Like tiny ants, each one taking a little bite, people keep taking little swipes and snipes at the Black man.
Difficult to know if the ant people do it – knowing that what they are doing is part of some greater – not very co-ordinated and yet co-ordinated enough to be effective – movement for change – movement for psychological destruction.
But in Vinicius the affects are on a world stage for all to see.
For many other Black men, Black women, Black children, the affects are hidden underneath a cheery disposition or an impassive look.
Others may deal with the impact of a thousand ant bites – or a thousand cuts – differently.
Vinicius says that racism is everyone’s fight. (here, in Portuguese, but you can translate into English).
But is it?
How can it be? When some people are committed to the idea of race based superiority?
Certainly, White people could help.
And what kind of fight is this?
Racism finds its roots in the very notion that people can be divided by race or ethnicity or culture – White and Black.
So fighting racism, arguably, is a fight to reconceptualize who we are.
To do away with the concepts of Black and White.
How do we do that?
How do we do it safely? Black people might say by trying to dissolve Black and White identities, it simply takes away their ability to talk about their shared experience and victimisation at the hands of White people – and they are not so stupid that they are about to hand over that power.
And you might argue – that this is overcomplicating things – its just about White people making sure that their own people are respectful of Black people. But the question I have – is – whether nasty racist hate – is embedded in the creation of the racist concept that there are White people and there are Black people.
Violence helps maintain identities and stop racist identities from rising to the fore. In Yugoslavia, from what I understand Tito came down hard on anyone who ever tried to bring up race or ethnic based interests. Everyone was a Yugoslav. Still no system is perfect in this sense. Didn’t George Orwell depict that well in Animal Farm – some of us are more equal than others? In Yugoslavia – everyone was equal – but if you were higher up in the army – you were more equal lets say.
Still, from what I understand that was a good way of weakening ethnic group strength and racism – we could do that in the West too – national identity is laid on strong – violence, punishment and prison – against those who surface other types of race, ethnic or colour based identities. Is this what it means to face and fight racism? And is it a price that people would want to pay? Is it a price that anti-racists would want to pay?