Liberté, Égalité, Diversité: how a french journalist became the face and voice of diversity in Brazil

Image: Alexandra Loras | Source: Glamurama UOL

In 2012 Alexandra Loras packed her bags to leave France and move to Brazil. Her husband Damien Loras had been nominated by president Nicolas Sarkozy to lead the French consulate in Sao Paulo. 

At the time, she worked as a journalist in Paris with a highly-accomplished portfolio that included TF1 and France Télévisions – some of the country’s main TV channels. But Loras felt that because of her skin colour, she was only ever assigned projects associated with entertainment, but never politics. Even though she had graduated from one of France’s most prestigious universities, Sciences Po. 

Loras confesses that the idea of moving to a new country with racial diversity seemed rather appealing to her. Before her arrival, she believed Brazil to be the “world’s biggest racial democracy”. With a population of over 210 million citizens, Brazil is the 7th most populous country in the world. More than 56% of Brazilians define themselves as Afro-descendant, making it the largest number of Black people outside of Africa. 

Loras naively expected that number to be proportionately reflected in the media, politics and executive boardrooms across the country. Instead, she was faced with the harsh reality of a nation plagued by a long history of systemic racism and economic inequality. 

It wasn’t too long until Loras had her own personal experiences of discrimination. She tells me that while hosting functions at the French consulate, guests often mistook her for the receptionist because she was the only person of colour at the venue. “Even if I were the receptionist, I’d like to have been treated with dignity”, she reiterates.

Purpose by a Thousand Cuts

Although the experiences at the consulate presented themselves in a new scenario, the feeling of being the only person of colour in the room was all too familiar to Loras. Born in Paris to a white French mother and an absent Gambian father, Loras grew up as the only Black person in her entire family. Her other four siblings all share the same mother but with three different fathers. 

Diversity is not only in Loras’ DNA but also in her family history. “I am muslim-jewish-catholic born”, she tells me. Paradoxically, it was among her relatives that Loras experienced the first of many racial microaggressions in her life.

Remarkably, she managed to find the silver lining in all of it. She explains, without an ounce of self-pity in her voice, that being discriminated against by her own family taught her to be compassionate from an early age. She had to learn to forgive them because they were the people she loved the most. 

But outside her family, being black in France wasn’t any easier for Loras. “All my life I’ve been asked where I am from”, she recounts by reminding me that whether it is in France or overseas, she needs to explain her ethnicity because only White people seem to fit the image of what is considered to be a ‘français de souche’ or a ‘true French’ citizen. “It doesn’t matter if I graduated from Sciences Po or worked in French television” – she adds.  

Those experiences would later encourage Loras to co-write a book with Brazilian historian, Carlos Machado, entitled ‘Gênios da Humanidade’ (Geniuses of Humanity in English) – a compilation of African and Afro-descendant profiles with great accomplishments in the fields of science, technology and innovation. By highlighting those who had been silenced or erased from history books, she hopes to make people of colour proud of their origins and inspired to express their own genius.  

Finding her own voice 

When the Charlie Hebdo shooting happened in January 2015, Loras was approached by the Brazilian media to talk about the episode and the topic of freedom of expression. She was later reprimanded by French officials for the interviews. The protocol in France prevents the wives of diplomats from publicly expressing personal opinions on political issues. 

“I was trapped because I had married a diplomat”, she says while pointing out the irony that as a journalist, she could no longer freely express her thoughts, even on the very topic of freedom of speech.

Determined to speak her mind, Loras hired a PR agency to get more media exposure – a decision that would eventually lead her to a career in public speaking. Since then, Loras has been featured on a plethora of media outlets and conferences throughout Brazil discussing the topics of racial and gender diversity. 

From Microaggressions to Macro-Integration

After much media exposure, Loras decided to ‘walk her talk’ and start a consulting firm to help bring more diversity into circles of influence in Brazil. 

“I believe we need to invite more diverse voices rather than leaving it to the elites to decide what is best for us” – she remarks with a blend of conviction and enthusiasm in her voice.  

Through her business, Loras helps corporations understand how they can increase their annual revenue by forming executive teams with greater racial and gender diversity. She proposes that by adding different perspectives to the boardroom, companies can market their products and services in a language that is more representative of the reality lived by consumers who belong to less advantaged groups. 

What strikes me the most about Loras’ work is that it isn’t purely based on  ideology but rather grounded in results and data. She tells me with a sense of pride, that since its creation, her company has helped increase the racial and gender diversity in executive positions by more than 400% in Brazil. This includes a partnership with one of the country’s largest banks, Bradesco. 

She validates the positive impact of such initiatives by citing a study from McKinsey & Company. According to the research, enterprises that are embracing the concept of racial diversity “are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their respective national industry medians.” She adds that another study presented by a Brazilian magazine, Época, indicates that the local economy loses at least €120 billion every year due to the income inequality endured by the majority of Afro-descendants. 

She pauses for a second to remind me – or perhaps herself – that despite the accomplishments, her work is only “a drop in the ocean” if we take into account the scale of the problem affecting minorities in Brazil and across the globe. 

But for Loras, the only obstacle separating us from real change is the lack of collective willpower within circles of influence. Before ending our conversation, she invites me to imagine just how much progress we could make if inequality was addressed with the same sense of urgency that has been dedicated to the Covid crisis.