‘There are a lot of doors being closed’: Confessions of a PR professional of color on toxic positivity and weaponized incompetence in DE&I

What’s your definition of toxic positivity and how does it play into DE&I goals?

It’s the culture where there are always praise parties. We say everything good that we’ve done. We can say we have this initiative and that initiative. But if we stop there, and we don’t say what else we need to be doing, or here’s where we’re falling flat, that’s where it’s toxic. When the narrative is constantly skewed positive, we forget to stop and recognize that some of it’s neutral and some of it’s negative. That’s where it’s toxic.

For people of color, especially when we raise our hands, saying we need XYZ, I’m laying out my expectations here and what could be changed. People stunt that and say, “Well, what do you want done?” It’s okay to pose that question to people of color. But with toxic positivity comes weaponized incompetence, where it’s, “Oh, I’m white. I really don’t know what you want here and I’m doing what I can.” Go hire a third-party source that’s going to hold you accountable. Go make sure you have an advisory board mixed with people of color, LGBTQIA status and abilities.

Has any of this played out in your personal professional experience?

From the get go, I was a really big champion of diversity. I was helping the recruiting team get [diverse candidates] interested in talking to us. Given, we were understaffed, but they said we were too busy. We never revisited that. You told me you’re trying to network and get diverse candidates, but we couldn’t make time for that and we’re not circling back?

Sometimes there are a lot of doors being closed because no one knows how to put those resources into place. So, we just give up and that’s not the answer either. One of the most difficult conversations is where you spin your wheels, you’ve given all these ideas to executives like, “We still need change. These numbers are still flat or this is still happening in the workplace.” And they’re like, “Well, what do you think we should do?” It’s good that those doors are open. But the tone that people use, the way they ask and how receptive they are to input definitely changes whether it’s really a welcome suggestion, or like, “Well, we asked you. Why didn’t you say anything?”

What do you think the industry response should be?

As a person of color, I need to put skin in the game and hold myself accountable for showing up and giving feedback when we’re being welcomed to give feedback. It falls on the agencies themselves [too] because it can’t just be on one small group of people, especially considering that we are the minority. If all companies care about is hitting those diversity numbers so that they can post about it on LinkedIn, you’re not really doing anyone service. It’s gonna take a lot of moving parts for holistic change to keep going.