Racism
There’s Enough Racism In The World. Why Are These People Inventing More?
I’m sick of the way race is spoken about
My ancestors were slaves. My surname, Peters, is a constant reminder that somebody, somewhere, once bought and sold members of my family.
My dad was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, one of the first colonies settled by freed slaves when they were finally allowed to return to Africa. He married a black woman, had two black children (my older sister and I) and moved to a small town where most people had never seen a black person in real life.
My sister was the first black child to attend the local primary school, and five years later, I was the second. It would be almost a decade before there was a third.
I say all of this only to establish that I know something about the experience of growing up black. I know what it’s like to be the only black person in the room. Outside of my house growing up, I knew little else. And yet I read so many black voices speaking for black people in a way that does not represent me at all that I find myself wondering what’s going on. It seems that every day there’s a new list of 5 things you should or shouldn’t be doing, saying and thinking about black people and they rarely make any sense to me.
To give one example of many, I recently read an article about racist slurs that people should “drop from their vocabulary”. Perhaps you saw it, it was on the homepage for an entire day. Featured on the list were “slurs” like “Master Bedroom”, “Nitty Gritty”, and my personal favourite, “Hip Hip Hooray”.
Slurs. Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves what that word means, shall we?
- an insinuation or allegation about someone that is likely to insult them or damage their reputation.
- a derogatory or insulting term applied to a particular group of people.
Do any of those terms fit the description? What kind of person could look at a group of people cheering “Hip Hip Hooray” at a birthday party and have their first thought (or their fiftieth) be that they’re trying to signal their anti-semitism? Perhaps we should remove the word “hip” form our vocabulary too. It constitutes fifty percent of this vile “slur” after all.
What about the word “faggot”? It’s commonly understood to be a gay slur today, but previously it referred to a bundle of sticks or a uniquely disgusting British meatball. Can the meaning of words only change in one direction, from innocent to unutterable? Or is there hope for redemption? Because if the plan is to remove every word that has ever caused offence from the English language, it seems clear that we’re going to run out of words pretty quickly.
And for what? Do the people who write this nonsense imagine that railing against innocently used turns of phrase is the path to a better, more tolerant, less racist world? Do they believe that once the last “bad” word has been excised from our vocabularies, all of the hatred and ignorance it represents will disappear along with it? Or is the plan to search further and further back through history, unearthing newer and more obscure ways to be offended that they can teach to the masses for clicks?
Perhaps the saddest thing is that I see these asinine arguments at all. With all of the great writing struggling to find its way into the sun, why are these weeds making it to the surface so easily? Does this truly represent the state of thinking as regards fighting racism? I don’t think so. So at the risk of revealing myself to be a hypocrite, here are a few things I’d like to say on behalf of black people:
To the publications who ostensibly give a platform to black voices, why aren’t you publishing writers who have something valuable to say? Why are so many of your articles written by writers who haven’t got the good sense to realise that it’s wrong to use the phrase “white people” as a pejorative? Why aren’t more of you amplifying voices that aren’t full of anger and outrage and pettiness? I know I’m not the only one who wants to hear from them.
To anybody who feels like writing yet another article entitled, “5 Things You Didn’t Realise Were Racist But Are If You’re Determined Enough To Perceive Them That Way,” or “Why It’s Okay To Be Racist If It’s Towards White People,” or “The 10 Things Black People Want You To Stop Doing, Saying and Thinking” or any other such bullshit, let me be clear:
You do not speak for me.
I don’t believe you speak for the majority of black people either. So stop. Keep your pettiness and bitterness to yourself instead of allowing it to pollute the conversations that people who are serious about improving things are having.
People who care about ending racism aren’t satisfied with word games or the heady joys of taking offence even though none was given. They aren’t satisfied with token gestures from corporations or grotesque pantomimes at protests. We want real, honest, meaningful change. Change that can only come from real, honest, meaningful conversations.
We want conversations where people are allowed to be imperfect without being pilloried. Conversations in which intention is at least as important as the most negative possible interpretation. Conversations which move us towards a world where colour is irrelevant, not where it’s an eternal source of divisiveness.
These conversations are made more difficult by your obsession with finding fault in words instead of trying to understand what people are saying. So if you’re not interested in helping, please just sit down and be quiet while the rest of us try to make things better.