Why you MUST always stand up to Racism and unconscious bias in the workplace in the UK.

I live in London and a few days ago I applied for a well paying IT job at a major Tech player in Europe with more than 50,000 employees in more than 20 countries with a turnover of almost 6 billion Euros.

A few hours ago today I saw a missed call from an internal Recruiter from the company. I quickly checked the lady's LinkedIn profile and saw that her education is just O'Levels plus an NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) in Beauty Therapy which is equivalent to 4-5 GCE O'Levels. This is not a major issue but what turn out to be a bigger issue is her small town mindset (bordering on unconscious bias / racism) because she lives in a town in England that has a population of less than 70,000 compared to London where I live a city that has a population of 14.8 million.

A town is generally larger than villages and smaller than cities and it means that a lot of Oyinbo people who have lived in small towns or villages and haven't really lived in London (the capital of England) have not worked closely with intelligent black people and not a few of them have some ignorant narrow minded sentiments about black people that border on unconscious bias / racism.

Back to my story.

After checking out the internal recruiters profile on LinkedIn, I returned her call and withouth much ado or talking about the role her first question was about what rights I have to work in the UK and I replied that I have a British Passport and she then asked whether I had another passport and I replied that I had a Nigerian passport as well.

She immediately said that since I had a Nigerian passport she can not pass my CV to the hiring manager because the role is with the Ministry of Defence (MOD).

I pointed out to her that I was born in the UK at a time when just being born in the UK automatically gave you a British Passport but she said that being born in the UK was not enough.

I was beginning to get irritated at this point so I told her that my Nigerian passport had expired (which it has) and I told her more importantly that my younger brother born in the same UK by the same parents has worked severally in the past with the Ministry of Defence.

Digressing :- Na the same racist attitudes dem take delay my then 7 month pregnant ex wife for Naija by denying her a settlement visa thus ensuring that she gave birth in Naija instead of in the UK. So, now there are some jobs my son may be denied (God forbid) in future because although one of his parents was born in the UK, he was not born in the UK whereas my daughter will be able to apply for such jobs because she was born in the UK just like her Dad.

Back to my story :-

I told the recruiter that my younger brother born in the same UK by the same parents has worked severally in the past with the Ministry of Defence (MOD). She did not have an answer to this and mumbled something about the possibility that my brothers roles at the MOD had different criteria about having second citizenships.

Nowhere on their job Ad on LinkedIn had mentioned anything about the fact that having a dual Nationality may preclude you from beind considered then i would NOT hav applied for the role. I think its just her illiteracy, bias and prejudice that was at play here and its just like when an Oyinbo man says that the fact that a black man has a british passport does not make him british. I remember many years ago as a student cab driver and one of my Irish customers asked me on sitting in the back of my car the following question :- Where are you from and I answered that I was from Nigeria and he replied as follows - Thank god you did not say you were Brittish because YOU are not (the caps at the end emphasizing that he shouted the last 3 words meaning that he was disgusted with black people saying that they were british).

Back to my story again - Today's female recruiter then said that in order not to waste my time she will consult with her colleagues and ask if my having dual British / Nigerian citizenships would preclude me from applying for the role which will entail working with the MOD.

I agreed to her statement BUT she then went on to ask me if I had traveled out of the UK ?. I did not wait for her to finish her sentence as by this time I had had enough and I just told her that she was being racist and that she should get over herself. She made an attempt to mumble something but I promptly ended the call and blocked her number and also blocked her on LinkedIn after sending her a text to tell her how I felt.

Below is the text message I sent her :-

Your questions were bordering on RACISM and I was born in the UK well before you were and I am NOT a migrant that is only fit for the Bibby Stockholm Barge. You need to come out of your RACIST mindset as this is 2024. RIDICULOUS TYPE OF RACISM.

The Bibby Stockholm Barge is the detention centre (floating prison) that the immediate past home secretary Sualla Braverman conjured up to be holding Asylum seekerrs on despite the fact that the London fire brigade warned that it was a fire risk and the water supply on the boat later turned out to be poisonous to humans.

