Reporting racism
The area of dealing with reports of racism is where the talk–action gap appears at its widest, where anti-racist position statements made by civil society seem at odds with day-to-day practice.
Thirty-eight per cent[1] of respondents have made an informal complaint about specific incidents of racism, and 31%[2] about a general culture of racism in an organisation. A further 28%[3] have made formal complaints regarding specific incidents and 27%[4] have formally complained about general culture. A further 21%[5] of contributors have ‘real concerns’ about specific incidents but have made no complaint; the equivalent figure for concerns but non-reporting on general culture was 23%.[6]
The balance in favour of informal complaints and non-reporting suggests that participants anticipate difficulties in reporting racism. These can include the risk of not getting a fair hearing and facing negative consequences for raising the issue. This fear of raising issues is strikingly evident in the response of the following survey contributor, who emailed the author of this report to say:
Just writing to let you know that I filled out the home truths 2 survey but opted not to share my details as I was too afraid.
If this person is too fearful to include their name on an anonymous survey, that suggests that (through no fault of their own) they would feel unable to raise issues internally. And the survey statistics show that they are clearly not alone on that front. The quote is a reminder of the intimidatory pressure that can be brought to bear to ensure that issues are not raised.
In the wider survey, where complaints had been raised (informally and formally) about specific incidents or general concerns, only 16%[7] were satisfied with the response. Four times as many (64%[8]) were dissatisfied.
At times, complainants seem to have not been believed or taken seriously, even in the example below when an ‘independent’ investigator was looking into the matter:
The investigator completely took the word of senior management over the word of me and others. We were accused of colluding to smear management rather than acknowledge that multiple similar accounts of behaviour could have indicated that our experiences were true.
It is easy to state that an organisation has zero tolerance for racism, but that needs to be followed through – which does not seem to be the case in the example above. In other instances, there can be repercussions to complaining, such as sidelining, that make staying in an organisation untenable. In the words of one contributor:
I was forced out of a permanent job within one month of my complaint outcome, on the basis that my manager refused to manage me. I think they found it triggering to be around someone who challenged the white saviour self-styling and called out their racism.
In this example, the respondent points to the discomfort of their manager with the complaint of racism – attributing this to the way that it seems to cut across the manager’s self-image as a ‘white saviour’. It points to a ‘fight, flight or freeze’ response that makes the person reporting racism the problem rather than institutionalised racism itself.
This section of the report and the associated parts of the survey informing it suggest some repositioning in mainstream civil society towards anti-racism, but also a lack of follow-through in terms of the day-to-day actions required to deliver different outcomes.
[1] 31 of 81 responses to the question.
[2] 25 of 81 responses to the question.
[3] 23 of 81 responses to the question.
[4] 22 of 81 responses to the question.
[5] 17 of 81 responses to the question.
[6] 19 of 81 responses to the question.
[7] 10 of 64 responses to the question.
[8] 41 of 64 responses to the question.
