 Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to LEAD, Leading Equity and Diversity. I am Dr. Debbie Willis, pronoun she, her, hers, and I lead the DEI certificate program at the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School. We started the series because scholars wanted to hear from real people their experiences leading equity, diversity, and social justice efforts. We want to thank all of you for joining us today, given all that's going on in the world. We appreciate your presence here. You received a prompt that the session is being recorded. And though your audio and video has been muted, we encourage you to engage in a conversation through the question and answer portal. If you see a question that you'd like to hear the response to, please like or upvote that question. We ask questions with the most interest first. We ask that you remain patient with us. As close to 1,000 of you have joined us today, and we received many questions from registration. We will not get to all of them in an hour. But we're committed to continue this conversation and have decided to dedicate this LEAD webinar series to address racial equity for an entire year. And we invite you to join us each month. In this webinar, we'll be talking about racial code switching. We have two of our featured guests who are phenomenal in this area, and that is Dr. Courtney McCuny and Dr. Miles Durkey. They'll introduce themselves, and then we'll start on with our session. Also, its closed caption is available, and you can enable that on your screen. Courtney, we agree to start with you. Yes, thank you so much for introducing me, Debbie. Hi, I'm Dr. Courtney McCuny. I am an assistant professor of organizational behavior in the ILR school at Cornell University. I'm also an alumni of the University of Michigan's Department of Psychology, where I graduated in 2017 with a PhD in personality and social context area. And after that, I completed a postdoc at the University of Virginia in the Darden School of Business. Happy to be here, and say I am too tired to code switch. Love this shirt. Love it. Miles. Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Miles Durkey. I'm an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology here at the University of Michigan. I completed my doctoral training at University of Virginia, and then I'm a postdoc at University of Chicago before doing a second postdoc at U of M before joining the faculty. So I also like to show off my shirt also because I received it back in the day in grad school at UVA and still one of my favorite shirts. Love the shirt as well. You guys came dressed for the occasion, and we appreciate that. So I'll start by asking the first question. Just so that we're all on the same page, how would you define racial code switching? The definition has evolved a bit over time. Courtney, would you like to start there? Absolutely. So racial code switching has certainly been part of our cultural dialogue for a long time before it migrated into academic conversation and code switching then used to mean differences in language. So being able to switch between multiple languages, whether that specific dialect, like African-American vernacular English to English, or switching between Spanish and English, for instance. Since then, it has evolved, as you said, Debbie, to include behavioral changes and adjustments, to appearance, and all of these modifications that people are making to their persona is all to negotiate and navigate interracial situations and interactions. So this might be to downplay certain aspects of your race and cultural identity, such as straightening your hair if it's natural, or wearing clothing or not having artwork that would be associated with a particular racial group. And the reason why people do this is always some sort of motivation behind it. It's usually to receive their treatment or be able to access service and opportunities, or even to survive some interaction. This includes how we interact with police, for instance, and what kind of tone of voice we use, even if we're feeling a certain emotion. It's really masking that in order to successfully survive these interracial interactions. Thanks, thanks. Miles, what is at the root of code switching? Does this relate to white supremacist culture? Yeah, so thanks for the question. So ultimately, the goal of code switching is to fit into within a certain context, okay? So if you're within a workplace environment, you're gonna code switch to fit the norms and the standards and the expectations of that work environment. Unfortunately, in America, when we think about what's considered as professional, we oftentimes associate professionalism with a very narrow profile of behavioral attributes which are most commonly associated with white behavioral norms in terms of how you speak, how you dress, how you carry yourself, even how you introduce yourself to someone. We typically follow the standard suit of traits associated with white culture. So I would say, yes, in a way, that code switching does have roots in white supremacy because in order to broaden our perspective and hopefully reduce the pressure for code switching, we need to consider that professionalism can look many different ways. Even around the country, around the world, we see the professional look slightly different than it does in America, but in America, we have a very narrow sense of what professionalism is. So for example, even different hairstyles, natural hairstyles can also be very professional, but in the United States, we tend to have a very narrow sense of perspective of what is a professional hairstyle, whether that's having any facial hair at all or having your hair any style outside of straightening. Thanks, thanks so much. How does code switching differ from required conformity or how one would carry themselves to fit in a workplace culture or any membership or organization? Yes, you get this question a lot. A lot of times people say, well, shouldn't you just be professional at work? And I don't want people to show up in their pajamas in the workplace. So code switching really is no different from professionalism, right? But building off of what Miles just said, there is a way to carry yourself that is respectful that enables you to get your work done, whatever it is the goals of that particular environment that you're in, including school environments, which is where Dr. Durfee studies like the act of white accusation, which is also associated with code switching. The main difference though is that racial code switching is implying that certain aspects, natural aspects of your blackness are not considered professional because professionalism has been decoded as whites, middle-class, heterosexual, able-bodied and typically male. So to suggest that, you know, how we speak and what words we use being just being professional, it's really hard to disentangle professionalism from people who have been in positions of power for hundreds of years. And over time, that has been statistically speaking an ongoing white men. We see now that there's very little representation and diversity at the top of most industries, including higher education, political sphere in corporate America, et cetera. So they get to define what is professional and it tends to be reflected off of their own experiences. So the fewer people we have who look different and who are, as I was saying, showing you that I can be professional and have this hairstyle look this way, then all of our terms require conformity, professionalism, just being, bringing your best self at work, all of those are still coded for the group that is in power, which tends to be white men. Great, thanks. What are the individual benefits associated with racial code switching? And what are the costs to the individual who is code switching? Miles, you wanna start with that one? Yeah, so that's why code switching is a catch 22. I mean, so clearly members of minority groups and underrepresented groups are code switching for a reason and that reason is to get ahead in life. So in these environments where they are underrepresented which can be oftentimes the