Thread by @Pistachio

I've spent the last five years studying the influence of mega-threats on racial minorities in the workplace. What are Mega-threats? I'm glad you asked! Here is a summary of my article with my brilliant co-author @ProfShimul about mega-threats 1/n
journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/am…

@ProfShimul Mega-Threats are large scale identity related societal events. Societal events are can be considered identity related when an individual is attacked, threatened, or harmed because of their social group membership. 2/n

@ProfShimul The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd are mega-threats that are particularly relevant for Black people. I've also studied the influence of other mega-threats that have targeted individuals within other racial minority identity groups … 3/n

@ProfShimul I've studied mega-threats such as the El Paso, TX Wal-mart mass shooting where 23 ppl were killed and the shooter targeted Mexicans and the U.S. President tweeting that U.S. racial minority Congresswomen should go back to the "crime infested countries" from which they came. 4/n

@ProfShimul So what is the influence of these events on individuals?

1. I find that these events lead other groups members to experience threat, where they worry whether they or one of their loved ones will become targets of similar discriminatory or violent acts. 5/n

@ProfShimul 2. I find that this experience of threat impacts people even as they enter the workplace BUT because talking about our identities is taboo at work people have to hide this threat and do so by pretending to be ok … when really they are not. I call this process "identity labor"6/n

@ProfShimul 3. I find that identity labor has negative consequences for racial minorities in the workplace, leading them to disengage from both their work tasks and their work colleagues. 7/n

@ProfShimul Many racial minorities typically engage in processes of suppressing their identities or "code-switching" within the workplace. @CL_McCluney and others describe this process in detail with their recent HBR article hbr.org/2019/11/the-co… 8/n

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney I find in my work that mega-threats interrupt these typical identity management processes. Simply put ... after a mega-threat racial minorities avoid their work colleagues because they cannot pretend that that are ok! 9/n

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney I also find in my work that in some instances mega-threats can have the opposite effect ... inspiring racial minorities to take a stand and speak out against racial injustice, even though this behavior is risky. We call this "positive deviance" 10/n

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney Colin Kappernick's stance against racial injustice is an example of positive deviance. He took this stance a few weeks after the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille

... years later he still can't get a job in the NFL. 11/n

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney Another example of positive deviance is the strong of Black executives that have been sharing their stories in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. 12/n

wsj.com/articles/black…

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney So what can organizations do to help their employees cope with mega-threats? First cultivating a culture where its okay to talk about race and express negative emotions is important. If people can't freely share their thoughts and emotions, they will suppress them 13/n

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney It sounds easy … lets just start talking openly about race! BUT it's not! There are a lot of obstacles to communication about race within interracial interactions, which @CydneyDupree details in her work. 14/n insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-…

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney @CydneyDupree Just because its hard to talk about race doesn't mean we shouldn't do it! I find that in order to buffer against the negative effects of mega-threats that organizations have to cultivate an open culture of talking about all of our identities, including our racial identities. 15/n

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney @CydneyDupree My fellow #ShareTheMicNow colleague and friend @StephanieCreary recently shared a framework for starting these discussions in the workplace. 16/n

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/begin-…

@ProfShimul @CL_McCluney @CydneyDupree @StephanieCreary f you're still not convinced that it is time for you to start talking about race in the workplace I will leave you with this final quote from an interview I recently gave on the @Project__Rework podcast. 17/final