#1435

And the perennial favourite: mocking someone’s name for being “made up” abd/or refusing to learn how one’s name is pronounced. (Which is, sadly, something I hear a lot from Black Americans about Asian names.)

3 Likes
#1436

Went to uni in Liverpool and nearly all of the street names in the city centre are related to trading and/or traders. Absolutely impossible to redo without tearing the entire geography of the city up.

1 Like
#1437

These topics do come up pretty regularly in our workplace due to the tenants and other parties we deal with on a daily basis. (Work in housing for a local authority.) Very lucky that we have a young team who are all very receptive to these ideas and have no tolerance for racism.

However, in terms of the organisation I’m quite embarrassed. As far as I’m aware we only have a few people who aren’t Irish working for us, and only three or four people who aren’t white. This is in an organisation of over 2,000 people. That’s going to have to change but I haven’t seen anything from the top brass that suggests they know or care.

I can’t imagine the stress you must be under recalling all those incidents btw, and volunteering to talk about them at work. I hope the occasion doesn’t put you under too much pressure, I’m sure people will understand more afterwards though.

7 Likes
#1438

Thanks i’ve always instantly repressed and tried to forget about every instance, so it feels quite emotional.

If i feel i can’t talk about all of it, im considering sending it in an email the day before.

2 Likes
#1439

Just overheard 3 guys chatting about George Floyd being a martyr and they don’t like that he pulled a gun on a pregnant woman and was high on coke.

Called it out and got a bit of pushback about more white people being killed in police custody, not understanding why Little Britain was awful and it’s wrong that protesters are being violent.

I mean, I tried guys, I really did, but fucking hell.

In terms of overall business level, there’s a BAME group on Yammer and statements from leaders of the business around it, and that is about it.

1 Like
#1440

Same with us. Chief Exec put out a wishy-washy statement and there’s a Yammer group. There’s, to my knowledge, one black member on the exec board and that’s about it.

They do actively promote participation in Pride events, I’d like to think they’ll eventually do the same at any BLM event and take a more active part in things like Black History Month.

#1441

The group is incredibly informative and full of good reading, but I can’t help but think that for a company with 70000 employees, a Yammer group and some statements isn’t much cop really

#1442

I work for an engineering firm who employee 10,000 people in the UK and something like 35,000 worldwide. We’ve had one email and one news item/statement on the intranet, which was the contents of the email repeated.
It seemed to be saying the right things in terms of tackling discrimination, working to increase BAME numbers in the engineering sector, supporting STEM in underprivileged and BAME communities, setting up a BAME employee network. That was last week, hasn’t been anything else since.

#1443

Absolutely. We have 35000 employees and although there is a clear commitment towards equality and diversity as well as tangible progress, particularly within the LGBTQ space, it’d be nice to see a bit more leadership from the head of the company.

The Yammer group is one of the few that I actively read and excellent, employee engagement in the subject is high - I guess time will tell if any of it filters upwards. I hope so.

#1444

Very little. There was one post our work Slack from someone saying how upset they were, and a long, very well thought-out message from one of the few BAME people at our company sharing their own experiences and encouraging us to donate to some good causes. They were all well received, but there’s been nothing more than that and nothing at all from management.

#1445

Watch now and leave the whatabouts for later

#1446
  • Been more transparency about the recruitment system for undergraduates (which shows black students receive an offer about half as much as white students) and discussions about how we can tackle this
  • As a student body, we’re aiming to extend our outreach to schools across London, in underprivileged areas, with the idea that showing that this is a sustainable and worthwhile thing to do (in our own time, and for free). The aim is to ensure this gets dedicated funding in the future and the involvement of senior figures too.
  • Connecting the above to the parents of schoolkids: why are STEM subjects rewarding, how they are inclusive. Massive challenge for an old white boys club like physics that also has no obvious end goal/employment (like, say medicine or engineering)
  • Lobbying to have regular seminars/journal clubs on equality and inclusion (like e.g. the ones at harvard)

Small steps but feels quite positive. I’m worried that a lot of the more senior staff will do the smallest amount they possibly can/pure tokenism, based on the way some of them went “Well, I’m a white, middle aged man, so: …” (i.e. not in an ‘I actively want to be an ally’ manner).

On a personal level I’ve received messages from people from school with pretty sincere apologies about their behaviour which is something I never expected to happen. Resonate with this:

and

a lot. Good luck, if you choose to go ahead with it. I hope people understand.

1 Like
#1447

nothing that I’m aware of
would like to bring it up somehow but don’t really know where to start, or who I’d trust to raise it with. it’s a massive company & is extremely white

#1448

Chips away at the soul doesn’t it, but well done for calling it out.

5 Likes
#1449

I think a compromise can be reached. Leave the statues but make sure the plinths are correctly labelled. So keep Churchill, but inscribe ‘racist and colonialist’ underneath.

1 Like
#1450
5 Likes
#1451

Schrodinger’s Twat

5 Likes
#1452

CW: possible suicide but…

https://mobile.twitter.com/zoe_alliyah/status/1271464208773808128

ffs

#1453

just joined and don’t know the culture yet and obviously only have emails to go off, but we’ve had two emails about it:

  • one from the CEO which was brilliant and included links to donate
  • one from the middle-aged head of customer services, clearly trying to be inclusive and say the right thing, managed to end the email with ‘All Lives Matter’. A retraction followed the next day and she was mortified, thought she was being supportive.
2 Likes
#1454

Just back from London March. I understand it was a smaller number than last week but still a very good turn out. No trouble that I’m aware of or far right representation (other than the police, lol). Official line is for people to avoid central London tomorrow and do block parties in other neighbourhoods.

1 Like