Tag Archives: racism

Your biases in screening volunteers

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Years ago, I got a job out of the blue – an employee at a nonprofit had to be dismissed quickly and a replacement was needed immediately. There was no time for a usual recruitment process that included interviewing of several people – someone said I would be a good candidate and could start immediately, I got a call asking if I was interested, I got interviewed, I got the job and I began working – all within the span of maybe a week.

Months later, I found out that the Executive Director had not been happy at first when I was hired because she didn’t like how I dressed and, therefore, thought I wasn’t good at my job – which involved IT, and not any in-person interaction with the public or the high-profile Silicon Valley partners she collaborated with regularly. The office was very corporate: men in suits, women in business dress. I, on the other hand, was Silicon Valley casual long before it was the norm: I was neat, clean and quite presentable, but in comfortable clothes (I was very fond of flowy dresses and skirts in those days) and comfy shoes (never sandals, but also, never heels). She also didn’t like my hair: it’s clean, but it’s kind of all over the place a lot of time – unless I wear a head covering or cake it in product, that’s just how it is. However, she was very pleased with me once she saw my work and heard from my colleagues about my job performance. She ended up being a very enthusiastic professional reference for me for many years. But she said at one point to a colleague later, “I need to work on my assumptions about people based on how they dress.”

After hearing about that comment and spending a few days of feeling like I didn’t look very nice (I got over it), I ended up really appreciating that remark, because it meant I was being judged by the content of my work and my character, that she was learning that people who weren’t completely corporate could be more than competent and that she was willing to change her mind, something I always admire in people. But I’ve taken her comment to heart in my own interviews of candidates, not just with employees, but with volunteers as well. And not just about how people dress.

I know a lot of people who talk about the importance of “trusting your gut” when screening volunteers. But what if your gut is prejudiced? Let’s face it: we ALL have unconscious biases, at the very least, and if we aren’t constantly looking for those, and looking for ways to eliminate the possibility of them creeping into our decision-making, we’re going to miss out on some great volunteering candidates.

Unconscious bias can show up when we see and judge someone’s weight, or a certain brand of clothing they are wearing, or a hairstyle or hair color they are sporting. Or perhaps we’re judging them negatively because of hair loss. Or because of wrinkles on their face. Or perceived age. Or physical features. Or a regional accent.

It’s important to always be thinking about why you are saying no to a candidate for employment or volunteering, and having reasons that you feel confident in writing down on an evaluation sheet – and, potentially, having such read aloud in a civil suit.

Remember that just because someone doesn’t look like you or doesn’t look like someone you would socialize with, it shouldn’t exclude them from being a volunteer.

And on a side note: your program can certainly let applicants know, in your role description, that you have a dress code. But remember that there needs to be a rational basis for each dress code requirement, it must be applied in a consistent fashion, it should not obviously discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion and ethnicity and it should not overburden a particular group. For instance, requiring clean hands, faces and hair, and prohibiting shirts or pants with any words or graphics, prohibiting clothing that exposes legs above the knee or even the ankle, prohibiting torn clothes, prohibiting sandals, etc., can all be justified regarding safety and maintaining a neutral, positive image and culture in the workplace. Requiring people’s hair to be off the shoulders or even covered altogether for safety reasons can be appropriate, but having one rule for men and another for women can get you into legal trouble. And note the many reasons that the US Army had to change its hair policies for women.

If your reaction to all this is “I have no unconscious biases regarding people,” I would like to remind you that denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Today is Martin Luther Kind, Jr. Day in the USA – an excellent day to own up to the reality that we all have unconscious biases that we should all work on, as well as that there are profound social inequities in the world that are long overdue to be addressed.

Also see:

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A blend of international & local volunteers can “decolonize” humanitarian development

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image of four human like figures holding hands in a circle

A May 2022 report from VSO and Northumbria University in the UK says that changing how international and local volunteers work together, rather than eliminating the involvement of foreign volunteers abroad entirely, can decolonize humanitarian development, so that foreigners are no longer in control of decision-making and so that racist and discriminatory structures are addressed and dismantled.

The research, based on interviews and participatory workshops with volunteers, community representatives and VSO staff, found that there was no “one-size fits all” approach to designing and putting in place successful “volunteer combinations”. The report emphasizes that there is a need to adapt volunteer planning and management in programs based on local requirements and local learning.

