A chief Indian origin scholarly has gone on strike alleging faculty members from King’s College London spurned to address her a “Doctor”.
Priyamvada Gopal, 50, delineated the incident as part of “consistently racist aggression and profiling” from porters at King’s College.
Cambridge University fellow specializing in post-colonial literature, took it to Twitter, after the incident on Monday, how she told one of the porters, “Please address me as Dr. Gopal,” to which he responded, “I don’t care who you are.”
She said it was not just a case of her arrogantly insisting on her proper title being used instead of the term “madam”, merely the term was being used jeeringly and dismissively.
“He then launched into a tirade about how people treat him. I am sorry but my brown body isn’t taking the hit for that. He’d never talk like this to actual white men who behave badly,” she said on Twitter.
Dr. Gopal declared, “with deep regret”, that she had eventually decided “on my behalf and of other people of color at Cambridge University” to refuse to oversee any students at King’s College.
She added, “Enough is enough of the consistently racist profiling and aggression by porters.”
According to report, students at King’s College have reportedly gathered grounds from others. Sarah Jilani, a mixed-race Ph.D. student at the college, said the porters’ behavior was unacceptable. “Not shocked, sadly. My parents visited recently and my (brown) father was stopped and asked if ‘you sir’ was ‘with them’ (me & my white) mother,” she said.
King’s College said that it had looked into the matter and found “no wrongdoing on the part of our staff. We categorically contradict that the incident referred to was in any way racist.,” a spokesperson said.
By Sowmya Sangam
