The history behind today's underrepresented workforce

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hello everybody I'm going to get started so the person who just asked should I be hearing any audio yet no but now
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hopefully you should be hearing some audio because I've started it's good to have you all joining us today my name is
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Katie Jacobs from the CIPD I'm really really pleased to be able to welcome you
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to this incredibly important webinar series on racism and the challenges for HR now this session is our first in a
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three-part series and it's on the history behind today's underrepresented vme workforce I'm also really pleased
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we've got a really great team of experts working with us to deliver the content today and throughout the rest of this
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series we've got Frank Douglass Frank is an influential and expert voice on
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diversity and inclusion he is a former HR director in large and global organizations and he's a former CIPD
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board member and he appears on lots of lists about being a very influential person No thank you Frank and we're also
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joined by Serena Abbasi Serena is an independent equity inclusion and diversity consultant and
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previously she was worldwide head of culture and inclusion at the advertising agency MC Sachi London thank you so much
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three known Frank for being here this afternoon and housekeeping as ever this
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session is being recorded you will be able to access it afterwards however you won't be able to download the slides if
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you want to submit questions during the webinar could I ask you to please use the Q&A tab which you should be able to
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see at the bottom of your screen please don't use the chat box for questions that you want me to put to Serena and
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Frank but feel free to use it to discuss the content with each other and we're going to ask today that you could try
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and keep the questions relevant to the topic that we're talking about rather than making them overly tactical HR
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specific cause we're going to come onto that in later sessions as Frank will explain I also wanted to flag that the
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CIPD has developed a new hub on our website which is dedicated to tackling racism in the workplace and that we're
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adding resources to that all the time so please do check it out and I'm also going to flag our well-being helpline
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for our members in the UK and Ireland with award-winning workplace well-being provider health for sure we're now providing CIPD members was
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free help and support via sessions with qualified therapists that can be done over the phone or online we know the
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last few weeks have been challenging and emotional for a lot of people professionals so please do use the
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helpline if you need it so onto the topic that we're here to talk about today the black lives matter movement
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has challenged and reminded us how deep-rooted racism is within society and how it remains a lived experience for
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all ethnic minorities but particularly for black people organizations are part of society and therefore organizations
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have got to be part of the solution around ending racism and whether working within organizations or working with
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organizations of independent advisers people profession has a really really fundamental role to play in building
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anti-racist workplaces from changing cultures and behaviors to thinking about policies and practices at the CIPD we
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want to find ways to drive positive and lasting change together with our worldwide community of members and the wider profession and we've committed to
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focusing on policy reform on providing support to organizations to act and attracting and supporting the
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progression of ethnic and black black and ethnic minority people professionals now before I pass over to Frank to kick
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off today's session on the history of under-representation I wanted to flag again that the webinar is the first in a
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three-part series and strongly encourage you to commit to watching all of them and Frank's going to explain more on
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that and set some context so that is more than enough from me I'm going to put myself on mute and hand David Frank
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thank you and good afternoon to everyone it's probably a good thing we're having
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this before lockdown ends and this temperature so hopefully we have you and thanks for letting us some kind of book
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in your day with this conversation having been in your shoes and HR for
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most of my professional life I recognize that we sometimes tend to want to rush to solution earring you know the CEO or
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one of our leaders comes running down the hall and says okay you know we got this issue what's the solution to it and
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I realized that you know things change in terms of the awareness of the world
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on May 25th the George Floyd murder and in speaking with a host of people and a
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lot of them see you their names began with essentially so I spoke to you know
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I heard from sapphire and Sophia and Simon and Shaquille and Shana and Suresh
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and Sophie and and out my conversation with Sarina just to pick the esses out
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you know I realized that you know the HR profession is very ill equipped to deal
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with the issues of race and indeed the leadership teams are ill-equipped to deal with the issues of race and so to
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just be blunt about it you know as you know almost you may not know you know the the last survey by the
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UCI PD 88 percent of the HR members and the CIPD or white and if you extrapolate
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that to the leadership teams and the direct reports of the group HR directors
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which we don't have statistics on but one has to assume it's 88 percent white and that leadership team is probably 95
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percent white and what you have is probably an overwhelmingly white HR leadership team trying to advise an
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overwhelmingly white c-suite team about how do we engage with our black staff it
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just isn't gonna work and so I approached Peter cheese and his team and I want to thank them in advance
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um because as you will see from this this is not your typical HR CIPD
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um seminar this is about trying to equip you to at least start the combo
