The Resurgence of Black Lives Matter in Ireland
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter resurgence, Aghogho Sophie Okpara analyses racism in Ireland, an issue more subtle and widespread than many people imagine.
She details her own experiences of its many manifestations and offers a hopeful vision of where we can go from here.
Read time: 8 mins
When you hear the term “racism”, what are the first things you think of? Please, honestly pause, take a moment, and really think about this before continuing to read. This will determine the lens through which you read this article. I am going to now continue, on the assumption that you have completed this exercise. My bets are that the first things that enter the average person’s mind, particularly after recent events, will be “police brutality” or “saying the N-word unwarrantedly” or “black people being killed”. You may even dare to think of the ever so popular phrase “Go back to your country” and the likes of that. All of these are indeed products of racism, but they do not really define it. Einstein said that if you cannot explain something to a six-year-old, you do not understand it yourself. So here is how I would explain racism to a six-year-old child: racism is simply the belief that somebody matters less than you, for no reason other than the colour of their skin. It sounds so silly that way, right? And yet it translates so easily into our every-day life.
@remylebeau_ at the Black Lives Matter march in Dublin by @ot5sim
For some, as soon as they glance at somebody and notice the dark pigment of their skin, their brain immediately begins to enter overdrive as they start to subconsciously place stereotypes, prejudices, and generally unfair assumptions onto that person. It happens without them even realising it. This is why they get so offended when somebody calls it out. Racism is something that is so deeply embedded into people that it takes a very active effort to remove it. It doesn’t just go away after you take part in one BLM protest. You have to actively work against it and unlearn the seeds of unconscious bias that it has planted into you. These seeds manifest in different ways in different people. In some, it will manifest very overtly through their insults towards black people. In others, however, it will manifest in more subtle ways.
It will manifest through marvelling at a pretty dark-skin woman like it is a rare sight, because your brain has been programmed to see dark-skin people to have lesser beauty than people that look like you. It will manifest through you being shocked when you hear an “articulate” black person, because something within you expects them to sound less educated than you. It will manifest through you rushing to defend your overtly racist friend by saying “he doesn’t mean it like that”, because your friend’s ignorance is more important than that person’s valid emotional reaction. It will manifest in any way that can be rooted in the simple belief that somebody is below you, or people like you, because of the colour of their skin.
I have experienced the many different manifestations of racism throughout my lifetime. Sometimes it has been a stranger shouting a racial slur at me for accidentally bumping into them on the street. Other times, it has been a group of white boys on a night-out coming up to me and my friends with mocking accents. Some other times, it is through “compliments” that are based on very unfair grounds, such as “you are not like other black people”, “your English is good”, “you are so pretty for a black girl”, etc. None of these are compliments. These are all based on you insulting my people in order to praise me. If you are insulting my own, you are insulting me too. Please remember this – you can be a nice person and still be a racist. You can have good intentions and still be a racist. You can love black people and still be a racist. Why? Because racism isn’t a belief based on hatred for black people. It is a belief based on seeing us collectively as somehow beneath your own race. Any kind of personality can do this. And it is why you need to actively unlearn it.
“So, if racism is just a simple belief, then doesn’t that mean black people can be racist to white people?” Alright…now this is where it gets more complex. My definition above was for a six-year-old, not for somebody with a fully developed brain. The reason why racism is something that we fight against isn’t because it’s simply an unfair set of beliefs, but because of the power dynamics surrounding it. If people without power were racists, I promise you that racism would not be something of anybody’s concern, let alone the world’s. But the issue is that the racism in our society is fuelled by power. The racists in society tend to have power. They tend to be able to determine how much food is on somebody’s table.
In Ireland alone, an article in the Irish Journal of Sociology displayed that black immigrants have the highest rate of unemployment in the country with 36% unemployed, compared to white EU persons who have a rate of 9.5%. They tend to be able to determine the quality of life a person and their family has. According to a report by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission submitted to the UN, black people in Ireland in 2019 were found to be 3 times more likely to experience discrimination in access to public services and almost 5 times more likely to experience discrimination in access to private services such as shops, banks and housing, compared to their white counterparts. So, racism is clearly not an issue of simply beliefs, but of the fact that countless people’s lives are being shaped by these spineless beliefs.
Black Lives Matter march. Photo by @yasmooju
However, some hope has entered the chat in the past few weeks, following the tragic murder of our brother George Floyd. The protests that have happened globally are evident that a generation is rising who will not bat a blind eye to the injustices that people have been so long victim to. The protest in Dublin on Monday 3rd June was said to be the largest demonstration that has been seen in the country in years. And it is not that the Black Lives Matter movement was only created now. It has been around since 2013. People similarly marched in July 2016 in Dublin, after the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, but the numbers back then did not reach the numbers seen on the 3rd. Perhaps this reflects the increased realisation amongst white Irish people that black lives actually do matter and are worth standing up for.
More people are learning about the deadliness of their silence and the importance of allyship – and this is exactly what we need to happen. The more people being actively anti-racist, the greater the chances are that we can more effectively fight the raging beast of racism that likes to find itself in positions of power. Some argue that protests do nothing, but I believe this to be a lie. Protests get the attention we need. They show that we are serious about demanding change. In the US, we have seen the nationwide protests taking place there and the results coming from it. Laws are being changed. Criminals are being charged. People are receiving justice. And this is what we need. But we are not even close to the endpoint. This is a constant fight that does not end after two weeks. It will take years to dismantle systems that are centuries old. But with the right people and the right commitment, the future is not hopeless.
Aghogho Sophie Okpara at the Black Lives Matter march.
I hope that after this, Ireland will begin to confront the racism embedded in our society and in our government. I hope that we can all stand together to fight against Direct Provision (DP) and ensure that human beings are being treated like human beings. We cannot be comfortable knowing the inhumane conditions people in DP are subjected to. If your family emigrated from this country to another for a better standard of life, and you found out that they were living in conditions like those found in DP centres, you would be enraged. We must all love each other in the same way we love our families. It is not right to only care for people who look like you. Instead, be a bit more humane. I hope that we as a people can begin to facilitate more conversations which encourage us to educate ourselves and unlearn racist behaviours. I hope we can listen more to unheard voices. I hope that Ireland can grow to be a place where immigrants feel less alone.
Aghogho Sophie Okpara
Check out Sophie’s blog It’s Aghogho and follow her on Instagram @sophieokpara.
We value original, substantive ideas – mainstream or alternative, progressive or conservative – and encourage everyone to join our discussion.
content@facmagazine.com
More FAC
