read a chapter of this anti-racism guidebook
Written by Jinyoung Kim and Sabina Patawaran, “Anti-Racism Kit” is a handbook for high school students to fight against discrimination, prejudice and bias.
WHAT IS ANTI-RACISM?
Anti-racism is about actively saying no to racism. It’s about deliberately challenging racism – working to change policies, behaviours and beliefs that maintain racist values in our everyday life. Anti-racist activist and academic Ibram X. Kendi argues that you are either racist or anti-racist. There is no ‘neutral’ because being passive fuels racism.
What’s wrong with saying, “I’m not racist”? First off, what you’re actually saying is that you don’t have racial prejudice – personal beliefs and attitudes that influence the way you see people of colour. But secondly, racism isn’t just interpersonal – it’s the systemic oppression that benefits one group of people over others. Racism isn’t about individuals’ morals but a system of power. People fixate on the ‘micro’, forgetting that racism’s more of a ‘macro’ thing. Truth is, you probably have some racial prejudice whether you like it or not. Racism is baked into society. For most of us, it’s something to stay aware of and work on all our lives.
I’m a person of colour – so I can’t be racist, right? You can. Experiencing racism doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. Since racism can be institutional, structural and systemic, people of colour can totally perpetuate it. People of colour can also internalise their racism.
Is it anti-racist to say that I don’t see race? No. In fact, ‘not seeing race’ can contribute to the problem because this can lead people to ignore racism’s existence. Some people of colour can find that offensive because you’re reducing a major part of their lived experience and their community’s history to nothing. Also, psychologists have shown that we do see race, whether we like to or not, and that we hold unconscious biases.
We often see racism as something external – a shadow that’s created and cast upon us by the structures in our society. We are within it, but we forget that it can be within us too. Racism can be internalised. For people of colour, it is a construct that we can mistake as an unquestionable feature of the world we live in.
Anti-racism Kit is a book written by Jinyoung Kim and Sabina Patawaran published by Hardie Grant Publishing, with Illustrations by Emma Ismawi. You can pre-order the book over here.