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about race it's not a toolkit you know I was I was very if you were set when I
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spoke with Peter this has to be three series it's not a one hour and you're done you know so Serena will take us
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through some of the history and even more so the lexicon of race and the
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lexicon of grace is very important because as you know an HR we have our own language around HR you know we we
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talk about the nine box grid which quite honestly nobody else on of HR cares about or knows what it is but you know
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that's part of our lexicon our lexicon is job families again no one really
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cares what that means but that's part of our lexicon so before we even start talking about race and start equipping
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the HR profession about race what Sarina will do today and it will be kind of a whistle top because she's
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trying to cover 200 to 400 years of one hour not a minor feat but you know she
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will take us through some of the history behind this so you understand this didn't start three weeks ago this
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started 200 years ago or 400 years ago and know which country you're looking at and to also then take us through is the
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most important part in many ways is the lexicon of race what are the what are the lengths what is the language around race and and she
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will take us through that and then the next session will be with on dev moti who is heads of the inclusive leadership
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practice or why you see one of the biggest global leadership and assessment firms globally and then the third part
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of the series will be a conversation with Peter and myself take into account all that we've heard this is like
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driving a car this is only going to get you by the end of these three series
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into first gear you're not gonna be able to whiz around the m25 talking about waste race this is they're gonna be able
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to get you into first gear and like learning to go out of the car those fears are gonna squeak and there's gonna
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be noise and you're going to shift and feel uncomfortable about it but that's part of this journey that the CIPD has
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given us the platform to try to take you on with the ultimate objective of
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getting you to start thinking about how do I attempt to talk about race with my leadership team so and just to Tamir who
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I turn over to Serena as Katie said we really don't want specific HR questions
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we would like questions to be here totally towards what Serena has said so really no no no questions about
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unconscious bias training or blind CVS but you know we'll have time for that but for now if we can focus on Serena's
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presentation so I know it's arena for a couple years as Katie said she's been the global arm director for inclusion
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and diversity for M&C Saatchi and I'm proud to say they've been a client and and and serena has has been a supporter
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and one of the strongest advocates and mediaand around diversity so but no further ado I'm going to turn it over to
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surround Katie and the rest of the CIPD
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Ann team it's it's a thing I can see there's 402 people and with us and it's
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a real honor and the numbers are crawling up which is fantastic it's a real honest be with you we don't have
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that much time together and actually we have probably about 40 minutes because I want to give you at least you know five
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ten minutes to ask questions so we're now going to attempt to do the most
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seamless transition from presentation pages so I'm gonna share my screen and
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I'm going to go big okay great and let
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me just minimize that all right so thank
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you all once again my name is Serena bossy and I'm an independent equity inclusion and diversity specialist
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consultants now we're gonna be talking about history this is really just to
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kind of help you contextualize why we are where we are as we know if you're
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joining us from outside of the UK I can't speak about your curriculum that you had at school
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in the UK there are definite gaps in British history and something like I feel really strongly about is that we
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need to stop labeling it as black history or brown history and actually
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just accept it as being British history and it's about us really acknowledging
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the full breadth of British history the good and the bad
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yes so it's very exciting it's all about trying to reveal full truths and and
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yeah let's get started okay so we're
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actually gonna start off with an exercise because I try to take as much of a holistic approach to you know
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equity inclusion and diversity as possible so I really believe obviously
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we do a lot of thinking and it's not just about intellectual jump gymnastics it's also about us feeling and I'm going
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to invite you all to embark on an exercise with me it's only going to take a minute or two and I'm gonna ask you
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several questions though first and foremost I'm actually going to ask you two if you're able to if you could
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please close your eyes or take your glasses off if you have glasses on and this is obviously only if
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you're able to because not everybody can you might have some sort of irritation or a disability and just like close your
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eyes and we're just going to take a few breaths in so also once again providing
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you're able to hear you in case you haven't got any respiratory issues so one big deep breath in I'm gonna do it
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with you and then we're gonna Excel
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it's been a long days let's do it again one big breath in and we're going to
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excel and one final time we're going to
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take one big deep breath in and we're
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going to excel now I hope you're feeling a bit more anchored I know before I I
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know that for sure I definitely am and and let's begin so actually I was gonna
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ask you to keep your eyes closed once again if you're able to and I'm going to ask you to place your hands on your palm
