Thread by @CambridgeBME

Class, Colonialism and Whiteness in Oxbridge and Beyond #CCW (11/11/19)

Anti-racism work is easier to talk about what it doesn't look like. We avoid the word racism and for a lot of white liberals "diversity, equality, acceptance and belonging" are more palatable terms.

The money and ideologies upon which these institutions are built on are so closely linked to colonialism, oppression, genocidal regimes, and economic policies of violence and exploitation.

Representation politics become tokenistic.

#CCW

Racist oppression won't end by numbers - these issues are structural and institutional.

Universities are just as racist as the police force.

From even before we arrive at university, minority racial groups are already at a disadvantage.

#CCW

As a Black woman in Oxbridge, Afua felt the background but felt limiting by her ability to express or articulate these lived experiences.

How much do we focus on individual experiences or does this detract attention from the bigger picture?

#CCW

Speaking on our experiences enable us to see how universal these are. Education with students of colour talking about their experiences get to learn from other students who have read Black feminist theory for example and can explain how these are structural issues.

#CCW

Racial profiling of students by porters, interactions with other white students (disproportionately from private schools) all reinforce ideas of "not belonging" for students of colour, which can be violent.

#CCW

A big part of anti-racist work is political education. Universities are now using markers and signifiers to compete with each other to sell their universities to prospective students in a neo-liberal society. This stunts our ability to have further conversations.

#CCW

The few students of colour who are engaged in justice work are faced by extreme pushback, both institutional and individual.

What does it look like to live in a liberated university? It wouldn't be a university anymore; it goes beyond a private space.

#CCW

What happens after we've called the problem to attention? We need to do the radical work of redistribution but this work doesn't get the visibility that the institution craves.

Is this a place which can create this redistribution change?

#CCW

"Only ethical relationship we can have with these institutions is one of stealing."

Coming to Oxbridge as a student of colour gives us a magical legitimacy and an unearned authority which we must use to critique and challenge the universities.

#CCW

RE the master's tool cannot dismantle the master's house. we even know what the master's tool are yet? We have to put language to these experiences.

We have to be disruptive. We cannot leave universities with only degrees - pressure from punitive structures.

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All universities seemingly have to do to tackle racism is "talk about it" which makes it look marketable and appealing. These try to neuter radical work which is happening or coopt work from students of colour.

#CCW

"Stormzy effect" relating to appalling statistics of new Black students in Cambridge does a massive disservice to those who have been doing work for years regarding access.

Students lay the framework which is going to be erased once they leave.

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Black students finding admission statistics and naming the issue did the work, not just the existence of Stormzy.

Support campaigns who are doing radical work on campus.

Huge burden falling on students of colour to do this work.

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Message to prospective students: come and continue the work but you'll have to endure hostility? How do we frame this in an 'appealing' way?

Legacy work is important. People need to come and carry on the work. There are communities here to find for students of colour.

#CCW

Students of colour have to decide what kind of student they want to be: will they choose to assimilate to move through with minor resistance, or will they pick up the baton and face kickback by doing radical work?

There is a possibility to recalibrate what university is.

#CCW

We shape the knowledge produced at university. Coming here isn't the end of a journey in itself but a chance to educate ourselves on wider social issues; the violence of The Border, policing, PREVENT policy are all visible at the university.

#CCW

The University isn't a special space, the issues we face within it we will also face without. The vantage point that the margin offers - we can see things that some other people can't. It's not what we can get out of it, it's what we can do within it.

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Question on whether the aim of decolonising is more numbers. No, what happens after students of colour get in? What good is an untransformed university full of students of colour?

University hides behind terms like "BME" which conflates different experiences.

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The reason these movements aren't translating into new academics of colour is because the conversations aren't going far enough.

How do we translate this somewhat complex discourse into a somewhat basic society? (Racism is bad - empire, not good 🤪)

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Education of wider public is important, but we do the work by doing the work; we'll never be able to get everyone to do the work, but the important focus is sparking these conversations.

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Where are we at with decolonising our curriculums?

Decolonise has become a buzzword, the problem is it's seen as a project which can be completed. It's actually a continuous process of unsettling, not just adding Franz Fanon to the reading list.

#CCW

Power has always shaped what is worth studying, what is seen as legitimate or a valid body of knowledge. Just adding people to reading lists doesn't do anything to disrupt how we see European knowledge as the universal.

