Leading up to the recent mass shooting that took the lives of 8 people in Atlanta, several organizations I work with sought support to address the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes since the start of COVID-19.
One incident involved harassment of a South Asian Lyft driver that took place near one of their centers and they wanted to make sure their staff were aware so they could support students. Another had AAPI (Asian American & Pacific Islander) representation amongst their membership and wanted to condemn the violence and express solidarity. Another works outside the United States and wasn’t sure how they fit into the conversation, or if they should say anything at all.
As communications professionals in these moments, our job is often to craft statements on behalf of companies and leaders that reflect the organization’s perspective and values. (In addition, of course, to processing tragic events along with our fellow humans.)
The trouble with racism being in the air we breathe is that there will always be trauma to acknowledge until we are free of white dominant culture. So when do we say something? What if, as with the Atlanta mass shooting, the motive in that first 48 hours is both a murky blend of misogyny and the fact that 6 of the victims were Asian-American women at a time where the AAPI community is under attack more broadly?
To choose to speak on every racist moment feels, at turns, like virtue signaling, the right thing to do, relentless, not enough, and necessary…all at once. For example, we’re in the thick of the trial of Derek Chauvin over the next few weeks, and I can recall the barrage of corporate statements and black squares on Instagram after George Floyd’s murder last summer. But do we say something now?
Ultimately, I wish there was a playbook for these things, but each crisis brings its own complexity and the goal is authentic communication, not to be a news pundit, riffing on the topic of the day.
That being said, here are some of the guidelines I’ve been following around crisis communications:
How are the staff or the communities in which they work experiencing this? News coverage can give you the facts of the crisis as they develop, but won’t tell you about the impact on the folks you’re writing to/on behalf of. Check in with the team and check your assumptions.
Are we the right organization to say something, or can we throw our influence behind a leader or org better suited to share perspective?
Does the organization have a diversity, equity, inclusion philosophy that you can point back to? If the crisis involves identity (and it almost always will), it’s not an isolated incident. Making sure the org’s values are known and communicated, and then pointing back to these guiding principles when new evidence is uncovered, helps assert the org’s stance.
What is the organization’s unique perspective in relation to this crisis? Did it happen in the community where they live/work? Is it related to their mission? Do they have something to offer in the way of resources, programs, or a platform that can direct people to educate themselves or contribute? Having answers to these things can help determine the content of your statement.
What else needs to happen beyond the statement? Working with leadership to identify ways they might want to respond (processing time with staff, examining their policies around XYZ, creating affinity spaces for specific communities) makes it more likely that the org can appropriately offer support to their staff and that the statement isn’t just aspirational.
We’re all learning how to do this. There will be times where we miss the mark, where we stayed silent when we should have spoken up. When we respond with fire in the moment but don’t follow through, but the point is to continue to evaluate where we can use our words to speak truth to power. As the late RBG so eloquently put it, “Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, '[This is] wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow."