Introduction
In today's diverse workplaces, many organizations are making efforts to promote inclusion and equality. However, despite good intentions, these initiatives often fall short of creating meaningful change. The book "Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace" by Janice Gassam Asare explores why this happens and offers insights on how to address the root causes.
The core issue, as Asare argues, is that most workplaces still center whiteness - the cultural norms, behaviors, and power structures associated with white European heritage. This centering of whiteness, even when unintentional, creates barriers for employees of color and undermines true inclusivity. By examining how whiteness manifests in organizational cultures and practices, the book provides a roadmap for leaders and employees to create more equitable work environments.
Understanding Whiteness in the Workplace
To set the stage, Asare shares an illustrative scenario:
Shonda, one of the few Black women in leadership at her company, musters the courage to speak up about hair discrimination at a diversity task force meeting. She describes the constant scrutiny and prejudice she faces about her natural hair, including being told her protective braids look unprofessional. Shonda explains the immense toll this takes and asks if the company would consider guidelines to support natural Black hairstyles.
In response, her white colleague Julia eagerly chimes in, saying she can totally relate because people sometimes make jokes about her bright red hair. Julia concludes that her experiences are probably similar to the discrimination Shonda faces.
This well-meaning but misguided attempt at empathy reveals how centering whiteness can minimize and invalidate the experiences of people of color, even in spaces meant to address diversity and inclusion. Julia's response centers her own experience as a white person, failing to recognize the profound difference between occasional jokes and the systemic racial discrimination Shonda describes.
This scenario sets up key themes the book explores:
- How white-centered norms and mindsets perpetuate harm, even unintentionally
- The need to recognize and confront uncomfortable truths about racial dynamics
- Why promoting racial literacy and true empathy matters for creating change
The History and Meaning of Whiteness
To tackle these issues, we first need to understand what "whiteness" really means in a societal context. Asare explains that whiteness goes beyond just skin color - it refers to the dominant cultural patterns, norms, and power structures originating from European heritage that have been imposed globally, especially through colonialism.
In the United States specifically, whiteness emerged as a legal and social construct designed to consolidate power for certain European groups over others. In the early British colonies of the 1600s, "white" identity distinguished English and northern European colonizers from enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples. Whiteness became associated with wealth, Protestant faith, light skin, and educated status.
As the nation expanded, the boundaries of whiteness strategically grew to include more European immigrant groups like the Irish, Italians, and Poles. This united a wider base of European-descended people under a banner of superiority against Black, Asian, and Indigenous communities.
By the time slavery formally ended in 1865, non-white groups had been thoroughly disenfranchised - denied voting rights, property ownership, and citizenship. Violent tactics from lynchings to land seizures continued to reinforce white dominance well into the 20th century.
In modern workplaces, whiteness often manifests in subtle ways through policies, norms, and behaviors that implicitly favor traits associated with white European heritage. For example:
- Job applicants with "white-sounding" names receive higher callback rates
- Speaking patterns of those with English as a second language face prejudice
- Grooming policies judge non-European hairstyles as unprofessional
- Leaders feel more affinity towards employees who share similar speech patterns or interests from white cultural upbringings
While each instance may seem minor, these daily interactions create patterns of advantage and disadvantage. They impact who feels they belong, who can bring their full selves to work, who gets heard in meetings, and who advances into leadership roles.
The Impacts of Centering Whiteness
To illustrate how centering whiteness undermines inclusion efforts, Asare presents another scenario:
Marcus, a marketing manager and the only person of color on his team, attends an in-person retreat after a year of remote work. He's eager to connect with colleagues, but subtle dynamics make him feel alienated from the start. Meetings reference cultural touchstones unfamiliar to Marcus. The lunch menu features foods he can't eat. Happy hour revolves around European sports Marcus doesn't follow.
These seemingly small exclusions accumulate, leaving Marcus feeling unseen and drained. He faces unspoken pressure to assimilate or hide his differences to fit in.
