Its ok to be (a little bit) racist...

Just a quick revisit of one of the themes i really want to tackle on my blog but has had less air time due to my obsession with my little boy, being a mom, his bodily functions, coping on too little sleep etc...

Racism... Such a big word and the word is a little over used and i think under acknowledged. i think deep down a lot (maybe all) of us have a deep fear/ uneasiness/ distrust/ dislike (pick your favourite verb or insert your own) of people that are different to ourselves. i know i sometimes find i consciously need to guard against a mindset of "those people" "them" "they". But i think one of the first fights against this racist tendency in us is to guard against it. What do you think?

been also thinking what racism looks like (Had an interesting chat with a friend Amber about modern racism and what that looks like... She will hopefully be doing a guest blog for me some time soon. WATCH THIS SPACE).

Made me remember an incident that occurred while i worked at Baragwanath Hospital. While having tea with 2 colleagues we somehow got onto the topic of race and these 2 girls i worked with quite openly and honestly stated that they believed that black people were less able, clever and basically inferior to white people. Their argument was around things like "look at Africa, look at SA,who are the criminals in SA?". i got really upset as i tried to talk to them and point out that their beliefs were wrong (Haha! doesnt work- peoples beliefs are peoples beliefs).
So that is the one end of the racist spectrum- openly admitting that you believe another race is inferior. the other end of the spectrum is less easy to define. is it the secretly believing you are better than someone else but never saying it? is it the people who speak of maids and gardenboys without realising how these words could be offensive? is it an attitude of entitlement (based on race) that you exude? is it never thinking about race because you dont have to? is it the person who says i have lots of black friends? is it guarding your heart against labelling people as different because of the colour of their skin?

I think that it is NOT ok to be even a little bit racist... it is something we need to fight in ourselves (wherever we sit on that spectrum)!

Let me know what you think!