White Women: How We Are Perpetuating White Supremacy at Work
By: Rachael Estess
Tags: Workplace Culture, White Supremacy, Anti Racism, B Corp, Purpose Driven Business

As the Chief of Staff, I’m sitting in a meeting with our leadership team as we debrief about a company policy that negatively impacted an employee who is a Person of Color. We start to go down the path to defend ourselves: We are a Certified B Corporation, a social impact agency, our mission is to improve lives. We start cherry-picking facts to support our arguments in an effort to show how our decisions are well-intentioned. After all, no organization is perfect, right? We are better than most companies, and look how far we’ve come. The excuses are endless.

As a white woman, I have the privilege to choose whether to defend the status quo, and myself, or validate this employee’s experience and admit that our best efforts hurt someone. My unearned trust and whiteness are all too powerful in this moment of conflict. My ability to sway this group in itself is a byproduct of racism.

White women have been a critical pillar of upholding white supremacy for centuries. Reckoning with this reality is a critical piece in understanding how we — white women — are experienced by Black, Indigenous, People of Color today. [There are plenty of resources that explain this history of white women and oppression way better than I can. I found the CodeSwitch Podcast: What’s a Karen? extremely informative.]

Acknowledging the harm I’ve caused has been a painful, necessary blow to my self-narrative. Coming from the South, I took pride in challenging “the oppressors” and devoting my career to social impact, but I learned that it’s not enough to not be racist. The real work is to actively become anti-racist.

I took Rachel Rickett’s Anti-Racism Workshop and for the first time asked myself “How have I perpetuated white supremacy?” This question became a powerful filter to understanding how white privilege and power dynamics shape how People of Color experience me — especially at work where I have power and influence.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

Shift the Power Dynamics

I have to continually create systems to counteract the power dynamics that prevent team members who are Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color from thriving.

In my role, I am in a senior position advising our leadership team on company systems and policies. I’ve assumed:

Everyone has the ability to grow and navigate the organization the way I do.

The team trusts me to advocate for their needs and interests.

As a white woman, I’m given trust and the benefit of the doubt constantly, especially from white men. If I have a concern or have made a mistake, people automatically empathize with me and want to help me. I thought that everyone immediately experiences this level of trust in our team.

People of Color are often in the exact opposite position where they continually have to prove themselves, and have to advocate for why their feelings and perspectives are valid. Not only is this inequitable and racist, but it often means they opt not to share their needs because they’ve been ignored in the past.

I’m inherently inclined to center myself and my needs, and do what I think is best based on my biased, white perspective. I’m learning that my role is to instead shift power to team members who have been marginalized by this dynamic, and to co-design systems and solutions that center their needs and experiences.