Taking Responsibility to Counter Discrimination

As the Diversity and Inclusion Chairperson at BLocal Sydney I feel it is expected of me to say something about the USA death of George Floyd, the deep discrimination that persists in Australia and the current spread of #blacklivesmatter protests into Sydney. But I don't want to post to be politically correct, to ride the wave of what's trending, to do lip service or to take up band-with meaninglessly. I have been reluctant to comment because I find it hard to know what to say. The reality of discrimination to the extreme where it results in violence and death, in this day and age, is almost incomprehensible. It is utterly sickening, and so hard to understand, how one person can be so grossly blind to our shared humanity with another. Where does this detachment and hatred come from? What on earth are we so afraid of? 

When I was in late high school I was walking with a friend who told me she was having trouble getting a job. I asked her why, as she was a very capable young woman. She said to me "Well, you know it's harder for me". I was utterly confused and I asked again "But why?". She shrugged and said "Because I'm black". I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at her, my mouth agape. My brain blurted out loud its response "No, you're not! You're Anu!"

But as she looked back at me, amazed, I realised that she was, in fact, very dark skinned. She was, in fact, black. But I'd known her throughout our entire childhoods and all I had ever seen was Anu. I'd never actually SEEN her skin colour and I'd never actually seen the ways in which others might treat her differently because of it. This was my sudden and rude awakening to racial discrimination.

What I've always taken from that experience though is the knowledge that I saw and felt her as a person no different from myself, BEFORE I saw her difference. This tells me that it IS possible for us to see collective and shared humanity. Not everyone has had my privilege to grow up in a multi-cultural mixing pot so densely flavored as to make one so blinded by the colors of difference that all seem to be ONE. A child who only saw sameness in difference and intrigue in the minor cultural eccentricities surrounding her.

I saw that it is possible for those of us who understand unity, and who believe therefore in equality, to stand by our fellow human beings and demand that we ALL grow out of the barbarity of tribalism in all its forms. We don't live in the dark ages anymore. People who look like us are just as likely to be dangerous, crazy, criminal and threatening to our daily well-being, even if not more so - don't our domestic violence rates attest to this? The longer we remain silent and blind, taking the easy mental route of sorting by aesthetic into fictional 'us' and 'them's, the longer we are ALL going to continue senselessly maiming and killing each other.

I don't want to hear comments about retaliation driven boycotting of foreign products, about sticking with people we know to 'stay safe', about how people who wear head-dresses or who have darker skin are dirty or somehow dangerous. I only want to hear about how you/we/us can open our minds and see the truth that binds - we are ALL dangerous, if we choose to be. We can ALL be loving, if we choose to be. We are ALL human. Only fear, bias, belief, perspective and behavior discriminate. Color and race by right do not. It's well past time for us to take collective and day-to-day responsibility, to counter discrimination when we see or hear it and start to really grow up.