What can we do about racism?

This blog follows on from my last one about racism so if you have not read that one I recommend reading it first. That talks about my observations and discussions with colleagues. In this blog I want to think a bit more about racism but in terms of how embedded it is into society and what can we do to advocate for or be an ally to people who experience it as well as further observations on information I have learnt since I wrote the previous blog.

Since I wrote the last blog I attended a session with Dr Prospera Tedam which focused on how we can build anti-racist practice cultures in Social Work. Some of the points she made were extremely interesting but also made me think deeper about my own practice and approaches that I have seen within Social Work.

You would think as a profession who are so focused on Human Rights, Equality, Values and Ethics that racism or discrimination would not be a problem within teams whereas some of the statistics discussed in this session highlight this is not the case and that racism was experienced not only from the people we support but also from colleagues which I found extremely surprising. It makes me question how people who are meant to fight for others and support them can put down someone who they are peers with.

She mentioned a quote from 1989 and we realised through the discussion that it could have been written that morning and would have still been as relevant now as it was then which is so concerning because we like to believe that we have come a long way over the last almost 40 years but there is so much racism written into laws, legislation, policies and procedures that have not been changed. I know there is discrimination written into things like this but it is not something I would have thought of if someone had not shone a light on it. It links to films that were based in the 1950s where white people are shown to not understand the suffering and difficulties of black colleagues until it is put right in front of them. Whether they would choose to take a stand or just let things carry on as they are because it is how it has always been.

She talked about a child being expelled from school for “fist bumping”. This is something children as young as nursery age do of all races and I personally have never known there was an issue with. We used to make up secret handshakes when we were kids but because we are white nobody would ever punish us for it thinking it was because we were part of a gang. This child ended up being removed from her education because of assumptions made due to her race, this is a societal and systemic issue that still exists.

I was speaking to a friend and colleague the other day about moving house and looking at the local schools. When she went onto their website she said to me “it is a very white school” because when looking at the website there was one black child show multiple times which identified to us that there was probably only one black child that attends there. This is not very diverse and identifies further that where you live can impact your education and choices you have.

Something I found interesting was that when people speak English as a second language they can be looked down on when it is actually a skill to be able to speak other languages. They have learnt or taught themselves English which is arguably one of the hardest languages to learn because most of it makes no logical sense. Why is it seen as a positive when you are an English speaker learning another European language but not viewed in the same light when you speak for example an African language and also English.

It is extremely hard to upset the status quo, hard to speak up or hard to know what to do. So what do we do? I would argue that the first thing that makes sense is to speak to colleagues, friends or peers who have experienced racism and ask how they would want to be supported. What do they feel they actually need help with or do they feel that they need it at all? We cannot just assume by the colour of someone's skin that they need our help. That they need us to speak up for them as it may be something they feel comfortable doing for themselves in certain situations. We cannot assume that everyone with that skin colour has had the same experiences and only by speaking to people are we able to learn what they need from us. It goes back to when we are working with people, they are the expert of their own experience so we should learn from them.

Obviously there are bigger issues that impact whole groups of people and potentially that is where us coming together to support would be more helpful. There is power in numbers as they say and trying to fight racism on a societal or organisational level is not going to be achieved by one person. It takes us coming together to be able to enact real change. This is something you would think wouldn't be much of an issue for Social Workers since social justice is written into the PCFs and Code of ethics that we follow to do our job. I think sometimes it is forgotten that it doesn't just mean for those we support professionally. It means for anyone who needs us. We cannot forget that our colleagues sometimes have these same experiences for something they cannot control or choose.

An interesting discussion that took place was the comparison of calling out and calling in. When we think about racism we talk a lot about calling it out when we see it but I had not considered alternative options such as calling in. Calling in talks about educating racist people about why what they said was not appropriate to help them change and improve in the future. Obviously as we all know this may not necessarily work or be an option but it is important to consider. If someone is repeating what they have heard others say but do not know what it means then educating them could make a difference whereas if they know what they are saying and what it means it may be that they will not change no matter what. It is why it is so important to educate children from a young age about how we treat people and talk about differences in a positive light. Racism is a learnt behaviour so do we need to be looking at where people are learning it from and see how changes can be made from the start. Do we need to be learning about anti-racism as early as school age? So that we can start embedding it into people before they are out in the world and representing themselves in a work environment. To improve access to education and work and minimise some of the over representation that exists in society due to lack of opportunities.

This is a conversation that seems to sit dormant until major situations occur. Until it is all over the media such as the black lives matter movement in the Covid pandemic. It is almost as if we are reminded in tough times and people come together when it looks good for the outside world because they are being supportive but as soon as its not easy any more they stop. This needs to be an ongoing conversation so we are working together either because we have our own experiences of racism or as an ally to those who do. We need to make changes on a systemic and organisational level. So how do we do that?