How to Recognize Privilege — and Uplift Those Without It | Mariam Veiszadeh | TED

Anyone who knows me knows that I love to talk.

I'm a chatterbox, just ask anyone.

I like to think that I'm pretty good at building rapport with my clients.

And having spent just under a decade working as a lawyer,

I tell you, this is one skill that really came in handy.

Now, I remember this one interstate client in particular.

We got on like a house on fire.

We spent months corresponding over email and chatting over the phone.

And then the day finally came when we would meet face to face.

So I walk into the meeting room,

and there she is.

I say hello,

and she kind of gives me this odd look.

And she says,

"Oh, you must work for Mariam."

(Audience murmurs)

And I'm thinking, "What does she mean?"

And then it dawns on me.

She must think

I'm the legal secretary or the assistant perhaps.

Not that there's anything wrong with having those jobs.

But it seems that in her mind,

the voice that she's heard on the phone all these months

doesn't seem to correspond

to the person standing in front of her.

Rather unconvincingly at that point, I say,

"No, I am Mariam."

And then I start to doubt myself.

And all those months of rapport building just goes down the drain at that point

as I start again from scratch to win her over.

I do, of course, eventually win her over,

but it was a lot of time and effort wasted

and ultimately, yet another hit to my confidence.

And the thing is,

I have other experiences like that one.

And I know plenty of other folks who do too.

So today I want to reflect on how stereotyping,

unconscious bias and societal privilege operates in such a way

that creates an unequal playing field for diverse minority groups.

Now, let us start with privilege.

Privilege is basically unearned advantage.

Hey, what the hell, we really didn't do much to earn it.

It's basically access to or enjoying rights

because you belong to a particular identity.

You're part of a club.

And here's the thing.

I am owning up to mine.

I am privileged.

Hey, and if you could afford the ticket price,

you probably are too.

(Laughter)

And here's the thing.

Privilege is relative, and it’s ultimately subjective.

And those who have the most amounts of it,

they’re probably not entirely conscious of it.

Because for the most part,

and as they say, privilege is largely invisible to those who have it.

Now, I work as a diversity and inclusion consultant,

so I do spend a hell of a lot of my day thinking about these concepts.

Think about this.

Whose faces do you see reflected back at you

on your television screens?

Who holds the top positions in the top ranks of society?

Now, except for the few examples here or there,

notice the general lack of cultural diversity?

Now, of course,

the photos that you're seeing up there are some of our top CEOs,

chancellors of universities,

federal cabinet and TV personalities in particular.

Now, what we're actually exposed to every day

feeds the assumptions that we make about people.

We all tend to possess a strong tendency towards people

who physically resemble ourselves.

It's called affinity bias.

Now experiments have shown us

that the brain actually categorizes by race in less than 100 milliseconds.

Now, according to Nobel Peace Prize recipient neuroscientist Eric Kandel,

he argues that up to 90 percent of the brain's behavior

is actually unconscious.

So these little shortcuts that the brain makes,

these little implicit associations, these biases,

for the most part, they are done unconsciously.

And here's the thing.

Inherent societal privilege

means that some of us are given a head start

in what I like to call the race of life.

And it's because of that head start,

not just because we worked extra, extra hard,

that they'll always be miles ahead,

even if all the participants are running at the same speed

and with the same ability.

So that's code for the same amount to merits,

or in this case,

running the same distance.

Now, it's well documented

that women of minority groups face even greater hurdles,

as you can see.

They face both social and institutional barriers to full equality,

not just because they're chicks,

but because of things such as race, religion, sexuality or disability.

They basically have a double whammy.

And that concept is referred to as intersectionality.

Now, as an Australian woman who's originally from Afghanistan

and a Muslim,

I get the triple whammy.

I get sexism, I get racism, and I get Islamophobia.

You know, some people boast about having a fan base.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have a troll base.

(Laughter)

Such a clever bunch,

they've totally mastered the art of intersectional insults.

That's not easy to do.

Now, if only I had a dollar for every time someone said,

"But all appointment should be on merit."

Well, of course they should be.

But here's the thing.

Are we assuming that the existing status quo

is somehow based entirely on merit?

I'm not convinced that it is.

But hey, don't take my word for it.

Plenty of other people think that, too.

Now, I recall a conversation I was having with two senior managers.

It was about corporate Australia’s shift

to start focusing on cultural diversity within its leadership ranks,

now that we're doing better around gender diversity.

One of them was a woman of Asian-Australian heritage

and she was a former colleague of mine.

The other, a colleague of hers, a man of Anglo-Celtic origin.

Now it's in the context of this discussion in which he turns to her,

the Asian-Australian woman, and says,

"There you go.

Another leg up for people like you."

Now she's shocked because they're colleagues,

so she says nothing.

But I can't stay silent.

(Laughter)

I literally put hand out like this.

(Laughter)

Got up from my pedestal and I said,

"When you extend a hand to a group of people,

who, for far too long, have been effectively walking in the gutter

while others comfortably stroll the streets,

that ain't no leg up.

That certainly is not a handout,

that's simply leveling the playing field."

