Aufgabe HT 3 - 1 · Abitur NRW Englisch GK · Haupttermin · Weiterbildungskolleg 2021

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

Klausurteil A

Rene Germain and Adesuwa Ajayi

Black Lives Matter – Unless You’re Black in the Workplace

Rene Germain and Adesuwa Ajayi, the authors of this text, are black women who live in the United Kingdom.

The murder of George Floyd in the US and the resulting Black Lives Matter protests taking

place globally have led many organisations to express their support for the Black Lives Matter

movement and their black employees, and making generous donations to black organisations.

However, this new apparent solidarity with the black community is rather surprising, especially

5 to their Black employees who are used to dealing with racism and micro-aggressions every

day.

It’s ironic to see companies who have failed to act on racism for so long, suddenly professing

to care. Where is the solidarity when you pay us less than our white counterparts? Where is

the solidarity when you fail to hire and promote us into senior leadership roles? Where is

10 the solidarity when we report racist incidents and we are told to ignore it?

Numerous conversations have been happening online as company statements have been

critiqued by current and former Black employees. As the two black female founders of nine

to five’s, an online community for black people in the workplace, we saw it as our duty to

amplify and expand this conversation, so we created #blackintheoffice on twitter and asked

15 Black employees to message us their experiences so we could share them anonymously.

The response has been overwhelming, with many recommending the thread as essential line

manager and senior leadership reading. Whilst it provides a much-needed raw insight into

the black British employee experience, it has also been heart-breaking to read.

Common trends we saw across the submissions included Black women being subjected to

20 negative comments about their natural hair styles, weaves and wigs, with colleagues touching

their hair and even attempting to remove wigs during work night out.

Many of those that got in touch with us said they found out upon leaving their jobs that they

were being significantly underpaid, and being replaced with lesser qualified white people

who were being paid more.

25 Others spoke of being labelled as “aggressive, pushy, sassy, negative”, or being subject to

inappropriate comments about drug use, gangs or slavery, and receiving no support from

their peers or HR when reporting incidents.

And the submissions showed this issue isn’t unique to one particular industry either. It happens

everywhere, from law to banking, recruitment, fashion and luxury, beauty and cosmetics,

30 charity, transport, aviation, education, property and construction, journalism and more. As

suspected, there is no “safe industry” or “safe workplace” if you are Black.

Now more than ever, companies need to realise that talk is cheap and Black employees are

tired. We are tired of the blanket statements and empty promises. We want to know of the

specific actions you are going to take to create a safe environment for Black employees to

35 thrive. We would like clear transparency and accountability around those actions. We would

like to be spoken to as the Black community and not referred to as BAME or people of colour,

because we are not a singular homogenous group. We want to be listened to and trust that

we can report incidents without fear of retribution. We want to be paid fairly. We want to

see more Black people in senior leadership, because we know they exist in our firms and

40 externally, so why don’t you hire or promote them?

Now is also the time to recognise the things that don’t work. It simply isn’t enough to just

hire more Black people, not until you have taken the necessary steps to make your workplace

more inclusive of them. Hiring a diversity and inclusion lead takes away from the fact that a

diverse and inclusive workplace needs to be the responsibility of everyone. The unconscious

45 bias trainings mask the ugly reality that much of the behaviours Black employees are

subjected to are very conscious and calculated. “One size fit all” diversity and inclusion

initiatives for “minority” employees don’t address the unique issues those individual

communities face.

Systemic racism is rife and the injustices that Black people are subjected to don’t stop with

50 police brutality. The way in which companies treat their Black employees is another type of

injustice that needs to be acknowledged and addressed. It’s time for companies to do better

and take action.

Annotations:

16 · thread – here: the compilation of tweets on a particular topic

16 – 17 · line manager and senior leadership reading – something people in superior managing positions should read

25 · sassy – informal: disrespectful

27 · HR (Human Resources) – the department in a company responsible for staff-related issues, including hiring and training employees

33 · blanket statements – generalising statements

36 · BAME (Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority) – term used in the UK to refer to people who are not white

43 · diversity and inclusion lead – person responsible for increasing diversity and equal participation in a company

44 – 45 · unconscious bias training – training to make people aware of unconscious prejudices

1.

Outline what Rene Germain and Adesuwa Ajayi have set up as an initiative and which insights have resulted from it. (Comprehension) [12 Punkte]