If you're racialized, foreign-born, or outside the network—you were never meant to get in. Written by Lovette Jallow, award-winning author and expert in structural inclusion, racial equity, and AI ethics.
There is so much here that applies to so many western countries. You could edit/replace Sweden for the USA and all of the observations of systemic bias, and its institutional shortcomings when staffing a diverse workforce, would apply perfectly. As you noted, asking the same men who designed the system to fix it is a failing proposition.
Absolutely—so much of this applies across the Western world. But as I’ve said before: same, but different. The difference is Sweden isn’t whether white supremacy exists it’s how it moves. Here, it’s cloaked in politeness, neutrality, and “inclusion” campaigns that deflect accountability. It’s not always loud or overt it’s strategic, passive, and rooted in social silence and different codes even Americans do not comprehend until a timeline of two years when exclusion will hit even white Americans.
In the U.S., the violence is often visible. In Sweden, it’s quiet, institutional, and gaslit into denial. That’s why many struggle to name it until they’ve lived it.
So yes, you could swap the country name in parts. But if you don’t account for how supremacy is expressed in different contexts, you’ll miss what’s unique and why people like me have to specialize in decoding the dialect of the system we’re in.
Black Americans who love hear miss it so do white Americans and brits alike. Racism is parasitic it morphs so you miss it and think it’s alike everywhere but it’s not that’s why it’s important to detect its various “dialects” so it can be dismantled.
Although the US long had overt racism in its policing and now in the highest reaches of its government, the corporate arena was, until somewhat recently, similar to what you describe of Sweden in your piece; polite and urbane, yet fiercely insular.
Here in the states, many choice jobs also go unadvertised and filled from within the ranks of the connected. Like Sweden, those in the connected inner sanctum are almost always White, generally a product of dynastic preferences in admissions to elite academic institutions perpetuating this clandestine network. A study here also showed "ethnic sounding" names on mock resumes got fewer, or no responses, compared to anglicized names sounding more likely to belong to someone White. This was true for the fictional White applicant when having identical or worse qualifications than the fictional Black applicant.
Before recent public backpedaling by US companies from diversity initiatives in hiring, in hopes of appeasing the current regime, companies gave the same lip service to diversity in their hiring and press release materials. The reality was, like you observed in Sweden, for all of the training and performative vows to an inclusive workplace, most corporations were hardly more diverse than before. Exceptionally qualified minority applicants here routinely lost out because of "not being the right fit" for a company's culture, or some other nebulous reason resulting in a White male hire.
After many companies here announced this year that they were rescinding DEI initiatives, many BIPOC people protested. Many others simply shrugged indifferently. Those who shrugged saw no difference in overall hiring or staff composition after commitments were made to DEI initiatives, especially in leadership. For all the coverage of America's blatantly overt racism, I wager that it and Sweden's C-suites have more in common with cloak and dagger racism than not.
This is such a deeply thoughtful reflection thank you. You’ve articulated what I often describe as “aesthetic inclusion,” where systems learn to mimic the performance of diversity without shifting power.
I work with Swedish companies operating in the U.S., have family there, and my roots also extend to the U.S. through the Freedmen line so I’m familiar with both systems. What you describe resonates deeply. The methods may differ America’s blunt force vs. Sweden’s polite exclusion but the outcomes often mirror each other. That shrug you mention? It’s exhaustion disguised as acceptance. And it speaks volumes. Thank you for reading with such clarity and the feedback 🫶🏾🙏🏾
There is so much here that applies to so many western countries. You could edit/replace Sweden for the USA and all of the observations of systemic bias, and its institutional shortcomings when staffing a diverse workforce, would apply perfectly. As you noted, asking the same men who designed the system to fix it is a failing proposition.
Absolutely—so much of this applies across the Western world. But as I’ve said before: same, but different. The difference is Sweden isn’t whether white supremacy exists it’s how it moves. Here, it’s cloaked in politeness, neutrality, and “inclusion” campaigns that deflect accountability. It’s not always loud or overt it’s strategic, passive, and rooted in social silence and different codes even Americans do not comprehend until a timeline of two years when exclusion will hit even white Americans.
In the U.S., the violence is often visible. In Sweden, it’s quiet, institutional, and gaslit into denial. That’s why many struggle to name it until they’ve lived it.
So yes, you could swap the country name in parts. But if you don’t account for how supremacy is expressed in different contexts, you’ll miss what’s unique and why people like me have to specialize in decoding the dialect of the system we’re in.
Black Americans who love hear miss it so do white Americans and brits alike. Racism is parasitic it morphs so you miss it and think it’s alike everywhere but it’s not that’s why it’s important to detect its various “dialects” so it can be dismantled.
Although the US long had overt racism in its policing and now in the highest reaches of its government, the corporate arena was, until somewhat recently, similar to what you describe of Sweden in your piece; polite and urbane, yet fiercely insular.
Here in the states, many choice jobs also go unadvertised and filled from within the ranks of the connected. Like Sweden, those in the connected inner sanctum are almost always White, generally a product of dynastic preferences in admissions to elite academic institutions perpetuating this clandestine network. A study here also showed "ethnic sounding" names on mock resumes got fewer, or no responses, compared to anglicized names sounding more likely to belong to someone White. This was true for the fictional White applicant when having identical or worse qualifications than the fictional Black applicant.
Before recent public backpedaling by US companies from diversity initiatives in hiring, in hopes of appeasing the current regime, companies gave the same lip service to diversity in their hiring and press release materials. The reality was, like you observed in Sweden, for all of the training and performative vows to an inclusive workplace, most corporations were hardly more diverse than before. Exceptionally qualified minority applicants here routinely lost out because of "not being the right fit" for a company's culture, or some other nebulous reason resulting in a White male hire.
After many companies here announced this year that they were rescinding DEI initiatives, many BIPOC people protested. Many others simply shrugged indifferently. Those who shrugged saw no difference in overall hiring or staff composition after commitments were made to DEI initiatives, especially in leadership. For all the coverage of America's blatantly overt racism, I wager that it and Sweden's C-suites have more in common with cloak and dagger racism than not.
Once again you've written an excellent piece.
This is such a deeply thoughtful reflection thank you. You’ve articulated what I often describe as “aesthetic inclusion,” where systems learn to mimic the performance of diversity without shifting power.
I work with Swedish companies operating in the U.S., have family there, and my roots also extend to the U.S. through the Freedmen line so I’m familiar with both systems. What you describe resonates deeply. The methods may differ America’s blunt force vs. Sweden’s polite exclusion but the outcomes often mirror each other. That shrug you mention? It’s exhaustion disguised as acceptance. And it speaks volumes. Thank you for reading with such clarity and the feedback 🫶🏾🙏🏾