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  • There Will Never Be Climate Justice If African Activists Keep Being Ignored

    We go to Kampala, Uganda, to speak to climate activist Vanessa Nakate on the occasion of her first book being published, A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis. In an extended interview, she describes the challenges of being a young Ugandan woman from a continent that contributes less than 4% of the world’s carbon emissions yet suffers the worst consequences of the climate crisis and is often ignored by the Global North. “There won’t be climate justice if specific groups of people are being left behind,” says Nakate, founder of the Africa-based Rise Up Movement. “We are facing the same storm, but we are definitely in different boats.”

    TRANSCRIPT

    This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

    AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

    As we look at the impacts of the climate crisis in the U.S., we now turn to the continent of Africa, a region whose 1.3 billion people are responsible for less than 4% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, yet Africa has already been battered by some of the most dire consequences of climate change, through no fault of its own — rising sea levels, deadly drought, hotter temperatures, water shortages and food insecurity. Recently a locust plague hit portions of East Africa.

    In October, the World Meteorological Organization warned the effects of the climate crisis in Africa will likely worsen if immediate action isn’t taken. Last year, the continent’s land mass and waters warmed more rapidly than the world average. This is the WMO’s Filipe Lucio.

    FILIPE LUCIO: That there was an increase in food-insecure and undernourished people by 45.6%. And the predictions we have, the decade of predictions we have for the period 2020 to 2024, they’re indicating an increasing in terms of warming. With increased warming, we expect a reduction in terms of food production. … We also expect impacts in terms of disease and pests. But importantly, we will have impacts generated by flooding on the infrastructure system for agriculture production, which is the main source of livelihoods and food security in the continent. So, all indicates that the continuing warming would probably worsen the current 45.6% increase in terms of undernourished people we’ve seen from 2012.

    AMY GOODMAN: The average greenhouse gas emissions generated by a person in Africa are just a fraction of those living in countries like the U.S., Australia and U.K. Although richer nations are the world’s biggest polluters, the African Development Bank estimates Africa bears almost half the costs of adapting to the consequences of the climate crisis. Meanwhile, richer nations have failed to fulfill a pledge to grant developing countries $100 billion in annual funding to cope with the impacts of the climate catastrophe.

    This all comes as climate justice advocates from Africa and other communities in the Global South have denounced the recent U.N. climate summit, COP26 in Glasgow, as a failure. Next year’s climate summit is set to take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and advocates hope it will draw more attention to a region that’s been long overlooked in conversations about the climate.

    One of Africa’s loudest voices in the fight against the climate crisis is Vanessa Nakate. Earlier this year, she was on the cover of Time magazine. Now the Ugandan climate justice advocate and founder of the Rise Up Movement just released a new book. It’s called A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis. Part manifesto, part memoir, the book presents a new vision for the global climate justice movement that builds a livable future for all and is inclusive of all. Vanessa Nakate now joins us from Uganda’s capital, Kampala.

    Welcome back to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you with us, Vanessa. We played your speech when you were in Milan, leading up to the U.N. climate summit. That title of your book, A Bigger Picture, refer to the picture that first motivated you to really fight against the climate crisis and represent the continent of Africa.

    VANESSA NAKATE: Well, thank you so much. I’m happy to be here.

    First of all, I want to say that I do not represent the African continent. I am one of the activists who are speaking up and organizing and mobilizing from the African continent. So, it isn’t just one voice. And I feel like when we put a face on, you know, our climate movement, or faces on the climate movement, it is very problematic in that it ends up erasing the voices of the rest of the activists who are speaking up. For example, I may have a clue about what is happening in Kenya or in South Africa, but an activist from those countries, you know, they understand, or they have a bigger picture of what they’re experiencing. So, I just wanted to first make that very clear.

    And then, in A Bigger Picture, I really talk about many things that people need to see, beyond what society has showed us, from the climate crisis to climate justice. Many times climate change just ends in being statistics for people, but the climate crisis is more than statistics. It’s more than data points. You know, it’s more than net zero targets. It’s about the people and how the livelihoods of people are being impacted right now. It’s about the intersections of the climate crisis with other issues that pertain to our living, to our survival, be it education or poverty eradication or achieving gender equality or having peace in our communities. All these are connected to the climate crisis. It’s like we are in one system, and it’s an interconnected system. And if one part of the system crashes, then the entire system crashes. If it’s a puzzle, if one piece of the puzzle is missing, then the puzzle can never be complete.

    So, in A Bigger Picture, I really explain what the climate crisis really means, beyond statistics, and how it impacts the lives of the people, especially the people on the frontlines of the climate crisis. And it also tells the stories of a number of different activists, especially from the African continent, because every activist has a story to tell, and every story has a solution to give, and every solution has a life to change. So I think it’s really important to have many voices listened to, platformed and amplified, if we are to have climate justice.

    AMY GOODMAN: Vanessa Nakate, you spoke out against racism in the media after you were cropped out of a photo featuring yourself and other prominent climate activists in Davos, Switzerland, last year. The other youth activists were white. They included Greta Thunberg. The Associated Press, which published the cropped photo, said the photographer cut you out of it because he thought the building behind you was distracting. At the time, you said the move, quote, “erased a continent.” I wanted to go to you speaking in a video you posted on social media at the time.

    VANESSA NAKATE: This is the first time in my life that I understood the definition of the word “racism.” … Africa is the least emitter of carbons, but we are the most affected by the climate crisis. But you erasing our voices won’t change anything.

    AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk more about that photo and what it represented to you, but then how it propelled you even further in your activism, how you became a climate activist in Uganda, and now a global one, of course?

    VANESSA NAKATE: Well, what I can say is that, you know, the thought of a building being behind me and not being a perfect, probably, composition for the whole picture in the end, that is something that ends up erasing someone’s story or someone’s experience or someone’s solutions and what they’re doing in their communities.

    I come from a country that is one of the least emitters of CO2 emissions and a continent that is historically responsible for only 3% of global emissions, and yet many people are already suffering some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis. So this is the horrible reality of the climate crisis, that those on the frontlines of this crisis are not responsible for the rise in the global temperatures.

    And the other horrible reality of the climate crisis is that while communities in Africa or in the Global South are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, they are not on the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Many activists find themselves struggling to be platformed or to be listened to. Many of us have been called missing voices, yet we are not missing. We are just unheard. So, these are some of the horrible realities of the climate crisis that are experienced by not only the people on the frontlines but also the activists who are speaking out from the frontlines.

    And what I can say is that we cannot have climate justice if the voices from the most affected communities are continuously being cropped out or continuously being left out of conversations or are not being amplified or are continuously being called missing. I experienced the same thing while at the conference in Glasgow, you know, continuously seeing myself being erased from pictures or from being named and all that. So, this is an experience that doesn’t just erase my story or my experience; it’s an experience that just literally erases the existence of the challenges that I’m seeing in my country and the problems that people are facing because of the climate crisis.

