Episoder
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In today's episode Simone reflects on the ageism and how it intersects with other systems of oppression inside and outside of the workplace. They draw on their experience working with clients, their personal experience and some studies and articles around the topic.
They begin with their definition of ageism as a system of inequality that impacts people who are either on the young or old sides of the age spectrum. They think about how people often think of older, elderly and ageing people when thinking about ageism but often donât include younger people who are also vulnerable and discriminated against and in the case of children and babies do not have rights or their own or autonomy.
They then bring in intersectionality to thinking about ageism and stress how age is very tied to gender and race and the ways these systems of oppression work. And they think about how ageism in the workplace is connected very strongly to ageism in personal life, and connected issues around a lack of autonomy. Issues that old and young people face have a lot of similarities, but because society glorifies youth many people donât consider the ways in which children lack rights and autonomy, and the ways young people are a vulnerable population.
They then look at the article Ageism and age discrimination by Sheldon Reid https://www.helpguide.org/aging/healthy-aging/ageism-and-age-discrimination
They have strong critique of the article: young people are not included and are told they have it easy, and it claims that ageism is considered more acceptable by society than other forms of discrimination. But they appreciate the articles categories of ageism:
Interpersonal: Which has a lot of relevance to the workplace, particularly when the ageism intersects with disability and neurodivergence. There are many ways to be dismissed from, or dismissed at, your job due to your age. Age can also factor into if you can get another job and so trap you in a work situation.
Self directed ageism: Internalised attitudes and beliefs, often overlapping deeply with attitudes to gender and sexuality and bodies
Institutional ageism: Social norms, practices, systems and rules are different for people who are older, and somehow this goes along with countries trying to raise retirement age. As we look at systems of oppression and institutions we also need to strongly consider class and race and gender.
They then consider a 2020 survey which found that 80% of older workers witnessed or experienced ageism, and stated that older women of colour face age, race and sex discrimination in their personal lives as well as face institutionalised disadvantages at work, in their housing, and in their healthcare.
Thinking about health they consider all the ways ageism exacerbates the effects of ageing in general, and the forms of ageism that are prevalent within healthcare and health research.
Then finish by looking at the article Age, Race And Gender Create A Triple Threat For Workplace Bias by Sheila Callaham: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sheilacallaham/2022/10/31/age-race-and-gender-create-a-triple-threat-of-workplace-bias/ which offers some ways to approach pushing back against ageism and the other systems it intersects with within workplaces.
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In today's episode Guilaine shares a personal statement that encapsulates her personal position, politics and solidarity around the genocide happening in Palestine, and then reflects and expands on that.
Her base position is that she stands in solidarity with Palestine from the wounded margin of Black liberation, but that she will not, and should not take the lead in this struggle. Particularly when there are current struggles against genocide and war in South Sudan and the DRC that are less public, and given the histories of colonial violence and anti-blackness for the Black African Diaspora.
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In today's episode Simone reflects on the experiences of people who go through pregnancy and birth whilst navigating and trying to balance that with employment.
They begin by with a note about why they are using more inclusive terms to cover this subject and some definitions of cisgender, transgender and intersectionality. And suggest we keep all of this in mind during the episode as most of the research talked about does not apply this kind of inclusivity.
They then discuss, with reference to a 2013 report from the Harvard Business School, the ways that race and work status affect judgement of mothers, acknowledging that mothers get a lot of personal judgment within society despite facing a lot of structural forms of inequality. They suggest that mothers should generally be understood as multiply marginalised people.
They talk about the "Motherhood penaltyâ relating this to their own lived experience. They cover some of the stereotypes that impact this judgment of mothers and how this relates to their treatment in the workplace. Mothers are judged as less competent and less committed than other applicants and employees and so are less likely to be hired or promoted. This relates to stereotypes from the gender binary such as women being nurturing and domestic.
They consider that the majority of studies of motherhood discrimination focus on how white mothers are treated in the workplace but obviously race plays a huge role in how Black mothers and other mothers of colour are treated. There are studies that suggest that Black mothers who donât work experience more prejudice than those who do work based on racist stereotypes of irresponsibility, whereas with white mums it is often seen as better and more responsible if they donât work. For example a study suggested that white families are more likely to receive loans if the mothers stay at home with the children, whereas Black and Latino families are more likely to be granted loans if the mother works outside the home. Then they think more about the race-based double standards between working and stay-at-home mums, and how divisions around who are âbetterâ mothers, and if mothers should work, play into patriarchy and white supremacy.
