BAME people have a 10 to 50 per cent higher risk of death when compared to white British people. (Public Health England 2020). Bangladeshi people, specifically, have around twice the risk of death, according to the report. Contributing factors, according to the report, include dwelling in urban areas and/or extend- ed-family households (called ‘crowded households in report) as well as presence of illnesses such as diabetes and hyperten- sion. There is a danger that some people may infer that BAME people brought this on themselves due to living conditions and lifestyle. However, one must consider the systems and structures that lead to poverty and poor health care. After Floyd’s death, I surfed the breadth of news outlets watching peaceful protests by day turn to violent clashes at night. My emotions flipped between sorrow at the loss of a yet another life and intense anger at the metaphor of the white man’s knee on the black man’s neck. Mean- while, the video of Floyd’s death played on loop showing our children and our students that their lives had no value. At student population at UEL is nearly 70 per cent BAME, of which about 32 per cent is black. The institution is located in Newham, one of the councils hardest hit by Covid-19 due to poverty and health inequalities (Fiaz 2020). I knew that our students would be struggling to make sense of everything that was happening, so I Whatsapp’d the Black Academy at UEL and said: “We have to do something.” The Black Academy, a collective of black academics and professional services staff focused on social justice, anti-racism, and black representation, was founded at UEL in 2019 by Lurraine Jones, senior lecturer and acting head of social sciences.
Transition to Virtual Delivery Since the government lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic in March, UEL pivoted to online delivery like all HEIs. At UEL, many departments and services
18 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
had been experimenting with MS Teams for about a year previously, which helped with the transition to online delivery. As we have libraries on two sites (Strat- ford and Docklands), we used Teams for meetings to save travel time and cost. After lockdown, beyond use of Teams and Moodle for academic delivery and meet- ings, it was used across the institution for coffee mornings, pub evenings, confer- ences, and other events. Library teams also created chat areas where staff and students shared book reviews as well as news about virtual gallery tours and plays. So, a Teams forum was the obvious way to reach out to our students about Floyd’s death, the protests, and Covid-19. Of course, we were aware that there were students within our population who did not have access to PCs or internet access (the digital divide). Of those who did have access to devices, the equipment may have been of low specification or their internet connections unreliable, thus hindering them from accessing Teams or Moodle. In response to the quick switch to sole online delivery, the institution spun up a loan scheme where, upon applica- tion, a student could have a loan device delivered to their home. There was also a limited supply of high specification machines available for loan for students on specific programmes (e.g. computer sciences, gaming, etc.). As ever, funding was limited, so not all students’ needs were met. The library team is working cross-institution to understand the extent of the “digital divide” and how to close the gap.
A Place to Breathe
Authorisation from the Vice Chancellor and President’s (VCP) office (Professor Amanda Broderick) was swift. Our com- munications and events teams pushed out invitations and promotions within one day. Within hours of posting the event, entitled ‘A Place to Breathe: Making Sense of George Floyd and Covid-19 Impacts on
BAME’, the allocated 220 places were filled. The space allocation was estimated by the events team based on their expe- rience of managing online events and allowed for last minute requests. The 1.5 hour-programme was delib- erately kept simple so that students would be given the maximum amount of time to speak. Lurraine Jones gave the context for the event: an opportunity for students to share their stories, grief, and anger about the killing of George Floyd, the impacts of Covid-19, and other issues around racism and discrimination. I and a few academic colleagues made brief comments to encourage discussion, then monitored the chat as the floor was opened to students. Students used the hand-raising function to request to speak. The event was not recorded, and participants were reminded that it was a safe space for all to share their views without naming specific individuals within the forum or institution. (Stu- dents were invited to raise issues about specific individuals or issues after the event). Students were made aware and welcomed the fact that the VCP and other members of the university executive board were listening.
The student and staff stories about their experiences of racism, discrimina- tion, and exclusion were heart-break- ingly raw. They spoke of being called derogatory names, antagonised by the police, ignored in the classroom and receiving lower grades than peers for the same level of work. And they spoke about having ‘the talk’ with their children, particularly with sons. ‘The talk’ is a set of instructions about how to behave (stay alive) if encountered by the police (e.g. keep your hands visible and no sudden moves); I, too, have had ‘the talk’ with my son. The students were unflinching in their challenge to univers ity leadership about how they needed to do better to support students
June-July 2020
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