--- title: "Why we need a more open dialogue on race" episode: 9 date: 2020-06-13 guest: "Gamal Turawa" canonical: https://inclusionbites.co.uk/podcast/9-why-we-need-a-more-open-dialogue-on-race audio: https://cdn.seech.uk/podcast/episodes/ibs-009/audio.mp3 --- # Why we need a more open dialogue on race Recorded during the early months of COVID-19 and amid the global resurgence of Black Lives Matter following the murder of George Floyd, Joanne Lockwood speaks with Gamal Turawa about why we need more open, honest dialogue about race. Gamal shares reflections as a Black, openly gay, now-retired police officer and diversity and dignity facilitator, including how emotions like fear, anger and frustration can block meaningful conversation unless they are acknowledged and navigated. Together they explore privilege, what it means to be white, and the importance of moving from difference to empathy and then to dignity. The conversation also touches on identity as multi-layered and not fixed, the harm of “colour-blind” language, and the responsibility to shift from being “not racist” to being actively anti-racist. Gamal recounts aspects of his lived experience, including being fostered, cultural dislocation, and reaching a point of suicidality before learning to define himself on his own terms. They reflect on wider social context including Grenfell, Windrush, media stereotypes, statues and historical legacy, and why symbolic actions must be matched by systemic change. The episode closes with a focus on turning anger into constructive action and sustaining momentum for long-term progress. ## Chapters - 00:00 — Top box people ignorant of bottom box. - 09:59 — Relationships based on values, not labels. - 11:43 — Struggled to value blackness and gayness, suicidal. - 19:46 — Cultural identity struggles after living in Nigeria. - 26:54 — Media created harmful stereotypes, affecting personal identity. - 33:06 — Hopeful individual sees positive change through dialogue. - 34:18 — Sadiq Khan promotes inclusivity through renaming symbols. - 44:01 — Equality in condemning all forms of discrimination. - 48:02 — Navigating travel as LGBTQ+ person: challenges, concerns. - 55:09 — Lost in Germany park, encountering diverse locals. - 56:08 — Felt unsafe, lost, discomfort among men. - 01:05:17 — Daniel Radcliffe and JK Rowling facing criticism. - 01:06:59 — Recognising anger as a motivation for growth. ## Key takeaways - The emotional and psychological impact of fear and racial biases on both individuals and society. - The importance of acknowledging and challenging personal biases to foster more inclusive environments. - How historical events like the Grenfell Tower fire and the Windrush scandal highlight ongoing social injustices. - The need to give prominence to people of colour in societal symbols, such as statues and road names. - The significance of recognising overlooked historical figures and the unspoken past of colonialism. - Strategies for managing anger constructively and using it as a force for positive change. - Insights into the continuous struggle for diversity, the importance of momentum, and standing firm against those who undermine progress. ## FAQs ### Why is it important to discuss race openly? Open discussions on race are vital for recognising and confronting biases, understanding diverse experiences, and fostering a more inclusive society. As highlighted by Joanne Lockwood and Gamal Turawa in this episode, only through open dialogue can we begin to dismantle systemic inequalities and build empathy across different communities. ### What challenges exist when discussing racism in predominantly white spaces? Predominantly white spaces may lack awareness or understanding of racial issues, often leading to discomfort or defensiveness when the topic is broached. Gamal Turawa notes that such conversations are essential, yet can be challenging, as they require addressing deep-seated biases and privileges that many may not be consciously aware of. ### How can individuals become comfortable having uncomfortable conversations about race? Becoming comfortable with uncomfortable conversations requires a willingness to listen, reflect, and challenge personal biases. Joanne Lockwood suggests that empathy and openness to learning about others' lived experiences can help bridge the gap between different identities and foster greater understanding. ### Why is recognising privilege important in discussions on race? Recognising privilege is crucial as it shapes our perspectives and interactions with others. For example, Joanne acknowledges her white privilege when discussing social injustices like the Grenfell Tower fire and the Windrush scandal. Understanding one's privilege allows individuals to better appreciate and support the struggles of marginalised communities. ### What role does history play in our understanding of race and inclusion? Understanding the historical context of race and inclusion helps to elucidate the root causes of current inequalities. Gamal Turawa emphasises the importance of acknowledging unspoken histories and recognising historically overlooked figures to appreciate the full spectrum of our collective past and its impact on present-day society. ### Why is it necessary to challenge personal biases and fear responses? Challenging personal biases and fear responses is necessary for fostering genuine inclusion. Both speakers highlight that fear often triggers racial biases, and the importance of recognising these subconscious reactions can help mitigate discrimination and promote fairness. ## Transcript Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood and I am your host for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I will be interviewing a number of amazing people and simply having a conversation around the subject of inclusion, belonging and generally making the world a better place for everyone to thrive in. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please do drop me a line to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. That's seechangehappen.co .uk. You'll be able to catch up with all of the shows on itunes, Spotify, and, of course, all of the other usual places. So plug in your headphones, grab a decaf and let's get going. Today is episode nine with the title a perspective from the first black, openly gay, now retired police officer. And I have the absolute honour and privilege to be joined by Gamal Tuawa, affectionately known as G. And I first met G when we both spoke at a mentoring day for Sussex and Surrey police forces back in 2019. G describes himself as a diversity and dignity facilitator and who says his superpower is invisibility? So. Hello, G. Welcome to the show. Gamal Turawa: Hello, Jo, How are you doing? I'm great, thank you. Joanne Lockwood: So tell me, why do we need a more open dialogue on race? Gamal Turawa: I think we need a more open dialogue because there's a lot of emotions. There's a lot of emotions, deep emotions like anger, frustration, fear, all this in this mix that is in the middle of this dialogue. And until we get through that, we can't get to the point where we can start to talk to each other. And what I try and do is I try and be a bridge through those emotions to navigate that stuff, so that we can get to a place where we can actually hear each other rather than tell each other. That's the big thing. Joanne Lockwood: I'm white. Whilst I know people of all skin colours, ethnicities and races, I predominantly have, I suppose, white friends in my close circle. And I see a lot of dialogue on Facebook and in the media and things that people are kind of shocked by. This sort of kind of the passion that's come out. Where's this come from? Where's this been bubbling into? We, as white people, thought it was kind of okay, but we got it wrong, didn't we? Where did we miss? What did we miss here? Gamal Turawa: I like to flip that question. I think what white people have missed is what it means to be white. We ask people of colour, like myself, black people, what is racism like to you? And we're expected to be the medicine and the cure. But the real question that I think is coming out now, and from some of the dialogues and conversations I've been having, is that white people are now getting to that point of saying, Hang on a minute. What does it mean to be white? What does privilege actually mean? What does this mean? And that's the key question. Because once you start to get that, the