Lambeth - amplifying the advertorial...

As a recently departed and long serving employee of (and union activist at) the London Borough of Lambeth, I was intrigued to see coverage of my former employer in the Grauniad last week.

Even if it was “paid content” (i.e. an “advertorial”)…

The Council want the world to know that they are making progress in promoting diversity, that they are recruiting more Black and ethnic minority staff at senior levels, establishing staff forums for oppressed groups and that “openness is a key theme…”

They definitely want to tell the world by paying Guardian journalists to do the telling. As the “paid content” says; “the council brought in an external equality, diversity and inclusion adviser, the social commentator and activist Patrick Vernon OBE, to give staff the chance to speak confidentially after a group of employees complained of unfair treatment due to racism.”

Since the Grauniad told the bad news it gets now to be paid to tell the better news. In the content (for which the Council has paid), the Chief Executive acknowledges the problem highlighted previously; “Recognising that issue was crucial in addressing it, says Travers.” That’s not quite how I remember it though.

I remember what my trade union branch said, that after the Guardian reported the complaints from staff the Chief Executive had said; “I do not accept the claim of institutional racism at Lambeth council” as, he felt it “is so far from the truth, and essentially so insulting to staff, that I feel that these comments should not go unchallenged.” (Albeit he also said that his “initial reaction was not to write about this article for fear of amplifying the message”.)

Lambeth UNISON had responded immediately to the Chief Executive’s initial, ill-informed denial of the reality of institutional racism, pointing out the relevant history of the organisation. Eventually – after he had appeared in front of hundreds of Black staff of the Council and heard their anger – the Chief Executive recanted and admitted that the organisation did have a problem with racism. “Recognising that issue was (indeed) crucial in addressing it,” but that recognition was forced upon an unwilling organisation by its Black staff.

This untold prehistory of last week’s advertorial underlines two important points. First, the struggle against institutional racism (in Lambeth and many other organisations) has been being waged for decades – and it is naïve in the extreme to rush to tell “good news” stories in ignorance of the many setbacks these struggles have faced in the past. Secondly, any progress which has been made has been the product of these struggles – of organisational leadership responding to pressure from below – and never of enlightened leaders acting in isolation from the struggle.

I am very glad that Lambeth Council now feels (with some cause) that it has a good story to tell about diversity, but if the organisation wants to de-institutionalise racism then it needs to understand the history of the fight against its own institutional racism, and that this is a history of struggle.

That probably doesn’t make for quite such good “paid content” though…