Friday Thoughts on Racism — Aren’t there more pressing issues than racism?
It’s more than one year since the Black Lives Matter movement started to grow in media attention. Can you remember the outrage from the Black community in the USA at the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor? As the anniversary of these killings pass and as we approach the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder I can imagine some of you are asking,
“when can we put this behind us?”
“when can we move onto more pressing issues like reducing COVID deaths or combating climate change?”
Of course, these are important issues and they affect us all. But that’s just the point; if it doesn’t affect you directly, then you don’t see it as important as the issues that do.
Racism can be compared to a pandemic virus that has gone largely unchecked for more than 400 years. Its infection only affects Black people and people of colour. It has serious psychological and physiological effects, and at its peak, it killed millions Black and of colour men, women and children.
Racism is still fatal to Black people and people of colour today.
Comparing racism to a virus one could say that white people are asymptomatic; you don’t know you are infected and for that reason you don’t understand that your actions can infect those that are not white. Interestingly Black people and people of colour can see the subtle signs that you are infected, but when we try to help, we become infected by your adamant assertions that you are not.
These quotes I read recently struck me deeply:
“Apparently, for them (white people), the true horror of racism isn’t racism itself but being accused of it due to association.”…
“The deflection diminishes the pain of what we are talking about by making it all about something else: you.”
When I read about the mass killings in Atlanta this week this hurt my heart, for a number of reasons: they were people of colour, and they were women. But what upset me more was the deflection by the press, because they were Asian and allegedly sex workers, therefore not innocent victims. This is an example of how the outrage of such an overtly racist and misogynistic attack can be tempered by the consideration that these people are “less than”.
Companies globally are focusing strongly on inclusion, psychological safety, bringing our full authentic selves to work. How can I bring my full authentic self to work, when all I have ever known is how to operate in a white society, and navigate the minefield of microaggressions that I have to walk through every day? How I wish you had a day or even an hour in my shoes, so that you could understand how exhausting life is for people like me.
If I could become white would I?
Absolutely not! With my skin colour comes my heritage, my culture and my identity. Changing skin colour changes nothing about me, what needs to change is society’s perspective. The unconscious bias based on skin colour is evil and we are all tainted by it. We must recognise that this bias exists, and that we are all accountable for perpetuating and enabling its continued existence.
Because we are all accountable we all must do everything we can to eradicate racism. This is especially relevant to those at the top of the race caste system with the power to effect change.
If you can, please find time to watch this 15 minute TED Talk on “The Myth of Bringing Your Full Authentic Self To Work”
#StopAsianHate #BlackLivesMatter #Antiracism #endsystemicracism #antiracism #zeroracism
