How do we understand racism without being educated on black history?
We never thought that in 2020 we would have to condemn and discuss the topic of racism. In 2008, when Barack Obama became the first African-American President, many hailed the United States as a “post racial society”. Eight years later, the reality of an openly racist President in Donald Trump proved it to be a lie. The XXI century was supposed to be modern and people’s mindset were meant to be open-minded and tolerant. But this was a felony - that we have had to swallow harder this year than ever before, and a very dangerous assumption.
The two of us, two white females, never really had to talk about race in much of our young adult lives. Our professional experiences and university education introduced us to a topic we perceived as ‘sensitive’. But, what is the fundamental reason behind us and our white peers thinking this topic is difficult to talk about because it is a touchy matter? Have we really been educated about RACISM?
Have you ever stopped for a second and believe it could potentially be given we actually never had to worry about our skin colour?
This article aims to arouse curiosity in White people about the topic of racism so that they educate themselves about it beyond their schoolbooks. We understand that as white people who studied history from a western viewpoint, educating yourself on racism is remarkably challenging. Frankly, our journey of learning about this topic was very overwhelming. For instance, Rocío delayed researching and reading about these topics because she was afraid of her fear becoming real - that she was born, raised, and educated in a racially biased society. Joanna surrounded herself with white cast TV shows and books, for a long term realising how institutionally racist this was, and actually how much she could learn from multicultural television and books. But, we must NOT reject an extensive part of world history to be capable of accurately understanding racism. Getting out of your comfort zone is not only taking a gap year and travelling abroad but also embracing these ‘uncomfortable’ but highly necessary conversations.
Black Lives Matter
After a summer of widespread protests across the globe addressing racism, Black History Month this year is a continued timely conversation about racism in our society. Racism is not limited to one country, “it happens there, not here”, or “it is not as bad here as it is there” we hear often, but we all have a part to play in creating a fairer and more equal society, starting looking at our own countries and communities. This blog post hopes to invite people to read about racism after the many horrifying acts of police brutality and systemic racism the world has witnessed in the last few months. We cannot reiterate enough how #BlackLivesMatter, and justice must be served in their cases.
George Floyd’s death sparked outrage, protests and a revival of the Black Lives Matter movement that reached every inch of the globe, and started a conversation around systemic/institutional racism.
“Systemic racism is the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and fair service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be detected in attitudes and behaviours which amount to discrimination through prejudice, ignorance, and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minorities”
The main difference between the BLM movement in 2014 and 2020 is the multiracial support and involvement across the world. People of all races marched and called for global and fair racial treatment by the police. White people are starting to recognise the privilege of their whiteness and the unfairness of systemic racism on a bigger scale.
This social movement, the largest in US history, is not an anti-white movement. It does not want to take away White people's rights but to tackle racial injustices that our world keeps witnessing. It defends that their lives matter TOO, and enough for the system to condemn racial discrimination against them. Nevertheless, current nationalistic, far-right, and racist rhetoric tries to hijack their point with the pettiest technique: arguing that they do not want the movement to jeopardise their privilege. However, if they fear that scenario from happening, then they are automatically affirming that the system was made for a few but not all, for white and not for other races. Such a copy mechanism is named 'reverse-racism’ (Schaefer 2008: 1118). They make the issue about white people and, additionally, create a breach of ‘us versus them’. The movement is not a competition but an equity fight.
The police keep being protected for their racist actions in the United States as if they were untouchable.
Let us give you some perspective.
The “stop-and-frisk” method is an incredibly racial discriminatory practice, no matter how many public figures like Donald Trump praise it. For instance, this policy was highly criticised in NYC since 83,78% of the people stopped in 2011 were either Black or of other minorities. The police used force against the racial minorities 23% of the times, as opposed to the 16% against Whites (Lenhan 2017). The result? White people carried knives twice as often compared to Black people and Latinos. Such a top-down method makes racial minorities not trust the police because their skin colour is the principal factor as to why they are frisked.
The police have never had a positive relationship with racial minorities, and the criminological ‘labelling theory’ can give us a hint as to why. This theory explains that if a person already has a predesigned negative social label, he/she will not be capable of eliminating it without joint efforts and social education on the matter. The limited relationship between the police and minorities is grounded in the fact that both parties engage with each other majorly when (suspicion of) conflict happens. Hence, local authorities are guided by intuition, and their acts are mainly based on racial bias
In the US, Black people and other racial minorities are at a higher risk of being killed by the police than white people, in some areas the rate is as much as six times higher.
How is it - White male officers were exonerated twice of wrong-doing after murdering an 18-year-old Black teenager? Michael Brown was shot to death six times in Missouri in 2014 after stealing a pack of cigarettes.
How is it possible that Tamar Rice, a 12-year-old Black boy, was fatally killed by White policemen in 2014 when he was spotted playing with a TOY pellet gun and throwing snowballs?
Why did the White policeman who murdered a 43-year-old Black male suspected of illegally selling loose cigarettes, was only fired five years later and not charged? Eric Garner was chokehold to death in 2014 after continually repeating the words ‘I cannot breath’.
