The Anti-Racist Organization. Shereen Daniels

systems and practices that reward behaviour that excludes people because of their skin colour and other characteristics is inhumane.

      Addressing the root cause of systemic racism, drawing attention to where it shows up and how you can take intentional steps to make a difference is one of the most rewarding and impactful cultural transformation programmes you can ever embark on.

      You are doing when most are still talking.

      That's humanity.

      I Did Not Wake up Like This

      You could be mistaken for believing that the confidence I have in addressing these issues head on has always been there. You might think to commend me for my bravery and steadfast approach in speaking truth to power. It may seem that my strength of character and openness about advocating for Black people first is the culmination of a life‐long journey that can be traced to some point in my distant past.

      The truth is, I didn't wake up like this – not with this level of insight. It was not really an objective decision to channel my HR and leadership experience into advancing racial equity.

For years I had held tight to a belief that we cannot bite the hand that feeds us. I felt obligated to demonstrate gratitude for any and all opportunities that were coming my way, because they weren't typical for people who look like me. I operated from a place of fear, recognising that no matter how senior I got, my position was precarious to many of my colleagues, peers and managers. I was just ‘the Black girl in HR’.

      I was taught to turn the other cheek, not to show emotion lest I be typecast as an ‘angry Black woman’ in the workplace. To show a bit more emotion meant I risked intimidating others, particularly those people who ‘aren't used to being around Black people’. I sensed pressure to be held as the exemplary Black person who doesn't make excuses and to be seen as the professional who never ‘plays the race card’.

       You've done so well. Clearly racism hasn't affected you like it has other people. Why do you think that is?

      Various versions of this statement made me realise the cost of silence – the cost of saying little to nothing about how I really felt, the cost of assimilating and integrating into majority white spaces that were threatened by my presence because I was different. And if there was more than one Black person, well, what's going on here?

      Every time certain situations kept happening, I rationalised them away. He didn't mean it. She was just upset. Maybe I'm reading it wrong. I wasn't conciliatory enough, I was too assertive, I wasn't ‘soft’ enough, I was too intimidating.

      The reality was that I was afraid, and ashamed of my fear. For all my big talk and bravado, I always stopped short of being myself, because I didn't want to run of the risk of being rejected – by white people, who, in my eyes, held all the power, whilst I and people like me held none.

I could never say this to my colleagues, but I knew. I knew that I lived, worked and played in a society that meant when push came to shove, my life, my dreams, my aspirations didn't matter as much. And despite how much I wished things were different, there wasn't a lot I could do about it.

      I had no choice.

      Make the best of what I was dealt with, don't let it stop me.

      Work that bit harder.

      Prove them wrong.

      Accept that nothing can change.

      On 25 May 2020, the same day George Floyd was murdered, a white woman named Amy Cooper was walking her dog in Central Park in New York City. I'm sure she had no idea that she would soon become the symbolic embodiment of a woman who weaponised her race, all because a Black man reprimanded her for letting her dog run free in an area where leashing is required. Amy called the police, relying on her privilege in being able to do so, knowing she would be believed and the likely outcome facing the Black man she abused. Her phone calls were made mere hours before George Floyd's murder in Minneapolis by a police officer.

      Amy Cooper was my reckoning point.

      I saw with absolute clarity that I had spent so much of my life surrounded by the male and female versions of Amy Cooper. There were Amy Coopers in my school and universities. I led teams with Amy Coopers, was managed by Amy Coopers, even had friendships and romantic relationships with versions of Amy Coopers.

In that moment it dawned on me that for all those years when I thought the problem was with me, it wasn't. Yet my silence through fear and discomfort meant I was complicit. Yes, it is possible to be impacted by racism and at the same time be an agent of its existence.

      What did I have to be afraid of?

       That by speaking out I would be ostracised and rejected.

       That I would become that Black woman who always talks about racism.

       That I would become that Black person who makes people feel uncomfortable in sharing my experiences of discrimination and how it's affected me.

       That the model image of the Black professional I had spent almost twenty years cultivating would crumble away, and the person I really was and who I really wanted to be would be ‘too Black’ to be accepted by the majority.

      And where would that leave me? Too often it's assumed that racism is cut and dried. Black and white. But it isn't. It's uncomfortable, messy and complex.

      No one helped me untangle the guilt, shame and embarrassment I felt at having never said anything (or at least very little) when I was in the corporate world, at not actively being part of dismantling racism, at not doing more to support, champion and advocate for other Black people. Systemic racism is a system that divides, even within those of us who share the same ethnicity. Head down and get on with it. I don't have the time, energy or space to take on other people's struggles because I'm out here trying to fight the same battles.

      I have my own problems to do deal with.

      I'm still picking cotton.

Guilt manifests itself in different ways. For some of us, it's meant that we've made deliberate decisions to be part of the solution. To channel our influence, privilege and power to make a real difference in a way that addresses the root causes of racism and inequity that doesn't rely on prioritising white comfort.

      Is this a bit too much for a business book? Well, it depends. We are all human and flawed individuals at that. I am no different.

      To process the words written on the preceding pages is to do so with more understanding about how I've had to do the introspection that I'm also asking you to do. We all have work to do; it's just different. And it's so necessary to do this, if we are ever to stand a chance of freeing ourselves from the hundreds of years of insidious conditioning by systemic racism. Make no mistake – it harms white people too, but the impact is acutely felt by Black and other global majority people.

      Anti‐racism and advancing racial equity are not about revenge. Neither is it about domination, exploitation or being anti‐white.

      It's not about anti‐whiteness, anti‐white supremacy, anti‐exclusion.

      It's about pro fairness, pro equity. It's about redistributing power rather than hoarding it.

      What is so divisive about that?

      Beyond the Lived Experience

      I have almost two decades of HR experience, working for a range of national and international companies, covering everything from risk management to books, fashion to food, telecoms to coffee. But it wasn't my HR experience on its own that got me here, and it certainly didn't happen overnight.

I began recording a video a day for one hundred consecutive days, talking about my experiences but also offering words of advice, encouragement and challenge to decision makers. I did not expect my soft‐focus pixelated videos to gather