Diversity Management, Equality, Equal Opportunities, Affirmative Action, News & We The People!

On April 22nd 1993 Stephen Lawrence was murdered because of the colour of his skin. He was black. Nobody has been punished for the murder. In 1999, an inquiry decided that the police force in London made too many mistakes in their investigation. Specifically “INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION” IN EMPLOYMENT AND THE DELIVERY OF SERVICES had been raised as an important issue in the UK and globally as a direct result of the Steven Lawrence inquiry brought into being as a result of the his parent’s tremendous efforts. This has implications for the UK media industry too!

To put the headline and leading paragraph in context it’s useful to review some background via a relatively brief discussion then get to the punch-line issue further on, please be patient:

Stephen Lawrence did not know his killers. He had never been involved in crime. All he wanted was to be an architect.

Racism and the failure of the judicial system in the United Kingdom were the important themes. Stephen Lawrence was a teenager living in London who, while waiting for a bus, was attacked and killed by a gang of racist thugs armed with knives.

Stephen’s parents, Neville and Doreen Lawrence, were determined to see justice done.

Because of faulty investigation by police and the ineptitude of the court system, the men who committed the crime were allowed to go free.

Stephen’s parents began a long and difficult process to confront the system that failed to put the men who killed their son behind bars.

One important achievement on the part of Steven’s parents was that they articulated and finally brought public focus to the insidious, pernicious and very damaging issue of INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION endemic in our culture, society and its institutions.

The Macpherson report {1} (of the inquiry) described institutional racism as follows:
‘The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin which can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic people.’

This definition as it relates to the case explains a lot about “why” the men who murdered Stephen Lawrence did not go to prison and much more!

On hearing the results of the inquiry many public and private sector organisations pointed to equality based equal opportunities training and said; yes we have tackled institutional discrimination and moved on, we don’t discriminate, actually we consider ourselves pioneers in the field, we don’t have to worry about that issue.
In 2005 we have the “Equality Standards” to “tackle” these issues in the public sector;- time will tell. What about the private sector? What about all the other sectors that we need to meet our needs so that we can properly function?

These entities have tremendous influence on our everyday lives too.
Since the Thatcher era, private sector organisations have enjoyed a disproportionate influence on the fortunes of our society in part because major social institutions fell into the private sector via wide-scale national privatisation programs.

How did we ensure and continue to ensure that their institutional structures systems and professional practices are properly aligned to the needs of our society as opposed to the needs of their stakeholders to our collective detriment?

The anti-discrimination laws are all very well, however proof of unlawful discrimination with reference to employment issues, along with the access to, relevance of and the delivery of products and services is more often than not difficult to achieve when the financial muscle of Goliath is pitted against the meagre resources of David after the fact.

Better discrimination does not occur in the first place.

Say a given private sector Goliath is willing to make the change then, where do they go for generic tried and tested tools and materials that do not involve substantial consulting fees just to survey their current position for example? This presents an instant financial hurdle the overwhelming majority of Goliaths bigger and smaller are unwilling to jump over for various reasons.

When a single industry handbook or comprehensive reference source is made available, online, for free download, this would indeed be news! It would represent material to start them off so they can define their own positions prior to seeking outside help and give them a better idea of where they need to be going so they can put the help to better use when they do get it later down the line.

How will we guarantee that our private sector “media” institutions in particular are appropriately configured to meet the needs of its consumers? Us! I’m not just talking about their selling X number of units per edition here.
Personally I am bored to death of the vast quantity of so called news, entertainment, gossiptainment, realitytainment garbage I get rammed down my throat everyday and scream inside for “news with substance and relevance to my own life.”

No doubt many who work as journalist share my sentiments too.

We either take the view that the media is here to serve our needs or we are here to serve theirs or we seek a balanced symbiotic relationship. The current situation would seem more than a bit one sided at the moment being weighted against our best interest when we consider the media’s power and tendency to lower the overall ambient intellectual tone and capital of our communities in the context of the acquisition of higher circulation figures and profits for shareholders.

When institutional discrimination and institutional racism are more professionally defined we understand why unlawful discrimination in the context of working life, the design and delivery of products and services, - Police, Health, Education, Judicial, Transport, Media, Energy, Retail and the whole raft of public and private sector services required to make a society tick persist, unabated, without “Effective Challenge.”

At the end of the day it is our institutions including private sector institutions that shape our lives, our life chances, how we live and how we die and they cannot be allowed to remain bystanders or unwitting contributors to the decline of the quality of our lives.

We need to facilitate their learning about how to avoid institutional discrimination in their internal processes and output because we can’t constructively afford to do otherwise, yes we have legislation as guidance however we need established tools and techniques, technology to really make them work in our best interest because the majority of us do want to see them work in our best interest as a community.

Those who work for them directly will share in that best interest, the corporate organisum will indeed benefit too because we will place a higher value on their output given that it will in turn be more relevant to our individual realities.

One thing UK institutions have in common is that they could all do more to promote a more equitable society and will benefit from the input of effective tools and methods that gets the job done whilst lifting technical and morale standards. Remember the Macpherson report {1}

Tools, technique, for getting the job done are in high demand and short supply in the context of fixing the problem of institutional discrimination because UK organisations have not traditionally tackled the job by directly addressing the structures, systems and professional practice of the people who represent the institutions in our midst, remember they are here to serve us, not exploit us.

Institutions that dabble have long been attempting to change behaviour by changing attitudes;- Training courses galore! They have not been attempting to change behaviour by changing the environment within and through which people work!

Moving forward from the days of the inquiry, Diversity Management and Equalities professionals still have no “comprehensive reference source” in this context and movement addressing institutional discrimination within the UK has been slow and patchy to date.

