Racial Equity Truthtellers: "I’m creating foundations on which I will continue to build."

For a Mexican immigrant navigating US culture, José González of The Avarna Group credits his background and teaching experience with shaping his perspective on racial equity. Growing up with parents who both worked physical labor jobs, he was raised with the understanding that he did not need to follow in their footsteps unless he truly wanted to. This helped shape his definition of what it means to be a professional and search for his calling.

Using education as a foundation

González’s journey led him to think about the role and value of education and how it contributes to access. He began his career as a K-12 public education teacher for a number of years before deciding to take his talents beyond the classroom. Teaching gave him the foundations to connect with audiences of all backgrounds so that they could understand the information being provided. He often shares these foundations with colleagues in hopes that they too can use them to connect and educate others. “I’m creating foundations on which I will continue to build,” he said.

By combining his expertise as an educator and his passion for connecting with people of color, González takes pride in his role of finding, building, and sustaining networks of BIPoC* leaders in the conservation space. He noted that although his role as a partner with The Avarna Group has been a lot of work, it’s also been a way to tell people how to recognize BIPoC people in the conservation space.

Sometimes conversations about racial equity can seem overly constricted in regards to how one can join the conversation. González said that when there are prescriptive binaries in a solution, we miss a lot. There is often the idea that things must be one way or the other. As a classic example we may be framed with how we either need good-paying jobs for a strong economy or we need to care about the environment. “It makes it sound like to go down this path, you have to incorporate these losses and sacrifices without thinking about how centering those is meant for us to get to the paths that we’re all saying we want to go,” he said. González believes that we can address both building a strong economy while also being mindful of the environment.

González defines racial equity as acknowledging, at a minimum, the promise that this country stated. Racial equity is recognizing that regardless of your lived experience, you have value, worth, and a contribution you can make to help us all succeed. He referred back to a quote from an unknown source, “There’s what you fight for, and there’s what you show different.” Over the years, he has used those words as a foundation for addressing personal experiences that have helped influence his perspective on racial equity.

Being brown in white dominant spaces

González recalled how just last year he had an instance of racism that stuck with him. When he arrived at an event he was set to speak at, a white staff member of the venue assumed he was not a guest but a worker. He was dressed in black slacks and a black shirt, his typical attire for attending that type of event. It had not crossed his mind that he looked like many of the Latinx staff there until a white woman working the event came up to him and told him he was late and began asserting directions for work. After he stated that he didn’t work there, embarrassment was written all over face.

González said that he thought to himself, “You saw me dressed in black, brown skin, and so you immediately jumped to a conclusion, but you still jumped to that conclusion.” While he understood how and why that happened, experiences like this further ignite the passion he has for joining the conversation as it relates to racial equity.

José G. González (Photo credit: The Avarna Group)

While he now stands proud in his Mexican roots, he reflected on how he came to embrace who he is. “Growing up, there wasn’t a lot of positivity about being Mexican at that time, and in many ways, that still continues,” he mentioned. Instead, he reshaped the narrative and used it as a source of pride. He helps to model what it means to have diversity be a value and to engage with difference as a contribution to a healthier whole.

Moving through predominantly white spaces is a challenge for most people of color. When asked how he maneuvers in and out of these spaces, González talked about using the tool of code switching. In a joking manner, he said he learned how to talk to white people in a way that they could understand what he was trying to say. Code switching can be most easily defined as when someone alternates between two or more languages in the context of one conversation. It is often used to resonate with an audience to make them feel more comfortable because the speaker is using a dialect they are familiar with.

Although code switching is sometimes essential to helping deliver messages about inequalities related to race, González said it’s also a reminder that you’re fighting against the idea that this is what you have to become in order to succeed. “It’s important to not buy into that because that is how we perpetuate systemic inequity,” he said. “It’s good to be aware of code switching so we can do and be different where necessary as we continue to grow through learning and unlearning.”

Crafting messages for mass consumption

González understands that there are benefits to his approach to addressing conversations about racial equity in environmental conservation. Past audiences and clients have shared feedback detailing that while the topics at hand were hard pills to swallow, his delivery, paired with their willingness to learn, allowed them to connect with the content in a way they did not expect. “That comes with my educator training as well because as a teacher you make the commitment to do your best to reach everyone in the classroom, regardless of their learning ability,” he said.

Sometimes individuals with an important message will not be listened to because their approach doesn’t connect. That does not always mean that the speaker is doing something wrong. In many cases, the audience may not be ready and may be using their privilege to remove themselves from the conversation. When this happens, no progress is made. González takes this into consideration when crafting his messages for mass consumption.

“I want to prepare you with the tools, the language, and what the conversation is so that you can be part of it,” he said. “If I just use that to hit you over the head with it, that doesn’t help either of us. I need you to do better and if you don’t engage with doing better, then at worst, we’re just creating a bigger gap and you get to retreat with power and privilege that can be wielded for change.”

Knowing and understanding the roles of those within his audiences helps González make an impact on the fight for change within philanthropy. Whether he is interacting with program officers or foundation presidents, he knows the power and privilege they hold and how they can help him reach his goals. He uses their allyship to help them understand how their roles can positively impact communities of color, programs, and approaches. “If you don’t pay attention to that,” he said, “the funds will still only go to those who know how to navigate that and may not get to benefit the people you want to be able to benefit.”

Leading with awareness

When choosing to be an educator, González noted, it is important to realize that you may not always know what kind of impact you have on someone. That being said, it is also important to understand that you may not find out until years later or sometimes not at all. González advised those looking to join the racial equity conversation to start by acknowledging their space of awareness, action, and transformation. These are not always in order and can be interchangeable at any moment.

González believes that awareness starts with “needing to know better.” That can mean connecting with the right people or reading the right things, but most importantly, it means doing the work. That is where the action comes from. Transformation happens when things are put into place systematically to make sure those actions can be sustained. González concluded his reflections by challenging those who want to use racial equity as a lens for broader change to ask themselves what role they can have in changing those things.

In order to campaign for change, we all must start with a solid foundation. José González leans into his foundations of being an educator and immigrant as tools for solidifying his place in any space and creating change. Like González, others who are working for racial equity in conservation can build their own foundations and remember to do better and be different.

*The term “BIPoC” is part of an incomplete and evolving conversation on referencing marginalized communities in relation to dominant White culture. It is used here with that intention of inclusion, and not any that advocates for specific erasure. When specificity needs to be named and recognized, for example in a socio-political or policy context, it is best to use the specific appropriate term, such as “Black” or “African American” in reference to police violence. “BIPoC” is not meant to be used indiscriminately. It helps to ask “in service of what” and when appropriate, to recognize the history and origins of terms, however incomplete and imperfect they may be, such as how “Women of Color” was a political term created as a call of solidarity from “minority women’s groups” at the 1977 National Women’s Conference.