June is Pride month, a time when the worldwide LGBT+ community comes together to celebrate their identities and raise awareness of the injustice and prejudice they still face. I’m hoping to write a handful of posts about Pride this month. If you’re reading this and don’t know, I’m asexual, which is one of the ‘+’ bits. (So I like to think of it as a positive rather than a negative!) However, today, I don’t really want to talk about the Pride movement, as there are many many people better placed than me to write about it. Instead, I want to talk about pride as a concept.
Do you feel proud of something? A child, perhaps? An achievement? Your country?
I’ve always found pride a difficult concept to deal with. There’s not really a huge amount that I’m proud of, either about myself or the world more generally. I can feel pride in others but not necessarily myself, if that makes sense. Contrarily, there are a lot of things I’m not proud of, especially at the moment.
We are living through a particularly tumultuous period of history. Around the world, we’re dealing with populist politics, the effects of climate change, a global pandemic, and very likely a period of sustained economic hardship on the horizon. Much of this could have been avoided had different decisions been made at the appropriate time. I’m not proud of that. The one I’ve been struggling with most recently, however, is the protests and riots about racial equality currently ongoing in the USA.
To me, the protests are entirely understandable and justified, and the reason is simple: the Western world is institutionally and historically racist at its core.
There is an ingrained exceptionalism and supremacy that won’t go away overnight. It’s been created by centuries of imperialism and religious superiority, after all; it can’t all be undone in one fell swoop. Of course, the issue of whether those living in the present can be held accountable for the mistakes of previous generations is a huge issue, but it’s one that I personally struggle with. As is whether it’s appropriate to hold historical figures accountable for their actions by modern-day standards. But regardless of your opinion on that, the fact is that attitudes and standards upheld by previous generations are still having a very real impact on people’s lives today.
The protests and riots that have happened in recent days – following the murder of a George Floyd by police in Minneapolis – are an indication of large scale anger against racist and supremacist institutions (notably the police). There’s a tendency for people in the UK to say things like, “Wow, I’m glad that we’re not as racist as they are,” conveniently forgetting the deaths of Stephen Lawrence, Mark Duggan, Jean Charles de Menezes and many more. Not to mention the historical atrocities committed by the British Empire in its centuries-long quest for world domination.
I think they also forget populist politicians talking about how Arab women ‘dress like a letter boxes’, they forget about the ‘Breaking Point’ poster, they forget about the Windrush scandal, they forget about the inequal opportunities afforded by our education system, they overlook how BAME communities are more likely to be affected by COVID-19, they overlook how the media and public treats successful black people…I could keep going. Does that sound like stuff to feel proud of? I really hope not.
The evidence is plain, clear, and simple: the UK has a problem with institutional racism.
As a white man, I’m ashamed to say that I’m part of the problem.
Now, don’t misunderstand or misinterpret that statement. I’m not racist and, as has hopefully been clear from your reading of this so far, I abhor racism. But that doesn’t mean I’m not part of the problem.
The only way that an issue like this is going to be resolved is by the privileged understanding their privileged position in the world, by fighting the injustice that has led to them being in that position, and by using their privilege to help those in need. It’s become very clear to me in recent days that apathy and inaction cannot affect change.
I have at times heard people – family members, friends, whoever – making a racially motivated comment or joke, and I’ve never spoken up about it. I’ve never told that person that they were wrong. That is a problem with privilege. We’re able to stay quiet when someone says something inappropriate because it doesn’t affect us. I’m ashamed of it and want to be better.
There’s a delicate line to be drawn between speaking out about these issues and being wary of the rights of the free speech of others. There’s also got to be a balance between ‘political correctness’, facts, and good-natured humour. But I don’t think it’s an especially hard line to draw. It’s not difficult to tell the difference between what’s OK to say and what’s not OK to say. Some people like to make it out like it is difficult, but I think there are two simple rules.
- If a comment you’re making refers to the ethnic background of another person, and you wouldn’t dream of saying it to their face, then don’t say it at all.
- Don’t make sweeping generalisations about a particular community.
That’s it. Even just doing that will start to chip away at the institutional racism that we have in this country and the Western world more generally.
Of course, there’s so much more to do than that. By setting better examples to future generations, for example. By helping to uplift those less privileged than ourselves, whether that’s through giving to charity or more active campaigning. By being a voice for people who have none, or whose voice has been repressed.
But, most crucially of all, we – white, British people – have to take the first step. Realising that we have a problem, and we are the problem. It may be incredibly idealistic of me, but I’d like to think that it can be done.
The saying goes that pride comes before a fall. But I hope this time that pride in our society can come after the fall of institutional racism.
Shane Rynhart 