Only just realising my white privilege

[Madein1995]

Hi,

Apologies for posting and I really don't want to come across as offensive or naive or anything like that. I've known I've had white privilege, but it hasn't really 'hit home' until the last few days.

I watched the film Harriet, and while I've heard about the despicable and tragic history ,it was my first time seeing it as an adult, and I did some research. I was sickened by what I read - not just in the past, but what's happening today as well.
I appreciate that I sound (very) naive. I'm from a Welsh village and never thought too much about it previously, I've been ignorant. I thought because I don't post racist slogans etc I'm OK- not stopping to actually consider how privileged I am and how there's still a massive part of the population who are still being treated awfully.
The news about Ahmaud Arbery, for example, has sickened me. Have we learnt nothing?

And then I got to thinking on a personal level. How service users in work refer to one of my colleagues as the 'coloured one' despite being asked not to. How I've attended 3 NA meetings in the past week, all in a relatively multi cultural area - of those, there was only 1 non white person present.
I don't know what the point of this thread really. It doesn't feel nice, I know that, and it'd be much easier to push these feelings aside and ignore them, but I can't. Is there anything I can do?

Thanks @vladimirspoutine. I agree I didn't say black people were the authority on racism, but I suppose if people think the language should be more inclusive I don't care about them saying so. It's easy to feel defensive isn't it but actually it is fair enough.

Not much else you can do. Basically:

*Don't be part of the problem.
*Keep learning. It doesn't stop.
*Call out racism (if you can) wherever you see it and check yourself too when you fall into biased thinking.
*Treat people the way you'd want to be treated, assuming you'd want to be treated decently, like any other human.

Other things will follow as you keep learning. Same for everyone and with every other issue. We all have times when the penny drops on different issues. Not something to beat yourself up about.

I watched the film 'Harriet' and as difficult as it was to watch I identified with much of it and found it very inspiring as I fled an abusive relationship around ten years ago.

So that 'flight into freedom' spoke to me, although our life stories were and are vastly different.

So I found Harriet's life story deeply inspirational and positive.

Are you actually in the US, OP?

Because you cite an American film (set in the 19th century) and a contemporary American murder as the prompts for your awakening.

I suspect most non-white English people would not welcome your relating to them through these prisms. People in the UK can decide to behave decently to one another, on every level, without referring to slavery or shooting elsewhere.

@EdmontinaDancesWithOphelia

Are you actually in the US, OP?

Because you cite an American film (set in the 19th century) and a contemporary American murder as the prompts for your awakening.

I suspect most non-white English people would not welcome your relating to them through these prisms. People in the UK can decide to behave decently to one another, on every level, without referring to slavery or shooting elsewhere.

Racism is very nuanced and country/region specific. Britain’s wealth was built on slave trading but the majority of slaves were sent to/from the colonies rather than in what Is modern day Britain. Those here today are descendants of immigrants from Commonwealth countries (which also includes countries like India and Pakistan). Some of their home countries may have been impacted by the slave trade but they themselves didn’t come here as slaves.

As opposed

Aaaahhh it posted before I finished typing

There are different groups especially.g people brought back to the U.K by their owners, vs people who came form the commonwealth countries etc etc

In the U.S the history of slavery is different and there wasn’t mass migration of people from non-white countries the way that commonwealth citizens came here in the 80’s

Different landscape and backgrounds

Btw I would recommend the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool

Not sure whom your mini lecture is intended for, TractorAndHeadphones! (Though you obviously can’t know that it’s not something I either want or need.)

commonwealth citizens came here in the 80’s Within the very general context of what you say, you actually mean the post-war period - so 1945 onwards.

This obviously doesn’t cover the entire history of non-white people who have been in the UK since the Romans …

And it’s all very well recommending the Slavery Museum - but, as I have already said, black people in England do not want to be engaged with purely through the prism of slavery. And it is disappointing when this is brought into every conversation.

@EdmontinaDancesWithOphelia

Not sure whom your mini lecture is intended for, TractorAndHeadphones! (Though you obviously can’t know that it’s not something I either want or need.)

commonwealth citizens came here in the 80’s Within the very general context of what you say, you actually mean the post-war period - so 1945 onwards.

This obviously doesn’t cover the entire history of non-white people who have been in the UK since the Romans …

And it’s all very well recommending the Slavery Museum - but, as I have already said, black people in England do not want to be engaged with purely through the prism of slavery. And it is disappointing when this is brought into every conversation.

Not sure why you're so angry - I wasn't having a go at you, but building on your point. My replies are for the benefit of the OP.

Broadly speaking in my experience there are two groups of people - the activists and the rest. This applies to both black and other non-white people. Massive oversimplification but this is for the purposes of discussion.
Activists think that there should be more awareness as to the crimes of Britain towards non-white people, including slavery, colonisation and all the rest, insist that everybody educate themselves and considers anybody not knowing about this to be racist. Given that they are the ones who formulate the majority of 'formal discourse' (e.g. Black History Month, diverse poetry nights, literature etc) your complaint about slavery being brought into every conversation is probably attributable to them. A lot of publicity has been given to this including the dumping of statues.

'The rest' don't really care. They just want to be treated as equals, for people to not have a different reaction to the name Ibukun or Ramanujan as opposed to John. Again this is nuanced. Calling people 'coloured people' isn't acceptable because it's a racist term given that it implies that anybody not white =other=coloured. However if I got lost somewhere I'd have no issue with people describing me as 'brown' because it makes finding me a lot easier.

Most of my boyfriend's white British family treat me quite well , including duly telling a couple of racist uncles to fuck off. That's good enough for me. I don't need them to read lots of history books.

Where did you get ‘angry’? I was simply expressing my opinion.