This scenario demonstrates how prioritizing white cultural norms, even unintentionally, creates real stress for employees of color. They must constantly navigate environments that weren't designed with them in mind. The mental and emotional toll of not feeling like they belong overshadows their ability to fully contribute and advance.
Importantly, Asare notes that centering whiteness doesn't require overt hatred or discrimination to cause harm. Like a strong ocean current, the cumulative effect of small preferential treatments toward white cultural norms exerts a powerful force, threatening to pull non-white employees under despite surface-level diversity efforts.
The impacts extend beyond individual experiences. By marginalizing diverse perspectives, white-centered cultures also lose out on valuable talent, innovation, and insights. Asare uses the "curb cut effect" as an analogy - when sidewalk ramps designed for wheelchair users ended up benefiting everyone from parents with strollers to cyclists. Similarly, when workplaces center the needs of the most marginalized groups, the resulting solutions often improve conditions for all employees.
However, most critical conversations shaping society - in business, politics, education - remain dominated by white perspectives. Their biases and blind spots end up dictating policies and norms for everyone. By contrast, centering marginalized voices creates space for fresh perspectives that can unlock better solutions for all.
Asare argues that uplifting the most marginalized employees not only creates truer inclusion, but also drives better performance through diverse innovation and problem-solving. Shifting focus from the dominant culture to the disenfranchised makes leaders better equipped to drive the systemic changes needed in today's world.
Steps to Start Decentering Whiteness
Recognizing the urgent need for change, Asare offers concrete steps organizations can take to begin decentering whiteness:
Revamp hiring practices:
- Scrutinize job descriptions for hidden biases in language and arbitrary qualifications that filter out candidates of color
- Proactively recruit from minority-serving institutions and networks
- Anonymize applications in early screening stages to avoid unconscious judgments
- Use diverse hiring panels and structured interviews with consistent questions
Gather data on workplace experiences:
- Conduct anonymous surveys to quantify inequities between dominant and marginalized groups
- Provide safe spaces for employees of color to share their realities
- Use gap analysis to prioritize interventions
Build awareness and accountability:
- Offer anti-racist education like speaker series and book clubs (but don't demand unpaid emotional labor from employees of color)
- Tie leadership performance reviews to real transformation metrics on cultural equity, not just numerical diversity
- Reward leaders who courageously confront difficult truths about themselves and the organization
Empower marginalized voices:
- Cede decision-making power on policies to those most impacted
- Follow the lead of employees of color on what changes are needed
- Normalize courageous conversations on race instead of avoiding tension
Commit to sustained transformation:
- Recognize that meaningful change requires ongoing effort, not quick fixes
- Use data to continually diagnose where problems persist below the surface
- Center shared struggles for justice and human rights, not just interpersonal harmony
Centering the Margins
Asare emphasizes that the deepest transformation comes from nurturing genuinely anti-racist cultures that embrace justice and shared humanity. She revisits the earlier scenarios to illustrate what this could look like:
Marcus's team responds to his feedback about feeling alienated at the retreat with profound empathy and commitment to change. At the next quarterly meeting, they co-create working agreements to uphold everyone's dignity across differences. Agendas reinforce seeking diverse voices. Meals feature an array of cultural cuisines. Leaders consistently model learning from Marcus's perspectives. Over time, he feels increasingly valued and empowered to bring his full self to work, driving highly innovative marketing campaigns.
In another organization, Gabriela had felt exhausted constantly speaking up when managers overlooked racist assumptions. After a diversity survey confirmed inequities, the company committed to regular systemic audits on inclusion. Gabriela shaped new mentoring programs to support marginalized employees. Seeing leaders openly confront their own complicity gave her courage. She soon moved into a management role to drive further reforms.
These scenarios reveal that decentering whiteness depends on accountability that fully embraces justice, not just inviting diverse individuals into unfair systems. It means collaborating cross-culturally to create entirely new systems that affirm everyone's dignity.
