Eradicate Hate is a uea(su) anti-racism campaign created by Fiona Igwe and supported by Afia Khan, Aaron Campbell and named by Niyi Akinseye, to address racism on campus and ensure that Black students and other ethnicities are properly supported.
The campaign is to educate the community at UEA on what constitutes racist behaviour, to create an anti-racism culture on campus, and to inform students on how to report racist incidents and get support.
Recently, UEA launched its new Report and Support portal. It’s a place for students and staff to report incidents of harassment, assault, abuse or bullying of any kind, and is a place to seek support if this has happened to you. We think it’s a really good tool, and we want to work with UEA to make sure students get the right support through this system.
We were successful in our lobbying to make sure UEA introduced Report and Support as quickly as possible, and we’ll continue to push to ensure students who report incidents through this system get the support that they need. We believe the University should make sure those who report racism are kept up to date with how the issue is dealt with, and that the University should publish its figures on how many cases it receives, how it has responded to them, and how quickly. Through Eradicate Hate, we’ll be lobbying UEA on these issues and many others.
Eradicate Hate forms part of our commitments to diversity, empowerment and anti-racism at uea(su), marking clearly that any form of racism is unacceptable. We know that we have more work to do, and Eradicate Hate is just the beginning.
"Standing up to racist and bigotry behavior was never new to me and it will never be easy. However, it’s imperative that as I stand up, there are others standing with me, regardless of your race, gender, sexuality or class. We’re all in this together." Fiona Igwe
What is a hate crime or hate incident?
Hate incidents and hate crimes are acts of hostility and violence directed at someone because of who they are or who someone thinks they are.
What types of incidents may be hate incidents?
- verbal abuse like name-calling and offensive jokes
- bullying or intimidation
- physical attacks
- threats of violence
- hoax calls, abusive phone or text messages, hate mail
- online abuse for example on facebook or twitter
- displaying or circulating discriminatory literature or posters
- malicious complaints for example over parking, smells or noise
- microaggressions
Microaggressions may include:
- touching someone's hair
- crossing over to the other side of the street to avoid someone from a different ethnicity
- being treated less favourably or with more suspicion in a shop than a white person
- ignoring someone's messages in a group chat
- offering more support or help to white students
- talking over people with lived experiences of the issue
If you experience any of these behaviours (and the above is not an exhaustive list) we will support you to report them.
If you experience racism or any other type of harassment any of uea(su)’s venues you can report it to a member of security staff or come to our advice centre in union house. All our venues staff have been trained to deal with reports of this nature and they will make sure you are taken seriously.
You can report any incidents through UEA's Report and Support online tool, where you also have the option to report anonymously: https://reportandsupport.uea.ac.uk/