Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race(17)

We tell ourselves that good people can’t be racist. We seem to think that true racism only exists in the hearts of evil people. We tell ourselves that racism is about moral values, when instead it is about the survival strategy of systemic power. When swathes of the population vote for politicians and political efforts that explicitly use racism as a campaigning tool, we tell ourselves that huge sections of the electorate simply cannot be racist, as that would render them heartless monsters. But this isn’t about good and bad people.

The covert nature of structural racism is difficult to hold to account. It slips out of your hands easily, like a water-snake toy. You can’t spot it as easily as a St George’s flag and a bare belly at an English Defence League march. It’s much more respectable than that.

I appreciate that the word structural can feel and sound abstract. Structural. What does that even mean? I choose to use the word structural rather than institutional because I think it is built into spaces much broader than our more traditional institutions. Thinking of the big picture helps you see the structures. Structural racism is dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of people with the same biases joining together to make up one organisation, and acting accordingly. Structural racism is an impenetrably white workplace culture set by those people, where anyone who falls outside of the culture must conform or face failure. Structural is often the only way to capture what goes unnoticed – the silently raised eyebrows, the implicit biases, snap judgements made on perceptions of competency. In the same year that I decided to no longer talk to white people about race, the British Social Attitudes survey saw a significant increase in the number of people who were happy to admit to their own racism.4 The sharpest rise in those self-admitting were, according to a Guardian report, ‘white, professional men between the ages of 35 and 64, highly educated and earning a lot of money’.5 This is what structural racism looks like. It is not just about personal prejudice, but the collective effects of bias. It is the kind of racism that has the power to drastically impact people’s life chances. Highly educated, high-earning white men are very likely to be landlords, bosses, CEOs, head teachers, or university vice chancellors. They are almost certainly people in positions that influence others’ lives. They are almost certainly the kind of people who set workplace cultures. They are unlikely to boast about their politics with colleagues or acquaintances because of the social stigma of being associated with racist views. But their racism is covert. It doesn’t manifest itself in spitting at strangers in the street. Instead, it lies in an apologetic smile while explaining to an unlucky soul that they didn’t get the job. It manifests itself in the flick of a wrist that tosses a CV in the bin because the applicant has a foreign-sounding name.

The national picture is grim. Research from a number of different sources shows how racism is weaved into the fabric of our world. This demands a collective redefinition of what it means to be racist, how racism manifests, and what we must do to end it.

It seems like black people face a disadvantage at every significant step in their lives. Let’s say that a black boy starts his first day at school, the first British institution he will pass through independent of his parents. Mum and Dad are full of hope for what he might become – an artist, a doctor, the next prime minister – and this is where he will set himself up to achieve those wished-for goals. But perhaps his parents should temper their excitement, because evidence suggests that the odds will be stacked against him. According to the Department for Education, a black schoolboy in England is around three times more likely to be permanently excluded compared to the whole school population.6 But let’s say that our black boy (and it’s always a boy – there’s little to no research in this area focused on the life chances of black girls) avoids being excluded and makes it far enough into his school journey to take exams. He won’t be explicitly aware of the invisible barriers placed in his way, but they will exist. At the age of eleven, when he is preparing to take his SATs, research indicates that he will be systematically marked down by his own teachers – a phenomenon that is remedied when examiners who don’t teach at his school mark his exam papers.7 It will take anonymity to get him the grade he deserves.

In the spirit of optimism, let us insist that our imaginary black child gets into a good secondary school, studies a subject he loves, and becomes determined to go to university. The evidence suggests his fortunes might drastically change as a greater proportion of black students than white students progress to higher education after sixth form or college. But, along race lines, access to Britain’s prestigious universities is unequal, with black students less likely to be accepted into a high-ranking, research-intensive Russell Group university than their white counterparts.8

Perhaps the black child – now blossoming into an adult – has got the grades he needed, and is accepted into a good university, despite the odds being stacked against him. Three years later, and he’s furiously refreshing his university’s results page, eagerly awaiting the degree classification that will be his ticket to graduate employment. He’s hoping for a 2:1 at least, but has his fingers crossed for a 1st – because all the job ads he’s browsed so far explicitly mention that graduates with a 2:2 degree or lower shouldn’t waste their time applying.

Although we don’t want to pour a bucket of water over his dreams, it’s not looking good. Between 2012 and 2013, the highest proportion of UK students to receive the lowest-degree ranking – a third or a pass – was among black students, with the lowest proportion being white students.9 Given that black kids are more likely than white kids to move into higher education, it’s spurious to suggest that this attainment gap is down to a lack of intelligence, talent, or aspiration. It’s worth looking at the distinct lack of black and brown faces teaching at university to see what might contribute to this systematic failure. In 2016, it was revealed by the Higher Education Statistics Agency that almost 70 per cent of the professors teaching in British universities are white men.10 It’s a dire indication of what universities think intelligence looks like.