conversation can then start to flow in the same way. Joanne Lockwood: Completely. And I think when you've never experienced a lack of privilege, whatever that may be, you really don't understand the impact of that is when people glide through life without ever questioning who they are, their lived experience, it just becomes okay. And many people don't realise what it's like not to have that privilege, do they? No, Gamal Turawa: they don't. The way I describe it is like there's two boxes, one box on top of the other box, and there's a group of people that live in the top box and in that box, they don't see any of these issues, but it's their box. And they look around and when the people in the bottom box are saying, this is what it's like to be in the bottom, they're sort of like, we don't get that because they don't even acknowledge that the bottom box exists. It's almost like, in my world, I can't see this. So what you're telling me doesn't make sense. And the barrier is, how do we build a bridge between those two boxes that can move the boxes next to each other or even integrated with each other, rather than one on top and one on the bottom? I love the words you use there, because Joanne Lockwood: one thing I've started talking about recently in the DNI space when I talk, is about building this empathy bridge. So what I need to do is take a position for my lived experience and your experience, so I can create a bridge between our two experiences. So I can sometimes maybe use something I can relate to, that I can apply it to what you're saying. Otherwise, all I do is I hear you, but I can't apply it. I don't have a reference point. So this is this empathy bridge that you use the word bridge, and I love that. And I think we'll try and do is create this bridge. Because often, I'm sure you find this as a person with a minority characteristic, if you like. You seem to be the one doing all the empathy and actually you want to share that responsibility. So we both meet in the middle of the bridge rather than coming to my side or coming to your side all the time. Yeah. One of the things I always add to that is Gamal Turawa: that I always try and remove the word understanding because I think that word understanding becomes a big barrier to that building that bridge. You will never understand the world I live in, no matter how much I try and describe it. So it's not about understand, it's just about to me, it's about appreciating that we live in different worlds. I remember a conversation I had with a senior police officers a few years ago, and they were talking about trans issues, and they said, I really don't get trans issues. I can't get my head around it and I said, It's not yours to get. And she looks at me and she goes, what do you mean? I said, all you have to do is appreciate that it's somebody else's world. That's the world that they live in. You don't have to get it, you don't have to understand it. You just have to appreciate that it's different to your world. And that's what people want, to be appreciated, to be recognised for who they are, not who you think they should be. Oh, completely. Yeah, Joanne Lockwood: that's completely true. When you talk about identity, you don't have to get someone's identity, you just have to embrace the fact that they have an identity and it's important to them. Exactly. I cast myself as non religious, but I don't try and disagree with somebody who has a faith or a belief, because that's important to them. I don't have that. I accept and I recognise and I celebrate the fact that that makes you special and that's who you are. And I need to value you, including that element of your life. Yeah, you just Gamal Turawa: highlighted the other thing is the other thing for me is that identity is not fixed. We all have multiple identities. I mean, looking at this whole scenario and this movement that is happening at the moment, I can look at it as a black man, I can look at it as an ex police officer as well, so there's so many different hats that I can use to look at this scenario. I can look at it as a facilitator. So I think the other thing is recognising that our identity is not fixed and sometimes I could be speaking to you, but I may be speaking to you as a facilitator, but you might be hearing me as a black man, so then the conversation gets kind of lost. So I think it's about being clear of where we're speaking from and how we're speaking. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: In a parallel way of bridging what you've just said. I get that, because often I see people talking to me as a trans person, rather than talking to me as an entrepreneur, a businesswoman, a speaker, a trainer. They're seeing my primary identity of, oh, she's trans as being. And then there's always thoughts in their head about whether they're confused by that or not before I have to wade through that. So what you're saying there is this would be building my bridge to you, is trying to relate to saying people are judging you as a black man first or a gay man first, or sometimes a gay black man first, before they understand your perspective, intelligence, your insight, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And that's why I say invisibility is my superpower. Gamal Turawa: Because one of the things I'd like to think I'm good at is when I'm facilitating groups. I get to a point where they forget that I'm black, they forget that I'm a gay man, and they get so engrossed in the conversation that I fade into the background and can work with the conversation. And to me, that's the beautiful thing about the work I do. Joanne Lockwood: I just think of you as g, but I don't erase your gayness or your blackness. I don't erase that because that's part of you. As far as I'm concerned, I would never describe you as my gay black friend. You're my friend. But I understand if I need some insight, perhaps some of the conversation we're having today. I know you're a great person because you have the insight and the lived experience that is valuable for the world, not just me. Yeah. And what's beautiful about relationships Gamal Turawa: like yours and mine, Joe, is that what I like about my life is I've managed to meet and form relationships or friendships with people from across a wide spectrum. And to me, it's not what a person is, it's who they are in their heart. What do they stand for, what are their values? That's what I like to connect with. I'm not about whether they're this or they're that, but actually, do you believe in humanity? Do you believe we work together? Do you believe we are one? That's what's important to me. One of the things you picked up then is one of the things I've been working on recently is that there's a phrase people use which is actually quite insulting, when people say things like and I've had it said, it was said to me yesterday, actually, and says, when I see you, I don't see your colour. And I find that phrase, my colour is a very important part of my identity. You don't have to judge me by it, but recognise that it is a part of my identity. So when you don't see that, you actually don't see a part of me. Joanne Lockwood: Completely. And I say that about many different people. Whilst I don't want to be known as Joe, the trans person, I want you to know the fact that that is part of my identity and that is what gives me some strength, because I'm sure you have resilience inside you that has come from your lived experience. And that's important to celebrate, isn't it? Yeah. Gamal Turawa: Sorry, I was going to say one of the things, and I don't know whether it's similar for people of the trans community, but one of the things for me is I have had to work hard to value my blackness, to value my gayness. It took me to the point of suicide. I didn't actually come out until I was in my 40s, early forty, s. And the reason why it took me so long is because I was listening to all the negative messages in the world that told me that being gay was wrong. I was listening to all the negative messages in the world who told me that being black, I was less than and all of those things, all that negativity built up. And I say I was lucky to have a breakdown. I was lucky to get to that point of suicide, because at that point, the question came up about, okay, who actually are you? And I remember being asked a question of who defines you? And I'm sort of like coming up to my 40s thinking, I've never heard that phrase