Black History Month Should Also Be About Racial Equity

It is Black History Month UK now and there is no doubt that many organisations are doing something to celebrate, but the importance of this month in relation to racial equity means that it should a culmination of celebrating progress in the other 11 months.

Every year organisations use this month as an opportunity to parade their Black colleagues and show how. “diverse” they are, but this is usually to the detriment of doing any of the real work. The outcome: it does more damage than it does good.

The push for data and self-identification is rapidly moving up the agenda, yet if organisations only show performative interest, how can they expect colleagues to self-identify?

Black History Month is as much about celebration as it is physical and psychological safety. If Black colleagues are exploited for this month, this will correlate to how they will about the use of data. There is no security that they will not be exploited once they submit their data.

How can organisations avoid this trap?

We believe the key to success for any cultural transformation and resolving trust issues can be achieved by implementing our 3C Principles.

Clarity, Consistency and Cohesion.

Clarity

While many organisations live up to the clarity piece during Black History Month, for the remaining part of the year, they are suspiciously silent. Building a strategy and clearly communicating this is integral to building trust and engagement outside of Black History Month.

Consistency

They achieve consistency during BHM as they post regularly on all their social media and this same consistency needs to be shown in seeking feedback on where the organisation could do better, what do Black colleagues need in order to succeed.

Cohesion

Support, progress, celebration, a desire to change and taking action, need to be felt and seen both internally and externally. Focussing only on the external leads to breaches in trust, that rarely lead to a positive outcome.

Make Black History Month the benchmark, where you measure exactly how much progress your organisation has made. Not from the perspective of your leaders, but from the perspective of those with lived experience. If the feedback isn’t great, then it means more needs to be done and not ignored.

It is easy to celebrate and difficult to change, yet the change is what will move the dial when it comes to racial equity, not celebration.