This is an introductory episode. No guests. Just me sharing a few of my reflections on this completely unplanned journey of mine and what advancing racial equity 4.0 means to me.
Want to connect with me?
In what’s meant to be a professional capacity, I’m on LinkedIn most days: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shereen-daniels/
Casual chitchat, head over to Twitter: https://twitter.com/HrRewired
My company services - HR rewired: https://www.hr-rewired.com
My TV platform - HR rewired TV: https://www.hr-rewired.tv
00:04
Hello Hello and welcome to advancing racial equity 4.0 and I'm Shereen bill HR conversationalist. Now, technically this is not my first rodeo when it comes to the podcast airwaves. Prior to the summer of 2020, I actually started a very exciting tech podcast called under the bonnet with tech. But it's my life was hijacked for the betterment of myself and those around me. The death of George Floyd and me watching the video of Amy Cooper brought into sharp relief that this age old pandemic, racism, over 400 years old, we've never solved. And for me, it was the recognition, the painful recognition that for 17 years, my silence has meant that I never allowed myself to be part of the solution. So for those who have faithfully followed me to this new platform, thank you, and welcome again. For those of you who are new, I thought I'd do a brief introduction, just to context why I'm here. So my journey started on the 31st of May when I recorded what is now affectionately known as my day one video. And this was a 20 minute video that I recorded in my bedroom talking about how I had been impacted by racism is a black woman born in the UK. How it made me feel when organisations the UK at that time said nothing as the protest was sweeping America and then started to sweep the rest of the world and the British were feigning ignorance about racism and claiming it was a US issue. And the reality of this world that we're living in, was brought into sharp relief for me when I saw the video of Amy Cooper in Central Park and how she weaponized her, her race, her position in society to use against a black man. And I just thought, how is it that the silence that I have maintained for 17 years of my corporate life has been for nothing? And it's been for nothing? Because where has that silence gotten me? Where has that silence gotten us as black people? Or says global majority people? Right? So those of us with melanin in our skin, who are indigenous who are part of the African diaspora, you know, where has our silence gotten us? In so that day one video became day two, day three, day four, and pretty much, I recorded a video a day for over 100 consecutive days by two weeks off to replenish my soul. And people listened. You know, not a first people commended me on my bravery initially when I did the first video, but then after that, it kind of tapered off, but I still kept showing are very annoyed, very upset, very angry, like I did the whole the whole thing of sharing my emotions, right, and how I felt about our reluctance or discomfort to talk about racism, and slowly but surely, people started to pay attention. You know, and my commitment to the cause my commitment to speaking out loud, and disturbing the peace, as I call it, landed me a feature in Forbes, I became one of LinkedIn top voices for 2020, which on its own, probably doesn't sound like a big deal. But when you think about the subject matter of what I talk about, it's kind of a big deal, right? You know, it's not the sexiness of entrepreneurial ism, or, you know, because I founded some exciting new brand and all of that good stuff, right? All of the feel good stuff, the easy stuff that it that we're so used to seeing, I was talking about the raw, ugly, traumatic experience of racism and speaking to many different people about their perspectives, their experiences, and capturing it all on video. And everyone has said to me, like, you should really do a podcast and I'm like, Yeah, yeah, when I get round to it, right. Well, here I am.
05:01
In the audio airwaves, now I'm going to do a podcast. And at first I thought, oh, I'll just repurpose a few of my live conversations I've done. At the time of recording well over like 34 recordings, I think it's something ridiculous that I've nailed already almost 150 videos 30 something live recordings. And, and, and, and right, so some some pretty hefty numbers, right. And so some of those will be repurposed. There are some conversations I've had with some very thoughtful individuals who I feel there is, there's another depth and another layer to the conversation that will work very well on audio, and different vibe to kind of live conversations. And this is another opportunity for me to try and reach even more people, you know, and just create a different, closer, more intimate atmosphere in a podcast that when it's alive, and it's live in every literal sense. I press go live and, and we're out broadcasting to the world and there's music in this podcast gives, I feel me time to do more reflection, a little bit more introspection.
