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Kike Ojo-Thompson has spent the past 24 years working with public and private organizations to help them create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) workplace.
Her organization KOJO Institute utilizes a proprietary model that equips organizations to develop and execute targeted equity strategies that produce culture shifts and equitable outcomes.
March 21 marked International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, an annual day that commemorates the lives that have been lost in the fight for democracy and human rights around the world.
It was first commemorated following the police killing of 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid laws in South Africa in 1960.
The Black Wall Street Times spoke with Toronto’s very own Kike Ojo-Thompson about how companies can move beyond token gestures and hollow promises to make meaningful change.
Ezekiel Walker: Oftentimes, [people in your line of work] feel like they’ve made progress, but just not the type of progress that they envisioned once they entered that space. I’m curious what your experience has been like as an advocate and teacher?
Kike Ojo-Thompson: I’ve learned that most of all we need to have a conversation about change agents. Are you an agent of change? Or are you an employee who happens to have this responsibility? I think if you see yourself as an agent of change, then your ideas will push through and pathways will be defined for you there. But if I don’t see myself as a change agent, but just an employee, I might say the right thing. I might write down the right thing on a report or a plan, but am I going to fight for it?
Ezekiel Walker: Is there a commonality of values that most businesses from Company A to company Z are lacking when it comes to DEI?
Kike Ojo-Thompson: I’ve come to think about values as being ‘what do we reward’ and ‘what are the consequences’. So what gets rewarded in that environment and what gets consequences in that environment?
Ezekiel Walker: Is that because companies aren’t already operating from a point of intentional diversity?
Kike Ojo-Thompson: Yes, most companies are set up and structured and functioning in relation to the status quo which is in relation to dominance. And that status quo says that organizations are neutral places. In other words, they are spaces that do not have values or preferences, etc. But organizations absolutely do. When we’re functioning unaware of that, and not intentionally, then it defaults to the values of dominance. When we’re not intentional, then it defaults to the values that we got from colonialism, and the transatlantic slave trade and the patriarchy.
Ezekiel Walker: Businesses that have made no efforts to diversify bring you in to help their company become more reflective of society, do you feel your expertise is well-received?
Kike Ojo-Thompson: Our social history includes interference and disruption at the hands of Whiteness which interferes, disrupts and problematizes. And so now, you have a culture that is sort of a hybrid of surviving that experience, plus original cultural traditions, etc. …. We’re different from you, because we were colonized by you. We were enslaved by you. We were troubled by you. You interrupted and interfered. So, that should be their first clue to be like, ‘okay, so what are you left with? Who are you? What are your cultural habits?’
Ezekiel Walker: What types of things are you looking for when diagnosing a company’s DEI health?
Kike Ojo-Thompson: The indicator that an organization is serious about policy change is living up to the full potential of the policies they already have that [work]. The other distinction, the number of Black people in senior leadership versus the number of people of color in senior leadership. So what happens if you check within the equity movements over the last several decades, we see that White women have benefited the most from affirmative action or equity efforts. I’m looking for evidence that your most marginalized people are doing better. So that’s number one. I’m also looking for you to go flushing out the policies that prevent them from being the best they can be, and then I’m looking for you to live up to the most significant statements that you make.
Learn more about how Kike Ojo-Thompson and The KOJO Institute are making the world a fairer place to live and work.
This article was edited for brevity.
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