A Race We Can All Win- Part 4 of 5

 I had the great opportunity to engage with someone of a different mindset when we moved into our house just outside Philadelphia in a quaint village called Gladwyne. We had just moved in; I wanted to introduce myself to the folks next door, as that’s how I had been brought up, and my parents have always had very cordial relations with their neighbours. I went over to see my neighbour, Ron. I saw him outside in his garden and walked up to say hello. He saw me coming, and as I waved to him, he went inside his house. I was a little surprised but carried on with my gardening. The next day, I saw him again. This time I called out to him, and explained I was his new neighbour. He said, “Oh. I thought you were one of the gardeners.”

Even though a jolt of electricity went through me at his words, since the vast majority of non-white people I have seen in this area are labourers, I did not take too much umbrage at his blatant stereotyping. Still, I wanted to engage him in conversation, to get to know the person living next door to me and my family. I talked to him for a while, and he noticed that I had a British accent. He said he had always wanted to visit London but now he would not go there; there were “too many mooz-lems,” and therefore it was too dangerous. I started laughing, as I genuinely found it hilarious, it seemed so nonsensical to me, like something out of a Monty Python movie. He looked at me in puzzlement as I laughed, and through tears of laughter I told him I was one of those “mooz-lems”. Because I was laughing, any tension was diffused, and we actually carried on the conversation.

I asked him if he got that from watching Fox News and he replied that he did. I had actually watched Hannity to understand the right-wing American perspective, and we had a two-hour long discussion about it on the road outside our houses. I listened to his concerns and he heard my perspective too. I told him he was statistically four times more likely to be hit by lightning than to be killed in a terror incident. We developed a genuine respect for each other; even a kind of friendship.

There was a time when I would never have engaged with someone with views like his, but I have changed, and accept that its better to influence someone else through a positive interaction, for the sake of us all, than to ‘build a wall’. Before he moved away to Haverford, he brought me a gift - a blueprint of my house from almost a hundred years ago, which his mother had kept from the time she was the clerk of Lower-Merion County. It is now displayed on the upstairs wall of my house. I was truly grateful, and it reinforced my conviction that it is much better to talk to people who might be ignorant or misguided, and just haven’t had the opportunity to engage with someone different from themselves.

I also had an experience with the local police on the mean streets of Gladwyne. I was headed to the local café, and as I walked past my own garden gate, I peered over it briefly, and then continued down the street. I saw a friend, Matt, and stopped to have a chat. Just as I left him, I noticed a police car turn out of the road I had just walked down and park up again opposite where Matt and I had been chatting. I carried on to the café.

The very next day, I was following my regular routine when I saw Matt, who called out, “You’ve been racially profiled, dude!” After we had spoken the previous day, he had stooped down to pick up his dog’s poo. When he got up, he was startled, as a cop was standing right there in front of him! The cop questioned him about me; Matt asked him why he was asking these questions, and the cop replied that I had been acting suspiciously. I’m grateful to Matt: whatever he said stopped the policeman from coming after me. I laughed about it at the time, because it was so absurd, and had never happened to me before. I am a visible minority where I live, but if I was black, I would be really angry that I couldn’t walk in my own neighbourhood without being regarded as a potential threat. Given the history of police interactions, I can understand the outrage many black people feel towards things like this. I am very fortunate to have amazing neighbours who are congenial, inclusive and down-to-earth. When I told them about this incident, they were also quite supportive.

In the past few years all these thoughts and memories have weighed heavily on my mind, and I kept thinking I should write about them one day. I finally started writing in November, and then stalled until the pandemic hit; I saw all around me that black and ethnic minority communities were disproportionately affected through years of systemic racism. I felt that I could no longer remain ‘chup’ (‘silent’, in Hindi and Urdu)  about something that affects all of us.

I knew that human beings were essentially one people from the beginning of our existence. The idea was in both religion and in science, yet somehow we had allowed ourselves to be divided by superficial characteristics. The Human Genome Project, the first time our DNA sequence had been mapped to determine all of our physical and functional attributes, was completed in 2003.  When I learnt of National Geographic’s Genographic Project to map our migration patterns using our DNA, I ordered a kit and sent my DNA to a lab to be analysed. The project’s aim was to trace our lineages through thousands of years of human history. Using genetic markers from populations around the globe, the route that our ancestors had taken out of Africa, where all humans ultimately originated from, could be discovered.

Migrations of Early Humans and Homo Sapiens. Credit: Encyclopedia of Ancient History

The significance of this project is truly mind-blowing in this era of fake news! Through research into my own family history, with family trees given by my grandparents, who lived in India, I knew that we had Persian, Burmese, Afghani and Yemeni roots. When I received my DNA profile from National Geographic, the results confirmed this - with a few surprises. I did not know I had Chinese, European and Mediterranean gene markers too! These migration routes started in Africa, and now there was genetic evidence, corroborating the fossil evidence, that all modern humans could be traced back to a genetic Adam and Eve: a lineage called L0 of about 600 individuals, originating around 200,000 years ago, probably in the region of what is now Ethiopia.