before. No one's ever actually asked me to define myself. I thought I had to be what people expected me to be, not who I could be. And I thought that for me to say this is who I am, was selfish. That was my conditioning, that was my thought process. So to get to that point where I'm now saying I am a black gay man has taken a lot of internal battles and struggle and strife. So when somebody says, I don't see it or I don't recognise it, you're dismissing that battle. Does that make sense, as you're talking. That I'm Joanne Lockwood: thinking about, wow, this is so parallel. I have the same thing society says, trans is misunderstood, it's discriminated against. You can be rejected, humiliated, you can lose your house, your car, your wife, your family, everything's going to go. So being trans is bad and it's kind of weird. So you carry that through all your life and this is what keeps this secret in, isn't it? Because you're almost internalising your own transphobia or your own homophobic against yourself and thinking, I shouldn't succeed. And then when you open, I always talk about having this shield where you carry this in front of you going, you won't like me because I'm trans. You won't like me because I'm trans. And that kind of almost like, influences every conversation where you're assuming you're going to get scrimmage against all the time because you're trans. And the thing that got me out of bed when I was going through a very dark time, I wouldn't say I was thinking suicidal thoughts at any point, but why? I got to a point where I seriously could not get out of bed. I could not function as a human being. And the thing that got me off this roundabout that I couldn't get off was saying, I am and I am. Is a really powerful thing. I am trans. Then you don't have to explain it, you don't have to justify, you don't have to find a reason in your perspective of, why am I trans? It doesn't matter, I just am. And they go, oh, that's the jigsaw. That's the missing piece of the jigsaw. I am. And when you said that just then, I thought, wow, that is such a powerful thing to have, isn't it? Yeah. And the beauty of what you're saying there, this is what I Gamal Turawa: talk about when we work together, is that the labels at either end may be different, whether it's black or trans or straight or gay or male or female. But the process in the middle is exactly the same for all of us. We all have to come to terms with something about our identity at some point. And that, to me, is the key to the bridge building, finding that point where we all connect and then extrapolating it from mean. I consider myself a bit lucky, where privileged. Joanne Lockwood: I've worked all over the world. I've worked in countries where English isn't the first language. I've worked in Hong Kong and Singapore, where my skin colour has been a minority. I've been in rooms, in meetings, in social situations. In Germany, where I don't speak German, everyone has to speak in German. So I know what it's like to be not in part of the conversation. I know what it feels like to feel included. And all of a sudden someone says, oh, Joe, sorry, we've lift you out of that. And he go, it's okay. And you'll just sit there mindlessly numb, listening to these people talk in German and you're not including the conversation. And in Hong Kong, I very much felt that I was racially different to the majority there, even. I was working in a kind of a British bank with lots of white people out in society. I still found that people were looking at me strange because I was tall, big white person walking around. And I felt this sort of kind of like, weirdness of being unique, if you like, or different. So whilst that doesn't go any way to it's, my empathy bridge to you to say, whilst I don't understand what it's like to be black, I can understand what it's like to be excluded or in a minority. And also, these are my trans. I know what it's like to have people judge me by not necessarily the colour of my skin, but my facial characteristics and my voice and my hand size and that I get looked at on the tube. I get looked at when I'm doing things. I get looked at when I'm buying a coffee. I pick up on these body language signs and you may feel, well, oh, wow, big black there. And so you create a reaction. I create a reaction. So that's my empathy bridge. So when you tell me those things, I go, I get it from my perspective. I understand through my empathy bridge to you what that means. And then if you Gamal Turawa: take that to the next level, it's almost like, okay, so now you understand what that means, let's look at how we can work with that. What do we do with that empathy? And when we start to work with that empathy, what we do is we start to value each other's dignity. And that's where the real work, the real magic for me starts to happen, is when we jump from our difference to our empathy to our dignity, and then it becomes a powerful and profound conversation. Joanne Lockwood: Because we both understand, we're both just human beings. We both live, love, want to do a great job, be recognised, be celebrated and enjoy our lives. We both achieve the same. And our brains probably aren't that different. They were both pink or grey gooey masses. You've opened your head. The rest of us is just skin and bones, but our intelligence is probably no real difference, just different experience. Yeah, exactly. Gamal Turawa: How that stuff is influenced. I mean, some of the work I think I've been speaking to you about recently is working with. I was fostered as a child, and between the 1950s to the early 80s, thousands of Nigerian children were fostered in this country with various degrees of success or failure. And one of the things we're working on now is how do we get those voices heard? Because you're brought up in two different worlds. You're brought up with a clash of cultures, you're brought up with a clash of your own internal identity. Okay, I've got this white experience, then I've got this Nigerian experience and I'm somewhere in the middle. What does that mean? Who am I? Who am I? There's a lot of people in that group. Sorry, go on. I was going to say, this overlapping identity where Joanne Lockwood: you're not British, you're not Nigerian, you're kind of an expat in both worlds, aren't? Yeah, yeah. I Gamal Turawa: mean, one of the sad things, I've had some incredible stories around it, but one of the stories or some of the themes that have come up from it is people who were taken from England to Nigeria, and they're in Nigeria for a few years. They managed to get back to England, thinking they're coming back home, but they've now developed a Nigerian accent and they come back to England and suddenly realise they don't fit in here. They've spent eight years or so thinking, I don't fit in in Nigeria, I'll fit in in England when I get back. And then they come back with this accent and suddenly realise they don't fit in. Mean, if I use myself as an example, when I first came back from Nigeria, I met up with my old school friends and then sat around with them and realised I had nothing in common with them anymore. I mean, they were all willing to help and engage, but I just thought, we're on totally different planets. I've had this whole other, you know, everybody has, but there's nothing that connects us. They've all grown up together, they've been around each other's houses and everything that for the past day, I've been in this whole total different existence and trying to find a way to fit in and connect. It's almost like you have to go back to basics and restart your life all over again and reform and start new friendships. So Joanne Lockwood: you press pause on your British life, so you did something else, but in the meantime, time continued for everybody who was here. So when you joined back, you pressed pause again and started play, but you were eight years behind them and you go, Hang on a minute, I expected it to be the same. But it wasn't, was it? Yeah, exactly. Gamal Turawa: And that's a beautiful way of putting it, but you don't realise consciously that that's what's happening, because you're going off. And doing your thing and you forget that other people are moving on, Joanne Lockwood: doing their own thing as well. Yeah, that's really interesting. Can I ask you, were your foster parents in the UK, were they black or were they white? Gamal Turawa: They were white. They were white. So you had that mixed Joanne