Racism at work: a call to anti-racist action for Australian organisations

Fri, 22 Apr 2022 18:11:59 +1000

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/racism-at-work-a-call-to-anti-racist-action-for-australian-organisations-179758>

"On March 21 2022 the world commemorated the International Day for the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination. In Australia, we celebrated Harmony Day
instead.

This is one of the greatest indicators of our continuing reluctance to talk
about racism, and the silencing of meaningful conversations about it. Instead,
we prefer race-neutral language such as “harmony”, “cultural diversity” and
“cohesion”, and speak in ways that are celebratory and tokenistic.

Not surprisingly, this silencing of discussions of racism is reflected in our
workplaces.

Diversity Council Australia’s (DCA) report launched in March 2022. The report
disrupts the silence around racism in Australian workplaces by bringing
attention to its prevalence.

The report is largely informed by DCA’s Racism at Work Survey. The survey shows
nearly nine in ten employee respondents saw racism as a problem in their
workplace; 93% agreed that organisations need to take action to address racism;
and only 3% thought organisations should stay out of it.

Importantly, only 27% said their organisations are proactive in preventing
workplace racism.

Clearly it’s time to put racism on the agenda - and according to DCA, this
starts with using the right language. To combat racism, we must directly engage
with workplaces to discuss racism in a way that can deliver solutions.

The report centres the voices of people who have experienced racism, and
provides an Australian-specific framework for understanding and addressing it.
It also presents the first ever organisationally focused anti-racism tool
specifically developed for Australian workplaces."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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