majority of their experience in education, higher education and their workplace. I mean, there is a desire to code switch in order to be respected by your colleagues and to help in advancement and promotion of your career. And ultimately, that if we go on to more social psychology research, the reason that happens is because there's many benefits associated with being a perceived as a member of the in-group versus being perceived as a member of the out-group. So if a member from a minority group is able to code switch effectively and their colleagues are able to see them as more a member of that in-group and part of that workplace culture and some almost see themselves mirrored in that individual, they're gonna associate a lot more positive characteristics and attributes with that individual as opposed to if they see them more as a member of the out-group then they might highlight more of the negative attributes of that individual versus the positives. So on the beneficial side, there is many positive outcomes that could be associated with it. However, code switching is taxing, okay? So let's start with on the peer effort side. So code switching one, to be an effective code switcher one has to have a lot of experience doing this. It's not so that one can just jump into a new environment, join a new, get a new job and decide, you know what, I'm gonna code switch today for the first time ever. That is not gonna be successful. Typically for these individuals, those who are our most effective code switchers, they can almost do it automatically without thinking about it. It's because they've been doing it their entire lives, okay? So it really takes a strong commitment and a lot of experience and practice of code switching and they don't do it effectively. But for many individuals who feel forced and pressured to code switch, it's very taxing because it's a lot of work to have to one, accomplish your job at a high level and at the same time almost pretend to be, not pretend, but present a completely different personality and present yourself in a different way in terms of your mannerisms, how you're caring yourself, how you're dressed, how you're speaking and putting so much effort and attention towards a fitting that profile that can be very fatiguing. And it can also be distracting as well and lower your capability to perform tasks that require a high level of attention. So in our research moving forward, we're looking at these costs, cost and benefits of code switching. We find already from our research that the benefits are that individuals perceive code switchers as more professional. And that's across the board of both black professionals and white professionals, both view black targets who code switch as more professional in a professional work context. But we're still trying to understand more about these consequences in terms of how depleting and cognitive resources is code switching and what is the stress on the body in terms of your cardiovascular response? Do we see a typical health consequence of a stressor in terms of your heart rate, blood pressure, and even your skin temperature? Yeah, and just to build on that, I think this is also why my shirt is so telling. The tiredness of a T, as Dr. Durkey mentioned, is certainly part of the code switching. And although it could be a date, if we're doing it over time for so long, whenever people ask me when's the first time you go to it, I'll say when I was four years old and my mom taken me to the doctor's office telling me you cannot act like a little black child because what that means in this environment is going to be perceived as out of control, aggressive, angry, you should know better and it's gonna reflect poorly on me because there's stereotypes that black mothers are not fit to be good mothers, et cetera. So we have been taught this from a long time and it also teaches us to dislike our blackness, which has consequences for how we relate to other black people and how we embody and embrace internalized racism. So there's some huge, long-stream multi-generational consequences of code switching as well. And part of the fatigue is constantly having to grapple with loving yourself when you're taught to hate yourself in society. Woof, yes. So, so far we've focused on the individual. But what about the benefits and cost of code switching for organizations? Courtney, you wanna start with that one? Absolutely, this makes me think about work from some of my mentors and colleagues after Laura Morgan Roberts and Dr. Sandra Cha, they actually published a study last year looking at black and Asian journalists and found that the more that they were allowed to bring in their cultural norms of perspective into the field of journalism, the more accurate reporting they were doing, the more in tune with society and able to translate this information of what's happening in their respective communities back to the public via their journalism field. So as an organization, by allowing people to fully be themselves and not feel that they have to pretend to be someone else, you can actually better address and relate to different markets of people. People are also not burdened or encumbered, as Dr. Durkey was saying, by feeling like I have to put on a different persona or switch myself presentation. So when they're free from those cognitive burdens, they're actually able to focus more heavily on their work and do a better job. Some of the costs associated with that with organizations is it challenges a lot of the beliefs that organizations have, beliefs that they're meritocratic and that we actually do value differences. Lots of organizations as a blade have claimed that black lives matter and it's very interesting to hear from their black employees to what extent their lives matter when they are facing glass and concrete ceilings with trying to be promoted, when they're still exposed to microaggressions on a daily basis, when there's still huge pay gaps and disparities in performance ratings. So for organizations to truly allow people to be themselves and not to create that pressure to code switch, they really have to undo everything that they thought about their environment, what it means to be honest in this space, what it means to communicate in this way, really question all of those values and how they can constantly decode for reinforcing white male leadership. So for a lot of organizations, it's really undoing what they have created and reinforced for years and centuries. Yeah. How can you start to change the environment so that code switching isn't the expectation or norm? Miles, you wanna start there? Yeah. So I just wanted to add before I get to that question. Yeah, thank you. As human beings. Always feel free to add. Okay, yeah, absolutely. Now as human beings, so we all code switch, okay? So I wanna make it clear that everybody code switches to some extent, okay? Because we all have social identities. So based on those social identities of your race, your gender, your social class, your religion, you name it, there's gonna be a certain context or certain scenario where you're gonna feel the need to code switch and likely feel some pressure to code switch. But we also need to keep in mind that individuals from more stigmatized identity that raises the stakes of code switching. Because now given those stigmatized identities and those stereotypes associated with that group, it's more motivation for one to try to distance themselves somewhat from those negative stereotypes and that stigma to not be evaluated under that lens. So Dr. McCluny and I, we always get the question all the time about, oh, well, everyone code switching, it's not that big of a deal. It's just a thing we all do. But I think when we get that question, it's from a lens and a perspective of privilege where typically the individuals out there who ask that question code switch only when it's convenient. And they feel like code switching and there's a distinction between code switching to get ahead versus simply code switching between being yourself and then being slightly more professional. So kind of your work self and your home self in that way. But