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Campus Conversations is a student podcast brought to you by UCL students and the Student Success Office. We're back for Season 2 — bigger, bolder, and with even more honest conversations about student life at UCL! Hosted by students, for students, this podcast dives into the topics that actually matter to students, from politics and careers to friendships, finances, and everything in between. This season, the conversations go deeper, the debates get bigger, and we’re bringing in more student voices, opinions, and real experiences from across our university. Whether we’re discussing the pressure to succeed, navigating life in London, or the big issues shaping our generation, Campus Conversations is all about sharing perspectives, learning from each other, and reminding you that no one has university life completely figured out. Expect thoughtful discussions, relatable moments, a few disagreements, and a lot of laughs along the way!
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Speaker 2
Welcome to Campus Conversations. Brought to you by UCL Student Success Team, your go to podcast for all things about student life on University College London. We're back for season two and today we'll be talking about modern society and culture change. I'm a man and I'm a fourth year medic.
00:00:13:00 - 00:00:13:07
Speaker 4
I'm a
00:00:13:07 - 00:00:15:00
Speaker 3
Bach and I'm a second year law student.
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Speaker 4
I'm Kat and I'm a first year geography student.
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Speaker 2
So
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Speaker 2
as I said today we're talking about modern society and culture change. This. We've got a bunch of cards on the table with some new news bits and questions to do with them. So are you ready? Let's get into
00:00:27:20 - 00:00:31:05
Speaker 2
it. So first up, here's our new
00:00:31:07 - 00:00:40:03
Speaker 2
segment. We such discussed in The Guardian argues that claiming colorblindness. I don't see race can actually correlate with higher levels of both implicit and explicit racial bias.
00:00:40:05 - 00:00:47:03
Speaker 2
According to psychologists, colorblind ideology can be framed as unity, but may also mask the vision and prevent honest conversations about
00:00:47:07 - 00:00:55:13
Speaker 2
inequality. The question is, is colorblindness an aspirational ideal or, however, denying racism, colorism and prejudice? That's a big one. To get into this
00:00:55:18 - 00:00:56:15
Speaker 2
charged question.
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Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:00:59:01 - 00:01:06:13
Speaker 2
What do you think of the term colorblindness to start with then, I guess, do you do you like it? You disagree with it?
00:01:06:15 - 00:01:22:20
Speaker 4
I think colorblindness is a way for people to ignore the issue that's going on and is a way for people to think that we can just erase the structures and the structural like ways that society is existing just by pretending that's not there. I think
00:01:22:20 - 00:01:32:12
Speaker 4
that concept really favors the white majority, as a way of them not having to talk about difficult conversation, what they might find uncomfortable for them to be like, you know what?
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Speaker 4
I can take a step back like this
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Speaker 4
doesn't concern me. It's uncomfortable for me to talk about. Let me not because I don't see color.
00:01:39:02 - 00:01:54:07
Speaker 4
I think in British context especially, it's like them saying I'm colorblind is a way of them thinking, oh, I'm not racist. And that's like my way of putting it out, that I'm not racist just by saying, oh, I see everyone as the same, but by saying that you're almost immediately like
00:01:54:07 - 00:01:57:19
Speaker 4
devaluing someone, you're ignoring lived experiences.
00:01:57:21 - 00:02:05:11
Speaker 4
And it's like, so what exactly are you bringing by saying, I'm colorblind and I don't see race? What do you think?
00:02:05:13 - 00:02:25:20
Speaker 3
And I think that makes sense. I think the way I've always seen that topic is I think when people think of racism, racism is always like a really big, scary word. But I really don't think it is. I think it starts off with when we define racism. So it's really like seeing a race as like supporting racism. I think a lot of people tend to take racism to mean to see different races or to understand there's difference.
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Speaker 3
I think there are
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Speaker 3
noticeable differences between people of different races just because of different culture elements, different lived experiences, and just generally how, you know, life is, you know, how the cookie crumbles, essentially black people, white people, brown people, they tend to have different experiences
00:02:40:17 - 00:02:44:01
Speaker 3
because of a history that we're not going to get into. But I think
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Speaker 3
so when people say they're colorblind, I feel like they they think they're fixing the problem of racism by essentially like claiming they don't see any any difference.
00:02:50:22 - 00:03:04:07
Speaker 3
But I think that's not what anti-racism is trying to talk once racism is trying to talk or seeing a difference in a negative way, believing that you are above another person, I think that's the issue. So that's why I don't think saying you're colorblind fix the issue because you're just saying you
00:03:04:07 - 00:03:07:08
Speaker 3
don't see difference at all, which is all anybody's asking you to do.