The presence of international volunteers brings energy and donor attention to projects, whilst community and national volunteers enable effective engagement with local communities and increase the likelihood that impacts can be sustained due to their particular knowledges and longer-term involvement. However, there is no simple one-size-fits-all approach that can be applied to constructing a blend of volunteers, as the combination is dependent on the individuals within each blend, the environment around the project and the phasing of the work itself.

The report also warns that “community volunteers” – local volunteers, while crucial to the effectiveness of each blend, risk being sidelined.

Here is the press release summarizing the report.

And here is the full report (PDF).

Also see:

The delicate challenge of warning volunteers & others going abroad about racism or sexism they may experience.

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I have been uncomfortable for many years with the lack of guidance about the specific discrimination black volunteers and black professional humanitarian workers face when they go abroad. I’ve seen the discrimination, firsthand: at airports, in restaurants, in shops and even on the streets in countries all over the world without many black residents – including Germany and Afghanistan. And I’ve heard so many first-hand horror stories from humanitarian colleagues about what they’ve experienced. Yet, when I’ve tried to find guidance on how to be an ally or guidance for people experiencing discrimination, I’ve found nothing.

So I was impressed that the Peace Corps starkly and specifically acknowledged this situation and was frank about just how much harder it can be for black volunteers – specifically for Ukraine, but the reality is that this warning would be valid for a variety of countries where the Peace Corps has, or used to, place members, including Russia. The Peace Corps recommends that the Black volunteers react to racism in various ways depending on the situation, choosing to “remove themselves” from the situation for their own safety, get help from other volunteers or staff, or practice and explore self-care or coping strategies. It’s similar to the recommendations for women humanitarian workers – or women travelers: when you are in a country where you may not be respected, you’ve got to be prepared to deal with ugly comments and ugly situations and you won’t have the resources you have in the USA (not that law enforcement in my country always takes a woman’s safety concerns seriously, but I digress).

This article in the Atlanta Black Star says “Some have rebuked the Peace Corps for not doing more to protect Black volunteers.” One person tweeted that the Peace Corps shouldn’t send black Americans “to a place like this where you know they’ll be racially abused” and claimed that the Peace Corps was placing “the burden of educating racists” on the shoulders of Black members.

I think it would be a terrible shame if the Peace Corps didn’t send black Americans to Ukraine or anywhere in Eastern Europe or Asia or anywhere else where there is not a large black population, or if the United Nations didn’t send black African professional humanitarians to Afghanistan or elsewhere in Asia and on and on. Absolutely, people need to be safe, and there has to be a consideration for what specific challenges an African, a woman, a trans person, a person of a particular nationality, and others may face in various countries – and it may mean not sending a great candidate somewhere because the security situation is just too tenuous for the person, specifically. But while the Peace Corps’ primary mission is to empower communities in underserved parts of the work, the corps is also intended to promote mutual understanding between citizens of the USA and foreign peoples. Black Americans are a part of the rich fabric that makes up the USA. You cannot understand this country without experiencing its very specific forms of black culture.

I’m going to continue to do all I can, including abroad, to be an ally. I stumble, sometimes I flounder, often I misstep, but I’m going to keep trying. And I hope everyone else will too, not only for Black Americans but for any person who might be targeted for insults, harassment, abuse or violence.

I’m also going to continue to try to encourage people, especially women, to travel abroad, while also offering realistic safety recommendations (and I’ve been criticized for my recommendations by women travelers who say they have never experienced any problems and I’m being alarmist. Sigh.).

When your perceived race, sexual identity, religion or nationality can put you in danger in a region, you have every right to know of the specific dangers you might face, and you have every right to reconsider going to that region. And when you feel insulted anywhere, you have every right to choose how you are going to react, based on what you think is the appropriate thing to do.

I know if I made a list of everything that has been said to me by local people where I’m living or working, targeting me as a woman or as an American, I would scare a lot of folks from traveling abroad. Sometimes, I have pushed back: I’ve sometimes expressed anger, I’ve sometimes expressed hurt feelings, and I’ve sometimes just walked away – it depends on how safe I feel and what I think the consequences might be. It’s all my choice to make. I hope that my reactions have sometimes helped to change some local people’s minds – but I can only do so much.

What do you think of its advisory to applicants about racism they may face? Share your thoughts in the comments.

For those who think the Peace Corps, or any other volunteering abroad or humanitarian agency, should “do more” to “protect” black volunteers & humanitarian workers, what would that look like? Share your thoughts in the comments.

If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site or my YouTube videos and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.

