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Race Reflections AT WORK
Race Reflections
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In today's episode Guilaine responds to a listener question: Can Black employees ever be authentic in the workplace? She answers the question with some other questions and reflects on the issues surrounding them.
The first is: Is authenticity a desirable aim to achieve for Black people and organisations? She comes to the conclusion that their is a strong case as a general rule for the importance of workplace authenticity in improving culture, morale, well-being, organisational turnover and even leadership.
But it isn't simple as her second question suggests: Is it realistic, both for organisations and for black employees, that a workplace can increase it's level of authenticity? She reflects that some change can be achieved with sustained effort but that a blanket expectation of authenticity doesn't take into account difference in terms of experiences, cultures and beliefs. She considers the barriers such as the British/English cultural aversion to authenticity, and how whilst leaders may be the guardians of organisational culture they are often leading from the "snowy white peak" of white middleclass masculinity which doesn't tend to embrace authenticity.
She concludes with advice for employers on ways they can encourage authenticity and support the people that this (counter) cultural change will potentially challenge and isolate.
Some other Race Reflections AT WORK podcasts that touch on these issues:
Authenticity: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/10665249
The only person of colour in the workplace: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/10172908
Imposter Syndrome: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/11323973
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To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email atwork@racereflections.co.uk

Reaching a milestone
Race Reflections AT WORK
11/07/22 • 24 min
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on reaching a milestone within the PHD she is currently undertaking. She gives the lowdown on what she's been working on, discusses some of the challenges she has encountered and what she has learnt so far, and she discusses where she stands in relation to the research and some of the implications for her and for Race Reflections.
Her study looks at whiteness, at time and space, at memory, with focus is on developing a group analytical frame for addressing whiteness and racialised violence in Psychotherapy, and an exploration of the overlap between group analysis and African philosophies, challenging "Western"linear temporalities. It looks at hpw whiteness as a factor or force for trauma becomes reproduced, reenacted and reiterated within the clinical encounter, and the implications this offers on how whiteness comes to be within institutions, organisations and teams relationally, procedurally and structurally.
Podcast about the start of her PHD process: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/episodes/9373225
PHD study page: https://racereflections.co.uk/whiteness-in-psychotherapy/
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To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email atwork@racereflections.co.uk
In this re-released episode first published on Jun 7, 2021 we consider surviving the workplace while black. We reflect on the workplace conditions of previous and current generations of black people, particularly black women.
We think about three strands that are navigated when working while black:
1. Inequalities and structural racism which impacts physical and mental health.
2. Experiences of discrimination, interpersonal racism and bullying which intersect with structural issues.
3. The internal and external pressures put on black people by themselves, their family and community, to work twice as hard to overcome these oppressive systems.
Living While Black: The Essential Guide to Overcoming Racial Trauma is out: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/144/1442992/living-while-black/9781529109436.html
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To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email atwork@racereflections.co.uk

Imposter Syndrome
Race Reflections AT WORK
09/19/22 • 17 min
In today's episode Race Reflections' Academic Lead/Scholar Scout Mel Green takes us through her personal relationship with imposter syndrome and it's effects on black women. She thinks about concepts like over productivity, burnout, breakdown, authenticity, assimilation and what bell hooks calls the "mind/body split". She uses her experience as a case study and reflects on the tactics and realisations she has found to help her deal with these experiences.
She links her experience to this study:
Experiences With Imposter Syndrome and Authenticity at Research-Intensive Schools of Social Work
Mel Green's website: https://www.melalygreen.com/
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To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email atwork@racereflections.co.uk

