The other day I was talking to my English teacher about how Brazil is a unique country, which manages to be so didactic with expressions and popular sayings. “Eat sardines and burp caviar” helps us to understand, for example, who has a minimal action on the diversity and inclusion agenda, but tries to convey the idea that “he moves heaven and earth”. This also happens a lot when it comes to ESG.
As we are talking about expressions, have you already abolished racist, ableist, homophobic and sexist lines from your vocabulary? Does your work environment not reproduce “microaggressions” in the way people communicate?
“There is no arm for me to be able to complete this demand”, who has never heard that expression? Individuals are more than their bodily members, so if they lack arms, legs, etc., there are still a lot of people working to deliver and feel included and respected, even though they are a person with a disability.
I know cultural constructs are hard to change. Constant learning and engagement is required. Having spent a lifetime believing that “light” is better, makes us say that we need to “lighten things up”, “clarify”… and thus we perpetuate a view based on racism that dark, black and black are bad.
Reflecting on this is also ESG, it is thinking about the other, about how to build welcoming environments. Much is thought that only great achievements are valid when it comes to good practices. And, like “one swallow doesn’t make a summer”, we enter into that old human way of “saving energy” and nothing is done. Yes, we can start with the little things. Act within our reach, without forgetting the plan of goals that we have to meet. Looking at the whole, however challenging it may be, and launching into initial actions is part of the process.
When we are concerned about how we refer to others, without attributing this to political correctness, but rather because we pay attention to the pain of others, we are being human. We are allowing ourselves to flirt with something more than our bubbles, we are starting a care process that could lead us to major decision-making.
What cannot happen is to think that this is enough. There is no such thing as “enough”, because if we are talking about diversity and inclusion there is always a lot to be done. Not because of the simple fact that we are “beings of light”, with “kindness out in the open”. But, because we understand that – fortunately – the world has changed, that the triggers generated in people are not mimimi and that it is from this point of view that we build necessary changes, that we expand business, that we enhance purchasing power… Action and reaction, one basic concept that tells us so much about relationships, including in the corporate sphere.
The message here is about beginnings, but also about perpetuity and practical action. It’s about building and only then showing. And having sardines, but working for caviar.
Want to know more about the news? Don’t forget to follow ADNEWS on social networks and stay on top of everything!
The post Sardine is not caviar appeared first on ADNEWS.
