Anti-racist training is suddenly in demand. Here’s how to make sure it leads to real change.

Two months into the coronavirus pandemic Matthew Kincaid began to wonder what would become of his small consulting firm, Overcoming Racism, which teaches workplaces and schools across the U.S. how to become anti-racist. 
Business for the New Orleans firm, which employs two full-time staffers and Kincaid as the CEO, cratered as companies and schools canceled workshops. Some put off training because it couldn’t be held in person. Kincaid, a passionate speaker known for making a nervous room comfortable, is a big draw. Others, however, cited budget cuts, and Kincaid thought it was telling that anti-racism training was among the first line items slashed.
Kincaid, who’d put aside thousands of dollars as a rainy day fund, continued paying his staff. He applied for a government loan for businesses impacted by the coronavirus, but didn’t initially receive funding, like the vast majority of Black small business owners. So Kincaid settled into the idea of working only with dedicated clients while creating digital educational content that could be shared with the public. Then George Floyd died and the nation poured into the streets. 
White people began publicly reckoning with their role in perpetuating racism. Suddenly the unlikeliest of allies proclaimed that Black lives matter. Roger Goodell, who as commissioner of the National Football League spent years punishing former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for kneeling on the field, admitted in a video that the league wrongfully ignored players who silently protested police violence against Black people. He ended by declaring, “We, the National Football League, believe Black lives matter.” 
“I’m nervous because I dont want this bubble to pop.”
Evidence of an overnight shift in public opinion showed up in Kincaid’s inbox, too. By the beginning of June, Kincaid had received dozens of inquiries about bringing training to various workplaces, including technology firms, national nonprofit organizations, small schools, and even a clothing company. 
Kincaid isn’t alone. In early June, the CEO of Awaken, an Oakland firm that offers workshops on diversity, equity, and inclusion [read more] in the workplace, wrote on Medium that the company had received a “record number” of requests and that other educators and consultancies had seen a similar increase. 
In an effort to send inquiries to Black-owned consulting businesses and firms, Awaken created a spreadsheet of more than 300 such groups that provide DEI services. Overcoming Racism is among those listed. 
SEE ALSO: 6 ways to be antiracist, because being ‘not racist’ isn’t enough
As major companies like Apple and Google commit hundreds of millions of dollars to racial justice initiatives and say they are examining internal practices that disadvantage or marginalize Black employees, Kincaid is hopeful that this moment will lead to transformational change. Yet he’s prepared for the possibility that people and companies currently interested in anti-racism will abandon it once they feel like the box has been checked, or realize the work requires long-term action as well as sacrifice. 
“I’m not excited right now,” he says. “You would think most businesses out there, if you have this type of thing, it would be amazing. I’m nervous because I don’t want this bubble to pop.”
Making real change in the workplace
The swift reversal in Overcoming Racism’s fortunes stunned Kincaid. He’d been deep into processing the lived experience of Black Americans during the pandemic: first, dying disproportionately of COVID-19, and then feeling compelled by tragedy to march in the streets for basic human rights. In short, an exhausted Kincaid, who spoke about his grief in a widely shared Instagram video, had to abruptly rebound from despair. 
“Ive been protesting, and this [anti-racism] work has taken a significant emotional toll on me,” says Kincaid. “It’s hard to navigate this emotionally. Now people want immediacy and urgency.” 
Valerie Williams, founder and managing partner of the DEI consulting firm Converge, says inquiries for her services increased from a handful per week to around 30 in just a few weeks. 
Williams, who is Black, is skeptical about what will happen once the surge subsides. She wonders what exactly people will do to make workplaces equitable now that they’re recognizing their privilege. Williams is particularly concerned about company leaders who publicly acknowledge the problem but resist ceding some of their leadership power to Black employees who can best identify unfair and discriminatory practices, and forge a new path forward. 
“The thing I’ve noticed is that white privilege is still showing up in this moment.” 
“The thing I’ve noticed is that white privilege is still showing up in this moment,” she says. “You have to co-create and you have to let your Black employees lead you on this, and sit back and listen.” 
Both Williams and Kincaid urge their clients to spend years engaged in transforming their workplaces. Without changes that address systemic inequality, white employees may mistake “performative allyship,” like company statements and marketing campaigns, as workplace equality, and DEI efforts may be seen as expendable and short-lived. 
