If You Want to Do Something to Support Your Black Colleagues, Stop Being Nice at Work

In the summer of 2020, following the publicized and televised social injustices and protests, I wrote the article below that was published by Business Insider.

All over social media and within various organizations, people asked, “What can I do to address racial inequities?” Immediately, my answer stemmed from a longstanding “ban” my mom imposed in our household—“stop being nice.” While crazy to me as a young child, my mom’s teaching on not being nice has been one of the keys to unlocking my self-liberation, and I hope it is for others.

In our dizzying world, being nice usually encourages people to play it safe. But playing it safe doesn’t often make you feel safe. It never really solves problems. Instead, being nice encourages people to avoid their problems and normalizes a culture of unaccountability for unaddressed or imposed harms, no matter the intent.

If you have often played life safe by defaulting to being “nice,” I encourage you to read this article and reflect on whether your niceness makes you feel safe in your decision-making or makes you comfortable avoiding problems.

Said differently, how do you live a passive life?

Thrive Architects’ Coaching and Rest Programs explore our concept of liberating rest and challenge you to think differently about yourself, like the adopted norm of being nice. Our intention is to help you have ownership and feel safe with your agency.

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

My mom, affectionately known as Momma Weekes, hates the word “nice.” When she receives the “compliment,” I spot the scowl in her smile.

I don’t remember exactly when my mom banned that word in our household, I just remember using the word in earnest garnered the same reaction as using an expletive.
At first, I was confused as to why mom was so hell-bent on me not being nice when we lived in a society where the opposite is expected and rewarded, especially for women. But more than thirty years later, it makes sense.

It was never my mom’s intent for me to harbor qualities antithetical to being nice. My mom always encouraged me to be compassionate, supportive, and loving.

Ultimately, my mom was teaching me about the value of my courage and how it could quickly be diminished by an addiction to pleasing others, particularly those only interested in my growth when it was convenient or advantaged them.

As my own being, as her daughter, and as a Black woman, ceding my courage was an impossibility for my mom if I was ever to thrive personally and professionally.

For many of your Black colleagues who work with you in a predominantly White environment, this is probably not their first time doing so. And, after many years, it is unsurprising to say that we understand specific norms in the workplace that will have a detrimental and disparate impact on us.

Yet, when we identify and raise the problems that undermine our retention and advancement, they are almost always addressed at the pace of the decision-maker’s ability and willingness to learn and understand these problems. Inherent in this pace is a privilege to act at a slow speed, which your Black colleagues cannot afford to wait on. Rarely is the problem addressed at the pace of its consequential impact on us—at the level of urgency it demands.

We are asked predictive questions like, “Are you sure that is what was said?” We are told we’re “overly sensitive,” “over thinkers,” “distracted,” “dramatic,” and “unwilling to let things go.” And it is repeated like stock language: “This was not the intent.” “This is not how I see it.” “There remains a commitment to diversity.”

Our voices are consistently discredited not because there is no truth to our words but because they are disrespected or believed. It is often an implausible reality in your microcosm.

Your professionalism of niceness undermines the retention and advancement of your Black colleagues.

Your professionalism of niceness avoids problem-solving altogether—your polite inaction, sweet silence, graceful transition to change the subject, and pleasure in laughing at an off-putting joke.

It allows you to fit in and maintain the status quo, which is the same status quo that isolates your Black colleagues and silences their voices.

We cannot lay low because the aggressions and absence of accountability you perpetuate through niceness undermine us while benefiting you.

With statistics showing the stark lack of Black professionals in leadership positions in corporations and other organizations, your niceness is isolating and suffocating.

It screams to us that you prioritize etiquette over equity.