How to conquer workplace discrimination when HR doesn't solve the problem | Alvin Hall

How to conquer workplace discrimination when HR doesn't solve the problem

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Workplace discrimination is often subtle but very real, says financial educator and author Alvin Hall. The majority of society may not always see it but minority groups experience it on a daily bias.

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ALVIN HALL :

Alvin Hall is an internationally renowned financial educator, television and radio broadcaster, bestselling author, and regular contributor to magazines, newspapers, and websites.

For five years on the BBC, he hosted the highly rated and award-winning series, “Your Money or Your Life,” on which he offered both practical financial and psychological advice to people about how to take control of and fix their financial problems. His radio program, Jay-Z: From Brooklyn to the Boardroom, won the Wincott Foundation Press and Broadcasting Award for the best radio program for 2006. Hall has also hosted programs on current events and contemporary art for BBC Radio 4 including After Katrina and most recently, Alvin Hall’s Generations of Money. An eight-part television series for BBC World News called Alvin’s Guide to Good Business was broadcast internationally in 2010. In the US, he is a regular contributor on personal finance and the economy on NPR’s Tell Me More with Michel Martin.

Among Hall’s bestselling books are: You and Your Money: It’s More than Just the Numbers, Your Money or Your Life (winner of the WHSmith 2003 People’s Choice Award), What Not to Spend, Getting Started in Mutual Funds 2nd Edition, and Getting Started in Stocks 3rd Edition. His children’s book, Show Me the Money, has been published in over 20 foreign-language editions. In the US, the book has been named a Best Children’s Book of the Year (2009) by the Bank St. Book Committee, which is run by the Bank Street College of Education. It was also named a Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People (2009) by a joint project of the National Book Council for Social Studies and the Children’s Book Council.

Hall lives in New York City where he designs and teaches classes about the investment markets for financial services companies, banks, regulatory authorities, as well as information and technology vendors. His acclaimed classroom programs and speaking engagements have provided thousands of people with a solid grounding in such topics as the workings of financial markets, investment products, effective investment strategies, reducing debt, planning for retirement and personal financial management. Alvin Hall is a member of the NYSE Euronext Financial Literacy Advisory Committee to help develop programs to improve knowledge about all aspects of personal finance among the general public. He is also on the Acquisitions Committee of the Studio Museum in Harlem.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Alvin Hall: Many people think that as you rise through the ranks and become successful and you start earning money—as an African American—that all of this prejudiced interaction goes away, that it doesn’t exist.

But you can walk into a building and a guard in a building, because of the way you look, the way you’re dressed decides he or she is going to put you in your place. They’re going to show you who has the power here.

So when that happens you have a whole different dynamic that you have to deal with. And I can tell you from experience that when this happens to you, other white people around you don’t see it. They just don’t see it. But you can tell by the tone of voice, the way they delay dealing with you, all of these subtle things tell you what’s going on, and then you have to find a way, if this is a place you come to repeatedly, to adjust. But the major thing I tell everyone is that you have to get this out of your soul before you go home because you can’t take this type of anger into your house, because it sits there, it festers, and that anger becomes more undermining long term. Because eventually you’re going to walk into a building and somebody’s going to do that to you, and you’re not going to be able to handle it, you’re going to lose your temper.

Today I feel that if you live in a big urban area you can basically have whatever identity you want, because people will at least not (in general) attack you, yell at you, call you names. That does happen, but you can go through a whole day, maybe a whole week without that happening.

When I was growing up I was lucky if I could get through a day not being reminded in a pejorative way that I was black, tha...

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