00:03:07:11 - 00:03:17:02
Speaker 3
You can notice the difference between a white person and a black person, but it's not. It's about being able to recognize that there are differences. Do those differences, they're still equal?
00:03:17:04 - 00:03:32:07
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think the way they were did it here with aspirational ideal. That's like the perfect descriptor of it. Like they think that's that's perfect solution. It's this oh that's not racism. I don't see color, but it's the fact that it's how you're responding to that race difference between people and think it makes a big point of implicit bias.
00:03:32:07 - 00:03:36:11
Speaker 2
And I have personally expressed a lot recently within like actually like medical placements and stuff.
00:03:36:13 - 00:03:48:11
Speaker 2
And I feel like people just have no awareness of how much unconscious bias each of us has every day. I mean, like, as an example, I'm in, so in medicine, we are in firms where we're like a small group and we do all our teaching with them.
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Speaker 2
We're going,
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Speaker 2
what's together on mine is me. And, for white people. So it's a very interesting ritual, like, configuration to go into the world with. And I've noticed a lot of the doctors don't look at me as much as they look at the white people in my groups, and I think that's where they might be thinking they have a colorblind approach, they might not be seen,
00:04:05:13 - 00:04:11:07
Speaker 2
but that's the point of addressing racism as a real thing, where because it's so ingrained into the society
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Speaker 2
and the things we do,
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Speaker 2
we do have these implicit biases, and we do treat people differently because of it.
00:04:16:17 - 00:04:23:11
Speaker 2
So when people use colorblindness as a solution, you're not fixing anything. You're just letting yourself continue to do what you're doing.
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Speaker 4
I think is exactly like the point that Mubarak said, like the opposite of racism is not now being colorblind is being anti-racist. So I think people just think that they can embrace this ideology of, yes, I'm colorblind and I don't see race. It just completely dismisses the other side of what we're actually trying to tackle and talk about.
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Speaker 2
What does anti-racism actually look like in society? How do we get to a point where that is what we're doing?
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Speaker 3
I think anti-racism can only really be directly addressed. One of two things, I think accountability. And then to I think exposure. So I mean, not to say that I don't think you can have a real understanding of, for instance, black people and black different, you know, their experiences.
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Speaker 3
I'm not going to say struggle or like achievements etc., like just things that are very specific to black Me.
00:05:13:16 - 00:05:23:10
Speaker 3
For instance, unless you interact with not just one black person, but several, and I feel like that has to occur naturally as you walk through life. So I think a way of doing
00:05:23:10 - 00:05:25:23
Speaker 3
that is really that diversity. But
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Speaker 3
oftentimes people hear diversity. They thinking, oh, okay, Dei like for some black person into your office or into the workplace, but that's not what it is.
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Speaker 3
I think you can become anti-racist if you engage with the world. So that can be things like change the type of literature that you read, read and read from the narratives of different people that aren't similar to you. I think you can learn a lot without ever interrupting a person,
00:05:46:13 - 00:05:48:17
Speaker 3
but a lot of people on honest issue themselves.
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Speaker 3
They don't go in that pursuit of knowledge in a broad sense. So even if we think about things like the curriculum, obviously there's there's endeavors to make it more diverse. But a lot of the voices that we hear Shakespeare,
00:06:00:10 - 00:06:11:10
Speaker 3
I don't know, like Charles Dickens, he's like white men, obviously, who great at their job. Like, I'm not saying they didn't do a good job, but there's actually a conversation to be had with a lot of, the things that we learn sent to White court.
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Speaker 3
And that's not to say that white coaches necessarily, but that obviously we're in Britain naturally, but I think there's value as well in hearing from other people and hearing from other experiences.
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Speaker 1
Yeah.
00:06:22:11 - 00:06:39:10
Speaker 4
I think a characteristic that people need to show more, and I feel like that some people lack is humility. I think that idea of like being humble and just taking that step back, I think you need to be able to hear people out. You need to be able to listen. And then, like you said, reading literature,
00:06:39:14 - 00:06:41:15
Speaker 4
engaging with people that exposure.
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Speaker 4
But none of that is going to work unless you have some humility and you're willing to accept and you're willing to learn rather than just thinking, yeah, it's just me and the
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Speaker 4
world. And
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Speaker 4
that's really not how the world works, I think, is that concept of being humble in order to discover more about different people and just be willing to learn and accept, like you're not the only person in this world.
