Cultivating an Anti-Racist Culture
Missed our last event? Check out the highlights below.
Last Thursday (9th), we hosted our first virtual event about racism and anti-racism in and out of the workplace. The event, “Cultivating an Anti-Racist Culture” was conducted online and had an incredible lineup of female speakers discussing racism in Ireland and actionable steps to combat it. The panel was chaired Sophie Benoit (co-founder of What The Hack).
The first to speak was Áine Mulloy, Innovation Designer at The Dock (Accenture), co-founder of GirlCrew, and listed as one of 100 women founders in Europe to follow by Forbes. Áine shared her experience in and out of the workplace as an Irish person of colour, the challenges and the dynamics of a racist system and the importance of education and representation.
“Nobody ever helped me. For a white person, it is important to say something if you see something wrong going on. Even and especially if the person of colour is not comfortable in confronting them. And if they do confront them, back them up.”
— Áine Mulloy
Based on her experience at Google, Toju Duke (Product Lead at Google, Founder of Refyne, and Project Lead at Women in AI) talked about diversity practices inside companies and how people should speak out about their experiences.
“Women of colour can feel alone. But what you are experiencing is not unique, every person of colour is going through it.”
— Toju Duke
Claudia Hoareau-Gichuhi, Diversity & Inclusion expert and board member of INAR (Irish Network Against Racism) brilliantly spoke about Ireland’s mentality about race. She flagged a negative change in Ireland, with the increasing number of racism reporting and incidents around the country and still no hate-crime legislation. Claudia also talked about the far-right movements in Ireland, the anti-immigration stands and how this environment is giving confidence to people to have these views.
“There is no legislation for hate crime and racism in Ireland. That needs to change for the better. Most times these incidents are recorded as assault or antisocial behaviour and don’t have the proper repercussions.”
— Claudia Hoareau-Gichuhi
Deborah Somorin, Management Consultant at PwC and Founder of Empower the Family, gave the guests an introduction to intersectionality. The term is an understanding of how different social and political aspects, like gender and race, can create unique forms of discrimination and privilege.
“I don’t feel included in gender equality discussions. We have to take intersectionality into account. Black women and white women have very different life experiences, and the same happens with LGBTQIA+ black people.”
— Deborah Somorin
The information provided by our fantastic speakers was unique and very constructive to all participants. Attendees also had the opportunity to ask questions to the panellists and exchange experiences at the networking session. In addition to the discussions, the speakers listed a few resources to help us in our anti-racist journey. You can see the full list here.
#GoingFar was created to support migrant women and non-binary people to advance their careers in Ireland and that’s why we must fight for an inclusive and anti-racist culture. We must have courageous conversations, learn from others and actually do the work. We must accept that this is an opportunity for personal growth and sustainable change.
Special thanks to our moderator and speakers: Sophie Benoit, Áine Mulloy, Toju Duke, Claudia Hoareau-Gichuhi and Deborah Somorin; and all of our attendees and the #GoingFar team!
You can watch the full event here.
