The Power of Privilege

However, I wanted to make sure I understood his viewpoint in order to figure out a way to include him and people like him in my conversations around equality. So I asked him for his honest opinion. What he said struck me and has stayed with me throughout the process of writing this book. Even with his discomfort, he was still eager to know how he could be of help in creating change. He also wanted to understand if there was indeed a place for him in the conversation: ‘How do we move from accusation to conversation and that I not to be made to feel like I’m on trial just because I happen to be white and male?’ To that I added ‘and middle class’, at which he was quick to point out to me that he was not ‘middle class’, even though many people assumed he was because of his current privileged status. He had worked hard and won scholarships to rise through the ranks of a world that saw him as an insider, even though the reverse was true. That evening was a powerful moment of revelation for me and all those who were in attendance, and confirmed that there was a need for someone to write in a balanced, meaningful way about what white people in positions of power and privilege can do to bring about positive change.

We are all essentially informed by our beliefs, which are the summary of the stories we tell ourselves. The prevailing story that we are all told in the West is one of hard-fought battles for equality and an arc towards justice and greater meritocracy – not a perfect arc but one that is improving. The experiences of people of colour, especially those who are socially disadvantaged, meant that this story was long ago discarded as a fable. Others who have made some progress in a white world buy in to the story but see it as aspirational rather than literal and are careful not to challenge it in an attempt to avoid the potential cost of rocking the boat. However, the naked brutality of the treatment of black people, in America and around the world, has caused people of colour to break their silence, tired of playing along with the official story. Many white people also feel outraged and have found themselves marching alongside people of colour, demanding that a fair and meritocratic society be delivered. But those mainly white people who have excelled under the current system also have to come to terms with the reality that they are the ones who have prospered from systemic racism.

Making room at the top

One of the key measures of agency in our society is wealth, and it is another indicator that singles out the black community. The underrepresentation of black people in elite professions and their absence from wealth listings is contrasted with an overrepresentation in the lower socioeconomic stratas of society. Economic empowerment will be a key milestone in enabling black people to resist racism, as opposed to needing to be defended from it. Owning businesses, being the employer rather than the employee and having the options that wealth provides can help to mitigate black people’s exposure to racism. However, economic empowerment is taking longer to achieve than many of us hoped it would.

In 2019, I was contacted by Eleanor Mills, the then Editor of the Sunday Times Magazine, to write a piece about the blatant lack of diversity in the Rich List. There’s a famous quote by the American campaigner for children’s rights Marian Wright Edelman that says: ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’. Well, I was shocked to see just one black female entrepreneur represented. I am speaking specifically of black women here rather than women of colour, as there was a stark contrast in the Rich List between the number of Asian entrepreneurs (more than 80) and the number of black entrepreneurs (four, three of whom were men).7 The following year nothing had changed, and Shingi Mararike had to write a piece not too dissimilar to the one I had written the year before. This must change if we are to make any progress towards equality.

Patriarchal rules

In Europe, elite white men have been at the top of the totem pole for centuries. The descendents of the brutally successful male warlords who initially established themselves as the ruling elites in Europe were able to take their brand of patriarchy and make it global. This was achieved by the creation of a formidable coalition of ambitious maritime ‘explorers’, the Christian church and a heavily biased education system. As European men began to dominate the planet militarily, politically and culturally from the sixteenth century onwards, the propagation of the idea that being born straight, white, male and Christian made you superior to those who lacked even one of these characteristics became incredibly powerful.

This idea grew to such prominence that those who were born with these elevated characteristics came to see it as not only their right but their moral duty to dominate those inferiors who happened to be lacking these characteristics. If you were absent any one of them, you needed to be controlled, protected, civilized or suppressed, or you were a moral abomination. Even though not all straight white males benefited equally, this idea resonated and led to a feeling of pride in those who did share all of the elevated characteristics and an assumption of superiority. The idea that a person was innately better than those individuals who lacked any of these characteristics became commonplace around the world. In fact, the belief in these elevated characteristics became so prominent that it led to education, opportunity and achievement becoming intrinsically linked to the elite group who held these characteristics.

This elite group have obtained the bulk of the world’s wealth and have created a framework that allows them to be the most likely to fulfil their potential in society. If truth be told, the origins of a lot of this wealth has been ill-gotten, to the detriment of much of what we now consider to be the developing world. This historical context has created an entrenched position of privilege, leading to the systemic racism we continue to see today, making it very difficult to challenge without buy-in from the people at the top of the hierarchy.

The case for why

Beyond simple fairness, there are very practical reasons why we need to create the conditions where inclusion and diversity are the norm. In the UK, the Social Mobility Commission enlisted Ipsos MORI to conduct a poll in February 2016 on intergenerational social mobility. The results indicated that the majority of Britons felt the country’s best days were behind it: 54 per cent believed that young people’s lives would be worse than those of previous generations, and even more worryingly only one in five believed that better days lay ahead. These findings should have been a warning about the growing dissatisfaction of hardworking everyday Brits.