00:07:01:13 - 00:07:04:11
Speaker 4
And like, that's just not how it's going to run. I think that's an.
00:07:04:11 - 00:07:05:00
Speaker 1
Example.
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Speaker 2
kind of like I always like to step backwards for that is you need more people of diverse backgrounds in art making the making TV, making the books, making videos, need them in curriculum, making the making the lessons that we do. Now go back and you need them in university getting those positions. And then you go back to this podcast for student success.
00:07:21:22 - 00:07:25:07
Speaker 2
You are getting diverse people into university. So it's like
00:07:25:09 - 00:07:38:04
Speaker 2
it seems like such a small thing. And then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. So do you think in our lifetime any of this will be will be something in our lifetime? What do you think the balance is going to shift?
00:07:38:06 - 00:07:40:05
Speaker 2
Looking that far ahead.
00:07:40:07 - 00:07:40:23
Speaker 4
The thing is, I
00:07:40:23 - 00:07:57:06
Speaker 3
think racism especially is, really specific in that, like, I wouldn't say Britain at large is a racist country, right? I like I feel pretty welcome in a lot of the spaces. I mean, like, I generally have pretty positive experiences. So I really do think
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Speaker 3
it's shifts now. I think nowadays from, like a private like, sorry, like a system wide issue to not personal.
00:08:06:08 - 00:08:07:10
Speaker 3
So I think nowadays
00:08:07:10 - 00:08:26:19
Speaker 3
it's less about policy, even though there's two issues in that room. But your everyday or you being the type of person open to other people or you perpetuate in certain stereotypes and racism individually. So I think when we ask the question of do we feel like racism in the near future will be erased? I don't necessarily
00:08:26:22 - 00:08:28:10
Speaker 3
think there's one true answer.
00:08:28:10 - 00:08:37:10
Speaker 3
I think it's really dependent on the people that you interact with and the type of the type of person they are as well. I think racism nowadays starts to look a lot more context dependent.
00:08:37:12 - 00:08:52:06
Speaker 2
It's a hard question. I don't know why I asked that. Because I agree that's very much like in this space. Maybe I'll be less maybe in the space or going up. Like I like the hope that by the time I'm a doctor, I won't be treating different med students differently based on where they come from and what type of person they are.
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Speaker 2
And it's about like being in those positions to make that change then.
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Speaker 1
Yeah.
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Speaker 4
I think that's so difficult because we're not taking it as, as groups.
00:09:02:23 - 00:09:17:04
Speaker 4
Right. So I'm saying that if, as an individual and I'm like, take us as a group and yes, we're understanding and accepting and we hope that this group is as well, but what about half the other groups that aren't? So we're hoping that, yes, like these groups are going to become the same way that we are.
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Speaker 4
But are they are they not? So
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Speaker 4
that's how the questions feeling like it's this ambitious idea, however they phrased it because it's like we hope that we would judge people based on character rather than race.
00:09:31:14 - 00:09:39:14
Speaker 4
But is that just us trying to be aspirational? Will that actually come like into tangible ways rather than just for example? It might also be performative.
00:09:39:16 - 00:09:51:21
Speaker 4
Think about like corporate places. Like a lot of that is, oh yeah, we're diverse and inclusive, but oh yeah, actually, is that how you're presenting yourself in the same way that a person might say, yeah, inclusive. And my friends are this and I'm
00:09:51:23 - 00:09:58:02
Speaker 4
not this because my friends either. It's like you're putting on a performance that's like deep inside, like, oh, you're actually.
00:09:58:02 - 00:10:02:14
Speaker 4
So will that now ever mean that something will change? I don't know.
00:10:02:16 - 00:10:02:19
Speaker 4
I
00:10:02:23 - 00:10:24:06
Speaker 3
think for me racism has looked very, very like I feel like it's changed as I've grown and I've moved into different spaces. So like UCR, I personally don't think I've experienced any sort of racism from anyone, but I think that just comes with the people at UCL tend to be more educated. So on that front, my experiences have been pretty good.
00:10:24:08 - 00:10:35:11
Speaker 3
I guess in like sixth form in secondary school, I think the demographics there were different. So naturally there was different characters, you know? And for me, I think a lot of it comes down to training.
00:10:35:14 - 00:10:45:00
Speaker 3
Like I always used to say back then, at the time that the schools I went to, the staff didn't necessarily have the right training to deal with, like the racial matters at hand.
