Hi guys,
We need to talk about racism.
The release of the race report last week floored me. I felt it delegitimised the work that we are doing and that it contradicted the evidence in front of my eyes in the organisations I work in. I tweeted in outrage and colluded with my fellow coaches and colleagues about how terrible everything was. After some back and forth with Adé in my team, he WhatsApped this to me:
“☹️ It's gonna be interesting running our next UB session - what we bring into the space, and what we leave at the door”
It prompted me to slow down and breathe. And realise that I needed to rumble with what was coming up for me so that I could facilitate from a clean place in our future sessions. I don’t want to lead from hurt and anger. So I had some work to do!
Following a week of reflecting and breathing, these are my key takeaways:-
It is easier to start a culture war, than to sit with the uncertainty and ambiguity around the impact of race
In today’s Google news search, I saw that The Times are accusing the Runnymede trust of running a premeditated and political agenda in criticising the report (read the article here) whereas The Guardian (read the article here) is claiming that Downing Street rewrote the ‘independent’ report. Across the media, people seem to have taken sides and to be throwing around a whole lot of accusations at one another. I suspect the release of the report was designed to create this binary response as it creates a distraction. It feels good to do righteous anger. What doesn’t feel good is to feel like you don’t totally understand the report. Or to sit with the parts you disagree with alongside the parts you agree with. On a personal level, it also didn’t feel good to have Unconscious Bias training come under attack, when I’ve witnessed the positive benefits of our workshops. However to move forwards, I realised I needed to let go of being right and to listen to understand.
We have come a long way in terms of race equality in the UK … that doesn’t mean the job is done
I was interested in the progress that the report detailed:
“Polling conducted recently (2020) by Ipsos Mori found 93% of Britons disagree that “to be truly British you have to be White”, up from 82% in 2006. Those who agree have declined from 10% to 3% over the last 14 years.
Ipsos Mori also found in 2020 that "89% would be happy for their child to marry someone from another ethnic group, up from 75% in 2009”.
Equally, I’m always surprised in our diversity sessions to hear from our workshop participants how different London is compared to their countries of origin e.g. South Africa, Italy, Eastern Europe.
However, whilst progress has been made, let’s not forget that the job isn’t done.
Because, personally, I believe systemic racism exists in this country (contrary to the report’s findings)
The report, controversially, found no evidence of the system being rigged against people of colour. However, I don’t need to look too far to find examples of systemic inequality.
Here are some easy examples:
- The ONS reports that the COVID-19 mortality rate for those of black African or black Caribbean ethnicity in the first half of 2020 was two to two-and-a-half times higher than for white people. Incidentally, this has really changed for the second wave for the better.
- Researchers at University College London have found young black males are 19 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the Metropolitan Police than the general population.
- In business, the arts, sport and politics, there is under-representation, particularly at senior levels.
- Closer to home, I know that our black coaches get chosen less than our white coaches (if clients are able to choose their coach and headshots are shared).
We need to stop using the BAME acronym
One of the reasons the report finds little evidence of systemic racism, is because we have a tendency to group all non white people together as BAME. When we disaggregate this data, we find that differences between ethnic groups exist which are worth us looking at deeper. The BAME acronym is unhelpful and we should stop using it.
Communities tell me that they would prefer to be labelled by their country of origin. The report suggests the following distinctions : White British, White Other, Chinese, Mixed, Indian, Other, Black Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Black African. As D&I practitioners we also need to be aware of what’s practical. If an organisation wants to run a positive action leadership scheme for ‘ethnic minority’ leaders, what term should we use? This article is excellent. There’s a longer conversation to be had on this topic.
Be wary of the data vs lived experience false dichotomy
I’m going to be doing some more work on this topic, but what I’ll say here is that I see a false culture war being created. One which pits data (and therefore ‘the truth’) vs lived experience (‘my truth’). It’s a false dichotomy. One is not ‘better’ than the other, and both lose out if not accompanied by the other. The problem I see in this report is that they have prioritised data, and in the process rubbished people’s personal experience. Hence many people feeling gaslit. We need to find a way to hold the space for both data and personal experience, particularly when they appear contradictory.
We need to continue what we are doing
Whilst not being fans of Unconscious Bias training, the benefits of D&I training were called out;
“The Commission does, however, recognise the role that diversity and inclusion training has had in moving the dial and creating a space for conversations in organisations to redress actual and perceived discrimination. It is important to build on this, whilst focusing on interventions that produce concrete outcomes”.
Onwards,
Rox
Click here to view and download our Racial and Ethnic Diversity toolkit.