Race and Identity in BEAM's Workplace

This spring, BEAM’s 20-person staff sat down together for four conversations on Race & Identity at BEAM, where the main focus was getting staff more comfortable with discussing race at work to both grow our capacity to support each other as coworkers and then also serve our students and our mission even better in the future. 

Ayinde Alleyne (photo credit: Mike Karsnak)

Ayinde Alleyne (photo credit: Mike Karsnak)

The series was the brainchild of Ayinde Alleyne, BEAM’s College Support Coordinator, who would humbly say that he appreciated the help of other staff in designing the series, in facilitating breakout sessions, and in being brave enough to engage in such important conversations at work. But his coworkers want this recap to be a thank you to him, so we’re focusing on his contributions today.

Recently, Lynn Cartwright-Punnett, Chief Programs Officer, sat down with Ayinde to ask him more about why he proposed a race and identity series, what the goals were, and what happened. This is a condensed summary of the interview with Ayinde. Throughout the blog post, you’ll also see callout quotes from BEAM staff sharing what they appreciated about the experience of having these conversations. 

Why talk about race in the workplace?

“I was able to take language and apply it to how I understand myself, my relationships with coworkers, my relationship to work, and to the work I do at BEAM. It was powerful to have a place during the work day to hold these ideas together.”
— Ramya Ramaswamy, Founding Programs Manager

I personally talk about race at work because it’s one of the most uncomfortable aspects of life as it relates to work. And it’s also critical at BEAM because while BEAM students and their families interact with many systems of oppression, racial oppression is both the most prominent and the hardest to talk about. I’ve come to believe that the things that are the hardest to talk about are exactly the ones we should discuss.

More recently, I was driven to bring this up as news in our country and across the world kept happening with racial angles and I thought now was the time to do this work to ensure race doesn’t become an elephant in the room that we don’t know how to address. 

Why do this with all staff? Why not just have the staff who work directly with students and families be trained to discuss race?

“I think the big thing that sticks with me is just that students won’t feel comfortable coming to us with these questions if we’re not modeling that behavior. And also, not to be afraid of doing something wrong.”
— Sarah Hunt, Special Programs Manager

Really, we all tell stories about BEAM’s mission and our students and families, whether that’s in a donor conversation or just at a cocktail party where someone asks you what you do for a living. So I think we all need to know how to talk about our work and our students responsibly. And also, we don’t want to exclude staff if their department isn’t invited to the conversation.

Now, having had the conversations and having had everyone choose to participate fully, our staff really feels unified in a way that we weren’t before. We are all down to name things we notice, to have important conversations that may be awkward. We’re all working together to figure out how to talk about these things. And that staff unity helps the entire organization.

Why is it important to have conversation norms? 

Conversation norms are meant to help facilitate effective communication. In daily conversations, when you speak with the people in your life you’re close with, there are norms in place, even if unspoken. Those norms are based on how you know them, how long you've known them, and other dynamics. Those norms happen over time. But at work, formal conversation norms make sense, allowing everyone to be on the same page.

How did you choose the norms for these conversations? 

Some of them were chosen based on past experience; things that stuck with me from going to other well-facilitated spaces. But the rest came from listening to staff and hearing what they wanted or needed. I had one-on-one conversations with every staff member before the whole group sessions to ask what was important to them. 

“Coming out of the conversations, I’ve reflected a great deal about how I talk about race, and when. . . . Our conversations made me think about how I can bring race up initially in appropriate ways, and how I can dive into conversations deeper when they happen. I know that I sometimes use different language to describe the same ideas as my colleagues, and diving into definitions also helped me understand word choice questions more deeply and how to talk about word choice with others.”
— Dan Zaharopol, Founder & CEO

As it happens, one of the norms that mattered the most to me was also one requested by staff:  don’t expect perfection from ourselves; be okay with making mistakes in this work. I love this norm because BEAM believes in a growth mindset and that’s true for racial conversations as well. We’re all trying to do the best we can as we also try to be better. We’re just not perfect, but especially in this context, talking about race and oppression, we worry about saying or doing the wrong thing and that having consequences. So the goal was to create a space where we can reduce the feeling of consequences for making a mistake, knowing that making a mistake is a thing we will all do! The risk is when people are afraid of saying the wrong thing, they say nothing and that is really counterproductive. Being a Black man, I wanted to be sure that I could also portray that there are mistakes I make. And when I think of the mistakes I make, I tend to think of gendered mistakes more than racial ones so I had to dig deep to share the ways I’ve made mistakes in racial conversations. 

