I Am Racist But
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From the CMP Resolution Blog of John Crawley, Lesley Allport and Katherine Graham. July 2010 |
Business in the Community’s challenging and inspiring report ‘Aspiration and Frustration’ opens with a reminder how resistant racism is to change, and how it reduces engagement and fragments identity and commitment at work.
Outwardly the world of work has changed enormously since the 70's but it is in the internal life of every one of us that racism persists, and it is a difficult habit to lose. In my early years (the 50's and 60's) savagely routine jokes about black people, images of colonial life in comics and text books were commonplace. Black people were not. There was no opportunity to experience black people for real, even in North London, so my stereotypes and the messages that go with them were grounded in ignorance and assumptions that had become part of the ‘we’re Great Britain’ way of life. ‘I’m white so I’m right’ was the norm in my normal working class family.
It is almost impossible to shake off completely the inner reflex responses that accompany such routine ignorance – I still get a strong impulse to cross the road if I see a group of young black males on the street, inwardly flinch at the street language I don’t get, or massive overcompensate and get a strong urge to befriend any black person I see who appears to be new in town, or on their own. I’ve deconstructed my white guilt, my responses are becoming more measured and more congruent. How are you around racism at work?
My life and work has given me the opportunity to build my knowledge and understanding of people different to me. My ignorance is reducing, and as it does reflex responses have moderated to enable me to see the person not the race. As a mediator I encourage people to talk about racism, what it means to experience it, what’s it’s like to be accused of it. We’ve got a lot of work to do to build non-racist workplaces. It’s in this dialogue that our hopes at work lie. Too often we are fearful of exchanging perspectives on racism. I am racist, but I’m working on it. Let me know what you think?
Biography
John Crawley is the Founder and Chair of CMP Resolutions and has been working in organisations who are experiencing conflict for the last 20 years. He has acquired a unique range of conflict narratives illustrating what works and what does not. John developed and utilised the model of Constructive Conflict Management encouraging people at work to handle differences early. This model also advocated a range of dispute resolution processes including mediation and arbitration. In 1989 John set up Conflict Management Plus (now CMP Resolutions) the first holistic conflict management services and training provider in the UK. CMP specializes in developing emotional and psychological capital around conflict, so that people will have greater resources should conflicts resurface in the future. In 2002 John developed Interactive Mediation™ with Katherine Graham launched in Mediation for Managers (since published in Holland, Thailand, the US, China and Russia.) John was subject expert on a BBC worldwide video on this subject, and has trained over 3000 people in conflict management and mediation skills in the last 20 years. He has been imbedded as a conflict management practitioner in varied organizations including the Prison Service, Banks, Armed Services, Airlines, Government Agencies, Police Services, Insurance companies, Medical services, Health Providers and Charities.
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