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Ok... where do we start? This is a university that has an annual "Africa" themed ball called Bongo Ball where the rich white students that attend have worn loin cloths, monkey suits and black face. When I told the team they needed to scrap this they refused. This is a... https://twitter.com/univofstandrews/status/1267735525689090049
university where more than one person told me I was the first black person they'd met having never spoken to them before. Where one of my first conversations was a student called Henry (lol) telling me he thought "Africa should be recolonised because the British sort things out"
As the BAME officer, I challenged the then Principal, Louise Richardson over the lack of representation among the staff and student body and asked her what her plan to change this was. She didn't have one. She's now heading Oxford.
Another time I was walking to my friend's house for lunch and another student was walking down the road in blackface at 2pm. When I challenged him, he said he was dressed as a Somali pirate as if that made it ok.
I never had a black lecturer and the only lecturer of colour I had gave me a book called Looking White People in the Eye, clearly distressed by their own lack of access to community.
I was desperate to come to London after being in this institution. And when I arrived, I felt a weight had been lifted. An existential weight. And I could finally breathe.
The official student newspaper published a series of racist travelogues by a student traveling across "Africa". It included quotes like the below:
“I flew out from Heathrow Airport in the knowledge that I would be spending much of the next two months on a bicycle in a land (as my Father put it), where everyone wants to harm or at least rob you.”
“I myself had little concerns, spending nights dreaming of only glorious things such as beautiful landscapes, sitting around fires, singing, dancing with indigenous peoples, and even killing a lion.”
They only took these down when I challenged them. They never apologised.
They only took these down when I challenged them. They never apologised.
I was also approached and asked to play Caliban, Prospero's slave, in The Tempest without auditioning or expressing an interest in doing so.
Racism is widespread in these "elite" universities. I spent about 5 hours at @UniofOxford working at a ball. In that time an American shouted "on with the confederacy" at me and another person asked if my n***er boss wasn't letting me sell them alcohol before hitting on me.
Lots of these people have never had meaningful interactions with black people. They go on to run the country.
This is just some of the racism I've experienced in education and I know people who have experienced far worse. This isn't about one institution, it's systemic and it's everywhere. Nowhere is immune. While you're here please donate to Belly Mujinga's family. Link below.
UPDATE: The Senior Communications Manager @univofstandrews emailed me to apologise and outline their plans. They copied and pasted bits of the email they sent to me to respond to the Daily Mail. But the Principal has never been in touch and she is not meeting with students.
