This what changemakers need from their allies

Almost three years ago, I wrote an 8-page letter to a white woman billionaire CEO detailing the harm she had caused me on a pre-event Zoom call. And the harm she and her company had caused me in the aftermath.

To this day, I’ve never received a reply or an acknowledgment from her or her team.

I’ve never talked about it publicly.

I won’t name the CEO or the billion dollar company she runs.

If you know me today, you know call-outs and cancellations aren’t the way I choose to lead.

However, I want to share this incident with you because I think it perfectly illustrates what changemakers need less of, and what we need more of, from the people who claim to be our allies.

It was the summer of 2020. Like many Black antiracist changemakers during that time, I was over-scheduled with interview and event requests in response to the horrific murder of George Floyd.

One of the events I was scheduled for was an Instagram live conversation with the white woman CEO of a well-known company to talk about my book Me and White Supremacy. My publishing team worked diligently to prepare all the logistics for the event. And though I was tired, I looked forward to the conversation.

Shortly before our event date, the company asked to reschedule our interview to a later date. 

Their reasoning? They wanted to take the message of the book to heart and actually do the work. In their own words, which they also shared publicly:

“We are taking the book’s central message to heart, that it is not just something you read, it is something you do, and as a company we are embarking on the work.”

‘Amazing!’, I thought.

I was over the moon to hear this! I respected their integrity, and looked forward to the deeper conversation my interviewer and I would get to have as a result of her and her company doing the work.

As a side note, you should know that I actually request all white interviewers wanting to have a long-form interview with me about MAWS actually do the work. That way, we can have a conversation that is actually meaningful. And more importantly, I can make sure that I’m not subjecting myself to harm by people who mean well, but aren’t doing the work.

I had already assumed the CEO would be doing this, as my team had communicated this request. And I was even more excited to hear that her company would be doing so too.

Boy, was I wrong.

Two months later, I excitedly logged into our pre-event call, ready to chat for a little bit before our Instagram live.

I was then subjected to one of the most harmful 30-minute calls I’ve ever been on.

Have you gone into an interaction thinking you’re about to have one of the most respectful, kind, generous, and honouring experiences of your week…

…and then been verbally and emotionally smacked in the face by someone who has more privilege and power than you…
…and is utterly and willfully oblivious to the harm they are causing you in real time - even though you keep trying to explain it to them?

Yeah. That. That’s what happened.

I won’t give you all the hairy details, but what I will tell you is that from the moment the call started I was:

💢Talked down to
💢Talked over
💢Talked across
💢Minimized and insulted
💢Compared to another Black author (in a way that made me feel “put in my place”)
💢Ignored and gaslit

And so much more. 

At first I thought, ‘There must have been some sort of misunderstanding?’.

Turns out there was. But the misunderstanding was clearly on my side, not hers.

When I (gracefully but clearly) expressed my frustration with what she was saying, and my confusion about her doing the work, she told me that I must have been mistaken…

…Sure, she’d read the book. But she was too busy as CEO to go through any journaling.

She shared that she was reading other antiracist books and doing her own learning.

And when I countered that while that was great, that wasn’t what we were talking about…

…and that she was talking to me about my book and not other authors about theirs…

…she implied how honoured I should feel about having my book chosen by her as CEO in the first place.

Let me tell you, it was a whole mess.

I was shaking, confused, and trying my best to manage my feelings and this situation (and how it may affect other people, like my publishing team). And all the while, she remained unfazed and unapologetic.

She was a busy, important, and powerful woman. And who did I think I was to speak back to her, or expect her to do anything?

🔥I could feel my righteous rage rising, but also battling against my fear of being stereotyped as an Angry Black Woman.
🔥I could feel the weight and entitlement of her privileges bearing down on me - white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. I was David, she was Goliath.
🔥I could feel the power of my ancestors roaring within me. The voice of my mother and father reminding me whose daughter I was, and that nobody ever has the right to make me feel inferior.

But more than anything, in that moment, I felt the powerlessness of it all.

The fact that any privileges or power I had as a well-respected and bestselling author and educator really meant nothing in that moment.

