Casual Racism, Stereotyping & my Shame
I am ashamed of myself but am glad that I have learnt something today on the subject of Racism and about myself.
But before we delve into what happened, I would like to tell you the reader a little bit about myself, hoping it will help you to put into context my actions in outlook on life and of which is not in any way meant to be a defence of my past actions or actions in the last 24 hours, but is more so to let the reader see where I was to a point in my thinking and understand of Racism until I educated myself on the subject of Casual Racism this morning.
I am a white, 55 year old, male, Irish Protestant. Now what I have just stated is important as I knew from my up-bringing I had a problem with sectarianism but never saw myself as a racist. Being brought up in Belfast Northern Ireland during the 60s, 70s and 80s before I left in 1987 was to be subjected to constant lift of violence, murder, beatings, petrol bombings and riots it was just our way of life. The Catholics hated the Protestants and vice versa, it was just how it was. We were both groups Irish by decent being born on the Island of Ireland whether in the North as in Northern Ireland or the south as the Republic of Ireland we were still Irish.
This is important to recognise as Protestants from the North of Ireland Identified themselves as British as opposed to Irish. Just at the Scottish, Welsh and English are British being born on the Island of Britain they prefer to identify themselves by their cultural heritage and call themselves Scottish or Welsh or English whereas the Northern Ireland Protestant would never normally refer to himself as Irish, he was British even though it wasn’t born on the Island of Britain but on the Island of Ireland.
Truth be told he would have been more accurate calling himself UK’ish as Northern Ireland makes up part of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland) even though it is not part of the island of Great Britain. The & in the brackets above stands out to me as it shows distance and in my mind represents the Irish Sea which divides the two countries. To the Protestant in Northern Ireland if you were Irish you were lived in the Republic of Ireland in the South of the country and not in the North.
For those of you that don’t know Sectarianism is when members of different Denominations within a faith display bigotry and prejudice towards each other. Examples include Protestants and Catholics in Christianity, or Sunni and Shia in Islam or Orthodox and Reform within Judaism.
In Northern Ireland Protestants didn’t hate English, Welsh or Scottish Catholics you had to be Irish and Catholic to be hated by a Protestant it was ingrained in the psyche of the Irish Protestant.
I learn to get over this once removed from the country and the violence and bigotry of my upbringing it actually happened very quickly over a course of 6 to 18 months and I studied Irish History to learn the point of view of the Catholic which I was never taught whilst in Ireland due to the segregation of both the Protestant and Catholic communities which never mixed if they could help it living and schooling separately throughout the North of Ireland keeping to their own communities wherever possible.
Yet we took the time to Murder, Maim and Riot with each other at every opportunity we could.
35 years down the line I don’t have any animosity towards any religion or culture on the planet.
In fact I though I didn’t have a racist bone in my body and put it down to my upbringing. In Northern Ireland when I was there I only knew personally 1 person of colour and there was none at my boys school of 800 pupils or the girls school across the way of 600 girls you just didn’t come across anybody of colour unless you went out for a Chinese takeaway (I didn’t know of any Indian Restaurants in Belfast at the time).
I saw persons of colour on television reading the BBC News and in the odd TV program but nothing else so I didn’t form any opinions of persons of colour and related to them to be the same as me.
It wasn’t until coming to England that I experienced Racism in conversation and society and like the Murders, Maiming and Rioting I had experienced when you are immersed within something in society as a fact of life rightly or wrongly it can slowly start to become the norm.
Please bear in mind I was experiencing racism myself being Irish in England and the fact that trouble and bombings and murders where not spilling onto the English Mainland I was being tarred with the same brush as a potential terrorist. The only thing saving me was I had Joined the Royal Navy.
And in the late 50’s and 60’s when if you came to England for work the signs on the windows of the lodgings normally stated in the following order of distain.
Luckily the Irish have a thick skin to go with being Thick. Now that’s Stereotyping and I thought until this morning that Stereotyping and Racism when not linked. To me Stereotyping was used to form an opinion of general appearance and used to make Jokes but not meant to be offensive where as Racism was to be offensive and violent towards someone.
I was wrong Stereotyping can lead to what is know as Casual Racism.
Stereotyping is a fixed, over generalized belief about a particular group or class of people. For example all lumberjacks wear checked red and black shirts.
An advantage of a stereotype is that it enables us to respond rapidly to situations because we may have had a similar experience before.
