Conversations with Racists: Part 1

I spent past few days with my boyfriend’s family and in parts it was lovely experience, but we had few conversations about racism, islamophobia, black people and Muslims that are so representative of our Polish mentality and that drives me crazy. And the conversations I had way to many times.

I really don’t know how to start this post, so let me first tell you something about myself: I’m white woman, I come from very privileged background, I had happy childhood, almost painless adolescence, relatively successful academic education and a happy relationship. Life has been pretty good to me.

I didn’t want to say all those things to rub them in your face and prove to you that your life sucks, and mine don’t. This start is to show you that if I wanted to look from the perspective of my general life experience, something that happened personally to me, well, then world is a pretty good place – no discrimination, no poverty, no oppression, equal and happy people everywhere. Luckily, regardless of my happy life, I never lived in a bubble.

But let’s get to the point.

Poland, my country of origin, is one of the main bastions of racism in Europe. Not only we don’t hide with our racists believes, but we are proud of discrimination we impose on other ethnicities. What other see as progress (hate crime laws, proper education, activism against racism, sexism, etc.), we see as sucking up to backward people who should have been put in their place and not be lenient on them.

I’m freakin’ serious.

Okay, I’m being somewhat unfair. What I noticed about my country is two things: there are people who are open and tolerant and there are those who are absolutely sexist and/or racist and/or homophobic. However, it seems that the freedom of speech is granted mainly to the second group of people. Recently, I hear everywhere discriminatory and offensive remarks and almost nobody stands up and speak against them as if the right to offend somebody was greater than defending others.

But let’s get back to the conversation itself. There were few points made that appear way to often in this kind of conversations that I would love to shed some light and bring attention to its negative effect on our perception regarding other ethnicities.

1.      African’s are fighting because of their culture and unless we come and put everything in order, Africa will never be in peace.

If you talk about war and fighting, Africa will always be brought up at some point. And this is where it gets really frustrating, because you cannot explain the current situation in some African countries, without the historical context. And that’s complicated, different to every country and had different impact. It depends who colonise the country, what were the main purpose of colonisation (slave trade, resources, land), whether the coloniser wanted to oppress people and make them second class citizens to control them better or tried to make it a part of their country and establish something resembling a government and a state.

The history is so complicated and what had been done in Africa and what is still being done to Africa, cannot be dismissed.

But the main problem, when talking about “African” problems, is that Africa in minds of many is a country. One, not that big, uniform country. And tribal relations are main reason for fighting, because they don’t know any better.

Do you want to cry from frustration? I almost did.

I really don’t know how to explain to people that many tribes hasn’t exist before the arrival of Europeans (like artificial division of Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi that had nothing to do with their real tribe affiliation and everything with perceived superiority and physiological traits). Not to mention the fact that many tribes really lived in peace, they intermarried, had very rich cultural heritage, well developed social structure with respect towards every member of community.

But most people just cannot understand that many things happening in some African countries that we see as backwards and undeveloped are the result of Europeans imposing their culture, laws and oppression that destroyed social structures, communal ties and way of dealing with crimes and disorder. And we cannot use the argument “but colonialism ended 50 years ago”, because it’s difficult to rebuild the society that has been exploited, oppressed, fuelled by conflict from outside forces for decades. We should start concentrating on positive outcomes that some African countries are working towards and not only sighing with annoyance when we hear about ANOTHER "African" conflict in an African country.

And regarding the second statement, that we, white people are the only one who can make things right in Africa is preposterous. We should try to help as best as we can by engaging in conversation, sharing experience, helping in implementation of the projects that are designed by people on the ground. But coming in, imposing our ways and claiming that we know better? Which country should do this? USA, where 22% of children lives in families with income below federal poverty line? Or maybe Poland, where Church has more influence on social issues than people themselves? Or maybe Ireland, especially after the recent UN report claiming that women in Ireland are denied human rights?

So basically no one is in position to make a claim that “we know the proper way to solve your problems”. Most of African countries are on the way to discover the recipe for success, some are making mistakes, some are struggling, but they have to do it themselves.

2.      There is way too many black people and Muslims in Europe. If Black people and Muslims don’t like the way it is in Europe, they should get back to whenever they came from.

