Michelle: A 2021 study found that an incredible 97 percent of Black workers prefer remote or hybrid work. The reason isn't just about avoiding a commute. For many, it's a refuge from something invisible that happens in the office every single day. Mark: Ninety-seven percent? That is a staggering number. It suggests something is fundamentally broken about the in-office experience for a huge group of people. What is this invisible thing they're trying to escape? Michelle: That is the central question, and it’s something that, ironically, even the most well-meaning diversity and inclusion programs can sometimes make worse. It's a concept called "white-centering," and it's the focus of our discussion today. Mark: I have to admit, that phrase alone sounds like it could make a lot of people nervous. It sounds academic and maybe a little accusatory. Michelle: I completely get that, and that's why I'm so excited to talk about the book, Decentering Whiteness in the Workplace by Dr. Janice Gassam Asare. She tackles this head-on, but in a way that's incredibly practical and accessible. Mark: Dr. Janice Gassam Asare... what's her background? Is she coming at this from a purely academic place? Michelle: That's what makes her perspective so powerful. She's a PhD organizational psychologist, but she's not just in an ivory tower. She's the founder of a major DEI consultancy and has worked in the trenches with huge companies like Google, Amazon, and Yale. So she's seen these dynamics play out in the real world, and her book is less about theory and more about a pragmatic, actionable guide for fixing what's broken. Mark: Okay, that definitely grounds it for me. A practical guide from someone who's seen it all. So let's start there. What does "white-centering" actually mean in simple terms?

Michelle: At its core, it means treating white culture, norms, and experiences as the default, the standard, the "normal" way of doing things. It's not necessarily about overt racism; it's about the invisible architecture of our social and professional lives. The book opens with a perfect story that makes this concept crystal clear. Mark: I love a good story. Lay it on me. Michelle: Dr. Gassam Asare is moderating a discussion at a conference about the remote work experiences of marginalized employees. A Black woman bravely shares a painful story about a microaggression she faced on a Zoom call, where a colleague asked if her hair was real. It's a vulnerable, racially charged moment. Mark: Right, a very specific and hurtful experience. Michelle: Exactly. Then, during a break, a white woman named Karen approaches the author. Karen, with the best of intentions, wants to relate. She tells a story about how when her family traveled to Mexico when she was a child, people were fascinated by her red hair and would touch it. She shares this to try and connect with the Black woman's experience. Mark: Oh, no. I can feel the cringe from here. The "let me relate to your specific racial trauma with my vacation story" move. Michelle: You nailed it. The author is internally just fuming, but she smiles and thanks Karen for sharing. Because what Karen did, without meaning to, was white-center the conversation. She took a discussion about a systemic racial microaggression and shifted the focus to her own, very different, experience. She made her feelings and her story the center of the interaction. Mark: But Karen probably thought she was being empathetic. That's the tricky part, right? How is that attempt to connect actually harmful? Michelle: This is the crucial distinction the book makes. The author references another writer, Ijeoma Oluo, who had to stop doing public readings of her book about race. After she'd share her experiences as a Black woman with Afro-textured hair, a line of white women would form to tell her they "knew how she felt" because they had curly or red hair and faced discrimination too. Mark: Wow. Michelle: And Oluo's point, which Dr. Gassam Asare drives home, is that comparing an individual experience of being treated differently—like having curly hair—to a structural issue that systemically harms an entire group of people is not a fair comparison. There are laws, historical and present, designed to oppress Black people's hair. There are no such systems for red hair. So the attempt to "relate" actually ends up invalidating and diminishing the harm. It’s empathy gone wrong. Mark: That makes so much sense. It's the difference between a personal inconvenience and systemic oppression. And when you try to equate them, you're essentially erasing the systemic part. Michelle: Precisely. And the book points out that this isn't just a white person's behavior. Anyone, regardless of their race, can internalize and perpetuate white-centering because it's the dominant cultural default. It’s the water we’re all swimming in. Mark: Okay, so I see how this plays out in these one-on-one, awkward, and painful conversations. But how does this 'centering' get baked into the actual machinery of a company? Like, how does it affect who gets hired or promoted?