Lockwood: identity as well. So you're a black child being raised in a white family with not racism as such, but they weren't valuing your racial identity at that point, were they white? Yeah. And they used to make jokes Gamal Turawa: to me, like, don't send him out in the dark, we'll never find him again. I remember watching Tarzan and they would say things, know that's where you come from in the jungle, you're lucky to be living with us. So I grew up for the first few years thinking all black people lived in the jungle, and I was lucky to be living in this village in Kent. Little village in Kent. And then the other thing about it was I was going to the Sunday school every Sunday, and then when my dad kidnapped me from my foster parents, I went from this white, British Kent rural life to suddenly in the middle of Halston in London, which was a totally black area. My father was a Muslim, which was a religion I knew nothing about, never even heard of it. So I was in this whole culture. The food was different, the culture was different, the rules were different. I mean, I remember coming home from school one day and there was a packet of biscuits on the table. So I came in, took a packet of biscuit, took a biscuit, put on the TV, sat down, eating the biscuit, and my dad came in and slapped me around the face. Who gave you permission to put the TV on? Who gave you that biscuit? I took it from there. You stole it. And it was suddenly I was in this whole different world. I didn't understand the rules, I didn't know what was going on. And you become a traumatised child, but then going through all those experiences, I think I'm one of the lucky ones, because I know there's a lot of people that had that experience that ended up in the judicial system or ended up on drugs. And I'm aware of people who've committed suicide because they couldn't reconcile those identities. I'm one of the lucky ones. I've got through the other side and I've come to a point where I can see it, I can understand it, but I can also use that experience to help others, to understand where they're coming from. Joanne Lockwood: That's really powerful. I'm struggling to build the bridge here because that is such an alien lived experience to me. And I'm rapidly thinking because I've got other friends who are black or are fostered by white parents and they've again grown up with this mixed culture. But to have that sort of that British culture that wasn't quite right for you, to be whisked into a Nigerian culture that again, was alien to you at the wrong age, then you're trying to put yourself back into the first culture in a different scenario. That must have been a real mind bending sense of identity. What's going on in my life? What's my anchor point here? Who am I? Who am I? I am? What am I? Gamal Turawa: And that question, those questions so go on, Jay. Joanne Lockwood: You go first. I'll let you talk. Go for it. I was going to say, Gamal Turawa: those questions are not always conscious questions. Sometimes they're deep in your subconscious, they're happening underneath the surface. All you're doing is reacting to everything, so you don't even realise that those questions need to be answered. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. Again, as you're talking, I'm thinking here about the announcement for the BBC last night, Netflix, etc, for about Pulling Little Britain. Gone With The Wind has now been withdrawn and re released with different narrative around it. And I'm sitting there thinking, OK, let me unpack that, let me understand what they're trying to say, rather than just have an opinion. Either way, I want to understand why I've got an opinion. And as I'm sitting there thinking about it, I'm thinking about I grew up as a white kid in the 60s. I'm 55, so I was born now 65, and the stereotypical racial portrayal of people in the media, in society was very fixed. Tarzan tarzan was around black people running around the jungle in edible skin, underpants, swinging from trees, basically monkey type. Gorilla monkey. Then we had Mouthlie and we had The Jungle Book. Again, mowgli is kind of like living in the jungle. This whole Tarzan thing we have with kids, we grew up in a very white, middle class society, so we didn't see black people, or if we saw black people, they were unusual go, oh, there's a black person. Or the people who maybe who are brown, Chinese, Indian, were performing a service role, maybe in a restaurant, maybe in a lower paid role. So we were brought up with the tele programmes, the Alf Garnets, the Black and white minstrel shows, the comedy at the time. And that was just how I was brought up to thinking. That was it. So my generation, certainly, I don't know how big my generation is, but for my certain view, is that I had no other reference point to people who were black or brown than what I was told by the media. And so now I look at the Pulling Little Britain, I'm thinking, yeah, I get that, because what they did was they propagated these racial stereotypes, they exaggerated features, and they did with gay people and they did with trans people and they did with women and disabled people. So that they were literally pulling at the stereotypes and replaying those tropes for comedy. And I thought, well, actually, I took a lot of offence as a trans person at some of their sketches. That's just a small part of the bigger picture, just being a trans person. So I've now got this empathy bridge thing. Actually, I didn't like that at the time. I didn't like the are you being served the portrayal of John Inman as a gay man, the way they were using his gayness as comedy, the way that you see drag in performing arts is yes, okay, I understand drag is a performance culture, but sometimes drag, to me, can also be a parody of my identity. To recognise in history that that's who we were, I think we need to recognise that. But then we need to put this wrapper of contemporary interpretation of that history and say, this is how the Romans used to invade countries. This is how the Egyptians used to be. This is how colonialists, if you want to call this colonialists used to be. They used to think they could come into countries, take all of their assets, give them religion, and then leave and takes and slaves back as well, and then assume that the people they've helped are grateful for that. And that's how colonials behave. So we can always categorise our generation as post colonial, but still living through the ill gotten gains of suffering and people's lives. So that's how I'm kind of framing it now to try and try and see it. So it's important to keep these statues with the graffiti on it in a museum to say, this is what happens when a cultural revolution occurs. We now understand that this stuff is of the past contextually happened, but we now recognise that it shouldn't happen again. Yeah, Gamal Turawa: I totally agree. I mean, that's one of the arguments I've been saying with people, that we shouldn't get rid of this stuff. We should have a place where we can keep it, where it's recognised that whether we like it or not, it's a part of our history. And at some point we have to recognise, if we don't know where we're coming from, how do we know where we're going? And there's an important part. Yes, we can remove it from the plinths and wherever, but I was watching something about Winston Churchill yesterday and how divisive a figure he was. And in some areas he was racist, in some areas he was a patriot. He helped Britain through the Second World War. He was an inspiration. He's one of the greatest Britons. So at what point what it speaks to to me, it goes back to that very same thing of we have multiple layers to our identity. We have the tate. Gallery, which was built on the sugar plantations of Tate and Lyle. Yet today, you go there and you see some of the finest art in the world. Are we going to tear down the. Joanne Lockwood: You know, where is the Egyptian pyramids? Egyptians enslaved half of that region. The Ottoman Empire. The Persian Empire. All of these people in the past have built countries and societies on the past, and none of us are innocent in that. And we've all benefited from other colonialism maybe further back in time. And it's about recognising. This colonialism was a point in time and that we need to learn from it and do right where we can. Yeah. And Gamal Turawa: I look at know when they're taking down the statues, I see them as symbolic