Decolonizing International Aid (including international volunteering)

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Discussions about unequal power dynamics in international humanitarian aid and development systems have entered the mainstream and become much more prevalent. Local people in communities that are the target of such international aid have become increasingly vocal about the ways in which power and resources in the system remain dominated by, and between, certain organizations and relationships largely based in the “Global North” or “the West” – meaning North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Aid flows between former colonial powers and former colonised regions often mirror their past colonial relationships, with decision-making power concentrated in the Global North.

Structural racism is so deeply embedded in the everyday culture and working practice of those in the sector that it has affected the way local staff regard their own communities and how they engage with INGOs.

In November 2020, Peace Direct, Adeso, the Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security held a three-day online consultation with 158 activists, decision-makers, academics, journalists and practitioners across the globe. Participants and guest contributors exchanged insights and local experiences on the current power dynamics and imbalances that exist within the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding sectors. They discussed how structural racism manifests itself in their work, and how they envision a decolonised system that is truly inclusive and responds to their needs. The consultation received more than 350 detailed comments across nine discussion threads. This report presents the findings and recommendations from that consultation:

Time to Decolonise Aid: Insights and Lessons from a Global Consultation.

There are many volunteering abroad programs focused on humanitarian, development and peacebuilding and, just like with paid staff, many of these programs also promote unequal power dynamics. If you want to better understand the backlash against international volunteering (not just voluntourism) and the “White Savoir” complex, this report is worth reading.

Also see:

My voluntourism-related & ethics-related blogs.

Teaching youth about poverty – teaching compassion or supremacy?

Systemic Exclusion in Volunteer Engagement.

Managers of volunteers & resistance to diversity.

accessibility, diversity & virtual volunteering.

More: systemic racism in volunteer engagement

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog about systemic exclusion, including systemic racism, in volunteer management – in how we recruit volunteers, in how we screen volunteers, even in virtual volunteering. It’s been my most popular blog this year, and my most re-posted & retweeted by others – thank you to all who read and shared and commented (so far, comments have been on LinkedIn and Twitter, rather than on the blog itself).

There’s another place that systemic racism shows up in volunteer engagement, and it is something that’s been discussed for a few years now. It’s the practice of the White Savior. The term white savior, sometimes called white savior complex, refers to a belief and practice, conscious or not, that it takes white people to provide effective help to non-white people, and in the practice of volunteerism, it’s usually most common in the practice of white people from North America, Europe and Australia feeling that they are needed in Africa to dig wells, build schools and playgrounds, “care” for “orphans” for a few weeks, etc. That is a form of white supremacy, even if the volunteers themselves would never identify as racist and may even be vocal advocates against racism, as a concept or practice. Much of what is called voluntourism is rooted in white supremacy.

But this is not just a characteristic of voluntourism – paying to go abroad and “volunteer” for a few weeks, or international programs like Feed My Starving Children, which ship food to people in developing countries, rather than buying food from local sources in those countries, which both feeds far more local people than food donations every could and gives much-needed jobs to local people – also rooted in white supremacy (and vanity volunteering, for that matter). White supremacy can also be found in some volunteering within the USA (and no doubt other countries as well).

Again, I want to emphasize that this isn’t to imply that white volunteers are racists. But I do emphasize that volunteers can participate in systems that have roots in white supremacy without knowing it, even in their own communities.

One of the few academic articles I’ve seen looking at this is However Kindly Intentioned: Structural Racism and Volunteer CASA Programs, published in March 2017 and written by Amy Mulzer, a Staff Attorney and Clinical Instructor of Law in the Disability and Civil Rights Clinic, Brooklyn Law School, and Tara Urs, an Attorney for The Defender Association Division of the King County Department of Public Defense. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates: volunteer guardians appointed by the family court to represent the “best interests” of children who enter the child welfare system. The paper looks at the impact of the race and privilege of these volunteer child advocates on child welfare decision-making. “There is reason to question the power that CASAs have been given to influence the course of children’s lives, and even more reason to question the unhesitating acceptance of this state of affairs by the majority of those working within the system. Why does the legal system assume that a group of volunteers — mostly middle-class white women — will make better decisions for a low-income child of color than her own family, community, or the child herself could make? What is it about CASAs that makes them not only acceptable, but practically untouchable? However kindly intentioned their work may be, this paper posits that CASAs essentially give voice to white supremacy — the same white supremacy that permeates the system as a whole and that allows us to so easily accept the idea that children in the child welfare system actually require the ‘gift’ of a CASA, and do not already have an abundance of ‘important people’ in their lives.”

