#BlackLivesMatter

As a citizen I’m profoundly committed to antiracism; as a corporation leader, I struggle with what is the role of the public voice of a corporation.

# BlackLivesMatter to me and, as a citizen and human, have always mattered to me.

I’m posting this note from my personal account, not the corporate account associated with the company I lead, because the subject matter is incredibly straightforward for me as a citizen but quite complicated for me as a corporate leader and officer.

At first I did not want to post anything because, as Jason Kelce, center for the Philadelphia Eagles also reported before talking with his teammates, “piling on” in a moment of an incredible volume seemed cynical, only self-serving and absent action. It seemed “virtue signaling” (a term I wasn’t aware of until this past week), devoid of character, desirous of social acceptance and seemed not to actually contribute to meaningful change. Then, I read how Jason’s teammates encouraged him to speak anyway — that the more voices, regardless of whether some judge the speech to be vacuous and cynical, the more force develops behind a movement to end police violence and move beyond that goal to creating an antiracist society.

So, I write.

“The heartbeat of racism is denial, and the heartbeat of antiracism is confession.” — Ibram X. Kendi, history professor (@DrIbram) t.ted.com/m6bZPdM (posted June 10th, 2020)

Dr. Kendi, above, has been teaching me more about the term and theory of antiracism through his book How to Be an Antiracist — which I highly recommend reading. It shows up on many “highly recommended lists” of books to reach about racism and racial equality.

The following is some history of how antiracist teachings and actions have been part of my past, mostly to set the context for how I, amongst most of the people I know, should have known better. I also recognize the discomfort of the topic and an inherent desire in all of us to see ourselves as “good” and “positively contributing to society” — and how my words below could be seen as totally self-serving to assuage my own regrets.

Growing up with an antiracist education.

I was born into a very active white ally and women’s liberation family. My dad marched with those who had come from Selma while in Montgomery; my mom as a Ph.D. candidate worked with migrant Latinx families in eastern Colorado. As a 20 and 22 year-olds in 1965 they were very active in the University of Colorado civil rights activities.

From my earliest memories, I’ve been taught equity — racial equity, gender equity, social equity, religious equity and income equity. It’s the just world we’re all supposed to seek, I was taught. Growing up in Boulder in the 70s was not a great place for exposure to racial equity issues — although I could see them on occasion through the eyes of my best friend, Joe Watkins, in junior high. When my mother took a job in Washington DC, I stayed in Boulder but spent the summers on the corner of 11th and Pennsylvania, S.E. in the district. Living in that neighborhood, playing whatever outdoor street comes we played, navigating the Metro to my summer internship in the white section of town, placed me in the midst of a dominantly African American neighborhood.

I carried my interest in learning more about African American history into college where, as an electrical engineering / computer science major I took an English class titled “American Literature and Race” where we read Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Waters, Ralph Waldo Ellison and Richard Wright.

To this day the most profound, disturbing, uncomfortable, tragic and amazing book I have ever read is Native Son, but Richard Wright. I have no idea whether he actually transported me into the life and body of Bigger Thomas, but it sure felt like it.

That spurred an additional desire to be active and engaged. Several years into my career at Apple I was promoted early into management and had the opportunity to join the first-ever Apple Diversity effort. I worked alongside a brilliant colleague, Donna Auguste, where we created recruiting outreach trips to Historically Black Colleges. I wasn’t able to go on all of the trips, but I went on one to Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU) in Tallahassee to convince students to come work for Apple. Because I wasn’t part of HR, I don’t know whether any students we spoke to actually came to Apple — but I sure hope so.

Forgetting what I knew

Then, I came back to Boulder….

And, my actions stopped. I stopped being highly aware of racial inequities, stopped reading African American authors, stopped paying attention to whether the people for whom I voted cared about racial equity and had policies to promote equity.

Why?

A variety of reasons — mostly that we were starting a family and restarting a career. But, also, because my wife and I prioritized other inequalities that deserved our time, money and actions. We adopted two abused and neglected children and became very engaged in our very-close-to-home attempt to rectify income and social inequality. More than 20 years ago we started the first fundraising dinner, Monsoon, for the first LGBTQ donor fund (The Open Door Fund) because we believed so strongly in sexual equality. We’ve remained heavily involved ever since. Here at Misty, we participated in one of only three Federally Certified IT apprentice programs to bring three women without technical degrees in as level one software engineers to rectify the gender equity imbalances in high tech. We have given liberally of our time and money directly to income inequality, gender inequality and sexual inequality. (Lest you cast aspersions at my lovely wife because of the word “we” above, she, did not stop paying attention — being the first Clerk and Recorder to defy the Secretary of State and issue marriage licenses to LGBTQ couples and co-wrote the Colorado law creating equity of access for all voters and more recently was the campaign manager for Boulder County Commissioner candidate Marta Loachamin until turning her attention to the national Vote at Home Institute’s efforts to bring voting equity to all of America.)

I confess, I absolutely dropped the ball on racial equality. I stopped asking myself the question “why are there so few people of color in Boulder, Colorado?”, just assuming it was “the way it was” and not examining whether it was actually racist policies — enacted by well-meaning liberal representatives — that created an environment of very high housing costs, high concentrations of single-family homes and overall unequal numbers of people of color represented in the populace of Boulder. I became more racist, as Kendi defines it, than I ever believed possible.

