by Katrina Marshall
#BlackoutTuesday may appear to be an easy way for brands to demonstrate their inclusivity credentials, but true allies need to move beyond performative behaviour and instigate and sustain real change.
You’ll learn:
• How to listen from a position of privilege
• Why it’s time to move away from vanity projects
• The importance of learning about racism and finding the tools for change
Spin doctors; the colouring-in department; comms lovelies… we’ve all endured the derogatory slurs used against the public relations and communications industry. But there’s one I’m OK with and it’s the one I want you to think about today – declared Blackout Tuesday.
Storyteller.
Whether it is a video production, a crisis communications strategy or messaging for a campaign, that is what I am. I tell stories. So today I ask my colleagues in comms, what story are you telling?
More than that: what story will be told about you in years to come about last week, today and the months to come? When the fires burn out. When a verdict is rendered. When your Twitter feed goes back to predictable hashtags and pictures of puppies?
I am, of course, referring to the international outrage over the murder of George Floyd – a Black American man – at the hands of four white police officers: two of whom had a history of misconduct. One of whom kept his knee on the neck of an unconscious black man for a lethal 8 minutes and 46 seconds - 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time the man was unresponsive and bleeding from the mouth.
Here in the UK, the racism is a lot more subtle. It’s kinda like the rain: fine and almost indecipherable but over time, consistently applied, will soak you to the bone.
I want the story you tell, to be of alertness and compassion. I want the story that is told of you as a comms manager, IC manager or HR manager to be one of listening from a position of privilege.
Of acts of solidarity that go beyond the performative. To be one of recognizing the collective anger, exhaustion and generational trauma that is affecting countless members of your team and their wider communities especially today but for decades before this.
I also want you to dispense with the notion that the riots and rage spilling out into the streets from the capital to the bible belt of America is something that is happening to “those people” “over there”. By now the reaction is global.
To carry on as if it is nothing to do with you, your team or your community is to perpetuate the already problematic view that the PR industry is little more than an echo chamber for people who all look the same, with similar backgrounds.
It perpetuates the view that efforts at diversity and inclusion are little more than vanity projects designed to score CPD points and appease murmuring middle-class guilt. These issues are demonstrated differently in Britain, but they are as pervasive as they have always been.
Not so fast
So, if you’re sitting back in the midst of this crisis silently congratulating yourself for keeping the team ticking over with Google hangouts & Zoom calls during the COVID-19 lockdown. If you’ve sent out the well-meaning “It’s OK not to be OK” all staff email. If you’ve fiddled with deliverables and deadlines to give leeway to people juggling childcare, pet care, single parenting, caregiving and self-isolation. If you’ve cross checked the “mental health awareness in the workplace” guidelines and everyone “seems” to be doing OK.
If you’ve done all those things and not thought to at least open the door for a discussion on the repercussions of the George Floyd murder, I’d say ease off on patting yourself on the back just yet.
Because the raging fires of violent unrest we are watching from Amsterdam to Washington and here in London, are only a physical manifestation of a collective rage people of colour have been feeling for generations.
Time to be the change
But maybe as a manager you’re not switched on to notice that. And that’s OK. But now is your chance to flip that switch. Watching men who could be your brother or first cousin be brutally murdered for simply existing is draining.
Knowing that these men and women are profiled and killed because the social contract we’ve made as humans with each other has been broken by white people plants a poisonous seed in one’s psyche.
Knowing that even if you’re in a position of authority with the resources to make tangible differences, you will be dismissed as “the angry black woman”. Knowing that being part of the change you want to see doesn’t necessarily mean you are empowered to affect that change because in being “the first” there is still only you.
Imagine walking with the weight of those dilemmas every day and then being fed platitudes like “what does race have to do with it?” So, my fellow storyteller, in truth, checking in on how the events of the past week have affected your colleagues is the bare minimum of what you should be doing.
The reception
Here’s the thing, though: not everyone is going to respond quickly, easily or favourably. Some will be the only minorities on the team and will simply not wish to be that vulnerable with people who do not share their cultural grief. Others will appreciate the gesture but say nothing. Waiting to see if it is more tokenism at work or the signalling of true seed change.
The reality is, we’ve been here before with lip service showing up where we believed tangible action would be. We’ve been trotted out as firsts and onlys while being utterly ignored at decision-making time. We’ve been turned into yet another infuriating British acronym (BAME) which I have pointedly refused to use here.
Because this is just another box to keep minorities in to make others feel comfortable about their place in society. Simply put: no matter how much you claim to empathise, your gesture to check in with your team is not about you. No one owes you a cookie cutter response. The best you can hope for is the knowledge that somehow down the line you contributed to tangible change. Do not be too quick to affix the term ally to your Twitter bio unless you’ve spent more time listening than you have talking.
If, heaven forbid, you are not at all bothered about how three months of COVID-19 and a week of murder by policeman in American could rattle even the calmest team member from a minority background, then at least give them the berth to be unsettled, to miss deadlines, to be a little snippy, to be vacant, to be checked out… because what you are witnessing is grief. If it was a pet or a blood relative, I’d like to think you’d give them at least that space.
I cannot tell you how to execute this action. Others are far better at providing those tools. But I can tell you your action needs to be part of the story you tell. It does those without a platform a disservice to think we who have one, can only speak up, act up, level up or boss up when we have all the answers, all the research, all the knowledge and the capacity and energy.
Activism is thirsty work. And if you’re open to learning as you go, no one will crucify you for trying to do the best you can with the tools you are given.
Thank you to the colleagues and allies at #FuturePRoof for sharing this platform and being part of the change.
Katrina Marshall has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism and communications and is a seasoned Barbadian journalist who cut her teeth in radio and television before moving onto corporate communications and feature writing.
She demonstrates solid experience in producing content for all media for international news organizations including the BBC World Service and the UK Guardian. As a corporate communications and public relations professional her hallmarks are discretion, attention to detail and fastidious dedication to preparation and research.
Most recently her career has seen her focus on writing long form features and op eds focusing on social justice and diversity and inclusion in the UK, where she has made her home.
Her current pursuits see her move seamlessly between the UK’s communications and public relations industry and strict journalism and feature writing.
Katrina is most comfortable both in front of and behind the microphone but can often be found whipping up a sumptuous curry for friends, where the rum and laughter flow freely.
Twitter: @kat_isha
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/katrina-marshall-5ba61b6a