Blog Task Three – Race

• Shades of Noir –  “In Conversation with Khaleb Brooks: Exploring Blackness, Transness and Collective Memory” by Jess Wan

I read the interview “In Conversation with Khaleb Brooks: Exploring Blackness, Transness and Collective Memory” by Jess Wan. Brooks communicates beautifully the complicated structures at play when we deal with our own sense of identity. They struggle with the use of identity as means to succeed in the world form a particular perspective, since the identity one needs to wear can at times be prescribed for them.  

“For all of us, especially the millennial generation, we exist in these digital spaces where we have to present ourselves in a way to attain success. And it’s almost like what boxes do I check? When thinking about myself as a black trans person, it’s not just about success, but about positioning my identity as a means of survival…”

“…this work was about shifting that gaze and allowing myself to not exist in this space of projected performativity and understand vulnerability as a radical act.”

The story of the design of one’s identity is always set against the authenticity of lived experience. One being socially assigned to a person or to one’s self, another being the storytelling through prescribed signifiers or singular experiences.  

“I never thought being an artist was possible because I didn’t see that representation happening.”

Representation is a key part of this experience; Brooks talks of observing a world in which they never see ‘themselves’ and so block that possibility in their thinking. This made me think of how such small experiences of seeing someone ‘like you’ in any position already creates a space of possibility, or impossibility through the absence of this presence. 

“Recognising individual struggles during migration instead of those news headlines of 10,000 Africans drowning in the Mediterranean Sea is a step forward to decolonisation.”

The humanising effect of individuality. As often has happened in these blogposts, the overarching theme of storytelling emerges. The power of the story of the individual and how it connects to shared struggles is where the humanising occurs, not in the collective group, but in how we each relate to this group from our own perspectives.  

 “I really, really hope we can move away from digital spaces and focus on building a community around us to find healing and to understand ourselves, our identities and how they mesh and the dynamics that are created between them.”

• “A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment”

“arguments maintain that if an intergroup encounter is superficial, the interaction will at best be problematic and at worst will leave the two groups in a state of poorer relations than before the contact took place, thus perpetuating the status quo of power relations between the groups such that the subordinate group prior to the interaction will have its subordinateness reinforced (Amir 1969; Jackson 1993)”

Hahn Tapper, exploring the ‘contact hypothesis’ in relation to power dynamics and the pitfalls of such group exercises, made me think about the difference of the approaches through individual identity and social identities. Looking inward and looking outward. In thinking about the power dynamics of a group I had not considered this difference and how powerful this way of looking together can be. To observe social identities together is a space where there is an outer, shared space, to observe being part of. Individual identity is a much more potentially isolating direction of observation. This made me reflect on my earlier post in relation to the mode of storytelling for the individual. Do we tell our stories of ourselves through the lens of social identities, or without? Is this even possible?

“individuals have group identities that they choose, as well as group identities that are imposed on them. People-to-people interactions exist within this context. In fact, says SIT, participants’ behaviour is shaped more by their collective identities than personal identities.”

• Ted Talk “Witness Unconscious Bias”

Similarly to how Professor Shirley Ann Tate explored the nature of ‘unconscious bias’, Josephine Kwhali repositions the term in this video as an excuse for behaviour rather than a solution or process to examine oppression. The term is so very problematic as it fixes a position of naivety in such a way that a learning or changing process is deemed not possible by definition. Naivety may have been existent, and this was a problem, but the discomfort with the term exhibited by Kwhali is so justified considering where and when we are. The fact that this term is still used in training programmes in workplaces shows what a failure it has been as a concept, excusing behaviour rather than calling it out. 

• “Retention and Attainment in the Disciplines: Art and Design”

“Art and Design is one of the disciplines with the highest percentages of students leaving with no award (6%) with a disproportionate difference between White students (6%) and Black student groups (Black British Caribbean 9%, Black or Black British African 13%, other Black backgrounds 10%)”

“Certain kinds of art can only be decoded, and appreciated by those who have been taught how to decode them (Bourdieu, 1984). The cultural capital of the working classes, and certain ethnic groups, is devalued and delegitimised (Bourdieu, 1984). (Burke and Mcmanus 2012, p. 21)”

These two points led me to consider how the environment of the student cohort itself could contribute to students feeling lost or not welcome in the first instance.  

My provocation or question based on these two revelations is, could there not be more measures put in place in the designing of our cohorts so as to create a welcoming environment for all who may wish to gain access. Considering that the vast majority of students accepted onto courses are white and from the ‘middle-class’, representation within the cohort will be less diverse and dynamic no matter what is reflected in staffing. Since Brexit, the ‘international’ reflection of the student cohort has become even less diverse, with fewer numbers arriving from Europe. But there is a pre-existing problem in admissions as they are utilizing the appreciation of potential in prospective students through a lens of decoding embroiled in the precedent of the canon. This means that prospective ‘working class’ students are still disadvantaged in this process. Could there not be a quota or cap put in place in admissions, in terms of educational background, to guarantee a percentage of non-privately educated students?      

• Terms of Reference – Shades of Noir – “To White Academia” by Tiffany Webster

I read the article “To White Academia” by Tiffany Webster and thought about the reflection of the writer on the possible identity of the interviewee. This led me to consider the relevance of anonymity within the context of the confessional approach of the interview. The ‘confession’ as a construct has been something I have thought about a lot throughout this module. At times a confession is what seems to be required; an admission of complicity at least. Would the performance of the interviewee have been different if their identity was known? Perhaps more political? Does confessing to complicity or worse unburden the confessor of their sins? 

These are potentially questions of personal identity construction through storytelling devices. The confessional is one such device, and an interesting one in relation to anonymity. Is the performance of confession rendered inevitably political if the identity of the confessor is known?