Here’s an example of white supremacy in volunteer engagement from my own observation: a director of community engagement at a university told me that one of the most popular volunteer events among her mostly white students was when they traveled to a distant reservation for a tribal group every year and split wood for a few days for elderly members for the upcoming winter. I asked if the volunteers worked alongside young people from the tribe. The answer was no. I asked if this task was something the tribe had contacted the university about, saying that they needed people from outside their reservation to do this labor. She never gave a clear answer, just that the students were addressing a need and how “transformed” the students felt by their activities. By the time she was done telling me about the program, how much her students enjoyed it, how it “taught them about poverty,” how the volunteers were “changed” by the experience, all I could think was: this program reinforces the image for these students of helpless native Americans and does little to educate these young people about this culture and their history.

I have heard people who volunteer to serve food to people who are homeless or who are otherwise food insecure, or Habitat Humanity, balk that recipients of service they encountered, often black Americans, are not passive and grateful for their service, that they aren’t effusive in their appreciation. They also express surprise that the recipients of service didn’t “look poor.”

Please note: the voices of those purportedly helped are almost entirely absent on the web sites of many USA nonprofits, not just websites of companies that arrange voluntourism trips abroad. And also note there is a predominance of white people in the ranks of senior staff of nonprofits in the USA, even if their focus is on communities dominated by other cultures and ethnicities.

Consider these observations by Andrew Fisher, who co-founded and led the Community Food Security Coalition, in this 2017 article, “Food banks feed people. Why don’t they fight hunger?“:

While many food banks dedicate some portion of their resources to advocating for federal nutrition programs and tax credits for corporate food donations, only a handful actually take a position on wages, housing, or health care—the policies that can most effectively alleviate hunger by attacking its root cause: poverty. In the food bank community, support for these issues remains controversial, with many preferring (not) to step out of their comfort zone of delivering free food…

One Washington state food bank employee expressed the disconnect between her organization’s white board and its primarily immigrant clientele as the primary factor in reinforcing her food bank’s contribution to structural racism.

There is a frequent but unspoken conflict between the important work nonprofits do, and that volunteers help them do, and the oppressive power dynamics these nonprofits and volunteers can help to maintain, however unintentionally on their part. It’s similar to my diatribes against vanity volunteering: we assume that because the volunteers “have good hearts” and “just want to help”, whatever it is they want to do is automatically good. As I said earlier, I’m sure many of these volunteers would be horrified at the implication that they are participating in the perpetuation of white supremacy. And perhaps I’m going to get some outraged comments on this blog that its horrifying I would imply such. Then I’ll have to start talking about white fragility — a term that commonly refers to the avoidance of difficult racial conversations in order to prevent white discomfort.

Criticizing good intentions of volunteering or activism can discourage people from volunteering and trying to do good in the world. So I have to qualify these observations with saying I want volunteering to continue, I want volunteers to continue to learn about cultures and people different from their own through their service, and I think volunteer engagement can build cultural understanding and community cohesion. But none of that is true if volunteer engagement reinforces white supremacy and colonial power structures.

I think many volunteers are ready for these conversations. Consider that I shared the summary of the critical analysis of Court Appointed Special Advocates on the Reddit community to discuss CASA, and the responses from volunteers weren’t defensive but, rather, were self-reflective and self-challenging.

I’ll repeat myself from another blog: I’m on an ongoing journey to look for ways I exclude without intending to, in my consulting, in my volunteer engagement, in my communications strategies, in my language, and on and on. I’m now adding in how I volunteer to the mix. And, again, I would like for you to do so as well.

Also see:

My previous blog about systemic exclusion, including systemic racism, in volunteer management

Teaching youth about poverty – teaching compassion or supremacy?

A review of a book by a colleague and notes about its own problematic views on race.

Recognizing Racism in Volunteer Engagement – blog from Lisa Joyslin, Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration

Recruiting Local Volunteers To Increase Diversity Among the Ranks

Make All Volunteering as Accessible as Possible
Tips for creating an accommodating and welcoming environment for volunteers with disabilities.

