Way way back as a teenager I was captivated by the rebellion of punk music and dived deep into it. The clothes, behaviours and attitudes. I didn’t understand or really initially like reggae music. But it seemed so part and parcel of the punk scene I worked at trying to understand it. At the time we lived in a comfortable middle class village on the south coast of England. I had no experience or understanding of black culture. But I liked the Clash’s cover of Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’ I loved the subtle anger within it and thought I ‘got’ what was behind black music. I thought I’d done enough.
I thought I had done enough when I then became an ardent supporter of Rock Against Racism, wearing the iconic badges, putting up posters, going to the demonstrations. I saw evil in the right wing groups like the National Front. However I also knew of people in our friendship groups who clearly did not. I’m not sure I did anything about that.
I went to university in Sheffield, a multi ethnic postindustrial city in the north. It was the first city I had ever lived in. I could now see and experience first hand what prejudge and disadvantage was. I joined demonstrations, signed petitions and made posters for various causes. I thought I had done enough. But I don’t think I ever spoke up or certainty didn’t take any action over the glaring disparity between the ethnic make up of the city and that of the predominately white student body.
My career has been in advertising. An industry struggling to come to terms with its past behaviours in light of the #MeToo movement. But now is also looking sheepishly at the Black Lives Matter debate as they are the people who influence the population but are very much not representative of that population. In my time in this industry I’ve worked for international agencies and been co-founder of three start-ups. I thought I had done enough, as I was an ardent advocate of placements, grad schemes and mentoring to help those outside the University system to get into our industry. But Looking back I never went outside my comfort zone, I never took any action to positively address the imbalance of people of colour in my departments.
During the recent protests following the appalling but sadly too frequent death of another black man in police custody. I raged on social media and posted likes for many of the emotional posts. I thought I had done enough.
There are many resources that in light of current events have been widely shared to read, listen or watch to improve your understanding of where current anger comes from. Doing this is really good for society. But it alone is not enough. You should speak up. If like me you work in business you must actively change your hiring processes and promotion procedures to help address years of white privilege. You must embrace fully ethnically aware mental health initiatives. In reality, this should not be hard. But history tells us it has been in years gone buy. I know, I was part of that, I thought I’d done enough but I had built confidence in an image of myself being anti-racist when in fact I was being a passive conspirator of keeping the status quo of racial divides.
I thought I had done enough. But I have not. We all have not. It’s just too damn easy to do nothing. Active determined action is not an option or a high-minded dream of the few. It is a basic necessity of a humane society. Britain is multicultural which is a good thing. What it is not, is a fair society for all. This is a very bad thing but it is something we can change. Why we don’t is because too many think they have done enough. Said enough, but it’s not enough.
I will now actively now do more, will you?
