UCU
This short video is very efficient with a very provocative format stating the unconscious bias for what is a “get out of jail” card that many people use to defend themselves from racism for example.
The fact that there is still this term around despite the years of awareness of systemic racism is in fact as Josephine Kwhali states worrying, but also infuriating for many people still victims of these discriminations.
There is undeniably a question of power and willingness to change in this video, of who initiates change, how fast and for whom. The idea that some questions are less urgent than others seems evident when there is still an example of discrimination around race in institutions.
We can ask ourselves in fact who benefits from the change and why some biases remain.
Perhaps there is the question of whom is considered equal and who isn’t, and an educational institution is not an isolated island that can pretend not to be concerned by the external power forces existing in current governments or the world at the moment.
Questioning still if there is an unconscious bias in a high education institution where people have been “educated” remains to show that there are still powerplays involved, displaying in the lack of opportunities for all and diversity in the high sphere of this institution to activate a REAL change, an ACTIVE one.
3 responses to “Witness: unconscious bias”
Hi Alix, I like your mention of ‘an educational institution is not an isolated island that can pretend not to be concerned by the external power forces existing in current governments or the world at the moment’. HE can’t continue to be colour-blind and non-racist instead of anti-racist. Walking into these insitutions and seeing the academic posts filled with white people and the other posts with POC shouts out the disparities in income. I’ve been working and studying in HE for about 30 years (mostly London) and the imbalance, considering London’s diversity, never ceases to amaze me.
This is from my blog on race: ‘Looking at academic staff only, in 2019/20 the proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic academics was 18.0%. 4.3% of all UK HE professors are Asian, only 0.7% are Black’.
Advance HE (2021) Equality in higher education: statistical reports 2021.
Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/equality-higher-education-statistical-reports-2021 [accessed June 19. 2023]
Your entry and response to the video has helped me crystallise some of my thinking, which is that these terms too often become tied up with policy or form part of it without dealing with the root cause. I, like you, loved how in a short space of time Kwhali cuts the whole unconscious bias work within the HE sector to size. Who in the end is accountable when things are not shifting? Who is the training for and benefiting…
I wholeheartedly second your shout-out for real, meaningful change. We absolutely need more of this kind of direct action and conversation, especially like what we saw in the UCU video. After watching it, I was left pondering the same question: Can we really say there is unconscious bias among highly educated individuals who are immersed in the UK’s Higher Education sector?