Racism and Forced Diversity (featured. José Schenkkan) — Vol. 1

Written by Andi Bazaar | June 17, 2022

One thing not being explicitly expressed in the "diversity in the LotR" discourse is an article of anti-blackness, it isn’t just people upset about "diversity.”

It’s a particular brand of racism or hate levelled at Black people being given prominent roles in traditionally wyte imaginary worlds and the voices pushing back at this racism are not actually pointing out that there really is a thread of anti-Blackness that is very evident. It’s almost like they don’t see it and it’s much easier to just say "the middle ages was diverse." There’s really more to this discussion.

At the core of this discussion, it’s not simply that the European Middle Ages was "diverse." Yes, it was and viewing an imaginary world like LotR as all "white" is reflective of the white gaze Frantz Fanon talks about.

At the same time the backlash is that people don’t want to see Black-folks in their new lore, it is explicitly anti-Black and those pushing back are still caught up in the white gaze themselves and or are unwilling to call this out because a softer more diluted stance to take is safer. People anti-Blackness in this discourse is real.

MY THOUGHTS ON FORCED DIVERSITY

Before I start this article I have to define a word and a phrase: racism and forced diversity for the purposes of this article I will define racism as “words or actions that promote racial inequality, racial harassment or racial violence."

Note that this definition may be imperfect, as racism is a very hard word to define. As for forced diversity, I will define it as “hiring someone (aside from men who are cis, heterosexual, and or white, etc.) because of their race, religion, and or gender identity etc.” and before you go ranting about how people who are against forced diversity will accuse pretty much anyone who is not a straight White CIS Neurotypical Christian man know that I am not one of those people. I only accuse people and companies of forced diversity if I have solid proof of it (which can be hard to prove, although I have plenty of suspicions).

Now to the point, "why is forced diversity bad?" I’ll give you 3 reasons.

hiring someone because of their race is just as bad as refusing to hire someone because of their race (apologies if that came out unclearly, the English language sucks but you know what i mean)

if a straight white man is fired because of what he is, through no fault of his own and replaced by a gay black lesbian, "do you really think that’ll solve racism?" fuck no, he’ll just turn to racism because the so-called “anti-racists” wronged him.

people who support forced diversity often use the talking point of how it increases productivity in the workplace, while this idea may be backed by statistics "does that mean that it’s right?" fuck no!

The productivity of a company should never be prioritized above basic workers rights! In conclusion, please do not support companies that employ forced diversity and please try to make it illegal by spreading the word of how wrong it is.

Today I want to largely speak to my simulation and health care educator colleagues and that is to say:

We have a problem with racism and diversity, our simulation + health curriculum perpetuates systemic racism. In this article research and resources, we continue to use stereotypes as case examples in classroom and simulation settings. In Karani et al (2017) words “perpetuates fallacious stereotypes and racial biases among the next generation of physicians."

We use "white-skinned" manikins and simulated or standardised patients as a default which misses opportunity to address racism and implicit bias in the training years, this falsely creates the perception that only white-skinned people receive care and anything outside of this is “extra."

We design simulations that lack visual authenticity, resulting in lack of empathetic care by sim participants (Stokes-Parish 2020). This sets up an expectation of future interactions and trains brain to shortcut decision making.

We address cultural differences in a reductive way a.k.a “cultural competency," — treated as a tick box activity and we miss the opportunity to deeply learn also unlearn our world views.

So here’s the challenge I have for simulation educators, simulation manufacturers and health educators alike:

1. Stereotypes
Stop using stereotypes, start using individual, realistic cases as your teaching point. Think more deeply about the authentic portrayal.

2. Equipment
Start buying manikins and recruit SPs that accurately reflect the diversity of the population, this means we also need simulation manufacturers to step up and create more realistic portrayals.

3. Case Design
Review your teaching cases currently in use, assess the number of cases that are culturally diverse.

4. Research
We need research in the simulation setting that explores this issue to help us design the simulations better, there are very few papers exploring simulation as a method for culturally diverse education see thesis by "Eda Ozkara San" (2018)

5. Purpose
Make exploring implicit biases and racism a key learning outcome for some of your simulations, start with exploring anti-racism curriculum for elementary schools.

You don’t need to wait for a person that identifies as BIPOC on your team to do this (faculty diversity is another issue), they’ve been carrying the heavy lifting for years and you can start this today.

The outrage in Black Communities over George Floyd’s death should be shared by everyone. We need to stand up to racism, we need to open our hearts to diversity and stop letting hate live inside of us and we need to look in the mirror si I’ll start.

If I benefit from "white-privilege," people don’t question why I’m taking a evening jog in their neighborhood. I stupidly ran from the police as a teenager when I was out past curfew, no one held a gun to my head and put me facedown on the ground.

I was told not to let it happen again, Mr. Floyd and countless others weren’t afforded that privilege. It’s time to stop saying we understand how it feels to be singled out or oppressed because of skin color, I most certainly do not.

What I do know is that I can’t stay silent when I see racism, I also know I can’t pretend to understand the pain others have felt and or feel. I have never walked in their shoes and I know I must do my best to ensure my actions match my words.

“me, you, us we need to come together. fear and hate are tearing us apart.”

I wonder if some people feel attacked when I say celebrating diversity isn't enough, this message mostly comes from focus groups I'm running, educators and youth sharing how they feel compelled to celebrate diversity while nobody attends to racism they're experiencing.

• the point is not to suggest people enthusiastic about celebrating diversity are rabid racists or even that celebrating diversity isn’t important.
• the point is i can’t be satisfied with celebrating diversity in an institution where people face perpetual waves of racism.
• the point is that the best celebration of diversity is, perhaps the elimination of racism and other injustices but "how many schools can you name whose primary approach to celebrating diversity is eliminating every form of racism?"

It doesn't have to be either or: "celebrating diversity or confronting racism more directly," — it can be both and as long as it really is both or and. That's the trouble: (according to the people I'm interviewing, it's almost never a both and but an "either" mistaken for an "or.")

When I say celebrating diversity isn’t enough, I’m saying: "i can do better, we can do better, we can do more, whatever our spheres of influence."

We can resist complacency, we can identify and eliminate racism and adopt anti-racist approaches also we can celebrate that.

A Special Thanks To:

• Co-wrote by José Schenkkan
• Journalist/Publishing/Photographed by Clayton Euridicé Schofield
• Analyst by Henrie Louis Friedrich