06:25
And
06:27
bring more people closer, you know, I'm not going to use the word clearly. But I feel like one of my strengths is my ability to have people listen, I don't sugarcoat what I have to say, I'm not watering anything down for anybody's comfort, not just white people, because you know, there's a lot of black people who don't want me to be talking up here about racism, etc, etc, either. Don't get it twisted. But running HR rewired, my company, we have three values that we live by. One is we're here to inform. So that's why by extension,
07:11
we
07:12
I produce so much content and just put it out in the world because I'm trying to lessen people's excuse for saying they don't know what to do. or second value is respect. And what we mean by respect is that we respect the seriousness of the issue that is racism, which means we are not here to water it down. We are not here to centre whiteness. You know, we're here to amplify the issue. We're here to amplify black people. Because to do anything other is disrespectful. I am a direct descendant of enslaved people. It is disrespectful to my ancestors. For me to attempt to shape this issue because I'm trying to find clients or because I'm trying to attract opportunity, if that comes great, you know, but that's not my motivation for doing this. So respect is really key. And the third one is to inspire. I recognise that this subject is uncomfortable, I recognise that there is a massive fear of doing insane the wrong thing like cancelled culture reigned supreme these days. And I don't say that to excuse casual racism. I say that because we cannot expect perfection. through sheer will alone. It takes time it takes practice, I didn't wake up like this. And so the empathy The only underpins the challenge of me being so bold and so brazen. And so you know, say it like it is Shereen comes from a place of love, and comes from a place of wanting us to do better. But it also comes from a place of knowing that I have engaged in some deep level introspection inside work and I continue to do so. Because there is work for everybody to do in this space, not just white people. All of us have work to do is just different work. And we have to get comfortable with at times being the student and not always the teacher. So the live conversations that I've had where I've spun them into podcast episodes is because I feel like more people need to hear them messages that were contained within those conversations. But I also will probably record new episodes purely for the podcast, which is fun, because I actually do enjoy. There's all of this stuff like, you know, me, me and kids like video, audio, music. So it's a way of me combining what I love to be able to make the impact on the world, which is I'm trying to disrupt silence. I'm trying to disrupt apathy. One of the things that I feel like we are not as Cognizant as we should be, is recognising that racism is a system. And it's recognising that the system doesn't need to work through the behaviour of people that we label as racist. It's not about that. Now, this system, is one of the best working systems that we've probably ever created as humankind. And it's the best system because it keeps producing the same outcomes every time the same favourable outcomes. That means white supremacy reign supreme in this idea that we are still in a racialized society where white nurse as a construct, and therefore white people and white men actually are placed at the top. And everybody else falls underneath with black people being at the bottom. But for this system to keep perpetuating right and keep producing sorry, the same outcomes. It needs our obedience. It needs us to be compliant. It needs us to not say anything. That's how the system of racism keeps on ticking quite nicely well oiled machine is through our silence. And
12:14
I wanted to do a podcast. I don't know how long I'll end up doing it for to make sure that at every opportunity, I can look myself in the mirror and say, Have I done enough, right. Because in my mind, the more people who hear me who hear my guests, and our views, our perspectives, our opinions, our stories, our experience experiences. Going back to the third principle of my company, that means that we are able to inspire more people like in my mind, and I hope that anybody who has responsibility for teams for companies pay close attention and recognise that when you're part of the solution, when you turn around and say, You know what, I want my company to be anti racist, I want to advanced racial equity for black colleagues and be okay with that. Without worrying about how my other workforce feel, you are in a wonderful position to make more progress within the four walls of your company than we can a society at large. It is a tremendous opportunity if you choose to see it as such. So selfishly, me being here on a podcast is my hope to convince you right, every time I do an episode is to convince you to step into the fray to to step into that discomfort and be fine there and then commit to action and then deliver you know, to give your teams the resources to give them the support to be transparent and to lead with authenticity. So I will do my best to role model that in the way that I know how which is through the creative medium of podcasting and video because I do love it in case you didn't guess. But it's also to say that you're not on your own with having those thoughts of what about if my peers reject me What about if I get a reputation for jumping on the bandwagon or, or siding with black people like it's a bad thing and I'm not saying that in judgement I'm I'm saying to you what I've had people tell me we are human beings we are not going to be perfect so this podcast series for as long as it runs for it is about honesty it's about trying to seek transparency it's about truth and it's also about confronting things about who we are who we are as a workplace who we are as a society if all of those things were actual people and holding up a mirror and even though we don't like what we see were committed to changing that image rather than burying your head in the sand and pretending that none of this exists pretending that this issue of racism is the softer issue of inclusion of belonging and all of that nice stuff that you can fix racism by doing the same things that you've done for the last 1020 years that we can dismantle racism without you changing your views of the world and and the values that you held dear and have probably got you to where you are today and for you to recognise that your ego may be bruised because to understand the impact of racism means to recognise how you may have been gifted some of those opportunities not entirely because you were the best person for the job but you had a system that was built to give you a leg up even if you didn't feel it so i don't say all of these things because i want anybody to sit and guilt goodness me however i will be completely honest and transparent part of the reason why i am able to show up with such ferocity is because
17:18
i feel guilty i feel guilty that my 17 years of silence man i didn't fight for myself i didn't fight for people who looked like me i didn't fight for people who i looked after the few black colleagues you know in various guises within organisations i i feel guilty about the how many times i turn the other cheek how many times did i brush off when there were overtly racist incidents and and people would say oh my goodness you know you should do x you should do y and i would go no i'm fine i'm fine don't make a big deal out of it i feel guilty at letting some organisations not all of them but some treat me as less than deliberately silencing my voice you know deliberately ignoring me so i choose to channel that guilt into something proactive and actually something positive and uplifting and even though it might not feel like all the time it actually is because i'm i'm where i'm meant to be but i've also bringing other people with me i only get credit in the anti racism bank account if i can make sure that the impact i'm having is much bigger than me so i always have to keep myself in checks and balances that's what you do anyway there's individuals but particularly when you're a leader particularly when you run your own company your own organisation you're accountable you're responsible and so i guess in the nicest way possible i'm saying stick with me i'll support you through it with the best way i can and this is one of the ways in which i can help and you can just listen to me as you're out like doing whatever you're doing i will attempt to keep it clean so i will try to reduce swearing i'll do my best i'm no promises
19:18
i make no promises
19:21
those of you who as i said at the beginning have followed me here thank you and if you're new welcome to advancing racial equity 4.0 with Shereen the hr conversation