Take two small children of any race and colour and put them in a playpark or a room with a big box of toys and they will have the time of their life playing together.
They don’t see skin colour, they just see another ikkle person they can play with.
No-one is born a racist. It’s a taught behaviour that can also be untaught.
Or in some cases, people see opportunities to make personal gains by sowing division, highlighting fabricated differences between people based solely on their ancestry. They become the teachers.
Are you a racist?
This probably seems unnecessary, but the definition from a quick search is “a person who is prejudiced against or antagonistic towards people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group.”
I’m guessing you’re still a solid “no”.
Most people aren’t. Most people are too smart to see merit in racism, though some smart people may leverage racism for their advantage, regardless.
Yet despite us living in societies where the vast majority are not racist, our societies have racist tendencies. To be fair, our societies have many facets of inequality and race is just one of these. Other groups are also discriminated against, but race is our focus right now.
You’re familiar with the concept of white privilege, aren’t you?
The idea that white people have an easier ride in society just because of their skin colour.
I don’t know how you feel about the concept, but I do understand there are reasons why white people feel frustrated by the idea.
Life is hard for everyone. If you’re white and at the bottom of society, with trouble securing somewhere affordable and safe to live, struggling to put food on the table three times a day, or just once even, and keeping your living space warm and comfortable, you are not going to feel that you’re enjoying any form of privilege.
A young white person who has worked hard to achieve good exam scores, perhaps in subjects that they’ve found very difficult, isn’t going to want to feel that their success in achieving a college or university place was given a positive boost because they’re white.
A successful middle-class white family, with mum and dad in well-paid jobs that allow them to pay for a black childminder, know that they’re not racist and are playing their part to counter the societal issue of white privilege.
Regardless of how we feel, the data tells us that white privilege is a thing. I suspect not every white person benefits from it to the same degree, but it’s all around us regardless.
In the UK, 15% of prisoners on remand are black, while black people make up 3% of the population. Consider all ethnic minorities and the proportion of prisoners climbs to 34%, while the figure in the general population is 13%.
Before going on, while I want to focus on how we’re divided by race, I’m going to be focusing on white and black people. I know that racial discrimination goes wider than this and I apologise if the decision I’m making for convenience causes offence. I’m trusting in you to appreciate that all races deserve fairness and equality, not just some.
People are people. Regardless of skin colour, we want the same things and have much the same values. There may be various factors that could influence the criminality of people. Poverty is often considered a driver of crime, though the correlation between crime and falling incomes may not be as definite as some would believe.1
Still, black Britons are more likely to live in poverty than white Britons. 30% of black Carribeans and 45% of back Africans versus 20% of white British living in poverty.2
Clearly, even if poverty is a factor, it doesn’t come close to explaining how the UK’s remand population is proportionally five times the size of the general black population.
When figures look crazy like that, it should be immediately obvious that something is wrong. When numbers don’t add up in the way they should, then clearly there’s a hidden element in the equation that’s affecting the result.
If black people make up 3% of the general population, then we should see a similar ratio of black people in the prison population, yet the reality is that there are five times as many black people in British prisons than we’d expect. That obviously doesn’t make sense.
Black people aren’t any more criminalistic in their nature than white people. Clearly, we can’t assess a person’s nature by their skin colour, can we?
So their drastically larger representation in prison populations must indicate another cause.
Doesn’t it appear to indicate a system that treats black people differently from white people?
Is there another plausible explanation?
Let’s look at a documented example of how black people are treated differently from white people. We’re switching to the USA, a country where black people make up 13% of the general population and 37% of the prison population. Feeling a little bit of déjà vu, perhaps?
A study looked at data from police bodycams that recorded interactions with members of the public during routine traffic stops3. By analysing the language used by officers, the researchers found that white people were treated more respectfully than black people. As there could be other factors at play, the researchers normalised the data to ensure as accurate a result as possible.
Remember I said that racism is learned. Interestingly, the research found that the behaviour was the same regardless of the race of the officer conducting the stop.
