I think I finally get my white privilege.
When I began university, I started a whole new chapter to my life. It wasn’t the whole ‘new city new me’ bullshit, no, I’ve always been me. Whoever I’m with, whatever I’m doing. I don’t see the point in pretending to be someone you’re not, I don’t see the point in convincing people of certain things (unless it actually matters of course), I’m against violence, abuse basically any immoral or unacceptable behaviour, but recently I’ve discovered, that I might be a little bit racist.
So I’ve thought my entire life (still do I must add!) that equality is right, just and should be practiced globally! Obviously this is easier said than done, but In my own personal life it is an easy theory to apply. My mum brought me up right and taught me how to be a decent human being. The ideas I’ve learned from her and developed further myself have become ingrained in who I am; treat everyone nicely, watch out for people who might be on ‘the outside’ and do your best to bring them in, regulate and restore balance when people are out of whack and do so by hearing both sides.
When people mentioned racism or any other form of discrimination I always considered myself to be anything but. I strongly oppose racial hatred, and any act of. I actively step in and prevent discrimination in any form, be it against women, the less abled, elderly — whoever. I was always reading verse from Marx and spouting further socialist rhetoric to everyone and anyone who listened. I was loud, outspoken, cheeky often, considerate to most except those who deserved otherwise. Sometimes I could be selfish and rude too, but never racist. I was friends with most people in my year of 200, and knew more or less everyone by name (I made sure of that), even the five black people in my year, how could I be racist?
Wait…
What?
The five black people in my year.
What were their names again? Yeah I can still remember. Abraham, Liam, Maria, Sara and Juliette. I knew Liam and Sara better than the others, and sometimes I used to do street dance with Juliette. From a distance and up close, there was 100% no difference between us… okay maybe Juliette was a better dancer… But there we have it, five nice western names for nice western children.
When I started university, I started a whole new chapter of life. It was new city — new people. New experiences and new culture. It’s this last idea of culture in which I feel I have experienced a newfound interest. Darren Tenkorang , with Ghanaian heritage, one of the founders of TRIM-IT moved into my student flat in first year where he taught me a lot about not just business but Afro-Caribbean culture. Real Afro-Caribbean culture. Throughout my time here I’ve learned so much that I didn’t know, with great interest in what Darren had to tell me. In the barber industry, there is a whole different culture, a whole different side to the stuffy white barbers I often visited back in Cambridge. Reading articles here on Medium and those we post through TRIM-IT I find myself constantly reading new phrases I don’t understand, embarrassingly enough I’ve tried to correct a few as typos (only to be properly educated by the rest of the team) I’ve learned about the spread of black barber culture into white barbers, with all the kids asking for the freshest fades. A lot of the words I use with my boys like bless and wa gwan; all stem from Afro-Caribbean dialect (patois in this case).
I asked Darren one day why our flat mate Ali, heritage in Nigeria, was boiling bananas once…I thought it was the strangest thing. You can imagine how much that made him laugh, but he was always happy to fill in the gaps and boost my knowledge, and I love that. I love the culture, everything I learn is new, interesting and ngl I wish I was a part of it cause you guys — your culture is raw, rich and full of life — beats a pint down your local public house, with Farage and those patriotic pissants who follow him, any day. Anyway, I digress.
(Hopefully!) by now you must be thinking, where does the racism come from Ferg, you seem like a totally stand-up guy — racism free in fact!
Let me be clear- What I understood as black culture was not any different to my own (based on my experience with Juliette and Lim for example). Since I’ve come to Uni in fact this has been highlighted as I have been introduced to so many different aspects of AC culture. I would guess, because of that, that the idea of the black struggle for equality simply never appeared as prominently to me. That would be where my white privilege comes in. I’ve never seen a particular career as out of reach, or a particular venue I couldn’t go to. Being a white middle class male has it’s benefits…
It also has it’s downsides cause up until recently, I realized, I’ve been oblivious to the fact that the struggle is real, and what good is ignorance to a brother? What made this dawn on me was when I was watching <recent generic series> I assumed that this certain character with power was a white guy. Typical white thinking produces typical white hero, right? I’d been trying to guess who he was through the whole series and when he came on stage and I saw he was black I felt like such an idiot. Maybe a little Racist in fact.. right?
My subconscious mind, despite all my ideals, all my policies and my attitude towards other people — that everyone is born equal, and that is how they should be seen — despite EVERYTHING, still expected that powerful character to be white… Why?
So honestly I don’t know how to answer this one. For all intent and purposes the ideals and beliefs that I have set up around me are, and will remain, politically correct, inclusive and honest. But If I think like this and still assume the guy with power (look at that I even used male pronouns what is life) is gonna be white, how the hell do I change that assumption in myself, let alone the rest of the world?
To clarify, I hold no racist views and quite frankly this did not unlock a dormant racism deep within me. Rather it brought to the forefront of my mind an issue that needs tackling, and perhaps this will shed some light on inherent racism and maybe even how it can be properly tackled.
On me? all I got is an awareness of my own personal interactions — together? we have a network of great ideas, and the means to exercise them.
Peace x
