Rev. Dr Tim Long on racism
I was interviewed by Nico on racism for his This time...a few months ago series. I think the positive reaction to that interview has been very kind because I was ashamed of my own feeble response to Nico’s question about what we could do.
However, my feeble response made me realise just how insulated I am from this issue as a white male living in the wonderfully charming, comfortable and almost-entirely white environment of Ashtead. It made me realise that the just-more-than-nine years Kirstie and I have lived in Ashtead have been the first period of my entire life when I haven’t been confronted with the race issue on a daily basis and, as the interview showed, I’m out of practice!
Truthfully, if we really want to hear about the race issue a person of colour should write it because it’s really their voice that needs to be heard on this issue. I would be interested to know whether a person of colour living in Ashtead experienced racial discrimination and in what ways, or whether life was as accepting for an Ashteadian of colour as it has been for me?
However, I’ve been asked to write something so here goes. I’m not going to say much about racism in individuals except that because we are all social beings we are conditioned by the norms and behaviour in society, which is where racism plays out most dangerously as it becomes embedded in the structures and institutions of society without anyone – particularly the (usually-white) privileged – noticing. In South Africa racism was overt government policy, though its proponents tried to spin it in all sorts of clever and respectable ways to avoid acknowledging apartheid as racism.
Because the UK thinks of itself, rightly, as well-practised in democracy with a deeply-held belief in equal human rights for all, racism and other forms of discrimination against marginalised groups of various kinds can be hidden quite easily, particularly, as I’ve said, by those who control society’s institutions. It was something of a shock to me when I heard a young black woman representing Black Lives Matter say on Newsnight last week that every single young black man she knew had been mistreated by the police in Britain. If that’s true – and there is no reason to doubt her – that’s an appalling reflection on British society, as is the vicious racism footballers of colour seem to experience regularly.
A problem is that institutions thrive on stability rather than on change and so marginalised groups always have to fight against-the-odds for change. Unfortunately, this is as true of the church as of any other institution: in South Africa while church leaders were at the forefront of the struggle, white parish clergy and their members didn’t want to face the issue at all. I don’t know enough about the church in the UK to know whether it would be any different in the day-to-day lives of parishes on this or any other controversial issue. I’m sure, though, that if racism were to be felt as a controversial issue in a parish action would be taken only if there were a strong advocacy group in the parish to lead a fight.