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so he pasted your palms on your thighs even once again if you're able see I'm
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gonna ask you seven questions and I'll repeat the questions twice okay so have
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you ever felt endangered for your life because of the color of your skin or
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because of your nationality if it's a yes by the way I would like you to tap
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your thigh with both hands if you would like have you ever felt endangered for
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your life because of the color of your skin or because of your nationality tap
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vs and do nothing for now second question have you ever had a visa
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declined based on your heritage have you
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ever had a visa declined so this could also be an ester based on your heritage
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next question have you ever felt that you needed to put an accent on or change
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your hair hairstyle in order to be accepted at work have you ever felt that
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you needed to put an accent on or change your hair in order to be accepted at
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work next question have you ever
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anglicized your name in order to make others feel more comfortable or to get
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ahead in your career so that also includes changing your name on a CV
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anglicized your name in order to make others feel comfortable or to get ahead
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in your career such as changing the name when your CV next question have you ever
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looked at a wine list or a table setting with confusion or nervousness with what
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to choose or with what to use have you ever looked at a wine list or table
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setting with confusion or nervousness in regards to what to choose or what to use
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two more questions left nearly man have
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you ever felt that there was no one in your workplace place of work that could
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understand your background have you ever felt that there was no one within your
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workplace that could understand your background if so ever say if it CSD tap
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your thigh through able to last question have you ever felt that you have to make
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an extra effort so have you ever felt that you've had to make an extra effort to appear friendly in order for others
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to not be intimidated by you have you
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ever felt that you had to make an extra effort to appear friendly in order for
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others to not be intimidated by you okay
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I welcome you to open your eyes and once
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you're ready and I don't know how that will felt for you um I maybe most of you
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didn't need to tap your thigh or thighs but for many this is a reality for them
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and actually in my case I was tapping my thighs for every single question
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so you know gaslighting I think here's a terminology that's we're more aware of
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now but gaslighting for those of you that don't know what it means it's
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essentially when you know that your reality but you know that you're
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experiencing it could be prejudiced for instance racism sexism and the majority
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or others are telling you that you're being ridiculous and that it's all in
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your head essentially there's lots of different interpretations of gaslighting but that's my interpretation just in the
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context of this conversation as you've probably could hear from all the
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questions you know we're talking about race ethnicity class for me and
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obviously they are all distinct and I'd like to invite you to also think of actually I like to think of race in just
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a single sense so actually I genuinely believe that we are all just one race one people but we're lots of different
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ethnicities and I'd like to invite you to think of whiteness is also a diverse
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ethnicity as well so how is the Irish experience different to the English
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experience which is different to the Polish experience now let's move ahead
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so just in the same way that we inherit skin and eye colour privilege is also
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inherited as is wealth there's some wonderful research and we'll actually
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get back to this theorist later on her name is dr. joy de Guri and she does
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some wonderful work around there trauma and how we inherit trauma and there's
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also another theorist called dr. Rachel new Tudor I think I'm saying youtuber I
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think it is actually and she does a lot of work around Holocaust survivors and
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what she's actually found is so she - also does a lot of work around the inheritance of trauma and what she's
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found is through her work with Holocaust survivors she found that a cell mutation occurs
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which gets passed down to their offspring that got passed down to their
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offspring so just on a cellular level cellular level there's a shift there's a
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change that occurs through trauma so then we're talking about privilege and
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how privileges and heritage to be you know to not have privileges obviously
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inherited and then we think about how wealth is inherited and how we really
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just need to level the playing field and the reason why we have an under-representation of certain
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demographics within our organizations is because things are completely off kilter
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so I remember reading an article once and it stated that in the UK at least
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25% of first-time buyers were given deposits were given deposits by their
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family members or close friends wealth is inherited opportunity is inherited
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and you know I think in all in order for us to create better representation for
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our you know of our businesses of all different types of demographics we really really need to kind of unpack
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that so I'm just gonna I'm gonna jump around the world quite a bit because
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actually there's so much around race Theory particularly pertaining to blackness that we can learn from the US