Why did Sandra Bland, a Black BLM activist, die in police custody after three days of her arrest in 2015 and the case was quickly and simply ruled as “suicide”?
How does a 26-year-old Black young woman, Breonna Taylor, get shot in her bed and justice is still not being made? White policemen forcibly entered into her apartment searching for narcotics. No drugs were found. One was charged with “wanton endangerment”, and the other two have not been charged.
Why was George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black male, murdered by three white police officers after being choked for 8 minutes and 46 seconds in June 2020? The footage in which he repeatedly states ‘I cannot breath’ shocked the world.
Why are the policemen who tasered and shot seven times Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, in front of his children after he tried to de-escalate a fight still on ‘administrative leave’?
These are only a few cases that went viral but only the peak of the iceberg White people get to know. They demonstrate that the police/state authorities have taken the law into its own hands and justice has not been served. There is a common pattern: the race of the perpetrators and the police remain the same.
However, do we know about the topic of racism beyond the TV news and schoolbooks?
History of superpowers has always been power over someone.
Full-perspective education is vital for us to understand on-going events. The past cannot be erased nor untold. For instance, studying black history in the U.K. is crucial to comprehend the reasons behind the carry-out of events this year to support racial equality in Britain. Black British people were protesting against the deaths and discrimination of Black people at the hands of the state in the United Kingdom too.
If you are from a Western country, your structural system and society will potentially be racial biased; especially, if your nation-state has an imperialist past. You might be wondering, where does the connection between racism and Imperialism rely upon? Imperialism is the practice of military, economic, and political domination and control over foreign territories to advance Europe economically and strategically. This phenomenon was carried out by White nations over other’s composed of racial minorities. Extensive research is not necessary to learn that those foreign nations were subjected to severe human rights violations, and turned into slaves who were owned by White individuals. Slavery became an international trade and also the base of Imperialism. European nations, unfortunately, bought and sold Black people and other racial minorities as if they were exchangeable goods. They were the property of someone else.
Ironically, those imperialist nations condemn human rights violations nowadays but yet find pride in the actions that their ancestors carried out through imperialist practices. Western nation-states teach us that we need to celebrate those centuries in which the White race slaughtered and controlled another one. Unbelievably, if you do not support imperialism, you are pointed-out as anti-patriotic and radical. But, is anti-racism radical? We have adopted a racist system as the norm, and if you oppose to those standards, you are, in fact, a radicalised individual. That is where white supremacy gambles on. We are indirectly breathing racism without real awareness. If these nations had criticised imperialism, our institutions and system would most likely not be racially biased because we would have learnt that one race supremacy through force is not morally right.
It cannot sit right with you that, even though the U.K. abolished slavery in 1833, slave owners were reimbursed due to the “loss of property” and that such debt was so high that Britons kept paying it until 2015. It merely cannot (Hope and Gilbert 2020).
Jessica, a white American woman living in the UK who is openly anti-racist, explained:
“I had a lecturer at university whose class was unbelievably challenging for me because he talked about race, and also its connection with imperialism. That was my first exposure, not just to facts, but to politically challenging historical viewpoints on it. At the time I was really resistant to it. I think what made me feel defensive was that I was embarrassed that there was a chance that someone knew something I did not about my own race. On some level, I could sense that accepting what he was saying would open a can of worms. It was a combination of panic and embarrassment. I cannot point out what I was really trying to defend. I think it was indignation” (Eddo-Lodge 2017).
For instance, Schools barely teach Black History in the United Kingdom. Why? Because it would give racial minorities a voice. It would uncover the atrocities that this nation developed against other races and, since we still live in a state-centric global order, it is more advantageous for the branding of the UK that the country remains in denial.
Melody Triumph, policy specialist, commented on a BBC interview:
When slavery and Imperialism vanished, the system was still built upon a racist legacy. How does a person go from ‘quasi-animal’ to human without explaining the reasons behind such a decision? How do you dismantle the idea of how the White race perceived (and still do) people of colour? Although global rules made in the previous century were constructed to guarantee equality and no discrimination no matter the socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, gender, and beliefs; it was a naive and failed attempt to put all individuals on the same level. The theory has not been yet put into practice by any means. It cannot because we need institutional and systemic change. Who thought that writing those international principles in paper was ever going to bring racial equity if the topic of racism was shut down? Those actions cannot become successful in practice if we did not learn about racial matters because those rules were designed by the same white individuals who were implementing segregationist policies, believed in white superiority, and supported Social Darwinism.
For instance, we learnt at a young age that Woodrow Wilson’s policies and the League of Nations have been among the most significant attempts to bring peace during war times. However, peace for who? He is the same person who did not recognise the most basic rights of his black citizens. He believed that the U.S had to copy the U.K. by assisting “less civilised” people to remain loyal to the “habit of obedience” (Adebajo 2020). He also rejected applications from people of colour to study at the University of Princeton, the institutions he directed. Additionally, he excused the fact that black people could not have the right to vote because their “minds were dark”. See? History books omitted racist rhetoric and policies, and Wilson was a hero.