if you're code switching to try to present yourself as a completely different social identity and almost a different person, that's a much higher stake than simply going from casual to professional and then back. So I just wanted to make that distinction. So getting at kind of what we can do to start helped improve the environment of code switching. I think one is that we need to realize that in these workplaces, in school settings, we all come from very different backgrounds, okay? And we have different cultural lenses. So one way to help reduce that pressure for us all to assimilate into one kind of standard cultural norm could be to diversify that context. And I say diversify that context because if we only have one token member from each of those groups, it's almost impossible to expect those members from that group if they're the token one to be able to bring their true self to that environment because they don't have the numbers. So in that case, that's where critical mass is so important to have enough members from your culture group so that you're not always evaluated as the ambassador and the representative of your race. If that's always on your mindset and your consciousness, then in that environment, everything you do, you're gonna realize that you're gonna be evaluated based on you as the representative of your racial group. So one way to relieve that pressure is help diversify that context. And that's across all of these social identities. The next is that we also need to understand the climate of the environment as well. And really, I think that's where organizations can have the most control is trying to improve that climate so that's more inclusive for all. So I'll be honest, a lot of time leaders and managers and bosses in the environment, they're probably not even aware of the pressure of code switching if they're from the majority identity and they have control in determining these norms in the environment. So they may not even be aware that their members or employees from marginalized identities are code switching because when they see these individuals code switch if the employees are doing it effectively, they won't even know they're code switching. So one way to help to determine that pressure of code switching within that environment is to administer climate surveys anonymously and regularly, perhaps annually so that you are the leaders and executives and managers can get a sense of how much pressure do the employees fail to assimilate or code switch to one kind of corporate or cultural norm within that workplace. So those are just two steps, but there are more though but I think those two are two major steps that can help to relieve some of this pressure. I would add one more point to the diversify comment is also to create equity as you're diversifying creating lots of diversity at one level of an organization but all those senior leaders remaining white men is not gonna change the expectations for what we need to do to achieve to the next level. And we are seeing that with corporations around the world, they're adding more black people to their boards for instance, but they're not changing their senior leadership team inside of the organization. So there's still this belief that in order for me to advance here in this particular context, there's still some expectations of how I need to adjust and change my behaviors if there hasn't been there before me advance inside of this company. So really thinking about creating equity as you're diversifying as well. Wow, that's an issue. Oh, good. I'll just add one more. A lot of these norms in organizations and in university institutions, I mean, these norms are set almost from top down a lot of the time. So that's why it's so important to not just diversify the lower ranks but also make sure that the diversify is hierarchical and it's also at the top to help change some of these norms. Yeah, that's an important distinction. I appreciate you making that about the diversity and having equity at all levels. I will say that we are getting questions in and one of the questions or the highest interest question, I think you both just answered, but if you wanna add anything specific, it was how can us white people on the individual level assist in altering the white perspective of professionalism and work towards eliminating the code switch altogether? Yeah, I would say there's a lot of things you can do in your personal life without burdening black people to help with that. One would be to expose yourself to more different representations of black people beyond what the media shares. Because a lot of these stereotypes that we have about particular racial groups are driven through culture that has been created and appropriated by white people. So how we first saw a black character on TV, for instance, was a white person in blackface and those stereotypes have continued to perpetuate over centuries. So really exposing yourself to content created by black people and for black people. So start to see how we operate and exist outside and beyond the white gaze or how it is that white people are seeing us. From there, reading the books, doing the word practicing, seeing people as holistic persons and not just as someone who's different from you because of race and really taking off this belief that all black people conform or confine to certain stereotypes. I will stop there, but what do you think, Myla? No, it's a really great point. So I'll just add that. So Dr. McCluney's research on code switching, one of the dimensions we find in which black professionals code switch is learning to develop shared interest with the majority group in their workplace. So the dimension is called a promotion of shared interest. So an example of this can be a black employee who personally has no interest in ice hockey who realize that the executive leaders in the organizations are really into hockey. And currently right now, I believe it's the NHL playoffs. So this is a scenario where to fit in and be perceived as a member of the in-group, we tend to find that individual minority groups start to develop those interests even if they have no personal interest but just to get that kind of that competency to have that small water cooler talk with their employees to start to slowly become more of a member of the in-group. So I feel like this understanding of shared interest it can happen both ways. It doesn't always have to be the minority group learning the norms and customs of the majority group but it can also be members and allies of that majority group who feel the need to let me understand more about members from underrepresented minority groups. So when certain events like Juneteenth comes around simply doing your research and understanding more about Juneteenth and having a conversation with the employee from a minority group about holidays like that. I mean, that can go a long way but I will say make sure that is genuine, okay? And that's so important. And it happens really both ways. So even the member from the minority group if they try to force an understanding of hockey but don't genuinely really know anything about hockey as soon as they engage in that conversation if they get caught or trapped or they didn't do enough work then that goes to which you can backfire. And it can be vice versa, give you the other ways around. So make sure that you kind of do your research. You understand, you don't have to be an expert on the topic by any means but just at least know the basics so that you can have a lighthearted conversation about that topic. And I think these little small, not meaningless but these small instances of small talk can actually go a long way in building strong relationships. Thanks. I just wanna bring in some of the voices from the audience. So people really appreciate your distinction. So one of the comments is I appreciated Professor Durkey's hints about critical mass climate as identified by surveys and Dr. McIuney's additions about equality. So people are relating to that. Are still most highly interested people the question that people are most interested in. I think you all addressed as well but it