The Telegraph is a known as a conservative or right-wing publication, and this tone was quite evident in the assigned YouTube clip called ‘Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke’. From the dramatic soundtrack to the upper-class cadence of the narrator, there was an overarching scepticism toward AdvanceHE’s Athena Swan initiative and the findings of the University of Cambridge as institutionally racist. Dr. Vincent Harinam argued that the statistical evidence was not conclusive (Orr, 2022). I am dubious about Harinam’s assertions, as decolonial scholarship would define the university as an institution of coloniality, which was constitutive of racism, however some of the critiques about anti-racism and diversity policies are echoed in Sara Ahmed’s On Being Included.
‘Decolonising’ seems to have replaced diversity and anti-racism in a rebranding attempt that funnels money into initiatives that silo the project (of anti-racism, decolonialising, diversity) into departments or teams of diversity. One of Ahmed’s arguments is that when we institutionalise diversity it can become a performative speech act, wherein the recognition itself seems to absolve the institution, while simultaneously doing the bare minimum: ‘we have institutional racism!’, which she parallels to an addicts’ confession, as if the recognition will be the first step to absolution (Ahmed, 2012, pp. 55). Last session’s assigned reading by Ramadan highlighted how ‘BME academics continue to be positions at the bottom of the ladder vis-à-vis contract-types, seniority and salary bands’ (Ramadan, 2021, p. 34), then this week’s review of the UAL Anti-Racism policy offered evidence to the point as the document encouraged more staff hiring at the level of Visiting and Associating Lecturing (UAL, 2021). UAL recognises that it is institutionally racist, but does the bare minimum. What about senior management? What about full-time positions which hold job security? Racism is reinforced through unequal distributions of power, so recognising how power is distributed through racism is probably a good place to start dismantling.
This discussion filters down through so many aspects my lived experiences, from getting rejected from funding to the casually racist remarks about Chinese international students from staff (which I witnessed in a staff symposium last week) to being the expert on race. I could go on and on and on. These beliefs are so ingrained in the public thinking that its casual nature often slips by me until after the event. In our recent class we discussed how the data metrics often don’t match up to the policies, but what about the data that is not quantified, or not easily quantifiable. Imagine if I were to report every microaggression that I witnessed, how could I even do that? I don’t even know who to report that to. Then I think about the labour that one would have to endure to report this constantly, instead of trying to forget it. I wonder if we could create a microaggression box – an anonymous comment box for every time someone said something in the school to them (maybe a plausible intervention).
Works Cited
Ahmed, S. (2012) On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Orr, J. (2022) Revealed: The charity turning UK universities woke. The Telegraph [Online]. Youtube. 5 August. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU (Accessed on: 5 June 2025)
Ramadan, I. (2021) ‘When faith intersects with gender: the challenges and successes int eh experiences of Muslim women academics’, Gender and Education 34(1), p. 33-48
UAL (2021) Anti-Racism Action Plan. [Online] Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0032/296537/UAL-Anti-racism-action-plan-summary-2021.pdf (Accessed on: 5 June 2025)
6 replies on “Blog Task 3: On Anti-Racism”
I completely agree with your critique of the Telegraph video, it’s full of contradictions. It claims to support free speech and neutral intellectual debate but is quick to dismisses demands for change. The gap between policy and lived experience is clear, especially when racism continues through casual remarks and structural exclusion. Policies might look progressive on paper, but the reality often remains unchanged. I think your idea of a microaggressions box is a powerful intervention, a way to make the invisible visible. I’ve seen something similar using post-its on a wall (I will see if I can find this somewhere, it may not have been about racism but was enforcing a statement/experience), and the visual impact is striking. What stands out to me is how institutions manage racism as a reputational risk rather than a structural problem, addressing symptoms while preserving the status quo. Without redistributing power or centring epistemologies from the margins, the institution remains unchanged and will remain unchanged, even as it claims to evolve.
Thanks for your comments Ellie. I wondered too if the box could act as a way for people who feel injured to just offload that injury. Maybe it would not only be able racialised microaggressions, but gendered or -phobic kinds of remarks. It would be interesting to gather the qualitative evidence of people’s feelings and cause and effect of such actions! Yah it’s so funny/frustrating how the schools policies seem to contradict each other. Like yes, inclusive practices, but also yes, authority and power.
Christin, I really appreciated reading your post, there’s such a sharp clarity in how you cut through the surface-level performances of anti-racism to expose the deeper structural contradictions. The way you unpacked the Telegraph clip was spot on, it’s not just about what was said, but how it was said, and the tone really does say a lot. I thought your link to Sara Ahmed’s work was brilliant, especially that idea of the “confessional” institution. It really stuck with me, this idea that simply acknowledging racism becomes a substitute for meaningful change.
What really hit me, though, was the personal note you ended on. The weight of those microaggressions, the casual racism, and being positioned as the ‘expert on race’, it’s exhausting. And your idea about a microaggression comment box is such a simple but powerful intervention. It says: this matters, this happened, and you don’t have to carry it alone. Thank you for putting this out there so honestly. It’s deeply felt and deeply needed.
Thanks Romany for your encouraging comments. It made me think about how our intentions are never enough if they don’t measure up to the practice.
Yeah I think having a place to offload the emotions of the microagression would be helpful. I wonder if people carry a shame from the violence that is enacted upon them – as the role of the victim is so often represented as a weakness, that people ignore it. Or maybe microaggressions are hard to actually pinpoint.
Hi Christin, I really enjoyed your post, particularly your observations on the problems with unequal distributions of power at UAL, which I completely agree with. It was very interesting to read your analysis of the microagressions that you have witnessed, and continue to witness. It would indeed be an interesting use of the intervention. Perhaps this is something that could be developed further?
I find that UAL is obsessed with quantitative data, but nothing is really spoken of qualitative data, and how this can be used to improve the experience of students and staff. So in this case, a ‘comments box’ would be a very insightful instrument.
Thanks for your comments Danny. I feel like we are constantly combing through quantitative data, and there is this strange shame factor of contributing to those numbers. I specifically think about my own team, where are numbers are based on essays, which reinforce in many ways, the attainment gap. But then there are other factors at play that become hidden by the numbers, like the neoliberal system of education which privileges profits and accepts large student numbers without enough support. Anyway, that was a digression! But it provoked me to think about the lack of qualitative data again.