A List of Leads for White Supervisors Who Want to Support Their Black Staff During the Pandemic

Being a white supervisor of Black staff adds an additional level of danger for the Black person or people in that working relationship. In addition to the individual, institutional, and societal influence to impact the lives of Black people that you already have access to as a private citizen who is deputized by white supremacy, and whose investment to upholding it can be activated at any time when presented with the choice of interrupting the flow or preserving the status quo, a supervisory or managerial relationship between yourself and a Black person or Black people affords you more specific power to influence their lives in ways that enable you to construct additional barriers for them, or actively work to remove them.

As many institutions are already in the process of making budget decisions in the midst of the pandemic that result in job loss for their staff, it is of critical importance to acknowledge that many of the Black staff on your teams are struggling right now and that there may be dips in their performance because of that.

Agreed. Harvard professor David Williams’ research indicates that each killing of an unarmed Black person at the hands of police can negatively impact the mental health of the Black community for at least 3 months. We need that and then some. https://t.co/qfy3dRm88X https://t.co/wWh6Brg2Nh

— Relando Thompkins-Jones (@Relando_TJ) June 17, 2020

White supervisors who do not approach this reality with a social justice lens place their Black staff members in an even more vulnerable position when jobs are on the line and conversations about who and what brings value are taking place.

Beyond being flexible with Black employees who may need time and space for processing on a personal level, it is also important to keep in mind the cumulative impact of the racial stress they are experiencing and use your seat at the table; your privilege and institutional leverage to think critically when it comes to things like performance evaluations and other methods of measurement and documentation, and to tell the (still disproportionately white) folks who make the decisions in your organization about who stays or goes, to keep that understanding in mind as well, so that Black people who are disproportionately impacted are not also disproportionately let go, because of how they are being impacted right now. 

In my own work, I’ve been receiving some inquiries regarding resources white supervisors could explore to better support their Black staff members right now, and I’m providing a non-exhaustive list of things that I’ve been sharing below.

It is always of critical importance to understand the pervasiveness of white supremacy culture, how (not if) it impacts your institution or organization, and ways you can interrupt it.

From Medium: Managing Teams in Times of Political Trauma – My office has a workshop of the same name that we offered in the winter term and will also be offering again this coming fall, and winter as well on campus and perhaps in our externally facing work as well.

From the Harvard Business Review: How Companies can Support Employees of Color through the Pandemic

From Medium: Maintaining Professionalism In the Age of Black Death is..A Lot

From Medium: How to Talk Trauma & Protests at Work. The (Very Non-Definitive) Guidelines

This Facebook post by Dr. Shayla R. Griffin:

From The Professor is In: You May Be Your Black Colleagues’ Amy Cooper

This collection of tweets on telling white people the truth. Click on the tweet to visit the full thread.

Hi White People! I want to tell you something. It's the second week since the explosion of this round of protests. The second week since George Floyd's snuff film started being broadcast all over.
I want to tell you something about my experience with white progressive backlash.

— TrooperSJP's Academic Foxhole (@AcademicFoxhole) June 10, 2020

From Afrosapiophile: Six Freedoms Black People Do Not Have Under White Supremacy

Leads on additional resources can be found in the google doc: Resources for Anti-Racism & Practice

Other resources, including a list of 30+ resources for white people, can be found in the Allyhood archives section of Notes from an Aspiring Humanitarian.

Resist the activation of the white savior complex that exists within you. I share these resources as an acknowledgment of inequitable institutional power where it exists. Black people have been and remain best positioned to know the solutions to problems we face. This is about you not being an additional barrier if helping is something you say that you want to do.

As an invitation for all who read this, if you know of any articles or other resources that you might add to this list, share them in the comments.

Ubuntu,

From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones

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