Race, from a TCK Perspective

You would look at me funny if I told you I’ve experienced racism. I’m pale, blue-eyed, and as a kid I was platinum blonde. I grew up privileged, travelling the world on a frickin’ yacht, so what could I possibly mean when I say,

‘I’ve experienced racism.’

Hmmmmm?

Well, by most definitions, I haven’t. I have never been in a place where my race caused people to view me as lesser, where it would stop me getting a job, where being pale was not seen as a marker of beauty due to some absurd standard of colourism. I know nothing of oppression and real hardship.

One definition of race goes by power dynamic, saying racism is ‘discrimination from a dominant racial class to a non-dominant one’. For the purposes of my statement, I am going with the definition as it is found on Dictionary.com, which reads in part:

Hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.

I grew up as most TCKs do, with a big group of friends from a dozen different cultures. Black friends, Asian friends, Bangladeshi friends, Hispanic and mixed race friends. I understood them and their cultures for what they are: beautiful, diverse, and necessary.

But then my family reached mainland South America, and from the moment we set foot in Columbia we knew all eyes were on us as representatives of our race. We were always the only white people in any situation, and people often muttered under their breath as we walked past in a language we as psuedo-immigrants could not speak.

In Panama, we were seen as tourists due to our skin colour. Being white meant a whole lot of assumptions: we must be rich, we must be American, we must be gullible and easy to take advantage of. It was an excuse for people to yell at us in the street and push some miscellaneous good or service at us, for cab prices to be hiked, etc. It was not violent, but there was always the feeling of some superficial discrimination in the air.

I was thirteen the first time a racial slur was used against me, with a slashing motion across the man’s throat as he looked at my family and I with disdain. In Peru, we were seen as colonisers, the enemy. The evil deeds of Conquistadors from hundreds of years ago, the erasure of entire cultures, was placed on my family in that moment. And I agreed with him- I hated Europeans and Americans on principle, unable to see that I was one of them but at the same time finding it impossible to remove myself from that evil image.

As a teenager, I wanted to look the same as everyone around me: shorter, curvier, darker, long black hair. I didn’t want all eyes to be on me and my family. I wanted to be a local.

I wasn’t educated about white priveledge until much later- I knew the history of colonisation and the pain my ancestors had caused, and I knew that when people hiked up their prices just or me and my family it wasn’t anything personal; it was just business. An assumption based on our race that we could afford fifty dollars for a blanket that would have been twenty for anyone else. I still don’t blame those people for the way we were treated, because that is how colonisers forced them to survive- I may not have been fully aware, but I was surfing a tidal wave of priveledge and expectation carefully cultivated by years of damage done to the’real’ locals.

I don’t even blame the man who acted so aggressively towards my family. Europeans have a history of being assholes, and in that man’s town history was continuing right before our eyes, with a rich Italian man showing up, calling himself an archeologist, excavating sites vital to that man’s culture, exporting sacred artifacts and actual ancestors back to Italy, never to be seen again by their descendants.

I know the ‘racism’ I experienced is based upon white priveledge and centuries of oppression- and it is not the racism we need to be focusing on today.

I’m privileged enough to be grateful for my experiences, in a way. I get to understand a fraction of the racism people of colour go through every single day, the physical insecurities brought on by Caucasian beauty standards, the pain of being told you ‘look like an immigrant’ even though you’ve never lived anywhere else… It really fucking sucks.

I’m not saying I’ve experienced racism to prove the existence of ‘reverse racism’- that is so far from being the problem it is not worth adding to the conversation. My point is, if I, an excessively privileged white girl, can feel even a fraction of that kind of discrimination, what must young children of colour feel every day when they see things like George Floyd? When their parents get pulled over for driving while Black, with them in the backseat?

Things like police brutality cannot continue happening with no accountability.

So, I decided to do something small to help those who actually need it.

I put out a call for submissions for an anthology ‘In Service of Black Lives’ over social media, and started bothering every writer I know. A lot of them were white and didn’t feel comfortable writing about racism. I understood that, but at the same time I fundamentally disagree: white people need to start owning up and recognising racism around them. Not just when it happens to them. I guarantee if you open your eyes you will find friends and strangers, the people sat beside you on the bus, who have been dealing with racism on small and large scales. To paraphrase John Leguizamo, ‘(people of colour) have to learn to stand up for ourselves, but we need a little help from the white liberals, too.’

In the anthology, I and others tell our full stories about race, life experiences, and also write fictional pieces and poetry based on current events and racism.

Proceeds from the anthology are going to two charities:

THE NATIONAL BAIL FUND NETWORK

This is a network of over sixty community bail funds across the United States. Their work is not localised to paying bail/bond, but also fighting to abolish the money bail system and pretrial detention, as well as immigration detention.

Their work is especially vital right now, as the COVID-19 Pandemic has turned many prisons and jails into hot spots for the virus. During the Pandemic, they are fighting to release those detained who can and should be freed under the current money bail system, as a way of flattening the curve and keeping people safer and healthier than they would be behind bars.

Much of how the United States legal system will treat you is tied not only to your race and social position, but also to your income. The National Bail Fund Network is a sort of pool of money between communities to help fight multiple drivers of criminalisation and incarceration from the bottom up, such as court fees, fines, probation/parole, etc…

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS CAMP

In addition to doing a TON of work helping Black and Brown communities throughout the pandemic, Know Your Rights Camp is an educational experience providing vital information to young minorities. The initiative began as a way to teach young people how to handle encounters with law enforcement, and expanded to giving young people the resources, access, and knowledge to brighten their futures.

These conversations are a vital education, and yet they aren’t the kinds of things you’ll find in schools: what do you do if you’re pulled over by a police officer? What are your rights? This free camp educates, empowers, and mobilises the next generation of Black and Brown leaders. If we want the world to change for the better, we need to be investing in things like this.

Additionally, their Legal Defense Initiative has connections with top defense lawyers and Civil Rights lawyers across the United States to provide much-needed legal resources to people and communities suffering from injustice and police brutality.

The only way racism goes away is if we confront it head on and say: ENOUGH. No more George Floyds and Breonna Taylors. Enough of institutional racism. We call ourselves a meritocracy? Let’s start acting like it.

The book is available here in the UK and here in the US, but you can buy it anywhere via amazon. Samples of the writing are up on my Instagram.