EU Confidential

We return to the theme of diversity in Brussels, a year after POLITICO’s Brussels So White article series, which looked at racial diversity and related themes in the EU’s de facto capital.

The interview guests are two high-ranking lobbyists and public relations strategists, Lisa Ross and Gurpreet Brar from Edelman, who speak about their personal experiences of Brussels as people of color.

Ross told us that “it is really important to not flip the dominance. I sent off a team to do a multimillion-dollar pitch. They were all women. And as we were preparing, I worried 'oh my God, we've got an all-female team' because isn't that the same as having an all-male team? Isn't that the same as having an all-white team?”

Brar said: “My identity is extremely complex. I grew up in a household of Indian parents, ate Indian food. I listened to Bollywood music. I watch Ru Paul’s drag race and I was a gay man that was trying to deal with my sexuality growing up in a very, very impoverished area of Birmingham (U.K.). So my identity is not one single layer. It's like almost like an onion”

He added: “I am British, but I am also European. I'm really not going anywhere. We're still going to have to live in this environment together, so how do we then make sure that we are living positively?”

In the panel we discuss how Hillary Clinton’s entry into Europe’s migration debate backfired and the emergence of a conservative wing in European civil society.

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