Your FACE Race Terms and Definitions Rundown
FACE RACE Teaching Resource. This companion page is one of many included in the FACE Race Handbook. More details here
Do we know our ‘white aware,’ from our ‘white saviourism,’ and white supremacy. Why ‘white,’ and not ‘White?’ Why ‘Black,’ and not ‘black?’ How does ‘equity,’ advance the ‘equality,’ conversation. For your terms and definitions run down see below.
Racism
"Racism is a marriage of racist policies and racist ideas that produces and normalises racial inequities…Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing."
Ibram X. Kendi (2019) How to be an Antiracist,
“Racism is a belief that Black people are inferior due to their skin colour and where that belief is baked into the fabric of society and systemised to create consistent favourable outcomes for some and consistent unfavourable outcomes for others”
Shereen Daniels (2022) The Anti-Racist Organisation. Dismantling Systemic Racism in the workplace’
“Racial categories were invented to enshrine the idea of white supremacy. They are the product of Eurocentrism and colonialism. To act in ways that reinforce their fixedness rather than undermine them is to continue to operate in the terrain mapped out by white supremacy.”
Emma Dabiri (2021) What White People Can Do Next”
Racial Prejudice
“In the 30 years between 1983 when the British Social Attitudes survey (BSA) was founded and 2013 when we last asked this question on BSA, the proportion of the public who described themselves as either ‘very’ or ‘a little’ racially prejudiced varied between a quarter and over a third of the population. It has never fallen below 25%. Given that racial prejudice is not generally perceived as a positive characteristic, there is good reason to assume that the actual proportion of the British public who are racially prejudiced may be higher”. NatCen and Runnymede Trust (2017)
Systemic Racism
‘The way our society and the institutions within it are structured and replicated, and the ways people act and interact within them (Daniels, S. 2022).
Often the terms systemic, structural, or institutional racism are used interchangeably. Systemic racism refers to the total of systems that form all of our policies and practices for example in society, government and education that result in unfair disadvantage and/or harmful practices of people in society. This practice has evolved over centuries of white supremacy practice, and normalised racist behaviours. Structural racism refers to the organisations or institutions that exist within systemic racism upholding and legitimising white supremacy. Race is a social construct.
Anti-racist
Acknowledging the permanence of racism in everyday life, workplace structures and cultural and social interaction by taking an active role in anti-racist work to support equitable opportunities for a variety of minoritised people. Doing the learning is simply the beginning. Accountability involves:
“Actively refusing complicity, naming what’s going on with the intention to subvert white authority and tell the truth at whatever cost.”
Otegha Uwagba (2020) Whites On Race and Other Falsehoods,
Anti-Blackness
The umbrella term ‘anti-Blackness’ covers racist challenge to systems and individuals on behalf of all races and ethnicities by recognising that Colourism penalises those with the deepest skin tones more harshly - as the awarding gap, for example, more negatively impacts students of African heritage. When we tackle the harshest of racist conduct at its source to benefit those experiencing the most prejudice, we make it better for everyone as these challenges then ripple outward to effect racist systems undermining everyone minoritised by their skin tone.
Race identity
Throughout conversation we reference identities in a variety of ways. The Handbook uses Black and/or Black and minoritised. Our use of caps for Black is deliberate as we are relaying culture, political identity, visibility and acknowledgement of oppression. Conversely we use white without capitalisation. We recognise the word white only as a skin tone descriptor that is not linked to racial trauma or to the culture of whiteness. We do not use BAME. This description is outdated.
Our whiteness as a knowledge deficit
“Those who were previously seen as the disadvantaged minority have developed a unique vision. A new combination of talents has emerged from the fertile ethnic exchange of cultures. Increasing numbers of Black people have this capacity to draw from and enrich both cultures whereas the reverse is impossible. The majority culture has never felt the need to educate itself fully nor enrich itself with anything other than the western ideal.”
Joe Casely-Hayford OBE (1994) i-D #124, January
We agree to educate ourselves whilst campaigning for greater recruitment of minoritised academics in permanent teaching and leadership positions in our institutions and increasing the presence of minoritised designers, artists, speakers, authors within our panels, presentations and events to bring different perspectives and representations able to counter white culture as the default example.
We agree to prioritise inclusive referencing and citations and to include a wider variety of contemporary source material. We agree to deliver equitable experiences that are relatable for all students.
Are we white aware?
Explained by Judy Ryde in White Privilege Unmasked (2019) ‘white aware’ means staging uncomfortable conversations to expose and explore white desire to seek ‘people like us’ to inhabit our workplace. Creating opportunities for intelligent open dialogue empowers us to recognise our bias.
