“I have a duty to my department.”

“No, you have a duty to this institution.”

This is a conversation between Professor Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) and Dean Paul Larson (David Morse) in season one, episode five of The Chair. The Chair is a 2021 Netflix show created by Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman. It follows Oh’s character Jin-Yoon as she is appointed the first woman of colour chair of the English department at Pembroke University. As chair, Ji-Yoon wants to fight for her colleagues and make the English department better for her students, but this conflicts with how the university, or as Larson referred to it, “the institution”, views her role. To Larsen and the board, Ji-Yoon isn’t at the institution to support or even improve the experiences of her colleagues and her students. Instead, her role at Pembroke is to make the institution look good on the outside, even if it’s rotting and killing its students and employees on the inside.

This conversation between Jin-Yoon and Larson took me back to my own experiences at university, when I was BAME Officer. For those outside of the U.K. (and for those inside of the U.K., because I didn’t know what BAME meant until I was eighteen lol thank you to my feminist society for always keeping me educated!) BAME stands for Black, Asian and minority ethnic. The role expected one student body member to represent ALL students of colour and bring their needs and concerns to the Students’ Union. On the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) website, students’ unions are described as being “run by reps” (and paid Sabbatical Officers) “elected by students. They’re responsible for representing you - so you can go to them for all kinds of support”. The way UCAS describes students’ unions is not how they act. Students’ Unions state that they are separate from the university, an establishment of class suppression and white supremacy. Students’ Union’s are meant to be the alternative to the establishment, but instead, many of them are one and the same.

At the end of The Chair, Ji-Yoon is voted out of her position as chair of the English department. Rather than fighting it, she nonchalantly shrugged her shoulders and suggested that Professor Joan Hambling (Holland Taylor) take over her role. She said this with no malice or envy but with genuine earnestness. At that moment, it was clear that Ji-Yoon had given up, not on teaching but on working with the institution. I quit my job as BAME officer in December, only four months after I officially started my role in September. I didn’t tell anyone I quit; I just mentally checked out. Suppose you’re looking for a sign to quit that job. This is it. Quitting is freeing, but it’s also incredibly sexy.

“Suppose you’re looking for a sign to quit that job. This is it. Quitting is freeing, but it’s also incredibly sexy.”

During Black History Month - celebrated in October in the U.K. - we had an “n-word incident”, as my students’ union called it. You can read more about this in an article I wrote for LAPP the Brand in 2020 titled “White Feelings First, Black People Second: The Constant Silencing of Black People.” To make a long story short, a young man who went to my university was recorded supposedly saying the n-word on the bus on a night out. The morning the story broke, the Sabbatical Officer I worked under sent me a scary message that I needed to come to the Sabb’s office immediately. I was played the video and stated that I heard this person say the n-word. I sat in the office for about a half an hour while the all-white members of the Students’ Union debated if this person actually said the n-word. They suggested what else he could have been saying and laughed at their ‘wild’ alternative proposals. Strangely enough, I didn’t find the conversation or the context of the situation funny. While they all spoke, I just sat there speechless. If you’ve read my piece from 2020 or went to my university at the time (hey yall!), you know that the university handled the situation disgracefully. I would argue that my Students’ Union handled it even worse.

When I decided to speak out against my Students’ union in December (through a statement I wrote for our leading student magazine) for not doing enough for students during the investigation period, I was told by a Sabbatical officer that I could not speak up against the Students’ Union in the way that I did. She stated that I made them sound racist, and because I “worked” for them, I couldn’t make such challenging, “non-productive” comments. It made the relationship between the Students’ Union and the University look incohesive. What I wrote in my statement and all the concerns I raised, really didn’t matter to them. All my Students’ Union cared about was the fact my statement made them look bad when they had positioned themselves all year as a progressive force. I was pissed off, but more than anything, I felt foolish. I was under the impression that I worked FOR the students and their betterment at university? My Students’ Union made it very clear to me on that day that that was not the purpose of my position, not really anyway.

I was then badgered into altering my statement. In my 2020 article, I stated that “my university put their reputation first and black students second,” and in this article, I’m saying the same but instead about my Students’ Union. I have always believed that if I wanted to see a change in the world, I should get the fuck up and do it. Ignore the fact I’m paraphrasing Gandhi. So in my first year after hearing this white boy make transphobic comments in my halls of accommodation, I joined my Feminist Society. In my second year, I become President of my Feminist Society and then (unfortunately) I become BAME Officer. In my third year, I stopped participating in my students’ union and student clubs, partly because of my dissertation but mostly because I was tired. I was so tired.

A 2011 research paper by Annemarie Vaccaro PhD and Jasmine A. Mena PhD titled “It’s Not Burnout, It’s More: Queer College Activists of Color and Mental Health concluded that self-identified queer activists of colour experienced burnout, compassion fatigue and, in some cases, suicidal ideation because they were juggling academia, family life and activism with little support. There’s a scene in The Chair in episode six where Laurie (Marcia Debonis), a teaching assistant, asks Ji-Yoon if she has a lifeboat to protect her from drowning in her role. The scene cuts to Ji-Yoon sobbing in her bathroom at home and then crying in her living room with her father and daughter because white supremacist institutions have no lifeboats for people of colour. They want us to drown, struggle, fight and do anything but thrive while we are there. They make it as inaccessible as possible for us while claiming that *THIS* is the most accessible they have ever been because these institutions do not really want us there. If they did, university would be free. If they did, universities would actively fight against racism. If they did, universities would put their students of colour and their employees of colour first over their reputation. But they do not.

“White liberals and so-called progressives tend to have this fantasy about women of colour, specifically Black women, that when they are in trouble, women of colour will save them all, even if it destroys us.”

In the first episode of The Chair Ji-Yoon remarks that getting this position in the English department is bittersweet as she feels like she’s been handed “a sinking ship.” White liberals and so-called progressives tend to have this fantasy about women of colour, specifically Black women, that when they are in trouble, women of colour will save them all, even if it destroys us. This can most recently be seen with the glorification of American politician Stacey Abrams. Women of colour are put on this pedestal because it makes white liberals feel like they are well and truly supporting us, when in fact, they are just leaving us with their messes to clean up. Not to mention, by consistently putting women of colour in the position of saviour, we are being set up to fail time and time again for not reaching their impossible standards.

I have spoken up about this situation before, but it deserves reiteration. For all students of colour entering their first year of university, please act with caution. Prioritise your own well-being and the well-being of those closest to you. University feels like the only opinion for many working-class people of colour who don’t have connections to different industries like our white peers. We have to go to these schools, and often we suffer while we are there. Just know you are not alone in this, no matter how lonely the institution can make you feel.

The university as we know it will always overwork people of colour. It will never honestly look out for their welfare and will always put marginalised people last. The Chair is a show that highlights how painful it is to work within an organisation that suggests it just needs reformation when it actually needs to be burned down to the ground.

By Halima Jibril (she/they)

Edited by Zara Aftab

Illustration by Julia Klaryz