Systemic Exclusion in Volunteer Engagement

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteers

You would have to be living under a rock to have not heard the term systemic racism or institutional racism. It refers to how ideas of white superiority are embedded at a systemic or institutional level all over the USA (and, indeed, all over the world): the standards of beauty promoted in ads and magazines and movies almost always being a white woman. Black Americans incarcerated at greater rates than white Americans, despite there NOT being a difference in the level of crime committed. The combination of deep mistrust of banks and targeting black Americans by for-profit paycheck advance companies and rent-to-own companies that keep a disproportionate number of black Americans crushed under debt. A Harvard study found job candidates were more likely to get an interview when they “whitened” their name. It’s the tendency of people in stores – of a variety of ethnicities – to follow someone who is black or Hispanic around the shop, but not a white woman. It’s a white woman calling the police on a black man in a public park who is bird watching.

I was so impressed with the Audubon Society immediately commenting on that last infamous incident with a series of tweets that began with this one on May 26:

“Black Americans often face terrible daily dangers in outdoor spaces, where they are subjected to unwarranted suspicion, confrontation, and violence. The outdoors – and the joy of birds – should be safe and welcoming for all people.”

In cooperation with other groups, like Outdoor Afro, they also promoted #BlackBirdersWeek and #BlackInNature on Twitter, featuring wonderful photos of black people and black families enjoying nature and talking about their love of bird watching.

I am sure there are people who said, “The Audubon Society is about birds, not politics, and I don’t like this.” I am so glad the Audubon Society ignored them. If the society lost donors over it, I’m so sorry – I hope they gained far more.

I hope every nonprofit, no matter their focus, no matter the mission, will make a similar public statement, if they haven’t already, about racism and exclusion. This is a cross-cutting issue. Animal shelters, environmental groups, nonprofit theaters, dance companies, museums, historical societies, and on and on – they all need to make a statement, right now, about what is happening and how it relates to their work and their communities.

Which brings me to you. And to me. People focused on recruiting and supporting volunteers, creating assignments for volunteers, consulting about aspects of volunteer engagement, and on and on. What are we doing about systemic racism in nonprofits, particularly volunteer engagement, particularly among managers of volunteers? I am sure that the vast majority of managers of volunteers absolutely abhor deliberate acts of racism and that they want to be more inclusive. And since they don’t engage in deliberate acts of racism, they often shut down at the term “systemic racism.” So, if they can’t say that volunteer engagement at most nonprofits is embedded with systemic racism, can we AT LEAST admit to systemic exclusion?

Take an organization that has decided to exclude anyone as a volunteer who has ever been convicted of a crime, no matter what the crime is, no matter how long ago that crime occurred. That policy automatically excludes a disproportionate number of black Americans as volunteers, because African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites. In public schools in particular, the “no convictions” prohibition has the consequence of excluding black people, particularly black men, as volunteers – and schools that have a low number of parental vounteers have students that, overall, don’t do nearly as well academically as in schools where the number is high. Is the policy REALLY about safety, or is it laziness? Let’s just exclude everyone with a conviction rather than to have to think about it too much.

When I read an article about service clubs – nonprofit organizations where members meet regularly to volunteer for charitable works either by direct hands-on efforts or by raising money for other organizations – the list is almost always the same: Lions, Rotary International, Civitan International, Kiwanis, Optimist International, the Junior League, etc. What gets left out? Service clubs specifically representing black residents, Latino residents or Asian residents. Yes, all of the usual clubs are supposed to be open to everyone, and there are some chapters that are wonderfully diverse – but most chapters aren’t diverse, and to focus just on them leaves oh-so-many out – and leaves specific communities out. When I read about an organization’s volunteer recruitment outreach to “communities of faith”, I see a listing of churches with, primarily, white congregations – and all Christian.

When I lived in Austin, Texas, I was charged with increasing the number of people attending a local associations meeting. I emailed groups this association had never contacted before, and at our next meeting, for the first time, attendees represented a variety of ethnicities, neighborhoods, ages and economic backgrounds – but the presentation, on recognizing volunteer contributions, was so white-centric, so middle-class centric, and so women-centric, most of those new attendees never returned.

Those are three examples of systemic racism in volunteer engagement. I don’t think most of the people involved in those three examples are racists, by definition, and had any intention to exclude people of a particular race. But that’s what has happened, and we are perpetuating the practices that perpetuate it.

And then there are organizations that proudly tout their work in digital inclusion, addressing digital redlining, digital literacy, economic factors that keep communities in poverty and out of digital access, many of whom are focused specifically on black communities, but then balk at the idea that their online spaces should be accessible for people with disabilities. That’s systemic exclusion, and it’s something people with disabilities experience regularly from groups that are oh-so-proud of their diversity.

