Reading this article reminded me of an early experience of racism I encountered. When I was in kindergarten, a new classmate from Mexico arrived, unfamiliar with how things worked in the States. My young self saw this as an opportunity to make a new friend, and we began to talk to each other in Spanish, getting to know one another. One of the teachers approached us, yelling, “Speak English! This is America. Go back to Mexico if you want to speak that ‘beaner’ language.” I didn’t fully grasp why this comment was insulting, but I knew from her tone that it was best not to speak Spanish in front of her.
Since the beginning of this country’s history, white cisgender men were set up to have an advantage over any other group. Unfortunately, there are more prejudiced and racist people holding positions of power than there are people of color and those from different backgrounds. Those who hold positions of power can enforce policies that are detrimental to those who are different from them. Because the policies, laws, and legislations being put forth are for the advantage of that small group, it affects people who are different from them in a detrimental way. It becomes easier to justify and continue racist practices when the ones enforcing them are not affected in the least by them.
There are so many examples, in the past and in the present day, which highlight the problem at hand. Do we not remember segregation? The way history is being told, they would have us believe it was a long time ago, ancient, with the people who supported the separation between whites and people of color, but 1964 is not a long time ago. To give context, people who were born in 1964 aren’t quite retirement age; their parents and grandparents could have participated in the opposition to integration. Being antiracist is believing that racism is everyone’s problem, and we all have a role to play in stopping it. Which leads me to recent times, do we not see how the President, Vice President, Senators, and House of Representatives ignore, thus allowing the genocide happening in Gaza? Does the annihilation of an ethnic group not constitute as racism?
Racism and the way it presents itself today is often not as overt as in the past. However, the subtlety of it is what can make it hard to recognize. Dismantling and uncovering it starts with ourselves. Being born a different ethnicity does not mean that it automatically makes us antiracist. We must ask ourselves, “Do I make racist jokes?” “Do I perpetuate harmful stereotypes?”
Being racist or antiracist is not about who you are; it is about what you do. If we sit back, content that an aspect of racism doesn’t affect us, we are in fact being racist. Doing something to push back on racism does not necessarily mean loud and obvious resistance. Personally, in the Hispanic culture, colorism and racism towards darker-skinned individuals or those from the deep south of the Americas is common. Family members who do not consider themselves to be racist will make racist jokes or comments. As uncomfortable as it is, not laughing, even out of discomfort, or challenging their beliefs is a way to chip away and dismantle an oppressive and racist system.
Being antiracist isn’t always a straight path. Just as oppression presents differently from person to person depending on their background and sexual orientation, there is a need to tailor how we support individuals and how we resist racism in a way that makes sense for them.
In a past post, I mentioned that education is the best way to become aware of our own prejudice, stopping the cycle of oppression. However, this is difficult to do when the education system favors non-ethnic groups. If the people who are in power are only willing to fully fund affluent schools with little diversity, rewriting history, covering the atrocities committed against minorities, which then places future generations with the same ideologies in positions of power, when will the cycle end?
If we are to partake in any way in the field of social work, we must acknowledge that the injustices, whether they affect us directly or not at all, are our problem as well. Social work is about empowering people, advocating for change that benefits others, dismantling our own prejudice, speaking to others about their role in stopping racism, and most importantly, amplifying the voices of those hit hardest by racism. There is a need for a more radical restructuring of society. Racism is deeply ingrained in everyone; attempting to simply make unbiased choices has not functioned. There will be those who will say they too are making an effort to adjust the system while continuing to support, publicly or not, policies and decisions that don’t align with what they preach. Restructuring the current system will allow for the chance to completely dismantle things. It will allow for the opportunity to begin to have a level playing field, to have diversity will mean different approaches to reconstructing a system that has not worked. Now, I want to make clear that I do believe in democracy, I am aware of the privilege it brings our country, but I also believe the current system has become corrupt and no longer serves the people as it was meant to be, therefore, radical change is needed.
John Da Broi
Sarai,
Wow, I’m sorry that you had to experience that occurrence/incident at such a young age and it is obvious that it has stuck with you since then because you remember it so clearly. I know we cannot change history from all the mistakes people have made in the past with racism and segregation which wasn’t that long ago but we as people today can make a change by not erasing the past but learning from it and reacting a better way so we can see people treated more equally.
Michelle Dunham
Well said Sarai! But I must say, with regards to racists jokes? I work with a strong, cultural, elderly black man. And the racist jokes that he says out loud? I would never consider doing such, but he feels free to joke about his own history. For radical change, I fear it must go deeper than just us, it will need to be addressed on both sides. I have always thought that for every new holiday or new History Month we created, I felt we were allowing an even wider gap and separation between us all. Sometimes over acknowledgement as such, can add negative-inertia and keep perpetuating the problem.
