John Foley

Director of Human Resources of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (ret.)

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In 1986 I became the Director of Human Resources of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the famous nuclear research laboratory located in the mountains of northern New Mexico.  In this job I was responsible for the personnel needs of nearly 8000 employees. In addition, I was expected to champion the push for a more diverse workforce. My appointment to this position was a bit unusual as I am a white male with a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, not a professional HR manager. Because the Laboratory had had a long history of unrest in the human resources department, the Laboratory’s upper management decided that maybe someone who understood scientists and the scientific culture might be better suited to the job. I was chosen for the position because I had the reputation of being a good people manager, as well as a good scientist.

 

I soon learned, unfortunately, that our diversity efforts were floundering. Many employees were critical of our efforts.  On the one hand, women and people of color complained we were not doing enough to help them. We were moving too slowly, just giving lip service to diversity and equality.  And, on the other hand, my white male scientific colleagues argued we were doing too much, pushing too fast. Many of them believed our diversity efforts were reverse discrimination.

 

This barrage of criticism and complaints surprised me.  I thought I was doing the right thing by working for diversity and equality. And the complaints of women and people of color seemed particularly unfair. After all, I was trying to help them! I didn’t have a clue as to why our efforts to establish a more diverse workforce were floundering.

 

Over the next couple of years I struggled to understand what we were doing wrong. I talked to employees, attended numerous seminars and workshops, and read every book on race and gender I could get my hands on.

 

Little helped -- until I met Lillian Roybal Rose!

 

In October 1990 I attended a Cross-Cultural Communications workshop she lead -- and I was blown away!

 

And over the next few years she put on amazing seminars (a dozen or more) for employees, managers, and scientists at our Laboratory -- and for community groups in the surrounding towns. 

 

In her workshops I had to come face-to-face with dominance, subordination, and misuses of power. I learned what people of color want from whites is justice, not help. I always thought I was supposed to help, but I learned from Lillian that help that comes from dominance is patronizing and demeaning because it produces no trust, no respect, no real liking. By “helping” I was continuing the subtle dominance (subtle to me, not to women and people of color!) of men over women, whites over people of color, and scientists over non-scientists, which had been going on at our Laboratory for 50 years. 

 

I also learned about what white people lose when we collude with racism and sexism, when we turn a deaf ear to injustice. We lose our humanity. I learned I must fight racism and sexism for myself, not for others, to recover this loss.

 

As I worked to unlearn my racism and sexism, I was frequently emotionally overwhelmed by what I needed to do.  At times I felt shame, guilt, sadness. At other times I cried.  Sometimes the effort was so difficult I wanted to give up and return to doing science. Science was safe.

 

However, Lillian helped me understand that what I was feeling, probably for the first time in my life, was the loss to white people because of racism. She taught me that the process of unlearning racism and sexism is emotional as well as cognitive, and she encouraged me not to avoid the emotional part. If I only confront racism on a cognitive level, I’d wind up hostage to political correctness.

 

I’ve now known Lillian for 30 years. And I am so, so glad our paths crossed.

 

In addition to all the things I’ve discussed above that I, and others, have learned from her, both cognitive and emotionally, there is one thing about her that strikes me as uniquely exceptional.  At no time, as a (former?) dominant, white male, did I ever feel fear of Lillian.  She helped me struggle with emotional issues that I previously would have been afraid of, would have avoided, and would have run from. And with her I was not afraid. She hung in there with me as I struggled, and learned, and grew.

 

She always saw my humanity, even when the going got tough and I tried to hide behind my whiteness and my maleness. She hung in there with me even when I (occasionally?) reverted to being a dominant jerk!

 

And all Lillian ever asked of me in return was for me to work for justice.

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