Dr Josephine Kwhali believes using the term “unconscious” is like a get out of jail card – with years of anti-racist debates and race equality charter marks and if it is still unconscious, there is something very worrying about what it will take for the unconscious to become conscious.
She raises the question of what more needs to be written, talked about and presented in order for “supposedly intelligent people who are educating the next generation…” to gain a degree of consciousness and understanding of racism within the institution and how it disproportionately effected minority communities.
While institutions have managed to make changes to support white middle class women however not enough has been done for Black, minority or working class women in the same way. However this change shows that institutions are capable of taking initiative, and done so consciously.
In her speech at the launch of Inside the Ivory Tower, Dr Kwhali said she was drawn towards higher education, imagining it to be a place welcoming intellectual challenge, interested in different discourses and ways of learning. However, she found that institutions were instead filled with privilege and dismissive of any knowledge that wasn’t from North America or Europe. She specifically found rejection of the daily struggles of Black students, their families and those not from privileged backgrounds (Dr Josephine Kwhali speaking at the VIP launch of Inside the Ivory Tower in November 2017, 2018).
Dr Kwhali said she noticed a different type of racism within education that institutions felt could be solved by including a few Black students into the courses. As a student of colour within a course filled with a majority of white students, I understand the feelings of tokenism that I constantly had to challenge. Being such a visible minority, I felt the need to constantly remind myself that I here due to my skills and not because I tick many boxes on the diversity scale (Female, Muslim, Indian, public school education, etc). I do feel this led to feelings of imposter syndrome or that I made it into university due to reasons outside of my skills. This experience, however negative, does mean I have found I am able to better relate to students of colour when it comes to issues such as dealing with academic validation or feeling forced to explore parts of your identity because it is different to the majority of students.
Bibliography:
UCU – University and College Union, 2016. Witness: unconscious bias. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6XDUGPoaFw>.
2018. Dr Josephine Kwhali speaking at the VIP launch of Inside the Ivory Tower in November 2017. Available at: <https://blackbritishacademics.co.uk/josephine-kwhali/>.
Hi Safia,
Dr Josephine Kwhali”s message is powerful. I was left very impacted by Kahali’s positioning around the term unconscious bias, not accepting this, but highlighting it as systemic and a serious problem for universities to contend with.
I recall taking this training when I had first started my teaching role and was not aware to think of it in this way. However, one of the predominate benefits of this unit how it is consistently raising my awareness the more discourse I am exposed to.
I enjoyed reading ‘How to facilitate open discussions about Racism, Implicit Bias and Stereotypes in the Workshop Setting by Dr. Gurnam Singh’, Shades Of Noir.
There were some interesting points covered and guidance provided such as ‘Encourage openness before, during and after an event and always follow-up with participants’ (Singh, 2018).
Dr. Singh asks the simple question; ‘but what is it to carry out social justice work?’ Dr. Singh highlights and emphasises the importance of creating safe spaces for participants within training workshops. He goes on to describe how through participants applying critical analysis to a series of written case studies, stereotypes profiles of implicit/unconscious bias could be identified and explored/discussed in safe ways, but what really stuck out for me was his reference to ; Anti-Racism Training (ART) – Head, Heart & Hand Approach (Cognitive, Affective & Practical methodological processes’ (singh, 200 which were used in the aforementioned case studies, but it is clearly through emotional thinking as well as the objectively and retrieval of key identifications of bias within the texts that are the key to making a bigger difference;
‘it becomes the task of the facilitator to building empathy, understanding and strengthening practical responses in the hearts and mind of participants.’ (Singh, 2018)
‘We all must accept that we have a role to play, and that there is a lot of learning to be fostered on both sides.'(Singh, 2018).
SoN (2019). How to facilitate open discussions about Racism, Implicit Bias and Stereotypes in the Workshop Setting by Dr. Gurnam Singh, CBE. [online] Shades Of Noir. Available at: https://shadesofnoir.org.uk/how-to-facilitate-open-discussions-about-racism-implicit-bias-and-stereotypes-in-the-workshop-setting-by-dr-gurnam-singh-cbe