Privilege, stereotypes and recognising you will never know how it is for someone else.

Has anyone been watching 'Timeless'? It's a new E4 programme where three people chase a 'criminal' through time and, like art should, it uncovers the many prejudices which have existed throughout history. 

The team is made up of a woman who comes face to face with the old school sexism, the black man who ends up in scrapes simply because of the colour of his skin and finally the white good looking man who realises he does not have these barriers. Finally, they come face to face with an 'Old Boys Club', inherited wealth and the advantages this gives its members. 

While it may have shown how far we have come (and how far we have to go). It also showed something else - how privilege affects everything. However much empathy one may have, you will never understand someone else's life. 

If you were born a man, you will never know how it really feels to be a woman. You will never know how it is to be felt up, objectified, feel scared when being followed home, look at your outfit and question if you are asking for it, know that you are earning less than your male contemporaries, be asked when you will have kids, know you only have so long to have kids, know you don't have control over your body, wait for your period to see if you're pregnant, be called a slut, be called frigid, shave or wax over 50% of your skin, have to go to work while feeling like your stomach is being stabbed repeatedly etc etc. 

If you were born one race, you will never know how it is like to be born another. How it is to be suspected by police because of your skin colour, how it is to have friends who have been shot by police, how it is to have people cross the street, how it is to hear from your family how they were forced into worse schools etc during segregation. 

If you were born into a certain religion, you will never know what it is like to be anything else. If you aren't Jewish, you don't know what it is like to have family lost in the Holocaust. If you aren't Muslim, you don't know what it is like to be stared at with fear when you board a plane or say a prayer, or see your religion dragged through the mud when ever a terrorist attack occurs. If you aren't Christian, you don't know what it is like to be questioned on your purity by every male you come into contact with. 

If you have money you will never know what it is like to not have enough for food. If you have an education you will never know what it is like to be illiterate. If you have a country to call home you will never know what it is like to run for your life. If you have a loving family you will never know what it feels like to be truly alone. If you have running water you will never know what it is like to get risk your life because you are thirsty. 

That's the thing you see, you will never know what it is like to have someone else's life. You will never know what it is like to be grouped into another stereotype. You will be in your group, whether you asked for that or not. 

So what can you do about it? Try and show empathy. Try and understand that some groups get it better than others. Try and imagine what it is like to be in their shoes. Then try and challenge it. 

If you were the one at a disadvantage, what would you want someone else to do?

If you were being judged by a police force by your skin, you would want someone to look beyond that and look at the facts. If you were treated like a bad person just because of your religion, you would ask people to look at you as an individual. If you were scared because you had a vagina, then you would want that vagina to be protected. If you had spent years running for your life, searching for a new home, you would want to be welcomed to somewhere safe. 

We are all stereotyped, there is no denying it, but right now some people get it easier. But it could be on the other foot. You could be the one who is being judged on something they can't control, the one who needs help or the one who needs inclusion. 

So recognise your privilege and treat others as you would want to be treated if you weren't so damn lucky, because you are really really lucky, trust me. 

Written by a privileged girl from the UK. 

Othering, the fear of difference and a call to celebrate it.

 This is written in response to Zia Haider Rahman's article 'Oh, so now I'm Bangladeshi'  
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/opinion/oh-so-now-im-bangladeshi.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=1).

I read it, thought about it and ran a long way away from the original starting point with it. 

I am sorry if any wording is deemed offensive, it isn't meant to be in anyway. At the end of the day my main point is every human being should be celebrated, and not judged on something they have no power over. 

The ‘other’, it’s a dangerous concept isn’t it. This incessant need of humans to label differences, to provide strength to our individualities, to be deemed normal.

I read an article this morning. It was shared by an incredible woman who I went to a May Ball with in my final year. This article, ‘Oh, so now I’m Bangladeshi?’ by Zia Haider Rahman, was published in 2016, yes 2016. Yet it is still about a subconscious racism. The line “What more is it do you want of us? To be white? To be you?” couldn’t make this clearer. While we may not have racial-hate-statements written across the walls, we might not live in an age where schools, hospitals and buses are segregated by skin colour, we might even be in an age when to a naive white girl Racism no longer exists; yet it does, just now it is more hidden. It is hidden, but not absent, it is there, in all the authority of classifications of every job application, reward, and university application. While that may be to “encourage equal quotas”, how is that any less racist. The lack of racism will be the day when skin colour and heritage are not a topic of conversation, or a rite of passage. It will be a day where colour is not seen as a sign of difference but an optional topic of interest.

So this article is, in very simple terms, based around the announcement of Zira as a judge for the PEN panel. The announcement, as seen below, points out not only the country of birth, but the education and working history of said judge:

“Born in rural Bangladesh, Zia Haider Rahman was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and at Cambridge, Munich and Yale Universities. He has worked as an investment banker on Wall Street and as an international human rights lawyer.”