I was suprised when a few minutes later (earlier today), a manager from the company called me and the minute he mentioned the company name, I told him that I no longer wanted to work for their company. He then said the female recruiter was upset that she made someone feel the way I felt and me and this manager then discussed and I told him I was upset because I could sense her unconscious bias and this was what I was addressing and that even after I told her that my younger brother has worked at the MOD in the past and we were both born in the UK by the same Nigerian parents, she sort of bluffed over that and even when I agreed with her that she should go away and find out if my having a Nigerian passport would bar me from applying for the role, she still went ahead to ask me if I had been out of the UK ?? and I felt like she was asking me to denounce my Nigerian Ancestry.

At the end I thanked the Manager for being open minded enough to reach out to me immediately and I said she should pass my apologies to the lady and that it was not personal but that with the toxic divisive anti immigrant rhetoric going on in the UK at present (fueled by the last home secretary - Suella Braverman), he should not be suprised that some people from ethnic minorities including black people are feeling singled out and picked on to be vilified as illegal immigrants and it is the case that not every one with a dark skin colour is an illegal immigrant as a lot of them were actually born in the UK and have had the right to be in the UK from birth.

The manager agreed with me regarding unconscious bias and he said that even though I don't want to apply for that particular role anymore, he would still like to consider me for future roles and I said thats OK. When he prodded me again about whether I will reconsider being put forward for the original role, I told him that because of his reaching out to me which shows that he is forward thinking, I would consider the original role as long as I don't get victimized if I get the role and he said that was OK.

I ended the call by thanking him for a) his forward thinking, his openness and swift reach out and I asked him to give my apologies to the recruiter lady and explain why I was upset initially as a lot of ethnic minorities in the UK who have the legal right to be in the UK are feeling vilified as illegal immigrants courtesy of the divisive rhetoric of the immediate past home secretary Suela Braverman and he agreed with me.

I may still not get called for interview or get the job but I will ALWAYS call out racism and unconscious bias in the work place in the UK whether it is disguised or not and a lot more of us in the UK should do the same 'cos at the moment, black people are at the bottom of the pecking order in the UK unlike our African American cousins in the US who have fought discrimination in the workplace to an extent that you see black people holding top posts in American society courtesy of a) the dogged and continuing resistance of Black Americans and b)Affirmative action that is enshrined in American law.

I once lived in a shared house in the UK and this white woman (Ex Army) used to relish telling me that her late husband (also white) used to call his mixed race daughters Niggers and the first time I let it pass thinking it was unintentional but the second time she mentioned the same thing to me and judging by the fact that it was not necessary for the conversation at hand, I told her point blank never to mention such to me and she stopped henceforth. It was her own way of trying to call me a Nigger by hiding behind her story telling about her late husband.

In my opinion based on my personal experiences, the UK remains and will always remain the most racist place under the sun but I NEVER put up with racism in the workplace no matter how benign or overt it is, i always call it out in the workplace as some managers in the uk believe that you have to be subservient because you are from an ethnic minority and they always get taken aback when I stand against such. I've got too many battles with racism (in different flavors) that I have encountered in the work place in the UK. It comes with the territory of having a mind that believes that Oyinbo is NOT superior to me because I am black. Some Oyinbos in the workplace can not handle that and after initially being friendly because they expected me to be subservient, the minute they discover otherwise, they become outrightly hostile to me but that's their business.

I remember once losing out on getting a top Finance post because the CEO (a New Zealand lady) called me for the second interview and asked me why my brothers (i.e fellow Nigerians were into Online fraud). I explained to her that its not all Nigerians that are fraudsters but only the lazy ones. I still did not get the job but the lady being from New Zealand was ignorant of the fact that such statements could get her and her company into trouble in the UK and in any case she was only saying out loud face to face what a lot of white people say about Nigerians from behind their keyboards.

I know that a lot of companies in the UK tolerate racism in the workplace and turn a blind eye to racist managers and staff but that is not a reason for a person of colour to keep quiet when he or she encounters such.

