TRIGGERnometry - April 28, 2021


＂White Privilege is a Divisive Idea＂ - Funke Abimbola

Topics
white privilege nuances white privilege conversation allyship and unconscious bias training mental health implications of lockdown
Hosted by
Francis Foster Konstantin Kisin
Guests
Funke Abimbola
Mentioned
Funke Abambola Beer Rebel Noodles Zingy Berry Bakery The Rooney Rule Francisco Jaime Mike Graham David Lammy Jay Rayner Tony
Larry Elder - ＂Police Systemic Racism Is a Dangerous Lie＂ ＂The Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics＂ - Mary Eberstadt

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 3 minutes

Words per minute

188.6

Word count

11,969

Sentence count

377

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

22

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Funke Abambola is a lawyer, healthcare executive and diversity leader. In this episode, she shares her experiences of growing up in a white family and how she came to understand that not everyone who has white skin has socioeconomic privilege.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
00:00:07.620 I'm Constantin Kisson.
00:00:08.780 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:14.040 Our terrific guest to date is a lawyer, healthcare executive and diversity leader,
00:00:18.280 Funke Abambola. Welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:20.040 Hello, thank you very much for being here.
00:00:22.160 Yeah, welcome to the show. It's good to have you on the show.
00:00:25.400 We'll tell everybody a little bit about how this happened and all of that.
00:00:29.040 But before we do, just explain to people what is your background, who are you, how do you happen to be sitting in the sea right here talking to us?
00:00:36.120 Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Nigerian born. Very, very proud of that.
00:00:40.400 I moved here for educational reasons many, many, many years ago now.
00:00:45.960 I am from a privileged Nigerian background and that's going to be very relevant for our discussion later on.
00:00:51.660 My first career is in law. I worked as a corporate lawyer for over a decade in different law firms.
00:00:59.040 I then moved into the global pharmaceutical industry and worked there at senior leadership
00:01:03.700 level for another 10 years. But all along, I was very, very concerned about the lack of diversity
00:01:09.940 in the profession itself, that people were being excluded from entering the profession. I just
00:01:15.160 thought, given what we do as lawyers, it's very important that's representative of the full
00:01:19.700 population. And I started doing a lot of work around that about 20 years ago, and I've been
00:01:24.640 doing that ever since. And it's interesting that you mentioned that because actually the reason
00:01:29.080 that you contacted us and you wanted to come on the show and talk about it, you actually expressed
00:01:34.260 some concerns to us about the way the concept of privilege is now being discussed. And I don't want
00:01:39.580 to put words in your mouth, but I got the sense that you felt that some of the terms and the
00:01:43.740 language around it was becoming quite divisive and unhelpful. So what made you want to talk to
00:01:49.660 us about it? I wanted to have an objective platform to discuss this. And I was finding that
00:01:55.760 that wasn't widely available. And I couldn't understand why. And I realized that my message
00:02:02.040 is probably not as popular or mainstream as maybe the bigger media would be interested in hearing
00:02:08.560 about. You know, the idea that it's not all about white privilege goes very much against the grain
00:02:14.540 now. And there's such a focus on white privilege that it completely excludes other forms of
00:02:20.040 privilege that could be factored into why some groups in society do better than others. I have
00:02:26.120 real concerns about how simplistic it's become now with a focus on white privilege. And it's very
00:02:32.740 divisive. You know, no one reacts well to that, really, if they're honest. And that's why I got
00:02:38.560 in touch with you guys to see if you'd be interested in having conversation about it.
00:02:42.760 So let's just get into the conversation. What do you think of the idea of white privilege and the
00:02:49.580 way it's being used at the moment? I think it's overly simplistic. It's a broad brush approach
00:02:56.140 that can be very, very convenient if you're trying to push a certain type of agenda. But
00:03:01.760 ultimately, it's not going to lead to an inclusive society. And white privilege is a very, very
00:03:08.200 nuanced concept. I mean, I'll give you a good example of my own awakening around that. You know,
00:03:13.020 Nigeria is part of the Commonwealth. I was born in a post-colonial Nigeria. So the hierarchy was
00:03:19.280 very, very firmly set in terms of if you saw someone white and still, you know, if you still
00:03:24.520 see someone white now, you assume they're an expatriate in Nigeria and they're afforded 0.60
00:03:30.020 privileges and lots of assumptions flow from that behaviours and so on. So I came to this country
00:03:35.700 with that sort of frame of mind, albeit that I'm from a privileged background myself.
00:03:41.540 And I realised very quickly that not everyone who has white skin has socioeconomic privilege,
00:03:48.780 which is, of course, what we all assumed in Nigeria, right? And the biggest wake-up call
00:03:54.000 for me was I started doing work with law firms around diversity. And I remember speaking at
00:03:59.340 an event almost 10 years ago. And the senior partner of the firm stood up, welcomed everyone.
00:04:04.820 I was doing a speech and in my mind I was thinking you are the problem you know you're a white guy 0.98
00:04:10.360 in your 50s you're the reason why no one you know if you're black if you're you know lacking 0.99
00:04:15.960 financial you know funds to get into the profession it's your fault that people can't get in if
00:04:21.220 they're disabled you know all these underrepresented groups were going through my mind and that was
00:04:25.960 the dialogue I immediately assumed and I thought don't act on it you know talk to the guy first
00:04:30.780 but I'd be lying if I said that wasn't what I was thinking. I spoke to him and we've become
00:04:36.880 the best of friends since then. He's great friends with my son, who is the same colour as me at 18.
00:04:43.140 This chap is now in his late 50s, still white, you know, so that's not changed. But I made so 1.00
00:04:49.980 many assumptions about him. He wasn't from a socioeconomically privileged background at all.
00:04:54.920 I think he still is the first in his family to go to university he had slogged it out to reach
00:05:02.140 that position it wasn't easy for him and actually was doing so much to improve the lot of others
00:05:08.500 but I immediately assumed that he was the enemy and thank goodness I didn't act on that
00:05:14.200 my fear is that a lot of people do act on that assumption and it leads to so much
00:05:19.800 misunderstanding society and that's what I'm trying to to stop from happening. Funke what do
00:05:25.820 when we use the term white privilege what do you mean by that? So what I think I think it means in
00:05:34.080 some contexts is that for historical reasons and we can talk about you know the slave trade and how
00:05:40.700 that set a hierarchy around the colour of your skin and imperialism and colonialism but for
00:05:46.720 historical reasons, there was a clear pecking order based on the colour of your skin. And,
00:05:52.820 you know, the whiter you are, the more privileges you got, you were treated better and so on. 0.54
00:05:58.160 Now, that's for very, you know, hardwired historical reasons. And the media has picked
00:06:04.000 up on that now, like the media just reinforces that messaging. So I think that's what the
00:06:11.000 understanding of white privilege comes from, is that very, very simplistic view that on the face
00:06:16.100 of it, the assumptions that are made about you will vary hugely depending on the colour of your
00:06:21.820 skin. Walking around trying to get here today, you know, people would not assume, would they,
00:06:28.080 that I'm a lawyer, I've done this, I've done that, because I'm a black woman. And it wouldn't
00:06:31.620 immediately cross anyone's mind that I'd done all these things. So I get...
00:06:36.740 Do you think that's true? Like, if you open your mouth, I would immediately assume that
00:06:40.140 you're well educated from a middle class background, probably are a lawyer.
00:06:44.940 But that's because you're woke.
00:06:46.960 Yeah, I'm the wokest of them all, as you well know.
00:06:51.340 But do you see what I'm saying?
00:06:52.620 Particularly in this country, the class thing is often due to your accent.
00:06:57.000 And also the other thing, just to pick up,
00:06:58.520 and I want to open up the conversation,
00:07:00.220 is even that analysis seems a little bit simplistic to me,
00:07:03.880 and here's why.
00:07:05.080 I'm not sure that you get white privilege if you're in China or in Japan.