gestures. They are symbolic of what people want to be. But if you really want to look at some of this stuff, everything that you almost touch within London or within, you know, I look at that. I said, for example, the British lion. Everyone talks about the good British lion. And you thought, Where is the lion? Is not even a British animal. So the British lion that they hold up to be the British is not a British animal when they say good cup of English tea, where's it growth. So there's a lot of stuff within our society that you sit down and say, okay, if you really want to go down that road, how deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go? Well, because once you start to open. Up that door yeah, fish Joanne Lockwood: and potato. The potato came from was it Walter Raleigh, whoever bought the potato back, didn't he? And the pineapple. I mean, all this stuff was ill gotten gate of the colonial sort of path we led. Yeah. Some of the Gamal Turawa: banking institutions that we respect today were the insurers of the slave ships. And you sort of sit there, so you think, if we want to look at this stuff, how far down the rabbit? So I see removal of statues as a symbolic gesture or a symbolic recognition of those things, but they shouldn't be the only thing that's done. We pulled down that statue. That's it, everything's fine now. No, it's symbolic, but there is still other stuff that's within the system that is endemic within the system that needs to be addressed. Joanne Lockwood: Do you think there's a desire for change now? Do you think there is a momentum? I'm an Gamal Turawa: optimist. I like to hope so. I mean, the thing about this, I've had and I get emotional when I say this, but I've had some incredible conversations with some amazing people and white people as well, who have come back and they're asking for guidance, they're asking for understanding. And that's never happened before. When I saw the police officers in America taking a knee and police officers coming out on YouTube saying, this is not being done in my name, that has never happened before. And I'm hoping that there's a lot of profound moments that are happening, and I'm hoping that, yes, it does lead to something more significant to me, it's opened up the dialogue, and I think that's the first stage we have to get through, we have to have this dialogue, and it's not going to be an overnight thing. I think everyone's looking for a quick, fixed solution. If we do this, have we done it? And it's like, no, it's taken hundreds of years to get here. It's not going to take five minutes to get away from it. It's a gradual, slow process. I was listening to Sadiq Khan the other night, or the Joanne Lockwood: other day about his mission or his passion is to sort of look at statues, road names, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I thought, well, when we talk about inclusion, we're not talking about taking something away from you, we're about giving people more, it's about giving people access. So when I was listening to saying, we want to look at the road names, we're going to this, to me, it wasn't about removing white names, it was about giving prominence to people of colour, to black people, to brown people, to people who've helped us in a more modern time and celebrating them. And yes, at some point, you got to displace history with modern history. So I thought that was a really symbolic way of saying, it's not about condemning the past, it's about recognising, there's a new future and we can use new names to celebrate new things. And I thought that was quite a powerful way of doing. As you say, it's symbolic, but it's symbolic to me. But for someone of a black culture, it must be extremely powerful to see people you celebrate, you revere being recognised in the society you're a part of. Yeah. And I think when you say that, Gamal Turawa: it's not about moving to a new future, it's about recognising an unspoken past. It's not about, okay, we are now recognising. We were here all the time. All this stuff has been happening all the time. It's about now recognising that that was going on, recognising that. These historic figures were there all the time, we just didn't acknowledge them. So it's not about moving forward in a new way, it's about recognising the old way. Yeah. So think about Joanne Lockwood: let's just take the last two years. I think two years is probably the time frame. We've had Grenfield Tower, and that, significantly, was rooted in the black community as being the people in that tower, the people that mostly affected, okay, there are other people of all races in there, but predominantly it was black people were affected the most in that tower. And that instigated some level of change in building regulations, and it shined a big spotlight on that social deprivation type issue. And then we've had the Windrush scandal. That the unpicking of that. And I watched a BBC drama the other night on that, about that one character and his lived experience. And, yes, it was a dramatisation, but I felt physically sick, my empathy, everything was triggering. And I just thought the injustice, the way that person was portrayed, the way that people talked to them, the way the white people almost had, you're guilty, you're just trash, we've got to get you out of this country. Whatever you say is a lie type mentality. And I just thought, we look in shock and horror about Britons who are imprisoned in Iraq or Iran and imprisoned the schoolteacher over there for being a spy or whatever, and we're looking at the Iranian culture going, well, they're barbarians. Can't they see this nice white girl is innocent? Or this nice Asian girl is innocent. It's so barbaric. Yet we in what we believe is our perfect British justice system. We're doing that to our own people. And I felt physically sick watching that and I cried at the end of it. I just sat there, I was numb, because that had such an impact of the travesty that we, our society, and I talk about our society as Brits, everybody that's you, me and everybody we are doing to people, and it's incredible we can still do that. And that was two years ago, three years ago, how COVID is affecting people in a disproportionate way and how the BBC imagery of showing that people who died recently was disproportionately white, the faces they were showing. And you think, are people not having any sensitivity about understanding the messages that are going out? And then finally the Black Lives Matter, the things that are going on, it's been an evolution over the last two years now of, as you say, awakening and sorry, carry on. You were going to say something there. No, Gamal Turawa: what I was going to say is that when people are saying, and you did it there, we were disgusted and we're now waking up. And I'm like, well, who's we? Because some of us have been aware of this and been saying this for years, all our lives. This is our lived experience. So when there's a we, it's not a we for us. Yeah, you're just finally recognising the world we've been talking about for years. And that, to me, is the difference. But even in the language of talking around that change, people are still saying we and we thought, there's not a we, there's a you and an us at the moment, right? We've got to get to the we. So what's the Joanne Lockwood: bridge to get to the we, then? How can I use we in a different context? I would say it's about Gamal Turawa: recognising the emotion, recognise the injustice, right? And the we for me is people who want change. I speak as a person who wants change and I stand shoulder to shoulder with people that want change. That's the we, the we that's disgusted and angered to me, that's an us and them, because we've been disgusted and angered for years. We've been saying it for years. That isn't the we that's you and us, but the people that want to stand shoulder to shoulder, want to make a difference, want to change things, want to improve things for the better. That's the we I want to be part of. Joanne Lockwood: Okay, so can I pull up a chair at your table and be we disgusted with you? Because I want to join the I am disgusted table now. I want to wake up to this injustice. I want to be part of that change. So that's the table I want to sit at. Those are the conversations I want to have. And that's what highlighted to me that I wasn't at the right table. I've always been on the wrong table, having the wrong conversations. Yeah. Gamal