says what recommendations would you make to establish or address professional norms that are not reinforcing white professional profiles within our organizations? Yes, I am blanking on the name of this resource but there is this great resource. I'll try to find it and share with Debbie afterwards that talks about how white supremacy culture has invaded our various organizational context. And one of them for instance is politeness culture. Now I know a lot of you might think being polite is a good thing. Why should we not consider that professional to engage in each other in a polite manner? But this resource really does a great job of breaking down how politeness allows people who are in positions of power. Thank you so much. Dr. Ravello just shared it in the chat. She's awesome. But Dr. Veronica Ravello, please check her out. It talks about how politeness culture can allow people in positions of power to avoid being directed and told when they are doing something that is discriminatory, racist, sexist, heterosexist, et cetera. And it's, oh well you were saying that in a mean tone so I just couldn't hear you. I need to tell you that your heart, I need you to tell me that I'm being discriminatory but do it in a nice way. So that way I can hear you. And that consistent require for people to be civil and engage in civil discourse actually ignores the humanity of people who are experiencing extreme forms of violence and trauma. Especially in this time where we have COVID-19 disproportionately affecting people of color because of economic inequality. And when we have police who are killing unarmed black people at alarming rates and violating so many laws when they are doing so to ask someone to politely disagree with you or to politely engage with you is a form of professionalism that I think needs to change. We need to be more comfortable engaging in disagreement, engaging in conflict, which will require people in positions of power to be less fragile about those things to develop some grit so that way they can handle tough conversations without feeling like it's an attack on them. The other way I like to think of this is people equating being called a racist with experiencing racism and how we need to disentangle those or stop considering those equal experiences. The experience of racism is not the same as being called a racist and really what people need to develop is more grit so they're less fragile to disagreements and conversations. That way they can be more open to changing their behavior if they're being told that what you're doing is harming a particular group. Wow, that's awesome. Miles, did you wanna ask? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to follow. So I'm gonna take a different approach. Okay. But I'll say, you know, on a heart to heart I would say one thing to do is just try not to be a caring in the workplace. Like I'll be honest. So I mean, in this case, I mean, let's be honest. So Black women have been using the term caring for years in the workplace, but it was under the radar. A lot of people didn't know, okay? So this was a former code searcher that's already taken place. It just recently went viral that everyone knows about it. But I think that's a place to start to have a conversation where let's say there is a caring in the workplace. So for those who don't know, a caring is a woman that's typically social with a white woman who's always in someone else's business, okay? Always kinda overstepping where they shouldn't overstep. But in that case, if you have a few members of a minority group in the workplace and they happen to code switch and let's say switch into their native language just to have a sense of privacy or they have even code in terms within their own language. An individual from the journey, if you feel somehow excluded or left out, it's not a really a lot of times an issue or a problem in that workplace or something to even bring up as a complaint. So there's certain things that can be let go to allow members to have that sense of safety within a workplace. And I think language is a major component that we see oftentimes in the education system where a lot of parents feel that bilingual education should not be a thing in the United States, okay? They get very upset when they see individual switches in Spanish or the language in the United States. But to me, in my opinion, that's just another form of the less perpetuating kind of a certain one culture, one cultural norm and an embracing difference in that sense. Absolutely. Yeah, great, different addition and different approach. I love it. I will say also, thank you to Dr. Rubella. We weren't able to see, all of you weren't able to see her comment, but now we've placed it so you can all see the link. And also know that we'll send out resources after this with both Dr. Miles Durkey and Dr. Courtney McUnney's awesome work, as well as other things that we talk about today on the webinar. We'll send them out to you. Our next question is, what are some institutional approaches to fostering an environment where people can bring their authentic selves to work? You talked a little bit about it. I don't know if you wanna add anything. Sure, while just drawing on where we are in this moment in history, where this conversation about race has come to the forefront, and there was a brilliant piece in a journal, I think based in the UK, where it talked about the hardships of watching your colleagues become awakened to racial discrimination for the first time. So it's like, although there's a lot of quote unquote excitement and desire to do things urgently, to address and respond to people just now realizing that racism is a problem and has been a problem for a long time around the world, there at the same time has been this really strange environment that people of color, black people in particular are walking into, where now everyone wants to know about your experience. Not everyone wants to give their insight and take on police brutality and violence as it has been affecting black people for years and that has gone, you know, unaddressed. So as much in this well-intentioned meaning that people from majority groups are being in this moment, I think I just wanna encourage institutions to be very careful that they're not adding additional burden to black employees or assuming that all black employees or black people have the same experience and therefore less address, that's just going back to stereotypes, right? Need to address all of you in this way. One of my concrete examples of this is I love it that people are starting to have book clubs and talk about how to be an anti-racist. I am not going to leave your book club on how to be an anti-racist. And I think asking your black employees to take on that additional diversity labor is reinforcing institutional racism. You want to have these conversations but do it amongst yourself. People of color, black people have been taken on this burden for over 400 years. It's time to shift the burden and the discomfort and the work to the group that has benefited, has benefited from this institutional structure. So part of the ways that we dismantle the institution is to take the burdens off of people who have been affected by it negatively and put the burden on people who have benefited to change it. And I know that it's gonna take a long time too. So this whole urgency, since we have to do something now, that is gonna erode the need for long-term sustainable efforts that need to happen in institutions. So we don't need to think of something to solve today, tomorrow, and then we can get back to sports. We need to think of this as a moment, a window that we can hold open for the next 400, 500 years and continue to make progress and strides in those ways. So institutions need to take off of the desires and do things right now and really build out some long-term equitable strategies and those that burden on white people and people in positions of power. Did you want to add miles or no? No, I agree completely. That is, I think it's so important to explain this is not something that can be done overnight. And I think that's what a lot of people