"Are you Afraid of your own Racial prejudice" by Liana Sangster
An EXCELLENT article from a true ally . . .
I have been guilty of racial prejudice. And most likely, so have you.
I remember being at university and learning a profound concept that never, ever left me. A Psychology faculty member by the name of Ngaire Donaghue, at Murdoch University was sharing how people form stereotypes. We attach a salient behaviour to a salient person, and we forge the two as if they co-exist as facts. If you have one, you have the other. If you represent a minority group which makes you stand out, you will more likely be stereotyped for a behaviour than someone who represent the majority. The Amy Cooper video is a good example of this; if it had been a white person who was bird watching, the exchange would not have happened, the police would not have been called.
The seemingly simple realisation that stereotypes were a social construct formed by people, in my mind, meant that I could also intervene in the creation of these, or rather, I could be an active participant in the formulation of my own beliefs.
I had to first come to acknowledge the deeply uncomfortable truth that I held racially prejudice beliefs. I had inherited these from all experiences throughout life; messaging in the media, conversations at the dinner table, subtle cues from teachers and societal role models, and then the sheer vacuum that existed where a better narrative could (and should) have been formed about our Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander people. The counter narrative simply didn’t exist, at least, not in my world.
The image I was propelled back to during that lecture was one of me sitting at Perth Train station, noticing a group of Aboriginal youth who were often there also. They spent time at the station not necessarily to catch the train but as a meeting spot with their peers, much like the other kids in Perth. I would see the (minority, salient) Aboriginal youth and observe the salient behaviour being a loud disposition, more rapid movement, and chatting to friends in a far more vocal way than was the norm in my social group, my majority and privileged social group.
I recoil with shame as I reflected that in that moment, I grasped hold of my bag and averted eye contact out of a belief that these youth might be more likely to harm me in some way. It is uncomfortable to confront that I have held these beliefs. I will most likely throughout my life, continue to identify assumptions that exist within me that need correcting, those that I am not conscious of in the moment. And I will have to confront again, when they are wrong and damaging.
I am the only person who can intervene in my own thoughts if I am to live a life of integrity that I aspire to.
People are afraid to own up to the fact that they have racial prejudice within them. But we do. If we don’t acknowledge it, we can’t change it. What is far more damaging, and more frightening for us as a community is that we deny that we have a set of prejudiced (and often, racist) beliefs and we push them away because it is too uncomfortable to look at. We say it’s not me, or I am entitled to an ‘opinion’, we will belittle it by saying it’s in the past, it doesn’t exist, or we suggest everyone has the same set of choices, or that people should just move on. And this denial is heart wrenching. It denies people the acknowledgement that it does exist, that it does cause pain, suffering and destruction and it continues to create a widening chasm between where we are now and where we should be.
How do you feel when your worst experiences go unacknowledged by people around you?
We must be brave enough to acknowledge our own short comings… Or the shame will only amplify them more.
I say this now, because I feel a wave of helplessness as I watch what’s going on from my privileged home in suburban Sydney, which only serves to shine a light on our own backyard.
Indigenous Australians make up 3% of our population but nearly 30% of our incarceration rates.
Since 1991, at least 432 Indigenous Australians have died in custody
In May 2019, 100% of children in detention in the Northern Territory were Indigenous.
Whilst, Nationally only 5% of people aged 10-17 are Aboriginal, they make up almost half of those in the youth justice system.
Whilst I know I need to do more than just have a voice on the matter from the comfort of my office, what I will commit to and what we can all commit to is the choice to acknowledge our own biases. We can choose to own them rather than deny that they are there, we can actively intervene in the destructive patterns of thought that govern what we believe about people who are different from us, and our behaviours that inevitably flow from this. And we can all choose to educate ourselves better.
It is uncomfortable to integrate knowledge that challenges our pre-existing beliefs, it takes effort to do it. But that small mental effort that we can each make, pales in comparison to the effort that the vulnerable, minority people in our community are required to exercise every day to simply be here.
Other things you can do:
Sign a petition to prevent deaths in custody (Change.org)
Watch some educational media
Attend an event i.e. Dixie Crawford’s online event, 9th June 2020 – “Cultural Insights: Why my voice counts”
While you’re here, check out the latest episode of “The Family We Choose”
