The Man Behind the Hashtag

Today is Philando Castile’s birthday. In honor of the person he was and the lives he touched, I am releasing a series of podcasts called “From Loss to Legacy.” I reached out to Philando’s mom, Valerie Castile, to ask if I could speak with her about her son. On September 9, 2019, we sat down to talk about Philando. My goal was to create awareness about how Philando lived and to tell the world (or at least a little piece of the world) about the amazing spirit that he was. Below is my account of what happened in the days immediately following Philando’s death.

In July of 2016, I was working as a leader in Lockheed Martin's Diversity & Inclusion organization. I was getting ready for work when I heard about a man being killed after an altercation with police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That man was Alton Sterling. The “crime” that he allegedly committed based on witness accounts? Selling illegal cd’s. Someone also placed a call reporting that he had threatened them with a weapon. When police arrived, profanities were hurled, a scuffle ensued, and Mr. Sterling was shot a total of six times. Three shots to the chest, and three to the back. Video of the entire incident was captured by cameras at the gas station and by witnesses. By the next morning, Alton Sterling had become a hashtag. 

The next morning, as I prepared for work, I scrolled through my FB timeline and happened across a video posted by a black female police officer in Ohio. I watched the entire 7 1/2 minute video. She was fired up and angry about what happened to Alton Sterling for several reasons. Not just because, as an officer, she knew that this behavior was not typical of the majority of police officers. She was also angry and emotional because she was scared for her sons. After all, with the growing number of these incidents, her sons could become the next face on a RIP t-shirt or curbside memorial at any given time. In her video, she called for officers who can not protect and serve ALL people to take off the uniform. I cried with Officer Nakia Jones that morning.  

During the course of my lengthy one hour and a half commute, I heard a radio account of what I thought was Alton Sterling’s fatal encounter. I was wrong. The incident described in this radio report involved a Minnesota man by the name of Philando Castile. Mr. Castile had been stopped by an officer and shot within 74 seconds of being pulled over. Cameras also captured footage of Mr. Castile’s interaction with police. And in an unusual twist, Mr. Castile’s girlfriend, had streamed live from the passenger seat inside of the car as Mr. Castile suffered from fatal gunshot wounds. “Another one?,” I said aloud. I said more than that, but I won’t repeat it here.      

Although I stopped watching these types of videos quite a while ago, it’s nearly impossible to watch television, listen to the radio, be on your phone, or scroll through your timeline or stories without catching a glance at them. On the morning of July 7th, already feeling dejected and heartbroken for these men, their families, and my community as a whole, I went to the cafeteria to get a quick bite. As I stood in line and looked up at the television, I was unfortunate enough to catch a few seconds of the video that Diamond Reynolds recorded after Philando Castile had been shot. I looked away once I realized what it was, but it was too late. I could never “unsee” those images and “unhear” those sounds. As I walked back to my office, I passed several folks going about business as usual. They were from all backgrounds. “How can they walk around like everything is fine?,” I thought to myself. Two men were just killed unnecessarily. And so many more have preceded them in losing their lives in similar fashion. There were two people that I passed that locked eyes with me with a look of recognition that today was a day of mourning and reflection. They were black like me.

As the day went on, several people came into my office to discuss the events of the last two days. Some cried with me. Tears of sadness. Tears of frustration. Tears of fear. Tears filled with so many different emotions that it would be impossible to name them all. Later that day, I went into my weekly HR team meeting. That day was different for me. After working in corporate America for 20 years, I had become skilled at masking my emotions. That day, I did not care to try. It required energy that I simply did not have. That day, it was time for the mask to come off.

Toward the end of the meeting, I raised the topic about the events that had transpired within the last 48 hours. As the Diversity and Inclusion leader for the business area, as a person, and as a black person, I felt obligated to talk about what happened to Mr. Sterling and Mr. Castile. I told the team that I was not my usual happy self, and furthermore, that I was incapable and uninterested in pretending otherwise that day. I was heartbroken, upset, and angry. A couple of people commented on what happened. Some looked surprised. Most were silent, and that was perfectly ok. The purpose of raising the issue was to make space for the conversation. There was no agenda.

Several of my HR colleagues reached out to me over the next few days. Some said “thank you for making it ok to talk about this” at work. Some appreciated my vulnerability. A couple of others wanted to have deeper discussions. One in particular was extremely powerful.

I give my colleague a tremendous amount of credit for reaching out to initiate the conversation. I have not often been approached by my white colleagues to engage in conversations about race outside of a training setting, but this colleague wanted to know why I was so deeply affected. They also had questions about the Black Lives Matter movement and how the media portrayed it. I was surprised to hear my colleague’s perspective. As I listened to this colleague, there were times that my mouth dropped open because our perspectives were so vastly different. I’m sure they may have had a similar response as they listened to me. We spoke for at least 30 minutes. Topics ranged from the attack on officers in Dallas to Trayvon Martin. It was clear that there were things that we would never see eye to eye on, but what made this dialogue so very special to me was that we were respectful at all times. We listened to each other. I mean, really listened to each other.

After our conversation, I started to feel hopeful. Courageous conversations are not about persuading someone to agree with your position, but they are very much about raising issues that need to be addressed, doing so in a respectful manner, and figuring out how you can move forward together.

Over the last few years, more employers have taken steps to bravely invite dialogue about external events into their workplace. After all, your employees are affected and are often talking about these incidents whether you recognize it or not. When employers acknowledge the gravity of how the world impacts the workplace, they show employees (and others) that the commonly used invitation to bring one’s  “whole self” to work is more than just recruitment marketing lingo.