Professional Facilitator, Life Mastery Consultant, and nationally recognized Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategist.
Discrimination and separation is unfortunately universal within the human nature. This webinar helped us understand how “race” translates in other countries around the world.
What an incredibly powerful webinar we hosted yesterday on “Does Race Translate? A Cross Cultural Exploration.” We were very fortunate to be joined by three DEI thought leaders to unpack this topic from a global perspective: Celia De Anca, Deputy Dean for Ethics, Diversity & Inclusion at IE University, Spain; Lilian Rauld, DEI Lead for Sodexo, Brazil; and Marcelle Laliberté, Dr., Chief DEI Officer for HEC, France. We had close to 180 registrants from the US, and Canada; in Europe from France, Belgium, UK, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Italy; In Asia from: Australia, India, Korea, Singapore; In Africa from: S Africa and Ghana and in LATAM from: Argentina, Curacao, Mexico. We know that race and racism are topics that are emotionally and politically charged and often talked about in code or not at all. And while racism is universal, it shows up in a very local way because dominant and subordinate groups are based on local power structures. We also know that systems of discrimination exist everywhere. But how race is approached, how identity is defined- all of this is very local and may be completely different to how you approach race and identity in your context. The panel illustrated this with examples from their countries. During the webinar we learned that in Europe, race is considered a harmful social construct. The preference is to use objective criteria like citizenship and migration rather than race or ethnicity – and this has historical roots. I know first-hand that this can cause tremendous frustration especially for Americans who have been informed by the civil rights history in the US where race is the driving social force. Outside the US racism is often tangled up with ethnicity, religion, caste, which take more prominence than race and race may be one of several identities that divide and play a less prominent role. It became clear that to address racism, we must first understand it in its local context. We learned that in Europe there are hate speech laws that would make First Amendment advocates in the US balk. We recognized that there is no right or wrong- just different ways of approaching the topic based on local histories, laws and practices. And this shows up in differences in terminology used- in what is openly discussed and what is taboo. For example, the term “Negro” is used in Brazil, but is offensive in the US. The panel discussed how discrimination is addressed and what data can be obtained. And we discussed colorism with examples from India and Brazil. Did you know that in Brazil they have 136 different shades that people self-identify? And that in India half of all skin products are skin lighteners? The chat was ablaze with participants posting experiences, examples and thoughts. And they've asked for a part 2 to this webinar! Thank you to all who joined as well to the panelists and my awesome team, Imraan Lilani, Leanne Thomas, Laura Shipler Chico.