out discrimination, like bad language or threatening behaviour. It is not what you think of when you think of racism. “It looks like micro-aggressions and small slights, and it is the cumulative effect of those things that make you constantly feel excluded and not part of the organisation.
From anecdote to evidence Hong-Anh says that the first step is to look at an individual’s experiences within the workplace, and to take these experi- ences and use them as valuable data. If personal experience is transformed from anecdote to evidence, it sets it out as important and makes it harder to dismiss. She also believes there needs to be a con- scious shift in the way we listen to people and the way we judge personal experience – specifically a shift from looking at intent and instead focusing on impact. Hong-Anh says: “For instance, the con- versation about racism and what consti- tutes racism should be less about intent and more about impact. So, we start to ask ‘what is the impact on the person?’, rather than what was the intention of an action.” However, she believes that this is not necessarily an easy position to take because racism is such a loaded term. She says: “The problem is our understanding of rac- ism is quite dated – so we view racism in this very binary way – a good person and a bad person, and you are good if you are not racist and bad if you are.”
Structural inequality
“We need to move towards a place where racism is understood as a structural ine- quality. We already have an understanding of this with gender, where we very much understand that there are structural barriers to women progressing. But we don’t have that same understanding of the how those barriers play out in terms of race. “What makes it difficult culturally is that it is easier to call-out sexism without people being mortally offended. If you do that with racism people feel very defensive because it’s tantamount to saying you are an immoral person.
“However, you can carry out actions that are racist, but still be a good person, and still be a nice person. There is a real disconnect there and that’s what makes it tough culturally to change this.”
April-May 2019
“The problem with micro-aggressions is that when you bring them up, they sound very minor. So, part of the culture change needs to be about how we listen. We are a profession that values information, data and evidence and I think we need to start thinking of lived experience as data and value it just as strongly as a form of evidence.
Hong-Anh Nguyen Acknowledging bias
The difficulty lies in the distinction between the open, aggressive racism and racism that comes from our own cultural perspectives. Hong-Anh says: “Uncon- scious bias is a really good example of this – we all hold and we all act on it. There- fore, your actions will be racist because you are acting on bias, but that doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person (and equally, that’s not to say that bad people don’t act on an unconscious bias either), it’s just acknowledging that it’s there. “With unconscious bias, there is no way of curing yourself of it, it’s just about being aware of it and acting accordingly. That makes it difficult to call it out – a lot of times people will say ‘I didn’t mean to, that’s not my intention’.”
People from minority groups – whether ethnic, cultural, sexuality, gender identifi- cation or with disabilities – face barriers, whether intended or not, throughout their lives, and that is why we need to think about the impact on the individual. Hong-Anh says: “The reality of racism in the workplace doesn’t feel like out-and-
Listen – and value experience “In the past when people brought up lived experience, it was very common for people to try to explain it away or rationalise it. For instance, someone getting your name wrong and saying ‘Oh, it’s just a mistake’. But do they get other people’s names wrong? “That’s a very insidious way to shut down a conversation – to rationalise it or explain it away. And actually, people doing that are probably not doing it with any malicious intent, they are probably doing it to make the person feel better.
“Maybe at a deeper subconscious level
they are doing it because they don’t want to think someone else would do something bad, or with ill-intent. But the effect of it, which is also an un- foreseen consequence, is that you are shutting people down and they are not feeling heard.
“That kind of thing cumulatively builds up and you get the feeling that things are not being taken seriously and you question whether they ever will be taken seriously. We need to swing towards listening to people more, putting more value in their experience.”
Hong-Anh is working as part of a team that is looking at how The King’s Fund can increase its own diversity. The organisation mirrors the infor- mation profession in some ways – the workforce is predominantly female, and largely identifies as white. And despite the fact women take up the majority of positions, leadership is dominated by men.
CILIP’s commitment
Hong-Anh says that overcoming these imbalances will take time, but recog-
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 17
Conference Interview
pp16-18.indd 5
25/04/2019 15:21
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