That one is… ugh. Let’s start with ethnic minorities that are allowed to stay in some countries, because they come from previous colonies or they received the status of refugee and they are under protection of refugee laws. Then let’s move towards ethnic minorities who are travelling within European Union. Many EU countries experienced an influx of migrants from other EU countries. But they are mostly invisible, becauuuuse… they are white. And those who are not white, are perceived as alien and therefore undeserving to be in a particular country.

When we look at the statistics on ethnic groups in Europe (I know the source is Wikipedia, but I think it still show some interesting patterns), most of the countries are homogenous, with their own ethnicity being a majority. For example, in UK less than 15% of population are of different ethnic background than “British”. In France, 84% of population is French and in general 67% has no recent immigrant in their ancestry. So Europe is not under attack of Muslim and African immigrants that are taking over our wonderful lands. Majority of members of so called “ethnic minorities” who are living in European countries have a citizenship of that country. So next time you see a black person complaining about a discrimination in a particular country, ask yourself whether he is just complaining, or is it true. And whether he has more right to be in the particular country than you do.

3.      Black people are racist too.

The issue of citizenship and ethnic minorities often brings this issue: Black people are racist too. What often follows is the vast list of instances where black person did something discriminatory against white person.

There are many problems presented in this statement and most of them, unfortunately, speaks more about the racism of a white speaker than perceived racism of black person.

But let’s get some facts straight:

Fact 1: Some black people are assholes. That’s true, but it doesn’t have its roots in racism. It’s rooted in their individual personality.

But let’s analyse the one particular situation. The example provided was as follows: my boyfriend’s sister needed to extend her visa (it was before Poland was in EU). There was few black girls from some French territory (Martinique or somewhere else). And each time she came to extend her visa, there were some documents missing, so she was sent back. As a result, each time the sister came to this office, she had the whoooole bunch of documents.

So here is my question: did those girls treat her like that because she was white or because she was immigrant? Would she be treated the same way by white French person or not? And maybe, just maybe, she was sent back all these times not because girls were discriminating her, but maybe she just didn’t have appropriate documents?

So what I hear in this situation are two things: first, the girls where just bitches who were like that to ALL migrants, because they were French and French people have a tendency to being xenophobic. Second: “how dare this black monkeys send me back to bring more documents? I should be treated in a better way, because I’m white”. Personally, I don’t think this situation would be so traumatising to the sister, if the rejection came from WHITE French person. And it wouldn’t be a big deal if a white person treated like that Black immigrant.

Fact 2: Just because some black people are assholes, or privileged, or successful, or are not discriminated against, it doesn’t and shouldn’t undermine the whole issue of institutional and social racism.

As in abovementioned situation, the girls were in position of power over a white person and that made people uneasy. What is more, those black girls were in any position of power ergo black people are not discriminated against because in a modern world they are in position of power.

As a supporting argument I usually hear is that many countries treat people of colour (sorry for the expression) with kid gloves and generally walk on eggshells in fear of racism, while mainly Blacks and Muslims are doing whatever they want.

And, black people’s racism towards white people is absolutely unacceptable! If they want us to change, they should change first.

ARE YOU F**** KIDDING ME?!

So let me get this straight: people who are constantly discriminated against by education institutions, police, more often live in poverty, with less access to various services, who constantly listen to racist (and ultimately limitlessly stupid) jokes and remarks should refrain from any aggressive, defensive or (God forbid!) offensive behaviours that might be perceived by privileged and oppressing group of people as discriminatory. And if they do show such behaviour, in order to be treated with respect like a human beings, they have to adjust their behaviour, so white people don’t get offended and can exercise freedom of choice whether to treat different ethnicities with respect or not.

Sometimes I have an impression that Black people are expected to sit quiet simply because their life is much better than it used to be. First, they are no longer enslaved, they are free, therefore they should just shut up and stop whining. Second, refugees who were welcomed in the particular country have it better here than they had over there, therefore they should just shut up and stop whining. Because if a Black person, even worse – immigrant Black person, find it’s voice and strength to speak up, then we will have menace on our hands and we might hear one or two things that we really don’t want to hear – that Europe is still racists, it’s bad and we have to be open to conversation and change of attitude, not the other way around.

4.      Yeah, but all the things you mentioned are the history. It happened and it doesn’t matter anymore. What do you have to say about what’s happening now?

At this moment I just gave up. I literally died inside.

Every situation in every country is rooted in its history. If there hasn’t been shortage of food, there would be no hunger. If there hasn’t been uprising, there wouldn’t be an instability.

