Experiencing racism

This is the speech given by my granddaughter Anna at the end of the school year, 2021. She is sixteen years old, of African origin (Ethiopian), raised and living in Zurich, Switzerland.

Experiencing racism

Hello, my name is Anna Triebold and I am going to talk about experiencing racism. I am sure each one of you has experienced racism in some way. We usually talk a lot about it because it is such a common discussion, but what does it mean to be racist? What should your response be when someone tells you, you are being racist?

Racism has been generalised in our society. People use the word racist a lot. But what do we mean when we call someone a racist?. Racism is prejudice. It’s injustice and discrimination against a person or people based on their particular racial or ethnic group membership. This is what Google will tell you. This is all true, but what I interpret as racism is looking at me weirdly because of my skin colour, sitting to the other side on the train when I sit next to you, assuming I don’t speak the same language, assuming I don’t have money, being overly nice to show how “not racist” you are, telling me you have “black friends”, saying I am pretty for someone with that skin colour and asking me where I came from until you hear the answer you actually wanted to hear. All of these things have happened to me. You might think this is not that bad because there are people who get treated a lot worse and you’re right there are people with bigger issues, but that still doesn’t make it right for me to accept all these things. I know for a fact that I am going to have to live with this for the rest of my life. I am going to have to accept it because that’s what I was taught to do.

I would like to give you an example of something that I know for a fact is a very common issue that most black people have faced in their life. The question they get asked is “can I touch your hair?” Now you might wonder what is so bad about asking someone if you can touch their hair? Or “I’ve never touched an Afro and wanted to see what the texture is like.” Asking to touch someone’s hair is invasive and micro-aggressive behaviour. The only thing worse than that is assuming it’s okay to touch someone’s hair without permission. If you’re a non-Black person I just want you to ask yourself this. How many people have asked to touch your hair? The number for a non-Black person is likely low. By asking to touch a black person’s hair, you are saying that white hair is normal and anything different is abnormal. Another reason is it leaves a black person in an awkward position. I used to feel obligated to say yes, so people didn’t think I was difficult or mean. If I say yes, I feel like I’m on display.

Sometimes racism is not something you see. People deny racism when it’s not visible. This means that society taught us to deny racism. If someone were to be accused of being racist they would deny it because it is a social taboo. People often just choose the “easy” or “convenient” thing to do when they are brought into a difficult situation. But their cowardice deprives others of their freedom. To pretend not to see what is still happening in the world just makes you naïve and ignorant. This is not going to make us forget the years of slavery, suffering and survival and it will certainly not bring back the centuries of cultures that have been removed by bigotry. As a result, people of colour start trying very hard to make white people feel comfortable around them. If it is intentional or not, white people feel more “normal” when a person of colour acts white in front of them. Now, what do I mean by “act white”? It’s for white people to feel at ease and to be familiar with the way people of colour behave in front of them. So the desire for someone to “act white” is only for their benefit.

However, we are in the 21^st century. You’d think things have changed. But they haven’t. People still get killed because of the way they look. People don’t get jobs because of the colour of their skin. Children get abused because they were speaking a different language. Because how dare someone to speak a different language? How dare someone walk around in the skin they were born with? People being racist can take away your identity. Not all black people equal crime and not all Asians are Chinese. Let me give you an example, Asians have been receiving a lot of hate since Covid-19, we all know that. Now racism against people of Asian descent is nothing new, but it has increased massively. There has been an increase in fear of racist abuse because of verbal slurs and physical assault Asians have been facing more and more. Now this proves my point again. People are scared and instead of blaming it on themselves, they blame people that don’t look like them. And the only person you’re helping by doing that is yourself. The dangerous thing about racism is people don’t see you as a person anymore, they see you as a threat and as something less than them.

People are not born racist. What triggers racism, is society. Society teaches us to be racist. Sometimes it’s things you are not aware of. For example, when I was little we used to draw in school. They used to teach us all the colours. There was this white/pink colour and they taught us to call it skin colour. Since I was little I didn’t really think about it. But now I realise, that they were showing us how there is only one type of skin colour. I knew I wasn’t that colour, but somehow I never thought about starting to draw the skin of people with a darker colour. Even though I knew I didn’t look the same as my classmates. I knew I wasn’t white.

Now, what are you supposed to do when a person of colour comes up to you and tells you, you are racist? The worst thing you can do is DENY. Don’t explain why what you did is not racist. Accept it. Think about it. Think about how what you did or said could affect someone’s mental health. Put yourself in that position. Try to educate yourself.

Spring, 2021