00:07:09.000 I've been to Japan.
00:07:09.940 You don't get any white privilege.
00:07:11.820 Or maybe in the Middle East.
00:07:13.160 So there's other places where the majority aren't white.
00:07:16.140 Being white, not necessarily an advantage.
00:07:18.220 So I accept the idea of majority privilege.
00:07:23.040 And I think that's a more useful concept if we want to talk about this.
00:07:26.200 Do you want to?
00:07:26.880 I completely get what you're saying.
00:07:28.340 And that's why I myself am struggling to come up with a definition of it.
00:07:31.460 Because, you know, the reason I'm here today is because I actually don't believe that that's the case.
00:07:35.480 So I'm struggling myself to.
00:07:37.300 But what I would say is where someone has made assumptions about me because I'm black.
00:07:41.600 So my first interview many years ago for a corporate solicitor's role, I walked in, suited and booted.
00:07:47.980 I'd spent a fortune on my suit. I looked the part. I walked up to reception and I said, I'm here for the job with, and I named the name of the corporate partner.
00:07:56.780 And the receptionist said, oh, that's odd. I thought he already had a secretary.
00:08:00.820 So it could have been because I'm female, possibly. And I said, I don't know about his secretarial status.
00:08:07.040 You know, I've got no idea, but I'm here for the junior solicitor's role.
00:08:11.160 She was mortified, embarrassed and so on.
00:08:13.160 Now, you could think, you know, what made her assume that?
00:08:16.680 Maybe because I was female.
00:08:18.600 But when I actually interviewed in that firm,
00:08:21.040 there were no other black solicitors at that firm.
00:08:23.540 The only black women at that firm were secretaries. 1.00
00:08:26.920 So in her experience, she assumed I must be a secretary.
00:08:31.840 Now, for me, you know, I have nothing against secretaries.
00:08:34.320 I was hugely supported by secretaries when I was in law firms many of them are still close friends
00:08:39.400 now but the assumption that I was somehow less than in some way or I couldn't possibly be a
00:08:45.260 solicitor and that sort of thing carried on happening throughout my career I've been assumed
00:08:50.040 to be the trainee solicitor when I was actually quite senior now you could say I look a bit younger
00:08:55.660 than I am and you know could explain it away in so many ways but it was assumed I was a paralegal
00:09:01.040 when I was almost at partnership level and on and on and on so that's where I can begin to see how
00:09:06.880 if I'd been a white woman in that scenario would the same assumptions have been made
00:09:12.400 so I can see what aspects of white privilege could apply there but as you say I open my mouth
00:09:20.140 and people immediately realize that my goodness me you know this is no paralegal tea lady whatever
00:09:27.180 it might be this is someone who's from a privileged background do you think that's again just exploring
00:09:33.240 the argument right because i i wasn't there i don't know what happened but i i remember trevor
00:09:39.320 phillips who we've had on the show recently who i have tremendous respect for talking about this
00:09:43.160 on andrew ma's show many many years ago and he was saying well you know one of the ways that
00:09:48.160 structural racism manifests itself is when i walked into the broadcasting house today to do
00:09:53.580 this interview someone asked me who I'm here to collect right now I can totally understand why
00:10:00.020 as the individual in that situation that would be upsetting right because you are being judged on
00:10:05.280 how you look absolutely you are there's no question but equally the person asking that
00:10:09.880 question that it could just be because of history and because of how recently the waves of migration
00:10:16.520 have come into this country when I've been to Broadcasting House several times the truth is
00:10:21.740 most of the people who are from ethnic minority backgrounds there are security uh you know
00:10:27.140 whatever and that's that might be a product of racism but it might just be a product of history
00:10:32.520 and so you know to say i don't know i just feel very i i'm curious about that aspect of it because
00:10:39.080 it could be just people responding to what they see they're going well all of the black people
00:10:43.080 i've seen in here before have been doing this kind of job so i assume that and you know when
00:10:48.080 I was a translator I looked very young people would make all sorts of assumptions about my skill
00:10:52.620 level because I looked very young and I'm just I'm just worried about how I think sometimes there's
00:10:58.860 a temptation to weave a few different incidents together and suddenly you get like racism when
00:11:03.660 it may not have been. I completely get it and I have to be honest and say whilst my pride was
00:11:10.640 wounded by these you know random instances that I've mentioned there are few more along a similar
00:11:15.780 a vein. I could live with that, with the explanation you've just given. Where it became a real issue
00:11:22.040 for me was when I was trying to enter the profession. So my name is obviously not an
00:11:26.480 English name. And I've now been qualified for over 20 years. So we're going back a long way now.
00:11:32.240 But name discrimination is real when you're applying for a job.
00:11:35.620 The evidence does support that.
00:11:36.960 And, you know, there's a lot of data that shows. And I was genuinely shocked by that,
00:11:43.140 because up to that point, you know, privately educated, aspirational parents, I'd worked
00:11:49.240 incredibly hard, done really well academically. I'd gone into a top law school. As far as I was
00:11:54.900 concerned, I'd done everything that was expected of me. And I was really shocked when I would get
00:12:01.660 automatic rejections for roles. Friends of mine who were West Indian with anglicised names were
00:12:07.480 getting interviews some didn't have grades as strong as mine so after a while I thought hang
00:12:13.240 on a second something's not quite right here so you can look at that and say if you have a more
00:12:19.060 anglicized name you'll do better right you may or may not actually be white ironically but you'll
00:12:26.800 at least get your foot in the door so that's another element of where I can see the white 1.00
00:12:31.160 privilege argument uh sort of aligning but if you're polish you'll have problems right 1.00
00:12:37.060 right so it's not really about being white this is the thing and that's why i genuinely struggle
00:12:41.560 you know when you ask me what's my understanding of white privilege i find it really difficult to
00:12:46.740 actually answer that question because it's so nuanced that just using it as a blanket term
00:12:51.880 is problematic you've got to look at the context and look at what the actual barriers are in that
00:12:57.620 scenario do you know what i mean absolutely i know absolutely what you mean so uh my mother's
00:13:02.200 from Venezuela. He's never mentioned it on the show before. But my mum wanted to call me Francisco
00:13:08.040 Jaime and my dad, because it was in South London in 1982, went we are not calling that boy that
00:13:14.400 name because he was worried about racism. Therefore I was given an anglicised name and
00:13:18.200 that's why everyone now thinks I'm a woman. But do you not think as well that we use this term
00:13:24.440 white privilege and it stopped being an explanation of something, it stopped being a discussion point
00:13:31.660 and it's now being used as a weapon almost yeah and that's what i have a problem with i think we
00:13:36.840 need to talk about privilege take away the the white aspect and attaching that to it and talk
00:13:43.080 about the different forms of privilege you know let's look at what privilege actually means it's
00:13:47.740 an unearned benefit so i'm privileged because i happen to have been born into a nigerian the
00:13:54.340 nigerian background that i was born into my parents believed in me had high hopes for me
00:13:59.140 had the financial means and on and on and on it would be remiss of me to say because of white 1.00
00:14:05.080 privilege that somehow I was fundamentally disadvantaged I mean it's it's crazy for me
00:14:10.860 to say that and I think using white privilege as this weapon as you as you say is so divisive
00:14:18.520 you know it gets people's backs up if you're from a white working class background I mean you
00:14:24.040 automatically think hang on a second what what privilege are you talking about you know I do
00:14:29.040 so much work with around socioeconomic access to the legal profession because there's some real
00:14:35.040 problems there you know funding and not being able to get into the right schools and you know
00:14:39.860 the profession is still very very rigid in terms of the requirements to enter so I'm very aware
00:14:46.160 that you can't use white privilege in that that setting you know someone's gone to a failing
00:14:51.920 comprehensive and they're they're white how on earth can I say to that person that they enjoy 1.00
00:14:56.980 white privilege they don't do you know what I mean so it's it's it's become a weapon and it's
00:15:04.200 become in my mind a very lazy way of trying to circumvent some more nuanced conversations that
00:15:11.540 need to be happening around this and it's not inclusive you know it's not going to get us to 0.73
00:15:16.140 this society where there's open access based on talent and that's what I'm all about if someone
00:15:23.560 has that talent, that should be what gets them in to whatever profession. And it shouldn't matter,
00:15:29.660 you know, if they're gay, you know, whatever the underrepresented group is, black, white, whatever.
