“So, where are you really from?” — Be Proud of your Heritage!

Diversity & Inclusion is a great initiative that is being rolled out by many companies and corporations, and it gives a chance to learn from each other. D&I is not just related to BAME groups, but all groups are included. Great conversations can be had and colleagues always learn something new and are often surprised. In one of our D&I meetings I did push back on the offence some people take when they are asked where they or their families are from. One of the white colleagues did confide in me that he hesitates to ask an ethnic person about their origins for fear of being seen as a racist. Here is the push-back I made in one of our groups:

“The video (i.e. on micro-aggression) was an eye opener to the world of ignorance. Dialogue and courageous conversations are the ways forward to eliminate ignorance and intolerance.

But I will push back on one thing, which I did in one of the BAME webcalls recently. If someone asks me where I am originally from, I take it positively as it gives me the opportunity to present my roots and to be PROUD of it. We live in the era of globalisation there is mobility of goods, services and people. As the world gets smaller, people will have more than one country of residency or families being spread out. I too, have asked scores of people where they were originally from and they’ve had no problems discussing as it gives me an opportunity to learn about other cultures and appreciate the diversity of cultures. I have even asked white people where they were from if I could detect non-British accents (European or American/ Canadian, South African etc.) and they have answered positively too.

In my country of origin, Bangladesh, there aren’t many tourists and there is only a handful of non-Bengali citizens of Bangladesh. On one occasion I was amazed to see a white person who was a citizen of Bangladesh and could speak Bengali fluently. My curiosity led me to ask her where she was originally from. She was from America, but confided in me that she would tell others that she was from Canada because of the negative perception among Bangladeshis of American foreign policy, and that she did not want to get embroiled in political discussions with them. I learnt something about her dilemma as well as learning about the US state she was from. She never felt offended by my question and it gave an opportunity for mutual learning.

We do not live in a mono-culture, we live in a multi-cultural society which means there are those of us who will have different roots and cultural origins which add value to British society (and other countries where they reside). So my challenge back to fellow colleagues who feel offended with the question of origin….why would you feel offended? Why wouldn’t you see this as an opportunity to take pride in your heritage and convey that?”