Racism in Us - On the Anatomy of Discrimination
A personal report at the start of the Diversity Week at the University of Cologne.
Sina Vogt, 25, studies Intercultural Communication and Education at the University of Cologne and reports on her experiences at the kick-off event of the Diversity Week 2017.
On Tuesday, June 20, the Vice Rector for Equality and Diversity will welcome Prof.' Dr. Manuela Günter officially welcomed the approximately 70 people present in the new Senate Hall of the University of Cologne to the Diversity Week. Signs show the way through the main building. Many university employees and especially female employees, some humanities scholars* and many students who are interested in Jürgen Schlicher's lecture "Der Rassismus in uns - Zur Anatomie von Diskriminierungsstrukturen" (Racism in us - The anatomy of discrimination structures) came.
Networking institutions and making measures visible
A large sign above the main entrance also refers to the Diversity Week, which takes place for the third time this year and is organised by the Department for Gender and Diversity Management under the motto "Reduce Discrimination - Build Opportunities". According to the Vice Rector, the week is intended to network the many different institutions and projects that are committed to equal opportunities and diversity at the university and to make their activities visible. The approximately 45 events, which will be open to all interested parties from 19 - 23 June, will shed light on various aspects of discrimination, for example in access to higher education or in everyday university life. There will be a lecture on studying with mental illness, campus tours in a wheelchair, a workshop on sign language, a queer poetry slam and numerous other expert discussions and open courses dealing with topics such as racism, gender and sexuality, escape experiences or disability.
Small steps for great variety
That sounds great and should interest everyone. But as it is always the case, one gets the impression that mainly those use the offers who already deal with this topic anyway. Well, good, all the same. Vice Rector Günter also admits that there is still a lot of work to be done to make the offers more visible to the outside world. "We are making slow progress," she admits. But small steps are better than none. It goes with the title "You Make the Difference!" Each and every one of the 70 listeners* at the opening event can start with themselves, can rethink their own drawers and uncover discrimination in their immediate surroundings. And this is exactly where sociologist Schlicher comes in with his interactive lecture. He reports on the blue-eyed experiment that primary school teacher Jane Elliott conducted with her class in America to show students how quickly we discriminate and, most importantly, how it feels to belong to a non-privileged group.
"I don't mind blue-eyed people, but..."
Schlicher, who himself gives seminars based on this experiment, gradually goes through the procedure, which leads from an arbitrarily chosen criterion of differentiation such as eye colour to serious different treatment. Take a prejudice, some power and treat a group worse. The reactions to discrimination can range from resistance to escape to making oneself invisible or accepting it. But the crux of the matter is that no matter what strategy you choose, the privileged group will always interpret it as confirmation of the prejudice, since they have the monopoly on definition. It seems almost impossible to break out of the vicious circle.
"You make the difference!"
What I take away from the lecture? Such workshops, like the blue-eyed experiment, help the privileged of our society to experience the mechanisms of discrimination first hand. Because this group has the power and must therefore be taken along in the fight for equal opportunities. Even if the blue-eyed experiment was not new to me and probably some others in the room, it never hurts to think again about how quickly we stereotype on the basis of actually meaningless criteria. And that it is we who have the power not to do just that.