Race Reflections AT WORK
The place to reflect on all things inequality injustice and oppression at work. You tell us what is up and will do some thinking will do some research and will propose some possible solutions so that together we can make the workplace work for everyone. Your workplace dilemmas, your challenges and your queries at work. Join Guilaine Kinouani every first and third Monday of every month!To send us your queries, questions and dilemmas please email Atwork@racereflections.co.uk
Episodes
It’s nearly the end of 2025 so with Christmas and New Years Eve coming up soon what better moment than to think about things that glitter, and what goes in to making them?
In today's episode Simone does a deep-dive into Taylor Swift’s engagement ring and it’s connection to mining and colonialism. Although it’s not really about the ring but about what it and “American royalty” represent within white supremacy during these times...
In today's episode Guilaine responds to an email sent to her about the differential treatment of people of colour in the workplace, and why Black people are treated more harshly. This question was a response to a thread she made about the idealisation of Black people, and so this episode is also a follow up to the last episode where she spoke on that topic.
She begins with an aside considering hierarchies of Racism under White ...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on how, seemingly paradoxically, when Black people (and other marginalised groups) are idealised in the workplace it can put them at risk, and result in their denigration and/or devaluation.
She begins by looking an an example, a Black doctor mentioned in Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/313127/black-skin-white-masks-by-fanon-frantz/9780241396667
She exp...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on what she has learnt from the first year of this course and offers some advice for how people might prepare for the course, particularly for people who are new to analytic thinking and practice.
She hadn’t necessarily anticipated that such a broad range of people that would be attracted to applying, which enriches the conversation and the group for all parties, but also brings some challen...
In today's episode Simone continues on their reflections around Black Maternal Health Week which took place in April earlier this year, organised by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance: https://blackmamasmatter.org/
The first episode covering this topic can be found here: How Black women and others experience discrimination at work while pregnant https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/episodes/17304518
Simone considers this years theme ...
In today's episode Guilaine responds to some queries and questions about accessing our foundation course in Group Analysis centring racial trauma.
She begins by outlining what the course consists of and celebrating its certification by the Institute of Group Analysis. Then she talks about the ways this course is designed to be accessible and goes over the different pathways offered for you to follow if you require financial or ...
In today's episode Guilaine responds to a query that came up when she recently received an honorary doctorate related to her contribution to analytic and psychodynamic theory and psychodynamic and analytic practice, specifically in relation to marginalised groups and race.
She reflects on how she feels about this doctorate in terms of her personal journey within academia, how this doctorate is (so far) her most significant car...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on how the perception of language and linguistics can become dislocated through a primitive colonial imaginary to the point where people do not hear language as it is.
She presents a hypothesis around the ways that the literal sound of racialised people talking can become distorted and dislocated in the ears of white people listening. She draws on two anecdotes as examples, both consisting o...
In today's episode Simone reflects on how even though DEI initiatives end to fall short of meaningfully achieving their aims, operating as lip service for corporations, banning them only creates more harm.
They talk about how the US courts have been utilised by the Trump administration and the way this impacts workplaces and schools. And how eliminating diversity initiatives in healthcare has some serious implications for racia...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on some questions and queries that people of colour, particularly Black people experience, in relation to their “racial” lineage and heritage. How these function as racist micro-aggressions and in particular the relationship between what is being asked, the histories of colonialism, and the power structures of White Supremacy.
She focuses on one of the most familiar micro-aggressive question...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on the binary polarisation of justification when it comes to accounting for workplace dynamics, particularly in cases of discrimination. Situations where for example an employee of colour makes a complaint and it is dismissed, in their belief due to the colour of their skin, but their employer claims the dismissal is due to the employees conduct, behaviour or ability to do the job. The two ...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on how covert racism functions, in particular within the cultural context of the UK.
She begins by defining covert racism as a form of racialised bias/discrimination that is not explicitly, overtly and obviously manifested. This results in the people experiencing it being faced with issues of deniability, ambiguity and a near impossibility for redress, becoming mired in questions of what is ...
In today's episode Simone reflects on how Black women and others experience discrimination at work while pregnant, linked in to Black Maternal Health Week that took place in April earlier this year, organised by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance: https://blackmamasmatter.org/
They consider the range of people who experience pregnancies, and define and explore the spectrum of gender identities, and discuss the relationship of biol...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on a the situation in Burkino Faso and what we can learn from that in relation to the workplace. How we can see the ways that whiteness, colonialism, and coloniality are playing out and glean insights into the working of those systems of domination. Fundamentally she urges us to pay attention to how what happens within the macro (ie the geopolitical level) has impacts and implications on th...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on a question she has received in multiple settings about how scapegoating operates, and why specific people might be targeted as scapegoats. This query is very prominent in the work she does and is a major part of her current doctoral thesis. She expands around the thinking previously shared on the podcast about both scapegoating, and the location of disturbance, covering basic definitions...
In today's episode Guilaine reflects on when Diversity, Equality and Inclusion policies, procedures, rules and regulations, become blockers to achieving, or advancing, diversity, equality and inclusion within the workplace. Or as she prefers to see define it blockers to combating inequality, injustice and oppression getting in the way of achieving liberation.
She shares her observations around how these instruments designed fo...
In today's episode Simone reflects on the invisible and unpaid labour that students of colour do within higher education.
They use the article The Invisible Labor of BIPOC Students by Stephanie Tavares: https://www.ncan.org/news/560484/The-Invisible-Labor-of-BIPOC-Students.htm as a jumping off point, drawing on their lived experience within higher education.
They talk about how activists are often coopted into doing DEI work for...
Today's episode is a follow up to this previous episode: Money, money, money: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1623760/episodes/13872328
Guilaine begins by reflecting on how her specific collection of intersections interact with her relationship to money/worth, considering what it means to be a Black woman from the inner-city and how that collection of identities chimes more with her experience than the term working class. She thinks...
In today's episode Simone reflects on how racism operates in higher education environments. They begin by thinking about their lived experiences within education both as a student and as a professor. They consider how “gifted and talented” programs are a tool of white supremacy and the obstacles for Black people in terms of attending higher education. Reflecting on the stark contrast between the demographics of the students an...
In today's episode Guilaine begins by reflecting on how people who are racialised as Black who are introverts are treated at work, her thoughts on this are still cooking but she has been noticing more and more testimony and stories from Black people about these experiences.
She begins by thinking about the ways she herself is an introvert. Then she asks some questions:
Have you noticed that Black people who are introverted tend ...
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