What is most important when it comes to tying race equity to institutional mission?

Original Q&A feature with Mandeep Rupra : https://www.acevo.org.uk/2024/12/race-equity-series-session-four-mission-driven-race-equity/

For me, there are 3 key components. Firstly, every organisation will be dealing with systemic oppression so we cannot start from a position where we say racism doesn’t exist in an organisation. There must be a recognition and acceptance of the realities of structural inequalities and the dynamics of racism at a societal, systemic, cultural and individual level by all, particularly leaders.

Some of the biggest barriers I’ve experienced to any race equity work is resistance, denial and tokenistic gestures. For instance, there have been times when I’ve heard leaders say ‘that doesn’t happen here,’ or ‘it’s only a few colleagues who feel this way,’ often referring to data on the experiences of Black and brown colleagues. Comments such as this not only deny the realities of racism but deny the marginalisation of Black and brown colleagues and cause harm. By educating colleagues on this, one of the hopes is that colleagues will understand and accept that no one and nowhere is immune to the impact of racism and that everyone holds a place in a racist system even if we don’t realise it, e.g. we will either have power and privilege from it or we will experience harm and barriers throughout our lives.

The second area for me has always been about ensuring any race equity work is tied to what an organisation says about themselves i.e. their purpose and what type of employer they want to be. For instance, we know many organisations will say that they value diversity and inclusion – but what does that really mean? Does it mean an organisation wants diverse ethnic representation at all levels and that colleagues of colour thrive and progress in the workplace? If so then an organisation must focus on race equity as a fundamental of all their people and culture work.

At Citizens Advice colleagues often hear me say that our equity work is part of the nucleus of the organisation and that anti-racism is an integral part of that. For instance, Citizens Advice speaks up for people each and every day and we exist to shape a society where people face far fewer problems with the advice we give. Marginalised communities are far more likely to be in poverty and experience systemic disadvantage, all of which leads people to seek our support. Therefore, it’s not possible to think about our work without thinking about how we ensure our services and work improves the experiences of systemic disadvantage faced by communities of colour, whether that’s through how Black and brown clients experience our services or our policy work. You only have to look at the data on poverty, no recourse to public funds, housing, benefits, and discrimination, to understand why we can’t be who we say we are as Citizens Advice and not work to address the systemic racism.??

Lastly, by building race equity literacy and tying the work to the organisation’s mission this will enable you to position your equity work as integral to the organisation’s success. This work requires collective responsibility and accountability. This one of the most important elements of making race equity work mission led – everyone has to understand their role in this. Ultimately the work should not be bound up with one person’s leadership or one department’s work. The aim is to make the work sustainable.