The resources provided all showcased differing approaches to addressing racism, ranging from studies, reports, and experiments that touch on topics such as Critical Race Theory, Institutional Racism, and lived experiences. Although all of them were interesting to me, the two that resonated with me most were a clip from The School That Tried to End Racism (Channel 4, 2020) and Revealed: The Charity Turning UK Universities Woke (The Telegraph, 2022).
The clip from The School That Tried to End Racism depicted a group of pre-teens participating in the privilege walk exercise. The children’s understanding of the exercise and what it means for them in the context of race and society at large dawns on them as they progress through the activity. For me, watching the reality of racial awareness setting in was sad. However, I decided to also read the comments underneath the video. An overwhelming majority of them saw the exercise as contributing to racism: “What I see in the video: Kids who used to get along and not care about race, have now been divided and started to resent each other. Great job, teachers!” (YouTube, 2022). This was the top comment beneath the video, receiving 16k likes, with several other comments echoing similar sentiments. This, to me, reflects the way a large proportion of society thinks. In my opinion, although the exercise was hard to watch, it was useful. It created a space for the children to demonstrate and discuss what they had each been experiencing but perhaps did not know how or why it was happening. I view this approach as more anecdotal than the other resources we examined, but no less valuable because of this.
The video titled Revealed: The Charity Turning UK Universities Woke assesses the impact Advance HE is having on universities. Although the video does not object to the principles of Advance HE in theory, it seems to object to the steps taken by universities to fulfill the requirements of Advance HE. It also appears to view the actions taken by universities as an affront to free speech. The video refers to data showing that students are becoming less tolerant of controversial ideas; however, anecdotally, there was little evidence of this based on the people interviewed. The report concludes by stating that there is little evidence of institutional racism at Cambridge specifically. This denial of institutional racism within the film was based on data taken from reported incidents. This reminded me so much of the 2021 report published by the UK government that found no evidence of institutional racism existing in the UK (Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, 2021). This report was heavily and widely criticized and disputed for several reasons. I too, had an issue with the report, mainly because it ignored glaring issues of disparity, some of which have been highlighted in this BBC article, Race report: “UK not deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities” (BBC News, 2021).
Although both an anecdotal approach and one that favors using statistics will arguably have flaws, I think it is important to acknowledge the lived experiences of those around you without dismissing them with statistics or data, which I think can often happen when people are committed to only seeing things through reports and statistics rather than listening to the individuals themselves.
References:
BBC News. (2021) ‘Race report: “UK not deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities”‘, 31 March. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-56590729
Channel 4. (2020) ‘The School That Tried to End Racism | Channel 4’, 25 June. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. (2021) ‘Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report’. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6062ddb1d3bf7f5ce1060aa4/20210331_-_CRED_Report_-_FINAL_-_Web_Accessible.pdf
The Telegraph. (2022) ‘Revealed: The Charity Turning UK Universities Woke’, 5 October.
YouTube. (2022) ‘Comment on “The School That Tried to End Racism | Channel 4″‘. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRM6vOPTjuU