BAME Legal Professionals & ‘Acceptance’ in non-BAME Corporate Spaces
‘The consumer pays the tax and as such every individual of social order should be given unlimited opportunity to make the most of himself’ (Woodson, 2010).
Let us reflect on the BAME experience in the legal labour market and the question to be asked is the validity of BAME members in the workplace though the theme of ‘Acceptance’.
Questions
The contradiction of ‘acceptance’ in that it is two ways of saying the same thing, and/or a way of saying two different things simultaneously
In both cases one is discussing acceptance ‘on paper’ however is this coupled with hidden structural racism and ‘microaggressions’ at the interpersonal level.
In view of structural racism and/or covert racism as well as microaggressions, these may also be two interlinked processes and/or phenomena in the component of lack of acceptance in the form of ‘tolerance’ of others as defined by the ‘British Values’, ‘The Race Relations Act 1976’ and the ‘Equality Act 2010’. On paper these practice are merely indicative of lip service being paid by the non-BAME majority to ensure compliance with inclusivity and diversity.
At the same time there is an (often a covert and implicit) expectation that BAME member will conform to non-BAME cultural norms in the legal workplace.
‘Mimesis’ or ‘Assimilation’, BAME members internalising these coded messages and trying to assimilate to non-BAME norms and non-BAME society, (including but not limited to changes in dress, speech, physical appearance).
Reflections
Education became the doctrine of freedom by many BAME members and at the 1996 Labour Party conference, where the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair stated that his three top priorities on coming to office were "education, education, and education", this become the mantra for BAME Generations as the route to attaining success, (success meaning living the white middleclass lifestyle).
Then one could acquire a good job and a comfortable lifestyle through education, but the raw reality was that regardless of one proving themselves there was no real payoff, it was rapidly becoming a myth, how do you explain a First Generation of BAME Britain’s following the code of education to attain success but despite ones efforts your non-BAME bredrin still progressed whether or not they had followed the code of education.
The question is what is progression…Progression is calculated in how can educated BAME professionals still be in the dole queue? (Dole meaning government financial assistance.)
“There is however one big difference between the chances of 2nd generation minorities and the white British: 2nd generation minorities from lower working-class backgrounds were significantly more at risk of unemployment (20%) than were their white British contemporaries, who had an unemployment rate of 12% (results are adjusted to take account of age and gender differences)..So, while the 2nd generation from these backgrounds had significantly better chances of upward mobility than did the 1st generation, their risks of unemployment remained as high as or even higher than those for the 1st generation. This quite possibly reflects continuing racial discrimination in the labour market against minorities of all generations.” (The social mobility of ethnic minorities, March 2016).
Diverse Relations’ Questions and Reflections
Food for Thought
