Happy Friday and Ramadan Kareem, everyone.
Ramadan, one of the holiest months of the Islamic calendar, began Wednesday evening. It is a time of fasting, prayer, community, and service for the 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide.
For anyone who wants to better enjoy the holiday, understand its significance, or learn how to support their Muslim colleagues, Google is an excellent resource. (Check out Ramadan Day and Eid Day, for example.) But the tech giant is also a case study on leveraging employee resource groups to create better products and a more inclusive world.
Yesterday I caught up with Alaa Aissi, who works on YouTube’s Trust & Safety team. She’s also the global co-lead for Google’s Muslims@ ERG, a subset of the company’s Inter Belief Network (IBN). A political science and legal studies major at U.C. Berkely, Aissi joined the company five years ago at the height of tensions caused by the Trump administration’s “Muslim ban.” While she didn’t experience “othering” at the company, she says she knew assimilation wasn’t an option. “As someone new to Google and the corporate tech space, I knew that I wouldn’t fit. And I will always be that first-generation Arab Muslim girl wearing a hijab. So, I knew I was going to do my own thing and own my truth.”
It turned out to be a galvanizing time that helped crystallize the power of employees and resource groups to shape Google’s culture and business. “I think a lot of it started coming to life after 2016…The Trump era was really important for us because it brought together a lot of communities that were targeted in his campaign.”
Aissi began contributing to a series of initiatives around Ramadan, which helped the company improve both the employee experience and its core product. The company now offers a comprehensive Ramadan guide that helps non-Muslim Googlers understand how to support their colleagues. And learnings from plenty of small changes—like a new holiday-themed Google Meet background (cocreated with the Google Workplace Meets team) or advice on how to connect with Muslim consumers around the joy of the season—have been baked into a renewed Ramadan search experience that better reflects the needs of Muslims and allies around the world.
“If you look at Ramadan searches from 2016, the page was very stale, but also full of the bigotry that was being perpetuated in the media,” she says. “It was almost in your face that the world saw Muslims that way and didn’t share the sentiment of what Ramadan is.” The shift seen today required Muslim representation in the company. “Instead of perpetuating the bigotry, let’s showcase and highlight what a wonderful time it is for people through color, design, and interactive experiences. And that’s exactly what we’ve been able to do throughout the years.”
Internal cross-pollination yields innovation that includes and delights others, and that’s the bottom line, she says. “If you could put a smile on one person’s face, but also 250,000 people’s faces in one day, why wouldn’t you do that?”
If you celebrate, may your Ramadan be as bright as ever.
Next week, I’ll be sharing a story about how an individual contributor and ERG and diversity leaders were able to help transform the Ramadan experience for Muslim employees at SAP. Any other examples of ERGs changing the business? Send them my way, subject line: ERGs
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
This edition of raceAhead was edited by Ruth Umoh.
On Point
Trans adults say transitioning saved them
A new Washington Post-KFF poll finds that while most trans adults have experienced bullying, harassment, and systemic inequity, the ability to transition has made them more satisfied with their lives. “Living doesn’t hurt anymore,” said TC Caldwell, a 37-year-old Black nonbinary person from Montgomery, Ala. “It feels good to just breathe and be myself.”
Washington Post
Surprise! Banned books show up at pop-up parties
It’s a clever, if not sustainable, option to protest widespread book bans and curriculum changes. Florida teacher Adam Tritt and Foundation 451, a group he founded to provide banned books to children, have been giving away books at special gatherings, like a local Ben & Jerry’s. Last year there were some 2,500 instances of book bans in U.S. schools, most related to race or LGBTQ+ themes.
NPR
California discusses a caste ban
State Sen. Aisha Wahab introduced the first-ever bill to ban caste discrimination in the state. Wahab suggested adding caste along with gender, race, and disability as a protected class. Adopting the law could impact the lives of many South Asians working in the state, particularly in tech.
BBC
Ray McGuire, finance exec turned mayoral candidate, finds a new gig
The former Citi vice chair and New York City mayoral candidate will join Lazard as its new president. He’s been an inclusion success story from the get-go, he’s often said. During his campaign, he talked about his life raised by a single mom in Dayton, Ohio. “I’m as regular as it gets,” he told radio station WQHT Hot 97, of his journey “from the streets to the suites…Nobody out there realer than me.”
Bloomberg
On Background
By erasing Islam from Rumi’s poetry, we all miss his point
Rumi’s love poetry has been a revelation for seekers of universal wisdom around the world for centuries. But the New Yorker’s Rozina Ali argues that his popularity, particularly within high-tone circles—Madonna, Tilda Swinton, and Coldplay’s Chris Martin are among his outspoken celebrity fans—have allowed publishers to erase Rumi’s Muslim essence from his work to our detriment. But don’t just blame the rock-and-roll set. “It was in the Victorian period that readers in the West began to uncouple mystical poetry from its Islamic roots.” Rumi’s unique experience at the intersection of Sufism, Sunni Islam, and Quranic debate informed his voice and animated his desire for oneness with God. But a committed contempt for Islam persuaded scholars over the years that Rumi was “mystical not because of Islam but in spite of it,” says Ali.
New Yorker
Parting Words
“Blessed with another month of Ramadan. A time to get closer to our true nature as mindful beings…time to reconnect.”
—Yusuf Islam, the artist also known as Cat Stevens
