Personal experience of racism and a reflection from a white male
Rathy Thiruchelvam
Robert Cole
Rathy Thiruchelvam and Robert Cole are members of the Sottish HR Leadership Group’s Diversity and Inclusion Working Party – SAADI. Rathy shared her own experience of racism to around 40 people by video conference. It was a moving testimony for others to hear and the first time that Rathy had talked about these experiences.
Rathy writes:
The death of George Floyd had an undeniable impact on me. I could not believe that one human could take a life with such casualness. How could that be? What was it that gave him the feeling of power to kill whilst knowing people were filming him? I felt immense sadness, anger and disbelief this could happen.
This single event made me stop and start to think about experiences I had as a child, as an adult and now as a mother raising a mixed-race son. I have not talked about race or racism ever to white people. It was my choice because I wanted to fit in and I’d had my fill of being called racist names at school or walking down the street, looking at walls sprayed painted with “NF” or “BNP”, being told “you don’t smell of curry”, “I don’t see your colour”, or in relation to other Asian children “you’re not like them” because I didn’t go to the Mosque but they didn’t know I prayed at home with my parents in a prayer room. I chose to stay silent and safe. But the killing of George Floyd has made me speak up.
I was invited to talk about my lived experience of racism. In all honesty after saying, yes, I wished I’d said no because I felt exposed and vulnerable. But, being able to talk openly without a polite filter to a group of white people who wanted to understand what racism sounded and felt like was for me, a release and a powerful one. The most painful moment was remembering an incident with my 6 year-old son in a takeaway shop. A simple ask from me (which had been made of his colleagues on other days), resulted in being spoken to in a demeaning way, and as we left my son said “he was like that, because we are brown”. I acknowledged that that was likely to be the truth, but we had a choice, to keep that feeling with us and let it bring us down or shake it off. I said we will always choose to shake it off. And this is what, black and brown people do all the time.
In talking about my experience of racism I am very aware of my privilege as a brown person. I do not wake each day thinking about the colour of skin and worrying about my physical safety. When asked about the job I do, people often think I may be a doctor or a lawyer, there’s stereotyping in there but it doesn’t put my life at risk.
The death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Movement is about Black Lives and I stand with them. I am reading and educating myself so I can do better for my Black friends and for Black people.
Robert was moved to write this piece after the meeting. He was the only man on the call. He felt it ironic that conversations about equality and inclusion often take place in groups with a majority of women. Ironic because he feels that the largest group of people whose mindsets need to change, and who can effect change are men, and particularly white middle-aged men – Robert’s demographic. They’re the ones in powerful positions in organisations.
Robert writes:
When people see you, many will see a South Asian woman first, not a mother, a successful business woman, countless other things that define you as a fellow human being. When people see me, my gender probably doesn’t consciously register and my ethnicity almost certainly doesn’t – it’s the default in this country (and particularly still in Scotland).
In my work on inclusion, I talk about the criticality of leaders taking personal leadership of inclusion. They need to “get it”, believe in it and be engaged, passionate and authentic voices of transformation. To do this it has to be personal and they need to experience the pain either themselves or witness its effect on others. I witnessed such a thing watching and listening to you. Who could not be moved by the story of your son recognising racism at the incident in the take-away? For many successful white people in Britain, and particularly white men, they may never have stood out and been in a minority of one.
I’ve felt the feeling of being an outsider. My family left Scotland for England, when I was 11. I joined a secondary school a few months after the start of term – friendships had formed, I arrived a delicate little thing, gay (though I didn’t know it), a Scottish accent and an aversion to football, which seemed to be the only topic of conversation between the boys. I hated that first year, until I grew in confidence. But however miserable I felt, I didn’t look out of place in terms of my appearance: I didn’t look different to the others.
I remember attending a Woman’s Network event when I worked at BT. I was invited as a representative of the BT LGBT staff network. I was one of only a couple of men amongst hundreds of women. One of the other men expressed feelings of discomfort – I was quite happy, but he wasn’t. It was clear he felt like an outsider and this registered with me.