The world has been misunderstood.

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We have to rethink who is an expert. How do we educate people in the high up places in these institutions? People who do not go through these insitutions have a better understanding on how the world works.

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The university is ghettoised, it's not in touch with the world. Calling the police force racist seems a given to most people "outside" of these institutions but saying that here is seen as controversial.

Oral histories devalued in the face of archival histories.

#CCW

Students of colour are forced into defending their position as legitimate in the contexts of debate. It's not about mutual aid, sharing or learning, and debate is not a good use of our time. Debates depend that one side (that of students of colour) is invalid.

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How has my location in this university blinded me or prevented me from seeing how knowledge is shaped or shared? European knowledge depends on the "individual genius".

Decolonising is a lifelong project! There is so much potential in vocational subjects to deconstruct.

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For example, law students within the decolonise movements would be incredible going out into the world questioning how to dismantle the legal system.

The universities could equip these students to be agents of change.

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The sciences also need decolonising! Deconolising asks us to think about education holistically: are we training engineers to build drones to kill people and then training humanity students to justify that killing?

Science is underpinned by "truth and fact".

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When we understand our ideas are not absolute, we can properly challenge these links. Decolonise is disruptive. It SHOULD be disruptive.

We have to rethink how we study these subjects. Funding should not allow our continued complicity.

#CCW

Groups like @ZeroCarbonSoc have been bringing these issues to the frontline for so long, exposing the university for the many fingers it has in different violent and terrible pies.

External funding means unis cannot be objective. Our own complicity can be terrifying.

#CCW

We can refuse to turn a blind eye, we can refuse to allow this continued complicity. We can refuse to accept what is seen as the "norm".

#CCW

The fallacy of free speech is the PREVENT policy. What it asks of public servants to "look out for signs of radicalisation" - which often means what turns a "good" Muslim into a "bad violent one". This asks the monitoring of Muslim students. How free are THEY to speak?

#CCW

Muslim students are less likely to speak in certain spaces and subjects, because there is a punitive punishment. 30% of those being reported to prevent are under the age of 15.

Free speech is not universally applied. Whose speech is free? It's a counterinsurgency tool.

#CCW

Power underlies whose speech is free. Far right rhetoric stems from ethno-nationalism of the government and state. This is not the same as surveilling Muslims because they've been historically viewed as threats.

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People who say their speech is being restricted are in other spaces allowed huge platforms of their views. This covers up allegiance of conservative forces marketising education. This obscures wider conversations of things like PREVENT, racism, campus violence of any kind.

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Now we're thinking beyond metrics of assimilation which terrifies gatekeepers of these institutions. How TERFs have taken hold of mainstream newspapers and have openly debate the right of trans people to exist are the same people who claim their free speech is being taken.

#CCW

The floor has been opened to questions!

#CCW

1. "How do white-passing people negotiate the role of being a person of colour without taking up the space of those who are visibily and culturally discriminated again? What is our role as 'in-between'?"

#CCW

2. "Do you think lecturers should be taking an active effort to set ground rules, what are the procedures which should be in place? How do we get lecturers involved in this question?"

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3. "What type of initiatives or programs do you propose would allow us to further challenge the inferiority of the body politics, not only forms of being but forms of becoming? How does this change knowledge production and consumption?"

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1. You don't need a personal experience of oppression to work towards ending it. Less about thinking individually about our own position, we get caught up in not wanting to take up too much space that we don't take up any space at all. "Guilt leads to inaction."

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2. Lecturers ideally will name power structures recreated in rooms, and many are trying to do this work already. Encouraging lecturers who are doing these things to help them and share best practice across the university. (1/2)

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Remembering the power we have and that we are a body. When we feel overwhelmed, we fall back and think about how to reshape these narratives. It's within our reach as a collective. (2/2)

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3. Imagined futures in and out of the university; work is being done now. "One of the functions of racism is distraction." We spent so long putting out fires and having to prove and disprove, but now we're on the cusp of practice and embedding these ideas.

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4. "How has your faith (Islam) affected how you view the decolonial project?"

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5. "Is it our responsibility to explain and educate? To what extent is it okay to get up and walk out of conversations? Do we have to engage in mindless debates with ignorant people?"

