What happens when racial minorities take up “elite” positions – do they work as agents for change, or do they merely assimilate “establishment” worldviews? Katie Higgins sets out three strategies commonly used by minoritised elites and explores what these mean for the nuanced relationship between ethnic diversity at the top of organisations, on the one hand, and racial justice on the other.

There are “snowy peaks” when it comes to which people occupy senior positions in powerful organisations in the UK. For instance, racial minorities make up only 2.7% of individuals in the elite social registry Who’s Who, significantly lower than the proportion of racial minorities in the same age group in the population as a whole – 8%. Together with Sam Friedman and Aaron Reeves, I interviewed 30 Black and South Asian people who are listed in Who’s Who as part of a larger study with Britain’s elites. These interviewees were either the first, the only, or one of only a few racial minorities to have reached senior positions in their professional fields.

We wanted to better understand: what happens when racial minorities take up elite positions in the hierarchies of influential organisations? On the one hand, recent scholarship has described elite racial minorities – such as celebrities, corporate executives or Hollywood producers – who work to improve recognition for marginalised communities as “professional change agents”. On the other hand, much of the wider literature on diversity among powerful people points to how they shore up the status quo and assimilate the worldviews of the already established elite.

Our study deepens and nuances these debates by mapping out three strategies which minoritised elites use in the face of racial inequalities in their careers – sketched out below – and considers how these interact with factors like social class, gender and ethno-religious identity, with implications for various debates about diversity and elites.

Three strategies used by racial minorities in elite careers

Strategy #1: Challenging the status quo

Elijah (all of the names are pseudonyms) is in his sixties. Born in a city in the Midlands, his mother and father – a nurse and postal officer, respectively – had migrated from the Caribbean. Elijah was ambivalent about his “elite” status: while he acknowledged that he was probably part of an “establishment” in the creative sector, he differentiated this from the political establishment, saying, “when I go on television, I’m usually arguing with politicians and trying to break down the establishment”. He had also turned down the offer of a royal honour because of its link with the British Empire, as well as the implied approval from established elites. He was careful in choosing the work he did and had previously declined lucrative offers if they did not fit his political principles: “I’m not trying to sell out”, he said.

Interviewees like Elijah who deploy what we call the “challenging” strategy framed their careers as motivated by a fight against injustice rooted in growing up or working with communities exposed to poverty and discrimination. They navigate a careful line between leveraging power and influence to advance their political interests, which they define to include a struggle against racism and other forms of structural injustice, without becoming co-opted by already-existing elites. Indeed, they tend to define themselves in opposition to the already established elite (“the establishment”).

Strategy #2: Diversifying

Veer was born and grew up in London. His mother and father moved to the UK from Pakistan, working in a factory and as a postal officer, respectively. Although establishing himself in the legal profession was far from straightforward, now in his fifties, he has an influential role in the sector. Veer explained why, after some hesitation, he now put his royal honour in his public profile:

It’s not about my success. It’s about each of us. It doesn’t matter where we come from … We can be part of the judiciary, we can be part of medicine, accountancy, whatever it is … and we can be recognised because we are recognised by the establishment.

Interviewees using the “diversifying” strategy frame their work as motivated by achieving the greater inclusion of racial minorities in influential organisations and positions. Rather than concerns about being co-opted, as raised by those pursuing the “challenging” strategy, they often emphasised the importance of compromise and pragmatism to initiate and sustain change.

Most interviewees using this strategy expressed some ambivalence about being labelled an elite or the royal honours associated with it, but compared to those using the “challenging” strategy were more receptive to being recognised as part of the elite as a route to strengthening their diversity work.

Strategy #3: Role modelling

Deepak is in his fifties. Born in East Africa, his family moved to London when he was a child. His family had been wealthy prior to their migration, but his father could no longer practice as a lawyer in the UK. His father eventually found work as an office manager and his mother looked after the home. In response to a question about the “elite” label, he said:

If you use “elite” in the right way, as denoting reaching a degree of excellence, or a degree of higher regard within a profession or a job, then I have no problem with that term … I think if it’s a closed elite, which doesn’t allow access to it, then if you use “elite” in that sense, it’s obviously objectionable.

Unlike the previous two strategies, interviewees using the “role modelling” strategy did not focus on challenging racial inequality or diversifying influential organisations in their career. Nevertheless, given the rarity of their position, they relayed that their successful career trajectories could have a positive signalling effect for other racial minorities.

Participants using this strategy also tended to feel more comfortable about being labelled as an elite, provided it was not associated with elitism. This pointed to their less ambivalent relationship with already-existing elites. In other cases, they simply claimed to be ordinary, a trend that has been documented more broadly among elites.

Ongoing questions around diversity among the elite

What conclusions might we take from these different strategies?

To begin with, we can note that racialisation and racism will always intersect with sociological factors such as gender, class, ethnicity, religion and so on. While a qualitative sample such as ours does not support generalisation, what we can say is that interviewees adopting the “challenging” and “diversifying” strategies typically came from a working class and/or Muslim background – and all of those using the “diversifying” strategy who were not from these backgrounds were women. By contrast, “role modelling” was more typically used by individuals from a middle or upper-middle class background, consistent with the argument that class origins affect the political outlooks of elites.

It is also striking that despite the interviewees as a whole (and the “challenging” and “role modelling” groups) being male-dominated, the “diversifying” group was female-dominated. This supports the argument that women of colour more often do diversity work and that once they have built a reputation in this field they are more often invited to sit on multiple boards.

We can celebrate increased openness at the top provided we realise that this does not do the work of advancing equality and fairness on its own. Ethnic diversity is not akin to racial justice. In her study of diversity in the British elite, Nirmal Puwar criticises the tendency to equate the inclusion of “different” bodies in elite organisations with social transformation – the presumption that “women” and “ethnic minorities” are homogenous groups that can generate “a mimetic politics from their shared experiences”. Just as the idea of one conspiring elite is unhelpful, then, likewise the assumption that racial minorities in elite positions equates to social transformation is also inaccurate. In this regard, our study draws attention to some of the different strategies which minoritised elites use in response to racial inequalities.

We can celebrate increased openness at the top provided we realise this does not do the work of advancing equality and fairness on its own; ethnic diversity is not akin to racial justice

All of this comes at a pivotal time. The interviews took place following a series of major social movements against racial inequality (such as Black Lives Matter), movements which have been linked with an increase in the number of racial minorities who hold elite positions even as the backlash began immediately. Looking ahead, what kinds of leaders will rise up from the current protest movements, whether the advances made in diversifying the leadership of influential organisations will gain traction or lose ground, and how far representation will translate into redistribution of power and material resources remain urgent questions to be engaged with.

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s). They do not represent the position of LSE Inequalities, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credits: Banner image showing gilded lions outside The Law Society in London, UK, by Chaz Bharj via Shutterstock. Image of the Library of the Supreme Court of the United Kindgom sourced from Wikipedia.