Sarai Gomez
Michelle,
What you said about the man who feels comfortable enough to make racist jokes about his own history is tricky. I feel like sometimes its how we deal with generational trauma, however, I personally see it as keeping and encouraging the colonization and internal racism that has been drilled into our parents and grandparents. it does not benefit us, it benefits the group who continues to be in power. It normalizes being okay to be viewed as “less than”. Change starts with ourselves.
Robi Naranjo
Hi Sarai, really good breakdown and the topic is important and does effect everything around us and relationships with the people around us! I like how you brought up 1964 isn’t that long ago. Even in Alaska there was and still is racist like behavior, circles grandparents couldn’t even sit together at the movie theater and my parents remember cowboy and Indian movies where “Indians were the savages” and everyone wanted to be the cowboys, even the Native kids, like my uncles wanted to be the cowboys, my uncle told me he didnt know what he was thinking until he grew up and seen it as a way the powers that be tried to make them hate themselves and be ashamed of thier culture, so much propaganda that you still see at work in some honestly I seen it a lot in Fairbanks, I look white but I’ve seen it happen with family members being treated differently or racist comments directed towards them, I think it comes from ignorance of the reality that we live in and history, also that we do all have bias, being able to see what they are and not let them direct your behavior or judge people wrongly. I think your right , unless people are educated about things its really easy to skate through life without out being aware. As social workers I think that its such amazing opportunity to be able to advocate for change in our circles and spheres of influence.
Sarai Gomez
Robi,
Being white passing is both a blessing and a curse. It makes life a little easier but it also means some rejection and resentment from the ethnic group we belong to. Mostly, it kills me to see my family who doesn’t pass for white being mistreated, either outright or subtly. My parents speak English with a heavy accent. They understand it, they read it and speak it. But people often underestimate them.
My whole life I have witnessed how people will speak loudly, excessively slow, and feel the need to pretend that they don’t understand what they are saying. They use it as an excuse to mistreat them, assuming they can not defend themselves.
Ben Woods
Hi there Sarai, I can’t believe your teacher said that to both of you when you were in kindergarten! All you wanted to do was make a friend and make him feel welcome and the leader of the class shut that down…. Not a leader I would follow! I do agree that sitting back and refusing to see the racism around us isn’t doing anybody any good. It’s almost like some people I know who always said regarding COVID, “If you don’t get tested then you don’t have COVID.” While reading this, I thought of videos on YouTube that show people taking a vacation to other countries and exploring their cultures and feeling happy that people chose to gain a different perspective on life, meet new people, and share stories and experiences. I still hear racist jokes all the time and I always think if we were the ones being joked about, would we still laugh? Now, I don’t know a solution besides nipping it in the bud when we come across it. Great blog Sarai!
Bell Voseberg
Hi, I hear your rage and your passion through your writing, and I love it. I feel like women and people of many different races and backgrounds have been quiet and pushed to be quiet about subjects like these. Being pushed to be quiet is harmful, and it is one reason why we still have legislations that are primarily white cisgender males in power. I grew up half-white and half-Mexican. My grandmother, and mom are from Chihuahua, Mexico, and I used to live half with my grandparents in El- Paso, TX, and half with my parents in Louisiana. It was hard because I am very white compared to the rest of my family. I experienced racism on both sides. I was almost too white for my friends in El Paso, and I was too brown for my friends in Louisiana. I had a friend in high school tell me that my mom doesn’t know what she talks about because “she is a border-running n-word.” I was appalled, and I couldn’t believe that people were so small-minded. It also got to the point where I hated speaking Spanish. I would get bullied for sounding too white or looking too white, even though I grew up speaking Spanish because my grandpa and half of my family could barely speak English. I still, to this day, try and refrain from speaking it unless I have to because I just am so self-conscious. Although I do understand that I am very privileged and have it nowhere near as bad as some other people since I am white-passing. Racism shows in many different ways and many different forms, and I believe it will take a long time for us to be able to overcome most of these issues.
Sammy Rivera Munoz
Hey Sara,
Thank you for opening up with us through your blog, and allowing us to hear your personal stories. I thought the way you portrayed anti-racism was factual and precise while keeping it engaging for us readers.
Just like you, I believe that the social work field has a lot of power to restructure society. Social workers should be aware of the injustices people go through daily, and use their knowledge to advocate for change, empowering people to dismantle racism.
Something I would like to point out that I found extremely interesting is the fact that actively avoiding being part of stopping racism, makes you racist. This was something I never thought about until I did some research on anti-racism and the way Dr. Ibraim X. Kendi explained the topic.