Our founder, Dan Ebanks, talks about his experiences of racism and how we can go further together.
Coming of age in the 90s, I would worry that talking about race to white people would sound like excuses for the things that perhaps had not gone the way I had wanted. As a teenager I remember a so-called friend telling me his father said that I felt the world owed me a living; I was 16 at the time. I’ve never wanted anyone’s pity, and I’ve never asked for any favours, like my father or the rest of my family. And, particularly on the subject of race, I’ve never wanted to admit any vulnerability.
What I am writing today has been triggered by the work of Marcus Rashford MBE. He talks about being proud to be British after seeing the response to his campaign to ensure underprivileged kids don’t go hungry during half term. I don’t know Mr Rashford. But to see a young black man standing up and making a positive change in a country where we see a growing narrative that seeks to downplay the unconcious bias and overt racism that many BAME people experience on a regular basis; it’s humbling. As a parent, I can imagine how proud his family must be of him. Thinking about what Mr Rashford has achieved reminds me of London 2012. That was the last time I could look at our country and feel an almost overwhelming sense of pride. That and the amazing work of our NHS over the last 9 months, an organisation I also owe a special debt of gratitude to for the care my son received in the first year of his life.
A few weeks after the Black Lives Matter protests swept across the world, I received a phone call from one of my oldest friends, who happens to be white. Someone I’ve known since I was 18. Someone I’ve shared amazing times with. Someone I’ve shared the worst of times with, too. He asked me what I thought about the protests. He then told me what he thought. He prefaced it with, ‘What do they want?’ He informed me that his daughter had been precluded from an inteview process with Mi6 because she was white. As a fund manager at one of the biggest financial institutions in the country, he told me he knew ‘categorically’ that every FTSE100 company was doing everything it could to increase BAME representation on the board and in their workforce. He finished by saying it was primarily poor white boys that were struggling, rather than black children.
Throughout my life, I’ve been called a lot of racist names, primarily by white people but also by a few black people, on account of my dual heritage. I learned early on these names said everything about them and nothing about me (pity and passion are not mutually exclusive by the way). However, that phone call with my friend of 25 years was probably the most devastating conversation I’ve had about race. I’m going to use that conversation to break a few things down, to hopefully inform the conversation that a lot of people want to talk about.
‘What do they want?’ The vast majority of BAME people in this country want what everyone else wants. The expectation that our kids won’t be discriminated against at school. That people look behind the headlines on, say, knife crime and seek to understand the bigger picture. That centuries of subliminal and overt messaging that black people are morally and intellectually inferior is put right.
‘Mi6 precluded my daughter from applying.’ My friend is suggesting that the system, in fact, is stacked against white people in these political correct, ‘woke’ times. If what he describes is true, it is illegal, unless there were pertinent factors relating to national security in the fine print. Yet my friend, a well educated person, has chosen to interpret his experience as a sign that white people in the UK are being discriminated against.
‘Every FTSE100 company is ‘categorically’ looking to bring more BAME people on to boards and into the workforce.’ First off, I don’t believe that he knows this ‘categorically’. But let’s look at the evidence. If you have a ‘black sounding’ name, you’re unlikely to get called to interview. I remember, when trying to raise equity finance for our start-up, sitting in a room with around 60 other founders and being told that, statistically, BAME people are enormously disadvantaged when trying to raise capital. I was one of two BAME people in the room. It’s enormously difficult to raise funding without the right connections as it is: I can’t really put into words how I felt at that moment. It was… crushing to hear that, in that room at that moment, surrounded by other founders, none of whom would ever have to deal with a problem created by how they looked or what their name was.
‘It’s primarily white boys that are struggling.’ This reminds me of a call I received during the BLM protests from another ‘friend’. He told me how much he loved Irish folk because of their ability to ‘get on with it’. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. He then went on to tell me about the ‘Irish Slave Trade’. I inferred from this that he was asking why descendants of black slaves can’t just ‘get on with it’ and suck up what happened in the transatlantic slave trade and the structural inequalities that have followed. Because the Irish have.
Now, just to be as clear as I can be on ‘white privilege’.
White privilege does not mean white people do not experience fewer opportunities in the job market, or worse schooling or lower average incomes. It simply means being white does not lead to fewer opportunities in the job market, or worse schooling, or lower average income.
And on the disadvantages that (white) working class people face; well, that was one of the reasons trade unions were invented. I suspect my fund manager friend and the current Conservative government that’s looking to ‘level up’ aren’t too keen on trade unions.
And let me be clear about what I think ‘we’ want.
No more reviews. We’re not stupid. We’ve had enough reviews. Just get on with it.
No more distractions with ‘culture wars’. What exactly is the problem with ‘re-writing’ history? We want better history, better researched and better told. Let’s hear the whole story.
We want to see the power structures of this country reflect the people that live in it. The people who decide how our resources are spent. The people who interpret the laws of our country. The people who keep us safe. We want a fair representation of BAME people within these institutions. We want an acknowledgement of how insidious unconscious bias is, so insidious that it makes black people think less of ourselves. We want action to remedy this. And we want the government to lead on this. To set the right example.
At the end of it all, we just want a fair shake.
And what am I doing? I’m making sure my children’s schoolteachers understand unconscious bias, how it can affect children in primary school and the impact on children’s life chances.
And, inspired by the work of Mr Rashford, my organisation the Social Value Exchange will enable corporate business to fund free school meals for vulnerable and disadvantaged kids across the UK.
By the way, I’m an Arsenal fan. I really don’t like Manchester United. Just this once I’m going to give a United player props for what he does best, which is score goals. Respect Marcus!
