My Friends Think I Can’t Relate to ‘Racism’
Here’s why they are right
Okay before you label me as a ‘racist’, let me clarify that I am writing from my own experiences and someone else’s perspective. This ‘someone else’ is non-white and so am I. At this point, you must be thinking then how come we don’t relate to racism? Yes, we thought so too and then we realized that we both have good reasons to give our friends on why we are not as invested as they are.
Our identities are not just made up of our skin color and gender, it comprises of every little thing that is in the proximity of being in our characteristics. Our moral grounds, ethical behavior, and neutral perspectives — all of these make us, ‘us’. But there comes a point in everyone’s life when we stop caring about many things. Things that were once near and dear to us. Why? Because we lose the core connection that used to influence us to feel something deep and pure. Sadly talking about race no longer affects me.
Upon a lengthy discussion over race facts, we realized that our feelings towards various forms of racism have gradually taken a back seat as nothing in the world has impacted any change. No amount of attention or conversation is ever going to do anything to end racism and so our take on this concept has gradually diminished. To summarize the discussion and opinions, we narrowed it down to 3 major reasons:
Facing constant denial from others
When we share experiences and incidents to a non-colored individual and from a ‘colored’ person’s perspective, we see how their eyes shut down, feelings get disconnected, and see a very awkward expression that mimics sympathy but miserably fails at times. Time and again they have tried to normalize the belief that the way they face the world should be the same for people and no one should be judged based on skin color. Sure, I respect that but who’s going to tell them that the world doesn’t operate the way they think and it is just not that simple.
The lack of understanding and empathy gets me, every time I am in the middle of a conversation about race facts. They are agreeing with you, but they don’t really get you. They are looking at you, but they are also judging you. They say they support you but in the end, they just want to move on. The denials and silent conversations have tired me out. I no longer wish to engage myself in situations that emotionally exhaust me and hence backing out on the race conversation acts as my shield, before I get character-assassinated.
The concept of the ‘minority population’
Both my friend and I were born in countries where the concepts of majority vs minority exist in different spectrums. Simply put we never saw ourselves belonging to a population that felt vulnerable, fearful, disregarded, and humiliated. Hence upon moving to the ‘west’ is when the discussions around ‘race’ and ‘racism’ surfaced that taught us so much about this part of the world. While we gradually gathered our collective experiences of all the times we could have been a victim of racism — but the fact that those times have passed and we don’t see ourselves as part of the minority made us disconnect with race talks.
To see anything from a personal viewpoint is never going to reflect on the cultural realities of societal diversity. Instead, we tend to turn towards the concepts of identity from a minority perspective that is based around the ideas of color and gender. In fact, the term ‘people of color’ is constantly associated with minority groups as opposed to anyone who is not colored. This is a colonial term and directly puts weight on the entire population of the world who are in the ‘non-white’ or ‘colored’ group. Hence when we go ahead with the usage of the term ‘colored communities’, we are establishing the concepts of inferiority — not only to us but an entire generation. Read that again — yes, now you get it.
No solution to the ‘colored’ problem
Black communities getting racialized every now and then and horrific stories surfacing in the world breaking our hearts has become a norm. Other colored communities mostly of Asian descent have also been treated in similar ways that minimized their identities to a great extent. The fact that ‘BLM’ (Black lives Matter) should have started way back but it only started after severe damage in the society says a lot about why this concept wasn’t mainstream even a few years back. It sparked protests and movements around the world, especially after the barbaric murder of George Floyd. This incident became extremely personal to so many people around the world when the majority of them didn’t even know him personally. Why? Because people now had the time to reflect on this incident that maybe it could have been them, that this was not right and that the criminal justice system is hugely partial to people from a certain group.
This hasn’t stopped the barbaric treatments, atrocities, and demeaning attitude to people who are not white. Just relating to the grieving community is not going to make all the issues related to racism stop or vanish forever. My opinion will never matter to white fragility. There is no solution to the ‘colored’ problem. I cannot change people's minds and thus have refrained from being too emotionally available over this matter. The debate between white vs non-white talks mostly ends at a point when they have a need to prove us wrong or to rebalance the uneven status quo. The complaints from non-white communities will continue to come up and the never-ending search for a solution will always be there.
A loop with no end is what I am talking about.
