This is the difference between racism and prejudice. There is an unattributed definition of racism that defines it as prejudice plus power. Those disadvantaged by racism can certainly be cruel, vindictive and prejudiced. Everyone has the capacity to be nasty to other people, to judge them before they get to know them. But there simply aren’t enough black people in positions of power to enact racism against white people on the kind of grand scale it currently operates at against black people. Are black people over-represented in the places and spaces where prejudice could really take effect? The answer is almost always no.
A few years ago I got into a conversation with a friend’s white, French girlfriend about racism. I spoke to her honestly about my experiences. It was going well, and she was telling me about the troubles she faced as the youngest and only woman in her workplace, often having to work twice as hard to prove herself as competent to her employers. We were getting along, and we found we had common ground. I told her about an experience of being passed over for a job I’d interviewed for and finding out through mutual friends that the position had gone to a white woman my age with almost identical experience to me. I had felt the slap in the face of structural racism, the kind of thing you only hear about in statistics about black unemployment, but never hear about from the people affected by it.
Then she said, ‘You don’t know if that was racism. How do you know it wasn’t something else?’ She told me about her anger and fear after being accused of racism by an Algerian man. She said how angry it made her feel, that people can use accusations of racism to stop white people talking, that maybe the man should have considered that people didn’t like him because he didn’t behave very well. She said she had felt intimidated because he was a man, she said she thought he might get aggressive.
I was naive. We had resonated beforehand, so I had good faith in her humanity, I thought she might be able to accept the structural conditions that allowed a situation like this one to happen. So I tried to encourage her to consider the suspicion and anger of a person who has suffered racism their entire lives. I thought I might be able to persuade her to think outside of herself and question the wider context, but then every sentence she said sounded like every word I’ve ever heard from people defending whiteness. It’s like they all learn the lines from the same sheet.
Then I considered the social implications of the logical outcome of our exchange, where the consensus would be that I am wrong, because that’s how the white status quo maintains itself. If I’d argued with her, I would put myself at risk of no longer being welcome in that particular houseshare, because I would have ‘created an atmosphere’. I would be considered a ‘reverse racist’, an angry, unreasonable troublemaker, maybe even a violence sympathiser. This kind of social exclusion did not seem worth it. So I said nothing.
White privilege manifests itself in everyone and no one. Everyone is complicit, but no one wants to take on responsibility. Challenging it can have real social implications. Because it’s a many-headed hydra, you have to be careful about the white people you trust when it comes to discussing race and racism. You don’t have the privilege of approaching conversations about racism with the assumption that the other participants will be on the same plane as you. Raising racism in a conversation is like flicking a switch. It doesn’t matter if it’s a person you’ve just met, or a person you’ve always felt safe and comfortable with. You’re never sure when a conversation about race and racism will turn into one where you were scared for your physical safety or social position.
White privilege is a manipulative, suffocating blanket of power that envelops everything we know, like a snowy day. It’s brutal and oppressive, bullying you into not speaking up for fear of losing your loved ones, or job, or flat. It scares you into silencing yourself: you don’t get the privilege of speaking honestly about your feelings without extensively assessing the consequences. I have spent a lot of time biting my tongue so hard it might fall off.
And of course, challenging it can have implications on your quality of life. You might lose out on job offers because you’ve spoken openly and honestly about your experiences and perception of racism online. Interviewing for an admin job a few years ago, I was confronted by a potential colleague about something I’d tweeted about race. Considering it was such a low-ranking position, I didn’t think such an intervention was necessary. White privilege is deviously, throat-stranglingly clever, because it owns the companies that recruit you, owns the industries you want to enter, so that if you need money to live you’re forced to appease its needs (I locked my Twitter account after that incident, and didn’t let any conversations go beyond small talk in all other jobs). It eases you into letting your guard down with white people, assured that you’ll be taken seriously, but simultaneously not being surprised when a conversation highlights your difference against your white peers. White privilege is the perverse situation of feeling more comfortable with openly racist, far-right extremists, because at least you know where you stand with them; the boundaries are clear.
The insidious stuff is much harder. You come to expect it, but you can never come to accept it. You learn to be careful about your battles, because otherwise people would consider you to be angry for no reason at all. A troublemaker, not worth taking seriously, an angry black woman obsessed with race.
