{"id":5765,"date":"2020-06-29T13:59:36","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T13:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/?p=5765"},"modified":"2020-06-29T14:24:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T14:24:31","slug":"this-is-about-all-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2020\/06\/29\/this-is-about-all-of-us\/","title":{"rendered":"This Is About All Of Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Following the murder of George Floyd, Professor Parveen Yaqoob, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, shares with CONNECTED her own experiences of racism and encourages the University community to join her and start the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Vice-Chancellor\u2019s recent statement, Professor Van de Noort condemned the racist violence that led to the death of George Floyd, and many others before him, and expressed his solidarity for those for whom racism is a daily and lifelong obstacle. He also announced a review to understand how the University can do more to support Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals across our community, to be led by Professor Yaqoob.<\/p>\n

Starting the conversation<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"As she begins the review, Professor Yaqoob believes that it\u2019s important she shares her own experiences of growing up amidst racist abuse, and encourages us all to start having these conversations no matter how difficult or uncomfortable they might be.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cAs a second generation British-Pakistani growing up in South London in the 1970s and 1980s, being at the receiving end of racist abuse was not at all unusual. My dad ran a grocery shop with a halal meat counter at the back for ten years before deciding that he was British enough to buy the fish and chip shop across the road, swapping the samosas for battered cod and scampi. Three days after opening, someone walked in and said, \u2018We don\u2019t want Pakis running our fish and chip shop.\u2019 A local campaign began; mainly graffiti, but sometimes broken windows. Dad had to sell the fish and chip shop after three months.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI talk about this frankly \u2013 and I hope you\u2019ll forgive the informal style \u2013 but I find that people sometimes shift uncomfortably when I do so. Conversations about race and racism are not meant to be comfortable. If we can\u2019t have those difficult conversations, we\u2019ll never move forward.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIf racism has played a part in your lived experience for as long as you can remember, it\u2019s easy to imagine how it might affect the way you interact with people, the extent to which you trust people, what you do and where you go, and how likely you are to want to make yourself visible. When we think about the barriers that exist for underrepresented groups to take on visible roles, we don\u2019t really think or talk about any of this.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cYou might think that this is all in the past and that things must surely be much better now, despite recent events. They are in many ways, but deep-rooted, structural racism is still here and it\u2019s pervasive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“When I first came to work at this University, I was invited to have lunch with two very senior figures. One of them described how on the previous evening he had looked out at a sea of faces in a lecture theatre and remarked that \u2018Not a single one of them was British.\u2019 I didn\u2019t say anything at the time, but of course I wanted to ask him what exactly he thought a British face looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actively listening<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Professor Yaqoob explains the steps the University is taking to review what more we can do to support our BAME community at Reading.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cThe Vice-Chancellor has asked me to work with Allan Laville, the Dean for Diversity & Inclusion, to undertake a review to understand racial inequalities within the University and to recommend actions to address them.”<\/p>\n

Our first step towards this will involve active listening to understand the experiences of our whole community \u2013 colleagues, students and alumni.\u00a0 We want to reach as many of you as possible and provide the opportunity to inform and influence our review.<\/p>\n

Parveen added:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cSome of you have already generously offered your help. If you haven\u2019t, we\u2019ll need you too. This is about all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Many former University students and staff have already shared their experiences on social media \u2013 both positive and negative \u2013 of race, racism and life as a BAME individual at the University of Reading. Your perspectives of the University\u2019s past, present and future will help us in our wider challenge to understand and tackle racism.<\/p>\n

Email us at alumni@reading.ac.uk<\/a> if you would like to share your experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following the murder of George Floyd, Professor Parveen Yaqoob, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, shares with CONNECTED her own experiences of racism and encourages the University community to join her and start the conversation. In the Vice-Chancellor\u2019s recent statement, Professor Van de Noort condemned the racist violence that led to the death of George Floyd, and many others […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":170,"featured_media":5767,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[101,56,46],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Is About All Of Us - Connected<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Professor Parveen Yaqoob shares with CONNECTED her own experiences of racism and encourages the University community to join her and start the conversation.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.reading.ac.uk\/connected\/2020\/06\/29\/this-is-about-all-of-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Is About All Of Us - 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