Diversity Digest

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at King's College London

Author: Tyler John (Page 3 of 3)

King’s College London and the Challenge of Windrush

June 25, 2020 /

Professor Richard Drayton, a Caribbean-born professor of History at King’s commemorates the 72nd anniversary of Windrush Day, a day honoring the Windrush generation and their legacy.

Since 2018, Windrush Day has been the day in which we celebrate what Caribbean people have given to Britain. Such a celebration should be anchored in the memory of why we came. But it cannot just be retrospective. The anniversary of Windrush should challenge us each year to address the question of racial inequality, both within Britain, and in Britain’s relationship to the West Indies.

Our contributions to Britain began long before the arrival of the Empire Windrush to Tilbury docks in 1948. Here at King’s, for example, a significant part of the wealth on which King’s was founded in 1829 was based on enslaved and tortured people in the West Indies.  More generally, plantation slavery created a world in which modern Britain was rich, and its Caribbean colonies poor. It was in the context of this inequality of life chances that West Indians chose to leave their homes to come to London. It is against that background, too, that King’s relationship to the Caribbean was constituted.

There has never been any formal colour bar to study at King’s, nor indeed to recruitment to its staff. King’s indeed helped form Caribbean-born figures like Harold Moody, Sir Shridath Ramphal and Pearl Connor who have made fundamental contributions to British, Caribbean and international society. But from the nineteenth century to our own time, the consequence of slavery and colonialism were and are forms of economic inequality and unequal participation, which have meant that its personnel, culture and curricula have been overwhelmingly ‘white’. It is a significant step forward that in the moment of Black Lives Matters in 2020, that the college has begun to seriously confront the legacies of racism in its culture and practices.

One important possible new initiative might be for King’s to build and deepen its relationship to the Caribbean and its diasporas.  It is striking that King’s, which sits just a short walk from the climax of Caribbean-British life in Brixton, has had so little to do with it, so few Black London students and even fewer academics. And might more effort go into building partnerships with the University of the West Indies?  It was once the case that King’s and the then University College of the West Indies were sister members of the federal University of London. We should seek twenty-first century version of the kind of cooperation envisioned in that late colonial institution.

Windrush Day throws out a challenge to Britain in general and, specifically, to us at King’s. How do we remake ourselves, so that the descendants of the Windrush migrants can have an equal place in our life? And how do we address the forms of international inequality to which our domestic forms of racialised injustice were and are connected?

 

Baldwin, The Velvet Rage and Philadelphia: a Pride Month Trifecta 

June 22, 2020 /

EDI Director, Sarah Guerra, pens a blog about her reading of some important pieces of LGBTQ+ literature and cinema. 

My recent book group book was Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, and by coincidence, my next book was The Velvet Rage: Overcoming The Pain of Growing up Gay in a Straight Man’s World. By even further coincidence (as we, in lockdown, working our way through my 16 year old daughter, Kaela’s, must-watch film list), we watched Philadelphia. Philadelphia is a novel, a self-help book and a movie all about the intricacies of gay men’s lives, and the barriers and prejudice they face almost every day. It’s been quite the trifecta in provoking my thinking.  

James Baldwin is an author I have dabbled with and keep meaning to get serious about and read his entire back catalogue. For those who don’t know, Baldwin was an essayist, playwright, novelist and voice of the American civil rights movement. He was born in Harlem in 1924. He is acknowledged as one of the 20th century’s greatest writers. Baldwin broke new literary ground with the exploration of racial and social issues in his many works. He was especially known for his essays on the black experience in America, and is an author who might really help us all as we work more and more on tackling systemic racism (take a look at the EDI team’s anti-racism resources page here).  He also broke new ground in the novel, Giovanni’s Room which tells the story of an American living in Paris with a complex depiction of homosexuality, a then-taboo subject.

James Baldwin, author of Giovanni’s Room

Baldwin was open about his homosexuality and relationships with both men and women. However, he believed that the focus on rigid categories was just a way of limiting freedom and that human sexuality is more fluid and less binary than was often expressed in his lifetime.  

Giovanni’s Room has a wide variety of themes, and is not just a ‘gay book’ (whatever that is). What really struck me was how the narrative fitted unbelievably neatly with The Velvet Rage where the author, a psychotherapist, spends time exposing the nature of the intrinsic shame that he identified in himself and others as being encoded into gay men from an early age. 

