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Here’s the episode:
Today, we have the pleasure of interviewing Enrica Ruggs, Assistant Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Workplace Diversity and Inclusion in the Fogelman College of Business and Economics at the University of Memphis. We discuss the racism landscape, racism and organizations, and making progress and the role of leadership against racism.
If you want to know a little more about Enrica, her work focuses on the manifestation of subtle forms of discrimination and mistreatment toward employees with stigmatized identities, the outcomes of these behaviors, and strategies that individuals and organizations can engage in to combat and reduce discrimination. Her research has been published in premier academic outlets such as Journal of Applied Psychology and Journal of Management.
Links and Other Information
https://www.memphis.edu/management/faculty/enruggs.php
https://www.dvidshub.net/video/757420/starts-with-us
Link discussing when people act on confronting prejudice based off bystander intervention model:
McKinsey report: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters
Research showing members of nontarget group members (i.e. allies) confronting prejudice as more legitimate than target group members:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-31183-006
For Leaders–a couple of short MIT Sloan articles by Derek Avery and I on things org leaders should do to address racial discrimination:
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/organizations-cannot-afford-to-stay-silent-on-racial-injustice/
NPR Podcast with Lisa Cook–economist, racism, patents:
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/11/875445743/story-of-a-paper
What is a good definition of racism: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-5930.1996.tb00147.x “ABSTRACT This essay considers definitions of racism which emphasise its behavioural, motivational, and cognitive features. The behavioural definition (‘the failure to give equal consideration, based on the fact of race alone’) is rejected, primarily due to its inability to distinguish between ‘true’and ‘ordinary’racism. It is the former which is morally most objectionable — and which identifies the essence of the racist attitude and belief. The central part of the essay argues in favour of the motivational approach to the definition (‘the infliction of unequal consideration, motivated by the desire to dominate, based on race alone’) and clarifies the way in which racism, thus understood, conflicts with the principle of human equality. Finally, the cognitivist definition (‘unequal consideration, out of a belief in the inferiority of another race’) is also rejected, despite its intuitive appeal. The overall discussion has important implications for moral philosophy. It is shown both that the principle of human equality does not strictly imply equal consideration, and that one may violate the principle of equal perception, yet not deny the principle which, from the perspective of this argument, is the more fundamental element in the principle of human equality, the principle of equal human worth.”
https://academic.oup.com/sw/article-abstract/57/3/225/1888507 “Racism is a term on which a great deal of discourse does and should turn in all realms of social work theory, practice, policy, and research. Because it is a concept heavily freighted with multiple and conflicting interpretations and used in a wide variety of ways, the idea and action of racism is not easy to teach or learn in a simple and straightforward manner. It is a term the meaning of which has been the subject of so much argument and mutation that its utility as a clear and reliable descriptor of a crucial form of ideology or behavior is less than certain. In this article, an analysis of the dispute over the proper definition of racism is undertaken, and an approach to teaching about the term is offered in an effort to provide both teachers and students with a clear, consistent, and useful understanding of this important and challenging phenomenon.”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/philafri.9.1.0001?seq=1 “
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