The revelations of Harvey Weinstein’s long, awful history of sexual harassment, brought to light last week by The New York Times and The New Yorker, and by more and more people speaking up since, have once again shone a spotlight on these issues not only in Hollywood, but in other industries as well.

But as they re-focus public attention on sexual harassment, they may also be creating a risk:

That Weinstein’s extreme example will become the new definition of sexual harassment, and that anyone whose behavior doesn’t go quite as far will rationalize their actions by saying, “Well, at least I’m not Harvey Weinstein.”

While the last few years have seen an increase in news stories about sexual assault and harassment by high-profile individuals and in high-profile organizations, too many times these stories do not get reported. Victims are often reluctant to speak up (“There is something really unfair in sexual harassment reporting,” said Jodi Kantor, who broke the story for The New York Times. “In the course of reporting the story, some of the alleged victims would say to me, ‘How come it’s my job to address this? I was the victim. I don’t necessarily want to go public. I didn’t do anything wrong. Why do I have to do this?’“), and reporters hold themselves to high standards of proof (Kantor and co-author Megan Twohey worked on the story for four months, and didn’t publish it until they had “on-the-record accounts from women … the financial trail of the money that was paid out over the years. And … internal company documents … [W]e wanted it to be irrefutable, because a lot of these things happened in the privacy of a hotel room, and we didn’t want a story that could be easily knocked down.”).

This means that when a story like the Weinstein story does break, the reporters often present a preponderance of evidence. While this makes the story hard to refute, it also establishes an even more extreme example of sexual harassment. Which then creates an even wider gulf between appropriate conduct between co-workers and the edges of awfulness that can now be imaged.

This story should challenge people in every industry, not just Hollywood, to re-examine their own conduct, and the conduct of their co-workers. Because as the resurgence of the #MeToo campaign on social media this week has shown, sexual assault and harassment are far too common.

But it’s not hard to imagine people in every industry missing the takeaway, and instead saying, “Well, I know what sexual harassment looks like — Harvey Weinstein. And we don’t do that.”

The same self-justification is at play when a company — and not just ones in Silicon Valley — tells itself, “Yeah, we could probably do better when it comes to how we treat women. But at least we aren’t Uber.”

And though these stories often escape the public eye until journalists can assemble a mountain of evidence, as we saw with Weinstein, the pattern of harassment is rarely a secret. In this case, as in many others, dozens knew but stayed silent. Many of Weinstein’s co-workers not only remained silent, but facilitated his behavior, fearful of what he might do if they said anything. Each of them contributed to “Harvey Weinstein” becoming a shorthand for egregious sexual harassment.

The desire to stay silent and avoid confrontation is understandable. But while keeping quiet might keep you personally safe, your silence may put others at risk.

One female executive who spoke to The New Yorker author Ronan Farrow said her lawyer advised her that she could be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for violating the nondisclosure agreement attached to her employment contract. “I believe this is more important than keeping a confidentiality agreement,” she told him. “The more of us that can confirm or validate for these women if this did happen, I think it’s really important for their justice to do that.” She added, “I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have stopped it. And this is my way of doing that now.”

The longer people keep quiet, the stronger the culture of silence grows, and the harder it gets to speak up.

Speaking up on these issues can be difficult, even when the behavior isn’t as appalling as Harvey Weinstein’s. But speaking up is essential to creating a culture free of sexual harassment. Courage now is better than regret later.

This originally appeared in The Mouse and the Elephant Weekly. Read the full email, explore other resources, and subscribe at https://tinyletter.com/mouseandelephant/.

Today, Louis Armstrong is a beloved figure. But 60 years ago, when he cancelled a tour to perform in the Soviet Union as a cultural ambassador on behalf of the State Department to protest the deployment of the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students from attending classes at Little Rock Central High School, he was criticized for his lack of patriotism.

Today, Martin Luther King, Jr., is a beloved figure. But 54 years ago, as he prepared for the March on Washington where he delivered his now-famous “I Have a Dream” speech, 60% of those polled by Gallup had an unfavorable opinion of the upcoming civil rights rally.

Today, Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos are beloved figures. But 49 years ago, after they raised their black-gloved fists on the medal stand in Mexico City to protest racial inequities in the United States, they were stripped of their medals, and harshly criticized back home.

“There has never been a movement for the freedom or equality of people of color that has gained white approval,” writes Michael Harriot. “Not the abolitionist movement. Not the anti-lynching movement. Not the Black Power movement. Not the civil rights struggle.”

And when African-American athletes and entertainers protest today, writes Jelani Cobb, “the belief endures … that visible, affluent African-American entertainers are obliged to adopt a pose of ceaseless gratitude—appreciation for the waiver that spared them the low status of so many others of their kind. Stevie Wonder began a performance in Central Park [Saturday] night by taking a knee, prompting Congressman Joe Walsh to tweet that Wonder was ‘another ungrateful black multi-millionaire.’ Ungrateful is the new uppity.”

