Disrupting A Status-Quo That Is Plagued By Racial Inequality

"Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it." - Malcolm X

During a time when conventional and social media are filled with harrowing stories of racism - ranging from public harassment to police killings – it is easy to understand how some could lose faith in the concept of equal citizenship. Civil rights movements around the world have fought to ensure that all members of society have equal recognition of their rights before the Law. Despite historic injustices and lingering social / cultural attitudes, we live in hope that social structures will not discriminate based on skin colour.

It is right for us to expect that we should all enjoy the same level of legal protection or that we deserve to be treated with the same level of dignity irrespective of our socio-cultural differences. There are moments when we realise that our ability to achieve any semblance of upward social mobility (level of education, level of income or any other marker) does not protect us from witnessing another racially motivated incident and thinking “that could have been me”. Something is wrong when the public bodies that are meant to protect us are the ones causing us harm. Something is wrong when those with whom we live and work feel that it is acceptable to weaponize their race against us.

Our condolences are shared with those who have experienced loss and are hurting at this time. For many of us, the current media furore is far too familiar. Strong media attention on racial equality and social justice immediately following the event. Interest wanes. Media attention is directed elsewhere. No change. What is most frustrating is that commentators will focus so much time trying to litigate the sequence of specific events - seeking to establish what a camera does and does not capture in a specific instance. In reality, we should be asking what can be done to rebuild faith in the promise of equal citizenship and ultimately in each other?

Theoretically, we should be able to use the law as a tool to root out discrimination in our society. Over time, those who engage in discriminatory behaviour recognise that they will be punished if the behaviour continues. Many interpersonal interactions that inform our perception of equal treatment are not easily enforced by law. For example, the Equality Act 2010 states that discrimination in recruitment and selection of employees is illegal. This act is well intentioned, but how easy is this to enforce effectively. Douglas Johnson, from the Law Centres Network, suggests that “there are precious few firms of solicitors in the country that will go anywhere near a discrimination case. That is why the Act is not being enforced. It is simply not cost effective for most firms of solicitors to take that risk from a business sense.”

For any individual seeking to use the legal system as a means of seeking fair treatment, they may find that legal proceedings can be time consuming and difficult to navigate without professional support. Moreover, our behaviour is informed by socio-cultural norms as well as by law. What do you do when a firm solely uses recruitment agencies that have limited diversity within their talent pool; targeting a specific “type”? How do you combat the long-held idea that companies should recruit “what clients are looking for,” which coincidentally happens to be a very specific profile of person? How do you overcome the challenge that even with a diverse candidate pool, the selected candidate may be the one who has cultural traits that closely conform to those with which the recruiter can identify?

Ultimately, many of the challenges that we face today will not be solved simply by focusing on laws. In 2017, the Resolution Foundation revealed a ￡3.2 billion ethnicity pay gap in the United Kingdom. In 2018, surveyed BAME professionals were 25% more likely to feel overlooked during recruitment and promotion opportunities compared to their white counterparts (according to the Guardian/ICM Survey). Tackling these problems requires us to engage with the idea that society is predicated on relationships between its members; we need to work on them if we are going to see a change.

Within multicultural societies, a distinction is often made between “Salad Bowls” and “Melting Pots”. A Salad Bowl refers to societies where different cultures are brought together but do not form together into a single homogeneous culture; each culture keeps its own distinct qualities. A Melting Pot refers to the inverse where cultures are brought together and do form a single homogeneous culture; each culture does not retain its own distinct qualities. It is not always clear that either is a superior approach to building a fairer and more harmonious society. Historical injustices have stubbornly plagued systems of education, housing and criminal justice that have maintained racial wealth gaps around the world.

Beyond a society’s decision to endorse a single homogeneous culture, are the decisions that it makes to address historical injustices and adjust social attitudes that contribute to the systematic entrenchment of racial inequalities. This is further exemplified by disproportionately high exclusion rate of black pupils (where previous DfES reports have shown that they were three times more likely to be excluded than their white peers). Recently, concerns have been raised that COVID-19 hospital deaths among the general population in England were greater in BAME groups compared to White British groups. Whilst the exact reasons for this increased risk in BAME populations are still not known, factors may include:

• The overrepresentation of BAME populations in lower socio-economic groups.
• The disproportionate BAME employment in lower band key worker roles who either work in high exposure care environments or are unable to implement safe social distancing due to their roles.

In 1965, the United States dropped Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation - but in 2020 how much work have we done to bring together communities that may not have understood each other then? Many will remember slogans such as “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish” that had been common up until the 1960s - but in 2020 how much work have we done to bring together communities that may not have understood each other then? Arguably, we have been living in an age of winners and losers, where the odds of who is likely to win has not changed much over the last few decades. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality dent the hopes of people from racial minorities who feel that the table is still stacked against them. The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fuelled protest and extreme polarization and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens--leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time.

Achieving equal citizenship will be hard. If we are to make inroads, we must be more comfortable talking about race and willing to challenge the biases that we harbour about each other. We must embrace a “cultural curiosity” – a hunger to understand each other more in our workplaces and in other shared spaces. Education has never been more important; we need to think about the way we teach history and the importance of sharing awareness of a broader range of cultural stories.   

The next time that we are outraged by another racial incident, will be a reminder that we still have work to do – learning more about each other and increasing our ability to trust each other. Whilst it is very easy to fall into a blame game, it will always be more constructive to come together to advance joint solutions. It is not always the case that we need to place sole emphasis on finding all-conquering “grand solution”, small steps can work well if they are moving in the right direction.

Organisations like YDWC are at the forefront of positively transforming society; operating as a peer-to-peer resource for members and a valued strategic partner to organisations who are committed to building inclusive workplaces. If you are thinking about what part you can play, be sure to get in touch.

#BlackLivesMatter #GoFarTogether