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JEDI Reflection Points - Powerful Tools for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Focused on Self-Reflection and Growth - JEDI Reflection Points Thanks to Phil for sharing this one.

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JEDI Reflection Points - Powerful Tools for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Focused on Self-Reflection and Growth

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Powerful Tools for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Focused on Self-Reflection and Growth Justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion are critical topics for all. We invite you to participate in our journey to better understand, experience, and accept differences and work to make our world a better place. Get Started

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Occupational Wellness for Health and Wellbeing

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Occupational Wellness for Health and Wellbeing

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Occupational Wholeness for Health and Wellbeing - Google Books

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This practical book introduces a new, research-based model of occupational wholeness, a way of conceptualising satisfaction with what one does to meet needs for being, belonging and becoming.

It explores how to: conceptualise people's life stories through the model; take vital steps to help identify any problems; draw personal profiles; introduce intervention strategies for promoting wellbeing. Focusing on enhancing wellbeing, rather than ill health, the concept of occupational wholeness supports people to feel more control of their own lives and helps to identify what balance can be created, while recognising personal limitations and environmental restrictions. Alongside theoretical background, it includes practice applications and practical tools, with scenarios and activities to consolidate learning. Providing a unique combination of the practice and theory of occupational science, Yazdani integrates occupational science, psychology and sociology with clinical experience of working with diverse groups of people in different countries.

This book is an important guide and reference for occupational therapists, occupational scientists, counsellors and life coaches.

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Occupational Wholeness for Health and Wellbeing

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This practical book introduces a new, research-based model of occupational wholeness, a way of conceptualising satisfaction with what one does to meet needs for being, belonging and becoming. It explores how to: conceptualise people's life stories through the model; take vital steps to help identify any problems; draw personal profiles; introduce intervention strategies for promoting wellbeing.

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Thanks to Phil for this one!

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Diverse Asian American Families and Communities: Culture, Structure and Education (P1: Why They Differ)

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Diverse Asian American Families and Communities: Culture, Structure and Education (P1: Why They Differ)

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Thanks to Phil for this one!

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Dr Anita Atwal: My Career in 5 Photographs - reflections on belonging in occupational therapy

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Dr Anita Atwal: My Career in 5 Photographs - reflections on belonging in occupational therapy

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Dr Anita Atwal: My Career in 5 Photographs – Glasgow Caledonian University Occupational Therapy Blog (wordpress.com)

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This slide deck from the US anti-racist organisation, Diverse OT has some excellent questions that educators can ask themselves.

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Toni Solaru, MS, OTD, OTR/L, QMHP (@tonisolaru)

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I thought this quote was fantastic

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This is a shared document created within a workshop I ran. It has lots of good ideas - and you are welcome to add to it.

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A comment by a former President of the AOTA has sparked distress and anger within the Black OT community in the USA. Here is a response from a white, male ally.

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A post shared by Luke Depner 🤓 OT, CSRS, cert-MMOA (@otinpatient)

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Teaching Participation in Occupations to First Year Occupational Therapy Students by Rayya Ghul and Ian Marsh

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Teaching Participation in Occupations to First Year Occupational Therapy Students by Rayya Ghul and Ian Marsh

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Teaching Participation in Occupations to First Year Occupational Therapy Students: An Action Research Study - Rayya Ghul, Ian Marsh, 2013 (sagepub.com)

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Contexts of Participation by Rayya Ghul and Ian Marsh

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Contexts of Participation by Rayya Ghul and Ian Marsh

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Contexts of Participation – The Critical Thinking Tool

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Antiracist Occupational Therapy - Available for Pre-Order

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Antiracist Occupational Therapy - Available for Pre-Order

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/Antiracist-Occupational-Therapy-Unsettling-Status/dp/1839975741

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Antiracist Occupational Therapy: Unsettling the Status Quo

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Antiracist Occupational Therapy: Unsettling the Status Quo : Various, Ahmed-Landeryou, Musharrat J.: Amazon.co.uk: Books

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Professional Misfits: “You’re Having to Perform . . . All Week Long"

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Professional Misfits: “You’re Having to Perform . . . All Week Long"

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Professional Misfits_ “You’re Having to Perform . . . All Week Long”

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HEE Guide to Practice Based Learning for Neurodivergent Students

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HEE Guide to Practice Based Learning for Neurodivergent Students

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Bovill et al (2015) Transnational Approaches to Teaching and Learning in HE

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Bovill et al (2015) Transnational Approaches to Teaching and Learning in HE

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2014.945162

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Transnational approaches to teaching and learning in higher education: challenges and possible guiding principles

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The higher education sector has become increasingly internationalised over recent decades. This paper examines a range of challenges that can arise where teaching staff in one context support and i…

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OT Now_Mar_22.pdf (caot.ca)

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A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation and inclusion

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A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation and inclusion

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A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation, and inclusion! #LSUdiversity

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LSU Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation, and inclusion! #LSUdiversity https://t.co/iwcTvJvxhF

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LSU Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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LSU Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation, and inclusion! #LSUdiversity pic.twitter.com/iwcTvJvxhF
— LSU Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (@LSUDiversity) June 16, 2017

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A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation, and inclusion! #LSUdiversity https://t.co/iwcTvJvxhF

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LSU Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation, and inclusion! #LSUdiversity https://t.co/iwcTvJvxhF

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A great visual representation of equality, equity, liberation, and inclusion! #LSUdiversity

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LSU Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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Interesting read, seems we need to be male, white and slightly younger than middle aged to get our best feedback from students.

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Sexism racism prejudice and bias a literature review and synthesis of research surrounding student evaluations of courses and teaching

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BMC Medical Ethics 18, Article number: 19 (2017) Cite this article

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Abstract

Background

Implicit biases involve associations outside conscious awareness that lead to a negative evaluation of a person on the basis of irrelevant characteristics such as race or gender. This review examines the evidence that healthcare professionals display implicit biases towards patients.

Methods

PubMed, PsychINFO, PsychARTICLE and CINAHL were searched for peer-reviewed articles published between 1st March 2003 and 31st March 2013. Two reviewers assessed the eligibility of the identified papers based on precise content and quality criteria. The references of eligible papers were examined to identify further eligible studies.

Results

Forty two articles were identified as eligible. Seventeen used an implicit measure (Implicit Association Test in fifteen and subliminal priming in two), to test the biases of healthcare professionals. Twenty five articles employed a between-subjects design, using vignettes to examine the influence of patient characteristics on healthcare professionals' attitudes, diagnoses, and treatment decisions. The second method was included although it does not isolate implicit attitudes because it is recognised by psychologists who specialise in implicit cognition as a way of detecting the possible presence of implicit bias. Twenty seven studies examined racial/ethnic biases; ten other biases were investigated, including gender, age and weight. Thirty five articles found evidence of implicit bias in healthcare professionals; all the studies that investigated correlations found a significant positive relationship between level of implicit bias and lower quality of care.

Discussion

The evidence indicates that healthcare professionals exhibit the same levels of implicit bias as the wider population. The interactions between multiple patient characteristics and between healthcare professional and patient characteristics reveal the complexity of the phenomenon of implicit bias and its influence on clinician-patient interaction. The most convincing studies from our review are those that combine the IAT and a method measuring the quality of treatment in the actual world. Correlational evidence indicates that biases are likely to influence diagnosis and treatment decisions and levels of care in some circumstances and need to be further investigated. Our review also indicates that there may sometimes be a gap between the norm of impartiality and the extent to which it is embraced by healthcare professionals for some of the tested characteristics.

Conclusions

Our findings highlight the need for the healthcare profession to address the role of implicit biases in disparities in healthcare. More research in actual care settings and a greater homogeneity in methods employed to test implicit biases in healthcare is needed.

Peer Review reports

Background

A patient should not expect to receive a lower standard of care because of her race, age or any other irrelevant characteristic. However, implicit associations (unconscious, uncontrollable, or arational processes) may influence our judgements resulting in bias. Implicit biases occur between a group or category attribute, such as being black, and a negative evaluation (implicit prejudice) or another category attribute, such as being violent (implicit stereotype) [ 1].1 In addition to affecting judgements, implicit biases manifest in our non-verbal behaviour towards others, such as frequency of eye contact and physical proximity. Implicit biases explain a potential dissociation between what a person explicitly believes and wants to do (e.g. treat everyone equally) and the hidden influence of negative implicit associations on her thoughts and action (e.g. perceiving a black patient as less competent and thus deciding not to prescribe the patient a medication).

The term 'bias' is typically used to refer to both implicit stereotypes and prejudices and raises serious concerns in healthcare. Psychologists often define bias broadly; such as 'the negative evaluation of one group and its members relative to another' [ 2]. Another way to define bias is to stipulate that an implicit association represents a bias only when likely to have a negative impact on an already disadvantaged group; e.g. if someone associates young girls with dolls, this would count as a bias. It is not itself a negative evaluation, but it supports an image of femininity that may prevent girls from excelling in areas traditionally considered 'masculine' such as mathematics [ 3]. Another option is to stipulate that biases are not inherently bad, but only to be avoided when they incline us away from the truth [ 4].

In healthcare, we need to think carefully about exactly what is meant by bias. To fulfil the goal of delivering impartial care, healthcare professionals should be wary of any kind of negative evaluation they make that is linked to membership of a group or to a particular characteristic. The psychologists' definition of bias thus may be adequate for the case of implicit prejudice; there are unlikely, in the context of healthcare, to be any justified reasons for negative evaluations related to group membership. The case of implicit stereotypes differs slightly because stereotypes can be damaging even when they are not negative per se. At least at a theoretical level, there is a difference between an implicit stereotype that leads to a distorted judgement and a legitimate association that correctly tracks real world statistical information. Here, the other definitions of bias presented above may prove more useful.

The majority of people tested from all over the world and within a wide range of demographics show responses to the most widely used test of implicit attitudes, the Implicit Association Test (IAT), that indicate a level of implicit anti-black bias [ 5]. Other biases tested include gender, ethnicity, nationality and sexual orientation; there is evidence that these implicit attitudes are widespread among the population worldwide and influence behaviour outside the laboratory [ 6, 7]. For instance, one widely cited study found that simply changing names from white-sounding ones to black-sounding ones on CVs in the US had a negative effect on callbacks [ 8]. Implicit bias was suspected to be the culprit, and a replication of the study in Sweden, using Arab-sounding names instead of Swedish-sounding names, did in fact find a correlation between the HR professionals who preferred the CVs with Swedish-sounding names and a higher level of implicit bias towards Arabs [ 9].

We may consciously reject negative images and ideas associated with disadvantaged groups (and may belong to these groups ourselves), but we have all been immersed in cultures where these groups are constantly depicted in stereotyped and pejorative ways. Hence the description of 'aversive racists': those who explicitly reject racist ideas, but who are found to have implicit race bias when they take a race IAT [ 10]. Although there is currently a lack of understanding of the exact mechanism by which cultural immersion translates into implicit stereotypes and prejudices, the widespread presence of these biases in egalitarian-minded individuals suggests that culture has more influence than many previously thought.

The implicit biases of concern to health care professionals are those that operate to the disadvantage of those who are already vulnerable. Examples include minority ethnic populations, immigrants, the poor, low health-literacy individuals, sexual minorities, children, women, the elderly, the mentally ill, the overweight and the disabled, but anyone may be rendered vulnerable given a certain context [ 11]. The vulnerable in health-care are typically members of groups who are already disadvantaged on many levels. Work in political philosophy, such as the De-Shalit and Wolff concept of 'corrosive disadvantage', a disadvantage that is likely to lead to further disadvantages, is relevant here [ 12]. For instance, if a person is poor and constantly worried about making ends meet, this is a disadvantage in itself, but can be corrosive when it leads to further disadvantages. In a country such as Switzerland, where private health insurance is mandatory and yearly premiums can be lowered by increasing the deductible, a high deductible may lead such a person to refrain from visiting a physician because of the potential cost incurred. This, in turn, could mean that the diagnosis of a serious illness is delayed leading to poorer health. In this case, being poor is a corrosive disadvantage because it leads to a further disadvantage of poor health.

The presence of implicit biases among healthcare professionals and the effect on quality of clinical care is a cause for concern [ 13, 14, 15]. In the US, racial healthcare disparities are widely documented and implicit race bias is one possible cause. Two excellent literature reviews on the issue of implicit bias in healthcare have recently been published [ 16, 17]. One is a narrative review that selects the most significant recent studies to provide a helpful overall picture of the current state of the research in healthcare on implicit bias [ 16]. The other is a systematic review that focusses solely on racial bias and thus captures only studies conducted in the US, where race is the most prominent issue [ 17]. Our review differs from the first because it poses a specific question, is systematic in its collection of studies, and includes an examination of studies solely employing the vignette method. Its systematic method lends weight to the evidence it provides and its inclusion of the vignette method enables it to compare two different literatures on bias in healthcare. It differs from the second because it includes all types of bias, not only racial; partly as a consequence, it captures many studies conducted outside the US. It is important to include studies conducted in non-US countries because race understood as white/black is not the source of the most potentially harmful stereotypes and disparities in all cultural contexts. For example, a recent vignette study in Switzerland found that in the German-speaking part of the country, physicians displayed negative bias in treatment decisions towards fictional Serbian patients (skin colour was unspecified, but it would typically be assumed to be white), but no significant negative bias towards fictional patients from Ghana (skin colour would be assumed to be black) [ 18]. In the Swiss German context, the issue of skin colour may thus be less significant for potential bias than that of country of origin.2

Methods

Data sources and search strategy

Our research question was: do trained healthcare professionals display implicit biases towards certain types of patient? PubMed (Medline), PsychINFO, PsychARTICLE and CINAHL were searched for peer-reviewed articles published between 1st March 2003 and 31st March 2013. When we performed exploratory searches on PubMed before conducting the final search, we noticed that in 2003 there was a sharp increase in the number of articles on implicit bias and so we decided to begin from this year. The final searches were conducted on the 31st March 2013. We used a combination of subject headings and free text terms that related to the attitudes of healthcare professionals (e.g. "physician-patient relations", "attitude of health personnel"), implicit biases (e.g. "prejudice", "stereotyping", "unconscious bias"), particular kinds of discrimination (e.g. "aversive racism", anti-fat bias", "women's health"), and healthcare disparities (e.g. "health status disparities", "delivery of health care") which were combined with the Boolean operators "AND" and "OR".

Study selection

3767 titles were retrieved and independently screened by the two reviewers (SH and CF). The titles that were agreed by both after discussion to be ineligible according to our inclusion criteria were discarded (3498) and the abstracts of the remaining articles (269) were independently screened by both reviewers. Abstracts that were agreed by both reviewers to be ineligible according to our inclusion criteria were discarded (241). When the ineligible abstracts were discarded, the remaining 28 articles were read and independently rated by us both. Out of these, 27 articles were agreed after discussion to merit inclusion in the final selection. One article was excluded at this stage because it did not fit our inclusion criteria (it did not employ the assumption method or an implicit measure). Additionally, the reference lists of these 27 articles were manually scanned by CF, and the full text articles resulting from this were independently read by both reviewers, resulting in the inclusion of a further 11 articles that both reviewers agreed fitted the inclusion criteria. After a repeat process of scanning the reference lists of the 11 articles from the second round, the final number of eligible articles was 42. All disagreements were resolved through discussion.

The inclusion criteria were:

1. 1.
Empirical study.

2. 2.
A method identifying implicit rather than explicit biases.

3. 3.
Participants were physicians or nurses who had completed their studies.

4. 4.
Written in English or another language spoken by CF or SH (CF: French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan; SH: French, Italian, German).

There is no clear consensus on the meaning of the term 'implicit'. The term is used in psychology to refer to a feature or features of a mental process. We chose a wide negative definition of implicit processes, assuming that implicit social cognition is involved in the absence of any of the four features that characterise explicit cognition: intention, conscious availability, controllability, and the need for mental resources. This absence does not rule out the involvement of explicit processes, but indicates the presence of implicit processes. While most institutional policies against bias focus on explicit cognition, research on implicit bias shows that this is mistaken [ 6].

There is broad agreement in psychology that methods known as 'implicit measures', including the affective priming task, the IAT and the affective Simon task, reveal implicit attitudes [ 19]. We included articles using these measures. We also included studies that employed a method popular in bioethics literature that we label 'the assumption method'. It involves measuring differences across participants in response to clinical vignettes, identical except for one feature, such as the race, of the character in the vignette. There is no direct measure of the implicitness or non-explicitness of the processes at work in participants; instead, there is an assumption that the majority are explicitly motivated to disregard factors such as race. If there is a statistically significant difference in the diagnosis or treatment prescribed correlated with -for example- the race of the patient, the researchers infer that it is partly a result of implicit processes in the physicians' decision-making. The assumption method of measuring implicit bias has been used in a variety of naturalistic contexts where it is harder to bring subjects into the laboratory. It is recognised by psychologists who specialise in implicit cognition as a way of detecting the possible presence of implicit bias, if not as an implicit measure in itself [ 6].

Studies that used self-report questionnaires were not included because, although they can use subtle methods to estimate a subject's attitudes, they are typically used in psychology as a measure of explicit mental processes. There are potential problems with the implicit/explicit distinction as applied to psychological measures and it may be preferable in future research to speak of 'direct' and 'indirect' measures, but for the purposes of the review we followed this convention in psychology. The original idea behind implicit measures was that they attempted to measure something other than explicit mental processes, whereas self-report questionnaires ask a subject direct questions and thus prompt a chain of explicit conscious reasoning in the subject.

Data extraction

Data were extracted by CF and reviewed by SH for accuracy and completeness. All disagreements with the information extracted were resolved through discussion. We contacted the corresponding author of an article to obtain information that was not available in the published manuscript that related to the nature of the presentation given to recruit participants, but received no response.

Results

Identified studies

The eligible studies are described in Table 1 and their main characteristics are outlined in Table 2. The most frequently examined biases were racial/ethnic and gender, but ten other biases were investigated (Table 2). Four of the assumption studies compared results from two or more countries to explore effects of differences in healthcare systems.

Table 1 Studies included in the systematic review

Table 2 Main characteristics of studies

The 14 assumption method studies examining multiple biases investigated interactions between biases. They recorded the socio-demographic characteristics of the participants to reveal complex interactions between physician characteristics and the characteristics of the imaginary 'patient' in the vignette.

All IAT studies measured implicit prejudice; five also measured implicit stereotypes. When implicit prejudice is measured, words or images from one category are matched with positive or negative words (e.g., black faces with 'pleasant'). When implicit stereotypes are measured, words or images from one category are matched with words from a conceptual category (e.g. female faces and 'home').

Nine IAT studies combined the IAT with a measure of physician behaviour or treatment decision to see if there were correlations between these and levels of implicit bias.

The subliminal priming studies were dissimilar: one was an exploratory study to see if certain diseases were stereotypically associated with African Americans, using faces as primes and reaction times to the names of diseases as the measure of implicit association; the other study used race words as primes and tested the effect of time pressure on responses to a clinical vignette.

A variety of media were used for the clinical vignette and the method of questioning participants within the assumption method. One unusual study used simulations of actual encounters with patients, hiring actors and using a set for the physicians to role-play. Physicians' treatment decisions were recorded by observers, and the physician recorded his own diagnosis, prognosis and perceptions after the encounter.

Limitations

Of specific studies

Limitations are detailed in Table 3. Some studies failed to report response rates, or to provide full information on statistical methods or participant characteristics. Some had very small sample sizes and the majority did not mention calculating the power of their sample. Some authors explicitly informed participants of the purpose of the study, or gave participants questionnaires or other tests that indicated the subject of the study before presenting them with the vignette. For optimal results, participants should not be alerted to the particular patient characteristic(s) under study, particularly in an assumption study where knowing the characteristic(s) may influence the interpretation of the vignette. In IAT studies, this is less worrying because IAT effects are to some extent uncontrollable.

Table 3 Limitations of specific studies

Of the field

Implicit bias in healthcare is an emerging field of research with no established methodology. This is to be expected and is not a problem in itself, but it does present an obstacle when conducting a review of this kind. The range of methods used and the variety of journals with differing standards and protocols for describing experiments made it difficult to compare the results. In addition, authors focusing on a particular bias (e.g. gender), often in combination with a particular health issue (e.g. heart disease), frequently did not appear to be familiar with one another's research. This lack of familiarity meant that often used different terms to describe the same phenomenon, which also made conducting the review more difficult.

Few of the existing results can be described as 'real world' treatment outcomes. The two priming studies involved very small samples and were more exploratory than result-seeking [ 20, 21]. The IAT and assumption studies were conducted under laboratory conditions. The only three studies conducted in naturalistic settings combined the IAT with measures of physician-patient interaction [ 22, 23, 24]. However, many of the assumption studies attempted to make their vignettes as realistic as possible by having them validated by clinicians [ 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41] and also by having participants view/read the vignettes as part of a normal day at work [ 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 41].

Because the studies of interest used psychological techniques, but were mainly to be found in a medical database (PubMed), the classification of the studies was not always optimal. There is no heading in Medline for 'implicit bias' and studies using similar methods were sometimes categorized under different subject headings, some of which were introduced during the last ten years, which increased the risk of missing eligible studies.

Existence of implicit biases/stereotypes in healthcare professionals and influence on quality of care

Healthcare professionals have implicit biases

Almost all studies found evidence for implicit biases among physicians and nurses. Based on the available evidence, physicians and nurses manifest implicit biases to a similar degree as the general population. The following characteristics are at issue: race/ethnicity, gender, socio-economic status (SES), age, mental illness, weight, having AIDS, brain injured patients perceived to have contributed to their injury,3 intravenous drug users, disability, and social circumstances.

Of the seven studies that did not find evidence of bias, one compared the mentally ill with another potentially unfavourable category, welfare recipients; this study did find a positive correlation between levels of implicit bias and over-diagnosis of the mentally ill patient in the vignette [ 42]. Another used simulated interactions with actors, which may result in participants being on 'best behaviour' in the role-play [ 41]. The two studies that reported no evidence of bias in diagnosis of depression found that physicians' estimates of SES were influenced by race (lower SES estimated for black patients); [ 37, 38] one reported that estimates of SES in turn were significantly related to estimates of patient demeanour (lower SES associated with hostile patient demeanour) [ 37]. A further study failed to find differences due to patient race in the prescription of opioids, but found an interaction whereby black patients who exhibited 'challenging' behaviour (such as belligerence and asking for a specific opioid) were more likely to be prescribed opioids than those who did not, an effect possibly due to a racial stereotype [ 43]. Another study that failed to find implicit race bias suggested that this was due to the setting of the study in an inner-city clinic with high levels of black patients and the fact that many physicians were born outside the US [ 24]. Finally, one study that found no evidence of racial bias in prescription of opioid analgesics presented each participant with three vignettes depicting patients of three different ethnicities, thus probably alerting them to the objective of the study [ 40].

The interaction effects between different patient characteristics in assumption studies are varied and a few are surprising. The authors of one study expected that physicians would be less likely to prescribe a higher dose of opioids to black patients who exhibited challenging behaviours; in fact, physicians were more likely to prescribe higher doses of opioids to challenging black patients, yet slightly less likely to do so to white patients exhibiting the same behaviour. Sometimes significant effects on the responses to the vignette of a patient characteristic, e.g. race, are only found when the interaction between gender and race or SES and race is examined. For example, physicians in one study were less certain of the diagnosis of coronary heart disease for middle-aged women, who were thus twice as likely to receive a mental health diagnosis than their male counterparts [ 34]. In another, low SES Latinas and blacks were more likely to have intrauterine contraception recommended than low SES whites, but there was no effect of race for high SES patients [ 39].

Implicit bias affects clinical judgement and behaviour

Three studies found a significant correlation between high levels of physicians' implicit bias against blacks on IAT scores and interaction that was negatively rated by black patients [ 23, 24, 44] and, in one study, also negatively rated by external observers [ 23]. Four studies examining the correlation between IAT scores and responses to clinical vignettes found a significant correlation between high levels of pro-white implicit bias and treatment responses that favoured patients specified as white [ 42, 45, 46, 47]. In one study, implicit prejudice of nurses towards injecting drug users significantly mediated the relationship between job stress and their intention to change jobs [ 48].

Twenty out of 25 assumption studies found that some kind of bias was evident either in the diagnosis, the treatment recommendations, the number of questions asked of the patient, the number of tests ordered, or other responses indicating bias against the characteristic of the patient under examination.

Determinants of bias

Socio-demographic characteristics of physicians and nurses (e.g. gender, race, type of healthcare setting, years of experience, country where medical training received) are correlated with level of bias. In one study, male staff were significantly less sympathetic and more frustrated than female staff with self-harming patients presenting in A&E [ 26]. Black patients in the US -but not the UK- were significantly more likely to be questioned about smoking than white [ 28]. In another study, international medical graduates rated the African-American male patient in the vignette as being of significantly lower SES than did US graduates [ 38]. One study found that paediatricians held less implicit race bias compared with other MDs [ 47].

Correlations between explicit and implicit attitudes varied depending on the type of bias and on the kind of explicit questions asked. For instance, implicit anti-fat bias tends to correlate more with an explicit anti-fat bias than racial bias, where explicit and implicit attitudes often diverge significantly. Because physicians' and nurses' implicit attitudes diverged frequently from their explicit attitudes, explicit measures cannot be used alone to measure the presence of bias among healthcare professionals.

Discussion

A variety of studies, conducted in various countries, using different methods, and testing different patient characteristics, found evidence of implicit biases among healthcare professionals and a negative correlation exists between level of implicit bias and indicators of quality of care. The two most common methods employed were the assumption method and the IAT, the latter sometimes combined with another measure to test for correlations with the behaviour of healthcare professionals.

Our study has several limitations. Four studies included participants who were not trained physicians or nurses and failed to report separate results for these categories of participants [ 42, 44, 49, 50]. Since either the majority of participants were qualified physicians and nurses, or were other health care professionals involved in patient care, we included these studies despite this limitation. Excluding them would not have changed the conclusions of this paper. In addition, we initially centred our research on studies employing implicit measures recognised in psychology, but the majority of the included studies in the final review used the assumption method. However, the limitations imposed by the lack of consistency in keywords and categorization of articles actually worked in our favour here, enabling us to capture a variety of methods and thus to consider including the assumption method. Scanning the references of the articles that were initially retained and repeating this process until there were no new articles helped us to capture further pertinent articles. From the degree of cross-referencing we are confident that we succeeded in identifying most of the relevant articles using the assumption method.

Publication bias could limit the availability of results that reveal little or no implicit bias among healthcare professionals. Moreover, eight articles appeared to refer to the same data collected in a single cross-country comparison study [ 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 35] and a further two articles analysed the same data [ 45, 47]. The sum of 42 articles thus can give the impression that more research has been carried out on more participants than is the case. The solidity of data revealing high levels of implicit bias among the general population suggest that this is unlikely to have invalidated the conclusion that implicit bias is present in healthcare professionals [ 6, 7].

However, our decision to exclude studies that involved students rather than fully-trained healthcare professionals meant that we did not include a study conducted on medical students that showed no significant association between implicit bias and clinical assessments [ 51]. Several studies post 2013 (thus after our cut-off date) have also indicated a null relationship between levels of implicit bias and clinical decision-making [ 52, 53, 54]. The scientific community working in this area agrees that the relationship between levels of implicit bias in healthcare professionals and clinical decision-making is complex and that there is currently a lack of good evidence for a direct negative influence of biases [ 16, 17]. As our review shows, there is clearer evidence for a relationship between implicit bias and negative effects on clinical interaction [ 23, 24, 44]. While this may not always translate into negative treatment outcomes, the relationship between a healthcare professional and her patient is essential to providing good treatment, thus it seems likely that the more negative the clinical interaction, the worse the eventual treatment outcome (not to mention the likelihood that the patient will consult healthcare services for future worries or problems). This is where the bulk of future research should be concentrated.

The interactions between multiple patient characteristics and between healthcare professional and patient characteristics reveal the complexity of the phenomenon of implicit bias and its influence on clinician-patient interaction. They also highlight the pertinence of work in feminist theory on 'intersectionality', a term for the distinctive issues that arise when a person belongs to multiple identity categories that bring disadvantage, such as being both black and female [ 55]. For instance, one study only found evidence of bias against low SES Latina patients, not against high SES Latinas, illustrating how belonging to more than one category (here, both low SES and Latina) can have negative effects that are not present if membership of one category is eliminated (here, low SES) [ 39]. Class may trump race in some circumstances so that being high SES is more salient than being non-white. One criticism of mainstream feminism by theorists who work on intersectionality is that pertinent issues are unexplored because of the dominance of high SES white women in feminist theory. Using our example from the review, high SES Latina women may not experience the same prejudice as low SES Latina women and thus may falsely assume that there is no prejudice against Latina women tout court in this context. This could be frustrating for low SES Latina women who have unrecognized lived experiences of prejudice in a clinical setting.

In some studies, the attitudes of patients towards healthcare professionals were recorded and used to evaluate clinical interaction [ 23, 24, 44]. It is important to remember that patients also may come to a clinical interaction with biases. In these cases, the biases of one participant may trigger the biases of the other, magnifying the first participant's biased responses and leading to a snowball effects [ 56]. Past experience of discrimination may mean that a patient may come to an interaction with negative expectations [ 57].

Our findings in the review suggest that the relationship between training and experience and levels of implicit bias is mixed. In one study, increased contact with patients with Hepatitis C virus was associated with more favourable explicit attitudes, yet more negative implicit attitudes towards intravenous drug users [ 49]. Another study demonstrated that nursing students were less prejudiced, more willing to help and desired more social interaction with patients with brain injury, when compared with qualified nurses [ 58]. Exposure to communication skills training was not associated with lower race-IAT scores for physicians [ 23]. However, individuals with mental health training demonstrated more positive implicit and explicit evaluations of people with mental illness than those without training [ 42]. Yet in the same study, graduate students had more positive implicit attitudes towards the mentally ill than mental health professionals.

We included all types of implicit bias in our review, not only race bias, partly in an effort to capture non-US studies, hypothesising that the focus on race in the US leaves fewer resources for investigation into other biases. It is possibly the case that a wider range of biases were investigated in non-US countries, but there is not enough evidence to deduce this from our review alone. For instance, two British studies examine bias against brain-injured patients who are perceived as having contributed to their injury [ 58, 59], and two Australian studies looked at bias against intravenous drug users [ 48, 49], but the sample size of studies is too small to warrant drawing any conclusions from this.

Is it possible that there are implicit associations that are justified because they are based on prevalence data for diseases? One study in our review aimed to test the statistical discrimination hypothesis by asking physicians to estimate the prevalence data among males and females for coronary heart disease in addition to presenting them with vignettes of a female or male coronary heart disease patient. It found that 48% of physicians were inconsistent in their population-level and individual level assessments and that the physicians' gender-based population prevalence assessments were not associated with the certainty of their diagnosis of coronary heart disease. There was no evidence to support the theory of statistical discrimination as an explanation for why physicians were less certain of their diagnoses of CHD in women [ 36]. Another exploratory study looked at the diseases that were stereotypically associated with African-Americans and found that many diseases were associated with African-Americans that did not match prevalence data, such as drug abuse [ 20]. The danger in these cases is that a physician may apply a group-level stereotype to an individual and fail to follow-up with a search for individuating information.

Impartial treatment of patients by healthcare professionals is an uncontroversial norm of healthcare. Implicit biases have been identified as one possible factor in healthcare disparities and our review reveals that they are likely to have a negative impact on patients from stigmatized groups. Our review also indicates that there may sometimes be a gap between the norm of impartiality and the extent to which it is embraced by healthcare professionals for some of the tested characteristics. For instance, explicit anti-fat bias was found to be prevalent among healthcare professionals [ 60]. Since weight can be relevant to diagnosis and treatment, it is understandable that it is salient. It is nonetheless disturbing that healthcare professionals exhibit the same explicit anti-fat attitudes prevalent in the general population.

The most convincing studies from our review are those that combine the IAT and a method measuring the quality of treatment in the actual world. These studies provide some evidence for a relationship between bias as measured by the IAT and behaviour by clinicians that may contribute to healthcare disparities. More studies using real-world interaction measures would be helpful because studies using vignettes remain open to the criticism that they do not reveal the true behaviour of healthcare professionals. In this respect, the three studies using measures of physician-patient interaction are exemplary [ 22, 23, 24], in particular when using independent evaluators of the interactions [ 23]. Overall, our review reveals the need for discussion of methodology and for more interaction between different literatures that focus on different biases.

