I need to declare something. I am racist and I am sexist!
That will come as quite a shock to those who know me. I am known in both my professional and personal life to be strongly anti-racist, anti-sexist and against all forms of oppression, so why do I declare myself to be both racist and sexist?
I say it because it would be impossible not to be. It’s impossible for me not to have assimilated from a young age certain stereotypes, societal norms and assumptions based upon race and gender. It’s impossible for me not to have taken on board – even subconsciously – the socialisation I experienced as a white male in a white male dominated society: a society with in-built, inherent and structural racism and sexism.
Reaching this conclusion didn’t come easily or comfortably to me. It goes against the grain of all I’ve ever stood for. It came after a considerable period of learning and exploration of both the self and of society. I consider myself fortunate to have gained this insight during my Degree where there was a significant focus on race, class and gender. I am fortunate to have learned so much from my outstanding tutors, from friends and colleagues and from my lifelong ‘teachers’ – from Jane Elliott to Akala.
Through this learning and awareness, I feel able to state that I am racist and I am sexist and that I will engage in a lifelong struggle against this: to attempt to learn, to unlearn and to change; to fight the forces and manifestations of prejudice, discrimination and oppression – both internal and external – and to stand alongside any oppressed and victimised person or people. Call it a lifelong developmental goal and one which is at the heart of my being.
So, in what ways have I been socialised and conditioned to have assimilated elements of racism and sexism? Let me give you just a few examples. For the purposes of illustration, I’ll ignore the more overt examples of racism and sexism and focus on the ways in which we are conditioned from an early age, often unconsciously, to assimilate messages about race and gender. It should be noted that this social conditioning often takes the form of ‘accepted’ stereotypes and assumptions and how, in our society, white is the norm and men are the norm.
Regarding race, the school curriculum was white-oriented, imperialist and Eurocentric. This was especially so in subjects such as Science – where all the scientists and inventors we learned about were white and European, despite their being a plethora of black and Asian scientists and inventors over the centuries – and History – where we were taught about our glorious imperialist past going around the world ‘civilising the natives’ and ‘spreading democracy’ instead of the truth of our raping, murdering, kidnapping, enslaving and exploiting people in other countries and stealing their resources. An example of the truth is found in the recent work of renowned economist Utsa Patnaik who estimated the extent of theft from India by the East India Company and the British Raj to be around $44.6 Trillion. For perspective, the recent annual GDP (economic output) of the UK is around $3 Trillion.
White was the norm in so many ways: from the characters and pictures in children’s books to images in Disney films. I learned about the world through atlases, maps and globes but only much later discovered that they told a huge lie: the countries are not sized according to their real proportions, but according to how white, developed countries perceived their importance. Hence, Europe and North America were much bigger than they really are. Years later, I saw a proper cartographers’ map of the world – where Africa and South America (predominantly black and Hispanic continents) are much bigger – and exclaimed: “What the **** is that?! I’ve been lied to!”
For another simple example of ‘white is the norm’, one only had to look at women’s tights and make-up where products were described as ‘skin-tone’ or flesh-tone’…… but only for white people!
Childhood was also a time of learned sexism: I assimilated cultural norms and stereotypes regarding gender roles and expectations via books, films and television – where boys were sporty and adventurous and often joined the Army and girls were demure Princesses, there to be rescued by the all-action Prince Charming, or became mothers undertaking childcare and domestic chores. Of course, it became second nature that books that referred to people in the third person used masculine pronouns – ‘he’ ‘him’ and ‘his’ rather than ‘she’, ‘her’ and ‘hers’ – for no apparent reason (‘The modern worker seeks flexibility. Indeed, he may move between jobs far more than his father did.’) In response, people have written articles and whole books replacing masculine third person pronouns with feminine ones as the default. So accustomed are we to maleness as the norm, reading them feels startling and revolutionary.
Stereotyped gender roles were reinforced through schooling where boys took woodwork and metalwork and girls took needlework and ‘domestic science’ (cookery to you and me). And, of course, women as sex objects (to subjugate them or to sell things) was, and remains, standard fare, from Benny Hill and Carry On films to Page Three, magazine advertising and Flake adverts. The fashion and advertising worlds determined that women should be size zero models and that it’s fine to use airbrushed photos (rarely of men, obviously). Songs like Mambo No 5 placed women as objects to satisfy male promiscuity and Grease promoted what some may excuse as ‘locker room talk’ but others may consider rape culture:
“Tell me more, tell me more Did you get very far?”
and
“Tell me more, tell me more Did she put up a fight?”
“Did she put up a fight?!”
That suggests that it is quite normal for a woman to be put in a position where she has to physically resist unwanted sexual advances and that it is quite normal for a man to overcome any such physical resistance! Grease, incidentally, was written by male writers.
Perhaps most importantly, I learned young that most people in positions of power in our society are white men. That’s a given. Our society is based upon white male power structures- on white supremacy and patriarchy.
It has been said that, in order to understand the power relations in a given society, you just have to look at who are the target of the jokes. Our culture has long enabled racism and sexism through comedy – from the atrocious stereotypes found in Mind Your Language and Love Thy Neighbour to the appalling racism and sexism of stand ups like Bernard Manning and Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. Indeed, it is a sad reflection that this type of comedian, exhibiting sexism and racism and calling it comedy, was deemed fit for working class clubs when solidarity and emancipation would have served the working class better. At a recorded concert, Manning once said: “I hear there’s a c**n coming later; let’s all have a lynching” and the audience fell about laughing! Some argued he was a comedian using racism. He was just a racist.