Giovanni’s Room gives us an insight into David’s mind, his internal conflicts in relation to his family’s and society’s expectations, and his confusion about who he is attracted to and what is ‘ok’. It is particularly striking in its exploration of age, particularly the young gay men characters being spiteful and contemptuous about the older ones. The reader however can see that this is really their own fear of either becoming or not becoming like the older men. The novel is an anatomy of shame, of its roots and the myths that perpetuate it, of the damage it can do. There is something about the narrative that to me felt  both freeing and exposing of the horrifying self-loathing that some gay men feel. There’s a passage, just before David  meets Giovanni (his lover), where he observes a group of effeminate gay men. He describes them through a series of animal metaphors, first as parrots, then as peacocks occupying a barnyard. Finally, David says of a young man in drag that “his utter grotesqueness made me uneasy; perhaps in the same way that the sight of monkeys eating their own excrement turns some people’s stomachs. They might not mind so much if monkeys did not – so grotesquely – resemble human beings.” His seeing those around him as inhuman because of their different expression and his own self hatred was heartbreaking. 

Downs coined the phrase ‘The Velvet Rage’ to refer to a very specific anger he encountered in his gay patients – whether it was manifested in drug abuse, promiscuity or alcoholism – and whose roots, he feels, are found in childhood shame and parental rejection. “Velvet rage is the deep and abiding anger that results from growing up in an environment when I learn that who I am as a gay person is unacceptable, perhaps even unlovable,” he explains. “This anger pushes me at times to overcompensate and try to earn love and acceptance by being more, better, beautiful, sexier – in short, to become something I believe will make me more acceptable and loved.” 

The Velvet Rage, by Alan Downs

Downs outlines how feelings of worthlessness can be created in childhood quite unintentionally, and these lead gay adults to search for an unachievable perfection.  

Downs identifies many manifestations of “Velvet Rage” dealing with depression, self-harm and suicide, body dysmorphia and eating disorders – illnesses which are four times as likely in gay men as their straight counterparts.  The book went on my reading list as a recommendation from a colleague who described it as one of the first books he had read where he really felt seen. I am grateful for the recommendation. Recommendations like this are how we all become better allies.  

In Philadelphia, we see an Academy Award winning performance from Tom Hanks, telling the story of a high performing lawyer on a fast career track who suddenly finds himself fired. He takes his employer to court and proves the case that the sacked him unfairly and only because he had AIDS. The movie uncomfortably shows us the reality of the 70s and 80s and how open and accepted homophobia was. It gives us a live and far more modern demonstration of what Baldwin wrote about and illustrates the elements expressed by Downs.  

Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington

One of the things I particularly liked about The Velvet Rage was the very practical ‘skills for life’ section that helps any reader become more self-aware, better able to recognise how to set boundaries, how to recognise what their own needs and responsibilities are and ultimately better engage with the world and build relationships. The skills are based on the various theories that Downs puts forward of the barriers that are created for gay men which really gave me pause for thought, and I would encourage people to read both books to deepen their own insight.  

I am someone who sees myself as and wants to be an LGBTQ ally. It is all too easy to let those letters roll off the tongue. These books and the film made me really stop and think: how good a job have I really done over the years? I think the fact that I have lots of gay friends gave me a false comfort. How much have I really done to understand their experience? How it might present barriers each and every day to their success and inclusion in the world? No doubt not anywhere as much as I could do. So, allies, as we find ourselves in Pride month, get out there, get reading and watching, and join Proudly King’s who can help you on this journey and tell you what will really help our LGBTQ staff and students feel more included. I’ve particularly enjoyed the new Proudly Pod and am looking forward to Virtual Pride on Friday . 

 

Why what happens over there matters over here

June 17, 2020 /

Vanessa Boodhoo from Chestnut Grove Academy, pens a blog on the importance of understanding and appropriately responding to systemic racism.

Following the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, protests against systemic racism and police brutality have scattered across all the 50 states of America alongside other 18 countries. The death of George Floyd particularly sparked the protests but the protesters continue to walk down the streets remembering Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Michael Brow, Breonna Taylor, Stephon Clark, Walter Scott, Anthony Baez, Ahmaud Arbery, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, Dion Johnson, Trayvon Benjamin Martin, Kajieme Powell, James Scurlock, Tony McDade, Elijah McClain, Belly Mujinga, Mark Duggan, Cynthia Jarrett, Leon Briggs, Habib Ullah, Joy Gardner, Kingsley Burrell and many other Black and Brown victims of racism and police brutality in the USA and UK. 