Conclusion

Our findings highlight the need for the healthcare profession to address the role of implicit biases in disparities in healthcare. In addition to addressing implicit biases, measures need to be taken to raise awareness of the potential conflict between holding negative explicit attitudes towards some patient characteristics, such as obesity, and committing to a norm to treat all patients equally.

Our review reveals that this is an area in need of more uniform methods of research to enable better comparison and communication between researchers interested in different forms of bias. Important avenues for further research include examination of the interactions between patient characteristics, and between healthcare professional and patient characteristics, and of possible ways in which to tackle the presence of implicit biases in healthcare.

Notes

1. There are conceptual problems with this distinction as used in psychology that have been pointed out by philosophers, but we will ignore these for the purposes of this review.

2. Interestingly, physicians were also asked for how they expected their colleagues to rate the vignette, and in these ratings there was a negative bias towards both patients from Ghana and from Serbia.

3. Bias against patients who are seen as contributing to their injury initially seems to be an odd category compared to the more familiar ones of race and gender. Clinicians may treat brain injured patients differently if they are somehow seen as 'responsible' for their injury, for instance, if they were engaging in risk-taking behaviour such as drug taking. Our review was intended to capture studies such as these that identify biases that are specific to clinical contexts and thus of particular interest to clinicians.

References

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Acknowledgements

Not applicable. Only the two authors were implicated in the review.

Funding

This work was carried out with the support of grants from the Swiss National Science Foundation under grants numbers: PP00P3_123340 and 32003B_149407.

Availability of data and materials

The search strategy is available in the Appendix to the paper.

Authors' contributions

Both authors discussed to select the databases and decide on the research question, based on CF's knowledge of the field of implicit bias and SH's knowledge of systematic reviews and bioethics literature. CF compiled the key words for the search strategy with constant advice and input from SH. CF drafted the inclusion criteria and received constant input on this from SH: CF carried out the search and downloaded the relevant articles to be scrutinised. CF and SH both independently read all the initial titles to select which were relevant, then the abstracts, and then the final included articles and discussed at each stage to resolve any disagreements. CF drafted the initial tables including the information from the studies and this was revised by SH. SH particularly revised the statistical methods used by the studies and both reviewed their methodology. CF drafted the manuscript and it was revised with comments by SH a number of times until both authors were satisfied with the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Competing interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Institute for Ethics, History, and the Humanities, Faculty of Medicine University of Geneva, Genève, Switzerland

Chloë FitzGerald & Samia Hurst

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chloë FitzGerald.

Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Search Strategy

Pubmed

The following combination of subject headings and free text terms was used:

("Prejudice" [MAJR] AND "Attitude of health personnel" [MAJR]) OR ("Attitude of health personnel/ethnology" [MH] AND "Prejudice"[MH]) OR ("Stereotyping"[MH] AND "Attitude of health personnel") OR ("Prejudice"[MH] AND "Healthcare disparities" [MH]) OR ("Prejudice"[MH] AND "Cultural Competency" [MH]) OR ("Social Class" [MH] AND "Attitude of health personnel" [MH]) OR ("Prejudice"[MH] AND "Physicians" [MH]) OR ("Prejudice"[MAJR] AND "Delivery of Health Care"[MAJR] AND "stereotyping"[MAJR]) OR ("Physician-Patient Relations" [MH] AND "health status disparities"[MH]) OR ("Prejudice"[MH] AND "Obesity"[MH]) OR ("African Americans/psychology" [MH] AND "Healthcare disparities" [MH]) OR ("Prejudice"[MH] AND "Mentally Ill Persons"[MH]) OR ("Prejudice"[MH] AND "Women's Health"[MH]) OR "aversive racism" OR "anti-fat bias" OR "racial-ethnic bias" OR "racial-ethnic biases" OR "ethnic/racial bias" OR "ethnic/racial biases" OR ("disabled persons"[MAJR] AND "prejudice"[MAJR])

Dates: 1st March 2003 to 31st March 2013

Final number of retrieved articles: 2510

PsychINFO and PsychARTICLE

The following combination of subject headings and free text terms was used was used:

Health personnel AND (prejudice OR bias)

Dates: 1st March 2003 to 31st March 2013

Other filters: Scholarly journals

Final number of retrieved articles: 377

Final result when duplicates removed: 360.

CINAHL

The following combination of subject headings and free text terms was used was used:

Prejudice [MM Exact Major Subject Heading] OR stereotyping [MM Exact Major Subject Heading] OR Discrimination [MM Exact Major Subject Heading] OR implicit bias OR unconscious bias

Dates: 1st March 2003 to 31st March 2013

Other filters:

Exclude Medline records

Peer reviewed

Final number of retrieved articles: 897

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
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FitzGerald, C., Hurst, S. Implicit bias in healthcare professionals: a systematic review. BMC Med Ethics 18, 19 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-017-0179-8
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Keywords

Implicit bias

Prejudice

Stereotyping

Attitudes of health personnel

Healthcare disparities

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Implicit bias in healthcare professionals: a systematic review - BMC Medical Ethics

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Background Implicit biases involve associations outside conscious awareness that lead to a negative evaluation of a person on the basis of irrelevant characteristics such as race or gender. This review examines the evidence that healthcare professionals display implicit biases towards patients.

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Troy Deeney: Where's My History?

60 Days with the Gypsies

Film4 Foresight Shorts

Cheat Detectives: The Loyalty Test: UNTOLD

Troy Deeney: Where's My History?

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Help! My Home Is Disgusting: UNTOLD

Unapologetic

How to Get a Council House

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Troy Deeney: Where's My History? 60 Days with the Gypsies Film4 Foresight Shorts Cheat Detectives: The Loyalty Test: UNTOLD Troy Deeney: Where's My History? 60 Days with the Gypsies Film4 Foresight Shorts Cheat Detectives: The Loyalty Test: UNTOLD Help!

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Have been recommended this (not watched yet) - about inequity related to class

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Amol Rajan goes in search of solutions to Britain's class barriers.

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A colleague in education shared this - they go through the questions with trainee teachers to promote discussion.

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Diversity and Discrimination In Healthcare - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf

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Diversity is broadly defined as the inclusion of varied attributes or characteristics. In the medical community, diversity often refers to the inclusion of healthcare professionals, trainees, educators, researchers, and patients of varied race, ethnicity, gender, disability, social class, socioecon…

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Shared this with some students and it started a nice discussion about their experiences and how to manage any issues they experience on placement

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Call Out Microaggressions - CSP campaign and resources

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Call Out Microaggressions - CSP campaign and resources

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https://www.csp.org.uk/campaigns-influencing/campaigns/microaggressions

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Microaggressions are the most common form of discrimination and are often unnoticed by those from majority groups. Our campaign aims to reduce microaggressions faced by CSP members in order to improve their working lives.

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Microaggressions are the most common form of discrimination and are often unnoticed by those from majority groups. Our campaign aims to reduce microaggressions faced by CSP members in order to improve their working lives.

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learn: workshop - Rayya Ghul talks Microagressions

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This book has come highly recommended - I haven't read it yet.

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I'm Tired of Racism - True Stories of Existing While Black

"I'm Tired of Racism" is the first collection of Sharon Hurley Hall's anti-racism essays, originally published on Sharon's Anti-Racism Newsletter. The book also includes some previously unpublished essays.

The book includes Sharon's global perspectives on racism and anti-racism, born out of experiences in the Caribbean, the UK, the US and elsewhere. It will be available in both print and ebook form, and has approximately 160 pages.

This book is for you if you:

Want an introduction to Sharon's work and writing

Would love to have several of her essays available in one place

Have ideas about using the essays as tools for learning and discussion

Here's what people have said about Sharon's anti-racism writing:

"I love the way you use personal experiences to illustrate general learning points. I love your generosity in introducing and celebrating other writers and their work."

"Incredible work, Sharon! I've learned so much from you."

"Thank you for continually helping me think and grow."

"As one of those who has used your resources in my own anti-racism work, I salute you."

"I'm Tired of Racism" is available now in hardback and ebook formats. A paperback edition will launch in February 2023, with an audiobook coming later in the year.

To keep up to date with book information, subscribe to Sharon's Anti-Racism Newsletter or follow Sharon on LinkedIn.

LAUNCH EVENTS

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I'm Tired of Racism - Sharon Hurley Hall

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"I'm Tired of Racism" is the first collection of Sharon Hurley Hall's anti-racism essays, originally published on Sharon's Anti-Racism Newsletter. The book also includes some previously unpublished essays. The book includes Sharon's global perspectives on racism and anti-racism, born out of experiences in the Caribbean, the UK, the US and elsewhere.

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Awarding gaps within the higher education sector make for uncomfortable reading: White students are more likely to get good degrees than students from minority ethnic backgrounds by a significant margin. Analysis of Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data in 2020/21 signals an 8.8% gap between the proportion of White students who are awarded firsts and 2:1s and students of other ethnicities, and underlying detail points to an 18.4% gap for students of Black heritage.

At the University of Huddersfield, our population is ethnically diverse with 45% of our students from minority groups, including 26% from Pakistani heritage, and 85% of those from minority ethnic heritage are also from Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) disadvantaged households (according to HESA). Huddersfield sits within one of the most socio-economically deprived areas in England, and the University takes its responsibility in helping to drive social change seriously. Graduate employment can depend on holding an upper second-degree classification as a minimum, therefore, if we are to make a difference for our students and enable them all to access well-paid career pathways, we have to eliminate awarding gaps to ensure equality of opportunity.

In 2017 we started working on what has become the 'Huddersfield Differential Attainment Project' (HuDAP), which uses data in a highly targeted way to identify gaps by student characteristics at course level, and action plan amelioration at course and cohort level. According to Office for Students data from March 2022, we reported no statistically significant differences between the awarding of White students vs Black and Mixed ethnic groupings. In short we had closed the gap for students identifying as Black or of Mixed heritage, and although there is still work to do in closing the gap between White and Asian ethnic groupings, the gap here is narrowing. It is too early to celebrate success as of course we to need sustain and improve our performance, but we believe we have identified what works for us, and that is adopting the British Cycling approach of "marginal gains".

Taking a close look at performance data

When British Cycling started to turn their fortunes around, their first step was to examine every facet of the sport in minute detail. When we started analysing our own internal awarding data, we took a similar approach; set aside the big-picture good degree outcomes by Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic criteria and instead looked at assessment performance module by module, across a wider range of ethnic characteristics, and including IMD, qualifications on entry and attendance to build a very detailed picture of student performance.

Step two was working out what the data told us, and there were some real surprises here. We discovered that the main determinant of lower awarding was student qualifications on entry, in particular if you were from BTEC programmes rather than the more standard three A-level route, irrespective of ethnicity. Of course, it is tricky disentangling ethnicity from other factors. 60% of our students commute from within a 30-mile radius of Huddersfield, and anecdotal evidence from colleagues involved in recruitment tells us that a lot of our feeder colleges offer BTEC rather than A-levels as it better serves their intake. These institutions are based in diverse communities. So, if you are a Pakistani student from the West Yorkshire area, you may well be from an IMD 1 household and have found yourself studying BTEC programmes simply because this is what is offered by local education providers - any of these factors could impact on degree performance. However, we saw lower performance for all ethnicities, including White, where students arrived with BTEC qualifications when compensating for other factors.

Detailed analysis of module marks told us that the difference in performance by ethnicity was not as pronounced as the difference in degree outcome data. When aggregated by department, we found that for example, module marks for White students might present a median of 63, where Pakistani and Black students had a median of 58, just a couple of marks below the good degree outcome boundary. This suggested that small changes in our teaching and learning might help our students leverage a couple of extra marks in assessments and take them into the good degree arena. In essence, we were starting to think in terms of marginal gains.

Using data to drive change

Early identification of the impact of BTEC on awarding led to what became our Flying Start project, which won a Guardian University Award and the Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in the Education of Adults Social Justice Prize in 2018. Initially piloted across a small number of targeted courses, students were introduced to study skills from day one, with an emphasis on activities designed to foster community building and early development of a sense of "belonging". In science and engineering areas this included intensive mathematics coaching, in humanities students were encouraged to reimagine themselves as researchers through research "treasure hunting". Its early success, indicated through improved retention and awarding in year one assessment, led to adoption of the Flying Start approach across the vast majority of our courses, and it sits at the core of our transition initiatives.

HuDAP has also led us to understand that there is no single big solution to awarding gaps, each data set is shaped by the context of the courses and their distinctive student intake. All Schools have to produce an annual HuDAP action plan, which sets out School, Department and course level responses to their data, with everything from course design, assessment mechanisms, physical and virtual estate and student support to teaching technique under scrutiny to ensure we help our students to perform to their optimum in assessment. There is a shift away from exams towards more authentic portfolio assessments, and there is greater emphasis on student guidance and support, particularly with first year students who are predominantly from BTEC backgrounds. Our tutorial system is based around the philosophy of personal academic progress review to help students identify where to target efforts to get those extra few marks. Innovation is encouraged, with support for all staff in developing engaging approaches to teaching and learning best suited to their cohorts.

Whole team approach

The Strategic Teaching and Learning Team behind HuDAP is multidisciplinary and includes a wide range of special interest and expertise. Led by our PVC for Teaching and Learning Professor Jane Owen-Lynch, we have seconded a data scientist, whose datasets underpin the whole project, he works with our central planning team, harvesting data annually to put through his HuDAP process. We have pedagogic specialists who help academic teams interpret data and develop impactful improvement plans, we support colleagues through training in our systems and technologies and have recently added a senior learning technologist to our team to help us optimise the use of our learning platforms. HuDAP has led to an impressive portfolio of projects and initiatives across the University, and we have our project director keeping us on track, monitoring progress.

HuDAP is complex; its aim is to drive small changes which aggregate into sustainable and authentic elimination of awarding gaps across all characteristics and is very much dependent on the commitment and effort of colleagues within our academic schools. They are the ones who identify those small changes that have the potential to make a big difference for our students.

Whether we have discovered a winning approach for our students, only time will tell. Performance data to date is encouraging, and in 2022 HuDAP earned the Times Higher Education award for Outstanding Contribution in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Not quite a yellow jersey, but perhaps an indication that we are towards the front of the peloton.
Dr Ruth Stoker is Director of the Strategic Teaching and Learning Team at the University of Huddersfield.

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Rebuilding the bicycle - using data to narrow the awarding gap

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The University of Huddersfield's work in narrowing awarding gaps is starting to attract attention across the sector, including winning a Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, sponsored by Advance HE. Ruth Stoker talks about their work and the team behind it.

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Equal opportunity?  Different starting lines...

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Equal opportunity?  Different starting lines...

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I watched this video many years ago and my reflections since joining this group made me think of it again....

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Equal opportunity? Different starting lines...

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Thank you for suggesting this Peter. It's a fantastic, seminal article on decolonisation.

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https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/not-yours-fix-transforming-university-experience-neurodivergent-students

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Current approaches to supporting neurodivergent (ND) students at university are predicated on the idea that they need to be 'fixed' so that they can exist within a system designed for neurotypical people. But until we work to change the embedded systems and processes, ND students will struggle to flourish within academia.

Perceptions

People who are neurodivergent have an incredible ability to perceive the world differently to their neurotypical (NT) peers. Very often, we can focus intently on a specific detail, allowing us to see things others have missed. Our brains can light up, giving us a flood of information, connections and emotions, that help us to see the world in glorious technicolour. Our empathy allows us to understand others, their struggles and their emotions, while our compassion drives us to want to fight by their side.

However, these traits are often undervalued in academia, which is built on a history of elitism and traditional perceptions of what 'good' looks like. Consequently, academia values speed, accuracy and the ability to replicate a specific style of speaking, writing and being. The importance placed on the enactment of these values, disables those who's cognitive divergence restricts their ability to comply.

Non-conforming

Most university's approach to 'supporting' ND students is to send them to a specialist study skills tutor, where the perception is that they will 'train' the student to conform to the system as if non-conformity was a conscious choice based on laziness or lack of application. Most study skills tutors will know that our role is much more than this, and in fact we often provide one of the few spaces where students can voice and question the disabling expectations they encounter when they enter academia.

Both critical educators and study skills tutors have the unique opportunity to transgress this system. By engaging students in transformative pedagogy, as outlined by critical educators bell hooks and Paulo Freire, we can support them to perceive and better understand the systemic systems and structures which disable them.

Transformations

Transformative pedagogy is built on the idea that education has the power to transform society by illuminating the mechanisms of oppression and supporting students to take action to change them. Rather than being instructed what to think and what to do, students are encouraged to engage in critical conversations, exploring their experience along with the wider historical and cultural aspects which have created the situation they now find themselves in.

In academia, with ND students, these conversations could revolve around questions such as 'Do we need to learn to write academically?', 'Are lectures a form of teaching?', 'Who decides what is 'acceptable' or 'good' in academia?' or 'How does a society define the 'normal' way of being and acting?' and 'Who benefits from this?'.

By supporting ND students to question these ideas, the conversation can move away from how we 'fix' our ND students so that they can conform to neurotypical expectations, to how we can transform academia to become a more inclusive space for ND people.

Critical change

So, what would these changes look like? Crucially, Freire would argue that the only people who should answer this question are those who are oppressed by the current system, in this case ND students.

Transformative pedagogy gives students the tools to uncover their answers. It's essential that while students are engaging in these discussions, they also remain mindful of the reality of the world around them. This guards against students becoming immobile (with the hope that things will change by themselves) or suggesting changes that risk restricting others. Remaining critical ensures that two types of transformation can take place.

Understanding

The first, is the transformation of both students' and educators' conscious understanding of the situation. When we share our experiences and authentically listen to the experiences of others, we can understand the world beyond our own immediate bubble. Equally, expanding the conversations to include the historical and cultural reasons why things are the way they are, changes how we understand things. Secondly, once we understand the world more thoroughly, we can identify what is creating the barriers and begin to consider how to remove them.

When engaging with ND students in this way, I have found that many of the actions they choose to take, reflect their understanding that we need to change a person's perception of an oppressive situation, in order to then make changes in the physical world. When working with a group of dyslexic students using transformative pedagogy, the group decided that the first transformation required was for academics to transform how they perceived dyslexia.

The group chose to instigate this change by holding a university-wide event to raise awareness of dyslexia, with the aim that this would lead to academics making changes to their curriculum and how they teach. In addition, they sought to transform their physical space by leading conversations with library staff on ways the library could be made more inclusive for dyslexic students. This involved adding images to the bookshelves to illustrate the subject of the books, having a box of coloured overlays available for all students, and providing alphabet strips to help with sequencing when locating books.

Inclusive changes

If we wish to truly make academia an inclusive and diverse space, then we need to work side-by-side with our ND students to transform (and not maintain) the traditional systems. Without these changes, ND students will always be in position of having to change who they are to survive at university. And academia (and society as a whole) will miss out on the innovative and unique contributions ND students can make to transforming our world.

Beth Sennett is a Learning Designer and Specialist Study Skills Tutor at Falmouth University. Her research and Doctorate focused on transformative pedagogies, in particular the work of Paulo Freire in Higher Education.

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Not yours to 'fix': transforming the university experience for neurodivergent students

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Current approaches to supporting neurodivergent (ND) students at university are predicated on the idea that they need to be 'fixed' so that they can exist within a system designed for neurotypical people. But until we work to change the embedded systems and processes, ND students will struggle to flourish within academia.

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We would like you to read this before coming to the first co-learning space. We've chosen it because it seems very relevant to some of the difficulties faced by minoritised students, particularly on placement.

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Abstract

This Essay examines professionalism as a tool to subjugate people of color in the legal field. Professionalism is a standard with a set of beliefs about how one should operate in the workplace. While professionalism seemingly applies to everyone, it is used to widely police and regulate people of color in various ways including hair, tone, and food scents. Thus, it is not merely that there is a double standard in how professionalism applies: It is that the standard itself is based on a set of beliefs grounded in racial subordination and white supremacy. Through this analysis, professionalism is revealed to be a racial construct.

This Essay examines three main aspects of legal professionalism: (1) threshold to withstand bias and discrimination, (2) selective offense, and (3) the reasonable person standard. Each Subpart starts with a day in my life as an attorney to illustrate how these elements play out. The final section details ways to disrupt professionalism as a racial construct.

Introduction

On a Friday afternoon, I appeared with a colleague in New York City Housing Court on behalf of a client in an eviction proceeding. Aside from the unfortunate nature of the case, it was supposed to be a routine court appearance. But Housing Court is known to be unpredictable, and that afternoon, it lived up to its reputation. While appearing before the judge, opposing counsel-a white woman-yelled at me, interrupted me, talked over me, sighed and rolled her eyes when I spoke. Before this appearance, we had only seen each other in passing. Dumbfounded, I spent half of the time making legal arguments and the other half wondering whether my presence in court, as a Black woman, was the main factor in the attorney's scorn. Curiosity inched closer to certainty when I learned that my junior colleague, who is white, appeared by herself on the same case just weeks before. We danced around it-"That was ridiculous!" "Oh man, Housing Court"-until we finally made our way to: "She wasn't like that with me. She treated me with respect."

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell both the judge and opposing counsel that they upheld systems of racial hierarchy. I did not. Instead, I shouted words on paper.

These words are my screams.

In Part I, I examine three main aspects of legal professionalism: (1) threshold to withstand bias and discrimination, (2) selective offense, and (3) the reasonable person standard. Each Subpart starts with a day in my life as an attorney to illustrate how these elements play out. Professionalism in the legal industry often carries the silent expectation that people of color, women, people with disabilities and people who identify as LGBTQIA have a high threshold to withstand discrimination. Professionalism as a racial construct is not limited to attorneys and paralegals-it also extends to individuals participating in the legal process. For example, Black people have been excluded from serving on a jury because they "failed to make eye contact, lived in a poor part of town, had served in the military, had a hyphenated last name, displayed bad posture, were sullen, disrespectful or talkative, had long hair, wore a beard"-many of which are under the guise of professionalism. In addition, I discuss how harmful and racist behavior in the legal profession are normalized to the point that challenges to such conduct are seen as unprofessional. Lastly, I analyze how the law functions in a colorblind fashion, having the effect of making any emphasis or focus on race seem impolite or-unprofessional. In Part II, I explore recommendations of how to deconstruct professionalism as a tool of white supremacy.

I. Constructing the Concept of Professionalism in the Legal Profession

A. Bias and Discrimination Threshold

More than anything, this meeting revealed that there were at least two perceptions of what it meant to be a professional attorney. In one view, an attorney's inability to laugh and move along from microaggressions indicated that they were too unpolished or hypersensitive for the field. In the other, an attorney was race and equity conscious and when those norms were eschewed, readily called for accountability to create a workable and inclusive environment. During the meeting, it became clear that the former had been the standard for many years.

Professionalism was based on the notion that one withstood microaggressions and bias with grace and lightheartedness. The higher the threshold one had to tolerate bias, the more polished the attorney or paralegal appeared. This was particularly the case for women, people of color, LGBTQIA people, and people with disabilities. Professionalism as a racial construct manifests itself in two ways. First, that professionalism is measured by how well a person adapts to a hostile work environment is in of itself a racial construct because that system is built for people of color to fail. Second, that professionalism incorporates the ideology to have a thick skin manifests as a racial construct because even the definition of thick skin aligns with who holds the most power. For example, if attorneys on the receiving end of microaggressions, bias, and racism are considered sensitive for not laughing along, why are the attorneys who engage in harmful behavior not also considered sensitive for their inability to handle criticism about their conduct? Thus, even in defining tolerance, whose feelings are prioritized and validated and whose are minimized within the context of professionalism shapes the narrative that people of color-not their white peers-need to develop thicker skin.

These views on professionalism were not neatly cut along landlord and tenant attorney lines, or even by race. There were larger issues at play here. In the American capitalist economy, enduring a toxic and abusive work environment can be a rite of passage in some workplaces. Even in the sphere of public interest law, a gripe about the astronomical case dockets could be met with quips that "back in my day, I had two times as many cases." In both the nonprofit industrial complex and law firms, the measure of a good attorney was not only how much of an impact they had on their clients' lives, but also the quantity of cases they were able to handle at once. In fact, some would say that a high number of cases is the impact. Beyond enduring microaggressions, racism and other discriminatory behavior, there seemed to be a wider expectation to tolerate abusive practices that was woven into the fabric of the American workforce.

In an attempt to navigate Housing Court better, I sought guidance from Black attorneys whom I admired and revered. They all practiced in different areas of law for over a decade. Their advice all started with "Don't let them make you look unprofessional." I spoke with at least ten Black attorneys with decades of experience in courtrooms and every single one understood and iterated that despite white opposing counsels or peers acting in the most inappropriate and unprofessional manner, I was the one who would look unprofessional if I came close to or matched their behavior. Professionalism did not apply to them, but it applied to me. Moreover, since racism permeated the profession, consistently complaining or challenging it would not necessarily indicate that it was pervasive; instead it would likely reflect that I was not cut out to be an attorney.

None of these attorneys advised me to file grievances. Racism is a reality and dealing with it meant survival. Survival meant avoiding direct challenges to racism which could lead to negative career consequences. Reflecting on their words, it became clear to me that they began their legal careers at a time when there were even fewer Black attorneys, and in the aftermath of the Civil Rights Act and other laws. There had been so much fight to get their foot in the door that appearing unnerved was not an option. Most advised indirect ways to challenge macro- or microaggressions-speedy, humorous comebacks in response to certain situations to assert dominance and show I was impermeable to anyone's discomfort of my existence. If I was mistaken for my client or any other Black person, a response could be, "Well, I can tell you apart from Brad Pitt. Now, where's the rent breakdown, Charles?"

Perhaps the greatest irony is that the threshold standard is seen in the remedy for discrimination itself. The American Bar Association adopted a rule that incorporated discrimination as misconduct. Under 8.4(g), it is professional misconduct for a lawyer to:

[E]ngage in conduct that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know is harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status in conduct related to the practice of law.

Most states have adopted the ABA 's rules on professional conduct, thereby incorporating a measure for disciplinary procedures. The Chair of the Committee on Standards of Attorney Conduct of the New York State Bar Association stated: "Although Rule 8.4(g) does not expressly state that a complainant must exhaust administrative and judicial remedies before filing a discrimination complaint with a grievance committee, that is how the rule operates on a practical level." The expectation to exhaust all remedies before filing a complaint under the rule effectively operates to force individuals to withstand bias and discrimination for a longer period of time than they would if they immediately sought relief. The abusive conduct is deprioritized, and the burden is placed on the complainant to prove that they tolerated a sufficient amount of it.

One of the main mistakes of the legal profession is to approach bias and discrimination complaints as personality conflicts. For example, sexual harassment in a legal office may be seen as two attorneys who do not get along rather than one lawyer harassing the other. Since attorneys, particularly from a marginalized group, are expected to have a high threshold to absorb bias, the imbalance of power in these situations may be ignored. The same happens in the courtroom. In my case when opposing counsel yelled and talked over me, the judge kindly asked her at least eight times to allow me to finish my sentence. There was no admonishment: "If you do not stop, I will hold you accountable, hold you in contempt, or stop the proceeding." Instead, it appeared as two attorneys sparring during a case rather than abusive and unprofessional behavior that should be addressed to prevent further disruption. Treating racist, misogynistic, transphobic, or other discriminatory behavior as two people in disagreement equalizes behavior where there is often an imbalance of power. The effect is that it allows the decisionmaker-whether it be a judge or head of a legal office-to avoid taking responsibility for stopping the unprofessional conduct.

B. Selective Offense: Constructing What Is Unprofessional

In a meeting, a white male colleague called me derogatory names. I reacted the way many do during an attack: I froze. This behavior was not new for him and as it wore on, my bias threshold reached its capacity. Later that day, I challenged his behavior openly as misogynistic and racist. He was clearly unprofessional-or so I thought. As I sat in various conversations processing while simultaneously explaining what happened, reality slowly sunk in that his behavior was not offensive to everyone. Lips moved, but I only heard garbled words in twos: "team player," "get along," "minor bump," "take personally," "right approach." These words pieced together an ugly truth-one that my elders long warned. Some are more offended by a Black woman challenging racism than by a white person perpetuating it.

There are four stages to selective offense. First, people minimize and fail to admonish the harmful behavior. Second, people impute charm or innocence to the harmful behavior. Even the most clear-cut inappropriate behavior could be likened to humor or quirk. Not deemed harmful, it is instead attributed to the personality of the person perpetuating the harm. The distinction between personality and behavior is crucial because many believe a person can correct another's behavior-but not their personality. Third, people accept the harmful behavior. Fourth, any challenges to the harmful behavior are seen as a personal character attack rather than rectifying harm.

During my tenure in the legal field, I have observed how these four stages unfold, particularly when the person engaging in harmful conduct is a white male. Once in conversation with attorneys, one mentioned a white male judge who was known to have a moody disposition. He remarked with a chuckle, "We call him Grumpy Grandpa." The judge's disgruntled disposition was transformed into a charming quirk that humanized him. For all intents and purposes, his behavior was unprofessional. A judge's demeanor is essential to the role, especially when interfacing with litigants who are traumatized or stressed by the eviction process. Yet not only was the harmful effect ignored, it was turned into an attribute of his personality. There is also another layer as to why this harmful behavior is attributed to charm or humor. The act of humiliating, regulating, or rebuking people of color, especially in a public setting, has historically been a form of entertainment. From lynching as an American pastime to interactions with the police to degrading interactions in the workplace, inflicting pain on people of color is a public sport. Thus, when a person perpetuates this harm, they are seen as humorous because their actions are amusing for some to watch.

C. Justice Is Blind and the Reasonable Person Is White

On June 1, 2020, I learned that police officers killed a Black man in Minneapolis. Against my better judgment, I watched the video of the murder circulating on social media. The video depicted hatred, violence, and a visual display of antiblackness.

During the first days after George Floyd's murder, I questioned whether everyone watched the same video. There was unusual silence in the American workplace, including the legal sector. I am part of many different communities in the legal profession such as working groups, boards, and coalitions. Routine business emails continued. Since I spent years internalizing the bias threshold discussed in Subpart I.A, I began to wonder whether I was unprofessional for my inability to complete work due to trauma. I was jarred back to reality in an unexpected way. A former client of mine, a Black woman, emailed me: "Ms. Goodridge, with all that's going on, I just wanted to see if you were okay." I had been operating on the lie that I was justified in ignoring the pangs of anxiety quietly roaring inside of me while I continued working to protect my clients. In five words-"with all that's going on"-my client forced me to confront the underbelly of American racism. In that moment of vulnerability, I replied that I was not okay. She responded with a lengthy Bible passage and words of encouragement that we will get through this.

I called Black colleagues and friends who also worked in public interest law in various positions to inquire if they were experiencing the same silence. I was not alone. One friend said, "I just saw a Black man get lynched on television and people are sending emails about service and motions. What is going on?" In almost all instances that I knew of, legal organizations were mostly silent until a person of color raised that the murder of George Floyd required more than a cursory mention-this was a racial reckoning.

Many people adhere to the axiom that discussion of politics in the workplace must be avoided in order to maintain a harmonious environment. In the legal profession, however, it goes beyond politics. Lawyers have been taught for centuries that thinking like a lawyer means putting all emotions aside. Divesting of emotion for the sake of legal reasoning in and of itself is an exercise of privilege. For example, law students have been forced to complete exam questions that reenact situations such as Michael Brown's murder in Ferguson, Missouri. Even the way law students are taught to view defendants and their circumstances is through the narrow prism of the reasonable person standard. The reasonable person is supposedly a raceless and genderless blank slate which parallels with the ideology that justice is blind. However, stripping identity from the reasonable person means that whiteness becomes the norm and lens which legal advocates look through. Though fictional and imaginary, the reasonable person in "its present manifestation, applied within the trappings of the past, becomes less reflective of the population that will soon become the majority, becomes less legitimate if law's purpose is to serve the People."

