The Anti-Racist Organization

2Moving Beyond Conversations

It's not my fault.

I didn't invent racism.

I never enslaved Black people.

I don't see colour.

I've only ever hired the best person for the job.

Clients, 2020–2021

We Live in a Racialised Society

We don't understand racism.

Our lack of moral courage in at least talking accurately about racism, whether in the workplace or in the wider society, means that we have reduced it to overt, easily identified behaviour.

Depending on the individual, the position they hold and how valuable they are to the company, we may be unceasing in our vilification of individuals, their specific actions and the agendas we deem racist. But a zero‐tolerance approach to racism is never truly zero tolerance. And it can't be, because racism is insidious and isn't just about how we act.

We brush off racism as incidents isolated to specific individuals' opinions and actions, ones we soon forget when the individual is, hopefully, disgraced. Yet when we inevitably push these matters out of our minds, making the conscious decision to ‘move on’ with the mechanics of our own lives, we completely misconstrue racism's existence.

We deceive ourselves, comfort ourselves even, into believing that these odd, occasional incidents by rash individuals are racism in its entirety – something wholly separate from us and from the values on which we base our lives. When we do this we trivialise racism's reality.

I do not condone racism, under any circumstances.

This behaviour is abhorrent to ...