    And what I can say is that many activists from Africa, from the Global South, they are facing challenges in having their voices heard and listened to and platformed and amplified. And this is a challenge for climate justice. Again, there won’t be climate justice if specific groups of people are being left behind. We are facing the same storm, but we are definitely in different boats. As many boats are still strong and can continue to sail, other boats are already sinking. Other boats are already on fire. So it is time to pay attention to voices, to people, to activists, to communities that are on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

    AMY GOODMAN: Vanessa —

    VANESSA NAKATE: And when we —

    AMY GOODMAN: Vanessa Nakate is speaking to us from Kampala, Uganda. For not only young activists, but for all activists, first-time activists, can you tell the story of what motivated you to move forward — it took a lot of courage — and what these first climate strikes were about, you and a small group of friends, like your friend Elton John, an Ugandan climate activist like yourself, and what you faced at the beginning, even worried about your family’s reaction, though they ultimately deeply supported you?

    VANESSA NAKATE: Well, I remember my very climate strike. I had my siblings and my cousins join me. And, of course, it took me a while to do the very first climate strike, as I was scared to go out and just face the public or face the people, and, of course, fears of what my friends, that I had been at school with, would say. So, these are some of the challenges that I saw and experienced before starting activism.

    But when I started activism, I can say that more challenges came in with the reactions of people, you know, with the fear of how my family would react. But I thank God that my family has been very supportive. From when I started activism, my parents have been very supportive. They didn’t really understand what a climate strike really meant. Many people didn’t understand what a climate strike really meant. But they understood that I was advocating for environmental protection. So, they — I don’t remember any point where my parents said, “No, you shouldn’t do this.” So, I’m thankful that they were supportive and also the rest of my family was supportive.

    But what I can say is that in those following weeks, in those following months, the main challenges that I saw there were reactions or comments from people, especially on social media, people saying some of the most terrible things on my tweets or on my posts. And I remember some of those things were people saying that I was taking weed and that’s what was taking me to the streets, and some that I was going to the streets because I was looking for a husband so I wanted to be noticed while on the streets, and many more things that came in as I continued activism.

    But what I can say is that a lot of, you know, hope that really came in that time, as a time when I felt like I didn’t have the strength to do activism anymore. And I remember this period of time I was just feeling frustrated about how we continued to strike every Friday, and leaders continued not to do anything, and the climate disasters continued to happen, and people continued to suffer. So, it was more of a place and moment of depression and feeling like I didn’t have the strength to go out and do the strikes anymore. But I remember after speaking to my friend and fellow activist, Davis from Uganda, I started to strike again, feeling more hopeful about the future, and also feeling more hopeful with the activists that were organizing. It’s always good to know that you are not doing activism just by yourself, but you’re speaking up and mobilizing and organizing with millions of people from different parts of the world. And that is something that can surely give you hope, to know that I can keep striking, knowing that I’m not alone, and to also know that when I need to rest, if I can — you know, if I don’t have the strength to strike this Friday, someone else in another place, in another country, is striking. So I think that is one of the beautiful things about realizing that this is global climate movement.

    AMY GOODMAN: Vanessa Nakate, you retweeted Greenpeace, saying, “We cannot adapt to starvation. We cannot adapt to extinction, we cannot adapt to lost cultures, lost traditions, lost histories, and the climate crisis is taking all of these things away.” You subscribe to the principle “polluters pay.” Can you name the companies, the industries that you feel should be paying up or shutting down?

    VANESSA NAKATE: We know that the Global North countries are responsible for the climate crisis and for the rise in global emissions, so we know who is responsible for the climate crisis. And we know who is not responsible and who is suffering the most right now. That is why in some of the things that I talk about it is loss and damage and a separate fund for loss and damage.

    Developing countries are facing a lot of pressure to transition to renewable energy, to transition to sustainability. And, you know, you find that this pressure is coming from the Global North countries telling the developing countries, “You have to do this. You have to do this for the sake of the climate.” And, of course, even us as activists, we face these challenges, maybe when we are advocating for an end of [inaudible] in a country like mine or in any other country. So there is always these challenges of people saying, “But you seem to be an enemy of economic progress,” because this pipeline or this coal power plant is going to pull people out of poverty.

    So there is a lot of pressure on developing countries to move to sustainability, first of all. And this is why there is a huge responsibility on the Global North to provide climate finance, climate finance that will enable developing countries to easily transition to renewable energy, to easily transition to sustainable cities or sustainable communities and countries, without burying their people into extreme poverty, because, again, if we are to have climate justice, climate justice should not leave people in extreme poverty. Climate justice should not mean that people are going to continue to suffer and suffer. That’s why if we are to look at climate justice, it has to go beyond — you know, it has to go beyond manufacturing of electric vehicles. It has to go beyond manufacturing of solar panels. It has to be about the people. We have to think about the solutions that are coming in — you know, that are being implemented in communities, that if this solution is being implemented, is it going to exacerbate inequalities, or is it going to increase poverty, or is it going to increase the suffering of the people? So climate justice has to have the heart of the people and the planet at the center of all these decisions.

    So, what I’m trying to say is that we need Global North countries to act responsible and provide climate finance in form of grants, and not loans, for developing countries, because developing countries need to easily transition to renewables. They need to easily transition to more greener economies. And this can only be possible if there is a provision of climate finance. But we have seen — we have seen the promised $100 billion for developing countries, it has been delayed, I think, to 2022. And then we saw at the climate conference, no separate fund was put in place for loss and damage, yet very many vulnerable countries are already experiencing loss and damage right now. So, the climate crisis is taking away people’s cultures or lands or traditions. So these are things — we cannot adapt to the loss of these things. The climate crisis is pushing many communities to a point of not being able to adapt. So, yes, we want the climate finance for adaptation and mitigation, but we also want a separate fund for loss and damage, because loss and damage is here right now, because loss and damage is already affecting millions of people in different parts of the world.

    AMY GOODMAN: Vanessa, you, in your book, write about a 9-year-old girl, not in Africa but in London, Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, who died of a fatal asthma attack. And you write, “I learned about Ella’s story in December 2020. That’s when the international media reported that a UK court had, for the first time in British history, allowed air pollution to be recorded as the cause of someone’s death.” Can you talk about the significance of this, and how it relates to your activism on the continent?

    VANESSA NAKATE: Well, if I’m to talk about this, the case of Ella, you know, it talks about, again, some of the horrible realities of this climate crisis. And, you know, with the continued burning of fossil fuels, we are seeing more air pollution or water pollution. And we see that the communities or the people that are in these residences, residences that are prone to air pollution or residences that are prone to water pollution, those are communities of Black people, communities of Brown people, you know, communities of people of color. They are the ones exposed, you know, in areas that are filled with air pollution or incinerators or landfills. So I think that this is one of the conversations about the environmental injustices when it comes to the climate issues.

