What Is Racism?

And when does it become a problem.

I have been living in Uganda since 2014 and I am as white as it gets. My mother is Dutch and my father German, a mix that introduced me to a form of discrimination at an early age. During World War 2 the Netherlands was occupied by the Germans and as a young boy, I quickly found out that having a very German last name was a guarantee for great jokes and rude comments. Schoolmates saying something like ‘give me back my bike’ or just a simple ‘vieze mof’ was pretty common. It made me feel weak and powerless because it was not really something I could do anything about. It did not help that my parents made me and my brother wear wooden shoes (she grew up on a farm) to school until I was about ten but, to be fair, they had one positive aspect; you could balance one of them on the top of your feet and then extend your leg, the wooden shoe would become a projectile that could (and did) a lot of damage.

www.etsy.com

Fast forward some 30 years and I now live in a remote village in Uganda, working on a project to combat malnutrition in young children. I have been doing projects all over Uganda and I have to tell you that I have never met a people more racist than Ugandans (I am generalising, don’t get mad) but at the same time, it made me realise it is not such a big deal as it is made out to be (we will get to that in a bit).

So, many Ugandans are racist to white people (mzungu = white person) but, they are also racist towards members of different tribes, people who are more black or more brown, to Chinese & Indians. To put it very simply; they tend to label people. Not only based on colour but also based on physical attributes. People are known as the ‘tall man’ or the ‘fat child man’ (a man of roughly 4 feet in length weighing 70 kg).

In towns it is not as noticeable, just the normal mzungu price and the occasional ‘hey mzungu!!’ or ‘pssst’ to get your attention. Can you imagine screaming at a black person in any Western country ‘hey black man!’.

www.giphy.com

Things like ‘you white people have…’ or ‘whites have money!!’ when you negotiate about the price. It seems pretty harmless and eeuh, it kind of is. To me personally, it can be a bit annoying knowing I have little money and I have spent 10 years and most of my savings starting projects and helping vulnerable people but.. they don’t know that! Most white people visiting Uganda are indeed rich, especially compared to the average Ugandan.

And most times, it is not meant in a hateful way. It is more a thing of ignorance because they have not grown up the way I did, getting a smack on the head when I was just staring at that handicapped man. My mom would say ‘it is rude to stare!’ but here the parents will tell the kids when they see you ‘look, it is a mzungu, say hi mzungu, how are you!’. So that is what you hear when you walk in a village, a murmur of ‘mzungu mzungu!’. They simply have never thought about the feeling you get when you are stared at or called after.

A Moment of Reflection

Ask yourself, do you label people? Most of you reading this are like me and have grown up in a multicultural society, you probably see yourself as someone very open to other cultures and races. Yet, you probably interact most with people like you. People of the same colour, background, social class. And if you are honest, you are also labelling people but because of your upbringing, it is less noticeable and you have learned not to talk about your labelling or address the person you are labelling by the label you gave him or her.

Roots of Racism

I am convinced that this labelling and group think is something left from our past. Early human societies were small and tightly-knit. Trusting and cooperating with "in-group" members and being wary of "out-group" members would enhance survival. This ‘instinct’ is still present in all of us, the difference is how we deal with it.

So how does this all apply to me? Because I know the racism does not come from a bad heart, I make a conscious effort to observe the emotion I get when someone calls me by my colour and then I watch that emotion leave me. I realise that I can do very little about it and that it was me who choose to live in a country where only about 0,03% of the population is white.

And lastly, I am not proud to admit it, but I know I am also constantly labelling people, I have just learned (through multiple smacks on my head) to keep the labels to myself!