Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Excellent okay now, I am extremely excited to have this discussion today. Upon my reading of our guest’s book and I’ve been told that this has been thumb nailed to the nth degree because I’ve been reading it and sharing it with everyone who would care to listen. I was moved, I was entertained, I… things resonated with me. I thought of past workplaces, I thought of present workplaces and I also thought about environments that my friends and colleagues find themselves in and after meeting Nicola about a year ago at an event we chatted for ages and I knew that I needed to have her come in to Mishcon to discuss her book, The Racial Code. Nicola Rollock is a Professor of Social Policy and Race at Kings College London and the Founder and Director of Nianro Consulting which advises senior executives and organisations and carries out innovative, impactful research on social justice. She is a member of the London Policing Board chaired by the Mayor of London, she was previously a member of the Welcome Trust Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group, specialist advisor to the Home Affairs Select Committee Inquiry the McPherson Report 22 years on and senior advisor on Race and Higher Education to the Vice Chancellor at the University of Cambridge. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Nicola Rollock.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
So why is it that we find ourselves still talking about these issues around racial justice when we have so many well-meaning people and for many committed people how is it that we find ourselves with the level of disparities that we have within the workplace so my background, my first Degree was in Psychology and I went on from there and did a PHD and the PHD looked at black students and academic success and the reason why I looked at success is because the prevailing narrative of the time in terms of policy circles and also my academic peers, people are focussing on failure.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Right.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
And under achievements.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yep.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
And I thought well if we look at exactly the same thing and answer the same questions about the same subjects, are we perhaps missing something, so is there something to be learnt looking at the other side of the equation. But it is also the case that I didn’t conceive of myself as someone who was black and failing academically and people in my network also didn’t fit that bill so I wanted really to shake up the prevailing norm of black people as under achievers in the educational space so, and I would say that that thread has followed me in terms of my curiosity, I’m a very curious person throughout my career and for me in the UK the narrative is there’s nothing to see here, there’s no problem. It’s not as bad as you imagine that it is and I think certainly if the, the needs of the conservative party end up to be someone in particular, we will see a continued downplaying of race and I would also say that it’s perhaps more insidious than that and that to name ones experience particularly in the context of anti-blackness is to positioned as somehow failing. You are not permitted to talk about the challenges that one you face in the context of racism and I find that deeply problematic. So we are very quick to dismiss, whenever I stand up and talk about my work, there will generally be a white colleague, often male, not always male who will say, ‘but isn’t this really about social class’ and I am really – it happens so often – that I’ve started to pay attention to it so rather than simply answering the question in that moment, thinking what work is being done at that moment given that I’ve heard it on so many different occasions, what assumptions is that white person making in this context and about me as an academic, fellow academic, what’s going on and there’s various things I think are going on. One of them is you think that I haven’t thought about that myself and I am an academic.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Why would I not have thought about that and there’s also at the same time the presumption of a superior intellect as in academics want to frame this as we’re having a rigorous debate but there is a way of shutting down conversation so, you haven’t thought about it but I’m going to save you…
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Which is played out in your book which is very much 4.49 relationship.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
…and help you. Exactly, exactly and what I am wanting to do in the book is to capture these subtle forms of racial exclusion that happen all around us and they happen if you will, within polite societies, amongst them with white people with other position, otherwise position themselves as well meaning, as reasonable, as – I know we’ll go on to talk about this – as ‘well my partner’s black’ or ‘my grandchild is mixed race’ so I couldn’t possibly be racist. So there is this really bizarre set of rules around racism and what is seen as racism that generally we are not the owners of. And so what I have tried to do is map, through this idea of a code which is really my non-academic way of saying a theory or a framework, what is going on, what are the patterns in our behaviour, what are the patterns in our ways of thinking, the ways that organisations behave when you raise issues around racial justice that actually have the purpose of keeping us stuck. So if you like, rather than just focussing on that one white man, white colleague, the academic who always says ‘what about social class?’ is I’ve looked and said, ‘oh I’ve been to a number of conferences and that always happens’. Why.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And it’s the why, it’s the why.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Why, what’s going on, what purpose does this serve and that’s what I am trying to do through the lens of this code.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
So in the book as part of the racial code, you talk about surviving Babylon which I thought was hilarious because I think and my reading of this is that Babylon in this context could be any workplace in the UK, it could be any environment in the UK that you find yourself in and you came up with, is it 52?
