When I first read the UAL anti-racism action plan, especially the bit that says “increase representation of BAME academic staff by 15%” and “by 50% at Grade 7” (UAL, 2021), I didn’t feel reassured. I felt anxious. I started to question myself: Was I employed because I’m good at what I do, or was it to help the numbers look better? I support the idea of equity and increasing representation, of course I do, but this way of framing it made me feel like a statistic, not a person.
Asif Sadiq’s TED Talk (2023) put words to something I’d been struggling to explain. He says, “It’s easy to count people, but it’s hard to make people count.” That really hit home. Sometimes inclusion feels more like performance, something that looks good on paper, but doesn’t actually shift who is being listened to or who feels like they belong. It reminded me of another point he made, about how all the case studies and resources he saw while studying business were about the successful people who didn’t look like him. That example stayed with me. It mirrors what I sometimes feel in my own academic journey, like I’m not the person these spaces were originally built for.
Bradbury (2020) deepens this point using Critical Race Theory. She explains how policy, even when it claims to be neutral, often centres whiteness as the default. She writes that “representation is necessary but not sufficient” and argues that without shifting power, policies risk turning people of colour into symbols of institutional success instead of truly including them. That resonated. Sometimes being visible feels like being under a spotlight rather than being supported.
On Monday, in our group discussion in the workshop 3, we spoke about this too. We questioned where these percentages in the action plan came from, and who decides them. We also talked about the way data is collected, how we’re not always told why our identity data is being used, or how. That can feel invasive and a bit performative, especially when you’re not sure if it’s helping or just another tick box. We also questioned the term “BAME”—how it groups so many different people together and ends up creating a binary between “white” and “everyone else.”
I’m not saying the action plan is bad. It’s a step. But if we want real change, the approach has to go deeper. Garrett (2024) talks about how racialised PhD students often can’t picture a future in academia because the system hasn’t shown them one. That really stayed with me, because representation on paper doesn’t always translate into real support, real listening, or a real sense of belonging.
One thing our group suggested was making data collection more transparent, clearly explaining how it’s used, and why, and building it into a two-way conversation. Because anti-racism shouldn’t feel like something happening to us—it should feel like something we’re actively shaping together.
Reference:
Bradbury, A., 2020. A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: The case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England. Race Ethnicity and Education, 23(2), pp.241–260.
Garrett, R., 2024. Racism shapes careers: Career trajectories and imagined futures of racialised minority PhDs in UK higher education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, pp.1–15.
Sadiq, A., 2023. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Learning how to get it right. TEDx Talks , 2 March. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4wz1b54hw [Accessed 4 June 2025].
University of the Arts London (UAL), 2021. UAL Anti-racism Action Plan Summary. London: UAL.
What an interesting read. I don’t know how you manage to pack so much into these short blogs. You start with a reflection on UAL’s antiracism plan and how the bald statistics make you feel anxious rather than reassured. That’s the problem with statistics. It’s often difficult to attribute the intent behind the numbers. Your group’s solutions on the use of statistics, how numbers are arrived at and how data is collected was a discussion we had in my group as well; as was the use of the term BAME. We also concluded it was a pretty meaningless category as the term covers such a wide spectrum.
There is so much more to be done to make institutions more inclusive. We talked about HR policies and practices. Who even gets through the door! As you evidence, CRT discourses and lens have provided us with ample evidence that racism persists in education. In staff and student representation and in teaching practice and policy. Action is needed, not words and numbers.
Hi, Frances,
Apologies for the late reply, and thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, I really appreciate it.
I’m glad you also had similar discussions in your group around data and terminology. It’s reassuring (and a little frustrating) to hear how many of us are questioning the same things, especially around how institutions use numbers to signal progress, while real systemic change often lags behind.
You’re so right about the ambiguity of statistics — they might tell us what is happening, but not why or how it feels to those affected. That gap between data and lived experience is something I find myself sitting with more and more. And yes, “BAME” is such a flattening category! It hides more than it reveals. I’m starting to think that how we count is just as political as what we count.
I really appreciated your point about HR too — “who even gets through the door” is such a powerful question. There’s so much more to unpack.
