How are your companies addressing systemic racism?

How do you even show that systematic racism exists?

-edit to assuage the presumptuous-

Assuming systematic racism does exist in US industry(I'm not from the US or live there) and a solution is provided to lessen it. At what point can you say that it no longer exists?

I don't think there will ever come a time where the demographics of Executives In Industry will match the demographics of a nation. There are a million different factors at play that have nothing to do with race, I think its not a very useful measure. But without that, what else can you go by?

Unless a company is willing to do completely blind hiring and eventually promotions/raises anything they do internally to "address systemic racism" is merely posturing.

To illustrate this point, suppose there's Big Corp A - a company that's extremely racist. However they say they're not racist. To prove this they do everything you could imagine for their employees, seminars, diversity training, etc. All of the employees who work there conclude Big Corp A is not racist. However, suppose they actually are racist and simply do not hire anyone who is not of their preferred race. This would mean it's possible for the employees to feel that they're not racist, but also that they have racist policies.

Racism is something that can be viewed empirically. Without transparency, any company claiming to not be racist is lying. Blind hiring, transparency in wages, etc. are all things that a company would do to address systemic racism.

In any case, a company could make a large donation to many organizations trying to solve these problems I suppose. One would have to measure that impact vs. the impact they have that furthers the divide (e.g. a company whose existence might hurt individuals of certain races disproportionally).

No racism at our company. Neverthless we have well-structured independent channels to addresss systematic issues and biases when they emerge which fortunately do not require protesting. The personnel holding the position of these channels rotate after a fixed time so that they do not become authoritative or fascist.

Our CEO and ELT have taken a clear stance against racism. They've expressed sadness and anger at events that have unfairly targeted African Americans and other people of color and made it clear such injustices are not to be tolerated. Since May 27 we've had weekly company-wide sessions to discuss this. In our weekly team meetings and in smaller chat sessions we've shared thoughts, personal experiences and ideas on what we should do. On June 1 our CEO announced Cisco's purpose is to power an inclusive future for all. Public versions of our internal messaging are available yet but some is touched on in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcIUDwpI66Q

I would view racism as a marketing problem. Some (most? all?) people associate certain races with bad traits. That's the underlying issue, and to a certain degree it is also a subconscious thing that people can't easily change, even if they want to. Protests won't make any difference, nor will public statements. Riots only make things worse. The best, and maybe only thing you can do is to show black people in a more positive light. You need marketing. It may sound stupid, but promote that you are a black leader at a startup and do valuable work for society.

My employer instituted a form of the Rooney Rule[0] several years ago.

Our compliance with this rule is audited biannually by a third-party and diversity is important to our clients.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooney_Rule

We are trying an approach where for every new hire we must get a diverse set of qualified candidates for the last round of interviews.

The idea is that we don't want our employees to feel they were hired because of their looks, but because they were the best candidate for the job. At the same time, we hope that as a company, this will make us work harder to ensure equal opportunity for underrepresented groups.

What's been challenging is to figure out how should we set the bar to measure our performance on this. Ultimately, it comes down to the representation among our employees, but I believe that setting specific goals earlier in the hiring process would help us get there.

I work for a ginormous monster huge bank. Diversity and inclusion are incredibly important values at all levels. It’s not just lip service as the leadership goes well out of their way to impose these values.

> What are your companies doing?

I have been away on military assignment since the chaos caught fire, but before that the company strongly encouraged people to socialize outside their comfort groups and treat people as family (the kind you like). The company didn’t especially focus on race as this is factored into diversity.

I see "isms" and "phobias" as regrettably rampant in America. Perhaps more now that at any other time in my life. This is a huge community problem.

That said, I feel these are not discussions that belong in the workplace particularly as you are a workplace leader, I personally think that sending a memo to your team to talk about your feelings was inappropriate.