The Dark Side of Nice

During the weeks following the death of George Floyd my email box exploded with messages from individuals and organizations condemning the actions of the police, acknowledging the enormous amount of work that was needed to eliminate inequality and injustice, and pledging to provide support to members of the Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities.

Since then, my day-to-day world continues to be shaped by a heightened desire to address systemic racism in our society and institutions while at the same time, dealing with disruption of the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic and its effect on our economy.

I have been educating myself on systemic racism and the concepts of Whiteness and anti-racism. I have also been reaching out to friends and colleagues who are Black and People of Color as a way of using my White privilege as a resource they could access, and I have been learning from them, too. I want to be better prepared to discuss the issues of systemic racism and what it means for organizations and their leaders, especially community-based organizations that need to be held accountable for change.

The evolution of my thinking on the subject has not been easy. Over the past few days I have been processing the effects of experiences that have both heightened my appreciation for the complicated barriers to change and deepened my empathy for my colleagues who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC). These events have produced a disorienting dilemma that exposes a startling discrepancy between previous assumptions and what I have experienced.

Most white people I know believe they are not racist. But through educating myself, I have learned that being ‘not racist’ is being passive to racism, like pretending racism doesn’t exist, which is a privileged way of thinking that only white people have access to. With this thinking, white people create for themselves a comfort zone that is disrupted only when a fellow white person challenges their ‘not racist’ solidarity by either disagreeing with how being racist is interpreted, or by giving feedback about certain behaviors that have a racist implications. Or, in other words, by not being “nice”.

There is a phrase here in Minnesota called “Minnesota Nice” that refers to being unusually courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered. It’s often joked about, but many have come to acknowledge its dark side. “Minnesota Nice” can act to preserve the status quo through a veneer of neutrality and compassion that glosses over tense or difficult topics. When considered in the frame of “Minnesota Nice,” hurtful actions are assumed to be the result of individuals who have just made bad choices or who don’t know any better. This framing is based upon a kind of pride and arrogance of being correct that diverts attention away from systemic inequity, and implicit or unconscious bias. It creates social guardrails that protect a safe zone, free of uncomfortable conversations.

In organization development work, a guiding principle of process consultation is that the client owns both the problem and the solution. This is how I have come to feel about institutional racism, only instead of a client, I’m thinking that it’s white people who must own both the problem and the solution to systemic racism. But, before you can own a problem, you first have to acknowledge there is a problem, and don’t expect friends and colleagues who are Black, or People of Color to explain this. They have been explaining for a long time while no one was listening, and they are tired of it. Speaking as a White person to my White readers, it is on us now.

This brings me back to the dark side of nice; niceness is a barrier to acknowledging systemic racism. I find that it is no longer possible to avoid the discomfort of these conversations. It’s no longer enough to be “not racist.” And I can no longer be “Minnesota Nice.”