are looking for kind of the instant, okay, we're gonna do this thing today. I feel good about myself and the world is better. So I appreciate saying we gotta be in it for a while. At the individual level, how can we help our colleagues feel more comfortable being their authentic sales in the workplace? So like on a one-to-one interpersonal level. Miles, do you wanna address that? Yeah, first and foremost, we should try to see each other outside of stereotypes. So it's saying seeing each other as individuals and not as a generalized of prototypical or profile of a race. So that is one and treating individuals like individuals. So not generalizing them as well or expecting them to fit certain stereotypes of the groups and social identities they belong to. So along this lines too, being more acceptance of difference is another one that's important. So as human beings, I mean, we're always naturally gonna be attracted to similarity and things that remind us of ourselves, okay? So we like things that are congruent with our own way of seeing the world. But simply because someone else has a slightly different way of seeing the world or presents themselves in a different way, that's not always a bad thing, okay? So of course it may naturally be shocking at first because it's different not what you're used to, but we should be more accepting of that difference. And that can be in terms of attire, what you're wearing to work, it can be in terms of jewelry, you know, it can be terms of airing, whether the earrings are larger, more colorful or whether they're subtle, it's a little things like this and we should be more inclusive of this difference rather than seeing it as more jarring. And I think that can go a long way. And I think we always should be self-evaluating, you know? Especially to go back to the prior question of what are these norms in that organization in this setting and constantly evaluating whether it's a rigid set of norms or a more open set of norms. I'll say another example, so taking it kind of a little bit out of the workplace and then back to kind of the university level. I mean, at the University of Michigan specifically amongst the students, I mean, there's an expectation that amongst the students that the norm is being middle class or upper middle class. I mean, given that even these Canada Goose coats that you see all over campus, I mean, these are very expensive coats and it's almost like the uniform in Michigan, like it's standard issue and every student's expected to have one. But this is a kind of a visual token and an emblem that can be very exclusive and isolating for other individuals who can't afford these very expensive coats that I had no idea how expensive they were until I got here. So things like that. So working to try and change these norms, which is difficult, I agree as an organization, but they should be aware that these norms exist. And I think another way that code switching happens amongst the students at Michigan is that students who are particularly from working class families or even lower income families, there's code switching there on the social economic status to kind of present yourself as more middle to upper middle class, whether that's from kind of owning an iPhone and making it clear that you own an iPhone or even MacBooks or a fluent or elite laptop over PC. Even though I'm personally a diehard PC guy. But so little things like this, like these little tokens that kind of show and can be symbolic of being a member of that in group. We should want to be aware that these exist and try to present counter narratives that can be more inclusive of everyone. I want to add one thing to what Dr. Durkey said about, it wasn't tolerant, which is the first thing he said, oh, stereotypes. Yes, do not treat individuals like stereotypes at the same time, hold the reality that structural racism exists. I think one tool of white supremacy inside of institutions and that can happen at the individual level is either or thinking, either the stereotype has to be true or the racism is not real, right? And you need to hold both of those things in reality at the same time and not all black people, you need to meet the stereotypes of black people and structural racism is real. Either or thinking and assuming that I have to treat everyone as an individual, which means I have to ignore the fact that racism exists, is something that's gonna stall our progress. So I think about that with organizations and we have a reparation conversation happening right now in the United States. Everyone's go to examples like, so Oprah deserves reparations. And I'm like, if her parents were enslaved, black people, yes, she does. And she's Oprah, right? And so it's that lack of desire to want to recognize individuals within a broader system of inequality. And one of the things that we as individuals have to do is do that difficult mental task of not seeing people's stereotypes and holding the truth that structural inequality and racism is real. So I'll put that there. Yeah, thanks a lot for that. And since you all mentioned students, I'll bring in one of the questions from our participants and it asks, what role does cold switching play in classrooms at predominantly white institutions like you or them? Also with that one, I mean cold switching plays a strong role in the classrooms. So from my experience of teaching at University of Michigan, there's definitely an expectation that all students will speak in standard American English, kind of like the way I'm speaking right now and that any slight accents or dialects that deviate from that are somehow not acceptable in a way. So that's one area where that, I mean should be addressed and challenged that we come from many different parts of the country and parts of the world where even though typically in Michigan, we all are gonna be speaking English in the classroom, the English doesn't have to sound exactly the same amongst everyone. And that if individuals do have a slight accent or dialect that we shouldn't perceive that as somewhat inferior or that individual, if they have a Southern accent that somehow they're less intelligent because these are kind of structural societal stereotypes that we associate with any deviation away from that standard norm. So these are things to be aware of and to go back to my prior point, I think definitely on the socioeconomic status, that's another major area of cold switching along that line. And I've witnessed this in different universities outside of Michigan, but I, so my first weekend at the University of Virginia was when white supremacists marched through campus in August, 2017. And the student response to that was quite impassioned especially amongst the black students. And I witnessed a white male professor tell a black woman who was starting to cry to think about, you know what's happening in the world with black lives and black people. And he's like, oh, you need to calm down. Like you're a little too stressed as hard to understand you going back to this desire for the classroom setting to be a space where people cannot be human and cannot be and not experience emotions and rational responses to violent traumatic structural racism. So cold switching in that sense was we want to listen to the students who had it together. We're not so emotional in their responses which also just unfortunately affects women. If women of all races are not saying something in a very rational, less emotional, emotive way but if a man starts yelling in the class, it's like, oh, we should listen to him. He's very authoritative, especially if he's a white man. Black men, everyone runs recovery. They're angry and we need to hide. And there is expectation that your students of other races will be less loud. I remember talking with an Asian woman who was on the job market in academia going into business schools and she was told at several universities that we don't think you can handle an MBA classroom because you know, you're probably not gonna be able to control them because you're a little too docile. You're a little too passive. And I was like, that is a huge racial and gender stereotype