Our white supremacy
An ideology, a paradigm, an institutional system and a world view we are born into by virtue of our white privilege. The historic and modern legislating, societal conditioning and systemic institutionalising of the construction of whiteness as inherently superior to people of other races.
Layla F Saad (2020) Me and White Supremacy
Our white saviourism
Condescension, an attempt to assuage one’s guilt, intervention devoid of collaboration and coalition and, but not limited to, the performance of benign allyship for self-serving or careerist reasons. Savourism is further colonialism or supremacy whilst sweeping all that has happened in our history and rewriting the script.
Layla F Saad (2020) Me and White Supremacy
Our white fragility/resistance
The work we are doing is tricky, challenging and uncomfortable. It will face resistance that might not be (in and of itself) malicious, but it will be unhelpful, if not outright prohibitive. The forms that resistance can take can be as obvious as they are insidious. And there is nuance, so for further information on how to recognise the many different forms of resistance you will encounter… Link to further reading here
Our white apathy
Through much psychological research, it’s now accepted science that we must experience feelings about something if we’re to take personally meaningful action on it. And without any compelling emotion to direct our behaviour - and apathy literally means “without feeling,” we are locked in disassociation. Empathy is required of white colleagues in recognition of long-term race trauma. Acknowledgement of potential triggers engendered by daily micro-aggressions is our starting point for an inclusive workplace culture.
Of course listening and empathising with a colleague or friend may naturally lead to discomfort and a sense of injustice. These feelings are healthy and necessary to provide motivation to act.
Unconscious bias as preservation of ignorance?
You will want to read The Science of Racism by Professor Keon West, when it comes out in January 2025, to unpack the over-used term: unconscious bias. It serves to preserve our innocence and we know you want to understand how. Yes we know - it’s simply too long to wait so here is a FACE taster explaining Keon’s thinking on this topic. (Keon is our friend and we have an early manuscript). The Science of Racism also includes a pre-order link.
Microaggressions
“More insidious than those moments of outright hostility, though, and maybe more powerful, are the constant, low-level reminders that you're different. Many of us feel different in some way, but it's really jarring when one of your differences is obvious at a glance—other people can tell you're different simply by looking at you . . . Even when you feel like you belong, other people's reactions - even stares and offhand remarks - can make you feel that you don't, startlingly often.”
Celest Ng (2014) ‘Everything I never told you’
Implicit race bias in the classroom
‘Both faculty and students have internalised cultural bias: “When someone’s opinions or decisions are distorted by factors that they are not even aware of,” Chatfield, T (2018). This needs to be discovered and openly discussed, giving all design students opportunity to better understand their position in the world and expand their thinking in ways that encompasses cross-cultural collaborations.
An excellent example of step-by-step approach with your students in art and design training is found in Diana Ashley Donaldson’s excellent work book – A Different Hue of Blue.
Tempering
The act of tempering takes place when women of colour; Black women in particular, yield to verbal and non-verbal pressures to fit into white dominant environments to find acceptance. Examples are softening ethnically gendered expressions, tone policing and reducing themselves for the comfort of colleagues and institutions.
Colloquial racist expression labels Black women who don’t temper as Angry Black Women. Here’s one FACE member’s experience "All I did was express frustration. Later I received an email telling me that my anger had made people in the conversation uncomfortable." Another FACE member explains “I simply made an announcement but it was unfairly reviewed as shouting, inferring a display of anger and aggression. This was not the case. It was just an announcement. Later I received a formal complaint.”
Why does white fragility and fear perceive this Black woman’s voice as disruptive and intimidating? Her friend has the answer “It’s your knowledge they find disruptive and your experience they find intimidating.”
Examples of discussions found amongst Black women.
"To survive in this institution, you need to be gentle"; "please ensure you ask the client if they are happy to work with you - because you are a Black woman"; "I would like to send you on a communication skills course so you can learn to speak in a non-directive way"; "we have had some complaints about your style, which is making some of our white women staff feel anxious and insecure."
Internalised racism
Defined by C. Jones (2000) as when the members of a marginalised race accept the negative stigmas about their own intrinsic worth or abilities. This form of racism is self-inflicted, often unconsciously, and stems from institutionalised racism and personally mediated racism causing a detrimental impact on an individual’s selfworth.
“I didn’t realise it until later just how many racist ideas I had internalised. I didn’t realise until later that internalised racism is the real Black-on-Black crime.”
Ibram X. Kendi (2019) How to be an Antiracist.
Awarding Gap
FACE documents use the description Awarding Gap where relevant. The onus should be placed on the institution and its actors to own evaluations that repeatedly bias Black and minoritised learners. Awarding deficits speak not of the minoritised student’s inability to achieve within an inequitable system but of the institution’s inability to address inequity.
