In a quote from an old ER episode.
"For white people it is never about race, for black people it is always about race" It's the series that's just been repeated and the one on now.
It's an interesting sub plot. Two young men are taken to ER with gunshot wounds, both are being treated but the white man appears to be getting better and quicker treatment. The black man dies.
The white man is a drug dealer. Dr Greene assumed the black guy was the drug dealer.
In a later episode he says he doesn't know if his assumption was that the man who died was a dealer is racism or experience.
There is racism, a lot. And it has been part of the dominant culture for so long many people don't even notice it.
There has been a lot in the news about the 'Windrush generation', Britain needed workers so 'imported' people, I say imported because these people were seen as a commodity. The system was intended for them to work in lower paid jobs saving the better jobs for white people. Qualifications were ignored so a nurse from Jamaica would have to retrain in the UK as the assumption was that British education and qualifications were better. That attitude doesn't change overnight.
When Stephen Lawrence was murdered the assumption was that he was in a gang or had done something to get himself stabbed, so a racist attack followed by a racist investigation.
As a white person I do not experience racism, I rarely see it, I occasionally hear it and I do call it out. Just because I do not see it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Not talking about it and more importantly not listening just makes racism something that happens to other people.
One thing I do find hopeful is the young people I teach. They are aware of racism and it has lead to some interesting discussions as to when something is or isn't racist. Is it racist to say you think mehndi looks better on a particular skin colour?
And whilst the discussion of mehndi is not going to change the world the freedom to discuss it just might.
And sometimes things can appear racist that are just out of our own experience. The student who told me I couldn't cook Jamaican food was stunned when I said I can make a mean salt fish and ackee.
She had obviously not come across a white person who can cook Jamaican food before.
I once asked someone in London where they were originally from, I meant his accent, he thought I meant where had his grandparents came from. If I ask anyone now I say, "that's not a local accent, where is it from?"
I wasn't being racist and I was mortified when I realised what he thought I was asking. We ended up laughing, all credit to him.