to assume that she has to code switch in order to be an effective teacher. So yeah, there's lots of expectations from the faculty and from students across racial groups and how people are expected to engage with each other and what expectations we have for instructors as well. Yeah, and I wanna bring in the voices of the staff because we just had a staff member say, hey, you know, we experienced this as well. It's definitely across the institution for students, staff and faculty. So I appreciate you bringing that in. I also wanna bring in graduate student instructors and they're saying how, yes, this is huge even in how we are supposed to relate the examples we should use. And there's a lot of talk about tone policing. So even the tone, like you said, you know, calm down a little bit or you're talking too loud or whatever. So thank you for bringing those up. Our next question that is in from participants ask, are there multiple layers of code switching? For example, for black members of the LGBTQ community. Absolutely, I mean, intersectionality, it's, you know, inherent within these social identities. So me being a black man, I have a different set of stereotypes described to me than Dr. McCloney being a black woman. So society is gonna view us from that very intersectional lens right there. And this is just kind of even further complicated with additional identity. So we were talking about race and gender there, that if we factor in social class, sexual identity, religious identity, all these identities start to intersect. And if these identities are visible, so in terms of, you know, tied to a phenotype, then even more members of society are gonna treat you from that intersectional lens and expect you to fit within that specific profile. So yeah, this, I would say intersectionality definitely plays a role along those lines too. So primarily this conversation we've been talking about code switching, switching to predominantly majority spaces, which are often found to be profoundly white. But for members of marginalized identities, that code switching also happens when I go back to those enclaves of other members from that same marginalized identity. So there's also expectation of, are you fitting the prototypical norms to be an authentic member of the group? And that's why it kind of creates this difficult process of members with marginalized identities because they have to learn to be a chameleon across contexts in a way. So when you're in a predominantly majority space, you have to fit those norms of the majority group. But when you're back with your kind of, I would say ethnic enclave or cultural social identity enclave, then they're gonna be sizing you up again and make sure that you're still an authentic member of the group. So you gotta demonstrate the same cues, you gotta have the same mannerisms, you might have to change your attire, you might have to change your hair, take that perm out, go natural, kind of things like this to kind of send those signals back to that group that you're still an authentic member. And this can be very distressing. It's very rare that an individual seamlessly master this ability to be perfectly authentic in both scenarios. And those who tend to be more experienced at doing this are only good at it because they have almost a lifetime of experience switching back and forth, even from personally, like having grown up in LA, which is a very diversely diverse context, you're constantly interacting with different people. But now that they've been living in Ann Arbor, that's very white and not so much culture interactions, I realized that I haven't get a little rusty in my code switching. When I go back home to LA, I almost have to relearn and kind of refresh myself about how to switch seamlessly. So once again, it takes practice, it takes constant practice and exposure to maintain that skill because code switching is a competence and a skill set that if you don't continue to practice that regularly, you're gonna start to get a little rusty on that skill set and it happens both ways. Absolutely and adding in the conversation specifically about being a member of LGBTQIA community and also having marginalized, visible racial identity. There's been some really interesting studies from the scholar at Duke University, Fukuwa School of Business, Christopher Kotowski, that looked at how people perceive the race of someone who is also queer. And black men who disclose that they are gay are perceived as less black and more white and the same is true for Latinx men. So just seeing how those identities intersect and again, going back to the reason why people code switch is to have a successful interracial interaction. So one of the things that quote unquote offsets the threatening nature of black and Latino men is to be less of an aggressive male. And one way to quote unquote do that is if your sexuality is perceived as non-heterosexual, if you're presenting yourself in more feminine ways. And not to say that people are doing this inauthentically, but there are ways that they can relate to the code switching conversation. And code switching is one of many social identity management strategies. There's also passing, there's covering, there's disclosing whether or not you tell people some of the invisible identities that you have. So something we had to talk about are differently abled people and how that also relates to the code switching conversation, so pretending that you don't have a physical disability that people can't see or pretending that you're not in as much pain on a day-to-day basis. Those are all things that can also become part of this conversation and they're compounded by your racial identity as well. When we think about the number of black people who have been assaulted and harmed by police who are also suffering from mental health issues and how those things just further exacerbate the negativity attached to your black racial identity. And so they're all very important for us to think about on a ongoing basis. Wow, so great. I'm so glad you bought in the other management styles, right? So it's not just code switching, like you said, passing and disclosing everything. So I think that's very useful for people to remember that and realize that, which is what makes, it's so exhausting. It's so exhausting. And to your point, Miles, when you said people have really been acknowledging and appreciating you saying that the code switching goes both ways, right? And not only, which speaks to your shirt, Courtney, we're too tired to code switch because you don't get a break. When you're in the white community, you're trying to code switch for that community, then you go back home, like you said, Miles, people are like, oh, you've been in Ann Arbor too long or you're too white. I mean, so you're either too white or too black. It's like, can we? Anyway. So the next question is, what structures can an organization put in place to hold people accountable when they behave counter to the inclusive culture that the organization proclaims to have? Courtney, you want to start there? Sure. I honestly think that until organizations tie some sort of financial consequence to managers, leaders, members of an organization that are not facilitating inclusive climate, there will not be a change. Because in a capitalist society, finance money is the currency that actually leads to changes. It's not people all of a sudden realizing I just want to do well today and there's almost always a business case. Even though we have been pushing back against the business case for diversity, the business case for anti-racism, I think needs to be more explicit. There is no motivation for a company to not continue doing what they have been doing for hundreds of years if there is no consequences to it. The accountability has to come in some form of performance, reviews, being penalized if you're not creating inclusive climate or your financial compensation. Thank you. So how- Just to add to that, I would say kind of, one way too we can help to put some pressure on that structure is that, I mean, as a nation, our nation is diversifying. So our nation has become