For blacks, the challenge is to remain in leadership positions – 02/05/2023 – Policies and Justice

Celebrating the advances that this generation is experiencing for more representativeness in decision-making spaces is as important as being aware of the long road we have to travel. Brazil is experiencing an unprecedented moment of opportunity for inclusion in leadership positions. Black, brown and indigenous voices have been making themselves heard through increased access and representation in decision-making spaces.

Even so, if black people make up 56% of the Brazilian population, according to the IBGE, they are still a minority at the tables where decisions are taken. Recent data from the Personnel Observatory show that the participation of black and brown men is 20% at all levels of leadership at the federal level.

When it comes to black women, the rates are more alarming: they occupy 12% of low-level positions, such as managers and coordinators, and only 9% when looking at top-level positions. In the private sector, according to the Ethos Institute, they occupy only 4% of leadership positions – the number is three times smaller than that of white women and men.

Whether in the public sector or in the private sector, the presence of black professionals in organizations is in itself a strategy to combat structural racism. An example of this is the recent publication of the decree that provides for the reserve for black people of a minimum percentage of 30% in positions of trust in the federal government.

It is a process that not only requires, but also generates a lot of learning. The sooner folders, government departments or companies start this process, the more they can generate knowledge and advance in their internal transformations.

Reversing this reality requires facing the inertia that operates from recruitment to professional actions to ensure the permanence of black people –with respect, dignity, mental and physical health– within these environments.

The first difficulty is to become aware of the aspects that alienate blacks and browns from the organization. Qualified black people with the necessary skills exist. The challenge is to find them outside the bubble and create processes that allow them to access vacancies, in addition to transforming the company’s culture, which, in general, is unable to recognize that it expels black people and hinders their professional success.

The spaces were not designed for us, they are not prepared to include us and place individual responsibility on the consequences of obstacles that are structural and collective. Being often the only, or one of the only, black people in the room generates a sense of not belonging.

Despite nothing being said openly, there are always signs that trigger this trigger, from the ordinance that makes it difficult for you to enter and doubts whether you are even in the position you occupy to the constant search at airports on business trips.

The structural racism movement operates internally and externally against black people. On one side are white people, their prejudices and privileges, including not seeing the personal need to change so that equity is a reality. On the other hand, all the decades of internalization of racism in the reality of black professionals. Without putting these elements into account, there is no individual effort that allows for equity and inclusion.

If companies must invest for this inclusion to be professional, with, for example, literacy actions foreseen in the employees’ development plan, among us, black people, a strategy to remain in leadership positions is that, based on the search of others facing challenges similar to ours: listening to those who came before and empowering other generations, investing in your own development and mental health, creating a support network and understanding who are the allies who can face the battles with you. Within the spaces of power we are distant, but we are already many and many, sustaining the dream that our ancestors allowed to happen.

The editor, Michael França, asks each participant of the space “Politics and Justice” of the Sheet suggest a song to the readers. In this text, the one chosen by Deloise was “Bluesman”, by Baco Exu do Blues.

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