Racial Discrimination

 

Recently, a friend and I walked into this high-profile designer perfume shop inside a mall in London to check out some fragrances. As soon as we entered and greeted the Asian sales lady, she left the till where she initially was, and came out onto the shop floor, literally standing behind us and monitoring us. Although my friend and I are Black, my friend, male, is ‘generously-melanined’ this means that he is very dark-skinned, and he is over 6ft tall as well. This sales-lady kept lurking around us, but I didn’t realise this until later.

In no time, an Asian guy–a supposed customer–also walked into the shop, and was checking out the perfumes, meanwhile the sales lady’s eyes were locked on my friend and me. Before we could realise what was happening, we saw the sales-lady rush out of the shop, as if to chase someone–it was the Asian guy who had just entered the shop. He had stolen an expensive perfume and ran away, and the lady unfortunately didn’t notice this because her eyes were wrongfully focused on us–Blacks! until almost a minute after the actual shoplifter had succeeded. She called the security who also helped her in the chase, but it was too late. After the chase she came back looking despondent, I could see the disappointment on her face.

A clear case of “don’t judge a book by its cover”. She apparently misjudged my friend and me as thieves, hence her focus on us, unknowing to her that the real thief would be someone she’d never suspect.

It is really disheartening that having a Black “cover” is automatically associated with anything evil and negative. I have had embarrassing experiences similar to this one, where I notice that people just start adjusting or grabbing their handbags when I, a Black person, am standing behind them on an escalator. 

Who are the people who do these things? Obviously people of other races. But also, ironically, I’ve seen we Black people treat ourselves with such biases too. I remember my visit to Winter Wonderland in London, the Black security lady at the gate had made sure she checked my ticket, but I saw how she overlooked a White man and didn’t check his. 

Why am I writing this? It is simple. There has been a long-standing stereotype of Black people being tagged with all shades of bad! This is really awful! It was Jay Shetty who said that when u label something as bad, u take away the opportunity for it to be a good thing. When you say this book is bad you will never pick it up to read, same as when you label someone as bad or a thief, you’ll never want to be around them and even if you do you’ll only get to see, feel and experience negativity around them, because your subconscious has been programmed that way.

As a Black person based abroad, I have learned to be extremely meticulous with my actions because I’ve seen that I’m judged differently. I am not allowed to make mistakes like every normal human being. My mistakes are judged differently and oftentimes exaggerated. This is a really demanding way to live–being asked to be more than human! And it is unfair! 

In my opinion, we should therefore learn to focus on the content, rather than the ‘cover’. Stigmatisation/labelling does more harm than good, not only to the victims but also to the perpetrators. It distracts them from identifying/focusing on the actual problem. You let the criminal go free while you criminalise the innocent.

This is not in any way intended to exonerate Black people from doing bad things. Black people are not saints either, but so are people with other skin colours. Do Black people do bad things? Yes! Do White/Asian people also do bad things? Yes!

As we mark today this International Day of Elimination of Racial Bias, this is a call to undo, unlearn, and discard all these stereotypes. Because no matter who we are, no matter our color, culture, race, accent, language, or background, we are all humans and deserve to be treated with love and fairness!”

See YouTube video: https://youtu.be/I5IAwQp6Brw

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