On Love Island, Kamala Harris and the worthwhile inconvenience of inclusivity

“Give your daughters difficult names. Names that command the full use of the tongue.My name makes you want to tell me the truth.My name does not allow me to trust anyonewho cannot pronounce it right.”

—Warsan Shire

Among the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, which I'm proud to belong to, names are very important. Names carry meanings, they can detail the circumstances of your birth or be a note of thanksgiving or reflect your parents' hopes for what your life will be. We hold an event called a 'naming ceremony' when children are born, solely for the purpose of bestowing names on a child. Names are very important.

Personally, I believe that names can be pregnant with purpose. My full name ‘Morolayo’ is not a word, it’s a sentence. It means that my parents rejoiced over the wealth I brought into the family simply by virtue of my birth and it carries a promulgation that I will be a source of spiritual, emotional and financial wealth wherever I go. The desire to live up to that is core to my identity.

Yoruba is a tonal language, so pronunciation can often radically alter meanings, in the same way that the word 'row' can either mean 'argument' or 'a line of seats' depending on how you pronounce the 'o'. The 3 ‘o’s in my full name are all pronounced differently, and so you have to do a little bit of tongue gymnastics to get it right. I love my name!

Rola is very often mispronounced (it should rhyme with 'collar' not 'solar') but the use of the shortened form, Rola, removes some of that attachment for me because it is essentially a nickname and doesn't have a meaning. The only person that calls me by my full name is my dad, and my mum occasionally when she's trying to make a point!

However, somewhere around the age of 10, having relocated to England, I shortened my name to Rola to save myself a few minutes at the beginning of every new encounter. I don't bemoan this decision, my full name is very hard to get right if you don't speak Yoruba. And I love my full name and it's meaning so much that I prefer not to hear it pronounced incorrectly on a daily basis. Rola is very often mispronounced (it should rhyme with 'collar' not 'solar') but the use of the shortened form, Rola, removes some of that attachment for me because it is essentially a nickname and doesn't have a meaning. The only person that calls me by my full name is my dad, and my mum occasionally when she's trying to make a point!

While watching the historic swearing into office of Kamala Harris, my heart sank when at this historic moment, Justice Sonia Sotomayor mispronounced Kamala Harris' name. My heart didn't sink because of the mispronunciation, I'm sure that it was a mistake made under pressure, as I'd like to think that Justice Sotomayor had enquired as to the correct pronunciation and practised in advance.

No, what struck me was that Kamala Harris' very subtle response was so innately familiar to me. She did the polite, almost imperceptibly longer blink and nod you do to place emphasis on the correct pronunciation of your name in situations where you have to say it immediately after someone has mispronounced it. 'Kamala' means lotus flower in Sanskrit and she details the significance of the meaning in her memoir, 'The Truths We Hold'. I can't speak for her, but for me, on that most historic of occasions, it would really matter to me that my name was heard correctly, just as my parents intended, in it's full glory and with it's true meaning.

Around the same period in January 2021, another 'namegate' scandal was rumbling between two ex-contestants from the UK version of the reality show, Love Island. One contestant, Lucie Donlan was accused of repeatedly mispronouncing the name of another contestant, Yewanda Biala, despite 3 weeks of living together 24/7, going as far as saying "yeah whatever, you know what I mean" when corrected and asking if she could call her a nickname instead. Given the huge popularity of the show, the incident sparked a lot of much needed discussion. 

One of my favourite recurring comments on social media relating to the incident was along the lines of "if you can learn how to pronounce Schwarzenegger or Tchaikovsky, you can learn how to pronounce my name!"

The expectation is not for people to get it right on the first, second or even fourth go....I don’t get at all upset if someone genuinely tries but is not able to pronounce my name.

To be clear, people like me and Yewande - a fellow Nigerian, who prior to Love Island was a scientist specialising in oncology vaccines - are aware that we live in a country and work in spaces where we are a minority and our names are highly unusual. The expectation is not for people to get it right on the first, second or even fourth go. I don’t get at all upset if someone genuinely tries but is not able to pronounce my name. However what leaves me feeling unincluded is when someone doesn't ask at all, i.e. they just assume a pronunciation, despite the fact that they've never come across my name before, or they ask one time, pronounce it correctly at first and then never try again.

Following the brutal murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the well overdue awareness it sparked around racism and anti-blackness, there is now a lot of talk in the corporate world and in some cases, significant effort and expenditure to increase recruitment of black people into senior roles. However, these efforts will come to nought if staff are hired but can not be retained.

It must be understood that microagressions like mispronouncing someone's name which do not seem significant in the moment can have an incremental impact on a person's psyche and their level of comfort in the workplace. When I work in an environment where nobody is bothered about whether they're getting my name right or not, how can I feel truly valued?

The fact is that sometimes inclusivity is inconvenient. I will reschedule a team meeting to a time when a colleague who works flexibly can join or choose an appropriate meeting room so a colleague who is a wheelchair user can attend in person, should they wish to. This is always a little bit more effort but it's the right thing to do.

On a human level, it is kind, it is empathetic, it is inclusive to take the steps necessary to ensure you get someone's name right, whether that name is completely foreign or something more familiar like 'Bret' with one 't' and not two. It can be awkward and time consuming to have to pause when you're busy and just trying to pass on an instruction or send a quick email, but the fact is that sometimes inclusivity is inconvenient. I will reschedule a team meeting to a time when a colleague who works flexibly can join or choose an appropriate meeting room so a colleague who is a wheelchair user can attend in person, should they wish to. This is always a little bit more effort but it's the right thing to do.

For anyone who is thinking, "I want to get this right but I don't want it to be awkward", here are some useful things I do when I am on the other side and I want to make sure I get other people's names right:

• Cultivate an attitude of stopping and thinking when you see a name that is unfamiliar to you, don't make any assumptions about pronunciation, just ask

• When the holder of an unusual name pronounces their own name, listen intently, ask them to repeat it, discretely write it down phonetically if you need to. (I say 'discretely' because nothing makes one feel quite as othered as someone butchering their name in order to write it down phonetically!!)

• Be mindful to not just ask once, get it right the first time and then revert to a mispronunciation. This happens very often. Instead ask as many times as you need to get it right, but do make a concerted effort to learn it so you don't have to ask more than a few times.

• If you know the correct pronunciation of a colleague's name, make the effort to correct those who you notice repeatedly getting someone else’s name wrong, but do this with kindness and in private.

Until next time.