Art of letting go; an ode to the Black & Brown in the White workplace

“Can I touch your hair?”

“What music do you like? Hip-Hop I bet!”

“Chris is the mixed-race guy over there. He’s one of your guys.”

“I just loved her chocolate skin. She was so… chocolatey”

“Black people should get over slavery now it’s been a long time.”

“When I come back from holiday I want to be as black as you.”

“There were loads of Rastafarians, I thought you would have been there?”

Note to all, referring to black people as “chocolate” is highly problematic. Also, I am not even a Rastafarian nor am I mixed race and to be honest I actually do like Hip-Hop most days — but not just because I’m black. Yes, these are indeed just some of the wild remarks I have been accustomed to, either being on the receiving end of or over-hearing whilst at work. Albeit paraphrased, verbal encounters such as these are actually quite a regular occurrence for some like myself in a majorly white workspace. However, in this circumstance majority does not make the situation acceptable for those who are black, brown or white in fact.

Let us dissect. Corporate, office and even retail spaces statistically are overwhelmingly white from the top down. In a recent report by The Independent “fewer than one in 10 management jobs in the UK are currently held by members of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups.” A study, conducted by the Chartered Management Institute in collaboration with the British Academy of Management, demonstrates “that only 6 per cent of management jobs are held by ethnic minorities.” But how many of “us” even are there?

Well, finding out ethnicity breakdowns surprisingly, became a tad complicated at the time of writing due to a lack of credible and recent sources. Call it the ‘census effect’ which of course works only on a 10 year basis. Funnily enough, at one point I even found myself stumbling onto the website of the Central Intelligence Agency over in the US — yes that’s the CIA. In an effort not to have my laptop seized and add further insult to injury, I did however come across the following statistics for the United Kingdom as of 2011:

White 87.2%

Black/African/Caribbean/Black British 3%

Asian/Asian British: Indian 2.3%,

Asian/Asian British: Pakistani 1.9%,

Mixed 2%

Other 3.7%

Albeit “other” holding murky remnants, these findings would suggest that as of 2017 everyone non-white approximately gather to hold at least 13% of the British population. Interesting fact, last year the population of the UK was 65.6 million — its largest ever; possibly not the sort of information you would want to share with a nearby Brexit-propaganda-vote-casting-connoisseur. With this in mind the predicted amount of ethnic minorities is expected to rise to 21% by 2051. Regardless, with lower birth rates and higher life expectancy — mostly down to the old folks — the UK population is considerably changing shape. According to the Office for National Statistics “a larger population can increase the size and productive capacity of the workforce.” So shouldn’t this suggest that the workplace too should be an evolving force, that readjusts to the influx of black and brown members of the population? Well, unfortunately I think we all know the answer to that question… Analysis even shows that the labour market would be boosted by a massive £24 billion if black and minority ethnic people progressed in work at the same rate as their white counterparts . Disgustingly enough, research into the UK’s biggest public firms show that just 15 companies could demonstrate “consistent good practice in showing their company’s commitment” to ensuring ample representation of minority ethnic groups. The Chartered Management Institute study looked into the top 100 companies most actively traded on the stock exchange to find, that just 15 of them could demonstrate “consistent good practice in showing their company’s commitment” to ensuring representation of minority ethnic groups. Half of those companies showed further “inconsistent and superficial approaches.” The largest study to date to look into race inequality at work back in 2015 found some astonishing revelations. According to Race At Work, which liaised with 24,457 people in employment across the UK, colleagues are less comfortable talking about race than they are age and gender; 37% think colleagues are comfortable talking about race, compared with 44% comfortable talking about age and 42% gender. Out of all those who work within the financial and legal sector taking part in the study, only 39% felt at least one senior manager actively promotes equality, fairness and diversity. Participants even expressed that ambition is particularly high for employees from a Black background (72%), more so than Asian (63%) and mixed race (61%) groups. The review also found 15.3% of non-white workers would aspire to work more hours compared to 11.5% of white workers. Clearly, the addition of melanin also multiplies the figures of the British economy bank book as the findings suggested, the GDP could increase by up to 1.3% a year if workers from minority backgrounds progressed at the same rate as their colleagues.

However, two years on from this investigation the Equality, Diversity and Racism in the Workplace: A Qualitative Analysis of the 2015 Race at Work Survey, delved deeper into these statistics. Alarmingly, 30% of the 24,457 originally surveyed reported they had either witnessed or experienced racism from managers, colleagues, customers or suppliers. Also, 17% of those from an ethnic minority background revealed they had witnessed racism and 16% stating they had personally been on the receiving end of it at work.