Key principles for centering the margins include:
- Normalizing courageous conversations on race instead of avoiding tension to keep dominant groups comfortable
- Ceding real decision-making power to those impacted by policies
- Committing to sustained transformation, not piecemeal quick fixes
- Using data to diagnose where toxicity lurks below the surface
- Following marginalized employees' leads on what they need to thrive
- Centering shared struggles for justice and human rights, not reducing complex institutional racism to just interpersonal misunderstandings
Asare argues that building authentic solidarity across races requires moving beyond surface-level multiculturalism into truth-telling, reconciliation, and collective liberation.
Rethinking Empathy
The book concludes by circling back to examine the role of empathy in cross-cultural interactions. Asare revisits Julia, the well-meaning white colleague who tried to empathize with Shonda's experience of hair discrimination by sharing her own struggles with red hair jokes.
Feeling unsettled by that interaction, Julia decides to educate herself by joining the office book club on workplace equity and attending anti-racist training. There, she gains a powerful insight: even well-intended attempts at empathy often subtly center white experiences.
Julia realizes that by immediately relating Shonda's systemic discrimination to her own relatively minor struggles, she had centered her white perspective as the default lens. This minimized the profound difference between occasional jokes and the career-threatening biases Shonda faces for embracing her natural hair.
This awakening compels deeper questions about empathy itself:
- Does empathy truly drive connection across cultures?
- Or can it reinforce insider blind spots that protect dominant power and privilege?
Asare argues that flawed attempts at empathy can actually minimize marginalized truths in pursuit of superficial unity. The goal must be policies and systems that foster everyone's dignity - not just interpersonal harmony that leaves oppressive structures intact.
However, when grounded in justice, shared humanity, and courageous compassion, empathy holds profound power. It can sustain the will to dismantle barriers, celebrate both common and unique struggles, and guide decisions through moral care.
Asare emphasizes that lifting oppressed voices exponentially expands empathy's possibilities. Reveling in our interconnection reveals wisdom and innovation beyond limiting cultural constraints. The strength of any system depends entirely on empowering those it has long disempowered.
By championing empathy rooted in justice, everyone can come together to realize and sustain the visionary change society needs now.
Key Takeaways
As we conclude this exploration of decentering whiteness in the workplace, let's recap some core insights from Asare's book:
Whiteness is more than skin color - it's a set of cultural norms and power structures that have been imposed globally, especially through colonialism.
Even well-intentioned diversity efforts often fail by not recognizing how white-centered norms subtly constrain true inclusion.
Centering whiteness harms employees of color through daily micro-exclusions while also stifling innovation that comes from diverse perspectives.
Meaningful change requires moving beyond superficial diversity to confront uncomfortable truths about racial dynamics in organizations.
Concrete steps to decenter whiteness include revamping hiring practices, gathering data on inequities, building accountability, empowering marginalized voices, and committing to sustained transformation.
True inclusion means collaborating across cultures to create entirely new systems that affirm everyone's dignity, not just inviting diverse individuals into unfair structures.
Empathy across racial lines requires careful reflection to avoid centering white experiences as the default lens for understanding.
The most powerful path forward centers on shared struggles for justice and human rights, moving beyond surface-level multiculturalism into collective liberation.
Final Thoughts
"Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace" offers a compelling framework for understanding why so many diversity and inclusion efforts fall short of creating real change. By exposing how white-dominant norms subtly constrain workplace cultures, Asare provides a roadmap for leaders and employees to create truly equitable environments.
The book's key message is that meaningful transformation requires more than just increasing numerical diversity or celebrating cultural differences. It demands a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths, cede power to marginalized voices, and reimagine organizational systems from the ground up.
This journey isn't easy - it requires sustained effort, courage, and a commitment to justice beyond surface-level harmony. But as Asare compellingly argues, the rewards are immense. By nurturing workplace cultures of genuine solidarity and shared dignity, organizations can unlock the full innovative potential of true diversity while advancing moral leadership to tackle society's deepest challenges.
Ultimately, decentering whiteness isn't just about creating fairer workplaces for some. It's about fostering environments where everyone can thrive, driving excellence through inclusion that benefits all. In a rapidly diversifying world, the organizations that master this approach will be best positioned to succeed - not just economically, but in creating a more just and vibrant society for all.