    The climate crisis does not affect all of us equally. Like I said, we may be facing the same storm, but we are in different boats, so the climate crisis does not affect us equally. So, if we are seeing increasing levels of air pollution, there are communities that are experiencing more extreme levels of this air pollution because of where their housing is or because of where their schools are. Recently I’ve been reading about something called redlining. And it talks about how residences of Black and Brown communities, they were marked red because they were — this is historically — because they were a high risk for mortgages, so meaning that communities of Black and Brown people, they weren’t able historically to — they weren’t able to get housing that is safe for them or housing in safe spaces, in healthy spaces, spaces that we could see having more parks or more —

    AMY GOODMAN: Vanessa, the show is ending. I want to thank you so much for being with us. Again, Vanessa Nakate has just written a new book. It is called A Bigger Picture.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Diversifying the Police Force Won’t End Police Violence

    police officers

    After a white cop fatally shoots someone, prison reformers often suggest hiring more Black cops or more women. But diversifying the police force won’t end police violence, and neither will milquetoast reforms that have been tried and tried again.

    Benjamin Jancewicz, a Baltimore-based abolitionist, points out that around 62 percent of the American police force is white, and around 85 percent of cops identify as male. But that lack of representation is not where the issue of policing lies. Jancewicz asserts that police have an established culture of “oppression and dominance” that does not change even when the force has more women or BIPOC officers. “Baltimore,” he points out, “has a 40 percent Black police force” which has not affected the “already established culture of corruption and brutality.”

    In 2015, Freddie Gray died in police custody after being brutalized by Baltimore cops, and the police violence and misconduct in Baltimore hasn’t ended there. This is because a system will not and cannot reform itself, especially “when you dump more money and more personnel into it,” according to Jancewicz.

    How do we know when a reform is actually going to funnel more money and power to the prison-industrial complex? In an interview with Truthout, Sarah Fathallah, an Oakland-based abolitionist, points to a Critical Resistance framework that helps to determine if a proposed reform “is an abolitionist step that works to chip away at the scope and impact of policing, or a reformist reform that expands its reach.”

    The framework guides us to look at reforms critically and ask: Does the proposal reduce funding to police? Does the proposal challenge the notion that police increase safety? Does the proposal reduce the tools, tactics and technology police have at their disposal? And does the proposal reduce the scale of the police?

    When it comes to hiring more police officers as an attempt to diversify, we can immediately see that this reform will not lessen the scope of the prison-industrial complex.

    Instead, Fathallah says, “Hiring more diverse cops often expands the funding and bodies police departments have at their disposal.” Fathallah saw this firsthand in Oakland, where the City Council voted to approve a police academy in September 2021, citing “discrepancies between the gender and racial makeup of the police compared to communities” to justify the need to hire even more cops.

    Focusing on the identities of the police who are committing violence actually prevents us from taking aim at the real issues. Fathallah rightfully points out that these pushes for gender and racial diversity frame “police brutality and murder as individual issues to solve” while reinforcing the “‘bad apples’ narrative of policing, that the police are harmful because of individually blameworthy and racially biased police officers.”

    Pushing this narrative is imperative for those who seek to preserve the existing power structures, because it wrongly suggests that huge social problems are actually the failures of individuals, rather than structures.

    The violence and cruelty of the prison-industrial complex has been well-documented since its inception, and public consciousness is reflecting this reckoning. More and more people are becoming increasingly critical of the prison-industrial complex. In the summer of 2020, this criticism came to a head with the protests against police violence after the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Brutal police violence and the horrors of incarceration never stop, but when examples of them are catapulted onto the national stage, people want answers and solutions.

    Because policing and incarceration are inherently violent and racist institutions, prison-industrial complex abolitionists have been working to dismantle them in the hopes of creating a safer and more just world. Without the prison-industrial complex, abolitionists argue that we can divert resources to life-giving resources and services, rather than death-making institutions.

    Prison-industrial complex reformers and preservationists generally argue that the system is “broken” — that it has problems that are ultimately solvable, but that maintaining its existence is imperative for public safety. The truth is that the prison-industrial complex is functioning exactly as it is meant to; its creation was never intended to provide justice, but instead it was born of the desire to maintain white supremacy and racial capitalism. When we reframe our understanding of the prison-industrial complex, it becomes clear that it is accomplishing its intended purpose.

    In this context, it becomes clear that reforms, such as hiring more Black cops or more women cops — as well as proposed changes like bans on private prisons, body cams on cops and requiring that police verbally warn before shooting — will never solve the problem of police violence.

    While police violence can be enacted by individual officers due to racial bias, it is not limited to that. Fathallah says it is also (if not more so) “the outcome of intensive over-policing and systemic criminalization of racialized poverty,” meaning diverse hires will not stop violence.

    When concerned people focus on reforming the police and removing the so-called bad apples, policing is able to continue existing in much the same way. Fathallah mentions the phrase “preservation through transformation,” coined by Professor Reva Siegel that describes the phenomenon wherein a violent institution shifts and changes just enough to remain legitimate in the eyes of most.

    Hiring diverse cops changes who is doing policing and what the police look like, but it doesn’t change what policing is. And it certainly doesn’t change the fact that the system is actually functioning exactly as it was designed to do.

    The only way to stop police violence is to abolish the police. “Policing itself is a form of violence,” says Fathallah, “and violence is a fixture of policing, not a glitch in its system.” Once we acknowledge that truth, then we can see that no reform will change what police are and what they were created to be: protectors of a white supremacist state, of racial capitalism and of private property.

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Defence targets female STEM academics in diversity push

    The Defence Force’s science and technology division is offering academics lucrative salaries and perks to entice them into a Defence career change, under a 12-month program with pre-determined gender targets and the promise of secure work. Dubbed Navigate, the program is primarily a diversity initiative and is being delivered by the Defence Science and Technology…

    The post Defence targets female STEM academics in diversity push appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Australia’s Chief Scientist on STEM diversity ‘quicksand’

    Australia’s Chief Scientist has warned traditional STEM career pathways are excluding women early and often and must be addressed with a new approach that recognises the barriers and builds on the work of pioneering female leaders. In a speech to the Institute of Public Administration Australia, Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley outlined the age…

    The post Australia’s Chief Scientist on STEM diversity ‘quicksand’ appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • Museum Workers Are Joining the Growing Labor Movement

    Protesters show support for the AICWU union organizing effort at a rally on September 9, 2021, outside the Art Institute of Chicago in downtown Chicago, Illinois.

    In the past two years, cultural workers around the U.S. — including those who work in the arts and at cultural institutions like museums and libraries — have joined a burgeoning unionization movement, seeking a means to better wages, greater transparency and a seat at the table with management.

