Racism is....

 

A Sense of superiority plus the ability to enact ‘my’ will over others on the basis of race. 

“I know that my perspective, my beliefs, and my knowledge are in no way perfect, but I sense that they are more sound and sensible than those of the people around me.” 

“What if I have the power to impose this position on others?- I can be assured that I won’t have to follow their inferior ways.  I might even help them?” 

Racism = Prejudice + Power

Sense of Entitlement. 

“My family have worked hard.  I went to school and university and worked hard.  I have not got to where I have got to without some merit.  I deserve the pay I get.”  I deserve the respect I am given.  I have lived here a long time and people should know that the space on the road outside my house is for my car.  I’m looking forward to my inheritance.  I will be comfortable then.”

But….

Other people also work very hard for a much smaller rewards.  How would I feel if they were paid more that me, or considerably more than me, for similar work?  There is no rule to say that the space on the road outside my house belongs to me.  There is nothing to say that this country actually belongs to me or 'my' people, other than the laws that I (and 'my' people) have created . 

Yehudi Menuhin said “Borders are the prisons we chose live within.”

Sense of Aggression

Racism also involves aggression because in order to impose over others, I have to deny the other as a fellow human being.  Would I honour Nelson Mandela in the same way if he was white?  Consider the lens of colour.  Do I treat all people as equals, ‘eye to eye’?  Why not?  I must stop feeling in order to be racist.

Micro and Macro

Small local effects are seen in systems where discrimination has been present for many years.  Every year the old ways are reinforced.  After a while we do not see what’s going on.  Things become immutable and fixed: too expensive now to change.  Who is motivated to go to that effort of creating change anyway?

“White woman crying is racist” (as discussed on Reni Edo-Lodge podcast). Using the filter of race, Reni asks whether this person on the front row of a talk she gave would be crying if she were white?What about other lenses?  Age, disability, sexuality, gender?  Always interesting to consider these lens.

Race in the News

Grammar School Debacle https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-56524850  

Parents protest outside Batley Grammar School after a teacher show children a defamatory picture of the Prophet Mohammad. 

Questions:

A third of the children at this school were from Muslim back grounds- does this make a difference?

What if this were pictures that would upset other communities, such as the naked photos taken of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on Honeymoon that were band from publication in the UK.  What about manipulated pictures of national treasure doing lewd things?  What about pictures of the headteacher doing lewd things?

This is a battle of rights.  The right to say and do things that might cause offence, so long as it does not provoke violence.  The right of the teacher in question to be safe, and for his/her family to feel safe.  Also the rights of people not to be treated with sensitivity and respect. 

My thoughts are that the teacher could have discussed all of this without showing the offensive article to the children, and the children would have been able to discuss and debate it…and that this should equally apply to children of non-Muslim background.  The parents are upset because they feel their powerlessness.  They have a right to protest.

Murder of Sarah Everards.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-56524850

The outpouring of grief and rage was not just because a serving police officer is likely to be show to have murdered an innocent woman, but also that this happens far too frequently, and the level of fear women are subjected to is intolerable.  And then we discover that similar incidents have happen recently to two other women, who happen to be non-white. 

Why to some stories take off and others not?  This is a mirror for our society to look in.  This illustrates the point ‘Do black lives matter?’

India Eva Rae experience with BAFTA sponsorship. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56524511

Eva Rae eloquently relates her experience of racism while taking part in a programme designed to address racism in the entertainment industry.  BAFTA denies her experience.  This is a case where it would have been far better if BAFTA had done nothing that that it exposes itself to international ridicule and hypocrisy.  Eva Rae is also exposing herself to the other great unchallenged discrimination; that of the hideous cult of beauty. 

£50 Bank note https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56503741

Alan Turing- a good choice, but would he have been chosen if he were not known to have also been homosexual?  There is some debate about his unique greatness.  The paradox of computers is that they are so complex, there is no one person who understands them.  They are like an ants nest, created by a community.  So what comes first, diversity or greatness?  How can there be an equal playing field?  Numbers, history, and power ensure that white heterosexual men will fill most vacancies on the back (or is it front) of bank notes.  So who should be the representative face for the British black and Asian community?  Can you name then.  1) no longer alive, 2) known to at least 25% of the population (cf Jane Austin and Alan Turing).  3) Not divisive.  Emmm.

The obvious person is known across the hospital wards of the UK.  This is Mary Seacole.  But there may be forgotten people we have not heard about.  This might be one for 50 year time after a bit more history has been created.  My vote would go for Zaha Hadid (architect).

Zaha Hadid on an Iraqi Stamp