Regional Ancestry based on my DNA. Credit: Genographic Project - National Geographic

In my own extended family I have cousins, nieces and nephews who are a mixture of different cultural and racial backgrounds, including Indian, English, Finnish, Chinese, Arab, Jewish and Black. We celebrate this diversity in our family, and enjoy the mindset of cultural inclusivity, which is what I also teach my own children.

The British culture I grew up in is the result of a large number of migrations from early Neolithic farmers: the Beaker culture associated with the proto-Indo-Europeans; Celts; Angles; Saxons; Normans; Vikings; Jutes; and other peoples who settled there. The oldest British skeleton, dating back to 7100 BCE, was discovered in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, in South West England. ‘Cheddar Man’ now resides in the Natural History Museum in London. Analysis of his DNA indicated that he was a typical member of the population at the time, had brown or black hair, and dark to black skin.

His bust was reconstructed using the data in his DNA and is now displayed alongside his skeleton. Over hundreds and thousands of years in a different environment, with less intense sunlight and low ultraviolet radiation, the melanin content of dark skin decreases, until it eventually loses the majority of its pigment and produces a ‘white’ appearance.

Cheddar Man with his direct descendant, a History teacher who lives near where he was discovered. 

Credit: Imgur.com

Now there is overwhelming evidence that our own ancestors were dark-skinned and originated from Africa, has it made any impact on our attitudes to race and migration? Now that we know we are ultimately all from the same human family, surely we can live in a post-racial world? In Britain there have been many polls on racism over the years, showing that a significant proportion of British people believe that they live in a society where racism and racist attitudes still exist.

June 11^th 2020 Poll about Racism in the UK n=5146. Credit: Statista

These attitudes are also reflected in the rising number of hate crimes in the UK. These numbers, based on Home Office data, were published in the Guardian newspaper last year. Overall, there was a rise in violent racial attacks, verbal attacks, religious hate crimes, and discriminatory behaviour. Just under half (47%) of religious hate crime offences were targeted against Muslim people, and 18% were against Jewish people. Most of the violent hate crimes were against South-Asian and Black people. The numbers have basically doubled over the last five years.

Hate Crimes in the UK.  Credit: Guardian

There is a similar situation in the US, with violent hate crimes reaching a 16-year high, according to The New York Times.

All these man-made racial classifications should be reconsidered. Most of the work done by scientists on race in the Age of Positivism, when the colonial empires of Europe were expanding, and dominating the globe, was catalysed by their own confirmation biases and notions of superiority. Manifest destiny was the interpretation. Their actions justified their own racism, and much of the racism today is a result. The British colonial project was successful. They not only colonized countries, but also the minds of the people they ruled. The immigrants, and their descendants, who followed the colonial programming, are also responsible for the continuation of such a legacy; many have internalized the messages that the billionaire-owned media companies propagate. Before the Brexit vote, most of the right-wing tabloid media bombarded the British people with headlines of hate and division to influence the vote - and ultimately, they succeeded.  

Headlines of Hate Credit: Scisco Media

There is a debate about white privilege here in America. I read Peggy McIntosh’s book White Privilege- Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack  in the 1990s, and as much as I agreed with it at that time, I thought, 'Nobody’s going to take this stuff that seriously, if it doesn't affect them personally.' I was wrong. I now hear my white friends initiate conversations about it by themselves. McIntosh wrote, “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.” There are many white people who cannot understand they are privileged at all. Some were not born into money; they had difficult childhoods, endured hardships, or suffered from depression or alcoholism. So where was their privilege? The privilege exists in the unseen: the intangible and historic effects of racism that have morphed into biases that mean your culture, attitudes and values are all widely represented around you. It is unlikely that you will be discriminated against when it comes to housing or employment because of your colour. Your being included or excluded in a social situation will generally have more to do with your personality, rather than where you are from or who you are with.

Credit: showingupforracialjustice.org

Even people from the same racial background endure prejudice because of other factors such as religion or socioeconomic class. Someone who is working class, or from a religious minority, can find themselves struggling as much as immigrants do with very similar problems. This can create an entitlement culture, and I see it in the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia where I live known as the Main Line. Many people who work here, but who do not live here, are routinely treated differently and even discriminated against by those who feel more entitled than them.  I remember one afternoon, I was in the local café talking to the owner Tammin, when a customer came in to complain about the sign he had displayed in his window for the past two years. The sign read: “Hate Has No Home Here”.