They then look at a more recent Time magazine piece about how the pay gap for working mums is a race issue and disproportionately impacts women of colour particularly Black women. This isnât about womenâs choices but about structural possibilities and foreclosures, and in particular a lack of institutional policies supporting them.
They conclude with the idea that for things to change there needs to be structural and cultural changes implemented within workplaces with an understanding of how these policies impact communities differently. For example paid family leave, men taking leave too, affordable childcare, flexible time, paid sick leave, and much more!
References:
Gender and Work: Challenging Conventional Wisdom https://www.hbs.edu/race-gender-equity/symposium/Pages/2013-symposium.aspx
Prescriptions and Punishments for Working Moms: How Race and Work Status Affect Judgments of Mothers by Amy Cuddy and Elizabeth Baily Wolf https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=50970
Mama, PhD: Women Write about Motherhood and Academic Life https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mama-PhD-Women-Motherhood-Academic/dp/0813543185
Why the Pay Gap for Working Moms Is a Race Issue Too by Jennifer Siebel Newsom https://time.com/5848269/moms-equal-pay-day/
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In today's episode following two queries on social media for her to do so, Guilaine reflects on the Police officer being found not guilty for the fatal shooting of Chris Kaba.
First she thinks about the reasons she was hesitant to talk about this subject, she hasnât read or studied the case in an in-depth way as she finds anti-Black police brutality particularly activating/triggering because of experiences witnessing it growing up. She can talk about the theory around it but to actually view and witness it is very difficult for her. From here she considers how our histories and our formative years influence our politics and the positions we adopt in relation to equality and oppression and how her childhood gave her an introduction to injustice and structural violence.
She reflects briefly on the trial and wonders about its validity and if the Police acted with proportionality but as she is not a firearms expert she cannot fully comment on this. However she has expertise on how institutions function when they have to defend against charges of institutional racism, so connecting the case to the workplace, she focuses on character assassination. And also points out that we are thinking about these issues in terms of morality and ethics rather than legality, because what is legal is not always what is moral or ethical.
She looks at how the press has reported on Chrisâ character. She thinks about how Black men are disproportionately assessed as posing a greater risk than other people, which we can see from various studies and data including ones looking at the Police force and mental health services.
Looking towards the workplace she discusses how people tend to utilise the most usable applicable tropes to reduce cognitive dissonance. In this case it was the trope of dangerousness. In employment when people want to justify exclusion usually if they are a woman they will be seen as difficult and if they are a man they will be seen as dangerous. She ends posing some questions to consider around these areas when thinking about the workplace, this legal case, and about society in general.
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In today's episode Simone reflects on autism, neurodivergence and racism in relation to work.
They begin by talking about how and why they decided to cover this topic, reflecting on how they are autistic and work supporting autistic people, and how autistic and neurodivergent people are often unable to remain in employment or are unceremoniously fired. How these stories are systemic but are often carried as individual shame.
They remind us that neurodivergent is an umbrella term, autism is part of this umbrella but that the terms shouldnât be used interchangeably. Then they explore a TikTok account by Professor Sol that summarises a variety of studies regarding autistic people: https://www.tiktok.com/@better_sol
They consider the statistics that only 16% of autistic people are employed. And that autistic employees face the biggest pay gap and are the most under employed group whilst being the most overqualified group of all disabled groups. Then they reflect on how in addition to this people who are not cisgender white men are often misdiagnosed/undiagnosed as not autistic because of the way that white autistic men are the stereotype associated with autism in the media and in general. They discuss how for multiply marginalised people self diagnosis and self advocacy is incredibly important and valid. And how the criteria developed and employed around autism is fed by white supremacy and white âwesternâ ideas, and how self diagnosis is a way of reclaiming experience.