Alan Milburn, Chair of the Social Mobility Commission from 2012 to 2017, is convinced that these concerns are real and very valid and should have been heeded. He told me:

Britain’s deep social mobility problem, for this generation of young people in particular, is getting worse, not better. The barriers to progress are becoming bigger, not smaller. The impact is no longer only felt by the poorest in our society but instead is holding back a whole tranche of low- and middle-income families . . .

Whole tracts of Britain feel left behind. Whole communities feel the benefits of globalization have passed them by. Whole sections of society feel they are not getting a fair chance to succeed.

Famed thinker Noam Chomsky explains how the same thing has happened in the USA. In his film and book Requiem for the American Dream, he draws on the history of US economic inequality to show the crucial difference between then and now:

During the Great Depression, things were much worse than they are today, but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. There was a real sense of hopefulness. There isn’t today . . .

Not only is it extremely unjust in itself, inequality has highly negative consequences on the society as a whole because the very fact of inequality has a corrosive, harmful effect on democracy.8

There has always been inequality, but today the disparity between rich and poor has created a global wealth divide. According to a pre-World Economic Forum 2017 report by Oxfam, eight billionaires control as much wealth as the poorest 50 per cent of the world.9 The unfair consequences of globalization have created a new class, described by economist Guy Standing in his book The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. Standing explains that the new ‘precariat’ has ‘precarious living standards characterized by low income in insecure employment’.10 But this level of inequality is unsustainable – the people who have been left behind, very many of whom are people of colour, will only tolerate this for so long. Therefore, it is only by creating a more conscious and inclusive form of capitalism that we can hope to avoid widespread unrest in the future.

There’s also a very lucrative and sizeable upside to being more inclusive. A 2015 report by McKinsey showed that the more diverse the company, especially at the leadership level, the more profitable it was. Perhaps even more importantly, diverse teams have been proven to be smarter and more effective than homogenous ones: they have a tendency to focus more on facts; are more objective; process data more carefully; and are more innovative.11 And just as the ideas and contributions of a diverse and inclusive group lead to better outcomes in business, the same is true in life more generally. This is why it is for the benefit of everyone that we do all we can to avoid the dangers of growing inequality and embrace everything that diversity has to offer.

How this book works

This book looks at some of the ways in which race inequality manifests itself, before demonstrating how to be an effective ally in a world that is evolving at a rapid pace, how to use the power of privilege for good and how to create a bigger, more inclusive pie that provides more slices to go around. This involves thinking about the kind of legacy you as an individual wish to leave behind and not blindly enjoying the benefits of a system that is causing so much waste of human potential. Business as usual is not working and cannot safely take us any further in our human journey.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the tragic extent of racial inequality in the West, with people of colour dying disproportionately. Although further research will be needed to fully understand why this is the case, it is thought that living in densely populated, poor urban areas, often within tightly situated apartment blocks and often in multigenerational households, has left many people of colour highly vulnerable to the destructive nature of this deadly virus. These are often

the same people in frontline jobs ensuring that we are able to access groceries, use public transport and of course receive medical care. And BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) people are more likely to suffer from pre-existing conditions as a result of health inequalities.12 These deaths have exposed horrible racial inequities and are especially tragic when they occur amongst those who have sacrificed their own lives working to save the lives of their fellow human beings. The very least we owe to those extraordinary individuals is to finally address systemic racism. The inequalities exposed by the virus are more visible now, so we can see exactly where they occur, whether it be in housing, health, education or employment. This provides the perfect opportunity to marshal resources where they are needed to directly address racial disparities. Just as with the depth of racism that has been exposed by George Floyd’s tragic death, to remain ignorant is now inexcusable. We can instead choose to opt for a different reality, where we do what is needed to ensure we can all live with human dignity and enjoy the same life chances regardless of the colour of our skin.

The Power of Privilege outlines ten action-driven solutions to create the right kind of change, by equipping those with elevated characteristics to harness their privilege and agency, and become effective allies for inclusion.

We know the usual way of doing things is not working; the patience of people on the receiving end of discrimination is also wearing thin. The old ideas that there are people who are inferior and can be treated less favourably at work or by the state for lacking an elevated characteristic is being challenged at large. But we need a few more good people to use their privilege in support of those with less power, not simply as an act of charity but rather as a display of allyship and solidarity. When some-one is not heard or marginalized as a result of their identity, it demonstrates the failure of our systems. Those people then begin to disengage and their participation in the system is lost.

Now more than ever it is imperative that everyone is ‘in the room’ as we navigate social, economic and demographic changes in the West alongside environmental and geopolitical shifts globally. This book seeks to separate the bystanders from the leaders who are prepared to subvert the normal patterns that reinforce the supremacy of white people to achieve a different and more inclusive outcome. If you are a white person who wants to add being ‘inclusive’ as a legitimate elevated characteristic to your identity, then here is where you learn about the real power of privilege.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.