Michelle: That's the next logical step, and it's where the damage becomes much bigger. The book argues that white-centering creates glitches in all our workplace systems, especially hiring. The most blatant example she gives is the old Abercrombie & Fitch. Mark: Oh, I remember their whole vibe. The catalogs, the stores... it was a very specific look. Michelle: A very specific white look. Their CEO in 2006 literally said, "That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people." "Cool" and "good-looking" was explicit code for skinny, attractive, white Americans. They were sued for it, of course, because customer preference is never a legal reason to discriminate. That’s an extreme case of centering a white aesthetic. Mark: Right, that's the cartoon villain version of the problem. What about the more subtle ways it happens? The ways that well-meaning companies mess up? Michelle: The book has a fantastic, and frankly infuriating, story about that. The author's colleague was on a university hiring committee for a faculty position. The committee was all white, senior faculty, except for him. They had two final candidates: "Jane Doe," an East Asian woman with stellar international experience and publications, and "Mary Sue," a white woman with significantly less experience. Mark: Let me guess who got the job. Michelle: The committee unanimously and enthusiastically recommended Jane Doe. They thought she was the obvious choice. But the department head, a white man, went against their recommendation and hired Mary Sue, the white candidate, with no real explanation. Mark: That is maddening. What was the justification? Michelle: There wasn't one. And that's the point. The book talks about the idea of "culture fit," which in many places is just a gut feeling. It’s that vague phrase hiring managers use: "We'll know it when we see it." Mark: But hold on, every company wants to hire for 'culture fit.' Are you saying that's always a coded way of being biased? Michelle: Not if the culture is clearly defined, inclusive, and measured with objective criteria. But when "culture fit" is just a feeling, it almost always defaults to what's familiar, what's comfortable. And in a predominantly white institution, that's whiteness. It’s not about malice; it’s about the system's default setting. The hiring manager likely saw himself in Mary Sue, or she just felt more "like us." Michelle: The book gives another quick, powerful example: the Domino's Pizza beard policy from the 90s. They had a strict no-beard policy for delivery drivers. Mark: Seems random, but okay. Michelle: Except it disproportionately affected Black men, who are more prone to a skin condition that makes shaving painful and causes severe razor bumps. The policy was seemingly neutral, but its impact was racially biased. It was a system designed with a white face as the default. Mark: So a seemingly harmless rule can have these huge, discriminatory ripple effects. This all feels a bit overwhelming. We've got biased conversations, broken hiring systems... it feels like you'd have to tear the whole thing down. Where does the book say we should even start?

Michelle: It does feel overwhelming, and that's why I think the final section of the book is so brilliant. It moves from diagnosis to a very hopeful and practical cure. It argues that the goal isn't to tear everything down in anger, but to thoughtfully redesign it. And the guiding principle for this redesign is a concept called the "Curb-Cut Effect." Mark: The Curb-Cut Effect? What's that? Michelle: It's a fantastic real-world story. In the 70s, disability activists fought to have cuts put into street curbs so that people in wheelchairs could navigate cities. It was a specific intervention designed for a small, marginalized group. Mark: Right, that makes total sense. Michelle: But who else benefited? Parents pushing strollers. Delivery people with handcarts. Travelers dragging luggage. Kids on skateboards. Elderly people with walkers. It turned out that designing for the most vulnerable group created a massive benefit for everyone. Mark: That's a brilliant reframe. It's not about taking something away from one group to give to another; it's about an upgrade that lifts the entire system. Michelle: Exactly! And that is the book's core solution. To decenter whiteness, you must intentionally center the needs of your most marginalized employees. If you solve for their experience, you will inevitably create a better, fairer, and more efficient workplace for everybody. Mark: I love that. It’s so practical and positive. So what does a 'curb cut' look like in an office setting? Michelle: A perfect example from the book is about interviews. Instead of the vague "culture fit" chat we talked about, you create a structured interview process. Every candidate for a role gets asked the exact same set of questions, and their answers are scored against a pre-defined rubric based on the job's core competencies. Mark: Okay, so it takes the "gut feeling" out of it. Michelle: It takes the bias out of it. This was designed to help level the playing field for candidates of color who are often judged more harshly. But it also helps introverted candidates who might not be as good at schmoozing. It helps neurodivergent candidates who thrive on structure. It helps the interviewers themselves by forcing them to be more rigorous and less lazy. It’s a curb cut. It makes the entire hiring process better for everyone by centering the needs of those most likely to be harmed by a broken system. Mark: That’s such a powerful, actionable idea. It shifts the focus from blame to design. Michelle: And that’s the whole point. The book is a call to become better architects of our workplaces.

Mark: So, if I'm tracking the journey here, it starts with making the invisible visible—understanding that "white-centering" is this default cultural setting we all operate in. Then it's about seeing how that default programming creates glitches and bugs in our core workplace systems, like hiring. And finally, the solution isn't just patching those bugs one by one, but rebooting the system with a 'curb-cut' mindset, where designing for the most marginalized ends up creating a better experience for all. Michelle: That's a perfect summary. And Dr. Gassam Asare is so clear that this work is not about inducing guilt or shaming individuals. It's about building awareness and, most importantly, accountability. The entire process is a shift from asking "Who's to blame?" to asking "What can we build?" Mark: It feels like the book is trying to give people a new lens to see their own workplaces. Michelle: It is. And it has this really powerful, yet simple, call to action at the end. It acknowledges that this is hard, complex work, and you can't fix everything at once. Mark: So what's the first step? Michelle: The book encourages you to just start with one thing. Pick one system, one policy, one routine at your own workplace. Maybe it's the official holiday schedule, the dress code, or even the way meetings are run. And just ask two simple questions. Mark: What are they? Michelle: First: "Who was this originally designed for?" And second: "Who might it be leaving out?" Just starting with that small act of questioning is the beginning of the entire process of decentering whiteness and building something better in its place. Mark: A powerful and surprisingly simple starting point for a very complex topic. It’s about questioning the default settings. Michelle: Exactly. It’s about realizing we have the power to rewrite the code. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.