Everything is racist

Almost everything and everyone in the UK is racist. All of us, of whatever ethnicity, grew up in an environment so fundamentally unfair towards and biased against black people, that it is impossible to avoid having ingrained opinions – or, perhaps more often, feelings – that black people are less valuable and worthy of notice than other people. These opinions and feelings are sometimes strong, sometimes weak, sometimes hardly noticeable, sometimes entirely unconscious, but they are always, always there. To counter their effects requires positive action on the part of everyone – especially white people, for whom these opinions and feelings are especially strong and especially hard to detect in themselves. This is why conversations about whether a particular white person is racist are a pointless waste of time. A well-meaning white person asks nervously – am I racist? The answer is yes. Yes you are racist. So am I. Now we have dealt with that issue, we can stop having that fruitless conversation and can go on to talk about how we white people can stop doing racist things, and start doing anti-racist things – a much more productive discussion, in my opinion.

You can tell that a a process, or an environment, or a society is racist if it produces a racist outcome. A racist outcome is one that disproportionately affects people of a particular ethnicity. Here are some racist outcomes in the UK:

1: Of the 200-odd people in my year in my (very prestigious) college, none were black. If my year had reflected the ethnic composition of the UK, there would have been 7 black people in it. You can argue that there should have been more than 7.

2: I play in a music group in London with no black players. If the composition of the group reflected the ethnic composition of its home city, it would have about 8 black players.

3: There were no black MPs before 1987. So every law in the UK in force now that was passed before then had no black input from the House of Commons. That’s quite a lot of laws.

4: 51% of inmates of young offenders institutions are from a black and minority ethnic background, compared to 14% of the general UK population. I find it interesting that statistics showing how many inmates are specifically black seem to be difficult to find; I feel pretty confident in asserting that the number of black inmates is even more disproportionate to the 3.5% of the UK population who are black than the overall ethnic minority figures. I think it’s pretty likely that’s actually why the statistics don’t show that information, in fact.

These are four examples of varying importance, but I believe they show just how pervasive racist outcomes are in the UK. University admissions, music-making in London, decisions on who goes to prison and who becomes an MP, all produce racist outcomes – so they are racist processes. I think that, to a first approximation, we should assume that every process in the UK is racist. To make a process which you are involved with less racist, you must make a positive effort. Carrying on as you are won’t do. You might think you aren’t part of a racist process but actually it’s overwhelmingly likely that you are, and that’s what you should probably assume in the absence of positive evidence to the contrary.

Any improvements to our racist processes – like racial quotas for university admissions or election candidates – are going to look like unfairly favouring black people. That’s because we have so thoroughly internalised our own racism that we do not notice that we are currently actively disfavouring them. Measures like quotas actually level the playing field – they do not tip it in favour of black people. And when a white person says “well that person only got that position because they are black,” I say: I am actually fine with that. A previously racist outcome has been improved. If another white person says “well, it’s racist to favour black people in recruitment,” I say: OK, you go over there and be nice and “not racist”, and I will start working with the new black colleagues I just recruited. Let’s see which of us looks more racist then, shall we?