A disadvantage is that it makes us ignore differences between individuals, therefore we think things about people that might not be true or make generalizations about them.
The use of stereotypes is a major way in which we simplify our social world as it reduces the amount of mental processing we have to do when we meet a new person. In stereotyping we are inferring that a person has a whole range of characteristics and abilities that we wrongly assume all members of that group of people have. Stereotyping leads to all types of social categorisation, which is one of the reasons for prejudiced attitudes which leads to inclusion and exclusion within society. Once there you are on the slippery slop towards casual racism which may develop or lead to others developing full blown racism there isn’t much difference in reality as they end up both being related.
Casual racism is one form of racism. It refers to conduct involving negative stereotypes or prejudices about people on the basis of race, colour or ethnicity and can take the form of something as simple as making jokes about a persons Nations Dress or physical appearance, or excluding a person form some form of social situation or occasion upon the basis of race such as excluding a Muslim from going out with a group of people for a drink as you wrongly believe they will not want to because of their religion whereas they could have still enjoyed the occasion by inclusion and social interaction even though the may not be taking alcohol.
Some people believe wrongly the racism is solely a belief in racial superiority or deliberate acts of discrimination, whereas casual racism concerns not so much a belief in the superiority of race but the negative prejudice or stereotypes concerning race and unlike overt, intentional acts of racism, casual racism is not often intended to cause offence or harm.
This belief of which I have been guilty presents an obstacle to being able to have an open and frank conversation about race as it has the tendency to downplay your actions and beliefs as not truly or really being racist, which can therefore embolden or lead to the encouragement or prejudice in society. Racism is as much about the impact it has on a person as it is about the intention to hurt that person and we shouldn’t forget about the person on the receiving end of discrimination.
Even the private joke away from the person it is about in a closed group or friend or work colleagues can lead to someone in your company developing prejudice and discriminating thought towards other. Therefore being aware of casual racism involves recognising that were are all accountable for the tings we say or do. Making casually racist/stereotypical jokes or comments have a negative impact upon the targeted individual or group and can also lead to others in your group forming unfavourable impression of you.
I have worked all over the world, Africa Middle East, Asia, Europe and America and have meet persons of colour for all background and walks of life and seen many things from stricken poverty, sickness, death and disease over the last 30 or so years. I have many friends from many races and nationalities and didn’t believe myself to be racist in any way but I now know different.
So how have I come to be writing this today.
I was forwarded an image on Whatsapp the other day with some text applied to it and I posted it as I have a morbid sense of humour (Developed from being to close to death over the years as a defence mechanism) to a different group on the same app.
It was a stereotypical image which I have not decided to post in this article due to the above.
The top picture showed 5 Saudi Arabian gentlemen in nation headdress wearing their Red and White Guthrah which I have on occasion worn myself to keep the sun off working in the Saudi Arabian Desert. The text stated the words (Before and After) and was followed by a second picture depicting a picture of 5 jars of Strawberry Jam with little Red and White checked cloths covering the lid sat on a table with the works (Explosion) referring to the recent Explosion in Beirut Lebanon.
Stereotypical in the fact that it assumed all persons of Arabic decent wear this type of head gear which is of course not the case and morbidly wrong in finding humour in somebody else’s suffering.
This was casually racist and within minutes had been answered with fully racist pictures and comments from others in the group of which I am ashamed. I instigated this, it was my own doing and for that I apologise as until this morning I hadn’t heard of casual racism.
There was one person within the group whom didn’t answer any of the texts but immediately just left the group and I can see why. The realisation has now dawned upon me that I am responsible as the picture I posted had started the string of comments, I was unwittingly being racist but as it was a closed group and I hadn’t wished to offend or injury anyone, as I felt nobody who would find it offensive would see it and it was only meant to be morbidly funny and I was wrong.
I thought I had been stereotypical but now I know better I had been racist for which I am ashamed and will not do it again in the future.
I have not posted this article as an apology though I am sorry for my actions but from what has transpired I learnt something and feel I would not have done it had I known better.
This post is in the hope that in reading it someone might find it beneficial and hopefully learn the association between Stereotyping, and Casual Racism and not make the same mistakes I have made for which in future I will correct such persons who make these posts when I see them in my group chats and hopefully not come across as a Hypocrite.
Once again I heartfully apologise to the world as a whole and society and persons themselves for my past inappropriate jokes and any offense I may have caused through my ignorance and I will endeavour to improve myself in going forward.