Turawa: And the other part is be disgusted. But if you're going to sit at the table, come to the table to do something. It's not enough to be disgusted, it's not enough to be angry, because that can go away. It's almost like the Angela Davis quote, it's not about being non racist, it's about being antiracist. It's not about being nondiscriminatory. Yeah. So it's not enough to say you're offended. What do you do with that? Joanne Lockwood: You can't sit on the fence and take a middle ground. You have to stand for something. Yeah. That's the important part. Wherever is you see me speak. And one of the things I talk about is inclusion is about it's holistic, active and deliberate. You can't be passively inclusive. You can't be accidentally inclusive. By doing nothing, you're saying nothing. By saying nothing, you're letting it pass. So you have to reach out and say, I stand for this, I'm being active about this. And I'm not saying when I talk about holistic, it can't be a bit of, well, you're okay, but you're not. I think it's about recognising that you got to be inclusive for all people at this moment, we talk about Black Lives Matter, but when we also talk about other things in their context, we can't say, well, black lives matter, but trans lives don't. But this is a different time. We're talking about Black Lives Matter at the moment, so other things are not relevant in the conversation. But we've also got to look at those things in its own right. We're not trading one hashtag for another hashtag. We recognise that each hashtag has its own message, its own importance that we have to amplify. This is going back to Gamal Turawa: that bridge of empathy, right? It may be about Black Lives Matter at the moment, but what happens is, once we start to cross that bridge, we recognise that actually, other people need to be on this bridge with us. Once we've started to have this dialogue, it says, So why can't we now have this dialogue about trans people? Why can't we not have this dialogue about gay people? Why can't we not have this dialogue about, I don't know, people with disabilities? If we can have this dialogue in this space, we can have this dialogue in other spaces as well, because what this proves is that we can have the dialogue. That's the important part for me. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: That's so right. I was talking to someone the other day in an HR perspective. They had an incident where one of their team made a homophobic remark to another member of their team, and they were wondering about how much of a big deal they should make about this. So I sort of said to them, So imagine they punched them. How would you feel then? Well, that's completely unacceptable. What's the difference between a punch and words? One you can see, one is visible, one is physical pain, one is emotional, mental and microaggressions. Is there a difference? And I tried to get to understand that sometimes words and language are as painful as a physical punch. Sometimes a physical punch is over and done with in five minutes, and you brush yourself off. And then I said to them, okay, so now we understand that words and actions can have equal impact. If it wasn't a homophobic remark, it was a racist remark, how would you feel now? I'd be completely abhorrent. I wouldn't tolerate that at all. So homophobia is okay, but racism isn't. So what we end up trying to do is trying to understand that we have to have a zero tolerance for a holistic inclusion. And by saying that, we can't say that racism is bad, homophobia is good, or not so bad, we have to put everything on the table and say, all of this is not acceptable in a polite and contemporary society. Yeah. Gamal Turawa: And that's the dream, the hope to get to. One of the things I look at is that I'm not here to solve this problem. It may not be solved in my lifetime. In fact, it won't be solved in my lifetime. But what it will be is what we can all do is do our bit to progress it. Yeah. And I think when you look at it from completely yeah, just do your bit to progress it forward. We all Joanne Lockwood: have to take a step forward and keep taking a step forward and keep being visible, active, and deliberate about our actions and being vocal and not letting it pass. Keeping that in tug of war terms. We got to keep the tension on the rope, otherwise we go backwards. And that's what we don't want to do. We got to keep that tension there. Yeah. Gamal Turawa: I remember having a conversation so I had a conversation with my nephew a while back, and he's a very vocal that guy's not erased him in another I said, you know what? Do you know how much sacrifice was made for you to have that voice? I said, that's the progress you have that voice, but you don't recognise what has happened to give you that voice, because there were some of us that grew up in a time where we weren't allowed to have that voice and if we did speak up, we were beaten down. Yeah, that's Joanne Lockwood: progress. It is. We're finding is that people who have voice now, having voice is a privilege, and that's a privilege that you earned for them. So they haven't earned that right to have that voice. They've been given that voice, whereas you had to earn that voice, which is where the privilege and not privilege? I think when we look at the people who are vocal today, they're building on the struggles of the previous generation and the previous generation. The previous generation. So you have the privilege of not ever multigeneration back from the colonial past? I have the privilege of not being part of that colonial past, living in poverty. So I have a voice because I've got an education, so that's a privilege. But, yeah, you're so right that people should remember that they have a privilege by having a voice, or the freedom to choose, the freedom to express, the freedom to not feel they're going to be arrested, or freedom that they're going to be treated fairly. That, again, is a privilege, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, one of the biggest Gamal Turawa: privileges for me as a black gay man, I know there are countries in the world where I could be stoned to death, I could be killed or I could be imprisoned for life. I live in a society where I can say, I am a black gay man and say openly, and that's a privilege. So privilege looks different in so many different areas. Privilege is not just about colour. Privilege can be about status, privilege can be about the life you're living. And that's what I think people forget. Privilege is on so many different levels. Joanne Lockwood: Love the way you just said that about as a black gay. I don't mean a fact I love you could get stoned to death or arrested to be a gay man, but I love the way you brought that into the conversation, because I, as a trans person, I'm very conscious about where in the world I can be, where I can travel to. If I'm flying to Australia, where can I stop off? Do I go to Dubai, UAE? Is that a safe space for me to go? Could I go via China? Is that safe? I'm not sure. So I'm now double thinking my travel arrangements, my destinations. I did some work in the Ukraine and I politely asked the conference organiser would I be safe in Ukraine, and I didn't want to put my bias on there because I assumed that it wouldn't be safe. But you hear some stuff in the press about gay rights in Ukraine and other places like that, so what I wanted to do was make sure that I was safe ten years ago, that wouldn't have even been a conflict. I would have just gone, yeah, we're going to Ukraine and turn up as a privileged white person, CIS, het, perceived white. So I'm breaking off my own monologue here, but I was at this LGBT conference, and one of the people on the panel, who I believe identified as a gay man said, yes, when a gay person travels what they have to do is pack their gayness away in a suitcase while they're away and do their job, then come home and unpack their suitcase again. And I said, well, excuse me, that may be a privilege. You have to be able to pack your suitcase, but I wear my transiness, if you like, all the time. And the same way that you wear your blackness all the time, you can't not be black today, can you? You can't say, what? Today? I'm going to go, I'm going to white face today, and it'd be okay. Yeah. It's a really tricky thing that we have to double think this stuff that people who have a privilege of not having to double think, never