Читать книгу UNBIAS - Stacey A. Gordon - Страница 16

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died after a white police officer, in an attempt to arrest him, knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes as he lay on a sidewalk in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

His death sparked global protests that were captured in more than 77 countries, including the UK, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Kenya, Brazil, China, Japan, and India. The protests began in Minneapolis, where the four officers present during his murder were fired. While protests continued for many weeks and were documented in cities across every state within the U.S., the question remains, “Why did this particular death cause such an outcry?”

He was not the first Black man in police custody – and unfortunately he probably won't be the last – to say, “I can't breathe,” before being pronounced dead.

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner died in Staten Island, a borough of New York City, after a New York City police department officer put him in a prohibited chokehold while attempting to arrest him. In the video footage that captured his death, Garner can be heard repeatedly stating that he can't breathe.

The application to the workplace comes in the understanding that there are injustices in the world and a good leader realizes they cannot be blind to the fact that injustices in the world will equate to injustices in the workplace.

No one leaves bias and bigotry at the door when they come to work, so while you cannot change people's beliefs, you can change their behavior in the workplace.

This book is a resource to guide you through the steps for leading your company through unprecedented change and to tackle various types of unconscious bias along the way. The information in this book is the culmination of more than a decade of my professional experience working with clients in the capacity of recruiter, coach, and diversity consultant as well as the more than four decades of personal experience navigating the world as a Black woman. So one of the first biases we will tackle is what you might think about me.