This guidance should be considered when supporting any colleague from an under-represented diverse population:
- Reflect on your own social identity and your culture and the experiences that define who you are now, including your evolution on how you see and perceive members of other communities.
- Reflect on your own biases and learn how to address them. Consider using this month to journal how your white and social class privilege may have impacted your professional/personal journey. Recall situations in which you witnessed unfair treatment of colleagues of color and write down how you could be an active ally to support this colleague if this situation occurred today.
- When discussing matters of race and/or challenging experiences Black colleagues face, focus on being an active empathetic listener. This requires self-awareness, openness, curiosity, and the celebration of differences and commonalities. It is okay to be uncomfortable. You are not expected to resolve the matter, and it is okay to not have an articulate answer/response. Avoid centering your response around your feelings and experiences.
- Notice if there’s only one person of color in a meeting. You can call attention to this to leadership to intentionally include more people of color in practice, research, education, and decision-making settings. Acknowledge your observation to the attendee that you noticed so they feel seen. Check in on them, especially if they are your close collaborators/peers.
- Review your speaker and presenter lists for grand rounds, lectures, and fellowships with a goal to identify who is not at the table. Invite more colleagues of color as speakers and pay them accordingly for their time.
- Recognize and acknowledge your Black colleagues’ unique experiences. Ask them about their lives. Highlight and feature these unique stories within the department/institution. Recognize how their intersectional roles and identities (e.g., race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability) define their personal and professional story, which might include experiences of challenges but also successes.
- Understand that racism plays a role in your Black colleagues’ experiences and that examples are in the news every day. When such events happen, acknowledge them and consider offering specific, tangible support, such as, “I would like to support you and am happy to contribute in any way possible, maybe working together on something to balance the workload or plan the next lecture instead of you, if that would help,” or “I read that story in the news about XYZ. I can only imagine how distressing this must feel. Please know I’m available to talk about it if that would be helpful.”
- Amplify the voices of your Black colleagues at meetings. If something they said gets ignored, acknowledge it, and repeat it, and credit them if your colleague cannot make his or her voice heard.
- Pay attention to who you call on in meetings, who you include in meetings, and who you appoint to leadership positions.
- Take accountability and apologize if you think something you said might have been offensive. Remember microaggressions are often unintentional, but might impact others, making them feel invisible, devalued, excluded, etc. Be open to uncomfortable feedback and do your best to listen more and talk less when receiving it.
- If you are interested in learning more about the Black experiences and culture, educate yourself by seeking information on these topics independently. It is not always appropriate to ask a colleague to explain these topics to you. Each person is an individual and does not want to be seen as the representative of their race in the workplace.
