The difference between "complicit" and "complacent."
Happy October, guys, gals, and non-binary pals—this is Productivity, Without Privilege, probably the chattiest productivity newsletter you’ll ever subscribe to. So far it seems like that’s been working out okay, so let’s keep it up, yeah?
As always, I’m your humble Maître d, Alan Henry, and once again I am asking you to consider picking up a copy of my book, Seen, Heard, and Paid: The New Work Rules for the Marginalized. It’s my birthday month, so you can give me a present by picking up a copy, or one for a friend, or a student, or to decorate your bookshelf, I’m not picky. Besides, the cover is really pretty, and did I mention that my publisher hired the typeface designer for Spike Lee to do my cover? They did! There’s a fun fact for you.
Now then, let’s get started. At the end of September, just after my previous newsletter, I was in San Francisco for RE:WIRED Green, which I’ll get to a little bit later in the recommendations section, but between then and now a lot of things have happened in the news cycle. I walked away from that event both inspired and hopeful, but also kind of thoughtful about the future of the planet.
And then the news cycle settled in. This past week saw everything from the collapse of a terrible person’s terrible political campaign to another terrible celebrity behaving terribly in public, again, and this time facing consequences for it. Then, as I’m writing this, we have supposedly-progressive politicians behaving so badly behind closed doors that it’s legitimately terrifying. It’s even worse when you realize that everyone involved in each of these issues is a person of color, precisely the kinds of marginalized, disenfranchised people that I talk about in newsletters like these all the time.
So this week I want to talk about the difference between being complacent and being complicit when it comes to marginalizing others, or participating in their marginalization in favor of your own proximity to power or influence.
It’s a topic I think about a lot, because I’ve been in several environments—work and otherwise—where everyone there would easily and quickly identify themselves as right-headed and mindful about issues of discrimination and injustice, but then simultaneously been more than happy to be complacent when that marginalization takes place on their watch or under their own roof. Black folks often say “not all skinfolk are kinfolk,” and it’s important to remember when you’re seeking the kind of psychological safety required to air your own grievances, or even to enter spaces where you would hope to find help and support.
But this isn’t entirely about the warning signs when someone you thought would be an ally turns out to very much not be one—I mentioned one such person in my book: the newly appointed CEO who ignored my existence, minimized my ideas and expertise, and ultimately only agreed with my hiring decision when he thought he could use that person to replace me (and then used my playbook and ideas after he replaced me)—in Seen, Heard ,and Paid. He was bad enough, but what was also bad was the cadre of people with the authority and capability to push back against it who either allowed it to happen on their watch (complacent) or who quietly helped it happen (complicit.)
TL;DR: If you see marginalization or discrimination happening on your watch and you do nothing about it, you are complicit. If you aren’t actively doing the work to make sure your environment is inclusive, or at least doesn’t become toxic and marginalizing to the groups and people who, historically, are marginalized in your spaces, you are complacent.
And while none of us want to be complicit, and I would argue that if you’re reading this, you either haven’t been or don’t want to be complicit in a toxic environment, not being complacent is much more difficult. It requires work and active effort, the kind of active effort that marginalized people have to take in order to protect themselves. It requires all of us to look around in our offices, our communities, and the spaces in which we live and work and be willing to do the work to make sure everyone’s voices are heard and considered, not just ours.
Being complicit is easier to avoid. That’s the “in the moment” stuff, like standing up and using your privilege, if you have it, to object to the unfair treatment of someone else. That’s what my friend and former colleague did when that same CEO laid me off, when she came up to me, reiterated that she’d just heard the news, and gave me a big hug and told me how much this sucked, and that I could always look to her for help or support (which she absolutely made good on.) Being complicit is what another colleague of mine did that same day when she ignored my panicked DMs about whether or not this was going to go south for me and whether I should do anything to prepare, only to go out of her way to avoid me when she was interviewing someplace I wound up working later on. It’s easy to be complicit when you don’t care, or don’t think you should have to stand up for someone else. It’s easy to not be complicit when you recognize that on every level, we’re all in this together, and we should act like it.
Part of the reason the news I linked earlier frustrates me so much is that a number of those newsworthy people would tell you that they advocate for their communuities; that they’re passionate about protecting vulnerable people and that they stand for justice and equality.