Now I remember reading that announcement and had one question, “why does it say where he was born?” To me Zia is qualified to be a judge on his incredible achievements. Those achievements are the fact that he went to some of world’s leading universities, that he has worked as a banker and then qualified as a human rights lawyer. Those are achievements, others could be that he has published influential novels and written articles. They are the achievements that we cared about.

Now if it had said that he was born into poverty in rural Bangladesh and went through the Bangladesh school system, receiving a scholarship for Oxford, then yes that would also be impressive. But it doesn’t say that, it says “Born in rural Bangladesh”. The first four words you read about this man are completely unnecessary but could come with many presumptions on his character, appearance and history. I do not know if he came from a poor village, or his family were wealthy land owners; I do not know if he went to a local school, had no schooling or was sent to boarding school internationally. I don’t even know if actually he was born in Bangladesh on a two week holiday to the country. I know nothing about him from that statement, the only things that statement could provide would be that he was born in a country, which by some would be deemed as less normal than the UK, US, or wherever the other judges were born.

Because, lets question this, would they bother putting those four words in for me if I had been in that judging panel? “Born in rural England, Blah studied at Cambridge….” The answer is no, but what presumptions would you make if they had? That I had a good schooling? That I grew up on a farm? That I spent hours ensuring that all my extra-curricular and academic activities would enable me to go to Cambridge, from around age 4?

Probably some of those and not others, because that is what that statement welcomes: presumptions and othering. Othering based on his heritage, an invitation to ignore or excuse his other achievements.

I thought that one day in my life time we would realise that othering people does not do us any favours. Judging someone on their skin colour, heritage, religion or country of birth is completely redundant. What does that really tell you about someone? Maybe that they celebrate some different holidays, maybe that they have been brought up with different customs or beliefs, maybe that they wear a different foundation: but at the end of the day every person on this Earth is a human being. We all breathe, eat (if lucky), love, hate, cry, smile, laugh, learn, and think. We are all inherently the same. The processes in our bodies are the same. So why do we need to place people as different? More than that, why do we need to publicise some differences and not others?

We have come to cross-roads in history. This year is a year where things can change. If you watched the ‘Queen at 90’, you will see that this woman has seen many disasters based on difference, and I wonder did she one day hope that those in her Commonwealth would not be judged on their differences, would not need to be labelled in a judging panel or on official forms? She has seen World War Two, an age when six million, yes six million, Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust. If we included their fellow camp inhabitants, for example those who were disabled or homosexual, we are bringing that figure to eleven million. That is a third of all the people living in Oceania at the moment.

That should have been a warning to the world to the effects of othering. But then the apartheid happened, also in the Queen’s lifetime. 46 years where Black and White people were separated on the basis of their skin colour. That is one difference which isn’t a sign of anything but a different amount of melanin in ones’ skin.

She is now living through two disasters based on difference. One the refugee crisis where 59.5 million people are currently displaced due to conflicts all over the world. 59.5 million people who are causing fear in receiving countries, because guess what: they are different. What is so different? The fact that they are running for their lives, or the fact they haven’t come from the same country, might not look the same, might have a different interesting history to talk about (like the different history of your colleagues or classmates)? Then we have ISIS: something else entirely, or is it the same? ISIS has managed to recruit over 30,000 foreigners. How? Many survivors reports say it is because they wanted to belong, they were being victimised for their religion at home… the reasons could be endless and sometimes not understood.

But can we justify this all with one thing: difference is dangerous?

Yes, that is a justification for all these crimes, right? difference. That difference is inherently dangerous? But let’s make that a bit more specific.

Difference is not dangerous, the othering of difference is dangerous.

At the end of the day every human being is the same. God made us all the same, hey he even sent us the best warning we could have asked for when Jesus Christ, aka our saviour, our Lord, in many peoples opinion the greatest human being to ever step on this Earth, was put to death, for guess what, being different.

There are three quotes from the bible which could maybe back this up:

When you next argue that you don’t want immigrants or refugees in your country:

“…God… made every nation of men to live all over the earth…” (Acts 17:24, 26).

When you next try to justify this fear, or the crimes of the past, or the labelling of people as Bangladeshi-British in every document, or you try to justify a child crying because they are being bullied for ginger hair and freckles, or try to explain to albino child why they are being hunted for their body parts (in some countries in the world), aka justify these because of difference:

“So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female” (Genesis 1:27)

When you try to say that every human on this Earth does not deserve the same, remember that Jesus died in order to provide forgiveness and grace for every single living thing on this planet:

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20).

The only biological difference between us is male and female, and that is not a reason for discrimination either (another time...). The things that make us are our actions: like Zia’s incredible achievements. So let’s not justify othering any more, let’s not repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. Let’s not fear difference, but celebrate it, embrace it. Othering is dangerous, acceptance is key.

As Said said:

“Past and present inform each other, each implies the other and  ... each co-exists with the other.” (Said, 1994)

So let’s not use this as justification for racism or othering, but instead look at it as a reason that we can live differently today, without discrimination, and view each person’s past and experiences as an optional topic of interest, rather than a topic of judgement.

Thank you, and for those of you who would read that as a prayer, Amen.