In fairness, I imagine we’d also find that in some areas white drivers who present in a particular stereotype would also be subject to similar disrespectful language. These would be the white people who most struggle to understand the concept of them possessing any form of privilege. On the face of it, they feel as subject to prejudice as anyone.
But as we’ve already seen, if their traffic stop went particularly badly, they’d still be a lot less likely to end up in prison.
Might We Be A Little Bit Racist?
We’ve established we’re not racist, individually anyway. How can we be sure though?
Ever watched a movie called The Perfect Find? I’m a bit of a sentimentalist with a love of the rom-com genre – Mrs Forclift is far more likely to pick the latest Jason Statham on movie night in this household.
Right at the end, there’s a grand gala and we see various people arriving. When I was watching that, something felt odd. Then I realised it was because of the racial mix. There was just the odd white face or so in a scene filled with black faces. For once, I was experiencing what I imagine black people in most Western countries experience daily.
A film or TV show that barely represented me. Well, barely represented my skin colour. Obviously all the cool, hip and beautiful people did a fine job of representing Jethro.
So, I do pick up colour differences between people. Without realising it, might I have biases inside that I’m not consciously aware of?
To be honest, I think the answer has to be yes. While two kids of different colours will happily play together, we’re also kind of programmed to favour people who look like us.4
Still, I feel a little uncomfortable with what I’m about to do, complete an Implicit Association Test (IAT) on race. Well, I’m assuming there’s one on race, maybe it will be called skin colour, I don’t know. I’m on this page right now- https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html – and haven’t even clicked the link following the warning that basically says I may not like the results presented to me at the end.
Fingers crossed I’m not about to find out I’m the love child of Enoch Powell and The Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
While I’m doing it, why don’t you give it a go too? It’ll save you wasting any time waiting for me to get back.5
Aha, there’s quite a list of tests. So I’m going with the Race IAT one if you’re going to have a go now too.
Here’s some elevator muzak while you wait. Dum-de-dum-dum-de-dum-(yes it’s The Archers’ theme tune)-dum-de-dum-de-dum-dum-etc.
Did you try it?
I’m not going to say anything about the test, in case you haven’t. I think the less you know ahead of trying it out, the better.
My results?
Well, I guess I can share if you’re really that interested.
So the “How Racist Are You” result table at the end had Adolf Hitler at the far left of the scale (that’ll be the end we don’t want to be at). I was placed almost at the far right of the scale. Just to add context to my result, Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta appeared on the scale just left of centre.
I think they must be using some AI image creator for the graphics, as Mother Teresa was wearing a Ku Klux Klan style mini-dress with thigh-high jackboots. It’s not a look she was known for, but I have to admit she carries it off well, though I don’t think her breasts were ever that big in real life.
Just kidding.
Her breasts were huge!
Just kidding, no really Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s breasts were historically insignificant.6
Come on, stay focused. I’m kidding about the results, they don’t place you on a “How Racist Are You” scale. The test is designed to try and identify bias and the results page explains how it works.
I expected to exhibit bias and according to the results, I do have a slight bias. The surprise is that my bias is slightly towards black people rather than white, which I hadn’t anticipated.
I’m not much of a people person and most people I know are white, so maybe that explains why their test believes I feel less positive about white faces.
However, there is a big disclaimer on the accuracy of individual results from these tests.
Based on the information Project Implicit shares, IAT results are generally reliable indicators of group behaviour when aggregated across the results of many people, but they may not be especially accurate when isolated as a single person’s result.
I assume the order the exercises are presented is random and even that order could potentially influence our results.
Anyone scoring in one of the “strongly” groups might benefit from a period of self-reflection, but it would be wise to take individual results with a pinch of salt. It’s designed to look for trends across groups.
Which means this map of aggregated results across the USA probably doesn’t make for reassuring, or surprising, viewing for black Americans.
The stronger the yellow colour, the greater the bias towards white people in that area. The grey areas are areas where not enough people have completed the test to produce a result that’s considered reliable.