This occurs in other areas as well. After the murder of George Floyd, many legal institutions such as law firms, courts, and legal service organizations provided ongoing antiracism initiatives for their employees. Though there are multiple ways to discuss antiracism, equity, and inclusion, I noticed that in many instances, the framing focused almost entirely on white allyship. This meant that there were only rudimentary discussions of racism, (centering questions like: What does racism look like?) which did not allow for a more nuanced understanding of concepts like colorism, featurism, intraracial violence, and intersectional identities. In addition, the tailoring of racial justice education for a white audience often resulted in examining race only through a Black and white binary. This excluded other racial groups such as Asian American and Pacific Islander and Native American. As a result, the only way for people of color in those rooms to participate was to be of service to the learning experience of their white peers rather than to process their own pain or even learn themselves. This functions to make the purpose of the presence of marginalized groups to be useful to the education of their white peers.

In fact, when I later asked non-Black people why there was stifling silence when the news first showed the murder, the responses were: "I did not know what to say," "I did not feel I had license to speak because I am not Black," "I thought it might be impolite to raise this topic at work," and "I did not think it was related to our work of eviction." Attorneys who represent people of color everyday still felt they did not have license to talk about race. This is a systemic reflection of how legal practice functions in a largely colorblind fashion.

II. Accountability: Deconstructing Professionalism as a Racial Construct

After laying out my experiences and thoughts on professionalism as a racial construct, it is time for you to take action. The first step is to absorb this Essay in its entirety and identify what your role has been: target, bystander, accomplice, challenger, or perpetuator of professionalism as a racial construct. If it is difficult to identify your role, ask yourself how you are reacting to this Essay. Are you defensive? Ready to share it privately to an individual colleague? Ready to share it publicly to all of your colleagues? Or are you reticent about sharing this Essay with colleagues because you believe it will negatively impact your career? Will you ignore this Essay entirely? How you react to this Essay-the experiences of a Black woman attorney speaking on professionalism as a tool for white supremacy-may correlate with the role you play in challenging it within your own institution.

Next, send the Essay to family or friends to discuss ways that you can (further) challenge professionalism as a racial construct. The basis of professionalism as a racial construct is the belief that the racial hierarchy which produces the phenomenon will remain the same and that practitioners will adapt to it rather than challenge it. Since it has been deeply inculcated into the legal practice and American workforce, these conversations may prove difficult and enlightening because fear of change undergirds much of the perpetuation of professionalism as a racial construct.

The next step is to send this Essay to your colleagues for a discussion at the next staff meeting. You can discuss the Essay generally or discuss the Subparts over multiple meetings. The main question should be: How does professionalism as a racial construct manifest at this institution?

Moving forward, in order to disrupt professionalism as a racial construct, you must name it by using the framework in this Essay to identify the conduct as it happens. For example, you can say:

Why are you so bothered that Jane, a Black woman, called out an attorney for his racist conduct but you do not have this same reaction towards John, a white man, who still cannot correctly pronounce the names of people of color after ten years of working here? This seems like selective offense.

Your Honor, opposing counsel has interrupted me several times and there has been no warning of contempt or forcing them to leave the courtroom. Are my client and I expected to silently endure this-a high bias threshold-during this proceeding?

Respondent is Chinese American and lives in the Soho section of New York. The area has historically been comprised of 70 percent Asian American and Pacific Islanders; however in the last decade, that population has drastically declined due to gentrification, redlining and displacement. This eviction case is not divorced from that. Respondent would like to remain in her community.

In writing this Essay, I had an internal tug of war in speaking about my experiences and those of many people of color in the legal profession. I struggled with the reality that some will be more offended by reading the truth of professionalism as a racial construct on these pages than the fact that it exists in the halls of courthouses, law firms and legal organizations. I almost quelled my own voice and the fire within. Then I remembered the court appearance in 2020, after George Floyd's murder, where the Black judge and I both had weary eyes which met, for a moment, as opposing counsel rattled on about the eviction moratorium. I remembered brunch with friends when they spoke about being the first generation of Black, Latinx, and Asian immigrant parents and internalizing the bias threshold-sacrifices their parents made to come to this country meant ignoring and tolerating racism at work. I remembered the many times I watched people of color shy away from staunch racially progressive positions under a belief that disassociation would help them appear more professional. I remembered the conversations with relatives, friends, and colleagues of color, venting and processing a racist incident and in determining how to respond, the pendulum swinging between comfort of white peers, self-respect, and rage. And I remembered using chemicals to destroy and straighten my natural hair during job interviews in law school in the hopes of increasing my chances of securing employment. I remembered all of these contours of professionalism as a racial construct. And I remembered my own duty to disrupt the system and get in good trouble.
[1]. See Amanda Luz Henning Santiago, How Can New York Change Its Court Culture?, City & State N.Y. (Oct. 27, 2020), https://www.cityandstateny.com/politics/2020/10/how-can-new-york-change-its-court-culture/175516 [https://perma.cc/W3DP-PH5C] ("For many working within the court system, it's understood that in order to maintain a sense of professionalism, employees have to ignore blatant racism. 'It (racism and sexism) has become so ingrained into the culture (of the court system) that there is an underlying and silent expectation that people just put up with it and it's part of being professional, having a thicker skin,' Leah Goodridge, a supervising attorney at Mobilization for Justice, who has spent years working in Housing Court, told City & State. 'So instead of people challenging the racist behavior, for example, the burden has shifted to the person who bears it-and that is not limited to attorneys; sometimes it's judges as well.'"). [2]. See Am. Bar Ass'n, Profile of the Legal Profession 2021 (2021); see also Karen Sloan,
New Lawyer Demographics Show Modest Growth in Minority Attorneys, Reuters (July 29, 2021, 3:12 PM), https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/new-lawyer-demographics-show-modest-growth-minority-attorneys-2021-07-29 (last visited Mar. 20, 2022). [3]. Deborah L. Rhode, Law is the Least Diverse Profession in the Nation. And Lawyers Aren't
Doing Enough to Change That., Wash. Post (May 27, 2015),https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/
wp/2015/05/27/law-is-the-least-diverse-profession-in-the-nation-and-lawyers-arent-doing-enough-to-change-that [https://perma.cc/P6S6-F6YU]. [6]. Dylan Jackson, George Floyd's Death Ushered in a New Era of Law Firm Activism and There's No Going Back, Am. Law. (May 25, 2021, 5:00 AM), https://www.law.com/Americanlawyer/2021/05/25/george-floyds-death-ushered-in-a-new-era-of-law-firm-activism-and-theres-no-going-back-405-84104 [https://perma.cc/P7A3-V8CZ]. [7]. Adam Liptak, Exclusion of Blacks From Juries Raises Renewed Questions, N.Y. Times (Aug. 16, 2015), https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/17/us/politics/exclusion-of-blacks-from-juries-raises-renewed-scrutiny.html [https://perma.cc/WR97-4T2N]. [8]. The examples included court staff frequently mistaking attorneys for litigant-respondents or confusing two people of color, opposing counsel yelling or making racist comments. Many of the experiences noted in the letter were later reflected in a wider and first of its kind report on racism in the courts published in 2020. Jeh Charles Johnson, Report From the Special Adviser on Equal Justice in the New York State Courts 61-66 (2020). [10]. Press Release, New York City Office of the Mayor, New York City's First-in-Nation Right-to-Counsel Program Expanded Citywide Ahead of Schedule, (Nov. 17, 2021), https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/769-21/new-york-city-s-first-in-nation-right-to-counsel-program-expanded-citywide-ahead-schedule [https://perma.cc/JS3E-E6GL]. [11]. After a white male landlords' attorney referred to COVID-19 as "Chinese cooties" in a long email chain including judges, landlords, and tenants attorneys, several articles were published describing the incident. See Jane Wester, Racist Comment by New York Landlords' Attorney is Symptom of Larger Problem, Bronx Tenants' Lawyers Say, N.Y. L.J. (Aug. 31, 2020, 5:57 PM), https://www.law.com/newyorklawjournal/2020/08/31/racist-comment-by-new-york-landlords-attorney-is-symptom-of-larger-problem-bronx-tenants-lawyers-say (last visited Mar. 19, 2022) ("Several tenants' attorneys said Rogers' comment was an example of pervasive behavior they face in Bronx Housing Court. The number of tenants' attorneys working in housing court has grown since the city passed its Universal Access to Legal Services law in 2017, and the tenants' bar tends to be younger and more diverse than the landlords' bar, which is largely white and male, several lawyers said."). [12]. See generally The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex (INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence eds., 2017). [13]. One example of a macro-aggression is when a landlords' attorney filed at least forty eviction cases in Housing Court with termination notices referencing coronavirus as the "Chinese Wuhan Virus." The Court dismissed almost all of the notices. In an article for a legal publication, the landlords' attorney declined to comment on the offensive conduct but did say "I'm just waiting for them to pass universal rent control where they completely take away landlords' rights to do what they want with private property." See Emma Whitford, NYC Eviction Judge Tosses Cases with "Wuhan Virus" Notice, Law360 (May 21, 2021, 9:54 PM), https://www.law360.com/realestate/articles/
1387338/nyc-judge-tosses-eviction-cases-with-wuhan-virus-notice [https://perma.cc/CZ7U-Y7J2]. [14]. A Black woman tenants' rights attorney filed an attorney grievance against a white male landlords' attorney, alleging that he called her a "bitch" several times in court. In 2020, the Appellate Division of New York issued a decision suspending the white male attorney for three months. See Denenberg v. Att'y Grievance Comm. for First Jud. Dep't, 192 A.D.3d 76 (N.Y. App. Div. 2020). This is one of the very few and rare instances where an attorney is disciplined for misogynistic and racist conduct. What I found interesting about the decision is that there is much analysis on whether the Respondent apologized. See id. at 81. If he had apologized, it is unclear of whether he would have been so disciplined. Perhaps the onus would have been shifted to the grievant and, in turn, her bias threshold would have become the focal point of the grievance, not the white male attorney's conduct. Thus, an apology-which may not even be sincere-places the burden on the person experiencing bias to forgive. [16]. Model Rules of Pro. Conduct r. 8.4 (Am. Bar Ass'n 2016). [18]. Erika Stallings, When Black Women Go From Office Pet to Office Threat, Medium (Jan. 16, 2020), https://zora.medium.com/when-black-women-go-from-office-pet-to-office-threat-83bde710332e [https://perma.cc/7SCP-5UN3]. [19]. A group of judges of color issued a report on institutional racism within the New York court system. See The Judicial Friends Association, Report to the New York State Court's Commission on Equal Justice in the Courts 45 (2020), https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/ip/ethnic-fairness/pdfs/Judicial-Friends-Report-on-Systemic-Racism-in-the-NY-Courts.pdf [https://perma.cc/9237-XQRT] ("Housing Court does not reflect the diversity of the community, either ethnically or with respect to race. This diversity is lacking both in the judiciary and among court attorneys. For example, in Kings County, over 80 [percent] of the population which utilizes the court as litigants are people of color. Further, these litigants are typically unrepresented. Of the fifty (50) New York City Housing Court Judges, fifteen (15) judges are assigned to Kings County, yet there are only three (3) judges of color in the borough."). Similarly, a group of Latinx and Hispanic judges in New York courts issued a report noting that out of fifty Housing Court judges, only four are Latinx. See Sallie Manzanet-Daniels, Overview of Latinos/Hispanics in the New York Court System 2020 (2020), https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/ip/ethnic-fairness/pdfs/Overview-of-Latino-Judges-2020.pdf [https://perma.cc/E63P-LP94]. [20]. Anastasia Reesa Tompkin, How White People Conquered the Nonprofit Industry, Nonprofit Q. (May 26, 2020), https://nonprofitquarterly.org/how-white-people-conquered-the-nonprofit-industry [https://perma.cc/JG3P-NDSN] ("The philanthropic sector, by its very nature and definition, purports to serve 'disadvantaged communities,' and over the years has presented itself as a more people-centered, equity-driven alternative to the cold corporate world. Due to historical racism and systemic inequalities, the majority of 'disadvantaged communities' are predominantly lower-income [B]lack and brown citizens, who have little social capital and little financial security. The nonprofit industry rakes in billions of dollars annually off the creation of programs and services designed with this demographic in mind. Then, white supremacy in a basic definition, means white people having the most access to and control over money, resources and people. If we sift through the centuries from slavery through segregation and ask whether there has been any distinct transference of wealth and power to [B]lack and brown people, the answer would be a resounding no."). [22]. See Conor Friedersdorf, At Law School, Is Insensitivity Grounds for Objection?, Atlantic (Dec. 19, 2014), https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/at-law-school-is-insensitivity-grounds-for-an-objection/383882 [https://perma.cc/F3FB-RT2U] ("Law Professor Eugene Volokh recently wrote about a controversial exam question at UCLA, where he teaches. The question noted a protest in Ferguson, Missouri, where the stepfather of Michael Brown, the unarmed man killed by police, reacted to news that Officer Darren Wilson would not be charged in the killing. Overcome with anger, he shouted to a crowd of protestors, 'Burn this bitch down!' Students were asked to write a memo analyzing how the First Amendment applies to such speech. Several complained. Said one UCLA student: 'These kinds of questions create a hostile learning environment for students of color, especially [B]lack students who are already disadvantaged by the institution.' The professor who gave the test agreed to adjust grades of test-takers who did worse on that question than the rest of their First Amendment exam."). See also Conor Friedersdorf, Are Today's Law Students Tough Enough?, Atlantic (Jan. 12, 2015) https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/are-todays-law-students-tough-enough/384376 [https://perma.cc/HD8C-NHDJ]. [26]. See Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 518 (1980); see also Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Diversity's Distractions, 103 Colum. L. Rev. 1622 (2003).
3 - Goodridge - Final Pages - rev

About the Author

Leah Goodridge is the Managing Attorney for Housing Policy at Mobilization for Justice. This Essay is dedicated to Professors Kimberlé Crenshaw, Devon Carbado and Cheryl Harris who mentored her while she was a law student at UCLA School of Law in the Critical Race Studies Program. She also thanks the UCLA Law Review student editors who worked on this Essay.

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Professionalism as a Racial Construct | UCLA Law Review

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Abstract This Essay examines professionalism as a tool to subjugate people of color in the legal field. Professionalism is a standard with a set of beliefs about how one should operate in the workplace. While professionalism seemingly applies to everyone, it is used to widely police and regula ...

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Not to make this thread an advert for This American Life, but they have some great podcast series about race inequity

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Introducing: Nice White Parents (Published 2020)

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A new five-part series about building a better school system, and what gets in the way. New episodes of “Nice White Parents” are available here, brought to you by Serial Productions and The New York Times.

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Making a Difference: Belonging, Diversity and Inclusion in Occupational Therapy

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Making a Difference: Belonging Diversity and Inclusion in OT

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Making a Difference: Belonging Diversity and Inclusion in OT

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Thank you to Janine for this article. I read it with feelings of utter desperation for the injustice. This is coloniality in action. On a positive note it came out in the same week that Jason Arday, who was one of these kids, became the youngest black professor at Cambridge University.

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Black people wrongly labelled "educationally subnormal" as children in the UK before being wrongly sent to special schools have launched a campaign demanding an apology and compensation from the government.

They say their lives have been ruined by their early experiences during the 1960s and 70s. They were told they were "backward" or "slow" or "a dunce", and placed in schools with no curriculum, no exams and no qualifications. The consequences have lasted a lifetime, blighting their confidence, self-esteem and life chances.

Some of their stories were highlighted in a 2021 BBC TV documentary called, Subnormal: A British Scandal. Since then however, more victims have come forward to share their experiences and are working with lawyers to try to secure compensation for negligence and post-traumatic stress.

The documentary described how from 1945, children thought to have limited intellectual ability were described by a new term, "educationally subnormal" (ESN). A leaked report by the Inner London Education Authority revealed it was applied disproportionately to black children, often based on IQ tests that were biased.

"The trauma has been lifelong for those who were robbed of an education," said the Labour MP Kim Johnson, who is supporting their claim.

Those affected were children of the Windrush generation. Noel Gordon's parents arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1960. He was born six years later, then at the age of four his family discovered he had sickle cell disease.

His parents were told there was a place for him at a special school - a state boarding school - where a matron could keep an eye on his health. It turned out to be what was known at the time as an ESN school. He suffered racist abuse and had little formal, academic education.

"It was soul destroying," said Gordon. "All the things I could have learned and didn't because there was no curriculum, there were no exams. I couldn't punctuate, I couldn't spell. Normally, when you go to school, year after year, you're getting tested and you build your confidence up. I didn't have any of that. I felt inadequate."

He has spent a lifetime trying to catch up, completing a range of qualifications including a degree in information systems and a PGCE, and writing a children's book, but the stigma remains. "There are many that will not talk about their experiences because they feel ashamed.

"The most damaging thing about being in a special school is the lack of self-belief and confidence. That was sucked out of us. I left the school a blank template. I had to pick up the pieces and start again."

'I didn't have any confidence or self-esteem because of the educational background I had,' says Maisie Barrett. Photograph: Lyttanya Shannon/BBC/Rogan Productions

Maisie Barrett also ended up in a special school at the age of six. "They told my mother I was backward." Thirty years later she was diagnosed with dyslexia, but the damage was already done. "When a Caribbean parent heard the word 'special', they thought they were lucky. In fact I didn't learn anything."

Her mother later sought a second opinion from a social worker, who carried out an assessment. "She said to my mother I was intelligent. That was the first time I had heard the word intelligent." At the age of 13 Barrett was transferred to a mainstream school, but it was too late. She had missed too much.

"My brain, all those years, had not been stimulated. Other children thought I was quite weird. I was a big girl and I could not read or write. I became a loner. I convinced myself I was useless. I could not learn. There was nothing I could really do."

Marriage and motherhood seemed her only option, but she was ill prepared for that too. She says her children have suffered as a consequence. "I didn't have any confidence or self-esteem because of the educational background I had," she said. "Up to this very day, it's affected my whole life." She has gone on to study for a degree in Caribbean studies and creative writing, and is writing her third book, but "it's been a great struggle", she says.

'There was no proper curriculum. I never sat an exam. It was more like containing,' says Ann-Marie Simpson. Photograph: Lyttanya Shannon/BBC/Rogan Productions

Ann-Marie Simpson, who came to England from Jamaica at the age of nine after little formal education, also ended up in a special needs school after being excluded from the mainstream for getting into fights. "I recall having an assessment by a psychologist and my mum was advised I needed special education. But I don't know what my special needs were."

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Of her new school, she said: "There was no proper curriculum. I never sat an exam. It was more like containing. At the time I was very, very embarrassed. I would not tell anyone where I went to school." She has since studied via evening classes and access courses, and is now a social worker.

Frances Swaine, a consultant solicitor at Leigh Day who is working with the group, said potentially hundreds of people were affected by the ESN scandal. An event is being held in the House of Commons on 1 March to highlight the campaign. A petition calling for justice for those affected has also been set up.

"Each individual client is very severely damaged by what happened to them," she said. "There are a lot of people who feel very ashamed about themselves. They did not realise the lack of education they suffered was not their fault.

"Our case is the fact they should never have been sent to these schools in the first place. If a proper investigation had been done, they would have been properly placed within a mainstream school."

She said her clients did not have the kind of disabilities that required a place in special school. In some cases, children ended up there because they had a strong Jamaican accent, or because teachers thought the best way to "keep them under control" was to put them in a separate setting. Others underwent an IQ test that was culturally biased and included questions they could not possibly answer because of their different experiences, but it was incorrectly put down to low IQ.

"In quite a number of cases what we see is a bias and systemic racism towards a group of children who were very vulnerable," said Swaine. "It's very clear for a lot of them that wrong or careless decisions were made."

Swaine is representing eight clients, but there are likely to be more. "A lot of them have kept their school reports, the way everybody does, so there's quite a lot of history there. And local education authorities also have not destroyed their records."

According to Swaine, there are precedents for this kind of action, which falls beyond the normal time limits, with the infected blood inquiry, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse and the Windrush compensation scheme.

Johnson, who sits on the Commons education select committee and is hosting the 1 March event, believes there are parallels today with the disproportionate numbers of black children put in lower sets, affected by fixed-term exclusions and sent to pupil referral units. She would like to see an inquiry into race in education.

"The persistent exclusion of black children from mainstream schooling presents a crisis situation. Unlike the 60s and 70s, we know the scale and nature of the problem today. There needs to be a sense of urgency and not delay from the Department for Education on how to put an end to the routine exclusion of black children from education."

The DfE said: "Racism in all its forms is abhorrent and has no place in our schools or society, and the Equality Act makes it clear that any discrimination against pupils on the basis of their race is unlawful."

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Black people labelled 'backward' as children seek justice for lifelong trauma

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Black people wrongly labelled "educationally subnormal" as children in the UK before being wrongly sent to special schools have launched a campaign demanding an apology and compensation from the government. They say their lives have been ruined by their early experiences during the 1960s and 70s.

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Providing allyship to healthcare students in placements

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Providing allyship to healthcare students in placements

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Providing Allyship to Health Care Students in Placements

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Is occupational therapy an ableist health profession? A critical reflection on ableism and occupational therapy

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Is occupational therapy an ableist health profession? A critical reflection on ableism and occupational therapy

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Critical reflection is defined to be "[...] a form of criticality concerned with critique of oneself, one's internal dialogue, performance, cognitive biases and development" (, p. 68). Doing critical reflection allows a practitioner to ask questions like "Why did I do that?", "How do I feel after doing that?", or "How could I do it differently the next time around?" On the other hand, critical reflexivity allows us to take a step back and appraise the unquestioned and dominant philosophies embedded within our lives and our professional practices (). A practitioner who practises critical reflexivity asks questions like "How did I learn to do things this way?", "Am I doing these things out of my privileged position?", or "Was I being biassed in thinking or doing this way?" Engaging in critical reflection and reflexivity brings about transformative actions by assessing and understanding our experience, assumptions, and practice () toward a socially responsible and ethical practice ().

[...] a system of assigning value to people's bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness... This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people's value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, 'health/wellness', and/or their ability to satisfactorily (re)produce, 'excel' and 'behave'.

Ableist micro- and macro-processes can reinforce injustice to an already unjust society. Although engaging in critical reflection and reflexivity is seen as a threat to dominant approaches and power relations, such practices must be enforced because they contribute to professional development and galvanise our social accountability (). In this article, we seek to 1) discuss ableism as a social construction within the practice system of OT, 2) deconstruct ableist mechanisms employed within OT practice, and 3) propose inclusive and justice-oriented practices that can improve patterns of practices within the OT profession.

This article did not go through the traditional way of collecting and analysing data. Whilst data-free, we, the authors, worked together through online discussions and reflective writing to curate our experiences and insights based on our personal and professional experiences, thoughts, and observations as Filipino OT practitioners. These produced critical reflections that contained qualitative data and allowed us to generate proposed strategies to enable inclusive and justice-oriented practices underpinned by critical reflexivity.

Moreover, each of us is coming from different points of analysis. All authors are Filipino occupational therapists. DPGY (first author) is a Ph.D. student in disability studies, an occupational scientist, and had a clinical background in physical rehabilitation; MPS (shared first author) is an associate professor of health professions education and an occupational scientist who does full-time teaching in a national university; PGVM (co-author) is a Masters student in International Health and an instructor of OT with a clinical background in children care and mental health services; and, ECL (co-author) is a clinical instructor of OT with a clinical background in children and mental health services.

Whilst the reflections were based specifically on OT service delivery in the Philippines, we envision this paper to be of benefit to both local and international occupational therapists. To validate the content of this article, we invited feedback from three external reviewers coming from various backgrounds and countries-an American OT, an American disabled self-advocate, and a Filipino sociologist.

OT first emerged in the year 1917, a time when eugenic philosophy had been gaining global support. The American eugenic movement was formed in the early nineteenth century and continued up until the 1940s. An aspect of eugenics aimed to eliminate inferior genes including impairments (). It was a time when violent medical interventions seeking to cure impairments became rampant. OT pushed forth for the humane treatment of disabled people using daily activities that occupy time (). Over the years, the profession transitioned to become an integral part of the healthcare system. The OT profession is thereby defined as a client-centred allied health profession that seeks to promote health and well-being through the therapeutic use of activities-occupations (). A critique, however, to the uncritical application of client-centredness is the tendency to have a narrowed lens that focuses merely on the client thereby failing to see the system that oppresses the client as a problem.

The concept of ableism perpetuates because of how these actions are covertly practised, which later becomes systemic and structured. In the following subsections, we present how ableist practices are espoused across the OT process based on our personal and professional experiences, thoughts, and observations as OT practitioners in the Philippines. We actuated critical reflections on the practice process that begins with evaluation, followed by intervention, and usually ends by measuring set outcomes. Within these processes, ableism can be demonstrated unconsciously, unintentionally, or even without reflection and reflexivity.

In child-focused services, it is almost second nature for therapists to speak to the parents/caregivers to gather information about the child. At times, even when the child is at an age where they can speak for themselves, therapists may easily take for granted the child's preference because they are oriented to communicate with the parent/caregiver mainly. Similarly, in physical rehabilitation, geriatric care, adolescent care, and mental health settings, therapists tend to be paternalistic by focusing on caregivers speaking on behalf of the person, which may make the disabled person feel invisible during the evaluation process. These situations convey ableist assumptions that tend to put a lesser premium on the thought, needs, wants, and circumstances of a disabled person by silencing them when therapy services should be about and centred around the disabled person.

Rating clients based on their performance is prone to ableist approaches as well. The dominant use of quantitative measures to determine ability from disability potentially reduces the disabled person to a myriad of numbers. Through the years, OT has developed standardised tools that examine specific client factors (e.g., pain, range of motion, strength, and balance). The measured performance is always made with reference given to the performance of nondisabled individuals (labelled as the 'norm'), thereby suggesting that the disabled person is incapable of doing certain activities or that their performance is deviant from the doings of so-called 'normal' people. To illustrate, a person with cerebral palsy should not be measured on the same balance scale as an athlete with an injury, yet we still see that being practised. The creation and use of standardised tools can be useful in practice when employed in the right situation and purpose (i.e., to objectively quantify pre- and post-intervention). However, the issue here is how occupational therapists tend to have this desire to categorise their patients into the spectrum of ability/disability even to the point of using assessment tools and instruments that may not be the most appropriate for the person's needs and goals.

There is also an unconscious practice of measuring disability and the client's prognosis based on severity (e.g., 'mild', 'moderate', or 'severe') or based on the therapist's subjective perception (e.g., 'good', 'fair', or 'poor') solely based on the physician's diagnosis. Sometimes, these labels were generated from a person's performance within a single context alone such as the clinic or hospital. Nevertheless, therapists need to be cognisant that individuals may not perform their best, especially if they are anxious due to the new physical and/or social environment, if they are exposed to a new experience, or if they feel overly conscious when being observed. For instance, children presented with unfamiliar toys unavailable at home may struggle playing with it or may not be motivated to play. Similarly, adults assessed through simulated activities may have difficulty adapting to a task typically done at home. Whilst the use of medical labels and diagnosis (even OT diagnosis) is statutory, it tends to enclose the person to a category and, as argued by , can deorient and devalue people, eventually positioning them into a space of oppression and stigmatisation. In terms of evaluation, we argue that whilst using standardised tools and clinical observation are expected, needed, and useful, we also want to acknowledge the viewpoint of the client in the assessment process to triangulate the assessment information being documented.

The use of language-concordant care enhances the trust between clients and carers, optimises health outcomes, and promotes health equity whilst providing health care services (). Within OT practice, the term 'able to' has largely influenced the formulation of goals for clients and groups. A typical OT goal's syntax proposed by , p. 58) is as follows, "Client will be able to button shirt using a button hook with 2 or fewer verbal cues by the tenth treatment session". Whilst not necessarily discriminative, the term 'able to' implicitly suggests how a disabled person is compelled to adhere to species-typical physical, mental, neuro, and cognitive abilities without intentionally recognising that 'disability' is part of the person's identity, which needs to be embraced rather than conquered (). Moreover, there is a compulsion to set goals relating to independence, performance, and efficiency to adhere to the 'norm', without realising that the norm was established with nondisabled bodyminds, underpinned by the conceptual frameworks of capitalism and individualism, without proper representation of the disabled population, and is stemming from a eugenic origin (). The goal of eradicating cues and prompts to achieve independence and be more efficient may not always be meaningful. For instance, in cultures where interdependence is more valuable than independence, when an elderly person with a disability is being assisted to stand up or walk to participate in a church service, this could be seen as something virtuous and respectful without thinking that the elderly is disabled or dependent.

The OT profession prides itself in being holistic, however, the use of 'able to', hyperfocusing on caregivers/parents' perspectives, and an obsession with certain categories and normative performance may stray us away from being the holistic carers that we ought to be. Although it is valid to measure the capacity to perform, careful attention must also be given to environments, contexts, systems, and occupations that influence performance, participation, and engagement.

Deriving from day-to-day experience, OT practitioners often already have ideas of what to target and do for a certain population. A pitfall to this situation, however, is the tendency to be less person-centred. Instead of listening and collaborating with the disabled person in terms of planning the program, there is a possibility of coercing them into 'choosing' what to target and doing what the OT practitioner thinks. This practice prevails in Asian countries, like the Philippines, that value traditional hierarchical structures that reduce the disabled person into the patient role dependent on the expert. The uncontested and rampant assumption where the therapist is the expert and main problem solver espouses patterns of ableism in day-to-day practice and also galvanizes an unbalanced power dynamic between practitioner and client whilst, in reality, the client is the expert about their own life, bodyminds, and desires.

When OT practitioners do collaborate with the disabled person in developing a program, it is a common practice across all settings to expect a person receiving services to have therapy goals right off the bat and cooperate with the treatment program. When the goals are not met or when the person is not motivated to engage in therapy sessions, they are labelled as 'non-compliant' or 'unmotivated. This can be a subtle way of reinforcing ableism in practice. Without recognising that people need to internalise their reality, purpose in life, and socio-economic situation among others (), OT practitioners may be blindly espousing dehumanising and ableist practices. In connection to such a dynamic is subjecting the disabled person to 'forced intimacy'. defined forced intimacy as the everyday experiences of disabled people of being expected to divulge personal information and accept physical contact/help to survive in an ableist world. This happens within the clinical setting when disabled people lose any sense of privacy for the sake of evaluation/treatment, thereby positioning them as vulnerable individuals as a prerequisite to accessing their needs. Furthermore, it became a professional expectation that clinicians be let into all the private aspects and privy to all the details of a client's life, sometimes immediately upon meeting them.

Another, the use of 'time out' or isolation or dark rooms is a common behavioural management technique underpinned by applied behavioural analysis (ABA) principles and practices. Whilst it is a valid form of negative reinforcement within ABA, the concept stemmed from animal experiments and can dehumanise a person by considering them as a set of observable behaviours that need to be controlled. Unfortunately, behaviour management principles and techniques still predominate the education and training of OT practitioners in the Philippines.

The predominant use of specific frames of reference or specialised interventions may also pose a hindrance in understanding our clients holistically. We become short-sighted of our client's unique environments and contexts and insist on seeing our clients from a fixed standpoint. Often, we ask the question ' Is it behavioural or sensory?' but forget that they are not mutually exclusive and can co-exist at the same time and still make up the identity of a person. Whilst we recognise that OT largely borrows principles and assumptions from psychology and neurosciences, without critical reflexivity, we will continuously promote ableist practices. Drawing from , p. 1) words:

Ableism [is] the 'devaluation of disability' that 'results in societal attitudes that uncritically assert that it is better for a child to walk than roll, speak than sign, read print than read Braille, spell independently than use a spell-check, and hang out with nondisabled kids as opposed to other disabled kids'.

Quality of life is largely described as the standard of health, comfort, and happiness experienced by an individual or group. Although quality of life has nuanced understandings from different professions and disciplines, it is defined as an "[...] outcome measure to indicate the global health, functioning and well-being of a person following illness, injury or disability, and to evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions" within OT (, p. 77). This concept, however, is problematic and a barrier to care and participation especially when it is not defined comprehensively considering cultural determinants and subjectivity. There is no standardised meaning of quality of life as it is argued to be a difficult concept to concretize (). Disabled people perceive their quality of life differently from health professionals and other nondisabled individuals (). Imposing quality of life definitions or regulations based on Western or biomedical standards can potentially disadvantage disabled people, especially those who live in low and middle-income countries. Individuals from impoverished backgrounds have limited choices in terms of employment, education, housing, and meals, to name a few. In these countries, if a disabled person from a low-middle income social strata's quality of life is shaped primarily by the oppression of ableism, the everyday encounters with stigma, attitudinal barriers, and the backdrop of poverty, then surely the impact of OT services to their quality of life will not be very great despite receiving such services.

