I have a confession to make: I am racist.
Let me explain. Recently on the way home I pulled up on my bike at an intersection and an Aboriginal woman pulled up next to me and we started to talk. I know of this woman from around my workplace, but have never spoken to her. I see her around quite regularly on my campus. The conversation was fine. We just discussed the evening traffic. Despite this however, for some odd reason I had a strange feeling of slight uncomfortableness during the whole thing. Not enough to make me feel scared, or to not want to engage with her, but enough for me to notice that it was there.
In fact if I think about it honestly, I can definitely say that in many instances I slightly treat people of other races differently. I sometimes, without realising, think that I should walk on the other side of the street as young black people. I sometimes treat Asian people as if they are always quiet and difficult to engage with. Or I see Aboriginal people through the light of poverty. They’re only minor things, but even though I absolutely hate it, they’re sometimes there.
Now, it’s not that I think myself as a full-blown racist. I definitely don’t think that. I would genuinely think, and hope, that the people around me wouldn’t consider me as racist either.
Despite this however, I know there are many little racist parts of me. And I’m pretty sure that if we all think about it, we probably all these tendencies in one way or another. In some way or another everyone has a bit of racism built into them from when we were young. Racism is still heavily built in to almost every part of our society.
And that’s the thing that we often don’t talk about when it comes to racism. We’re happy to talk about how we think Andrew Bolt is a racist, or how Australia’s asylum seeker policy is racist, or attack Aboriginal Memes for being racist, but we treat those instances as if they are outliers. Racism is now a thing of extremists who are no longer in the mainstream of our community.
The problem is that this ignores the fact that racism is actually everywhere. We no longer have separated busses, and Aboriginal people can vote, but racism is still all around us. And most of us are part of it in some way or another. Systematic racism is about a lot more than the institutions that still have overt racist tendencies that hold people out. It is about the stereotypes that exist in our society and the simple reality that we all know that people within our community, including ourselves, treat those of different races differently. Systematic racism exists both within our institutions, and, maybe to a lesser extent, within our minds.
Now, I’m not saying that we’re all disgusting racist bigots. In fact, I know that the vast majority of people in Australia, and around the world, don’t consider themselves, and aren’t actively racist. Despite this however racism is still embedded in our society. It is systematic and we are therefore all part of it in some way or another. And whether it is treating particular people with a little bit more suspicion, or labelling stereotypes onto others just because of the colour of their skin, this racism has an impact.
But in refusing to acknowledge it, we are also refusing to deal with it. In discussing at length the racism of Aboriginal Memes, whilst at the same time laughing at a slightly racist joke, we are treating racism as if it is something we are not part of despite the fact that we are, subconsciously engaging in it.
It is hard to come out and say ‘I have racist tendencies’. But it’s about time we started to talk about racism as it actually is; an everyday thing. It is something that I, and most probably you are part of in some way.
The first part of fixing a problem, is acknowledging it. Racism is still systematic in our society. That doesn’t mean we are all awful people, who have to feel bad about ourselves. What it does mean however, is that we need to start thinking about our role in the systematic nature of racism. It’s the only way we’ll be able to move to a completely post-racist world.