Living Black at University 22 Living Black at University 23 3.4 SUMMARY AND KEY FINDINGS Black students reported a less positive experience in their accommodation on average compared to White students, in terms of a lower sense of belonging, comfort, safety and security. The causes appear to be multi-faceted, involving racial name calling, exclusions, microaggressions and specific acts of racial profiling. Cumulatively, these can have a significant impact on the everyday lived experiences of Black students, and these impacts are explored further in the section 7. MENTAL HEALTH . 1 Black students have a less positive experience than average in their accommodation in terms of sense of belonging, feeling comfortable in being themselves, and sense of safety and security. 2 Black students are impacted by microaggressions in accommodation. 3 The accommodation environment leaves some Black students feeling uncomfortable. 4 Some Black students report that staff have enabled microaggressions and other forms of racism to thrive. With regard to feelings of safety and security in their accommodation, 80% of White respondents felt safe compared to 67% of Black respondents, and 12% of Black respondents felt unsafe compared to 5% of White students ( Figure 4 ). While a lower sense of safety may be linked to the impacts of several of the other themes explored in the report, there were instances in the focus groups and free text responses in which it was attributed to the actions of accommodation staff themselves. Some of the Black students in the focus groups had experienced racist attitudes from staff working in their accommodation. “Some [of the wardens] were really nice however there were some instances where they turned off their cameras to harass us.” These feelings were compounded by the belief that their experiences and concerns about racism would not be taken seriously or acted upon, something that is explored in more depth in the section 5. POLICIES AND PROCEDURES . 3.3 FEELINGS OF SAFETY AND SECURITY 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Black/Black British White 24% 20% 14% 20% 11% 57% 48% 4% 0% 2% 1% 1% Key Disagree Strongly disagree N/A Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Figure 4: I feel safe and secure in my accommodation