Then they think about how racism, classism, sexism and other systems of oppression exacerbate autistic peopleâs difficulties in workplaces and with employment. How this contributes to autistic burnout and autistic shutdown and seriously effects people's health. They look at the study "Intersectional Stigma for Autistic People at Work: A Compound Adverse Impact Effect on Labor Force Participation and Experiences of Belonging https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36777372/
One of the things highlighted in this study is how little research exists about autistic people at work because the majority of autistic people donât work. They think about what âworkâ means within our current cultural moment and whether âworkâ works for any of us. The study found that white autistic people living in the global north are more likely to have jobs and to have jobs that are accommodating for autistic people, And that women, non binary and transgender people feel less included at work and that feeling that someone cares is more important than accommodations.
They conclude by talking about accommodations that can be made but also that there are larger systemic adjustments that need to be made, and that employers and workplaces need to be attuned to intersections of oppression, to be attuned to how autistic people are not to be cured, fixed or exploited. But that this is a tough conversation for autistic people to have because the stigma means that many people donât feel safe to be openly autistic in their workplaces.
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In today's episode Guilaine reflects on White Liberals, and on her past inclination to take people straightforwardly based on the words they write and the face they present to the world. She considers how experiencing the duality and complexity of people presenting as anti-racist publicly who in their personal interactions reveal themselves to be anti-black, has led to her trying to be more cautious about her tendency to trust people.
She thinks about her lived experience, widens it out to consider how people can understand and even agree with the theory but fail consciously or unconsciously to enact the practice. And she also ties this duality to her own experiences visiting the Congo.
She concludes by considering how this duality and complexity impacts the workplace and encourages people, particularly in relation to tribunals, to remember and consider this when addressing issues around race where for example a white person accused of race discrimination may be presenting as polite, reasonable and an outstanding member of the community.
The episode "Reflections on a trip to the Congo" is referenced in this podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/episodes/14947769
If you would like to send us a question, query or dilemma that we could reflect on and respond to on the show please email [email protected] or [email protected]
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In today's episode Simone reflects on the COVID 19 pandemic and how it intersects with racism and ableism. They begin by thinking about the Olympics in relation to a lack of COVID mitigations and how we need to have conversations about COVID and racism in relation to workplace inequality. How so many things are connected; with racism, xenophobia, classism and white supremacy at the root of it all.
They then consider the way that the first year of the pandemic played out in 2020, drawing on both their lived experience and the studies and data that we now have. Thinking about who could shelter and who could not, and especially how people of colour experienced what has been described as the duel pandemic.
They then look at the article "COVID and Racism Cause Nurses of Color to Face âDual Pandemicâ by Kitta MacPherson: https://www.rutgers.edu/news/covid-and-racism-cause-nurses-color-face-dual-pandemic which sites the study "Effects of Race, Workplace Racism, and COVID Worry on the Emotional Well-Being of Hospital-Based Nurses: A Dual Pandemicâ from Charlotte Thomas-Hawkins, Peijia Zha, Linda Flynn & Sakura Ando: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08964289.2021.1977605
They consider the pandemic happening in the context of the murder of George Floyd making it a very specific experience for Black people, and the anti-Asian racism that was exacerbated by the way the virus was being discussed making it a very specific experience for East-Asian people. And those racisms being seen in relation to communities of colour experiencing the highest rates of cases, deaths and hospitalisations, and nearly half of all health care workers with infections being among workers of colour, with nurses being the hardest hit.
Reflecting on anti-Asian racism they look at the article "Research: How Anti-Asian Racism Has Manifested at Work in the Pandemicâ by Jennifer Kim and Zhida Shang: https://hbr.org/2023/03/research-how-anti-asian-racism-has-manifested-at-work-in-the-pandemic
Then they reflect on workplaces currently within the ongoing pandemic: how this impacts disabled and at risk people, how employers and governments are failing to recognise this, how there are ways we could immediately make workplaces safer that are not being implemented. They consider the way the loses we have due to this are not just from death and disability, but also from workers and students quitting their workplaces and educational establishments, and the knowledge and experience we lose when this happens.
The episode ends by considering the way COVID has both harmed disabled people disproportionately and created more disabled people, and so going forward we need to include disabled people and attempt to mitigate dangers in our workplaces, and look after and support people if they do get sick.
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In today's episode Guilaine continues her reflections on relationships between Black people, continuing on from her thoughts in this episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/15451884
She addresses a question she has been answering for a long time and that keeps coming back: Should people of colour only receive therapy from therapists/analysts/psychologists/mental health professionals of colour.
