I’m complicit in racism in the nonprofit and social impact sectors. Here’s where I could go into defending that complicity, I was young. I didn’t know. I was on my own journey. Blah blah blah. We’ve heard it all from all the white-do-gooders like me in the world.

I’ve been in the nonprofit and mission-minded space for the entirety of my career. I started as a visual product designer for a national health nonprofit. I was green and am white so I didn’t know much of anything let alone systemic racism.

And like much of the nonprofit sector, the leadership in the organizations I worked for were almost exclusively white. Their boards, though some worked harder than others to change, were also very bright white and male-leaning.

I’ve grappled with writing this article because 1). I don’t know if it’s actually helpful. And 2). I don’t want to call out people when I’ve probably done the same bullsh*t. So I’m owning that. But the difference is, when these were said to me I wasn’t in a leadership position. In fact, I was being led and stewarded by the white people who held these beliefs. The white people who were actively fighting (or saying they were) the racism in the communities we were serving. I was being groomed to accept and fight for the status quo.

When these phrases or directions were said to me, I obliged. In Glennon Doyle’s words, I was being my tamed self. I knew the things being said were wrong, but for the sake of not making my bosses uncomfortable, I kept silent.

I stopped working for organizations ran by highly privileged people and became a full-time freelancer. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was contributing to the status quo and upholding racism in all its structures. Quitting has been liberating because I can now write freely. But terrifying, because y’know, income.

I made excuses for years, excuses that allowed me to keep working and believe I was fighting inequity. But the things my bosses have said to me prove that work needs to be done and that whistles still need to be blown.

Here’s what was said to me about racism when it was only white people in the room:

“We can’t march the Black Panthers through Tarrytown.”

No one neighborhood has the most wealth in Austin than Tarrytown. I haven’t been to Tarrytown much. Upon moving to Austin in 2013, it was off-limits and unaffordable. When I started working at a foundation though, I realized that Tarrytown was donating the most money out of any zip code in our city.

And big donors are a foundation’s bread and butter. So we were targeting where we should focus our business. Tarrytown was the answer. Most big donors lived in very expensive houses and drove very expensive cars to our small, humble office a few neighborhoods over.

As a marketing and communications associate, it was my job to design a lot of external-facing communications. We were in the middle of a rebrand and our CEO wanted to be cooler than your average philanthropic foundation. He wanted to attract big tech money AND old oil money, for the sake of doing good in the community.

New look, same great status quo.

I had been adamant about using the term social equity. In my mind, it was an opportunity to define the word and use it as a tool to educate a historically racist community. It ultimately was forbidden, and we, like many other philanthropic giants adopted “opportunity,” instead. The reason? Using the term social equity would equate to marching the Black Panthers through Tarrytown.

I sat quietly in a room filled with white people and said nothing. The weight of that sentence still reverberates through our charitable systems.

2. “Please put white children on the cover, the donor is traditional.”

After only months of working at this nonprofit, we were trying to recruit a large donor and his family to open a fund with us and leave his legacy of giving in our hands. So basically, we wanted him to open an endowment so we could grant money in his name forever.

We had to research this guy. What were his hobbies? What causes did he give his money to? Was he a Republican or Democrat? How did he earn his wealth? New or old money? I wasn’t tasked with this research, I was just there to make the proposal pretty. I added pictures of children from our nonprofit grant partners. I was intent on using joy and not poverty as a selling point.

After I finished the first draft, I was asked to revise it with white children. He was traditional, I was told. Tradition equals racism, I guess? It was okay, I told myself because the money wouldn’t only be going to white kids.

The grooming continued.

3. “We don’t have time to hire externally.”

I left after this, it defeated me. We had a VP job opening. This person would also be my new boss and it was an opportunity, I thought, to recruit someone in a leadership role who could add a different perspective and value than we had previously. I was filled with hope and excitement for the next chapter.

I found out that we weren’t going to look for anyone. I was told that there were two women, who both were white, that our CEO knew and would interview. There was no external call for applications. There was no new opportunity for inclusion. I was deflated. As a junior employee, I had no power or say in the decision.

They hired another white woman VP. Which in and of itself isn’t wrong. What is wrong is the blatant exclusion of the opportunity for the sake of time. It wasn’t for the sake of time, it was for the sake of familiarity and keeping the status quo.

As a junior employee and white woman, I was exhausted. And folks who had the lived experience of racism hold a much greater weight than me.

4. Nothing.

I left the nonprofit sector because I believed the private sector had more power in affecting change. But after a handful of years in the private sector and social impact space, I learned that this is problematic, too.

Unlike the nonprofit world, I had a founder who would say nothing. Because that was comfortable. At first, I didn’t mind it. His lack of a stance allowed me, as the Head of Marketing, to pronounce a stance with the company. He hired others who had a strong lens in equity and inclusion, and I felt free to craft a future through the private sector with my new leadership team.

But, it was a false liberation. I believed I had the reigns to position the small company as a thought leader in equity and inclusion through our marketing efforts. But without buy-in from the owner, our efforts for sustained impact were futile. I realized after years of being groomed by white leaders to uphold the status quo, I was doing exactly that.

Authentic marketing means aligning our operations with the values we’re marketing. I realized I was selling a false idea of community and inclusion for profit