00:15:35.720 Are you talented? Do you have that raw potential to become a lawyer, doctor, you know, a techie,
00:15:42.460 computer scientist, whatever it might be? That's all that should matter. Very utopian, I know,
00:15:46.880 but that's what I believe anyway. No, I agree with you. We're sort of starting by analysing
00:15:52.320 some of the stuff that other people are doing.
00:15:54.020 And I want to get to the healthy conversation.
00:15:56.220 But let's address another word,
00:15:57.900 which I think, you know,
00:15:59.340 I introduced you as a diversity leader.
00:16:01.860 And I think diversity is another word
00:16:03.560 that is now being increasingly misused.
00:16:05.480 Diversity no longer means diversity.
00:16:07.580 Like, it seems to have taken on a new meaning.
00:16:11.120 And I think a friend of mine
00:16:12.680 was tweeting about it the other day.
00:16:14.060 He posted a bunch of photographs
00:16:17.120 of a diversity board.
00:16:19.120 And they're all black. 0.98
00:16:20.520 And you're going, well, 0.96
00:16:21.100 I'm not sure this is diversity.
00:16:23.640 Like, I have no problem with a group of people
00:16:26.060 who are all black getting together
00:16:27.320 and advancing certain interests.
00:16:29.240 But let's not pretend that this is diversity, right?
00:16:32.360 This is just an advocacy group for one particular,
00:16:36.280 which is fine.
00:16:37.020 There's nothing wrong with that.
00:16:38.060 But it's not diversity anymore.
00:16:40.120 And we've started to misuse that word as well.
00:16:42.440 I think Mike Graham, when we had him on the show,
00:16:44.580 he made the point about the Korean film Parasite.
00:16:47.760 Everyone celebrated this diverse movie winning the award.
00:16:51.100 it was all koreans do you think that's a word we're starting to misuse as well i think so and
00:16:58.500 i have my own sort of definition i'm all about redefining terms right let's do that it starts
00:17:05.980 with diversity and it's actually developed from verna myers who's the inclusion strategy
00:17:10.540 um the vice president of inclusion strategy at netflix so she talks she uses this dance analogy 0.60
00:17:16.740 and I'll walk you through the steps because it's really really powerful so it starts with diversity
00:17:20.980 which is being invited to the party inclusion is being asked to dance so I thought actually once
00:17:26.280 you've been asked to dance you want to be able to dance as if no one's watching you right at a party
00:17:30.200 so that for me is stage three which is belonging and then we're working towards equity which is
00:17:36.100 where you're actually on the party planning team you can decide who gets invited the mix of guests
00:17:41.780 and so on the problem with just focusing on diversity is that it's actually very superficial
00:17:47.440 so to your point it could be all about the visual representation without factoring some of the other
00:17:53.340 aspects that are important as well we're actually working towards diversity of thought you know to
00:17:58.760 be on that party planning team using my final stage analogy we want as many diverse groups
00:18:05.480 around that table as possible so you're not inviting the same types of people to the party
00:18:09.640 for example, that you're not, you know, having the same types of parties. I mean, it's a silly 0.73
00:18:14.260 example to use, but it actually really, really gets the point across about how you might want
00:18:19.080 an organisation to feel once you've got the equity part sorted out. Interviews, you know,
00:18:24.860 so being invited to the party, who decides who gets invited, and making sure that's a diverse
00:18:30.400 representation of society. So you're right, diversity in itself is hugely problematic as a
00:18:35.620 focus. Equity is quite a quote-unquote problematic word for a lot of people because, you know, it
00:18:42.180 gets used by different people in different ways. And to some people, what that means is a quality
00:18:46.740 of outcome, right? It's not about your talent, which is what you were talking about before. It's
00:18:50.480 about, you know, black and white people in all circumstances should have the same outcomes.
00:18:55.080 And it seems, again, very blanket sometimes. What do you mean when you use that word?
00:18:59.680 It's actually the equity of access to come in and be able to make decisions. That's what really drives and influences change in organisations. So it's not enough to be invited in the door. And that's why we see some organisations where at the lower end of the organisation, it is very diverse across many, many different underrepresented groups.
00:19:25.000 and then the higher up you go arguably the less diverse it becomes now that is why equity the way
00:19:32.660 I define it is important you know equity means something different if you're a corporate lawyer
00:19:37.320 I mean it means you're getting shares in the company so I'm really really aware of what you're
00:19:41.640 saying but if you don't have the quality of access the equity of access in the first place
00:19:47.460 how are you going to have the outcomes at the end you do need that pipeline of the diverse talent
00:19:53.860 coming in the door in the first place.
00:19:55.820 Isn't that just a time thing, though, to a large extent?
00:19:58.540 Just like, you know, we've got all the diversity initiatives now.
00:20:02.100 They're seeming to be working, broadly speaking, right?
00:20:04.960 So 20 years, 30 years from now, the senior positions are all going to be mixed
00:20:08.840 and, you know, filled by different people anyway.
00:20:10.980 Isn't that basically it?
00:20:13.020 It does take time.
00:20:13.940 And that's what I say to all the clients I work with now.
00:20:17.380 I say you need to be patient more than anything else.
00:20:20.680 This is a 5, 10, 15, 20-year plan.
00:20:23.860 It starts with engaging young students in schools, you know, in years nine and 10 in the local community, disadvantaged schools, getting them in for shadow work experience.
00:20:34.380 And that's how you build up the pipeline. And some clients want the quick fix, you know, arguably.
00:20:41.320 So they'll be looking straight away at the board appointments. And that's where it can be a problem because, you know, people can think you're a diversity hire and, you know, all this sort of very, very insulting.
00:20:51.460 even if you're worthy of the position often there's real resistance to that approach i prefer the long
00:20:58.260 slow steady approach where you know you're supporting young children very very early on
00:21:02.980 and then they then join the firm later on and they work their way through that way
00:21:07.120 and i think that's a that's probably the best way of doing it because we talk about diversity
00:21:11.820 you know it's all very superficial because if you look at you know the legal profession how many of
00:21:17.900 them come from a council estate in Middlesbrough? How many of them come from very, very poor 1.00
00:21:22.860 backgrounds? I would hazard a guess that even, you know, the people who are Asian or black or 0.53
00:21:28.200 African, whatever background they come from, are all probably quite wealthy and very privileged. 0.99
00:21:32.780 Yeah, they really are. I mean, it's something like almost 50%, I think, of partners, so that,
00:21:38.920 you know, sitting on the sort of leadership team, if you like, are from privately educated
00:21:43.860 backgrounds when only seven percent of the children in this country have had a private education so
00:21:50.040 clearly you know I mean that's a nonsense right and you know I did a research piece just on that
00:21:56.080 you know just on the social mobility challenges because I could sense that that was happening
00:22:01.200 like what's going on you know um how many more people from a private background do we have
00:22:06.260 in this firm and you're absolutely right there's a real bias in favor of those who are privately
00:22:12.700 educated even the universities that people graduate from in the league profession it's very
00:22:18.440 elitist russell group you know the top 24 and for some firms oxbridge you know they really they go
00:22:25.720 for the oxbridge graduates uh and and that's what they prioritize so it's an issue you know it's a
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00:23:16.180 and the whole dish takes only 10 minutes to put together in the comfort of your own home.
00:23:21.080 I'm hungry just explaining this to you.
00:23:23.080 You're always hungry, mate.
00:23:24.260 I mean, that's a fair point.
00:23:25.300 Go to bearebel.com.