As the debate around the NFL protests — which began with Colin Kaepernick protesting police violence and racial inequality, and evolved this past weekend after President Trump suggested protesting players should be fired, only less diplomatically — continues, keep in mind that while the news may be the first draft of history, when it comes to the history of protest, that first draft will be subject to extensive revisions.

This originally appeared in The Mouse and the Elephant Weekly. Read the full email, explore other resources, and subscribe at https://tinyletter.com/mouseandelephant/.

Throughout her career in photojournalism, documentary photographer and filmmaker Tara Pixley has often found herself “the lone woman and the only black person in a newsroom or in the cadre of mostly white male editors choosing which images will make that day’s web or print publication.” That dearth of diversity among photojournalists and photo editors, she writes, means that “the dominant point of view through which the entire world continues to see and understand itself is that of Western men.” (HT @Humans_of_STL)

This “singular visual perspective—male, Western and white,” often means that, “Instead of being a tool for social change…[photojournalism] becomes a tool of oppression, perpetuating clichés and crippling stereotypes like the ‘violent and dangerous’ Latin America, the ‘flies-in-the-eye malnourished child’ in Africa,” says Ecuadorean photojournalist Emilia Lloret.

And as if to remind people of the gender bias in the photography industry, when Nikon launched a promotion of its new D850 camera, they assembled a team of 32 professional photographers from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to “embark on an astounding photographic journey across Japan” with the new camera.

All 32 of the photographers selected were men.

“When building a list of 32 photographers, you basically have to go out of your way to not include a single woman,” writes photographer Jason Vinson on Fstoppers. “The problem here though is not just with Nikon, but instead with the entire photo industry. Brand ambassadors are filled with mostly men and entire conferences are filled with only male speakers.” (HT @jennsilverberg)

To counter the “I’d love to hire photographers of color but don’t know any” excuse, Brent Lewis, photo editor for ESPN’s The Undefeated, has led the launch this week of Diversify Photo, a curated database of 340 experienced photographers of color to “equip Art Buyers, Creative Directors, and Photo Directors with resources to discover photographers of color available for assignments and commissions.”

To counter the “I’d love to hire women photographers but don’t know any” excuse, London-based photojournalist Daniella Zalcman earlier this year created Women Photograph, whose database of women photographers includes 650 women in 87 countries — including 115 from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

In other words, there really are no excuses.

But the decision about who to hire still falls on photo editors, and as Pixley writes, “there are few people of color and even fewer women of color in news photo editor roles. A 2016 American Society of News Editors survey reported that only 13 percent of newsroom leaders were minorities and that black and Latina women represented 2.2 percent and 1.45 percent of news leadership, respectively.”

The tech and finance industries have been heavily criticized recently for their poor records of diversity and inclusion. But as this story so vividly illustrates, you can find lack of diversity and limited inclusion in nearly every industry — and wherever those issues exist, they inevitably have an impact that goes well beyond the people who work in that industry.

If you think your industry doesn’t have an issue with diversity and inclusion, dig deeper. Ask someone whose background or life experience is different from yours how they find life in your industry. If they share struggles that surprise you, don’t get defensive or try to explain their story away. Listen, and learn — and then keep talking to people who have traveled different paths. Commit to seeing the full picture, and not having a ‘singular visual perspective.’ If you are in a position of influence, keep listening — and speak up. Entrenched cultures don’t change magically, or on their own. They change when those with influence insist on change.

And if you already know your industry has an issue with diversity and inclusion, know that you’re not alone — and remember to look beyond your industry for ways to challenge and change the status quo. Today, thanks to the Internet, you have access to insightful parallels and thoughtful voices in industries across the globe.

This originally appeared in The Mouse and the Elephant Weekly. Read the full email, explore other resources, and subscribe at https://tinyletter.com/mouseandelephant/.

Have you talked about Charlottesville at work yet?

No? That’s understandable. Maybe you aren’t sure how. Maybe you don’t feel like it’s your place. Maybe you were going to, but now you think the moment might have passed. Maybe you hope that the moment has passed, that soonCharlottesville will recede from the headlines, and then things will kind of go back to ‘normal.’

It’s true, Charlottesville will eventually recede from the headlines.

But then something new and awful will come along to take its place.

Will you talk about that at work when it happens?

No, talking about these things at work is not easy, and no, technically, Charlottesville wasn’t about the workplace, at least not as blatantly and obviously as the Google manifesto that dominated the headlines just a couple weeks ago — until Charlottesville happened.

But to not talk about these things — about race, about racism, about anti-Semitism, about the shameful treatment of other human beings that is inextricably interwoven into American history — is to ensure that they will continue to haunt us.

We have to talk about them.

