This blog post was written by our Creative Communications & Events Officer, Megan Henderson.
Group meeting in Marsabit, Kenya.
In our last blog post we discussed building the “new normal” after coronavirus, and we called for this to include challenging some of the norms that already exist. Specifically, we talked of the urgent need to work on becoming anti-racist (as opposed to simply non-racist) and addressing our own unconscious biases.
Our UK staff have been looking internally at how we can become better advocates for marginalised communities and ensure Five Talents identifies and tackles structures of racism or prejudice in our own operations. We will continue having these difficult conversations; this week our staff and Board addressed some questions raised by Charity So White with guidance from an external specialist to facilitate an anti-racist dialogue.
We thought it may be helpful to share some of the resources we’ve found useful so far.
1. Discover
You can click here to take a quiz and see where you hold implicit or unconscious biases in relation to gender, race and sexual orientation. Understanding where your own biases are focused will allow you to address them. Knowing what implicit or unconscious bias is is also important. These free, short (2-3 minutes) videos are a great resource.
2. Listen
The best way to confront your bias is by actively listening to minorities and people of colour. You can read this article to understand why many people of colour believe “not seeing race” is part of the problem (There is even an audio version if you would prefer to listen instead of reading!).
We know a lot of what we read and see about the Black Lives Matter movement has to do with racism in the US. This may help us contextualise why it matters in the UK too.
3. Learn
Five Talents has always felt that education and learning transforms lives -- in addressing racism it is just as important. You can watch this video to better understand why addressing race can be so difficult in our society.
4. Actively seek to be anti-racist
Learning and listening are key steps in becoming anti-racist but there are other ways you can support Black Lives Matter and become anti-racist. You can write to your MP; donate; sign petitions; support minority-owned businesses; or simply speak to your loved ones and members of your community about racism to share what you’ve learned. Find ways to do all of those things by clicking here.
We hope you will find these resources useful. You can find a comprehensive list to continue learning here. Please do share your own reading recommendations too. This is just the beginning - we know that Five Talents faces a long journey where we will learn there is much that we can do better. These discussions are ongoing, and we will continue to work as a Five Talents family to examine our role moving forward. We will share this journey with you periodically and invite you to join us in that journey where you can.