Institutionalised whiteness, racial microaggressions and black bodies out of place in Higher Education. Issue 1 (2nd January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Joseph-Salisbury, Remi
• Is Part Of: Whiteness and education. Volume 4:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 17
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02
• Subjects: Whiteness -- racial microaggressions -- bodies out of place -- racism -- Higher Education; Racism in education -- Periodicals; White people -- Education -- Periodicals; White people -- Race identity -- Periodicals; Multicultural education -- Periodicals; 371.829
• DOI: 10.1080/23793406.2019.1620629
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2379-3406

Abstract

ABSTRACT: On the morning of Friday 3 February 2017, Femi Nylander – a Black Oxford alumnus – walked through the grounds of Oxford University's Harris Manchester College. Later that morning a CCTV image of Femi was circulated to staff and students who were urged to 'maintain vigilance'. Whilst 'post-racial' ideology insists on framing such incidents as isolated aberrations bereft of wider structural and institutional context, in this article I draw upon the theoretical concepts of racial microaggressions and bodies out of place in order to disrupt this hegemonic interpretation. Adopting the Critical Race Theory (CRT) method of counter-narrative, I centralise the voices of student campaigns as sites of legitimate experiential knowledge. These campaigns reveal a web of whiteness that undergirds Higher Education. It is this web, I argue, that ensnares Femi on the day in question. Thus, Femi's experience cannot be understood in abstraction from structural white supremacy and institutionalised whiteness.