BME Committee Expose Staff Racism

Monday night saw the release of the BME committee’s  ‘I Too Am Sheffield’ campaign; a Tumblr account showcasing the racial microaggressions and prejudices from both students, and most shockingly staff, within our university.

Inspired by similar campaigns at Oxford and Harvard, the Tumblr page showcases a number of students holding up whiteboards throughout campus.

These have been personalised with the individual racial prejudices they’ve been subjected to and the hashtag ‘#itooamsheffield’, which has since been circling through Twitter and encouraging people to share their own experiences.

This has drawn particular attention to the alarming presence of racism from University Of Sheffield staff.

“You look like a scruffy Arab”, “If you fail you can just get on a plane back to where you came from”  and “Did you do well on your malaria test because you’ve experienced it?” being just a few of the comments from senior lecturers and staff exposed on social media over the last few days.

Abdullah Geelah, chairman of the BME Committee, told The Tab that students feel unable to report racial issues because the services and channels in place to deal with them are inadequate.

@ShefUniBME claimed that victims of racial incidents are instructed to fill in a form about it, but recieve no further follow up or contact from the University. “BME students know there’s no certainty that the issues will be dealt with in a satisfactory manner as previous experience tells us” Abdullah continued. “They feel that the institutions are just inherently racist”.

In a statement to The Tab, the University said that they are “committed to promoting equality and diversity, and nurturing a multi-cultural environment.”

“Here at Sheffield we have robust procedures relating to harassment and complaints which we urge our students to use. If they prefer to contact the Students’ Union to act on their behalf, the Student Advice Centre or Union Officers are well-placed to raise concerns with the University.”

The campaign, intended to coincide with Anti Racism week, aims to inspire change by raising awareness of the day to day marginalization and stereotyping of BME students and highlighting typical behavior that you may not have even considered ‘racist’ at first.

“What tribe are you from?” “No i’ve never lived in a tree” and “No i don’t know how to twerk!” are just some examples of the day to day racial profiling BME students have experienced, and it doesn’t stop there.

Comments such as “I didn’t know Somali’s did PHD’s” “Is Madras a curry or a place?” and most shockingly, “You celebrate Eid? Is that a drugs party?” demonstrate some unbelievable racial ignorance on campus.

‘I Too Am Sheffield’ not only exposes the outdated racial attitudes still circling within University,  but draws attention to the lack of representation for BME students. Despite 29% of students being BME there’s no BME officer, nor is there any one of BME background on the officer panel this year.