, these two ideas can feel abstract and different. This continues into some of our basis ideologies, the reason for that is when we're thinking about the Pride Movement, we're often not thinking about people of color involved in it. When we think about Pride, we're not thinking about black people, indigenous people, people of color, and yet they make up on part of the LGBTQ+ community. What I've appreciated at this Pride is being forced to have those conversations together. Another thing about intersectionality there that is playing out is something that is not being talked about nearly enough, in my opinion in the news is that when we think about the murder of black people by the police but also in general in America, black trans women are about 5 to 10 times more likely to be killed that weapon.

[bctt tweet="If we can create a world where we can all authentically show up and support each other, we all win way beyond racism. " via="no"]

That level of intersectionality is relevant when we think about Pride and I’m talking about Black Lives Mattering because that goes under-reported and under-invested in. There's also the wonderful history of where Pride comes from and the Stonewall riot. The very originators of the Pride Movement were non-binary and trans-women of color. In many ways, I feel like us being forced to address these at the same time is more of a return to the roots than anything else. That being said, it is very easy for us to get into the Oppression Olympics. We can all get tempted into it. We hear that all the time, so I don't want to pretend that isn't there, but 2020 has offered us a unique opportunity not to be able to do that and to pay attention to the intersectionality in much the same way that Pride is a great moment for the black community, the Black Lives Matter Movement to ask ourselves some hard questions about true inclusivity and including of our LGBTQIA members. It's a wonderful moment for the LGBTQ+ community to ask ourselves about inclusion of black, indigenous and people of color.

Why Black Lives Matter

There are a lot of groups out there, a lot of people that need help, and that brings me to a question that a lot of people are asking. I've looked into this and seeing some great analogies to know the answer but there's a lot of people out there that still wonder, why is it that Black Lives Matter? Why not all lives matter? Don't all lives matter? Don't all these other groups matter? Gay, Asian, indigenous, even white people. Why are we saying this now?

The first thing I would say is there are lots of people have explained this beautifully. I would encourage you to google the answer to that question, but I will give my version of this. The truth is according to our systems and to our institutions, all lives do not matter. That is the exact problem. All lives should matter but all lives are not mattering. In particular, it was very clear when you look at the rates of police murder on the communities. When you look at rates of racial decisions in mass incarceration, housing, lack of access and under-education. For our institutions, black lives don't matter. The movement was started very much in opposition to that truth.

As a challenge to those institutions to say back lives should matter to them because black lives do matter. This is not about taking away from anything else but rather calling out a very specific issue that is being addressed. One of my favorite examples of this is I saw a wonderful cartoon, a couple of houses on the street. One house is on fire and someone has a hose. You can think of the Black Lives Matter movement as taking the hose from the fire department and pointing it at one house. Your question is, doesn't every house on the street matter? Absolutely, but there's one house in particular that's on fire and we all have a responsibility to put it out, not for the sake of that house, but so that we don't burn down the whole street.

Continuing Forward Towards Equality

I've seen that cartoon and it paints it beautifully. There have been a couple of those that I've seen that have been great. I can't remember them, otherwise I would share those now. Last question, Thomas. As Sabina pointed out, this is a long road. We want this to be a movement, not a moment. It's going to take a lot of hard work. How do we handle the stumbling blocks, the setbacks, the frustrations, and keep going to make sure that we continue towards equality?

I'll answer that both individually and then collectively. Individually, I would encourage you to think about that in much the same way we think about any marathon. Prep for the long haul. We don't have to do it all at once. Take moments to rest. One of the things that I heard a lot of people struggle with is how do I express joy? I had a moment when our country feels like it’s on fire. Am I allowed to be happy? My answer is yes. That is critical because if we think that we have to be in mourning to get this done, we can only be in mourning for so long. I want to encourage us that that's the first thing. If you think about this as a marathon, think less about what's the big push I can make in this moment. What are the daily and weekly commitments I'm going to make every day? What am I going to do every week to make this happen ad infinitum? Allowing yourself to give yourself that space.

The second thing is don't do this alone. One of the beauties about joining movements or doing this in community, whether that community is you and a set of coworkers, etc., is it allows us to tap out when we need to. We're all going to have those moments in ebbs and flows, where we get energized and when we're tired and that piece keeps coming back. When we think about ourselves collectively allows us to do that. The third piece is as you explore in our learning, figuring out what there's so much to do in the journey of being an ally. There are parts of it that resonate with you. Mine, for example, I love people managers. I've built my life around supporting them. Very much what I'm doing right now is I help people manage more anti-racist lives. For other people, it might be the thing that you love doing is working with kids. You're thinking about helping folks to have that conversation. Some people are prone to activism or civic engagement. Figure out the ways to get engaged that give you most life so that you're able to stick in for the long haul.

Black Lives Matter Ally: The truth is, according to our systems and institutions, all lives do not matter. That is the exact problem. All lives should matter, but all lives are not mattering.

Thomas, this has been fantastic. It's been helpful for me and I know it has been for a lot of other people out there in the community and people reading. If people have questions and they want to talk to you more, where should they go? How should they get in touch with you?

Feel free to send me a note at Thomas.Igeme@ServiceNow.com.

You are on LinkedIn as well which is where you and I connected. I am so grateful for that. Thank you again for coming on the show and sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Take care.

• Black Lives Matter
• ServiceNow
• Dear Newly Activated Black Ally – LinkedIn Article
• White Fragility
• Article – How to Have that Tough Conversation about Race, Racism, and Racial Identity
• Thomas.Igeme@ServiceNow.com
• LinkedIn – Thomas Igeme
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/posts/andystorch_thomas-igeme-activity-6679807237973659648-VO2P
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/pulse/dear-newly-activated-black-ally-thomas-igeme/