She focuses on psychotherapy which is a very specific field of work, but asks a question that may be of interest or use to people of colour from all workplaces.
Three reasons why black therapists may wound their Black clients:
It is not enough to match people on their race aloneJust because someone has black skin doesnât mean they have done the professional work when it comes to training around racial trauma. (And a lot of training is designed and delivered by white people so this is also a structural issue.)Just because someone has black skin doesnât mean they have done the personal work around their relationship to whiteness, their heritage, their ancestry, intergenerational wounds, colonialism, etcâŠTwo more things to consider:
There are other skills that therapists may have that are not specifically related to racial trauma that will help people experiencing racial trauma such as anxiety management and other core skills.Itâs understandable why Black people might prefer Black therapists, primarily for reasons of safety and traumaHer conclusion is that everybody would benefit from having skills for working with people experiencing racial trauma, and all training institutions and providers should offer training in racial trauma that is thorough, and supports people to work with people who are experiencing racial trauma and race based injury regardless of their racialisation. And that often racism gets in the way of working therapeutically with people of colour.
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In today's episode Simone reflects on the relationships between racism, sexism (and other systems of oppression) and anti-fat bias. They begin by thinking about how the curves of peopleâs bodies are seen and understood through a very racist lens, and how pregnant people are seen as if their bodies belong to the public. Situating all of this within histories of White Supremacy and how these prejudices become bureaucratic elements of policy and are enforced systemically.
The rest of the episode is in conversation with the article "Weight based discrimination in the workplace is real. Hereâs why talking about it matters.â by Jordan Ziese: https://www.ywboston.org/weight-based-discrimination-in-the-workplace-is-real-heres-why-talking-about-it-matters/
They go over the various work, movements and resources that have existed around combating anti-fat bias and some of the big issues within this such as the pernicious influence of the debunked measurement system BMI, and studies that show that fat people are paid less and discriminated against in other ways within the workplace.
The episode ends with recommendations for employers in terms of how they deal with anti-fat bias in the workplace.
Here are some resources mentioned:
Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings https://nyupress.org/9781479886753/fearing-the-black-body/
Belly Of The Beast: The Politics Of Anti-Fatness As Anti-Blackness by Da'Shaun L. Harrison: https://www.pagesofhackney.co.uk/webshop/product/belly-of-the-beast-dashaun-harrison/
Maintenance Phase podcast: https://www.maintenancephase.com/
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In today's episode Guilaine reflects on a question that has come up in her personal conversations with siblings, how do you navigate tensions between Black people in the workplace that might be described as being related to internalised anti-blackness/negrophobia.
She thinks around the theory that surrounds these concepts, considers how many of the concepts we have explored on the podcast as being primarily being perpetrated by non black people can also be enacted by people racialised as Black. She considers the reasons why this topic can be controversial and why it is often not addressed or named.
She then discusses some observations from her experience within group analysis during the high level of racial tension that came with the murder of Gorge Floyd. In addition to all the other theory and explanations for these tensions she encourages us to think with complexity and multiplicity about the function these tensions have within groups and institutions, how these conflicts serve power hierarchies That conflict can be a gladiatorial entertainment and distraction, and that conflict can be a displaced version of tensions with the people at the top of the organisation that cannot be targeted safely, and that those people in positions of power are always implicated when there is tension within their teams.
This episode touches on many issues previously covered in podcast episodes such as these:
Black Authority in the Workplace: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8252930
Envy: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8728416
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In today's episode Guilaine responds to, and reflects on, a dilemma from a listener who is a Black woman dealing with the way that workplaces tend to view her as overqualified, is having difficulty navigating these dynamics, has ended up moving from job to job, and increasingly feels the need to hide her knowledge and experience.
Guilaine thinks through the issues around this problem, keeping it general because she doesnât have the full information and also wants to keep the listener anonymised. She goes over the questions she would ask in group analysis or in one on one coaching or therapy. And considers some of the issues previously covered in podcast episodes such as these:
Envy: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8728416
Location of Disturbance and Scapegoating: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8127268
Black Authority in the Workplace: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8252930
Racial Trauma at Work: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8033907
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In today's episode Guilaine reflects on extraction, the process of which touches on ancestral vulnerability, blackness, colonial dialectics and coloniality in the workplace and generally racialised dynamics, and echoes her recent trip to the Congo.