    So far in 2021, employees at the Guggenheim Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) have all voted to unionize, with workers at several other institutions — such as the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) and its adjoining school and the Walters Art Museum — in the process of organizing. They follow workers at institutions ranging from the Whitney Museum to the Museum of Fine Art in Boston and Seattle’s Frye Art Museum, which all led successful unionization campaigns in 2019 and 2020.

    “We started a wave of organizing with both the New Museum and Brooklyn Academy of Music; this was all pre-pandemic,” says Maida Rosenstein, president of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2110, a union for technical, office and professional workers. “I think a lot of workers at museums [and] cultural institutions were turning toward organizing as a way of addressing, in part, real, huge pay gaps between those at the top and the staff. During the pandemic, people paid even more attention because museums shut down; there were furloughs and layoffs. And workers realized that they had little to no job security in addition to low pay.”

    These were some of the concerns of employees at AIC and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), who announced their intention to unionize with AFSCME Council 31 in August. Thomas Huston, a museum technician, credits the pandemic with not only helping to highlight some ongoing labor issues but also allowing employees to make connections and realize how widespread those issues were.

    Robyn Besana, a disability advocate at SAIC, wants to unionize to better hold the school accountable for its own ideals. “I am really interested in organizing because, as a woman of color, I want to hold SAIC management and upper administration accountable to making SAIC a truly anti-racist school, and not just a performative one,” she told Truthout.

    Protesters show support for the Art Institute of Chicago/School of the Art Institute of Chicago unionization effort at a rally and march on September 9, 2021, in downtown Chicago, Illinois.
    Protesters show support for the Art Institute of Chicago/School of the Art Institute of Chicago unionization effort at a rally and march on September 9, 2021, in downtown Chicago, Illinois.

    Last year, after the murder of George Floyd led to renewed calls for racial justice, SAIC formed an anti-racism committee to make recommendations for change. Besana was invited to join the committee, and was initially very invested in the work.

    “I became quickly disillusioned when I learned that having a direct line to upper administration is not the same as having shared governance and shared decision making with upper administration,” she says. After months of meetings, for which staff did not receive additional compensation, she says the committee’s recommendations were watered down without explanation. For example, some committee members noted how infrequently the word “anti-racism” appeared in the final recommendations. Instead, there were suggestions such as a diversity course requirement, in place of an anti-racism course requirement. While diversity is important, Besana says, it “is nowhere near the same as dismantling the systems that uphold racism.”

    “I’m really hoping that our union will be able to establish a structure that is transparent and also we will have the legal right to negotiate this with management and upper administration,” she says, “so we can truly make some change instead of a lot of talking and a lot of performative value signaling.”

    However, the Art Institute is not making the unionization effort easy, according to organizers.

    According to an August 25 press release from the organizing committee Art Institute of Chicago Workers United (AICWU), “AIC/SAIC senior leadership has hired the management-side law firm of Cozen O’Connor and the PR consultancy Reputation Partners” to fight the unionization effort. The press release notes that in earlier cases involving contracts with other companies, Cozen O’Connor lawyers billed between $315 and $430 an hour back in 2017, and in 2019, Reputation Partners billed from $325 to $390 per hour.

    “They didn’t have enough money to keep staff members and now they seem to have enough money to retain law firms and PR companies,” Besana says. “I would love transparency when it came to hiring and firing, and what money we have for what.”

    Protesters show support for the AICWU union organizing effort at a rally on September 9, 2021, outside the Art Institute of Chicago in downtown Chicago, Illinois.
    Protesters show support for the AICWU union organizing effort at a rally on September 9, 2021, outside the Art Institute of Chicago in downtown Chicago, Illinois.

    Since 2020, the Art Institute laid off 76 people and furloughed over 100 more, while SAIC eliminated dozens of full-time, part-time and contract workers.

    AIC leadership did not respond to requests for comment.

    In addition to the PR and law firm retention, AICWU workers say management have been sowing misinformation, framing the union as an outside, third-party entity and falsely telling some employees they are managers, and thus ineligible for unionization. “The way they describe how eligibility will be determined, folks walk away thinking that SAIC will be the organization that determines eligibility,” Besana says. In fact, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) makes the final determination, if workers and management cannot come to an agreement.

    Workers at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore say that management has also sought to undermine their organizing efforts. In a letter posted to the museum’s website in June, museum director Julia Marciari-Alexander and members of the board wrote that while the museum “supports the rights of employees to choose whether to unionize,” it would not voluntarily recognize the union. Voluntary recognition is the easiest route for a workplace to take if a majority of employees have expressed interest in unionizing, which they have, according to museum security officer Garrett Stralnic. It is quicker than an NLRB or third-party election and fairer to employees, if a strong majority have already signed union cards. About 90 Walters employees are eligible to join the union. The organizing committee, Walters Workers United, hopes to form a wall-to-wall union with AFSCME Council 67, including workers in security, education, marketing and retail, among other departments.

    Members of Walters Workers United project their unionization message onto the Walters Art Museum on September 2, 2021, in Baltimore, Maryland.
    Members of Walters Workers United project their unionization message onto the Walters Art Museum on September 2, 2021, in Baltimore, Maryland.

    Marciari-Alexander has indicated that she is waiting for employees to hold a vote with the NLRB, which she wrote in a more recent public letter, “is the only mechanism to ensure that each member of our staff is properly heard on the question of whether to have a union.” (Marciari-Alexander did not respond to requests for comment.) Yet workers say that an NLRB election is not appropriate for this union, as it would exclude security and gallery officers under the NLRB’s “mixed-guard rule,” limiting workers’ bargaining power. Another option is to hold a vote through a neutral third party, such as the American Arbitration Association, which Baltimore’s Open Society Institute, an organization which shares some board members with the Walters, used for a union election. In order to pursue this option, staff and management would have to meet and come to an agreement. Stralnic says that the director refuses to meet.

    Allison Gulick, a former employee in the learning and community engagement department, says the museum director is framing her push for the NLRB vote as a way to ensure people have the right to vote for or against the union. “But it’s pushing for the right to vote with a secret agenda,” Gulick says.

    Another primary concern is health and safety. In June, staff were unknowingly exposed to harmful organic vapors during roof repairs. It wasn’t until June 11, when nearly 50 staff wrote a letter to museum leadership, describing staff symptoms of “sore throats, dizziness, nausea, headaches, and other respiratory issues” that the museum investigated the situation. According to a Baltimore Sun article, a June 15 inspection by an industrial hygienist hired “detected dangerously high levels of the chemicals from a sealant being used on the roof.” The museum was subsequently closed to the public for three weeks.

    “I just felt kind of trapped,” Stralnic says, of working with the vapors. People had been raising the issue of the vapors for over a week, individually reporting side effects. “I really want the union, I’ll just feel safer,” he says, “if we have more of a voice when it comes to our safety.”

    Gulick says sudden staff reorganization and termination is another reason to unionize. “We’re just expected to fall in line and sort of make it work,” she says. Her department went from 15 employees to around three people over the more than five years she worked there due to terminations, turnover and budget cuts. Even with the limited staff in the department, Gulick says no programming has been cut.

