VCC Magazine Summer 2020

V irginia C apitol C onnections , S ummer 2020 10 by the COVID-19 pandemic. We need to pass relief and protections related to housing and evictions. This includes, providing rent and mortgage relief, classifying frontline workers as essential workers and requiring that they receive hazard pay and personal protective equipment, and guaranteeing paid sick leave for all workers. The past two months mark a watershed moment in the history of our country and Commonwealth. This moment calls for bold leadership, as we take the action necessary to swing Virginia towards greater racial and social justice change. I, as well as the members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, am prepared to seize upon the historic opportunity before us to foster a more equitable Virginia that works for everyone. Delegate Bagby is a Democrat representing part of Henrico. Reforms: What Now? By Dr. Janice Underwood “I can’t breathe.” Those were the final words uttered by George Floyd as a police officer kneeled on his neck during the last eight minutes and 46 seconds of his life in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His murder, a 21st century lynching that happened in real-time before all of our eyes, served as a catalyst in a renewed fight for equality and justice across the entire nation and globally that we can’t unsee. But the recent protests that we’ve collectively witnessed against racism and police brutality only reflect a modicum of the injustices that have marginalized millions of people over the last 400 years. We have also witnessed in this renewed fight for justice, legislative reform across many different local and state bodies, as well as the power of the almighty dollar to influence social change. We’ve also seen dozens of companies pander to the will of the people, including compelling an NFL team to face its own ugly racial antecedents. So, what now? I now receive daily calls and emails about how to advance diversity and equity reforms. When I get these correspondences, I often wonder what important equity work has been leveraged in these organizations before May 25, 2020, the day George Floyd’s murder changed our whole world during a global pandemic? In what follows is a summary of a candid and recent conversation I had with someone who describes him/herself as an ally.We discussed how to move from ceremonial gestures that confront systemic racism, like the renaming of a football team or the removal of confederate statues to tangible reforms that interrupt long-held systems of structural inequity. Thus, for those of you who are committed to real reform and want to turn away from “a check the box mentality,” I urge you to keep reading and also join in on the conversation. Usually, during these calls and conversations, the first question that comes to mind is, “how will these reforms align with your mission and strategic plan? If they are not aligned, then any plans for reform will only serve as a wish or a good idea. So, in the same way that I talk to the many leaders who call me for advice, I’d like to encourage YOU reading this to also use your influence to transform your executive leadership, your board room, and the culture of your organization, agency, and departments with systemic changes that are linked to your organization’s overall strategic plan. It’s not enough to want to eliminate systemic oppression in your organization, you must have a strategic plan to dismantle it. For your consideration, I offer the ONE Virginia Plan, a state-wide effort to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion across more than 100 state agencies in the Commonwealth. It is also a model for other public and private sector organizations. Secondly, this idea of racial equity reform is not only a social justice problem, it is a business problem. To be clear, we don’t need another task force to study structural inequity. We have generations of diversity reports that have been well-researched with documented strategies to confront these issues, like the Rumford Fair Housing Act, the Patrick Moynihan Report, the McCone Commission Report, the Kerner Commission Report, the Heckler Report, the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan, and — most recently—the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. So, we must resist being paralyzed by our fears and actually do something about injustice because if we don’t, our businesses, school systems, cities, local and state government, and every other sector that thrives on people will be left behind, or worse. For example, it just makes good business sense to dismantle the biased recruiting and retention system that you have relied on for decades because it has failed you. Start with an independent audit of your entire organization and build a recruiting system that aims to give you the profitable advantage of a diverse workforce. Create a diversity infrastructure with a no-nonsense chief diversity officer that reports directly to the agency head, president, or CEO. Simultaneously, foster a culture change that eliminates the allowance of destructive micro and macroaggressions and a rejection of toxic and manipulative control or power. Take a hard look at your executive leadership. Do they speak about diversity and inclusion from a safe script of talking points or do they “walk the talk?” Walking the talk or visible equity looks like ongoing and multiday racial equity training and an investment in people, policies, and practices. Also, take a hard look at your relationships with people across many dimensions of diversity. Be kind, lead with a sense of humanity, and for goodness sake, stop underestimating/marginalizing your Black and Brown colleagues and friends. Further, you must cultivate your hiring pipeline with the Black and Brown talent you have in-house and reimagine a system of recruitment that prioritizes equity and inclusion. For example, have you heard about the Southern Regional Education Board’s recruitment database of the top PhD’s of color in the nation? If so or not, what other recruiting mechanisms are out there that your organization has marginalized in favor of the familiar recruiting engines and strategies you’ve relied on over the years? Lastly, we must all re-envision our sense of community engagement. I urge institutions of higher education, businesses, foundations, and state agencies to • support organizations that fight racial injustice; • invest in minority and women-owned businesses for procurement; • mobilize voters; and • hold politicians accountable with your vote and your donations, especially the ones that would prefer to allow this movement to pass in favor of a return to ignoring white supremacy in plain sight. Ultimately, I charge each of us to be part of progress. In the Commonwealth we are embracing these kinds of reforms so that our state becomes a more inclusive and welcoming place, so that we can attract and retain the best talent and best businesses and foster an unprecedented sense of inclusion that improves the well-being of everyone who lives, works, visits, and learns in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Therefore, we are fighting every day for those who never had a voice or who have never been in “the room where it happens.” Will you join in this movement? Are you ready to invest in our communities by asking tough questions and having difficult dialogue? Agreed, it’s uncomfortable and will rustle feathers, but in the words of Congressman John Lewis, it’s “good trouble.” On the other hand, if you’re not ready to have these kinds of hard and long-overdue conversations or participate in on-going personal reflection about the bias you bring to every conversation, decision, or interpersonal interaction you have, ask yourself why not? However, if you’re ready to roll up your sleeves in pursuit of the promise of equality and justice for all, get to work! Dr. Janice Underwood is the first cabinet-level Chief Diversity Officer for the Office of Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. You can contact her at DEIDirector@governor.virginia.gov Creating a Virginia that Works for Everyone from page 6 V V