She offers an aside on how plagiarism as an accusation can be weaponised and racialised against people of colour, particularly women of colour and Black women in particular; and how they can be on one hand mined quite heavily by institutions and by society at large, and on the other hand they tend to be the most vulnerable when it comes to those kinds of accusations.
But she then focuses on examples of extraction she has experienced recently, looking at some of the reasons she has altered her use of social media and the phenomena of high earners approaching Race Reflections to be considered for the low income courses we have offered for our recent certificate. And she considers the response of some people to her sharing an article "Racial trauma as bodily archive: The Griot & The Nzonziâ freely to wider community for 48 hours, but after that making it membership only. She was asked not just to make it permanently freely accessible but was also asked to send people files of the article for their use for free.
She then thinks about extraction in the workplace and considers some ways to navigate and mitigate these issues.
This podcast brings together many strands from other podcasts for example:
Introduction to the certificate in working with racial trauma and race based injuries using the foundation of group analysis: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/15148619-introduction-to-the-certificate-in-working-with-racial-trauma-and-race-based-injuries-using-the-foundation-of-group-analysis.mp3
Social Media Policy Change: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/15059341-social-media-policy-change.mp3
Reflections on a trip to the Congo: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/14947769-reflections-on-a-trip-to-the-congo.mp3
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In this re-released episode first published on 3rd May 2021, Guilaine considers the influence of the past on the present by exploring the concept of transference, what it means and how it might manifest in the workplace. This episode is all about making present-past links to better make sense of conflicts, tensions and race-based difficulties at work.
Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected]
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In today's episode Guilaine reflects on the upcoming new course: the certificate in working with racial trauma and race based injuries using the foundation of group analysis. And in particular she focuses some attention on the large group that is going to be focused on Whiteness at Work.
She starts by describing the focus of the course. It is the first in-depth course on racial trauma in the UK, unlike the other courses it is a year long rather than a few days. Itâs an online, group based course that looks at racial trauma critically, holistically, in the main using the foundation of group analysis, psychoanalysis, psychology and neuroscience, but also seeking to attempt to interrogate the thinking and colonial logics that lie within these disciplines. Itâs a course for everyone but particularly people who are placed in positions to help, support and manage people who are racialised as black and brown and who are experiencing race based issues, and who may be dealing with race based distress and/or racial trauma.
Then she gives some background in why she is running the course. Itâs the outcome of professional and traditional doctoral studies, years of research around racial trauma as well as thinking about where we are in the world socio-politically in terms of global insecurity and racial retraumatisation, all of which resulted in Guilaine going being called from an African ontological and cosmological perspective to to create this course.
She then discusses the content of the course in general and focuses on the large group that looks at whiteness at work. The group on whiteness is a core component of the certificate, by whiteness we mean the operationalisation of the structure of White Supremacy, the stratification of life based on racialisation. The aim of the group is to create a space to come together as a community to think about whiteness and share and speak about what they experience. It will meet monthly online and will focus on the dynamics at play and how to resist them.
She concludes by considering that the bulk of harm she has seen in her clinical work has been acquired within the workplace and how this means it is essential for people within the workplace to understand these patterns. She is offering the experience of being in a large group to people wanting to pursue group analysis as a therapeutic discipline but more than that a large group is likely to repeat and recreate some of the dynamics at play out within institutions and society. So itâs very useful and insightful for exploring these issues in a more contained and better held environment.
Interested in the course? More information can be found here: https://racereflections.co.uk/certificate-in-working-with-racial-trauma-and-race-based-injuries-using-the-foundation-of-group-analysis-fee-page/
and an opportunity to reserve a place can be found here: https://racereflections.co.uk/events/open-day-certificate-in-working-with-racial-trauma-and-race-based-injuries-using-the-foundation-of-group-analysis/
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To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected] -
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on her relationship with social media. The way she has used social media in the past and transition she is making in how she uses it going forward, and the reasons she is changing how she uses Twitter (or X).