increasingly more diverse. With that in mind, I mean, this customer base has become more diverse, has a lot of control with their dollars and how they use their money and how they choose to spend it. So one way we can put pressure on corporations and organizations is to expect, one, good customer service. So we think about kind of the healthcare system too, individuals who may feel marginalized by their primary care position or medical staff in the hospital. I mean, I think by voicing kind of that need and that demand where, you know, I would like to have a medical healthcare provider who has some sense of cultural competency or understanding of my group who can relate to me somewhat. That doesn't always have to be a member of my same group, but it helps sometimes what it is, you know, given their lived experiences, they can develop that sense of cultural competency, but kind of making that part of, you know, kind of an asset or a trait to have within a corporate structure that can ultimately make that company or the institution more money or make them more effective in delivering that medical care practice if their patients feel more comfortable with them. I think that can be one metric that we include in evaluations, you know, in effectiveness. And I think that kind of monetizing that can maybe help to move that more quickly, you know, through a very corporate dollars and cents motivated type of industry. Great. So our next question is, oftentimes preparation for professional roles require students to master this code switching. Courtney, you spoke to this a little bit in your story about when you were four years old. How can we best support our students of color to be authentic while coaching them on the required professional skills, communication skills and self-presentation? Miles, you wanna start there? Yeah, I'll start. So we also get this question a lot, particularly from students, I get it, that ask, should I code switch or should I not code switch? I'm not sure what to do. And many people are gonna hate my answer, but my go-to answer is I would first I say, do what feels natural, okay? If you feel that, you know, it feels natural for you to code switch and it doesn't feel completely fatiguing and draining, then by all means do that code switching. Or if you realize that you'd already been code switching, you know, for a period of time and that it just comes naturally or automatically, then by all means, don't feel the need to now stop code switching more to be, let's say if you're perceived from your in-group to, you know, keep it 100 or be authentic if your in-group's kind of giving you shade or challenging you for, they see your code switching and they may be envy, they may be jealousy or they might just be hating on you. Don't feel the need to change that if it comes naturally, okay? But for other scenarios where if an individual does not code switch and they wanna enter like an elite institution, like a Michigan or Cornell, they're very, also a fluently white environment where they just don't have that cultural familiarity, then I would say kind of, even though it may be feel natural to succumb to that pressure, to try to fit, you know, those norms in that environment, think twice about it because if you don't have any prior experience code switching, think of it like a competence or a language or a skill set, you know, the first few times you try to learn this new skill, you're gonna fail at it, okay? And the consequences with code switching is that if you attempt to code switch but fail at it and individuals don't perceive you as authentic and genuine, then you're gonna experience worse consequences than if you never code switched in the first place, okay? So code switching isn't always a win-win, it's only a win if you do it effectively. So that's kind of my second answer, I would say code switch when you can do it effectively. And if you realize you're gonna be switching context that you know that pressure's there and that culture's not gonna change for a while, then I would say start practicing now in your code switching so that you can develop that skill set so that when it comes time to actually perform, let's say that's a job interview or a very high stakes scenario where you are gonna be evaluated, you want that code switching to come across as authentic and genuine and you don't want it to feel forced because as soon as it feels forced and not natural, then your audience is gonna perceive that as well and they're probably gonna evaluate you more negatively. So a similar question, Courtney, that we got from participant is my biggest concern is about young people. How can we ensure that black and brown children have the opportunity to understand code switching and make informed choices of how to engage with primarily white institutions without learning to be their authentic selves? Yeah, this is one of the forms of privilege in society, right? It's when you get to be an individual. Being an individual is a form of privilege. For instance, when most 99% of serial killers in the US are white men, but we still don't think of them as a prototypical criminal. That is privilege, right? We still get to be seen as an individual even though the statistics would suggest otherwise and black and brown children, one of their forms of disadvantage that they're gonna face in society is not being allowed to be seen as an individual. It's only allowed to be seen as a member of a group. I am not a child psychologist for this. I would defer to Dr. Rihanna Anderson who's at the School of Public Health there at Michigan who did a great job talking to Sesame Street not too long ago when they did a conversation about Black Lives Matter and explaining how to have these conversations to children at that level. So I don't wanna give advice that is not within my area of expertise, but I would just broadly say that part of raising all children, and this is what white parents have to start doing as well, is teaching all their children about racism and they're never too young to learn about it because it starts at such a young age. I would also defer to the research by Dr. Steven Roberts of Stanford who's also a Michigan alum who is showing that the recognition of racial differences starts as early as three months old for children and the less exposure that white children have means the more likely they'll develop stereotypes later on. So I think some of the work has to happen with white parents and some can also happen with parents of color, but I'll defer to those experts for questions about children. Miles, I know some of your research is on younger adults or high school students, et cetera, as well. Did you wanna add at all? Yeah, so I'll just add kind of speaking to the perspective of parents. I just wanted to add that as parents, be aware that your children are constantly watching your behavior and they're learning from your behavior. So even if a parent doesn't have an explicit conversation about code switching with their kids, if the parents are already code switching, your children are already social learning and observing those behaviors. You caught your phone voice. Exactly. So just to give one example, when I was a small child, I remember calling my mom at work, she was a secretary and my mom's code switching was so extreme that when I called her work, I asked her if I could speak with my mom and she could put my mom on the phone because I didn't know that was, I didn't recognize her voice on the phone. And as soon as she heard my voice, she knew it was me but she still answered it with the code switching voice. And when I asked her to speak with her mom, she said, hey baby, it's me. And I was like, oh, so I kind of froze that I couldn't recognize my mom's work voice on the phone when I called her at work. So these are kind of cues where we didn't even have to have that conversation where she was modeling that behavior for me. I saw that behavior and just as naturally as a child, I kind of absorbed that as a way of being and carrying myself. So keep that in mind that sometimes these explicit conversations don't always have to happen for there to be learning that