One of the aims of occupational justice is to promote advocacy and promotion of occupational rights among people and groups. Advocacy participation has been a mechanism used largely by OT practitioners to promote the profession, its values, and its position in the health and social care systems. To do this, OT practitioners gather to celebrate holidays or festivities related to disability. For instance, there is the tendency to use 'disability' as a punchline during disability week celebrations (i.e., 'know me for my abilities, not my disability', images with the word 'disability' but the prefix 'dis' are crossed out, and derivatives). To further reinforce the festivities, advocates use inspirational stories through various media to illustrate how a disabled person can achieve 'great' things in life, or how a disability can be 'fixed' later when one does this and that. This is an example of 'inspiration porn', a form of ableism. Without critical reflection, we deny the intersectionality of identities and privileges that made the unfolding of people's lives different, thus neglecting the uniqueness of disabled individuals (). Although these practices are undoubtedly done with good intentions, they may need to be revisited before advocating and celebrating another disability event.

If the OT profession is committed to upholding human dignity in our services, then it is expected that the collaboration between practitioner and client promotes non-ableist practices entailing inclusivity and participation. The embodiment of person-centredness should be the essence of the profession-to acknowledge the person as a human with their own identity and lived experiences. Yet, we should realise that to truly be person-centred is to acknowledge and call out the oppressive system surrounding the person. The integration of a justice-oriented lens and the adoption of disability studies perspectives can allow us to be sensitive and critical of the taken-for-granted language, actions, and attitudes within contemporary OT practices (; ). Concretising these principles, we are proposing in Table 2 the following ideas and concepts to rethink and challenge our conventional practice including destigmatising dependency, acknowledging Crip Time, co-creating inclusive curricula, utilising non-ableist narratives, allying with the Disability Justice movement, and promoting critical reflexivity.

Table 2 advances the view that therapy practitioners should acknowledge our privilege and resist the ableist society as exemplified in at least two ways. First is by embracing a genuinely intersectional lens in challenging OT practices. It is fundamentally important not to lose sight of the client's multiple and intersecting identities. By necessity of OT practice, disability is the starting point of evaluation, intervention, and outcomes. We can operationalise 'being holistic care providers' by appreciating the fact that varying forms of disadvantage and privilege based on sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, education, and income impact the client's lifeworld and intersect with their conditionalities. Second is by recognising that the dynamics of the therapeutic relationship between the occupational therapist and client must go beyond individualistic practice approaches (). This implies the activation of social transformative practices where inequities in occupational participation are seen as social and contextual rather than individual issues requiring the disruption of oppressive structures through emancipatory and participatory OT practices. Countering ableism can commence only when we fully appreciate how OT practices can be socially and contextually situated and when we intentionally integrate justice-oriented lenses in our knowings, doings, and sayings.

After discussing the conceptualisation of ableism within OT practice, we also need to recognise that OT is an evolving profession. As we enter the twenty-first century, our profession is acknowledging more challenges, and is warranted to promote the consideration of pluralistic viewpoints before enacting professional policies and local practices. The practice examples that we have outlined are non-exhaustive and personal. It is not our intention to generalise or impose our thoughts and experiences on other practitioners. Rather, we hope to initiate a discourse on this intersecting area of study (ableism and OT) to inform and aid the OT profession in its evolution. Hence, we synthesise how OT practitioners can transform their day-to-day knowings, doings, and sayings framed by the OT process:

1. 1
(Evaluation) Listen to the disabled person. See the larger picture, not just the stereotypical disability by assessing beyond the client factors and their occupational participation. Yet, in doing so, acknowledge and conscientiously assess their environment and context, including their family and community;

2. 2
(Intervention) Provide services that can conform and accommodate to the needs and time of disabled people such as having a flexible goal that positions their interests. Maintain an open communication with the client-partner and promote flexible time management;

3. 3
(Intervention) Allot protected time to pause and reflect on the interventions performed, client-therapist interaction, and the overall service delivery. Be mindful that context can change over time, so regular communication with the client and family is crucial. Keep a personal journal to jot down your thoughts, experiences, realisations, and questions. Process them as guided by the seven-step framework for critical analysis. Furthermore, bring awareness and discuss with your colleagues that ableism can take many forms. Discern and challenge when ableist practices are evident in one's practice and/or workplace. It can be helpful to discuss this with a trusted colleague/mentor. However, depending on the gravity of the concern, concerns can also be communicated through the ethics committee. Communicating concerns to proper channels may facilitate how these can be translated into actionable items for the improvement of service delivery;

4. 4
(Intervention) Reimagine occupational participation beyond social and normative conventions such as promoting disability art, dance, and sports that can be available in the community, disability affairs offices, and non-profit organisations;

5. 5
(Intervention) Create linkages with the community, professional services, and other opportunities that the disabled person can benefit from. This also includes having a social group virtually or physically;

6. 6
(Outcome) Refocus outcome measurements from mere efficiency and independence to personal meaningfulness and subjective acceptability of performance and participation in occupations;

7. 7
(Collaboration) Position disabled people consciously as experts on things concerning them by including them to be guest lecturers in OT courses, co-planning with them in program development, and co-working with them in developing a research protocol;

8. 8
(Collaboration) Co-advocate with disabled people when it comes to raising consciousness about ableism and ableist practices and how these can be disrupted and dismantled to promote inclusive and justice-oriented practices.

OT is an evolving profession. Without critical reflection and reflexivity, OT can potentially reinforce ableist practices that become practice patterns shaping the profession away from the holistic and person-centred principles that it promotes. In this article, we discussed the concept of ableism within the OT context and provided various forms and examples of how ableism is demonstrated across the OT process. Based on the authors' experiences and insights, although limited and personal, a curation of proposed non-ableist practices is presented to instigate micro-transformations towards a more inclusive, participatory, and transformative practice for occupational therapists locally and globally. We aim to illuminate these ableist practices to raise consciousness and invite scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to engage in an ongoing discourse regarding the topic.

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Is occupational therapy an ableist health profession? A critical reflection on ableism and occupational therapy

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Critical reflection is defined to be "[...] a form of criticality concerned with critique of oneself, one's internal dialogue, performance, cognitive biases and development" (, p. 68). Doing critical reflection allows a practitioner to ask questions like "Why did I do that?", "How do I feel after doing that?", or "How could I do it differently the next time around?"

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Multiple stakeholder perspectives of factors infuencing diferential outcomes for ethnic minority students on health and social care placements: a qualitative exploration

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Multiple stakeholder perspectives of factors infuencing diferential outcomes for ethnic minority students on health and social care placements: a qualitative exploration

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BMC Medical Education 22, Article number: 17 (2022) Cite this article

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Abstract

Background

Despite considerable efforts there continues to be a degree awarding gap within the United Kingdom (UK) between the proportion of White British students receiving higher classifications, compared to ethnic minority UK-domiciled students. Practice placement elements constitute approximately 50% of most health and social care programmes, yet surprisingly little research exists related to the factors which may contribute to ethnic minority student placement outcomes or experiences. This study bridges this evidence gap by exploring factors influencing differential placement outcomes of ethnic minority students from the perspectives of key stakeholders.

Methods

The study followed a descriptive qualitative research design and was multi-disciplinary, with participants drawn from across nursing, midwifery, social work and the allied health professions. Participants from four stakeholder categories (ethnic minority students, academic staff, placement educators and student union advisors) were invited to join separate focus groups. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed and analysed thematically.

Results

Ten separate focus groups [ n = 66] yielded three primary themes: 1) recognition, which highlighted stakeholder perceptions of the issues [sub-themes: acknowledging concerns; cultural norms; challenging environments]; 2) the lived experience, which primarily captured ethnic minority student perspectives [sub-themes: problematising language and stereotyping, and being treated differently]; 3) surviving not thriving, which outlines the consequences of the lived experience [sub-themes: withdrawing mentally, feeling like an alien].

Conclusion

This study presents a rich exploration of the factors affecting differential outcomes of ethnic minority students on practice placements through the lens of four different stakeholder groups. To our knowledge this is the first study in which this comprehensive approach has been taken to enable multiple viewpoints to be accessed across a wide range of health and social care professions. The issues and challenges raised appear to be common to most if not all of these disciplines. This study highlights the urgent need to value and support our ethnic minority students to remove the barriers they face in their practice learning settings. This is a monumental challenge and requires both individuals and organisations to step up and take collective responsibility.

Peer Review reports

Introduction

Many countries have been struggling to address the inequity of access to higher education for different ethnic and racial groups. In the United States of America (USA), for example, USA-domiciled Asians over the age of 25 are more likely to have a Bachelor's degree or higher than the non-Hispanic white population; degree attainment for the Black and Hispanic communities lags behind significantly [ 1, 2]. Facilitating access to university is, however, not enough; ethnic and racial differences prevail in both degree completion (attainment) and degree classification (degree awarding gap).

In the United Kingdom (UK), white British students are more likely to receive higher degree classifications compared to ethnic minority UK-domiciled students. Outcomes vary considerably by ethnic group, with a much smaller awarding gap between White and Chinese students compared to the gap between White and Black students [ 3]. Similar ethnicity awarding and attainment gaps have also been reported in the Netherlands, USA and Australia [ 4]. Educational interventions to reduce ethnicity attainment and awarding differentials are invariably focused to campus-based solutions, whereas the influence of professional practice outcomes on degree attainment and awarding gaps is rarely investigated. Some data is available that confirms that attainment and awarding differentials are associated with professional practice elements of health and social care programmes. In one institution, physiotherapy students from ethnic minority backgrounds were found to receive statistically significantly lower marks than white peers in final clinical placements, although the difference was small [ 5]. In a larger study analysing data from four institutions in England ( n = 1851), Norris et al. highlighted significantly lower assessment scores for minority ethnic groups compared to White British students, most notably in clinical and observed assessments [ 6].

However no studies directly investigate the factors influencing the placement awarding gaps or attainment differentials and, in UK literature, the experiences of visiting international students rather than UK-domiciled minority ethnic students are commonly presented. However a few research studies explore the practice placement experiences of minority ethnic students in health and social care, and several themes can be drawn from this small body of research.

Students often describe the university as a 'safe haven' and find the transition to a less regulated placement environment as stressful [ 7]; strong tutor-student relationships in both academic and placement environments are contributors to success [ 8, 9, 10]. Indirect or subtle racism from service users, academics, peers and practice placement staff affects many ethnic minority students across all aspects of their lives, not only on placement [ 8, 9, 10, 11]. Generalizations are often made about a student's culture and identity based on the colour of their skin [ 8, 9, 11, 12, 13]. Labelling and stereotyping based on physical appearance, body language and mannerisms, culture, and accents/dialects/idioms are also recurring themes [ 8, 9, 11]. Many encounters negatively impact on student experience and confidence by increasing isolation [ 12] and feelings of 'being judged' [ 8, 9, 11] and 'being different' [ 7, 8, 9, 10, 11], in some instances affecting learning experiences and outcomes [ 13].

Coping strategies outlined by students include adopting a positive attitude towards studies and their cultural background [ 10], using self- protective measures and confronting any areas of concern directly [ 11]. Recommended interventions include tailored education for placement staff [ 9] regarding concepts such as white privilege and its impact [ 11], and a requirement for staff to review their programmes to ensure that diversity and culture is explicitly valued [ 10, 12] and that ethnic minority students are not marginalised [ 7, 13]. Formal agreements between universities and placement providers should include anti-racist standards for placement [ 9] alongside more comprehensive reporting and monitoring mechanisms [ 8].

In summary, there is a paucity of research focusing upon the factors affecting ethnic minority student attainment / awarding differentials and their experience on practice placements. This is surprising given that the professional practice elements constitute approximately 50% of most health and social care programmes. The evidence base is weak; most studies are either single-centre related to a single programme of study, or exploring a single profession and/or a single ethnic group. As wide differences in educational systems, models of clinical training and cultural issues occur internationally, the context and transferability of the research is highly variable. There is clearly an evidence gap in our understanding of the factors influencing ethnic minority student attainment differentials and awarding gaps in health and social care professional practice placements. This study aims to bridge this evidence gap.

Methods

The aim of the study was to explore, from the perspectives of key stakeholders, the range of factors which may contribute to a potential ethnicity attainment differential / awarding gap on health and social care practice placements. While the study was based at a single institution, the research was multi-disciplinary, with both researchers and participants drawn from across nursing, midwifery, social work and the allied health professions. The study followed a descriptive qualitative research design [ 14] which employed focus groups as the data collection method. According to Bradshaw et al. [ 14], qualitative descriptive research studies seek to explore and understand a little known process or phenomenon, or the perspectives of those involved, "providing a rich description of the experience depicted in easily understood language" (p3).

The research team

The research team consisted of academic staff and student researchers from a mix of ethnicities, genders, and professional backgrounds relevant to the research context (Table 1). Research experience varied across the team with experienced researchers pairing up with students and early career or novice researchers at various stages of the study.

Table 1 Research team characteristics

Recruitment and data collection

Following institutional ethical approval, participants were invited to join separate focus groups for each stakeholder category (Table 2). Student participants were studying on pre-registration health or social care courses, and identified themselves as a UK-domiciled person from an ethnic minority background. At the time of data collection the term BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) was used to identify these students, but in the light of subsequent debate and scholarship the term ethnic minority is used throughout this paper. These student participants were drawn from all years of study but they had to have experienced at least two practice placements situated in the wide geographical region serviced by the institution. Placement types, location and duration were variable across the different professional programmes, and included placements in acute and community settings, rural and urban locations, and placements in wards, hospital departments or social care and third sector placements. A variety of methods were used to recruit student participants, including advertising via social media, course leader announcements and on-line learning platforms.

Table 2 Stakeholder focus group characteristics

Staff participants were invited via email distribution list invitations to stakeholders who had experience of supporting ethnic minority students with their placement practice. These stakeholders included academic staff with overall responsibility for placement education (programme leaders and placement coordinators), agency based placement educators and student union advisors. Table 2 highlights that the ethnicity of the staff participants is overwhelming White. The staff participants were invited for their experience of working with students on placements, or of roles with responsibility for placement learning or student support. There was no direct attempt to recruit staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, as this lack of ethnic diversity reflects the academic and placement supervisor community at the time of the study.

While semi-structured interviews are often deployed to investigate sensitive topics, focus groups were selected to enable a 'safe space' to be created for collective voices to be shared and heard, giving confidence to some participants who might otherwise have been reluctant to come forwards. Following written informed consent, each focus group was delivered by two facilitators and was with the participants' permission audio recorded. During the focus group one researcher was assigned to ask the questions, the second facilitator assisted with prompts and recorded anything of note observed throughout the focus group. This included any emerging thoughts, and notes on body language and dynamics of the group. The focus groups all followed the same question schedule [ 14] (Fig. 1), with facilitators able to subtly alter the wording, prompts or order of questions as appropriate to their group.

Focus group question schedule for all groups

Data analysis

The data generated from the focus groups was analysed using a structured framework as recommended in descriptive qualitative research [ 14]; the six stages proposed by Braun and Clarke were used [ 15]. 1) Familiarise yourself with the data. The focus groups were transcribed by a professional transcriber. Transcripts were proof read for accuracy, alongside listening to the audio file. One researcher read the transcript, noting any initial thoughts. 2) Generating initial codes. Following several re-readings of the transcript preliminary codes were assigned to the data to describe all areas of interest. 3) Searching for themes. At this stage in the analysis process codes were searched for patterns and then grouped into potential themes. 4) Reviewing the themes. Potential themes were reviewed and discussed with a second researcher. The themes were compared across transcripts within each stakeholder group and some refining and reorganising took place at this stage to ensure that the themes were appropriate to the data set as a whole (comparing across stakeholder groups). 5) Defining and naming the themes. Once the final themes were agreed these were shared with the wider research team for further discussion, refinement, and validation. 6) Producing the report. Three primary themes, encompassing eight subthemes were identified.

Rigour

Four broad principles first described by Yardley (2000) have been applied for guiding and subsequently evaluating this qualitative study [ 16]. Sensitivity to context has been achieved through the use of verbatim quotes to give the participants a voice. However some of the researchers involved in this study are academics from white, middle class backgrounds. Their 'insider-outsider' status and related power dynamics [ 17] may have influenced the ways in which some students responded to questions. This effect was reduced by using focus groups which enabled participants to gain confidence from the support of fellow participants, as well as ensuring that researchers who were course leaders did not question students from their own course. Commitment and rigour have been demonstrated by the undertaking of a thorough analysis of the data and checking of interpretations across the researcher team. While the findings of this study cannot claim to be representative of all of the factors influencing ethnic minority students' placement experiences and attainment differentials, the student participants have been afforded the opportunity to provide new appreciations of their lived experiences and thereby reveal valuable insights. Transparency and coherence have been achieved by carefully outlining each stage of the research process. Finally, impact and importance has been demonstrated by this article beginning a conversation related to the under-researched and under-recognised area of ethnic minority placement attainment differentials and students' experiences of practice placement.

Results

Thirteen focus groups were delivered as shown in Table 2, involving a total of 66 participants. Three primary themes were identified (Fig. 2). The first theme recognition highlighted primarily staff stakeholder perceptions of the issues within three sub-themes: acknowledging concerns; cultural norms and challenging environments. The second theme the lived experience captured primarily the ethnic minority student perspectives, housed within two sub-themes: problematising language and stereotyping, and being treated differently. The final theme surviving not thriving outlines the consequences of the lived experience housed within two sub-themes: withdrawing emotionally and keeping a low profile, and feeling like an alien.

Schematic diagram of the three themes and seven sub-themes

Theme 1: recognition

Acknowledging concerns related to recognition by many participants of the concept and reality of ethnic minority degree awarding gaps. Awareness of pre-registration fitness for practice ethnicity differentials were highlighted strongly in some participant groups (students, academics, student union advisors), but less so in placement educator groups who may be unfamiliar with university data. Academic staff discussed 'behaviours' which had been highlighted in recent ethnic minority students fitness for practice referrals or placement fails, included timekeeping, reliability, not following processes, abrupt or confrontational manner, and poor communication. The academic staff were unsure whether this data was an indication of underlying racism in some placements, or whether there were aspects of placements that were impacting negatively on student behaviour.

Staff participants discussed the influences of cultural norms and challenges that may be faced by some students, highlighting that some cultures had the characteristics of high expectations of success, of internalising problems and not sharing issues; of over-respect for authority and in some cultures a degree of lack of respect for women. Some students recognised cultural norms which have been shaped by experiences:

Cultural norms also related to the inherent culture that develops within a profession. Health and social care students were expected to conform to a traditional professional framework and 'way of being', but for some ethnic minority students this meant conforming to 'white' culture as well. Placement educators acknowledged that the student profile was changing but perhaps the educational model was now outdated:

Academic and student union staff strongly expressed the view that cultural norms are less important than the 'back story', which is often hidden from view, yet explains and often justifies behaviours:

Challenging environments describes the wide range of placements in health and social care that ethnic minority students may be exposed to in their training. Examples were given where placement geography resulted in variation in placement experiences, particularly where students were working in 'overwhelmingly white' communities.

Students' union advisors were concerned that they were hearing about the same ' repeat offenders' over time, yet students were reluctant to take their concerns to their tutors. This 'once-only disclosure' from the students put student union staff in a difficult position as they had spoken to students on a confidential basis, thus perpetuating the issues raised. Staff referred to these brave disclosures as 'the tip of the iceberg':

Academic participants outlined a number of particularly challenging settings for some ethnic minority students, including those requiring rapid communication challenges such as fast-paced clinics. Some academic staff and placement educators suggested that some ethnic minority students perform better in one-to-one settings and in professions where they had support from a single mentor. Supervision models where a wide range of professionals support a group of students (occurring in some ward placements, or service departments such as radiology or the operating theatres), were noted to be more challenging for some ethnic minority students. This observation referred to UK-domiciled ethnic minority students, and may be a result of accents, referred to in Theme 2. However students recounted both good and poor experiences in both one-to-one and group supervision settings; the culture of the placement appears more influential than the mode of supervision:

Student participants tended to focus their focus group conversations on the role of supervisors, mentors and placement staff in assisting their journey through the placement, rather than concerning themselves with challenging situations working with patients and clients. Academics and placement educators, however, highlighted a number of challenging patient and client groups who were more likely to create uncomfortable situations for ethnic minority students. These included the elderly, those with cognitive impairments, patients in the emergency department under the influence of drugs or alcohol and patients within high stress environments such as the operating theatre.

Theme 2: the lived experience

Problematising language and stereotyping was a sub-theme which cut across most participant groups, but was most strongly articulated in the student groups. Stereotyping often began before the student commenced the placement, with their names being the first hurdle to overcome:

Academic staff also recognised the unfairness of stereotyping of ethnic minority students by a minority of placement staff:

Problematising language described a range of situations in which emphasis was placed on negative attributes at the expense of the positive influences that ethnic minority students can bring in terms of diversity. Accents were a recurring issue described within the student groups, and recognised by most academic staff:

This was more than simply their accent being the issue; when some students became stressed the pitch of their voices would rise and this would be mistakenly seen as shouting or aggression. One student was embarrassed when a supervisor questioned her 'tone' and asked if English was her first language; she had lived in the UK all of her life:

For some students, challenges with language and accents resulted in miscommunication, misinterpretation and mixed messages. Students had misunderstood jokes and humour in some settings, or their humour has been misunderstood, which was intimidating and isolating. In particular local dialect and colloquialisms caused confusion. Students recounted deploying a 'fake' laugh or pretending that they don't hear; unfortunately, they noted that this makes them appear 'aloof', or 'slow'. However, some academic and placement staff empathised with students who may be thinking, writing and speaking often in another language:

The majority of the ethnic minority student participants described their lived experience as 'being treated differently' to their White student counterparts. While there were some comments related to discrimination in relation to academic settings (most students described the university campus as a 'safe space'), there were a number of examples of perceived discrimination in practice settings, particularly regarding male (often mature) Black students:

Students also identified a general lack of respect and professionalism from some placement staff:

However the day to day lived experience recounted by several students was more of subtle 'undertone' rather than overt racism or discrimination. ' Active Avoidance' described the scenarios where students feel alienated by supervisors who avoid working with them or engaging in any "chit chat" between patient/client encounters:

Students in this study, even where they had generally positive experiences on placement, all believed that as ethnic minority students they were 'held to a different standard' and had to work hard to prove themselves. Academic staff also recognised this in relation to many of the ethnic minority students they had mentored:

Theme 3: surviving not thriving

Students who are experiencing a challenging placement for the reasons previously outlined put in place a number of self-protection measures to reduce their own discomfort and prevent escalation of their worries. Withdrawing emotionally and keeping a low profile describes the self-protection measures that some put in place even before commencing the placement; they anticipate prejudice, based on previous life experiences. This potentially shapes their future placement experiences:

A sense of the coping strategies used to protect students is captured in phrases repeated consistently across the different focus groups, and by students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and different professional groups. These include: "don't rock the boat"; "keep your head down"; "take it on the chin."

Some students subsequently encountered very positive placements which helped them to re-evaluate their perceptions and build their confidence. However where students' fears were realised, the consequences resulted in them 'feeling like an alien', an 'outsider' exhibiting a high degree of suspicion and mistrust around colleagues. One student explained the impact of placement staff flippantly discussed a neighbouring community as being 'OK apart from the bloody Asians':

Students in such situations became adept at concealing concerns and were resilient in adversity:

Discussion

Most staff participants in this study recognised a differential in ethnic minority student placement attainment and professional 'Fitness for Practice' referrals, also identified by Naylor et al. 2013 [ 5] and Fairtlough et al. [ 8], where ethnic minority students appeared more vulnerable to be referred, fail or withdrawn from placements. Academic staff could articulate issues that may impact on the placement experiences and outcomes of ethnic minority students, and were keen to 'make a difference'. However being predominantly of White ethnicity their lived experiences were potentially very different to the students that they sought to help. The placement educators, also from White ethnic backgrounds, were drawn mainly from physiotherapy and occupational therapy professions which experience lower ethnic minority representation than some other health and social care professions; indeed physiotherapy in the UK has been previously described as a 'white profession' [ 7]. In some other professions such as nursing there is a mismatch between the profiles of students and academic staff [ 17]; this white dominance strengthens the power imbalance between student and educator. The much debated term 'white privilege' may be applied in these healthcare education settings. This concept acknowledges that some White communities do suffer disadvantage and deprivation, but the colour of their skin has not been a factor in life chances as it is likely to have been in many ethnic minority communities [ 17] due to societal, economic or political factors. While the White ethnicity of the staff participants in our study may be seen as a limitation it is an accurate representation of the local setting. Academic staff voiced their keenness to work with ethnic minority students to co-produce strategies to improve placement experiences, and student union advisors similarly were pleased to have a forum in which to anonymously share the experiences recounted to them by ethnic minority students and to co-design improved reporting mechanisms for raising concerns.

However for these strategies to be successful, a thorough understanding of the factors affecting placement attainment and of the lived experience and coping strategies of ethnic minority students was needed. This is the first qualitative study to explore the factors influencing placement attainment, awarding gaps and experiences across a range of health and social care professions. Previous studies have focused mainly on social work student experiences [ 8, 9, 10, 11, 13], physiotherapy students [ 5, 6, 7, 18] or have primarily studied campus-based experiences [ 6]. Few studies have focused on health courses and while one paper focused on (physiotherapy) placement experiences [ 7], it only involved three ethnic minority participants. The current study provides a unique and important insight to begin to fill this knowledge void.

The three themes presented in this study, namely 'recognition', ' the lived experience' and ' surviving not thriving', clearly demonstrate parallels to several studies centred on social work education [ 8, 10, 11, 13]. In particular, stereotyping was a recurring theme across these studies; our student participants believed that it began even before the placement when supervisors were introduced to names with challenging pronunciations. Accents were often 'problematised' as in previous studies [ 8, 9]; and some ethnic minority students were laughed at for their 'strange' pronunciation as reported also by Hillen and Levy [ 10]. Indeed Hollindrake et al. postulated that students were seen as 'less capable' because of their accents and this makes them feel like 'outsiders' [ 11]. Our students also explained how their accents raised the potential for miscommunication and misinterpretation, resulting in students deploying a self-protection strategy such as 'hanging back' and keeping themselves on the periphery of any placement group. In other words they found themselves adopting an 'outsider' position, with a feeling of 'not belonging' as described by Hughes [ 18].

Most students in this study described the university setting as a 'safe space', not dissimilar to the 'safe haven' described by physiotherapy students in a study by Cassidy et al. [ 7]. In contrast practice placements were seen as unpredictable and with a higher potential for overt racism to be experienced, particularly from some vulnerable client groups. Staff participants recognised settings where this may be more likely to occur; settings with higher risks for racism have also been described in social work [ 8]. However the most stressful aspect for students was anticipating how staff would respond to these incidents. Ignoring the issue or 'making a scene' was likely to make the student more anxious; they wanted the incident to be acknowledged and to be asked if they were alright. The lack of this follow up in some instances by clinical colleagues raises concerns, especially within these 'caring' professions.

For most participants, awareness of an 'undertone' of more covert racism was of greater concern, resulting in them 'being treated differently'. This concept was commonly described across many social work studies [ 8, 9, 10, 11]. An example of this concept in our study was the widely held perception that ethnic minority students appeared to be 'held to a different standard', also identified by other authors. Fairtlough et al. noted that even where ethnic minority students had positive placement experiences they still felt that the expectations from them were higher [ 8], with Thomas et al. describing this scenario as a feeling of 'being watched' [ 9]. Hughes et al. also related similar concepts of having to work harder, with students having to over-achieve to be seen as competent [ 18].

Our participants described the 'active avoidance' of ethnic minority students by some staff, for example not engaging in 'small talk' between clients as they witnessed occurring with white students. This resulted in increasing isolation and a lack of belonging [ 8, 9], leading to anxiety of sharing information about themselves or their culture. Hollindrake et al. had also identified a gradual 'withdrawal' of cultural sharing [ 11]; lack of acknowledgement of culture may result in or from a 'colour-blind approach' [ 9] which reduces the potential for a rich cultural diversity in placement settings. Viewing ethnic minority students from a strengths-based cultural wealth perspective may help to oppose the more pervasive 'deficit model' which aligns with social and racial justice [ 9, 15, 19]. Yosso's model [ 19] encompasses six forms of cultural wealth which may help to guide future placement strategies; aspirational, linguistic, familial, social, navigational, and resistance. Nurturing community cultural wealth emphasises the strengths that ethnic minority students inherently possess as identified in social work by Sangha [ 13].

The consequence of subtle, yet repetitive, experiences of being treated differently on practice placement was that students adopted self-protective mechanisms; students describe 'feeling like an alien', causing them to deploy strategies such as 'withdrawing emotionally' and 'keeping a low profile'. As recounted in a study by Hammond et al. [ 12] which focusses on the wider curriculum, it was easier to not make a fuss and allow incidents to pass; Beagan argues this is an effective self-preservation mechanism as students can be perceived as too sensitive by the privileged majority who are ignorant to the issues faced [ 20]. These mechanisms become learned behaviours over time [ 21], but they are potentially damaging strategies in terms of students' longer term professional experiences and attainment. We have described this concept as 'surviving not thriving'. A phrase often used in wellbeing and life coaching, it has also been applied to settings where individuals are transitioning through career stages, including early career teacher resilience [ 22], student midwife transition to practice [ 23] and the experiences of motherhood in early career researchers [ 24]. While many ethnic minority students in our study showed a persistence to push through to the end of their course, the practice placements should be an opportunity for them to prosper and flourish as they consolidate their academic learning into practice. Of serious concern is that so many students recounted similar experiences and shared commonly held fears and concerns related to placements. The majority of these students, drawn from different ethnic groups, different health and social care professions, and having experienced a range of unique placements across a wide geographical region, raised similar issues which were commensurate with 'surviving not thriving' [ 22, 23, 24]. Participation in the focus groups was optional and therefore students are self-selecting; it is possible that there is selection bias with only those with poor experiences wishing to articulate their concerns. Some students may have been dissuaded from participating due to the perceived consequences of speaking up and the power imbalances between staff and students. However many of the students recounted good as well as poor placement experiences, and they expressed their appreciation of placement educators who had supported them in a positive way. This positive learning experience had made them realise that they, and other students following them on their journey, should be able to expect more, and this is why they wanted to take part in the study. Two of the student participants were White women who had themselves experienced only positive placements, yet they requested to participate to share their concerns regarding the differential treatment of some of their fellow ethnic minority students. This is an example of 'ally-ship' in action; racial justice allies are White students who actively work against the system of oppression that maintains their power [ 25]. They and the staff participants believed that change was needed to enable all students to be supported to thrive, yet Hammond et al. warns that gains may be minimal if the white dominant narrative remains unchallenged [ 12]; educators rather than ethnic minority students need to challenge their own and institutional practices. However educators in our study often lacked the confidence to challenge; by not questioning and challenging practices, Beagan asserts that educators are complicit in enabling marginalisation and inequalities [ 20]. This suggests that there is a vital and urgent training need for staff across both academic and clinical settings, and regulatory and professional bodies must take a lead role in driving social justice changes through their expectations of practice and education.

In drawing our conclusions we are conscious that this is a UK based study drawing on a sample from a specific geographical area and underpinned primarily by UK literature and as such it prohibits generalisation. There is a wide range of international literature exploring the ethnic minority educational experience, including the USA [ 26], Canada [ 18] and Australia [ 27]; many findings of which our study confirms. We are aware however that the experience of racialised groups in the UK has a specificity stemming from colonial power and the lack of an ethnic minority indigenous population that merits individual focus. Learning from international studies remains important, alongside a recognition of difference, if improvements are to be made and if the finding from Canada by Hughes et al. [ 18], that the current state of institutional racism within a profession engenders a perception of hopelessness and acceptance in students, is to change.

Conclusion

This study presents a rich exploration of the potential factors influencing differential attainment and awarding gaps of ethnic minority students on practice placements, undertaken through the lens of four different stakeholder groups (students, academics, placement educators and student union advisors). To our knowledge this is the first study in which this comprehensive approach has been taken to enable multiple viewpoints to be accessed across a wide range of health and social care professions.

