As a young sales representative for Elanco Animal Health, Bryana Clover called on poultry customers in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Almost always, she was the only person of color in a room filled with white employees and managers.
Most of the laborers working on the farms or the poultry processing floors, however, were not white.
Her customers saw Clover as different than the laborers.
“They told me I was different. I was more professional than them. Or when they would be talking about the ‘lazy plant workers,’ or referred to many of the plant workers as ‘crackheads,’ they would say, ‘no offense, but you’re different,’” Clover recalls.
Clover’s job eventually took her into Elanco’s home office. “Not once in my 12-year agribusiness career did I have a person of color on my team,” she adds. “Not once.”
The reality is, there are few Black managers or administrative officers in agribusiness. Data to support that statistic is difficult to come by, but look around: Do you see Black men or women employed where you conduct business? Are they managers? Are they in Executive Leadership roles?
Clover was one of the few. She left her full-time job in 2020 to establish 1619 Consulting, where she works to raise awareness about racial diversity in agriculture. Her goal: Many agribusiness companies claim to want to improve diversity, but are they willing to putting in the work to make it happen?
“I really want to educate the agribusiness industry and the agricultural industry about these problems to create a commitment to authentic change, rather than performative allyship,” Clover says. “I want to get the industry to understand that their future depends on it.”Clover’s efforts come during a pivotal time in race relations in the U.S. Events transpiring throughout the nation in 2020 raised awareness that America has a long way to go when it comes to treating Black and white people equally. Despite awareness that came in the wake of the tragic deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and many more, ensuring Black Americans have equal opportunities is a heavy lift, she says.
“I think part of this white supremacy culture that we are socialized to strive for quick results. If we can’t get quick results, we put a Band-Aid on it, call it something pretty, and move on,” she says. “That’s not unique to agribusiness necessarily. But agribusiness has the power, the reach, and the influence to really help make strides in this area.”
The argument that there aren’t enough Black people trained to work in management positions in agribusiness? Clover doesn’t buy it.
“I hear it all the time, ‘Well, we would hire more Black people, but where are they?’ I think the questions to ask are, are we doing all we can to diversify our hiring pool?”
Other questions agribusinesses must ask of themselves are:
- Do we have an inclusive culture for people of color?
- Are the diversity and equity promises being made at the executive level reaching middle management appropriately?
- Are we equipping middle management to be good stewards of race equity policies and culture?
Awareness and education are important first steps, Clover adds. The hard truth is, white Americans will never understand what it’s like to be anything other than white.
“If you're white in America, you don't ever have to go through life thinking about you or yourself as a Black person, Brown person, or any person of color. That’s no one’s fault. It is the culture we are socialized in,” she explains. “But it does take some intentionality to learn. Because I am convinced that if more of us took ownership of our learning, we’d understand the pervasiveness of systemic racism and how it shows up in the workplace. We can’t solve problems we don’t understand.”
The answer to race, whether in agriculture or society, is in fact rather simple.
“What we need more of is empathy,” Clover adds. “If we can humanize the Black person who we see on being negatively portrayed on the news like we would humanize our own mothers and fathers, children and grandchildren, that is the key to opening up the willingness to educate ourselves about what's going on.”
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February 07, 2021 at 01:06AM
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A frank discussion about racism in agriculture - Successful Farming
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