DEAR COMPANIES,
By: Laura Swapp
Tags: Sdgs, Collective Action

YOU CAN’T OUTCOMPETE EACH OTHER TO COMBAT RACISM, SO WHY DON’T YOU GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER, TOGETHER?

My business partner and I have just finished a deep dive into racial equity for a Seattle-based company. Like nearly all of their PNW colleagues, they have responded with intention to the racial unrest. They gathered employees for conversation and consolation and doubled down on substantive work already in motion. But they were seeking a broader view of the surrounding cultural response to the acute racial crisis. They asked us to delve into culture writ large, business culture, and the response from their industry, and to share trends, insights and areas where they might contribute more deeply over time.

Some things we found would not surprise you because they are the things you’ve also been observing: Black Lives Matter has evolved far beyond police brutality and catalyzed recognition of systemic racism at every touchpoint of culture; White folks are engaging in unprecedented numbers in protests and collective learning; Democrats and Republicans differ dramatically in their perception of Trump’s leadership on race ; COVID 19 and the racial pandemic are inextricably linked- through systemic racism that unveils deep disparities in healthcare, puts the BIPOC community disproportionately into frontline jobs, and drives disparate rates of unemployment.

The business trends may be harder to see. Why? Because it is highly likely that if you are in business–most especially in a publicly-held or large company–you are mostly observing your own company. There’s a tacit playbook and it includes things like affirming that Black Lives Matter; donating a substantive amount of money to one or more of a codified set of organizations (NAACP, National Urban League, Equal Justice Initiative, Color of Change, HBCUs, etc.); doubling down on hiring people of color, BIPOC or Black employees (depending on your chosen focus); and doubling down on supplier diversity. This is not an exhaustive list, of course. We identified a set of ten actions that almost all companies of a certain size or public profile are taking, and we uncovered many who are going “beyond the playbook,” leveraging the unique products, services or position of influence of their company to engage in an even bigger way (think Amazon, Google and IBM divesting of facial recognition software business, or Ben and Jerry’s using their platform to engage customers in topics ranging from reparations to white supremacy, or Apple launching a $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative).

But you know what companies aren’t doing? Working together.

What we came to see through our analysis is that though companies are engaging in anti-racist work in a historically unprecedented way, they are doing so in silos–one entity at a time. They are taking the same actions, separately, like the parallel play of toddlers who sit side by side and play alone, with an occasional glance given to what’s going on next to them. (No offense to the toddlers out there; unlike companies, you have good reason for this).

On its face, this might seem reasonable because that’s what companies do–they hunker down and compete. But let’s pause here to consider that the roots of racism which have been sewn for centuries and systemically perpetuated cannot be extracted one company at a time. There are a couple of reasons that stand out as obvious as to why collective action is required.

First, the problem of racism predates your company and your company is not powerful enough to deconstruct it alone. Your employees and customers reside in families and communities, in schools, churches, public parks. They engage, and they come back to work, shop or talk with you. Your talent pipeline is connected to the pipeline of the higher education system, housing covenants and immigration laws, and innumerable shared cultural norms. No matter how unique your culture, your company is not a bubble.

And then there’s a math problem. Your companies are making huge declarations around hiring and supplier diversity that are mathematically impossible to fulfill at a singular level. It’s sort of blasphemous to say this out loud, but it’s true. Though on the rise, 95% of Black-owned businesses are sole proprietors with no employees. They are small business owners. The college pipeline poses its own set of problems: 22.5% of Black Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree (vs 32.8% of whites). But this 22.5% is drawn from a much smaller base of Black Americans (13–14%). Whites have a higher percent on a higher population base–32.8% on a base of 60%. When you take into account biased company practices, industry, function, geography, desired community and competition, your ability to recruit and retain Black employees with a bachelor’s degree or suppliers who can successfully bid on corporate contracts is constrained by centuries of systemic racism. At least for now.

