Modern Racism

As promised here is a guest post from my friend Amber Mahony. Amber is a psychologist and is married with three children. Check out her website here. Amber and i belong to the same book club (and we really read!) and i love her direct, wise approach to things. Read her thoughts on modern racism:


"Since hardly anyone will admit to racial prejudice of any type, focusing on bigotry, hatred, and acts of intolerance only solidifies the belief that racism is something 'out there, ' - Tim Wise.

Like many South Africans, I have found it difficult to fully understand the extent of the unconscious conditioning I was exposed to while growing up under Apartheid. Research indicates that most of us tend to think of racism only in extremes and are largely unaware of the residual every day and subtle racism that does greater lasting damage. This lack of alertness ultimately perpetuates discrimination despite our very best intentions.

While South African society has come such a long way in unraveling the complex and tangled knot of Apartheid thinking, it is not uncommon, even now, to hear children in the playground refer to “my maid” in conversation with their peers. In all likelihood, they have heard their parents refer to the domestic worker working in their home with this designation. It is a disrespectful and precocious relational description that constitutes just one of the faces of subtle racism.

Our children's capacity to live well in a diverse world is very closely correlated to how effectively they are able to transcend difference and create connections beyond cultural and racial groupings. Children are at a unique stage in terms of their neurological development during their school-going years. Their brain structures are at their most “plastic” in these years, and their capacity to “wire” non-discriminatory connections are at their peak. After the age of 25, this neuroplasticity decreases and any “differences” that have not been transcended prior to this, become harder and harder to overcome. In other words, prejudice, discrimination and cultural rigidity have their anti-dote in exposing our children to difference and diversity in these crucial developmental years. If their environment is notably homogenous, then their capacity to connect with others who are “different” to themselves is left undeveloped. Our world is increasingly characterised by diversity and a limitation like this can preclude and restrict so many future possibilities as the only “safe “ world is narrow and characterised by “sameness”.

Awareness of subtle racism can be raised to good effect to gain insight into how we unknowingly perpetuate the problem of inequality through our denial and passivity. Insight and ownership of our own unconscious conditioning as well as into the inter-generational conditioning of our children can create change for the better. Alerting adults/parents to the “signs and sounds” of subtle (or modern) racism in their children’s environment can enable us all to gently but strategically re-position thinking. This, in turn, can bring change into our family and school systems which can eventually ripple out into the greater community.