The understanding ourselves lecture based on Racism explained how racism is still an ongoing issue in today’s modern society. At the start of the lecture we are asked to write down our understanding of race, ethnicity and discrimination. My thoughts on these terms were:

Race – A shared physical trait of a group

Ethnicity – A social group that has similar traditions

Discrimination – A group of people who are treated unfairly

Prior to the lecture, I watched the film on Clint Smith talking about his experience as a black child growing up in a society where race controlled what you were and weren’t allowed to do.

Throughout the lecture, we looked at the different perspectives of Racism and different people who have been affected by racism both in the UK and wider world. I had previous knowledge from school about events in the past caused by racism such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. However, I was unaware of tragedy of Emmett Till and Stephen Lawrence. We also discussed how patriarchy is still a relevant social issue today, where males have dominance over females.

By the end of the lecture I had a deeper knowledge of racism and was surprised that racism and discrimination is still an ongoing issue in the modern society, as I associated racism with the past and not the present day. I believe this will encourage me to think differently as a teacher in the future.