She gives some context about what social media has meant for both her and for Race Reflections. She thinks about how Race Reflections began as a blogging venture that was heavily influenced and developed by her writing being shared on social media. It allowed for a direct way to engage with communities and with the wider public and to improve her craft. This led to opportunities that resulted in peer reviewed publications, book contracts, conference invites and more consultancy work. There is no way that Race Reflections would be what it is today without social media. It gives or at least gave a space where radical thinking and marginalised groups could connect and find community, audiences and collaborators.
Then she considers how over the years her experience of social media has changed, and challenges around others using her intellectual property without consent or plagiarising her content have become more common, she wonders if people see content shared on social media is to be less respected, particularly when shared by a Black woman. And by this point the balance between the advantages and disadvantages of using social media in this way have changed. This is related in part to peoples attitude to online content, partly due to the social and political climate we are currently within and also due to the change of leadership within this particular platform.
She thinks about the different strands of herself and her thinking that she used to share on her personal account, her Race Reflections focused work, her commentary on news, politics and social events, and her personal experiences moving through the world as a Black woman. She argues for the value of showing your whole self and being open about your process of trying to learn about and make sense of the world. For people to connect to your ideas, particularly when those ideas are challenging you need to allow your readers to connect to you. If you want people to be open and vulnerable and transparent and compassionate you need to embody this in your work and practice. This is the liberatory case for this approach. But this needs to be balanced against avoiding self-sacrifice, to guard against necropolitics, the politics of the masters and of colonialism, that expect you to be extracted from and for your life to not be valued. And she thinks about this in this present context of multiple genocides and patriarchal whitelash. So this change of approach is not just related to protecting her work but also to prioritising safety.
She ends by talking about the vulnerabilities that people carry and that she carries and that thinking about this during her recent trip to the Congo helped to clarify all of this and to see that to embody her politics she needs to also protect herself and respect her vulnerabilities and find new ways to be safe and sustainable.
Previous episode: Social Media https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/11029464Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected] -
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on her recent trip to the Congo. This topic was asked for when she polled people on twitter/x to find out what they wanted her to speak on for this episode.
She begins with some context, first for her and then for the country and region in general. Covering how she was born in Bastille and grew up in inner city Paris and is of Congolese descent, specifically descending from Congo-Brazzaville. She then gives a brief overview of the history of colonialism, slavery, war and genocide experienced by Congo-Brazzaville and The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Then she talks about her experience there, being confronted by this paradox of death and life, beauty and horror, poverty and people thriving, learning more about the colonial atrocities that were committed but also at the same time being exposed to the pure beauty of the landscapes. She explores the complexity of these powerful dualities and contradictions, the paradox of life and death almost intertwined and dancing, the invitation to ask how do we hold these dualities at the same time, remembering the pain of the past but imagining alternative futures, the abundance and wealth of nature contrasted with the poverty of neocolonialism. It invites you to be deeply reflective about the possibility of life.
She finishes by thinking about her writing and research around trauma and transference and how when talking to people on her travels and looking into cosmologies and autologies of the region she realised that a lot of what she had been writing corresponded with the thinking and cosmologies of this land. And so brings her back to her question of âwhat we know without knowing?â And to issues of ancestral communication and memory and how echoes form between generations, particularly within the African diaspora, particularly when it comes to issues of thinking about African consciousness in the context of Black suffering, and thinking about all of this within the Kikongo frame, Kikongo being the language, people and culture of the Congo.
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To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected] -
In this re-released episode first published on 15th March 2021, Guilaine reflects on why institutions often turn on those who allege racism. She considers some of the group processes at play using as illustration the treatment of Meghan Markle and responses from that interview. Location of disturbance and scapegoating are presented as frames to formulate victimisation and retaliation within institutions.
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To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected]
Transcript: https://racereflections.co.uk/at-work-the-podcast/ -
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on consent, in relation to her research on whiteness, her lived experience, and the implications of this issue within the workplace
She begins with a basic definition of consent, then she details some experiences related to going out dancing that she recently experienced, and links them to the wider issues that her research explores. Part of the theme that has come up again and again in her data is patients talking about experience of whiteness in the clinic where therapists appear to be breaching boundaries, oversharing, dismissing experiences of racism, using gaslighting tactics, and engaging in the politics of denialism. She links all this to her concept of epistemic homeless and names these behaviours as acts of occupying the epistemic space of the other.She considers how trauma is generally centered on some kind breach of boundary and how whiteness can be seen as colonial violence performed through spacial embodiment, that breaches of consent are the colonial enactment of whiteness, and that white supremacy is founded on breaching the boundaries, borders, and sovereignty of the other - bodily, territorial, psychic - and so in the everyday quotidian enactment of white violence we are going to see some repetition and reproduction of those wider politics
She then concludes by thinking about the workplace and how the coloniality of interpersonal relationships, especially cross racial interpersonal relationships, is enacted in relation to the consent of employees of colour.
