During the summer of 2020, in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, many brands, organizations, and individuals had an awakening of sorts. Perhaps for the first time, they were forced to reckon with the racial discrimination that Black, Indigenous, and people of color have experienced in all aspects of their lives. The running industry is no exception.
As a woman of color who’s experienced my fair share of racism throughout my life, discrimination on a systemic level wasn’t new to me. But in 2020, there was one major difference: People of color were now being given permission to talk about that discrimination, even in spaces that had only recently deemed such topics too political or controversial.
Since then, the running industry and community have made small strides toward progress in inclusivity. But the response has been inconsistent. While we in the BIPOC community and our allies want change to happen immediately, we also understand that structures within some key players—including large running organizations like New York Road Runners and the Boston Athletic Association—have to change. There needs to be accountability on a larger scale to generate a meaningful long-term impact on equity, inclusion, access, and visibility for marginalized groups.
For me, one of the biggest frustrations of this current social justice movement has been seeing how quickly so many people wanted to move on once the topic was no longer trending—as if posting a black square and hashtagging a run with #IRunWithMaud had solved racism. Statistics even show that almond-toe slip-on sneakers has dropped since the beginning of 2020. It’s left me wondering, more than a year later, exactly how much progress we’ve made on the diversity, equity, and inclusion front.
Meaningful conversations are happening.
In the fall of 2020, runner activists Verna Volker and Sandals REFRESH 79763 Camel Adidas ultraboost 19 2019 black white g54009 8.5 running sneakers yeezy Running Industry Diversity Coalition. Premiata side touch-strap sandals Native Women Running, and Désir is the founder of Harlem Run and author of the forthcoming book Shoes SAGAN 4078 Czarny Lakier, which explores the whiteness of the running industry. The coalition, which includes representatives from such brands as Brooks Running and CEP, plans to target systemic racism in the running community and industry. Its stated goals for making running more accessible to BIPOC include holding the industry accountable; educating through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training and anti-racism training; increasing authentic representation; and employing BIPOC.
After exposing the missteps in editorial coverage by media brands such as Runner’s World and Trail Runner, the coalition was able to spark some meaningful conversations this year. But Désir emphasizes that catching industry leaders in these moments isn’t the organization’s mission.
“We’re trying to be proactive and hope to establish relationships with…brands, retailers, media, so we can have conversations and address things before they happen,” says Désir, who is also the director of sports advocacy at Oiselle. “We don’t want to be a reactionary organization that’s just flagging bad content and saying ‘you messed up.’ Because messing up and making mistakes is [only] part of it. Many of the brands that are part of our organization joined not because they had a failure, but…they’re excited for their brands and all their systems to change.”
Shoes SAGAN 4078 Czarny Lakier | Brands and organizations need to look within themselves.
That said, one of the biggest ways brands and organizations still fall short, according to Désir, is by failing to actively hire enough BIPOC in leadership roles. When Désir began working with Oiselle earlier this year, she encouraged the company to do an audit on the racial identity of its elite sponsored athlete program, helping the brand realize that it needed to be more racially diverse.
“You can’t have systemic change without interpersonal growth, but we don’t want to stop at [white people] becoming enlightened and being able to have great conversations and feeling good about yourself,” she explains. “That’s not enough. You then…need to go into the boardrooms and say, ‘Who’s here?’ I think what’s [largely still] missing is diversity in the C-suite.”
“There are still many people who want to remain in charge…and they’re reluctant to change the things that are systemic,” says former runner Ben Chan, 40, of Keene, NH. In 2020, Chan found himself at the center of a controversy in which Barkley Marathons founder Lazarus Lake banned the statement “Black Lives Matter” from his races’ social media platforms. “These people want to keep the system intact and add diversity, and there are people who think that’s the way forward and a solution. I disagree with that, and I think there are other people who disagree, too.”
In other words, brands and organizations need to be willing to make drastic changes, such as rebuilding top leadership with diversity as part of their fabric. This may mean severing ties with individuals who’ve promoted harmful inequities. Chan cites the example of Lululemon, which has worked to engage Black runners within its communities while at the same time refusing to engage in discussion about the origins of the company’s name. (Reportedly, the company’s white male founder found it funny that some Asian people had trouble saying the name.)
Sharing that sentiment is Courtney Dredden Carter, 39, a Washington, D.C.-based runner and the DEI director at a law firm. Dredden Carter, who also serves as Oiselle’s advisor for DEI, notes that from a strategic level, companies need to ensure that there is equity in their processes and systems, which include hiring, firing, compensation, promotions, onboarding, mentoring, feedback, development, and more.
