Dignity and Justice at Work Project
we’re revolutionizing the workplace for women of color
In the wake of 2020’s racial uprisings, there was a moment of consensus rooted in a simple fact: structures and institutions in the United States were designed to fail specific members of our society in destructive ways. This fact contains the truth that harm is weaved into this nation’s fabric.
For the first time in a long time, the realities of racial injustice took center stage in public conversation. While those of us who experience violence understood that these truths were not new, we had a twinge of hope that these conversations would have a normalizing effect, making it acceptable to name racism and oppression with frank matter-of-factness. This hope was something Black, Indigenous and women of color at all intersections of identity have pushed for long before tragedy stirred others to action.
The workplace, especially progressive organizations in the social sector, was one space where these frank discussions started to occur. But, predictably, the surface is where most of these efforts stayed in the social sector.
That disconnect was the impetus for our Racial Justice in the Workplace Survey.
With the support of our community and partners, we launched the survey to capture and surface anecdotal experiences of violence in the workplace directed towards BIWOC. In our careful readings and analysis, we uncovered an opaque thread that wove the over 200 stories together: the need to belong and to be seen for our diverse and expansive identities.
In our new report, Dignity and Justice: A Brown Paper on Humanizing the Workplace for BIWOC+, we present a snapshot view of our findings, offer recommendations, and discuss implications for moving forward to build more just and safe workplaces that center BIWOC+.
How This Project Started
From Our Survey
“My org wants to have BIPOC ‘use our voices’ to build equity in the community, but it is really putting us on display and then not listening to anything we have to say.”
— Survey Respondent
“I've had white colleagues in positions of power threaten to shoot me, call the FBI to investigate me and have me deported.”
— Survey Respondent
“I have been shamed, retaliated against, told that I was being a primadonna when asking for the same work arrangements given to white colleagues.”
— Survey Respondent
“I felt as if I was always being watched and even had co-workers ‘tell’ my boss when I would report to work and if it was what they considered on time or not.”
— Survey Respondent
Read the Brown Paper
We’re excited to share with you a new report on racial justice at work: Dignity and Justice: A Brown Paper on Humanizing the Workplace for BIWOC+.
We aim to release the report in Spanish and provide audio recordings of the brown paper in the coming months.
For too long, organizations had free reign to practice forms of injustice, while implementing paltry diversity measures aimed at bridging gaps, without tackling structural oppression that is the root of workplace racial inequities. We created the Racial Justice in the Workplace Survey to unpack and surface the experiences of women of color at work. This survey was created by disabled women of color in collaboration with queer, trans people of color.