Content note: this article contains mentions of racial violence and displacement. Please read with care.
Dear friend,
Outrightly, let me tell you, it is not really helpful to believe and go about identifying yourself as someone who is not racist.
But of course, you’re here to learn and I - your favourite tranny on the internet - am here to teach.
Being ‘racist’ or not is not an identity. Or rather it does not serve a purpose when examined in relation what the various, vicious roots of systemic and interpersonal racism is looking to achieve, and the impact it has on several marginalised identities and the planet.
The act of having servants or slaves as a general concept within various regions of the world was quite common. The trans-Atlantic slave trade that began establishing itself around the 1500s, and the movement of people from the continent of Africa into what is now known as the USA as indentured slaves, marked a specific shift.
(It is also important to know that European states like the French, Dutch, English and the Portuguese moved people from various parts of the world as indentured slaves to other colonies, not just the USA)
With capitalism as a tool (and a newly formed necessity), it was soon understood by slave owners that people can be used to gain monetary wealth, power and land, and therefore racism as a concept was invented by colonizers to specifically target dark and Black skinned people as a way of making gaining capital through the establishment of colonies.
(This is of course an abridged version. How racism was instrumentalist to control various Black, Brown, POC and Indigenous peoples around the world was a thoroughly malicious, insidious and complex process, and not within the scope of this article.)
Over the last 300 years, the nature in which racialised bodies have been targeted, used, systematically disadvantaged and abused has slightly shifted. A good example is that slavery in mostly abolished in most parts of the world, but there are many states that have not necessarily decriminalised it. Here is a good article to read that shares some information.
Further more, modern forms of control of human bodies that include those of women and children (through abortion and childcare laws), disabled folk (through the lack of accessible housing and healthcare) and other marginalised bodies (through displacement, immigration and sex-work laws) not only still exist, but are efficiently utilised in many parts of the world.
These forms of control disproportionately impact people of colour, and in particularly those who are women, queer, children and disabled folk. And due to this discrimination that is based on race, skin colour and country of origin, these policies and laws that control such people are racist.
With me so far? Okay, good.
In a country like Australia there are thorough national systems like immigration, child safety, the police, the justice system, and prisons that continue to operate on policies that are built on racist control of people. Australia in specific is a good example because of the well-documented genocide of First Nations people (a term that includes the Aborignal and Torres Strait Islander people and, to some extent, people of the surrounding nations and islands) upon whose land the country is built.
Jacinta Krakouer’s article for The Guardian titled, The Stolen Generation Never Ended - The Just Mopped Into Child Protection wonderfully probes deeper into how the racist systems still exist.
Now we are in 2023. A new year (?)
These systems not only continue to exist but seem to be thriving. And many people, including non-Indigenous people of colour continue to benefit from the systems that continue to disadvantage other further marginalised people.
For example, the brutal greed with which traditional land in Australia is mined ruthlessly across the continent not only severs incredibly thorough and spiritual connections that First Nations people have with the land, but it also puts the environment at risk, thereby further triggering the impacts of global climate change (the effects of which we are already experiencing).
Through Centrelink, people that cannot find employment (due to the various industries within the sector being incredibly inaccessible to women, young people, disabled and queer folk) continue to rely on decades old systems that hardly allows the said people to lead a life where they can afford their daily needs.
Housing continues to be unsafe and unaffordable while the rich continue to buy property and raising the rent.
These systems (that also include the police, healthcare and education) are a part of our daily lives, and the product of them govern how we live from day-to-day. And the blatant reliance on these system without questioning or challenging them makes us all racist.
Yea, me too. I am racist.
A majority of us are quite comfortable because we did put in a lot of work to “lead a decent lifestyle”. Why get political and shake the settledness our lives already has?
We don’t necessarily feel the need to challenge racist systems because for a lot of us - especially white and able-bodied people - these systems are built for us to thrive. They are built to keep us safe while the “bad, poor and criminal” are kept at bay.
It is, in fact, way too uncomfortable and unsettling to actively protest against these systems and bring about equitable changes and shifts so that everyone can live a decent life.
And that is why declaring that ‘I am not racist’ does not make sense. Because simply by relying on the police to keeping us safe, for example, we continue to reassure and reinforce the racist systems that harms Black, Indigenous and POC disproportionately, and therefore inevitably support the racism that occurs.
This can be applied to many or most countries around the world.
As unsettling as it is, I think that being able to make peace with the fact that most people are ‘racist’ does not necessarily make us bad people. But it does make us realise that we have grown quite comfortable within our own privileges that the various systems around us offer. It allows us to focus less on the label and more on the impacts of systemic and interpersonal racism.
And I think that the sooner we are willing to make peace with that fact, the sooner we can mobilise, advocate and grow less ignorant of the below-3rd world conditions that a majority of people around the world live in. The sooner we will be less invested in claiming to be “not racist” and actively choosing anti-racist practices that lead to the liberation of all people.
What are your thoughts? Let me know!
love,
auntiekaran.