Can systemic racism show up in virtual volunteering engagement? Absolutely. As soon as online volunteer roles cross into the realm of warranting the knowing full names, hearing voices, seeing the faces of volunteers, implicit bias can creep into how those volunteers are (or are not) engaged.

I have tried to have conversations about diversity over the years at organizations where I’ve worked, in my workshops and in various consultancies. It is, by far, the most contentious topic I try to address as a consultant, and not just regarding race: I still get a shiver down my spine when I think of the angry, hostile people that made up the majority of an audience at a Corporation for National Service conference where I talked about recruiting the “new” seniors – Baby Boomers – in SeniorCorps programs. I get a bit of that hostility, though not nearly as overt, when I talk to groups about how to recruit specifically to increase diversity among volunteers. It’s not easy and I know I’ve lost some consulting gigs because I have asked some tough questions, but I’m going to keep doing so, of others – and myself.

I’m on an ongoing journey to look for ways I exclude without intending to, in my consulting, in my volunteer engagement, in my communications strategies, in my language, and on and on. I would like for you to do so as well.

A PR disaster that has me outraged

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Which is worse: founding a company and giving it a name without doing any check on the name or phrase, and then finding out later that the name is associated with a horrible time in history and is deeply hurtful to many people, OR, knowing the name is associated with a horrible time in history and is deeply hurtful to many people and using it anyway?

I really can’t decide.

I know I’m late to the outcry over the reprehensible public relations firm founders in Austin, Texas who decided to call their company Strange Fruit PR – they recently changed the name to something else, after the outcry over the last 48 hours. But I only just found out about it today, and I have to comment. I have to.

When I thought this was a case of people naming a company without doing any background check, I was nonetheless outraged. Trembling with outrage, in fact. One of the things any public relations person knows is that, before you name any project, initiative, program, company, WHATEVER, you research what the name, phrase and any acronyms might already mean. You type it into Google and Bing and Wikipedia. Then you type in the name again along with words like racist and sexist and criminal and scam, just to see what comes up. You get a group of employees or volunteers or clients together and ask them their reaction to the name. If these two people hadn’t done all of the aforementioned, how in the WORLD were they in the public relations business?!

But it turns out the founders of Strange Fruit PR knew exactly what the name meant – and still used it for TWO years. They dismissed the people that brought up the inappropriateness of the name to them. It was only after a recent and widespread outcry online that they decided to change their name.

Here’s what the founders of this PR firm learned when they looked up the name online, and they still chose the name for their company: Strange Fruit means lynched Black Americans hanging from trees. It’s the title of a song made famous after it was recorded by Billie Holiday.

They knew that, and still chose to name their company “Strange Fruit PR.”

And then there is this non-apology from the founders of this PR company – note that they are not apologizing for their mistake but, rather, that you might have been offended.

We sincerely apologize to those offended by the former name of our firm. As of today, we have renamed our firm to Perennial Public Relations. We have always prided ourselves as open-minded individuals and we remain committed to serving our clientele and community. In no way did we ever intend for the name of our firm to offend nor infer any implication of racism. We are grateful for and appreciate the ongoing support of our clients and community.

Cringe-worthy, I know. I shuddered the first time I read it.

I’m a PR consultant. Here’s the apology that this firm should have written:

We sincerely apologize for the profoundly inappropriate name we have been using for our firm. There is no excuse for our choosing that name, let alone using it for as long as we did. It should not have taken this national outcry for us to change our name – we should never have named it that in the first place. While we can assure everyone that we did not choose the name to imply any support of racism or for one of the darkest periods of our nation’s history, to offer any explanation as to why we chose that name would contribute to the perception so many people now have of us: that we are thoughtless and uncaring. And that perception is, at this point, justified.

We have a great deal of work to do: to continue to provide quality services to our clients, to repair our reputation, and most importantly, to educate ourselves about racial and historical sensitivities and to demonstrate that we have learned, and that we do care, deeply, about all people. We welcome your contributions to help us on this journey.

We are so grateful for and appreciate the ongoing support of our clientele and community. Thank you.

And then this agency should call every organization in Austin, Texas that addresses racial inequalities or black American culture, apologize, and ask each if they would be willing to meet and help this agency start its journey to reconciliation, realization and forgiveness. And it should regularly blog about that journey.

Followup: an example of how to apologize.

Also see: