Race at Work

At the start of Black History Month in October, it was incredible to welcome Joseph Aninakwa an EDI consultant practitioner to the Can Recruitment Crack Inequality series with my co-host Jo Major (She/her) . Joseph joined Gattaca Solutions just over a year ago and has helped me bring Gattaca’s ED&I strategy and program to life. We kicked off our journey by hosting our first webinar Introduction to Inclusion. Over 400 people dialed in and it’s the most attended webinar the organisation has ever held!

Joseph Aninakwa

Joseph describes himself as a passionate change-maker who impacts influences and inspires organisations to make change. He holds the difficult conversations within organisations or raises those that are missing. In some workplaces the race conversation is avoided, it’s not even on the agenda.

What is Race at Work?

Joseph explained race at work as being able to identify that people are different to you whether Black, Asian, Indian, or people of colour. It’s important to understand everyone’s differences and cultures so that they are able they bring their authentic self to work. Some things will inevitably be left at home, but other things we want people to understand and know such as our languages or the food we eat. Due to race or ethnicity, we want people to embrace us. Failure to see and recognise makes unconscious bias difficult to address. If we don’t talk about it, we can’t solve it and collectively challenge a system to try and break it down.

Race in Recruitment

During our discussion, Jo Major voiced that in recent years, it’s become very common for clients to come to her only wanting certain groups of people from certain races and ethnicities.

This is the ‘identity shopping list’.

It’s now creating positive discrimination, almost like applying a bounty to a candidate's head because of their identity, in this case, because of their race and ethnicity.

Recruiters by nature, are people pleasers and do not always push back on those conversations. Ask the client what they are doing about their anti-racism work.

·?????? Will my candidate have access to equal opportunities?

·?????? Can you assure me they won’t face microaggressions and discrimination?

·?????? What can you do to reassure me and give me confidence in placing great talent in an organisation that has created an environment for everyone to grow, develop and evolve?

Joseph added to this being treated differently when it came to recruitment. People see his last name and because they can’t pronounce it, they can’t be bothered to say it and therefore avoid anyone like him or who has a name like him.

Systemic racism

The discussion moved on to systemic racism which Joseph described as being consistently treated as less than others, being pulled down, and being seen in a negatively different way. It’s a way of thinking where perceptions are perpetuated. It’s walking up to a building on your phone and people believing you’re the security guard because you’re in a suit. Systemic racism pulls people of colour down and means they are not on the same playing field; they are put far behind.

If someone gets my name wrong, I can’t scream and shout. I break it down phonetically. When it’s the 10th or 20th time getting my name wrong without acknowledging it, then there’s an issue. Joseph Aninakwa

Education

The recruitment industry often says there are no barriers to entry, anyone can be a recruiter. In essence, it’s true; you can be successful without a specific qualification, but we lack so much representation and as an industry, we’re unwilling to acknowledge why. Jo contributed that she has conversations with majority white recruitment companies and their blanket statement is “black people don’t apply for jobs with us”. They never ask why.

There is resistance to exploring and exposing ourselves in an industry where we’re supposed to represent everybody. There is a lack of acknowledgement and a huge education piece missing. As soon as you start working with people like Joseph, read books, and listen to podcasts, you start to understand the reason why organisations lack representation. Unless you do it, you haven’t got the open mind to work on your own business.

When someone of colour looks for a place of work, they look at the website:

• Is it a mixed environment?
• Do I want to be the only person who now must educate you about people of black or colour?
• Why would I want to put myself in an environment where I’m double pressurised? I already encounter pressure points before even arriving at work.

Until we go on a journey of education, we can’t acknowledge how complicit we are in a systemically racist world. You will find things out about yourself on that journey that isn’t always comfortable.

There is a denial of lived experience. If it does not happen to them, people aren’t willing to accept it. Unless we get educated and recognise the part we are playing in that system, there is no acknowledgement.

Lived experience.

Jo relayed that some of her learning came through a friend of colour telling a story of his daily commute via train. Her friend put his card on a barrier, and it opened, a white woman went through before him, but he was the one that got stopped.

It was automatically assumed she had the right ticket, and he had the wrong ticket. Jo’s friend knew what was playing out and became conscious of his body language and behaviour and had to modify this to work around it in the quickest way possible. The potential for him to be perceived as threatening was at the forefront of his mind. Jo confessed that because of her privilege, an experience like that did not enter her daily life.

Joseph added another example of his lived experience. He is an avid cyclist and was in Richmond Park one day. In the café area on the right, was a group of white people, male and female. On the left was a large group of mixed people. Joseph and his smaller group of black males were behind in the centre. A police buggy went through those other two groups of people and asked Joseph’s group to disperse as this was in Covid times.

