Applying Anti-Racist Practice to Social Media Communications 1 Introductions Dr. Carlton E. Green (he/him) Director of Diversity Training & Education Allison J. Dickinson (she/her) Communications Officer Racism Dr. Camara Jones Radcliffe Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University Past President American Public Health Association Racism is a system. It's not a personal moral failing. It's not even a psychiatric illness. It's a system of power, and it's a system of doing two things: of structuring opportunity and of assigning value. And it does those things based upon so-called race...based on the social interpretation of how we look. Anti-Racism Anti-racism is behavior. Anti-racism is pursuing racial justice by naming, understanding, being accountable for, and providing remedies for the system of racial stratification that structures opportunity and assigns value. Four basic areas Personal work Centralize voices and stories Advocate within your unit Use thoughtful language Personal work Recognize that racism has an impact Acknowledge your role in racism Develop your own anti-racist practices and competence Use your anti-racist lens at work Be an anti-racist advocate in your professional organizations Adopt anti-racism professional development training as part of team building Approach the work with humility You bring your knowledge (or lack thereof) of anti-racism to your work. & just like the Facebook algorithm and TikTok trends, knowledge around race and racism is always changing, so it’s important to stay informed. Centralize voices and stories Write about what BIPOC faculty/staff/ students/alums are doing & seek out their quotes for stories/posts Lean in to “negative” stories/experiences on social media - listen, acknowledge, and react with care vs. defensiveness Visit go.umd.edu/UMDSolidarity for events, webinars, etc. Social media managers have a lot of power as gatekeepers of information - how are we using that power? Think about which voices you’re amplifying or silencing, both on your teams and in your work on social. Interrupt the narrative that it’s the job of people of color to work on racism. One way to do that is by lifting up the work and stories of folx of color in any work they’re doing. Representation is important for building a diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist environment in your school or office, so be sure to show and celebrate people’s work even--or especially--if they’re not tenured or high profile. Also, we need to be able to develop the ability to hear things about our schools/programs/offices, maybe negative experiences a student/alum/faculty member had, without jumping into “marketing mode” (where we only focus on the positives to defend ourselves). Centering humans rather than institutions is actually a win/win, so approaching these stories with openness and care is really important. I have talked to some of you about UMDSolidarity so I suspect our ongoing anti-racism campaign will be familiar to many of you, but keep an eye on the site for events and webinars. We recently held some student panels that were really powerful and my team is generally just incredible with finding voices to amplify, so join us. Advocate within your unit Share back what you see on social with your leadership What hurt is being communicated? Ask questions Celebrate the work Engage your community You have a direct line to your audience and can share with leaders what popular demands are. If there are complaints on Twitter about a professor's microaggressions or a disappointing syllabus (etc), you can help advocate within your unit to fix the problem. Communicators also have power to promote ideas by asking questions. For stories or posts, ask questions about how professors, deans, students, alums are bringing an anti-racist focus to their work every day. Asking them to think and talk about it can help spur action. Celebrating people (students/faculty/staff/alums) who are doing anti-racism work can help those people stay energized to stay in it - and can inspire others to join in as well. Use your power to engage your community with thoughtfulness and curiosity. Maybe create a graphic or video or write an article/post and ask every professor within a department (or department within a college, etc) to submit their solutions to a problem/answers to a question (ie, "how are you adjusting your syllabus/curriculum to be more anti-racist this semester?" or "what can our unit do to improve XYZ?") Use thoughtful language Words matter! “People” “We stand with” “These are not our values” Think: what do you actually mean? Be clear! Decode your language. You may remember this photo comparison that came out from around Hurricane Katrina, where one photo of a young Black person was captioned “looting” a grocery and the other of lighter skinned folx was captioned “finding” bread from a grocery store. Those differences help shape how readers view what happened and can make them less empathetic to others. So as social media managers looking to be more anti-racist, decode the language you’re using. Be specific and direct about what you mean. If you’re sharing a study that didn’t include any people of color, don’t say this study shows that people XYZ. Name that it was only White people studied. We’ve seen a lot of statements on racism lately and those are also great places to take a closer look at what you’re actually saying. You may have received skeptical responses to these statements in the past, maybe to phrases like “We stand with…” What does that actually mean? What are you going to DO to create change. Another one is “these are not our values” - our audience on social media rolls their eyes at this. If something happened - regardless of your written values - then changes need to be made to be sure your culture actually reflects those values. We have a lot of work to do on that at UMD but each of you can have a role in questioning some of this boilerplate language and trying to create more meaningful statements. Keep in touch! Email allison1@umd.edu Newsletter: go.umd.edu/ODIsubscribe Twitter/IG: @DiverseTerps Facebook: @diversityumd Follow & use #UMDSolidarity for anti-racist events That’s our show. But please keep in touch! We are working on putting together a group of communicators to help lift up this work through things like live-tweeting anti-racism events (shout out to Raphael Rosalin from public policy for some fantastic live-tweeting at a recent student panel!), so please let us know if you’re interested in joining us in that. You can also subscribe to our newsletter and follow/engage with us on (where else?) social media :) Thank you and now I think we can take any questions.