I’m fortunate to educate people about prejudice and use an exercise where each person is provided with a strip of paper which assigns basic characteristics to them (male/female, black/white, disabled/non-disabled, heterosexual/homosexual etc). I ask them to imagine they are that person and how they would feel throughout the game. They begin in a line at one side of the room. I then read out a series of statements and ask them to take a step forward if it applies to them. Amongst other statements such as “I will not be discriminated against when applying for a job”, “people think of me as ‘strong’” and “I am not generally considered a problem”, there is the statement: “People don’t make jokes about people like me.” Women and people of colour know too well how it feels to be the target of derision (I could have used ‘butt of the joke’ there, but chose to use more accurate words).
Of course, the game ends with people spread around the room as a microcosm of society – those who were envisaging being white, male, non-disabled and heterosexual marching unhindered across the room (which significantly becomes like a finishing line and they’ve ‘won’) while others are left behind, suffering one or multiple reasons why their path is blocked and they are unable to make progress. The exercise enables empathy and ‘walking a mile in another person’s shoes’ as well as exploring how society works to provide inhibiting discrimination for some whilst offering others a privileged existence (which, of course, so many just consider ‘normal!’)
I am privileged because I am white and privileged because I’m male. Those bare facts alone mean that I am far less likely to be discriminated against when applying for a job, far less likely to be laughed at and derided, far less likely to be sexually assaulted or raped, far less likely to be a victim of police brutality, far less likely to have to worry or prepare myself for such eventualities or to take daily actions to attempt to avoid them, and I am far more likely to be favoured in a thousand daily, minute ways.
My parents didn’t have to have ‘the chat’ with me about what to do and what not to do if I’m pulled over by the police; nor did they have ‘the chat’ with me about personal safety and strategies to avoid being raped. I don’t ever consider being abused or attacked because of my gender or the colour of my skin. I don’t ever have to worry about being followed by security in a store or followed in the street. I don’t ever consider having any of a wide range of negative things happen to me because of my gender or skin colour – things that are often daily occurrences for women (including trans women) and people of colour. I can live my life in a comparatively uninhibited way. And I take all of those things for granted. This is what is meant by white (and male) privilege.
I wonder, what does it say to women and people of colour that the US elected Trump as President? What message does it send that a racist, misogynistic and highly abusive man who carried out racist actions over many decades, who admitted sexually assaulting women, who violently raped his first wife and who stands accused of multiple incidents of rape and sexual assault became President? And, worryingly, what message did that send to white men?! As I write this, Republican state legislatures in the US are passing Laws to explicitly hinder and deny black people’s right to vote whilst describing America as ‘the world’s greatest democracy!’
Whilst racism and sexism have long been a feature of society, there is no doubt that there have been progressive gains towards equality over the last sixty years. There is also no doubt that these gains have recently been under attack. As a system, capitalism is predictably failing, with mass poverty and vast gaps between the poorest millions and the obscenely wealthy few. Services and welfare support systems are being dismantled and healthcare denied in favour of mega-yachts.
Capitalists and the political right realised that, eventually, no-one would vote for them and they would lose their power and ability to exploit, so they had to convince people that their economic problems are not caused by the capitalist system of greed, individualism and competition, but by any number of adopted ‘enemies.’ Such scapegoats have included benefit scroungers, loony-left councils, unions, communists, women’s rights, black people’s rights, trans rights, equality, political correctness, migrants, asylum-seekers, the EU, socialists, anti-fascists, wokeness, cancel culture etcetera etcetera ad infinitum until they’ve stolen all the money and the country is destroyed, while we were busy blaming those who were never the problem and who are equally poor, disenfranchised and oppressed – or usually more so as they are easy targets with little power.
For the political right and their capitalist paymasters, these classic ‘divide and rule’ tactics have worked like a charm. They are experts in the politics of blame and would no doubt approve of the notion: “It matters not who won or lost but how you placed the blame.” They’ve won though, obviously. We’ve lost. Women and black people, especially.
The destruction of working-class consciousness and solidarity (including for any oppressed people or group) has been a deliberate and concerted effort led by the rich and powerful and enacted through right wing policies and the propaganda of the billionaire-owned media.
Until we learn to reject the propaganda of the billionaires and the deceitful and divisive policies of the right, women and people of colour will continue to be oppressed and, for that reason, society will be infinitely worse for everyone. Britain is becoming increasingly like a fascist state and, judging by The Daily Mail comments section and by social media, too many (especially white men) have been convinced to go along with it – not unlike in 1930’s Germany.
I’ll finish with this thought. I grew up and still live in a world of double standards. Promiscuous young men are ‘studs’ which is viewed as a positive; young women who are seen as even remotely sexually active are labelled ‘sluts’ which certainly is not. Whilst recognising there have been far more misogynistic songs in recent times, I wonder how a female artist would be perceived if she sang an alternative version of Mambo No 5:
A little bit of Dominic in my life
A little bit of Elliott by my side
A little bit of Peter’s all I need
A little bit of Trevor’s what I see
A little bit of Spencer in the sun
A little bit of Martin all night long
A little bit of Jeremy, here I am
A little bit of you makes me your woman
Do you see what I did there? That’s right: I automatically used all traditionally white, Eurocentric names.
But I’m working on it.
Tom Lane
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