My blog

Tag: Diversity

  • Dana James-Edwards on what Obama can tell us about diversity and inclusion

    Dana James-Edwards on what Obama can tell us about diversity and inclusion

    When I was growing up, I heard the words, “You can be whatever and whoever you want to be” all the time. But a part of me never truly believed it until the moment Barack Obama won the US election. Here was someone who while highly educated, was not from a particularly wealthy background and had the same colour skin as me, holding the highest office in the United States of America. Some might even say the most powerful position in the world. I was elated. However, my feelings of achievement and pride were coloured by some of the media and social media coverage and commentary at the time. 

    I watched aghast as he was called a Nazi, a monkey, and depicted as an African witch doctor complete with grass skirt. I remember deactivating my Facebook account to take some time off social media in the wake of his election, because every time I logged in I would see something about the desperate need to pray for America in the hands of Obama and how the country was going to be ruined under his leadership. I got angry at those making the comments and false assertions, but will admit that a part of me was also cross with Obama himself.

    “Why isn’t he fighting back?”, I thought. “He has all of this power and all of this reach and access to resources. Why isn’t he using it to quash all these aspersions!”, I grumbled to anyone who would listen. I watched the mudslinging happen again and again across his first term, and a myriad of indignities and injustices unleashed not just against him but against his entire family, and it made me more and more enraged. 

    Then, during his re-election campaign I remember Michelle Obama saying, “When they go low, we go high”. And I heard her. Because she was right. Going low is easy. It’s what you do when you feel pain and rage and want revenge. Looking back, every time I wished the Obamas would go low, I was coming from a place of fury. I wanted the people taking away my sense of pride and spreading misinformation couched as fact, to be punished. I wasn’t thinking about what the effects of the Obamas unleashing that anger would be in the future and what message it would send. I just wanted someone to pay in that moment, and no good action starts in that space. 

    The Obamas, I think, knew that while a temporary release of anger in public might feel good in the moment it would overall do more harm than good. They had to think longer-term. In addition, they had the eyes of the world on them. Some, just waiting for a misstep that they could spin and amplify. They also had a generation looking toward them as role-models, just as I was. By taking the high road they maintained their dignity while in office and protected their legacy in a way that still enables them to be seen as exemplars today.Had they gone low it would have just been more fuel to the fire, and they would have played into the trope of the ‘angry black man’ and ‘angry black woman’ that still exists and continues to surface negatively today.

    What is important to note is that Michelle Obama never said that taking the high road is easy, and exempts you from the pain and anger that arises when others are hurtful. But she did say that you feel the pain and hurt, and rise above it, which I think is something that we can all continue to learn from. 

  • Chloe Ward: the publishing sector is now the preserve of a ‘privileged few’

    Chloe Ward: the publishing sector is now the preserve of a ‘privileged few’

    Chloe Ward

    The publishing industry is crucial to society. It gives us new perspectives, encouraging much-needed understanding of the world around us. The content being published has the power to change perspectives and narratives in real life. However, what the industry publishes is a reflection on who is purchasing that content. 

    Currently, the core audience for publishers in the UK is white and middle-class. The whole industry is essentially set up to cater to this one particular audience.

    Being mixed-raced means subjects or content in contemporary publishing that relate to my own lived experience feel few and far between.   

    I have always loved books and stories, finding it easy to be whisked away by dragons or follow heroes into battle. However, it has always felt to me like someone else’s adventure, someone else’s journey. To this day the content I consume, though wonderful, has very little to do with me or the cultures I am familiar with.

    When I started studying publishing at university, it was originally because I wanted to be the one to discover stories like those I’d loved before first-hand. However, throughout my studies, it became clear that this lack of diversity in both industry staffing and output was an issue – and not just my issue, but an issue for publishing as a whole. How much of an audience is this current industry reaching? I knew I wanted to make a change for others like me. 

    When I handed in my dissertation and final major project back in May 2020, despite the global pandemic raging on, I entered the real world with a sense of naivete about how easy finding a job would be.

    At any given time, it is difficult to get a toe in the door of the publishing industry due to its competitiveness. One role at a Big Five publisher can have over 1,000 applicants. But what made it worse was that during the uncertainty of the pandemic no one was hiring.

    I became frantic, spending hours writing and re-writing my CV. Cover letter after cover letter. Adhering to the advice of tutors to just keep on trying… and trying. Tailoring everything for each new role. Endless optimism…only to find hundreds of job rejections in my email.

    It is evident that publishing companies have put some useful initiatives in place for potential graduates, however if the industry wants to transform and diversify, it needs to make far greater and more fundamental changes. Putting more support in place for potential graduate employees is a must. Having a BAME internship available is all well and good, but when only 13%[1]of the workforce identifies as minority ethnic, this leaves a lot to be desired. The goal should be recruiting in a balanced way from all backgrounds, reflecting the demographics of real-life, to prevent gatekeeping of our published output becoming the preserve of a privileged few.