experience. And that's a real extra burden to our processing power that we have to live every day, isn't it? Oh, it is. I mean, like you, I've done a lot of work Gamal Turawa: around the world, and there were places that I won't mention the country, but I was going to do a conference there, and they asked me to send through a pen picture, which they put in their conference brochure. And they were happy with the gay thing. It wasn't a problem with that. And then they asked me to send a photograph, and I sent the photograph, and within an hour of sending the photograph, they sent me back a message saying, when you get to the airport, you need to wait at this point, and we will have a police escort to escort you to the hotel. Wow. And I was thinking, okay, what's this about? And when I got there, they said there's been a spate of attacks on black people on the transit systems, and they didn't want to risk that happening to me. Wow. Yeah. And you sort of sit there and you think, wow, I have to have an armed guard to take me from the airport to my hotel. That is scary. Joanne Lockwood: The only slight way I can relate to that is when I was in Miami, I was briefed by the bank I was working for where I couldn't go as a white mean. That's my only bit of empathy. And also in La. Downtown, around once you get out of the nice bit of La. As a white person, I would have to be careful as well, but I have the privilege as a white person to be able to go the rest of the places. So, yeah, at the time I thought, oh, so you mean the scary black people down that road and I would have been really careful. So looking back on that, that was quite a negative experience, because it reinforced the stereotype that all black people are bad if you go down there. And as a white person, you shouldn't dare venture down there. I'm going to say something which I hope doesn't sound offensive, which inevitably say that it probably will be offensive, but I almost felt like that was the black zone, the cordon zone. Was it like a zoo or something? I couldn't venture in there because I needed bars on the windows or keep the car windows rolled up, put the roof up on the car to venture into those areas. So I was almost like a safari park experience. Is this how I'm feeling now about how that was categorised as stereotyping, these different groups? And maybe that's how the people who live there felt about the segregation and how there was that much of a divide between the two communities or the two populations. But the interesting thing about that as well, Gamal Turawa: Joe, is that you have that level where we can sit there and we can rationalise, but we can think about it. But actually, there comes a point for some people where you've hit that point where fear kicks in. I mean, look at Amy Cooper recently, the woman with the dog. I mean, she was an Obama supporter, a signed up Democrat, she was part of so many groups. Yet when it came to that point of fear, that stuff just came up from nowhere. Well, it came from somewhere, obviously, and there's a wonderful book by a guy called Studs Turkel, and it's called Race. And basically what Stud does, or did, I think he's dead now. He goes around just interviewing people about a particular subject and he just writes their monologues. And the opening paragraph on this thing was about a guy talking about his wife. He said his wife was driving down this street and a group of black guys started shouting at her. Her first response was to lock all the car doors and put her foot down and go faster. He said it wasn't until she got to the end of the road before she realised what they were trying to tell her is that she was going the wrong way down a one way street. And he said, look, my wife would not say she was racist, but in that moment it came up. Joanne Lockwood: And I. Said, So when we want to do that work, it's, how Gamal Turawa: deeply do we want to get to this stuff? Because we can sit in the classroom and talk about it and say, yes, this is that. And one goes yes. But when it comes to actually living, there's those points when you find out who you are, if you pay attention, and that's where you know whether or not you've changed. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, that's very insightful. Yeah. Because the inner fight or flight trigger is your default inner self, isn't it? Gamal Turawa: Yeah. I had an experience Joanne Lockwood: in Germany, actually. I'd left the after party at a conference, thinking I knew the way back to the hotel and somehow my compass must have been pointing the wrong way because I ended up going completely the wrong direction and ended up walking through this park and my mobile phone battery was dead. So I had my satnav wasn't working, I had my laptop with me and I had a couple of drinks. I probably wasn't making the best decisions. And I got into this park and it was dark, and as I got further and further, it became blacker, for want of a better way of describing, I moved out of a white district into a much more racial diversity and then more completely black territory. And I was walking through this park and there were gangs of youth, groups of youth. I mean, gang has its own connotations about the imagery it creates, but there are groups of people who were black gathering in this park, playing with bikes. They were playing music, enjoying each other's company. And I felt really unsafe. One, because I didn't know where I was, I was lost. Two, I was a woman, they were all men. And if I'm really honest and reflect, it wasn't so much they were black, it was just they had this sort of threatening, sort of Gangy type in a place. I didn't speak the language and I was feeling really uncomfortable and it was dark and I had to walk through this park twice because I walked through it and then realised I went the wrong way and I walked back through it. And I think my biggest fear was as a woman, not as a white person. So I was conscious that I was now walking through a group of people who were men, young men, and I was more worried about it being as a woman than being a white person. And I think that was the end. And I got out that park and I got back to my hotel and I sat there and thought, lesson learned, I'm now a woman, I can't do this. I'm not invincible anymore. I think in my old life as a man, if I'd done that, I'd be more worried about my whiteness. But actually, my primary concern was about my femininity, my gender. But, yeah, as you were talking, that really brought back that fight or flight thing I had, and I was trying to judge it on whether it was racially motivated or whether it was gender motivated. I think it was more gender at the time that I was worried about. But I projected this stereotype onto the people saying, I'm at risk here from sexual violence for want of a better way or being misappropriated. It didn't help. Some of them were trying to whistle me and chat me up and talk to me, and I was like, Get me out of it. Just get me out of it. When you talk about that, that's one of the Gamal Turawa: beauties I talk about, is that it's not about being perfect, but it's about I mean, the scenario I would give that sort of ties into what you just said on. I'd gone off to Edinburgh to do some work and it was a great course, great everything. And I'm sitting on the plane at Edinburgh Airport, waiting for takeoff, and there's a voice comes over to Tanoi and the voice says, we'll be taken off in about 1015 minutes time. We're waiting for whatever we're waiting for. And this is your captain, Mary Jane Smith. And it was a female captain. I immediately felt my body tense up. I'm a diversity trainer, I've been teaching this stuff for years. But something about that suddenly thought, oh, my God, a woman pilot. And I froze and I felt my arms grab the chair. Joanne Lockwood: Right. And then it took me about a minute Gamal Turawa: or two and then I suddenly stopped and I started laughing. And my first thought was, Where the hell did that come from? And to me, it's not about the feeling, it's about recognising. The gift is recognising when it surfaces and having the awareness to stop yourself and not to keep following that path. And that's the gift for me, is recognising that you're not perfect. You've got this stuff by the very nature of your social conditioning. You have got baggage. And it's recognising that that baggage is going to surface every now and again. But are you paying attention enough to recognise when