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6. "How do we take care of ourselves and not over-exhaust ourselves when we do speak up?"

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4. More being exposed to structural violence of the institution, realising understanding of her own faith filtered through a white, secular lens. "Modernity" upholds secularity. Having faith is not seen as intellectual integrity. Faith is disruptive. (1/2)

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Asking for prayer rooms or faith spaces is controversial, indicates its disruptiveness. Having to prove herself as a "moderate" Muslim, which reinforces notions of counterterrorism (good vs. bad ones). Some Islamic theology has been colonised, and must be liberated. (2/2)

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5. The onus should never be on individuals. This is a good training ground for the reality outside, but people who haven't done the basic work of understanding their history don't have the right to demand our labour in educating them. Require people to do the work!

#CCW

6. Community is self-care. Spaces to think about collective experiences, feelings as a type of knowing. This can be therapeutic. Conversations like these can be therapeutic. Self-care has been neoliberalised, we need to be well to do the work by looking after each other.

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7. "There is a fear which manifests in being afraid of having something held against us (as WoC). What were some realisations which helped you overcome the fear in these spaces and enabled you to be loud and proud?"

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8. "On a day-to-day basis, many of us face perceptions and prejudices. How can we bring up these conversations of disrupting and dismantling systems which are the fundamental lenses they see and understand us through?"

#CCW

9. "Do you refer to yourselves as people of colour; if so, why or if not, why not?"

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7 & 8. Accepting these labels will follow us forever, there is no real choice regarding of what we say or how we say. The choice is don't speak or be angry. Not speaking is not an option. Demand solidarity as international students, our liberation is tied together. (1/2)

#CCW

Our silence will not protect us. Either way we should speak. Remaining silent does not offer us safety, community, or benefits, except for benefits which come at the expense of our being. Speaking makes us visible. We have to be strategic about organising. (2/2)

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9. The phrase 'people of colour' works somewhat towards solidarity, but it has wider implications. Solidarity in this context enables us more bodies to do the work, and when there is urgency we should not be too preoccupied of the ways we will fail each other. (1/3)

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It is possible to use these terms and still be nuanced but this comes with communication and theory and understanding experiences differ. As British nationals, many of us have nothing to lose. Writing is a powerful act of speech, then sharing that more broadly. (2/3)

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We can be as articulate and sophisticated as we want but we will never be seen as legitimate. It's not about changing the way we act, it's about speaking anyway. In different contexts, different terms are useful for solidarity. E.g. addressing anti-blackness. (3/3)

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10. "How do we engage with movements like those of South Africa? How do we recouple deconolisation and climate change?"

11. "How do we get the people who need to hear these conversations into the room? Do we need that engagement?"

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12. "How will these ideas of decolonising spread out across the world for people of colour globally?"

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10. Conversations around decolonising travelled from the Global South to the Western world (i.e. Rhodes Must Fall shut the university down for months, fought the police, refused to go to class, in protest of intercolonial domination). This energy was picked up here. (1/4)

#CCW

Everywhere across the globe there are students struggling but we can learn and share tactics. Where we are situated allow us to ignore politicising climate change, for example Extinction Rebellion. (2/4)

#CCW

#BLM movement shut down an airport and were received violently by the police much more so than movements like Extinction Rebellion. Developing climate justice as inherently about racial justice. Climate disasters are already happening. (3/4)

#CCW

Climate change movements must acknowledge many of the fears we hold about urgency are just about where this catastrophe will take place. Decolonisation looks different in different parts of the world. We have to acknowledge indigenous voices speaking for years. (4/4)

#CCW

11. We have to play the long game, grassroots activism does not depend on people listening to us. We must stop it from being coopted. The onus is not on us to make them interested, or adapt the message for them. They will miss out. That is not our problem. (1/2)

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@GoldAntiRacism occupation was the best example of this, forcing the institution's hand rather than waiting for them to hop on the bandwagon. Colonialism and decolonise are not metaphors; it's a very material reality for many and we have an intellectual luxury. (2/2)

#CCW

The End (for now 🤭)

Huge shoutout to @lolaolufemi_, @thebrownhijabi, @bantu_reindeer, and @afuahirsch for being such inspiring and POWERFUL (!!!!) speakers.

@PriyamvadaGopal organised an incredible talk, so sorry (to this man) if you missed it!

Until the next time!
#CCW