As the protests grew many opponents of the movement started to be more vocal. One of their arguments is based upon the belief that the movement “Black Lives Matter” promotes inequality as “all lives mater”. The Black Lives Matter movement was created in 2013 to campaign against violence and systemic racism towards ALL Black people and has since become international.  They’ve been actively fighting against racism through the organisation of protests and promotion of policies such as the end of the broken windows policing. None of their policies would disadvantage white people but they would certainly create a safer environment for Black people by reducing racial stereotyping and police brutality. In the US, Black Americans are 30% more likely to get pulled over by the police and although they roughly consist of 13.4% of the American population, they make up 40% of the prison population. As of June 2020, Black people continue to be the largest percentage of victims of police shootings in the US. Similar statistics also apply to the UK: in 2017-2018 Black people were victims of 12% of use-of-force incidents although they account for 3% of the UK population. Furthermore, between April 2018 and March 2019, there were 4 stop and searches for every 1000 white people and 38 for every 1000 Black people. Everyone’s life matters, the BLM movement is simply trying to concentrate on issues that affect the Black community disproportionately, that is why the “all lives matter” statement is so harmful. 

Many people are arguing that police departments should be defunded.  This defunding wouldn’t be immediate; the change would be gradual and the money taken could be reallocated to create more jobs, to improve the provision of mental health care (around 50% of all inmates in the US have been DIAGNOSED with a mental illness), social programs, experts on drug abuse and housing alongside other “non-police solutions to the problems poor people face”. During these past years, the US has defunded education, Planned Parenthood, health care and public transport; it would not be so radical to spend less money on the police. Eric Garcetti, LA’s current mayor has been planning to cut $150 million from the police budget to invest it in Black communities. The Minneapolis council also decided to defund and dismantle its police force as they concluded that a reform wouldn’t suffice.  

Due to systemic racism, BAME communities face discrimination and inequality in terms of employment, education, income, political power, housing, healthcare and many other aspects.  A 2018 study revealed that minority ethnic groups in London earn 21.7% less on average than white British employees. Having unequal employment opportunities leads to lower incomes (1/5 children in Black households’ lives in consistent poverty) and lower incomes lead to indecent housing, lower quality of healthcare and education.  Undoubtedly, a white person’s life can be hard, but their skin-colour can’t possibly make it harder. 

The idea that white privilege doesn’t exist is one of the many examples of ‘white fragility’. Although the noun ‘fragility’ is a synonym of ‘weakness’, white fragility holds an incredible amount of power.  In order to avoid any conversations about race, white people often respond in the ‘colour-blind’ or the ‘colour-celebrate’ way. The ‘colour-blind’ often have responses such as “I see beyond skin-colour”, “I was taught to treat everyone the same” or “racism is in the past”. All these responses belittle the existence and experience of racism.  The ‘colour-celebrate’ tend to use phrases such as “I am not racist, I have black friends” or “I am not racist, I have POC in my family”.  These kinds of responses make it so much harder for people to talk about their own experiences with racism.  In 2019, Stephen Ashe conducted a report in Manchester with a sample of 5000 employees. He discovered that 40% of them were victims of racist incidents and when they tried to report them, they were either ignored or labelled as “trouble-makers”. Refusing to talk about race because it makes white people “uncomfortable” suggests that a white person’s comfort matters more than a person of colour’s oppression and discrimination. It is important to talk about racism. Educate yourself, talk about it with your friends and your family, by avoiding the topic we won’t achieve anything.  

In times like these, we must be careful of the news we consume. In America when several people gathered carrying weapons and spitting on police officers’ faces to protest because they “needed a haircut”, Trump described them as “very good people”. However, when Black people and their allies started to protest systemic racism and police brutality, Donald Trump didn’t hesitate to refer to them as “thugs” and “bad left radical people”. The contrast between the media representation of the protestors as all violent and the videos coming out of the protests showing peace and violence being enacted on them is stark.  This week, several UK news headlines have been about a second wave of C19 and included images of Black protestors, rather than images of predominantly white people crammed onto beaches.  

