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#(like listen. i give cassius a lot of grief. but in this play? i can get SO MUCH mileage out of him. who else in this play
mjvnivsbrvtvs · 3 years
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it's the insatiable hunger of 'yond cassius has a lean and hungry look,' and the incurable starvation of 'my heart is thirsty for that noble pledge. fill, lucius, till the wine o'erswell the cup; I cannot drink too much of brutus' love,' it's about eating someone that you’re supposed to--
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letstalkaboutequity · 4 years
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#blacklivesmatter
I’ve been inspired by the many personal stories being shared and thinking about which of my own very long list of stories to share for maximum impact.
Let me start by reintroducing myself. ‘Hello, my name is Ngozi Lyn Cole’. My middle name displaced my first name in the 90s when I realised that this would remove the barriers stopping me from getting my foot into the doors of many employers. I wasn’t alone in making such a decision.
It worked but not always. Soon after my name change, I showed up for an interview at a well-known bank. A white man that I assumed was the chair of the panel came out, scanned the room where I was sitting and asked the Receptionist to show Lyn Cole in as soon as she arrived. The flushed receptionist whispered and gestured to tell him it was me. When he realised, he shot me a look and rushed back inside. I left. You tell me if I would have got that job. Please don’t think that this kind of discrimination no longer happens?
This isn’t a Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali gesture. I’ve thought about this long and hard over the years but feel there’s no better time than now to be my authentic self and to speak my truth. I’m definitely not rushing round changing my name on everything again! Continue to call me Lyn - it’s my middle name after all. But I’ll be introducing myself as Ngozi Lyn Cole from now on. if you want to learn how to pronounce it, just ask me.
I freely admit that I enjoy a lot of privilege myself which is why I’m perplexed by colleagues who don’t understand or accept their own privilege. I’ve worked with lots of decent and wonderful white people over the years.  I’ve had and continue to have a great career. This opens doors to me that are closed to many of my black brothers and sisters. I was the first black/black woman to hold several of my job titles. All through my career, I’ve worked my fingers to the bone feeling that I’ve had to excel so that the door does not slam shut in the face of the next black woman that pitches up. All through my career, I’ve tried to speak up against injustice and inequality and to make things a little bit better for the next person. Did I always speak up? Sadly I didn’t.
Over the years, I’ve experienced covert and overt racism. A security officer stopped me at the entrance at Belfast Airport and requested my ID. When I asked why, she said, ‘I didn’t look like I was from these parts.’ Over the past few years somebody has been sending anonymous letters to organisations that I work for alleging wrongdoing on my part over Lottery grants made to a black-led organisation during my time as a Board member there stating that I should have known better ‘as a woman of colour’.
Within the last 12 months, two colleagues have insinuated, and one has outright said that I secured some positions in my portfolio because I’m black. I thank and commend the many organisations who have bravely stood up to increase the diversity of their boards and senior teams. My colour may have got me an interview, addressing centuries of discrimination but to say that I got a job just because I’m black is to insult and belittle all my hard work and to diminish who I am. That’s just one of the many examples of micro-aggression that I’ve experienced.
I’m not the one that has experienced the worst racism in my family. Sadly, that award goes to my three children. We’ve been the only or one of the few black families everywhere we’ve lived in the UK. So they got the talk very early - stay out of trouble, work harder than your mates because if you’re exactly the same, they will get chosen over you every time, keep your head down, don’t give them an excuse etc etc.
My son and daughter have been spat at. All three have been called names and faced discrimination ... repeatedly. The police once came to our door following an incident at school where my son was trying to break up a fight. One of the boys involved in the fight called him the ‘n’ word upon which my son knocked him out. The police told me that the boy’s mum wanted to press charges. I politely informed them that I too would like to press charges over the racist abuse. The matter went away.
The police came back sometime later because somebody had called them when they saw my son, a young black kid, playing with a toy gun. Thankfully, the matter was resolved but it could have ended very differently.
My son was about 12 when real guns were pointed at him by police whilst we were standing in a queue at Washington Dulles airport waiting to come home after a family holiday. They were briskly marching him away and yelling at me to ‘step back ma’am’ until I shouted that he was only 12. He was 6 feet tall at the time, dressed in basketball attire and standing in a line doing nothing at all except being black.
Fast forward to just last year when my son, drove up from London for an interview in Stockton. He got there early and waited in the car park. Soon after the police arrived stating that somebody had reported suspicious activity - that’s right a young black man sitting in a nice car. That too could have ended very differently.
Fast forward to now when I too watched the George Floyd and now the Rayshard Brooks footage with sadness, grief, incomprehension but not a shred of surprise. I too am having conversations with my family about when this madness will stop. I’m getting calls and emails from young black men and women at the start of their own careers, asking for some guidance on how to engage with this in their own workplaces.
I’m filled with hope at the number of decent white people standing up in outright unconditional condemnation. Many colleagues are talking about what they are doing and what more they can do. Many companies are standing up in outright condemnation of racism and making great commitments. But I’m also reading posts about how all lives matter, reading comments minimising and excusing the stories of those experiencing discrimination and listening to the deafening silence of those who choose not to speak.
I hope that your takeaway isn't about my name but about an understanding of what it feels like to live in a society like ours. I hope that my story nudges you to use your own voice and privilege to challenge racism and other inequalities wherever you are.  I hope that 2020 heralds the start of permanent change. I pray that my 20-month-old mixed race grandson can grow up in a world where he can feel that he’s not the enemy and has a very different experience.
 #blacklivesmatter
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