Marilyn Booker, who is Black and the former diversity chief for Morgan Stanley, offered a searing reminder of that last week when she sued the bank for racial discrimination and retaliation. Booker says she was fired in December after advocating for a program to support Black financial advisors. 
“My story is the same story as those of many Black people on Wall Street,” she told the New York Times. “Our fate has been tied to the goodness of whatever white person is in charge. That is no way to have a career.”
Williams has urged decision makers to go beyond making a donation or statement and start looking at how their organization builds Black wealth, whether it has an inclusive and representative board and leadership team, and whether they’re developing culturally relevant products and services, among other steps. 
Williams, who held DEI roles at Airbnb and Stripe, works with early-stage startups and facilitates 60- to 90-minute “courageous conversations” about equity in the workplace. She makes clear to companies that they must pursue a long-term strategy, even if it’s not with her as their consultant. Williams’ conversation is the beginning of a multi-stage effort. 
An audit of policies and procedures assesses things like hiring practices, performance management structure, salary, and a company’s code of conduct for signs of bias and racism. If, for example, a company enforces a dress code that reinforces stereotypes of white professionalism (think prohibiting dreadlocks or culturally specific attire), then it is building a racist culture. In subsequent phases, Williams focuses on generating feedback and implementing the DEI strategy. 
Williams began her career in DEI helping larger organizations undo years of policies that marginalized or worked against Black and other underrepresented employees. She founded her firm last October to help startups avoid making those critical mistakes in the first place. 
Making good on the promise of this moment
Kincaid warns workshop participants that his training isn’t like any other they might have previously attended. White people often believe that if a workplace can assemble enough diverse people in a room and get them to like each other what Kincaid calls the “kumbaya” approach that will eliminate racist systems and policies. 
Kincaid says that in an effective anti-racist workplace equity is both a verb, or something you can do, as well as a “state of being.” In a truly equitable workplace, Kincaid says you can no longer predict certain outcomes for people, like their salary or career trajectory, based on which marginalized group they belong to. Leadership listens to all staff, particularly women of color whose voices are often heard the least. The company critically analyzes its hiring practices and doesn’t defend its record by arguing that the pipeline has no diverse candidates. 
Like Williams, Kincaid starts with a candid dialogue. 
“A professional reality of the work I do is I kind of have to tell the truth and stare ugly in the face.”
“A professional reality of the work I do is I kind of have to tell the truth and stare ugly in the face,” he says.
Haley Simonton-Bonilla, school leader at KIPP Dream Prep, a public charter school in Houston, met Kincaid three years ago when searching for staff training that would ultimately foster an environment in which students learned “how to dismantle and navigate oppressive systems.” (Kincaid previously taught at KIPP schools.) The staff is 37 percent Black, 44 percent Hispanic, and 19 percent white. The nearly 900 students are predominantly Hispanic. About 12 percent are Black. 
The first stage of Kincaid’s training focused on the teachers’ racial identity and socialization, how those dynamics positively or negatively impact students, and the historical context of racism in the U.S. 
“It was a straight-up history lesson,” says Simonton-Bonilla, who is white. “There was lots of tears, emotions, heated conversations.” 
That laid the foundation for staff to talk openly about race with each other. Since then, Kincaid has helped the school evaluate how bias can play out in the classroom. He’s also offered feedback as Simonton-Bonilla changed its grading policy to provide both a letter grade, which is required by the state of Texas, and another metric called a “learning landscape.” That’s meant to be an equitable alternative to traditional grading, which often penalizes students of color, by providing parents with key information about their child’s educational achievements and growth throughout the year. Even so, Simonton-Bonilla doesn’t believe they’ve developed a fully just grading system yet. 
“It takes years and you’re never there,” Simonton-Bonilla says, noting that progress requires re-imagining a society and educational system founded on social justice, equity, and anti-racism, not oppression.
Kincaid knows this well. It’s why he’s cautious about what comes next. 
For Black people watching this groundswell of support for Black Lives Matter, who are daring to envision a safer, equitable future for their children, a betrayal of this moment’s promise would be beyond devastating, says Kincaid. 
He wants white people eager to transform society, starting with their workplaces, to understand change won’t come easy, or without sacrifices. 
“If you’re white and you’re joining the battle, do it for you, do it for your children so they don’t have to carry the heavy burden of being a suppressor,” he says. “This fight is a fight for your soul. This fight is a fight for your country.”