Tokenism
Using ‘BIPOC as props or meaningless symbols to make it look like anti-racism is being practiced while continuing to maintain the status quo of white as the dominant norm is the practice of a performative approach that lacks any meaning or depth’
Layla F Saad (2020) Me and White Supremacy
bell hooks
Gloria Jean Watkins (1952-2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College, Kentucky US. Best known for her writings on race, feminism, and class, bell hooks used the lower-case spelling of her name to decentre herself and draw attention to her work instead.
Intersectionality part 1
Originally coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality recognises that people’s lives are shaped by their identities, relationships and social factors. These combine to create intersecting forms of privilege and oppression depending on a person’s context and existing power structures such as patriarchy, ableism, colonialism, imperialism, homophobia and racism. As a pioneer in critical race theory, Kimberlé Crenshaw helped open the discussion of the double bind faced by victims of simultaneous racial and gender prejudice.
“Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times that framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things.”
Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989)
Intersectionality part 2
It should be recognised in the discussions and practices for gender equality, that inclusivity protocol has not been inclusive of Black womens’ experiences, who are overlooked when all women are grouped together as one. It should be recognised explicitly that a Black woman’s experience in the workplace, as a student or in society is different to a white or Brown woman’s. Often when women’s needs are merged together under gender, the specifics and experiences pertaining to Black women go unacknowledged.
Race and beyond
To be Black and/or Female, Disabled, Working Class, Queer, Trans, Neuro-Divergent, is to be further minoritised. In all instances we can and must recognise potential for further discrimination or prejudice against individuals where multiple identities intersect. By way of example, systems of oppression that harm Disabled people arise when non-Disabled people feel it necessary to impose their world view on a situation or person, rather than seeking to understand the perspective of the Disabled person by asking their opinion or guidance. For example, 'Disabled' is not a bad word, always ask a Disabled person how they would like to be addressed.
A good place to start is addressing the social model of Disability, which can be found here
Equity
Equity requires that the understandable drive for parity or fairness is scrutinised against individual circumstances experienced by some within the group presenting greater need. Achieving the desired outcome of equality for all, means allocating the exact resources and opportunities for those burdened by systemic, social, economic and individual handicaps (the acknowledged impacts of racism and of course other impediments).
FACE invites universities to consider how they could embrace more advanced measures to effect a more radical EDI strategy to create urgent equitable and inclusive experience for staff and students.
This would include more detailed analysis and weighting of the demographics from staff surveys when analysing findings, making training compulsory for all staff in relation to EDI and unconscious bias in all teaching practice. Training would tackle more than behaviours and would detail accountable actions to monitor shifts in awarding gaps. This does not mean a culture of ‘policing’ but rather ensuring that equity is held up as a priority, avoiding ‘group’ labelling across descriptors and creating a more influential, accountable top down behaviour for change.
Learner Centredness
Gail Crimmins names the ‘Learner Centredness approach’ to address difference as the norm. Thus, rather than referring to a ‘deficit’ identity or situation, we work outwards from a set of skills and capabilities to create a more equitable experience. An example of this would be for universities to provide new opportunities for students to feel included through outreach, rather than expecting a student to fit into the existing norm. This together with equity initiatives, would demand having more detailed information from the outset that facilitates fully supported student learning, for an equitable experience.
Only once a university can be held accountable for the practices and actions it takes, will we see progress. (Crimmins, 2020)
Decolonising the curriculum
Decolonising has two key aspects in its meaning. First, it is a way of thinking about the world which takes colonialism, empire and racism as its empirical and discursive objects of study by resituating these concepts as key shaping forces of the contemporary world. Second, decolonising purports to offer alternative epistemologies and ways of thinking about the world (Bhambra, Gebrial and Nişancıoğlu, 2018). AdvanceHE (2021a) defined ‘decolonising’ as a transformative process that seeks to critique and reform structures that were built on a foundation of colonialism, racism and exclusion. (Sangha, J. 2023)
Decolonising education is not simply about the substitution of 'non'-Western knowledge for existing content which does not do justice to the alternative richness that you are introducing, instead it is about contextualising all global knowledge for the benefit of all students (Liyanage, 2020).
I use decolonisation purposefully with an understanding that it is about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life. Intellectual exercises to ‘decolonise’ curricula not only waylay from this objective but also ignore the fact that universities are colonial structures perpetuating anti-Indigenous racism”.
Dr Ben Barry, Dean of Parsons School of Fashion US (2021).
Safe spaces
Recording injustice requires participants to live through trauma and overcome fear. Therefore knowledge or truth seeking will always require a physical and psychological safe space. Ethical boundaries will be transparent with clear guidance on use of information and support for volunteer participants, accompanying the invitation to contribute (NASPA 2017).