That male colleague’s experience was nothing compared with my dear friend, Fran, a black woman from London living in Edinburgh who feels like she really stands out because of her skin colour. An example of this is when we sang in a community choir of around 250 people. There were some other non-whites but visually from the back of the hall the image was quite striking: Fran’s was the only black or brown face. Fran tells me how she is repeatedly watched and followed in shops. Typical was her experience entering a highly-regarded store in Edinburgh. She noticed the senior shop employee signalling to her junior colleague to watch her. Was this because she’s smart and a potential to spend a lot of money? Oh, no, this was associating a black woman with an increased likelihood of thieving.
Returning to the challenge of leaders needing to “get it”, I’m reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s comment: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”. How do we get leaders outraged? Or at least really recognise the need for change?
When working with board-level directors, I sensed a need for them to experience just what it’s like to be an outsider – not just feeling a bit uncomfortable. When this was the case, they were keen to play active roles as inclusion sponsors in delivering change. One attributed his passion for equality to seeing the impact of gender-based discrimination at work on his wife. Another recognised some of the incorrect assumptions that people make about others through having a minor life-long condition, and a third, a Muslim of South Asian heritage experienced the barriers non-whites can face, and was a force for change in recruitment and career progression.
It’s vital that leaders hear the voices of those challenged by inequality and discrimination, ideally from those in their organisations. They must encourage people to be open in staff surveys, round-tables and other feedback mechanisms by demonstrating they will listen, treat colleague input confidentially, do something with it and communicate what changes they are making.
How do we encourage self-awareness and organisational self-awareness? How many people from the majority population notice if there is only one person of difference amongst them? We need to help our colleagues to look around and get them to ask questions and challenge. Those leadership team photos, the internal newsletter, the prize-winners, those who get the best assignments – what sort of visible diversity (let alone invisible aspects) is there? We need to help open eyes to the visible inequities out there. Revealing unconscious biases is important, but maybe it’s an easier pill to swallow if our colleagues are shown the implicit assumptions we all make, based on our upbringing, culture, media and what we see around us. Then we can show the negative impact that biases and assumptions can have on careers and lives.
Challenging our assumptions is more likely to happen in a culture that encourages us to get to know our colleagues, understand what’s important to them, how they define themselves, filling in blanks we may have in our knowledge and experience. Now has never been a better time to have those conversations, as the virus gives us even more interests in people’s health and welfare. Video calls to others who are working from home is an opportunity to pose questions which go to the heart of inclusion and well-being. Are they being supported and valued? How are they balancing work with the rest of their lives? What do they do outside work that might offer further insight into their potential?
Leaders “getting it” is probably the toughest nut to crack and is critical for success, but it’s not enough. They need to be visible and engaged, role modelling inclusive and authentic behaviour. This needs to be accompanied by clear and unambiguous targets, fair and open recruitment, a rigorously enforced anti-bullying and harassment policy and respectful engagement with the grass-roots of our organisations.
I was moved by what Rathy said at the meeting. When I was recounting the incident of Rathy and her son at the take-away to my husband, my voice cracked and I momentarily could not speak. It’s those personal impacts that will help alert those oblivious to the need for change that action’s needed. Leaders will really “get it” when they have that emotional response. Then they need to act because if they don’t, who will?
Rathy Thiruchelvam
Rathy Thiruchelvam is on a mission to bring quiet strength to leadership. This means acting with heart, with intention and with a deep knowing about who you are. The impact of this is profound to individuals, teams and organisations.
Contact Rathy here.
Robert Cole
Robert Cole is Founder and Director of Forth Perspectives, whose vision is a fairer and more inclusive Scotland. He has a dozen years of experience in working in and in partnership with, organisations to drive inclusion and equality progress.
Contact Robert here.