And if the colonialism and slavery didn’t happen, most of “African” problems wouldn’t exist. It’s not to say that some countries or tribes or territories wouldn’t fight each other, but the structure of the conflict wouldn’t be different.

It hasn’t been an idea of local communities to divide the African countries the way that they are divided. Colonialism created artificial boundaries, dividing territories belonging to one group of people and assigning them to others. And as much as some countries are trying to find pride in their nationality, it’s difficult not to pay any attention to clan affinity.

Many African tribes had deep communal ties, had very complex system of handling social disputes and had a great respect for members of community and other human beings. They respected elders, women had their secret society that was beyond the reach of men (and men were punished for violating the boundaries), marriage has deeper meaning than simply receiving payment for giving away daughter, etc.

Europeans did not impose their rule of law, because they had a well-being of local population in minds. Anything that has been brought to African and imposed on people there was because Europeans saw Africans as backwards, worthless, whose value was counted only in the work they can do for a white person. Segregation, humiliation, genocide, slavery, exploitation of people and resources – all that deeply wounded African land and communities.

Not to mention the debt that many African countries are in, because of the warlords who “borrowed” too much money from world banks and they left civilians to pay off the debt on the cost of their dignity, integrity and well-being.

Some African countries were able to lift themselves up above the stereotypes and are working towards brighter future. Africa is booming and many African countries are fastest growing economically at the moment. It's developing rapidly, improving, establishing new trends and using modern technology.

But I cannot fight the impression that it would be much simpler for them if not for the interference from white people throughout the history. It’s us who introduced bribery, corruption and group domination. And it was us who ensured that some people remain poor for long time, because if they have little – they have still too much to lose.

All that history ripped away African population from their lands and displaced them around the world. Because of slavery, we have Black people in America. Because of colonialism, we have Black people in European countries. And because of white people interference, we have refugees who are in need for shelter from the atrocities that happened in their homeland.

So no, we cannot look at the present situation without paying attention to history. The current issues are results of the actions of the people in the past. So the conflicts we see now in media are not isolated outbursts of violence in some random places. Those are the outcomes of tensions that build up for a long time. And unless we realise the importance of historical context in every conflict, we won’t be able to find meaningful solutions.

Written by Vespertilio

Strength and Male Superiority

Since we started this blog I began noticing the amount of people (not only man) who still believe that women are inferior to men. Some of them claim that women in general are less intelligent (when confronted with opposing statistics claim that women have lesser percentage of extraordinary talent compared to men), others simply have some women hate issues, but what all those people have in common is a one argument that never fails to come up: strength. Men are stronger than women, therefore superior and more important (sic).

I am not blind or removed from reality. I acknowledge the simplicity of biological differences between sexes. Men are statistically higher than women, but does it mean they should look down on us?

First, let’s check definitions of two words that usually get mixed up in a debate about male strength. Identity and equality are two words that make a lot of difference in this topic, so let’s give it a look.

According to Oxford dictionary, “identity” means close similarity or affinity, whereas “equality” means the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. Having that in mind, as civilized human beings we should all agree that although man and women are biologically different (not identical), they are inherently equal. Just like people with black and white skin are biologically different, they don’t look identical, yet they deserve equal rights and opportunities. I know that even today not everyone agrees with me on the last sentence, which really spoils my fun of having such solid example.

If it wasn't for countless debates with hardcore misogynists I would probably never grasp the logic behind the claim that men are stronger than women and therefore superior to them.

When I was growing up I heard word “feminism” from my father who claimed that feminism ends when you have to drag a piano to third floor. This is a very common saying in Poland. It implies that women are helpless in absence of male muscle. I can’t stop myself here from adding that it was my mom who would always paint the walls in our house, hammer nails into the walls or try to fix broken things. I honestly don’t know how people place a piano in apartment on third floor or higher, but I can only imagine that it involves employing some labors, nothing really expensive (probably male, since they are stronger).  Since feminist movement enabled me to access higher education and go to work, fighting for me to have equal pay, I would probably be able to pay four guys to drag my piano, or my sofa up the stairs. See? Feminism doesn't end here.

Females are supposedly inferior to males due to their strength because it provides them the unique ability to successfully defend a country. (Here again I cannot stop myself and have to add that Polish males don’t really have so many historical proves for successful protection of their homeland.)