Some links:
Epistemic homelessness:
https://mediadiversified.org/2017/11/24/epistemic-homelessness-feeling-like-a-stranger-in-a-familiar-land/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoKBLPbkB5I
Envy: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8728416
Location of disturbance: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8127268
White Minds: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/white-minds
Living While Black: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442992/living-while-black-by-kinouani-guilaine/9781529109436
Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected]
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In today's episode Guilaine reflects around a listeners query asking "how do we get mangers to understand how biased they are when it comes to the feedback that they give to employees of colour."
After briefly questioning the terminology of bias and unconscious bias, she looks at the evidence from organisational psychology, considering how empirical evidence shows that marginalised employees tend to receive poorer quality feedback. Even though the research isnât always intersectional what exists demonstrates the intersectional effect that takes place when axis of oppression and identity collide. This feedback tends to be lower quality: less precise, more global, less frequent, and there tends to be a lot of anxiety around the exercise of providing feedback
She consider aversive racism where employers withhold negative feedback to avoid accusations of racism, but in act of withholding feedback deprive the employee of the opportunity to correct and to improve, and so sometimes to not be able to pass their probation periods or acquire skills and experience that would offer the opportunity for progression within their work. Basically in this dynamic employees of colour and other marginalised groups are set to fail.
She reflects on how a high percentage of disputes that end up in employment tribunals are related to evaluation or discipline, and that the provision of effective feedback is central and essential to fair and just treatment in the workplace.
She spends some time talking about what employers racialised as white need to work on in regards to their anxiety and phobia around Blackness, considering what Fanon has said on these issues and the wider context of racist violence and exclusion, reflecting on how these conflicts are a liability for institutions when they are found lacking, and more frequently for black and brown individuals when they are not.
She then gives some thought to what can be done to correct these issues.
That whilst itâs worth making sure to avoiding it becoming self-fulfilling situation, most of the time people's instincts based on their lived experience are astute and accurate/ We need to correct the misconception that people are misinterpreting the situations, marginalised people in general interpret things on balance correctly. So instead we need to take seriously these feelings and instincts and come up with strategies to mitigate and navigate these situations. Ultimately though it is really for employers and people racialised as white to address their issues around giving feedback because it isnât something employees of colour can change alone.
Further listening:
Aversive Racism: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8346383
Thinking about feeling, feeling about thinking: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/14041582
Further reading:
White Minds: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/white-minds
Living While Black: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442992/living-while-black-by-kinouani-guilaine/9781529109436
Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected]
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In today's episode Guilaine reflects on the phenomenon and social dynamic of what has been called whitelash, a combination of white/whiteness and backlash.
The term was coined by African-American journalist Van Jones to describe the backlash of White America coming together to reject what had been seen as a liberalisation of the USA under Obama. And in a more general sense it describes the sense of grievance, the sense of anger, the sense of frustration that originates from people racialised as White that comes from an often misconstrued and misconceived sense of displacement and social change which is a reaction to a perception that social advancements are being made in terms of equality. This is a concept and area that is expanded on in Guilaineâs second book White Minds.
After defining and exploring the concept she then considers it within the terms of group analytic thinking, theory and practice, and looks the relationship between the socio-political and the ways that institutions, organisations and individuals relate and interact, focusing on the workplace.
She considers the whitelash that we are currently experiencing almost 4 years after the murder of George Floyd galvanised institutions to make commitments and how those words and sometimes actions are now being pushed back against very strongly. And how this whitelash is also being felt across many intersections and identities.
She then shares some observations from her experience of delivering work related DEI training and looks at the affect of whitelash on Race Reflections as both an organisation and as a business.
White Minds is available to buy here: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/white-minds
Van Jones on whitelash: https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/11/9/13572182/van-jones-cnn-trump-election-2016
Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email [email protected]
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