00:10:45:02 - 00:10:58:23
Speaker 3
But I think that's the biggest thing. I think oftentimes staff do know how to deal with something. So the Roma turn a blind eye to it. And I think that in turn leads to more and more racism. But only like you end up having to shoulder the burden of trying to fix that or sort it out. But yeah, I would
00:10:58:23 - 00:11:02:24
Speaker 3
say it's a as a staff issue rather than like kids.
00:11:02:24 - 00:11:11:10
Speaker 3
I feel like kids will make mistakes. So I think it's the burden on the staff to make those like there's implementations in terms of change of policy.
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Speaker 2
I forgot the like my mind's very like distinctly university after university where I came from, Bradford and Bradford is very, very brown, like my school was 99% of brown people. So I encountered north of the mall as I was growing up. And then I got here and I was like, oh, that was a bit
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Speaker 2
different than what I grew up from.
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Speaker 2
And even it wasn't that big of an issue until this year where I'm like, actually in the world properly so I think in pre-clinical years where I was just like in university lectures and stuff, it was more like seeing
00:11:38:13 - 00:11:44:24
Speaker 2
it in terms of like the lecture slides, like, when they're teaching us about skin conditions, are they only showing white skin, which they tend to do.
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Speaker 2
Are they like, talking about how things present in different groups are they're using stereotypes to teach us about conditions, which I think is a big thing that they're working on now, a bigger than now, more recently, it's more of a
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Speaker 2
lived experience. So yeah, you do get treated differently by race. It was kind of a wake up like realization, like, yeah, that isn't just on TV.
00:12:05:00 - 00:12:08:10
Speaker 2
It isn't just in the books. It actually happens.
00:12:08:12 - 00:12:26:08
Speaker 4
I have a question for you. So you said in your personal experience when coming to UCL, you feel like you haven't experienced maybe as much as before, if at all. Then you mentioned this idea of people being here, being more educated. So do you think that the sense of being educated, equivalent to the
00:12:26:11 - 00:12:35:24
Speaker 4
sense of you experienced, like how is the relationship between more educated people and like you experiencing less or no racism linked in your opinion?
00:12:36:04 - 00:12:55:18
Speaker 3
Yeah. Okay. So a big one for me is I think as I walk through life now not I'm older I for me, whether or not someone is performatively anti-racist or they're truly in their heart, not a racist doesn't really concern me in the sense that as long as this person is in acting in such a way that feels racist, my experience isn't the same.
00:12:55:20 - 00:13:07:15
Speaker 3
So I think when I say people are more educated, I believe people might still be racist. You know how PhDs. But I think because they're still educated, they now recognize that that's not an acceptable way to carry themselves in society.
00:13:07:17 - 00:13:13:17
Speaker 3
So that means the way in which they talk to me, and the way in which the way in which they interrupted me is a lot more controlled.
00:13:13:17 - 00:13:27:21
Speaker 3
The less reckless of their words, they're more aware of things like microaggressions, whereas. So even if they're hot, they wanted to say the microaggression. They now know that's an unacceptable thing to say. But that means regardless of their like their thought process. I didn't hear the microaggression, but I think people
00:13:27:23 - 00:13:38:09
Speaker 3
are less educated about the way race works, are more likely to say something reckless to make you feel uncomfortable in a public setting, to make a weird comment about your hair, your skin, or something like that.
00:13:38:11 - 00:13:39:24
Speaker 3
So I think that's
00:13:40:01 - 00:14:01:07
Speaker 3
like, for instance, I think back to sixth form. My head of are telling me that my hair was unprofessional and then put me in isolation for something like that. Like now at UCL, they understand the ramifications of such an act. So even if they felt, oh, this looks so unprofessional, I don't like the way this looks are, or they would never come and say that because they understand how that's problematic.
00:14:01:07 - 00:14:02:09
Speaker 3
But my
00:14:02:11 - 00:14:15:02
Speaker 3
head of you at the time, head of you're obviously educated in professional, like professionally, but don't necessarily have the education around racism. So I didn't understand the way of what they were saying to me in that moment.
00:14:15:04 - 00:14:28:23
Speaker 4
Who do you think is in a position to, for example, establish these things. So for example you're talking about your head of year. So how should your head of year become informed about this. And you talked about policies and stuff. How should that be implemented. And on like a daily
00:14:29:02 - 00:14:34:20
Speaker 4
basis. How do you think individuals should embrace culture and progress?
00:14:34:20 - 00:14:35:15
Speaker 4
In a sense?