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so most people don't know that there was actually a black Wall Street and
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actually there were several black Wall Street's in the u.s. in the you know 19th and 20th century so for those of
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you don't know black Wall Street this is one example of black Wall Street in
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Tulsa Oklahoma in 1921 a wave of racial violence destroys an affluent
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african-american community seen as a threat to the white dominated American
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capitalism so there was a you know there have been
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many systemic attempts structural
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attempts to disenfranchise African Americans in the US and I think it's
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really really important that we acknowledge that because the structural
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violence is you know we see that also within the incarceration system as well
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I'm going to keep an eye on the time all right so this is just a couple of photos
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so this is like black hole streets in Oklahoma and just some beautiful images
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that I pulled from I believe it was history org websites I probably needed
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to quote their apologies but history de org and then there's Seneca village and
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most people don't actually know this and this is from Central Park tour NYC org
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and you can read up all about it the Seneca village was where modern-day
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Central Park was and actually they destroyed Seneca village in Seneca village was made up of primary primarily
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freed African American slaves and also Irish immigrants and German immigrants
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as well and they had a very very vibrant community and it was just completely
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wiped away so Central Park could be created so the reason I want to share
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this with you because I think it's really important for us to understand that there have been many many historical attempts to create wealth
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you know the black community has made many attempts to be self-sustaining to
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be autonomous to have power and the system has decided to literally stamp it
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out time and time again a really good example of this is actually my
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granderson my granddad came great Rhonda actually my great granddad came he's
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part the Windrush generation and he went to Birmingham and then he fetched from my granddad if he years later who was also
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still part of that generation the wind rest generation when my granddad first
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arrived to the UK he and I imagine this was probably true for my break rounds
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out as well they you know they didn't get the same mortgage rates as other
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whites Britons and it's worth definitely remembering which we'll get to in a few
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moments that people from the colonies swore themselves as British there was a
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level of citizenship there but I obviously the reality of that when they came to the UK was very different as I
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said I was I am jumping around consonants so back to my granddad
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experience so my granddad was offered a different mortgage rates he you know the average mortgage rates is say twenty
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five years he was told that he had to pay his mortgage off in ten fifteen years therefore meant his mortgage
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repayments each month were huge much larger so there was a bigger stress however there was a there's a flipside
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to this because it actually meant that he was able to own his own home much faster so this is Ellis Island I don't
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know if you're aware of Ellis Island but Ellis Island was the main court it was
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an inspection immigration port into the new world and actually it was formed due
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to America the new world realizing that there were different waves of immigrants
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that I'm coming in so before obviously as we know the Dutch the British and
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then different waves of immigrants would with white immigrants are thinking appoint nurses of diverse ethnicity was
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starting to come in say from Eastern Europe and that's when
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you know the inspection court kind of was went into action so I'm just gonna
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read you something here which is also from history org and so the immigration
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is an immigration inspection station from 1892 until 1954 quite
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really with over 12 million people passing through to start their new life in fact it has been estimated that close
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to 40 percent of all current u.s. citizens who can trace at least one of
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their ancestors back to Ellis Islands which is huge absolutely huge so you
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know modern-day manifestations of this keeping an eye on the time is obviously
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you know this is just off Australia so offshore detention camps and I think
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it's really important for us to be very very honest with ourselves when we think
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about human rights and basic human rights and actually there's no such
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thing as universal a universal human right or human rights human rights are
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based on citizenship human rights are you know they are yeah they're based on
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citizenship and our citizenship can very much be links to heritage ethnicity etc
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so this is the Windrush Empire this is very timely because on the 22nd
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it marks the 72nd I believe anniversary of the Windrush ship coming into Empire
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Windrush coming into Essex which had people from the Caribbean and wanting to
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make a new life and it's a no just at the young pretty sure is 1948 yes it was
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does it definitely give you the right the right year there's in 1948 and you
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know it's really worth stressing obviously there's a lot more conversation a lot more discourse around
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the Windrush due to the Windrush scandal that happened a couple of years ago it
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was still happening up until very recently actually or may still be kind of going on in some instances when
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people were deported where they had their citizenship revoked
