Whiteness: Unconscious bias – Josephine Kwhali
Kwhali demonstrates a strong profile in providing a lived experience of racism and growing up since the age of four, what was worrying was this issue we are still facing in today’s university landscape has been in conversation for a long time. Kwhali mentions that she is not prepared to allow the ‘get out of jail card’ scenarios to happen, due to all the information around race, diversity and unconscious bias training there is within educational institutes. This I will stand beside and link in force with, we can not tolerate any shift towards hatred within our spaces, be it student or staff, we must be allies and provide a safe space for all those involved in that environment.
Kwhali goes on to discuss the actions universities have taken for women, but yet only middle-class women seem to benefit from it, yet black and working-class women are still fighting to be seen or recognised. This I actually have experience with (even though I am a man), I have experienced the shift between working-class and middle-class colleagues, those who can afford to do a Master’s program, with us who carry on working to gain experience. There is a pay difference in spine points for those starting the same job that holds a master’s degree than those who don’t and it’s a pretty big shift in difference, from my last interaction with a colleague, the difference of starting the job was at least 5 spine points. Although to value my skill set, I was teaching them industry skills, because they went straight from education learning to education teaching. Not to let my positionality come into play, as I am very grateful for my unique experiences and workmanship, I do have some biases towards who should be teaching and that it falls into the social justice pedagogy;
“D. Experiential education (text study, guest speakers, field trips, interactive activities)”.
Especially in craft and design-led courses, we need experiences, lived experiences, and moments of hardship in stressful environments to encourage and reassure students the future ahead is exhilarating and extremely fast yet filled with loads of moments of rewards and friendships.
Reflecting on this video, I really enjoyed Kwhali’s body language and sense of ownership of their future goals set! The encouragement of others to stand alongside, and say enough is enough! It’s time to fight, be an ally and secure our teaching environments as safe spaces for all to learn.