I saw a post on LinkedIn yesterday* decrying the dismantling of monuments to slavery.
The “all lives matter” banner used as as a thinly-veiled sideswipe at BAME and other migrants and refugees in the UK was out in force in the comments. Really unattractive stuff. Or simply racism, to name it clearly.
I deleted my original, gut-feel response. This triggered in me more words than a comment will allow.
My view is that such artefacts of a frankly shameful trade should be removed from public places and placed in a local museum (NOT civic centre) where they are put in context. I say this having run public museums and an Ancient Monument in the UK for a decade. For instance, the Bristol slaver statue could be displayed inside the museum, alongside another exhibit demonstrating graphically what 19,000 people dead at sea might be like, for both scale and impact of the barbarity. Telling the human story explains better than a plaque.
The image on the banner for this article is a graphic created by my late father, who was part of the British Army erasing Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the early 1950s**. Another example of barbarity on an industrial scale. Virtually nothing remains of this heinous place, to prevent it becoming a focus for any revival of the movement which led to its creation. Taking a different stance, the Polish have chosen to retain Auschwitz as a memorial to the murdered, with the very dust on your shoes a salutary reminder of racism and sub-human discrimination – it is still the dust from the crematoria (made by AEG incidentally). That is human remains on your shoe. That is real, immediate and effective.
Focusing back on Bristol, I believe that celebration of such barbarity has no place in the public realm of a civilised and diverse culture. The filibustering and wrangling by interest groups in Bristol, over the wording on a plaque to contextualise the slave trade, is a blight on all involved. The dismantling was a direct response to their collective failure to find an urgent remedy.
This is posted on a business forum because
- It is important to me that my business is carried out on declared ethical principles; and
- I want to stress the point on every platform, that all lives DO matter. However, some, which are under threat of violence and abuse daily, deserve and need more protection than those which are often unwittingly benefitting from the “privilege” of simply having less melanin than other groups. Put it in that context, we see how arbitrary and nonsensical racism is. We might as well be saying “freckled” as “black” or “BAME” or “POC”. Irrational, unreasonable and unfair, whatever word you use.
I run an ethical practice, working with all my clients to help them improve their working lives through positive change, whatever their background. I am anti-racist; normally I do not prosthelytise. At the moment, however, I need to speak out. The backlash is on its way against the #BLM movement. Again. It is a tragedy and a disgrace in my view that #BLM is even necessary and the fact it is still necessary means none of us should rest until equality of opportunity and treatment is a fact, not a mere aspiration. For Black Lives, for LGBTQ lives, for young lives, for old lives, for every faith under the sun … wanting equality of opportunity and a fair treatment in society for all groups does nothing to diminish the rights of the majority in predominately-white nations. It is this inclusivity which makes us whole.
It is important to note here that broadening the argument for the purposes of one article is NOT an acceptance that dilution of focus is OK. There needs to be a focus on Black Lives, but not as a black-square fad used by celebrities and, amazingly, museums storing (or even built on the profits from) slavery proceeds, with no real awareness of what it actually meant. Instead our focus needs to be on a real shared movement which we all work to progress. That does not mean we can relax and not take action to support the rights of the disabled, or to push for greater mutual religious tolerance and understanding, or accept discrimination against the LGBTQ community. There is so much to do on so many fronts, we simply cannot let up. Everyone has a role to play, to move our societies forward by the step, or by the giant leap.
I ask that everyone who reads this considers their own approach to operating a business and, if it isn’t truly for everyone, please reflect on what that is about for you. Please ask yourself why someone’s skin colour (or faith, sexuality, age or any other reason offered for discrimination from a what is likely to be a pretty narrow set of “norms”) is a genuine and valid reason to disadvantage another human being. That could be current colour-based discrimination, as is sadly so evident in the US (and UK and other diverse states too). It could also be the celebration of an individual from history with Africans’ blood on their hands, because they profited from human misery and death and used that profit to fund a city. Not just “not a great look”. That is downright unacceptable in the twenty-first century.
#racism #slavery #inclusion #bethechangeyouseek #positivechange #leadership
- This post was inspired by an iconic image of a slave trader’s statue being toppled and sent into the harbour at Bristol. This image was taken by a young photojournalist named Ned Collyer. Look out for his work !
**Incidentally, my late grandparents were the only people in their Gloucestershire town to welcome black GIs to be billetted with them prior to the D-Day preparations. As a result, my father was left with a lifelong appreciation of, and respect for, African American culture (jazz and food were simplistic yet easy to translate to a teenager) and subsequently for the civil rights movement in the US. I am proud he brought me up to share those values and to aspire to improve my understanding of and for all positive cultures.