    Protesters attend a rally in support of Walters Workers United on August 12, 2021, in Baltimore, Maryland.
    Protesters attend a rally in support of Walters Workers United on August 12, 2021, in Baltimore, Maryland.

    At the Brooklyn Museum, where workers voted to join the UAW Local 2110 in August, management was not outwardly antagonistic to the effort. “The Brooklyn Museum expressed that they did not want to run a campaign against the union,” says Rosenstein, the Local 2110 president. “I think they are still attempting to limit the impact of unionization. What we’ve seen in a lot of these campaigns is attempts to winnow the size of the union down. Keep as many positions out of the union as can be justified.” About 110 workers will be a part of the union.

    The Brooklyn Museum did not respond to a request for comment.

    Rosenstein credits both the younger generation, which tends to be more pro-union, and the pay inequality at cultural institutions as reasons more and more cultural workers are looking to unionize. “The museum leadership or the top administration at universities are earning very high salaries often,” she says. “Yet the people on staff who are doing the day-to-day work are often low-paid or in very precarious situations. Using part-time workers and seasonal staff and intermittent staff is absolutely common throughout museums. I think it sets up a dynamic to start with that people are likely to challenge, especially when the rents are so high. You’re talking New York City, Boston, Chicago — expensive places to live.”

    These issues definitely ring true for AICWU organizers. “We’re really looking at things like equity and pay equity for all people. We’re looking at the ability to see job description transparency and pay transparency,” says Eala O’Sé, an assistant manager of material source at SAIC. “This is the only option that makes sense for us, because of all the issues that we’re facing together. It just makes sense for us all to unite under this cause and really try to figure out what we can do collectively that we haven’t been able to do individually.”

    Huston agrees, pointing to AIC’s place in a growing surge of cultural worker unionization.

    “There is a real movement across the country: museums organizing, art institutions and cultural organizations organizing,” he says. “This is the time that this is going to really happen. I think we’re all feeling the energy and the momentum.”

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Tories want more ‘British’ shows like… Derry Girls

    Tory ministers want new laws to ensure TV is adequately British. The rules will force Ofcom to police the levels of Britishness on TV. But there’s a problem. One of the examples they give is Derry Girls. That’s right, a show about a group of proudly Irish Catholic schoolgirls negotiating adolescence in the midst of British military occupation.

    Other acceptably ‘British’ shows include Only Fools and Horses, Fleabag and the Carry On films. Tory media minister John Whittingdale told the Royal Television Society conference that Dr Who and, unsurprisingly, Downton Abbey were also acceptable.

    Needless to say, the new Tory plans have brought the best out of Twitter. One user challenged the Tories to own up to their fears:

    While another pointed out that the Tories always had cash to splash, unless it involved keeping people alive:

    One Tweeter suggested modern Britain had turned into one of Hunter S. Thompson’s surreal acid trip stories.

    Another said the very idea sent a shiver down her spine:

    While @peacockpete reminded us that UK TV has often been extremely diverse and thus very un-Tory anyway. Like the hit show Desmond’s – about a Black British barber shop – and Julian Clary’s long-running comedy series.

    But Twitter user @oscardebird might have hit the nail on the head. For the Tories, ‘Britishness’ mostly means ‘Englishness’.

    And in the context of their bigoted culture war, we know what Tories want us to watch on TV. It needs to be mostly white, straight and cliched. And patriotic if at all possible. And that’s why entertainment and culture which challenges these notions is so important.

    Featured image via Unsplash/K. Mitch Hodge.

    By Joe Glenton

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • A heart-warming message in Irish is the perfect response to bigotry

    Earlier this week, the first ever Irish language pre-school (Naíscoil na Seolta) in loyalist east Belfast was forced to look for new premises. The cross-community school was to open at its original site in September. But following an online campaign of abuse, it had to change location. A school statement said:

    Due to an ongoing social media hate campaign against some individuals and the integrated Naiscoil na Seolta, it is with great sadness that it is choosing to relocate to an alternative location.

    The school premises in this area was only ever meant to be temporary, but the search for a new home had to be fast-tracked. The school said that the hate campaign:

    was started and fuelled by those who are not connected to the school, nor are parents of our school and who are clearly not interested in facts and truth

    But amidst all this, a heart-warming animation showed the need for places like Naíscoil na Seolta, and why fighting for its survival is so vital. Later in that week, the Turas project released a video entitled LGBTQIA+ Irish language love story:

    Celebrating diversity

    The protagonist of this animation Chris Moore asks:

    How does someone go from having no knowledge of Irish, to proposing to their wife in Irish? This is what happened to Chris Moore, a gay Irish language enthusiast who, until a few years ago, didn’t have a word of the language.

    Moore says:

    My upbringing would have been staunchly Protestant. I was from the wrong side of the tracks to learn Irish. I shouldn’t have been anywhere near it.

    Moore says she had always been interested in the Irish language. And when she heard about Irish language classes at Turas in east Belfast, she and her partner plucked up the courage to enroll. In the animation, she connects:

    the feeling they get from learning Irish as similar to the feeling of belonging they have with the LGBTQIA+ community

    “It meant everything”

    But Moore got a lot more from the language than that feeling. Because it gave her a way to propose marriage to her partner. She asked her friends how to say “will you marry me?” in Irish. To know her partner’s response, you’ll just have to watch the video.

    Moore says:

    It meant everything to me to be able to propose to my wife in Irish. It meant more for me to ask her in Irish than to ask her in English because it was like marrying the two sides of me.

    She added:

    I can’t separate being Irish from being gay. And for the two of them to fit, means I’m home, I’m safe and I’m happy.

    Love wins over hate

    Moore’s story was launched to coincide with Belfast Pride. And her animation, along with others, tells “the stories of the many diverse learners at Turas”.

    Linda Ervine of Turas, who is also one of those behind the Irish language pre-school, said:

    I love Chris’ description of the cosy jumper and feeling at home. I’m delighted that Turas has been able to create such a welcoming space. Chris is a fantastic learner, and we are thrilled to have played a small part in their wedding journey.

    It also comes at the end of a week when so much disgusting hate was expressed online. Moore’s animation is the perfect response.

    Featured image via Twitter – Turas Belfast

    By Peadar O'Cearnaigh

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Ofcom calls for laws to ensure diversity at broadcasters

    Broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV should be legally required to reflect the “diversity of the UK” under new proposals by the broadcasting watchdog. Ofcom has called for the Government to “urgently bring forward” legislation to “modernise” the objectives of the public service broadcasters (PSB), which also include Channel 4 and 5.

    Channel 4 moved its headquarters to Leeds in 2019 while the BBC recently announced a shift away from London over the next six years.

    Channel 4 Privatisation
    (PA)

    Ofcom said the PSBs still needed to represent “people from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and communities from across the UK”.

