Or more specifically, why we need to stop calling people “a racist”.
When we say something such as “Donald Trump is a racist.”, it implies that being a racist is binary, that either you’re a racist or you’re not. If you’re like Donald Trump, then you’re racist; if you’re not like him, then you’re not racist.
It also implies that there are certain qualities to being a racist, and if we don’t have those qualities, then we’re not racist.
However, racism isn’t binary, nor can it be defined by a checklist.
Each of us is racist. You see, racism isn’t innate; it’s something we have to learn. We learn it from our friends, from our parents, from the media, from classmates, from neighbours, from Sunday School teachers, from siblings, and from a whole host of everyday interactions with others.
The thing about racism is that it doesn’t need to be overt for it to be racist. Just because I never call a black person a nigger, for example, doesn’t mean I’m not racist. Likewise, someone doesn’t need to tell you that “Indians are drunk and lazy” for them to teach you racism.
Racism can be taught in several ways. It can be how a parent responds to a person of colour walking by on the street, or how a cashier responds to a non-white customer, or how a police officer changes how they talk to someone based on their skin colour.
It can be how your neighbour responds abruptly to an old First Nations person walking on the sidewalk because he doesn’t realize the Blackfoot he is speaking is simply, “How are you”. It can be your brothers making fun of your sister’s new friend because she happens to be Cree. It can be your parents mentioning that someone breaking into your house was “Indian”, as if that explained their actions somehow. It can be your boss charging a surcharge every time he has to do a cleaning job on the nearby reserve because a previous customer out there wasted his time. It can be your classmates saying Sikh classmates never shower. It can be your Sunday School teacher telling you to marry only white people. It can be your friend saying, “It’s okay if I say ‘prairie nigger’ because I’m part Métis.”
All these things add up over the years, and unchecked, can influence how you perceive someone based on their skin. And that can take a long time to undo.
Labelling others a racist erases our own racism, and if we can’t see our own racism, we’ll keep perpetuating our own racism.
