Turning Anger Into Action: What 2020 Demands

2020? Eight months of pain, anguish and loss. You may assume that I am describing the pandemic. But I am not. It’s the constant and blatant injustice against Black and African American people in the very country that proudly promises constitutional rights for all.

I look at this situation, as an outsider, but also as a brown-skinned woman, and I am enraged. Pure, white-hot fury, if you pardon the pun.

I am not just angry about the police tactics and the unacceptable methods deployed to deal with peaceful protestors who stand up to this injustice. I am not only furious about Jacob Blake who was shot in the back 7 times – just one more black man, afforded no compassion or chance. No, what I am most taken aback by is the inequality that over many, many decades has become embedded into layers upon layers of thoughts, words, actions and deeds in the US, keeping down one race while favoring another. This systemic racism fills me with dread and grief. 

A System of Discrimination

A few weeks ago, I visited Robert Moses State Park on Long Island. Only after spending the day there, however, did I come to understand the racist planning policies Moses deployed in designing many of the beaches in New York. For example, bridges were intentionally built over approaches that were too low for buses, meaning poorer minorities who did not own cars and who relied upon buses were not able to gain access. Robert Moses may have achieved significant things for New York, but at what cost?

Across the states, it is well-documented that federal and local officials created discriminatory policies to reinforce racial segregation by rating different neighborhoods and “redlining” areas mostly occupied by minority communities as “risky” or “hazardous.” That meant it was impossible for these communities to receive lending and mortgages, which fueled the poverty cycle. Also damaging is how these “redlined” neighborhoods were planned with fewer parks and less tree coverage, meaning these areas are, today, on average, 5 degrees hotter in the summer due to more paved concrete that absorbs and radiates heat. 

I am going to stop here, but could provide another dozen examples where a system has been put in place to encourage continued separation, detriment and disservice – a never-ending cycle of disadvantages with no end in sight.

What Can We Do Together?

If you close your eyes for just one minute, imagine this burden sitting on your shoulders every day. This weight is what our African American and Black colleagues are carrying with them daily - this acutely unfair and unjust system designed to exclude.  This first week of September, may I ask you all to put yourselves in the shoes of your dark-skinned colleagues and feel what it could be like to walk in their paths, knowing the legacy put in place to firmly keep “a knee on the neck.” 

But rage at inequity is not enough. Now is the time to move beyond words and awareness, and to start initiating real change. One first step is ensuring representation across all business lines and functions. Recently, in a decision-making body of the CIB Americas Executive Committee, we broke protocol and added two new diverse members, in order to have a wider scope of thought and experience. This was important and created a much more balanced discussion. I urge our leaders to do the same. It is something you can start to do right now.

Differing perspectives and experiences are essential to ensuring that organizational change is targeted and meaningful, but the work can’t stop there. Adding diversity into our various Executive Committees must not be a tokenistic band-aid. We need to listen to our colleagues, empathize with their challenges, and act on their contributions. Otherwise, we are merely salving our consciences, not demonstrating our will to change.

Our HR Labor Maps, which we introduced at the end of 2019, are another example of an action we have taken. These maps illustrate, with clarity, the gender and racial/ethnicity levels by business line and function.  They provide the starting point in order to diversify the demographic make-up of our organization. Managers will be held accountable and KPIs have been applied. The effort needs to be constant – it takes energy and passion to change.

Moving Forward

I implore our business leaders to educate themselves and to be keenly aware to promote true inclusion. Time and again, my team and I, see acts of exclusion, non-intentional bias and a lack of thinking about the impact of words and actions. Once pointed out, there are the ‘aha’ moments, but for every one leader that boldly steps forward on such calls of courage and empathy, there are others who stay firmly planted in their position. I don’t believe this is borne of prejudice. Whether through fear or simply because prejudice has never touched them personally, otherwise well-meaning people can be blind to the damage they do, or the damage they let be done on their watch. It is the duty of every people manager in our firm to take some of this burden on their own shoulders and help to improve the odds for our colleagues and employees. I know it is not easy. Recently, I asked my own management team to review the diversity of hires we have made in HR over the last year and while some efforts are clear, certainly, we have to do better.

I encourage you to ask yourselves certain questions. Am I encouraging diversity when making hiring and promotion decisions? Am I challenging my line managers to do the same? Why might an African American team member be withdrawn or quiet at this time? Do I give my reports who may think and articulate differently than I do the benefit of the doubt? What committees am I on at the bank – is there diversity of person and thought?

Diversity is a wide umbrella and includes everybody in the organization. At BNP Paribas, we value and appreciate differences among people. We must do better, so that persons of all backgrounds may achieve their full potential, not restrained by identities such as sex, race, nationality or sexual orientation. As I look toward Hispanic Heritage month, I also would like us all to consider how we can leverage our combined strength to increase representation within this community as well.

As the Chief Human Resources Officer for CIB Americas, I ask you to start this month with empathy and insight, to ask those difficult questions and, at minimum, let the anger you may be feeling at what is happening outside in society today, transform itself to positive action inside our firm for the future.