You can see the full list of norms Ayinde developed at the end of this blog post. 

Why were the breakout groups so important? How did you design that setup? 

“I was blown away by how well the reading and listening materials supported the conversation, how the persistent conversation groups allowed comfort to develop to allow us to address topics, and how the conversation topics were founded in theory but didn’t lead to conversations that were strictly theoretical. ”
— Don Laackman, Program Coordinator

Each staff member was assigned to a consistent breakout group for all four meetings. The breakout groups were necessary for two reasons. First, they gave a smaller group space to have detailed conversations you can’t have with 20 people. With five people, you can have complicated and complex discussions, allowing everyone to speak in less time. Second, that team of people was able to build a bond of trust and deeper vulnerability. This happened both because the group worked together over all four sessions but also because groups were designed carefully to ensure no managers were in the room with their team members, that each group represented a mix of departments and demographics.  

What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone trying to get more comfortable talking about race, especially at work? 

It’s tough! It’s good to start just with definitions, like defining the role race plays in people’s lives. Can you see how race impacts you personally, but also how it impacts society?

“My biggest concern was not saying the right thing. However I was aware that this was not a matter of being right or wrong and the norms established were that it would be a non-judgemental space.”
— Myriam Monestime, High School Programs Social Worker

One of the hardest things to do when starting a conversation about race is to know where everyone is coming from and the only way to know what people are thinking is to ask them. If you can make a space that allows people to open up that part of their thoughts, just get in the habit of talking about it.

If, on the other hand, you’re someone already very aware of the race in society, then the advice is two parts. First, it’s still valuable to take that time to reflect on the ways race has a specific meaning to you at work. Sometimes the structure of talking about race leads to a lot of generalization. And it’s very hard to get away from generalization and to instead talk about what is happening here, especially if it’s personal. Then, once you understand the effect of race on yourself, try to take a step further to understand the effect of race on others.

“I really appreciate the thoughtfulness [Ayinde] put into making sure to understand where everyone was coming from and what our comfort was in having group conversations on race, especially the initial one on one conversations. That space allowed me to be really open and honest in a way that I wouldn’t have been in a big group and be reflective of how that impacts what I’m carrying into the conversation.”
— Ruthi Hortsch, Executive Director, New York Programs

If you’re looking to grow your own thinking and get more comfortable talking about race, here are some resources Ayinde recommended to our team over the course of the Race & Identity Series:

Here, also is Ayinde’s note on the term microaggressions: “Personally, I don't love the prefix micro- in the term microaggression. I feel as though the term is built with the person causing the harm in mind, the action seems small and harmless to them and is usually why they believed it was harmless. The person feeling the effect of the action usually doesn't internalize it as small. The term is often used by many people and resources and I use it occasionally, but I did highlight this issue.”

In addition, here is the full list of conversation norms BEAM used for the four chats:

The goal of these norms is to build trust between each other and preserve this as a safe space for our collective growth. To do so, we ask you to:

  • Be fully present when you are here. Step away if needed.

  • Don’t expect perfect articulation of ideas from anyone (including yourself).

  • Make space for other voices, and make space for silence.

  • Be open to learning and open to taking risks. (Gently) push beyond your comfort zone.

  • Ask for literacy moments. Ask questions about words/ideas new to you.

  • Assume positive intent from others, and also take responsibility for impact on others.

  • Call each other in and not call each other out.

  • What's said here, stays here. What's learned here, leaves here.

  • Expect and accept a lack of closure.

Ayinde; thank you so much for everything you do at BEAM, with our students, our families, and, of course, our staff.