A Few Lessons on Practicing Anti-Racism and Inclusion When Producing Events

I had the honor to kick off my career as a graduate student supporting “Transforming Silence Into Action” a series of three webinars about anti-racism in the workplace designed and hosted by Jodi-Ann Burey. There is so much to emulate about Jodi-Ann and her work. But here, I want to discuss a few key takeaways from working with her specifically related to creating successful educational events.

Think about the audience with intention

One of my earliest learning moments in supporting the marketing of this series was in a first draft of the event description. Without a second thought, I had written a description of an event about anti-racism that was geared specifically toward white people. But the intended audience for our series was not just white people. In fact, one of the goals of the series was to create spaces where Black people and other people of color could safely share experiences that they might not share in most diversity, equity and inclusion-focused conversations. White gaze, a term I learned more about in the first session, had permeated my approach to copywriting. I am grateful that Jodi-Ann pointed this out well before the content went live. It made me think through other public writing I've done in the past and other times I’ve written for one type of audience member and excluded others.

In the microaggressions workshop hosted on September 8th, Jodi-Ann spoke more about how the white gaze shows up in the workplace, and more specifically, in marketing communications work. She gave language to something that I didn't realize I have been doing, and now know to watch out for as I grow professionally. 

I think one of the things that I'll take away from this series as an event organizer and marketer is to be really intentional about the diversity of my audience. In past webinars, I’ve segmented audiences by job role or seniority. In the future, I’ll think about other factors, too. Thinking through how people with different experiences and different demographics will read and receive information is really part of the most basic level of inclusivity.

Jodi-Ann demonstrated this in the way she set up the digital space in our first webinar. She named specific groups that folks in the audience might fall into and talked about how they might receive the information she was about to share or how they might be asked to participate. She named specifically that white participants might be more uncomfortable with the content than others, and that Black people and other people of color might be invited to participate in ways that other attendees were not. Additionally, she advocated for ASL interpreters for our Deaf attendees throughout the planning, marketing, and production of the event. She clearly set expectations for everyone in the room. That clear communication made for a better experience for everyone.

Encourage attendees to be present

Another thing that I learned from observing Jodi-Ann at work is how she invites attendees to be fully present in these digital events, while still offering a lot of empathy for the realities of working from home. We've all come to expect that there will sometimes be distractions: an email that comes in, a child that needs attention, a roommate making a noise in the next room. I appreciate that Jodi-Ann distinguishes between these distractions.

She stated at the top of the call that we would all practice empathy for each other if some unexpected demands of working from home captured our attention. At the same time, she said repeatedly throughout the event that she would not be sharing her slides, and invited folks to give the 90-minute webinar their full attention as much as possible. She encouraged folks to keep either a notebook or a document open to take their own notes so that they could process the information in real-time and have some documentation of their own thinking to reflect on. I thought it was a great way to be accommodating while still encouraging people to get the most they possibly could out of the time they'd set aside. I’ll include a similar expectation in future events.

It didn’t hurt, of course, that Jodi-Ann’s presentation was deeply engaging. She has a confident and collected presence as she leads these calls. Her presentation style balances ease and polish. She's a captivating public speaker, and I think that helped keep folks in the room longer than I've experienced in other webinar events.

Synthesize and cite

Part of what made Jodi-Ann's presentation so compelling is that she presented a ton of her own thinking, but braided in quotes, research, and citations of other material. She presents many opportunities for folks to go deeper, and clearly situated her work as part of a lineage of anti-racism scholarship and education. In addition to other notes and reflections, attendees walk away from these sessions with a guide to further inquiry and a powerful reading list.

Even the name of the series — “Transforming Silence Into Action” — is an allusion. It points attendees to Audre Lorde’s essay, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action.” Jodi-Ann also quoted James Baldwin (“I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do”), Roxane Gay (from this article), Grace Lee Boggs, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and other major anti-racist writers, thinkers, activists in the context of these sessions. Drawing connections between these workplace webinars and the work of these major figures underscores the ongoing nature of this work and it’s importance.

One particularly great detail of this was that Jodi-Ann illustrated her slides with work from living Black artists. She included their Instagram handles on the slide so that folks could find more of the artists’ work on their own. This made for not only a gorgeous presentation, full of excellent artwork, but also highlighted individuals working in the field today.

Microaggressions are real and gravely harmful

This is a bit of a coda, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight some of lessons from the content of the event itself. I learned a lot from our first two sessions and am looking forward to the third. Though I think I could have offered a general definition of microaggressions before I started supporting this series, Jodi-Ann's presentation and the conversations we've had during planning have revealed to me the frequency and real harm of microaggressions, especially in the workplace. I've noted a few examples of times I have microaggressed in the past, and have a lot of lessons to build on moving forward. 

The stakes are especially high given what I learned in this webinar about harm: the stress of microaggressions weigh heavy on the health and well-being of Black people and other people who are discriminated against and, especially in the workplace, the impacts on promotion, compensation, and overall quality of life can be long-lasting and unforgiving.

I am certain that our next session, which focuses on marketing and communication strategies, will be equally illuminating and informative. If you missed the first two sessions, I highly recommend checking out the third and final one on September 22, 2020. More information here.

Join us for the third event on the series on Tuesday, September 22. Our panelists will be discussing how to build an anti-racism toolkit for marketing and communications.