In the summer of 2015 I took part in an undergraduate research project with Emma Flint on ‘Unconscious Bias, Curriculum Design and Assessment’ and what I found saddened me. From this research not only did I find out that racism has evolved into more subtle forms but that racism has become institutionalised. Throughout the education system there is a bias which persists even at university level. At
Universities across the country there is an ethnic attainment gap and the University of Birmingham is no different. This is shocking considering students enter University with similar grades and particularly so at the top universities where entry grades and competition for places are high. How many times have you heard comments such as ‘You speak gooood English,’ ‘She’s black so she’s always late,’ ‘You’re not like the rest of those Asians,’ ‘Do you speak African?’ ‘Your eyes are so big for an Asian,’ ‘Do you need saving from a forced marriage to your… cousin’? These are not only offensive and inappropriate but also demonstrate misunderstandings of other ethnicities and cultures or in some cases downright ignorance. This persists in the media, in the things we watch and in the things we read. It persists in our curriculum, our artwork and in our music. Racism has permeated every aspect of our lives and we have all become so accustomed to it, we no longer see it with some going as far as believing that racism is no longer a problem. This magazine helps to break down those walls we have all created to blind ourselves to the institutional racism and the cultural barriers that exists at university. It does this by creating a platform for students to share their experiences, to share their culture, to show that the pigmentation of one’s skin should not be an indicator of the worth of a person. It offers advice in careers, gives a different outlook to life in Africa, the Carribeans, South and East Asia, Middle East and many more places and reveals to you that your skin colour doesn’t pre-dictate what you can do in your life by interviewing those who have already made it despite the ‘ethnic’ ceiling one faces. Beyond My Ethnicity looks beyond culture, beyond skin colour and Beyond the Stereotypes.