    The report adds:

    It is important that this diversity extends to off-screen roles (such as writers, directors, producers, production crew, commissioners etc.) to provide a greater plurality of editorial voices and authentic representation.

    Recommendations

    The report – Small Screen: Big Debate – also includes a series of recommendations to the government, including ensuring broadcasters support the UK creative economy across the nations and regions, are universally available and deliver social value.

    It concludes that “TV schedules no longer dictate what (viewers) watch or when they do so” and broadcasters must adapt to their evolving needs.

    On-demand operators

    Ofcom is working with government to bring in requirements for on-demand operators and suggested they should also be subject to diversity requirements.

    It was announced last month the government plans to regulate streaming giants such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime in the same way as PSBs.

    Under a new arrangement, Ofcom would extend a similar level of control over on-demand services, meaning it could rule on complaints relating to issues including bias and inaccuracy.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • They are (using) us: ‘How is it okay for others to profit off our pain?’

    COMMENT: By Saziah Bashir

    It was announced yesterday that Australian actress Rose Byrne will star as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in an upcoming movie about the response to the Christchurch mosque terror attacks of 15 March 2019, titled They Are Us.

    The movie will be directed by New Zealand’s Andrew Niccol. The movie’s focus is apparently going to be on the positive impact of a strong leader in the wake of tragedy.

    Let’s take a moment to unpack that oversized baggage of white nonsense.

    To be clear, this is the peak Karen of film announcements.

    We are barely over two years on from one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern history.

    The 51 people who were killed and the 40 who were wounded were specifically targeted for their Muslim faith. Those families are still traumatised and recovering from injuries, mourning and missing their loved ones.

    They are still painfully experiencing firsts without their loved ones: first day of school, first grandchild being born, first jobs, university graduations and so much more. Their wounds have barely had time to scab over.

    Witnesses fighting for ACC support
    Uninjured witnesses to the horrific shootings are still fighting for support from the ACC for their mental injuries.

    A survivor of the attacks, whose own father was killed that day, reported as recently as Friday that he encountered racist abuse outside his workplace, with no bystander intervention to help.

    The Christchurch mosque attacks destroyed the lives of entire families and confirmed the worst fears of the Muslim community in New Zealand: that we aren’t safe anywhere. Not here. And certainly not if we’re Rohingya, not if we’re Uyghur, not if we’re Palestinian, not if we’re in our places of worship or even just crossing the street.

    Somebody explain to 9-year-old Fayez Afzaal how to feel any other way as he recovers in a hospital in Ontario, the sole surviving member of his family after his parents, sister and grandmother were murdered by yet another white supremacist terrorist with Islamophobic views.

    This attack in Canada happened just this week. You probably didn’t hear about it. Because white women like Rose Byrne and Jacinda Ardern will dominate the headlines while our communities are suffering.

    This movie purports to centre a white woman character and her role in the aftermath of a heinous tragedy instead of focusing on the stories of the victims and survivors. It’s being directed by a white man. Hollywood will make money off this. Rose Byrne will be paid a pretty penny.

    Remember that there were people in that mosque who literally put their bodies in the firing line and died to protect others, but apparently it’s the white saviour’s story that’s worth telling instead.

    Where is the Muslim community?
    Where is the Muslim community that was most impacted in this?

    And I am not mollified by some “consultation with several members of the mosque”. I’m not naïve enough to believe the scope or depth of that consultation process would have been anywhere near adequate.

    How is it okay for others to profit off our pain? How is it okay for Muslims to be de-centred from a story about their suffering? How can we celebrate this tragedy as something that was ultimately a triumph because someone got a pretty photo of Ardern in a hijab and it inspired some graffiti art and a light show in Dubai?

    The banning of assault weapons, while important, did nothing to address the core issues of Islamophobia and racism festering in our societies under a thin façade of tolerance.

    Similarly, this movie will achieve nothing for the community that was attacked either. It’s exploitative. It’s in bad taste.

    USC Annenberg recently published a study on Muslim representation in popular film. It found that in popular films between 2017 – 2019, 181 of 200 films had no Muslim characters at all. Of the nearly 9000 characters in these films, only 1.6 percent of the speaking roles were Muslims.

    Not only are we grossly under-represented, but when we’re represented at all it’s either as the victims or perpetrators of violence. And Muslim women are all but invisible on screen. The incredibly diverse ethnic backgrounds of Muslims are also erased in favour of the stereotypical portrayal of a Muslim as being either Middle Eastern or North African.

    Jacinda Ardern and Rose Byrne
    The film will focus 0n the week following the 15 March 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks with Australian actrss Rose Byrne set to play New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, according to US media. Image: RNZ/AFP

    The film will focus the week following the 15 March Christchurch mosque attacks with Australian actrss Rose Byrne set to play New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, according to US media. Photo: RNZ / AFP

    Can we have any confidence?
    Given that, how can we have any confidence of this story being told with any sensitivity, nuance or even truthfulness?

    If the Christchurch attacks are the subject of a movie, how can we be certain the violence won’t be glorified? That it won’t give hope to would-be attackers that their hateful actions would bring them the notoriety they seek?

    That’s not to say we shouldn’t talk about the attacks, but there are at least 91 people I can think of who I would rather see as the subject of any such movie rather than our Prime Minister. Those 91 people and their families are mostly immigrants and refugees, of all ages, racial backgrounds, genders, working across so many industries. I promise you that any one of their stories would be more interesting, and worthy, of immortalising on film.

    But Muslims also don’t want to be depicted only as the victims or aggressors of violence. Believe it or not, most of us can get through our entire lives without having thrown, or being on the receiving end, of a punch. We exist outside this context of tragedy too.

    However, no one wants to know us on our terms. “They are us” plays nicely in a soft liberal speech, works well as a caption. What does it mean, in practical terms, if we can’t even be seen as the heroes of our own stories.

    Saziah Bashir is a freelance journalist commenting on issues of social justice, race and gender. She completed an LLB, BCom and LLM from the University of Auckland.

    • Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office clarified that neither she nor the government have any involvement in the film.
    • This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Chief Scientist on ‘glacial’ STEM diversity progress

    Achieving gender parity in senior STEM leadership positions in Australia will take more than 150 years at the current pace, according to Australia’s chief scientist Dr Cathy Foley, who has challenged sector leaders to accelerate the pace of progress.

    Dr Foley led a virtual roundtable of leaders in Australia’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) sectors on Monday, to kick off an impact accelerator hosted by Paddl, Western Sydney University and InnovationAus.

    Australia’s Chief Scientist began with sobering data on women in STEM being underrepresented in workforce participation and compensation while facing a range of cultural and social biases.

    “This is something I’ve been considering for the last 40 years or so. And the progress has been glacial,” Dr Foley said.

    Cathy Foley
    Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley has warned of a “glacial” pace on STEM diversity.

