A number of you have given me feedback on my recent post about my broadcast interview on BBC Radio London. The interview was on the sad and damning report of the institutional racism and misogyny reported of the London Fire Brigade. (Click the link for a snippet)
One feedback was about professions that major in heroism and saviourism, such as the Armed Forces, the London Fire Brigade, the Metropolitan Police, HM Prison and Probation Service. It occurred to me that these workers operate at high levels of adrenalin, especially in the heat of the moment. Then once their adrenaline rush has passed, their need for venting is palpably overwhelming and because we don’t live in a culture of naturally free venting of highly volatile situations, their emotions become cold, silent and even substituted. Yet, because we’re all human, they still have to vent, or they bottle it up and if too long, they go insane or in worst-case scenarios die.
When they do vent amongst each other it is often unfiltered, indiscriminate and spontaneous. AND, in that very moment, they reveal who they really are – through their pranks, jokes, politics and foolery. (Again, there’s nothing implicitly wrong with banter, per se.) Indeed, the essence of their core values is exposed, no holds barred. And who knows where the racism and misogyny comes from?
Yet, my question about this phenomenon is not to the workers, even though they’re guilty as charged. My question is to the LEADERS. Why do these vile acts of abuse go unnoticed or unheeded by you, the leadership? WHY?
Let me hold up the mirror! Let me hold up the mirror to the leadership of these institutions.
What is the composition of the leadership of these Rescue and Protection Services? Where have they had their (identity) formations? Where are their presuppositions, assumptions, biases and prejudices about ‘others’ enculturated and embedded?
The answer to these questions will lead to how and why their threshold for turning a blind eye or deaf ear is chronically high. They don’t see racism/misogyny or hear the racism/misogyny. They just don’t value it enough.
And for London, in particular, where the ratio between people of colour and white people is almost 50:50, this is DEFCON 1. The senior leadership team of LFB is virtually lily-white – they don’t see it. Minoritised workers have cried racism and sexism for years – they don’t hear it. They’re not sensitised to it.
How could they, if they’ve not had any meaningful relationship with such diverse peoples?
It’s because the structure of their hearing is impervious, inaccessible to our plight. They hear something but all they hear is noise. They see something but all they see is blank. The level of their threshold is not attuned to the humanity of the ordinary person’s cry. They don’t hear our pain, our demonstration, our words.
They simply do not reflect the people they serve! AND this has to STOP!!