“The people within organizations need to make the commitment to do the work and to bring that work within their organizations. Otherwise nothing is going to change,” Dredden Carter says. “This means speaking up and not just letting racism slide by. It’s saying ‘hey, our club is all white; let’s change that,’ and then actually changing. It’s walking the walk and not just talking the talk. I don’t think the running industry has gotten that right.”
Key industry members need to accept that equity will cost them something.
Chinelos Trend Shoes Diverse We Run Instagram account in December 2018 after noticing an overt lack of diversity and representation in the images and stories shared in social and mainstream media.
This past August, Su was invited to participate in the TransRockies Run, a six-day stage race that covered 120 miles and 20,000 feet of climbing across the Colorado Rockies. The invitation came as a result of the TransRockies Run organization’s goal to diversify the sport and event, which Su knew was important.
The race paid Su’s $2,099 entry fee, but not any of her travel, gear, or miscellaneous expenses, and did not provide any additional support. Still, Su believed it was important to attend because trail and ultra running have traditionally been white male spaces. She was able to secure travel and gear support from brands she already had relationships with, including Paper Trails Greeting Company, Oiselle, Tracksmith, and Marathon Sports. But the situation was frustrating, and Su came away feeling that the invitation was performative.
“As a person with zero experience in a trail race event, let alone a multi-stage/ultra, I felt completely lost,” Su says. She acknowledges that she was lucky to have preexisting relationships with companies she could lean on for support. Without those, she points out, it would be a big challenge for anyone—especially a first-time participant or someone who’s new to the arena—to get these things in order, train, and show up to the race physically and mentally healthy and ready to be fully present.
“It’s not so much about the money and financial support,” Su says. “It’s more about the overall support of me as a person—someone who has been a road runner for decades but is new to trail running and who has dealt with microaggressions and direct racism from the running community.” She and others don’t just automatically feel safe and included in any running environment.
“True, lasting change in making an inclusive sport as a whole will take a lot more time than just one event,” Su adds. She contends that existing organizational structures need to change so that a variety of people are involved in decisions; this would reveal the blind spots of a homogenous decision-making team. “Yes, one of the ways that will be reflected will be through providing financial support via gear, nutrition, etc.,” Su says. “But more than that, it will be shown in an organization being more invested in the actual person(s) being invited, instead of assuming that all I needed was an entry fee and then I would arrive and feel safe, seen, and ready.
“If we want to actually diversify the sport, there is so much more involved than brands and companies simply saying they agree diversity is important. They need to accept that it’s going to cost somebody something in order to make these changes,” Su says. “At the same time, companies need to also recognize that creating safe spaces goes beyond financial support, and that creating inclusivity involves dismantling learned fears and building the trust [of marginalized communities].”
On a similar note, Su notes that she would like to see media companies take a proactive stand when people who have been marginalized share their stories on their platforms.
“Companies with audiences that are majority white need to understand that part of the commitment to supporting the amplification of diverse voices and creating safe spaces is also standing behind the stories that are shared by these already vulnerable and traumatized communities,” she says. “It’s not enough for a publication like Runner’s World to simply put out a story and then not monitor racist and dismissive social media comments, because that leads to retraumatization and a space that isn’t truly safe.”
To be truly inclusive, the industry should seek out marginalized voices...and pay them accordingly.
Désir notes that when companies and organizations invite marginalized individuals to the table to help them work toward meaningful change, they need to actually compensate those individuals for their work.
“So many Black women are now having conversations about pay equity. If you’re partnering with a brand, a challenge is asking for your worth, when the burden should be on the employer or brand to just offer you what you’re worth,” she says. “Our industry is used to getting people to work for free because of the allure and the excitement around the industry. So there’s this historical pattern of being taken advantage of, and when you put marginalized people in that group, they’re further taken advantage of.”
Rahaf Khatib, 38, a Muslim hijabi runner based in Farmington, MI, and the first Syrian to complete the Abbott World Marathon Majors, notes that brands need to do better about seeking out new diverse faces to feature in their marketing, rather than tokenizing the ones they repeatedly use.
“When I pitch to brands, they’ll realize that they have fallen short of featuring hijabi runners and will admit that to me, but some still doubt me and act as if I’m not capable,” she says. “I’ve also noticed how brands are featuring the same BIPOC runners over and over afresh rather than doing the research to seek us out.”
