Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
Also, we were taught in sensitivity training not to ask students that at all. Seems our uni is ahead of the Palace on that one.
cringe

Sounds like the whole, "I don't see race," nonsense that I used to say myself, without realizing that denying a person their culture, history, and current social situation is still racist. Pretending racism doesn't exist still marginalizes their identity.

I mean, sure... if you are an accidental racist (this is far more common than intentional racism, mind), and you're not aware of it, then prob. you're very likely to accidentally offend someone - in this case, a student. From the administration's POV, that's the cheapest and easiest way of not dealing with this problem. Blame the accident as intent and end any learning or conversation about it. Definitely end any discussion before someone asks what's a better way to respect the student, in which case, you risk being accused over an accident in the same way.


It'd be better if we learn from each other. It'd be better if we see each other and understand the nuances that we didn't see before. It'd be better if everyone took a deep breath and apologized for any mistaken offense and admitted they need to learn how to be more empathetic in those situations. It'd be better if we could stop treating all racism as intent, and realize that people make mistakes, sometimes hurtful mistakes, and that doesn't mean they meant any harm at all.

It's far too easy for the media in the US to absolutely shield white people from black culture. It's far too easy for white people to have only a bastardized media bias providing them information about black lives. I really don't think it's fair to excuse people from accidental racism, but I also don't think it's on nearly the same level as intentional racism. If you've been lied to your whole life, and you believe even some of those lies, then that's a problem... but it's not an intent to devalue another person, it's being brainwashed into not seeing the other person's reality.