COVER STORY: FEBRUARY INTERVIEW JANICE UNDERWOOD,
chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer, Commonwealth of Virginia
Disrupting racism
Janice Underwood leads the state’s efforts to create a more equitable culture
by Kate Andrews I
n the months after a blackface scandal threatened his governorship, Gov. Ralph Northam announced that
he would appoint a chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer who would report directly to him — the first Cabinet- level position of its kind in any state in the nation. In September 2019, Janice Underwood took on the challenge. A longtime educator who taught in
Hampton’s public schools before leading Old Dominion University’s Teacher in Residence program and then serving as ODU’s director of diversity initiatives, Underwood has led the creation of the strategic One Virginia Plan to address systemic racism and inequity throughout state government and create more inclusive practices. She also leads the COVID-19 health equity task force for the state and has participated in high-level discussions at Virginia Military Institute, which is undergoing a reckoning with what some Black cadets have called a “relentlessly racist” culture. Although her position was born
during political turmoil, Underwood says that far from being “just the window dressing,” she is engaged in “institutional- izing equity so that it can be deeply embedded — to confront the inequity that’s also deeply embedded.” If anything, her job has become even
more urgent during the past year, with the combination of COVID-19 and the economic downturn disproportionately
28 | FEBRUARY 2021
affecting people of color. Also, nationwide protests following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have shined a spotlight on structural racism, which Underwood says she is working furiously to interrupt.
Virginia Business: What are some lessons you’ve learned during your career? Janice Underwood: As a Black leader, I know about racism. Sometimes when you join with people who are allies in this work who aren’t Black, you got to make sure people understand that we’re in this together, but I’m also a victim of it as well. I’ve experi- enced it. You’ve got to have cultural humility, because you haven’t walked in my shoes and you’ve only read about it or heard about it, or maybe saw it from a distance because you have a relative who’s Black, or a friend. What I’ve learned is there are a lot of
people who say they are allies in this work and who believe they are DEI [diversity, equity, inclusion] champions, but also don’t understand how they undermine the work because they believe that they are such champions and aren’t willing to interrogate this lifelong learning. I think Robin DiAngelo [author of
“White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism”] says it best when she says structural racism isn’t an event, it’s a system — and that’s big. Structural racism is not an event, it’s a system that we all have been socialized under and lived under.
The one thing that I’ve learned … is
that the learning is never over, and no one ever arrives at this complete understand- ing. Sometimes even Black leaders don’t always have the language to express what it is we’re feeling.
VB: How can workplaces even the playing field? Underwood: The first thing that you’ve got to understand is that pointing your finger at someone and calling them a racist never gets you anywhere. It’s not always what you say, but how you say it. It’s about how you make people feel. If I make you feel like a worthless racist because I’m name-calling you a racist, then we’re not going to get anywhere, because all it’s going to do is make you defensive. Racism and inequity have had a
401-year head start. It’s going to take people working together almost in stealth
Photo by Matthew R.O. Brown
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72