On top of this, businesses have become accustomed to thinking about progress pertaining to discrimination through the lens of “the business case.” In this way, maybe we have now met an obstacle of our own making. We’ve fought so diligently to assert that companies will be more profitable in more ways by enabling diversity, equity and inclusion (which requires combating bias, isms and obstacles). What happens if we are now faced with the recognition that racism is a human rights issue that cannot be addressed through the principles of competition?

Now let me pause here for an interlude to quickly address your concern that I might be suggesting that because this is hard work, that it shouldn’t be undertaken, that we should all throw our hands up and go home. But, no, that’s not what I’m suggesting. I’d much rather see a company set goals and go for it than to opt out based on challenging mathematical statistics. It’s better to strive toward challenging goals than it is not to strive. You will make progress and you should undertake these foundational steps.

But we think there’s got to be another way–a better way. That is, collective action which recognizes and affirms our unassailable interconnection.

Collective action has always been a central tenet in the fight to dismantle racism and other forms of oppression. From the Montgomery bus boycott, to the long and contentious battle to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, to this year’s UN special council to investigate racism against Black citizens of the United States, institutions and individuals have used their collective power to make change at a level that is deeper than can be reached individually. Our instinct to come together in service to the collective is also one of the most prominent and contentious aspects in the fight to battle COVID-19. Do we wear a mask for others, as signal that we are willing to protect our proverbial brothers and sisters and not just ourselves, or do we assert our individual autonomy at all costs?

Why haven’t companies figured this out? We reside in Seattle, home of some of the most admired brands in the world. Can you imagine the potential impact if they joined forces to invest in- and scale - Black-owned businesses? What if in addition to competing for a relatively small talent pipeline, companies pooled resources to eliminate the college dropout rate of Black students (which is 30% from 4-year institutions and 52% from 2-year institutions vs. 18% and 42% respectively for white students) as a strategy to grow the talent pool? In our own city of Seattle, racism has been declared a public health crisis. What if Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, Nordstrom, Nintendo, REI Co-op, etc. got together and committed to collective action with local organizations and civic leaders to address this health crisis that is racism?

It seems this opportunity is teetering just on the periphery of corporate consciousness. There have been other signs of collective action emerging. Minnesota CEOs worked collectively to respond to the murder of George Floyd. Iconic cultural leaders like Brené Brown and Van Jones are using the language of interconnection as a call to action. Teams and sports leagues are influencing each other and their fans to take action to combat racism. But even when companies have signed pledges or received accolades for their diversity efforts, it’s action taken at the individual level.

Of course, companies have joined together for other issues. Last year, Amazon, Facebook and Google worked with the Trump administration to protest France’s tax on tech companies; Just last month, the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google testified before Congress to defend their business practices and ward off further governmental regulation. Or what about that time when more than 100 companies signed a motion supporting the suit to support the legal fight against President Donald Trump’s travel ban? Companies work together all the time in brand collaborations, figuring out how to drive awareness, engagement and profit from each other’s audiences.

I know what you’re thinking, “These are all self-interested displays of collective action.” You’re not wrong. Given that, I would offer you this simple truth from Ben & Jerry’s: “ You can’t have a healthy business in a sick society.” The fight against racism is the fight to cultivate a healthy society that is there to receive you.

We are inspired by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the companies who are working to help actualize them. And still…they are working via a company-by-company capacity to do so. But at least there is a call to collective outcomes. Look. We are not naïve. We have spent decades inside of big companies and know how difficult it is to move work forward even within your own ecosystem. But we also believe we are in a time where all bets are off. On the other side of the inextricably linked pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism, business will be completely reconfigured. What new possibilities will exist? And if your individual corporate actions were effective, wouldn’t we be further along? There’s nothing stopping companies from working together to fight racism than a lack of vision.

If Cheetos and Forever 21 figured out how to partner to promote “flamin hot merch” (for fuck’s sake!) can’t you figure out how to work with other companies to combat racism?