Rational language about an irrational event

Editor’s note: We are re-running the top stories of 2021 as part of our year-end countdown.

As White House aides work on a statement for President Joe Biden to deliver once the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial is rendered, so, too, are communications and diversity consultants advising the private sector on talking with employees.

“Organizations shouldn’t underestimate the emotional stress that the weight of this situation is holding for us right now,” says Kerry Mitchell Brown, PhD., a cultural architect advising companies and nonprofits on how to combat anti-Black racism.

Any statement that a company issues must “absolutely connect and feel human,” she says. “Often there is a tendency to shape statements centering whiteness, as opposed to centering the people most impacted – Black and brown communities, and our broken justice system.”