it's happening or are you just following it? It's learned to be Joanne Lockwood: able to question your own biases, isn't it? Or your own panic. Better press pause. Step back. Why do I think that actually, that's irrational, that's not logical. I'm using my biases there. Ignore that. Now that thought can just go straight out of my head, move on. And it's learning to learn how to press that pause and question yourself, isn't it? Gamal Turawa: That is it exactly. It's beautiful when you level. Yeah. It's been Joanne Lockwood: fascinating just to put a timestamp on this. We're sort of early June 2020, we're right in the middle of COVID we've just had some of the Black Matters, erupting, around the world. Where are we going now? We're coming out of lockdown. The Government's under pressure to let's go to the pubs and socialise, and we're reducing two metres down to one metre. So whilst we're not ever going to change and go back to the way we were, I mean, certainly in terms of what's happened, in terms of the Black Lives Matter, in terms of the COVID in terms of working, whatever else we're doing, so where are we going now? What's society going to look like this time next year? Oh, gosh, Gamal Turawa: thanks. That's an easy one, right? Yeah. Wow. Do you know something? I honestly don't know, but I recognise we've never. Been here before. It's almost like, to me, it feels as a black man, it's like we're touching the goal. And we've never come this close to the goal before. It's unknown territory. Okay? Yeah, it's exciting. I love it. Personally, I love this. The energy behind it is incredible and I'm hoping that it will create something that we can't go back from. But I don't know what that looks just I'm just riding this wave. And there was John Amici, I was on TV with him the other day, said this thing. He said, diversity is like pushing a boulder uphill. Right? And there are those of us that have been pushing it for years and years and years, and we're pushing it and it's a slow push because it's a heavy boulder. Things like this come along and a few more hands join and it becomes a little easier to push it up the hill. But the question is, how long do those hands stay with us? And how much hill is left or how much hill are we going to move up? The exciting thing is there are now loads of hands on this boulder and it's about how do we maximise? And this is where people like yourself and myself and other people that do this wonderful work come into our own. This is where we're now the motivators. Come on, you can do this. We know what to use. Martin Luther King we've been to the promised land. We've seen the mountain. We've been to the mountaintop. We know what the goal can be and it's just helping people get there. Yeah. Joanne Lockwood: It's standing at the top, looking down, saying, Come on, we can do this, and then making sure that the way down isn't full of crocodile pits on the way down either. Once we get over that top, we've got to make sure that the journey the other side is safe because we can't fall down a crevice and go back to the start again. This is not Snakes and Ladders, where we get mick with this gain and then we drop down a hole. Yeah, exactly. Gamal Turawa: The sadness to this and this kind of links into something I was watching this morning, is that there are people out there that seem hell bent to destroy this. And you see some of the stuff that's going on. I mean, there was a video that's come out this morning of a group of people attacking two police officers in London, and it is vile. The officers are on the floor and these people are dancing round them with their mobile phones. And you sort of look at something like that and you think, and there were black youths. That was what was so annoying. And you sit there and you think, that gives certain people permission to take their hand off the boulder. And that's the sadness. That's the sadness for me, yeah. Without detracting Joanne Lockwood: anything from what you just said, I see that in my own life. It only takes one celebrity to start banding around negativity and it then calls into question the legitimacy and plays back into that trope that black people are angry, aggressive people, trans people are predators. It allows people to start playing on those tropes, to seed that division again, should say, try and removing hands from that boulder to allow it to roll back because they've got a protected interest in keeping that boulder backwards, not forwards. That's what we see all the time. Yeah. Quick question Gamal Turawa: for you, if I may. Are you aware of the JK. Rowling comments? Joanne Lockwood: I am. And as we were talking, that was the person and the fact that Daniel Radcliffe took in there as well and posted some stuff. So. Yeah, it's a JK Rowling type visibility that makes MPs lawmakers policymakers kind of scared because they think if someone's has got a high profile, they've got a higher mountain to shout from sometimes, and that's the kind of person that does more damage. The other side of that is it creates angry activists that don't do sometimes the cause of favour because they're giving people a reason to think, actually trans people are dangerous, they're angry, they're just this, that and the other. And you almost like, reinforce the stereotype and it's making sure that we amplify the good voices and attenuate the bad voices and learning to ignore JK. Rowling and saying she has an opinion. It's not my opinion, it's not the opinion of the world. And actually, just because she writes good books doesn't mean say she's an expert. Gamal Turawa: Yeah. And the other side of that as well is about, and I've learned this recently, very much recently, giving yourself permission to be angry. It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be upset. It's okay to be frustrated. It's not okay to be destructive. And I got that from I had a friend know, when this first happened in Minneapolis with the was the whole of that weekend. I was really, really angry. And a friend of mine, she's a very good friend, at reflecting back what she sees. And she goes, I've never seen that before. She goes, what? She goes, you were angry, but it was a focused anger. You were angry that you wanted but you wanted to do something, you didn't want to destroy something, you wanted to build something from this. And I think that's the thing is about recognising that, yes, I'm going to be angry, I'm going to be frustrated, I'm going to be pissed off, but what do I do with that? What do I do with it? Because that's what gives me the permission to move forward. That's what motivates me. If I just sit with it and allow it to talk, like just do nothing, then it becomes destructive. I'm angry, but what am I going to do with it? And I think out of, if anything, for me, that's the biggest lesson that's come out of this for me. I have every right to be angry. Joanne Lockwood: Wow. That is a powerful close. Amazing. Gamal Turawa: Thanks, G. You're welcome. Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, thank you. Well, I'm sure everyone who's listening is going to agree there's lots to ponder there and take inspiration from. And it's okay to be angry. It's what we do with that anger that's the important thing, how we focus that. So how can our listeners get in touch with you? You can get in touch with me on my email, which Gamal Turawa: is info@purplefrogonnections.com, or you can cheque out my LinkedIn profile. I'm sure that you will have my name spelt on your website, on the podcast, either of those, or you can contact me via Twitter. Purple wisdom is my Twitter handle. More than happy to talk there or my website, www.purplefrogconnections.com. Joanne Lockwood: Awesome. I'm sure many people are going to be in contact with you. It's been extreme privilege to have this just over an hour with you today and hear your thoughts, insights and also a huge thank you to the listeners for tuning in and listening. Please do subscribe to keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bites podcast that's bites. Please tell your friends and your colleagues. I have a number of exciting guests lined up over the next few weeks and months that I'm sure you'll also be inspired by. Remember, if you'd like to be a guest, then please let me know. I'd also welcome any feedback and suggestions you may have to jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. So, to wrap up, my name is Joanne Lockwood and.