Dear Prudence: "I’m a White Person Who’s Tired of Working on Diversity Initiatives at Work."

[minoanmiss]

Rejected: I work for a large national nonprofit. About 95 percent of the clients we serve are people of color, while about 60 percent of the staff are people of color. I am white and possess underrepresented identities (obviously unrelated to race).

For the past year and a half, I have spent about 50 percent of my time working on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. I engage in this work nearly every day—running and project-managing large national initiatives to attract and retain employees of color, and to address racist incidents that have occurred in our nonprofit’s past.

I am so ashamed and embarrassed to say this, but I am getting really burned out at work, and working on these initiatives is contributing to that. I engage in so, so many conversations about retaining people of color—increasing their pay, engaging in “stay” conversations with them, being flexible with their hours and work location to ensure they stay with the organization—and no one is having these conversations with me! I constantly hear things like, “we need to make sure there are people of color in the finalist pool” for jobs that are posted, or “she interviewed well, but we really want to hire a person of color for this role” and between that and hearing about how damaging white employees are, I feel like I’m no longer wanted at this organization. No one is checking in to see how I’m doing or ensuring I want to stay. Meanwhile, my administrative work is really the backbone of making sure these employee-of-color-centered initiatives are even getting off the ground in the first place!

I know it’s so important that our organization reflects the clients we serve. But I’m on the verge of quitting to work somewhere whiter, because hearing all day every day about how we don’t really want to hire white folks if possible, as I spend hours of overtime on DEI-related tasks, is taking a toll on my self-esteem and self-worth. I know I’m being overly defensive and taking this too personally. But I can’t help it. Do you have any ideas on what I can do to fix these feelings within myself?

A: It sounds like you should move on. Apply for new jobs. This work isn’t rewarding for you, and there’s no way you’re as effective as you could be if you’re approaching every day with resentment and defensiveness. Your organization deserves someone who is on board with its mission. Meanwhile, you should sort out for yourself whether your commitment to diversity ends when you begin to be inconvenienced or made to feel uncomfortable, or when people like you aren’t prioritized—and whether you want to change that. It’s definitely something worth exploring. But do it while you’re not on the clock.

Comments

[melannen]

Oh, no, I think you're absolutely conveying your POV well, and why this seems threatening and is angering! I'm sorry if I'm not showing enough empathy to make that clear - I definitely see all the points you're making and I should have acknowledged that more directly.

I think we basically agree anyway - and the people who are saying that LW needs to address the burnout and lack of support issue separately from the diversity one are probably most right.

(I would absolutely be saying very different things if LW was talking about a majority-white organization in a majority-white community. I've lived my whole life in a white-plurality-but-not-majority area - probably similar in demographics to LW's org - and I often need to be kicked in the head to be reminded that most places in the US are in fact still dramatically white majority and it skews the way I experience white privilege here.)

[minoanmiss]

Thank you for letting me know you hear me. :)

I'm so insistent about this stopic because I have seen so many times whhen people blew it off and so helped Awffulnesss to commence. Anyway, I am half asleep but I wanted to acknowledge what you said before I went to sleep.