00:23:27.680 That's B-I-A-R-E-B-E-L.com and get a tasty flavor of the East in your dinner time. 0.80
00:23:37.140 and do you not sometimes feel as well that like we talked about it like you know my partner she
00:23:43.040 is uh she's puerto rican well american puerto rican heritage and she said that she went to
00:23:48.740 columbia university and she said that because there was this diversity hire that she had to
00:23:54.160 overcome this feeling that she was only there because you know she was a token in her way of
00:23:59.980 putting it do you not sometimes feel that when we do these diversity drives that sometimes it has
00:24:07.340 this unexpected consequence as well whereby the people who then get there a lot of the vast
00:24:12.780 majority of time off their own backs aren't taken as seriously sometimes that can happen but there's
00:24:17.920 a way that when i'm talking to my clients that you know the messaging around why you're doing
00:24:23.180 what you're doing is really really important francis so you know it has to align with the
00:24:27.780 strategy of the organization for example it has to be all about you know maximizing potential of
00:24:34.660 the business the organization improving the benefit of the service to the consumer the customer
00:24:40.160 you know the product that you're developing these are the sorts of things that actually get
00:24:44.580 gets people on board and away from this tokenistic idea because the problem is if you don't have
00:24:51.840 interventions is the way i call it where you are setting targets and saying we've got to make sure
00:24:57.500 on this shortlist we have a 50 50 shortlist change just it just won't happen and you know you look at
00:25:05.060 the shortlist and you think why is it that we're not getting the more diverse and you start digging
00:25:09.780 deeper and seeing what are the barriers earlier on to those individuals not actually getting
00:25:15.220 shortlisted one of my clients admitted recently that there was real hiring bias they'd you know
00:25:20.900 large um i shouldn't say what's an investment bank i wouldn't say any more than that
00:25:24.920 we're going to need your services if you say someone to defend us but they reached out to me
00:25:35.000 you know because they realized that they'd interviewed over 20 uh black candidates out
00:25:40.180 of a large cohort and not a single one of them progressed beyond first interview and all of them
00:25:45.800 were from top universities had the experience so you know this recruitment manager said then
00:25:50.880 I mean, I can't believe that not a single one
00:25:53.980 of those candidates progressed.
00:25:56.100 So I'm working with them around bias.
00:25:58.400 And, you know, the hiring managers,
00:25:59.820 what is it that's making you think that, you know,
00:26:03.240 selecting out who on paper are outstanding candidates?
00:26:08.800 Do you think part of it is as well,
00:26:10.200 we just feel more comfortable with people
00:26:12.400 who have the same political opinions as us,
00:26:15.220 you know, that look the same at us
00:26:16.880 because we're inherently tribal by nature.
00:26:18.920 yeah affinity bias is real it really is and that crosses racial lines you know I'm I'm a divorced
00:26:27.380 you know single mum uh if I hear someone's interviewing and they're also a divorced 1.00
00:26:32.280 single mum I will be in favor of them getting the job bigger you know I'm there I'm all over it
00:26:38.820 and because of that I've always made sure I've had others in my team who don't have that bias
00:26:44.360 so that i don't have a whole team of single mums i mean you know and that's because i'm very aware
00:26:49.920 with my own lived experience what they might be going through and i want to help them right because
00:26:54.840 they are like me and they could be white black blue green you know it wouldn't matter but because
00:27:00.160 we have that affinity so that is a real thing and it applies you know going to the same school
00:27:05.340 same university same law school so affinity bias is really what we're trying to overcome with some
00:27:11.820 of these more nuanced decisions within organizations yeah absolutely and you think the
00:27:17.040 best way to do that is by just having going right then when you do the hiring process it has to be
00:27:22.920 50 50 would you are you in favor of just having sort of blind cvs yeah i'm a huge believer i've
00:27:30.440 seen the results you know having blind cvs at the beginning you unblind the process obviously at
00:27:35.600 some point because you have to meet the candidate but the final panel needs to be a mixed panel
00:27:40.360 people from outside that team very junior members of other teams uh those often lead to the best
00:27:47.820 and fairest decisions everyone on the panel has equal weighting as well so i've seen this work
00:27:53.020 very well in the civil service actually they do this quite a lot and a lot of public sector
00:27:57.720 organizations do that the final decision is driven by true diversity of thought and you have you
00:28:04.760 know intergenerational you know they try and factor in as many different aspects and ways of
00:28:09.960 thinking as possible. And you can get a much fairer decision that way than if you didn't do that.
00:28:15.760 That's really interesting. They found that in America, in American football, I don't know if
00:28:18.820 you're familiar with this. I can't remember the name of the rule. The Rooney Rule. The Rooney
00:28:22.380 Rule, is it? What they did is basically they introduced a policy where they had to have a
00:28:28.440 black applicant for the coaching position as part of the shortlist. And they just interviewed them.
00:28:33.140 They didn't have to hire them. And what they found was that was a way to overcome whatever
00:28:37.820 structural barriers still existed. And when you got the person in, well, you judged them on the
00:28:42.460 merits. And if they were good, you'd hire them. And I'm really enjoying this conversation because
00:28:47.820 I think it is inevitably true that all human beings have some sort of bias. And I think one
00:28:54.160 of the things that has started to happen over the last five years has been the pushing of this
00:29:01.000 divisive stuff that we talked about earlier is now pushed people into a corner. And now no one
00:29:07.520 wants to admit there's any bias of any kind in society and you'll see in the comments under this
00:29:12.140 interview you know but actually we are all biased to some extent now you know i'm not biased against
00:29:17.980 black people but i am in favor of let's say people who are from the same economic background or the
00:29:24.240 same people who understand the same jokes or get the same references or or did comedy or whatever
00:29:29.200 it might be you know so we all have some sort of bias and now we don't want to admit it anymore
00:29:34.600 because the moment you admit any sort of bias,
00:29:37.100 you know, oh, you only hire single mums, 1.00
00:29:38.760 which you didn't say, but that's how people hear it, right?
00:29:41.620 And now suddenly you're a bigot, you know?
00:29:44.100 And I just worry about that so much
00:29:45.880 because we have to be able to have an honest conversation
00:29:48.200 about these issues and we can't anymore
00:29:50.900 because the moment you admit any flaw,
00:29:53.440 any prejudice of any kind, you know, you're in trouble.
00:29:58.000 You're in real trouble.
00:29:59.420 I just, I think that's a big problem.
00:30:01.800 It is.
00:30:02.360 And I guess for me, what really disarms people
00:30:04.560 when they meet me is that I do own up to my bias I mean I've said this very publicly about the
00:30:09.140 single mum thing there are many other examples by the way and suddenly it's okay to admit to it
00:30:15.360 because what I what I teach everyone is that you can overcome your biases by saying if this person
00:30:20.760 wasn't a single mum would I still hire them for the job it's a simple question to ask right but 1.00
00:30:25.660 just turn it on its head and flip it around you know I had a colleague where I used to work
00:30:30.260 previously who she came up with this concept called flip it to test it which is exactly what 0.97
00:30:34.740 I've just shared with you now and it's a really simple way of keeping your biases in check
00:30:39.700 because we are lazy as human beings you know this affinity bias thing your brain goes into
00:30:46.460 overdrive there's too much decision making information and you just want shortcuts to
00:30:51.840 make a decision if someone's had the same lived experience as you looks like you etc etc you have
00:30:57.940 affinity with them because it's easier for you to process that it's harder to try and align
00:31:04.240 yourself with someone with whom you feel there's no commonality but the reality is we have so much
00:31:09.880 more in common than than divides us and this is where I'm trying to get everyone to around these
00:31:16.220 issues but do you not think as well what you know it sounds like you're doing great work but in many
00:31:22.040 ways you it sounds like you're swimming against the tide because more and more throughout society
00:31:26.960 with the rise of identity politics is, well, you're a black woman
00:31:30.620 and this means this and you're a white man and that means this.