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and you know my granddad's generation my great-granddad generation who were part
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of this generation you know they were told that the streets were paved with
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gold and that they as I mentioned earlier was seen as being British you
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know but obviously as we know the reality was very different you know in probably seed and know of the historic
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signs outside pubs no blacks no Irish and no dogs that was the reality for that generation
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so as I said the Windrush scandal as you
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know we're people of that generation had their citizenships token away from them
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their British citizenship taken away from them wrongly where they were I think just under 100 people that were
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deported so this is a very recent manifestation of racism in my opinion
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and probably not just my opinion probably most of you on this webinar so as I said I'm jumping around a little
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bit so my other my other but my other heritage is President Iranian so my dad
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came to the UK just before the Revolution of 1979 just before Iran
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became an Islamic Republic he came as a wealthy microbiology student and but
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youth of all he and his family our family lost a lot of their money and wealth anyway it's not about my
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biography but the reason I bring this up is even though Iran wasn't technically a
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colony economically Britain had a real stronghold and if you can notice if
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you've got your if you can see the logo that's on the side of this truck it says
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British Petroleum so BP so BP British Petroleum oil was founded on Iranian oil
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and they called it the anglo-iranian oil company limited because the British
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and by the way for argument's sake I'm always going to refer to Britain Iran
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Jamaica as then because I'm walk three and just for confusion so it doesn't get
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confusing and so the British they own
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51% of this so economically there was there was a level of colonization in my
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view of of an economic stronghold that the UK had over Iran and for those of
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you that don't know this is where Iran is geographically placed it's got many different frontiers turkey Armenia many
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of the stands Iraq we've got the Persian Gulf to the south and you've got the Caspian Sea to the north which is where
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my father lives so we can't talk about race without talking about eugenics and
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and I think you know most will agree
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some disagree that this idea is very outdated and you know going back to what
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I originally said there is really just one race but lots of different ethnicities particularly if you're of
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the school of thought that all of us can trace our ancestry back to an African
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woman but just for you those of you that aren't familiar with the term eugenics you just had eugenics literally means
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good creation the ancient Greek philosopher Plato may have been the first person to promote the idea
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although the term eugenics did come on the scene until didn't come onto the
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scene until British scholar sir Sir Francis Galton coined it in 1883 in his
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book inquiries into human faculty and its development so for those of you who
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don't know this school of thought says that there are five different races so
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we've got African we've got Asian we've got European we've got Native American
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and we've got Oceanian which is safe Fijian New Zealand indigenous and yeah
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it's I think it's incredibly problematic as we know the thinking around eugenics was used
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utilized by Nazi Germany and it's also been used recently
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I say more recently but within you know within the 20th century regarding sterilization as well so what is it so
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you know I'm gonna even though we're talking about blackness and roundness and you know I want to talk about race
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quite broadly so course core cyclists I don't know if many of you know but the
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the concept of courses course occurs being Caucasian originates in the Middle
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East and corsica's are mountains there a mountainous region that actually sprawl
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across a few different countries some say that it borders Europe connects and
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that's actually factually incorrect that's true so it's primarily in Georgia
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and Armenia and a few other countries here the other stance and I think
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perhaps maybe some of Russia
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you I think it's quite curious and I think we all need to do a lot of work to
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really understand the terms the etymology the lexicon in which we use so
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we need to go back into colonization that is you know we need to look at
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colonization by the way I've got half the masters we're going to complete the other half at some point in
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post-colonial culture global policy some obsessed with this an area actually
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there's no real post in colonization there's a different form of colonization now that's a that's a conversation for
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another day but the post in colonization is really just the signifier of
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discourse and also the independence primarily of a lot of many of the
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colonies that happened in the 60s and 70s and former colonies so also one of
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the reasons why we look at colonization is we live in a capitalist society and
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if I'm talking to other societies you know we can definitely agree that capitalism is quite dominant in many in
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many societies capitalism was founded
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you know on the backs of people from the globe himself primarily not exclusively
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but primarily you know capitalism was founded on exploitation it was you know
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the Industrial Revolution created capitalism and war fuelled the Industrial
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Revolution was slavery primarily and it's really important that we make that