Due to recent events, Britain is waking up to the impact of its colonial past. Recently, the statue of Edward Colston, an English slave trader responsible for the transportation of approximately 84,000 enslaved African people, was pulled down in Bristol with many recognising the pain that its existence had caused for years.  It is clear that more needs to happen to ensure that ALL schools learn about Black history and Britain’s colonial past and present.   

We cannot stop protesting now that all the police officers involved in George Floyd’s murder have been arrested. We are protesting systemic racism and police brutality. The two still exist. Little effort has been made to dismantle them. We must continue to spread awareness, the fight against racism is not over. 

If you’re interested in learning more about race and race equality, here are some activists which the author recommends:

International Women’s Day: I Believe Her!

March 6, 2020 /

For International Women’s Day, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Director, Sarah Guerra, pens a blog about the Netflix series, Unbelievable, and the way it navigates sexual assault and related traumas. 

CW: sexual violence, suicide 

One of the areas of work facing me when I first arrived at King’s was to tackle sexual misconduct effectively. As a rape and multiple sexual assault victim/survivor, this issue is something I personally know the importance of and take very seriously.  

A principle of our work in the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion team has been to center victim/survivors and to take a trauma–informed approach to tackling sexual misconduct. This approach recognises the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, staff, and others involved in the system; it fully integrates knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices, and, most importantly, actively seeks to resist re-traumatisation. The act of reporting shouldn’t be worse or as bad as the original experience. 

Watching the recent Netflix series Unbelievable was difficult but ultimately very affirming. The series dramatises the real life story of Marie Adler and other victim-survivors of a serial rapist. Unlike many dramas examining this subject, Unbelievable doesn’t glorify or dwell on explicit scenes of violence or victims’ suffering during the crimes. Much of the misery is instead relayed in flashbacks and tiny excerpts, most clearly showing how the horror and violation that victims feel impacts on their day–to–day lives after the assault. 

A major narrative arc in Unbelievable examines the way ‘the system’ works: how the (mostly male) police, press, courts, social services all interact (or not as the case may be) to meet or fail to meet women’s needs. There are many heart-breaking aspects to the story. Some made me cry and others made me scream and shout with anger and frustration: seeing a vulnerable 18-year-old woman who has been raped face suspicion from the (male) detectives who are supposed to be helping her; watching the hours after Marie’s rape where she is forced to recount the attack repeatedly in cold, harsh environments totally lacking in comfort;  watching the male, and clearly untrained, police detectives find minor inconsistencies in her story, leading them to suggest that she made the whole thing up; ultimately, leading the traumatised young woman to question herself and lose faith in the idea that she is worthy of support, and to feel life would be easier if she just acquiesced and withdrew her claim. 

Unbelievable clearly contrasts Marie’s experience with the trained, empathetic approach used by the women detectives. These detectives sensitively, patiently and carefully engage with the victim/survivors, weigh each interaction for necessity and at every juncture seek to prioritise sensitivity over speed. It was a stark demonstration of how important it is to understand the issues facing victim/survivors and their potential reactions. It reinforced to me why a trauma–informed approach is so important: the victim/survivor’s welfare must always be a paramount consideration.  

“You don’t sound crazy to me. You sound like someone who’s been through a trauma and is looking for a way to feel safe again and in control. And there is nothing crazy about that.” 

The series puts the impact on Marie of being disbelieved and, as a result, recanting her statement into crushing focus. She loses friends, risks losing her sheltered housing, is vilified in news reports and can no longer count on the few adults she trusts. She attempts suicide. She is even charged and convicted of filing a false report and has to borrow money to pay the fine. Meanwhile, the rapist is shown to be free and raping other women, ruining more lives. 

As the story unfolds, we find Marie’s initial account had been devastatingly true. I found myself furious that she couldn’t receive the due care and attention every human being in distress and pain deserves, and incensed that more women were raped because of the inherent sexism and incompetence of the first police team and the overall system. I hope that other viewers felt the same. 

The producers of Unbelievable have performed a public service: vividly bringing to life what is expected of victim/survivors of sexual assault and the long term impact it has on their lives. 

One rape victim-survivor says “They say that routine makes you vulnerable, so anything routine, I just stopped doing.” 