Out of interest, I did a quick google search of employees complaints about racism in the workplace in the UK and n the link below are the employee reviews posted on glassdoor.co.uk.
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22reviews%22+%22glassdoor.co.uk%22+%22racism%22&sca_esv=913d894b4ad63b06&sca_upv=1&ei=52v8ZcSAMfXPhbIP-piEwAU&ved=0ahUKEwiEkIes7oWFAxX1Z0EAHXoMAVgQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=%22reviews%22+%22glassdoor.co.uk%22+%22racism%22&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiJCJyZXZpZXdzIiAiZ2xhc3Nkb29yLmNvLnVrIiAicmFjaXNtIjIIEAAYgAQYogQyCBAAGIAEGKIEMggQABiABBiiBDIIEAAYgAQYogRI40NQ9RlYzDxwAXgAkAEAmAGhAqAB-Q-qAQUwLjYuNLgBA8gBAPgBAZgCCaAClw3CAg4QABiABBiKBRiGAxiwA5gDAIgGAZAGAZIHBTEuNC40oAf0Gg&sclient=gws-wiz-serp


There is no where where you have a majority of white people like in the UK where you will not find racism towards black people or victimization of black people and if some people who have lived in the UK for decades tell you what they have experienced from managers (white, black and Asian) in the work place you will marvel.

I remember resigning from a job once as an Accountant when my Asian manager in a Private publishing company was queried by her Top Directors as to why she is allowing a Nigerian to sign cheques for suppliers and one day I went to lunch and came back and saw her packing all the cheque books away from my desk saying that she could no longer allow me to sign cheques as she had not fully checked my references and knowing where she was going, I said fair enough, but why did she allow me to sign cheques the previous day and she had no answer (as she sussed out that I knew where she was going) and she eventually went into her office to bring out a letter from Barclays Bank that showed that the former Accountant (not a Nigerian but an Asian like her) stole £10,000 from them.

I promptly reported her prejudice to the HR Director who by chance happened to be a mixed Race guy who then forced her to apologise and the chap asked me if I still wanted to continue in the self employed contract role and I reluctantly said Yes (which I didn't mean) and on asking my Asian manager (also an accountant) if she wanted me to continue in the role she said no as she could not change her self and in the end she was forced to pay me off as I was a self employed contractor and she still had the effrontery to ask me to do some more accounting postings before I left to which I refused.

I've also actually been sacked by a company that buys cameras on lease and then rents them to the BBC and what was my offence ?? Not doing the VAT Fraud they were accustomed to doing prior to my joining them. Thank God I left accounting for Good and moved back into IT more than 5 Years ago.

There is even an NHS Hospital where I was a Systems Accountant and I ended up resigning in 2006 because I did an NHS sponsored ECDL exam, scored 92% and the Carribean invigilator (unbeknownst to me at the instigation of my Carribean line manager) asked me to retake the exam as she was not sure I did not cheat to pass and I had to educate her that she should forget what she reads on the internet and that not all Nigerians are fraudsters or exam cheats and that some of us were already highly educated before we left Nigeria.

These NHS winches turned it into a disciplinary hearing against me because I sent an email to them that made them look silly for their prejudice and their NHS kangaroo court found me guilty of losing my temper (after being accused wrongly of being an exam cheat)
and my "punishment" was that they would be watching me for the next one year to see if I lost my temper again. I went back to my desk thought about the implications for my freedom of expression for the next 12 months and withing 30 minutes, I resigned and 2 days later, I relocated back to Nigeria to open a restaurant ( which didn't work out due to pilfering staff - hence my coming back to the UK in 2008).

In my above 3 jobs, I really had no rights to sue the said employers because the first one was a self employed contractor post, the second one I had been there for less than 2 years ditto the NHS one as well but in my job before the last the minute they tried to intentionally move me to work in a team headed by a guy whom HR themselves had classified as "discriminatory" in his behaviour a year earlier, I told them that if I am forced to move to that guys team in spite of them knowing of his past discriminatory behaviour, I would hand in my resignation and it would be a case of constructive dismissal.

The manager and her manager who probably had not heard that term before ignored my statement, did their magic with HR and decided I was the one to be moved to the discriminatory guys team in spite of there being a Polish lady and a subservient Indian lady who could have been moved.

I immediately took time off work and in the interim I wrote to the new HR Director to step in and the minute I mentioned the term constructive dismissal to him in an email, he started getting worried and asked me to come and negotiate because he knew that as I had been there for more than 4 years, I had the right to sue them for unfair dismissal even if I resigned and claimed constructive dismissal.

In UK Employment Law, Constructive dismissal is when you’re forced to leave your job against your will because of your employer’s conduct.

The reasons you leave your job must be serious, for example, they:

do not pay you or suddenly demote you for no reason
force you to accept unreasonable changes to how you work - for example, tell you to work night shifts when your contract is only for day work
let other employees harass or bully you

Your employer’s breach of contract may be one serious incident or a series of incidents that are serious when taken together.

