Casual racism

Casual racism is a form of racism where someone does not intend to be racist, but still conducts themselves in an offensive manner by reacting to situations in a way which reflects their inborn prejudices. In my opinion, casual racism is even worse than any other form of racism, because it's harder to confront. If someone is genuinely well-intentioned, it feels harder to address casual racism when one sees it, especially if the person in question is someone that one knows well and is not someone that one normally associates with bigotry.

Something like this happened to me recently. I was inspired to write about it, but on this one I have to be extremely careful to protect my sources, for exactly those reasons described above. A friend and I were requiring someone to undertake some sort of job or service for us (I shall be vague to protect the innocent) which caused us to be phoning around a number of local businesses. There was one person we spoke to in particular who sounded helpful on the phone and we arranged to go and meet, however when we arrived at the address it transpired that it was only someone's house and was possibly not a legitimate business. Being cautious, we opted not to go in, just because we weren't 100% sure it was safe.

So far, this is all acceptable. The thing that made me feel really uncomfortable was that my friend was particularly concerned that the man had an Irish accent. When I questioned this, the friend responded to the effect of 'yes, but there are a lot of gypsies around, and they can be a bit dodgy'. This is someone who I have known for years and I normally very much respect; on this occasion I tried not to let my natural inclinations come out to the extent that we would fall out, but I was seething. I generally think it speaks volumes that even someone who normally comes across as being open-minded and progressive could react in such a prejudiced way. The fact that this person obviously didn't consider this to be racist in my mind makes it worse; if you think of yourself as being a good person (and most of us do) it's easy to justify something like that to oneself without considering how it would sound if you said that about other groups of people. 'There are a lot of black people around, you'd better watch yourself...' How does that sound to you?

I actually think that this experience has taught me how ingrained stereotypes are in our culture. I normally consider myself to be a pretty decent and forward-thinking person, but there have been times that I've had to catch myself thinking, doing or saying something which is discriminatory or unfair. Be honest with yourself, have you too done this on occasion? Did you realise you were doing it, or was it pointed out to you?

After reflecting on this a great deal, I have come to the conclusion that this is the biggest weapon used to provoke people into turning against each other. The way to spread hate is just to slowly spread a stereotype, like a poisonous fungus, and there will come a point where discussions about 'what is to be done about the problem' sound more like rational discussions than the hate-filled misinformation that they actually are. Here's an example: Jews and Muslims generally disliking each other. This is one of those so-called 'facts' that the majority of people in this would probably imagine to be true, even if they were on the fence politically. The truth is that Islam is largely based on Judaism, and the two faiths are incredibly similar, in terms of tradition, culture and philosophy. The aggravation between the two faiths in modern times is down to the war between Israel and Palestine in the Middle East. This dispute is entirely geographical and has very little to do with faith. The common misconception here is actually very harmful, because it puts the conflict down more to a culture clash, which suggests that both should just learn to get along with one another. In reality, it is much closer to apartheid than anything else, which is something I wish people would learn, but I cannot really blame them for not knowing given that there is so much misinformation.

I worry that I've gone slightly off the subject, but my overall point is that in a world containing so many set ideas and opinions disguised as facts, it is virtually impossible not to be racist or prejudiced in some other way at some point. It is only once this is accepted that it can be fought. This is why I absolutely preach that when you see someone acting on impulse in the way I did with my friend, you challenge it, no matter how hard this is to do. It took a couple of hours, but I did speak to my friend about how that conversation had made me feel - I tried to say it in a non-confrontational way and I'm not sure how much of my point was taken, but hopefully it will make that one individual think twice next time. But above all, this should not be done in a holier-than-thou way, because chances are you've done it as well, and the last thing we need is to wind people up. That has the opposite effect to what we are trying to achieve.

Thanks for reading, more updates soon.