Member-only story
Resignation as diversity work
This is a story about my resignation from a workplace. Some time ago I was working for an organisation where I experienced persistent racial discrimination and bullying. I was anxious and unable to function as a result. I felt I had no other option but to resign (or ‘rage quit’ as it turned out). I made a choice to do this via email to the Board, leadership and staff. The email documented my grievances and observations about how racial hierarchies were playing out within the organisations’ culture. Today I am publishing an edited and cut down version of this email as part of this post. I have left out names and descriptions of confidential incidents.
For a long time I was ashamed of my dramatic exit from this organisation. Until I came across Sara Ahmed’s work On Complaint (you can view a video of her speaking here). Her framework of ‘complaint as diversity work’ was transformative for me. I was able to re-frame my experience. My resignation was a complaint. A public complaint. For organisations steeped in patriarchal, heteronormative, elite, white cultures complaints are an essential part of the change process.
Complaints are acts of truth-telling; a method of taking ownership of the experience and the narrative surrounding it. They are a way of challenging the standard narratives: (a) was it really racism? (b) was it really that bad? (c) are we sure she isn’t the…