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
I didn’t count them, I was so engrossed in making the list.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Hang on, I’m wrong, I’m wrong, no 24 sorry.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Yeah.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
24 things to keep in mind on how to survive Babylon. I don’t know if you want to set the scene in terms of what Babylon is as far as you are concerned but I want to read out a couple of…
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Yeah rules.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
…as to how to survive.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Just before you do that Kizzy, can I just say in terms of colleagues understanding a little bit more about the book and the way it’s designed in terms of narrative, non-fiction and these different characters that pop up at different times. The types of things I explore are surviving in the workplace, so Kizzy is going to read some of the examples from that chapter as a person of colour, another chapter looks as I’ve, the extract I read earlier, at social class and race, another one is about black mothers raising black boys and the relationship with the police, so there are different things that I touch on - executive search firms also get a look in – that I touch on and explore the relationship with race and racism.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
But it’s generally more of an approach to what everyday racism looks like? The subtleties around it?
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Subtle forms of racism because I think we are relatively aware of what overt forms of racism look like. So we might understand as a society calling someone the N word is wrong but I would say that we are less good and the word for language I use with clients is we’re less mature in terms of our understanding of more subtle forms of racism.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yep.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
The assumptions, the beliefs, the difference in treatment and what I would say that often happens is white colleagues, as white colleagues imagine racism to be absent because it’s not named explicitly. But racism can be present because of the stereotypes, the beliefs and the ways that we treat people differently because of their racialized identity and the common one for black women in the workplace is our hair.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
I’ve spoken about this several times, people are bored about me speaking about hair issues, so over it. But, but I want to come back to that, I want to come back to the issue around language…
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Yeah.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
…and how certain situations might be perceived by us as a community versus white, the white community, what that looks like external to, to our lived experience. I want to come back to the importance of language but I just want to share with the people in the room and the people online, some of the rules to surviving Babylon. ‘Never drink at work social events for to do so is to risk vulnerability and the lack of vigilance in the presence of whites’. Never share personal information’. ‘Never leave your food unattended’. ‘Always lock your office door’. ‘Beware of the following white colleagues, those with a black or Asian partner or adopted child, mentee or best friend. Those with dyed hair, especially pink, green or blue’ – I want to come back to that in a minute – ‘Women, whether junior or senior’. ‘Men, especially if more senior’. ‘Those who have gone to a country where they were in the minority and use this as evidential basis of their understanding of racism’ – and again the list goes on. Now I looked at that and I remember when I read this and I laughed to myself and then I stopped laughing.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Mm.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Because I thought actually this has actually stirred up some feelings within myself of experiences that I have either seen myself, experienced myself or heard from other colleagues, they have gone through fairly similar issues. Was the point of having a kind of list, strategy, manifesto, whatever you want to call it, the way in which we feel the black community can cope within these very entrenched environments?
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
So thanks and that’s a great question. I think my starting point was as I said in terms of how I, my curiosity and my interest in the meta and in questions. I wanted to find a way of capturing not just my experiences but the experiences that are shared with me, both within the context of my being an academic and outside and there are many, many examples and so I wanted to find a way of conceptualising or working through how do you survive in the face of all of this as a really serious question so I’m, and I like that it makes people laugh and then makes them pause and then makes them go back and reflect because it’s meant to be provocative, it’s meant to be tongue in cheek but you know, I think people have different views about the percentage of, of how much it is tongue in cheek. I wanted to find a way, a guide, help that would offer us an anchor to surviving in mainly white spaces. Because far too often we find ourselves as the only one.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
And we are left in situations where we are questioned whether some particular racial micro aggression just occurred, we are left second guessing ourselves, we’re left upset, we don’t know who to talk to, who to turn to. We more often than not will have a white line manager and it’s like well do you think they will understand, if they understand the gravity of what it is to bear racial micro aggressions and the pain and the othering that is caused by it and I wanted to find a way of presenting if you will, a survival guide and obviously it’s not exhaustive but I wanted to find a way of holding on to – so again that meta so if we look across the sweep of not time but some examples of research – how can we capture some of the threads in terms of the continuity of the issues that arise so hence the reason for putting that particular list together. How do you survive in the work place. You’ve got your job description but for many racially minoritised individual your job description isn’t sufficient. There’s an additional person spec if you will that is required and that remains invisible. That labour, the additional mentoring that you do that isn’t recorded or understood by the work place, the whispered conversations you have to your peers or junior colleagues to say, it’s okay I understand you, I get it. None of that is recorded anywhere or understood or indeed remunerated so I wanted to find a way to turn the spotlight on those invisible moments of our experiences. If we look at organisations and consider what they value and what they prioritise and you generally know what they consider important and what they prioritise because it’s usually written in a strategic plan or a five year plan, it’s well-resourced um, it’s recognised in promotion criteria.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
So that’s my starting point. So if we then take that as a lens and a framework and apply it to broadly speaking, this type of work you see there’s usually quite a heavy imbalance and so my invitation to organisations who declare themselves as committed to change is well put your money where your mouth is.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yep.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
And so I’m quite clear on that, put the resource in, put the staffing in, the financial remuneration and also make sure that it’s recognised in promotion criteria.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
And so would you say that there should be, I mean because the question you will get from, from organisations is ‘What should we do? What can we do? What can we do to move the dial um how can we better support our racially minoritised groups that work with us, for us um what should we be spending money on?’ because it’s really, it’s impossible to do absolutely everything in one go so what would be the priority for workplaces to be more inclusive and supportive?