It is easy to find comfort in the “but that happened a long time ago” affirmation. Straightforwardly, it was not that long ago when mixed-raced relationships were considered an abomination and a social problem in the 30s in Britain worth academic research. It was not that long ago when in the 20s the British Eugenic movement believed that intelligence/moral values and race were directly linked by biological factors. It was not that long ago when the Commonwealth Immigrants Act in the 60s restricted Commonwealth immigrant rights and labelled them as ‘low-skilled workforce’ (ironically this conservative rhetoric prevails today). It was not a long time ago when the Bristol Omnibus Company refused to hire non-White people. It was not a long time ago when the Race Relations Act in 1965 considered legal that Black people could not have the right to a house and employment. It was not a long time ago when in 1985 Brixton riots erupted due to the murdered of a woman in her sleep by the police. And on, and on, and on.
Our grandparents and parents were raised in a society which accepted these policies against people of colour, and racial discrimination was the norm and not the exception. Only the winners write history. We conquered, we gained full control of the storytelling. These are some of the main reasons why white and black individuals are not discussing race from the same stance.
Colour-blindness
The term colour-blindness refers to the idea that to eliminate race; we must erase all discourse, including efforts to acknowledge racial structures and hierarchies and address them (Bonilla-Silva 2006). Such a mindset tries to erase the burdens of the past. It is the denial to accept structural racism and white historical pre-eminence. This is the easiest method to take away efforts from black people to thrive and fight for their equality. It comes from a place of privilege. Because we are still not equivalent. Although we should, we are not. We are not competing in even conditions because one race has been historically oppressed by the other one until very recently. One is higher in the societal hierarchy.
The fact that we are taught that we should not see race damages the chances of people trying to dismantle systemic racism. Talking about race should not be a taboo or sensitive topic. It should be treated as an urgent issue our society and institutions should be tackling. As Reni Eddo-Lodge explains in her book, she has come across many white people who did not want to discuss racism with her, a Black British woman, because it made them uncomfortable. She cannot talk about such an issue with a white person because the majority of us do not think the problem still endures. The majority of us believe it was an unfortunate matter that existed in the past. And that is our privilege. To be able to emotionally disconnect because it does not affect us. To be able to research and publish this post but do not worry about my skin colour when we walk through the door. This year, more than ever, we have recognised our privilege in different matters, but race is undoubtedly one. Academically, that description receives the name of ‘white privilege’ (Solomona et al 2005).
Some critics of this term echo its unfairness on White people who struggle due to sickness, poverty, deprivations, etc. Nevertheless, that claim is highly misleading. It expresses that White individuals will see how their race positively impacts their lives, but it does not discredit that they still have other battles (E.g. sexism, homophobia, etc). Acknowledging our white privilege on racial matters is crucial to dismantling racism.
Nonetheless, you do not have to be a nationalist white supremacist to be racist. Racism is not only grounded in the fact of being a Ku Klux Klan sympathiser or a member of a neo-nazi group. These people are a minority, although a phenomenon in the rise, unfortunately. Then, if those are a minority, how come racism is widely spread even in our system?. Because those are only examples of extremist racism. Racism is also feeling disappointed when your daughter has a black partner, saying “he/she has the perfect skin colour” when meeting a mixed-race toddler, a woman crossing the street because a black man is walking down the road, looking at a group of black boys in the park suspiciously, etc.
After getting to know what racism means, we both have accepted that we have been racist at some points in our lives without even knowing it. We have comfortably lived and been raised in a racist society. We have to listen, learn, and openly talk about it. The definition of racism is the main reason why many white people get defensive when reading our previous lines because they believe they are not racist. We have been taught that racism is screaming at people of colour, or fighting them, but it goes beyond that. White people can be good people and blissfully unaware of their racism.
There are only two options: denial or acceptance. One leads to the direct block of black voices, and the other one promotes racial equity which sees races as equal. It is your personal choice. But, kindly remember that if you do not play your part to tackle racism from its very roots, the world will never heal from it.
We are ending this post with this eye-opening quote from Reni’s book:
- Why don't white people think they have a racial identity?
Bibliography
Adebajo, A. (2020). 111. Woodrow Wilson’S Racist Liberalism | Institute For Pan African Thought And Conversation. Institute for Pan African Thought and Conversation.
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism And The Persistence Of Racial Inequality In The United States. 2nd ed. ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC, pp.3-4.
Eddo-Lodge, R. (2017). Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hawkins, M. (1997). Social Darwinism In European And American Thought, 1860-1945. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp.229-243.
Hope, C. and Gilbert, D. (2020). How The Government Only Finished Paying Off The UK's Slavery Debt In 2015. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/17/government-finished-paying-uks-slavery-debt-2015/>
Lenhan, R. (2017). What 'Stop-And-Frisk' Really Means. [online] Prisonpolicy.org. Available at: <https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/stopandfrisk.html>
Schaefer, R. (2008). Encyclopedia Of Race, Ethnicity, And Society. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, p.1118.
Solomona, R., Portelli, J., Daniel, B. and Campbell, A. (2005). The discourse of denial: how white teacher candidates construct race, racism and ‘white privilege’. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(2), pp.149-153.
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