When I was asked to provide my perspective on ‘breaking down BAME’, my initial response was: ‘what is BAME and how is it defined?’, which after being received with shocked silence, led to an explanation of the term and, frankly, it did not sit right with me.
It felt somewhat derogatory and I thought we had moved past grouping people based on external traits and assigning an acronym. On the flip side, after speaking to some of my colleagues, I became acutely aware of what it is like to be ‘on the other side of the table', of finding the appropriate terminology to capture people's different ethnic and racial backgrounds without being discriminatory or insulting. The acronym stayed with me and led me to question whether I am leading a sheltered life in a bubble or, alternatively, whether my firm's culture does not tolerate labelling people. Fr...
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