I’ve been often asked why does Rockstone Consultancy as an EDI specialist only focus on RACE and not on any of the other protected characteristics? This, of course, is a very fair question.
My decision happens to stem from the experience of having covered the whole smorgasbord of protected characteristics. I have found repeatedly that when I’ve returned to do a 6-monthly debriefing with the organisation on say something like (OD) Inclusive Hiring, the metrics dial have significantly moved with respect to disability and LGBTQI+, for example, but hardly, if at all, with respect to ethnic minorities. Race gets lost in the mix. It seems as though for many organisations race is the most troubling and difficult conversation to have.
Now that I’m focussing on race, I can see the metrics dial shifting. But it doesn’t stop there! I have also found that by reverberation it bounces and shifts the metrics for the other characteristics too. It then seems to me that race is often (not invariably) the lowest common denominator of the protected characteristics (not to mention the issue of anti-black racism – but that’s for another day). And, no, I’m not setting up a hierarchy of sufferers! All, I’m saying is that maybe, based on the contextual evidence, if you start to address the subtleties of racial discrimination (especially systemically), then you’ll start to put right the other types of discrimination. Like a rising tide, you’ll begin to lift everybody else in the organisation.
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#race#raceequality#racetoresilience#racematters#hiring#hiringtalent#hiring#hiringmanagers#edi#dei#deib#deitraining#deistrategy