I was a Black woman. And she was a white woman with far more societal power than me. And that was that. She could say and do whatever she wanted. And I was lucky to even be able to talk to her.

I told her that I didn’t feel comfortable moving ahead with our scheduled event, and that my team would get back to her about next steps.

I got off the call and broke down crying. I felt humiliated.

I immediately contacted my agent and let her know what had happened. Straight away, she jumped into action and contacted my publishing team and let them know what happened, and that I didn’t want to move forward with any event.

They reached out to the company and expressed my upset and my wishes, and asked on my behalf that I be allowed to review the social media post the company wanted to put out about the cancellation. So that I could feel comfortable with what was published.

That request was ignored. The next morning, after a sleepless night, I woke up to a cancellation post on their page with no explanation or accountability.

To say I was livid is an understatement.

I just couldn’t believe it.

And that’s how I ended up writing an 8-page letter to detail the harm caused, the expectations I held and why, and clear steps for how they could apologise, repair, and make amends.

A part of me still believed they would act with integrity. I thought, there’s no way they can ignore this??

Silly me 🤡 I never heard back from them again.

I’m not telling you all of this so you can find the CEO and company and call them out. Please don’t do this - it’s exactly the opposite of what I want.

I try my best to live and lead drama-free. This happened years ago, and I can assure you I am okay.

I’m sharing it because what changemakers need, whether you’re a public thought-worker, a professional leader, or a social impact entrepreneur, is Less SIGNALLING, and more SUPPORT.

This company signalled a lot of things to me and their audience. 

They performatively SIGNALLED that they:

🟢Believed that Black Lives Matter.
🟢Had integrity by wanting to actually do the work (not just read the book)
🟢Supported Black authors doing antiracist changemaking work

But when it came down to it, they did not authentically SUPPORT:

🚩The dignity and humanity of the Black life that they were actually interacting with (me!)
🚩The follow through of doing the work that they publicly declared they would do
🚩An actual Black author doing antiracist changemaking work

As a changemaker, you’ve probably experienced your own versions of this. Peers, colleagues, team members, or leaders who have signalled one thing to you - but then not followed through with tangible support.

Here’s a few examples I can think of:

🫠A company employs you to do internal DEI work, but then doesn’t pay you enough, doesn’t support you to other employees, and doesn’t give you any real tangible power to enact meaningful change.
🫠An “ally” helps you co-found a social impact enterprise, but doesn’t do their inner anti-oppression work and causes you harm in the process.
🫠A follower of your change-making thought work or educational contributions uses your work, but doesn’t credit or cite you as their inspiration.

Lots of signalling. Not enough support.

And this pattern that happens, over and over again, is enough to wear you down and burn you out.

It took me some weeks to recover from that traumatising interaction. And even now, when I think about it three years later, I can still feel the flush of shame and sadness in my body.

But can I tell you what helped, and what I continue to take forward with me as a changemaker? The importance of creating our own circles of support 💖.

The moment I got off that call, the first people I called were my husband and my agent. They are two of the most supportive people in my life and career as an author, and they immediately rushed in to hold me and help me take next steps.

I then messaged my inner circle friends and talked to them about what happened. I needed to be witnessed and loved on, as I felt so vulnerable and small.

External individuals and institutions who benefit from the status quo are not going to be the places where we can get the support we need. Which is why we need to make sure we are nurturing our own communities and prioritzing community care.

We cannot and should not do this work alone.

It’s too hard. Too heartbreaking. And is designed to wear you down.

Nurturing our communities of support as changemakers doesn’t make us invulnerable to this. But it does give us collective power, healing, and a soft place to land in this hard, hard work.

The CEO who harmed me may have societal power and privileges. But she’s got nothing on the love in the circle of support that I’m a part of. I’ve got the real power. 

And so have you 💖.

As you do your change-making work, I hope you continue to prioritise community care. Find the people who know you, see you, love you, and hold you with the utmost honour and respect (and vice versa).

Hold them close and let them witness your humanity and support your healing. In this way, the vulnerability that others try to use against you becomes your greatest source of connection and strength.

We do this work together.

To less signalling + more support,

Layla