But part of the point of being that kind of person, being an ally—which is kind of a phrase I hate in itself, because allies don’t get to crown themselves such—is that doing the work for a better world is the reward you get for doing the work. You don’t do it to get cookies, as it were, or like “good person points.” You don’t do it to get “in” with a specific community, or to make friends there. All of those things may even happen, but they’re not why you do the work. You do the work to make sure every space you inhabit is the best version of that space possible; to make our communities, and by proxy, everywhere, safer and better for everyone. But that’s the key: it requires work.
So this week I’m asking you: what are you doing to make sure you’re not being complacent when it comes to the marginalization of others?
[ Worth Reading ]
I Uncovered an Army of Fake Men on Hinge, by Lauren Goode: It certainly helps here that Lauren is an incredible writer and an amazing reporter, not to mention a friend—so I can happily and pleasantly say that I loved this article. Not only did Lauren uncover rampant fraud that probably extends to other dating sites, she also uncovered it in her own search for good matches, which, predictably, went off the rails because of what turned up here. Give it a read, it’s worthwhile.
How California’s Bullet Train Went Off the Rails, by Ralph Vartabedian: You may have already read this piece in NYT, and even if you haven’t, you may have seen the tweet that pullquoted a part of it that indicated that one of the companies involved in planning and designing this railroad decided that southern California was too politically unstable and went off to build high-speed rail in Morocco instead—a rail line that opened in 2018. This is such a quintessential “this is why we can’t have nice things” story that I feel like it should be required reading in political science classes.
The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It, by Daniel Garisto: I feel like I mention this often, but others keep telling me they’re surprised when they find out, but I have a degree in physics and another in astronomy, so when the Nobel Prize for Physics is announced, I’m usually pretty hype. This year’s winner was no slouch, touching on a topic that’s been of particular interest to me since I was an undergraduate: quantum entanglement. I very truly don’t have the space to get into this here (I could write a whole newsletter about entanglement, and what its nature could potentially mean for the fundamental structure of the universe based on what we largely don’t know about it,) but I promise, even if you don’t understand half of what you read, check this out. If it blows your mind and you understand why, great! If it blows your mind and you don’t understand why, even better! But it’ll definitely blow your mind.
[ See You, Space Cowboy ]
Last week I had the pleasure of visiting San Francisco for the first time in…wow, like 12 years. It was for work, and I flew in on a Tuesday afternoon, went to an event all day Wednesday, and flew back out Thursday morning, so I didn’t really get an opportunity to explore or even catch up with colleagues or friends in the area who didn’t attend the event. But the event in question was RE:WIRED Green, our annual conference, this time focused squarely on climate change and the environment.
I was tasked with two things: organizing and orchestrating our editorial coverage of the event, but also with hosting the mid-day set of talks and sessions. It was a long, wonderful day, full of inspiring conversations and panel discussions that very truly gave me some hope for a better tomorrow, which is why our coverage of the event is my recommendation this week.
As I curled up in the hotel bed at the end of the day, I got to thinking about how climate doomerism is widespread, and natural in a way, when you consider the fact that blunt cause of climate change and the biggest contributors to it are a handful of very wealthy companies and the very few people who insist on standing in the way of meaningful change. So of course most people don’t want to hear about changes they can make to fight climate change when, let’s say, that flight to San Francisco and back to New York city is a drop in the bucket compared to Exxon’s daily operations, not to mention their political lobbying against sustainable alternatives.
But it was the impassioned pleas and speeches by people like Colette Pinchon-Battle, who watched her Louisiana home wash away, like Doria Robinson, founder of Urban Tilth, Kayla Abe, who shows us how to take food waste and turn it into food treasure, and Alan Ahn, who explains why our fears about nuclear power shouldn’t outweigh its potential, who left me feeling like there’s good work to do, and good results that can come from that work. And make no mistake, it didn’t pass unnoticed that some of the most incredible conversations featured people—specifically women—of color.
Take some time to watch some of those talks I linked above. Hopefully they’ll give you some hope the way they gave me a little. You may even see my professional MC skills at work in some of them, introducing some of our speakers.
Then indulge in a little plant music, produced by my friend and colleague Michael Calore, senior editor at WIRED, and four lovely plants on a table in front of him. I’ll see you back here in two.