George Floyd: One Year On
Written by Ian Parkes, CEO East London Business Alliance
Today is the one year anniversary of the killing of George Floyd. Reflecting on the past year as an ally, I have learned a lot, heard a lot of moving and inspiring personal stories, and have been outraged on many occasions. Overall, it’s been a year of growth personally. It has been a privilege to work with my fellow founders of SHIFT25, and all the amazing people who have joined in the campaign. I have been honoured to be a Commission on the Tower Hamlets Black and Asian Inequalities Commission, and welcomed many frank and fascinating conversations with my colleagues at ELBA.
Overall though, not enough has changed. I am lucky to work with business partners and local organisations who are committed to tackling racial and social injustice, and I have seen them increasing their efforts to promote greater diversity and inclusion. But I do not think anyone could claim that the pace of change is anything like quick enough, and maybe it is unrealistic to expect rapid movement.
We need to engage far more people in the debate and pressure for change and our ambition for SHIFT25 is to be part of a network of campaigns and organisations that reach out to different sections of society. There is an optimism and determination about this – racial injustice and inequality is still much more live subject in the media and in debate than it was a year ago.
Some things I will be pressing for in the coming year:
We have to get more Black people to be appointed as school governors, trustees of charities, magistrates, health board directors – any place where decisions get made in civil society. The repeated statements in the Tower Hamlets Commission was that people just did not see people like themselves enough, if any, positions of power.
We want to change the world, but some times we can only change the world one by one. I’ll be continuing anyway possible to help young people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds to get a fair go, and to have their voices heard.
Employers and business have great influence. They can start to change things without another word of legislation needing to be written. Through SHIFT25 and ELBA I’ll be hoping to influence them to open up their jobs and promotions and directorships so that we have a fairer distribution of the personal and economic rewards that a good job can bring.
As an ally, I can use my position to influence others and I am looking ahead to continuing the struggle for greater racial justice.