by Julian Obubo
Diversity and inclusion may be a hot topic but there has been little change in terms of workplace culture. It’s time to face the fact that a lack of diversity is a direct result of racism.
You’ll learn:
• Racism is systemic in the world and workplace
• Addressing racism requires leaders to listen, be uncomfortable and vulnerable and to challenge clients and colleagues
• Recognising our complicity in maintaining the status quo is the fastest way to effect change
The summer of 2020 will hopefully be remembered as a turning point in the global conversation about racism. It saddens me that it took the murder of George Floyd to get us here, but I’m cautiously optimistic that we are truly at an inflection point.
Anti-racism books are flying off the shelves on both sides of the Atlantic, statues are being pulled off plinths and millions of people have participated in Black Lives Matter marches around the world...many still are.
This necessary reckoning has also been happening in the professional world. Corporations are having long overdue assessments of their own company culture and many are finding that they have created a workplace that is at best unwelcoming and at worst, actively hostile to people of colour (POC).
In the world of PR and comms, the CIPR published its ‘Race in PR’ report this June. This found that diversity in the industry is in decline, despite the popularity of the term. Many BAME professionals report a lack of equal opportunities and fair treatment, as well as microaggressions and unconscious biases.
Reading the report, I tried to square two conflicting notions. How can diversity in the PR industry be in decline when it seems to be a so called ‘hot topic’ in the industry? How does an industry remain 92% white in 2020 when so many initiatives, panels, forums and pledges have been made by agencies and leaders over the last few years?
Clearly a lot of talk has been going on, but the report makes it evident that not a lot of action has been taken. It took the re-ignition of the Black Lives Matter movement to answer these questions for me. Not much was changing because we have tried to tackle diversity as though the need for it isn’t a direct result of racism.
Racism is what others do
Tackling diversity without addressing racism is like mopping and drying a floor without fixing the source of the leak.
For too long, racism has been viewed as such a heavy and serious word that should not be brought into the workplace. Racism was what white nationalists and neo-Nazis did, racism just didn’t happen in the urbane quarters of the PR world.
We viewed the lack of diversity in the industry largely as a short-term problem that could be fixed with a few novel HR initiatives and a lot of goodwill. We attempted to decouple the dearth of non-white faces in our industry from this nation’s history of official and unofficial racism and discrimination.
Our prevailing approach relied on the “pipeline myth” that there simply aren’t that many Black people entering the industry and therefore the 92% figure was just a fact of life.
Not many wanted to ask the question “why aren’t there many Black people choosing to make a career in comms”, because asking that would have peeled off the thin veneer of progress and revealed the many barriers and obstacles faced by people of colour in our industry.
It’s bigger than us
The lack of diversity in PR and other industries is a manifestation of a myriad of systemic issues that cannot be fixed in isolation, or by the private sector alone.
We cannot fix the lack of diversity without a broad understanding of the insidious racism that usually comes out as “I’m not sure they will be the right fit” when interviewing a potential candidate.
We cannot make progress on the 92% figure if the only way an agency socialises is with pints at the pub, excluding Muslims who don’t drink for religious reasons. We will continue to be stuck in this sorry situation if we don’t acknowledge the origin of stereotypes like the “angry black woman” and how it can be reproduced and reinforced in the workplace.
And we will never make meaningful progress if we continue to ignore the fact that a society that proudly celebrates slave owners who owned the forebears of fellow citizens might not be as welcoming as we’d like to think.
Fixing diversity in PR means fixing the stories we tell ourselves of how modern Britain came to be. It means reckoning with the fact that restricting the freedoms, opportunities and security of immigrants will have long term consequences in social mobility and a sense of belonging.
Fixing diversity in PR means actually listening to employees of colour when they point to instances of racism they have faced, or when they identify a cultural blind spot in the creative work being produced. It means willing to be uncomfortable and vulnerable, it means challenging clients and colleagues and sometimes it will require resigning accounts or initiating disciplinary action.
Fixing diversity will require sacrifice. It will demand a mindset and behaviour shift that goes well beyond the office. Fixing diversity is not a workplace problem, it’s a society problem that workplaces can and should have a role in fixing, but it cannot be left to them alone.
In fixing diversity, the work will never feel like it’s done. It will be a constant struggle. For me, meaningful progress will be made when POC staff can honestly say they believe their white colleagues will stand up to racism outside the workplace and within their own family or friendship circles.
Change happens when diversity and anti-racism is valued outside as well as inside the workplace. Change happens when we acknowledge our complicity in maintaining the status quo by not speaking up against or challenging institutions that are resistant to change.
Change happens when we stop thinking about diversity and inclusion as a human resources issue, but as a human relations issue.
Julian Obubo is Brand Strategy Director at Manifest, a brand communications agency with offices in London, Manchester, Stockholm and New York where he also heads up the diversity and inclusion programme.
He hosts Manifest’s industry podcast Fresh Meet. Julian was included in the 2017 cohort of PR Week’s 30 Under 30.
Twitter: @JulianObubo
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/julian-obubo-9a71a03/
Instagram: @JulianObubo