Firstly, let’s admit that majority of those “defenses” are actually “offences”  of other countries, so maybe – just maybe, if we didn't have the race to prove who is bigger and stronger we wouldn't have so many offences. But that’s not important here.

While only three countries in the world have mandatory female military service there are some remarkable examples of female soldiers that prove that women in army are not there by mistake.

Kurdish women should be famous by now as an example of voluntary military service. Kurds have a very unfortunate history of being screwed by Turkey and by Saddam Hussein. Many Kurdish families in Iraq have lost their sons and fathers. With this history of pain and loss women had enough. Kurdish women have nearly 30 years of experience in combat; PKK has one of the largest numbers of female fighters. Kurdish women are also a part of YPG in Syria as well as Kurdish Peshmerga in Iraq. Just recently media published few reports on Kurdish women training and swearing to fight ISIS, Islamic militant group, a spill out from Syria that is trying to take over Iraq and create Islamic State. I also heard some reports that ISIS ordered FGM on all females aged 12 to 45 in area under their control, but reports are denied by ISIS.

“Since the beginning, Kurdish women have played an integral role in the Kurdishmovement. They fight and they protest, they vote and they get elected to office. And somewhere along the way they achieved a (very complicated, highly controversial, maybe lasting or even replicable) liberation.”

 “The main Kurdish party in the Turkish parliament, Peace and Democracy (BDP) applies a minimum 40% women's quota and always has a man and a woman as joint party presidents” 

Kurdish women became politicized after witnessing horrible crimes and experienced murders of their loved ones. In the process they created an organization within PKK and had significant influence on Kurdish cause by fighting with both guns and pens, in Turkey, Syria and now Iraq.

I would also like to briefly mention Israeli Defense Forces, which are among two other armies recruiting all citizens for mandatory 2 year service irrespective of their sex. I picked Israel specifically because even though the country is surrounded by enemies from all sides and was attacked the next day after its creation, they never lost a single war. It’s remarkable to notice that females are 51% (MAJORITY!!!) of IDF’s officers, despite being only 33% of soldiers.

Women make up 33% of the IDF, taking into consideration their shorter service in comparison to males," Brig. Gen. Kalifi-Amir said. "51% of IDF officers are females serving as both career soldiers and reservists. Women also make up 3% of the IDF's combat soldiers and 15% of technical personnel. Additionally, there is a significant decrease in the number of women serving as secretaries, indicating a change in perception.

Earlier this week, Brig. Gen. Kalifi - Amir honored the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and said that "The IDF values human dignity as one of its guiding ethics in all its operations and activities. The IDF and its soldiers maintain this value out of the understanding that every human is valuable regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, rank and position."

Hopefully you grasp my point by now and we can move on.

I would really like to take the argument of male strength out of coal mine and into XXI century, the time of radical change in social sphere, but also in economy. As we moved from manufacturing economy into service economy in developed world, need for manly muscle strength reduced. Since we no longer need strong men to lift heavy bags in the work place as much as we need technology and caring customer service, men’s employment is dropping. Jobs that require strength, like lumberjack, are among worst paid jobs. I will say no more and leave the stage for woman who published a book on that topic, Hanna Rosin. Here are few quotes from her book, "The End of Men" that I find truly groundbreaking.

In 2009, for the first time in American history, the balance of the workforce tipped toward women, who continue to hover around 50 percent. 

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2011, women hold 51.4% of managerial and professional jobs – up from 26.1% in 1980. They make up 61.3% of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45% of associates in law firms – and both those percentages are rising fast as women come to dominate law and medical schools. 

At some point in last forty years, the job market became largely indifferent to size and strength, and from then on, in many pockets of the workforce, men no longer held the cards. Technology began to work against men, making certain brown jobs obsolete and making what economists call “people skills” ever more valuable.

Of the fifteen job categories projected to grow the most in the United States over the next decade, twelve are occupied primarily by women.
 

Next time when you hear males boasting about superiority of their biceps, rest assured it doesn't really give them much advantage in the world we live in. If they want, they can go back and live in caves, but I’m pretty sure not many women would agree to move in with them. Life is simply too good for us ladies to take a step back, and we have feminist movement to thank for it. 

You can also watch Ted talk by Hanna Rosin here. 

Written by Inanna

There is not much to miss about the past, unless you enjoy being someones life line. Or unless you are a man.