Why White People Should be Accountable for Racism

I went to an academically selective high school, where over eighty percent of the students were Women of Colour, mostly from India, China and Vietnam. I always did well in class but was by no means ever the best student; the classes were full of incredibly gifted girls and competition was fierce. However when the school prefects were elected, I was one of seven white girls out of the overall twenty.

Despite the undeniable competency of every prefect, it was telling to see such a disproportionate racial landscape amongst the supposed elites of the school. The atmosphere at my school was always incredibly inclusive and active in its feminism, and yet somehow white girls were always seen to be more capable, more deserving and more suited to leadership than their Asian counterparts. The implicit bias and internalised racism of the voters was clear; from a lifetime of seeing only white politicians, white lead actors and majority white teachers, it is easy to see how a narrative of white people’s inherent leadership ability pervades even the most socially aware, multicultural microcosm that was my school.

And although I may have been elected regardless of skin colour, it is irrefutable that this atmosphere of subliminal racism elevated my chances of becoming a prefect.

I like to think that I am an ally to anti-racism; I listen to my friends of Colour and their everyday stories of discrimination, I read articles on race politics and White Supremacy, I don’t tell racist jokes and I call other people up when they do, and I write feminist articles acknowledging and exploring the intersections of race. But the day of prefect elections, the systematic racism of 21st century Australia benefitted me. Massively. I have “Prefect 2016” on my resume, I met politicians and public figures at school functions, and had more opportunities to come up with a believable excuse to skip class during the really boring parts of Hamlet. Despite strongly advocating equality, feminism, and all those lovely ideological words, my Year 12 was made so much better because I am a white person living in a racist society. In fact, my whole life has significantly benefitted from that fact.

It doesn’t matter how angelic your intentions are, as a white person in a country with a colonialist history and racist present (read: police brutality, mass incarceration, fewer job opportunities, disproportionate representation below the poverty line, and the list goes on), you inescapably reap the benefits of other people’s disadvantage. Because my white teacher implicitly - and racist-ly - assumed Asian girls are very quiet, I was usually called on to answer a question in class. Hence, my report card glowed that little extra with comments about how actively I participate in class, my marks rose, I was offered places on academic teams, nominated for awards etc. All these “merit based” accomplishments of mine were to a degree merit based, but to a larger degree than I care to admit, handed to me because I stood out as one of the few white girls; one of the few girls who “deserved” it.

I am not writing this in a fit of self hatred and degradation; I am proud of my school achievements and thankful of a life full of opportunities and respectful interactions with police officers. But the idea that only “some” white people contribute to racism is useless. Who even are these “some” white people? Cops who shoot black people in America? Jurors who sentence Aboriginal Australians to harsher sentences than their white counterparts? But their racist thought processes didn’t appear from nowhere. The accountability surely extends to anyone who helped created a society that looks at a black man and thinks “criminal”. Surely anyone who ever told a joke about an Aboriginal guy stealing a TV shares responsibility for making it just that little bit more socially acceptable to assume people with dark skin are always poor, dangerous, and will likely steal your stuff.

Or even for a white person who takes every care and measure not to contribute to this myth, every time they are not pulled over for a Stop n Frisk and an Indigenous person is, they inadvertently comply to the overall system of racism. Because for every cocaine-snorting white boy who gets away with it while a black man is aggressively searched and jailed for possession of marijuana, the trend of mass incarceration, the narrative of black people’s inherent link to crime, the police distrust of black people is driven just that little bit deeper.

But when we claim as white people that “I had nothing to do with it”, we allow everyone to assume they also fall under that umbrella; no one ever willingly thinks of themselves as racist. So when you have literally everyone shirking this responsibility and denying this characterisation of society, nothing gets done about it - it’s always somebody else’s problem. 

Every white person needs to understand that we are accountable - that we are probably racist. That doesn’t make us bad people. I, for one, think I’m at least half a good person. But it does make us accountable to our everyday actions, and responsible for pulling up the white people around us, becoming better allies and all that positive, good vibes, feministy kinda stuff. If you experience the world with all the safety and opportunities of being white, then you must also accept your obligation to level our incredibly unequal society.

Hannah