Back in January 2012 – a mere two days after two of Stephen Lawrence’s killers had been sentenced to life imprisonment – somewhat of a Twitter storm was circling around one of Britain’s few black female Members of Parliament. In a conversation on Twitter, Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, was exchanging thoughts on media coverage around the verdict with journalist Bim Adewunmi. It took just one tweet to inadvertently spark one of the biggest furores regarding racism against white people in the UK’s recent history. Writing in the Guardian, Bim explained the situation.2 ‘In the course of tweeting the events around the trial, conviction and sentencing of Gary Dobson and David Norris for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, I wrote: “I do wish everyone would stop saying ‘the black community’ though.” I expanded in a follow-up: “Clarifying my ‘black community’ tweet: I hate the generally lazy thinking behind the use of the term. Same for ‘black community leaders’.” This led to a reply from my local MP Diane Abbott, in which she said: “I understand the cultural point you are making. But you are playing into a ‘divide and rule’ agenda.” We went back and forth for a few tweets more and then Abbott sent out the tweet that caused the furore: “White people love playing ‘divide & rule’. We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism.”’
At this point, all hell broke loose. The news agenda swiftly changed. No longer were the newspaper editorials, radio packages and TV newspeople discussing Stephen Lawrence, the nuances of institutional racism, or the realities and fears of growing up black in the UK. Now the news story was about racism against white people. Racism goes both ways, Abbott’s detractors insisted. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, journalist Toby Young wrote: ‘imagine the uproar if an equally prominent white Conservative MP said something similar about black people on Twitter?’3 Even Diane’s Labour Party allies while defending her couldn’t help but describe her tone as ‘robust and combative’,4 as if their problem was with the tone of her tweet, rather than the injustice it was confronting. And while Britain’s white conservatives were insisting that this was ‘reverse racism’ that was as unforgivable as murdering an unarmed black teenager, Britain’s white liberals were terribly concerned that Abbott’s harsh phrasing might undo all of her hard work, insisting that adding the word ‘some’ to her tweet might have softened the impact of it.
Some white people, all white people, or none – it wouldn’t have mattered in the end. The aim of these commentators – whether they knew it or not – wasn’t to have an honest discussion about British racism. It was to obscure, to derail, and to ardently avoid the wider issue. When it comes to looking at the numbers in the UK’s bastions of influence – those that shap
e national politics and set political agendas – the conclusions to be drawn are clear. The official numbers from the House of Commons show that 94 per cent of Members of Parliament are white.5 The visible difference of Diane Abbott, one of the few black women in Parliament, who said something very much outside the realm of white agreeableness, is glaringly obvious. She paid the price for rocking the boat.
That the news cycle changed so suddenly, though, was not about the imagined horrors of racism against white people. This multipronged takedown of one of Britain’s most prominent black MPs was much more cynical. This was about what academics Alana Lentin and Gavin Titley call ‘white victimhood’:6 an effort by the powers that be to divert conversations about the effects of structural racism in order to shield whiteness from much-needed rigorous criticism. The Stephen Lawrence trial was perhaps the closest Britain has ever come to a national conversation on the insidious nature of structural racism, and how it manifests as a collective mindset – partly through malice, partly through carelessness and ignorance – to quietly assist some, while hindering others. But by flipping the debate to one that focused solely on racism against white people, that national conversation was swiftly stopped. No longer was there potential for us as a nation to examine the impact of the legacy of Britain’s racism. Instead, we were reminded by lots of very important people that racism goes both ways. In snatching away the possibility of a long overdue conversation, the resulting warped debate revealed an obsession with stopping discussion about race in Britain. The effect was as old as colonialism.
Pointing out how this country has wielded divide and rule as a political strategy is then considered an attack on the very fabric of British sensibilities. The backlash against Diane Abbott wasn’t about defending an embattled group of people who are constantly maligned in the media we consume every day. Instead, this reverse-racism row was about the British press closing ranks around what was in its interests to protect – whiteness as a faux neutral, objective power. Whiteness in the press had positioned itself for too long as the self-appointed, self-referential arbiter of racial problems, in which it pondered why these black and brown communities were so prone to violence and poverty, without a shred of self-awareness.
In 2012, the conviction of two of Stephen Lawrence’s murderers could have sparked a national conversation about race. We could have had a conversation about the police’s failure of Stephen’s family as they fought for justice (in 2016, the results from an investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission found that while the police were bungling the investigation, an undercover officer was spying on the Lawrence family).7 We could have asked ourselves honestly, as a country, if taking two decades to convict just two of the gang who murdered an innocent teenager was acceptable. We could have asked ourselves if we were ashamed of that. Maybe we could have spoken about the fact that racism had only been a political priority for less than half a century. We could have had a conversation about riots and race, about accountability, about how to move forward from Britain’s most famous race case. We could have had a conversation about how to start eliminating racism. We could have started asking each other about the best way to heal. It could have been pivotal. Instead, the conversation we had was about racism against white people.
