My BLM wake-up call

Inspired by recent events and the moving accounts of two sporting role-models, I have, today, personally, committed myself to mentoring 12 current undergraduate law students from the black/mixed heritage community in the 2020-21 academic year. Please read on to find out why and how you can apply.

I have just woken up. And in more than one sense. 

It’s 1.15am in the early hours of 9 July. I’ve just worked another home-based 12-hour day. It’s the 16th week since we went into lockdown and I really should turn over and go back to sleep. But I can’t. I’ve got a full day of online Law School meetings later today, an article to write, the deadline for which is fast-approaching, and I’m getting to the age when I really shouldn’t be doing an ‘all-nighter’. But my head is buzzing with a million thoughts. Then I notice that I’m on the edge tears. Not tears of physical pain or mental anguish, but the ones many of us occasionally spill when we are noticeably moved by something we see or hear.

I turn to my left and notice that my wife, who is one of the army of selfless keyworkers, isn’t lying next to me. Turns out she’s downstairs snoozing through the end of a film she tried to snatch before bedtime: 90 minutes of conscious escape before the unconscious escape. But, like me, she’s too tired to last the pace this evening.

So what has disturbed me? As I regain my senses, I make out the unmistakable tones of ‘Whispering Death’. No, not the Grim Reaper, but the beautiful purred inflections of former West Indian fast bowler-turned-commentator, Michael Holding. Turns out I dropped off with the TV on as well.

As I come to, I realise that what I’m hearing is a repeat of something I heard yesterday. My guilty lockdown secret is that I occasionally fill the void left by absent work colleagues with the sound of the TV in my makeshift home office. Yesterday marked the long-awaited return of test cricket: England were taking on the West Indies, and I wasn’t going to miss it.

I’d fallen asleep during the highlights of the first day’s play, although, predictably, there wasn’t much cricket on show as most of the day was a washout. But it wasn’t the cricket that was doing the talking. It was a 66-year old former fast bowler and his fellow commentator, Ebony Rainford-Brent. If you’ve never taken the time to listen to someone who has experienced racism, or if you missed what woke me up, please take a few moments to hear their accounts, courtesy of Sky Sports.

As I sit up in bed, I recall the many discussions I’ve had with students, friends and colleagues since George Floyd’s name joined those of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks as a focal point for the struggle of the black community. And I ask myself: “Jonny, what have YOU done? What are YOU doing?”

This is a conversation I’ve been having with myself more and more since the horrific events in Minneapolis on 25 May. I think back to my own upbringing and reflect on the dodgy sitcoms our parents’ generation revered, like ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ and ’Mind your Language’. I ponder why I found them amusing as a child and why I have become ashamed of them as an adult.

I reflect on the childhood antisemitism I experienced. Why were so many of my peers brought up thinking that it was amusing to joke about gas chambers, wondering what would happen if I ate a bacon sandwich and why it was ‘fun’ to ask me why I didn’t live in Israel “…because that’s where you’re from isn’t it?”.  

But my infrequent brushes with racism pale into insignificance when compared to those of the many talented black students I teach. But at least my experience of antisemitism provides me with a window of empathy.

I’ve never been repeatedly stopped and searched or handcuffed while my young child remains in my car. And I can’t fully comprehend the injustice and hurt of the Windrush generation. I won’t ever truly understand the pain because I haven’t personally experienced it. But I can and I do hear the depressing number of similar accounts and hope to learn from them. 

We, the passive majority need to ask ourselves whether simply knowing what racism looks like and occasionally calling it out is really ‘enough’ anymore? Inaction perpetuates current norms, so for me, it ceases to be an ‘option’. Not that it ever was.

It’s now an hour since I awoke to the dulcet tones of ‘Whispering Death’. My wife has now crawled into bed to snatch a few hours’ sleep before she goes out to bat another challenging innings: trying to achieve the impossible of maintaining social distancing with four and five years olds in a primary school. As occupation of the bed is passed like a baton in some peculiar nocturnal relay, I get a wave of optimism: the road to equality doesn’t have to be as challenging as social distancing in a reception class, does it?

I grab my laptop and sneak downstairs. Even the four 16-23 years old night-owls we share our house with are getting ready to turn in. It must be really late. What on earth am I doing?

So, it’s just me and my lap top at ‘silly o’clock’. I start by watching Michael and Ebony again and I search for the public reaction. They’ve rightly made the papers and there’s a You Tube video with over 30,000 hits already. My sense of optimism grows.

I make myself a brew and then Google some of the firms I used to work for and some of their competitors. Why? It has always troubled me that I didn’t work with many black lawyers during almost 20 years in legal practice, from trainee to partner. Things will have changed, I think, but by how much? And then my pessimism returns. Two of those firms still, in 2020, have no black partners. Are they really still recruiting in their own image? I think I must be missing something. But I’m not. I look again. Maybe there are a few senior associates on the brink of partnership? Alas, no. Not even close.

I reflect on this staggering revelation. I know that many, many law firms and chambers have radically reformed their recruitment strategy so their new trainee and pupil cohorts are more diverse than ever. But, sadly, it’s not universal.

I then ask myself the awkward question as to whether I would have been the best candidate for all the roles I filled whilst in practice. Do I owe any of my successes to ‘white privilege’? Were there better candidates out there, who, through unconscious bias or perhaps the overt discrimination of the recruiter were rejected because their face didn't ‘fit’? I’ll never know and perhaps, from a selfish perspective, that’s a good thing.

So, what am I going to do about it? I think of the fabulous work that my employer, BPP University Law School, does through its Inclusion team and the relationships we have built with leading D & I players in the legal profession, such as Aspiring Solicitors and InterLaw Diversity Forum. I’m proud to have played a role in developing those relationships which have directly and indirectly supported an enormous number of students from traditionally under-represented groups. I also recall all the work we’ve done on scholarships which means that more students than ever from the BAME community are receiving recognition and financial support from BPP as they embark on their legal journey.

But, from the websites I’ve just searched, I don’t feel that I, personally, can rest easy on these achievements alone. There is still so much I, as an individual, can do.

So, here’s the plan: in my own time, I will commit to mentoring 12 black/mixed heritage law students in 2020-21.

Who is eligible to be mentored?

1.     You are a black or black/mixed heritage undergraduate law student (as at 9 July 2020) in your first, second or penultimate year of your law degree.

2.     You aspire to qualifying as a solicitor or barrister in England & Wales.

3.     You must never have been previously mentored by a lawyer.

How do you apply?

1.     Update your LinkedIn profile.

2.     Connect with me on LinkedIn.

3.     Record a video of 3-5 minutes telling me your story. Who are you? Who or what has inspired you to become a lawyer? What are you looking to achieve from a mentor?

4.     Record that video and then upload it to a private YouTube channel by 23:59 on 31 July 2020 and then private message me on LinkedIn with the YouTube link.

5.     The first 100 applicants will be considered, with outcomes being notified by 31 August 2020.

My sleepless night has been an ‘awakening’. Thank you Michael Holding and Ebony Rainford-Brent. You are both inspirations.

Now it’s my turn. Hopefully. I’ve been pale, male and stale for far too long. Bring on the mentees!