00:31:33.860 It just feels like we're sort of moving away from each other
00:31:38.340 more and more day by day, doesn't it?
00:31:40.420 In some circles, I would agree with you, definitely.
00:31:43.720 But with the work I do in corporates,
00:31:46.860 I'm seeing incredible things happening there
00:31:49.280 that I never, ever anticipated could happen.
00:31:52.880 I'm hearing back from clients feedback that I never thought
00:31:56.880 they'd have that light bulb moment in the way that they have but you need to be willing to
00:32:02.800 be vulnerable so i am very very open about what i've you know where i've got it wrong and i give
00:32:08.820 silly examples of things i've said which really again disarms those who think that i've always
00:32:14.760 got it right like you know i'm still learning like everyone else right um so i see real hope
00:32:20.480 with with many of the organizations and there's some large global clients i work with who are
00:32:25.680 doing incredible work around this. And the way I sort of see it is that there'll be a different
00:32:31.180 burning platform for different people. There'll be a different reason why they want to get this
00:32:36.520 right. And I just try and tap into what that reason could be. It could be all about the profit
00:32:41.640 for some. I really don't care if that's the reason what they're focused on. If it means that the
00:32:48.080 actual work environment will improve for those who have the talent to be working there. And that's
00:32:53.780 what it's really all about for me it's a really really important thing to do because I think where
00:32:59.100 the resentment comes in is when people feel they haven't been given the opportunities that's where
00:33:04.260 people get angry and upset and quite rightly so if people think that they don't have a chance of
00:33:08.700 doing something then they become resentful of course and you know you could have done everything
00:33:13.320 right I mean you could have worked really really hard overcome so many hurdles to get those grades
00:33:18.840 you know being raised in the council estate you know this isn't unusual some of the kids I mentor 0.99
00:33:23.360 come from these really tough backgrounds and the thought that they would then be denied access
00:33:28.900 because of their accent, you know, where they went to school, automatically ruled out because
00:33:35.040 of their name, whatever it might be, quite literally breaks my heart. I find it just
00:33:40.660 crushing to see that happen but slowly that's changing, you know, with some of the blind CV
00:33:46.500 and other techniques that I mentioned earlier. Those things are really changing things but it
00:33:51.680 takes time. Francis, do you like biscuits? Stupid question. If you like biscuits as much as him,
00:34:01.480 you have to try Zingy Berry Bakery. They're a small family-run bakery that make award-winning
00:34:07.760 sweet cookies and savory crackers. Francis will explain how many awards they won, won't you,
00:34:12.920 Francis? Their sumptuous cookies are made with whole grain oats and real butter, while their
00:34:19.400 Savoury crackers are made with whole grain oats and are both wheat and dairy free.
00:34:23.960 They've got a brilliant offer.
00:34:25.340 All you have to do is enter our code, which is, of course, triggered on your first order.
00:34:29.880 And you'll not only get 10% off, they'll give you free delivery as well.
00:34:33.560 That's 10% off and free delivery on your first order with our code, which is triggered.
00:34:38.960 Go to zingerberrybakery.co.uk.
00:34:42.420 The link is in the description.
00:34:44.180 It's zingerberrybakery.co.uk and get your biscuits today.
00:34:48.320 I think I've eaten too many biscuits.
00:34:50.420 Never heard him say that before.
00:34:51.840 No.
00:34:54.500 And how do you feel about the fact that, you know,
00:34:58.560 with some of the changes that have happened,
00:35:00.400 I do think we are increasingly encouraged to see rejection of our application,
00:35:07.040 let's say, through that lens to some extent.
00:35:09.000 So, you know, you've talked in the past about having to apply 150 times for jobs and whatever.
00:35:15.980 I remember when I was at uni,
00:35:17.780 I remember applying for 50 internships.
00:35:20.200 I was a lot lazier than you, right?
00:35:22.060 Only 50.
00:35:23.300 Not getting a single positive response.
00:35:25.420 Now, at the time, it never would have occurred to me
00:35:27.500 that that was because of my name.
00:35:30.040 I kind of thought it's because I'm lazy
00:35:31.380 and I haven't worked as hard as I should have done.
00:35:33.560 Do you know what I mean?
00:35:34.320 But I do think if I was 20 now,
00:35:36.880 I think it'd be quite tempting
00:35:37.860 to think about things that way.
00:35:39.760 I'm just really not so sure
00:35:41.020 that that's a healthy way to think about these things.
00:35:42.860 I think even when you are potentially being discriminated against, there's only really one answer on an individual level, which is to work hard and to get your foot through the door, you know, somehow.
00:35:53.620 Yeah. And that's the thing. You know, I did have to make 150 phone calls. You're absolutely right.
00:35:58.260 And I shouldn't have had to do that because, you know, I ticked all the, you know, all the academic criteria, all the things that were priority for law firms.
00:36:06.720 So it was genuinely a surprise. And when you see others getting the interviews and you're not and, you know,
00:36:11.980 you just realise hang on a second I've got better grades I went to a better university or whatever
00:36:16.040 but I think also it's a fact of life that we're in an increasingly competitive world
00:36:22.420 you are going to face more rejection for some of these opportunities and there'll be times when
00:36:28.320 it's got nothing to do with your race gender you know sexual orientation it's just that maybe there
00:36:33.980 was another candidate who was better than you you know and sometimes you just have to keep trying
00:36:39.080 and hope that you have support around you to keep you hanging in there which I did have thank
00:36:44.260 goodness but many people don't even have that and that's why it's so difficult for some if you
00:36:50.880 didn't have the support if you didn't have the family structure you know I would have given up
00:36:55.000 frankly if I hadn't had my dad saying you've got to keep at this if I hadn't had my husband at the
00:37:00.160 time saying there's no option for you not to keep trying you've just got to do it there are many
00:37:05.840 people who don't have that and again i was very privileged to have that support you know yeah as
00:37:11.360 francis always says you've got to be like the ugly guy in a nightclub just coming coming up to everyone
00:37:16.160 just be respectful that's all just approach respectfully but actually you know we just had
00:37:31.400 mercy marocchi on the show uh i don't know if you you watch that interview and you know you talk
00:37:35.620 about the parent situation you know you talk about privilege all you want the number one privilege
00:37:41.060 is to have two parents who love you yeah very important it's just and without that all the
00:37:45.580 data basically shows if you don't have that your life is that much harder it's so so key i mean
00:37:50.940 you know even though my my ex and i are divorced you know we co-parent we have the same values
00:37:56.200 high aspirations for our son support him we're on his case i mean that you know when he wants
00:38:01.220 to give up piano a few years there was absolutely no way that was going to happen he's glad he
00:38:05.660 carried on right that is the most middle class thing i've heard in an interview ever giving up
00:38:10.660 piano i thought you were going to say he was having trouble at school no no the poor boy just
00:38:14.560 gave up piano bam there were other things you know he was lacking focus in other ways and you know
00:38:19.960 the discipline of the piano exams was what he was actually resisting at the time uh so even that's
00:38:25.020 more nuanced than what i said earlier but um but you know as a black boy in this country the
00:38:30.380 statistics say one thing but he's got two parents a wider family you know goes to great school so
00:38:36.580 he's been given every advantage to maximize his potential but the family structure is key it is
00:38:42.380 so so important and anyone who glosses over that just you know it's being really simplistic actually
00:38:48.960 it matters of course it does it matters a huge amount you see it right the way through education
00:38:54.200 and particularly boys as well they need that stabilizing influence of a father because once
00:38:59.520 they get to a certain age mum can't control them as well yeah and it needs dad to go in and go
00:39:05.180 you're you're starting to take the mick now you know it really does and in situations where
00:39:10.540 you know dad is absent for whatever reason you know really good mentor can plug that gap you
00:39:16.560 know I was involved in David Lammy's review of the criminal justice system and he asked me to
00:39:21.500 look at role modeling funnily enough you know of all things so I you know I walked into a workshop
00:39:26.820 with 10 ex-offenders I mean you know it's one of the most interesting episodes of my life
00:39:33.340 shall we say but it was fantastic talking to these young men because what had helped them
00:39:38.540 turn the corner once they'd left prison was they'd you know aligned with organizations that ran
00:39:44.660 you know focused mentorship programs that plugged the gap if you like because the father was absent
00:39:52.300 and mum was having to do two or three jobs to keep the, you know,
00:39:56.560 play to the mothers.