“We haven’t engaged in the narrative conversation that we need to have,” said Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative. On The Daily Show this week, he told Trevor Noah, “The North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war. This idea that white supremacy — racial apartheid — was unacceptable, was not something we ever embraced. That’s why we have this era of terror, and that’s why we have this era of segregation….

“In this country, we don’t talk about slavery. We don’t talk about lynching, we don’t talk about segregation … we’re preoccupied with the 19th century in [the South], hundreds of confederate memorials and statues, but nothing about slavery or lynching. I don’t think we’re going to get free, we will not overcome these problems, until we confront this history.

“We want truth and reconciliation, we want unity, but we don’t realize, those … things are not simultaneous. You’ve got to have truth before reconciliation — they’re sequential — and we haven’t done truth-telling in this country, and we won’t get where we’re trying to go until we do.”

You may not be in the position to lead a national dialogue about these issues — but you can start a dialogue within your sphere of influence.

So … how do you talk about it at work?

You could start with a simple question: In response to Charlottesville, what can we do to make our workplace more inclusive?

You could make the question a little more personal, and ask:  I’m still thinking about what happened in Charlottesville, and I know we have haven’t talked about it as an organization. In light of what happened there, what can we do to make our workplace more inclusive?

If you are in a leadership role, you could pose the question to your fellow leaders at a meeting of team or organizational leadership, and encourage them to expand the conversation across the organization.

You could pose the question as an open invitation to an informal lunchtime discussion to talk about it.

If you’re not in a leadership position, you could ask the question one-on-one to your manager, to someone in Human Resources, or simply someone you respect on the leadership team. You could ask it to one of your co-workers who you think might be thinking about these issues, too.

Is there risk in bringing it up? Of course there is.

Is the conversation you start going to stop systemic racism? Of course it’s not.

But talking about it can interrupt the ways racism operates to maintain the status quo. And not talking about it, not taking that risk, is missing an opportunity to make your workplace more inclusive.

This originally appeared in The Mouse and the Elephant Weekly. Read the full email, explore other resources, and subscribe at https://tinyletter.com/mouseandelephant/.

It’s been quite a week at Google. “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” a 10-page manifesto criticizing Google’s pro-diversity efforts, went viral inside the company last Friday. It was leaked to the public on Saturday. Its author, software engineer James Damore, was fired on Monday. After resulting online harassment of Google employees throughout the week, a planned all-hands town hall meeting inside Google was canceled on Thursday because, as CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a letter to employees, “Googlers are writing in, concerned about their safety and worried they may be ‘outed’ publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall.”

Google was already under scrutiny on diversity issues, specifically its treatment of women. In April, as part of a wage-discrimination investigation by the Department of Labor, Regional Director Janette Wipper testified that “we found systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire workforce.” And The Guardian reported on Tuesday that, “More than 60 current and former Google employees are considering bringing a class-action lawsuit alleging sexism and pay disparities against women.”

So even when the furor over this particular memo dies down, that scrutiny won’t go away.

Nor should it.

Setting questions of damage control aside, “The most important question we should be asking of leaders at Google and that they should be asking of themselves is this: why is the environment at Google such that racists and sexists feel supported and safe in sharing these views in the company? What about the company culture sends the message that sharing sexism and racism will be accepted?” writes former Google engineer Erica Baker. “What has shaped the culture thus far, to get to this point? In short, Google leadership should do a post-mortem, a real one, on how the company got to this place where they’ve experienced such a catastrophic failure in their culture, assuming it is indeed viewed as such.”

The larger frame for these questions is the culture of U.S. society. The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is pushing many to face these same questions about our country. How did we get here? What about our country’s culture sends the message that sharing hatred will be accepted? We each have individual questions to ask of ourselves and the spaces we occupy.

That’s why these questions need to be asked well beyond Google.

As Stanford computer science professor Cynthia Lee writes, “To be a woman in tech is to know the thrill of participating in one of the most transformative revolutions humankind has known, to experience the crystalline satisfaction of finding an elegant solution to an algorithmic challenge, to want to throw the monitor out the window in frustration with a bug and, later, to do a happy dance in a chair while finally fixing it. To be a woman in tech is also to always and forever be faced with skepticism that I do and feel all those things authentically enough to truly belong.”

Lee goes on to dismantle the “biological differences” argument Damore asserted in his memo:

In other words, this is a culture issue. And until Google, its Silicon Valley peers, and indeed, workplaces worldwide address it as a culture issue — not a recruiting issue, not a pipeline issue, not a performance review issue, but a culture issue — and in so doing create diverse, welcoming, equitable, and truly inclusive cultures, incidents like this memo and lawsuits like the ones Google faces will continue to arise.

Because incidents and lawsuits are never the problems.

They are always the symptoms.

This originally appeared in The Mouse and the Elephant Weekly. Read the full email, explore other resources, and subscribe at https://tinyletter.com/mouseandelephant/.