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connection between Empire Industrial Revolution and capitalism and capitalism
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obviously has creative consumerism or is consumerism however you want to look at it which in turn has created
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globalization globalization is a product so it's all inextricably linked you know
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it's you know this work is complicated in many ways as Frank pointed out
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earlier it's uncomfortable as well all right so I've got 15 minutes keeping an
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eye on the clock okay so I think this is a wonderful wonderful diagram here which
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I think really sums it up perfectly she put colonisation and you can you can see in order to colonize there needs to
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be this sense of supremacy white supremacy and male supremacy aka
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the patriarchy this is and this was created by a scholar called Rupert Myra
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and she is just fantastic she does a lot of work around trauma and inflammation
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which is another subject entirely but just a touch on it really quickly she talks about how certain diseases are
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huge issues for certain communities and she links back back to trauma which I
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completely agree with but as I say that's about this part that that's for another conversation at a later date all
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right so borders why do we create them and I think there are many different reasons for that I think dispossession
37:42
is a big reason which I'll go through in a few moments
37:47
also we create borders you know you know I think there's a real interaction between culture and politics and how
37:54
does culture respond to politics you know essentially I believe we're all
38:00
political every single one of us whether we are silent in our politics that is
38:06
political in itself so barriers you know
38:11
you know the same borders that we create around our countries are the same
38:16
barriers that we have created when it comes to accessing our industry or
38:22
company as well if you just think about our business as being industry or our
38:29
company being a microcosm the society whatever issues are outside will also be
38:35
the same issues inside and I'm going to actually come back to
38:40
that in a few moments so the presence of the past and the present you know I think it's clear to say that we
38:48
attribute a different type of value to different types of people I think there's a beat there's been a legacy of
38:53
that and I feel that legacy is very
38:58
still it's very much still alive today so going back to why we create borders
39:03
and barriers to access industry supporters around our country and you
39:10
know borders around our companies I think it's this idea of dispossession I
39:15
think that's for those of you that don't know what this possession is dispossession is if I let you in you're
39:22
going to take off but I think it's about us reframing and critiquing what those standards are also another reason why I
39:32
think we create borders around our businesses and around our country for instance is the cause of belonging so if
39:40
we let different types of people in it will compromise our sense of belonging
39:45
within an organization and I think that's where we get terms like culture fits because really what is culture fits
39:53
culture fit really in my opinion is there's an appetite and if you don't fit
39:59
that archetype um you're not gaining access because by you coming in you
40:06
might disrupt this really lovely sense of belonging that we have
40:12
so essentially diversity as a choice and again they're trying to finish up in ten
40:18
minutes say diversity isn't the choice and the fact that your business or businesses are not diverse it's because
40:26
you have actively not pursued diversity and for some of you that might really
40:33
jar you and I know some of you really have tried and also I know that there are always going to be exceptions to the
40:40
rules because there are some industries that are just really um very very particular that require very particular
40:47
skill sets and historically certain demographics
40:52
haven't gone into that fields so there's always going to be exceptions but if you want diversity you have to start looking
40:59
in diverse places and I think we have to become we have to be a lot more creative about how we look for diverse talent
41:07
so can we borrow from different industries for instance you know there are so many skills are transferable and
41:15
also do we have to be so hell-bent on having these really big brands attached
41:20
to people seeing these you know you know I just I just think we have to really do
41:27
a lot of reframing of what brilliance what acceptable what presentable what
41:35
respects of order if I said that one looks like because I think that is you
41:40
know that is bound up in gender it's racialized it's got class bound up in it
41:47
as you all probably know race in the UK is an unprotected characteristic you can
41:53
legally discriminate against someone based on their class in this country and there's nothing at a constitutional
42:01
level that can prevent that from happening and I think that becomes incredibly more complex when we start talking more intersectionally regarding
42:09
you know being a woman that's of color that's black or brown that's also what I
42:14
can class that's also crap and that's also an lgbtq+ all these different
42:20
intersections it gets very very complex and nuanced and we need to create space
42:28
for that type of conversation you know say for instance even terms like BAM I am hell bent against because actually as
42:36
we know the black experience is very different to the Asian experience and
42:43
actually even within the black experience the black British and African experience is different to the black
42:50
British Caribbean experience you know black Africans black British Africans in
42:57
this country are doing much better and if we were to look at the age demographic you know Asian Indians so
43:06
you know British Asians British Asian Indians are doing much better than
43:12
British Bangladeshi so we need to be really really we need to be more nuanced
43:19
I place a creating space for difference what does this look sound and feel like
43:24
Pursuit we just need to completely push away push to one side put it in the bed
43:32
that the idea of a meritocracy is a complete myth you know there are lots of
43:37
different levels so excuse me there are lots of different levels of racism and
43:42
there's a wonderful you know you know wonderful diagram here by the slow
43:48
factory foundation and take some water take a sip so you've got institutional
43:56
which is policies and practices that reinforce racist standards within a workplace and organization you've got
44:02
structural multiple institutional collects multiple institutions collectively upholding racist policies
44:09
and practices such a society interpersonal which is the racist acts
44:15
and microaggressions carried out from one person to another I personally don't think there's any micro in when you
44:22
think of microaggressions because if it hurts someone it's an aggression it's just not an
44:27
aggression that you're overtly aware that you have done so I think that needs to be you know I think the language
44:33
around that needs to change and there's a lot of work we need to do around language and then there's internalize
44:39
which is subtle and overt messages that reinforce negative beliefs and self-hatred in individuals so most of
44:47
the time when we talk about a lack of representation you really put the onus on the person rather than the system I
44:53
think it's really important that we realise that the system has people at a
44:58
disadvantage rather than the person being you know you know being
45:04
accountable for not being an advantaged in that sense so the system has a person
45:12
at the system has a pair and at a disadvantage rather than the person is disadvantaged and I think it's
45:19
really important that we shift the responsibility to the system obviously there's also the personal as well like
45:26
we have to work and we have to put the work in however we need to really look
45:34