A professional definition of institutional discrimination would go something like the following:

INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION occurs when an individual or group associated with a given institution or body and empowered by it, treats another contrasting individual or group less favourably than others in similar circumstances and that institution’s structures and or systems and or professionals practices enable by not effectively preventing, detriment to the affected individual or group when that disadvantage cannot be reasonably justified.

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM occurs when an individual employed by or otherwise represents an organisation, causes disadvantage to another on grounds of race, by virtue of their function and that disadvantage cannot be reasonably justified.

An organisation is “INSTITUTIONALLY RACIST” when its representative(s) commit acts of racism during their functions on behalf of that organisation, and remains so whilst any conditions that enable acts of racism through function remain in force.

The Diversity Management Handbook
All rights reserved, ©2000-2005

NOW TO THE PUNCHLINE OF THIS ARTICLE:

Recently I despatched information to national press and agencies, wires services and the like, some 70 copies of a one page 12pt A4 sheet to named and nameable journalists, editors and news organisations with the headline “TECHNICAL MANUAL ADDRESSING INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD!”{2}

I called some of them back and confirmed that they saw it of course.
I have even left messages to say look out for it or call me for more information and have written again to named individuals asking them for any assistance they can extend so as to get the information out.

I had no doubt that some movement would happen in some organ, perhaps a small paragraph or something because what I sent them affects every single person in the country;- Highly relevant tools known to be in short supply free to download! THIS IS NEWS, this anybody would want to know about! Even in the background!

I have been asking myself the usual questions when I have felt 100% ignored or made to feel irrelevant.

Is what I am saying irrelevant, irrelevant to the mass media?

I don’t think so if we want to affect the reality of institutional discrimination in our country. I doubt if many among us would think it were.

So what happened?

We know that a section of the “sampled journalist” did see it.

Is it that none saw a relevant structure by which to convey it?

Well some of these same writers and editors have been commenting on the Steven Lawrence issue when it was “hot.” they must have “seen” dozens of single A4s.

Was it written “badly?”

I guess that this must be subjective; I don’t think it was written badly because I am confident through my achievements in the past, submitting press information and having it used verbatim.

Was it the content that simply wasn’t interesting then?

That’s subjective too!

I do think that the business of mass media is information when it is relevant to the lives of its consumers, (Do I really believe that?) I think our news item is relevant.

Ok the “subject heading?”

I would expect alert to the words “INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION,” I would expect a positive somehow given what we saw revealed by the inquiry about the death of Steven and the behaviour of our police service/institution. We know its an important issue in our wider organisations, we know what we mean by institution and we know too what we mean by discrimination and we know those two words together are highly relevant to each of our lives and we need tools and equipment to address them.

Was it not topical?

I know a quick look at the links below will demonstrate that it is.

To quote Mr & Mrs Lawrence:
“We need to take what we have got and try and go forward and do something about the problems we have got,”
“For the very first time people are now aware of the situation and we hope that people will now use this opportunity to go forward and try and do some good in the name of my son.”

I believe the two words together; “INSTITUTIONAL and DISCRIMINATION” provoked discomfort and turn offs in the minds of the individual journalist reading the headline, even those well familiar with the wider issues and their institutional structures, systems and professional practices enabled and even compelled them to go with this personal prejudice!

And the important news of the available free to download manual, was suppressed actively and in some cases subconsciously!

The murder of Steven Lawrence and the findings by his parents has been relegated to yesterday’s news and in the extreme simply not news anymore. Whatever good there was to the media has already been harvested, the words institutional discrimination together is no longer useful to them or rather, not presently useful to them, not current and not worth taking seriously. In their minds there was simply not enough circulation in it, it was not sexy enough.

Its application and relevance was simply missed by the very people and organisations who’s duty it is to deliver it.

I believe that the structures they work in do not promote this kind of “News,” nor does the internal/institutional systems, nor professional practice.

No News here.

What is news anyway?

Back to any of the definitions of institutional discrimination highlighted above.

INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION clearly played a role in the suppression of this vital news item.

It’s alive and kicking in UK media organisations.

And they need to do something about it that is transparent and effective.

Like any other UK organisation its workers and organisational structures systems and professional practices are drawn from and inspired by the wider society within which it does it’s business.

The same one in which Steven Lawrence needlessly died and in which justice remains denied to him and his family and remains potentially so for others across so many spheres.

I would like to ask the UK media as a group, industry and national institution not to shoot the messenger, just get the message and act on it as your institution should be mindful to do and benefit from that themselves too!

Article ©2005 All rights reserved, Floyd Campbell

All commentary and utility welcome.

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Floyd Campbell is Principal of
CAMPBELLCONSENT DIVERSITY
Specialist in Diversity Management
Consulting, Training, Research & Marketing
http://www.campbellconsent.com

REFERENCE & LINKS:

THE MACPHERSON REPORT {1} http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/4262.htm

THE “PRESS RELEASE; TECHNICAL MANUAL ADDRESSING INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION”{2} http://weblog.disyasite.com/wp-content/docs/blogg%20media%20information.pdf
“DOWNLOAD PAGE: THE DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK” The comprehensive manual of do’s & don’t for effective diversity management. http://www.campbellconsent.com/dmh.htm

FURTHER LINKS:

http://www.archive.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm42/4262/4262.htm

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/feb1999/law-f02.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4636907.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/stephen_lawrence/285357.stm

http://www.dialogueworks.co.uk/newswise/months/feb99/lasen.html

http://movies.channel.aol.com/movie/main.adp?tab=synop&mid=1216680

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/stephen_lawrence/282378.stm

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=6800&grp=62&cat=214

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=6390&grp=14&cat=66

http://www.indianexpress.com/archive_full_story.php?content_id=3719

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/4646395.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4115264.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4080284.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4575641.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4557713.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4229097.stm