Josephine Kwhali 

In this video Josephine Kwhali discerns a key and important message, one that we should be constantly relaying to ourselves but also members of our teams. Also, importantly, to our students. The framing of bias constantly being unconscious, as if that is a good thing, is deeply troubling. 

W. E. B. Du Bois talked about people of colour having 2 consciousness which would one day be able to merge into one. It feels that white people’s privilege, is being able to have the 2nd ‘unconscious’ racist bias as a shield. Maintaining this distinction is preventing their own conscious from becoming fully realised and proper progress being made.

Recently I was put forward to represent the FE Office for the Racial Equality Charter academic subgroup committee, with the focus on tackling unconscious bias. I have yet to attend a meeting as it hasn’t been convened. I would be keen to raise this issue and terminology with the members to gauge where the group currently stands on this issue. It also bring into focus the document put together by the executive board which the Shades of Noir team have explicitly not contributed to for similar reasons, that whilst the document aligns itself with the ‘good intention’ of eliminating bias, it never references any conscious and unconscious bias which is actually happening, hurting and damaging staff and students experiences at the university. This sleep-walking is not a true way to make change or progress. Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed explicitly states (from a Marxist perspective and terminology) that without a conscious, dialogic and awakened approach to change, love and reformation, true progress cannot happen. UAL’s document shies away from the notion that conflict even exists, rather than acklknowldging that the classroom and studio can be a constant environment for conflict for many staff and students who experience racism daily consciously (whether or not it is veiled as merely ‘unconscious bias’.