Nine Powerful & Simple Ways to Reduce Racism
At our Midwest summer camp, our mission is to bring together kids from varied backgrounds, and help them develop tools to deal with difference. Especially given the evolution (devolution?) of our societal interactions of late, it is increasingly important to figure out how to treat each other better. Here are nine powerful and simple ways to reduce racism. Apologies for this blog being heartfelt, yet without attribution to various sources from which notes were culled before writing it.
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Discover your culture.
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Consider your interests/beliefs. Where did you grow up? What is your sexuality? What spiritual beliefs do you hold? Do you prefer sweet tea or non-sweet tea? Favorite sport? Favorite hobby? Consider your life story; this represents your culture.
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Look in the mirror
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Be aware of your biases. Assess how culture focuses your lenses.
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Our cultural lens affects how we interpret life. From a U.S. perspective, where folks drive on the right side of the road, someone driving on the left side is drunk or a bad driver. If that same person were in Jamaica, s/he would be perfectly fine and would consider us bad and/or drunk drivers.
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Monitor implicit bias.
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Everyone has biases (cultural lenses)–shortcuts for your brain to quickly make sense of your world. Unfortunately, when heavily relied on, this shortcut leads to misassumptions, misinformation, and ultimately missed connections with others because we don’t take the time to get to know individuals.
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Some examples of implicit bias actions/responses include:
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Locking doors when you see a person of a particular race;
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Asking leading questions regarding relationships (Do you have a boyfriend/girls; girlfriend/boys);
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Assuming that a person does or doesn’t speak a certain language due to her/his looks.
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If you catch yourself having these or similar thoughts/reactions, ask yourself how your culture shaped that action. How did your action affect the other person? How would you respond if someone assumed something about you based on your race? What can you do/say next time to be more open-minded?
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Avoid speaking on topics about which you lack personal experience.
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We all know that person—who has something to say about everything. Adding unfounded opinions serves only to further spread lies, stereotypes, and misinformation. You wouldn’t sign up to be a boat driving instructor if you’d never driven a boat, correct? The same applies when speaking, publicly or privately, about any subject matter. And no, “my significant other/best friend is Black / Indian / Canadian” does not make someone an expert on Black / Indian / Canadian culture. You can speak on your experience with that person, but that person represents only one individual and does not represent an entire race. So, when joining such conversations, approach them differently; ask open-ended questions and listen open-mindedly.
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Stretch yourself with new experiences.
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Get out as much as possible. Explore your neighborhood, hometown, state, country, continent, life in general. Put away money for a future vacation. Even if it takes a while, invest in making sure you get to visit a dream destination. Meanwhile, you can undertake cost-efficient experiences. Do you have family in a nearby city? Are there area restaurants you haven’t tried? Try visiting city hall or the website of your hometown or surrounding area to seek a community calendar of events happening right in your ‘hood.
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Talk to people.
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Interacting and connecting with others is an essential part of life, and people are everywhere! It could be your neighbor, someone in the park, standing next to you in line, sitting next to you on the bus/train etc. For socially anxious folks, here’s a link: https://www.learning-mind.com/topics-to-talk-about-introvert/.
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See others as you see yourself.
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“In every moment…we choose to see others either as people like ourselves or as objects. They either count like we do or they don’t.” ― The Arbinger Institute, The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict (https://arbingerinstitute.com/Landing/AnatomyOfPeace.html ).
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Everyone should be treated as if s/he matters; the only way to do that is to see others as we see ourselves—as individuals. That’s how we begin to see each others’ unique powers and contributions, and ultimately feel more connected instead of divided. On the contrary, if we treat others as objects by acknowledging them only by externalities (i.e. a Jew, an Arab, a White, an immigrant) instead of unique individuals, that further disconnects us and limits our connections.
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Some ways that help to see others as people include:
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Talking (asking genuine questions and listening to the answers);
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Relating their stories and feelings to events in your own life;
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Imagining yourself in another person’s life or circumstances.
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Challenge the authenticity of what you see and hear.
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Media (TV shows, movies, websites, social media platforms, news etc.) can manipulate the audiences’ thoughts and feelings. Therefore, we should try to experience things firsthand, whenever possible, before developing opinions. At least, we should fact check and cross-reference what we consume on TV and online. Switch up your daily news outlet. Is the article you just read from a credible source? For what other works are they responsible? What do other sources/experts say about the topic? Does this perspective jibe with my own experience with this topic?
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Reduce screen time.
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Technology can be a powerful, positive tool. We can easily access vast amounts of knowledge, and get in touch with the otherwise remote parts of the world. However, as amazing as technology can be, it’s not the real deal. If we continuously allow our reality to be shaped by how we interact with our screens, we will cut ourselves off from the genuine article.
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