Credit: hatehasnohomehere.org

Tammin was actually very gracious with this customer who told him she was offended by the sign as a white woman. She said she was upset, and felt that the sign suggested that America was a hateful country. She asked him where he was from; he told her he was from South Korea and asked her how it was relevant. She then she told him about how she had friends who were from Africa. Tammin listened to her and let her speak at length, which was surprising for me as I couldn’t usually get a word in edgewise with him! He calmly explained to her that not everyone felt the same way she did and there were many people in the community and beyond who had experienced racism and discrimination, including himself and others who came into his café. He even invited her to come back and discuss this with him after he finished work. It was obvious that she did not see this ugly side of America and was even angered by the sign implying its existence. She did not return. 

If we really want change, it cannot just be by standing up against racism. That is a great start, and we should all speak out against it, but for systemic change, we also need to address the inequality within the population and acknowledge that the playing field is not level. Any solution to the racial problem must also include class. Just as the working class in the UK and the US have been pitted against immigrants in competition for jobs and housing, people without hope are led to fear people they believe want what they have; “You come here and take our jobs!” they shout. This fear quickly turns to anger, and anger leads to hate - and the dark side.

But the facts tell a different story. Refugees and immigrants are actually incredibly motivated, and generally quite industrious. It makes absolute sense that people who had the fortitude and the will to travel great distances, overcome many obstacles and challenges, red-tape and bureaucracy, would have the skills and experience to make a positive contribution to the country in which they had sought to make a new life. It would make more sense if there was an alliance between the disempowered working class and the immigrant population, so they could cooperate on building a more equitable system together and enhance each other’s social mobility.

Harvard professor William Kerr has conducted a great amount of research over the years into the impact of immigrants on the economy, and his conclusion is that immigrants are generally a huge boon to the economy worldwide. In his book, The Gift of Global Talent he explains how the influx of foreign talent has transformed science and engineering and increased the flow of capital into the tertiary sector of industry - the services. I volunteered as an advocate for a few NGOs that assisted immigrants and refugees, and was pleasantly surprised at the level of competence, education and ability that the vast majority of them had. I could see no discernible difference in their reasons and motivations for migrating than any of the other previous waves of European migrants historically had, whether it was for economic reasons as migrants, or to escape war, conflicts and disasters as refugees.

According to Kerr, new immigrants are also responsible for almost a quarter of new patents in the US, and tend to be highly entrepreneurial, thus creating companies and jobs. Thus fear against them is fomented as a political tool to manipulate the electorate, rather than being a reaction to a real threat. Immigrants- they get the job done.

Education about our origins, about the migrations of people over time, can help to combat racism and engender cooperation and empathy instead of division. This cannot happen without people speaking out and having conversations with friends, neighbours, colleagues, parents and children. Essentially, community-building that is inclusive of everyone will make us into a happier and healthier society.

Restructuring our socioeconomic system to diminish inequality is necessary, and a commitment to a grass-roots effort will affect change. The alternative, as history has already shown us, repeatedly leads to the horror of war, genocide, slavery, apartheid, and concentration camps, and it is just a matter of time until it is the next people’s turn to suffer. The movement of people is also directly related to both their socio-economic conditions and the wars we engage in, which are often about territorial or resource acquisition. Is it that surprising that after every major war, there is mass migration of people who want to improve their lives? There is a racial dimension to both sides of any conflict. Soldiers fight and kill enemies, and civilians, of a different nationality, who are often of a different race or culture, so there is some level of inherent racism within the institution of war. When the drumbeats of war begin, our media prints stories with jingoistic headlines that demonize our enemy, so all we see are figures to hate. Names like ‘The Hun’, ‘Nips’, ‘Gooks’ and ‘Sand Niggers’ have all been used to label our enemy. It’s much easier to kill a monster than another human being. We have just come up with more sophisticated ways to justify military actions and create economic slaves of the countries and people we can then dominate. Our civilian population is generally protected from this knowledge, unlike the civilians on the other side, who end up being the main casualties of any war. Has anyone noticed that our economies seem to do better right after a war? The most decorated US Marine until 1940, Major General Smedley Butler, wrote a book entitled War is a Racket. He described war as being for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the many. The working class poor often fight the wars for the benefit of the rich, who have bone spurs or some other reason to prevent them from losing their life’s blood. In fact, during the US Civil War, you could get out of conscription if you could pay for some other poor guy to take up arms while you stayed home.

We need to address this madness (repeating the same thing over, and expecting a different result) before we destroy ourselves. Conflicts are increasingly destructive: technology has evolved to the point where we can destroy the Earth and everything on it, 50 times over! We cannot solve the issue of racial conflict and migration without addressing the problems of the economic system we are held in bondage to, that keeps on perpetuating these conflicts, trade-wars and inequalities.