When the most recent cases of police brutality in the US and other forms of anti-black racism came to the forefront of international news at the end of May. It was something that really hit home for many of us. It was the craving amongst our class for a sense of community to support and talk about this and at the same time a feeling of responsibility for being at a place like Saïd where we have the potential to impact the current narrative in a positive way. So we organised ourselves into a black lives matter allies group and eventually from there the idea of starting a series of conversations with our class and the rest of the SBS ecosystem was started. We hope that this is something that will continue on in the future. The series aptly titled Listen, Learn, Lead provides a helpful template to continue the work. The first event in the series, Listen, had 11 of our classmates presenting their lived experiences of systemic and institutional racism. Everything from microaggressions in the workplace to more explicit racism and society were discussed. You can see for example the girl on the left ‘no I will not teach you how to twerk,’ ‘you don't sound black you sound smart you're so lucky you're black’ ‘it's so easy to get into college.’ The second session focused on learning and unlearning we discuss terms like white supremacy and covert racism providing some historical context and examples with the goal of highlighting how complex these topics can be and to encourage everyone to continue educating ourselves to avoid being a part of the problem. ‘It's just important to acknowledge that denial really means silencing and it really  creates even more inequality. I thought this image was really important to kind of acknowledge in light of today's effects just because it's really asserting this kind of idea of blacks as criminals, and often when you hear about police shootings you hear how you know often blacks are shot at close range not once but like six seven or eight times and the argument is often it's done in self-defense. ’We also discuss practical tips to be better allies.‘Microaggressions are insidious exactly because they are micro and it's easy to try and overlook them as small, but it's the totality of them and the shared number and the repeated silence in the face of microaggressions that allow them to continue.’ ‘You might be in a room full of all white people somebody says something problematic you think if I bring this up i'm going to be the pariah here, but you might not recognise that most other people in the room are thinking the same thing and we don't know that until we open up to each other about it until we speak up.’ We concluded the black lives matter series with a session on institutional responsibility. This one was particularly exciting because it involved not only current students and alumni but members of administration and incoming students as well. ‘What needs to change? What's the action here at Saïd and in the university, understanding we’re an educational institution, understanding Saïd is a very successful and ambitious Business School?’ ‘As long as we only talk about how we can combat racism, as opposed to how we can find a way 
to better celebrate race and diversity, we will always have a shortfall.’ ‘If any organisation is, you know, you’re doing something about racism and we're running this anti-racism campaign yet we fall short in all kinds of other areas, you know one wonders how how sincere and how sustainable and how substantial the anti-racism campaign is.’ ‘We had an opportunity to break out into small groups and workshop potential actionable items for SBS to take as an institution and in broader society.’ ‘Our group talked about a lot of ways that this issue can be incorporated into the curriculum, specifically courses like responsible business  which focused mainly on environmental factors we feel should definitely touch on this issue. And then we also talked about recruiting more diverse faculty just so that the conversations can focus on people's personal experiences with these issues rather than a theory of how to deal with them.’ ‘We talked about how our initial student groups were very purposely made diverse which was fantastic like I know from my personal experience my group was from five different countries but we were given no support or training on how to  navigate when cultural biases might arise within the group.’ ‘I think the the Saïd business school has sort of used Africa quite extensively from a black representation perspective but has maybe neglected a little bit what the black experience in the US and the UK might be.’ At the end of the series a multi-stakeholder task force was developed with the intention of forming a road map towards active anti-racism while this forum is still a work in progress we believe that it can be a constructive and long-term project towards creating impact both at the institution and in society. ‘You are planting trees that will provide shade to others who come after you. This is extremely important. Lastly, we'd like to encourage everyone watching this video to remain engaged in the learning journey of being an ally and to continue to hold SBS as a community and as an institution accountable. ‘It's very easy for all of us to hide by and talk about you know how brutal the police in America was when every day there are things we may be doing as individuals that are causing people not to breathe. So the question that I say to everyone who's on this, because anybody who's already joined this discussion is already further ahead on that agenda, ask yourself every day what are you doing to make that difference?’