occurs from your children just watching your behaviors. So going back to like my research, so yeah, so dealing with experiences with high school students, we realized that for particularly black and Latinx high school students and college students, there's this really, there's a strong difficult of finding their kind of racial authenticity and finding how should I carry myself? Because we have reports on hundreds of college students and high school students as well in that they experienced these culture validations on both sides and some scenarios at their predominantly white university or college, they never can be wide enough to be fully accepted by their white peers, okay? They're never gonna pass that bar. But at the same time, their peers from their same ethnic group or the same identity with them, they also perceive them as assimilating too much or co-twisting too much and not be authentic within that context as well. So they can oftentimes experience these culture validations on both sides and go through a period of kind of difficulty and trying to understand in the identity development of how should I carry myself? What is the right way? Both sides are telling me that I'm not enough or I'm not the right type on either side. And this is a common experience and a struggle that happens during adolescence to try to find what identity is a comfortable fit for you and how to express the identity in a way that you feel comfortable on your own skin. So it kind of takes that search to kind of figure that out. There's no one side answer, one way that fits for all emerging adults and adolescents. Debbie, you shared a question with us before this chat about reverse code switching and I really wanted us to be able to address that question. Can you ask that question, please? It says, how can I professionally address coworkers who try to reverse code switch to relate to the colleague of color? It's the down white colleague. I know they're trying to connect but it's being really offensive. Well, Dr. McCleary, you asked for the question. I did, I have so many thoughts though but you start. Okay, so I think this goes back to my prior answer. It's totally fine to actually encourage to try to develop shared interests with members of other groups. I think that's a good trait to have. So members of marginalized minority groups have been doing this always for centuries, trying to build and develop the understanding of the norms of the majority group to fit in and that can happen bi-directionally and it should actually to build stronger relationships. But once again, when it's coming from a member of a more privileged or majority identity code switching to remember more marginalized identity, make sure that the intentions are genuine there. It's not to be cool, to be down, to be woke just to get additional praise, in that sense it was very selfish kind of motivation to do that code switching and make sure it's actually out of an area of shared common interests, something that is genuine to you to make sure that doesn't come across as inauthentic or ingenuine or just being fake. Yeah, so I'll go ahead and pass the mic to Dr. McCluny. Beautifully stated. And I just wanted to give an example for people who may not know what this reverse code switching is. It's saying, girl, when you see a black woman and I, if we are not that close, and I think this is, like you said, it is a desire to facilitate closeness but it so comes across as just genuine as stereotyping as just, it is one of my pet peeves to refer to me in such a casual way and you do not know me that well. And for a black man, this could also be, you know, a white man saying, what's up, brothers? If they normally do not speak that way, it's all of a sudden change your language. I have seen bosses do this to their subordinates. I have seen people do this in interview settings on live TV and it is appalling and cringe-worthy to how far people will go to try to fake blackness and doing so with the freedom and privilege to turn it off at any time, but it is so hard to turn off being black. It's not a uniform that I can take on and off each day. It is my actual identity and our identity. So just really caution people. If you want to be close to someone, do it how you do every other person. Don't think because it's first and black that I have to switch how I speak in order to let them know that I'm down. If you are down, be down, whatever that means without having to change yourself. Thank you. I think that was a very important question to address. So we didn't get to all the questions. We only have two minutes left and this has been a very engaging, informative conversation. I will let you all know that the recording will be available. We have a lead playlist that's gonna be put in the chat where all of our lead conversations are and you can always go back to them. We'll also send you the recording of this. Anyone who registered as well as the resources that we mentioned today. And on that note, I want to leave Courtney and Miles a last word that you would want to say, anything that we didn't address that you feel like you want to address or anything you want people to walk away from the conversation with. Okay, I'll go first. So another question that we often get is how do we eradicate code switching? How can we lessen it? And I'm sorry, I have a very morbid answer to that where we're never gonna completely eradicate code switching. As long as we have culture, as long as we have social identities and we have differences, we're always gonna have code switching, okay? People are always gonna shift their behavior in the presentation to fit in with the majority group across context, okay? But one thing we should try to lessen and eradicate is that social pressure that we all need to change and assimilate to one standard norm, okay? And if that norm is based on, say, white American standards and behaviors, we should be aware of that, okay? And how we're all assimilating, because then in the day, that is aspect of white supremacy. If we're saying white behavioral norms as the ideal, the most valuable, desirable norms for everyone that everyone needs to bestow. And as soon as we tie that to professionalism as well, that's where it can get very dangerous because now that allows us to punish and penalize individuals who bring any difference to that because we can simply say that they're not professional and that's a basis for not getting that promotion or not getting that job or even in school settings, you know, not being selected for awards, et cetera. So we should be very cautious of that. That difference can be a good thing and we should try to embrace that difference as much as possible. And the last thing I'll add is that co-switching is a skill. I wanna see more black people getting global assignments because we have been figuring out how to navigate a culture that we live in for our whole lives, which means that we would likely be really great at global assignments with being expatriates. And this is a skill that companies should recognize value and reward by giving black people leadership roles because they have figured out how to relate to multiple groups at the same time while keeping their sense of self and working twice as hard to get half as far. So some recognition of all the work that black people have put into surviving this country needs to be translated into jobs, payment, opportunities, seeing entrepreneurs, for instance, as highly qualified and capable because they have endured so much hardship. So recognition of co-switching is something that we have done and therefore should be recognized as a skill that other people should try to have. Well, thank you so much. And we're at time. I greatly enjoyed this conversation and I appreciate you, Dr. Durkin and Dr. Mccuny for joining us today. I thank all of our leaders at University of Michigan that are here and all of the participants that took time out of your day to join us. Look for our email and we hope that you engage with us throughout the year for the rest of our lead conversations. With that, have a good day, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.