13: No racial diversity

In my early twenties I came to London to find work in the publishing industry. I was lucky to find an editorial job at one of the biggest publishing companies in the world, with a workforce of 3,000. It was full of different kinds of people and in many ways it felt like a meritocratic environment. But one thing troubled me. I could see that there was no racial diversity in any of the different teams across the entire company. “Why is everyone white?” I asked a bunch of colleagues in the pub soon after I joined. One guy just said “the diversity quota are all arriving around now to clean our offices”. Everyone laughed. I just felt stupid for asking the question and said nothing more about it.