What we do have full control over is practicing self-accountability and reflecting on how we each also contribute to the problem.
Some questions for performative social justice:
Do we have enough women and people of color in leadership?
How do we look with our hiring quota?
Does our company website showcase diversity?
Are we including buzzwords in our social media posts?
Do we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion on our public platforms?”
Some questions for transformative social justice:
Do I take people of color as seriously as I do White people?
Do I think it’s annoying when women push back or disagree during meetings versus when men do the same thing?
Am I aware of my biases, prejudices, and assumptions?
Do I show up when someone is suffering?
Do I pay attention when people of color speak up at meetings?
Do I validate people’s anger and grief in response to injustice or do I think they're playing the victim?
Do people of color need to prove themselves for me to believe they are competent?
Is there anyone I purposely ignore or don’t bother acknowledging?
Do I treat all of my employees/coworkers as full human beings, or are they just parts of the assembly line so I can reach the bottom line?
It’s disillusioning to live in a society that is supposedly becoming more just, but to have overwhelming evidence that not much has changed. In fact, injustice continues to run rampant, and performative social justice serves as a band-aid for deeply rooted issues that are perpetuated by hatred, an obsession with comfort, an abuse of power, and a lack of accountability. There is continual work to be done, and unless we actively push back against injustice, it will continue to spread in our schools, companies, and communities.
Most organizations and for-profit companies, especially, appear to be pro-justice because the tactics for performative justice are cookie-cutter and yield significantly more benefits than costs. The question, however, is whether we are noticing differences in our micro-practices. Forget how we look like to the public or whether we’re meeting a hiring quota: what about every conversation we have with another person in the break room or in the conference room or in the hallway? Do we treat every person consistently with dignity in our tiny actions and acknowledge their full humanity?
It's crucial we hold our current systems of power and government accountable, despite it understandably feeling difficult and out of our control. But alongside that, the good news is this: what we do have full control over is practicing self-accountability and reflecting on how we each also contribute to the problem. Practicing self-accountability is how we produce internal change and start creating a ripple effect so true, transformative social justice can prevail even in the smallest and seemingly insignificant moments.
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