Some years back, when I was working at the New Economics Foundation as a researcher, a trustee of the organisation called me. I had met him briefly the day before, but was still surprised to hear his voice on the line. He told me he organised art events and eventually got to the point of his call by saying that a panel he had organised was a bit too stale and having met me he thought I could bring some “edge” to the conversation. I laughed, saying I didn’t know anything about art, and in any case wasn’t available. I put the phone down, bemused.

I am assuming by “edge” he meant that he needed me – a brown woman from a working-class background – to counter his panel, which was presumably all white, and no doubt too male and too posh. I suppose I should have been happy to be invited; and, while this was textbook tokenism, if I’d known something about the topic I might have accepted. After all, at the very least I was asked.

On Tuesday, the Institute for Fiscal Studies launched a report introducing a five-year review of inequalities – including income, wealth, gender and race – led by the leading economist Sir Angus Deaton. Having worked on inequality for over a decade, I agree that inequality in the UK is dangerously pronounced and is undermining democracy. However, I’m not at all excited about what this latest commission will conclude because they will probably have some of the same blind spots of all the commissions that have come before. Why do I think this? Well, the 13 experts who will mould and shape this project are all white.

The exclusion of experts from different ethnic communities speaks volumes about how inequality is understood and who is allowed to be influential on the topic. Racism is deeply intertwined with historic and modern wealth divides. The obscene levels of income and wealth inequality, with the most recent rich list showing a record number of billionaires in the UK is about our economic system. But the winners and losers of the neoliberal order are not equally distributed – those from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups are twice as likely to be unemployed as white British adults; we have to send more CVs to get an interview and we’re much more likely to grow up poor.

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In my experience of being that person in the room always having to tell the economists they are forgetting important social factors, I can tell you that those who occupy these prestigious influential positions keep missing three key things in their analysis of inequality – namely the importance of power, of prejudice and of the elitist political system. Could it be because they’ve always had power, never experienced prejudice and have friends working in politics? Even on the left we have white economists from privileged backgrounds who think racism is simply a consequence of economic inequality, rather than understand that a grossly unequal system can only be built and justified through racial, class, gender and other forms of prejudice.

Earlier this week I spoke at an event at the London School of Economics on a report by the EU Progressive Society group. The report is entitled “Sustainable Equality: well-being for everyone in Europe”, but in its 200 pages it didn’t mention racism once and there wasn’t one picture of a person of colour. And yes, you guessed it, 29 of the 30 commissioners were white. Of course when I mentioned it, I was met with some defensiveness, and a line about how they were actually thinking about Africa when they were planning the report (collective eye roll). When research groups don’t have a cross-section of people from different backgrounds and with lived experience of the issues they are discussing, they produce ignorant findings.

Far too many thinktanks are hideously unrepresentative of society, especially in research roles

And then there is the issue of being excluded in the research elite – something BAME academics can attest to. Research institutions are part of the political and economic ecosystem that feeds the way we discuss everything from culture to taxes. People of colour deserve to be part of this thinking ecology, to be afforded the opportunities to use our brains as much as anyone else. Far too many thinktanks are hideously unrepresentative of society, especially in research roles, with the few black and Asian staff generally relegated to “operational” roles such as HR and IT. We are still hidebound by the traditional image of the thinker, the bewigged, legging-clad white man. This image has made it difficult for women to break into such circles and doubly difficult for people of colour. We simply do not fit the stereotype.

I’m not saying that representation is everything – we only need to look at the disappointing positions of the home secretary, Sajid Javid – but it does count for something. Actions speak louder than words, and, just like too many other institutions and commissions, the IFS Deaton inequality review fails to reflect equality.

• Faiza Shaheen is the director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies