The balance of being underrepresentedyet privileged

everyone i’m sheree atchison and i am an

award-winning global diversity equity

and inclusion leader

i’m here today to talk to you about

being underrepresented

yet privileged i have been doing

diversity equity and inclusion

leadership for almost a decade and

in the time that i have done this for

organizations of all different sizes

regions industries and privilege

is a is a core part of the conversations

that i have now what is privilege

and why are we so uncomfortable talking

about it

privilege is a set of unearned benefits

it is

benefits given to a certain group circle

or social

construct and that ultimately benefits

and betters people

for no reason and when i say no reason

what i mean is that there is no

skill to being privileged it is

essentially luck

there is no reason that someone should

be privileged

for x-rays and over wineries and other

than

bias stereotypes and assumptions all of

which can be incredibly damaging

now why are people so uncomfortable

talking about privilege

well ultimately it’s because it makes

people feel

like they haven’t um had haven’t worked

hard

or they haven’t earned the success they

have

now no one is saying that people have

not worked hard

many people have worked hard and still

been incredibly privileged

what privilege is dictating and telling

is ultimately that yes you may have

worked hard however there are certain

things

that could have made it harder whether

that is meal privilege

white privilege ability privilege and so

on and so forth

what’s really important is that we

understand there’s nuance here

you can both have had a difficult

journey and be privileged

now what’s really important in the

conversation around privilege

is the difference between equity and

equality

so often we use the words

and we shouldn’t do that because they’re

not the same words otherwise why would

they exist

equality is about giving people all

people

the same support to progress

to be successful to do and achieve their

goals whatever they might be

it makes an assumption that everybody is

starting

on the same starting line now we know

that the world does not work that way

and that is very simply

facetious to think that we could create

a support mechanism that would treat

everyone

fairly by giving everyone the same

support

equity is very different equity is about

understanding the differences

that different people have the different

support mechanisms that haven’t existed

and need to exist so as we can then move

forward

equitably we can provide the tailored

support

that people need based on their

background based on

all of the different things that are

made making people

who they are that make up society

society is not a homogeneous group

i want you to think about when you were

able to go out

and see different people what it meant

all of the different people that you

probably surround yourself with

but also when you think about the people

you surround yourself with

is it quite a homogeneous group is it

quite similar

how has that affected your mindset does

that mean that you have potentially a

biased view

of what support means for different

people

if we create inclusion measures that

only serve ourselves

we are just creating more exclusion and

very frankly we don’t need that

we don’t need any more of that now think

about this in real life terms and i

offer my own story as an example

i i write quite often um about

being underrepresented yet privileged

so as you can tell i’m irish

and and i was raised in ireland so i was

adopted from sri lanka when i was three

weeks old by an irish family

i want you to think about that first

thing for me that

humongous decision that i had no control

over

at three weeks old but was very lucky to

have been adopted

now i’ve been back to sri lanka i’ve

seen my biological family

and have met them i’ve seen the

circumstances accepted that my

half-sister has grown up in and it’s

very very different to the world

that i have now was there any skill

in me being adopted knows the answer to

that

is there any skill in me being put up

for adoption versus potentially her

no it was just complete luck now i think

about that because that one decision

has meant that i have been able to be

raised in ireland i had

the ability to go to school every day to

have food

every day to have a bed to sleep on

every day

to go to university albeit with a lot of

grants and bursaries

every day i know i’m a global leader i

travel the world when it was safe to do

and now financial stability but that one

decision has ultimately shaped my entire

life

now i have a lot of privilege in that if

you

cover this video camera

you cannot tell i am a person of color

my name is sheree atchison

and i have an accent like this so you

can’t actually tell

that i’m a woman of color until you see

now that gives me an anonymity and a

privilege

that other people of color do not have

i was raised in ireland and my parents

were disabled they grew up we grew up on

pre-school meals

and my parents were benefits and so on

later on in their lives

and that has given me a very different

perspective to those that have always

been financially stable

i remember times when it was really

really difficult for my family

but i’m not in the position to be

financially stable where i can

support other people now i want you to

think about what that means that

transition of privilege i have a partner

that i can comfortably speak about

because we are both heterosexual

i am able to do the things that i want

to do because of the security

that financial privilege has given me

now

it’s important that once i remember all

of this i’m also still very

underrepresented as a senior leader

in the industry who is a woman of color

and is 29 years old

it’s important to remember there’s new

ones here now what can we do about this

moving forward what can you do

about privilege and your own privilege

firstly i want you to sit down

i want you to think about it i want you

to think about what it means to be

privileged for you please do not get

defensive it is not useful here

and it is ultimately just stopping the

conversation before it starts

i want you to think about what it means

for you to exist in the world

to think about what it means for other

people to exist in the world who have

different

experiences to you because there will be

different experiences to you whether

that means they are better or worse

i want you to think about how this

affects the processes in your businesses

if you’re

in a workplace how has privilege

manifested itself in your hiring process

your promotion process your grievance

process

and all the other processes in between

who do those processes serve

do they serve everyone the only way you

can try and check that

is by understanding the data behind it

who is actually getting through those

processes and who isn’t and what’s the

reasons behind

it what you also need to do is have

continuous conversations

with yourself please remember that

sitting down once and thinking oh god

i’m really privileged um okay that’s me

finished that’s not how this works you

have to keep having these conversations

remember that privilege evolves and

shifts and changes

keep having these conversations with

yourself and with the people around you

and remember that when you care about

this stuff and i hope you do care

about inclusion we care about it because

it’s so

unfair and it’s simply not acceptable

that the world greatly advantages some

while disadvantaging others and it’s

your role now

to spend time understanding how the

world either benefits you or not

on what we can do about it together

thank you