The issues raised appear to be common to most if not all of these disciplines, but as the placement educational and supervision models differ from one profession to another, the checks and balances (moderators) may also be unique to each professional setting. This makes providing effective solutions challenging, but this qualitative research is the first step in opening conversations with placement educators across multiple settings. In our experience sharing the student narratives have resulted in a degree of shock and occasional denial, followed by a firm commitment to co-develop strategies to improve the placement experiences of ethnic minority students. All stakeholders had suggestions for improvements which may provide ethnic minority students with a greater sense of belonging in their health and social care placements.

Recommendations arising from this study focus on promoting cultural change and improving systems and processes. Cultural changes include:

Raising awareness of the lived experience of students from racially minoritised students on practice placement to all placement partners;

Providing anti-racism training for all academic and clinical colleagues involved with student placements. This should go beyond standard 'unconscious bias' training to include more nuanced 'active bystander' training;

Placement preparation sessions for students should highlight the potential for structural racism in placement settings and the potential for racial incidents. They should explicitly identify support and reporting mechanisms and the power of allyship;

Academic and placement leaders to move away from the deficit model of addressing issues with ethnic minority students to a strengths-based approach of focusing on what diversity can bring to the professions. This may be enhanced by institutional support for role models and champions for the racially minoritised student community.

The required changes to processes include:

Creation of and sign-posting to clear and explicit processes for reporting racial incidents in relation to placement;

Collaboration between Higher Education Institutions and their placement partners to address any concerns raised by students, and to provide independent support to students to address the low rate of reporting of placement issues (potentially due to the unequal power differential between student and supervisor).

Development of processes and strategies to increase awareness of systemic racism and empower staff to change these systems

This study highlights the need to value and support our ethnic minority students to remove the barriers they face in their practice learning. This is a monumental challenge and requires both individuals and organisations to step up and take collective responsibility. We cannot delay tackling these issues any further.

Availability of data and materials

Data analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

BAME:

Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic

References

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Acknowledgements

We wish to thank all participants for taking part in this study. Thank you also to Jennifer Elliott, Liz Shute and Helen Batty for support with data collection. The team would also like to express condolences to the family of our colleague and co-author Deborah Harrop who we sadly lost before the publication of this work.

Funding

This project was partially supported by a Sheffield Hallam University Hallam Award grant.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Allied Health Professions, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Campus, Sheffield, S10 2BP, UK

Julie Nightingale, Shirley Masterson-Ng & David Lomas

2. Department of Nursing and Midwifery, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Campus, Sheffield, S10 2BP, UK

Jackie Parkin, Jacqui Brewster, Temitope Labinjo, Ifrah Salih & Deborah Harrop

3. Department of Social Work, Social Care and Community Studies, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Campus, Sheffield, S10 2BP, UK

Pete Nelson

4. Department of Radiology, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Denmark Hill, London, SE5 9RS, UK

Deborah Amoakoh

Author notes

Co-author Deborah Harrop sadly passed away in 2021 while this manuscript was under review. The corresponding author confirms that she met criteria for authorship and that there are no known conflicts of interest.

Contributions

JN, PN, JP, JB and DL designed the study. DH, TL and DA conducted the literature review and JN, JP, JB, DL, PN, SM-N acquired the qualitative data. JN, PN, JP and JB conducted the analysis. JN, JP, JB, PN, SM-N and IS drafted the manuscript. JN takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. The authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Julie Nightingale.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethical approval was provided by Sheffield Hallam University Research Ethics Committee [no. ER6037058]. All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant institutional guidelines and regulations. All participants were provided with an information sheet and were requested to provide informed written consent.

Consent for publication

Not applicable - all data is anonymised.

Competing interests

No competing interests.

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Nightingale, J., Parkin, J., Nelson, P. et al. Multiple stakeholder perspectives of factors influencing differential outcomes for ethnic minority students on health and social care placements: a qualitative exploration. BMC Med Educ 22, 17 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-03070-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-03070-3

Keywords

Ethnicity

BAME

BME

Student experience

Clinical placements

Allied health professions

Social work

Nursing

Midwifery

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Multiple stakeholder perspectives of factors influencing differential outcomes for ethnic minority students on health and social care placements: a qualitative exploration - BMC Medical Education

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Background Despite considerable efforts there continues to be a degree awarding gap within the United Kingdom (UK) between the proportion of White British students receiving higher classifications, compared to ethnic minority UK-domiciled students. Practice placement elements constitute approximately 50% of most health and social care programmes, yet surprisingly little research exists related to the factors which may contribute to ethnic minority student placement outcomes or experiences.

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In response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's report Tackling Racial Harassment: Universities Challenged (published October 2019), Advance HE launched its successful Tackling Racism on Campus project in February 2020. This was funded by the Scottish Funding Council. Outputs included a series of webinars and blogs, a suite of resources for use in institutions, and research on fostering a diverse workforce.

One key outcome of the project is that all of Scotland's colleges and universities have committed to the following declaration:

Racism exists on our campuses and in our society. Call it what it is and reject it in all its forms. We stand united against racism.

Building on this sector-wide commitment, QAA Scotland and Advance HE are working together with the tertiary sector to develop and curate resources, learn from current practice, and recognise effective practice in Scotland and beyond. The project also has support from sparqs (Student Partnerships in Quality Scotland) and the College Development Network.

In session 2020-21, the project was managed by Advance HE and resulted in a range of resources, created by a cross-sector working group. The resources constitute a Guide to getting started on this vital work, and include considerations of language, curriculum development, approaches to teaching, student engagement, allyship and more.

In session 2021-22, the project was managed by QAA Scotland with the following aims:

to facilitate discussions about developing anti-racist curricula in particular discipline areas

to facilitate discussions with a network of academic developers across a range of providers

to share practice and develop resources based on the above discussions

to pilot and evaluate resources produced in Phase 1

to make recommendations for the continuation of the project in 2022-23.

Outputs from session 2021-22 can be found below.

These structures of racial inequity, they're living machines ... they're alive, they're active, and they're always evolving to self-regulate and continue subjugating, marginalising, disenfranchising people.

The 2022 Enhancement Conference featured a well-attended and engaging breakout session on developing anti-racist curricula. We have captured some reflections on the discussions, and the panel format in a blog.

In session 2022-23, the key aim is to establish a Professional Learning Network that will be self-sustaining beyond the end of the Project. If you are interested in joining this Network, please send us an email.

During April and May 2022, QAA Scotland worked with three excellent facilitators on a series of workshops examining how the Guide resources might be used in different broad subject areas (arts, humanities and social sciences, and STEM). Numbers were capped, but over 70 participants from a range of institutions and in a range of roles engaged in these thought-provoking discussions.

Our facilitators were:

Dr Peggy Brunache, Lecturer in Atlantic Slavery at the University of Glasgow, and the Founding Director of the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies at the University

Dr Saima Salehjee, Lecturer in STEM Education at the University of Strathclyde

Dr Stephany Veuger, Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences at Northumbria University.

We have worked together on the following resources.

This podcast is a recording of a conversation between the workshop facilitators, in which they discuss how they approached this work and what needs to happen next.

A transcript of the facilitators' podcast. This is intended to make the podcast content more accessible, rather than being read as a standalone resource. Minor edits have been made for clarity, but otherwise the text is verbatim.

Author:

QAA

Format:

PDF

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0.13 MB

A list of resources recommended by the workshop facilitators, organised by broad subject area.

Author:

QAA Scotland

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PDF

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0.24 MB

QAA Scotland commissioned Edinburgh Napier University to build on the work of the successful Decolonising the Curriculum in the Time of Pandemic collaborative cluster that ran in session 2020-21. This project aimed to work with staff and students to expand and deepen sector-wide understanding of what decolonising the curriculum means in practice. In session 2021-22, Edinburgh Napier University managed a network of academic developers, creating an important space for these discussions to continue.

Rayya Ghul from the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Academic Development has developed an excellent workshop on decolonising the curriculum. This slide deck, which includes workshop instructions, is being made available on a Creative Commons basis to support the community with this activity. Please use and share this resource. Do not remove attribution if shared or printed.

Author:

Rayya Ghul, University of Edinburgh's Institute for Academic Development

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PPTX

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5.08 MB

This evaluative report captures reflections on discussions held by a network of academic developers, as well as the work of the project's student interns.

Author:

QAA Scotland

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PDF

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0.84 MB

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In response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's report Tackling Racial Harassment: Universities Challenged (published October 2019), Advance HE launched its successful Tackling Racism on Campus project in February 2020. This was funded by the Scottish Funding Council.

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A resource prepared for the Scottish QAA by Rayya Ghul

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Mentioned in one of the groups - this worksheet I designed to get people to see that we all have 'culture' even between apparently homogenous groups.

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Bradford University: Decolonisation Resources Toolkit Reading list

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Bradford University: Decolonisation Resources Toolkit Reading list

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Decolonisation Resources Toolkit: Faculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences. | University of Bradford

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Use this resource toolkit to help source materials to support decolonisation of the curriculum and associated reading lists. It covers: - resources discussing how to decolonise Management, Law and Social Sciences - examples from other universities - background resources about decolonisation - multi-…

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Cultural competency and  the reproduction of White supremacy in occupational  therapy education

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Cultural competency and  the reproduction of White supremacy in occupational  therapy education

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Anti-racism and Occupational Therapy Education: Beyond Diversity and Inclusion

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Anti-racism and Occupational Therapy Education: Beyond Diversity and Inclusion

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Anti-racism and Occupational Therapy Education

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Becoming Anti-Racist Occupational Therapy Practitioners: A Scoping Study

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Becoming Anti-Racist Occupational Therapy Practitioners: A Scoping Study

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Talking While Black - This American Life

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Illustration by Trevor Davis. Photos from Getty Images.

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(NB I haven't read this yet, but this seemed like a good place to leave it!)

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Why people of color need spaces without white people

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Why people of color need spaces without white people

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The Arrow | Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People (arrow-journal.org)

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I'm breathing deeply as I write this. What I'm writing about is charged. I feel this energy in my body. It's a heat in my throat and a rumbling in my belly. It's an intensity that's frustrated that these words must even be written. It propels me through my fears of backlash and worry about not getting it exactly right. What I say may anger you. You may disagree. You may feel more confused, and this, I would say, is good. It means the work can begin.

Breathing.

People of color need their own spaces. Black people need their own spaces. We need places in which we can gather and be free from the mainstream stereotypes and marginalization that permeate every other societal space we occupy. We need spaces where we can be our authentic selves without white people's judgment and insecurity muzzling that expression. We need spaces where we can simply be-where we can get off the treadmill of making white people comfortable and finally realize just how tired we are.

Valuing and protecting spaces for people of color (PoC) is not just a kind thing that white people can do to help us feel better; supporting these spaces is crucial to the resistance of oppression. When people of color are together, there can be healing. We can reclaim parts of ourselves that have been repressed. We can redefine ourselves and support one another in embracing who we are. The necessity of these spaces is obvious to me as a woman of color learning to embrace layers of my own identity by being in community with other Black and brown bodies. This has been especially important in my spiritual community, Shambhala Buddhism, where we are taught that surfacing vulnerability is the path to creating a more fair and just society. Yet, in my own organizing of a PoC meditation in Oakland and in conversations with other people of color in my sangha across the United States, I have been angered and baffled by the responses of white people to these spaces.

Though people of color are creating and envisioning spaces in which we may be together, our efforts are continually questioned, attacked, and made invisible within our communities. Spaces for people of color are ignored, even when they attract large numbers. They are marginalized from other community events and programming. Community leaders find reasons to question the legitimacy of PoC groups and may interrogate organizers about what exactly we're doing when we get together. Some white people insert themselves into PoC spaces with reasons why they believe they should be included such as, "I identify more with people of color than with white people." There are people who accuse PoC spaces as being racist and segregationist.

Even if white people can't access an embodied understanding of why PoC spaces are needed, they can still cultivate genuine compassion for our experience of needing them, and they can trust our voices enough to support these spaces. If the presence of spaces for people of color engenders discomfort, insecurity, or anger, I hope those emotions will be seen as an opportunity to look deeper within oneself to ask why.

This article is being written in service of helping to clarify confusion about the value of PoC spaces. I do this by answering some of the questions that I and other PoC have received when organizing these spaces.
Why do PoC need their own spaces?
In integrated spaces, patterns of white dominance are inevitable. These patterns include things like being legitimized for using academic language, an expectation of "getting it right" (i.e., perfectionism), fear of open conflict, scapegoating those who cause discomfort, and a sense of urgency that takes precedence over inclusion.

These patterns happen even when white people are doing the work of examining their privilege. They can happen even when facilitators design and model more inclusive ways of being together. Why?

The values of whiteness are the water in which we all swim. No one is immune. Those values dictate who speaks, how loud, when, the words we use, what we don't say, what is ignored, who is validated and who is not. Unless we are actively and persistently dismantling these constructs, we are abiding by them. In integrated spaces (where we are less likely to be ourselves given the divisions that white dominance has created), we fall into the roles society has assigned us. As a person of color, and perhaps the only one in the room, it's exhausting to always be swimming upstream. To survive in this society, we learn to hold our tongue, to "code switch" to fit in. This is about survival and the basic human need to feel that we belong.

People of color are often so familiar with navigating white spaces that even when there's a possibility of bringing more of ourselves into a room, we simply don't know how. We've assimilated to white cultural conditioning, and that assimilation has become part of our identity. While this can help us "get ahead," the compromise is that we forget what it feels like to be our whole selves.
"It wasn't until I was in PoC-only spaces that I realized how much of myself I had cut off to fit into white culture," one person of color in Shambhala recently told me. "So being in PoC spaces allows me to reclaim those forgotten parts of myself."
For other people of color, an unfamiliarity with the unwritten rules of engaging in white spaces means we simply don't know how to show up. We've received feedback verbally and nonverbally that we just don't fit in. We're too loud. We're too quiet. We're too direct. We're too verbose. We're too passionate. We're too restrained. Label after label- difficult or emotional or meek -are put on us to fit the social order.

I value the efforts of those consciously working to challenge the dynamics of our social conditioning by considering the conversational architecture in groups, inviting myriad forms of knowing and creating opportunities for PoC leaders. I believe these efforts are essential for addressing the inequities in our society and necessary before inviting people of color in the door, but they do not replace the need for PoC-only spaces.

As a person of color in integrated spaces, my radar is constantly scanning for insensitivities and the potential for harm-not just the standard warding off of pain that we all seek to avoid, but racialized harm that essentializes me as different or serves to re-exert oppression. When something is detected, I reflexively reassemble the scraps of armor that were tentatively put down. There is good reason for this caution: To be a person of color means to experience discrimination regularly. If you're Black, that experience is often daily-being feared simply for being, the objectification of difference such as the texture of your hair, people who use performative blackness and a "blaccent" when relating to you, etc.

If you're white, you have a choice about whether or not you engage in uncomfortable conversations about race, and you have a choice about how much you feel the racial inequities of our society. If you're a person of color, however, conversations about race are unavoidable-we're pulled into them whether we've invited such discourse or not. White people often interpret our mere presence in a room as an opportunity to talk about race, and these are not conversations we always want to have. If you're a person of color, the reality of racism is neither optional nor conceptual; it is deeply and painfully felt. This is known as "embodied inequality," which describes how discrimination raises the risk of many emotional and physical illnesses among people of color.

Imagine that discrimination is like plaque that covered your being at birth-in its stickiness are challenges to your worth, intelligence, and humanity. Over time, as you try to make your way through the school system, find a job, and look for a partner, it gets thicker and stickier. An important way to begin chipping away at this buildup is to be in a space where we can, temporarily, leave that sticky inheritance at the door. This is the point of PoC spaces.

In these spaces, we can share stories about the discrimination we've faced, and find understanding and support. We can define ourselves on our own terms. When white people are present, this crucial examining usually doesn't happen. Sharing our experiences in integrated spaces often means preparing to defend our anger and frustration, or taking care of white individuals who find what is being said hurtful. This means that when PoC do take the leap to share painful experiences, white listeners often shift the focus back onto themselves and their own grievances; thus attention and power implicitly shift back to white individuals, reinforcing the status quo. There can also arise a need to "translate" our experiences into terms that white listeners will be more sympathetic to in order to be heard. Genuine allyship requires genuine listening-especially when that listening is hard to be with.
"When I speak to many white people of my experience [as a person of color] they are stunned and start crying or freeze-neither solves anything," one person of color in the sangha told me. "It feels like I have to make them feel better-it's that unspoken burden. So if we want change, we have to get past all that. PoC don't need to constantly be part of that. It's not safe at this point in the [sangha] to say whatever you feel. Some healing needs to be done with PoC bodies who have experienced that pain."
In our day-to-day, many people of color have jobs where we're not able to show up as our authentic selves. Showing sadness about the latest killing of a Black person is rarely invited; sometimes the event is not even on the radar of our colleagues. When we do express sadness, it often goes ignored. Our spiritual community should be the place where we can touch into these painful places, but my own community often is not such a place. Indeed, many Western Buddhist communities are reflections of the students who helped established them, the majority of whom were white. Like the society in which we live, it is shaped by white, patriarchal values. This is not a judgment, but a fact. It is what has governed who feels comfortable in our meditation halls and who does not. How we engage with each other and how we do not. How free we feel in our celebrations or not. In my work in my community, I'm seeing a hunger to explore this pattern and to design new, more inclusive, more alive ways of being, yet it's difficult to see the water in which we are swimming. Our hope lies in an empowered collection of voices that can help guide us toward being the community we long to be. This requires that white people step aside to support spaces in which PoC members of the community are invited to feel, to be, and to touch our humanity on our terms, in a way that feels not like colonization but like coming home.
But isn't this just segregation?
It's important to remember that segregation as an institution was part of a system of oppression designed and maintained by white people. Today, white people may experience occasional prejudice, but not racism. White people do not experience the systemic racism that makes it hard for them to find jobs, housing, healthcare, and justice in the legal system.

Though it may feel like creating PoC spaces is a regression to the pre-Civil Rights era, that feeling affirms a disconnection with the reality of racism in America today. Regression would mean that we've solved the pain of racial inequality since that time. It would mean that in integrated spaces everyone has equal access to being felt, seen, and heard.

Yes, when people of color create space to be with only each other, it is a form of temporary physical segregation in the literal sense of the word, but that is not akin to the institution of segregation. We are not proclaiming "separate but equal" with the creation of PoC spaces.

These spaces aren't acts of oppression, but rather responses to it. They are our opportunity to be with each other away from the abuses of racism and patterns of white dominance. Given that space to breathe, there's a possibility of healing. Being together can offer resiliency for bringing our fullness into integrated spaces where it will inevitably be challenged.
How is inclusiveness cultivated by practices that exclude?
How is inclusiveness cultivated by "caucusing"-i.e., by inviting PoC groups to hold their own spaces and also encouraging white people to hold spaces to examine the illusion of "whiteness"?

The question here is what is meant by "inclusive?" How "inclusive" are integrated spaces for PoC? For white people, "inclusive" spaces typically feel similar to the spaces they normally operate in, but maybe have a few more brown people.

For anyone who has tried to "invite in" more diversity, you may wonder: Why is it so difficult to get Black and brown people to show up? The reason is that merely inviting more people of color into a space does not in and of itself make that space inclusive. Patterns of white dominance suffuse the space just like other spaces we occupy, only this time, we're calling it "inclusive." That's more painful and frustrating than being in spaces that are blind. Staying in that "inclusive" room actually involves PoC putting aside our own needs and taking care of white people as we've been conditioned to do. Then we go home and tell our brown friends how uncomfortable it was and all the things that were said or done that we can't believe. We do not go back. Many "inclusive" spiritual communities remain predominantly white.

It may be argued that to build an inclusive community, caucusing is actually necessary. In an article published by the American Political Science Association, citing her examination of intersectionality within women's movements, professor Laurel Weldon argues that inviting marginalized subgroups to hold their own spaces tends to strengthen broader movements. She writes,

"The movement against gender violence has achieved cooperation through the development of norms of inclusivity," she writes. "Such norms include a commitment to descriptive representation, the facilitation of separate organization for disadvantaged social groups, and a commitment to building consensus with institutionalized dissent. Developing such norms is not the only possible path to cooperation, but it is an important and overlooked one. It illuminates a way of maintaining solidarity and improving policy influence without denying or sublimating the differences and conflicts among activists." (Emphasis added.)

Though Weldon's analysis aims to establish links to the policy relevance of activist movements, its applicability to spiritual communities is significant. The article suggests that pursuing collective liberation (a humane and inclusive society) means fully acknowledging difference and empowering its respectful expressions within a collective.
But when can we be together?
I recently listened to a Meditation in the City Podcast in which Rev. angel Kyodo williams answered a question from a participant on this topic. Here's what she said:
"People who have always been entitled to space and to place have no idea what it's like to have never been entitled to space. I'm entitled to gather to determine the way and the path to my freedom. You will let me do that and not obstruct it. You will not put your needs and your desire for some kind of picture above my necessity. Doing so obstructs my ability to understand what it is to first be with myself. To be with people that I have not been allowed to be with just as I am. Put aside your urgency-we've been separated for 400 years, kept from one another-for this to just be over."
Without the full context, these words may sound sharp, but in her reference of "you" Rev. angel wasn't speaking just to the participant who asked the question, but the collection of "yous" who are waiting and wondering when caucusing will no longer be necessary-when we can harmoniously be together in community. This question often comes from people who do not have an experience of what it feels like not to be able to take up space. For people of color, there are hundreds of years of oppression and segregation carried in our DNA. For so long we've been unable to occupy space together in the ways we want. We need time to determine how to reconcile that debt, to determine what the path forward may be. It is work without a deadline.

Personally, I'm not interested in being in an "inclusive space." Every space I'm in is ostensibly inclusive. I want to be with Black femme people. When that's not available, I want to be with Black and brown people. That is hard to find, yet it is something my body craves-space where I can be just as I am.

I challenge this idea that "inclusive spaces" can be made without serious reflection, exertion, and patience. To be a truly inclusive space, it must be created by causes and conditions that allow it to happen organically-the internal work has been done so that the fullness of many different bodies can coexist. While efforts to engineer such a space are admirable, they often feel like just that-"engineered." Everyone is uncomfortable, and then we all fall into our white social conditioning. I'm reminded that it is through practicing the pāramitās-transcendental virtues-that auspicious coincidence can arise. "When you express gentleness and precision in your environment, then real brilliance and power can descend onto that situation," says Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. "If you try to manufacture that presence out of your own ego, it will never happen. You cannot own the power and magic of this world. It is always available, but it does not belong to anyone."

What are the causes and conditions that allow for organically populated integrated spaces? With gentleness and precision, white people must do the work of looking at the delusions of ego (a shared social conditioning) that encourages them to succeed at the expense of everyone else.

When the question "when can we be together?" is asked, it is a glaring indication that we are not ready to be together.
But how are we supposed to learn if people of color aren't present?
Expecting people of color to be in the room to help white people learn about race is yet another example of privilege. Being in a space where white people are starting to wake up to their white cultural conditioning is heartbreaking for me. It is a pain that is felt deeply. I ache for my ancestors and my ancestors' ancestors. A sadness comes welling up, and it feels like drowning. While there are some people of color who are up for being in conversations with white people about race, this is a gift offered in the service of collective liberation, and it requires tremendous energy, patience, bravery, and effort. Deep love for others might also bring us to this work. I love you enough to be on the front lines weathering your arrows of confusion. I love you enough to hold the pain you've buried deep, deep down until you're ready to claim it. It is not every person of color's work to do the work of liberation in this way. Please don't expect it.

I also don't believe that the presence of PoC is helpful to white people doing this work. Dictated social niceties make it hard to get into these dark places even among those who share your race. Having a person of color present for this means meeting a fairly solid social barrier (that you're going to say something that will hurt someone else or make you look bad) that's hard for anyone to confront, let alone someone just beginning this work. It's generally best if we're out of the room.

I believe that in most circumstances, doing race work in an integrated setting is harmful. This is not a popular belief, especially among white people. I have been challenged on this time and again, and I keep showing up for these conversations in mixed-race settings and breaking down from the pain of it all. I open myself up to stories about racist family members, or admissions from former white supremacists. Why do I need to hear this? The fact that racism exists is not a surprise to me. That it infiltrates my very own community is obvious. I do not need to hear more stories about it. Are these admonitions made in hopes of atonement? It is not mine to give.

The only thing I want to hear from white people about race is, I'm sorry. I didn't see. I didn't listen. I'm working to see and listen now.

If you want support on this journey, there are white people who have worked hard and are further down this path who you can talk to. You don't need people of color in the room for every conversation about race in order to come to realizations about racism. You can do this work yourself and be liberated by it.
The society I envision does not include race- or gender-based quotas.
We live in a world where if we are unconscious about who is not in the room, we will inevitably create a society that privileges white, affluent men and disadvantages everyone else. This is the society we have now.

If we want to move forward towards collective liberation, we first have to acknowledge fully and completely our collective confusion as it is, now. There may be instances in which we realize how little we know. Our constructs must come crumbling down. We will be confused. Emotions will arise. This is good-it means there's an opening for surrender, to let go of how things should be or how they appear to be, to come into contact with what is happening right now, what is happening in the body. This is what must happen for transformation.

Because of the inequities woven into the fabric of our society, we must make a conscious and concerted effort to encourage oppressed voices to come forward. And when those efforts fail, we have to turn deeper into ourselves and ask, what is it that we're still missing? We have to ask the questions we're afraid to ask. We have to be with the things we're afraid to allow. This is precisely what the teachings of the Shambhala tradition train us to do. This is the purpose of the practice of spiritual warriorship. We meet fear with gentleness, and in doing so practice fearlessness. Let us not avoid the sharp edges of reality or the thorough application of our teachings for a cozier cocoon of sleepiness.
How do I have more relationships with people of color?
I don't get this question directly, but I feel it. I feel it in the overly friendly welcoming of my presence by someone with whom I share no obvious connection. I feel it in the over-sharing of race work that white people often feel compelled to tell me about. I feel it every time white people's actions or words show me that they've immediately labeled me as a brown woman. When someone feels the compulsion to show me that they're on "the good side," or when they wonder if the big brown person who just came into the Center is lost, I wonder if noticing and pausing might be possible. Can this energy be harnessed as an opportunity to examine what is going on internally? Can this vulnerability to be surfaced in conversation? "I'm feeling a desire to tell you about the work I'm doing at the Boys and Girls Club, but I'm also sensitive to how this may land for you." This is the on-the-ground practice of race work in an integrated setting. There are countless opportunities for white people to express this kind of vulnerability. Extending out in this way creates space for people of color to share their own experience and authenticity. It may not go perfectly every time. We all have things to learn. But it is a necessary place to start.

If your community is mostly white, it is not by accident. Do your work, get real, look at the places you've been avoiding. Ask another white person the question you've been unsure about asking. See how you're perpetuating the system of institutional racism; we all are. Become intimately familiar with your role. Explore the places within yourself that you hold back. Can you be yourself a little more? You do this work and people of color will naturally want to engage with you. Why? Because through feeling and exploring your ignorance you've created a genuine opening for my reality. Stepping into this unknown means carving out space for my existence.

...

Breathing.

These words are shared not to shock or offend but in kindness-as an offering of my own fullness and genuine aspirations for my community. I hope to create an opening for honest conversation. I hope to bring more understanding and support through the sangha for the importance of these spaces. I hope in hearing me other people of color will be heard.

What happens in PoC spaces? Anything we want-and this is the beauty of them. We can be sources for our own nourishment and resilience. Why wouldn't an ally be in support of this? My friend recently said, "We don't need allies (i.e., friends); we need accomplices (i.e., partners in crime)." I couldn't agree more. The act of supporting people of color is one of subversion. We are subverting white cultural conditioning. These are the values that fuel our institutions and organizations; they fuel our social hierarchy and how we self-identify. Undermining this conditioning requires fierceness and bravery. Anyone doing this will be challenged. Will you be an accomplice in supporting PoC spaces?
Kelsey Blackwell is a somatic coach, writer and facilitator committed to fearlessly creating spaces for women and PoC to trust and follow the wisdom of their own bodies so they may powerfully shine their lights in a world that sorely needs this brilliance. Follow her at kelseyblackwell.com.
Illustration by Alicia Brown

Before you go...

Notes

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Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People

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I'm breathing deeply as I write this. What I'm writing about is charged. I feel this energy in my body. It's a heat in my throat and a rumbling in my belly. It's an intensity that's frustrated that...

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Calling In and Calling Out Guide | Harvard University Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging

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In fostering spaces of inclusion and belonging, it is important to recognize, name, and address when individuals or groups with marginalized identities are experiencing harm, such as bias or discrimination. The concepts of "calling out" or "calling in" have become popular ways of thinking about how to bring attention to this type of harm. Knowing the difference between these concepts can help us reflect, then act, in the ways we feel will best promote constructive change.

This guide is a continously evolving document that we plan to improve over time. We welcome your input. Please feel free to provide any feedback at edib@harvard.edu

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In fostering spaces of inclusion and belonging, it is important to recognize, name, and address when individuals or groups with marginalized identities are experiencing harm, such as bias or discrimination. The concepts of "calling out" or "calling in" have become popular ways of thinking about how to bring attention to this type of harm.

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Me And White Supremacy (laylafsaad.com)

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When Layla F. Saad ran a free month-long Instagram challenge during the summer of 2018, she had no idea it would become an international cultural movement.

Thousands of people from around the world were galvanized by the #meandwhitesupremacy challenge, examining and owning responsibility for the ways in which they uphold white supremacy.

Over 80,000 people downloaded her guide to the movement, Me and White Supremacy Workbook in the space of just six months. And now, that guide is a NYT, USA Today, WSJ and Amazon bestseller.

Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor leads readers through a journey of understanding their white privilege and participation in white supremacy, so that they can stop (often unconsciously) inflicting damage on black, indigenous and people of color, and in turn, help other white people do better, too. The book goes beyond the original workbook by adding more historical and cultural contexts, sharing moving stories and anecdotes, and includes expanded definitions, examples, and further resources.

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Over 80,000 people downloaded her guide to the movement, Me and White Supremacy Workbook in the space of just six months. And now, that guide is a NYT, USA Today, WSJ and Amazon bestseller.

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Anti-racism and equity mindedness in social work field education (own institution sign in may be required)

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Anti-racism and equity mindedness in social work field education (own institution sign in may be required)

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Anti-racism and equity-mindedness in social work field education: A systematic review | Request PDF (researchgate.net)

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The concept of oppression and occupational therapy: A critical interpretive synthesis. CJOT 88 (4) (may require own institution sign in)

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The concept of oppression and occupational therapy: A critical interpretive synthesis. CJOT 88 (4) (may require own institution sign in)

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00084174211051168

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Systemic racism in Canadian occupational therapy: A qualitative study with therapists. CJOT 89 (1) (may require own institution sign in)

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Systemic racism in Canadian occupational therapy: A qualitative study with therapists. CJOT 89 (1) (may require own institution sign in)

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00084174211066676

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Unbecoming change agents (CJOT Editorial, 89 (2)) (may require own insitution sign in)

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Unbecoming change agents (CJOT Editorial, 89 (2)) (may require own insitution sign in)

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https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00084174221089708

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Improving degree attainment of BAME students

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Improving degree attainment of BAME students

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Improving the degree attainment of black and minority ethnic students | Advance HE

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This guidance was prompted by a number of queries from admissions departments around the legal requirements to ensure equality in admissions following the implementation of the Equality Act 2010, and correspondence from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to the Office for Fair Access which outlined the importance of considering access for underrepresented groups including students from less advantaged backgrounds, disabled students, students from some minority ethnic groups and care leavers.

Working with SPA (Supporting Professionalism in Admissions) and a number of higher education institutions with examples of good practice, ECU has produced recommendations and guidance to show how admissions can be made more equitable at every stage from pre-application to transition. Reflective questions and case studies will help to guide institutions through every step.

Areas covered include:

Making the case for equality in admissions

Including equality law and the benefits of an equitable admissions procedure

Pre-application and application

Widening participation and access

Course entry requirements

Centralised and devolved processes

Providing advice to applicants

Post-application and transition

Additional information and assessment methods

Supporting applicants during transition

Disability disclosure in admissions

International applicants

Using equality monitoring data in admissions

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Equitable admissions for underrepresented groups

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This guidance was prompted by a number of queries from admissions departments around the legal requirements to ensure equality in admissions following the implementation of the Equality Act 2010, and correspondence from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to the Office for Fair Access which outlined the importance of considering access for underrepresented groups including students from less advantaged backgrounds, disabled students, students from some minority ethnic groups and care leavers.