    While there is growing awareness of STEM diversity and the wider benefits of it, Dr Foley said there is still a need for a deeper culture shift.

    “We tend to be harsher in our evaluation of women,” Dr Foley said.

    In one example, Dr Foley cited a Nature journal study of grant applications that showed for women to get the same competency score as men, they had to be two and a half times more productive.

    Another study of CVs showed the documents were judged differently based on whether the applicants name was that of a male or female.

    “They found that for the same CV, just changing the gender, that there was a different score [for] competency, ‘hirability’ and mentoring, just depending on whether your thought it was male or female,” Dr Foley explained.

    “And this impacted salaries by a significant amount.”

    In Australia, data shows STEM workforce participation remains a challenge despite improving rates of university graduation.

    In vocational education women account for only a small share of those completing STEM training courses. In Australian universities, 60 per cent of STEM graduates are female, but many are steering away from physical sciences and IT – where many of the next wave of jobs are expected to be, according to Dr Foley.

    Along with cultural and social barriers this means male STEM graduates are 1.8 times more likely than female STEM graduates to be working in a STEM qualified occupation five years are graduating, she said.

    Even with a STEM career, women face disproportionate barriers including when they take a break to raise children.

    Dr Foley cited research showing women who took career breaks are more likely to be earning less than those who did not when they re-entered the STEM workforce.

    “Men almost never took career brakes for a child, and when they did, they didn’t seem to suffer this financial penalty, according to this study,” she said.

    Women also leave the wider workforce earlier than men, often around the age of 50, a period when women’s career progression often accelerates, Dr Foley said.

    “I’ve had so many women point this out, and I’ve seen it over and over again. And yet most women don’t hang in there. And we’re seeing too many women leaving the workforce too early,” she said.

    Women also typically “earn a hell of a lot less” than men for the same work over their lifetime and face additional challenges like  an extra day per week of housework on average, Dr Foley said.

    Australia’s chief scientist said the problem is felt widely but is particularly troubling in the STEM area and is holding scientific progress back.

    In a typical example of a STEM organisation offered by Dr Foley, employment might be a 70-30 split of men and women. This means the least skilled male employees would likely be less competent than potential female employees.

    “If that job happened and [instead] employed and 50 per cent women and 50 per cent men, you would have replaced the least intelligent men with women who are quite intelligent, which means the cut off for joining the team is higher [and] the team is working better overall,” Dr Foley said.

    “It means equality [and] diversity aren’t just issues of fairness. They also allow us to make sure we take the full human potential.”

    The event ended with STEM leaders sharing several ideas and commitments on how to address the challenges faced by women in STEM, and pledged to make 2021 the year of change on the issue.

    Dr Foley said the challenge was not to change women but removing the unfair blockers to their success.

    “I really like the idea of the glacier becoming an avalanche,” she said.

    “And I actually think we are at a bit of a tipping point at the moment. I think post-COVID, or as we move our way out of COVID, the world has seen, and Australia has seen, you can work differently and successfully.”

    InnovationAus is the media partner for the Paddl Impact Accelerator Program ‘Achieving Diversity in STEM’ and Western National Innovation Games.

    The post Chief Scientist on ‘glacial’ STEM diversity progress appeared first on InnovationAus.

    This post was originally published on InnovationAus.

  • ‘Chevron Is Not An Evil Company’: Warren Buffett Rejects Climate & Diversity Shareholder Resolution At Berkshire Annual Meeting

    4 Mins Read Warren Buffett helped to reject a shareholder resolution that would push his multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway to inform investors about climate risks. In addition to defending the dirty oil and gas industry, the billionaire CEO also tore down a resolution that called for greater diversity and inclusion efforts, putting the old-fashioned firm out of step […]

    The post ‘Chevron Is Not An Evil Company’: Warren Buffett Rejects Climate & Diversity Shareholder Resolution At Berkshire Annual Meeting appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • Impossible Foods Partners With VWS To Launch Initiative Celebrating Women Food Tech Leaders

    3 Mins Read Impossible Foods and Vegan Women Summit (VWS) are teaming up to launch a new initiative aimed at spotlighting women pioneers in the field of food tech and sustainability. Designed as an inclusive program, Women Building the Future is now searching for nominations from diverse backgrounds across the food, agriculture and sustainability industries to be selected […]

    The post Impossible Foods Partners With VWS To Launch Initiative Celebrating Women Food Tech Leaders appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • New Impact Shakers Awards To Recognise Climate-Forward & Inclusive European Startups

    3 Mins Read A new competition has launched to award European startups who are making a positive impact on society and the environment. Created by Impact Shakers, an organisation supporting impact entrepreneurship, an international jury will award winners across twelve categories, from food to energy, gender equality and peace.  Open for submission this month, the Impact Shakers Awards […]

    The post New Impact Shakers Awards To Recognise Climate-Forward & Inclusive European Startups appeared first on Green Queen.

    This post was originally published on Green Queen.

  • TV Craft Awards: lifting the lid on structural racism

    By a member of BECTU

    “Did no-one look around and stop and ask: ‘why are we so white?’”

    In part of David Olusoga’s welcome and powerful MacTaggart Lecture he referred to the stark division between the 2020 BAFTA Television Awards and their companion, the Craft Awards.

    “The Television Awards for 2020 recognised our many successful diverse actors and presenters. Mo Gilligan, Naomi Ackie, Idris Elba and Romesh Ranganathan all won awards.  Other award-winning shows had diverse cast and crew members. In that most glamorous showcase, our industry’s record on diversity looked good.

    “But it was a completely different story at the Craft Awards, those that recognise the skills and talents of the people who make programmes –camera operators, sound operators, directors, graphic designers. The Craft Awards did not have a single Black or Asian winner.”

    What David is highlighting is the disparity between on-screen and off-screen diversity.

    As he puts it, “there is willingness to accept black people as performers, in front of the camera, but unwillingness on the part of the industry to make space for them behind the scenes, in the rooms where the decisions are made and the real creativity happens”.

    This state of affairs is something Bectu has recognised for some time.

    In 2018 the union’s Black Members’ Committee analysed that year’s BAFTA Craft awards ceremony.  The awards represent the pinnacle of UK television production, and there is little doubt that all the nominees and winners are very good at their jobs.

    But unlike the Television Awards, which give out gongs for best programme and best actor, the Craft Awards have an added frisson in that they allow us to see what (some of) the people who make up television crews actually look like.

    One of the problems when analysing off-screen talent is that it is out of sight.  Whereas anyone with enough patience can have a go at analysing the on-screen talent of any particular production, the diversity (or otherwise) behind the camera remains shrouded in mystery.

    This is why Bectu has been fighting so hard for the release of programme-level data from the industry’s own equality monitoring scheme, Project Diamond.

