UK Racism and our vital role to eradicate it for good from society

Racist behaviour stems from a consciousness that is lacking in some people, and from blatant ignorance in others, and just plain dump for the rest. Lets face it, a racist person is a dumb individual. And we are not simply talking about the racist person that we may identify with as a nasty stereotype.

We all play our part, even if we consider ourselves to be people with ‘not a racist bone in our body’.

The racist is a dangerous person, as dumb as they may be, so why is racism still rampant in our modern society after many many decades of witnessing its degrading, abusive and destructive impact? Are we not appalled by the racist that exists among us?

I am appalled by racism, and asking myself why I and people like me have lived our lives oblivious to the fact that the people of colour that we work with; our friends and colleagues, and the people that we meet in our daily lives, must all live with this abuse. Racist abuse is their life.

These same people will have had to deal with racism as children, and will continue to deal with racism in its many forms today as adults. They have no choice. And people like me carry on their white lives as normal. I feel quite ashamed to be someone who has unwittingly ignored racism, or not faced up to the realisation that it still exists in the year 2020. It is hard to comprehend, but it shows that racism still remains a core mindset among so many simple minded people.

But racism must end, and I will do what I can to help make that happen.

I work for a technology company called Ocado Technology who employ wonderful people. We recently had an ethnic minorities talk that was broadcast company wide. This broadcast was delivered by a host and three employees of colour, who were eloquent and spoke about their experiences with racism, and it was a moving experience to hear their stories. Their accounts as children, having to deal with racism, broke my heart. As a parent myself, it is truly harrowing. The diversity team at Ocado who staged this company wide broadcast made such an impact that they will have triggered not just a social conscience among their audience, but also a realisation in that same audience of what is needed to acknowledge and deal with racists.

We must face racism and stop it. It may be a hard pill to swallow for some white people, but despite what school or university you may have attended, many of white people remain uneducated and ignorant to the history that has brought us to where we are today. So to go some small way in eradicating this I ask the readers of this article to educate yourself. Try to understand what racism is and how it first manifested itself. I will make it a personal objective of mine to post an article here about British history and the British Empire, civil rights, and the devastating and traumatic impact that racism has had on world. And the consequences.

(update: https://good-n-bad.com/speak/john-robert-lewis-civil-rights-icon-our-huge-loss-and-sadly-missed,80/)

I want to end this post with a most important point, made by the ethnic minority host at Ocado. We must stop dismissing racism on various grounds. We all need to open our eyes and acknowledge that racism is still happening, as astonishing as that may seem to any decent person. And we must also teach ourselves about the journey that such influential people such as John Robert Lewis, to name one, have taken.

Racism is not something that has been exaggerated or that does not happen. Racism happens, and it is not only shocking in itself but a clear indication that we must all be focused on working towards eradicating it for good. We should all be ashamed that it still exists at all in 2020, but we have a long way to go. I recently saw a LinkedIn post on the subject of Guy Gibson. The name of Guy Gibson's black Labrador dog is deeply offensive and is being removed from his gravestone, for very obvious reasons. The reaction to this post on LinkedIn was disturbing. There were many very angry white people horrified that the great Guy Gibson's gravestone was going to be altered. To these angry people it seems to be far more important that a dog's name remains on a gravestone than the impact of a deeply racist word being seen by people, especially children. What is wrong with these seemingly normal people, who are probably not that different from me? It is called ignorance.

This recent example in LinkedIn shows just how far we need to go to educate people and stop racism for good. For some more information on the history of this, please follow the link below.