More needs to be done to tackle racism in the workplace. In October 2021, Business in the Community published their Race at Work survey, which found that Black, Asian, Mixed Race and ethnically diverse employees are twice as likely than white employees to experience harassment from managers, customers, clients and colleagues.
Despite this, only four in 10 employees think their employer is comfortable discussing race in the workplace.
Samantha is a mother of five, born and bred in Manchester. She encountered racism in the form of micro and macro-level aggressions from her first day at school up to her final day in what she describes as a toxic workplace. Here, she shares her story…
Growing up in Moss Side, an inner-city part of Manchester – one of the most notorious areas for gun crime and teen pregnancy in the UK at the time – my mum decided to send me to a more “fluid” school when I was a teenager. She told me it was a place with opportunities that she believed my local school wouldn’t offer.
What neither of us realised was that my time at school – a school that was predominantly white – provided a first taster of the racism I would experience throughout my career, as institutional racism remains a huge problem to this day.
I was repeatedly asked where I was from. When I answered “Manchester,” my fellow pupils would say “no, really, where are you actually from?” As far as I was concerned, I was Manchester born and bred, and Jamaica was my grandmother’s country.
I always thought it was a really weird question to be asked, but I didn’t realise that it was one I was going to be asked in other areas of my life for a very long time. Above all, it was my first experience of what the world of work was going to be like for me.
My dream was to work in HR at a top company, and I started this journey at a huge firm at the age of 17. As I attempted to work my way up, each rung of the ladder that I climbed saw another level of racist microaggressions. Countless colleagues would ask me whether I could deal them cannabis, because of my Jamaican heritage.
But still, I tried to look out for others. When I heard members of a different department discussing how to “get rid” of a colleague because she was pregnant, I called them out and told them that they couldn’t do that. I was then accused of being “aggressive” for standing up for other marginalised colleagues, for the underdogs.
The “angry Black woman” stereotype is one that assumes we are hostile, aggressive and overbearing, as well as unable to be logical. It’s a completely racist assumption to make, and it’s been researched by the Harvard Business Review, which found that this stereotype can prevent Black women from realising their full potential in the workplace.
I felt this was 100% part of how I was perceived, and it directly shaped my experience of the world of work.
I found myself being passed over for promotion after promotion, even though I knew I was a competitive candidate. It got to a point where I had to apply for jobs all over the company to try to dodge the prejudice.
When I asked my manager for help, he told me that “people just see you as a risk.” What he didn’t realise was that he had actually placed me in a stereotype. Why was I a risk, and not an opportunity?
Things came to a head when I was asked to train up a woman for a job that I had been passed over for, even though I was much more qualified. She was blonde and blue eyed, and had never worked at the company before. I had worked there for 11 years. I have never in my career been so upset and demoralised than when I was asked to do this.
Why was I viewed by my workplace as a risk, and not an opportunity?
The problem is the hiring manager seemingly chose someone who looked more like her. I’ve looked a lot into it and the reason for it is this: we have a natural ability to connect – we want to connect with people and what we see as good in ourselves. We want to mimic that goodness in ourselves when we are building a team and a workplace.
But the reality is teams don't work well when you have the same type of people. It's a fact, it works better when you've got a mix of different abilities and strengths. Unfortunately, it appeared that my boss didn’t see this, and I paid the price.
Networking has also been a tricky, and sometimes upsetting, experience. When a senior manager visited our offices to get to know us, he immediately struck up a conversation with me about the ins and outs of a person he knew who had just been sent to high-security prison. Yet, he decided to talk to my white colleague about Glastonbury Festival.
It seemed to my colleagues and I that he’d stereotyped every single one of us into a category that he thought was right for us. But the only one that was appeared racially biased was mine; the only thing that he felt he could connect with me with was talking about his friend in jail.
I was encouraged to shrug challenging incidents like this off, and I did because I already knew where I stood in the situation. Raising every single issue I had made no difference, because nothing was ever done. It was clear to me that taking things further to a tribunal would only hinder my career progress even further.
It felt like I was visible for all the wrong reasons, and this meant that I hid other parts of myself that should’ve been supported and accepted by my employers. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was Black, or that I identify as a woman, but I could hide another part of me – that I was dyslexic.
I hid this out of fear of being treated differently or it being used as another reason to block my progression. It hurt to have to hide some of my minority status, and the fact that it meant I felt I had to hide other parts of me in order to survive at work.
It felt like I was visible for all the wrong reasons, and this meant that I hid other parts of myself that should’ve been supported and accepted by my employers.
It stings to know that I have to work harder – and interview for more rounds – than my white counterparts. I have got accustomed to the fact that even if I do the best interview, even if I stand out against any other applicant, it’s going to be harder for me to be successful.
I resolved to keep going for the same role until someone gave me the opportunity. And though I did manage to progress by doing this, in the end I still decided to leave and strike out on my own after 18 years at this global organisation.
As a business and career coach, I’ve used my own lived experiences and HR expertise to help implement change. I ask my clients to take a quiz that measures how up to date their business is when it comes to diversity and inclusion within their business operations.
My mission is to ensure small businesses don't lose out financially from being inclusive and diverse, and to coach women – particularly underrepresented women – to accelerate in their careers.
I feel that when it comes to tackling racism in the workplace, actual tangible change is lacking in so many businesses and organisations, so I've taken it on as part of my own job.
After everything I've been through, I truly see helping others succeed and navigate racism in the workplace is me working at my highest purpose.
GLAMOUR has contacted the workplace in question for comment.
If you're experiencing racism in the workplace or want to find out more information on how to support those are, please find more information from The King's Fund and Show Racism The Red Card.
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