We're all racists

‘We’re all racists,’ Bea Campbell said to me, way back in the day. At the time I was affronted.  ‘How can I be a racist?’ I spluttered defensively. ‘My adopted father is part aborigine and my foster sister is West Indian.’ I nearly went on to say, ‘and I have loads of black friends and if I don’t have a black boyfriend it’s not for want of serious trying’ (but, thankfully, I stopped myself).  Bea just looked at me and sighed. 

It took me nigh on twenty years to realise that she was absolutely right. We are all racists.

Of course, on a physiological level, racism is totally absurd, quite risible.  Peel away our skin and you’d have to be a forensic pathologist to tell the difference between us. Our rational, civilised, nice psyche baulks at it too - and quite rightly so. But on a deeper level, psychologically, it’s a very different story.

Of course you’re already spluttering; already planning your defensive/appalled/caustic comment.  Because that’s what we do. We make up our minds before we have even read something through to the end. We jump to conclusions.  We do what I did with Bea Campbell.  And, (particularly when it comes to racism) we tie ourselves in knots (I read Liz Jones’ piece on the Diane Abbott affair with a deeply furrowed brow – in fact I read it three times and still can’t make head nor tail of it).  


I've thought about writing this post several times but over the last few days I've watched the old game play out on the Authonomy forum and so I figured it was time.
 

Anyhow, let’s pull back a bit and look at why we make these boundaries, why we put ourselves in groups, why we have this urge to divide. In fact, let’s not even talk about black and white to begin with…let’s start with something a little less …emotive.

‘Why do you feel so strongly about being Welsh?’ I asked Adrian back during the rugby world cup or whatever when he was in full Cymru am byth (Wales Forever!) mode.  Again. 

‘It’s my heritage,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘It’s what I am; it’s where I come from.’

‘But, see,’ I said.  ‘If you came from the borders, back in time, you would have been – alternatively – Welsh and English.’

‘Well…politically,’ he conceded. ‘But I’d still be Welsh.’  Is that racist?  In that the corollary is ‘and thank feck I’m not bastard English’ then yes, of course it is.  J

But what does it mean to be Welsh?  I looked up ethnicity online and it seems nobody really knows why we do this; there is no *real* reason for our tribalising.  It’s a societal thing. There are a whole bunch of views and, to be very honest, none of them really answered my question.  Take this…which probably came the closest.

"Constructivism" sees both primordialist and perennialist views as basically flawed, and rejects the notion of ethnicity as a basic human condition. It holds that ethnic groups are only products of human social interaction, maintained only in so far as they are maintained as valid social constructs in societies.”

So having tribes helps us hold together as societies. Really?  But it still doesn’t really answer my question.  And then, see, a few days later Adrian was at it again… ‘Bloody South Waleans…’ he muttered.  Not sure what they’d done this time, apart from existing and being south of Dolgellau. ‘Bloody Cardiff. ’  Yup, even the Welsh (a small nation for sure) can’t help dividing itself further – North v South.  And in Llandudno, Adrian’s home town, they do it too.  ‘Oh they’re from up the valley…’ said with a certain element of scorn. ‘Llanwyrst.’ With an eyeroll.

I see it here too – on Exmoor – within our tiny towns.  Dulverton v Bampton.  Within Dulverton itself – cliques, groups, sub-divisions.  If it’s not race, it’s class, or sexuality or politics or – shit knows – football teams, werewolves v vampires. 

So I started looking into sociology and social psychology and there aren’t really any definite answers there either.  We humans compete for material resources or for social rewards, I’m told.  We have a ‘natural inclination’ for aggression and if that aggression is not unleashed on an agreed ‘enemy’ it turns inwards onto our own societies. 

Rene Girard saw ‘collective violence as sacred’; as the ‘great remedy’ for communal life.  He talked about the scapegoat as ‘absorbing all the internal tensions, feuds, and rivalries pent up within the community…a deliberate act of collective substitution.’ Scapegoat?  Yes. We have lynched and burned and gassed the scapegoat many the time before.  Hold that thought – I’ll come back to it. 

But really, why is conflict latent at our core? 

Psychically, I think, it’s because we’re set up to divide things into two. Me and you; us and them.  Difference is part of the human condition. If we didn't feel different, we would be One. We wouldn’t be here.  We’d have moved on.  We see the world in twos so we can make choices; so we can say No.  Two is freedom.  Yet, paradoxically, it is also irresolvable conflict, standoffs, stalemates, obstinacy.  So One is impossible and Two is a pain in the arse. Is there a solution?  Think about that word and hold that thought. 

Meanwhile, back on the Authonomy forum a big brave knight jousted a dragon (I mean, a filthy racist).  Did he ask the dragon what it was doing? Did he seek to understand why the dragon said what it did? No.  Instead he chose to hit the ‘report abuse’ button and incited the mob (I mean, other members of the forum) to do likewise.  And, because racism is such an emotive word and we’re all so damn scared of it, people did just that and the government booted the dragon off the site. 

'Hurrah,’ yelled the crowd, waving their pitchforks.  ‘We killed the dragon.’ 

‘No,’ said the brave knight, polishing his spear. ‘I was the dragon slayer.’ 

And then it all got very messy indeed as, having made one scapegoat, they felt better for a bit but then a few people went, ‘Huh?’ and so they hunted around for another one and found another guy (this time he just happened to be black) and started all over again with him. 

But really.  Why do we scapegoat? Because it’s far more comfortable to point a finger at someone and go ‘Look! Filthy racist’ than to confront the racism, the separation within ourselves.  There was an opportunity, on that forum, for people to feel the discomfort in what they saw as racism and to explore that feeling; to try, maybe to understand its source rather than just push it under, squash it down…again.  This is contentious, I know, but truly – have our other ways of dealing with racism worked? 

I believe there was an opportunity to look at the ‘field’- what Arnold Mindell calls the unconscious, collective, polarised patterns that lie behind racism and collective conflict.  To engage in ‘worldwork’, working with the psychosocial fields that reach beyond boundaries of race. To use a little deep democracy (in which all voices are heard – both those around us and those inside us – often they’re the same!).  As Mindell puts it: ‘Deep democracy is based upon the realisation that everyone is needed to represent reality. A sense of justice arises only in connection with community, with inner peace of mind, sustainable ongoing relationships, and worldwork that processes the tensions between groups.’  

It’s interesting stuff – check out The Global Process Institute & Worldwork website at www.worldwork.org  I’m not sure I agree with all of what he says but it’s a bloody good start.

But people didn’t question; they didn’t look within. More correctly, they didn’t look between.  In alchemy, separation is the process of establishing Two.  You and me.  Us and them. The next stage is Conjunction.  People mistake this – they see it as the two becoming one. No. Conjunction is reaching Three – you, me and Between.  Yes, it’s subtle, I know. But just think about it.  I reckon it’s the saving grace.

Meanwhile, about that particular filthy dragon.  Is he a racist?  No more than you or I.  And, actually, if people knew his ancestry, they might be very very surprised. J

Okay, I've said my piece...over to you...