The other groups were much larger. No one said, “That’s not fair, why are you picking on them?” Racism is not doing anything when you see something happen. An ally would challenge the police and ask why they haven’t approached their group too.

Double consciousness

The term double consciousness was coined by WEB DuBois and describes when a black person is more conscious of white people than themselves. Joseph revealed that when he leaves the house, he is on alert all the time. He is conscious when out running and approaching a white woman that he is black so will say ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’ quite quickly. He knows this woman will likely hold her handbag a bit tighter because the media has perpetuated that a young black man or anyone of colour is most likely going to take your bag.

Being more aware of white people than themselves is usual for black people and this is double consciousness.

These kinds of scenarios happen daily. A white person can walk out of their home knowing they are not going to get picked up, racially profiled, or pulled over. There is no assumption for them that there is something sinister in their presence.

White fragility and acknowledging privilege.

Our discussion then turned to privilege. White fragility is the defensiveness on the part of a white person when confronted with information about racial inequality or injustice. We need to overcome our sensitivity and fragility around exploring these topics. Jo added to the conversation that raising white privilege in her training sessions is like dropping a grenade. It often generates an astonishing reaction. Jo herself said she has only learned in the last 4 years how her skin colour has played out in her career trajectory and how it’s given her access to resources and created easier opportunities in comparison to somebody of colour.

Ignorance is bliss but it doesn’t address what needs to be addressed which is race at work and how we create equitable and inclusive environments for everyone.

“We need to treat people fairly based on the situation, and how they operate whether they have a disability, their sexuality, race or gender” Joseph Aninakwa

Psychological safety

Alongside education, creating psychological safety is the key to inclusion in the workplace. If you want representation within your organisation, what are you doing at the foundational level so that when people come in, they feel comfortable? Psychological safety is when employees can be their true authentic selves. When it comes to organisations, asking for surveys to be completed without an environment of psychological safety means it’s simply not going to happen.

A psychologically safe place is assuring people that if they come to managers with a problem, they’re going to do something. Equip managers with the training and tools so they can call out behaviours that aren’t acceptable in the workplace. Management training is so critical. Joseph relayed experiencing good management in the past with a leader who saw him and his colour. He was able to build a trusting relationship with him that yielded exceptional performance and sales. Under performing can be a lack of trust and psychological safety. You need to build that relationship and maintain relationships.

• What can we do to get ourselves off the first rung?
• We’re scared, we don’t want to get it ‘wrong’.

What does it mean to be anti-racist and have an anti-racist policy or business?

For Joseph, it’s about the senior leaders and the people in the organisation. To penetrate your mind, it needs to penetrate your heart. You must be intentional.

There are not enough good examples of anti-racist policies. An equal opportunity policy becomes a blanket term for every single identity marker. There is not enough thought behind individual policies that permit and promote specific groups. A policy should demonstrate what an organisation is doing to protect people within the business and document what that looks like in expected behaviour. The education and training come before the policy.

“We are not racist “ but, are you anti-racist? Are you an anti-racist organisation?

Banter in the Workplace

Joseph has delivered this training and uses the AID model to help break down the conversations. It stands for Action, Impact, Do. Here is how AID can be understood:

·?????? Action: a car drove down the road over someone’s foot.

·?????? Impact: that person's foot is now broken, and they can’t walk.

·?????? Do: the person in the future could drive more carefully, use mirrors, and maybe take an advanced lesson.

During these sessions, people have voiced they have been on the receiving end of banter in the workplace, not necessarily racially motivated, but intense banter that went on, and on. The power in the training is when colleagues recognise that they saw that happen; they were a part of that and didn’t call it out. Listening to the individual's experience was very powerful.

“We need to call it out and call it in”

Racial Justice Training

Joseph has also delivered a training session called Racial Justice. In this, he deals with the discomfort that comes up because people have never had to speak about race before. He described it as trying to run 5K when you’ve only ever run half a mile. It’s so uncomfortable sometimes that you quit but we need to push past the barrier to hit the 5K mark. Go over the speed humps, the roughest part is the uncomfortable, and the smoothest part is when you understand and acknowledge.

“I’ve got a black friend”, is the default position. Yes, you have, but do you understand their challenges as a person of colour?

Our conversation demonstrated how much work businesses must do to change hiring attitudes; identity shopping must stop. The commitment needs to now be on education and training. People are not commodities, we must understand the lived experience of somebody who faces, systemic racism on a daily and at times minute-to-minute basis.

Without the listening and education piece, we need to press pause on a lot of hiring strategies.

Further Education

?? Watch Jane Elliott - Brown Eyes Blue Eyes .

?? WEB Dubois - Double Unconsciousness

?? Robin D’Angelo - White Fragility: Why It's So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism

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