Look closely and there appear to be some areas that are near white or light blue, indicating areas with neutral bias or bias towards black people. There aren’t many though are there?
So even if we’re consciously not racist, it’s still possible that deep-seated bias that we’re not aware of could be influencing our behaviour.
Could that explain the disparity in the number of black people who find themselves in prison?
Could that explain Lewis Hamilton’s failure to win the 2021 Formula One World Championship? In the final race of the season, the Race Director made some decisions that appeared to violate the written rules, effectively taking the race win from the black driver Hamilton and handing it to the white driver Max Verstappen.7
In response to the former question, the numbers tell us something is askew, and societies that lean towards white bias could help to explain it.
In the latter, while possible, it’s also impossible to know exactly what factors drove the decision-making process. There would have been multiple different unconscious biases at play, all pushing in different directions and eventually averaging out to a final single decision.
That applies to all of us, with every decision we make. We may be aware of consciously weighing things up, but unconsciously there can be just as much activity pushing us towards our final decisions.
Is Positive Discrimination a Positive or Negative Thing?
Assuming that we accept that bias that works against black people does exist, what can we do about it?
While there are some strategies that may help us as individuals to counter our own biases, it’s hardly a guaranteed approach to achieve equality.
One approach that has been used in various situations is positive discrimination.
Positive discrimination is a wonderful strategy that leads to more equal outcomes for minorities that are otherwise unfairly discriminated against and is also an appalling strategy that leads to members of majorities being unfairly discriminated against.
It’s a bit controversial, and so it’s yet another thing that works to divide us.
So which opinion is correct?
They both seem valid to me but in different ways.
For individuals, such as a student who has studied hard to achieve the results they need to gain a college or university place, thinking you could lose out on that place just because you’re white is going to hurt and feel pretty perverse.
Surely that’s racial discrimination in action, the exact same thing positive discrimination is meant to prevent in this case. It’s creating a system that is biased against the white individual.
Looking at it from the individual level, it seems pretty hard to me to argue against that point of view.
However, we live in societies, and when we scale up and look at it at a different level, there is a counter argument.
We’ve already established that black people make up about 13% of the US population.
Is it unreasonable to expect that proportion to be equally represented in subsets of society?
If a university has 10,000 positions for students, shouldn’t about 1,300 of those students be black? Assuming that enough qualified black students apply to cover those 1,300 places, shouldn’t those places effectively be theirs by right?
Based on the proportion of black people in the general population, wouldn’t any figure less than 13% indicate a bias against black people?
So on this level, positive discrimination is attempting to neutralise bias and ensure that subsets of our societies fairly represent the societies as a whole.
Does it feel more reasonable when viewed in this context? Particularly if we consider that of the Ivy League schools, in 2021, Harvard, with 9%, had the largest percentage of black students enrol.8 About two-thirds of the amount we’d expect based on the general population.
In a perfect world, we’d all be without bias and these things would sort themselves out.
Until then though, should individuals accept that to make a society that is fairer for everyone, they may have to accept a society that feels less fair to them?
Please Stop Shouting, We Can’t Hear You
Whether you’re convinced about the effect of racial bias, I reckon most black people believe in it and its negative effects.
Which gives them good reason to be angry, doesn’t it?
I think so, but the problem with angry people is that they’re not persuasive. We can never beat people into agreeing with us. Passion can be persuasive, but anger has the opposite effect.
It drives people away, even if they may have been open to persuasion. Once you get someone nodding in agreement, it becomes easier to build on that momentum, one small agreement at a time until you reach the final agreement.
The problem is, when we’re angry we don’t think so rationally and we’re generally more focused on transferring the pain that we’re feeling onto someone else. Ideally onto the person we hold responsible for our pain, but let’s be honest, failing that, anyone will do.
Some years ago, I was shown a post in a Facebook group that had been made by a black lady who was clearly upset. The group was connected to a training course and just for students of that course. All the students had been sent a goody box, which included a headband.