Racism does not go both ways. There are unique forms of discrimination that are backed up by entitlement, assertion and, most importantly, supported by a structural power strong enough to scare you into complying with the demands of the status quo. We have to recognise this.
In theory, nobody has a problem with anti-racism. In practice, as soon as people start doing anti-racist things, there is no end to the slew of commentators who are convinced anti-racists are doing it wrong. It even happens among people who consider themselves to be progressive.
In the Weekly Worker in 2014, socialist writer Charlie Winstanley wrote of his utter disdain at an argument about race that had taken place in his activist group. ‘As such,’ he wrote, ‘oppressed groups sit at the centre of every discussion, backed by the unquestionable moral weight of their subjective life experience, reinforced by an unaccountable structure of etiquette, which they can use to totally control the flow of discourse.’
He continued: ‘The total effect is to create an environment in which free discussion of ideas is impossible. Oppressed groups and individuals operate as a form of unassailable priesthood, basing their legitimacy on the doctrine of original sin. To extend the analogy, discussions become confessionals in which participants are encouraged to self-flagellate and prostrate themselves before the holy writ of self-awareness. Shame and self-deprecation are encouraged to keep non-oppressed groups in their place, and subvert the social pyramid of oppression, with oppressed groups at the top.’8
Upset by conversations about white privilege that were happening at the time, left-wing writers drew the conclusion that those affected by racism were actually the most privileged, because talking about the effects of racism somehow gave them the moral high ground. This left-wing writer was angrier at people’s reactions to racism than the racism itself. This was the beginning of a backlash against conversations about white privilege.
If a person living under the weight of racism wanted to discuss the issues with like-minded people, they might form a group for that purpose. They might opt to call that group a safe space. The concept of a safe space isn’t too outlandish. When it comes to race, it could be anywhere that you felt safe enough to discuss your frustrations about the whiteness of the world without fear of being ostracised. It might be a specific moment in your living room with a relative, over lunch with a close colleague, or in a specially convened activist space. But in the middle of a backlash against any and all anti-racist organising, the phrase ‘safe space’ became another target for white privilege’s rage.
‘Safe spaces is a direct corollary of the rise of identity politics,’ wrote Ian Dunt in the Guardian. ‘As the essentially economic argument between right and left died down, it was replaced by a culture war in which gender, sexuality and race were at the heart of the discussion.’
‘This is the work of privileged, moneyed, over-educated, pampered, middle-class liberal idiots,’ added feminist writer Julie Bindel in the same article.9
I have often had white people get in touch with me, using the words of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr in attempts to prove to me that my work is misguided, that I am doing it wrong. In emails and tweets, I’m told that Martin Luther King, Jr wanted a world in which people were judged not on the colour of their skin, but the content of their character. The intent of these messages suggests to me that these well-wishers believe that, in today’s context, these words are best suited to mean that white people should not be judged on the colour of their skin. That the power of whiteness as a race should not be judged. What those who get in touch with me don’t seem to realise though, is that, published in the June 1963 issue of Liberation Magazine and written from a prison cell in Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr also mused:
‘First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
‘Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.’10
In February 2014, political magazine The Economist
published an excited editorial on the rise of mixed-race Britain. Using census data, the piece took an in-depth look at trends across the UK pertaining to mixed-race children. Mixed-race people were the fastest-growing ethnic group in Britain since 2001, the magazine wrote, with 6 per cent of children under the age of five identified as mixed race, a higher number than any other black and ethnic minority group in the country. ‘For the young,’ the article concluded, ‘who are used to having people of all backgrounds in their midst, race already matters far less than it did for their parents. In a generation or two more of the melting pot, it may not matter at all.’11
In Britain’s biggest cities, mixed-race friendships and relationships are now routine rather than controversial. But an increasingly mixed-race Britain makes race relations more complicated, not less. Although nowadays people are much less afraid of living with and loving each other, the problems of racism aren’t going to go away. Despite all of the joys and teachable moments of living cheek to cheek, mixed-race children are not going to end racism through their mere existence. White privilege is never more pronounced than in our intimate relationships, our close friendships and our families.
Race consciousness is not contagious, nor is it inherited. If anything, an increase in mixed-race families and mixed-race children brings those difficult conversations about race and whiteness and privilege closer to home (literally) than ever before. No longer can the injustice be quietly ignored by switching off the news or closing the front door.
Talking to Jessica, who is mixed race, is enlightening. We spoke at length about white privilege and family, and the messy, sometimes deeply painful, nature of talking about race with your nearest and dearest. Because of the sensitive nature of our conversation – and the fact that she still has to maintain these relationships – I’ve changed her name for the purposes of this book.
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race Page 8
