TRANSCRIPT FOR THIS WEEK’S INTERVIEW

Jean 0:51

Tell me about your journey.

Malia 2:21

I was a community organizer, starting my first nonprofit when I was 19. Harry Belafonte got me fully engaged. I realized this was about who has power. I stopped traditional organizing and I started working with MIT and with companies that said they wanted to make a difference.

Malia 5:53

Learning to deconstruct power – who has the power, pick it apart. Harry would remind people of their privilege and asked why they weren’t doing more.

Malia 9:32

I wanted to get into the halls of power to deconstruct power, and I saw that as building wealth. When you think about it, our original sins – banking, capitalism – built off of Black bodies on land stolen through genocide. The first power play to create this country are these two industries where I started doing my work. I had run an accelerator program and saw that the biggest barrier is credit worthy people not being able to access money, not even looking for a grant, just wanting to be able to get equity on their house so that they could start a business, that's what got me looking at the banks.

Malia 10:35

The real estate developers were so nervous, because they were afraid, “they're going to want everything, and they're going to rob us blind.” Well, first of all, “they” can't rob you blind. Remember, you have all the power.

Malia 14:49

It has to be profitable, right. But they want that too, they don't want closed buildings in their neighborhood. And so it allows for the community to feel more agency and for the developers to see that this isn't as scary as they think.

Malia 16:01

I felt like I was a community cheerleader, I'd be like, "I don't know, let's go ask the community." "I don't know, let's go ask the community." This is how I became a bank president, it wasn't that I had worked in a bank, but I was an EVP and an Eastern Massachusetts president, because of the work I was doing as a consultant. The CEO wanted me to be in the bank in a way where I could really effect change, that's how I then got into the bank.

Jean 16:59

In my community organizing days, I was outside. When I started working inside, I saw people, not demons.

Malia 17:51

Let's have a real talk about the nonprofit industrial complex. The nonprofit industry isn't as pure as its sanctimony would let you think.

I told the CEO of Berkshire Bank, when he was hiring me, "You realize I'm unconvinced by American capitalism." And he started laughing, and he said, "Great, because we have enough capitalists here. That's not what I need."

Diverse teams are 36% more profitable. They're over 70% more likely to enter new markets successfully. It's that framework that a lot of CEOs are coming to now, where they understand that they're leading companies in a global economy, and that their big issue, their biggest strength and asset, is that the globe lives in this country.

Jean 22:29

In a global marketplace, they cannot afford to be narrow and focused on one segment of the population

Malia 22:56

There is no other place in your life where diversity doesn't make something better, whether that's your diet, your investment portfolio, your revenue streams.

Malia 27:08

There are seven stages from intention to impact.

• Stage one: intention: sign a pledge
• Stage two: start learning
• Stage three: start action with low-hanging fruit
• Stage four: pushback, often followed by capitulation and denial of pushback
• Stage five: more pushback, weaponizing objections

Jean 40:36

This is Community Organizing 101. If you can't work it up, then create the momentum below. Generate the energy, have the book clubs, have the discussions, have little educational things so people can learn. The more they learn, the more familiar they get, the less threatening it is.

Malia 44:05

I understand how easy it is to be – what's the word? – depressed or to feel disempowered. But we have so much power, that they've convinced us that we're useless.

Jean 44:32

I've been trying to think of what is it that gets people who have power to not know they have it? What I've decided is they see the change as too big.

Malia 47:04

This is where I feel like, wherever you find your humanity, your spiritual practice, – therapy, your friends, food, wherever you might find your humanity – bring yourself that.

Bring yourself joy, if you're trying to do this work. There's got to be joy in justice, and every movement has songs so make sure you sing. Make sure you sing as you're doing the work.

Jean 47:44

You talk in the book about moving from racist to not racist to antiracist. What I want you to do is first explain those three things.

Malia 48:36

Those lines are stark. It's not even gray. There's not even a gray space there. That's how you sound when you say, “I'm not a racist.” It makes you understand that you don't understand how racism works and so to not be racist is to not be American. Like it's embedded in us.

The policy doesn't matter as much as the outcome matters, and that's really where we need to head. To not be racist is great, but to actively work to undo racism is the outcome.

Malia 54:06

I think the term antiracism is the current thing that's being used as pushback. But really what people want to do is maintain their power over other people.

Jean 56:23

Okay. Let me tell you my conflict, and it's a genuine conflict. On the one hand, I do agree with what you're saying, if my reality is that White privilege exists all around me and I'm not allowed to say it, then I am being suppressed. Are you really caring about me in the first place? That's the essence of what you're saying over here, right?

Over here, this is the argument on this shoulder that I'm saying the oppressors cannot liberate themselves. Frantz Fanon, they do not have the capacity, it's up to the oppressed to liberate the oppressors because the oppressors can't do it. They are where they are, and if I recognize they don't have the capacity, because where would they have gotten it from, then should I not use language that will work [and avoid off-putting terms like ‘white privilege’]?

Malia 59:49

it sounds like something that they should talk to their therapist about, not the movement, because you need to work through your own deconstruction of your own privilege.

Malia 1:04:03

I'm tired of the White fragility like we are literally going back to Jim Crow, and you see it way faster than I do. I mean, I'm in Massachusetts, so you see it much faster than I do. We don't have the time to play semantics. If your feelings are hurt, handle that. Absolutely, handle that. That is so important. It's just we don't got time in the movement right now to handle it here.

it's not right to burden the oppressed. It is our job to help educate the oppressors, but to not be re-burdened by what they don't understand, that they choose to not. The fact that White folks don't like the term White privilege makes perfect sense to me, because White people have not had to face their privilege for a long time. But that doesn't mean that we can then call it strawberry shortcake or a soft cheese or something that White folks like.

Jean 1:07:16

I'm agreeing with you on the one hand, that it's up to people to take care of their own journey and for potential White allies to take care of their own journey. But on the other hand, I'm steeped in change agentry and what I've learned about community organizing. If you have a “welfare mother” with seven children, if she can come to a meeting, that's good enough. If she can come into a meeting, she starts to speak, that's good enough. If after speaking, she becomes a leader, now we're getting somewhere. But we keep in mind the stage that she's in.

Malia 1:11:40 

But I think we're both right, Jean.

Jean 1:11:43 

Yes, we are. I guess I'm drawing the line for me in that I'm at the place where terms don't really matter. What words work? If I want you to change, I want you to see that light, tell me the words that make it easier for you to get there. It doesn't matter for me.

Malia Lazu Malia is Founder and CEO of The Lazu Group. An award-winning, tenured strategist in diversity and inclusion, she has sparked deep economic development and investment in urban entrepreneurship for over twenty years. In her previous role as EVP and Regional President at Berkshire Bank, Malia worked to generate wealth for communities by expanding access to capital and spurring economic growth—especially in communities of color that have traditionally been left behind. Malia is currently a Lecturer at MIT Sloan and publishing her first book, From Intention to Impact, helping businesses achieve greater business success through DEI.

Conscious change skills
covered in this vlog post

• Bridge differences
• Address underlying systemic biases
• Learn to recognize dominant/nondominant dynamics
• Check for stereotyping tendencies, unconscious bias, and blind spots in your behavior, especially as a dominant group member
• Sustain chronic unease toward exclusionary behaviors
• As a dominant group member, provide support to nondominant group members
• As a nondominant, resist any tendency toward internalized oppression or viewing dominants as beyond your ability to influence
• As a nondominant, recognize dominants’ potential blind spots about the impact of their behavior
• Call others in rather than calling them out
• Conscious use of self
• Accept responsibility for your own contributions
• Maintain integrity
• Seek to understand others’ perspectives