Moving Beyond Performative Allyship (Part 1)

Bringing Diversity, Equity, Justice, & Inclusion (DEJI) into the Workplace

June’s Pride celebrations have now passed, and with them, so have all the performative rainbow displays that corporations push during Pride month. To be honest, I kind of love seeing our beautiful, colorful flags everywhere, but at the same time the act of raising a flag for 30 days and then forgetting all about our causes and issues just feels like one big, empty gesture that is not going to help us fight for our rights. Strong allyship from a business is much more complex and requires year-round effort and commitment.

Here is how businesses can move beyond the performative and integrate their allyship into the workplace year round. And this starts with understanding what performative allyship looks like and understanding the acronym DEJI – Diversity, Equity, Justice, & Inclusion.

Rainbow Washing

But first, let’s take a step back and talk about what that performative allyship is. In this context, we call it “rainbow washing.” This is when corporations show performative support to the LGBTQ+ community and our causes without actually investing in our work or actively supporting and advocating for our rights. By displaying a rainbow flag, or simply selling a limited edition rainbow line, companies take advantage of Pride without actually contributing to advancing LGBTQ+ rights or helping LGBTQ+ charities.

Power of Strong Allyship

True Allyship is something that goes much deeper and requires a lot more work than just making money off of limited edition rainbow products or posting a rainbow-themed logo. Corporations can achieve true inclusion only by uplifting, celebrating, valuing and increasing the visibility of marginalized groups. This does not happen overnight but requires conscious work on unlearning biases around identities such as age, gender/sexuality, and race/ethnicity. A true Ally will push to advance the company inclusion policies, tangibly and vocally commit to fight against discrimination, and promote a positive culture that supports people from marginalized groups. 

Understanding and Fostering Diversity, Equity, Justice & Inclusion Throughout Your Organization 

Allyship starts at home. Companies and organizations cannot lead others without sorting out their internal problems. Before addressing your customers and competitors, you must create a safe, diverse, and inclusive environment for your employees. 

A place to start is knowing what Diversity, Equity, Justice, and Inclusion ( DEJI) actually means and start working on how to be truly committed to its policies and practices. 

Editor’s Note: The acronym is alternatively called JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion) as it centers justice and equity as the primary goals. For our purposes, we’ll use DEJI mainly because understanding the terms “diversity” and “equity” are helpful to understand what “justice” and “inclusion” look like in practice.

Diversity

Diversity is recognizing what makes us different and unique. Respect those differences which include but are not limited to race, gender, disability, and sexual orientation. You want to create a truly diverse working environment by hiring and promoting people of all backgrounds and identities. Historically, unconscious biases leads to hiring managers favoring White, cisgender, hetero folks in the hiring and promotion process. So creating true diversity in the workplace requires self-reflection and unlearning those biases through personal work and training on the topic.

Additionally, with all of this, be very careful not to tokenize historically marginalized people who work at your organization. Oftentimes “diversity” is interpreted as promoting one person of color or one LGBTQ+ person. As this Forbes article suggests, tokenization is the same as performative allyship but it also puts the underrepresented employee in an awkward position to essentially be the lone person tasked with speaking on behalf of all marginalized people. It is not fair to them or other underrepresented peopl,e and by moving beyond tokenization, you’re acknowledging that each group is not a monolith.

Equity

Equity is the acknowledgement that everyone in the workplace might have different needs and experiences and we should identify barriers and inequality to grant fair treatment, access, and development of any employees. It’s important to point out that “equity” is different from “equality.” Equality is providing the same treatment to everyone and is often seen as enough in the workplace. However, equity acknowledges that historically marginalized people come in without the same advantages that, say, a White, cis-het man might have. So when you are focusing on the outcomes, or the end result, you’ll find that additional resources will have to be invested in people who don’t come into the workplace with certain advantages (e.g., someone with gender privilege).

To achieve those outcomes, you can provide workshops and mentoring programs tailored to people from marginalized groups. This could be in the form of peer mentorship groups based on affinity (e.g., LGBTQ+ groups or BIPOC groups) or mentorship matching programs by affinity group. Additionally, to help others achieve their potential, your organization needs to critically evaluate the biases present when hiring and promoting employees. And, of course, you need to evaluate your compensation to ensure you pay your employees equitably. We all know there is still a long way to go to erase the gender and race pay gap, but you can be a leader and show other companies that it can be done! 

Justice

Justice is the dismantling of systemic barriers and disadvantages by addressing systematic inequalities (e.g., with hiring practices, pay structure, promotions, etc.). Justice should recognize and tackle those inequalities that derive from an abuse of power, resources, opportunities and privilege, so that everyone can live a full and dignified life. It should not only aim to create new policies and practices but also flash out those that might look good on the surface but actually aren’t and make them more equitable for all employees by opening access to resources and opportunities.  

Start by looking at your internal policies, hiring practices, and the identities of people in management. For example, there is no point to simply hire a more diverse workforce if promotions and management positions are all awarded to White cisgender men. Set targets to ensure accountability and help you identify areas of concerns to make real change. 

Inclusion 

Inclusion is fostering a sense of belonging for those who experience more barriers because of their identity or background. Inclusion aims to create a comfortable environment where everyone feels valued and welcomed. We are all different and we should acknowledge and embrace those differences. The best way to do so is to center those most marginalized and amplify their voices by an intentional and specific effort of integrating everyone in the community and offering the same rights, resources, and opportunities.  

Ask questions, listen to what your employees really need, and make sure they know their opinion is valued by implementing appropriate changes. You could provide confidential employee surveys, or even anonymous ones if your employees prefer, to help you identify areas of concerns. Just make sure to explain clearly how their data will be protected and used by the company to  implement changes. 

By starting with understanding DEJI, you can begin to more appropriately move beyond performative aspects of allyship. In my next post, you’ll find tips on what else you can do to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community all year round.