I’ve been thinking about something recently and wondering about sharing it. You know I don’t like talking about work online but I’ll share something with you lot anonymously. So I work within a leadership team of five. All white. I’m the only woman. We meet up regularly to...

Strategise & whatnot. Anyway, about a year ago, I added diversity to the agenda. The others are nice enough but I’d noticed them consistently choosing white candidates over others for promotion. I said I wanted to discuss diversity within our promotion strategies. I was met with

Blank faces. It had obviously never been something that had ever crossed their mind. I said I thought it was important to foster a working atmosphere that encouraged people different from ourselves to progress. They said yeah sure we agree and it was kinda skimmed over. Not in a

Rude way or anything, I just think they didn’t have anything to say.
Fast forward to the next meeting. I said I wanted to discuss diversity again.

Again?But we discussed it last meeting?

Yeah but I really don’t think any progres resulted from that. I want it on the agenda again

So I bring it up again. More firmly this time.

This meeting went VERY differently. My expectation would be I’d get the three more liberal ones on board and the older one not so much. PHEW I was wrong!!!

The ultimate outcome was the older one and the eldest of the liberals...

Kinda agreed with me (although I more got the impression they didn’t understand what the issue was but were happy to support) and the younger ones started getting pretty frosty as I explained further.

I asked what we were actively doing to foster career progession of ethnic...

Minorities.

‘We OfFeR eVeRyOnE tHe sAmE oPpOrTuNiTiEs’

That’s not what I asked. Think about every candidate you’ve put forward for promotion in the last 12 months. What do they all have in common? (I’m sure you can guess)

And you don’t think we have anyone else suitable for promotion?

‘Who else is there?’

I straight away recommend the obvious best candidate who isn’t a white man.

‘Oh. I hadn’t thought about them’

So I’m spelling out the obvious reasons why this candidate is perfect for promotion FAR above the previous candidates.

I then get accused of calling the other leaders racists and this was where it started getting frosty.

I haven’t called anyone racists here?

I’ve merely asked what are we ACTIVELY DOING to foster promotion of a diverse team so we don’t end up with our team LOOKING LIKE US FOREVER JFC

Honestly. Two of them in particular are NOT GETTING IT

‘Bianca I can’t believe you can call us racists’ Oh my GOD.

‘Do I think you’re racists? No. Do I think you’re exhibiting unconscious bias as a result of your skin colour? ABSOLUTELY. And it’s important to be aware of that so you can recognise it & do better’.

ANYWAY, I’m not gonna get into the ins and outs but basically these two really fought back against my initial efforts and one of them ended up leaving shortly afterwards and was replaced by....... YOU GUESSED IT

And the other one was off for a bit. He returned recently. And something happened which although is MINOR AF, has really made me feel good. So we were in the office talking about #BLM & he was telling me he had done some reading whilst he was off. Oh god, he’s gone full UKIP, I..

Thought. He said quite a lot of his Facebook friends had started sharing a lot of #AllLivesMatter stuff with him & I said, oh yeah?

Yeah! He said. ‘And I explained to them exactly why #BLM is such an important movement and #AllLivesMatter is steeped in hate’

He basically went

Into a massive monologue and is suddenly super passionate about making positive systemic changes.

I was SO TAKEN ABACK. I flashed back to a year or two ago when I first raised this stuff with him and how defensive he was and looking at him today how much he had educated himself

For the better and I just so rarely see any movement on this kinda thing and when I do, it’s did the worse. This was such a welcome surprise and it really gave me a lift and I thought I’d share it with you to remind you some people strive to be better. Be one

For*

Oh wait I forgot to tell you the bit where after the monologue he told me he, after explaining why all lives matter is actually rooted in hate. DELETED ANY FRIENDS THAT DOUBLED DOWN. I was mad impressed when he said he was cutting out that kinda hateful rhetoric.