Antiracist Events

‘Let's Talk about Diversity!’ series of events

The series of events in 2020 drew attention to diversity and experiences of racism in one's own environment. Knowledge and personal experiences of diverse groups and individuals were shared with participants in talks, interviews, films and workshops, and participants reflected on their own behaviour.

Virtual film screening of ‘I'm not your negro!’

In November, ETH members were able to watch the award-winning film from 2016. Raoul Peck's film shows a collage of interviews from the 1960s and 70s with the American writer James Baldwin, the lives of various civil rights activists and more recent images of the unrest in Ferguson, USA.
The film streaming was followed on 25 November by a Q&A with Estefania Cueno, a diversity trainer who deals specifically with the topic of racism, including in the context of European universities.  

Webinar ‘Racism, implicit bias and well-being’

The webinar with diversity specialist Anton Blank on unconscious and conscious racism, well-being, unconscious bias (distorted perception), the Pygmalion or Rosenthal effect, stereotypes and microaggression took place on 1 December. 

Allyship is the active engagement for an oppressed group. The term ally refers to people who use their privileges to support groups that are structurally oppressed. Allies themselves are not part of that specific group and therefore not (directly) affected by the specific oppression.

BIPoC is an acronym and stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. The term PoC encompasses all individuals who are not White and who are affected by specific kinds of racism, e.g., Anti-Asian racism, Anti-Black racism, Anti-Muslim racism, etc. The term BIPoC should acknowledge that not all people of Color face equal levels of injustice.

Creating this allyship workshop as a braver space enables people to discuss about racism, allyship and reflect on past events and interactions facing racism. Importantly, it is not about answering the question "Do people experience racism and are theyharmed by racism?" but rather "When people are harmed by racism, how will we face it together?"
 

The concept of race has been proven scientifically not to be meaningful from a biological perspective. It is a social construct and was invented in the 1400s by Western Europeans to describe human beings and to put them in a societal order. The racial category White was always associated with superiority. Although biological races don't exist, people are still racialized and put into categories based on characteristics such as skin colour, features, religion, etc. Racism is the structural, institutional, interpersonal and internalized discrimination of racialized people.

Safer Space is a concept that refers to an autonomous space and is created for individuals who feel marginalized or discriminated to come together to communicate regarding their experiences with such marginalization/discrimination. They are most commonly located on university campuses in the western world, but also at workplaces.

White is - equally to Black or Indigenous –a variation of the social construct race and is often linked to privileges and seen as default.