Let's move away from labelling someone a 'racist' - and focus on room for growth

By Jeff Greenidge, Director for Diversity and Governance at AoC

In many organisations, when a racialised incident happens, the first response is to seek an apology. Someone says, “I didn’t mean it like that,” or “I’m sorry if you were offended.” Apologies can bring short-term calm, but, in my view, they do not always lead to real understanding or change. Without reflection and action, apologies risk becoming performative; words that smooth things over while the deeper issue remains untouched. So, what would happen if, instead of focusing on who is to blame, we adopted a behavioural approach to tackling racialised incidents and focused on what actually happened, who was hurt, and what can be learned from it?

Every racialised incident has more than one story. One story comes from intent - what someone meant to say or do. The other comes from impact- how those words or actions were experienced by someone else. In many organisations, the response to such incidents often begins with a defence of intent: “That’s not what I meant,” or “it was just a joke.”

But when we focus only on intent, we centre the comfort of the person who caused harm and, often unintentionally, dismiss the experience of the person who was hurt.

If that is the dynamic, why would anyone feel confident calling something out? And why would someone who caused harm ever to wish to change, if the only consequence is an apology and not a demand for a deeper shift in behaviour or attitude?

A behaviour does not have to be malicious to be harmful. It is entirely possible to mean no harm and still cause it. But if no behavioural change follows, it suggests a set of values that may not be compatible with the ethos of an inclusive organisation.

It can sometimes feel easier or more appropriate to simply label the individual as “a racist” and say, “We don’t tolerate racism here". That stance sounds strong, and, on the surface, it is. However, it can also close the conversation before any learning begins. When we label someone a racist, it feels like a moral verdict, something final and absolute. Most people, when judged that way, instinctively defend themselves rather than listen. What if we were able to move beyond the label and not to downplay racism, but to create space for growth?

Instead of judging who someone is, we can talk about what they did and the harm it caused.

There is a stark difference between saying, “You’re racist,” and saying, “That comment had a racist impact".

The second focuses on behaviour, which is something we can explore, understand, and change. When we say, “I know that might not have been your intention, but here’s how it landed”, we keep the door open for dialogue. It becomes an invitation to think, to listen, and to grow. And when we ask “what message might that behaviour send?” we turn a moment of discomfort into an opportunity for accountability, without blame or humiliation.

If we want to change behaviour, we have to name harm clearly. Vague feedback like “that wasn’t appropriate” might sound polite, but it hides the real issue and makes learning impossible. Precision matters. Saying, “when you joked about someone’s accent, it reinforced a stereotype that certain ways of speaking are less intelligent and that’s a racialised impact”, is not an accusation. It is a description. It helps the other person see exactly what happened and why it matters. It gives them the knowledge and the dignity to do better next time. And if there is a next time, the question we ask might be very different.

This kind of change does not happen through one-off conversations. It has to be embedded in the culture of the college, a culture of repair and learning we have in the further education sector. That means developing a shared language, shared understanding, and shared responsibility. A healthy college culture might say something like this:

“In our community, when someone says or does something with a racist impact, we name it, explore it, and learn from it.” This is not about shaming, it is about acknowledging harm and growing together, which is at the heart of restorative practice: focusing on repair, not punishment.

It means purposefully asking:

• Who has been affected?

• What needs to happen to make things right?

• What can we learn from this?

When staff, students, and leaders all model that approach, we show that it is possible to hold people accountable with care, and to talk about race without fear.

The goal is change, not condemnation. This is not about excusing racism, it is about challenging it in a way that actually transforms behaviour. We move from asking “who is racist?” to asking, “What happened, who was affected, and what can we learn from it?“ That shift from judgement to reflection, from guilt to accountability is what turns apology into action and discomfort into real progress.

Of course, there will always be a small minority who resist change, and perhaps those individuals will find that this community is not for them. But for most of us, this is about striving, not for perfection, but for growth. Because anti-racism is not just about calling things out, it is about calling people into responsibility, understanding, and the possibility of doing better.