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The role played by universities in enabling people to gain the confidence and skills to engage in robust debate and embrace freedom of speech.

Leading in Uncertain Times is a special series of short papers commissioned in response to political change and disruption that is having a profound effect on higher education. Written by well-known figures and published as Leadership Insights, they offer a new narrative for leadership. They draw variously on research, personal stories, intergenerational conversations and powerful imagery to explore contentious issues. Deliberately short and provocative, they surface difficult social, political and educational tensions in ways that, we hope, will encourage 'new ways of seeing' and shape an agenda for change.

Professor Fiona Ross CBE
Director of Research, former Leadership Foundation

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It's a Bit More Complex than Freedom of Speech

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The role played by universities in enabling people to gain the confidence and skills to engage in robust debate and embrace freedom of speech. Leading in Uncertain Times is a special series of short papers commissioned in response to political change and disruption that is having a profound effect on higher education.

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Your challenges are our priorities and as we're independent of any regulatory framework, we can provide an external viewpoint and be your critical friend. We create 'safe places', facilitating collaboration and candid conversation between and within institutions. Our support includes:

expert advice and guidance

bespoke sustainable consultancy solutions from department through to institutional level

staff development opportunities at all levels

teaching resources

events and networks

examples of sector best practice

Find out more

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We produce and share a diverse range of resources to help academic institutions and other organisations in strengthening and supporting equality, diversity and inclusion.

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4. Race, Rupture, and Repair (with Dr. Dana Stone)

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Listen to this episode from Very Bad Therapy on Spotify. Dr. Dana Stone joins us to unpack our guest Carol's experience with a therapist who chose a stance of defensiveness following a rather shocking microaggression. How can we become not just better clinicians, but better human beings as well?

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Men... suppressing your emotions is like holding Ping-Pong balls under water. You can only hold them down for so long before one pops up unexpectedly-and often uncontrollably. Trust me, you do not have to suffer in silence. You too can escape from emotional incarceration, but you must be willing to introspectively fight! To learn how to wage and win the war within, get my book Battle Cry. The audiobook is available as well - https://a.co/d/0DzDmGX

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Black, Asian & Minoritised Ethnic Women in Academia Support Network #BAMEWA on LinkedIn: What Do We Know About Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) Participation in UK...

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Men... suppressing your emotions is like holding Ping-Pong balls under water. You can only hold them down for so long before one pops up unexpectedly-and often uncontrollably. Trust me, you do not have to suffer in silence. You too can escape from emotional incarceration, but you must be willing to introspectively fight!

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https://heawardgap.org.uk/

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https://pearnkandola.com/research/racism-at-work-in-the-uk-2021

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Racism at Work in the UK (2021) - Pearn Kandola

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In 2018, Pearn Kandola conducted a survey of 1,500 participants to explore the experience of racism in the modern UK workplace. This study found racism is

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How is your institution enabling Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students to thrive? Is your institution effectively tackling racism?

Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, the higher education sector has started making bold commitments to dismantling structural racism. However, big questions remain about how higher education can combat institutional racism and achieve real change.

This book disrupts the higher education sector through ambitious actions and collective, participatory and evidence-informed responses to racism. It offers a roadmap for senior leaders, staff and students to build strategies, programmes and interventions that effectively tackle racism.

Arising from current staff and recent student experiences, this book supports institutions driving equality, diversity, inclusion and intersectional programmes in higher education.

"Presents complex, deep-rooted problems but surprisingly the solutions can be quite simple! This book, while drawing attention to the immense challenge of anti-racism, is full of hope that a more equitable and fairer system is possible." Gurnam Singh, Coventry University

"This edited collection draws together the voices of racially minoritised activists, scholars, students and professional staff to ultimately pose a series of important, challenging questions to a sector still coming to grips with the true extent of racial inequity and its impact on our success." Nicola Rollock, King's College London

Arun Verma is a leader in integrating intersectionality and race equality action in design and development throughout the higher education, third and public sectors both nationally and globally.

Part 1: Introduction

1. Positioning anti-racism in higher education - Arun Verma

Part 2: Staff experiences of racism

2. Academic staff experiences - Min Duchenski, Tamjid Mujtaba and Jalpa Ruparelia

3. Professional and support services staff - Claire Lee

Part 3: Student experiences of racism

4. Undergraduate student experiences - Josephine Gabi and Sonia Gomes

5. Postgraduate student experiences - Arun Verma

6. Student social experiences - Zoe Nutakor

Part 4: Research systems enabling racism

7. Research funding and contracts - Arun Verma

8. Research excellence assessments - Arun Verma

9. Research collaborations and publishing - Arun Verma

Part 5: Teaching systems enabling racism

10. Teaching and scholarship funding, contracts and collaboration - Arun Verma

11. Teaching excellence assessments - Arun Verma

Part 6: Pedagogies that enable racism

12. Pedagogies, professionalism and curricula enabling racism - Musharrat J. Ahmed-Landeryou

13. Curriculum design - Parise Carmichael-Murphy and Eileen Ggbagbo

14. University identity - Briana Coles and Arun Verma

15. Educational professionalism - Deya Mukherjee

Part 7: Governance, strategy and operational systems

16. Governance and leadership - Jitesh S. B. Gajjar, Manish Maisuria and Anonymous

17. Operations and processes - Manvir Kaur Grewal

18. Strategy, planning and accountability - Shaminder Takhar, Rashid Aziz, Musharrat J. Ahmed-Landeryou and Pamela Thomas

Part 8: Conclusion

19. In solidarity - Arun Verma

20. Reflections on anti-racism in higher education - Arun Verma

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anti-racism in higher education - an action guide for change

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Anti-Racism in Higher Education - An Action Guide for Change; Arising from staff and student experiences, this book offers a roadmap for senior leaders, academic and professional staff and students to build strategies, programmes and interventions that effectively dismantle racism.

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https://www.linkedin.com/posts/goodcourse_education-he-inclusivity-activity-6939895280242724864-Qjwo?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

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GoodCourse on LinkedIn: #education #he #inclusivity

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How can Higher Education leaders joining a university campus for the first time identify the unique needs of a new student cohort? Birmingham City...

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Teaching antiracism is a political project, which will be especially challenging in a university environment which has traditionally valued 'objective' and 'apolitical' knowledge. This analysis focuses on specific pedagogical practices which promote an antiracism framework, with specific attention directed to the process of learning antiracism and how these goals may be furthered within the academy. Exploring some of the inherent challenges and benefits associated with dominant group members assuming responsibility for antiracist teaching, the focus of the paper will also be to examine specific pedagogical practices which may be helpful in introducing students to such emotionally powerful material. The efficacy of such practices will then be explored as a means of challenging the status quo and envisioning a less Eurocentric approach to higher education.

Additional information

Notes

1. According to George Dei (1993) this entails examining social and structural factors that create and perpetuate racism in society in order to analyse the ways racism is transmitted, reproduced, reworked and resisted . This perspective is grounded in the belief that race is politically and socially constructed and is inextricably linked to issues of power.

2. This approach is not intended to negate the importance of race. Indeed, I suggest that race is the most salient social location. Nonetheless, the complexities of our identities must be acknowledged.

3. This is not meant to suggest that 'White' is a monolithic category. In the context of this analysis, the term is being used to denote the dominant culture in the Canadian context.

4. I acknowledge that the terms 'racialized people' and 'people of colour' are problematic as they homogenize a diverse group of people and create a dichotomy between dominant Whites and 'others'. However, the absence of a more appropriate marker, these are the designations that I will use to refer to people who are not identified as 'White'.

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Unsettling the academy: working through the challenges of anti‐racist pedagogy

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Teaching antiracism is a political project, which will be especially challenging in a university environment which has traditionally valued 'objective' and 'apolitical' knowledge. This analysis focuses on specific pedagogical practices which promote an antiracism framework, with specific attention directed to the process of learning antiracism and how these goals may be furthered within the academy.

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https://anchor.fm/becomingantiracist

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*Trigger warning* This episode contains accounts of abuse and intimate violence, that listeners may find disturbing.

In this episode I am in conversation with Evie Muir, a Domestic Abuse Specialist, Intersectional Feminist, Racial Justice Activist and Freelance Journalist. We discuss the importance of intersectional in anti-violence work, unpack power dynamics at an individual and structure level and ask questions of the systems of support that are designed to exclude particular groups of people.

You can follow Evie's work on social media via Twitter: @xeviemuir and via her website: https://eviemuir.com/

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Supporting you on your journey to becoming an antiracist. This podcast offers a space to listen, reflect, engage and learn. To support us in continue to develop content, please consider becoming a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/becomingantiracist?fan_landing=true

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https://creativeequitytoolkit.org/

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Creative Equity Toolkit - Resources for cultural diversity in the arts

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The Creative Equity Toolkit is a how-to guide for increasing cultural diversity in the arts. Find implementable actions, tools, best practice and resources.

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Long, but excellent interview - especially towards the end.

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John Amaechi OBE on LinkedIn: John Ameachi [in] conversation with Nico Lutkins | 647 comments

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In case you missed it! Earlier today, I was LIVE [in] conversation with Nico Lutkins, where we discussed the critical role that allies can play in the ... 647 comments on LinkedIn

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https://www.nerupi.co.uk/about/overview

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About NERUPI

NERUPI* is a community of practice for those seeking to reduce inequalities in higher education access, participation and progression. With over 70 member organisations we are able to share our expertise and explore new approaches to evaluating the impact of interventions in this complex and evolving area.

NERUPI members work with the NERUPI Evaluation Framework to plan, develop and evaluate their programmes and activities. With clear aims and objectives based on both theory and practice - a praxis approach - it provides a sound basis for improving practice in teams across the student lifecycle from outreach to student success to graduate progression.

We hold regular events exclusive to members online or at London venues. These explore key issues for widening participation providing insights from recent research, opportunities to share practice and practical sessions to support evaluation.

Our annual Convention includes speakers, case study presentations from members and workshops.

The members' area of the NERUPI website gives access to an ever increasing range of resources, recordings of past events and member case studies.

Contact us for further information about the NERUPI Network.

* Network for Evaluating and Researching University Participation Interventions

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NERUPI* is a community of practice for those seeking to reduce inequalities in higher education access, participation and progression. With over 70 member organisations we are able to share our expertise and explore new approaches to evaluating the impact of interventions in this complex and evolving area.

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https://youtu.be/ZahtlxW2CIQ

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4 Paths for Productive Conversations about Bias

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4 Paths for Productive Conversations about Bias

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Amber Cabral

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Interview with an educator: 4 paths for productive conversations about bias | Amber Cabral

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Psychologist John Amaechi talks about white privilege.

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'Blackness is determined by more than skin colour': Emma Dabiri and gal-dem on black hair

Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff from gal-dem interviews Emma Dabiri on her debut book, Don't Touch My Hair. From pre-colonial Africa and anti-capitalism, to European beauty standards and the experience of growing up mixed-race in Ireland, they discuss why black hair matters.

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'A must-read . . . accessible and yet so full of scholarship' Owen Jones An incisive - and deeply practical - essay from the acclaimed author of Don't Touch My Hair Stop the denial Abandon guilt Interrogate capitalism When it comes to racial justice, how do we transform demonstrations of support into real and meaningful change?

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Layla Saad is a globally respected writer, speaker and podcast host on the topics of race, identity, leadership, personal transformation and social change. As an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim woman who was born and grew up in the West, and lives in the Middle East, Layla has always sat at a unique intersection of identities from which she is able to draw rich and intriguing perspectives. Layla's work is driven by her powerful desire to 'become a good ancestor'; to live and work in ways that leave a legacy of healing and liberation for those who will come after she is gone.

Me And White Supremacy is Layla's first book. Initially offered for free following an Instagram challenge under the same name, the best-selling digital Me And White Supremacy Workbook was downloaded by close to ninety thousand people around the world in the space of six months, before becoming a traditionally published book. Layla's work has been brought into homes, educational institutions and workplaces around the world that are seeking to create personal and collective change.

Layla earned her Bachelor of Law degree from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. She lives in Doha, Qatar with her husband, Sam, and two children, Maya and Mohamed.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Layla Saad's ME AND WHITE SUPREMACY is an indispensable resource for white people who want to challenge white supremacy but don't know where to begin. She moves her readers from their heads into their hearts, and ultimately, into their practice. We won't end white supremacy through an intellectual understanding alone; we must put that understanding into action. My fellow white people often tell me about the antiracism books they have read. My question is, "How will BIPOC know that you have read that book?" As Saad makes clear, if you have read and followed this book, BIPOC will know., Robin DiAngelo, author of New York Times bestseller 'White Fragility'

What Layla has created here is essential to anyone committed to doing the right thing regardless of how difficult it may feel. We can not dismantle what we are unwilling to acknowledge. And this book is perfect for anyone who wants to start to build a better society for all., Candice Brathwaite

Layla is an extremely powerful communicator. From the first page, you will be glued to this book. It should be mandatory reading. The message is urgent and the book is actionable and practical. Buy this book for yourself, do the work, and then push more copies it into the hands of everyone you know., Emma Gannon, Sunday Times bestselling author

Discovering Layla's work was one of the most important, uncomfortable and pivotal moments in my life. It guided me back to my humanity., Florence Given

She is no-joke changing the world and, for what it's worth, the way I live my life., Anne Hathaway

For well-intentioned white people, it is near impossible to know where to begin unlearning our role in upholding white supremacy - because how can you address what you can't even see? White supremacy is the air we've breathed and the milk we've drunk since birth. Enter Layla Saad. Her work is personal, practical, reflective, applicable, difficult, effective, and imperative. For the millions of us begging to know where to begin - where to begin to counteract our ugly history, and where to stand during this historical moment of polarization and hate - Layla answers: Begin with me. Begin with you. Me And White Supremacy is an answer to a question every conscionable person is asking., Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times bestseller 'Love Warrior and founder of Together Rising'

America needed this book yesterday. In fact, America has always needed this book. Layla Saad is one of the most important and valuable teachers we have right now on the subject of white supremacy and racial injustice. With keen intelligence and tireless patience, she is working to remove our collective cultural blindspots, and to help - at last - to change minds and transform society. I have the deepest respect for her. Buy this book for yourself, your family, your students. Don't put it off, and don't look away. It's time., Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love and City of Girls --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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me and white supremacy: how to recognise your privilege

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robin diangelo; afua hirsch; nikesh shukla; caroline criado perez; othegha uwagba; reni eddo-lodge; akala; chimamanda ngozi adichie; yomi adegoke; kalwant bhopal; judy ryde; slay in your lane; racism; racial equality; race issues; people of colour; colonialism; unconscious bias; white privilege; how to argue with a racist; adam rutherford; trump; george floyd; black lives matter; blm; white silence

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social science / anthropology / cultural & social

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social science / discrimination & race relations

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social science / anthropology / cultural & social

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social science / discrimination & race relations

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Me and White Supremacy: How to Recognise Your Privilege, Combat Racism and Change the World

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Me and White Supremacy: How to Recognise Your Privilege, Combat Racism and Change the World eBook: Saad, Layla, DiAngelo, Robin: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

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Comprehensive list of useful books to read compiled by Edinburgh University staff

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This Antiracist Reading List was created by Victoria Madden, Digital Safety Support Officer, and Lilinaz Rouhani, Data and Equality Officer, with input from colleagues in Information Services Group at the University of Edinburgh.

The reading list includes readings and resources on the following topics:

Essential Reading

Inequalities in Tech

Feminism and Intersectionality

History and Racism (UK)

History and Racism (US)

Autobiography and Memoir

Fiction by BIPoC Authors

The reading list is not complete, and is being updated continually. Staff and students at the University of Edinburgh are encouraged to add their own contributions. If you are outwith the University and would like to contribute, please send your suggestions to open.ed@ed.ac.uk.

You can access the "live" reading list through the University's Resource Lists service (no login required) or download it as a static PDF.

© The University of Edinburgh, CC BY SA NC.

Header image: By bmartinseattle on Pixabay.

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Information Services Group Antiracist Reading List

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This Antiracist Reading List was created by Victoria Madden, Digital Safety Support Officer, and Lilinaz Rouhani, Data and Equality Officer, with input from colleagues in Information Services Group at the University of Edinburgh.

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Whether you're a seasoned racial justice activist in the front lines of every protest or someone who's in the beginning steps of racial literacy, we can all take time to evaluate the terminology we use when talking about race. In Stay Woke: A People's Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter, authors Candis Watts Smith, an associate professor at Penn State University, and Tehama Lopez Bunyasi, an assistant professor at George Mason University, provide a glossary of racial justice terms to help advocates understand the double edge some of these words can present.

Watts Smith said the inspiration for the glossary came from her own students. She noticed two groups of students in her classes. Those wanting not to be racist, but lacking the knowledge to take steps in the right direction, and those she referred to as "woker than thou." These were students who knew the lingo, but weren't necessarily using words in a nuanced way.

"We wanted to build a tool kit for people on both sides of this knowledge gap," Watts Smith said. "On one hand, people who are newcomers can have some information to facilitate a conversation in a more educated way, but also to challenge those who are very strict in their understanding."

Here are some of the words listed in their glossary. These words fall under categories of tools of liberation-words that enhance the lives of others-and tools of oppression-ideas used to exploit or shame people based on race. No matter what level racial justice advocate you are, Watts Smith and Lopez Bunyasi say education is vital when staying woke.

antiracism

1. The practice of dismantling a system marked by white supremacy and anti-Black racism through deliberate action

2. A theory that explains and exposes multiple forms of racism: overt and covert, interpersonal and institutional, historical and present day, persistent and nascent

Black girl magic

1. The recognition of the beauty, ability, resourcefulness, and perseverance of Black women in a society marked by anti-Black sexism

2. An effort to highlight the role of Black women in all aspects of U.S. life

synonyms: #BlackGirlMagic, #ProfessionalBlackGirl

antonym: misogynoir

colorblind racism

1. The worldview that suggests that since race should not matter, it does not matter

2. An ideology that insists that everyone be treated without regard to race, accompanied by a denial of the causes and consequences of racism

co-optation

1. Taking an idea, disassembling it, reassembling it with original pieces as well as retrofitted ones; giving the modified thing a different name than the original and then claiming originality

2. Appropriation; falsely claiming rights to or innovation of something as one's own

colorism

A practice whereby privileges and disadvantages are systematically doled out on the basis of skin color, with a disproportionate amount of advantage provided to lighter-skinned people

synonym: light-skin privilege

culture of poverty

1. The notion that poor and working-class people are poor because they do not know how to work, do not have the motivation to work, or are too dependent on public assistance

2. An idea that poverty is intergenerational because poverty is (psychologically) pathological and cyclical

dehumanization

1. The notion that some people are less than human

2. The routine association of Blacks with demons and animals, such as apes

dog whistle politics

Coded racial appeals

epistemology of ignorance

1. A militant, aggressive willingness to not know

2. A process of knowing designed to produce not knowing about white privilege and white supremacy

false equivalence

1. A logical fallacy, whereby two opposing sides of an argument are deemed equivalent when they actually are not

2. A reliance on feeble similarities
in an attempt to make moot
the more important
observation and effect
of the glaring differences

intersectionality

1. A theory that highlights the heterogeneity of privileges and layers of oppression that individuals within a group may experience

2. A paradigm, rooted in the analysis of Black women's experiences, that reveals that Black women are "doubly bound," due to overlapping layers of oppressions, including racism and sexism; this paradigm asserts that race constructs the way women experience gender, and gender influences how women experience race

microaggression

1. Small, subtle, pernicious acts of racism

2. Brief remarks, vague insults, casual dismissals, and nonverbal exchanges that serve to slight a person due to the person's race

antonym: antiracism

nationalism

1. As it relates to nation-states, a type of attachment to one's country that is marked by chauvinism and a sense of superiority over others

2. As it relates to broader notions of "nation"-including the conception of a racial or ethnic group as a type of nation-an ideology that emphasizes in-group solidarity and prioritization and, in some cases, political autonomy

racism

1. A feature of a society, whereby patterns of public policy, institutions, dominant ideologies, and popular representations serve to perpetuate social, political, and economic inequities between racial groups

2. The array of anti-Black practices, policies, and ever-perpetuated inequalities that maintain white privilege and power

reverse discrimination

There. Is. No. Such. Thing.

respectability politics

An ideology based on the notion that by presenting oneself in the way that is pleasing to members of the dominant group, one will be able to assuage their fears about one (and one's group), and as a consequence, racial animus will dissipate among white Americans

white fragility

White fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.

white privilege

1. An advantage, good, or resource that people with ascribed white racial identities receive and/or have greater access to and that people with ascribed nonwhite racial identities are denied and/or have less access to, primarily as a consequence of their ascribed racial identity and not because of what they do or do not do as individuals

2. A condition of whiteness, whereby one is not, nor needs to be, cognizant of the racial dynamics that systematically benefit white people and disadvantage people of color

white supremacy

1. The systematic provision of political, social, economic, and psychological benefits and advantages to whites, alongside the systematic provision of burdens and disadvantages to people who are not white

2. A set of norms and expectations predicated on white habits, or the preferences, tastes, emotions, and perceptions of white Americans

3. The belief that white people are inherently superior to people of color and should dominate over people of color

synonyms: racialized social system, whiteness

antonym: antiracism

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Whether you're a seasoned racial justice activist in the front lines of every protest or someone who's in the beginning steps of racial literacy, we can all take time to evaluate the terminology we use when talking about race.

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Testimonies of people of color in scholarly publishing

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Testimonies of people of color in scholarly publishing

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Editor's Note: Today's post, which focuses on racism in scholarly publishing, is being published anonymously at the request of the authors and contributors - all people of color - whose testimonies make powerful and shameful reading for a sector that likes to think of itself as liberal and inclusive.
This blog post is co-edited by two people of color who work in scholarly publishing. Together, we have nearly 15 years of experience in this industry. As the idea for the blog post came together, we knew that sharing our stories needed to be done anonymously.

Yet we are eager to have our stories heard. Most micro-aggressions we experience pass without comment. We remain silent. And so do our allies. It is hard to speak up when you are alone in a white-dominated space. We hope that other people of color in our industry read this post and understand that they are not alone. We also hope that our allies will understand that they must do more if they want to claim that label.

The stories below came to us from across a range of departments and presses. We collected more stories than could fit into one blog post, so we will be submitting additional blog posts to the Scholarly Kitchen. Several new contributors have already agreed to share stories and we welcome additional contributions. Please contact our host, Alice Meadows, for more information on how to connect with us.
Testimonies
Years ago, during my then press's annual Thanksgiving celebration, one entirely white department came in to great fanfare dressed as "Native-Americans" for "fun." Obviously, I can't speak to how all of my other colleagues felt, though some were clearly amused and delighted by it, but I do remember that I and the one other person of color on staff immediately made eye contact with each other with a look of total dismay.

I was the only person of color in my department. When I asked the administration why they didn't do outreach to more students of color or promote people of color, the answer from the HR rep was, "We can never find any black students who are qualified or are able to pass our proofreading tests. You were our first and we were really surprised when you passed. Usually people like you don't make it past the first round. And since there are so few to begin with, there aren't any to promote."

I left six months later.

During my second year as an editorial assistant I asked our Editorial Director if I could attend the AAUP (now AUP) annual meeting. I suggested that I could apply for two grants to help cover the costs of attendance, the newcomer grant and the diversity grant. At that time, I was the only person of color in my department and another assistant also wanted to attend the conference. Our Editorial Director asked me to limit my applications to the the diversity grant so that my white colleague would have a better chance at the newcomer grant. He proceeded to explain that there were almost no minorities who attended the AAUP so I was practically guaranteed to receive the diversity grant. Angry and hurt that I was being reduced to my brown skin, I went back to my office. A few days later, I explained to him that I would prefer to apply to both since I qualified for both grants. I received the newcomer grant that year, and a different person of color received the diversity grant; I was glad to have been there to meet her.

As the only black person in my department, my supervisor once told me: "I just want to let you know that I like you. You're not like the others...in the Mailroom, and IT, and Security. You don't blast your music, talk loud, and leave early. I see you reading books and bringing your own lunch...I just think that's really good...Keep it up. You might even get to move up a bit."

I feel real anxiety when there is another man of the same ethnic background in the same room as me because there's a decent chance that someone will mix us up, usually by calling one of us by the other's name...I have had to deal with the same type of lazy mistake for my whole life. The incessant noise (even at low volumes) of discrimination and lazy assumptions is something that adds up over time to remind me of my otherness.

Over the course of the time that I have been at the Press, I have heard all sorts of offensive "jokes" made at staff meetings: from making light of the devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico, to joking about how a book on the DREAM Act needs to come out fast otherwise "everyone will be deported by then," to the outright and casual usage of a racial slur. Because of the frequency of these jokes, the fact that they are consistently made by upper management (which is all white), and because I am one of few people of color in the room when these jokes are made, I am extremely tense and uncomfortable during weekly meetings with my white colleagues. Every time I walk into a meeting with my colleagues, the pit of my stomach hollows from anxiety; I'm in a constant state of defense, ready for something to be said that is offensive. I'm ready to swallow my own anger and stay silent in the name of "professionalism," ready to be disappointed by my white colleagues and managers who regularly disregard this type of behavior as "harmless" or don't even notice it as problematic in the first place.

I was on a business trip with my boss and it was the first time that the two of us had spent significant time together away from the office. During the last night of the trip, we talked about personal stuff over dinner. I was sharing stories about my family when she suddenly said with a laugh, "I wasn't sure what you were when you came for the interview. You don't look like any of the African Americans from where I come from."

I've heard ignorant comments like this before but this was said by a relatively young woman who always made it known that she was a liberal feminist. I don't remember exactly how I responded. I think I said something along the lines of, "like white people, black people come in all forms and shades," and left it at that. I had no desire to dive into an in-depth conversation about race. It would have been a waste of time.

Working at a university press as an Asian American woman of color has been an experience of whiplash - pulled in one direction where my opinion has been valued to "authenticate" a project by or about Asian Americans, while simultaneously pulled in the other direction, having my opinion discounted and written off by my white colleagues. "Well, you're not really Asian."

I've been asked how to pronounce names of authors who are of Asian descent - but then told that they disbelieve my pronunciation is authentic. "What good are you?"

I've been asked my opinion on how to bring diversity into our staff - but then told that the lightness of my skin tone is a strike against me. "You don't really count."

I've been asked to communicate difficult conversations about race with authors of color - "they'll take it better coming from you" - but then told I should call myself an 'Americanized' version of my name when dealing with authors who are white. "You should make it less difficult for them."

I have been tokenized when it is convenient. I have been dismissed when my opinion might make waves. I have been split in two and torn apart inside by this industry - one that supposedly values the intellectual input - and output - of scholars who write about race, justice, and inclusion.

I was the only Black employee in the books editorial department, and one of very few people of color. This would not have been so striking had the majority of books we published not been about Black and Brown culture and perspective. Walking into this position, I understood the violent legacy of white people controlling the means of production, and thirsting to curate and cosign intellectual and creative work by people of color. This was not my first rodeo in terms of working within a majority white office with a "liberal agenda;" i.e., working alongside white people who were sure they were "good." What offered me more hope for this office was the depth of much of the work by Black authors they published. It was work that I had read in my undergrad years and beyond, that truly shaped my theories of self and the possibilities I saw for my own Black Life. I thought to myself, there's no way that even the white people reading, editing, and probing these works aren't grasping the brilliance, and at the very least, the humanity of the people who produce this work. How could you spend months, and sometimes years, with a manuscript about history or theory regarding Black life, and not be in some way changed by it? But alas....

I witnessed the head acquisition editor be repeatedly disrespectful to the women in editorial who did most of the grunt work. I was often tokenized, and called on to affirm a white editor's opinion of a Black manuscript. My supervisor condescendingly micromanaged all of my activity every single day, while simultaneously trying to appear "down," by asking me my opinions about various facets of Black popular culture, often using black vernacular. Knowing that my colleagues saw only my blackness - and not my complete humanity - led me to be more detached at work. I didn't mind that people didn't know how to talk to me because I didn't want to talk to them.

Editors took many non-black interns under their wing, and they were given numerous opportunities to rise up in the press. Black interns, on the other hand, were heavily micromanaged and there was little interest in bonding with them or making them feel at home. I saw several white interns elevated to permanent positions. This is something I never saw offered as a possibility to Black interns. I did my best to provide some sense of belonging to the Black interns when I could; but honestly, how could I provide a feeling of belonging if it was something I never felt there myself?

Hands down the most painful, bizarre situation I've faced as a POC in scholarly publishing occurred when I was pitted against another POC, in a similar role, by leadership. Despite our divergent interests and skills, unhelpful comparisons - overt and covert - were made. Eventually, in spite of my best efforts, and my expressed desires to work more collaboratively, I felt forced out and had to leave. Afterwards, a supervisor got in touch to ask how the house might improve its diversity efforts, and to casually ask if I had contact information for potential authors of color.

I consistently find a self-serving equation of "diversity" (an outcome) with "antiracism" (a practice) in our industry. Generally speaking, the appearance of progress and harmony stands in for difficult, never-ending work, and ultimately, the relinquishment of privileges.

Instead of diversity™, scholarly publishing needs decolonization - a complete, utter rethinking and remapping of power relationships. This means white people in the profession - including well-intentioned liberal whites, self-identified woke whites and well-meaning white allies - have a great deal of humbling and challenging work to do. Are you up to it?

Stay tuned for our next installment of testimonies of people of color in publishing. In the meantime, please feel free to take a look at the following resources available for white colleagues who may be interested in learning more about what you can do:
Additional Reading: http://korbettmosesly.com/2016/02/15/10-ways-to-practice-institutional-racism-at-your-non-profit/ https://reflections.yale.edu/article/future-race/becoming-trustworthy-white-allies http://www.alliesforchange.org/documents/how-racism-damages-white-people-102010.pdf http://www.interpretereducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/white-privilege-by-Peggy-McIntosh.compressed.pdf Organizations that guide individuals and institutions in anti-racism work: http://www.alliesforchange.org/programs.html https://www.racialequityinstitute.org/our-process/ https://www.pisab.org/
Scholarly Kitchen

The Scholarly Kitchen account is used for anonymous posts, housekeeping posts at the blog, posts from the Society for Scholarly Publishing, and a few other purposes.

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On Being Excluded: Testimonies by People of Color in Scholarly Publishing - The Scholarly Kitchen

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These powerful testimonies, by people of color, about their experience of racism in scholarly publishing, clearly show that we have "a great deal of powerful and humbling work to do" to address racism and the white-dominated culture of our industry.

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Risks and Rewards of committing to anti-racism

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Risks and Rewards of committing to anti-racism

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This article draws from the experiences of women, located in different countries, whose scholarship expresses a commitment to anti-racism and social justice. What are the challenges they face? How do they negotiate multiple commitments? Anti-racism scholars are border crossers and ethical leaders with a deep sense of care. Their experiences suggest that one does not necessarily have to engage in activism 'out there'. The very commitment to anti-racism, as a scholar, becomes a form of social justice work. The ability to have a transformative impact both inside and outside of the academe enriches their sense of fulfilment as scholars.

Additional information

Author information

Philomena Essed
PHILOMENA ESSED is Professor of Critical Race, Gender and Leadership Studies, Antioch University, PhD in Leadership and Change Program.

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Women social justice scholars: risks and rewards of committing to anti-racism

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This article draws from the experiences of women, located in different countries, whose scholarship expresses a commitment to anti-racism and social justice. What are the challenges they face? How do they negotiate multiple commitments? Anti-racism scholars are border crossers and ethical leaders with a deep sense of care.

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an Open Letter from UK drama professors and students

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an Open Letter from UK drama professors and students

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An open letter to UK Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies

Dear White Colleague,

We write to you as Black and Global Majority** colleagues and students as members of the 'Revolution or Nothing Network' in wake of the recent resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the urgent call for universities, subject associations and research organisations to address racism.

Listen to our truths.