Renewing my vow to be an antiracist

I won’t drop that ball anymore. As a citizen, I’m reaffirming my commitment to take action to be an antiracist. I will:

• give money to the Southern Poverty Law Center and ACLU
• find an antiracist-focused organization in Boulder County and give money liberally to it
• read more African American authors
• follow more African American thought-leaders (like Kendi and others I’m only just discovering)
• give more of my time, money, and attention to electing people of color as my representative(s)

The Corporate picture is more muddy

I also have the privilege of playing the role of lead officer in a corporation and face all kinds of questions of my own:

• should a corporation have public views on matters that don’t “directly” pertain to the operations of the corporation? Or, should it simply take internal action on its viewpoints and not use a public megaphone?
• If it should have public views, then because I have the privilege of being the final decision maker, should my views as a citizen become the public views of the corporation? Always?
• If not my personal views, then which views should the corporation express a point of view about? What are the conditions or the criteria for the corporation to have a public view?

Should a corporation express public views about matters that “don’t specifically relate” to operations of the company?

When Citizen’s United was adjudicated by the Supreme Court many of my liberal friends decried it as one of the worst abominations in the Court’s history. I agreed. And still agree. It unleashed an ungodly sum of money into our political discourse. The Court, effectively, decided that “corporations have rights similar to citizens” — including freedom of expression. They took what is nominally a legal piece of paper with rules about governance and ownership and gave that piece of paper the rights of a citizen. I believe that policy has and will continue to prove out to be a racist policy — creating and promoting racial inequality because money backs power and the power structure in our nation is largely white.

So, if I fervently believe that a corporation is a piece of legal paper and does not warrant freedom of expression protections it seems natural to ask whether our corporation or any corporation should express itself on a wide array of topics — gender equality, sexual equality, religious equality, racial equality, income equality, gun violence, etc… This seems a reasonable point of view.

On the other hand, respect and equity are such fundamental values of this particular corporation, written down in a document that every employee signs before they start the first day, ought not the corporation speak about its values regularly? Ought it not point out when society at large is not upholding those values? This also seems a reasonable point of view.

I find myself with a profound internal struggle between the hypocrisy of being outraged at Citizen’s United but using the corporate megaphone to exercise freedom of expression and righteously using that megaphone to categorically affirm to anyone who monitors our corporation that equality and respect matter. At any given moment I can and do bounce back and forth between these two seemingly irreconcilable points of view.

If a corporation should have public views, then because I have the privilege of being the final decision maker, should my views as a citizen become the public views of the corporation?

Assuming the internal conflict outlined above is overcome either by my own internal deliberations or our team deliberations and we decide, “Yes, our corporation must speak” then the answer to this above question is, for me, uncomplicated:

Hell No.

If the corporation is going to speak publicly, what arrogance of mine would it be to assume that my views always represented the views of the citizens comprising the corporation?

Which means there has to be some mechanism for the citizens of the corporation to come together to make decisions about if/when to use the corporation’s public megaphone.

Then which views should the corporation express a point of view about?

This one, also, is a challenging question for me because of my deep belief in equality. A few questions I find myself asking here:

1. should we speak about any issue that any single citizen feels so passionately about that they “pull the red chord” and we speak?
2. should we speak about an issue that the leadership team cares passionately about?
3. should we speak about an issue for which there is a large groundswell about that issue from the citizens of the company? If so, what constitutes “large”?
4. should we speak only about issues that relate to our core values? Or issues that go beyond those core values? (There are, after all, as many issues citizens are passionate about as there are citizens.)
5. should we only speak about issues that we’re prepared to commit action-taking to?

Number One seems pretty straightforward. If any citizen can use the corporate public megaphone for any issue they care passionately about then the megaphone would likely be used every day and eventually become one with no real power because there would be no differentiation between a “one-person” issue and a “every-citizen” issue. So… “no”.

Number Two also feels relatively straightforward with some nuance. For the most part, my view is that if the corporation is to speak about societal matters then it shouldn’t be some “power structure” of citizens within the corporation who decide what to speak out about. On the other hand, the leadership team can make decisions faster and speak for their broader constituency within the corporation. But, for me, effectively… “no”.

Number Three is where I find myself spending a bunch of time and gravitating towards. If the corporation is comprised of citizens, and a “large percentage” of those citizens feels strongly about a particular viewpoint then why shouldn’t the corporation essentially aggregate that viewpoint and express it publicly? Seems pretty straightforward to me. The next, harder, question is “what constitutes large percentage”? 51%? 66% (a super majority)? 80%? 90%? I am conflicted between something like 66% and 90%. 66% says that “a preponderance” of our citizens feel strongly about speaking out — but also leaves room for a fairly hefty percentage who may have strong feelings against speaking out about that issue (abortion rights anyone?). 90% says that “an overwhelming number” of our citizens feel strongly for a public statement to be made — but 90% seems a “pretty high bar” which could frustrate the 89% of citizens who speak up and the corporation still doesn’t speak. I lean more towards the upper percentages than the lower; but still don’t have a strong viewpoint on “a number” (let alone a process to identify the percentage). So… “undecided” currently.

Number Four also feels straightforward to me. There are so many issues about which citizens feel passionately — artistic, cultural, personal, regional, political, social, athletic — that it seems a corporation ought to be able to tie a particular issue directly to its core values and then speak publicly about it. It’s arguable that if “some large percentage” of the citizens cared strongly about an athletic issue then one should just go with “the citizens speak”. For me, though, “yes; values only”.

Number Five is slightly more challenging for me. There is value in speech itself; in the volume of speakers, in the nature of the speech, in the reach to various audiences. Speech alone can be a powerful force. By the same token, if a corporation is going to move itself to speech, should not that movement be so passionate and so strong that the corporation and its citizens are willing to take action? For me, “yes: speak only when you will commit to action”.

Will our corporation speak?

Bottom line, for me, is that, yes we are highly likely to a) have a large percentage of our company want the company to speak, b) antiracism is about respect and equity for all — a core corporate value, and c) we will commit to taking action. We haven’t decided yet which specific actions to take but, when we do I’ll be posting a message on our corporate mouthpiece, the Misty Robotics’ Blog.