00:14:35:17 - 00:14:44:04
Speaker 3
So one thing I feel that people tend to jump to is this idea of asking the people involved directly, but it's something that I've always disagreed with because I feel like
00:14:44:04 - 00:14:51:19
Speaker 3
when you're at the ages of 1614, to me it's very, very inappropriate to have to take on the burden of educating people as to why something is wrong.
00:14:51:19 - 00:14:53:04
Speaker 3
Because even at that age,
00:14:53:06 - 00:15:03:06
Speaker 3
at those ages, then I didn't have the proper words to articulate why something felt wrong at the time. So I feel like it would be the wrong move to have teachers put the burden on me to explain back to you.
00:15:03:08 - 00:15:05:17
Speaker 3
I think the best way to go about these types of things is.
00:15:05:19 - 00:15:07:23
Speaker 3
One thing is there's a book written on everything.
00:15:08:00 - 00:15:26:06
Speaker 3
I don't think there's a book that hasn't been written about something, so there's always other ways to go about it. And if not that way, if, for instance, that just happened not to be a book on this at all, like the very small chance there isn't a book, there's always, I feel like a black professional you can reach out to and say, you know, I work with a certain
00:15:26:08 - 00:15:29:05
Speaker 3
demographic of kids and X, Y, and Z.
00:15:29:07 - 00:15:38:19
Speaker 3
Is there any things, like growing up, you who felt that, we could have done differently or, you know, that we weren't necessarily sensitive to. But I think it's a lazy attempt to then ask the kids or what do you
00:15:38:19 - 00:15:43:23
Speaker 3
want? How should we do it? What do you think the punishment should be? If someone says an inappropriate word to you, that is the wrong move.
00:15:44:02 - 00:16:01:06
Speaker 3
And I think it's it should bring about the sense of care that education providers have when they just resort to right, throw up a quick survey. What are the kids want? Rather than doing the intentional work to go and find out what an adult? See, because the way I would have responded to a question about racism now as a 20
00:16:01:08 - 00:16:06:02
Speaker 3
year old compared to when I was 14 is completely different, and I'm sure it will be different when I'm 30 as well.
00:16:06:07 - 00:16:12:23
Speaker 3
I'll have a more nuanced view of the world, but asking a 14 year old who's only ever been in a classroom, what do you think we should do? Is lazy, in my opinion.
00:16:13:00 - 00:16:26:10
Speaker 2
Kind of like your, you know, your point of view about humility and being willing to do that. Then you'll find a bus around yourself and seeing those people, it's got perfect. That's what you're saying is having the humility to surround yourself with people and actually have those conversations. And that is kind of the solution to all of it.
00:16:26:14 - 00:16:28:02
Speaker 2
And then just be
00:16:28:06 - 00:16:35:10
Speaker 2
with people. You can ask this question like, oh, you're asking him questions. Now be willing to talk about those things and then you can find your own solutions.
00:16:35:12 - 00:16:50:09
Speaker 4
And I feel like that brings up about a point that people are not willing to have these conversations, and that really puts you in a situation where you're not willing to have that conversation. Therefore, no change is going to be achieved. So I think it is really down to that point of humility and just being open and being.
00:16:50:09 - 00:16:55:06
Speaker 4
It also is this thing of like being able to admit that you're wrong. I think people are so like concerned about,
00:16:55:07 - 00:17:06:04
Speaker 4
oh, I have to be right. And what if I say something wrong? Well, if this comes across like this, or like, how do I do? But sometimes when you hear that person explain the situation, that experience, that lived experience,
00:17:06:06 - 00:17:08:24
Speaker 4
it's like you have to accept or like, you know, I didn't know that.
00:17:09:01 - 00:17:23:24
Speaker 4
Well, you know, oh, there's more I could learn about that or like, there's more I could read about that. And it's like people are not willing to do that. And it's like you're putting yourself in a position where you're willingly choosing to ignore things. Also blatantly in front of you, or like things that like, you really should be reading about.
00:17:24:01 - 00:17:29:17
Speaker 2
So I guess the conclusion is speak, be humble, don't be racist. Let's move on to the next question.
00:17:29:19 - 00:17:44:06
Hafsa
Thanks for tuning in to campus Conversations. We hope you had as much fun listening as we did chatting. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to like and subscribe on our various podcast streaming platforms. The link is in the bio. We'll be back again with more stories, ideas
00:17:44:08 - 00:17:50:03
Hafsa
and debates from across UCL exploring the people and perspectives shaping our university and world.
00:17:50:05 - 00:17:52:06
Hafsa
Until next time on campus conversations