Forget carbon footprint, what’s your equity footprint?
A conversation with Dr. Chelsea Johnson, Ph.D.
This week I zoomed with Chelsea Johnson, who was looking especially radiant under the Pink Blossom Snap filter neither of us knew how to turn off (we both had a good laugh).
Dr. Johnson is a sociologist and researcher by training and a children’s book author. (If you haven’t picked up a copy, it’s a great primer on intersectionality with beautiful illustrations. IntersectionAllies, Dottir Press, 2019.)
One of the things I aspire to learn is the precision with which sociologists choose their language. She knew exactly how to frame some of the issues being widely discussed these past few months with a clarity and authority that I hope will unify many readers.
Tell us about you.
I grew up in a very white suburb of Chicago. I was often the only Black student in my classrooms. Despite being from the same family, I definitely noticed differences in how my brothers experienced the world versus how I did — I just didn’t know how to name it at the time.
So when I went to Spelman College [an HBCU], it was one of the first times that I was exposed to some incredible Black female authors. I started to be able to name many of the experiences I had with race, gender, class, age. There were whole literatures on these topics — How race and gender manifest themselves through and on our bodies. I was fascinated by how all these things connected in society, and after I graduated, I decided to pursue a PhD in sociology. My dissertation was on the natural hair movement in the African Diaspora in the mid 2010s.
Author’s side note: If you haven’t read her work on the natural hair movement, you can learn more here.
So fast forward to today. How did you end up becoming a UX researcher at a large tech company?
It happened by chance. I realized about halfway through grad school that I didn’t want to become a professor. I was asking, “How can I find a job that impacts more people?” It’s why writing the children’s book — making something colorful, accessible — was so meaningful for me.
Also, my fiancé is from Minneapolis. When Philando Castille was murdered, he wanted to start a company to help black people, and others at many different intersections of identities, feel safer. So, he teamed up with a professor from the University of Minnesota and founded ClutchSOS, an app that connects people with their inner circle in moments of emergency.
He hired a user experience designer that understood the needs of people at the intersections of many different identities. They interviewed intersecting combinations of potential app users in urban, suburban and rural environments, including LGBT folks, Native community members, Muslim hijabi women, and more. Seeing the research process in action, I realized — I have the skills to do this job! I think about these issues every single day.
I now get to understand and impact hundreds of millions of users each day as a user experience researcher through my work.
Let’s talk D&I. How would you help a non-Black executive approach diversity and inclusion?
Having diverse people in the room is really just a one-way exchange. You’re extracting the value they bring to the table, but not the other way around. It’s great for someone to be in the room, but how active is their participation, how much are we actually nourishing their pathway? There’s not a lot of effort [on the side of the company] connoted when we use the words “diversity” and “inclusion”
I would choose different words for corporations: Redistribution, reconciliation and representation.
We need to think differently about where the wealth lands. For example, who has access to the things this company impacts? Not just the employees, but also the customers and the potentially millions of people in society.
Say more about “redistribution and reconciliation”.
I feel really lucky. With my job I was getting fed 3 meals a day, wonderful healthcare, and so many other benefits. But at the same time, the people in that neighborhood were getting displaced and couldn’t afford food. The income inequality in the Bay Area is just atrocious.
Companies could start thinking about what it means to have a physical presence in a community. What would it mean to acknowledge the harm that’s already been done to that community?
What real responsibility would be, in this moment, would be to first do an audit of what impact their business has had, and how they can be transformative beyond just having different races represented internally.
Author’s side note: Chelsea wrote a short analysis of her experience as a sociologist in tech and observations of inequality in the Bay Area for Quartz. You can read that essay here.
How do you reconcile that approach with being accountable to Wall Street?
I would challenge that as a starting place. Wall Street is not the only thing companies should be accountable to.
The consequences are larger than Wall Street. Shareholders are not the only people positively or negatively impacted by the company.
For white people who want to become allies in the workplace, how can they get started?
The journey really starts before work. Sadly, a lot of people haven’t read or learned about any of the issues [impacting Black people] before now. Make it your responsibility to learn and to read, and to reflect about where you fit in within those hierarchies.
What everybody needs is different, what every individual person needs is different.
Being an ally in the workplace should start with listening.
What I expect that you need could be really different than what you actually need. When you ask people what they need before the relationship is formed, it can feel like labor for the other person, because the trust hasn’t been built.
Here’s a great example of allyship that I experienced: I was co-hosting an event for the aspiring people in UX at my work. It’s not a very diverse workplace, there are whole sections of roles where there are no Black people. A woman I work with reached out and offered to give us resources about her position, to share with the Black community. It didn’t feel like she was inserting herself, but she offered the resource by listening, and gave without expectation.
I really appreciated her ability to listen, notice a need, and offer vs. ask something of me. There are smaller moments like these where you can reflect and be present to make an impact.
Dr. Chelsea Johnson holds a B.A. from Spelman College, an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Southern California. She is also an alumna of the Black European Summer School, the International Decolonial Black Feminism School, and a UNCF/Mellon-Mays Fellow.
Want more?
My 4-part series on “Why ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ sets the bar too low” starts here.