at the systemic inequalities and the system that keeps these inequalities as
45:41
they are presently project they say going back to dr. joy degree I mentioned
45:48
her earlier say doctor oh god Sam four minutes I'm gonna do this fast so to Joy degree is the scholar that I
45:56
mentioned at the beginning of this presentation and dr. George Murray does a lot of research around trauma and
46:04
inheritance of trauma and that's how I came to this equation of hers which is just phenomenal in my opinion which is
46:11
most of us on this call are in a position of power if not all of us so
46:17
what dr. joy degree says if you are in a position of power and you have a prejudice whether it be big or small it
46:26
becomes an ism so it becomes racism it becomes sexism it becomes homophobia you
46:33
know it becomes all of that you know and it's about us really acknowledging the
46:40
positions of power that we are in we are so powerful and we are the gatekeepers
46:47
to people's career progression within our organization or we've been just getting them in the door so it's about
46:54
us really doing the work and that's why you know when we're talking about creating a more diverse business it's
47:02
about it has to start with the education and there are some wonderful trainers out there that do wonderful work around
47:08
educating people and and you know senior leadership in particular so this is a
47:16
wonderful diagram of the different stages of white supremacy in regards to
47:23
racism and you know I think for many they have being at BRR you know the minimization
47:30
or even indifferent stage but we're seeing a massive shift with this
47:35
heightened yeah there's a real heightening and energy because of the pandemic people have the space to think
47:42
about other people's realities and it's been very you know we've been communicating with people online
47:48
primarily so it's you know it's been in front of us it's been very front and center most of
47:56
you will know the distinctions between equality and equity but if you don't know equality only works if you're
48:02
thinking about all of us as being the same which is not the case equity is acknowledging that we're not all the
48:09
same and that we need to adapt things you know we need to adapt systems for
48:15
different types of people so it's about being self reflective it's about us doing the work first you know it's about
48:21
us challenging the people in our immediate on our dearest nearest and dearest and you know friendship groups
48:28
our family I love this quote if you want to awaken all of humanity then awaken all of yourself if you want to eliminate
48:34
the suffering in the world then eliminate all that is negative in yourself truly the greatest gift that
48:40
you have to give is that with your own self transformation so it's about listening it's about having a
48:46
willingness to listen and understand so active listening and a willingness to understand it's about speaking to people
48:52
that you've never spoken to you before but not very traumatizing them when you
48:58
ask them to recall their experiences they don't ask someone you know have you ever experienced racism and that's
49:05
probably the worst thing that you could do right now it's about people being willing to give the information up and
49:11
freely but it's not being compassionate and being empathetic and patience it's
49:17
about us really connecting to each other's humanity acknowledging each other as human and it's also about
49:23
acknowledging a wonderful book by Klaudia Rankin who is a Jamaican poet
49:28
it's about us acknowledging if we were just to use London for a moment you know if you're born and raised in London when
49:36
you go to a these is and it could be a historical business
49:42
or just any type of business within the UK it could be the first time ever that
49:47
you felt like a minority and I feel like this quote sums it up I feel most colored when I am thrown against a shock
49:55
wipe wipe background and I think this is so true for gender say for instance I feel most female or as a woman when I'm
50:03
in a room full of men for instance so be courageous make comfort with not being
50:11
rights and make comfort with being uncomfortable and as you know as Frank
50:16
pointed out earlier it's about authorship and actually realizing that we can't be the authoritarian of every
50:22
single person's story as I mentioned earlier there are huge gaps in British history and primarily that's because we
50:29
haven't given others the opportunity to share their truth we've been the
50:35
authoritarian of other people's story you know all our Liberation's are tied
50:41
to each other and I think Tony Porter the educator activist sums it up perfectly my liberation as a man is tied
50:46
to your liberation as a woman it's about we're all connectors you know
50:52
globalization has definitely created that and lastly we must not merely
50:57
change the narratives of our histories but transform our sense of what it means to live wonderful quote once again to be
51:06
human and that is all thank you so much for having me and I am going to stop
51:11
sharing my screen now and you're gonna see my very messy desktop we can't see
51:17
we can't see your desktop your phone that was absolutely brilliant
51:30
you the people have said exactly the same
51:35
yeah saying how amazing it was the talk and I'm gonna take a few questions I
51:40
might be a bit cheeky and run slightly over with you too but as I said at the beginning going to
51:47
keep on the topic that we're talking about but be assured that we're going to copy these questions across and we might
51:52
be will be able to revisit them in the second and the third in this series um so the first thing I wanted to ask and I
51:58
know Frank you did address this in the in the chat is about the language used so some people asking what's the
52:05
alternative to bein they agree about the nuances people asked there was a really
52:10
smart one in the chat about sorry but just find it here about do you think
52:16
that the terms black brown and white feed into a narrative or ideology of hierarchy and if so when did that start
52:22
so any reflections and sarena first on on language yeah I'm just going through
52:28
it and the chat that's my ability to speak yes
52:36
terminology I think there's so much going on I'm just gonna minimize
52:45
terminology I think absolutely so is it in regards to a hierarchy black brown and I think we need to be comfortable
52:56
with saying the word black all saying the word brown you know I'm in my
53:02
mid-thirties my remembrance is growing up and it being very uncomfortable for people to say the word black and I think
53:09
we need to there was a hot there was a period of time which was enforced by our
53:14
government at the time where we were almost told to be colorblind you know we're we're told not to see color and I
53:20
think now we're needing to make somewhat of a shift and actually acknowledge each
53:26
other's differences but not have those but you know to acknowledge difference
53:32
but also to acknowledge our commonalities at the same time it's a massive you know juxtaposition thank you
53:43
got anything to add oh yeah I know you know I'm from the US born in the
53:50
south Mississippi in my lifetime not that old but in my lifetime you know
53:56
I've been referred to as colored Negro black african-american person of color
54:03
and bein and so for me in part is it seemed to change every seven to eight
54:09
years or whatever and I mean to use Serena's work as long as it's descriptive and respectful I don't get
54:18
too caught up in it but the other issue is that a catch-all phrase it does kept
54:23
large the lived experiences of each one so individually I'm fine with black as I
54:30
was with african-american as I was you know wasn't too happy about Negro colors um but um you know I'm okay with
54:38
anything that's respectful and and descriptive but understand that is a catch-all it really dilutes the lived
54:45
experiences of various groups I don't say this might evolve you know language
54:50
changes which I think you know we've been speaking about so it you know in five years time we might have another
54:57
terminology Batman that's just a simple truthful bit so it's just about keeping
55:03
up to date thank you um this is a very big question and it's a bit political so
55:10
if you feel comfortable asking it I think you're outspoken so are publicly listed company inherently racist due to
55:17
legal obligations to enrich shareholders who usually alike at the expense of
55:23
under represented work workers and unequal structural power dynamics so massive question there to repeat that
55:30
sums it minds yeah sure our publicly listed companies inherently racist because their obligation is to enrich