    Off-screen awards overwhelmingly white

    What was discovered from the 2018 ceremony? In total 99 crew members were recognised at the awards. Of these, 98 were white (more on the sole black crew member later). This is shocking, except that it isn’t. Why?  Because as David Olusoga made clear, television crews in the UK are overwhelmingly white.

    There is a dearth of proper equality monitoring in television production. Figures are released by broadcasters about their own staff, but where programme making is concerned these are highly misleading.

    For example, Channel 4 likes to champion itself as leading the way in the ethnic diversity of its workforce, but Channel 4 is a publisher broadcaster. It doesn’t make any of the programmes it broadcasts, but instead commissions (outsources) programme making to independent production companies.

    If you ask Channel 4 what the diversity is of the people who make their programmes you will receive a shrug of the shoulders.

    The workers in television crews (like the vast majority of nominees and winners at the Craft awards) are so-called “freelance”.  This is a peculiar term.  It isn’t recognised by HMRC. What it usually means is that these workers are self-employed, taking on contracts production by production (another vital reason why the release of programme-level data is needed).

    We are really talking about a casualised workforce. No job security, little protection from unfair practices, and a complete reliance on informal networks (ie who you know). As David puts it in his lecture, these informal forms of recruitment “favour those with soft-skills and backgrounds and interests like those doing the recruiting” as well as making “work in our industry just too risky for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds”.

    Ofcom, the industry regulator, takes no responsibility for freelance workers. They have interpreted their statutory duty as stopping at the doors of the broadcasters, and therefore have no interest in the treatment of those working for independent production companies. This narrow interpretation of their statutory duty means the freelance workforce remains unprotected.

    What figures we do have present an alarming picture for black freelancers in the industry.

    Ofcom did publish an incomplete set of figures for freelancers working in television in 2017 and 2019 with the 2019 figures showing that just 2% of freelancers were Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME).

    This tallies with other research, including that from Dr Dave O’Brien at Edinburgh University, which – drawing on surveys from the Office for National Statistics – show the number of BAME workers in film, television and radio to be 4.2%.

    Falling number of BAME workers in TV

    The last survey from Creative Skillset (the quango now renamed ScreenSkills and responsible for industry training) showed that the number of BAME workers in television fell by 31% between 2005 and 2012.

    Black workers in the industry recognise these figures. As David Olusoga says, “one of my overwhelming memories looking back at 20 years in television is of loneliness”.

    We are accustomed to being the only black crew member on a production. To rub salt into the wounds, this problem only gets worse the higher up one climbs. The “head of department” roles –ie  the roles recognised by BAFTA in the Craft Awards – writer, director, director of photography, production designer, costume, hair and make-up, editor and head of sound – are almost completely white.

    It is therefore quite logical that the Craft Awards ceremonies look the way they do. It comes as no surprise to any black crew members looking on (and we are invariably looking on).

    Something that comes as a surprise, however, is no one at the awards ceremonies appears to be all that bothered by the lack of diversity.

    The gender balance in 2018 wasn’t very good (only 25 of the crew recognised were women), but you might have thought that a roomful of white people – the cream of UK talent – may have resulted in some pause for reflection?

    The truth however is that it probably didn’t occur to many of the participants that this was odd, given that their usual workplaces contain exactly this lack of diversity. Whiteness in the film and television world is the norm, and this normalisation has existed for some time.

    Even the one black crew member recognised at the 2018 ceremony was not a cause for celebration, but instead a moment of sadness.  BAFTA always takes time to commemorate those notable TV professionals who have died in the last year.

    Of the 40 honoured this year, the 39th was producer and Coronation Street director Victor Adebodun, who died at 33.  In as much as Black and Minority Ethnic television professionals make up a collective – which we need to – it can ill afford such an untimely loss.

    What can be done? 

    To be clear, the problems highlighted by the Craft Awards are not of BAFTA’s making, and  the organisers are attempting to redress the balance by inviting a number of black people to give out the awards. BAFTA could make a start, however, by at least releasing the equality monitoring data of the entries each year.

    More importantly, however, the UK TV industry must come clean and acknowledge it is structurally racist. As David Olusoga puts it, “it is an industry that in many ways is a perfect case study of the structural nature of racism”.

    It must acknowledge the paradox that ceremonies like the BAFTA Craft Awards demonstrate the industry is not a meritocracy. However talented and hard-working the winners are, the industry must admit that equally talented and hard-working people are being denied access because of race and class.

    If the industry is serious about changing things it must, at a minimum, release equality monitoring data at programme level. As the Federation of Entertainment Unions continue to argue, only by doing this will the industry be able to expose where racist hiring practices are at their worst and begin to do something about it.

    Agents must come clean about the diversity of the people on their books, and the relative success they have in securing decent employment for their clients.

    Black workers in the industry must be properly supported by ScreenSkills. Too much of the training necessary to stay at the top of the industry is accessed through informal networks, and to counter this ScreenSkills should provide Black and Minority Ethnic workers with access to a career-long programme of continuous professional development.

    Black television workers do not want pity, they want jobs.  Anything less than taking the steps suggested above will merely result in more handwringing, and a few years down the line another Black survivor of the industry will deliver another MacTaggart lecture similar in substance to Michaela Coel’s and David Olusoga’s.

    If the industry is serious in tackling the problem of structural racism it would sign up to these concrete proposals immediately. The tools to effect meaningful change are at hand.  All that is lacking is the will to make this change.

    Craft Award ceremonies are a chance to lift the lid on UK television production. What they reveal is a glitter that is oh so white.

    The post TV Craft Awards: lifting the lid on structural racism appeared first on Media Reform Coalition.

    This post was originally published on Media Reform Coalition.

  • Trumping Hate

    There’s been a lot of conversation about whether Donald Trump has inspired a new wave of hate in America.

    Reveal reporter Will Carless set out to understand the president’s role in hundreds of hate incidents across the country, with help from the Documenting Hate project led by ProPublica. He found a striking pattern that extended across races, religions and sexual orientation. We also examine what’s going on inside the government agency that’s supposed to be fighting discrimination, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. And we ask what it takes for bystanders in hate speech incidents to become allies.

    Don’t miss the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Tesla and Beyond: Hidden Problems of Silicon Valley

    Tech companies in Silicon Valley are under the microscope for not living up to their idealistic pledges to save the world. On this week’s episode of Reveal, we investigate companies on the cutting edge that are struggling to solve some old-fashioned problems: Worker safety at Tesla, and diversity at Google and beyond.

    —

    Don’t miss out on the next big story. Get the Weekly Reveal newsletter today.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.

  • Where criminals get their guns (rebroadcast)

    Across the country, criminals are arming themselves in unexpected ways. In Florida, they’re stealing guns from unlocked cars and gun stores. In other places, they’re getting them from the police themselves, as cash-strapped departments sell their used weapons to buy new ones. On this episode of Reveal, we learn where criminals get their guns and what cars can teach us about gun safety.

    —

    To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

    This post was originally published on Reveal.