You should try and sort any issues out by speaking to your employer to solve the dispute.

If you do have a case for constructive dismissal, employment lawyers say that you should leave your job immediately 'cos if you don't, your employer may later argue that, by staying, you accepted the bad conduct or treatment by your employer.

The HR Director in that job had no choice once I mentioned the term constructive dismissal to him but to negotiate a settlement agreement with me that is in 5 figures with a reference that is enshrined in the agreement and that they can not depart from lest I re-open the case and take them to an employment tribunal which is like a court.

A lot of employees in the UK don't realise that once they have been with an employer for at least 2 years, they don't have to put up with bad treatment from their employer as after 2 years if they are dismissed unfairly they can take legal action and even if the bad treatment fits the definition of Constructive dismissal as laid down in UK Employment Law, they can actually resign and take the rogue employer to an employment tribunal for Constructive dismissal which is when you’re forced to leave your job against your will because of your employer’s conduct.

But in everything you have to use NOT just any lawyer but a lawyer that specialises in Employment Law and even if you don't want to spend any money on lawyers, just search google for Employment Law specialists willing to take your case on a NO win, No Fee basis whereby you don't pay them anything if you lose and if you win, they will take a percentage of what you win (typically around 35%).

But if you have a case for constructive dismissal, you have to leave your job immediately because your employer could later argue in court that, by staying, you accepted the conduct or treatment.

The conundrum is that how many people are brave enough or have enough savings to leave a job where they are treated badly ?

For black people living in the UK and working in the public sector (teacher, police, hospital, councils, charities, etc) where racism is rife, they MUST join a top union soon and if their employer has no union, they can use the following online tool to find the best union to join - https://www.tuc.org.uk/join-a-union

If I no get UK papers, dem for don deport me tey tey 'cos I no get patience for their racist bullshit which an immigrant without the right papers has to put up with.

I always had my reservations about the UK isolating and housing Asylum seekers onto the Bibby Stockholm barge (a sort of floating prison, drowning and fire hazard in my view) as I could not help but think that that could have been me isolated from society as an unclean nuisance who does not deserve to be housed amongst the rest of the human populace.

In their rush to seem to be hard on Asylum seekers, they rushed to move some of them onto the floating prison without waiting for the results of tests already carried out on the water supply on the floating barge only for the test results to come back saying the water supply on the barge was not fit for human consumption or use in any form as the water was contaminated with the deadly Legionnaires disease than can kill humans and then they removed the Asylum seekers from the floating prison and relocated them elsewhere but it is worthy to note that even after the results came back saying the water supply was deadly, the officials did not tell the Asylum seekers to stop using the water until later on the day the deadly test results came back.

British racists and Anti immigration politicians must be licking their lips now as they are now shielded from being labelled racists because any racist looking anti immigration policy in the UK for now will be fronted by Rishi Sunak (Prime Minister) and Suella Braverman (the home secretary) who ar both Ethnic Minorities and people of colour and Suella in particular is competing with herself to roll out the most obnoxious and inhuman Anti immigration policies that target ethnic minorities like herself (obviously to garner future votes for herself from white people).

It beggars belief that despite the UK Fire brigade saying that the Barge was a fire disaster waiting to happen (imagine 500 people roasting to death on a floating barge or drowning in the sea in the event of a fire outbreak on the Barge) Grenfell Tower block fire disaster that killed loads of mainly ethnic minority residents in the fire outbreak in the tower block because the local council did not take residents warning serious because the residents were mainly ethnic minorities.

Despite the warning from the Fire brigade, Suella Braverman (an ethnic minority woman) in order to impress and gain future votes from the white populace went ahead to approve that 500 Asylum seekers would be housed on the barge floating prison (meant originally for 220 people) when there are actually more than 150,000 Asylum claims still unprocessed and if she was not just playing to the gallery, the obvious solution would have been for her to employ an additional Army of staff to treat the backlog of 150,000 Asylum cases waiting to be processed.

To those still saying that there is no racism in the UK, I recommend you read the following post :- https://www.nairaland.com/7810479/those-still-saying-there-no#125242533

thank you for thjs thread.

Blacks don suffer sha.

Interesting but too long