Let’s talk about my permanent tan
When I was 10 years old, the boy at school called me a ‘mud wrestler’. That was probably the first time I remember being a victim of racism but in all honesty I didn’t immediately realise that’s what it was until my friend said so. My friend was black and a more experienced victim. Later, in my teens I remember walking through town with my mum and a group of kids making racial slurs about the “red dot” on my her forehead. I remember playing Sunday League Football and my team captain calling a brown kid on the other team a ‘Paki’ and then turning around to me to say “you’re alright though”. On a night out, being called a terrorist. On a train, being told to “go back home”. Unfortunately, the list can go on. This is racism and if you’ve only ever had to read about it then that is privilege.
It’s often easier to call out white privilege when we you see in-your-face violent racism, however it can be harder to recognise when it is well-disguised, deeply embedded, structural racism. You know, the kind that might not look like a cop choking a black man to death, but instead the kind that looks like a burning tower block housing predominantly poor black and ethnic-minority people in an otherwise affluent, white neighbourhood. The kind that might not look like a white father and son killing a young black jogger but instead the kind that looks like less black and brown people in senior positions in government and large corporations. The kind that might not look like a black teenager being killed at a bus stop by a group of white boys but instead looks like delayed inquiries into racially motivated crimes.
Privilege is dangerous in all its forms. White privilege. Socio-economic privilege. Gender privilege. Heterosexual privilege. It can feel everyday and mundane yet affect every part of our lives. It’s why some people can turn on the TV and expect to see people of their colour. It’s why some can go on holiday without fearing they will be mistreated because of their sexuality. It’s why some people can have children and pursue a career, no one will think they’re selfish for not staying at home. If we want a fair society for all, then it is everyone’s job to call it, discuss it, debate it and challenge it.
I’ve often wondered what makes someone feel so inclined to explicitly display hatred towards another person that they don’t know, just on the basis of their race — or any other face value difference — and I believe it is consequence of a very human condition: the fear of the unknown. It’s the thing that compels us to believe in a greater power and save money for a rainy day but it’s also the thing that drives us to distrust people who look different and ‘stick to our own’.
Typically, we find ourselves rationalising our fear of the unknown by relying on generalisations and stereotypes. I think back to when one of my good friends moved to East London from Zimbabwe and joined my secondary school. We were sat in class talking about our favourite episodes of Friends and the white girl next to us looked at him in surprise and asked: “How do you know about Friends? Do you guys have TVs in Africa?”. He was offended. To her, he was just a distant relative of the kids she had seen on charity informercials. With her very little exposure, she had made a sweeping generalisation and developed a misinformed worldview of 1.2 billion people.
I’ve experienced this myself when people ask me where I’m from, which I normally have to answer twice. The first time to say my real answer: London, and the second time to say the answer they want to hear: Sri Lanka. On hearing this, many a times the first thing they say is “Tamil Tigers” — the name of the militant rebel group. Now if they had a friend or a colleague that was Sri Lankan or at the very least they had watched movies with Sri Lankan characters, I may have not been reduced to two words from newspaper headlines they had read.
We all have this tendency to generalise, trivialise and be prejudice about people and places we know little about and when you scale this tendency you get structural racism because after all, it is a collection of individuals and their biases that create societies and systems. So to fix this, we need to start with ourselves. Every single one of us can be a part of the solution by recognising we’re also a part of the problem.
Ask yourself, have you really never made a generalisation based on race before? I confess, I have and it always stems from unfamiliarity. It’s when I don’t have friends and colleagues of that race. I haven’t read much about their history or culture. I haven’t watched movies with characters like them. It is always because I don’t know enough about them. This excuse is just not good enough anymore. If we feel comfortable with who and what we’re familiar with, then we need to proactively step out of our comfort zone and get familiar with more. Read, watch, listen, build relationships, have conversations, ask questions, educate yourself. I remember being the first brown friend to many of my work colleagues and one hot summer’s day a teammate asked me “Nelson, do you tan?” I could have thought that was ignorant and even ridiculed her naivety but instead I admired her courage to ask questions and her intention to educate herself.
Once we educate ourselves we need to look to our circle of influence. How many times have you been quiet when a family member, friend or colleague has been racially discriminant or prejudice? Every time you laugh it off, convince yourself they didn’t mean harm or they’re not a bad person — every time you do that, you’re contributing to the problem as much as them. Over the years, I’ve had many Asians make comments about my dark complexion. Its never really bothered me however, I recognise I contributed to the rhetoric by not calling it out. Real change starts with me, you and us. We cannot expect the world around us to change until we confront and challenge ourselves and those closest to us.
FYI I do tan.
