Racism of Low Expectation

“It’s a privilege to learn about racism instead of experiencing it all your life” Ahmed Ali

The death of George Floyd sparked a much needed conversation on race and race relations in the UK and around the world, but how much of the conversation was preformative allyship and how much of it was genuine?

Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

Although Mr Floyd’s murder is a clear example of racism fuelled by hate and violence, the racism experienced by millions of black people is far more nuanced and often subtle.

Black people and black bodies are seen as different. Our actions are not morphed by the way society treats us but rather is seen as a ‘biological reality’. An example of this is how black women are 5x more likely to die while giving birth in the UK compared to their white counterpart. This comes from a subconscious belief that black women, as a collective, have a higher pain tolerance and as described by a black doctor, “their cries of pain are usually dismissed as overreacting”. The severity of this concept and its impact can also be explained by comparing black middle class women with white working class women. Although black middle class women have access to a higher standard of healthcare, they remain to be at a higher risk. This might also explain why feminism and environmentalism is so eurocentric and centralised around European culture.

A more personal experience of this matter that influenced me to write this article, was when I came across a screenshot of a conversation between two medical doctors on social media. This screenshot was posted by Nimko Ali, who also goes by “Chief Fanny Defender” as her work focuses on the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM).

The conversation went as follows;

Dr Christian: “Is the man in Niger who marries a 12 year old child bride as per cultural tradition a paedophile in the same sense?”

Dr Harrop: “Is this not a geopolitical, sociological and philosophical question re: how western society has tended to impose its moral standards and cultural expectations onto communities in the global south, as part of our colonial past?”

Dr Christian: “Oh my word. Someone gets it! It just goes to show how little critical thinking goes a long way!”

To understand how this is a clear display of racism rather than two individuals trying to come to terms with Niger’s culture, you first have to ask a series of questions, with the answers being assumed. For instance:

Q. Would the same line of questioning be asked if it was a white girl being “married off” in the mormon traditions?

Q. Given that marriage can only happen with the consent of both people, can a 12 year old have the capacity to understand marriage and therefore give consent?

Q. Do black girls in Niger have a right to a childhood and opportunities just as much as girls in the UK do? If not, why the double standards?

Q. Seeing that you are both gay men, would you try using cultural relativism to try to explain Nigers homophobic laws? If not, why not?

A form of misalignment occurs where actions that would normally be characterised as violence on white people is condoned when it occurs on black and brown bodies. Racism of low expectation.

Ibrahim Awes