Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Racial sensitivity training turned me into a confused racist

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The Black Lives Matter movement has put racial sensitivity at the top of the agenda. A new atmosphere of moral rectitude has taken hold, and anyone who makes a tactless or unwelcome statement about race is likely to be fired. That’s what happened to Jack Hepple after a ‘White Lives Matter’ stunt over Man City’s football ground last month. He lost his job. His girlfriend, Megan Rambadt, a reflexologist, was also let go after her employer had earlier suggested it was willing to keep her on if she undertook racial sensitivity training. Meanwhile Keir Starmer has suggested that Labour party workers will be made to follow his example and complete an unconscious bias training course.

I signed up for a similar educational programme to discover what they might be in for. I was also keen to find out if I suffered from covert forms of intolerance.

The online programme involved short lectures, a set of tests to reinforce learning, and a series of theatrical sketches which illustrated examples of poor inter-racial etiquette. The sketches were like medieval morality plays in which the exposure and punishment of a wrongdoer teaches the ignorant to embrace the path of righteousness. Four areas were covered: sexual harassment; diversity and inclusion; hiring and promotion; racial and cultural sensitivity.

The lecturer first explained that everyone has ‘unconscious bias’, which, ‘stems from the brain’s need to categorise things and people’. I was told that such bias is morally neutral until it starts to ‘influence our behaviour and decisions’.

The lecturer encouraged me to study the protocols of ‘cultural competence’ and to admire those who have mastered this complicated discipline. I was told to report and confront prejudicial behaviour at work wherever I came across it. My report would lead to a prompt and impartial investigation. As a whistleblower I would not be subject to discipline or ‘retaliation’, as they called it.

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