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Do you know it’s really interesting because I am having this conversation with a couple of clients um who have positioned themselves as open and forward thinking.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Right.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
Um on, on the subject matter but again I can see patterns in the behaviour of the leaders so um and this is answering the question but going at it from an inverse way. That is the senior leader is not really listening. They are listening and doing things that they’ve always done so they’re not doing anything differently. Um, they’re not taking advice from people who are experts or they tend - I did a LinkedIn post about this actually so it feels very hot off the press – or they will commission um EDI experts or bring on board particular experts who do not have specific credibility and track record around racial justice.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Right.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
So it looks as if you are heading in a useful direction but you might not necessarily be heading in a useful direction. I also, I’m an academic, I expect data, what is the problem, do we understand the baseline issue then do we, can we explore why the data looks in the way that it does. Then we design initiatives to address the problem and we also include evaluations to track change over time and then we refine our initiatives based on the evaluation but that’s got to be resource, it’s got to be led by experts.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
But that’s, I mean that’s a very commercial way of looking at that isn’t it rather than giving lip service to EDI I think the way you could sell that to organisations is it’s a commercial approach. You are looking at data driven strategies, you’ve got evidence for it and therefore whatever gaps it is that need filling are quite evident so therefore you spend money on, on fixing that.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
But yet we find ourselves where we are having this kind of conversation so someone can call me up and say, Nicola we need some help with X and without even looking at what their Board looks like, without looking at their retention data for racial minoritised staff, I can tell them and I think that that is worrying. So it means that whatever they have been doing so far is following a pattern that has maintained the status quo. And that’s the bit that is worth unpicking. You’re busy with all of these initiatives and schemes but are they changing the dial when it comes to racial justice. But let me also go back to the beginning of your question in terms of racial minoritised colleagues, I, my expectation and I did this in one of my jobs was you want me to operate a particular senior level and the only person who looks like me was in this particular department, I’m going to need some support, I want a coach and my expectation – I didn’t word it like this by the way.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
It’s alright I’m taking notes.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
I expect you to pay for it. I didn’t word it like that, I framed it, I couched it very carefully in terms of the institution’s priorities and commitments to DNI and their long-term strategy etc., etc., so I used their own language but I made my case through that lens and then got the coach. But if you’re saying you want me to work in this space and do this kind of work understand it comes with burden.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yep.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
And I am expecting you given that we have these initiatives around dignity at work and care and we have lunch time yoga sessions, actually I’d like a coach to help me navigate it and I think any person of colour should actually ask for that kind of support as well. So Devin Cabardo and Mitu Gulati are two colleagues at UCLA um, wrote this really fascinating book called ‘Acting White?’ and what they argue or they make a distinction between two groups; um those who are people of colour who are racially palatable and those who are racially salient. So those in the former group who are seen as palatable work to down play or are seen to down play their racialized identity, okay, don’t necessarily talk about racism um, they say racism isn’t important and those individuals are more likely to be seen as a fit within the wider white organisations. So those and I guess I would sit in this box, who are categorised as racially salient either in terms of what we might wear, hair, the kind of things that I might talk about or we might talk about are less likely, are described as racially salient and less likely to be seen as a fit within the culture and the norms of the organisation and again one of the reasons I wrote this book is because we don’t really unpick what organisational culture is but it’s evident and that’s also evident in the rest of that list in the kinds of behaviours, actions, activities that the organisation engages with without question. Whether it’s going um so one of the things that academics, not me but one of the things that’s quite normal is to go to the pub at the end of the day and I don’t like pubs which I know is like kind of are you British kind of question. I don’t like pubs, I didn’t grow up in pubs, alcohol is just not a feature of my world but there’s something about that being presented as a norm um that serves to include and exclude certain people and so one of my rules is, if you have to go to one of those things go but for thirty minutes and then leave. That’s one of my rules but I think that’s we don’t unpick what culture is and how culture can be problematic for some and completely comfortable and neutral – in quotes – for others. Those books are always there, the YouTube videos…
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
Yeah it’s a trigger.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
…the articles, they’re always there, they don’t exist at moments of um a racist murder, they don’t exist just for Black History Month. The issues are always there but white people have the ability to dip in and check out as they want. We don’t have that luxury.
Kizzy Augustin
Partner, Mishcon de Reya
That’s the difference for us because it’s a lived experience.
Professor Nicola Rollock
Academic and Author – The Racial Code
But my, my call if you will for white people who describe themselves as committed to these issues is to be engaged in an ongoing process of learning.
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