As we start this new academic year driven by COVID-19 related challenges, we have all been galvanised into rethinking and reorganising effective modes of delivery for our disciplines. We write this letter urging you to recognize that this is an opportune moment for you to also reckon with and commit to do better with regards to issues of race and racism in our fields. The resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement is a stark reminder that equal importance needs to be placed on addressing racism in our fields with the same sense of urgency as has been demonstrated in the ability to adapt our curriculum delivery for this year. As we consider the advocacy for our disciplines in COVID-19 contexts, we call on you as an ally and an accomplice to engage in a meaningful examination of our fields' white supremacy and racism and how this manifests in the predominant whiteness of our departments, our research and our curricula.
Racist actions, left unchecked, become racist structures
Over the last few months, several Open Letters have been aimed at and called for institutional change and action. This collective voicing of our concerns is instead addressed to our individual colleagues, friends, and peers. It asks you to recognise and undo your roles in upholding racist structures and systems of oppression. When responsibility is passed on to an "institution", it absolves the responsibility, culpability, and complicity of individuals in perpetuating racist power structures. But it is individuals who make up institutions. John Amaechi offers a powerful articulation of white privilege for you to understand your role in being invisible to your own position of power.

It is therefore no longer enough to intend not to be racist; we need you to be actively antiracist. What we need from you is actionable and meaningful change. And so we urge you to move from private expressions of solidarity to real public actions that enable meaningful change for us, your Black and Global Majority colleagues and students.
UK Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies have not yet understood what systemic racism in the field is
As representative organisations for our disciplines, TaPRA, SCUDD, SDR, DSA and others have written public statements of solidarity and commitments to anti-racism. But before organisations and individuals serving on them can be anti-racist, you must first understand racism. Statements without actions are not helpful. But actions without a re-examination of what have been foundational racist values for our fields are not helpful either. Many statements of solidarity have noted that "there is more work to do." We urge you to consider that the "work" required is not only generating a list of actions, but an accountability of how and when these actions are delivered and to what effect. Most importantly "the work" requires a fundamental reexamination of the racist values that shape our fields. Otherwise, these statements amount to no more than performances of solidarity and apology - and, as theatre, performance, and dance scholars, you should be most aware of the limits of such performativity as empty gestures.
Racism continues to be perpetuated in dominant understandings of the field
Racism in our disciplines manifests as both epistemic erasures and appropriations as well as microaggressions and overt racist behaviours.

Our fields are underpinned by and built on values that have historically privileged colonial knowledge systems. These knowledge-systems have in themselves been, and continue to be, produced through processes of extractions from and appropriations of the labour and intellect of Black and Global Majority thinking and making.

Despite this, our disciplines continue to centre white Euro-centric epistemologies in current scholarship and curriculum content, placing less value and visibility on paradigms beyond these frames.

White colonial research methods perpetuate unequal power relations that continue to silence already marginalised peoples, by speaking for and about us.

Research is validated by prescriptive and colonial modalities of written enquiries to be considered REF-able, and these value-judgements exclude and further marginalise alternative and embodied modes of knowledge-production that are deemed to be less "objective" and ultimately less valuable. Even as our fields recognise practice-research as valid modes of scholarship in the UK, these modalities are and have been historically validated by white structures and thinking.

When scholarship turns attention to discourses on marginalisation within our fields, there is a systematic erasing and absence of race and racism from these discussions and a denial of such negations.

To validate these erasures, colleagues co-opt African American legal studies scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw's coinage of the term intersectionality and claim that the absence of race from discussions is compensated by the presence of discussions around gender, sexuality, class and disability. This is a fundamental misuse of Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality which recognises the compounded impact of these different structures of oppression on the lived experience of racialised peoples, thus placing race and racism at its heart. Kalwant Bhopal provides further examples of how the misuse of intersectionality manifests across UK Higher Education.

White scholars too often theorise and draw on Black and Global Majority intellect and practices without due acknowledgement of their own positionalities and the power asymmetries that drive their enquiries.

White scholars too often continue to either omit Black and Global Majority scholarship that are foundational to their areas of enquiries, or to co-opt Black and Global Majority intellect without due citational acknowledgement.

Recent research projects on race and racism in our fields undertaken by some white colleagues tend to centre their own voices and prerogatives, while ignoring the labour and intellect of Black and Global Majority colleagues whose scholarship is integral to these enquiries.

Colleagues' conflation of diversity and decolonisation manifests as a cosmetic window-dressing solution by merely adding a few more Black and Global Majority authors to their reading lists, without any acknowledgement, understanding or interrogation of discourses and practices of power that their curricula choices continue to uphold.

Colleagues are eager to champion diversity which fails to dismantle power; in fact it keeps it firmly in place. For instance, Black and Global Majority heritage colleagues are invited to contribute to scholarly and publishing initiatives as lone, temporary, and / or replaceable stand-ins, resulting in tokenistic gestures of inclusion. Funding bodies in our disciplines claim their commitment to diversity initiatives while upholding racist structures and practices within that deters Black and Global Majority scholars from either applying or being successful with their bids.

All these inherently racist practices have habitually led to sustained and continued erasures, appropriations and marginalisations of knowledge-systems that exist and are generated outside of these white, privileged and colonial frameworks.
Racism is experienced by Black and Global Majority university staff and students in our departments and disciplines
Over the last eighteen months, several events hosted by London Theatre Seminar (May 2019), SCUDD (June 2019), TaPRA (September 2019), and DSA (August 2019) and others have initiated conversations about race and racism in our fields and in our departments and classrooms. And yet:

Theatre and dance departments continue to be dominantly and oppressively white - this is both in terms of the positionalities of faculty members and their inability to acknowledge and / or address the epistemic racisms in our fields.

These departments and institutions continually fail to direct sufficient time and other resources to actually make an antiracist impact.

Representative organizations in our disciplines continue to elect predominantly white executive board members.

Research and PhD projects by white colleagues that speak for Black and Global Majority communities continue to be funded without our voices being present in the research.

Anthologies are published by all-white editorial teams and contributors.

Journal editors and editorials boards in our disciplines are predominantly white.

On the whole conference panels and keynotes continue to centre all white speakers even as more racial diversity is evident in some instances.

Black and Global Majority colleagues and students are constantly called upon to speak on and educate white peers on race and racism, without any recognition or regard for the emotional labour required of us to do so repeatedly, and in the face of relentless defensiveness and hostility.

Black and Global Majority heritage scholars who require visa and immigration support are frequently disadvantaged despite having flourished under and graduated from UK PhD systems and contributing to fields that they are then erased from, due to lack of institutional affiliation. This pipeline problem is particularly notable in Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies departments in the UK, and is a bigger struggle that requires the dismantling of institutional and departmental whiteness.

Many white colleagues are unaware of UK visa regimes that place significant limitations on study and career prospects of Black and Global Majority colleagues and students from outside the UK, and how these regimes play out on their lived realities in brutal and violent ways.

This is on top of the endless experiences of overt racisms, everyday racisms and microaggressions we are routinely subjected to as Black and Global Majority scholars:

I was called "angry" and "difficult" in staff meetings when raising the same concerns as my white colleagues.

A senior scholar showed a racist image during a presentation and when questioned told me that I was "misunderstanding a lot of complex history behind it." In that same seminar another senior scholar made a racist joke during the Q&A. Everyone in the seminar was too "polite" to challenge these two professors, or perhaps they were scared to.

I am regularly told that my English is very good.

My name is constantly misspelled and/or mispronounced by colleagues despite being repeatedly corrected.

Colleagues comment upon my "tan" in Zoom meetings.

I have been told to wear a sari when delivering content on Indian dance.

I am randomly asked to peer review work about any Asian performance form, regardless of where in Asia it is from.

I had to take time off work as the stress and frustration of all the emotional labour and no material change took its toll.

I was offered an hourly-paid job, but not given a contract, as the department needed to address their 'diversity problem' and I would be that token face.

The predecessor of my job, a good friend, was pointed at and described by a colleague in a meeting as 'the diversity hire'.

In my first job in academia in Britain, I went to the library to look at the drama materials. There was not a single play by a Black or Asian playwright on the shelves - literally not one. By the time I left there were plenty, but why was it up to me to notice this deficit and make amends?

In a list of plays for incoming undergraduates to read over the Summer holidays, every playwright was white, all apart from Caryl Churchill were men, and most of them were dead. This list was shown to me as if it were something to be proud of.

I took over a course on writing for theatre. In the course content, every recommended play and text book to read and theatre production to see were by white writers and theatre makers. It is as if we just don't exist in their idea of scholarship and artistry.

I was running a physical warm up, I referred to an artist of African descent, my (white) co-tutor stepped in to offer a reference on a more 'serious' note, and proceeded to discuss white practitioners (LeCoq etc). I felt totally undermined in front of the students.

Upon raising (anti-black) racism in my place of work, I have twice had responses from white men that 'it hurts'. It was as if their pain was relevant at all, with no recognition that I live my life, and that we as Black people in Britain and the USA live our lives, inside the daily pain of racism. I should have asked, how much does it hurt?... Out of 10? Where does it hurt?... There was little awareness of why their separate but similar responses were so deeply problematic.

An Asian colleague who had worked at my university was not even interviewed for a job, even though he had taught in our department (and another in the same university), had run an outreach programme over the course of two years (specifically aimed at Black, Asian and disadvantaged young people), has a PhD, is a highly respected and accomplished, performed and published playwright and poet, theatre maker and workshop facilitator, was an Associate Artist in the department and his photo is still used on our website. He would have been the one other Global Majority person in our department, aside from me. I am the only Black lecturer at the moment. It was (supportively) indicated to me (off-the-record) that he probably did not get an interview because of REF. When will academics see that REF is rigged, REF perpetuates a culture of discrimination?

The Principal and Head of Faculty of my (Russell Group) university put forward a proposal to employ Professors, on fractional posts, purely for REF purposes. However, the Principal explicitly stated that these appointments could not be advertised and that departments should employ people already known to us. Colleagues in my department proposed the names of two white women to be appointed in this way, as part-time Professors. Part of the rationale given was that these two suggested white women were 'feminists'. I was appalled and literally banged my head on the table. I later argued, with support from others in a school meeting, that hiring Professors in this way would be avoiding equal opportunities and the spirit of equal ops laws that we have fought for in Britain since the 1960s! As a school we thankfully voted against employing REF positions without an equal ops process so to a degree my / our resistance was a success. However, four white male Professors voted against and two of them proceeded to make a joke about it in the meeting. I do not understand how these white colleagues do not see that this is all deeply painful, exhausting and unnecessary. The white male Professors' joking response lacked any empathy or understanding of the seriousness and stakes of this discussion. Further to the comment above, the next time I saw one of the white male Professors who voted in favour of employing Professors for REF without an equal opportunities process, was in the staff kitchen. He was eating lunch. He looked at me, seemingly nervous and said 'Cajun chicken'. I said, sorry? Meaning, 'what?' He went on to say that he was eating Cajun chicken and it tasted really good. I wondered, what was it about me that made him think of saying 'Cajun chicken' rather than saying "hello, good afternoon, how was your day or sorry about the upset at the meeting". 'Cajun chicken'. I'm a vegetarian! For me it revealed that he saw me through the lens of a stereotype about Black people.

In my first meeting with a Professor at Goldsmiths, she took me into her office, and rather than asking about my research, my previous posts or how my day was going, launched into asking me which one of my parents was black, my father or my mother? It was so offensive and insidious. Why did she want to know which of my parents was Black? How was this relevant to anything at all to do with my job? That Professor has thankfully now left Goldsmiths.

A white female academic in my previous university continually marked Black and underprivileged undergraduates down on a first year BA module. The low marks were repeatedly noted at exam board. In one year 9 students (roughly 10% of the cohort) were going to leave the university only with a 'pass' degree, because of repeatedly failing this hugely problematic exam. It went on for years, nothing was done though I and others tried to challenge it. This person went on to falsely accuse a Black male scholar of 'physical intimidation'. An independent investigation was held and it was found that her claim had no basis at all. Many of us Black scholars rallied around to support our colleague. We challenged the university at the highest level of management but the white woman was given a year's fully paid research leave and eventually moved to another department. She is still working at the university. The personal and professional cost to the accused Black scholar and to us all, was so high. The accusation cost her nothing. It was scandalous. When will white academics step up and speak out when they see these injustices happen? Racism is a fire started by white people, why are we the ones perpetually left to put the fire out? We are the ones who get burnt! Even writing on this document is a great personal risk as it is almost impossible to be anonymous. I do not see any of my white colleagues risking anything to challenge racism. As Ignatiev and Garvey have written in their brilliant book Race Traitor, white people must be traitors to whiteness, this is what anti-racism means, it means betraying that which has put you in a position of supremacy, and it does not matter how many of us are your friends, colleagues, lovers, partners or even your children. It also does not matter how much you write or express your anti-racism. Action is what is needed. Knowing us or reading this document is not your passport out of the struggle. Do something that makes a positive difference. Take action that costs you something. If you want to know how change is made follow the money and you will find the strategy.

A white colleague put a Black Lives Matter sticker on their door. Then a couple of weeks later they took it down. It really hurt. It was as if it was just a fad, just a hashtag, just a moment.

I am repeatedly told by library staff and senior management if I could "prioritise" academic resources published by British press or similar. Throughout my PhD, I was continuously marginalised in my department and at TaPRA because my research focused on non-white playwrights and practices. I experienced major institutional failings (my white supervisor: 1. refused to read a complete thesis draft - said she does not have the time, 2. Refused to issue a report needed for my funding. When I complained to head of department, they sympathised but did nothing)

Being one of the few non-white attendees at TaPRA made me feel like I didn't belong and that I needed to justify my presence at every turn.

I convened a working group at TaPRA for several years and in that time there was never a black or brown keynote speaker and only a handful of black and brown delegates.

One year the venue for the conference was a space named after a notable family historically involved in enslavement and no one said a word.

Funding structures reproduce racial inequality. Being on fixed contracts (as minority ethnic people are statistically less likely to secure permanent positions) means I am unable to apply to, or be named as a co-investigator on major grants.

When making theatre with British Muslim youth as an international doctoral student, I was pushed to clear my project with university solicitors responsible for administering the university's compliance with the Prevent agenda. I was asked by these solicitors to report on any suspicious statements made by those I was working with - in effect, being asked to spy on my "research subjects" - even though our work was not at all involving any topics related to extremism and some of these youth were students at the same university. Failure to do so risked completion of the degree and my precarious visa status. Subsequent attempts to publish about this episode in peer-reviewed (white) journals have been met with derision and dismissal, in a way that implies that this type of episode is unique to my circumstance and not indicative of a broader structural issue in British theatre/performance academic spaces.

In my former university department where I was hired on a permanent/full-time basis, I was not granted a full research sabbatical even when I fully qualified for it, as my teaching labour was considered indispensable to the department. So while other colleagues enjoyed 100% research time on their sabbaticals, I had to teach while writing my book.

I was mistaken by a white female professor more than once for the only other Asian academic in my former School despite the other academic looking nothing like me.

I am frequently interrupted and talked over in meetings, and my ideas taken up by others with no acknowledgment.

When I pointed out that institutional gendered racism was preventing my ability to pursue my PhD research, the head of my school decided to refer me to the well-being department without having any prior conversation with me.

I used autoethnography in my performance as research, when I had to share in an all-white PhD seminar environment, my experiences were systematically belittled and discarded as not "scientific/ objective" enough.

As an unfunded PhD student I had to attend meetings with a little human, the head of graduate studies pretended to play and be happy with the presence of the little human in my presence. Then complained that I was "performing motherhood" during seminar.

When I raised the point that my department was white, a professor teaching courses on postcolonial and decolonial theatre and performance studies replied that "one might argue otherwise". If personal experiences are discarded even facts are when emanating from a Black person in white institutions.

I was told, "You're actually advantaged by the system because your ethnicity means you'll be more in demand for places now looking to hire people of colour."

Wanting me in the room/panel/post-show conversation only to "comment on race", and never because of my research.

When I was doing my MA in 2017, I attended the one and only seminar about race and the contemporary in theatre that year. I was the only black student in the class but not the only person of colour. I began to notice that a fair few of my classmates kept looking at me when they raised a point of discussion, as if I was the fount of all racial knowledge.

I was expected to act as de facto cultural and linguistic intermediary for a group of white senior scholars at a conference in Asia although my role there was as an emerging academic trying to get my research heard. This ranged from explaining local contexts (not even my own) to ordering food for them at restaurants.

I have been asked for tips on "diversifying the curriculum" because a white senior scholar "did not know where to begin".

During a presentation on decolonial aspects of my research in my geographic region, a white senior scholar told me quite drily, "I can sense you're very passionate about this" - implying this was my fight, not theirs.

This same white senior scholar went on to suggest that if my "new" practices were not transferable to classrooms in the UK, then my work was not universal enough.

When I was the only non-white scholar interning at a UK archival institution, no one expressed any interest about my work or background - yet I was expected to understand everyone else's.

When I asked for an external supervisor who shared my ethnic identity, as my research involves autobiography, I was told 'I don't know what it is about some women of a certain background being difficult to work with'.

I had a supervisor roll her eyes and walk out of a talk about racism in academia by a South Asian woman as she was 'Not going to be lectured on privilege by a woman who went to Cambridge'.

For most of my research and work, I have been the only person of colour on staff, and the only person of colour studying.

I have consistently been told that the scholars from the Global South that are experts in my field of study are not 'credible sources'.

I have consistently been asked to write about an ethnic group I do not identify as.

When I tried to raise the issue of addressing racism within my department through staff training by emailing the person in charge, I was told that 'nationality' was addressed in staff training, and that I in fact needed to educate myself and be more aware of the plight of students with Scottish accents, and the discrimination they face within academia. I am Scottish, with a Scottish accent. They had assumed I was an international student because of my name.

After attending my first symposium, where throughout the day the White academics made no real attempt to pronounce the patois in the Black playwright's work correctly, I was approached by a White academic I had greatly admired and informed that she liked that I didn't use any complicated language in my paper. The experience of that day was devastating.

I have an Indian student (A) who had an experience with a peer (B) who refused to pass him a book and said 'what is the magic word?' three times before telling the student that the word he was waiting to hear was 'please'. When B was told by another person in the group that what he was doing was very mean, B said 'I'm just trying to teach A some English manners'. (Note: acronyms do not reflect their actual names).

My paper proposals were rejected three years in a row to a UK conference working group which I felt best represented my area. When I mentioned this to one of my white female colleagues, I was told I should probably apply to the Asian people working group. (The same papers were accepted in international conference settings and London-based universities.)

Until I actively voiced out how I didn't want to simply categorise my work under Asian Studies specifically, the assumption about my work was that it was always "Asian" and "postcolonial." It took a lot of mental health support to engage a shift towards a more complex mindset within my UK/Euro-based academic community so that I didn't pigeonhole my work, my worth and my identity.

A senior white male professor and I got into a heated debate in front of an entire international seminar group, when he made a comment that we should "get over" post colonialism and move on already.

I witnessed a student ask a question to the white female lecturer in a big hall that referred to "people of colour" as "coloured people." The professor lauded the white female student for her question and did not address the careless use of the term.

That time when a white feminist colleague recommended I read an article written for Vogue by Meghan Markle on 'passing'. She said I'd find it really interesting.

Many white colleagues including my line manager, a white woman, witnessed a senior white male professor speak aggressively to me in a departmental meeting and said / did nothing to reprimand his behaviour or support me.

All my attempts for promotion and progression at my institution have been consistently blocked or rejected over the years in favour of my white colleagues who were successful even when my competences, skills, and qualifications were superior. The justifications given by white senior managers have been vague, biased and contradictory. The procedures for assessing applications have not been followed correctly or in a fair, transparent and impartial manner. In the several conversations I had with senior managers around those issues, I was given conflicting and misleading guidance in addition to communicating unevidenced assumptions about me, questioning my intentions and commitments. The resulting experience over the years has been damaging for my motivation and career progression, and it deeply affected my confidence, trust and mental health. There has been a clear disparity between my experiences and those of my white colleagues in terms of promotions processes, but also regarding other privileges, leadership opportunities, or simply the validation and recognition .

When I discussed proposing new modules in the past grounded on my research interests on the relationship between performance, politics, identity, and postcolonialism, they were often received by white colleagues with resistance and lack of enthusiasm. Some questioned how those subjects can be positioned in the (white) curriculum. The one-off few lectures I managed to introduce here and there have been evidently successful among students with a positive impact on their practice and thinking, but with little validation from most white colleagues. Interestingly, in the current attempts to respond to wider pressures to 'decolonise' the curriculum, those subjects are now proving essential, with many questions asked among white staff on how they can be absorbed now into the whole curriculum. Questions that were raised in the past, by a small minority of colleagues, around the whiteness of the curriculum, and which were received with resistance and hostility by white colleagues, are now resurfacing as problems (identified by Black students and students of colour) that need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

In my attempts to actively propose and initiate actions to address systemic racism for both students and staff, I (the only person of colour) have experienced resistance and defensiveness from some white colleagues. I noticed how when the same propositions/suggestions were made by white colleagues they were received more positively. I found the inability and resistance of some white staff to confront and self-assess issues of race, racism, and white privilege quite disconcerting. Overall, the labour of trying to mobilise anti-racism action among all white staff has been significantly draining and emotionally triggering. I felt that my experiences in that context were rarely acknowledged.

When I was asked what difficulties I faced in my research, I brought up that I felt isolated being the only Black PhD student in my cohort, and how difficult it was to talk about in front of a predominantly white peer group. I was told by the seminar leader that I should consider putting those feelings to one side and move on, without any sincere acknowledgement of how that might affect my mental health and professional performance.

I have been tacitly singled out as my cohort's 'Black student', and made to feel as though my research and presence are a box-ticking exercise to fulfill diversity targets. When the issue of racial discrimination inevitably rears its head, I am repeatedly told that there will be 'another one' (Black student) in the next cohort, as if to say things will be better so I should stop complaining, without the acknowledgement of the emotional and cognitive labour that goes into navigating whiteness on a daily basis.

My communication style has been at times labelled as 'aggressive' or 'provocative' when I simply considered myself as being direct and clear.

In a predominantly white University staff and student body, and exclusively white research leadership, I am isolated in my research interests which in the area of Black and Global Majority issues, while the University insists on supporting research going for external funding which is collaborative and works across departments. And hence the continuous struggle to achieve promotion.

I am asked to work on three University wide Equalities committees, while white colleagues progress up the research ladder with their non teaching time intact.

I organised a conference with my executive producer who was a white man. It was a quite complicated thing but somehow it was all miraculously under control; so the executive producer and I decided to stand at the entrance to welcome people as a nice thing to do. Shortly a white male who was speaking (at my invite) arrived. He entered the door and made a bee-line for us looking at my white male colleague. He then addresses my white male colleague and without even looking at me he hands me his coat to hang up. I was pissed off but had neither the wherewithal nor the awareness to cope with it. Looking back I wish I had dropped it on the floor. This is but one episode in a lifetime of episodes.

It's either a revolution or nothing
The racism, epistemic and behavioural, we have articulated in this letter requires action, but more importantly, these actions must be driven by a fundamental intellectual shift in the field. This can only come from a deep interrogation of power, how power operates in the fields currently and your role as a white colleague in upholding it. This is also only possible through a deep investment in making space to visiblise and acknowledge, through the cracks of coloniality, the extracted Black and Global Majority intellect and art that is already foundational to our fields.

And so we demand your commitment to "the work" :

1. A shift from vague commitments of allyship to practicing actual friendship, collegiality, collaboration and solidarity as a way of knowing and being with currently marginalized scholars.

2. Gain consciousness about race and racism in every aspect of your teaching and scholarship and move towards the journey of practising antiracism. Decentring whiteness can also mean addressing absence. Start to address the colonial histories of our texts and our disciplines. Be aware of how research-led teaching can perpetuate preeminent power structures. Diversifying the reading list is a starting point, but this must be accompanied by scholarship and pedagogical tools to transgress racist habits and discourses

3. Rethink the centre. Consider the foundational texts, figures, and practices of the disciplines and fields. Know the histories of why these are considered foundational and actively undo them.

4. Cite your Black and Global Majority colleagues, especially when their research and scholarship is central to what you are working on. If you are a white person working on a project about racism, consider co-authoring with the people upon whose intellectual expertise you are drawing.

5. Work to dismantle white gatekeeping. For example, publishers must look at their structures of commissioning and challenge all white editorial teams, projects that do not engage with foundational Black and Global Majority scholarship pertinent to the enquiries being made, and actively seek and support projects from our communities outside of the white networks within which you currently operate.

6. Institutional structures like the REF, TEF, KEF and funding structures perpetuate the silencing of people and knowledge systems that fall outside the remit of what is considered 'valuable' by these mechanisms. While we all recognize this it is not enough to question these structures, in the immediate term, actively work to transform them.

7. Create and fight for concrete, transparent and more just hiring processes. For example, at the end of an interview panel if all else is equal, and of the last two candidates one is Black or Global Majority, the post should go to the Black and/or Global Majority candidate.

8. Do the work of dismantling white supremacy yourself - don't keep asking for validation from your Black and Global Majority colleagues in your endeavour and acknowledge fully and compensate our labour in the process.

9. Question the constituents of a panel, editorial board, research project etc before accepting an invitation. We know that some organizations would currently fail to deliver projects on this basis. That doesn't mean it cannot be a goal to work towards.

10. Challenge your institution's implementation of Prevent training, and if need be, refuse to undertake it.

11. Desist from framing 'the attainment gap' as a responsibility placed on Black and Global Majority students, and start to understand it as 'institutional failings' based on and driven by white privilege.

12. Advocating for our disciplines requires us to work on the pipeline. Identify the barriers to academia, create new models of funding, redistribute resources in order to actively enable and nurture Black and Global Majority scholars from undergraduate through to PhD study. Hire us as ECRs.

The last few months have made it abundantly clear that we have collectively come together to address the crisis of COVID-19, reimagining the delivery of our disciplines overnight in order to ensure financial stability for our universities and departments. It is therefore equally possible to address the racism that is endemic in our fields. Let's move away from excuses such as "this needs time", because the time to do this work is long overdue, and it is now.

Mojisola Adebayo
Sọlá Adéyẹmí
'Funmi Adewole
Siân Adiseshiah
Oladipo Agboluaje
Roaa Ali
Swati Arora
Sylvan Baker
Dzifa Benson
Melissa Blanco Borelli
Ameer Choudrie
Broderick D.V. Chow
Nadine Deller
Misri Dey
María Estrada-Fuentes
Lorna Gangaidzo
Giselle Garcia
Lynette Goddard
Matthew Gough
Víctor Ladrón de Guevara
Nesreen Hussein
Kene Igweonu
Valerie Kaneko-Lucas
Mercedes Lewis
David Linton
Vanessa Macaulay
Arya Madhavan
Asif Majid
Persis-Jadé Maravala
Avanthi Meduri
Royona Mitra
Sharanya Murali
Sreenath Nair
Stella Odunlami
Funlola Olufunwa
Adelina Ong
Prarthana Purkayastha
Hannah Marie Robbin s
Jo Ronan
Cristina Fernandes Rosa
Azadeh Sharifi
Kathryn Singh B.E.M
Corrie Tan
Gabriel Varghese
melissandre varin
Zhibo Zhao

*We take the cue from Hazel V Carby's 1982 article 'White Woman Listen! Black Feminism and the Boundaries of Sisterhood' in the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies edited anthology Empire Strikes Back: Race and Racism in 70s Britain published by Routledge.

**We mobilise this term in this letter while remaining conscious and cautious of the very tensions inherent in any and all labels of identifications. We further reject the problematic nature of state sanctioned terminology such as BAME and 'minority ethnic', that us as racialised peoples are defined by. Black and Global Majority, while not perfect, attempts at signalling a political, collective and positive identification, so that we are not categorised in relation to whiteness.

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Dear White Colleague, We write to you as Black and Global Majority** colleagues and students as members of the 'Revolution or Nothing Network' in wake of the recent resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the urgent call for universities, subject associations and research organisations to address racism. Listen to our truths.

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Black female professors must deal with bullying to win promotion, report finds

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Those surveyed said they were systematically overlooked for promotion and mistaken for clerical staff

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/danabrownlee/2022/12/27/why-is-the-phrase-white-women-triggering-for-many-white-women/amp/

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Why Is The Phrase ‘White Women’ Triggering For Many White Women?

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Organizations that are serious about advancing equity and antiracism should go back to basics and analyze the language used. If there’s hyper sensitivity around naming white women but not Black women, that’s both cause for concern and an opportunity for growth.

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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/25/1137754258/heres-how-some-therapists-are-tackling-structural-racism-in-their-practice

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How some therapists are helping patients heal by tackling structural racism

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A new wave of counselors is supporting people of color by ‘decolonizing’ the practice of therapy. They aim to make therapy more culturally responsive and to take generational trauma into account.

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My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest

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My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest

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Lora Lakin Hutcherson

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Yesterday I was tagged in a post by an old high school friend asking me and a few others a very public, direct question about white privilege and racism. I feel compelled not only to publish his query, but also my response to it, as it may be a helpful discourse for more than just a few folks on Facebook.

Here's his post:

To all of my Black or mixed race FB friends, I must profess a blissful ignorance of this "White Privilege" of which I'm apparently guilty of possessing. By not being able to fully put myself in the shoes of someone from a background/race/religion/gender/nationality/body type that differs from my own makes me part of the problem, according to what I'm now hearing. Despite my treating everyone with respect and humor my entire life (as far as I know), I'm somehow complicit in the misfortune of others. I'm not saying I'm colorblind, but whatever racism/sexism/other -ism my life experience has instilled in me stays within me, and is not manifested in the way I treat others (which is not the case with far too many, I know).

So that I may be enlightened, can you please share with me some examples of institutional racism that have made an indelible mark upon you? If I am to understand this, I need people I know personally to show me how I'm missing what's going on. Personal examples only. I'm not trying to be insensitive, I only want to understand (but not from the media). I apologize if this comes off as crass or offends anyone.

Here's my response:

Hi, Jason. First off, I hope you don't mind that I've quoted your post and made it part of mine. I think the heart of what you've asked of your friends of color is extremely important and I think my response needs much more space than as a reply on your feed. I truly thank you for wanting to understand what you are having a hard time understanding. Coincidentally, over the last few days I have been thinking about sharing some of the incidents of prejudice/racism I've experienced in my lifetime-in fact I just spoke with my sister Lesa about how to best do this yesterday-because I realized many of my friends-especially the white ones-have no idea what I've experienced/dealt with unless they were present (and aware) when it happened. There are two reasons for this: 1) because not only as a human being do I suppress the painful and uncomfortable in an effort to make it go away, I was also taught within my community (I was raised in the '70s and '80s-it's shifted somewhat now) and by society at large NOT to make a fuss, speak out, or rock the boat. To just "deal with it," lest more trouble follow (which, sadly, it often does); 2) fear of being questioned or dismissed with "Are you sure that's what you heard?" or "Are you sure that's what they meant?" and being angered and upset all over again by well-meaning-but-hurtful and essentially unsupportive responses.

White privilege in this situation is being able to move into a "nice" neighborhood and be accepted not harassed.

So, again, I'm glad you asked, because I really want to answer. But as I do, please know a few things first: 1) This is not even close to the whole list. I'm cherry-picking because none of us have all day; 2) I've been really lucky. Most of what I share below is mild compared to what others in my family and community have endured; 3) I'm going to go in chronological order so you might begin to glimpse the tonnage and why what many white folks might feel is a "where did all of this come from?" moment in society has been festering individually and collectively for the LIFETIME of pretty much every black or brown person living in America today, regardless of wealth or opportunity; 4) Some of what I share covers sexism, too-intersectionality is another term I'm sure you've heard and want to put quotes around, but it's a real thing too, just like white privilege. But you've requested a focus on personal experiences with racism, so here it goes:

1. When I was 3, my family moved into an upper-middle-class, all-white neighborhood. We had a big backyard, so my parents built a pool. Not the only pool on the block, but the only one neighborhood boys started throwing rocks into. White boys. One day my mom ID'd one as the boy from across the street, went to his house, told his mother, and, fortunately, his mother believed mine. My mom not only got an apology, but also had that boy jump in our pool and retrieve every single rock. No more rocks after that. Then mom even invited him to come over to swim sometime if he asked permission. Everyone became friends. This one has a happy ending because my mom was and is badass about matters like these, but I hope you can see that the white privilege in this situation is being able to move into a "nice" neighborhood and be accepted not harassed, made to feel unwelcome, or prone to acts of vandalism and hostility.