Now, studies have shown us

that to simply obtain the same number of interviews

as someone with an Anglo-Saxon sounding name,

candidates from Indigenous, Middle Eastern and Asian-sounding names

have to submit a ridiculous amount of more applications.

So in this case, when compared to Lisa and Andrew,

and these are the real names used in the study,

Nadine and Hassan have to submit 64 percent more applications,

while Ming and Hong have to submit 68 percent more applications.

Guys, we're be talking about getting a callback to secure an interview.

We're not even talking about the kind of biases that will kick in

once you're actually at the interviewing table.

Now, I can't tell you the number of crappy dad jokes I've had to make

to make interviewers feel comfortable when they first meet me

early on in my career.

Thanks for laughing.

(Laughter)

Now, despite the fact that up to 40 percent of Australians

have at least one parent born overseas,

no doubt that's probably true of this arena,

that general diversity is not reflected in the top ranks of society.

Now, of course, I'm not suggesting there's anything wrong with this,

assuming it is truly based on a meritocracy.

And for culturally diverse women like me,

well, you know that glass ceiling?

It's double glazed for people like me.

And that's why I've got heels like this, to be able to crack through it.

Only a tiny percentage of ASX directors are culturally diverse women.

At a CEO level, it is even worse.

So think about all those stats that I've been telling you about,

all those biases that we know about.

What message does this send

to a generation of top HSC graduates who are culturally diverse?

I'm hoping that by this point,

some of you are convinced on the moral case

for why change is required to level that damn playing field.

But then there'll be others who won't be convinced

unless we show them the dollar figures.

Hey, don't worry, I've got it covered.

There is a thing called the diversity dividend,

that gender diverse companies are 15 percent more likely

to outperform their industry average,

while culturally diverse companies,

they're 35 percent more likely to outperform theirs.

So diversity brings with it a competitive advantage.

And here's the thing, anyone at this point who's thinking,

"Oh, she means tokenistic, visible diversity."

No.

I'm not asking you to whack on photos

of people that look like me onto your website and tick a box.

(Laughter)

Although that might be nice.

(Laughter)

No, that's not what I'm talking about.

Real diversity brings about diversity of perspective,

diversity of views and diversity of thought.

Ultimately, and of course, the inevitable flow-on effect

is that Australian businesses will be able to better reflect

and understand the needs of a multicultural Australia

who is ultimately their customer base.

So with everything I've said,

I want us to pause at this point.

And I'm going to ask each of you to please stand.

Yes, please stand.

If you can't stand,

then I'll ask you to please raise one hand instead.

And you get to stretch your legs.

No, we're not doing a yoga lesson.

OK.

I'm going to ask you a series of questions.

If the answer to the question is yes,

I want you to remain standing or with your hand up.

If the answer to the question is no,

then I want you to take a seat

and the rest of the questions

will be directed at those people who are still standing.

Please be as honest as you can.

Question one.

Did you have a job during high school?

If yes, keep standing,

if no, please take your seat.

I quite like the power of ordering all 4,000 of you to do things.

(Laughter)

This is cool.

Question two.

Have you been discriminated against,

vilified or abused because of something you cannot change about yourself?

And let's watch the room as we start to see people sit.

Question three.

At some point in your life,

you have felt like you've been one of the few or the only persons

of your gender, race, faith,

sexual orientation or disability

in a room, in an educational or professional setting?

And final question.

Have you attended a public school for the majority of your education?

Whoa.

(Laughter)

Knew that would get a few of us.

OK.

Thank you for being brave enough to participate by the way.

If I answered those questions,

I would be standing at this point with those of you that are still standing

in the arena.

I want us to reflect on our own levels of privilege

and what that means for each of us.

I want you to reflect on who's standing and who's sitting

without making anyone feeling uncomfortable.

But let's think about that.

Thank you for being brave and please take a seat now.

(Applause)

Thank you.

I want to tell you this.

There's never been a more important time

for us to be conscious of our unconscious biases and societal privileges.

You know, when you're driving and you know you've got a blind spot back here,

you know it exists, but you can't see it.

But you make a concerted effort to turn your head each and every time

to look and to adjust.

It's not enough to know that we've got these biases

and that we have these levels of privilege.

You've got to do something about it.

We're living in an era where divisive politics

has successfully otherized diverse minority groups

and normalized xenophobia against them.

We're constantly reading derogatory headlines

about diverse minority groups.

And what's worse is some of these remarks are made by our elected officials.

Now, I believe that when you excuse bigotry in words,

you lay the framework to give bigotry in action a free pass.

We know that we have an urgent issue of disenfranchisement amongst the youth,

particularly those of diverse backgrounds.

We want them to reach for the stars.

But the thing is, you can't aspire to be someone that you can't see.

You can't address inequality equally.

You can't.

This is why I believe targets are required across industries

where diversity of this kind is lacking.

Now, why, you ask, why targets?

Because the definition of insanity

is doing the same thing over and over again

and expecting different results.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

The existing status quo has not allowed us to reach a true meritocracy.

So we need additional measures to give us a bit of a nudge.

Because let’s face it:

what gets measured ultimately gets done.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

(Applause)