Sometimes random statistics such as these portray an arbitrary perception of “truth”; on the other hand perhaps this qualitative research exemplifies hard-hitting information, demonstrating an uneasy revelation of what it is really like to be a person of colour in a majorly white workplace.

To challenge this as part of the recent episode with Who Got The Juice? podcast, we set out to discover said topic as well find out real stories — from normal everyday people. We grew more shocked at the horrific tales of what can be described as marginalized individuals by the very working environments they dedicate large portions of their lives to support. With responses kept anonymous — for obvious reasons — here are some experiences that may provide this study with well deserved validity:

“ A new person joined the office (white girl) and had the exact same job role and title as me. I found out that despite working there for only 2 months, she was getting paid 2 grand more than me. I trained her in her in the role. I asked for a raise and was denied and [was] told my work place didn’t have money.”

“ As I book the appointments, doctors are introduced to our office all the time. A plastic Surgeon who happened to be from South Asia was introduced to the office and once she left the office three white women immediately got up from their desks and looked at each other and started giggling and one said ‘God, she doesn’t look like a doctor’ to which another one responded ‘no, she looks like she should be in the kitchen making samosas…she is cute though.”

“So at a workplace being the only black person people will adopt ‘urban’ vocabulary when talking to me which are clearly not part of their everyday vocabulary. For example, white middle aged men are saying ‘let me see wagwarn’ etc, baring in mind I don’t talk like this in the work setting. Its condescending…”

“I was proceeding to enter the gents toilets when a few colleagues (some of colour) were [walking] out temporarily obstructing my way. I smiled and they smiled back joking “you’re not allowed in there!” I laughed. At this point however, the white colleague (who is also a senior manager) commented without a moments hesitation [saying] “yeah, it’s a whites only toilet””

Britain has let go of the standards needed to assure those of colour receive equal security, respect, rights and value as their white colleagues. Frankly, these few experiences from the listeners of Who Got The Juice? podcast echo the prior wider study. But these tales do not stop there, arguably they are a clear reflection of the black and brown British working experience on a larger scale. So how do we go about creating some sort of change when 58% of the main boards of Britain’s biggest companies have no black and brown presence at all?

Perhaps, the answer is inclusion at the top level? Those from an ethnic minority background are part of disproportionate amount of the workforce, making up only 1 in 8 of all employees in the UK. With only 1 in 16 of FTSE 100 board members either black or brown and only 1 in 15 in a management position elsewhere, it doesn’t take a genius to notice changes need to be made. Disgracefully, 58% of the main boards of Britain’s biggest companies have no ethnic minority presence at all. Surely, once a company begins to see diversified change at its most senior levels the ‘woke sauce’ will trickle down to the rest of them right? Recent examples of how this may work have been seen by the likes of Joyce Adeluwoye-Adams the Diversity Lead for Television (BBC), Tunde Ogungbesan Head of Diversity, Inclusion and Succession (BBC) and Edward Enninful OBE the new editor of British Vogue. The latter of which quickly chose Naomi Campbell and Steve McQueen as contributing editors. According to the HR Director “…telecoms, health and banking and finance are attracting and promoting ethnic minority talent in increasing numbers, with telecoms showing a 20.1 percent increase in minority leaders at Top 100 level due to 52 new hires at BT and Vodafone.”

Arguably, another option for a seat at the table is to simply create your own table beholding a safe space through entrepreneurship. For example, no longer are black businesses hard to locate with various forums such as UK BOB, which acts as a one-stop directory and networking events. Furthermore, having the pleasure of staying indoors glued to your iPhone may grant you with easier enlightenment with a simple search of #UKBlackOwnedBusinesses or #UKBlackOwned in your Twitter & Instagram searches. Ignoring the pun, but business is booming for entrepreneurs across the UK and both the Black British Business Awards and Eastern Eye Asian Business Awards aim to celebrate this. Besides, some of the richest and most influential members of British society are of asian descent, all of whom took the plunge into owning their own enterprise.

I don’t have the answers to all of these inequalities, and apparently at the present neither does the British workforce. Whatever the right resolve, the obvious and alarming cause for change has to be the many too-common experiences of black and brown colleagues. We must begin with ourselves taking efforts to educate our ignorant work “pals” or re-think our own flippant acts of inconsiderate racial prejudice. What makes us truly equal as human beings and the glue of which is meant to hold our beloved multi-cultural Britain together, is respect. So either do everyone a favour mate and show some or with bated breath, class, enlightenment and patience, give them a reason to respect you.

Rakeem Omar