00:39:57.800 I mean, that's a terrible situation to be in.
00:40:00.800 And that's what turned things around for them, Frances.
00:40:03.280 So, you know, the structure and support is so, so, so important.
00:40:07.400 And if you have that, I think you can really, really achieve great things.
00:40:11.720 And we use the word racism a lot and we bandy it around.
00:40:16.120 Look, the reality is there's always going to be people
00:40:19.800 with unpleasant opinions, unpleasant thoughts.
00:40:22.480 How big a problem in the corporate environment
00:40:24.520 do you think racism is?
00:40:25.740 You're never going to be able to eradicate it completely, are you?
00:40:28.740 No, you're not, but there's a spectrum of...
00:40:31.640 Sounds like you're defending it.
00:40:33.320 Especially with my voice.
00:40:34.100 You just can't get rid of it.
00:40:35.340 I think we should just, you know, live and let live.
00:40:41.320 You're never going to get rid of racism,
00:40:44.260 but what you can do is come up with practices
00:40:47.880 and processes if you like that drive the the behaviors that will combat uh these you know
00:40:54.480 racist you know race-based decision making if you like and that's what i'm seeing happening
00:40:59.480 in the corporate world you know around the name discrimination point you know having more people
00:41:03.980 getting the interview in the first place with a non-anglicized name has led to a lot of change
00:41:10.160 within some organizations but you know we also have classism there are other forms of isms
00:41:16.300 that actually could end up trumping race-based decision-making in some places.
00:41:22.740 What we're trying to do, what I'm trying to do,
00:41:24.780 is move away from the isms and let's focus on the raw talent.
00:41:29.180 Right. Well, this is where I find this really, I think, a healthy approach,
00:41:32.980 where you go, look, all this stuff exists.
00:41:35.900 To some extent, I think it's a lot less than it would have been 20 years ago,
00:41:39.600 and this is something else I want to bring up.
00:41:41.140 But generally speaking, let's get the best people for the job.
00:41:45.360 Let's get the best people for the job.
00:41:46.780 And then whatever colour, shape, whatever they are,
00:41:49.660 it's kind of irrelevant, you know?
00:41:51.460 That's how we always think on trigonometry
00:41:53.140 when we need to take on somebody to do a certain job.
00:41:55.560 We don't care what colour or whatever they are.
00:41:57.960 We just care, can they do the job?
00:42:00.300 And, yeah, I understand there's going to be some, you know,
00:42:03.060 unconscious stuff going on there.
00:42:04.500 Plus, we help deprived communities,
00:42:06.060 which is why we've got a scouser in.
00:42:08.840 Our producer, actually.
00:42:10.440 But I was going to ask you about the...
00:42:14.620 the time of this? Because I think so much of this conversation is people responding to their
00:42:20.720 adolescent experience or their experience 20 years ago. Even the situation you talked about
00:42:26.820 as a woman with an African name applying for jobs. I'm not sure that is as true now as it would be 0.83
00:42:32.960 then. Certainly, I don't know about law, but in comedy, like if you wanted to start stand-up
00:42:37.700 comedy, you'd be on Live at the Apollo about three weeks from now. Because people would be like,
00:42:42.660 it's great you have a you know a charismatic young black woman coming through let's give her a hand 0.99
00:42:48.900 up and you'd be you know promoted probably ahead of your skill level even sometimes because of
00:42:55.140 that's how it is and i think we are now in a position where things have started to change
00:42:59.020 and it's important to kind of like not just keep your your pedal to the metal in in these drives
00:43:04.040 do you does that make sense i agree i mean certainly over my 20-year career there's been
00:43:08.640 huge improvement huge improvement that now that's not to play down in any way the very real issues
00:43:15.360 that still persist but I'd be lying if I said the world 20 years ago when I was entering profession
00:43:20.900 is the same now it isn't and I can look at law firms and see that broad range of talent that's
00:43:27.800 coming through and the data backs that up it's not happening as quickly as we might like but it is
00:43:33.540 happening and you're driving societal change in a sense of course it's going to take time
00:43:38.600 it can't happen overnight people need to build up their experience before they're promoted you can't
00:43:44.060 fast track certain processes so that's where I have I see huge encouragement can be drawn from
00:43:50.140 that where I compare you know it's important to look back and be really objective actually
00:43:54.820 about the way things stood you know my son is going to have a much better outcome in today's
00:44:01.320 well despite all the you know divisiveness and all the things that going on he will now know
00:44:08.320 confidently that he will do well and that he's less likely to have some of the challenges that
00:44:14.080 he could have faced 20 years ago and and that's just a fact and those who say that's not the case
00:44:20.500 I honestly I think they're deluding themselves and trying to hold on to an old narrative but
00:44:26.620 things are still very, very tough for some
00:44:28.980 and we can't move away from that either.
00:44:31.340 You know, that's a fact as well.
00:44:32.820 And the thing that people always point out is the CEOs,
00:44:36.360 and I imagine their head lawyers, is probably very, very,
00:44:38.800 is still very white, male, et cetera, et cetera.
00:44:41.740 Mostly about height, mate. 0.91
00:44:43.360 Funke, you'd be crushing it.
00:44:45.620 Do you know this?
00:44:46.380 I think 93% of top 14, 500 CEOs are over 6'1", I think.
00:44:51.940 Don't worry about that.
00:44:53.480 I'm just saying, what about me?
00:44:55.660 What about me?
00:44:56.620 but how do you think changing that is going to be is it's just a question of time or do you think
00:45:04.620 there more needs to be put in place to change the fact that people at the top still tend to be
00:45:08.940 publicly school educated white and male even that is changing over time i can think of at least five
00:45:15.480 managing partners in law firms who are black i could i mean 20 years ago i would never thought
00:45:22.840 that was possible you know and not all from you know socioeconomically privileged backgrounds
00:45:27.740 either you know one of them the lady is far from it you know very very deprived background again 0.92
00:45:33.000 I won't name her but she'll know exactly who she is if she watches this so it takes time right it
00:45:38.740 takes time before people become partners you know to be promoted to partner you need to have good
00:45:43.740 clients and be billing a certain amount and we don't want to shortchange that in any way and
00:45:48.940 patience is so important in all of this you know we just need to keep at it and slowly but surely
00:45:56.220 that change will come but we must avoid divisive language in that process yeah and do you think
00:46:02.000 it would be helpful to celebrate how far we've come to some extent do you think that's a good
00:46:07.700 thing or do you think that's you know not doing justice to the people who are still struggling
00:46:11.220 i think there's a careful balance to be struck there which is why the report you know the
00:46:16.300 Tony Sewell's report, unfortunately, backfired spectacularly. I mean, there were lots of
00:46:21.740 issues around how it was delivered. You know, certain race correspondents weren't invited to
00:46:26.780 have a look at the report beforehand and should have been. And there's a lot of, you know,
00:46:30.500 really bad mismanagement in terms of the release of the report messaging that came out, which did
00:46:35.260 not help at all. What the report was trying to do in some sections was celebrating the progress
00:46:42.240 that has been made but unfortunately it came across and I read the whole thing twice just to
00:46:48.920 be sure it came across as playing down some of the real challenges that still persist. Like what
00:46:55.040 what did you think it was played that was being played down by the report? So it was oversimplifying
00:47:00.700 the family structure piece to the point where so I'm a single mother right so according to this
00:47:07.060 report my son should i mean it was very simple if the father's absent from the home that that then
00:47:13.140 means all these outcomes but that's not always the case statistically speaking across the population
00:47:18.060 but you know so i my that immediately got my back up because i know lots of divorced moms and you 1.00
00:47:23.280 know whose kids are doing well and the way that it separated out different ethnic groups as well
00:47:29.520 was helpful up to a point but again was actually quite divisive as well so the point that was made
00:47:36.320 about black boys that if you're black african and west african specifically your outcomes are
00:47:41.120 better you know what are the solutions to that though is what really should be should have been
00:47:46.600 fleshed out if the father is absent well what can we do to to support the mum who's struggling you
00:47:52.600 know so reminding the mum that the father is absent which a lot of you know people i know read
00:47:57.920 it's just very emotive stuff that doesn't move things forward and a lot of people are justifiably
00:48:04.760 very upset by the way things like the the slave trade was sort of summarized as the Caribbean
00:48:11.820 experience that I mean that is a really insulting thing to say to someone who's
00:48:17.880 descended from slaves and you just don't use language like that I I'm maybe I'm not understanding
00:48:24.880 it and possibly some people watching what what do you mean it's an insulting experience to say
00:48:30.260 I think the distinction, if I read the report as well, obviously, was that if you're a black African like you are, first generation immigrant, I imagine your ancestors did not experience slavery.
