Recognizing racism and its impacts
“I’m not sure what happened is serious enough to bring up.”
“I feel awful about what happened, but how do I know it was racism?”
These are common questions that come up when someone has witnessed or experienced racism. Racism doesn’t always show up in overt and violent ways and it can be normalized within common practices and beliefs. It can also be perpetuated without consciousness and intent. This can lead to denial and defensiveness when racism is called out. People who have been the targets of racism can often have their emotions and perspectives minimized. For example, they might be told ‘they’re like that with everyone’, ‘you’re hypersensitive’, ‘it’s happened to me too, it can’t be racist’.
Listening to people talk about their experiences of racism and the impacts it has on them is how we can begin to understand the ways in which it is reproduced inside Amnesty and how it can be collectively tackled. This includes hearing from witnesses to racism who are also affected by what has happened to their colleague/s. This platform provides everyone with the opportunity to talk about their experience and the consequences it had on them in their own terms. It recognizes that no act is too small to have impact.
In order to feel more comfortable sharing experiences through the platform, some people might find it helpful to know more about racism and the ways in which it shows up.
What is it?
What is it?
This platform recognizes that how people understand racism is evolving and that its manifestations and impacts may be different depending on regional contexts and other variables. With this in mind, the text below is not intended to be an exhaustive overview of the many interconnected and complex layers of racism but provide a few helpful ways to think about how racism may be showing up and shaping life for staff in Amnesty.
A broad way to understand racism is that it is an ideology and associated actions (such as institutional practices and discriminatory behaviour) which justifies and creates unequal power relations that privilege some and oppress others on the grounds of race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin. People may experience racism in relation to a trait or traits which they self-identify with or when they are perceived to hold those traits.
Sometimes parts of a person’s identity, such as their religion, can be conflated with race or ethnicity and become ‘racialized’. For example, antisemitism and islamophobia are both forms of racism because they involve the social construction of a group through ascribing racial meaning to religious markers and symbols and attributing specific negative stereotypes and beliefs to these. People who are not practising Jews or Muslims may find themselves targeted and discriminated against within these terms when they are presumed to be part of these groups. Racialization can be context dependant as a person or group may be defined and treated in a certain way in one context, but not another.
Racism can take many forms (see below) and is considered a structural phenomenon as all these different forms connect to engrain racism across society and daily life. People benefiting from this system may not always be fully aware of it, and the perpetuation of racism isn’t always a conscious act.
Two categories are often used to view racism: ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’. Direct racism refers to when one group is explicitly privileged over another (for example, through exclusion, preference, or treatment), whereas indirect racism refers to when something can appear neutral but has negative and disparate impacts on racialized groups in a way which maintains racial inequality.
As racism can be indirect and perpetuated without consciousness or intent, it can be easy for people to deny or fail to see its presence and influence. The Mapping Racism at Amnesty Platform plays an important role in helping to make ‘the invisible’ visible, revealing what can often be overlooked, obscured, or downplayed so that racism at Amnesty can be understood and addressed.
How does racism show up?
How does racism show up?
There are many interconnected layers to racism.
The Individual Level: This refers to the ways in which people internalize ideologies of racism. Sometimes those who are privileged in a racialized society may be aware of the prejudice they hold and believe their own superiority, however, in most instances racism unconsciously shapes beliefs and attitudes. People who are the targets of racism can also internalize racist beliefs about themselves and others and come to view racist stereotypes as valid.
The Interpersonal Level: This is often considered the most visible form of racism because it shows up in interactions with others through bias, stereotypes, and prejudice. Expressions of interpersonal racism can be conscious or unconscious and range from subtle to violent. Racism can also be present when people are intending to be well-meaning.
The term ‘microaggressions’ is sometimes used to refer to the more subtle forms of racism that occur in everyday life. Terms like ‘microaggression’ and ‘everyday’ should not lead to the impression that more subtle acts do not have a significant impact on people’s lives. The cumulative impact of people’s experiences can negatively impact physical and mental health, and in the workplace, can negatively impact careers through increased burnout and other effects.
Examples of interpersonal racism include:
- Complimenting someone for being articulate or doing a good job when there is a negative stereotypical judgement made about that person’s ability because of their race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.
- Mistaking someone as service staff or a junior member of staff when in professional spaces because of assumptions based on their race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.
- Excluding someone from networking or other opportunities because you are more comfortable working with ‘someone like you’.
The Cultural Level: Cultural racism refers to the promotion or positioning of a privileged group’s cultural norms. It can be difficult to observe because it involves the normalizing of particular standards, behaviours or ways of doing things.
Examples of racism at the cultural level include:
- Expecting someone to assimilate to the dominant culture by overlooking or rejecting their cultural communication styles or approaches to tackling a project.
The systemic/institutional level: This occurs within and between institutions and describes the embedding of prejudice and privilege in the policies, practice and programmes of institutional systems and structures. People within the institution may act with or without racist intention as they function within and maintain the ways in which the institution operates.
Examples of racism at the institutional level include:
- Discrimination in hiring practices (for example asking culturally biased questions during interview).
- Over representation of a particular group in precarious job roles.
- Hiring ‘diverse candidates’ but not creating an environment where they can influence organizational culture, progress or be treated fairly.
- Unequal investment in career progression for racialized staff.
- Unfair investigations when allegations of discrimination are raised.
Sharing your experiences
This platform invites you to share your experience of racism however you would describe it. Perhaps you have witnessed or been the direct target of a singular racist event, several events or a recurring pattern of racism. Perhaps you are unsure of how to characterize your experience but know that it negatively impacted you and your working life at Amnesty. However you choose to communicate about your experience is valid and welcomed.
The view that racism is simply an interpersonal issue masks how racism is supported in institutional ways. By sharing your experience alongside others, you help to build a collective picture of how racism is structurally embedded in Amnesty and what it does to those working within the organization. This awareness allows all of us to act in solidarity with colleagues as we advocate for change and develop solutions together.