The portrayal is unflinching in its examination of how badly things can go, how poor criminal justice systems and processes are and how easy it is to be unsympathetic to victim/survivors. The original police officer’s devastation and personal questioning when he realises his mistakes is palpable.  

Detective Parker : I mean, I’ve been trying to figure out how I could have been so off. I wish I had an answer. I don’t. I’d do anything to go back and redo the whole thing. To just start all over and do right by you. I really would. 

I take heart in this production relating this awful story in a sensitive and informed way and really showing the difference that can be made when people understand the core issues related to a subject, choose to empathise and are willing to put in the effort to work something out properly. The two lead female investigators, Detective Stacy Galbraith and Sergeant Edna Hendershot, have gone firmly into my hero bank. Every so often when my own resilience is low, I will bring them to mind and re-energise myself.  

LGBTQ+ Inclusion and the Church

February 21, 2020 /

For LGBTQ+ History Month, EDI Project Officer, Jemma Adams, pens a blog about her experience of the church and its attitudes towards LGBTQ+ lives.

My personal faith and belief meanders sometimes away, sometimes alongside, the mainstream Christian church, but what I do believe is that Christian scripture, tradition and experience reveals a God who transcends gender and sexuality, a God who did not create, nor do I believe they would condone, the heteronormativity that has come to consume much of the church. As a theologian I am fully convinced that the church can only be authentic to the message of Jesus Christ and its own scripture if LGBT+ people are fully included and indeed central to the life of the church. Others would disagree with me, but I do not want to give them space and use my words here to argue against them (there are also many theologians and writers who have done this far better than I ever could here). Instead I want to reflect on the experience on the ground for individuals and churches and offer a glimpse into what the full inclusion of LGBT+ people in the church might look like.

Whilst the Church of England and other denominations continue to tie themselves up in knots with statements and ‘conversations’ about sex, sexuality, gender and marriage, LGBT+ Christians have to endure the heartache and hurt of statements made about them, demeaning their relationships, identity and the validity of their very existence in the eyes of the church. But whilst this goes on in the governance and leadership of the Church of England there are church communities who are flying the pride flag from their spires (sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically), who are actively campaigning for equal marriage and ensuring LGBT+ people are at the centre of their leadership and expression.

In my experience, however, most churches sit somewhere in the middle, often tolerant but not active or explicit in their LGBT+ inclusion. Such churches often want to be welcoming and inclusive, but my message to them is that tolerance and silence are just not enough. Such an approach requires people to be neutral, to mute themselves and hide their identity. That is not equality and inclusion and nor do I believe it reflects the fundamental Christian principle that we are made in the image of God. If that is true, and humans reflect the person of God, then ‘when anyone is invisible, aspects of God, too, are also rendered invisible’.[1] God is beyond sexuality and gender, yet paradoxically contains all within, just as God is both transcendent and embodied (in the person of Jesus).

If a church community wants to be fully inclusive they must be explicit about being welcoming to LGBT+ people and they must follow this through in every aspect of church life and worship. In other words, they must work to challenge the heteronormativity and the patriarchal structures that can be present, and this must be done by the whole congregation and not just left to LGBT+ individuals. They must think about the language and imagery they use about God; LGBT+ dating and relationships need to be talked about just as straight relationships are; different types of families should be remembered in prayer and sermons and discussion should include references to LGBT+ lives as much as straight or cis lives.

My hope is that the church becomes a place of equal marriage, where all loving and committed relationships are respected and supported and where LGBT+ lives are recognised in the rites and symbols of the church. I long to see a church where people are not othered or excluded no matter what their gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, ethnicity, neurodiversity or cultural expression. My confidence in that vision often wavers, but the faith and strength of those I know in the church actively working to bring about this vision gives me hope, and I think we’ll get there… eventually.

  • This blog was inspired and influenced by Siobhan Garrigan (2009) Queer Worship, Theology & Sexuality, 15:2, 211-230.
  • If you’re interested in the theology of sexuality and gender, I recommend Adrian Thatcher, God, Sex and Gender: An Introduction (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
  • If you’re interested in finding an LGBTQ+ inclusive church, have a look at this list provided by the King’s Chaplaincy team – LGBT Churches in London

[1] Janet R. Watson, Feminist Liturgy: Its Tasks and Principles (The Liturgical Press, 2000), p. 33.

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