18.03.2023 | Kavina Kalaichelvam
When I first joined the Collective on Anti-Racism (COAR), I had never heard of anti-racism. If I had not joined COAR, I have a feeling I probably never would. Anti-racism? I can barely get a hold on what racism itself is.
Two years later and I still catch myself wondering what anti-racism means. It makes somewhat mathematical sense for it to be the racism antidote. Still, I’m not quite sold on the two falling on a problem-solution plane. Anti-racism is not the Codral to a cold. And racism isn’t some disease to simply sanitise away. It’s why the two concepts, to me, are separate things. Linked, yes certainly. Yet anti-racism is not a blanket, one-size-fits-all solution. Mostly because racism isn’t a blanket term for a one-size-fits-all ‘problem’ either.
In seeking to understand anti-racism, an investigation of what racism means to me seems necessary. Emphasis on ‘to me’ because I do not think an objective analysis of it does justice. The truth is, many people are unable to recollect the day they learned about racism, but any person – BIPOC or not – will have a story experiencing racism, whether it be about themselves or someone they love. We can list all the ‘pass me the skin colour pencil’ and the ‘they said my food smells bad’ examples we want, but we will never be able to truly encapsulate the racism experience in words. There are simply too many complexities, too much history, too many stories to tell.
I like to think of racism as an Instagram giveaway. For a few, it is exciting. Appealing and enticing, a chance to get what you want. For others, it is just another thing to scroll past. To see and to ignore. Others, like myself, find it an opportunity to connect. Tell your friends about it. Try your best to win. Try to fight the thought that lingers in the back of your mind: you’re never going to win. Nothing. Is going. To change.
Racism is elusive like that. It seems to always be there but when you try and get a hold of it, your fingers only meet air. Many are barred from vocalising their experiences because of the way they look, present, identify or simply seem. Yet, the experience of racism pays no attention to who you are. The feeling is the same. It is the feeling of that comment, that look, that general unease of being the only minority in a room. It’s the snowballing of it all one into another as you slowly become more and more aware of your own presence in a space. Being aware of other BIPOC in every room is to be aware of the collective realisation that our struggles now are rooted in the same violent forces that have oppressed many throughout history.
To this effect, a common, somewhat misplaced, conception of anti-racism is multiculturalism. Maybe if we simply injected more people of colour into spaces then racism would naturally dissolve. We do have ‘boundless plains to share’ after all.
Such is not enough. Indeed, it is fruitless. If we understand racism to be more than just the tikka-masala-fried-rice-sushi problem, then you know it cannot just be ‘resolved’. If racism is not just the physical experiences of discrimination, then you know it is enculturated. If racism, as systemic oppression, is woven into the structures and frameworks we live in, then you know it would require a full deconstruction of the system. Something radical.
The Collective, initially started as a university campaign, drew me in with its explicit question: “Are You Racist ANU?”. It was confronting, challenging, and somewhat comforting all at once. I think it is these characteristics that define anti-racism.
Anti-racism is not only confronting in its radicalness but urges a confrontation with the realities of racism. The past few years, between the surge in the Black Lives Matter movement and the disproportionate effects of Covid-19 on people of colour, have shown the increasing salience of racial politics. And when we do not address racism appropriately, and confront it with two hands, the effects are devastating.
Anti-racism is also a challenge to question the status quo and everything you know. As a person of colour, I often find myself thinking ‘it could be worse’ or ‘it wasn’t even that bad’. Complacency has rooted itself in our collective psyche – BIPOC or not. It is out job to be the ones to exercise critical thinking and challenge what we hold to be true. If not now, then when? If not us, then who? It has never been more important to challenge what is, often, right in front of us. The governmental proposal to strip the Maroondah hospital of its indigenous name and rename it after Queen Elizabeth II is one such example of the backdrop we live against, of a racist past and present. Given Australia’s history of colonialism, our country has a duty to look at people of colour, at home and away, and reframe and restructure what it means to be Australian. So do you and I.
Lastly, anti-racism is, in a somewhat paradoxical way, comforting. In joining COAR, I may not have necessarily found an Oxford definition of what anti-racism is, but I did find community. A community of like-minded people of colour who knew what it felt like to live in racist structures and who wanted to do something about it. Who wanted it to be better. And there is something to be said about the transformative power of community. What one person believes; a community can engender. To mobilise action is to first mobilise individuals and empower one another to do so. It is not enough to just ‘not be racist’ anymore. It is about being actively anti-racist. This is what COAR has taught me.
We don’t need people to tell us what racism is anymore. We need safe spaces to talk about it. Here, in these spaces, is where you can list your tikka-masala-fried-rice-sushi problem, on your own terms, and have someone else offer theirs. It is confronting and challenging at times, but how comforting it is too. To feel heard, to feel understood, to not feel alone – this is the mission of the anti-racist space. And herein lies its strength.
Comments