Women and POC Have Always Saved Society During Crisis. We Need to Support Their Leadership and Expertise NOW

America is like one of those homemade, card board box race cars with missing parts that are picked up off the path as it is blazing down the side of a mountain, slapped on in the middle of the race. The riders inside the box car know it’s shaky, it’s parts don’t match and won’t last, and will likely fall off at any moment. They were warned, before plummeting down the race path, it needed fixing. 

But the driver inside the boxcar kept telling the riders that the structure of this car is the only one that will go the distance, that will allow each of them to feel and experience the ultimate goal of humanity: thriving freedom. 

We're at the beginning of a major inflection point. Many groups for years have been screaming down the hatches about the pains of our current system that need change NOW -- a scarcity based system where some people hoard resources, capital, and access to things that should be basic human rights like health care, education, economic stability and food because they believe there just isn't enough. They believe that some people deserve more than others because of what they look like and who they are. As Corona ravages through communities, scarcity systems of belief and operations are acting as they have been designed to do - serving the needs of a few to the suffering of the many.

This cyclical fall out of a scarcity based system isn't new to a few groups of people -- particularly women and people of color. They are the most vulnerable and yet the most depended upon in crisis and are the ones with the most innovative ideas to help us move into areas of acts of creative courage during and post crisis. Women, already over burdened with the second shift, are now at the front lines of health and wellness of their communities. They are being called upon to be the impossible heros as mothers as well as skewing heavily into society's deeply underpaid, under appreciated key caregiving occupations: nurses, teachers, and social workers. Women consistently are the glue that keep their communities from going under, and in crisis this is even more evident. People of color, especially women of color, have an additional layer of both tragedy and stewardship in social transformation and crisis. Women of color were the unspoken and unrecognized heros of the women's rights and civil rights movements, creating networks, resources, and implementing plans of disruption at critical touch points of social change, with usually little credit. Outside of little credit, their movement into positions of leadership are still painstakingly slow and we primarily still live in a world where most government, business, economic, and critical social decisions, as well as thought leadership and visibility of expertise are being created primarily by one demographic (rich, older, white, hetero men).

I've been having a few discussions with friends, creatives, and entrepreneurs about how adversity and disruption are incredibly painful but also a bedrock for reinvention. Outside of positive thoughts and hope for speedy care to everyone scared, anxious, sick and more -- the tiny silver lining of this tailspin is the potential for rebirth and positive change on the other side of inflection — we need new ideas and new stories to bring them to life — and we can create them.

One reason why I've been building a professional development and communication consultancy focused on teaching the psychological power of story for achieving business goals and solving social and cultural problems for the past few years and full time the past 9 months is because I can see how deeply story affects our beliefs >> thoughts >> actions >> policies >> communities >> leaders >> workplaces >> individuals. Stories have power (even when they are based in false ideas), and the narratives and stories we see in media, advertising, entertainment, books, articles, public talks and more shape who we are, how we think, what we make, how we dress, how we eat, how we speak to one another, how we show up, how we discriminate, and so much more (through two main mental processes called narrative transport and neural coupling). We see this now as the beginning stages of the virus hits home in the United States - messages about ideas and solutions will make or break us. Think about some of the messages you believe about yourself and your world. Think about where they came from, and you'd be shocked by how story has shaped who you are.

We are facing a lot of uncertainty and anxiety in the coming months -- the leaders we need right now are the people who have seen the worst adversities time and time again and have been the most resilient in driving social change -- who have been on the margins and created and swayed society in thankless ways that go unnoticed -- people of color and women. We need their ideas to be at the forefront of this massive societal change, and they need strategic communication plans to bring visibility and buy-in for their much needed ideas.

We know there are women and people of color who have tech solutions, new processes, new education frameworks, future of work solutions and more focused on critical social and culture problems that we need to talk about in conjunction as we're rebuilding post this crisis. When we have a flood, we need to prepare on what we're rebuilding on new ground. And our brains are all better together.

We need the brainpower of the marginalized to be recognized as we grapple with the following questions of an upturned society: How will a mandate of being alone together through needing to stay put inside the house for the foreseeable future reimagine how we shop, how we learn, how we love, how we create, how we speak, how we maintain community and connectedness? How will this disruption of our status quo shift capitalism, economic systems, and be the last stunning blow to the weak knees of our pay to play health care system? Who will be the leaders on the other side of this. When the dust settles. Who will be the ultimate victims? The elderly? The immune compromised? The poor who cannot afford to stop working but who may die if they continue? The medical workers on the front line of the tragedies going in day after day and are completely overwhelmed and exposed to this new virus?

The world is going through a major shift physically, emotionally, spiritually, economically. We are only at the beginning racing down in the box car we knew had bad wheels but we believed it was the path to freedom anyways. The crash will be spectacular and painful, and who knows what the new car we build when we get up from the ground, battered bruised bloody but ready, will look like. 

We have no choice but to pivot. As we are staying at home and riding the storm, let's encourage each other's creativity and spirits by continuing to connect online and think through these critical ideas as we reshape the status quo, and to bolster the thought leadership from the groups who have continued to survive crisis and marginalization: we are the experts we didn't know we needed.