"No one can deny that the [racialised person] is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the [racialised person] confronts is [their] lack of power....

Hear Marsha on BBC 5Live talking about the issues with rolling back on DEI work.

No demographic is outside of inclusion; it's inclusion for all, or it's not inclusion at all.

If you agree that the culture of any organisation is shaped by the worst behaviours a leader is willing tolerate, then I hope you agree that the culture of any organisation can be shaped by the best behaviours a leader is willing to demonstrate.

I felt that creating a spectrum from social murder (policies causing systemic harm and premature death) to social affection (policies fostering well-being, belonging, and thriving communities) is a useful way to evaluate the moral and practical impact of policies.

Habitual inclusion requires you to mitigate your bias through repeated conscious action, so it becomes more automatic, but it's never unconscious. The habit remains considered - it's simply practiced to the point of being less effortful.

The issues facing many students, and early career architects, in practice are not a secret. Misogyny, racism, homophobia – often overt, sometimes microaggressions – we hear about them all the time.

When people want to get on with their career, they can fear raising issues, and sometimes, practice leaders can be unaware of how their younger colleagues are being treated.

Schools and departments of Architecture don’t always have the skills to know how to manage these issues either.

So, how can we deal with these things?

Having Challenging Conversations is a free resource to help address the gap that exists between intention and impact, as well as helping to make people aware of their biases and behaviours.

In a recent webinar for Building People CIC – a hub for EDI in the Built Environment – where I am currently contracted as the Executive Director of EDI, I was talking about Inclusive Recruitment.

My D&I colleague, Carmen Morris, recently wrote an article, on LinkedIn, about her concern about Unconscious Bias (UB) awareness workshops. Also, I saw a post by James Elfer of MoreThanNow. Look them both up.

I decided to respond to some of the detractors in the comments with the following information and thought it might be useful to share in an article, as it exceeded the comments character limit by quite some way and required six separate replies!

Not all bias is unconscious. Not all unconscious bias is unhelpful.

Be clear, though, that to be human is to be biased. The shortcutting of information is a human biological cerebral need. We wouldn’t be able to function effectively if our brain didn’t have the capacity to make assumptions and create heuristics due to the sheer amount of information it has to process. However, due to repeated inputs, socialisation, cultural messaging etc, stereotypes and biased information work their way into our psyche and they then play out in our behaviours.

I write this in the days after the mass shooting of people in Buffalo, New York State. The pain Black people felt two years ago, is re-felt, re-hurt, re-imagined. And, when we ask what has changed societally in the two years since the murder of George Floyd, it’s difficult to see a positive answer. 

I'm concerned about the number of companies STILL expecting staff networks, volunteer groups and hobbyists to fix the issues of racism, discrimination and social injustice in their organisations.

If you actually want EDI efforts to succeed in your company you need these six elements; I say you need to STREAM© your EDI:-

Support, Time, Resource, Effort, Agency, Money.