{"id":157452,"date":"2021-01-18T18:59:34","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T15:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-wes-hall-is-attacking-racist-systems-starting-at-the-top\/"},"modified":"2021-01-18T18:59:34","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T15:59:34","slug":"how-wes-hall-is-attacking-racist-systems-starting-at-the-top","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-wes-hall-is-attacking-racist-systems-starting-at-the-top\/","title":{"rendered":"#How Wes Hall is attacking racist systems, starting at the top"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How Wes Hall is attacking racist systems, starting at the top<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n The Torontonian\u2014who grew up in a tin shack in Jamaica and went on to establish a top shareholder advisory firm\u2014launched the BlackNorth Initiative to nudge social<\/a> change starting in Canada\u2019s boardrooms\n <\/div>\n
\n Wes Hall is No. 16 on the 2021 Maclean\u2019s Power List, a ranking of 50 influential Canadians. Click here to see the full list.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

The adage \u201cIf you can see it, you can be it\u201d is supposed to explain why underrepresented groups need to see faces like theirs in positions of influence so they know that they belong there, too. But, as Wes Hall explains it, broadening who sits at the top is just as much about retraining the rest of society to confront deeply ingrained anti-Black systemic racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I walk into a boardroom and I\u2019m treated like I\u2019m a mail boy, or another low-level employee, the people in that room are not used to seeing people like me in that context,\u201d says the executive chairman and founder of Toronto-based Kingsdale Advisors. \u201cSo when they\u2019re seeing more people like me in certain contexts, then it becomes acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the other side of that selective vision is this: Hall\u2019s wife recently shopped in a posh local store and told the staff her sons would return that evening to pick up a heavy package. She is white, and their sons identify as light-skinned young Black men, and when they arrived at the store, Hall says, the staff and customers reacted with unmistakable alarm. \u201cThe system programs people to act that way. That\u2019s why we\u2019re saying we need to look at the system that causes people to be fearful, that causes people to view Black and Indigenous people in a different light than others,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd once we attack that system, we\u2019re going to make sure life is a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE POWER LIST: See the full ranking of 50 notable Canadians<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In June, while the streets of the world were roiling in protest over the murder of George Floyd, Hall\u2014who grew up in a tin shack in Jamaica and went on to establish a giant of a shareholder advisory firm\u2014launched the BlackNorth Initiative to nudge social change starting in Canada\u2019s boardrooms. The centrepiece is a pledge that companies will ensure at least 3.5 per cent of their executives and board members and five per cent of their interns are drawn from the Black community by 2025. So far, 400 companies representing more than $1.3 trillion in value\u2014including Enbridge, Sun Life Financial, the Norton Rose Fulbright law firm and NBA Canada\u2014have signed on.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not companies signing the pledge. It\u2019s their CEOs. Hall didn\u2019t want anyone to write a cheque and then look away; he wanted their personal commitment, time and energy. We\u2019ve been waiting too long for governments to legislate or lead us out of this, Hall says, and it\u2019s time for something new. \u201cBecause of the fact that it\u2019s been going on for generations, we know that either there\u2019s no political will to solve the problem, or it cannot be solved by just looking at one institution,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0\u2018I feel ineffably sad\u2026 it\u2019s so clear how much they hate Black people,\u2019 writes Sandy Hudson<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There\u2019s been plenty of talk about ESG (environment, social, governance) corporate criteria, Hall points out, but he argues that to lump all racialized people into one amorphous group under the \u201csocial\u201d umbrella ignores the particular history and current problem of anti-Black racism.<\/p>\n

And how will he know that this moment he\u2019s trying to seize is a spark of lasting change rather than yet another false start? One sure indicator: if the people who responded enthusiastically to his idea back in June are just as fired up the next time he calls and haven\u2019t simply moved on to other priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is like Groundhog Day for the Black community,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been living these head-fake moments for generations. Quite frankly, since the Civil War.\u201d
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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#How Wes Hall is attacking racist systems, starting at the top” The Torontonian\u2014who grew up in a tin shack in Jamaica and went on to establish a top shareholder advisory firm\u2014launched the BlackNorth Initiative to nudge social change starting in Canada\u2019s boardrooms Wes Hall is No. 16 on the 2021 Maclean\u2019s Power List, a ranking…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":157453,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/POWER-LIST-16-HALL.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[89973,1471,22974,67806,21406],"class_list":["post-157452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-2021-power-list","tag-black-lives-matter","tag-canada","tag-editors-picks","tag-systemic-racism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}