Thoughts on diversity
The journey started almost 3 years ago and I’ve been fortunate to work in over 25 countries and meet amazing people. Whilst I have been blessed with experience something that has always troubled me is the lack of diversity, especially when it comes to people of my ethnicity. This is not something that is solely noticeable in the industry but is also visible in schools that focus on teaching creatives.
There are a number of reasons for this but first I would like to touch on what I believe to be a significant root cause of this, the home.
I am originally from Eritrea but emigrated with my mother and siblings at the age of six. Coming from a country that was still actively in the midst of a civil war our mother felt that Sweden was a country where we would be afforded more opportunities and in turn be able to fulfill our potentials. Whilst my mother did not really have any education she was determined that this would not be the case for us and she worked a series of odd jobs in order for us to be able to get a proper education. She believed that the right education would enable us to live a life that was secure financially and enable us to live the type of life that she was never able to. So when it came to future jobs she would always ask us ‘do you want to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer?’, as these were the only jobs in her opinion that would allow us to live such lives.
I am aware that I am not the only one to experience an upbringing like this, due to a lack of experience children of first generation emigrants tend to be pushed towards studies and careers in the industries that are revered in their homeland. For me a number of hobbies that I got involved with whilst studying a Law & Politics degree, led me further into the creative industry to the point where I took a break from my studies before abandoning them to join Hyper Island.
I believe that the second reason for the small representation of ethnic minorities in the creative industry is due to the portrayal of ethnic minorities in the industry. An article written by campaignlive, found that
‘Agencies and brands were found to lack confidence when it comes to portraying ethnic minorities in ads for fear of getting it wrong and offending people’,
and went further to say that many younger people of ethnic minority background believed that ‘there are still too many clumsy racial stereotypes in advertising.’ In my opinion this coupled with the fact that only 5% of television ads in the UK involved actors of ethnic minority, shows another cause of why young people of ethnic minorities are not rushing to get involved in the creative industries, they don’t see enough people like or true representations of themselves.
There are people actively trying to change this representation issue, initiatives such as ‘The Marcus Graham Project, ADCOLOR, Afripedia, aim to showcase people of ethnic origins and the impact that they are making as creatives; to inspire younger people of ethnic backgrounds into getting involved in the industry.
To create change education needs to start in the home, parents need to be educated about the benefits of encouraging their children to look into careers outside of the traditional industries that they are used to. Further through the encouragement of more initiatives such as the ones I have mentioned, I believe that we can eradicate the problem of a stereotyping of people of ethnic minorities by drawing on the experiences of people of the same or similar backgrounds in advertising campaigns.
This is only the tip of the iceberg though and I believe that with diversity being a key topic at this year’s Cannes Lions it is only a matter of time before the industry as a whole starts to see a bigger change when it comes to the presence of ethnic minorities.
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Until next time,