2. When my older sister was 5, a white boy named Mark called her a "nigger" after she beat him in a race at school. She didn't know what it meant, but in her gut she knew it was bad. This was the first time I'd seen my father the kind of angry that has nowhere to go. I somehow understood it was because not only had some boy verbally assaulted his daughter and had gotten away with it, it had way too early introduced her (and me) to that term and the reality of what it meant-that some white people would be cruel and careless with black people's feelings just because of our skin color. Or our achievement. If it's unclear in any way, the point here is if you've never had a defining moment in your childhood or your life where you realize your skin color alone makes other people hate you, you have white privilege.

I remember some white male classmates were pissed that a black classmate had gotten into UCLA while they didn't.

3. Sophomore year of high school. I had Mr. Melrose for Algebra 2. Some time within the first few weeks of class, he points out that I'm "the only spook" in the class. This was meant to be funny. It wasn't. So, I doubt it will surprise you I was relieved when he took medical leave after suffering a heart attack and was replaced by a sub for the rest of the semester. The point here is, if you've never been 'the only one' of your race in a class, at a party, on a job, etc. and/or it's been pointed out in a "playful" fashion by the authority figure in said situation, you have white privilege.

4. When we started getting our college acceptances senior year, I remember some white male classmates were pissed that a black classmate had gotten into UCLA while they didn't. They said that affirmative action had given him "their spot" and it wasn't fair. An actual friend of theirs. Who'd worked his ass off. The point here is, if you've never been on the receiving end of the assumption that when you've achieved something it's only because it was taken away from a white person who "deserved it," you have white privilege.

5. When I got accepted to Harvard (as a fellow AP student, you were witness to what an academic beast I was in high school, yes?), three separate times I encountered white strangers as I prepped for my maiden trip to Cambridge that rankle to this day. The first was the white doctor giving me a physical at Kaiser:

Me: "I need to send an immunization report to my college so I can matriculate."

Doctor: "Where are you going?"

Me: "Harvard."

Doctor: "You mean the one in Massachusetts?"

The second was in a store, looking for supplies I needed from Harvard's suggested "what to bring with you" list.

Store employee: "Where are you going?"

Me: "Harvard."

Store employee: "You mean the one in Massachusetts?"

The third was at UPS, shipping off boxes of said "what to bring" to Harvard. I was in line behind a white boy mailing boxes to Princeton and in front of a white woman sending her child's boxes to wherever.

Woman to the boy: "What college are you going to?" Boy: "Princeton."

Woman: "Congratulations!"

Woman to me: "Where are you sending your boxes?" Me: "Harvard."

Woman: "You mean the one in Massachusetts?"

I think: "No, bitch, the one downtown next to the liquor store." But I say, gesturing to my LABELED boxes: "Yes, the one in Massachusetts."

Then she says congratulations, but it's too fucking late. The point here is, if no one has ever questioned your intellectual capabilities or attendance at an elite institution based solely on your skin color, you have white privilege.

6. In my freshman college tutorial, our small group of 4-5 was assigned to read Thoreau, Emerson, Malcolm X, Joseph Conrad, Dreiser, etc. When it was the week to discuss The Autobiography of Malcolm X, one white boy boldly claimed he couldn't even get through it because he couldn't relate and didn't think he should be forced to read it. I don't remember the words I said, but I still remember the feeling-I think it's what doctors refer to as chandelier pain-as soon as a sensitive area on a patient is touched, they shoot through the roof-that's what I felt. I know I said something like my whole life I've had to read "things that don't have anything to do with me or that I relate to" but I find a way anyway because that's what learning is about-trying to understand other people's perspectives. The point here is-the canon of literature studied in the United States, as well as the majority of television and movies, have focused primarily on the works or achievements of white men. So, if you have never experienced or considered how damaging it is/was/could be to grow up without myriad role models and images in school that reflect you in your required reading material or in the mainstream media, you have white privilege.

7. All seniors at Harvard are invited to a fancy, seated group lunch with our respective dorm masters. (Yes, they were called "masters" up until this February, when they changed it to "faculty deans," but that's just a tasty little side dish to the main course of this remembrance). While we were being served by the Dunster House cafeteria staff-the black ladies from Haiti and Boston who ran the line daily (I still remember Jackie's kindness and warmth to this day)-Master Sally mused out loud how proud they must be to be serving the nation's best and brightest. I don't know if they heard her, but I did, and it made me uncomfortable and sick. The point here is, if you've never been blindsided when you are just trying to enjoy a meal by a well-paid faculty member's patronizing and racist assumptions about how grateful black people must feel to be in their presence, you have white privilege.

He was getting stopped by cops constantly because he was a black man in a luxury car.

8. While I was writing on a television show in my 30s, my new white male boss-who had only known me for a few days-had unbeknownst to me told another writer on staff he thought I was conceited, didn't know as much I thought I did, and didn't have the talent I thought I had. And what exactly had happened in those few days? I disagreed with a pitch where he suggested our lead female character carelessly leave a potholder on the stove, burning down her apartment. This character being a professional caterer. When what he said about me was revealed months later (by then he'd come to respect and rely on me), he apologized for prejudging me because I was a black woman. I told him he was ignorant and clearly had a lot to learn. It was a good talk because he was remorseful and open. But the point here is, if you've never been on the receiving end of a boss's prejudiced, uninformed "how dare she question my ideas" badmouthing based on solely on his ego and your race, you have white privilege.

9. On my very first date with my now husband, I climbed into his car and saw baby wipes on the passenger-side floor. He said he didn't have kids, they were just there to clean up messes in the car. I twisted to secure my seatbelt and saw a stuffed animal in the rear window. I gave him a look. He said, "I promise, I don't have kids. That's only there so I don't get stopped by the police." He then told me that when he drove home from work late at night, he was getting stopped by cops constantly because he was a black man in a luxury car and they assumed that either it was stolen or he was a drug dealer. When he told a cop friend about this, Warren was told to put a stuffed animal in the rear window because it would change "his profile" to that of a family man and he was much less likely to be stopped. The point here is, if you've never had to mask the fruits of your success with a floppy-eared, stuffed bunny rabbit so you won't get harassed by the cops on the way home from your gainful employment (or never had a first date start this way), you have white privilege.

10. Six years ago, I started a Facebook page that has grown into a website called Good Black News because I was shocked to find there were no sites dedicated solely to publishing the positive things black people do. (And let me explain here how biased the coverage of mainstream media is in case you don't already have a clue-as I curate, I can't tell you how often I have to swap out a story's photo to make it as positive as the content. Photos published of black folks in mainstream media are very often sullen- or angry-looking. Even when it's a positive story! I also have to alter headlines constantly to 1) include a person's name and not have it just be "Black Man Wins Settlement" or "Carnegie Hall Gets 1st Black Board Member," or 2) rephrase it from a subtle subjugator like "ABC taps Viola Davis as Series Lead" to "Viola Davis Lands Lead on ABC Show" as is done for, say, Jennifer Aniston or Steven Spielberg. I also receive a fair amount of highly offensive racist trolling. I don't even respond. I block and delete ASAP. The point here is, if you've never had to rewrite stories and headlines or swap photos while being trolled by racists when all you're trying to do on a daily basis is promote positivity and share stories of hope and achievement and justice, you have white privilege.

Trust me, nobody is mad at you for being white. Nobody.

OK, Jason, there's more, but I'm exhausted. And my kids need dinner. Remembering and reliving many of these moments has been a strain and a drain (and, again, this ain't even the half or the worst of it). But I hope my experiences shed some light for you on how institutional and personal racism have affected the entire life of a friend of yours to whom you've only been respectful and kind. I hope what I've shared makes you realize it's not just strangers, but people you know and care for who have suffered and are suffering because we are excluded from the privilege you have not to be judged, questioned, or assaulted in any way because of your race.

As to you "being part of the problem," trust me, nobody is mad at you for being white. Nobody. Just like nobody should be mad at me for being black. Or female. Or whatever. But what IS being asked of you is to acknowledge that white privilege DOES exist and not only to treat people of races that differ from yours "with respect and humor," but also to stand up for fair treatment and justice, not to let "jokes" or "off-color" comments by friends, co-workers, or family slide by without challenge, and to continually make an effort to put yourself in someone else's shoes, so we may all cherish and respect our unique and special contributions to society as much as we do our common ground.

With much love and respect,

Lori

This article was originally published by Good Black News. It has been edited for YES! Magazine.

Read more of on White privilege and racial justice:
10 Examples That Prove White Privilege Exists in Every Aspect Imaginable The Language of Antiracism Leveraging White Privilege for Racial Justice
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My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest - Yes! Magazine

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Yesterday I was tagged in a post by an old high school friend asking me and a few others a very public, direct question about white privilege and racism. I feel compelled not only to publish his query, but also my response to it, as it may be a helpful discourse for more than just a few folks on Facebook.

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Decolonising writing for academic journals

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Decolonising writing for academic journals

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Hovering on the periphery? 'Decolonising' writing for academic journals

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(2019). Hovering on the periphery? 'Decolonising' writing for academic journals. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education: Vol. 49, No. 1, pp. 149-167.

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Is there racism in academic medical publishing?

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Is there racism in academic medical publishing?

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We read with great interest the BMJ issue devoted to issues confronting doctors and patients from ethnic minority backgrounds.1 , 2 We applaud the Journal for its courage in tackling such a sensitive issue.

We the undersigned, academic clinicians from a lower middle-income country (LMIC), Sri Lanka, would like to highlight another aspect of the problem-that is, discrimination in academic medical publishing that borders on racism.

Academia and the scientific community are not immune to discrimination, however subtle, and the academic publication process is an area which deserves to be examined. It is widely acknowledged in our circles that academic manuscripts originating from institutions in non-Western, emerging economies, such as, for example, those of South Asia or Africa, are ...

View Full Text

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'Is there racism in academic medical publishing?'

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We read with great interest the BMJ issue devoted to issues confronting doctors and patients from ethnic minority backgrounds.1 ,2 We applaud the Journal for its courage in tackling such a sensitive issue. We the undersigned, academic clinicians from a lower middle-income country (LMIC), Sri Lanka, would like to highlight another aspect of the problem-that is, discrimination in academic medical publishing that borders on racism.

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For Allies

For People of Color

The Rochester Racial Justice Toolkit is an online resource to help strengthen, sustain, inform, and empower deeper racial justice dialogue and anti-racism action in the Rochester, Minnesota community. >>

ABOUT

Social Media Feed

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For Allies For People of Color The Rochester Racial Justice Toolkit is an online resource to help strengthen, sustain, inform, and empower deeper racial justice dialogue and anti-racism action in the Rochester, Minnesota community. >> ABOUT Social Media Feed

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https://www.sunsetracism.com/blog/racism-as-technology

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Leap of Faith

The Sunset Racism blog is a space to explore how we can end racism during our lifetime, before we pass it onto our children's children.

This blog seeks to "unstick", recruit, and de-weaponize groups of white people who are committed to antiracism and mobilize them in the service of ending racism. It's also intended to be a safe space for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color to view the efforts of a white person who is committed to understanding and telling the truth about my own internalized white supremacy, for what that's worth.

Sunset Racism focuses on white antiracism work -- obviously because I'm a white person, but also because, insofar as racism is a technology, its user base is predominantly white and the network of conversations it resides in is largely hosted by and promulgated by white people.

Black thinkers, activists and leaders have been thinking about and working on how to decolonize their own minds from racism/white supremacy for centuries in America. Antiracism for white people by white people often seems to be an empty, disconnected echo-chamber. Those who have been involved in the movement are far too few. This blog is intended as an Minimal Viable Product (MVP) to work towards modeling a disruptive "technology" to unlock the heretofore invisible potential of antiracist white people.

This blog is written with a leap of faith assumption that racism (and indeed all oppression) can and should be intentionally removed and discontinued. Most people do not object (out loud) to the idea that racism should be dismantled. Black and white antiracists alike sometimes struggle with is the idea that racism can be ended; that it is even possible. Indeed, our cultural heritage and the system of racism/white supremacy silently shouts at us that that sunsetting racism is impossible. This blog is intended to contradict that voice and the fallacies the systems of white supremacy thrusts at us as reality.

This blog takes it as axiomatic that racism should be sunsetted, and if you make the case, as I do, that racism is a technology, then it follows that it can be and must be sunsetted.

Technology is a word that means a lot of different things in our culture, but here I'm using the primary definition of technology in Merriam-Webster's dictionary: "the practical application of knowledge, especially in a particular area".

So, I'm not referring to technology in the sense of computers, or code, or silicon chips, or machines. I mean technology in the sense of systems of ideas created by people to advance a "practical application". For example, systems of agriculture were created over generations to create surpluses of food. Consider the technology of racism was evolved for a similar purpose: to structurally create surplus wealth and leisure for white people.

Since the technologies of racism are hosted in the conversations (and cultural inheritance) of white communities, white communities are going to have to get serious about exploring our own profoundly destructive role in the practice of perpetuating, hosting and promulgating the system of racism, and sunsetting those practices, teachings, habits and standards.

This blog is for white people who are ready to be serious about that, and for anybody who wants to see white people get serious about it.

Race as Technology

In 2009, Beth Coleman published a landmark essay entitled " Race as Technology " in which she wrote:

"I ask the reader to consider race as technology. This proposition moves race away from the biological and genetic systems that have historically dominated its definition toward questions of technological agency."

She declares ("for the moment") that the idea of "race as technology" is itself:

"a disruptive technology that changes the terms of engagement with an all-too-familiar system of representation and power."

How does "Race as Technology", as a disruptive technology, change the terms of engagement with the systems of representation and power that constitute racism?

In one way, "Race as Technology" shifts our attention from the static to the dynamic. This creates possibilities for change and new calls to action. As Wendy Chun observed in her " Introduction: Race and/as Technology; or, How to Do Things to Race":

"...race as technology shifts the focus from the of race to the of race, from race to race by emphasizing the similarities between race and technology" (emphasis added).

When enterprises decide to sunset their legacy systems, they have to find a way to do things to the code, data, rules and systems that were previously invisible to everybody. The hypothesis here is that to sunset racism, we need to find ways to do things to the "code" of racism which runs in our cultural cloud.

Also, critically, by moving from the biological to the technological, Coleman (and her contemporaries) de-nature race and racism. Instead of experiencing race as something that we are born with, race as technology declares our race to be something that has been written on our bodies by culture, language, and other human beings.

As Coleman wrote in 2009:

"For race to be considered a technology, it must first be denatured- that is, estranged from its history as a biological "fact" (a fact that has no scientific value perhaps, but constitutes, nonetheless, a received fact)."

Technology, Coleman observes, extends us, but it does not define us. Race as technology gives us a familiar, easy-to-understand way to comprehend how race attaches itself to us. We humans are wired by genetic-cultural co-evolution to extend our conception of ourselves to include the technology we use. Technology implicitly extends the capabilities of human beings in ways that can that blur the boundaries of the self. The hammer in our hand becomes an extension of our arm. When we are in a near fender bender, our minds react like our automobiles are our bodies, even though we know they are not. We hurt when our sports teams lose. We rage when our symbols are disrespected.

While race and racism and other technology might sometimes feel as though they are hard wired into us, in fact, they are not. Framing race as technology allows us to separate and distinguish our racist context, ideas and self-talk from our physical bodies and for white people to notice that we too are limited, controlled, and constrained by racism and white supremacy culture.

How do race and racism as technology limit, control, and constrain white people? Dr. Ruha Benjamin, in her 2019 book Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code asks readers to:

"...consider racism ... as a set of technologies that generate patterns of social relations... these (patterns) become Black-boxed as natural, inevitable, automatic

As white folks, we need to consider the patterns of social relations generated by racism that shape our behavior. How many times have you watched a white person (including me, or yourself) say something or do things on automatic that are perfectly aligned with the standard of white supremacy?

I'll use a personal example from my life today. I have a friend, a professional colleague, and Black woman who sometimes uses me as a sounding board to think about racist behavior she encounters (everyday) in her software company workplace.

Every time, (and I mean every time), she describes some white person doing something shady, my first and overwhelming reaction is to want to point out that IT'S POSSIBLE THAT PERSON ISN'T MOTIVATED BY RACISM. (Yes, the voice in my head is shouting at me. Sorry for the all caps.)

Now, let's be crystal clear. She knows that already, and she knows I know it. There is NO reason at all for me rationally to say such a thing. I know better. She's didn't come for my insight into individual white folks I've never met. She is interested in my experience navigating the C-suite at tech companies.

So, why do I want to say it EVERY TIME even though I know better? I believe it's the same reason white folks compulsively engage in repeated automatic speech acts online (commonly referred to as sealioning). Why when threatened by conversations about racism, we seemingly, without any training or orchestration or planning all, say the same things over and over again ( Racism bingo, anyone?).

Consider, white folks, that the technology of racism, which we've effectively installed in one another, is like the safety features built into autonomous automobiles. We're in control until the technology senses a threat (to itself) at which point the technology asserts its right to speak, act, or lash out through you.

That's what I'm talking about when I say the technology of racism controls and weaponizes white people. It keeps us in our lane, makes sure uncomfortable conversations end quickly and makes sure enough of us are a sufficiently constant threat to BIPOC to keep them in "their lane".

Backwards and Upside Down

Sometime in the in the early 2000's (after my early efforts at grassroots antiracism had come to a sudden end), I came to the conclusion that everything I believed about race and racism was backwards and upside down.

I had this idea that racism was basically a moral or a spiritual failing. I thought if I did enough personal work I could "fix" my own racism, and then I'd be able to help other people deal with what was, fundamentally, a personal problem that individuals like me would have to address, to move the world forward. Since I never was able to fix my own racism, I never was able to move to the step where I talked to other people about it. I was stuck in place by a matrix of ideas that I didn't believe in, but nonetheless stopped me from acting.

I knew intellectually that there was structural racism, but I behaved like personal racism caused structural racism, instead of the other way around, or as part of some broader ecosystem.

That's an example of what I mean by backwards and upside down.

The work I had done by then had led to some personal breakthroughs for me. By this time, I was enjoying wonderful friendships and professional relationships with Black people that were unavailable to me before. But something still wasn't right.

Problematically, I noticed that I was continuously slipping back into my own default perspective of comfortable "colorblind" whiteness. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't seem to hold onto an antiracist perspective without the active support of a community of Black and Brown people around me holding my hand.

And worse yet, now that I was engaged in real, long-term relationships with Black people, I could see first-hand that antiracism work with white people like me was harder on my Black friends then it was on me and my white friends. As I worked for change in the DC government (a majority Black institution working for Black executives), I was shocked and appalled to realize to that even there, everything I did still seemed destined to harm Black folks.

Was my home-brewed antiracism doing more harm than good? It often seemed like it.

At work, we promoted a (worthy and under-recognized) Black colleague, and it drew the attention of a racist HR person who immediately started efforts to undermine his success.

A senior Black management consultant was fired to send a message to my group to stay out of another executive's territory.

My very existence was used by 3rd parties as a lever and bludgeon against a more experienced and more accomplished Black colleague when he was promoted before me. Despite having 10+ years more experience than me, people smeared him, regularly behind his back and to his face, with insinuations of having been promoted based on the color of his skin, despite being the only Black executive on the senior team.

These incidents were largely met by shrugs by my Black friends in the DC government. It was par for the course from their point of view. They were not only not surprised by it, but also at least one friend found my shock and amazement to be amusing. The only surprise they expressed was that I (as a white person) wanted to learn about it.

I was pretty shaken though. I began to wonder if the exuberant, exciting antiracism work I had undertaken with Black friends in the late 90's hadn't harmed my friends who started the group with me. I thought I was doing good, but just how much harm was I causing in my wake?

Fundamentally, what I was doing wasn't working and what other white antiracists were doing looked misguided to me. I felt stuck, and didn't know what to do next. I began to cast around to find frameworks that I could adapt to my own position in the world: as a privileged, middle class, white, straight, cis-gendered man and as a technologist, political theorist and committed antiracist.

In 2003 or thereabouts, this line of questioning led me and a group of mainly white and a few BIPOC antiracists to a classroom at Howard University to learn from a visiting lecturer named Dr. Neely Fuller, Jr.

We were a little late, and I was feeling self-conscious as one of the few white people in the room. I was a little surprised when we sat down and one by one every student nearby turned to us and very seriously asked something to the effect of: "Good evening. Are you a white person? Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

Counter Racist Code

Dr. Fuller was teaching from his book The United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept: A Compensatory Counter- Racist Code. One of the things he was teaching was something to the effect of: if Black people want to understand what racism is and how it works, we really ought to ask white people, since they are in the room when a lot of it happens and Black people are not.

Dr. Fuller wasn't suggesting that white people would articulate useful, or logical explanations of racism. He was suggesting that Black people should, for their own survival, understand and observe white people scientifically so they could learn about the parts of the system of racism/white supremacy that happened when it was occluded from their view.

The mostly Black students in that classroom had ongoing classwork (I learned) to engage with people who self-identify as white and ask questions, rigorously, about how racism and white supremacy works. As a white person attending the lecture, I had stepped into an environment where I was now invited to be the subject of an intense inquiry into the nature of Racism/White Supremacy.

I came away from that evening with a couple of insights that still stick with me decades later:

The first was that, when pressed rigorously by people who were curious about what I had to say on the topic, I didn't have anything useful to share about how racism/white supremacy functioned. I may (or may not) have been a useful anthropological subject, but I didn't understand racism/white supremacy myself and had next to no insight into how it functioned. White people might have designed racism, but I appeared to have nothing smart to say about it, and my other white colleagues didn't appear to either.

They asked me how I knew I was a white person. I told them I thought it was because other white people said I was. I babbled that people of my heritage (Irish) weren't always considered white people historically. They had a lot of follow up questions to that. Did I know how my ancestors had become white? How did that work? Could I explain how a white person became a white person?

I felt embarrassed that all my answers sounded so stupid. How was it possible that I had never thought about these things before?

I resolved to pay more attention and to have more to contribute if ever asked these questions again.

The second insight I gained from that visit was that I was deeply confused, not only about race and racism, but especially about the system of white supremacy. Because in this room, white supremacy didn't operate the way it did everywhere else, making it clearly visible to me for perhaps the first time in my life.

What I mean by that is I realized that outside that room the codes of white supremacy were always at play in social relations everywhere in my life in the background. They were so ubiquitous that became invisible to me, and to all White people in everyday circumstances. Only by experiencing social relationships that were conducted by a different set of codes and standards was I able to notice that my behavior was shaped differently the other 99.9% of the time.

I found the evening, and my ongoing conversations with the students afterwards, to be deeply uncomfortable. I was not shown deference, and that made me notice uncomfortably that I had an expectation of deference. Nobody went out of their way to make me comfortable (or uncomfortable for that matter). People were polite, but not warm. I was the subject of an experiment. I had a role to play, but I was not the hero, or the scientist, or the anthropologist. I was the subject, with my consent, of an experiment to understand White Supremacy better. Important work was being done, not by me, but on me. We were participating but we were not centered in the way we expected to be. This was a new experience for me as a white person.

Nobody was worried about whether we would get defensive, or bombastic, or offended or fragile. One of my white colleagues started to cry, and I'm pretty sure her interviewer wrote down the time and the question that had triggered the tears and then asked her another question.

Two of my friends were only asked one question. The first was a Black man who was a graduate of Howard. When asked if he was a white person he said no, and they stopped the interview. The other person was blonde and blue-eyed and I would have said (confidently) a white person. But when asked, she responded that her great-great grandmother was Cherokee and she didn't consider herself to be white. The students all thanked her, but immediately turned their attention away from her. The questionnaire was for white-identifying people, defined by the standard of saying yes to the question, not white-appearing self-identified Native Americans.

In that room, where people operated according to the Counter Racist Code, I didn't get to decide whether my friend was white or not (because I would have sworn she was). The Counter Racist Code prevailed, and its standard was not what other white people said. In that room, the conversation was shaped by whether people said they were white or not. That is how the Code operates.

I experienced the system of racism/white supremacy being countered, in a real way by a system (or at least a prototype of a system) of justice which is, of course, the explicit purpose of Dr. Fuller's work.

As he stated so eloquently that night: "If you do not understand white supremacy - what it is and how it works - everything else that you understand will only confuse you."

That led to my third takeaway from that evening, Dr. Fuller was doing something groundbreaking and very compelling. He was creating a counter-racist code.... a compensatory counter racist system. He was creating standards and protocols to help Black folks survive in a world shaped by racism/white supremacy, and he and his colleagues were training the students in how to train one another to understand and survive the system of racism/white supremacy.

The lecture with Dr. Fuller was my first encounter with someone who was creating what I would now characterize as an antiracist technology. By the end of my interaction with Dr. Fuller's students (who I worked with, as a subject, for a few months), I was left confused, hurt and more sure than ever that that everything I thought I understood about race and racism was backwards and upside down.

I didn't know how, but I knew I needed to find ways to stop the system of white supremacy from hiding itself from me in my own blind spots. I became deeply curious about the system of racism/white supremacy and the constraints it imposed on me as a white person. I wondered if it was possible to create some kind of antiracist code which would help white people be less confused about the system of racism/white supremacy.

Shortly thereafter, I took all the notes I had written from the 90's about ending racism, and threw them in the trash can. From that day forward, I focused my work on the hypothesis that structural racism is encoded on us and, counter to everything I was taught and believed, not a personal problem but a cultural and (later) technological problem. Racism as a structural, pervasive, contextual problem set that could be influenced by focusing specifically on our operating codes: racism as a technology to sunset.
Invitations
In Race After Technology, Dr. Benjamin extends an invitation focused on the heart of the matter. An invitation:

"...to refuse the illusion of inevitability in which technologies of race come wrapped to "hotwire" more habitable forms of social organization."

This is first and foremost an invitation to imagine more habitable worlds. Consider that after we invented ourselves as white people, we lied to ourselves that the system of racism/white supremacy creates the most habitable world possible. Since we operate like racism is natural, inevitable, and (when framed as our country's "original sin") perpetual, the fact that our privilege comes at the expense of Black people is just the way the world is. The fast-talking voices in our head tell us that even if none of those things are true, there is nothing that we can do about it anyway.

The combination of these pervasive illusions, and the visceral fear of our own feelings are highly effective at keeping white people in the roles assigned to us in the patterns of racism: complicit, compliant, confused, and weaponized.

I believe Race as Technology is a powerful tool to denature racism, and has the potential to become a platform to create counter-racist code that allows us to refuse, reject and escape the control of the seeming inevitability of systemic racism. As Coleman proposes:

"technology's embedded function of self-extension may be exploited to liberate race from an inherited position of abjection toward a greater expression of agency.... - the ability to move freely as a being..."

It is my sincere belief that "to refuse the illusion of inevitability" is the first step towards liberation for everybody.

Dr. Benjamin calls much of what we've talked about here: "Race critical code studies".

"Race critical code studies, as I develop it here, is defined not just by what we study but also by how we analyze, questioning our own assumptions about what is deemed high theory versus pop culture, academic versus activist, evidence versus anecdote. The point is not just to look beneath the surface in order to find connections between these categories, but to pay closer attention to the surfaces themselves." Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code

The "surfaces" Sunset Racism is connecting and focusing on include Race as Technology, lean startups, legacy technology transformation, the technology architecture of racism and the role cultural genetic co-evolution has in its transmission. I intend to bring the things I know from being an entrepreneur and successful civic hacker combined with what I've learned (mainly from black folks) in my two decades of small and large group transformational antiracism work.

I hope what I write here is valuable, but insofar as anything here makes a difference, it will be because of you, the reader, not me, the blogger.

White folks, if you are anything like I was at the beginning of my white antiracism journey (or now), a post like this might bring up a lot of powerful feelings: positive, negative and everywhere in between. Alternately, you might be numb or wanting to tune out, shut down or distract yourself.

Honestly, if you've read this far, and you're still engaged, you're doing great.

The most important thing now, please, is not to go dump, report or process these reactions with Black people or other People of Color! Do not use Sunset Racism (or indeed anything you read) as an excuse to push ourselves to the center of attention in their communities or conversations. If you feel the urge to do this, slow down, take a few deep breaths and see if you can notice all the ways technology of racism is trying to use you.

"The goal of thinking of race as technology is greater mobility for the subject and for society, more freeness." (Race as Technology, Coleman, 2009)

The first step to gaining some freedom from being stuck in the patterns we've inhabited is admitting to ourselves that the machine has got us.

If you need to process and talk about what you've read here, consider cultivating a network of at least one white antiracist ally (or you can always engage with me in the comments.)

If you're a Black person, Indigenous person, or a person of color of any identity, and you've read this far, thank you for your attention. Feedback is always welcome but never expected.

If you think this would be useful to others, you are welcome to share the content developed here freely or remix in accordance with the Creative-Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, Sharealike (CC BY-NC-SA) license.
P.S. An earlier version of some of this content was published in 2020 under the title "Racism as a technology (premise)" which I archived after realizing how much it was influenced by the works of the BIPOC authors I have cited in this version. The original version can be accessed for archival purposes. My deepest gratitude to the folks that brought this to my attention and coached me in getting it to where it is today.

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In 2009, Beth Colman published a landmark essay entitled Race as Technology in which she wrote: "I ask the reader to consider race as technology. This proposition moves race away from the biological and genetic systems that have historically dominated its definition toward questions of technologica

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I’m a Black scientist, tired of facing racism and exclusion from academia | Science | AAAS

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"Have you always wanted to be a scientist?" I have been asked this question many times before. This time, it's from a photographer who is taking my picture to advertise a new diversity initiative at the institution where I'm a postdoc. He seems nice and sincere, and I answer "yes" and tell him about cell division of adherent cancer cells. Still, his question stirs an ever-present uneasiness. Are other people asked this so frequently? I suspect I wouldn't hear the question as often if I were white or Asian. But I am Black. And I am forever being reminded, in ways big and small, that many think I don't belong in science or academia.

When I was a child growing up in a lower income African American family in the South, my parents told my brother and me we could be anything we wanted. On TV, I watched The Cosby Show featuring a Black family with a successful doctor dad and lawyer mom and saw young Black people in college on A Different World. I was completely in love with the natural world and won awards at grade school science fairs. I participated in state and national math and science competitions. In high school I took every advanced science class my school offered and was recruited into a research laboratory as part of early efforts to bring minorities into science. Surely science was where I belonged.

It was only when I started college at a predominantly white institution that I began to question whether I was a fool for thinking someone like me could be a scientist. I was usually the only Black student in my classes, and I had no Black professors. Fellow students excluded me from study groups. A professor even tried to kick me out of an exam, assuming I couldn't possibly be in his class. Thankfully, my family had faith in me and helped me remember that I am smart and capable. Even when I developed a mental health disability, their support made my aspirations seem viable.

After completing my bachelor's degree I went on to earn two professional medical certifications, and I finally found some much-needed encouragement from within the academic world when several wonderful white women professors readily accepted and nurtured me. Their mentorship made me want to become a professor myself-which meant pursuing a Ph.D.

Unfortunately, graduate school brought a return to the challenges and exclusion of my undergrad experience. I constantly heard about everything I was doing wrong and nothing about what I did well. If I had not already had therapy for my chronic depression and anxiety, I might have quit-or worse, followed the same path as two bright colleagues who died of suicide as a result of working in toxic environments, abused and mistreated.

The scientific challenges I encounter are nowhere near as discouraging as the systemic racism I've encountered in academia. I've had supposed colleagues critique my efforts within the first 30 seconds of meeting me, talk around and over me, push my name down the author list for no justifiable reason, and tell me I only earned awards because I'm Black. I've been misnamed Henderson, Hightower, Hardaway, and other "Blacksounding" names, including once in a departmental newsletter, prompting an uncomfortable email to the chair: "The newsletter looks great ... I wanted to point out my name is misspelled. ... Actually, that's just not my name." I've experienced treatment so harsh I've filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Despite the barriers I've encountered on my path-and in part because of them-I still dream of becoming a professor. But I'm tired of having to build resiliency, work on self-care strategies, and mentally process microaggressions that don't feel "micro" at all. I-and other Black scientists-want to bloom where we are planted, just like everyone else.

In my training and career across seven institutions in three states and abroad, I have only been taught by three Black professors. It would have made such a difference to have seen more faculty who looked like me. I hope I can make that difference for future students.

Do you have an interesting career story? Send it to [email protected] . Read the general guidelines here.

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I'm a Black scientist, tired of facing racism and exclusion from academia

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"Have you always wanted to be a scientist?" I have been asked this question many times before. This time, it's from a photographer who is taking my picture to advertise a new diversity initiative at the institution where I'm a postdoc.