A long long time ago in 2013 my client was a bank. Back then banks weren’t the paragons of moral virtue they are today. In between financing some truly terrifying dictators around the world and evicting the residents of a not for profit old people’s home that missed some mortgage payments, my bank spent a lot of time polishing their brand image. The whole sector was at it. Global financial meltdowns were excused by images of horses on beaches and while not actually being able to talk about the things they did (horses did not trot past tanks on streets or shivering pensioners) they had to make some shit up. This is where we came in. However on one occasion they had decided to get their own house in order and my friend and I were summoned to a diversity seminar at their illustrious palace in the city.
Lacking in any context or pre reading we were surprised to find a room full of 100+ people, none of whom worked at the bank but were like us, suppliers. The stage on the far side had one occupant and although none of us had met him we could tell instantly he didn’t work at the bank. He was black. Now I’m not saying this bank didn’t employ black people but this man was very obviously the focal point in the room so was obviously senior and well paid, so clearly a ringer. He didn’t wear the bank uniform either. His suit was beige, his shirt stripy, his tie yellow and he wore a lot of gold.
After pausing for dramatic effect he confirmed he was American via the medium of volume. An incredibly long personal introduction followed and the theatrics continued as he set out why we were gathered there while stomping around the stage, gesticulating wildly, covering several octaves and occasionally dabbing his brow with a tie-matching brow dabber. The sheer power of the man’s delivery meant that his congregation hung on his every word somewhere between mild amusement and the hope of inheriting the earth. However we were here for one topic and one topic only, Diversity. The bank had employed him for the sole purpose of making it the most diverse bank in all of bank land. We were going to bring Diverse to the City. We were going to be Equality control. The times were a changing and this revolution was going to be broadcast live.
The Reverend had a dream. The day had come for that bank to rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. Tricky, because the bank’s creed was to make a fuck-tone of money through financing dictators and evicting pensioners.
He held these truths to be self evident: that all men (not women obvs) were created equal. Again tricky because the bank almost exclusively employed white men to senior positions.
He rightly sensed doubt. He rightly provided light.
The light came with the revelation that the bank wasn’t actually going to change its diversity profile because that was a bit of a kafuffle but instead we had to.
A masterstroke. A triumph of hypocrisy rarely seen this side of the Vatican. An organisation about as diverse as Devon in the 1950s wanted its suppliers to fix its diversity footprint by increasing their far more diverse, diversity. They even had to hire someone in who wasn’t white to tell us the plan!
There was more.
He didn’t just want us to increase our diversity (for the white boys at the bank) he wanted us to increase the diversity of the companies we bought from on their behalf. Ie their 3rd party suppliers. Tricky for us because we bought all their advertising so the 3rd party suppliers we represented included ITV, Channel 4, Google, Facebook, every radio station, every newspaper, and the whole fucking internet.
There was more.
Diversity included LGBT.
I was effectively tasked with finding out how gay or L, or B, or T (Q didn’t get an invite) the employees of ITV, Channel 4, Google, Facebook, every radio station, every newspaper, and the whole fucking internet was.
It wasn’t clear if we needed to work out how gay each employee was individually (from mild fascination with gladiator movies all the way through to still liking Madonna?) or if the whole scale qualified and we simply had to add it up and quantify against a base of straight because obviously this shit is binary. I assumed the latter but it wasn’t as thought they were going to give us a spread sheet and expect us to…wait, hang on.
We were shown a spreadsheet with a column for supplier and then % columns for Men/Women, White/Non White and L,G,B,T broken fucking out!!
“Does anyone have any questions?”
A couple, yeah!
“I’m not sure that the organisations we represent have records of their employees’ LGBT status because of all the laws and morals so how..”
“Estimate – Any other questions?”
A couple, yeah!
“So you want us to estimate the LGBT status of hundreds of thousands of people purely based on the companies they work for?”
“Yes”
To be honest the Rev got me there. The positive response to the rhetorical fucked me right in the logic and I retreated to the universally puzzled congregation.
Having outlined this herculean task the Rev rightly noticed we were in need of some context and some inspiration. He delivered both.
The context was all about the spreadsheet. He didn’t care about the diversity of suppliers he simply wanted the figure in the total column so the bank could communicate the combined % diversity (hence adding LGBT to increase the %) of its cash flow to the City which would presumably result in more investment and therefore more money for tanks and pensioner bailiffs.
Then came the inspiration. A remarkable performance followed. An emotional story of his Great-Great-Grandfather, a slave named McCoy who invented a piece of kit that revolutionised the development of the rail road he was working on and who rose up from the shackles of oppression to inspire the still common vernacular of “The Real McCoy”. The room was filled with emotion as the narrator unsuccessfully fought back tears. Steadying himself with the weight of the story of his ancestor’s gift to the world he saw that his story had touched the room and others joined him in dabbing their eyes. A powerful reminder of the noble and necessary continuous drive towards equality and love of all, irrespective of creed, culture, gender, sex, sexuality, class, age, disability, or political position. As misguided, hypocritical, mildly offensive and stupid as this effort was at least the man in the centre was a true believer, a crusader who’s tears confirmed his commitment. Shame on my cynicism. Shame on my doubt. Shame I googled “origin of the phrase Real McCoy.”
Shame.
Diaries Of Media 