Race Reflections AT WORK

In today's episode Guilaine, who is in the writing up stage of her PHD thesis, reflects on her journey and the reasons why she is launching a new Race Reflections space to explore racial trauma and decolonial thinking. This will be a semi open monthly meeting that takes place online, the current start date planned for it will be 28th September at 6.30-8pm UK time. Subscribe, rate and review o...

In this re-released episode first published on 6th May 2024, Guilaine reflects on her (then) recent trip to the Congo. This topic was asked for when she polled people on twitter/x to find out what they wanted her to speak on for this episode. She begins with some context, first for her and then for the country and region in general. Covering how she was born in Bastille and grew up in inner city P...

In this re-released episode first published on 1st June 2024, Guilaine reflects on extraction, the process of which touches on ancestral vulnerability, blackness, colonial dialectics and coloniality in the workplace and generally racialised dynamics, and echoes her (then) recent trip to the Congo. She offers an aside on how plagiarism as an accusation can be weaponised and racialised against peopl...

In today's episode Simone reflects on the findings of three surveys on racism in the UK that were released in 2025:   Workforce Race Equality Standard Report 2025 from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust https://www.uhb.nhs.uk/media/fdajabjz/workforce-race-equality-standard-report-2025.pdf   Racism and bigotry - the modern migrant experience in the UK a survey from Unite the...

In today's episode Simone reflects on the aftermath of the intersection of disability and race/racism at the BAFTA awards 2026. Specifically the institutional choice to air the involuntary words shouted by John Davidson, a white Tourette's syndrome campaigner, towards two Black actors, the lack of accommodations and planning around the event, the lack of accountability and adequate apolo...

In today's episode Simone reflects on some issues surrounding the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), its employees, its roll-back of food safety surveillance  and that decisions inherent racism. They begin with this article as a jumping off point: The CDC quietly scaled back a surveillance program for food-borne illnesses by Aria Bendix https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-quietl...

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on her experience of community engagement, development and research, building on a post she wrote about this topic on Race Reflections. She particularly considers her earliest experiences in terms of her engagement with race, mental health, race inequality and racial trauma comparing them to a conversation she had with an early career community worker at a...

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on what she calls White Women Gaze. This is a topic she has thought about before in her work on Race Reflections and in her book White Minds. She was inspired to speak on this by watching a tictok video of an African woman talking about cross-cultural friendships and relationships between Black and White women. She discusses the video in question, and then...

In today's episode Guilaine responds to a question about her updated biography, specifically her interest in fashion, beauty and aesthetics  and how that informs or relates her academic and clinical work.  She goes over the personal history of her passion for fashion, considers the relation between Black Feminist thinking and joy, the erotic, desire, self authorship and survival, thinks about...

In today's episode Simone reflects on the “brand driven culture war” supposedly ignited by Sydney Sweeney’s racist advertising campaign with American Eagle. They also look at the flip-flopping on Cracker Barrel’s choice of logo. They consider how when a companies commitment to diversity is shallow it is very easily dismantled, especially when aided by the media and the American President. Art...

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on the first 100 episodes(!) of Race Reflections AT WORK. She talks about what she’s learned from the process, considers some areas to develop, and picks out her top three episodes using the criteria of which episodes resonated with her the most. The episodes Guilaine picks out: Episode 61:  Reflections on a trip to the Congo: https://www.buzzsprout.com/16...

In today's episode Guilaine reflects on the last year, both for Race Reflections as an institution and for herself personally, and thinks forward towards the year to come. Wishing you a Happy New Year from all at Race Reflections! Subscribe, rate and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

In today's episode Guilaine talks about Race Reflection’s Large Group on Whiteness At Work that starts in February. She reflects on the groups aim to help understand the impact of Whiteness, race discrimination and race inequality on wellbeing, mental health, team dynamics and institutional functioning. Starting by considering how Whiteness functions and impacts the workplace, grounding the t...

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 withi...

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 considerin...

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-...

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 p...

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/173045...

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...

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...

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 anec...

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...

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 mos...

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...

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, bec...