Hi Rebekah, I really appreciated your critical reflection—particularly your questioning of the term “BAME.” I’ve also found this term increasingly problematic, especially in how it homogenises vastly different racialised experiences and creates a reductive binary between “white” and “everyone else.” You might find Paul Warmington’s (2020) article “Not BAME, POC or BIPOC: Ending the use of catch-all terms for racialised people” really insightful. He critiques these umbrella labels for flattening difference and masking specific forms of oppression. Instead, he argues for naming groups with specificity—Black, South Asian, East Asian, etc.—so we can better acknowledge the nuanced realities each community faces. It’s a great piece if you’re interested in exploring alternatives that centre accuracy and equity in language.
If you prefer listening over reading, I’d also recommend an episode of The Identity Politics Podcast titled “Why BAME is a Problematic Term” (2021), which explores similar critiques and offers useful perspectives.
Reference Warmington, P. (2020) ‘Not BAME, POC or BIPOC: Ending the use of catch-all terms for racialised people’. Discover Society. Available at: https://archive.discoversociety.org/2020/07/01/not-bame-poc-or-bipoc-ending-the-use-of-catch-all-terms-for-racialised-people/ (Accessed: 14 July 2025).
The Identity Politics Podcast (2021) ‘Why BAME is a Problematic Term’, Episode 15. Available at: https://identitypoliticspodcast.com/episode-15 (Accessed: 14 July 2025).
Hi Monika,
Thank you so much for this thoughtful comment and for sharing those resources . I’ve bookmarked both that and the podcast episode. I resonate with the critique of “BAME” as an umbrella term that simplifies such a wide range of lived experiences. As you said, it creates this unhelpful binary between “white” and “everyone else,” and in doing so, erases the very differences that anti-racist work needs to centre.
I’ve started thinking more about how these catch-all terms can actually perpetuate the harm they’re intended to challenge, especially when institutions use them to measure progress without engaging with the underlying complexity. Your suggestion to name groups with specificity feels so important. It’s not just about language; it’s about visibility and accountability.
Thanks again for helping me take this reflection further. I’d love to hear more in class about how you’re navigating this in your own practice too!
Hi Rebekah,
I’m sorry to read that you felt anxious and contemplated whether you were employed to help with diversity numbers. I reflect on when I applied for my role. I actually wondered whether my standing as a white english male would disadvantage me as I would skew the statistics unhelpfully – although, quickly reframed this thinking to realise that the privilege afforded to me made it much easier to attend the interview and get through the application process in the first place.
I wonder when you reflect back on the application process whether you found the experience was built to advantage or disadvantage you in any way? I remember in preparation reading about how the questions were fairly standardised at UAL, and how interviewers should be helping you to answer questions – although I am not sure if I noticed this much in practice.
Your reflections on how the space you work in can make you feel that even whilst you are at the university, it gives a feeling that it wasn’t design for your belonging made me reflect on a paper by Bayeck (2022), linked below. It’s core point is that feelings of an outsider/insider changes based on the space you are in, where the definition of space is not just the location but also the group interactions that occur within in. Your description on Bradbury (2020) I think resonates with this discussion. I thus hope to follow up on my understanding of Critical Race Theory further when I can find the time!
Paper link: Bayeck, R.Y. (2022) ‘Positionality: The Interplay of Space, Context and Identity’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 21, p. 16094069221114745. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221114745.
All the best,
Corey
Hi Corey,
Thank you for such an open and thoughtful response. I think this kind of self-awareness is really powerful, and it also models the kind of thinking we’re hoping to bring into our institutions more broadly.
I don’t think the application process itself was designed to disadvantage me, at least not overtly. However, what I found challenging was the emotional undercurrent, the internal voice questioning whether I had been selected as a form of tokenism, rather than purely on merit.
For someone like me, who holds myself to very high standards and has a strong sense of discipline, that kind of uncertainty can take more of a mental toll than a structural one. It becomes less about what’s happening around you and more about what’s happening inside you, constantly trying to prove you’re “enough,” even when no one is actually questioning you out loud.
So in a way, yes, the process wasn’t necessarily built to disadvantage me practically, but it didn’t do much to interrupt the quiet, persistent feeling that I had to work harder to justify my place.
Thank you again for sharing your perspective so generously.