Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race

Structural racism is an impenetrably white workplace culture set by those people, where anyone who falls outside of the culture must conform or face failure.

According to the Department for Education, a black schoolboy in England is around three times more likely to be permanently excluded compared to the whole school population.6

The evidence suggests his fortunes might drastically change as a greater proportion of black students than white students progress to higher education after sixth form or college.

Between 2012 and 2013, the highest proportion of UK students to receive the lowest-degree ranking – a third or a pass – was among black students, with the lowest proportion being white students.9 Given that black kids are more likely than white kids to move into higher education, it’s spurious to suggest that this attainment gap is down to a lack of intelligence, talent, or aspiration.

In 2016, it was revealed by the Higher Education Statistics Agency that almost 70 per cent of the professors teaching in British universities are white men.

The researchers found that the applicants with white-sounding names were called to interview far more often than those with African- or Asian-sounding names.11

A 2013 British report revealed that black people are twice as likely to be charged with drugs possession, despite lower rates of drug use. Black people are also more likely to receive a harsher police response (being five times more likely to be charged rather than cautioned or warned) for possession of drugs.14

They also estimated that black men are about four times more likely than white men to have their DNA profiles stored on the police database. This

We don’t live in a meritocracy, and to pretend that simple hard work will elevate all to success is an exercise in wilful ignorance.

Opposing positive discrimination based on apprehensions about getting the best person for the job means inadvertently revealing what you think talent looks like, and the kind of person in which you think talent resides.

Colour-blindness does not accept the legitimacy of structural racism or a history of white racial dominance.

White children are taught not to ‘see’ race, whereas children of colour are taught – often with no explanation – that we must work twice as hard as our white counterparts if we wish to succeed. There is a disparity here.

Not seeing race does little to deconstruct racist structures or materially improve the conditions which people of colour are subject to daily.

Seeing race is essential to changing the system.

white privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism.

it was a white man who first gave white privilege a name. Theodore W. Allen

White privilege manifests itself in everyone and no one. Everyone is complicit, but no one wants to take on responsibility.

you have to be careful about the white people you trust when it comes to discussing race and racism.

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

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 2013, the Department for Education told the press that black and ethnic minority children are adopted, on average, a year later than their white counterparts.

Racism’s legacy does not exist without purpose. It brings with it not just a disempowerment for those affected by it, but an empowerment for those who are not. That is white privilege.

It is in film, television and books that we see the most potent manifestations of white as the default assumption.

White people are so used to seeing a reflection of themselves in all representations of humanity at all times, that they only notice it when it’s taken away from them.

There is an old saying about the straight man’s homophobia being rooted in a fear that gay men will treat him as he treats women.

It has always been about the redistribution of power rather than the inverting of it.

If, as they say, racism doesn’t exist, and black people have nothing to complain about, why are they so afraid of white people becoming the new minority?

‘When feminists can see the problem with all-male panels, but can’t see the problem with all-white television programmes, it’s worth questioning who they’re really fighting for.’

That it wasn’t seen as moaning, that it wasn’t seen as reading too deep into things, it was just like yeah, people get it.’

That led to intersectionality, looking at the ways race and gender intersect to create barriers and obstacles to equality.’

‘Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master’s concerns.

Now we hear that it is the task of women of colour to educate white women – in the face of tremendous resistance – as to our existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal thought.’

The white feminist distaste for intersectionality quickly evolved into a hatred of the idea of white privilege – perhaps because to recognise structural racism would have to mean recognising their own whiteness.

The white feminist’s characterisations of black feminists as disruptive aggressors was not so different from broader stereotyping of black communities by the press.

Women of colour were positioned as the immigrants of feminism, unwelcome but tolerated – a reluctantly dealt-with social problem.

If feminism can understand the patriarchy, it’s important to question why so many feminists struggle to understand whiteness as a political structure in the very same way.

So much of politics is just middle-aged white men passing the ball to one another.

It’s not about women, who are feminists, who are white. It’s about women espousing feminist politics as they buy into the politics of whiteness, which at its core are exclusionary, discriminatory and structurally racist.

Those who perceive every critique of white-dominated politics to be an attack on them as a white person are probably part of the problem.

‘I’m sick of living in this world built for the needs of men! I feel like at best, I can fight it, at worst I have to learn to cope in it.’ Yet they’re incredibly defensive when the same analysis of race is levelled at their whiteness. You’d have to laugh, if the whole thing wasn’t so reprehensible.

These white men’s crimes didn’t get an affix of their race in the consequent headlines. We as a nation hate paedophiles. We malign them because they are paedophiles. But crucially, we see them as anomalies. We don’t think that their actions are because of the deviancy of white men. When white men target babies, children and teenagers for sexual gratification, we don’t ask for a deep reflection on these actions from the white male community.

Class assigns your life with a correspondent value in the eyes of gatekeepers.

To believe in emasculation, you have to believe that masculinity is about power, and strength, and dominance.

My assertiveness, passion and excitement could all be wielded against me. Not displaying anger wasn’t going to stop me being labelled as angry, so I thought: fuck it.

It was black feminist poet Audre Lorde who said: ‘your silence will not protect you.’ Who wins when we don’t speak? Not us.

The word ‘urban’ here was coded, a term that implied inner cities, poverty and dilapidation.

Urban here, as it is so often used (in music particularly), was code language for ‘black people live here’.

British people thought the foreign-born population of the country was 31 per cent, as opposed to the actual number of 13 per cent.10

The same report found that the higher your income, the more likely you are to think that immigrants are a drain on public services.

The myth of grabby immigrants does, however, work to serve a particular agenda. These are the interests of those who are invested in preserving the current order of things.

Black people with education up to GSCE level were paid 11 per cent less. Black people with A-levels saw an average of 14 per cent less pay, and university-educated black graduates saw a gap of, on average, 23 per cent less pay than their white peers.12

A cap, gown and degree scroll does nothing to shield black graduates from discrimination.

Moving class requires a modicum

There is a suspicion laid at the feet of people who aren’t white who succeed outside of their designated fields (for black people, those fields are singing and sport).

The reason why you have made it is never assumed to be a result of your hard work, will or determination. There’s nothing more threatening to some than the redistribution of cultural capital.

Solidarity is nothing but self-satisfying if it is solely performative.

No useful movements for change have ever sprung out of fervent guilt.

Structures, she said, are made out of people. When we talk about structural racism, we are talking about the intensification of personal prejudices, of groupthink. It is rife.

The late Terry Pratchett once wrote ‘there’s no justice. Just us.’

We cannot escape the legacies of the past, but we can use them to model our future.

It can be passing on knowledge and skills to those who wouldn’t access them otherwise.