The OP was angry about the cultural appropriation that she saw in this headband and demanded the course leader contact her.
I would be confident that this would have been a group that would have been very supportive of any genuine concerns another member had. However, the comments were all pushing back against the OP. There was just confusion as to how a headband could be considered an exclusively black cultural item and rather than ask about her concerns, the response was both defensive of the course leader and aggressive.
It seemed odd and a few hours later it was still on my mind. Obviously, this person was upset and they couldn’t have felt they were being unreasonable, so what was the issue?
Searching didn’t bring up anything about headbands in black culture. Then I tried searching for the manufacturer’s brand name, which is when I understood the trigger. The brand name appeared to be a play on the word durag, a close-fitting cloth traditionally worn by black people to protect their hair (as a bald white man, this is based on Wikipedia).9
I guess many black people, when presented with the brand name, would have made the same connection. The reaction in the group suggested many white people didn’t. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the OP’s complaint, letting anger drive her reaction undermined the effectiveness of what she was saying.
As deeply unfair as this is, in situations like this, if those who have been discriminated against want to drive change, they need to be the better person. Clearly, that’s complete pump, but shouting just makes us look unreasonable, when talking calmly turns the focus onto the message, not the messenger.
So often, people don’t mean to cause offence, but going on the attack can make an enemy of someone who could easily have been a friend.
And this isn’t just a black and white issue.
In the USA, “colored” was part of the language of segregation and its usage is considered unacceptable in modern society.
In South Africa, “coloured” is a legally defined racial grouping, alongside white, black and Indian.
Before continuing, can I just highlight that those are two different words? Well, kind of. Okay, yes they mean the same thing, but the South Africans spell it correctly.
Now I know that I shouldn’t be surprised whenever the internet steps up to host Spatville, but I just can’t help myself.
So the South African singer/songwriter Tyla enjoys some success in the US with her track Water.10
Someone refers to her in a tweet as a black11 leading to a reply from someone else that she’s coloured, leading to a bear pit of discussion that spilled over to TikTok too.12 Some people felt Tyla was being offensive by referring to herself as coloured and attacked her for it.
Why?
If you’ve already got enemies, why go looking for new ones? Particularly enemies who should be on your side.
If Tyla stepped out of a Delorean into a 1940s US southern state that practised segregation, don’t you think she’d have been forced to sit at the back of the bus with the black passengers?
Granted, research into colourism shows that lightness of skin tone can affect the degree of discrimination people face, but we’re getting distracted.
As so often happens, those at the top of society have got us fighting the wrong fight against the wrong enemy. As long as we play our part in keeping the bottom of society divided, nothing is ever going to change.
- https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/perspective/falling-crime-rates-siddhartha-bandyopadhyay-2.aspx ↩︎
- https://www.jrf.org.uk/race-and-ethnicity/poverty-rates-among-ethnic-groups-in-great-britain ↩︎
- https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1702413114 ↩︎
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S109051382300051X?via%3Dihub ↩︎
- Yes, I do know that’s not how a book works, but go on, why don’t you give it a go now anyway? ↩︎
- Well, there’s a phrase I never anticipated saying twice in the same week…oh, did you think I was linking to supporting evidence of Mother Teresa’s breast size? 😉 ↩︎
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77RXPgDr-24 ↩︎
- https://blog.collegevine.com/the-demographics-of-the-ivy-league ↩︎
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durag ↩︎
- I’m not really one for R&B, but this works for me – https://soundcloud.com/billy-taner/tyla-water-billy-taner-remiks – don’t be surprised by the house twist, child. I’ve done the maths, your uncle Jethro was clubbing through the ’90s. ↩︎
- https://atlantablackstar.com/2023/11/20/tyla-fans-racial-undertones-coloured-vs-colored/ ↩︎
- https://salaamedia.com/2023/09/20/educate-yourself-coloured-is-an-identity-in-sa-even-if-not-in-america/ ↩︎