One Brick An Hour

Unlocking the Diversity Dividend: Changing the Game by about 36% I saw a tweet earlier this week and it got me thinking: I’ve been considering language a lot recently, specifically thinking about how it positions a circumstance and how language places responsibility.   For instance, I was in a room where the topic of conversation was the barriers of ‘getting in’ and ‘getting on’ at the workplace for those from ethnically diverse backgrounds. An important and needed talking point.  The conversation was hugely valuable and enabled the diverse talent in the room to tell leaders at one of the UK’s largest organisations what barriers we faced. The leaders listened and pledged to enact change, and I believe they will. During the conversation, I noticed we kept circling back to ethnically diverse talent having a “lack of” something, be it role models, guidance, information, networks etc. Although that may be true for some or not true for others - I understood the point, we all did. ...

 Do you know what it means to have a revolution? - The music of an  Uprising You can listen to the whole soundtrack on this playlist . Recently, the BBC released a three-part documentary by Steve McQueen: Uprising . A heart-breaking piece on the 1981 New Cross Fire and subsequent insurrection towards the state who failed to properly investigate the event. I can’t recommend the documentary enough. I was familiar with the incident as Akala mentions it in his book Natives  (a must-read!) but I hadn’t seen it portrayed in such a powerful and emotive way before. The documentary really puts you in front of those directly affected by the fire. They talk of the state of Britain at the time (the vile overt racism, the prevalence of the National Front and the pervasiveness of the NF in state agencies such as the Police Force). They also talk of the characters at the party, the camaraderie between the different families in the black community. And, they talk about the...