- Dealing with racism and aggression as an academic of colour
Aisha’s approach when tackling difficult classroom situation
I have been in this situation and it is invaluable to have an opportunity to reflect on the components of best practice.
Aisha reframes and asks: Who is protected and why? This is a subtler and trickier question that gives the why and reasoning behind the other dominant question of the situation: Who is attacked and why?
This gives you an idea of what you need to address and transform the dynamic. When people are told – don’t be prejudiced and racist – Many would agree and do not see themselves in those terms as complicit. However, Aisha’s question addresses the heart of the matter, people not wanting to let go of their power and privilege, people not wanting to be attacked or be in trouble or feel guilty. People lashing out with the refusal – It’s not my fault, you’re a liar, nothing’s happened here.
- Self-compassion is necessary for social justice.
I hadn’t considered this before. It’s an important thing to remember as the go-to response to being a minority in an all-white space is to overwork, making your place there unquestionable. Also, I hadn’t realised before how negative a thing this is to model for students of colour. I would want them to take care of themselves so I need to too.
You need to not work for social justice.
You need to rest for social justice.
You need to take care of yourself and each other for social justice.
- Conflict and complexity of lived intersectionality
I know this is true through my experience. However, it’s useful to remind myself of it and think about danger points when I could slip into not acknowledging it in the classroom. Almost, because I know it to be true and consider it to be a part of my core beliefs and values, I need to be careful that this doesn’t make miss any blindspots or stop constantly questioning myself.
‘Violent Loving’ article
SoN
In your family, valuing the love but rejecting the prejudice.
This exemplifies the way you can make no assumptions about people. There is no typical case. It reminds me of Chinamanda Ngozi Adichie’s talk ‘The Danger of the Single Story’ and the Walt Whiman quote ‘I am large. I contain multitudes.’
I need to remember this most when I am interacting with students in the studio. In this scenario, when there are so many people, and everything is fast paced, I make connections and improvise based on emotions and instinct. This means that if I’m not careful I can be making assumptions or quickfire decisions which contain implicit bias