    More needs to be done by the industry once the pandemic is over to ensure that minority groups have a chance to gain employment and in turn make the change needed for a more diverse workforce. It is our job as the young voice driving the next generation to find these solutions and drive for them to be implemented; I have so many ideas and such a thirst to get going – what a difference we can make for our future. I’m excited to see the view from the other side.

    The writer is a graduate, seeking her first job in publishing

    [1]https://www.publishers.org.uk/publications/diversity-survey-of-the-publishing-workforce-2019/#:~:text=13.0%25%20of%20respondents%20identified%20as,yet%20reached%20the%2015%25%20target.

  • New recruitment platform places diversity at the forefront

    A conversation with ‘Diversifying’ CEO Cynthia Davis about equality, what’s being done, and looking to the future.

    Diversifying is a recruitment platform which places diversity at the forefront of their model. They work with some of the biggest brands including Sky, Aldi, eBay, Metro Bank, and even the Royal Household.

    CEO Cynthia Davis has worked in recruitment for 22 years. She has seen the way that diversity is handled in the jobs market and is unimpressed. She founded Diversifying as a way to go beyond the “tick-box” or tokenistic approach to diversity she has seen over the years, towards a more genuine, holistic approach.

    “When I started my career, diversity and inclusion weren’t really talked about at all, so I wasn’t seeing people like me from an ethnic minority background,” Davis says. “There weren’t women of colour who I could relate to working in the environments that I was working in, and it was really hard being in the minority.”

    Davis describes being passed over for a promotion, then being required to train the less-qualified person who got the job, while she was never considered for the role due to her race and gender. She also mentions the toxic environment in her workplace which she had to face.

    “There was a lot of banter which could be deemed to be inappropriate – racist jokes, misogynist comments, and micro-aggressions as well which I was subjected to,” Davis explains. “And all those things led me to think ‘there’s got to be a better way of working’.”

    Since then, she has strived to create a means to find employers who are committed to workplace equality and diversity. In the past, companies released blanket PR statements against racism, sexism, and homophobia while the internal workings of the company did not reflect those statements. Now, Davis sees how people are no longer satisfied with hollow messaging, instead looking for evidence of real change.

    “Especially in light of the Black Lives Matter movement, people have been calling for change. They’ve realised that we can’t keep going in this vicious circle where there’s so much inequality,” Davis continues. “Some of these are deep-rooted systemic barriers which we need to start dismantling to allow this talent to come through.”

    Davis created Diversifying to bridge the gap between diversity-focused employers and people searching for a workplace with equal-opportunity practices, providing evidence of the way a company is run, what support they offer, and their hiring practices.

    “I wanted to move beyond that outward statement of ‘we’re an equal-opportunity organisation’ to really showcase what’s going on behind the scenes, to see that change, and measure that to hold people to account.”

    Many people feel the need to hide parts of themselves in the application process, be it their names, backgrounds, sexual orientations, or other parts of their identities. Davis realised that the companies which were making real strides towards equality and inclusion didn’t have a platform to find people from these different backgrounds.

    “If you’re going to recruit from us, you know that you’ll be getting people from all walks of life, from all different backgrounds, and we’ll never hide that,” Davis explains. “It’s about flipping the process on its head to say ‘right, for those companies that are genuine, here’s a platform where you can reach people where you know who they are, their names, where they went to school, and you’re hiring that person because they’re the best for the job’.”

    In order to ensure that the companies advertising positions on Diversifying are genuinely committed to the mission, each company must create a profile describing what diversity means to them as an organisation. This also involves showcasing things like employee resource groups, flexible working hours and childcare for parents, mental health and wellbeing policies, and other real changes the company has made towards equality. By making diversity the main focus of the platform, candidates are able to see immediately if a job is doing enough to support them.

    “There are no recruiters on the platform, it’s direct communication between candidates and employers, giving them that access to liaise together,” Davis says. “The first thing that anybody sees when they land on a company is the essential information about culture, benefits, and that’s at the forefront before anybody is applying for a job.”

    With low retention rates and a finite amount of talent in the jobs market, employers must consider things like diversity and inclusion if they want to attract new employees. In this new work environment which can be seen following the pandemic, people are no longer tolerating sub-par practices in the workplace. Davis believes that Diversifying can help facilitate this change.

    “People have found their voice. They’ve learned how to stand up for themselves, and people are demanding action and holding leaders to account,” Davis says. “For me, that’s the beauty of the mission and purpose of what we’re trying to achieve.”