RE-RELEASE: Aversive Racism
Race Reflections AT WORK
09/05/22 • 20 min

Podcasting and Power Part 2
Race Reflections AT WORK
08/15/22 • 28 min
In today's episode we return to exploring the relationship between podcasting and power, this time looking at how "Prestige" podcasting has replicated and interacted with existing power systems. We look at some of the worst cases of podcasts being made with a colonialist mindset, and then look at The Trojan Horse Affair and how that avoided the traps of previous prestige podcast journalism and how it was mostly dismissed by the wider media landscape.
This episode is hosted by Race Reflection's Audio Wizard/Witch, Dave Pickering: http://davepickeringstoryteller.co.uk/
Down to a sunless sea: memories of my dad: https://podfollow.com/sunlesspod/view
LINKS:
The Complicated Ethics Of ‘Serial,’ The Most Popular Podcast Of All Time: https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-complicated-ethics-of-serial-the-most-popular-podcast-of-all-time-6f84043de9a9/
White Reporter Privilege: https://www.theawl.com/2014/11/white-reporter-privilege/
The Science of Racism: Radiolab's Treatment of Hmong Experience: https://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2012/10/22/science-racism-radiolabs-treatment-hmong-experience
How ‘S-Town’ Fails Black Listeners https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/how-s-town-fails-black-listeners-112210/
S-Town is a stunning podcast. It probably shouldn't have been made. https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/30/15084224/s-town-review-controversial-podcast-privacy
The Trojan Horse Affair: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/podcasts/trojan-horse-affair.html
Trojan Horse: A failure of British journalism and that includes the Observer https://mediadiversified.org/2022/02/20/trojan-horse-a-failure-of-british-journalism-and-that-includes-the-observer/
Trojan Horse On Trial https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/02/trojan-horse-podcast-islamophobia-birmingham-michael-gove-sonia-sodha
Trojan Horse affair: Why new podcast evokes both enthusiasm and rage https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-islam-trojan-horse-affair-new-podcast-enthusiasm-rage-why
The Trojan Horse Affair vs. the British Press https://www.vulture.com/2022/03/trojan-horse-affair-podcast-british-response-interview.html
The Real Trojan Horse Affair https://mediadiversified.org/2022/03/08/the-real-trojan-affair/
Recommeded podcasts: Human Resources, Have You Heard George’s Podcast?, Reclaimed and Rewritten, Coiled, Busy Being Black, Say Your Mind, Intersectionality Matters!, Masala Podcast, Surviving Society (full links in the shownotes on our website)
To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email atwork@racereflections.co.uk

Social Media
Race Reflections AT WORK
08/01/22 • 22 min

Empathy in the Workplace
Race Reflections AT WORK
07/18/22 • 15 min
In today's episode Race Reflections' Lead Associate Disruptor Dr Furaha Asani talks about empathy, and lack of empathy, in the workplace. She thinks about definitions of empathy and sympathy and how empathy can function as an action. As a case study she reflects on a personal experience of not receiving empathy and support at work within a racialised context. She considers how gaslighting and self-gaslighting can operate within these kinds of dynamics. And when thinking about solutions she notes that self advocacy has it's limits, suggests that employers work out standard operating protocols to minimise harm, and lists some ways that everyone can work towards actively creating workplaces that foster empathy.
Some links to things mentioned in the conversation:
The Importance of Empathy in the Workplace, Center For Creative Leadership: https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/empathy-in-the-workplace-a-tool-for-effective-leadership/
Empathy for others’ suffering and its mediators in mental health professionals, Santamaría-García, et al https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06775-y
Misogynoir in the Workplace: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/10443664
The Invisible Gaze of White Women: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/9739129
Envy: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/8728416
Envy, Power and the Fear of the Self: https://racereflections.co.uk/envy-power-and-the-fear-of-the-self/
When Black Women Go From Office Pet to Office Threat, Erika Stallings https://zora.medium.com/when-black-women-go-from-office-pet-to-office-threat-83bde710332e
What Is Gaslighting? Meaning, Examples And Support, Marissa Conrad https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/what-is-gaslighting/
5 Signs You’re Gaslighting Yourself, Nicole Bedford https://aninjusticemag.com/5-signs-youre-gaslighting-yourself-2bca12b62e9b
Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email atwork@racereflections.co.uk
In today's episode Race Reflections' Assistant Disruptor Lucia returns to reflect on class and classism. She shares her thoughts around these concepts and what they may represent within our current systems of oppression. She covers reasons why it's difficult to clearly define class or different class groups and then gives a definition of classism as the belief that a persons social or economic station in society determines their value in that society which creates prejudice pr discrimination based on social class. Then she considers the relational aspects of classism and how class can come to be an embodied experience and thinks about how that influences peoples experiences within the job market, and how middle class or upper class identity or belonging can be seen as a process of othering and exclusion. She finishes her thinking looking at classism in conjunction with whiteness and how that plays out in relation to white adjacency.
Lucia's website: https://www.luciasarmientoverano.com/
Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.
To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email atwork@racereflections.co.uk