ABSTRACT
This chapter examines several factors within organizations that can inhibit or enhance an organization's ability to navigate the nervous area of government. Organizational culture particularly influences the agency's willingness to perform racial-equity analysis of the services it provides. Within that culture, nervousness in public sector organizations exists throughout five key areas: organizational values and goals, organizational socialization, organizational leadership and change, organizational discourse and organizational learning and performance. The culture of public sector organizations transmits important messages about the socialization contract as it relates to expectations regarding racial equity. Promoting racial equity within many public sector agencies will involve cultural change, which begins with an overall strategy aligned with the desired future. The extent to which an agency is willing to acknowledge, examine, and address structural inequities along these dimensions falls within the nervous area of government. Overcoming this nervousness is dependent upon the organization's willingness to name, blame, and claim the injustice.