00:48:40.800 That would be the assumption.
00:48:42.120 Whereas the reason potentially, and this is my opinion, that Caribbeans in the UK do less well is that they were the descendants of slaves in many cases. 0.98
00:48:52.560 and also they are they came to this country not in you know 2000 or or 1995 or whatever but in like
00:49:01.300 1960 when there was overt racism and discrimination i think that was the point of the report so what
00:49:07.180 was insulting just to clarify so the reference to the caribbean experience was actually to the
00:49:11.340 experience of slavery it wasn't the caribbean experience here in the uk okay and that really
00:49:16.460 got a lot of my friends from that part of the world why i just don't because the way it was
00:49:22.460 perceived was that they were playing you know they very neatly summarized what was a horrific period
00:49:27.300 of history using those two words and some people felt this wasn't a cruise I mean Caribbean
00:49:33.260 experience makes it sound like you went on a cruise ship and had fun in the sun and I didn't
00:49:38.100 see it that way but I had to accept that of course I wouldn't because I that's not my you know my
00:49:44.140 ancestors didn't have that direct experience so I had to accept that because my friends from
00:49:51.140 Caribbean had very very different way of looking at it it was a far it was a very very inflammatory
00:49:58.240 use of language for which some of the commissioners you know admitted that actually this is what they
00:50:03.760 meant you know they publish a clarification document and they apologize for the use of that
00:50:09.540 phrase so whilst I didn't read it that way and this is the point that we must remember the way
00:50:15.560 the message lands for me you you know there'll be someone somewhere who their lived experience is a
00:50:20.540 trigger for them and you've got to actually accept that and try and find a more collaborative
00:50:25.880 inclusive way of trying to drive things through and it's a real shame about that report you know
00:50:31.780 if I'd had the chance to help to write it even I would hope that I'd have phrased things slightly
00:50:37.100 differently and had a bit more balance about just how tough things are for people now still in the
00:50:43.900 UK from certain communities it's interesting and in particular you were saying how tough things are
00:50:50.180 for certain communities could you expand upon that point a little bit more well the socio-economic
00:50:55.020 point is is the biggest leveler that we we face you know if you are born into a socially deprived
00:51:00.900 background irrespective of your race you are going to find it challenging it becomes a vicious circle
00:51:06.540 I mean you used to be a teacher didn't you you know you'd have seen this with the kids you know
00:51:10.600 it's very hard to overcome getting the top grades when you don't have the sport at home you don't
00:51:15.960 have a quiet place to work at home. These are things that some of the young people I mentor
00:51:20.140 tell me that, you know, my son's never had that problem, right? He has a quiet place to work and
00:51:25.240 we've had to push him on occasion to actually make good use of that. But, you know, he has that
00:51:29.900 support around him and it becomes very, very difficult. If you don't get the grades, then
00:51:34.420 you can't get into the top universities where, you know, that's the preferred university of choice
00:51:39.680 for many, many employers and on and on and on. Now, if you are born into a socially deprived
00:51:45.300 background and you're also a visible minority that's a double disadvantage if you have an
00:51:52.320 African name it's a lot to overcome it's a lot to overcome if you think about the many many many
00:51:58.800 different steps that you need to go through to get those good grades to get the qualifications
00:52:03.880 to actually stand in good stead for these really good jobs and there's a huge section of our society
00:52:10.900 that is struggling with that and I think that's what the report was sort of trying to get across
00:52:16.660 that there are pockets where that's not the case but actually they tend not to be those who are
00:52:23.720 socially deprived in some you know I wish they'd looked a bit more into the socio-economic aspects
00:52:28.980 as well you know it became too simple the nuances that were drawn were far too simple for me
00:52:35.220 but it's a tough job to do right that's what I was going to say in this political climate
00:52:40.040 like someone is always going to find a phrase that triggers them and i'm not saying it's it's
00:52:45.400 not reasonable i don't know but it's it's a very difficult job to prepare a report like that where
00:52:52.380 and i come back to the question i we started this bit of the conversation with which is
00:52:56.400 how do we celebrate the progress we've made without you know dismissing the fact that some
00:53:01.200 people still have a hard time with it a good tweet i think for me the way i do it is through
00:53:06.700 role modelling. You know, I do all sorts of things to get the positive stories out there. You know,
00:53:12.560 I'm doing a podcast series at the moment. I'm interviewing a really wide range of leaders,
00:53:16.400 different sectors. Is it out already? It's out already. What's it called? It's called The Power
00:53:20.180 of Privilege and Allyship. And I'm interviewing many, many different types of leaders, some
00:53:25.580 actually very junior, but are still leading in their own way, different backgrounds, different
00:53:30.780 races, different socioeconomic backgrounds. My son features in a few of the episodes, because
00:53:36.540 he's had such positive impact if you want to call it that from some of these individuals like the
00:53:42.600 gentleman I immediately assumed was the problem when I went to his law firm you know he's very
00:53:47.500 good friends with my son and they talk in one of the episodes about how that relationship how
00:53:52.640 they've learned from each other and you'd never I mean if you look at the two of them they couldn't
00:53:57.280 look more different and yet they've supported and learned from each other and that's the magic that
00:54:03.020 can happen when we open our minds to it. So it's important that we try and learn from each other
00:54:08.400 as well around some of these lived experiences and open things up a bit more. Can I pick up
00:54:14.340 another language thing? Allyship. Well, I wasn't going to say that, but actually, I mean, we can
00:54:20.960 get into that if you want. But a lot of these words, they're like the trigger words for the
00:54:26.140 left, the trigger words for the right, there's trigger words for everybody, right? So lived
00:54:30.260 experience is a personal trigger for me and I tell you why because I'm like why do you need to put
00:54:34.820 lived it's just your experience do you know what I mean like what why do you use that phrase I
00:54:40.060 suppose lived is that you've really really felt it it's always like you need that validation that
00:54:45.340 I lived through this and that was my experience um but yeah I mean I get your point you know
00:54:50.720 if you say my experience was this I suppose the fear is that someone might say well was that your
00:54:55.640 perception more than your experience it might get watered down but the thing is all lived experience
00:54:59.840 is perception all of our experiences go through our filters and we don't really know what happened
00:55:04.060 okay well you brought it up yourself let's talk about allyship how can francis and i be great
00:55:10.140 allies so again this is another you know word that gets people's backs up they don't really
00:55:16.160 understand what's meant by it i talk about becoming friends with people understanding
00:55:22.000 where they're coming from people who aren't like you and that you happen to work with because i i
00:55:26.820 do this in the workplace right it really is as simple as that and i give examples of very simple
00:55:32.640 things you can do to stand up for that person calling it out you know i've been i'm a straight
00:55:37.680 woman i've been in rooms where terrible jokes were being made about homosexuality and that you know
00:55:42.920 we've apologized it was off camera what are you doing here but you know i will call that out and
00:55:51.220 i have done and i've said that you shouldn't be that's completely unacceptable and that's what
00:55:55.620 being an ally means is that you call out that behavior you know you stand up for something you
00:56:00.460 know I've done often in meetings where I notice that someone's not had their say I'll make sure
00:56:05.920 the person leading that meeting so you know draws out that person's opinion I'll say you know name
00:56:11.060 the person or do you have any thoughts about you know that's what allyship is is about where I've
00:56:16.420 enjoyed allyship uh in trying to you know the cause of getting more diversity inclusion in the
00:56:22.140 legal profession corporate world is where I've I've partnered with you know white men because 0.96
00:56:27.960 in some circles that partnership is really important right where you know opening doors
00:56:33.620 for meetings to talk about these cultural issues that can happen in the workplace has only been
00:56:39.500 possible because I've got a friend you know who's also an ally so it's you know he's put action
00:56:44.520 behind it who knows the other senior partner at that firm it gives me a I suppose a bit of
00:56:50.620 credibility, if you want to call it that, that we're on the same page, and we're driving the
00:56:55.140 conversation together. It also means that there's less suspicion of what my motives might be, right?
