British | Indian - BHF Research Relations Graduate
When people ask for specifics, I say that my Mum’s White British, and that my Dad’s parents moved here from South Africa and are Indian, so I’m technically White/Indian. I’m not religious, and culturally I have little connection to my Indian heritage. Both my parents were born in England. My Dad’s parents grew up in Indian communities in Durban, their ancestors having been brought to South Africa from South India to work on sugar cane farms. They moved to England and Ireland separately and met in London, where my Dad was later born.
I think we have a long way to go to tackle racial inequality. I do believe we need to seriously address the way that so many structures in our society perpetuate injustice and work to dismantle these. There also needs to be a change in outlook, moving from seeing racial ‘tolerance’ as the goal, to a vision of a society where we all embrace and value diversity. I believe this change in social attitude is a crucial partner to systematic change.
Personally, I do feel my workplace is accepting of different parts of my identity. I think it would benefit from being a more diverse organisation, but I’ve always felt comfortable being who I am at work. It’s great to see more focus being shone on the diversity we do have too, from acknowledging different cultural celebrations to collaborations like this. I think it’s an important way to recognise we want everyone to bring their full selves to work. Outwardly, I think we could be bolder and more specific in our recruitment language, including acknowledging the limited diversity in our current workforce. We must also think about how the audiences we reach through our work links with the perceptions of our organisation and who’s attracted to work here. Within the BHF, I think it’s important that we continue to find new ways to celebrate our diversity and introduce ways of working that promote continued learning about these issues at all levels.
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