55:36
shareholders who are more likely to be white perhaps at the expense of workers and unequal power dynamics it's a big
55:44
question but they've asked it three times so clearly maybe I'll take first crack is um you know I I don't know if
55:51
company companies are racist they may be I don't know but they are capitalist as you look at you and there is a missing
55:59
piece to the discussion because if you look at the McKenzie report Boston Consulting Group's CIPD
56:06
you know you name the report every report says that if a company can excel
56:13
in gender and ethnic minority diversity from the McKenzie report it is 35
56:19
percent more likely to outperform their peers there is no CEO in any other issue where
56:27
if you took to that CEO and said boss or Dave as they more likely be named but
56:34
say boss if we do this we can output we have a higher percentage chance of
56:40
outperforming our competitors nine out of ten times the CEO will marshal and
56:47
motivate all the resources the organization to that initiative they
56:53
don't do it around race and so the only thing I can say is that CEOs don't want
57:00
to believe data around race I can't tell you why but it's one of the few areas
57:06
where you know they paid Mackenzie millions to say turn left turn right at
57:12
this take that away and they believed in Mackenzie is the gold McKenzie says you
57:18
can outperform few do this they don't believe that data and that's that that's
57:23
the onions the question is why don't in this one case in this one case where
57:29
they can have alpha performance don't they believe the data yeah I think a
57:36
huge amount of this is just down to comfort so you know when you bring people when you know when your senior
57:41
your you know the amount of people that you're engage with is it's quite limited
57:47
you know you've got your board that you engage with and that is a very small
57:52
circle of trust and comfort and I think unless you've got safe we're just gonna
57:58
base it on race unless you've got black and brown people in your in your most intimate circle of trusts so you're you
58:07
know your closest friends your family it's gonna be really difficult for you to feel like you can be comfortable
58:14
with someone that's black or brown if that isn't your reality outside of
58:20
outside of work and I think that has a lot to do with it is people not wanting
58:26
to compromise on comfort so going back to culture fit but also totally agree
58:32
with what Frank has said I think in addition to that I think there obviously will be some people that ultimately
58:40
don't believe that having someone that is different to them in race or color
58:45
ethnicity and can contribute in a meaningful way and somebody's also made
58:53
the point on on the questions to those currently in power inclusion feels like oppression which I guess is kind of
59:01
carrying on point from that um I mean Frank any any comments on addressing that and I think that's something we can
59:07
come to in the later webinars for any I'm sorry question that's like to those
59:15
currently in power inclusion feels like oppression so how can HR and I'll extend that to wider business address it yeah
59:21
don't have a silver bullet for that I think that goes back to Serena's on conversation around dispossession you
59:28
know it's being viewed as a zero-sum game any thoughts on that
59:34
Serena I think also we just need to
59:39
accept the fact that there are going to be some organizations that are inherently racist you know is this is it
59:47
about us making every single business diverse when the people at the top don't
59:52
want it and I say no I thought I've been thinking about this a lot actually you know is it about focusing integration
1:00:00
you know there has to be a willingness to want to do this and if you you're if there is no willingness there's no point
1:00:07
you trying to fill to fill a quota and then people leaving feel like having the
1:00:14
most Awkward experience and actually what I really feel we need to do we need to start measuring companies on how long
1:00:20
the brown employees stain rather then you how many we get through the door thank
1:00:27
you and the specific one bu Serena has he given us such a wonderful history lesson somebody's asked if you're a
1:00:34
senior person in HR and you're beim and you're alone in that position what are
1:00:39
the best sources or routes to do a history lesson at work rather than just doing a standard DNI training yet so
1:00:47
we're obviously because of the pandemic there was so many courses online that for free as we know I made that Yale
1:00:54
were giving quite a few courses out for free around race obviously more than
1:01:00
likely very very us centric I imagine but there's just a lot just you know
1:01:06
I'll happily I can give resources if you want also a great starting point is the
1:01:13
Harvard implicit bias test if you haven't done it I think that's a really really really great starting point but
1:01:19
you know there's bell hooks there's Angela Davis there's a wonderful theorist that you could read in the UK if you want to read
1:01:25
on UK and race Theory so you've got Paul Gilroy he is phenomenal and you've got
1:01:31
Stuart Hall as well who is now passed away thank you yes somebody's asked if we could share
1:01:38
resources as a follow-up so I'm sure we can pull something together people working with you Sarina and Frank how
1:01:44
much do you think HR is the problem in some organizations H I have an interest in maintaining the status quo
1:01:49
instead of disrupting it to address workplace race equality I mean HR is the
1:01:56
gatekeeper to many of these issues and and so as I said in the beginning the HR
1:02:02
profession is overwhelmingly white it does not have the lived experience or
1:02:07
the background which hopefully Sarina has given a whistle top stop touring all
1:02:13
this but you know a little bit of the lexicon it is not it is not equipped to deal with those issues I mean if you're
1:02:20
a global company and you were opening up a new market in Malaysia and you had no
1:02:25
Malaysians in your organization you would go out and hire some relations to
1:02:31
help you understand the customer the interest the distribution system the supply chain you know you
1:02:37
would hire for your organizational blind spot that is what every organization ultimately should be doing is for you
1:02:43
now what are their blind spots and what should we hire and fill in so HR needs
1:02:49
to step up to the plate and understand that in terms of diversity and inclusion as it relates to race which 40% of
1:02:57
London is we have an organizational blind spot so we need to proactively go
1:03:02
look to fill that as you would in your finance function if you didn't have a merger and acquisition specialist you'd
1:03:10
be out there with one of the top headhunters tomorrow hiring a mergers and acquisition specialist the backfill your blind spot in finance so I don't
1:03:17
know why HR is not filling in that organizational blind spot but it's on a
1:03:23
charge doorstep if that blind spot continues in the organization and they
1:03:28
do nothing about it thank you and Serena can I just ask you for some closing thoughts because we have run over okay we should let people really
1:03:38
echo what Frank has just said you know so much of this sits with HR and you
1:03:44
know HR and you know DNI specialists need to kind of work you know hand in
1:03:51
glove with each other and I think it'd be really difficult for an organization to progress if that isn't the case but
1:03:59
also ultimately and you know you can have a DNI specialist and you can have HR that are on board but unless the
1:04:06
people in positions the power going back to the doctor do degrees and you know
1:04:11
equation it's just it's not gonna work the most senior person at the table
1:04:17
because you know you know the CEO or the board they are the embodiment of the organisation they need to be on board
1:04:24
and if they're not then I think any organisation will struggle but thank you
1:04:30
though for having me really enjoyed it thank you so much I'm really sorry that I'm gonna close it there just because we're
1:04:36
running out I'm actually going to quote a comment that's coming in the chat which i think is a brilliant comment which is this has been a fantastic start
1:04:42
to the conversation and I put the emphasis on the word start because obviously this was an hour and we could
1:04:48
have gone on for a lot more and we're going to have two more sessions the second one is looking at
1:04:54
creating Pro inclusive leadership cultures that's on Monday the 29th of June 5 o'clock
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