00:57:00.220 If I've actually allied with somebody who looks more like them, it's a joint effort then. So that's 0.98
00:57:07.220 where allyship is really, really key. And that's why so much change is happening in some companies.
00:57:14.280 You know, people sign up to things they can be doing, you know, actual day-to-day stuff they can
00:57:20.020 be doing to drive this change and it has a real ripple effect across the whole organization
00:57:24.460 well well i've got more questions mate i'm sure you have i'm getting i'm just getting warmed up
00:57:31.420 no if you don't have anything i just wanted to ask a couple of more things if that's cool with
00:57:35.860 you look i've loved this conversation and it's great and i wish i wish to god that when i'm on
00:57:41.460 i don't know good morning britain or whatever it was you sitting there and we were having this
00:57:45.780 conversation as opposed to i'm not going to name them but you know the usual people uh i just wish
00:57:50.800 that was the conversation i wish this was the conversation we had in the mainstream because i
00:57:54.900 think you're making good points i really do and i may or may not agree on everything but at least
00:58:00.100 we're having a conversation right um i just think it's so important but one thing that's become
00:58:06.760 quite contentious in recent times is unconscious bias training yes oh hello i've never believed in
00:58:14.880 it I've never seen you know it's I'm so glad that if there's an area where I'm glad there's been a
00:58:23.840 backlash I'm really glad unconscious bias training has been seen for what it is you know it's not as
00:58:31.140 simple as that I see this as starting a conversation really I've seen magic happen from that start a
00:58:39.360 conversation doing reverse mentoring you know in one firm it was a 50 something year old senior
00:58:44.920 partner who's male and a black socio-economically you know deprived trainee solicitor female 0.78
00:58:50.060 I partnered them you know paired them up as and the magic that happened you know she had
00:58:55.900 misconceptions about him and vice versa together they came up with all sorts of solutions to drive
00:59:01.360 you know things forward no amount of unconscious bias training was going to achieve that
00:59:06.520 you know we need to sit down and start a conversation about these really difficult
00:59:12.020 experiences I won't use the word lived anymore but by having conversations and actively listening
00:59:20.740 which a lot of us don't do we're waiting to interrupt all the time you know we're just
00:59:25.180 waiting to get our point across if you actively listen to that other person and listen to what
00:59:30.600 they've been through you can find more common ground if they're willing to do the same for you
00:59:35.680 I've seen incredible things happen so simple and yet we don't do it we don't do it enough
00:59:41.080 so why do we persist with this unconscious bias training then if it doesn't work as you yeah as
00:59:46.920 you've alluded to I guess it was sometimes seen as a quick fix right you bring someone in you pay
00:59:52.340 them this amount of money they do it they run a session you can tick it off my approach takes
00:59:57.360 longer I mean it does right you have to build trust mentality you've talked about you know but
01:00:02.380 the reality is for for sustained change you need to invest the time but it's so worth it you know
01:00:09.360 it really is and it is again it comes down to that quick change but isn't it also as well because
01:00:15.760 it's about perceptions and perception is a reality you know look how tolerant we are we've had 32
01:00:20.680 diversity trainings this month alone yeah yeah and for a lot of organizations who are you know
01:00:27.600 looking at targets in that way you know the way they set out their targets is you've done this
01:00:33.060 in this quarter my approach is harder to sort of quantify in that way right so I had to come up
01:00:40.680 with different ways of gauging success you know hence reverse mentoring you know how many work
01:00:46.400 experience schemes have you offered to year years nine and ten in the local schools you know these
01:00:51.140 are the sorts of you know metrics I hate that word but you know that's what we're using in
01:00:55.440 corporate circles. And that way you can measure in the same way. Companies like to have things to
01:01:01.320 measure, right? They like to have figures and track things and so on. But I think we've been
01:01:06.500 measuring the wrong things quite often. And I'm trying to change that mindset.
01:01:11.200 All power to you.
01:01:12.140 Thank you.
01:01:13.400 Well, it's been an absolutely brilliant interview. Thank you very much for coming on the show.
01:01:17.760 The last question we always have is, what's the one thing that we're not talking about,
01:01:21.220 but we really should be? So I'm really worried about the mental health implications of lockdown.
01:01:29.320 I see a lot of really worrying trends around that, especially with young people. They've been robbed
01:01:38.000 off so much opportunity because of these, you know, school closures. And it applies to a lot
01:01:43.880 of young people, you know, many of whom are coming up to voting age, will be voting at the next
01:01:49.100 election. And it's really, really sad that the government doesn't seem to have become alive to
01:01:56.300 that in any way. And they're not really planning how they're going to deal with that. It's a real
01:02:01.640 problem. And we really should be talking about that more. It's massive. It's something we've
01:02:05.720 talked as much as the YouTube guards allow us to about on the show quite a bit. And I think
01:02:11.420 you're absolutely right. It's a massive concern. And it's massively under, it's not included in
01:02:16.620 all the polling about everyone who thinks lockdown is great it's not including any of that but there's
01:02:21.080 a lot of people who've killed themselves there's a lot of people who've really suffered and we get
01:02:25.100 emails every day from people who are saying like you know your your shows or whatever is the only
01:02:29.380 thing that's keeping me in any way sane and with all due respect to us i just don't think that's
01:02:34.900 our job and you know that's a big worry it's a big worry and you're absolutely right no it's very
01:02:39.420 concerning on that happy note uh where can people go and uh check out your podcast and anything else
01:02:45.820 find you online etc
01:02:47.260 so I've got a website
01:02:48.780 which is funkeabinvola.com
01:02:51.740 I'm on LinkedIn
01:02:52.580 it's Dr Funkeabinvola MBE
01:02:55.800 I've got a Twitter account
01:02:57.680 which is at champ1diversity
01:02:59.880 and I'm also on Instagram
01:03:02.360 with my business name
01:03:03.560 the Austin Bronte Consultancy
01:03:05.140 so there's no excuse
01:03:06.680 for not getting me in touch
01:03:07.480 well perfect
01:03:09.460 thank you so much for coming on
01:03:10.700 and thank you for watching
01:03:12.200 we will see you very soon
01:03:13.720 with another brilliant interview
01:03:14.800 like this one
01:03:15.360 or catch a Raw show
01:03:16.720 Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
01:03:18.120 or Saturday 7pm.
01:03:19.740 Oh, they always go out
01:03:21.100 at 7pm.
01:03:21.820 I just said that.
01:03:22.500 UK time.
01:03:23.360 You didn't say that bit.
01:03:24.020 You could have just said UK time.
01:03:25.200 No, bye.
01:03:25.780 We're just going to have
01:03:26.360 a domestic now.
01:03:27.060 Bye.
01:03:27.260 Yeah, bye.