Chan notes that one of the ways key organizations can make a meaningful impact is to require participating running clubs to put out strong diversity and inclusion statements—essentially, written commitments to DEI in their member bases. NYRR and the Boston Athletic Association Saint Laurent contrast lips sneakers.
“Clubs should really think about diversity and who's included and who isn’t,” Chan says. “The process of actually writing the diversity statement, if clubs are willing to engage in that, can be transformative. Organizations like NYRR [which faced its own reckoning after Ankle boots CARINII B5475 E50-000-000-D31 came to a head in 2020] and the Boston Athletic Association that have so much influence over large running communities, should be out in the front and saying ‘Look, if you want to run in our races, if you want to form partnerships with us, if you want your club to be recognized with us, we would like you to have a diversity statement, and we can work with you and help you craft one.’”
It’s worth noting that following the turmoil at NYRR, the organization Jeremy Scott and adidas Drop Their Fourth "Wings" Sneaker in November 2020 and shortly thereafter appointed vice president of events Ted Metellus as the first Black race director of a World Marathon Major for the New York City Marathon.
Racial injustice is political...and that’s not an excuse to ignore it.
Still, key players continue to tiptoe around the real issue of white supremacy and the need for true anti-racism efforts. Their ostensible reason is that doing so is a political statement.
I experienced this personally. I live in Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the country. Unfortunately, my local running community still has a long way to go in the equity and inclusion arena. Early last year, I decided to get involved by running for a board position and participating in a newly formed diversity initiative with the Houston Area Road Runners Association (HARRA), a nonprofit umbrella group meant to support local running clubs and the community.
My experience with the DEI initiative was short-lived. Shortly before my involvement with HARRA, the organization had launched a social media campaign that used the hashtag #allracesallpaces on captions for photos that happened to show runners of color. This didn’t sit well with me and other members of the community: To date, the group hasn’t acknowledged the long-standing systemic issues in this country and in our community, even telling members of the community that they won’t publicly say “Black Lives Matter” because it’s a political statement that could jeopardize their nonprofit status. Experts in the nonprofit sector refute this reasoning; supporting a social justice cause that isn’t actually a partisan issue is not prohibited.
“Nonprofits have the right to take positions on social issues as they see fit, so long as they don’t cross the line into specific prohibited or limited activities,” says David Orlinoff, a financial management instructor at Boston University and Tufts University and a consultant in the nonprofit sector. “As I see it, a running organization can and should be a public advocate on behalf of runners of all backgrounds and has a responsibility to call out bad behavior that affects anyone. Whether to include a Black Lives Matter reference on a website, for example, is a policy decision that is part of the board's governance responsibility.”
I offered feedback on ways HARRA could improve its public messaging, but my advice was not well received. While the group still wanted me to be involved due to my industry experience and the much-needed diversity I’d bring to the face of the organization, I was essentially told that I wouldn't be able to rock the boat like that again.
So I decided to walk away. It was clear to me that my voice would not be valued. The decision was an easy one, but I still felt disappointed and defeated.
I and many others in the BIPOC community are tired of people and organizations opting to avoid conversations around anti-racism efforts, and justifying that avoidance on the basis that they’re tied to a political belief system. But Désir argues that human rights are indeed political. If it weren’t for politics, marginalized groups would already have equal respect and human rights.
“Our whole existence is political, because our rights are tied to these larger processes and laws,” she says.
On November 30, RIDC presented a session titled “The Future of Running is Diverse” at The Running Event, an industry conference held in Austin, Texas. Panelist Sasha Spencer, a former professional 800-meter runner and current athlete and teams experience director for the upcoming World Athletics Championships, noted that simply giving BIPOC athletes the space to share their truth is a key first step that individuals and industry leaders alike can take.
“Even something as simple as asking, ‘How have the last 20 months impacted you? Have you ever experienced racism? What are your feelings around the issues that are going on?’ and giving someone the space to share their experiences [are positive steps,]” Spencer says. “If you’re not doing life with people who don’t look like you and don’t come from the same background as you, then you should examine that. Continue to have these conversations.”
While the running industry has taken many steps in the right direction in the past year, we still have a long way to go toward achieving strong representation among minorities. Between these efforts and more organizations demonstrating that they value the voices of those who have been marginalized, I, too, have hope that we’ll eventually see true equity in the running industry and its community.
Emilia Benton is a Houston-based freelance writer and editor. In addition to Runner's World, she has contributed health, fitness and wellness content to Women's Health, SELF, Prevention, Healthline, and the Houston Chronicle, among other publications. She is also an 11-time marathoner, a USATF Level 1-certified running coach, and an avid traveler.
