Month: June 2020

Like any organisation run by, and for, the benefit of three privileged white dudes, SurSAR will have its own issues with the BLM movement. We wonder how they will cope considering a) the general demographic of the team, which is about as far from diverse as you could get, and b) their shabby record of dealing with women, minorities and anyone speaking out against the leadership. We are aware of a number of sexist posts by the leadership, shared on internal messaging systems and of bullying of BAME members, leading to them leaving the team.
Reform of the leadership team is long overdue, but a good hard look at their privilege probably wouldn’t go amiss.

Notes:

• About 90% of the Surrey population is white.
• SurSAR has around 60-80 members at any one time.
• If SurSAR membership represented the racial make up of Surrey then SurSAR should have 6-8 BAME members.
• There is only one BAME person on the team.
• At selection days there is usually a reason to reject non-white people and reasons such as “they were a bit strange” or simply “they would not fit in with the rest of the team” are two commonly used phrases by the selectors.
• BAME members who are taken on by the team and more than capable of doing the role are made to feel unwelcome and not included and they leave.
• Management have previously told team members to stop helping BAME members with competency tests so that they fail and are managed out of the team. This does not happen to non-white members who are given the extra training to help them pass.